Psicologia Hospitalar
On-line version ISSN 2175-3547
Abstract
NUNES, Leandro Verzignassi; FARIAS, Cynthia Nunes de Freitas and LOPES, Roberta Maria. Therapeutic effects obtained on psychanalitic treatment of patients with inflammatory bowel disease. Psicol. hosp. (São Paulo) [online]. 2009, vol.7, n.1, pp.3-21. ISSN 2175-3547.
The aim of the current study was to assess the outcomes associated with Lacanian psychoanalytical therapy involving patients with inflammatory bowel disease. Patients participated in follow-up for one year administered by the psychologists of an outpatient clinic of a general hospital. The use of psychoanalysis for therapeutic purposes should take into account the applicability of the following key concepts: repression, sexual trauma, infantile sexuality, psychic reality, fantasy and the subconscious. Different from pure psychoanalysis, which is primarily focused on the formation of the analyst, the therapeutic use of psychoanalysis is based on the symptom and the underlying pulsional satisfaction (jouissance) following the pleasure principle which it replaces. We report six cases (ulcerative colitis n=4; Crohn disease n=2) in which a therapeutic effect from psychoanalysis was observed. In spite of not following the classical psychoanalytical approach in this study, the transferential relationship and the free association technique were used to identify the signifier of the subjects and their ways of jouissance, which can produce changes in the subjective position by dislodging the disabling fixations. It may be the only way to cross the plane of identification to the sickness and to overcome the physical disability, even in cases of chronic and incurable diseases. In summary, the therapeutic efficacy is a consequence of this process, in which the jouissance of the symptom is considered the target of the therapy.
Keywords : Applied psychoanalysis; Therapeutic efficacy; Symptom; Jouissance; Inflammatory bowel disease.