Metapsychology

In order to better cope with the pressures and stresses of the current day, modern psychology is anxiously seeking to find new therapies to address the increasing disorders within the human psyche. In the process new fields of research, such as humanistic and transpersonal psychology, curiously appear to borrow more and more from the wisdom of the ages. This volume, containing eighteen articles by noteworthy expositors of the perennial philosophy such as Huston Smith, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, and Frithjof Schuon, presents the spiritual psychology of the wisdom traditions as a much-needed antidote to the current impasse in modern psychology.

Some Endorsements for Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy:

“[Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy] is more than an anthology. It is a wisely crafted collection of classic and contemporary scholarship noting that what many are seeking is what has always been, a perennial philosophy, that remains foundational. As one of the authors, Tage Lindbom, properly notes, ‘Secularization is a fish in troubled waters.’ This book claims the waters and is essential reading for all those who may have forgotten or are simply ignorant of the rich foundation provided by the perennial philosophy.”
—Ralph W. Hood, Professor of Psychology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, past president of the Psychology of Religion division of the American Psychological Association, co-founder of The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion and co-author of The Psychology of Religion

“A necessary and bracing critique of the assumptions and limitations of contemporary Western psychology, this generous volume is also a passionate call and learned guide towards a truer perspective that embraces man's spiritual nature.”
—Gabor Maté, M.D., and author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

“Knowing the nature of the mind is perhaps the most difficult undertaking, especially in today’s world. To comprehend the nature of mind one needs to turn to the domain of religion and spirituality. Yet the truth of the mind and its complexity cannot explicitly be defined in words. Inner or transcendent wisdom sees the mind’s own nature without the duality of the seer. Suchness (tathatā) of mind is only experiential and not expressible. The words used to describe thought are themselves a product of thought, which is conditioned and limited. Thus, differences and contradictions are unavoidable. Therefore, a comparative study of different viewpoints and commentaries is immensely important to awaken the inner intelligence to see the mind as it is. Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy: Studies in Comparative Religion edited by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos is an outstanding effort in this direction.”
—Samdhong Rinpoche, former Prime Minister (Kalon Tripa) of the Tibetan Government-in-exile, author of Uncompromising Truth for a Compromised World: Tibetan Buddhism and Today’s World

“The rise of psychology has impacted the study and practice of spirituality, the experiences and attitudes relevant to ultimate human values that transcend ordinary behavior. Each chapter of this remarkable book demonstrates this interaction in a unique and provocative way. But rather than using psychology to reduce and ‘psychologize’ spiritual topics, its authors demonstrate how directives from the spiritual traditions can enhance and even illuminate the enduring importance of psychology in the 21st century.”
—Stanley Krippner, Saybrook University, co-author of Spiritual Dimensions of Healing

“The work at hand is a thinking and debating man’s delight. If you have any interest at all in attempting to include an educated and enlightened view of man’s higher functions in your purview of the world, you will learn from and enjoy this collection of essays. If you already have some knowledge in this area, brace yourself: you may see some of your favorites sharply criticized. A thought-provoking work.”
—Bruce W. Scotton, University of California, San Francisco, co-editor of Textbook of Transpersonal Psychiatry and Psychology

“This book, superbly edited by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos, is a masterful critique of the field of psychology and its loss of the sacred ground in which it once was rooted. It offers depth psychologists an opportunity to contemplate timeless truths echoed through the centuries by perennial philosophers who have always claimed psyche is subordinate to Spirit. Although ignored in depth psychology’s early years due to prejudice and lack of understanding, this is a message today’s psychotherapists must take seriously. Human beings need a deeper and wider transpersonal vision of who and what we are, which the saints and sages of the world’s spiritual traditions have always pointed to. In psychotherapy with a therapist committed to such a vision, patients penetrate into their unconscious depths and not infrequently awaken to the Ground of all Being. Their suffering itself occurred because they had turned away from Spirit. Above all, this volume passionately calls upon depth psychology to remember its origin in the perennial wisdom at the core of the great religions. There is something of a polemic in these pages. It deserves to be considered by depth psychologists of all persuasions.”
—Bryan Wittine, Transpersonal psychologist and Jungian psychoanalyst

“This anthology from Samuel Bendeck Sotillos is a must reference for anyone who is interested in psychology and its relationship to spirituality, and in developing an inclusive dialogue between disciplines that favor an integral outlook on the person and his or her potential. Selections in this anthology will inspire us to reexamine the metaphysical underpinnings of psychology, and remind us how important it is to rise above science’s attempt to reduce the human being to an epistemic object.”
—Sangeetha Menon, National Institute of Advanced Studies (Bangalore, India), Board Member of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA), author of The Beyond Experience: Consciousness in Bhagavad Gita

“This anthology has some of the most discerning essays and reviews on spirituality and psychology, which provide much-needed care and caution to all those engaged in bringing them together or who wish to do so in future. Therefore, it is a must-read for all those who teach, research, consult, or study in such frontier areas as transpersonal psychology, states of consciousness, mind-body relation, holistic health, Indian psychology, and so on. It will be an invaluable textbook for courses in these and other related areas. I congratulate the editor of the book.”
—Kiran Kumar K. Salagame, University of Mysore (India), Board Member of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA), author of The Psychology of Meditation: A Contextual Approach

“One of the finest collections of essays on the Perennial Philosophy—a must-read for all psychologists who are engaged with spirituality and transpersonal psychology. The essays which critique modern psychology (including transpersonal psychology, and the framework of Carl Jung), in the light of the Perennial Philosophy are a revelation and make compelling reading. The book serves as a corrective to the excesses of modern psychology, and to this end Sotillos has done a commendable job. I for one will include the book in some of the graduate courses that I teach.”
—Suneet Varma, University of Delhi, co-editor of Foundations of Indian Psychology

“To its credit modern science by-and-large is becoming more cognizant of the essential connection between spirituality and psychological health and well-being and most of all its positive implications within the field of psychology. While there is ample data to document this in a plethora of academic journals and books, this new book Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy adds a novel contribution to the dialogue between psychology and spirituality, which captures many nuances that for the most part go unnoticed within these discussions, and last but not least, it provides a keen eye of discernment to understand this intricate relationship on a deeper level that is crucially needed. This work will be a valuable asset to students and long term mental health practitioners and professors alike who seek to better understand the relationship between psychology and spirituality.”
—Harold G. Koenig, Duke University, Director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health, co-author of The Handbook of Religion and Health

This work aims to present a summary of the ideas contained in the complementary teaching material of the elective class Philosophy of Psychoanalysis, in the form of asynchronous classes recorded by Prof. Marcos José Müller on the article by Merleau-Ponty entitled “Cézanne’s Doubt” (1945), from the point of view of the undergraduate student in Philosophy at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, in the ninth term, as a form of semester evaluation of the discipline, as preparatory part of the studies of Merleau-Ponty's reading of metapsychology, dream theory, among other concepts that are the object of his study of Freud's work.

The multidisciplinary research on addictions generally promotes the assumption that addictive behavior is caused and maintained by the external psychoactive substance, which accordingly is considered to be ‘addictive in itself’. The present article challenges this widespread assumption by engaging in a detailed examination of the psychodynamic structures of addiction. Tracing addictive behavior back to problems in affect regulation, the article discusses the object, motivation, dynamics, and developmental origins of addiction. Linking the problem with the topic of transitional object relations, the article eventually argues that addictive behavior amounts to a desperate pursuit for self-control. The tragedy of the addict is that he or she only manages to replace one sense of uncontrollability with another.

The purpose of this essay is to weave a conceptual reading of inhibition of action, which is based upon the formula that defines it as a restriction of an ego-function. This analysis is structured accordingly to the three axes that establish a metapsychological investigation: topological, dynamical and economical. The first chapter approaches the historical contextualization of the term ‘inhibition’ and its employment in Freud’s works. Further, a topological analysis of inhibition is deployed, focusing in the formulation that its agent and object coincide in the same psychic instance: the ego. The second chapter deals with the dynamic aspect of inhibition, of which fulfills the function of avoiding the actualization of a psychical conflict, the instauration of a new repression or the development of anxiety. The third chapter verses over the economical dimension; in this one, the inhibition is activated in situations of heightened reduction of the ego’s energy availability.

Résumé : Les objets-partiels sont une grande conquête (méconnue) de la psychanalyse. Ils représentent les exutoires de notre rage, transformés en choses animées et douées de parole en vertu de notre peur de la rétorsion. Ils peuplent notre discours intérieur et y introduisent leur cacophonie. Ils constituent l’un des particuliers de base de notre monde intérieur, avec les personnes unidimensionnelles, notre image spéculaire, et, bien sûr, l’Autre∙jouisseur.

Mots-Clés : Personnes unidimensionnelles – Image spéculaire – Autre∙jouisseur – Rage – Représailles – Discours intérieur.

"Michel Weber and Will Desmond, (eds.), Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought, Frankfurt / Lancaster, ontos verlag, Process Thought X1 & X2, 2008. (695 p. + 726 p. ; ISBN 978-3-938793-92-3 ; 398 €)
Gathering 115 entries written by 101 internationally renowned experts in their fields, the Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought aims at interpreting Whitehead secundum Whitehead, at canvassing the current state of knowledge in Whiteheadian scholarship and at identifying promising directions for future investigations through (internal) cross-elucidation and (external) interdisciplinary and crossdisciplinary development.
Table of Contents
Introduction
I. Aesthetics
II. Anthropology
III. Ecology
IV. Economy
V. Education
VI. Ethics
VII. Gender Studies
VIII. History
IX. Language
X. Mathematics and Logic
XI. Metaphysics
XII. Psychology and the Philosophy of Mind
XIII. Public Policy
XIV. Science
XV. Sociology of Science
XVI. Theology and Religion
XVII. Theory of Knowledge
XVIII. Urbanism & Architecture
XIX. Biographical entries
XX. Critical Apparatus

Authors : A Sister of St-John, Adam Scarfe , Albert C. Lewis, Alessandro Sardi, Alix Parmentier, Andrew Dawson, Annamaria Miranda, Arran Gare, Barbara Muraca, Berit Brogaard, Beth Lord, Brian G. Henning, Bruce Duncan MacQueen, Bruce G. Epperly, Carol F. Johnston, Carol P. Christ, Claude de Jonckheere, Claus Michael Ringel, Clifford Cobb, Craig Eisendrath, Daniel A. Dombrowski, David G. Butt, David Ray Griffin, Dominic J. Balestra, Donald Wayne Viney, Donna Bowman, Douglas R. Anderson, Elias L. Khalil, Elie During, Frédéric Fruteau de Laclos, Franck Robert, Gao Shan, Gary A. Cook, George Allan, Giangiacomo Gerla , Gottfried Heinemann, Graham Bird, Granville C. Henry, jr., Gudmund Smith, Guillaume Durand, Howard Woodhouse, Ivor Grattan-Guinness, Jaime Nubiola, James Connelly, James Williams, Jean-Pascal Alcantara, Johanna Seibt, John B. Cobb, Jr., John H. Buchanan, John Quiring , John W. Lango, Jonathan Delafield-Butt, Jorge Luis Nobo, Joseph A. Bracken, S.J., Joseph E. Earley, Sr., Joseph Grange, Juan Vicente Mayoral de Lucas, Judith Jones, Julie A. Nelson, Kipton Jensen, Leemon McHenry, Les Muray, Lieven Decock, Liliana Albertazzi, Luca Gaeta, Luca Vanzago, Manuel Bächtold, Marc Maesschalck, Maria Pachalska , Mark Modak-Truran, Mark R. Dibben, Mary Elizabeth Moore, Max Velmans, Michael Epperson, Michael Fortescue, Michel Weber, Murray Code, Mustafa Ruezgar, Norman Sieroka, Patrick J. Coppock, Paul Custodio Bube, Peter Hare, Peter Simons, Pierfrancesco Basile, Les Muray, Randall E. Auxier, Richard Feist, Robert Castiglione, Robert J.Valenza, Ronny Desmet , Ross L. Stein, Rudolf Windeln, Stephen T. Franklin, Sylviane R. Schwer, T. L. S. Sprigge, Thomas A. F. Kelly, Thomas E. Hosinski, C.S.C., Timothy E. Eastman, Vincent Shen, Volker Peckhaus, William Jay Garland, William T. Myers"

In this Reply to Comments on Groark (2019), I discuss in greater detail what a "cultural psychodynamic" approach consists of, what it commits us to at the level of both theory and practice, and why it forms a necessary complement to the broader study of cultural processes.  This Reply can be read as a stand-alone essay, but also engages issues raised in the target paper -- Freud Among the Boasians, Current Anthropology 60(4) -- to which I refer interested readers.

This essay examines the similarities and dissimilarities between Freudian psychoanalysis and the form of analysis outlined by Sartre in Being and Nothingness in relation to the theory of intentionality developed by Brentano and Husserl. The principal aim of the paper is to establish a suitable starting point for a dialogue between these two forms of analysis, whose respective terminologies with respect to consciousness and the unconscious appear to cancel each other out.

The present text constitutes a preliminary exercise in investigating the productive consequences for psychoanalysis of a Zizekian reading of Lacan. By providing a new periodization of Lacan’s teaching - one which renders legible an insisting and unresolved impasse in psychoanalytic thinking, tying together its clinical, conceptual and institutional dimensions - we intend to demonstrate how the Zizekian theoretical space is capable of thinking continuous and immanent transformations between philosophy, psychoanalysis and politics. In our periodization of Lacan’s teaching, this perspective renders legible a philosophically instigating emergence of certain intrinsically political concerns at the heart of psychoanalytic thinking itself.

Résumé. – En clinique nous avons affaire à quatre pulsions primaires : la libido, la destrudo, la fama et la noxa. Il est possible de sursoir à leur décharge. Leur plasticité permet de les recycler en toutes sortes de processus psychiques. Néanmoins, pour chacun de nous, il existe une fraction résiduelle qui réclame une satisfaction directe : la libido en pratique sexuelle, la destrudo en violence, la fama en estime publique, et la noxa en mortification. 

Mots-Clés : Métapsychologie – Sublimation – Éconduction.

Con el título: «El género, el sexo, lo sexual», Jean Laplanche propone un texto que sintetiza el trabajo realizado durante varios años en el marco de su seminario en la Asociación Psicoanalítica de Francia. Su contenido es completamente inédito y resultará insólito para los lectores familiarizados con la trayectoria de Laplanche, pero esta novedad también será lo que suscite su curiosidad. Por el contrario, este texto puede resultar de difícil acceso para aquéllos que no conocen su obra. Las siguientes líneas están destinadas principalmente a éstos últimos: presento una especie de introducción o de puesta en perspectiva para acceder más fácilmente al tema en cuestión, a las ideas sobre la sexualidad que Laplanche ha sometido a debate psicoanalítico.

Numa carta a Wilhelm Fliess escrita em 6 de dezembro do ano de 1896 — também conhecida como “Carta 52” —, Sigmund Freud apresenta o recalcamento como um problema de tradução entre os registros do psíquico. Se acompanharmos o seu texto, porém, veremos que não está dito, ali, que o recalque se trataria de um erro de tradução,  e sim de uma falha, um impedimento no sentido de algo que, em ocorrendo (em pleno processo, digamos) não se dá, isto é: aborta, no sentido em que se aborta um plano. O que intriga, porém, é o fato de tratar-se aí, segundo Freud, de um plano de tradução.

Freud's 'Project for a Scientific Psychology' and 'metapsychology' are reviewed. Reference is made to neuroscience literature highlighting the contemporary relevance of his ideas. Freud's core concepts are presented: biological needs; hierarchy of regulating systems; primary and secondary process thinking, unconscious and conscious systems; relation of mental systems to neuro-anatomical locations; and, communication between the two systems, including repression and dreaming. His ideas are summarised in terms of homeostasis and a hierarchy of characteristically different regulatory 'mental' systems.

Theodor W. Adorno noted down his dreams throughout his life, but never completed the book of them that he planned to publish in the late 1960s. In the years before his death he started to make selections, even having a number of typescripts of the texts prepared by his wife, Gretel. While some of these dreams appeared in the edition of his writing in the 1970s, they have generally been considered to be marginal texts to his oeuvre – indeed, almost all of Adorno’s theorisations of dreaming have been considered marginal. Taking Adorno at his word, that knowledge should address “that which fell by the wayside, […] the waste products and blind spots that have escaped the dialectic,” this paper explores the centrality of dreaming to Adorno’s thinking, through an essayistic reading of one of Adorno’s shortest and most enigmatic dreams from November 1956. Its interpretation establishes a constellation of problems and images of metapsychology, historical materialism, and the metaphysics of musical time, and their relationships to memory and forgetting, to regression and “Eingedenken”. Out of this constellation appears a history of critical theory in the twentieth century, ranging from Benjamin’s early essay on ‘Goethe’s Elective Affinities’ to Adorno’s final works. This history addresses the transformed conditions of critical theory – of psychoanalysis, Marxism, and aesthetics – in the wake of Auschwitz. Finally this leads to a problematisation of interpretation itself, of its “Trauer” to use Adorno’s word, in the aftermath of the holocaust.

Neben Charles Darwin und Karl Marx dürfte Sigmund Freud als derjenige gelten, der die Philosophie der 20. und 21. Jahrhunderte von aussen am stärksten beeinflusst hat. Die Theorie der von Freud begründeten Psychoanalyse hat kaum eine Disziplin der Philosophie unberührt gelassen. Dennoch gehört die Kenntnis von Freuds Werk nicht zum traditionellen Kanon der philosophischen Seminare. Obwohl Schlüsselwerke der gegenwärtigen Philosophie mit Begriffen operieren, die von Freud stammen, und Ideen entwickeln, deren Verständnis die Kenntnis der Grundbegriffe der Psychoanalyse voraussetzt, wird das Studium von Freuds eigenen Schriften meist mit der Begründung vernachlässigt, dass er selbst kein Philosoph war. Aber vielleicht war Sigmund Freud doch ein Philosoph – ein philosophierender Arzt? Dieses Seminar setzt sich mit den eher spekulativen Schriften Sigmund Freuds auseinander, die eine direkte philosophische Bedeutsamkeit aufzeigen. Dabei liegt der Schwerpunkt bei den kulturtheoretischen Schriften Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse und Das Unbehagen in der Kultur sowie den metapychologischen Werken Jenseits des Lustprinzips und Das Ich und das Es – allesamt verfasst in den 1920er Jahren. Es wird auch im Laufe des Semesters über die Terminologie der Psychoanalyse reflektiert und auf die vielen Nachwirkungen Freudscher Ideen in der gegenwärtigen Philosophie hingewiesen, inklusive der Sozialphilosophie, Kulturphilosophie, Ethik, Philosophie des Geistes und Sprachphilosophie.

En este trabajo propone una teoría de la feminidad que contradice la tesis falocéntrica de Freud. Lejos de convertir la feminidad en un avatar incierto y, finalmente secundario, de la historia edipiana, expone al contrario una concepción de la feminidad que está íntimamente ligada con la constitución del sujeto psicosexual.

Lacan’s conception of the end of analysis is different from Freud’s original conception of the end of analysis, which has different goals or aims, which were as follows: (1) when the unconscious “conveys” itself into the preconscious; (2) the overcoming of internal resistances; (3) the replacement of repression with condemnation; (4) the advance from the pleasure principle to the reality principle; (5) saving mental energy to make the best of one’s inherited capacities to become as capable of enjoyment as possible; and (6) partial or complete sublimation. There is debate about whether Jacques Lacan is to be considered a post-structuralist, but there is no doubt that he professed a unique school of psychoanalysis. According to Lacan there are six goals or aims of psychoanalysis that mark the end of analysis: (1) to articulate the truth about one’s desire; (2) the advent of true speech and the realization by the subject of their history; (3) to traverse the radical fantasy; (4) identification with the sinthome; (5) when the analyst becomes the object-cause of the analysand’s desire and falls from position of subject-supposed-to-know; and (6) if the analysand passes to become an analyst themself.

La pulsión no es más psíquica que el instinto. La diferencia no pasa entre lo somático y lo psíquico sino entre lo innato, atávico y endógeno, por un lado, y por otro lo adquirido y epigenético (pero no por ello menos anclado en el cuerpo). ¿Cómo y dónde encontramos al instinto y la pulsión en el ser humano?

This paper interrogates the idea of an ethical holism by articulating the theoretical countertransferences between Jungian thought and the Naturphilosophie of German philosopher Friedrich Schelling, which offers crucial insight into Jung’s embattled attempts to articulate the psyche-Nature relationship.  I begin with Schelling, who conceives Nature’s products as composed from an infinite matrix of “dynamic atoms,” mutually entangled points of intensity called actants.  Paradoxically singular yet entangled in each other, objects in Nature are “inhibitions” of this infinite actantial productivity.  Nature desires the whole of a final, absolute product, but this whole is made (im)possible by the infinite productivity which both constitutes and dissipates this horizon of totality.

I then articulate the remarkable isomorphism between the actants’ dynamism and Jung’s mature formulation of the archetype.  Indeed, what I call Jung’s “therapeutics of presence” (archetypes concretized for the sake of a linearized therapy) is troubled by the open energic economy of his metapsychology, which entangles archetypes with each other like Schelling’s actants.  Thus, this therapeutics’ teleological individuation attempts to contain an unruly purposiveness whose fluidity resists congelation into an overarching whole, which thus remains promissory.

I end with the question: can we ethicize this “whole made of holes,” a totality ostensibly more than the sum of its parts but nevertheless destabilized by its constituent seethe of nonmolar intensities?  And if we cannot escape ethics in the symbolic order, must we not look to its (Derridean) dangerous supplement?  I suggest that John Caputo’s “poetics of obligation,” a species of morality and decision irreducible to the ethical, offers a way of authentically addressing the open economy of Being articulated by both Schelling and Jung.

Comment nos sociétés modernes, techniciennes, d’une infinie « générosité cartésienne » peuvent-elles entrer si radicalement en conflit avec leurs propres intentions ? De quoi témoignent et se dédommagent aujourd’hui les malaises dans la civilisation ? En situant l’imagination créative du sujet à la source de la pulsion de représentation et de sublimation, Castoriadis propose à la réflexion la question de l’articulation et de la désarticulation du sexuel et du culturel. Il retrouve ainsi l’interrogation freudienne - pour l’éclairer d’un jour nouveau – du « processus conflictuel » entre les revendications du corps, les manifestations de la pulsion et les exigences de la culture. Nous analyserons avec Freud et Castoriadis mais aussi avec de grands sociologues – Elias, Goffman, Bourdieu – les enjeux, les obstacles, les échecs et les limites du travail de culture.

"We cannot tell that we are constantly splitting into duplicate selves because our consciousness rides smoothly along only one path in the endlessly forking chains."

This forthcoming paper will explore some highly speculative - even preposterous - but seductively appealing recent models of the physics of time-space and dimensionality.
It will be argued that although these models are seemingly impossible to test in the external world, they may have a profound truth and validity in the internal world of the human unconscious mind.

Psychoanalytic clinical material will be presented which convincingly suggests that we all live, emotionally, just as much in the worlds of possibility as we do in the world of " external reality ". For example, the loss of a baby may bring devastating grief or depression to a mother as much (if not more) for mourning the losses of imagined possible futures for that lost child, and for that potential mother, as for the loss of the  " actual baby. "

Whether or not parallel worlds and alternate realities and timelines exist in the physical world seems highly un-possible, and fraught with infinite contradiction. But in the unconscious world of the cognitive-emotional mind, we may be certain not only of their existence, but of their intense and profound psychological influence. To ignore the importance of a person's hopes and dreams of possibility in the formation of emotionally real losses and joys, even if deeply unconscious, is to forego the chance to truly understand their human self.

Of course, all this leaves wide open the issue of where, in the mind, theories of Physics - indeed of all scientific disciplines - are conceived.

  At the very least, this paper argues the importance of "mental" parallel universes and alternate realities in the formation and perseverance of depressive feelings.

The film "Mr. Nobody" (2009) and others are used to explicate these ideas.

Upon observing that there are psychic or mental configurations inherent to the capitalist system, the general thesis that capitalism is also a state of mind is accepted. This idea justifies not only the direct analysis of capitalism by students of the psyche, but also the elaborate theory of the capitalist mind foreshadowed in the theory of capitalism that Marx presents. By examining Marx’s theoretical elaborations concerning the psyche it becomes possible to distinguish two levels, one psychological, the other what we shall call metapsychological, to indicate that it goes beyond the psychological, overflows it, transcends it, constitutes it and explains it. That one can announce the existence of a metapsychology of capital, in which some of the principal defining aspects of Freud’s metapsychological domain are found, including the fact that it constitutes an unconscious conceived as a mental system and a logical localization in the psyche. This article will show how this metapsychological domain of the unconscious can serve to explain and frame, in Marx and Freud, the psychological sphere of consciousness, and through it, though indirectly, elucidate that which occurs at the metaphysical summits of religion and mythology.

In this article, our goal is to present some elements relatives to the history of appropriation of the myth of Narcissus by medical-psychiatric tradition, so trying to draw the origins of this important psychoanalytic concept. From a psychopathological point of view, the narcissistic phenomenon, defined initially as a particular form of fetish, began to be considered as a medical problem at the end of nineteenth century. The psychoanalytic appropriation of this notion was made in 1905, by Freud, with the introduction of the concept of autoerotism. The first psychoanalytical definition of narcissism itself, suggested by the Viennese psychoanalyst Isidor Sadger, was given in 1908.