ABSTRACT

The so-called "crisis of psychoanalysis" derives in the main from a crisis of reflective thought in society as a whole, in the context of the passage from family-rearing and a culture of writing towards acculturation in "virtual" realities. Avoidance of early grief and identificatory deficits leads to unending adolescence and the use of mind-as-muscle as a substitute for reflection. If we follow Eugenio Gaddini on the changes in psychopathologies in recent decades, up to today's pathologies of peremptory gratification, we meet increasing ambiguity. Mimetic defences experienced as essential to psychic survival lead to an "autarchy", while insight becomes a threat. Other issues are internal to our societies or come from academic vulgarizations of psychoanalysis; these assume that they are rescuing its "concepts" while giving short shrift to its method.