ABSTRACT
As you have asked me to contribute some thoughts to the discussion I’m putting down three points which were the basis of my paper.
1. To my great surprise when I started thinking seriously about the concept of ‘psychic pain’ I found it elusive and unsatisfactory.What is psychic pain? Frustration, jealousy, envy, greed, guilt, persecution, depression . . . any unpleasant mental state involving pain. Does it derive from the ‘pleasure-pain’ principle with its biological roots? Does it derive rather, to be more correct, from the pleasureunpleasure principle?
