ABSTRACT
Where in the past most patients came to see an analyst to find another outcome than neurosis to the conflict inherent in desire, today, those who reach the office of the analyst come to talk about being stuck in an excess of enjoyment. It seems that we are moving from a culture based on the repression of desire, and therefore neurosis, to another culture, which encourages a free expression of desires and promotes perversion. “Mental health” today is not associated with being in harmony with an Ideal but with an object of satisfaction. This psychic economy is new. It didn’t exist in the past on a social scale but could only be seen under the guise of rebellions, fringe movements. They were mostly attitudes of opposition against firm, established, and apparently unshakable boundaries.
