ABSTRACT
From the various developmental hypotheses, we can describe three stages and three psychological positions in the process of birth to psychic life: the auto-sensual position, the symbiotic position and the depressive position. Each is characterized by a dimension of the psychic space, a structuring of the psychic envelope, an identifying modality and defensive modalities, and a type of object relationship. This configuration of levels can be found in different places, such as in genetic psychology, group and family psychoanalysis. Each of these positions contains a psychopathological potentiality. The depressive position is central to the psychic destiny. The suffering linked to depressive pain can reject the subject in the previous positions, or project him in a manic position or a melancholic position. Mental health depends on overcoming the depressive position, especially by reparation.
