The mind-body interface and physical pain in the beginning of the Freudian theory of neuroses

Abstract

This article presents and discusses a set of theoretical-clinical formulations of Freud on actual neurosis and melancholia. It is established a cut of Freudian texts (from 1893 to 1898) to investigate the notions of somatic sexual tension, sexual anesthesia, libido and anxiety at the beginning of the theory of neuroses. The objective is to extract reflections on the processes of physical pain in this stage of Freudian thought. As results, we found mechanisms common to physical pain, melancholia and neurasthenia. It is a dynamic of affects characterized by psychic inhibition, withdrawal of libido and impoverishment in the processes of the drives. The propensity to physical pain is linked to the abandonment of excitations associated with groups of psychic representations, with consequent loss of meanings for the subject. The psychoanalytic listening of bodily sufferings must be attentive to the challenge of recreating means for a subjective reappropriation of own bodily experiences.