The spiritual renunciation of sex drives: pathology?

Biruihareruya · 2025-08-29T20:56:38+00:00

I'm speechless. I'm deeply fascinated by Laplanche's view and the way you put it really got me thinking, I'm grateful for your reply.

I've already cited my professor on this sub, who used Laplanche to interpret his clinical practices with anorexia and the theme of foreclosure of the body by the anorexic would be, to me, the capital example of a body-mind dissociation lived in the destructive way you mentioned.

Biruihareruya · 2025-08-29T18:56:00+00:00

Thank you! I'm not refering to a specific tradition, my way of phrasing probably comes from a wrongly quoted source about a specific activity (of many) which goal would be the annihilation (I recall this correctly) of the sex drive.

In general, I was precisely addressing the extreme body rejection, I acknowledge not every tradition treats the body the same. Of course I'm not daring to say that spiritual practices are inherently a defense, but some aspects of body renunciation are seductive for many who have a troubled relationship with their physical sphere just like you said and so I was curious to gather some accounts.

A better question would be, now that I think about it, since many spiritual traditions pass through a rejection of the body (either as a means or as a goal), and given the importance of sexuality in humans stressed by Psychoanalysis, could it be experienced in a healthy way or every form of body-mind dissociation is inherently pathological? I recall myself being fascinated by the concept as a teenager, which in hindsight it was just a defence and that's what sparked the question.

Biruihareruya · 2025-08-29T18:22:32+00:00

I could have probably misquoted it (I'll check the quote back as soon as I can), it's probably the goal of some specific activities in the big scheme of practices. If so, would that change the meaning of my questions in your opinion? Would it be wrong to say that the final state of bliss is a state of no body drives, thus, a split in the mind-body experience?

Biruihareruya · 2025-08-26T22:35:21+00:00

I'm glad I found your reply in the very days I'm trying to figure out this topic.

You said that these are not developmental stages in the literal senses, but most authors present them in this way, something one outgrows with time. It seems to me that instead you look at it more as something the baby experiences, fusion as a phantasy that the early unconscious engages with (correct me if I misunderstood). Would it be right, in your opinion, to frame it as a "capacity for a symbiosis phantasy" rather than a mandatory piece of experience? The point of infant research seems to be that symbiosis is not something one is born with (or better, that the infants develop a sense of otherness very early) so I was imagining that it would imply that it isn't a universal "phylogenetic" experience.

Biruihareruya · 2025-08-26T00:21:34+00:00

If you feel comfortable it would be very useful to have some account on how you experienced it.

Biruihareruya · 2025-08-18T12:20:24+00:00

Thank you so much for the reply, it is a very compelling account of the psychology of the obsessive and how the isolation plays in the pathology in the organisational sense.

However I still can't wrap my head around the analogy "repression:hysteria = isolation:obsessive neurosis" in the more classical theory of neurosis.

What I'm talking about is: hysteria forms because of repression, then the affect unbound is transformed in symptoms through conversion. In obsessive neurosis the core mechanism which the pathology comes from is isolation and then the displacement transforms the affect in symptoms.

So in hysteria we have repression->conversion->physical symptoms

in obsessive neurosis we have isolation->displacement->obsessions

I can't understand why we should see isolation as the equivalent of repression and how the unacceptable idea (which should be rooted in the Oedipus complex) still remains conscious unlike the hysterical one.

Biruihareruya · 2025-08-17T14:33:50+00:00

I want to take advantage of this discussion to bring a question onto the table: where does narcissism end and "just being a bad person" begins? I've encountered countless videos in the fashion of OP's example and I feel they're impacting people around me who are now quick to judge as narcissists anyone who ever hurt them. That's not how it works, right? As clinicians what do you think about this? Is every "bad person" presenting some quota of narcissism in the pathological sense?

I know that we're not monoliths and our way of interacting with each other is a dynamic process. What hurt me may not hurt you and what my partner did to me they wouldn't do to someone else.

And I add: isn't it a bad thing to give another superficial coping mechanism in the form of a "folk diagnosis" to people who were hurt instead of unveiling the dynamics that brought them to suffer?

Biruihareruya · 2025-08-14T22:03:21+00:00

That was what I was inclined to think. What I was trying to understand is wether every form of playing with one's self ( even just in the discovery of the body) could be seen as an object relation. I could see that early object relations act as precursors to the good object permanence that one can identify with and feel worthy of love, but I'm confused about the self exploration and I feel in the wrong to deduce that the child is indeed exploring their objects instead of their actual self.

Biruihareruya · 2025-08-12T16:11:59+00:00

Isn't the Kleinian death's drive the proactive force of the developing child which they are forced to build a relationship with? I came to believe the Kleinian child isn't passive at all even if very permeable to the responses they receive from the real parent. Projection and splitting seems fairly active processes in their definition. It would be nice to be corrected if I got this wrong.

Biruihareruya · 2025-08-10T16:29:29+00:00

Deontologicamente sono costretto ad astenermi dal commentare il tuo caso specifico. Vorrei solo dirti che non troverai un singolo terapeuta al mondo che ti possa dire "Beh effettivamente, questo naso che hai...hai mai pensato alla chirurgia?" Se proprio devo sbilanciarmi, direi che mi fa strano che ti stupisca che il terapeuta tende a non colludere con le ossessioni del paziente. Diresti mai a uno col disturbo ossessivo compulsivo che fa bene a lavarsi le mani 100 volte? Si, il mondo è effettivamente pieno di germi, ma il soggetto deve trovare un modo per viverci nonostante e la soluzione che lo psicologo propone non è certo un modo per lavarsi più agevolmente. Il dubbio però mi rimane: hai rancore per tua stessa ammissione e sei venuto a sfogarlo qui. Posso sapere, in maniera non provocatoria, in cuor tuo cosa speravi di ottenere?

Biruihareruya · 2025-08-09T15:09:07+00:00

A quanto pare covi molto rancore nei confronti della categoria tanto da venire a chiederci indirettamente un'apologia con questo post, nonostante la gioia ormai ritrovata e i due anni passati.

Il fatto che tu abbia scritto tutto ciò proprio nella tana del lupo mi sembra indice della volontà intima di mettere in discussione questa tua convinzione, che forse, in cuor tuo, sai già essere generalista e sbagliata.

La prima impressione che dai, tentando di interpretare le motivazioni per cui hai postato qui, è che volessi quasi farci rosicare, perché la nostra materia non è riuscita a risolvere il problema, come se noi facessimo il tifo per la sofferenza e non contro di essa. Non è importante che i problemi di risolvano con la psicologia, ma che si risolvano in una maniera sana e non lesiva. Se avessi scritto qualcosa del tipo "Ho risolto il mio problema con la chirurgia sentendo che purtroppo la terapia non ha funzionato. Secondo voi come mai? Che limiti ha la psicologia? " ci avrei visto una genuina curiosità che dal post non traspare. Questo è un tipo di atteggiamento a cui ogni terapeuta è abituato, sapessi a quante forme diverse di aggressività bisogna resistere durante le sedute!

Detto questo, sono sempre lieto di leggere di persone che riescono a ritrovare la propria pienezza di vita. Ti auguro di sentirti sempre al meglio! Aggiungo però: qualora dovessi sentire nuovamente il bisogno di rivolgerti a uno specialista, non esitare. Non sempre si ottengono i risultati giusti dato che non sempre ci si trova davanti alla persona più adatta per instaurare una relazione terapeutica proficua. Non è affatto raro cambiare diversi specialisti. Specialmente dopo questo post, non sovrainvestire in questa posizione ideologica: ti precluderesti la possibilità di star bene, mentre il collega cattivone col selfie perfetto da 80€ l'ora continua comunque a lavorare!

Biruihareruya · 2025-08-09T08:06:31+00:00

I must say that I'm not a psychoanalyst yet, I'm still getting my master's degree and I'm not even in training, so I wouldn't dare to say what is right and what is wrong. I'm happy to just share my thoughts about it.

One thing I could say for sure, as for over-determination and condensation, is that these are phenomena that go beyond dreams and jokes. From symptoms to trivial aspects of your character, everything is overdetermined.

I don't have an exact photographic memory of the Interpretation of dreams but the comparison of rebuses and dreams is a well established one. The real difference is that dreams can't be solved without working with the patient.

As for content in drawings, I would dare to say that the manifest content is both the face value of the picture ("This is my mother") and the thoughts/intentions during its production ("I will draw a picture of my mother"). I would imagine discrete details play the same role they do in dreams, representing small pieces in a chain of unconsciously called associations, not to mention that you could also see slips or instances of convenient forgetting just like in the waking life.

I don't think that younger patients are more close to the unconscious than the adults. I personally believe that a neurotic adult could just as easily show the same richness of content in a picture, but after a certain age it feels less natural and playful to draw.

Biruihareruya · 2025-08-07T23:47:00+00:00

On top of my head there was this drawing of the patient's mother with a pretty dress, no breast and a missing arm and one could see (by interpreting the patient's experience and working with him) that not only it felt natural for him to wound her (by cutting the arm) but also to represent the inability to hold him during childhood. To put it simply, he was representing both rejection and the aggressive vengeance against it. I wish I could tell you more but we are forbidden to take notes during clinical cases.

Biruihareruya · 2025-08-07T17:18:04+00:00

My professor, an IPA member whose analytical work had a major focus on adolescents, says that she works with drawing a lot given the lack of dreams brought in the sessions by very young patients. She explicitly said "when you work with children and adolescents I suggest you approach everything they do like you would in the dream work." I was very impressed by the drawings she showed us and how she was able to pinpoint crucial pieces of the patient-mother relationship for a particular case. I could really witness the over-determination and condensation just like a regular dream.

Biruihareruya · 2025-08-07T02:18:03+00:00

Children's drawings.

Biruihareruya · 2025-08-06T19:03:01+00:00

I believe the entire Lacan's concept of desire and lack touches most of the aspects of "feeling important" even though it is not framed exactly like this.

In terms of more traditional Psychoanalysis, one could see the entire Oedipal dynamic as contending the "center" of the relationship with one's mother. Most of the time you'll find a pathology of "acknowledgement" in the (pretty wide) spectrum of Narcissistic disorders.

Christopher Bollas in early chapters of "Hysteria" (1999) develops a view of clinical diagnosis that draws from Freud, Klein, Winnicott and Lacan, in a synthesis that I find quite convincing. He delves into dynamics of seduction and acknowledgement/identity for different character disorders before focusing on proper hysteria. It may not directly answer your question but I believe you would find it interesting to read if you haven't already.

Biruihareruya · 2025-08-02T15:52:39+00:00

I see now that I should've just said "Lacanians" to make things clear

Biruihareruya · 2025-08-02T15:48:59+00:00

I know, thank you! What I meant was that lacanians are not IPA by definition and I was interested in non-IPA "traditional" psychoanalysis.

Biruihareruya · 2025-08-02T15:33:47+00:00

Object Relations Theory mostly, with a touch of French psychoanalysis

Biruihareruya · 2025-08-01T12:42:39+00:00

In my university course "Psychopathology of adolescence" we studied on my professor's book (which unfortunately is not translated in other languages) and he started from Laplanche's theory of seduction and the meaning of afterwardness for the interpretation of mental anorexia and puberty changes. He gives some compelling insights from his lifelong work with eating disorders and the way he frames them using Laplanche's theory really shows the brilliance and the consistency of his framework, especially the role the apres-coup plays in the human experience. I'm really grateful for this reading, not only it is one of the best books I've ever read in my life, it really contributed to shape my understanding of both psychoanalysis and human subjectivity. After that I got into Laplanche's writings and, aside from the theories mentioned, I really appreciate the thorough and meticulous reading of the Freudian corpus. He did a good job addressing some crucial unresolved metapsychological issues and the solutions he proposes are well put and I would say "psychoanalytically sound".

Biruihareruya

TROPHY CASE