Melancholy аnd its Vicissitudes. Psychoanalytic Aspect

Psychoanalytic research

Abstract

Modern researchers define melancholia as a disease of the century, taking on a character close to that of a pandemic. The experience of loss is linked to the very conditions of human existence, the price to be paid for attachment to beloved objects. "Oblivion serves life," writes A. Green. With melancholy, however, grief becomes endless and inconsolable. The unleashing of love and hatred causes aggression and destructiveness to take over – melancholia becomes 'a pure culture of the urge to death'.

Considering melancholy as a XXI century phenomenon, a phenomenon of destructiveness, determines the relevance of this study. The article examines classical and modern psychoanalytic understandings of melancholy and its vicissitudes, illustrated by clinical cases. The main reflection of this study is that melancholia can have different vicissitudes. If the work of melancholy is not available, other solutions are possible – the work of hypochondria, the behavioural solution and the work of somatisation.