A century ago, Freud located psychoanalysis into the series of three
successive humiliations of man, the three “narcissistic illnesses,” as
he called them. First, Copernicus demonstrated that Earth turns around
the Sun and thus deprived us, humans, of the central place in the
universe. Then, Darwin demonstrated our origin from blind evolution,
thereby depriving us of the privileged place among living beings.
Finally, when Freud himself rendered visible the predominant role of the
unconscious in psychic processes, it became clear that our ego is not
even a master in his own house.
Today, hundred years later, a different
picture is emerging: the latest scientific breakthroughs seem to add to
it a whole series of further humiliations to the narcissistic image of
man: our mind itself is merely a computing machine for data-processing,
our sense of freedom and autonomy is merely the “user’s illusion” of
this machine… Consequently, with regard to today’s brain sciences,
psychoanalysis itself, far from being subversive, rather seems to belong
to the traditional humanist field threatened by the latest
humiliations.
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