Trauma and depression in contemporary times: what kind of trauma are we talking about? And what kind of depression? And what's contemporary about it?
Keywords:
Narcissistic-identity trauma, Envy, Tantalization, Melancholy, Contemporaneity, Britton, Free energy, FristonAbstract
The author proposes that the trauma that may be related to certain depressive manifestations in contemporary times is the narcissistic-identity trauma originating in the primary mirroring relationship, as described by Winnicott (1967/1971) and later developed by many, especially Green and Roussillon. An intersubjective view of envy is proposed in this context. Some collective aspects of this process in the present moment are brought from Bollas’s (2018) proposals regarding the manic response to the loss of human values that has been growing since the Trump era. Regarding the more contemporary manifestations of this process, the author first presents the criticism made by scholars against the catastrophist tendency regarding the new generations, as repeating an old pattern of defamation of the new and idealization of the past as a narcissistic defense against the perception of aging and mortality, justifying why they will not follow this path. In the following, Britton’s (2021) recently reiterated stance on PS (n+1) regarding a mental attitude open to the integration of psychology and neuroscience, willing to accept uncertainty and to shed unnecessary baggage while recognizing the unity of knowledge, is valued epistemologically as very up-to-date. Within this paradigm, the developments of Karl Friston and others are presented regarding the understanding of the psyche as a complex self-organized system through Markov Blankets, which differentiate the internal environment and construct informational representations of the external as a means of postponing extinction by entropy.
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