From the catastrophe of humanitarian emergencies to melancholization

Abstract

This article is a theoretical study arising from the umbrella research project, Psychoanalytic Investigation of Clinical Phenomena in Depression in the Context of COVID-19, by the Laboratory for the Investigation of Contemporary Psychopathologies (UFF. Volta Redonda Campus), in an inter-institutional partnership with the Graduate Program in Psychology at UFRJ. The aim of the research is to demarcate and define the effects of the contemporary mutation of the social bond on subjectivity, based on the recognition that humanitarian/sanitary emergencies are catastrophic for subjective functioning. In this paper, we will present the Freudian démarche that led us to recognize melancholization as the main impact of humanitarian/sanitary emergencies on subjective functioning. The paper recalls the use of the term catastrophe and its epistemological status within the framework of psychoanalysis. This term is fundamental to our research hypothesis: humanitarian/sanitary emergencies are a catastrophe because they produce the civilizational ruin of guarantees for the affected population and the suspension of the functioning of subjective defences and sublimatory strategies for dealing with the condition of helplessness. By considering humanitarian/sanitary emergencies as a catastrophe, the paper highlights, in the line of argument developed by Sigmund Freud, the emergence of the affect of despondency or melancholization as pathos in dark times of humanitarian/sanitary emergencies.