Desire and nothingness: anorexia and melancholia as critical-clinic figures in the present times

Abstract

This investigation aims to "allocate a question" between two apparently antagonistic concepts, stemmed from philosophy and psychoanalysis, in terms to extract some significant theoretical consequences for the clinical field of depression and eating disorders, in one hand, and, in another, for the aesthetical thinking. Thus, the essay aims to ask (and not to respond): 1) whether or not Freudian psychoanalysis retreat before a so called "nihilistic entropy", i.e., the irresistible appetite for the "nothingness drive" as proposed by Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, for example? 2) If it would be possible or overly paradoxical sketch an analytical practice from these premises, or at least forward one reflection that can be directed to the therapeutic field (psychoanalytic in this case); or else, 3) if it is found that psychoanalysis invests in Eros, due to its therapeutic virtue originally, what would be left in terms of a nihilism-psychoanalysis injunction? In an attempt to answer these questions, it would be necessary to start from certain works of art: in the visual arts field, the Romatism and Dadaism movements seem to reveal great potential to be included in; in literature, Bartleby, or a clerk, by Herman Melville, can certainly be aid in research. At last, is that possible to friccion psychoanalytical unconscious and the so called aesthetic unconscious? (AU)