L’illusion nostalgique : d’une poétique du regret comme traitement de la perte

Abstract

Aims

In melancholy, the subject experiences a fundamental disillusionment, marked by a breakdown of investments, which signals a ruin of the imagination. This flaw in the field of illusion implies an alteration of the relationship to the ideal, and the position of the subject is dominated by disbelief. Through this article, the authors question the way in which creation can create an illusion of the relationship with reality by capturing the subject from a nostalgic position.

Method

From a psychoanalytic reference, the authors first propose to analyze the subjectivizing dynamic of the illusion insofar as it supports the singular fiction and ensures a function of treating the original distress. Nostalgia is thus thought of as carrying illusions and is considered in its metapsychological status as an imaginary materialization of the lost object. The authors propose certain questions concerning the way in which the creation would capture the subject in a nostalgic relationship with the lost object, which would thus allow an illusion of the relationship with reality. A clinical case report is also presented in order to deepen the elaborations proposed in this article.

Results

Emerging on the edge of the void, the repetition of an act of creation seems to open the subject to a space of illusions within which the traces left by the object in its loss can resonate in the subject. The work of creation fills the void in the heart of the speaking being and inspires nostalgic regret that aspires to treat loss in a poetic way. The creation lends a voice to express the irreversible loss that animates the subject, and gives substance to the cry left suspended in melancholy. The creative process therefore seems caught up in a movement of nostalgic embalming, which exhumes the remains of the lost object and commemorates its loss.

Discussion

Although the nostalgic position can be thought of as a fantasmatic materialization of the object and can provoke a libidinal fixation of the subject to a lure object, which thus eclipses any external investment, the approach to nostalgia also seems to protect it from melancholic annihilation of desire.

Conclusion

By displaying a nostalgic position through an act of creation, inexpressible melancholic remorse gives way to ineffable nostalgic regret.