A importância da teoria do masoquismo para a constituição do Eu em Freud

Abstract

The present work was developed from theoretical research in psychoanalysis whose main objective is to understand the importance of the theory of masochism for the Ego’s constitution within the Freudian psychoanalysis. Since its presentation in 1905, Freud has placed masochism as a problem for psychic economy. After years of investigation, it is in 1924 that masochism’s economic problem is on the agenda for its form of organization within the subject and the impacts of its manifestation. This progress becomes possible after the metapsychological advances in 1914 and specifically after the presentation of the death drive in 1920, which triggers the formulation of the second topic. This unfolding not only presented a new concept, the erogenous masochism, but also a new form of psychic organization in which the Ego’s constitution gains emphasis when it comes to its origin from Id. We then propose to articulate these principles: the Ego’s formulation process and the constitutive masochism to understand how the latter contributes to the egoic origin and to the subjective structuring. In 1924 when proposing that erogenous masochism is the representative of the amalgamation of the death drive with Eros, Freud places it within the psychogenetic construction in which it corresponds to the maintenance of life. Erogenous masochism is, as we try to present in this work, a dimension that contributes along with other aspects of psychic development to protect the Ego's development through the transformation of constitutive aggressiveness for the purpose of the life drive.