The Brutality of Things: Psychic Transformations of Reality

In every psychic experience, even in the production of a work of art, there exists a nucleus that is impossible to transform. It resists any and every action against itself. We are used to dealing with these irreducible and radical othernesses by adapting them to our own way of knowing and our experience. In reality, they make up the ugly material of our living and, hence, of our humanity. We can, however, transform them in some way, without altering their substance, but rather organizing them in different configurations, which generate new forms.

Psychoanalysis can aid in this difficult and risky process, providing resilient equipment, much like a sophisticated spacesuit, allowing one to travel the cosmic spaces of psychic life and of human reality without bursting into flames. In the actual world, we find ourselves having to deal with problems never before encountered, which eradicate old certainties - problems which feel uncanny compared to the known experiences of ourselves and others. We meet with disorganized and fragmentary conflict, to which psychoanalysis attempts to answer adopting an open, non-defensive procedure, aiming to widen the field of experience rather than reducing it, in accordance with the basis of its practice and theory. For this reason, the interweaving of various forms of knowledge is necessary in order to link the diverse aspects and levels of psychic and external reality.

The author examines this theme through the psychoanalytic approach, as well as through philosophy, science and art, and using stories based on personal life and clinical experiences.