Compulsion and mastering in obsessional neurosis: the instinctual trace

Abstract

This paper aims at studying the elements that form the basis of the desire to master, typical of obsessional neurosis. That is the clinical picture characterized by the compulsive pursuit of control on oneself and on the other. Hatred and aggression are central in this pathology, engendering a violent and destructive psychic dynamics. These features stirred up Freud's attention, leading him to a hitherto obscure aspect in his work: the destructive dimension of the drive. The first confrontation of psychoanalysis to the problem of compulsion came exactly from the analysis of obsessional symptoms. In obsessional neurosis, the subject engages in a hard intrapsychic strife whose characteristic is condemnation, mastering and subjugation. The obsessional neurotics remain crystallized around a deadly dynamics emblematically expressed in responses that equally bear the mark of domination.

obsessional neurosis; compulsion; mastering; omnipotence