Excessive discomfort: a psychoanalysis of everyday life

Abstract

In this investigation we will return to the notion of “excess discomfort” elaborated by the Argentinean psychoanalyst Silvia Bleichmar (1944-2007) and proposed as a conceptual category within her theoretical-clinical model developed from the 80s until her death. Specifically, it is our interest to make visible the incorporation of this concept in relation to the subjective impacts produced from the individual's link with reality in general, and with the other humans in particular.

The concept to work is introduced by the author in 1997 in an article entitled "About the remaining discomfort", which is part of a compilation of writings that work on the production of subjectivity in society at that time.

Bleichmar's interest in subjectivity arises early, at first associated with debates and theoretical discrepancies with Lacanism, and progressively increases her attention as she begins to work the psychoanalytic theory from the clinic and the shocks that reality introduced in it (Girón & Viguera, 2017).

It is at the end of the last century when Bleichmar differentiates psychism from subjectivity, identifying the latter as the “positioning of the subject of cogitation before themselves and the others, subject 'of the unconscious', crossed by the unconscious, but articulated by the logic that allows the awareness of the self’s existence” (Bleichmar, 2009: 11). In other words, it is an “ideological-ideational appropriation of the ways in which the instituting produces subjectivity” (Bleichmar, 2009: 17). It is understood by "instituting" the other human who intervenes from the beginning in the psychic constitution of the child, a historical-cultural representative person who sends, through statements, values, meanings, ideologies, what will be actively enrolled, by symbolizing, in the recipient.

Therefore, the production of subjectivity depends on the historical and social modes to which the subject is linked, which will be unique according to each time, moment and place. Consequently, unlike the psychic constitution that responds to trans-historic “universals” (such as the repression mechanism), subjectivity is presented as the effect of the various modes of socialization.

While there are infinite ways in which the human cub is socialized, it is impossible to deny the prevailing place of power centers, which define the type of individual necessary to conserve the system and conserve themselves (Bleichmar, 2005). That is, the hegemonic sectors produce a social project (ideological and political) that is received by the individuals and retransmitted in their bond with others.

At this point it is necessary to revisit Sigmund Freud, who in 1930 writes Civilization and its discontents to explain the inevitable and necessary discomfort that every individual must pay to belong to a culture. The individual must repress or sublimate their sexual and aggressive drives to live with other humans in society. Maintaining this “social contract” entails the condition of enduring an unease for the (direct) impulsive non-satisfaction, but in exchange for a satisfaction that can be transformed (sublimated) into goals appreciated by the culture of belonging.  Discomfort is then the necessary condition for an individual to acquire an identity and cultural belonging.

However, Bleichmar identifies that for some decades society has been demanding an excess of discomfort from the subject, because “it leaves each subject stripped of a transcendent project that makes it possible, in some way, to see ways to reduce the prevailing malaise” (Bleichmar, 2005: 18). The individuals then endure the discomfort in exchange for a social and historical project with which to identify and on which to build themselves, that somehow guarantees that everything supported was worth it. The author affirms (2005, 18): “it is the hope of remedying the present evils, the illusion of a full life whose movable edge is constantly being run, which makes it possible for the journey to find a justification”. Both the historical project and the “negotiated” necessary discomfort make it easier for the individual to produce themselves and they can also preserve their biological life, mainly self-preserving their identity.

Then, what effects occur when society no longer has the conditions to offer its members a historical project to cling on to withstand the necessary discomfort involved in establishing contracts with others? The excess discomfort is not only unnecessary but also harmful to the production of subjectivity and psychic well-being. Investigating these conditions, questioning their effects, and theorizing about it is the debt that psychoanalysis has for society and today individuals. As Bleichmar says, “we have to do a psychoanalysis of everyday life in Argentina. I try to produce that, neither an applied psychoanalysis, nor a psychopathology of everyday life.”