Neurosis and structure of personality: aethiological models and narrative paradigms

Abstract

This article is a modificated version of the given class from the author in the concourse to Full Professor at Psychology Institute in University of São Paulo. The notions of personality and structure are examined in relation to the diagnosis of neurosis, considering psychoanalytical psychopathology. The categories of order, class and genre, as taken hypothetically, along with the notion of causality, as the subsidize force to evaluate the consistence of a diagnostic category. The article discusses the value of exceptions and the constrain of normativity in order to conform clinical experience into a given diagnostic rationality. The preliminary results of this epistemological evaluation leads us to propose the thesis that we have much less consistency in the Freudian category of neurosis then the historically reception could admit. We propose the idea that each methapsychological model, within emerged neurosis definition, is embedded in specific narratives of suffering. This is an important dimension to be taken in order to reconsider the clinical use of structure and personality in psychoanalytical diagnostic.