O conceito de representação em Freud entre 1891 e 1900 e a conceituação do aparelho psíquico

Abstract

The concept of representation (Vorstellung) can be found from the very beginning of Freudian theorizing. Its first mention in Sigmund Freud's work dates to 1891 and Freud addresses this concept, in different ways, in the theorization of the hysterical phenomenon and in the formulation of the concepts of unconscious, drive and repression. From the clinical practice of hysteria, Freud attributes the cause of the hysterical symptom to a psychic representation absent from consciousness. The objective was to investigate how the concept of representation appears in Freudian theorization in different ways and concerning different problems between the years 1891 and 1900, its articulation with the conceptualization of the psychic apparatus, as well as the relevance of such articulation for the genesis of psychoanalysis. To this end, a critical review of the literature was carried out. Four major works written by Freud between 1891 and 1900 were selected, namely, On aphasia (1891), Studies on hysteria (1893-1895), a work written in conjunction with the German neurologist Josef Breuer, the draft entitled Project for a scientific psychology (1895) and The interpretation of dreams (1900). In 1891 the concept of representation appears in reference to the problem of aphasia, a neurological language disorder. Freud distinguishes between word representation and object representation and articulates them in the conceptualization of the language apparatus. In 1895, it appears through the postulate that a representation is capable of operating effects - the hysterical symptom - from its absence in consciousness. In the Project, Freud refers to representation in the conceptualization of the neuronal apparatus, postulating it as unconscious and pointing to the association between representations as the founder of memory and psychism. In Letter 52 (1896) Freud proposes a memory apparatus that is founded through the inscription and transcription of the mnemic traces of the representations. In 1900, Freud founds psychoanalysis by postulating the unconscious as a psychic instance and conceptualizing the psychic apparatus known as the first Freudian topic, since this apparatus is constituted by three places or psychic instances, with the primacy of the unconscious system (das Unbewusste) over the others. The inscription of the mnemic trace of the representation founds the unconscious psychism and the concept of representation reappears with respect to the interpretation of dreams. The unconscious representations give origin to the oneiric representations by undergoing processes of modification according to the laws in force in the psychic apparatus. From the formalization of the psychic apparatus of 1900 on, the others, retroactively, can be considered as its precursors. Although there is no continuity between the apparatuses prior to 1900 and the psychic apparatus proper, founded on the conceptualization of the unconscious as the instance that rules the psychism. The concept of representation is treated in these three works and, although there are similarities between the psychic apparatus and the apparatuses of language, neuron, and memory, at each retaking this concept was referred to distinct problematics and to new clinical findings, which required its rearticulation within Freudian theorization.