Du cannibalisme à la phagocytose, généalogie de la théorie freudienne de l’identification primaire

Abstract

In 1921, Freud made a link between the prehistory of the Oedipean complex and an identification with the father, and hypothesized that this primary identification was the earliest link to the object. Implicitly basing his argument on the principle of recapitulation, which can be seen in the development of the child, and which also appears to be the case for the development of the human race, Freud went on to propose a theory of primary identication based on a double model of cannibalism. On the one hand, he referred to an anthropological understanding of cannibalism derived from declarations made by the cannibals themselves and that can therefore be considered as an indigenous theory of cannibalism. On the other hand, the Freudian theories on primary identification, oral impulses, and cannibalism must take into account biologico-psychiatric considerations which postulate that the evolution of the species began by a combined desir for food and copulation. Although Freud did not take these bio-evolutionary views into consideration during a certain period, he nevertherless returned to them when theory, if not analysis, was in danger of focusing uniquely on the passive and feminine character of oral regression in the small boy, as for example appears in the account of the wolf man.