Projections privées, projections publiques: Contenus, objectifs et lieux des processus de délocalisation psychique dans les états psychotiques

Abstract

The concept of projection has, in Freud writings, wide uses. By trying to clarify them, it appears: on one hand, that neurotic projection concerns representations, while psychotic projection concerns sensations, affects, and more generally somatic states; on the other hand, neurotic projection concerns especially mental elements relative to the object, while psychotic projection concerns mental elements relative to the ego. Thus, psychotic projection appears as the attribution to another ego of somatic-psychic states and representations that the ego refuses to recognize as his own experiences. Therefore, this projection always has a “public” character in the sense that, being by definition anthropomorphic, it requires the other human: another “ego”, receptacle of the projected parts of the ego. The relationship of this mechanism with the processes of « hominisation » is discussed. Grounded in this conception of projection, a hypothesis on the constitution of the category of the “subject” between the “ego” and the “object”, is outlined.