Qu’est-ce qu’une narration ? Les fonctions psychiques de la narration

Abstract

AimsThe purpose of our reflection is to identify the contributions of the “narrativist” approach in psychoanalysis, and to show how they derive from a fundamental philosophical heritage, Paul Ricoeur's work on time and narrative. In this perspective, the psychic functions of the narrative are presented and differentiated. This reflection adopts a clinical and ethical approach, which explores the notion of “narrative identity”. MethodThis article provides a critical exploration of the notion of narrative and the theories of narration through the analysis of the positions of Roy Schafer, Donald Spence and Paul Ricoeur. The psychoanalytic theories of narration are considered in their relationship to Ricoeur's phenomenology. ResultsThis research distinguishes and presents the eight psychic functions of narration: catharsis, linking, sharing, historization, construction, creativity, interpretation, subjectivation. The relationships between these functions are not relations of opposition, but of complementarity and superimposition. Ricoeur's philosophy makes it possible to explore essential notions (“life”, “fiction”, “narrative identity”), to rethink narrative and to propose an epistemological subversion of the concept of the subject. DiscussionThe notion of narration is discussed from theoretical, clinical and ethical points of view. The contributions of the “narrativist” approach in psychoanalysis are discussed and related to their source (Paul Ricoeur). The discussion shows how Ricoeur's approach belongs to a “hermeneutical” dimension that renews our representation of the subject. The narrativist position is a major turning point in contemporary psychoanalytic thought. This epistemological shift is explored. The notions of “narrative identity” and “time” are the subject of specific consideration. ConclusionThe complexity of the narration concept derives from the different “models”. The question of narration is repositioned in the metapsychological field. Narrative activity is thus related to the issues of “psychic life” and “life drive”. Ricoeur's philosophical radicality consists in linking or even identifying one to another “life”, “subject” and “narration”. From this point of view, narration is basically a process of subjectivation. “Narrative identity” is envisaged in its ethical dimension. The detour by phenomenological notions is essential to envisage narrative as mediation, subjectivation and a life process.