This paper proposes the theoretical bases for the elaboration of a new definition for Psychopathology, conceiving it as the study of the morbid impasses disturbing, or even preventing, the realization of a singular subject within the social bond. The notion of subject at issue is the one arising from the psychoanalytic thinking of Freud and Lacan.
The (psycho)pathology of the subject relies on the ideas of Viktor von Waizsaecker, for whom “pathology”, unlike the biological notion of “disease”, is a phenomenon that presupposes a subject as such. It is also inspired by Pierre Fédida’s work, which claims that psychopathology refers fundamentally to the subjective pathos, in its multiple semantic dimensions of passivity, suffering and passion.
The consequences of the redefinition of the (psycho)pathology proposed here apply to the set of clinical practices, either medical-psychiatric or others, through the ethical and technical specification of the treatment, now guided by the care with the possible and responsible realization of the subject as a language being, inside the social bond.
Key words:
Subject; psychopathology; psychoanalysis; psychiatry