The Psycho-Dynamics of Despair

Selv-enmity, individuation, and addiction in the light of the desire for agency

Abstract

The article is based on the fact that the theory in critical psychoanalysis that late modernity and consumer society short-circuit subjects and create ‘narcissistic personality types’ has gained renewed relevance, partly due to new dependencies created by new technologies. Although this theory can be criticized for presupposing a passive subject and for a dualistic opposition between drives and culture, it points to a problematic that we must deal with, and which we could call ‘psychodynamics’. Here we can learn from Ute Osterkamp’s critical reinterpretation of psychoanalysis based on her theory of desire for agency (which she called ‘productive needs’). But it must be developed, not least with concepts of the self understood in a dynamic ontology in relation to collectives. The theory of ideology, which was originally an important part of critical psychology, is expanded here with a concept of dis-/individuation and with concepts of habits, and this is used for a critical discussion of how the ‘energy’ metaphor in motivation psychology is anchored in the commodity logic of capitalism, and finally of the connections between social acceleration and the existential problem of despair.

Keywords:
Critical psychology, dependencies, ideology, habits