Love and Psychoanalysis: A dialogue between Clinic and Literature

Abstract

This approaches love, through the lenses of Psychoanalysis, within the literary work Madame Bovary (1856). The proposal aims to describe and discuss the construction of the concept of love in psychoanalytic theory, through the analysis of the literary work of Gustave Flaubert, presenting the relationship between love and Philosophy; describing relationships between love and Psychoanalysis; analyzing the subjective position of the character Emma towards love; conducting field research with psychoanalysts in private practice, asking them about the demand for love in their daily work; all with the aim of producing a handout to be used in the classroom, in the Special Topics in Psychoanalysis discipline. These objectives were operationalized through qualitative, exploratory and descriptive research, and the work consisting of a bibliographic survey phase; construction and analysis of the theoretical framework; preliminary study; analysis of literary work, and field study. Data collection was carried out through the Microsoft Forms platform, with a questionnaire containing open questions. At the end, it is concluded that, based on Emma Bovary's analysis, the love experience can present the confluence of life and death drives; it appears that the demands that come to the private practice clinics are mostly related to the theme of love, and that many contradictory emotions are associated with this theme; it appears that literature is a field of great possibilities, serving as a source of knowledge about the human soul and assisting the work of clinical psychoanalysts; it is shown that the use of literary works as a supportive practice for the formation of psychoanalysts provides greater learning about the psychic apparatus of the subject of the unconscious, since it reveals one of the ways of thinking about man and his psyche; it is clear that the reflection on love in the literary work Madame Bovary incites an almost singular elaboration, as each subject faces love in a certain way, in the most diverse situations and contexts of life.