Department of Health Sciences, University of Florence, Florence, Italy.
Centro de Estudios de Fenomenologìa y Psiquiatrìa, 'Diego Portales' University, Santiago, Chile.
Psychopathology. 2023;56(6):478-491. doi: 10.1159/000529130. Epub 2023 Mar 8.
This paper sheds light on some aspects of what contemporary clinical theory calls "borderline" condition providing a description of a key figure of late-modern culture that I will call Homo dissipans (from Latin dissipatio, -onis = scattering, dispersion). Homo dissipans is the opposite of Homo œconomicus, the form that "narcissism" takes on in contemporary "achievement society," solely concerned with rational action aimed to utility and production. In order to define Homo dissipans, I follow French philosopher, anthropologist, and novelist Georges Bataille's descriptions of two core phenomena: "excess" and "expenditure." The former can be defined as a surplus of energy that according to Bataille characterizes human existence, animated by a general movement of exudation and dilapidation and an inexhaustible drive to "pour out" of oneself, especially outside the limits of composure and reasonableness. The latter is an ethical attitude which gives its approval to excess and to its metamorphic and destructive power. The Homo dissipans' credo is to profitlessly dissipate the surplus of energy, escape into a world of pure intensities in which all forms - including identity - dissolve and surrender themselves to transformation. I argue that Bataille's ideas about "dissipation" can help us reconsider two features attributed to borderline personality disorder which have been extensively described and sometimes stigmatized - "identity diffusion" and "stable instability" - and to better recognize, understand, and make sense of their phenomenology in the clinical context.
本文探讨了当代临床理论所谓的“边缘”状态的一些方面，描述了我称之为“弥散人”（Homo dissipans）的后现代文化中的一个关键人物。弥散人是“经济人”（Homo œconomicus）的对立面，“经济人”是当代“成就社会”中“自恋”的表现形式，只关注旨在效用和生产的理性行动。为了定义弥散人，我遵循法国哲学家、人类学家和小说家乔治·巴塔耶（Georges Bataille）对两个核心现象的描述：“过剩”和“消耗”。前者可以定义为能量的过剩，根据巴塔耶的说法，这种过剩是人类存在的特征，表现为一种渗出和衰败的普遍运动，以及一种无穷无尽的“自我倾泄”的动力，特别是在沉着和理智的极限之外。后者是一种伦理态度，它赞成过剩及其变形和破坏的力量。弥散人的信条是毫无意义地消耗过剩的能量，逃避到一个纯粹强度的世界中，在这个世界中，所有形式——包括身份——都溶解并屈服于变形。我认为，巴塔耶关于“消耗”的思想可以帮助我们重新思考边缘型人格障碍的两个特征，这些特征已经被广泛描述，有时甚至被污名化——“身份扩散”和“稳定不稳定”——并更好地认识、理解和理解它们在临床环境中的现象学。
