Limits of representation in freudian metapsychology

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the limits of representation theory in Freudian metapsychology. It is a theoretical research on psychoanalysis, through a methodology of historical and epistemological analysis of Freud's texts. The Freudian metapsychology is based on a theory of drives that is tributary to the principles of a theory of the mental representation. However, the changes required by the introduction of the concepts of narcissism and identification, along with recognition of the repetition compulsion as something beyond the pleasure principle led to a redesign of the drive theory, a new topical description and a reformulation of the theory of anxiety. The hypothesis is that the representational theory finds limits in two different directions: the identification and the impossibility of representation as, respectively, a beyond and a beneath of Freudian metapsychology.