The artistic value of pre-logical thinking in Jacques Lacan's study of psychosis in the case of aimee

Abstract

In 1932 Lacan highlighted a positive value in the delusions associated with paranoid psychoses. In his thesis On the Paranoid Psychosis as it Relates to the Personality, Lacan used the tools of psychiatry, psychoanalysis and anthropology, among others, in an attempt to explain the ways of thinking observed in the Case of Aimee. Levy-Bruhl's studies on "prelogical" thought and the "laws of participation" thus became fundamental sources used to highlight the value of artistic production related to psychosis, against the grain of a degenerative conception of the condition. By drawing on parallels with Aby Warburg's inquiry into the survival of images, we offer a conclusion on how to read these anthropological categories used to describe ostensibly "primitive" conditions.