Esquisse psychopathologique du couple âgé

Abstract

In a psychopathological approach that strives to articulate the normal and pathological forms of the life of an elderly couple, the author examines successively the libidinal and topical economy of the couple, with the benefits and dangers of libidinal regression and the future of this shared phantasmic space as described by Winnicott as potential space. Therapy reveals to us in that specific space of the couple the locus where phantasms of omnipotence are worked up, that of both positive and negative confusion and necessary creation when the marital conjugal relation becomes a relation of assistance and care.