Re: <documenta X><blast> <Documenta X><Blast>anaclitic

Bracha Lichtenberg - Ettinger (bracha@easynet.fr)
Sat, 30 Aug 1997 22:49:30 +0200

>help me out on this one: I bump into the term "anaclitic", and "anaclitic
>depression" from time to time, but nowhere can I find the kernel of the idea.
>Freud mentions it once in his story of Schreber, Barry Schwabsky lobbed it
>at me once as a shibbolith; Laplace and Pontalis never defined it to my
>satisfaction... what, exactly, is the point of "anaclisis" ?

anaclitic depression is a depression upon the model of frustration of needs
for dependency, and it is differentiated from a narcissitic depression. As
simple as I can say it: there is the childhood model of anaclitic
depression that developes when the child's dependency needs are
continuously unsatisfied, when the child gets technical treatment but is
not loved or emotionally referred to; for example, the small child is being
fed but not lovingly cuddled during feeding, etc., and so the child
retreats, stops eating etc.
Adults can get depressed upon the same anaclitic model when a serious blow
to these needs occures.
Narcissistic depression is something altogether different. It is based on
the distance between actual "reality" and ideals of the self or its wishes
- the devaluation of the self facing unrealized wishes or ideals, a
terrorizing superego etc..
Bracha Lichtenberg-Ettinger

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