À propos d'une psychopathologie de la démence

Dementia seems to involve such complicated mechanisms that any attempt at comprehension is discouraged. It all boils down to whether “the demented is a person” and whether in such a situation “productions are related to the producer”. A few epidemiological surveys of the life history of such patients have yielded quite disturbing data. As Freud stated “we are the age of our desire”. The subject is a desiring being and as such entertains a relation with the environment which is part of that desire. The main concepts of psychoanalysis can be found in the clinical understanding of dementia. The most comprehensible aspects of a psychopathological understanding of dementia can be linked to flaws in narcissism prohibiting the accomplishment of mourning because of the accumulated losses and bereavement.