In his thesis of 1932 entitled “De la psychose paranoïaque dans ses rapports avec la personnalité” (Paranoid psychosis and its relation to the personality), Jacques Lacan criticizes, in a scattered manner throughout his work, the psychophysical parallelism supported by psychiatric tradition. In this context and as a key to explain both the paranoid psychoses and the self-punishing paranoia of Aimée’s case, the young psychiatrist presents his own version of parallelism based on two authors: Jakob Von Uexküll and Baruch Spinoza. We aim to highlight this endeavor and the consequences of Lacan’s own parallelism.
Key words:
Parallelism; psychosis; Umwelt [environment]; discordance