"Mourning and Melancholia" Meets The Babadook: Emptiness and its Relation to Absence.

This paper explores how the film The Babadook illuminates psychoanalytic understandings of melancholia and mourning. The author attempts to unwind the complicated character of melancholia, using Freud as an initial point of orientation, then relying on a few ideas from Klein and later writers. The paper attempts to refine our understanding of the difference between absence and emptiness, especially the difference between being captured in the nothing or deadness of melancholic emptiness, on the one hand, and being alive enough to suffer the absence of a lost object, which bears a potential for mourning, on the other. The possibility of psychic tension between these states is explored. Some implications of the relationship between absence and emptiness for the mourning process are considered. The author uses the film as a resource throughout.

A general inductive approach to characterize transdiagnostic experiences of emptiness.

BACKGROUND: Despite the pervasiveness of patient-reported emptiness and the high burden it carries, emptiness is poorly understood. In the current study, we used a general inductive approach to examine experiences with emptiness in a diagnostically diverse sample of treatment-seeking patients with severe and acute psychopathology. As a secondary aim, we also examined whether identified themes differed among patients with a primary diagnosis of borderline personality disorder or major depressive disorder. METHOD: Participants (n = 150) ranged from 18 to 69 years old (M = 33.15, SD = 12.41; 79.3% non-Hispanic White; 57.3% females). All patients completed the borderline personality disorder module of the Structured Clinical Interview for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Personality Disorders and the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview. Interviewers documented patients' responses to follow-up questions. Patients were included in the study if they endorsed chronic feelings of emptiness and elaborations were documented. RESULTS: We identified 10 themes associated with patient-reported emptiness: (1) purposeless, (2) lack of connection, (3) numbness, (4) self-deprecation, (5) lack of identity, (6) lack of motivation, (7) hopelessness, (8) lack of pleasure, (9) physical sensation, and (10) dissociation. Themes were consistent across diagnostic status, with one exception: patients with borderline personality disorder were more likely to report that emptiness was associated with dissociation relative to patients with major depressive disorder. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that emptiness may reflect a multifaceted and transdiagnostic construct. Identified themes may help to support the assessment of emptiness and can be used to guide individualized treatments.

The Psychological Emptiness Scale: a psychometric evaluation.

BACKGROUND: Feelings of emptiness are commonly reported as deeply distressing experiences. Despite established relationships between emptiness and many mental health difficulties, alongside self-harm and suicide, further study into this phenomenon has been restricted by vague definition and clinical measures with limited utility. Recently the first definition validated by individuals with lived experience of emptiness has been conceptualised, providing an opportunity to create a new measure of emptiness. AIMS: This study aimed to psychometrically evaluate the 31-item Psychological Emptiness Scale (PES), identifying redundancy, and thus creating a psychometrically robust scale with optimised clinical utility. METHOD: Utilising an online survey design, 768 participants completed the 31 items of the initial PES alongside other measures of mental health. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted, and item response theory employed to identify item redundancy and reduce test burden. Expert clinicians provided ratings of each item's clinical relevance and, combined with the psychometric analysis, led to the removal of a number of items. Confirmatory factor analysis was then undertaken. Reliability including test-retest, validity and sensitivity of the measure were evaluated. RESULTS: A two-factor structure encompassing 'nothingness' and 'detachment' was identified, and found to have acceptable fit. The resulting 19-item PES was found to have internal consistency (α = 0.95), convergent validity and test-retest reliability. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrated strong psychometric properties of the PES. The PES has potential to support research into the role of emptiness in psychological distress and treatment in clinical practice.

Neural Correlates of Formal Thought Disorder Dimensions in Psychosis.

BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESIS: Formal thought disorder (FTD) is a core symptom of psychosis, but its neural correlates remain poorly understood. This study tested whether four FTD dimensions differ in their association with brain perfusion and brain structure. STUDY DESIGN: This cross-sectional study investigated 110 patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders using 3T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The Thought and Language Disorder scale (TALD) was utilized, which comprises four subscales: Objective Positive (OP), Objective Negative (ON), Subjective Positive (SP), and Subjective Negative (SN). Resting-state cerebral blood flow (rsCBF), cortical thickness (CortTh), gray matter volume (GMV), and diffusion MRI tractography were tested for associations with TALD subscales controlling for age, medication, total intracranial volume, and for variance of the 3 other TALD subscales. STUDY RESULTS: Following Bonferroni correction, the FTD dimensions presented distinct neural correlates. OP scores were associated with increased rsCBF and increased GMV in the right cerebellum lingual gyrus. Higher SP scores were linked to increased GMV in bilateral prefrontal cortex. In contrast, ON was associated with increased GMV in the right premotor cortex. At more liberal statistical thresholds, higher SP was associated with increased CortTh in the right inferior frontal gyrus, whereas SN scores were linked to decreased GMV in the right prefrontal lobe, the left inferior temporal gyrus, and the left supplementary motor area. Unadjusted analyses mostly corroborated these findings. CONCLUSION: These findings stress the heterogeneity in FTD, suggesting distinct neural patterns for specific FTD experiences. In sum, FTD in psychosis may require distinct treatment strategies and further mechanistic investigations on single-item levels.

Between Deserts and Jungles: The Emergence and Circulation of Sylvatic Plague (1920-1950).

I trace the development of the concept of sylvatic plague - the first sylvatic disease - examining its invention by Ricardo Jorge to describe a global phenomenon of plague reservoirs among wild rodents, and its circulation. The concept implied a space where plague was enzootic, and relied on a division between inhabited and uninhabited spaces and between domestic rats and wild rodents. Some of the characteristics of this space varied, but it always referred to places imagined as empty of humans and rats. In 1927, it designated ambiguously deserts, in 1935, uninhabited regions in general, and in Brazil, it referred to the jungle.

The relationship between emptiness and suicide and self-injury urges in borderline personality disorder.

INTRODUCTION: Suicide and self-injury (SSI) are pervasive among individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD), yet little research has examined factors that increase SSI urges among those with BPD. Emptiness is a diagnostic criterion of BPD that is associated with SSI behaviors, but its impact on SSI urges in BPD is poorly understood. This study investigates the association between emptiness and SSI urges at baseline and in response to a stressor (i.e., reactivity) among individuals with BPD. METHODS: Forty individuals with BPD participated in an experimental procedure where they rated their degree of emptiness and SSI urges at baseline and in response to an interpersonal stressor. Generalized estimating equations tested whether emptiness predicts baseline SSI urges and SSI urge reactivity. RESULTS: Higher emptiness predicted higher baseline suicide urges (B = 0.006, SE = 0.002, p < 0.001), but not baseline self-injury urges (p = 0.081). Emptiness did not significantly predict suicide urge reactivity (p = 0.731) nor self-injury urge reactivity (p = 0.446). CONCLUSION: Assessing and targeting emptiness may facilitate the reduction of suicide urges in BPD. Future research should investigate treatment strategies for reducing SSI risk among individuals with BPD via targeting emptiness.

Predictive value of the feeling of emptiness in suicidal behaviour of emotionally unstable disorders.

PURPOSE: This study investigates the feeling of emptiness in patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and patients with eating disorder (ED) and its relationship with suicidal behaviour and childhood traumatic events. METHODOLOGY: One hundred three BPD patients and 107 ED patients were assessed with the Feeling of Emptiness Scale (FES) and the Traumatic Experiences Questionnaire (TQ). Suicidal behaviour was assessed with a specific interview for frequency and intensity of suicidal behaviour. RESULTS: Significant differences were found between the different factors of the FES between BPD patients and ED patients. A significant relationship was observed between Factors 1 and 4 of the FES and suicidal behaviour scores in both groups. Traumatic experiences were more strongly related to Factors 1, 2 and 4 in BPD patients. CONCLUSIONS: BPD patients and ED patients show similar scores in the global construct of feeling of emptiness. However, results suggest some qualitatively difference between the nature of feeling of emptiness in BPD and in ED. As expected, suicidal behaviour is most frequently in BPD patients, and is significantly associated with Factors 1 and 4 of the FES in both groups. Therefore, feeling of emptiness could be a predictor of suicidal behaviours in patients with emotional and behavioural instability.

Clínica del vacío y testimonio en la serie Euphoria / Clinic of the void and testimony in the series Euphoria

Introducción: Este artículo ejemplifica el discurso psicoanalítico lacaniano de Massimo Recalcati en las dos primeras temporadas y en los episodios especiales de la serie Euphoria (Levinson et al., 2019-presente). Metodología: En este artículo se analiza cómo esta serie televisiva retrata una nueva clínica, propia de las nuevas generaciones, que Recalcati denomina clínica del vacío y que distingue de la clásica clínica de la falta engendrada por la neurosis. Resultados y discusión:Dentro de los nuevos síntomas narcisistas, Rue, la protagonista de la serie, nos permite verificar la descripción que Recalcati hace del malestar de la cultura y de la metapsicología propia de nuestro tiempo, que él define -frente al diagnóstico más pesimista del mero narcisismo- mediante el “complejo de Telémaco”. Además, en determinados momentos de la serie, también podemos identificar escenas e incluso capítulos de especial resonancia que ponen en evidencia que el “testimonio” -usando la expresión del mismo autor- es lo que se requiere tanto en la psicoterapia como en la educación para vertebrar de nuevo al sujeto. (AU)

Introduction: This article sets out Massimo Recalcati’s Lacanian psychoanalytic discourse as exemplified in the first two seasons and in the special episodes of the series Euphoria (Levinson et al., 2019-present). Methods: In this article Euphoria series is analyzed. his teen drama television series portrays a new clinic typical of the new generations, which Recalcati refers to as the clinic of the void and which he distinguishes from the classical clinic of the lack engendered by neurosis. Results and discussion: Within the new narcissistic symptoms, Rue, the series’ protagonist, allows us to confirm Recalcati’s description of the discomfort of culture and of the metapsychology of our time, which he defines by means of the “Telemachus complex”, rather than the more pessimistic diagnosis of narcissism. Moreover, at certain moments in the series, we can also identify scenes and even episodes of special resonance that show that “testimony” –to use Recalcati’s expression– is what is required both in psychotherapy and in education to give the subject a new moral axis. (AU)

Clinic of the void and testimony in the series Euphoria / Clínica del vacío y testimonio en la serie Euphoria

Introduction: This article sets out Massimo Recalcati’s Lacanian psychoanalytic discourse as exemplified in the first two seasons and in the special episodes of the series Euphoria (Levinson et al., 2019-present). Methods: In this article Euphoria series is analyzed. his teen drama television series portrays a new clinic typical of the new generations, which Recalcati refers to as the clinic of the void and which he distinguishes from the classical clinic of the lack engendered by neurosis. Results and discussion: Within the new narcissistic symptoms, Rue, the series’ protagonist, allows us to confirm Recalcati’s description of the discomfort of culture and of the metapsychology of our time, which he defines by means of the “Telemachus complex”, rather than the more pessimistic diagnosis of narcissism. Moreover, at certain moments in the series, we can also identify scenes and even episodes of special resonance that show that “testimony” –to use Recalcati’s expression– is what is required both in psychotherapy and in education to give the subject a new moral axis. (AU)

Introducción: Este artículo ejemplifica el discurso psicoanalítico lacaniano de Massimo Recalcati en las dos primeras temporadas y en los episodios especiales de la serie Euphoria (Levinson et al., 2019-presente). Metodología: En este artículo se analiza cómo esta serie televisiva retrata una nueva clínica, propia de las nuevas generaciones, que Recalcati denomina clínica del vacío y que distingue de la clásica clínica de la falta engendrada por la neurosis. Resultados y discusión:Dentro de los nuevos síntomas narcisistas, Rue, la protagonista de la serie, nos permite verificar la descripción que Recalcati hace del malestar de la cultura y de la metapsicología propia de nuestro tiempo, que él define -frente al diagnóstico más pesimista del mero narcisismo- mediante el “complejo de Telémaco”. Además, en determinados momentos de la serie, también podemos identificar escenas e incluso capítulos de especial resonancia que ponen en evidencia que el “testimonio” -usando la expresión del mismo autor- es lo que se requiere tanto en la psicoterapia como en la educación para vertebrar de nuevo al sujeto. (AU)

Hipólito y la belleza de la muerte (Boceto de relato corto inspirado en hechos reales) / Hipólito e a Beleza da Morte (Esboço de uma história inspirada em acontecimentos reais) / Hippolytus and the Beauty of Death (Sketch of a story inspired by real events)

The aim of this story is to reflect on the death of a pet, the pain it generates and the feelingof emptiness after an absence that comes after a time of coexistence and reciprocal contemplation.At the same time, the narrative is positioned as an instrument to become aware of the feelings between people and their pets, contemplating its use for the progressive approach of children and young people to the phenomenon of death and the feelings it generates. (AU)

El objetivo de este relato consiste en reflexionar sobre la muerte de una mascota, el dolorque genera y la sensación de vacío tras una ausencia sobrevenida tras un tiempo de convivencia ycontemplación recíproca. Paralelamente, se posiciona la narrativa como un instrumento para tomarconciencia de los sentimientos entre las personas y sus mascotas contemplando su empleo para elacercamiento progresivo de niños y jóvenes al fenómeno de la muerte y los sentimientos que genera. (AU)

O objectivo desta história é reflectir sobre a morte de um animal de estimação, a dor quegera e o sentimento de vazio após uma ausência que surge após um tempo de coexistência e contemplação recíproca. Ao mesmo tempo, a narrativa é posicionada como um instrumento para tomarconsciência dos sentimentos entre as pessoas e os seus animais de estimação, contemplando a suautilização para a abordagem progressiva de crianças e jovens ao fenómeno da morte e aos sentimentos que este gera. (AU)

Intersubjectivity as an antidote to stress: Using dyadic active inference model of intersubjectivity to predict the efficacy of parenting interventions in reducing stress-through the lens of dependent origination in Buddhist Madhyamaka philosophy.

Intersubjectivity refers to one person's awareness in relation to another person's awareness. It is key to well-being and human development. From infancy to adulthood, human interactions ceaselessly contribute to the flourishing or impairment of intersubjectivity. In this work, we first describe intersubjectivity as a hallmark of quality dyadic processes. Then, using parent-child relationship as an example, we propose a dyadic active inference model to elucidate an inverse relation between stress and intersubjectivity. We postulate that impaired intersubjectivity is a manifestation of underlying problems of deficient relational benevolence, misattributing another person's intentions (over-mentalizing), and neglecting the effects of one's own actions on the other person (under-coupling). These problems can exacerbate stress due to excessive variational free energy in a person's active inference engine when that person feels threatened and holds on to his/her invalid (mis)beliefs. In support of this dyadic model, we briefly describe relevant neuroimaging literature to elucidate brain networks underlying the effects of an intersubjectivity-oriented parenting intervention on parenting stress. Using the active inference dyadic model, we identified critical interventional strategies necessary to rectify these problems and hereby developed a coding system in reference to these strategies. In a theory-guided quantitative review, we used this coding system to code 35 clinical trials of parenting interventions published between 2016 and 2020, based on PubMed database, to predict their efficacy for reducing parenting stress. The results of this theory-guided analysis corroborated our hypothesis that parenting intervention can effectively reduce parenting stress if the intervention is designed to mitigate the problems of deficient relational benevolence, under-coupling, and over-mentalizing. We integrated our work with several dyadic concepts identified in the literature. Finally, inspired by Arya Nagarjuna's Buddhist Madhyamaka Philosophy, we described abstract expressions of Dependent Origination as a relational worldview to reflect on the normality, impairment, and rehabilitation of intersubjectivity.

The Effectiveness of the Moving to Emptiness Technique on Clients Who Need Help During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Real-World Study.

With Western therapeutic techniques prevailing in Chinese therapies, some techniques that include Chinese traditional cultural features are required since some cultural factors are not considered in the Western method. Our study introduced a new technique, the moving to emptiness technique (MET), which combines Western structural progress and core factors of Chinese culture. Seventeen therapists treated 107 clients with the MET. Clients reported their target symptoms initially, and therapists helped them transfer invisible symptoms to perceivable stuff and remove their jarring stuff using the psychological emptiness area. At the end of the consultations, we found that MET could eliminate symptoms immediately. By grouping target symptoms according to their frequency, the results showed that clients in the high-frequency symptom group had higher rehabilitation rates than those in the low-frequency symptom group. Additionally, the results of the bereavement group were better than those of the non-bereavement group, indicating that the MET can significantly alleviate clients' target symptoms. In future studies, the replication and stability of the MET can be assessed by integrating questionnaires, experimental designs, and neurological equipment.

Affective Instability and Emotion Dysregulation as a Social Impairment.

Borderline personality disorder is a complex psychopathological phenomenon. It is usually thought to consist in a vast instability of different aspects that are central to our experience of the world, and to manifest as "a pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity" [American Psychiatric Association (APA), 2013, p. 663]. Typically, of the instability triad-instability in (1) self, (2) affect and emotion, and (3) interpersonal relationships-only the first two are described, examined, and conceptualized from an experiential point of view. In this context, disorders of self have often motivated analyses of self-experience and the sense of self, affective disorders have been frequently considered in the light of emotional experience and its phenomenological structure. Patterns in the phenomenology of social experience have found comparatively little traction when it comes to the conceptualization of the interpersonal disturbances in borderline. In this paper, I argue that interpersonal instability in borderline consists in much more than fragile and shifting relationships but, most importantly, also involves certain styles in experiencing others. These styles, I suggest, may play an explanatory role for the borderline-typical patterns of interpersonal turmoil and so deserve more attention. To better describe and understand these styles, I explore the phenomenological structure of borderline affective instability and discuss the implications it might have for how a person experiences and relates to other people. Considering core aspects of borderline affective instability, such as alexithymia, emotional contagion, emotion dysregulation, and chronic emptiness, I propose borderline can be interpreted as a disturbance of interaffective exchange, which gives rise to certain ways of experiencing others that imply a social impairment.

Construction and Validation of a Self-report Subjective Emptiness Scale.

Subjective emptiness is a psychiatric symptom that is primarily assessed and studied as a criterion of borderline personality disorder, even though research suggests that it may have clinical importance beyond that diagnosis. The aim of this series of studies was to develop and validate a standalone self-report measure of subjective emptiness. A systematic, multistep approach to identifying test content was used to generate 88 items that were then trimmed to 53 via ratings of interviews with patients and experts. This preliminary scale was administered to a sample of 544 university students, and a trimmed version was given to two samples oversampled for clinical problems (n = 1,067; n = 1,016). A five-item measure fit a unidimensional model well and had satisfactory internal consistency across these samples. External validity analyses suggested that emptiness, as measured by the Subjective Emptiness Scale, is strongly related to a number of clinical constructs, particularly in the internalizing domain, indicating that emptiness is an important construct to consider in its own right, independent of its presence in the borderline criterion set.

Understanding the typical presentation of emptiness: a study of lived-experience.

BACKGROUND: Persistent feelings of emptiness, while poorly understood, characterise a range of mental health difficulties. AIMS: To investigate the meaning of emptiness from the perspective of those with lived experience. METHOD: 240 participants detailed their experiences of emptiness in a survey. Inductive thematic analysis was performed to produce a detailed description of emptiness and a definition of its typical manifestation. In a follow up survey, 178 individuals with lived experience of emptiness rated the accuracy of this definition. RESULTS: Nine components of emptiness were identified. These were used to produce a definition of the typical manifestation of emptiness, which highlighted a sense of going through life mechanically, purposelessly and numbly, with a psychological and bodily felt inner void, together with a sense of disconnectedness from others, and of not contributing to an unchanged but distant and remote world. Participants in the second survey judged this definition as highly accurate. CONCLUSIONS: First person accounts of emptiness point to an integrated experience concerning the relationship between the self, others, and the external world more generally. Therefore, emptiness can be conceptualised as an existential feeling; a background orientation structuring the way in which the self relates to the interpersonal and impersonal world.

Bring Your Non-self to Work? The Interaction Between Self-decentralization and Moral Reasoning.

Spirituality continues to exert a strong influence in people's lives both in work and beyond. However, given that spirituality is often non-formalized and personal, we continue to know little about how moral reasoning is strategized. In this paper, we examine how Buddhist leader-practitioners interpret and operationalize a process of self-decentralization based upon Buddhist emptiness theory as a form of moral reasoning. We find that Buddhist leader-practitioners share a common understanding of a self-decentralized identity and operationalize self-decentralization through two practices in Buddhist philosophy-skillful means and the middle way-to foreground social outcomes. However, we also find that practitioners face tensions and challenges in moral reasoning relates to agency-the 're-centering' of the self as an enlightened self and the use of karmic reasoning to justify (un)ethical behavior-and contextual constraints that lead to feelings of vulnerability and exclusion. We present a model that elaborates these processes and invite further research that examines novel approaches and dynamic interpretations of the self in moral reasoning.

Contemplative Psychology: History, Key Assumptions, and Future Directions.

Contemplative psychology is concerned with the psychological study of contemplative processes and practices, such as meditation, mindfulness, yoga, introspection, reflection, metacognition, self-regulation, self-awareness, and self-consciousness. Although contemplative psychology borders with other psychological and nonpsychological disciplines, some of its underlying assumptions distinguish it from other remits of psychological and scholarly inquiry, as do its component areas of empirical focus, conceptual nuances, and challenges. Furthermore, the discipline has tended to be somewhat disparate in its approach to investigating the core techniques and principles of which it is composed, resulting in a need for greater intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary awareness of the commonalities and differences of core contemplative psychology attributes. As a remedy to these issues, in this article, we adopt a whole-discipline perspective and aim to explicate contemplative psychology's history, breadth, key assumptions, challenges, and future directions.

[The Reliability and Validity of the Chinese Version of the Experienced Level of Existential Emptiness].

BACKGROUND: Psychiatric patients are affected by diseases and mental symptoms that may worsen their ability to adjust emotionally. Being unable to respond to the emptiness, increases the risk of suicidal behaviors. PURPOSE: This study was designed to translate the Experienced Level of Existential Emptiness (ELEE) scale, developed by Hazell in 1984, from the original English into Chinese and then to test its reliability and validity. METHODS: This research adopted a cross-sectional design and collected data using convenience sampling and a structured questionnaire. The subjects of this study were psychiatric outpatients in the acute and chronic wards of a psychiatric hospital in Taiwan. The instruments used in this research included a demographic datasheet; the ELEE; the University of California, Los Angeles Loneliness Scale, version 3; the Beck Depression Inventory-II; the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory Y form; and the Oxford Happiness Inventory. After the data were obtained, the reliability and validity of the Chinese-version scale was tested. RESULTS: Three hundred subjects were surveyed. The content validity index value of the ELEE was between .88 and 1, and the retest reliability and intrinsic consistency were good. From the analysis of criterion-related validity, a higher degree of emptiness was shown to correlate with more-obvious feelings of loneliness, depression, and anxiety. Conversely, a higher sense of happiness was shown to correlate with less-obvious feelings of these three variables. After the construct validity test, which used confirmatory factor analysis and regarded the co-variation coefficient of association and model fit index as the basis of consideration, the scale was reduced to two sub-scales of seven questions each. After the deletion of items, the scale retained good retest reliability and intrinsic consistency, supporting the retention of the 14 questions in the scale. CONCLUSIONS / IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: The findings of this study support using the Chinese version of the ELEE to measure emptiness in patients with mental illness and then providing appropriate medical assistance based on the measured results.

Testemunhos do vazio: o valor da sublimação na psicanálise / Testimonies of emptiness: the value of sublimation in psychoanalysis / Témoignages du vide: la valeur de la sublimation en psychanalyse / Testimonios de lo vacio: el valor de la sublimación en psicoanálisis

Ao tomar como elemento norteador principal a fecunda discussão de Lacan em seu sétimo seminário sobre as relações entre a sublimação e o vazio, o principal objetivo deste trabalho é articular a sublimação, em sua vertente criacionista, à possibilidade de testemunhar o vazio, tanto na arte como no trabalho analítico. Por meio de uma revisão bibliográfica, primeiramente apresentaremos algumas ideias de Freud e Lacan sobre a sublimação, ressaltando a relação estreita da sublimação com a sexualidade por um lado e com a pulsão de morte e com o vazio, por outro. Após essa exposição teórica e conceitual acerca da sublimação, colocando em evidência sua vertente criacionista, interrogaremos como diversos artistas materializam e testemunham o encontro com o vazio em suas obras, discernindo questões que interessam diretamente à clínica psicanalítica, tais como o amor, a morte e o luto.

Resumos By taking Lacan's fruitful discussion in his seventh seminar on the relationship between sublimation and emptiness as the main guiding element, the main objective of this work is to articulate sublimation, in its creationist strand, to the possibility of witnessing emptiness, both in art as in analytical work. Through a bibliographic review, we will first present some ideas by Freud and Lacan about sublimation, highlighting the close relationship of sublimation with sexuality, on the one hand, and with the death drive and with emptiness, on the other. After this theoretical and conceptual exposition about sublimation, highlighting its creationist dimension, we will question how different artists materialize and witness the encounter with emptiness in their works, discerning issues that directly interest the psychoanalytic clinic, such as love, death, and mourning.

En prenant la discussion fructueuse de Lacan dans son septième séminaire sur la relation entre sublimation et vide comme principal élément directeur, l'objectif principal de ce travail est d'articuler la sublimation, dans son volet créationniste, à la possibilité de témoigner le vide, tant dans l'art comme dans le travail analytique. À travers une étude bibliographique, nous présenterons d'abord quelques idées de Freud et Lacan sur la sublimation, mettant en évidence le rapport étroit de la sublimation avec la sexualité d'une part et avec la pulsion de mort et avec le vide d'autre part. Après cet exposé théorique et conceptuel sur la sublimation, mettant en évidence sa dimension créationniste, nous nous interrogerons sur la manière dont différents artistes se matérialisent et témoignent leur rencontre avec le vide dans leurs œuvres, en discernant des questions liées directement à la clinique psychanalytique, comme l'amour, la mort et le deuil.

Tomando como principal elemento conductor la fructífera discusión de Lacan, en su séptimo seminario sobre la relación entre sublimación y vacuidad, el objetivo principal de este trabajo es articular la sublimación, en su vertiente creacionista, a la posibilidad de presenciar la vacuidad, tanto en el arte como en el trabajo analítico. A través de una revisión bibliográfica, primero presentaremos algunas ideas de Freud y de Lacan sobre la sublimación, destacando la estrecha relación entre la sublimación y la sexualidad, por un lado, y entre la pulsión de muerte y el vacío, por otro. Tras este planteamiento teórico y conceptual sobre la sublimación, resaltando su dimensión creacionista, cuestionaremos cómo diferentes artistas materializan y presencian el encuentro con el vacío en sus obras, discerniendo temas que interesan directamente a la clínica psicoanalítica, como el amor, la muerte y el luto.

Understanding chronic feelings of emptiness in borderline personality disorder: a qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: Chronic feelings of emptiness are significant in the lives of people with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Feelings of emptiness have been linked to impulsivity, self-harm, suicidal behaviour and impaired psychosocial function. This study aimed to understand the experience of chronic emptiness, the cognitions, emotions and behaviours linked to emptiness, and clarify the differences between chronic emptiness and hopelessness, loneliness and depression. METHODS: This study interviewed people (n = 15) with BPD and used a template analysis qualitative approach to understand their experiences of chronic feelings of emptiness. RESULTS: Chronic feelings of emptiness were experienced as a feeling of disconnection from both self and others, and a sense of numbness and nothingness which was frequent and reduced functional capacity. Feelings of purposelessness and unfulfillment were closely associated with emptiness, and most participants experienced emptiness as distressing. Responses to feelings of emptiness varied, with participants largely engaging in either impulsive strategies to tolerate feelings of emptiness or distracting by using adaptive behaviours. Most participants distinguished chronic feelings of emptiness from loneliness, hopelessness, dissociation, and depression. CONCLUSIONS: Feelings of chronic emptiness are an important and challenging symptom of BPD which require clinical intervention. Strengthening identity, sense of purpose and vocational and relationship functioning may reduce the intensity of emptiness.