Topography of complexity is a conjecture of theoretical psychopathology integrating the transdisciplinary perspective initiated by the thought of René Thom. Faced with a complex object, the only way to study it is to imagine a virtual space of greater dimension. To approach the psyche without reducing it, neither to a neurophysiological functioning, nor to a disembodied mentalization, nor to an idealism of the fantasy, it is necessary to give ourselves a new theoretical space. We consider the psyche by exploring its approximation to the properties of a dynamic system whose structural stability would be exercised by three great functions of regulation: the cognitive cohesion, the individuation and the virtualization. Fundamental facts from psychoanalysis, cognitive science and anthropology become more intelligible in a unified theoretical framework. Our central thesis is that the recursive investment of narcissism for the self modifies its organization by differentiating a new instance, the self, whose structural dynamics are those of a complex system. Facts from psychoanalysis, anthropology and cognitive sciences can then be understood in a unified theory. The central axis of the argument is that of recursivity as a generative engine of complexity, explicitly present in narcissism but more generally in the singular in the singular status of the sexual drive. We illustrate this argument by the example of the dream theories.
Psychoanalysis, cognitive sciences, catastrophe theory, complexity theories are called to contribute to an intelligibility of the observable phenomena as much in the analytical analytical treatment as well as in psychotherapeutic approaches. The central idea is the possibility of thinking about the levels between psychic reality and neurobiological reality by using the concepts of attractors and structural dynamics.
Benoit Virole, born in 1957, (Ph D. psychopathology, Paris VII) practices clinical psychology and psychoanalysis in Paris. His work focuses, among other things, on the links between psychoanalysis and the cognitive sciences, as well as on the contributions of the sciences of complexity to psychopathology. He has also worked on language analysis (Ph.D. Language Sciences, Paris III) and its computer modeling.