Freud’s model renders brain-lesion disaffection a self-destruction, not a neural cause

Evidence

To interpret the behavior of people with brain lesions as the expression of the death drive is to interpret their indifference as a manner of letting oneself die. Brain damage, once again, would not be the determining cause of disaffection but merely the cause of a defusion of the drives that delivers the organism unto the internal imperative to destroy itself. It would thus not be possible to think emotional disaffection outside a process of self-destruction that can only be understood in terms of the “libido theory” rather than as a purely neurological phenomenon. — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded, 2461

Categorization

• XREF: Directly frames the Malabou vs. psychoanalysis debate that is the reader’s stated purpose; contrasts libido-theory causation with Malabou’s destructive plasticity. — connects to: Destruction provides the only proof that cerebral auto-affection exists — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded: From Neurosis to Brain…, 1070; The cerebral unconscious differs fundamentally from the Freudian ego or agency — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded: From Neurosis to Brain…, 1027; Cerebral trauma’s identity metamorphosis must not reduce to any Freudian libidinal cause. — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded: From Neurosis to Brain…, 1737 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Freud held psychic life autonomous from cerebral causes #corroborates (0.85) — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded, 2055
• Freud asked whether brain damage retains any narrativity once dissociated from fantasy. #expands (0.80) — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded, 2102
• Neurological case histories challenge the Freudian definition of psychic plasticity. #contradicts (0.75) — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded, 1294