Traumatic repetition seeks binding, not pleasure, contradicting dream theory.

Evidence

Accident dreams, for example, work “with a view to the psychical binding of traumatic impressions” and thus “obey the compulsion to repeat.” But this domestication or taming does not produce pleasure. On the contrary, they do nothing but whet the agonizing process of machinal iteration. It thus becomes clear that compulsive dreams constitute “an exception to the proposition that dreams are fulfillments of wishes.” — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded, 4041

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘binding’ (Bindung) as the transformation of free energy into quiescent cathexis in the traumatized apparatus.
• XREF: Central to the reader’s stake in destructive plasticity: repetition here is machinal fidelity to trauma rather than return to equilibrium. — connects to: Repetition acts as the psyche’s default emergency homeostasis when pleasure alone cannot manage trauma — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded: From Neurosis to Brain…, 4054; Trauma acts from without; abreaction acts from within. — Alain Ehrenberg, The Weariness of the Self: Diagnosing…, 246; A repeating rise-and-fall life pattern reveals the Freudian compulsion to repeat. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 585

Broader Connections

• Repetition acts as the psyche’s default emergency homeostasis when pleasure alone cannot manage trauma #expands (0.82) — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded, 4054