Addressing Schizophrenia: from Merleau-Ponty to Harold Searles

Abstract

Merleau-Ponty finds a philosophical interest in the psychoanalytical clinic, especially in the the clinic of children and hallucinating people, which can support the concepts of flesh and Ineinander. But in the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty there is also a clinical interest, residing in the link he establishes between the flesh, conceived as the origin of existence, and the pathologies that Freud described as “narcissistic” and nowadays called “psychotic” or “borderline” states. To support this hypothesis, we will link Merleau-Ponty’s own “clinic of the origins” and Harold Searles’ theory of narcissistic pathologies based on his clinical experience with schizophrenics. This confrontation will reveal how a philosophy
of flesh provides us not only with theoretical points of reference relevant to the clinic of schizophrenia, but also fruitful technical indications regarding the direction towards a cure of such a pathology, indications that join those provided by Searles.