Birth of desire
Presented by Judith Revel, philosopher
Laurence Joseph, clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst
Anne-Fleur Multon, writer
Nicolas Rabain, clinical psychologist, co-director of the journal "Adolescences"
Where and how can desire be born, if it is born at all and is not "always there" – since the human being is not born "finished" but incomplete, "lacking", deprived of everything that learning will give them? A neurobiologist would cite the activity of the nervous system, in particular the hypothalamic-limbic network whose activation responds to hormonal stimuli such as oestrogen, oxytocin, testosterone, prolactin – which regulate more or less the sexual-affective activity. But from a psychological point of view, what is the native source of desire? A lack – which would make it a need? An inner void one would want to fill? An attempt at resumption and repetition of a past pleasure experience? A response to stimulations coming from elsewhere or from others? A provocative or provoked game with the desire of others? The drive to be "more" than what one is, which pushes to seek what never satisfies?
Robert Maggiori
