Fanaticism: Reflections based on phenomena in the analytic field
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 6, 2025

Continuous Theta Burst Stimulation of the Posterior Medial Frontal Cortex to Experimentally Reduce Ideological Threat Responses
Published on: September 28, 2018
1Brazilian Psychoanalytic Society of São Paulo and Campinas Psychoanalytic Study Group, Campinas, Brazil.
Abstract:
The paper presents and discusses hypotheses related to the manifestation of fanatical aspects in the analytical field. Initially, fanaticism is discussed as a social phenomenon. In sequence, clinical facts are presented. The first hypothesis involves factors related to primitive symbioses that manifest themselves mainly in adolescence, through adherence to religions, ideologies and other social facts. Clinical vignettes of adult patients deepen the study of possible factors that contribute to fanatical behaviour. It is proposed that container/contained relationships experienced in childhood as insufficient and fraudulent, and defensive narcissistic organizations, articulated with early inculcations of fanatic configurations, originate fantasies which manifest themselves as fanaticism. Deficits in the symbolisation processes, resentment and transformation into hallucinosis, among others, are presented as clinical facts. The text ends with analogies between the delusions of the Schreber case and fanatical behaviour.
Related Concept Videos
Humanistic Psychology
This approach...
Structuralism
Titchener's approach to structuralism was unique. He...
The Scientific Method
Jung's Analytical Theory
Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory
Freud's concept of psychic determinism asserts...
Freudian Psychology

