The psychotropic drug, from one Other to another. A promenade from benzodiazepines to psychoanalysis

Abstract

The article aims to highlight the characteristics of certain psychotropic drugs: those known as minor tranquilizers (benzodiazepines) and major tranquilizers (neuroleptics) based on their significant value. Specifically, what they intend to promote starting from their name. This will be followed by an examination of the concept of anxiety according to the views of neuroscience and psychoanalysis, particularly in the thoughts of Freud and Lacan, ultimately questioning whether the psychotropic drug can assume the value of the other in Lacanian sense. The text explores the relationship between anxiety, otherness, and the function of psychotropic medication, through a theoretical analysis inspired by Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis. Anxiety is defined as a central phenomenon in subjective experience, marked by the lack of mediation with the Other and the emergence of the object a as a disturbing element. This condition, characterized by the subject's inability to establish a symbolic distance from otherness, is at the heart of the clinical intervention. Psychotropic medications are analyzed here not as tools aimed solely at symptom reduction, but as mediators that introduce a real possibility of reorganizing the relationship between the subject and the Other. They help modulate the tension generated by anxiety, allowing for a restructuring of symbolic and imaginary ties. The article develops a reflection on the functioning of psychotropic medication as a "separating object," capable of restoring a certain distance from the Other, thus allowing the subject to reestablish their desiring position. In this context, the need for a clinical approach that integrates pharmacological intervention with symbolic and interpretive work, aimed at supporting subjectivation, is emphasized. Therefore, the function of psychotropic medication is not limited to managing the clinical urgency but is part of a broader process of restructuring the field of the relationship with otherness.