Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.31823/d.33.4.1
The Recuperation of Desire for Maintaining Mental Health
Hrvoje Kalem
orcid.org/0000-0002-6146-8024
; Catholic Faculty of Theology in Sarajevo, University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Abstract
After addressing thoughts about desire from an interdisciplinary perspective in the introduction and pointing to desire as an important biblical and theological-spiritual concept, the paper continues by elaborating on the disappearance of desire in an epochal change. In so doing, it points to the fact that capitalist-consumerist ideology, striving to make the human being happy (homo felix), turned that same person into a slave of the consumerist order, which led to the mortification of desire, the crea-tion of pseudo-desires, and the replacement of desires with needs. In the second part, the paper points to the strength of desire, distinguishes it from need, and associates it with law and restrictions, because only in that context can desire be desire. The third part of the paper, before the conclusion, presents three faces of desire, discussing envious desire; desire for the Other, which can heal envious desire; and, finally, the desire for nothing, which is one of the main characteristics of the hypermodern person.
Keywords
desire; theology; psychoanalysis; M. Recalcati; strength of desire; faces of desire; recuperation of desire; capitalist-consumerist ideology
Hrčak ID:
344152
URI
Publication date:
5.2.2026.
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