The "new psychic economy" according to Charles Melman

The "new psychic economy" is a concept of Charles Melman, who passed away in 2022. A French psychoanalyst and one of the principal followers of Lacan, Melman's new psychic economy was his way of trying to explain the social changes of recent decades and their consequences, mainly in the field of psychoanalytic clinics. This paper is also inspired by other works, in particular those of the Belgian psychoanalyst Jean-Pierre Lebrun, a member of the Association Lacanienne Internationale, the school founded by Melman. His central argument is that the social link is submitted to a neoliberal requirement of unlimited pleasure that prevents symbolic castration from being functional.