Abstract

Crises and catastrophes as seen by a psychoanalyst, thus from an individual perspective, at a time when there is great confusion between personal crisis and social crisis, to the extent that the latter is often equivalent to the former and vice versa. After highlighting the difference between crisis and catastrophe in the crisis-critique relationship, the concept of «catastrophic change» is introduced, following the intuition of Walter R. Bion, who first developed and elaborated the concept. The «catastrophic change» not only introduces a new idea in the psychic life of an individual, it also changes the individual's relationship with the group or with society as a whole.