68

Drawing on some of Freud’s concepts, this article discusses the theme of causality from a psychoanalytic perspective through an analogical confrontation with cellular biology and development. The processes of biological self-organization are analogous with the processes of psychic organization and development, subject to certain specificities. Organization around a norm of the subject’s own functioning permits autonomy to be defined as characteristic of the subject that is as much biological as psychological. The discussion bears on the characteristics of autonomy and its consequences for causality. The concept of autonomy shifts the question of the causes of behavior (pathological or normal) towards understanding the norm of the subject’s functioning. Finally, another major consequence is considered in relation to the principles of psychological intervention.