ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Quantitative Psychology and Measurement
Combining psychoanalytic concepts and computer science methodologies: an empirical study of the relationship between emotions and the Lacanian Discourses
1. Department of Computer Engineering and Informatics, School of Engineering, University of Patras, Patras, Greece, 26500
2. Computer Technology Institute and Press Diophantus, Pátrai, Greece
3. Department of Computer Architecture, Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain, Catalonia, 08034
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Abstract
This research explores the interdisciplinary interaction between psychoanalysis and computer science, suggesting a mutually beneficial exchange. Indeed, psychoanalytic concepts can enrich technological applications involving the human factor, such as social media and other interactive digital platforms. By providing deeper insights into elusive, unconscious aspects of communication, psychoanalytic methods can enhance content-centric applications like fake news detection and mental health diagnostics. Conversely, computer science, especially Artificial Intelligence (AI), can contribute quantitative concepts and methods to psychoanalysis, identifying patterns and emotional cues in human expression.In particular, this research aims to apply computer science methods to establish fundamental relationships between emotions and Lacanian discourses. Such relations are discovered in our approach via empirical investigation and statistical analysis, and are eventually validated in a theoretical (psychoanalytic) way. It is worth noting that, although emotions have been sporadically studied in Lacanian theory, to the best of our knowledge a systematic, detailed investigation of their role is missing. Such fine-grained understanding of the role of emotions can also make the identification of Lacanian discourses more effective and easy in practise. In particular, our methods indicate the emotions with highest differentiation power in terms of corresponding discourses; conversely, we identify for each discourse the most characteristic emotions it admits.As a matter of fact, our approach further develops a broader method introduced by our team (Gadalla et al., 2023, p. 4). We call this method Lacanian Discourse Discovery (LDD) and it simplifies (via systematizing) the identification of Lacanian discourses in texts.Although the main contribution of this paper is inherently theoretical (psychoanalytic), it can also facilitate major practical applications in the realm of interactive digital systems. Indeed, our approach can be automated through Artificial Intelligence methods that effectively identify emotions (and corresponding discourses) in texts.
Summary
Keywords
Psychoanalysis, computer science, natural language processing (NLP), Lacanian Discourses, Lacanian Discourse Discovery (LDD), Lacanian Discourse Analysis (LDA), Emotions
Received
11 November 2024
Accepted
27 January 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Gadalla, Nikoletseas and Amazonas. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Minas Gadalla
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