The Classical Psychoanalytic Model of the human psyche is a '3-Compartment' model. Different theorists may disagree on many of the particulars of the model and the theory which for example emphasized post 1900 'Oedipal Theory' and 'Childhood-Adult Sexual Fantasy Theory' as opposed to Freud's earlier 1895 'Traumacy Theory' (with Joseph Breuer) and his one year later 'Seduction Theory' that emphasized the idea of the relationship between 'childhood sexual abuse and hysteria, obsessional neurosis, and in effect, neurosis in general'.
Running through all four of these different and/or intertwined theories was Freud's idea of 'the unconscious' and 'repression': more particularly, Freud's belief that without repression (the 'blocking of a childhood memory and/or fantasy from consciousness), you can't have 'pathological neurosis'.
I for one disagree with Freud's theory of repression, believing instead that 'subjectively perceived traumacy and/or narcissistic fixation' is a necessary precursor of neurosis but the intervening variable does not have to be 'repression' -- the 'locking out of consciousness of a dissociated or unwanted memory'. Memories can be 'dissociated' without necessarily being 'repressed', the latter of which in my opinion is more the exception than the rule. For me, 'dissociation' is a better choice of words than 'repression' because it is more all inclusive. And memories themselves don't have to necessarily be 'dissociated' to be 'neurotically operative' -- they may be easily recalled as in conscious childhood recollections but the memory may function as a 'symbolic metaphor of something that is very important in a person's life and/or character -- but the different parts of the memory may be dissociated from each other in terms of 'internal object relations' and 'ego-splits' -- and this may be the 'neurotically operative' (and 'transfrence-lifestyle') element of the memory. This conclusion, I have arrived at using a combination of different theories from different schools of psychology including: Classical Psychoanalysis, Object Relations, Transactional Analysis, Adlerian Psychology, and Gestalt Therapy.
In this regard, there is much to be said for the relatively unheralded work of one of Freud's earliest 'French competitors' -- Pierre Janet and his concept of 'dissociation' and the 'splitting of the personality' into 'ego' and 'alter-ego' -- a kind of 'Dr. Jeckyl and Mr.(Mrs.)Hyde' phenomenon which more or less got picked up by Carl Jung and his concepts of 'persona' vs. 'shadow'.
'Alienation' is another name for dissociation.
We can be consciously, subconsciously, or unconsciously alienated from ourselves, others, and/or society in general. Alienation, in the words of Jean-Paul Sartre, indicates that there is 'bad faith' going on, 'lack of congruence and integrity', between either a person and him or herself -- and/or between a person and some element of his or her natural and/or social environment (friends, family, work, spouse, government, natural environment, etc.)
In Jungian terminology, in a 'properly integrated personality', we should have internal 'awareness' of what is going on in both our 'Persona' (that part of our Ego that we easily present to the world outside of us) and our 'Shadow' (that part of our Ego that we largely 'hide' from the world outside of us).
Some similarity can be drawn between Freud's concept of 'Id' and Jung's concept of Shadow in that it is usually our Shadow that contains our innermost narcissistic desires, fantasies, and/or traumacies; likewise, with our Id. But there is a significant difference between the two concepts in that our Shadow might be hiding -- for example -- our 'Romantic Ego'. (my DGB terminology). If we have been hurt badly and/or recently in 'love', it is not at all unusual for a person to hide this 'loving, vulnerable, romantic' component of his or her ego/personality.
A theorist and/or therapist should always have both his ears and eyes 'wide open' to any 'subjective, phenomenological client-based possibility' -- not walk into the therapeutic encounter with any pre-canned, pre-stereotyped, discriminating theoretical and therapeutic bias that could pathologically lead the client away from his or her own phenomenological and existential truth.
A client is in psychotherapy not to confirm any narcissistic, righteous bias on the part of the therapist who may have consciously or unconsciously set up a type of 'hyper-vigilence' towards confirming his or her theory and 'finding' exactly what he or she is looking for (the 'self-fulfilling prophecy') -- this is bogus, pathological psychotherapy; rather, a client is in psychotherapy either for some specific purpose (hopefully coming from his or her own motivation) or perhaps more generically to 'fill in, and/or integrate the different gaps in his or her personality' -- to move towards more 'personal congruency and integrity' -- such as integrating the various potential 'gaps' between his or her 'Superego' and 'Id' or between his or her 'Persona' and 'Shadow', or between his or her 'Apollonian Ego' and 'Dionysian Ego'. And that is without necessarily 'dumping a ton of technical terminology' on the client; 'Okham's Razor' (the simplest possible interpretations, explanations, and/or terminology) is probably usually the best policy. The client is not there to get a 'PHD' in psychology -- and if he or she seems like he or she is, then there is probably a process of 'rationalization' and/or 'intellectualization' that is going on that is hiding more intimate, emotional underlying processes.
Sometimes the most intelligent people in the world can have the deepest 'personality splits' based on deep, 'core-nuclear conflicts' from early childhood. Intellect has nothing to do with an 'integrated' and/or 'split personality'.
You see -- and/or hear about -- a man with a very active, intelligent mind, who can carry on a very intelligent, interesting conversation, who has a lot of money in the bank from past successful business transactions, and what used to be a very beautiful townhouse, and you know from you own dealings with this man, or from the words of family, that the man is inside his townhouse most of the day, 'retired' at 50, drinking himself to a slow or one day suddenly quick death, littering alcoholic bottles everywhere in his once beautiful townhouse, and you ask yourself, 'What demons are going on in this man's mind? Where is the 'hole' in his psyche, his heart, his spirit, his soul? The 'gap', 'the psychic void' -- the 'lost internal object' -- is it his wife that left him a number of years ago, or is it his 'internal dad' who was a hard-line 'house alcoholic' in his own right who treated the above-mentioned son abysmally growing up. Is it his lost executive job and career? And/or all told, is it just too much time alone in his townhouse being overpowered by his own 'self-destructive thought process'?
Anyway you want to look at it, there is just no amount of alcohol that is going to fill the void in this man's soul. His townhouse has become his own personal 'death-trap' unless and/or until he becomes willing to choose another 'life path' -- a path that will get him outside of his townhouse and willing to seek out 'new external objects' (meaning people) and/or interests -- work and/or hobbies.
Nobody can choose this path for him. It has got to start with the words 'I can choose differently' and/or 'I need some help and/or support here.' I need to come to a better resolution and integration with all my 'internal demons' and/or my 'past lost and/or terrorizing internal objects'.
In Gestalt Therapy, they say, no amount of 'internal chastising' is going to change things unless and/or until we can first accept where we are, and who we are -- right now.
This is called the 'paradoxical theory of change'. No movement forward is going to happen -- indeed, we will resist all our internal 'topdogging' and all the world's external preaching -- until we can first accept who and where we are in this moment, here and now. And that might not be a pretty thing. We might have to accept all or our internal 'ugliness' -- our internal flaws, make fun of them, laugh at them, our own tragic absurdity -- before we can again start to feel and be 'pretty' again.
-- dgb, Aug. 3rd, 2009, updated and modified, Sept. 9th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are still in process...
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