Just finished...Dec. 1st, 2009....
The type of integrative analysis that I am going to conduct here spans about 85 years...and it starts with Adlerian Psychology which is not the chronological beginning of things here.
As I have mentioned in other essays, I was involved with The Adlerian Institute of Ontario for a period of two years and in that two years I learned some important things about the functioning and dysfunctioning of man's psyche from some of the best Adlerian psychologists in the business -- most notably Dr. Harold Mosak from The Adlerian Institute in Chicago.
From The Adlerian Institute, I learned that 'lifestyle memories' (i.e., conscious early memories before about the age of 7 years old) and 'lifestyle relationships' tend to go hand in hand -- they blend into each other, co-exist with each other, support each other, emphasize the same types of 'inferiority feelings' and the same type of 'compensatory superiority striving' (the lifestyle, lifestyle plan, lifestyle script, lifestyle goal, fictional final goal).
I carried this knowledge with me into both my studies at The Gestalt Institute of Toronto, and later into my self-studies in Freudian Psychoanalysis and post-Freudian Object Relations.
After a while -- in the mid to late 1980s -- I came up with a name for the kind of integrative theoretical work I was doing. I called my work 'GAP Psychology' -- GAP standing for 'Gestalt-Adlerian-Psychoanalysis'. I was particularly fascinated with the Freudian concept of 'transference' and could see some 'transference-lifestyle' similarities and connections that wasn't being discussed in any of the literature that I was reading -- either Freudian or Adlerian.
The closest work that I could find that related to the type of work I was doing was Eric Berne in his best-selling book of the 1960s, 'Games People Play'. I immediately saw the 'transference connection' in Berne's work -- a book that could have been connected to Psychoanalysis (Berne was an ex-Psychoanalyst) and called 'Transference Games People Play'. Berne did talk about transference in his introduction, I believe -- I will have to go back and check that -- but he didn't make the type of transference connections that I was making as my work was also being influenced by Adlerian Psychology and Gestalt Therapy, and I also found out that two of the concepts that I was developing at the time -- the concept of 'narcissistic transferences' and the concept of 'the narcissistic ego' had already been explored and developed by Psychoanalysts before me, most notably Heinz Kohut (narcissistic transferences) and a Psychoanalyst that I cannot remember who had briefly explored the idea of a 'narcissistic ego' many years before me. (probably around the 1940s or 50s or 60s -- I will try to find this man's name in my Psychoanalytic archives.)
I was also doing some things that would probably please neither Adlerian Psychologists nor Freudian Psychoanalysts such as:
1. I removed the concept of 'lifestyle' from the Adlerian paradigm, put it in a Freudian paradigm, and called it 'transference' (I can hear Freudians and Adlerians both screaming from their particular side of the fence on this one;
2. I threw out the Freudian concept of 'repressed memories' and substituted the Adlerian concept of 'conscious early memories' for purpose of 'GAP Transference-Lifestyle Script Analysis';
3. I threw out the more complicated and convoluted Freudian transference analyses, and substituted the simpler Adlerian interpretations of conscious early memories which were now being called 'transference-lifestyle memories';
4. Later on, and some of this just recently, I added some Jungian ideas, Melanie Klein ideas, Object Relations ideas, and Transactional Analysis ideas into this mix which has left me playing around with such ideas as Melanie Klein's 'ego state positions' some of which I have kept and others that I have either modified or added such as: 'The Paranoid-Schizoid (Distancing) Position', 'The Paranoid-Aggressive Position', 'The Depressive Position', 'The Anxiety-Approval-Seeking Position', 'The Manic-Impulsive (Narcissistic-Dionysian Underdog) Position', 'The Righteous-Rejecting (Apollonian) Topdog Position', 'The Nurturing-Supportive Topdog Position', 'The Narcissistic-Dionysian Topdog Position', 'The Righteous-Rejecting (Rebellious, Deconstructive) Underdog Position'....
5. More recently, I have also taking steps to integrate Freud's marginalized 'Traumacy-Seduction Theory' with his more dominant 'Fantasy-Oedipal Theory'...and in so doing, attempt to close the gap between Freud and Jeffrey Masson.
There are a lot of different theoretical integrations and modifications happening here. I will aim to go through each one of these 'GAP-DGB' modifications more concretely to show where it takes us.
I will only start this process here. My chief goal here is to show you how I got from the idea of 'lifestyle memories' to the idea of 'transference ideas' -- and how the two ideas mix.
Let us start with the Adlerian idea of 'lifestyle' and the 'wholeness and unity of the personality'.
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The Individual's Law of Movement (from Ansbacher and Ansbacher, 1956, 'The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler', pg. 195.)
Everyone carries within himself an opinion of himself and the problems of life, a life line, a law of movement which keeps fast hold of him without his understanding it or giving himself an account of it.
The law of movement in the mental life of a person is the decisive factor for his individuality. The declaration of this law was actually the strongest step that Individual Psychology has taken. Although it was necessary to freeze the movement in order to see it as form, we have always maintained the viewpoint that all is movement. We have found that it must be that way to arrive at the solution of problems and the overcoming of difficulties.
Early Recollections (Ibid, pg. 351)
1. Expression of The Style of Life (Ibid, pg. 351)
Among all psychological expressions, some of the most revealing are the individual's memories. His memories are the reminders he carries about with him of his own limits and of the meaning of circumstances. There are no 'chance memories': out of the incalculable number of impressions which meet an individual, he chooses to remember only those which he feels, however darkly, to have a bearing on his situation. Thus, his memories represent his 'Story of My Life'; a story he repeats to himself to warn him or comfort him, to keep him concentrated on his goal, and to prepare him by means of past experiences, so that he will meet the future with an already tested style of action.
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dgb cont'd...
Compare the Adlerian statements above which appear in books that he wrote between about 1929 and 1933 (The Science of Life, What Life Should/Could Mean To You) with the ones found below which can be found in probably Freud's best paper on transference: 'The Dynamics of The Transference' (1912). Not surprisingly, Freud sexualizes the concept of transference which can very well be done with the concept of 'lifestyle' as well in particular contexts where issues of sexuality are involved (which they often are).
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Excerpt from...'The Dynamics of The Transference' (1912, Sigmund Freud, 'The Complete Works of Sigmund Freud', Standard Edition, Edited by James Strachey, and 'Essential Papers on Transference', edited by Aaron Esman, 1990, pg. 28)
It must be understood that each individual, through the combined operation of his innate disposition and the influences brought to bear on him during his early years, has acquired a specific method of his own in his conduct of his erotic life -- that is, in the preconditions to falling in love which he lays down, in the instincts he satisfies and the aims he sets himself in the course of it. This produces what might be described as a stereotype plate (or several such), which is constantly repeated -- constantly reprinted afresh -- in the course of the person's life, so far as external circumstances and the nature of the love-objects accessible to him permit, and which is certainly not entirely insusceptible to change in the face of recent experiences.
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dgb, cont'd...
Notice Freud's use of the term 'stereotype plate' which can be translated into the idea of a 'transference script'....and the idea of looking for a love partner to 'play out' a particular 'transference complex and/or game'...
Furthermore, notice that the Freud's idea of transference here is not too far away from Adler's concept of 'lifestyle' aside from the numerous differences in terms of Adlerian vs. Freudian assumptions and philosophy -- what I am calling the particular 'philosophical paradigm' of each which underlies the respective use of each of the two concepts by their respective creators.
Still, there is enough of a strength in the similarities of the two concepts to dialectically integrate them which is exactly what I went ahead and did under the name of GAP-(DGB) Psychology.
But in order to make this essential connection, this essential dialectic integration, I had to introduce an idea that neither Freud nor any Psychoanalyst after him has ever introduced (to my knowledge anyway -- the closest theorist might be Arthur Janov in 'The Primal Scream'). And that is the idea of 'transference-(lifestyle) memories' which can be equated with Alfred Adler's focus on 'conscious early memories' -- only interpreted differently, in this case, under the roof or paradigm of my dialectically integrative -- and still evolving GAP-DGB Psychology.
The closest work to this idea -- other than Arthur Janov who I haven't even really seriously read but who seems to have developed Freud's earliest idea of 'repressed memories' and 'traumacy theory'...are the original creators of this approach themselves, specifically: Breuer, Charcot, Janet, and Freud in their earliest work in the 1880s and 1890s involving hypnosis and the 'return of a repressed memory' that -- once conscious -- according to Freud and Breuer in 'Studies in Hysteria' (1893-1895) through the process of 'abreaction' and 'emotional catharsis' tended to alleviate if not fully eliminate the particular neurotic symptom(s) associated with the previously and long repressed memory that was just brought back to the patient's consciousness through the process of hypnosis -- and later 'free association'.
The only problem with this methodology is that over time, Freud found that oftentimes the patients' symptoms came back which eventually prompted Freud to search for other answers to this problem and eventually led him out of his traumacy theory, out of his later seduction (sexual traumacy) theory -- and into the realm of 'sexual fantasy' theory.
Freud's basic argument here was that the reason the patients' symptoms came back was that -- at some unconscious level still -- the patient wanted these symptoms to come back. And the reason he or she wanted the symptoms to come back is that they -- in some still unconscious way -- were hedonistically, narcissistically, and/or sexually gratifying. (My interpretation)
Consequently, after much inner turmoil (and critics like Masson who said that Freud abandoned his traumacy-seduction theory for political and economic reasons -- to perhaps cover up the incestuous activities of many of the 'fathers' that Freud was working with who were very esteemed doctors and who had political and economic power over the future of his career), Freud after a number of years, finally abandoned his Traumacy-Seduction Theory and turned to his evolving Sexual Fantasy, Sexual Stages, Dream, and Oedipal Theory...And basically, to all extents and purposes, left his Traumacy-Seduction Theory behind.
I opt for perhaps some combination of these reasons...but mainly I opt for Freud behaving ethically and following his clinical and theoretical reasoning process which was taking him into the realm of Sexual Fantasy Theory.
Now for all of my readers who have watched the program on tv called 'Criminal Minds', you will probably know that the FBI serial profilers who use many Psychoanalytic interpretations in their efforts to track down the serial sex criminals who they are pursuing -- focus on the 'sexual fantasies' of these criminals; not on the criminals' early life and early memory traumacies. The early childhood traumacies of these sexual predators becomes a secondary focus of investigation -- if even that.
Thus, there is obviously at least some justification for what Freud did when he turned his investigation and his theorizing into the realm of 'sexual fantasies'.
In short, and in Psychoanalytic terminology, serial sexual predators are playing out their 'narcissistic sexual transference neuroses' through the particular 'signature fantasies' of their particular sexual pathology.
There is one very important idea that comes from this development of reasoning: specifically, Freud's abandoned traumacy and seduction theory could be -- in fact, are -- dialectically united with his later sexual fantasy theory. Unfortunately, Freud never clearly saw this connection. Or if he did, he didn't write about it (although I believe he is on record as having said that he never entirely abandoned his traumacy-seduciton theory. He certainly knew that some childhood sexual assaults still happened. But it seemed to be a matter of 'percentage' and Freud seemed to think that most alleged or supposed childhood sexual assaults were fantasized but didn't actually happen. This was arguably Freud's biggest clinical and theoretical mistake but in fairness to him, only Ferenzci continued to write about them as being 'real' and the issue of 'child abuse' and 'childhood sexual assault' didn't start to seriously enter political discussions again until the rise of the women's movement, partly in the 1960s, and more forcefully with Jeffrey Masson writing the book that effectively ended his career as a Psychoanalyst -- 'Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of The Seduction Theory' (1984).
There is a further idea that needs to be developed here.
We have talked about the case of the serial sexual predator as 'repetitively playing out' the sexual fantasies of his 'extremely pathological transference neurosis'.
One of the signature features of a 'transference neurosis' is the 'repetitive and/or rec-creative and/or mastery compulsion' component of the neurosis.
Now the question needs to be clinically and theoretically asked: what about the victim in a childhood rape and/or seduction? Does he or she also develop what might be called a 'repetitive narcissistic transference neurosis'.
This was perhaps one of the most difficult clinical problems that Freud had to deal with -- and I think it might have been crucial in his decision to abandon his seduction-sexual assault theory in favor of his sexual fantasy and Oedipal Theory.
And perhaps Freud asked the wrong clinical question.
It was obvious that Freud -- most of whose patients were women -- was going to hear a lot of women's sexual fantasies in the course of his evolving Psychoanalytic -- case by case -- analysis.
Again the question has to be asked (but never, to my knowledge, really has been): how many 'seduction' and even 'rape' fantasies did Freud hear in the course of his many Psychoanalytic investigations.
Because a 'rape fantasy' would definitely have thrown Freud -- and any other clinician who was not familiar with this type of thing -- for a serious loop. How would he account for it?
You have to remember that Freud was following the scientific principle of the 'pleasure principle' at this point in time in his theorizing (1895). So the prospect of a woman coming into therapy and 'fantasizing a forceful and/or painful seduction and/or rape' would definitely to Freud at this time sound like a 'human contradiction of the pleasure principle'. (But he hadn't gotten into 'sadism' and 'masochism' at this point in time and probably never clearly understood the phenomenon of 'masochism' anyway as he eventually used 'the death instinct' to explain it in 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle' -- some 25 years later (1920).
So the question that Freud basically posed to himself (and to Fliess) was basically this: How could a woman who supposedly experienced a most terrifying and horrific seduction and/or rape as a small child later in her teenage and/or adult life experience this 'same type of supposedly horrific event' as a 'pleasurable sexual fantasy'. Freud's answer turned out to be basically this: the supposed 'seduction-rape' never happened; it was a figment of her unconscious imagination brought on by her combined 'normal' incestuous love and lust towards her father. But she had to deny 'personal responsibility' for this 'incestuous love/lust' so she 'unconsciously manipulated her false memory and real fantasy to make her father accountable for this love/lust'. In this way, she could avoid the obvious wrath of her 'Superego' and 'pleasure her Id' at the same time.
It's probably a 'bogus explanation'. A 'wrong explanation'. However -- for better or for worse -- it led Freud out of the realm of 'traumatic sexual memories' and into the realm of 'pleasurable sexual fantasies' -- and The Oedipal/Electra Complex.
Closer to the truth is probably my own 'narcissistic transference' explanation.
This explanation asserts that 'pleasurable adult sexual fantasies, fixations, and fetishes' often arise out of painful traumatic early childhood memories -- some sexual, others later sexualized in our teenage and adult years. And inherent in this explanation is a solution that Freud briefly came up with in 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle' before he abandoned it in favor of his still controversial 'death instinct'. He should have stuck with his first explanation which he probably viewed as taking him too close to Adlerian Theory. This was Freud's idea of 'the mastery compulsion' which could be easily connected to Adler's ideas of 'inferiority feeling', 'compensation', and 'superiority striving'.
But Freud didn't go there.
I have.
What my explanation offers better than Freud's did, is an answer to the following type of question:
Why would a woman (some women, obviously not all women) -- sexually victimized as a child --
take up the activity of 'prostitution' later in life as either a teenager and/or adult (the same question can also be asked relative to sexually victimized boys)?
Now obviously, we could say that money and/or food and/or shelter and/or drugs could all be a factor in leading a teenage girl or boy onto the street as a 'commodity' trading 'sex' for 'money, food, shelter, and/or drugs'.
But this explanation remains insufficient in itself.
The question needs to be asked: What is the relationship between childhood sexual assault and teenage/adult prostitution?
And the relationship can be described at least partly as this: Firstly, an already sexually victimized child has learned to treat him or herself as a 'sexual commodity'. Furthermore, there is this basic truism about all traumatic childhood memories: 1. We 'introject' the memory into our 'transference psyche'; 2. we introject both our own role as the 'victim' in the memory AND the role as 'victimizer' as well. Ferenczi and Anna Freud called this phenomenon 'identification with the aggressor
(victimizer, rejector, abandoner, abuser...)
The difference I am suggesting between a 'transference sexual assault' and a 'non-transference sexual assault' is that in the former case there is a 'counter-phobia' involved, a type of 'attraction back to the metaphorical scene of the childhood crime'.
I will go no deeper than this other than to suggest that there is a difference between the type of woman who is victimized at a later age and will quite likely develop a severely traumatic and phobic reaction depending perhaps partly on the severity of the case as opposed to the type of woman who seems to become victimized over and over and over again throughout her life. In the latter case, we are probably dealing with a 'transference assault victim', someone who was assaulted in rather early childhood as opposed to at a later time in life. Nothing is being stated definitively here other than to make a distinction that requires further investigation or the clinical knowledge of someone who is used to dealing with these types of cases.
As far as traumatic childhood memories in general, there exists in all of us a 'bipolar, dialectical nature' where we are all totally capable of playing either the victim and/or the victimizer in the metaphorical repetition of our traumatic childhood memories.
Enter Freud's brief concept of 'the mastery compulsion' in combination with Adler's ideas of 'inferiority (victimized) feeling, 'compensation', and 'superiority striving'.
Out of this comes my own idea of 'transference-reversal' or the idea of 'abusing and/or traumatizing others in the same way that we were abused and/or traumatized as children' which is basically another way of rewording the principle of 'identification with the aggressor/victimizer'.
There is a final point to be made here.
If we use only Aristolean logic, then we are faced with the question of who was right? Freud and his abandonment of the traumacy-seduction theory? Or Masson in saying that Freud was wrong in abandoning a theory that was better than his later 'sexual fantasy-Oedipal theory'?
However, if we think dialectically, then we become capable of seeing that Aristotle in his 'either/or' logic left out the possibility of an 'excluded integrative middle'. Using this perspective, we see that perhaps there is a very real chance that both Freud's traumacy-seduction theory and his later sexual fantasy theory had elements of truth in them, and furthermore, perhaps men's and women's adult fantasies are spawned at least partly out of a wish to compensate for their childhood traumatic memories. Call this traumatic memory a 'narcissistic (self-esteem) injury' and call the adult fantasy a 'compensatory mastery compulsion' aimed at reversing the self-esteem damage of the narcissistic childhood injury.
I will leave you to ponder over these thoughts for a while.
-- dgb, Dec. 1st, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process....
Monday, November 30, 2009
In Hegel's Hotel....
In Hegel's Hotel, philosophers and psychologists from the past get to walk and talk in the lobby with each other, engage in passionate discussions with each other, attend conferences together, debate differences of opinion with each other...and integrate their ideas with each other...creating new 'conceptual mutations and evolutions and diversities and convergences...'
I am the architect of Hegel's Hotel. And the builder. And the innkeeper. And the host. And the conflict mediator. And the bouncer...
Today these philosophers and psychologists cannot speak for themselves. But their work still can. And I have taken the liberty to represent their work as best as I can -- critiquing it when I feel these critiques are justified and necessary.
In particular, I have taken the liberty to represent Hegel's ideas to the best of my evolving knowledge and ability...and to disentangle, modify, embellish, humanize, and existentialize these ideas when such action on my part seems warranted.
My type of epistemological and ethical idealism doesn't completely gel with Hegel's.
And I don't believe in the idea of living 'from the neck up' looking for some form of 'Absolute Knowledge' inside my brain....that doesn't engage with the outside world...Plato made this mistake...And Hegel followed suit...
Still the birth of existentialism can be found in Hegel's description of the 'master/slave' relationship.
And there is a special dialectic spirit and process in the confines of Hegel's classic work, 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' that is arguably the pinnacle of Western Philosophy...
It is this spirit -- this dialectic-democratic-humanistic-existential spirit -- that I wish to continue and further develop in Hegel's Hotel...
In the words of Maurice Marleau-Ponty,
'All the great philosophical ideas of the past century -- the philosophies of Marx and Nietzsche, phenomenology, German existentialism, and psychoanalysis -- had their beginnings in Hegel...No task in the cultural order is more urgent than re-establishing the connection between, on the one hand, the thankless doctrines which try to forget their Hegelian origins and, on the other hand, that origin itself.' -- Maurice Marleau-Ponty (Lloyd Spencer, Introducing Hegel, 2006, pg. 158)
-- dgb, Nov. 30th, 2009
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
I am the architect of Hegel's Hotel. And the builder. And the innkeeper. And the host. And the conflict mediator. And the bouncer...
Today these philosophers and psychologists cannot speak for themselves. But their work still can. And I have taken the liberty to represent their work as best as I can -- critiquing it when I feel these critiques are justified and necessary.
In particular, I have taken the liberty to represent Hegel's ideas to the best of my evolving knowledge and ability...and to disentangle, modify, embellish, humanize, and existentialize these ideas when such action on my part seems warranted.
My type of epistemological and ethical idealism doesn't completely gel with Hegel's.
And I don't believe in the idea of living 'from the neck up' looking for some form of 'Absolute Knowledge' inside my brain....that doesn't engage with the outside world...Plato made this mistake...And Hegel followed suit...
Still the birth of existentialism can be found in Hegel's description of the 'master/slave' relationship.
And there is a special dialectic spirit and process in the confines of Hegel's classic work, 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' that is arguably the pinnacle of Western Philosophy...
It is this spirit -- this dialectic-democratic-humanistic-existential spirit -- that I wish to continue and further develop in Hegel's Hotel...
In the words of Maurice Marleau-Ponty,
'All the great philosophical ideas of the past century -- the philosophies of Marx and Nietzsche, phenomenology, German existentialism, and psychoanalysis -- had their beginnings in Hegel...No task in the cultural order is more urgent than re-establishing the connection between, on the one hand, the thankless doctrines which try to forget their Hegelian origins and, on the other hand, that origin itself.' -- Maurice Marleau-Ponty (Lloyd Spencer, Introducing Hegel, 2006, pg. 158)
-- dgb, Nov. 30th, 2009
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
Two Types of 'Existential Crises'...
There are two types of existential crises...
One is the type where we fail to actualize our 'essence'...and feel ourselves starting to run out of time...
This is where we stand at the edge of the Nietzschean cliff of 'non-being'...
And lack the necessary courage to take the leap or make the climb to the other side of the Nietzschean abyss to the cliff of 'being' and 'becoming'...
The second type of existential crisis is where we do take the Nietzschean leap of courage....
And we find we can't make it to the other side...
We stretch our hands and legs...and no cliff...
Just air....and the feeling of falling...
And falling...
And falling....
And in the midst of our existential panic...
We think to ourselves...
Maybe alienation and 'non-being' wasn't so bad after all...
Please God, put me back on the cliff of 'non-being'....
Because it is better than the type of 'non-being'...
That awaits me at the bottom of this abyss!!
So much for Nietzschean existential courage!!!
-- dgb, Nov. 30th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
One is the type where we fail to actualize our 'essence'...and feel ourselves starting to run out of time...
This is where we stand at the edge of the Nietzschean cliff of 'non-being'...
And lack the necessary courage to take the leap or make the climb to the other side of the Nietzschean abyss to the cliff of 'being' and 'becoming'...
The second type of existential crisis is where we do take the Nietzschean leap of courage....
And we find we can't make it to the other side...
We stretch our hands and legs...and no cliff...
Just air....and the feeling of falling...
And falling...
And falling....
And in the midst of our existential panic...
We think to ourselves...
Maybe alienation and 'non-being' wasn't so bad after all...
Please God, put me back on the cliff of 'non-being'....
Because it is better than the type of 'non-being'...
That awaits me at the bottom of this abyss!!
So much for Nietzschean existential courage!!!
-- dgb, Nov. 30th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
On The Difference Between 'Conflict' From a Freudian, a Gestalt, a Jungian, and an Adlerian Perspective...
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
-- Soren Kierkegaard's famous critique of Hegel's 'Historical Dialectic Determinism'...
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When I graduated from The University of Waterloo with an Honours B.A. in Psychology in 1979, I was looking for somewhere other than a university setting to continue my studies and training in psychology. I became involved with both The Adlerian Institute in Ontario and The Gestalt Institute of Toronto at the same time -- 1980.
The contrast in perspective and training procedure was significant between the Adlerian Institute (which offered a more 'standard, more or less formal approach to teaching and learning' operating out of OISE which had connections to The University of Toronto while the Aderlian Institute of Ontario was also associated with its home base -- The Adlerian Institute in Chicago) and The Gestalt Institute (which offered a much more informal, casual, and experiential approach to teaching and learning Gestalt Therapy. The Gestalt Institute in Toronto operated like Gestalt Institutes everywhere including where Gestalt Therapy first really established a home for itself at The Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California).
My Freudian education at this point in time was pretty basic -- just what I had learned like everyone else in Introductory Psychology classes at practically any university. So Freud, for me at this point in time, was not really in the picture. My focus was on Humanistic Psychology and Cognitive Therapy (of which the latter included Rational Emotive Therapy and General Semantics primarily).
So here I was in 1980 learning two different schools of psychology -- both professing to believe in the principle of 'unity in the personality' and yet it was entirely obvious to me within a very short period of time that Gestalt Therapy was operating under a 'dualistic-conflict' model whereas Adlerian Psychology was -- at least on the surface of things -- much more 'monistic' and 'wholistic' and at this point in time I would say 'Spinozian' as opposed to both Psychoanalysis and Gestalt Therapy which tend to follow a much more 'Hegelian Dualistic and Dialectically Integrative Model'.
So when Adlerian Psychology talks about 'unity in the personality', it is talking about 'monistic unity' in the personality and combined with this -- the idea of 'pseudo-conflict' rather than real conflict in the personality.
In contrast, when Psychoanalysis and/or Gestalt Therapy talk about 'unity in the personality', they are talking about the idea of a 'dualistic and dialectic unity and wholism in the personality' that is only arrived at in states of 'psychological health' and usually through the process of 'dialectic psychotherapy' as opposed to the opposite state of affairs -- 'neurotic and/or psychotic conflict' -- which exists in most of us most of the times as we attempt to battle ourselves through this 'anxiety neurosis' or that 'narcissistic neurosis' or this 'distancing (anal schizoid) neurosis'... Or in post-Nietzschean terminology, this 'Apollonian Neurosis' (too anal retentive) or that 'Dionysian Neurosis' (not anal retentive enough, not self-controlling enough, too hedonistic, too narcissistic, too impulsive, too addictive in whatever the person's particular 'realm of addiction' might be...)
If we add Jungian Psychology into the mix here -- also developed according to a post-Hegelian dualistic-dialectic model, then we would distinguish between our 'Persona' and our 'Shadow' which worded a little differently might be viewed as our 'Dominant Ego State' (Persona) vs. our 'Suppressed, Marginalized Ego State' (our Shadow).
In Freudian Psychoanalysis, we might also talk about the type of dualistic and dialectic conflict that exists between our 'Superego' (social conscience) and our 'Id' (our biological instincts, drives, impulses) or later in Freudian Theory, we might talk about the type of dualistic-dialectic conflict that might exist between our 'Life Instinct' (tendency towards our survival and sex instincts) and our 'Death Instinct' (tendency towards aggression, destruction, and self-destruction) although, as pointed out earlier in Freudian theory, our Survival Instincts and our Sex Instincts can also be at war with each other such as when our social and ethical conscience conflicts with our wish , impulse, drive, 'need' for sexual gratification).
And in Gestalt Therapy, we might talk about the type of conflict that exists between our 'Topdog' (Righteous, scolding, sometime ruthless and self-torturing) and our 'Underdog' ('Yes/But'...rebellious, often manipulative mixing approval-seeking methods with passive-aggressive and/or covertly rebellious methods...always breaking the rules and advice of the Topdog...in the name of pleasure-seeking and freedom primarily...)
Which brings us to Adlerian Psychology.
Adlerian Psychology has a different view on conflict. Or perhaps Adlerian Psychology is focusing on a different type of human conflict than the types of conflict that we have discussed above relative to different forms of 'Hegelian Dualistic-Dialectic Conflict'.
The type of conflict that Adlerian Psychology usually focuses on and describes might be called the 'Neurotic Two-Step' Conflict. And it might also be called a 'Pseudo-Conflict'. We have an idea, a goal, and/or a plan in mind. We take one step forward to act on the idea. Like a high school boy at a dance taking one step forward to ask a girl across the room to dance. Then we get 'second thoughts' on this matter, and 'self-doubt' enters into the picture. So we stop dead in our tracks like the high school boy who loses courage upon taking a step forward towards the other side of the room. We step backwards. He steps backwards. Net result. No gain. No advancement. The status quo remains the same. We are in the same spot again where we started. The boy is in the same spot he was before he started towards the other side of the room. We again are holding up the wall as the 'wanted to have courage but ran out of courage' high school boy is again holding up the dance floor wall on his side of the room. He watches as some other boy asks his intended dance partner to dance. She says yes. And he is/we are left kicking himself/ourselves for not having more courage.
This is 'The Neurotic Two Step' and the type of conflict that Adlerian Psychology usually describes. In some cases, a person will go through almost his or her entire life playing The Neurotic Two Step Dance or Game...with the same outcome...One step forward...one step backwards...we are back where we started from. If this type of 'dance' happens over and over again in our lives, we can hardly call it a 'legitimate conflict'. It is more like a 'pseudo-conflict' resulting in entropy. No movement except a 'little two step' to seemingly trick ourselves and/or others into actually believing that we had other more courageous intentions. But our ultimate motto is: Better safe than sorry. That is our lifestyle philosophy.
Until one day our 'wanna be' and our 'could be' becomes a 'could have been' and 'should have been'...I could have been what I 'wanted to be'...and I 'could have been great'...but instead I am still doing what 'I don't want to be'...and I don't feel so great...
Call that an 'existential neurosis' if you want.
Potentially leading to an 'existential crisis'....
When our 'essence' didn't meet -- didn't contactfully and dialectically engage -- with our 'existence'.
Or stated oppositely, when our 'existence' didn't meet up to the wondrous potential of our 'essence'.
Does 'existence precede essence'?
No. Our essence precedes existence just as the sperm and the egg precede the conception and birth of a new human being. However, once the two are on board with each other -- our essence providing our spirit and our existence actualizing and spreading our spirit -- then the two need to continuously dialectically engage with each other for us to be in harmony with ourselves.
A life without an expression of our essence is a life without meaning, a life without spirit.
Our existence -- ideally -- is the internal and external expression of our essence.
An existence that alienates us from our spirit, our essence, is a life devoid of feeling and meaning.
'Work' that expresses our spirit, our essence, is 'self-actualizing' or 'self-fulfilling' work.
'Work' that does not express our spirit, our essence, is 'self-alienating' work...
Sometime we need to simply leap or climb across the Nietzschean 'abyss' -- from the cliff of 'non-being' and 'alienation' to the cliff of 'being' and 'becoming'.
That takes courage.
The courage of the high school boy (or girl) walking across the dance floor room to engage with the person of his or her attraction.
While the rest of us who don't show this type of courage and initiative -- engage in The Neurotic Two Step.
And torture ourselves afterwards for wishing we hadn't -- for wishing that we hadn't done the same thing, the same neurotic two step dance, that we have probably done thousands and thousands of times before...
-- dgb, Nov. 30th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
.......................................................................................................................
More Quotes By Soren Kierkegaard
A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him.
Soren Kierkegaard
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
Soren Kierkegaard
At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.
Soren Kierkegaard
Be that self which one truly is.
Soren Kierkegaard
Because of its tremendous solemnity death is the light in which great passions, both good and bad, become transparent, no longer limited by outward appearences.
Soren Kierkegaard
Boredom is the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself.
Soren Kierkegaard
Concepts, like individuals, have their histories and are just as incapable of withstanding the ravages of time as are individuals. But in and through all this they retain a kind of homesickness for the scenes of their childhood.
Soren Kierkegaard
Don't forget to love yourself.
Soren Kierkegaard
During the first period of a man's life the greatest danger is not to take the risk.
Soren Kierkegaard
Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.
Soren Kierkegaard
Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.
Soren Kierkegaard
Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good.
Soren Kierkegaard
God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.
Soren Kierkegaard
How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.
Soren Kierkegaard
I begin with the principle that all men are bores. Surely no one will prove himself so great a bore as to contradict me in this.
Soren Kierkegaard
I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved.
Soren Kierkegaard
I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations - one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it - you will regret both.
Soren Kierkegaard
If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe.
Soren Kierkegaard
It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite.
Soren Kierkegaard
It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey.
Soren Kierkegaard
-- Soren Kierkegaard's famous critique of Hegel's 'Historical Dialectic Determinism'...
...........................................................................................................................
When I graduated from The University of Waterloo with an Honours B.A. in Psychology in 1979, I was looking for somewhere other than a university setting to continue my studies and training in psychology. I became involved with both The Adlerian Institute in Ontario and The Gestalt Institute of Toronto at the same time -- 1980.
The contrast in perspective and training procedure was significant between the Adlerian Institute (which offered a more 'standard, more or less formal approach to teaching and learning' operating out of OISE which had connections to The University of Toronto while the Aderlian Institute of Ontario was also associated with its home base -- The Adlerian Institute in Chicago) and The Gestalt Institute (which offered a much more informal, casual, and experiential approach to teaching and learning Gestalt Therapy. The Gestalt Institute in Toronto operated like Gestalt Institutes everywhere including where Gestalt Therapy first really established a home for itself at The Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California).
My Freudian education at this point in time was pretty basic -- just what I had learned like everyone else in Introductory Psychology classes at practically any university. So Freud, for me at this point in time, was not really in the picture. My focus was on Humanistic Psychology and Cognitive Therapy (of which the latter included Rational Emotive Therapy and General Semantics primarily).
So here I was in 1980 learning two different schools of psychology -- both professing to believe in the principle of 'unity in the personality' and yet it was entirely obvious to me within a very short period of time that Gestalt Therapy was operating under a 'dualistic-conflict' model whereas Adlerian Psychology was -- at least on the surface of things -- much more 'monistic' and 'wholistic' and at this point in time I would say 'Spinozian' as opposed to both Psychoanalysis and Gestalt Therapy which tend to follow a much more 'Hegelian Dualistic and Dialectically Integrative Model'.
So when Adlerian Psychology talks about 'unity in the personality', it is talking about 'monistic unity' in the personality and combined with this -- the idea of 'pseudo-conflict' rather than real conflict in the personality.
In contrast, when Psychoanalysis and/or Gestalt Therapy talk about 'unity in the personality', they are talking about the idea of a 'dualistic and dialectic unity and wholism in the personality' that is only arrived at in states of 'psychological health' and usually through the process of 'dialectic psychotherapy' as opposed to the opposite state of affairs -- 'neurotic and/or psychotic conflict' -- which exists in most of us most of the times as we attempt to battle ourselves through this 'anxiety neurosis' or that 'narcissistic neurosis' or this 'distancing (anal schizoid) neurosis'... Or in post-Nietzschean terminology, this 'Apollonian Neurosis' (too anal retentive) or that 'Dionysian Neurosis' (not anal retentive enough, not self-controlling enough, too hedonistic, too narcissistic, too impulsive, too addictive in whatever the person's particular 'realm of addiction' might be...)
If we add Jungian Psychology into the mix here -- also developed according to a post-Hegelian dualistic-dialectic model, then we would distinguish between our 'Persona' and our 'Shadow' which worded a little differently might be viewed as our 'Dominant Ego State' (Persona) vs. our 'Suppressed, Marginalized Ego State' (our Shadow).
In Freudian Psychoanalysis, we might also talk about the type of dualistic and dialectic conflict that exists between our 'Superego' (social conscience) and our 'Id' (our biological instincts, drives, impulses) or later in Freudian Theory, we might talk about the type of dualistic-dialectic conflict that might exist between our 'Life Instinct' (tendency towards our survival and sex instincts) and our 'Death Instinct' (tendency towards aggression, destruction, and self-destruction) although, as pointed out earlier in Freudian theory, our Survival Instincts and our Sex Instincts can also be at war with each other such as when our social and ethical conscience conflicts with our wish , impulse, drive, 'need' for sexual gratification).
And in Gestalt Therapy, we might talk about the type of conflict that exists between our 'Topdog' (Righteous, scolding, sometime ruthless and self-torturing) and our 'Underdog' ('Yes/But'...rebellious, often manipulative mixing approval-seeking methods with passive-aggressive and/or covertly rebellious methods...always breaking the rules and advice of the Topdog...in the name of pleasure-seeking and freedom primarily...)
Which brings us to Adlerian Psychology.
Adlerian Psychology has a different view on conflict. Or perhaps Adlerian Psychology is focusing on a different type of human conflict than the types of conflict that we have discussed above relative to different forms of 'Hegelian Dualistic-Dialectic Conflict'.
The type of conflict that Adlerian Psychology usually focuses on and describes might be called the 'Neurotic Two-Step' Conflict. And it might also be called a 'Pseudo-Conflict'. We have an idea, a goal, and/or a plan in mind. We take one step forward to act on the idea. Like a high school boy at a dance taking one step forward to ask a girl across the room to dance. Then we get 'second thoughts' on this matter, and 'self-doubt' enters into the picture. So we stop dead in our tracks like the high school boy who loses courage upon taking a step forward towards the other side of the room. We step backwards. He steps backwards. Net result. No gain. No advancement. The status quo remains the same. We are in the same spot again where we started. The boy is in the same spot he was before he started towards the other side of the room. We again are holding up the wall as the 'wanted to have courage but ran out of courage' high school boy is again holding up the dance floor wall on his side of the room. He watches as some other boy asks his intended dance partner to dance. She says yes. And he is/we are left kicking himself/ourselves for not having more courage.
This is 'The Neurotic Two Step' and the type of conflict that Adlerian Psychology usually describes. In some cases, a person will go through almost his or her entire life playing The Neurotic Two Step Dance or Game...with the same outcome...One step forward...one step backwards...we are back where we started from. If this type of 'dance' happens over and over again in our lives, we can hardly call it a 'legitimate conflict'. It is more like a 'pseudo-conflict' resulting in entropy. No movement except a 'little two step' to seemingly trick ourselves and/or others into actually believing that we had other more courageous intentions. But our ultimate motto is: Better safe than sorry. That is our lifestyle philosophy.
Until one day our 'wanna be' and our 'could be' becomes a 'could have been' and 'should have been'...I could have been what I 'wanted to be'...and I 'could have been great'...but instead I am still doing what 'I don't want to be'...and I don't feel so great...
Call that an 'existential neurosis' if you want.
Potentially leading to an 'existential crisis'....
When our 'essence' didn't meet -- didn't contactfully and dialectically engage -- with our 'existence'.
Or stated oppositely, when our 'existence' didn't meet up to the wondrous potential of our 'essence'.
Does 'existence precede essence'?
No. Our essence precedes existence just as the sperm and the egg precede the conception and birth of a new human being. However, once the two are on board with each other -- our essence providing our spirit and our existence actualizing and spreading our spirit -- then the two need to continuously dialectically engage with each other for us to be in harmony with ourselves.
A life without an expression of our essence is a life without meaning, a life without spirit.
Our existence -- ideally -- is the internal and external expression of our essence.
An existence that alienates us from our spirit, our essence, is a life devoid of feeling and meaning.
'Work' that expresses our spirit, our essence, is 'self-actualizing' or 'self-fulfilling' work.
'Work' that does not express our spirit, our essence, is 'self-alienating' work...
Sometime we need to simply leap or climb across the Nietzschean 'abyss' -- from the cliff of 'non-being' and 'alienation' to the cliff of 'being' and 'becoming'.
That takes courage.
The courage of the high school boy (or girl) walking across the dance floor room to engage with the person of his or her attraction.
While the rest of us who don't show this type of courage and initiative -- engage in The Neurotic Two Step.
And torture ourselves afterwards for wishing we hadn't -- for wishing that we hadn't done the same thing, the same neurotic two step dance, that we have probably done thousands and thousands of times before...
-- dgb, Nov. 30th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
.......................................................................................................................
More Quotes By Soren Kierkegaard
A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him.
Soren Kierkegaard
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
Soren Kierkegaard
At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.
Soren Kierkegaard
Be that self which one truly is.
Soren Kierkegaard
Because of its tremendous solemnity death is the light in which great passions, both good and bad, become transparent, no longer limited by outward appearences.
Soren Kierkegaard
Boredom is the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself.
Soren Kierkegaard
Concepts, like individuals, have their histories and are just as incapable of withstanding the ravages of time as are individuals. But in and through all this they retain a kind of homesickness for the scenes of their childhood.
Soren Kierkegaard
Don't forget to love yourself.
Soren Kierkegaard
During the first period of a man's life the greatest danger is not to take the risk.
Soren Kierkegaard
Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.
Soren Kierkegaard
Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.
Soren Kierkegaard
Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good.
Soren Kierkegaard
God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.
Soren Kierkegaard
How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.
Soren Kierkegaard
I begin with the principle that all men are bores. Surely no one will prove himself so great a bore as to contradict me in this.
Soren Kierkegaard
I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved.
Soren Kierkegaard
I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations - one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it - you will regret both.
Soren Kierkegaard
If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe.
Soren Kierkegaard
It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite.
Soren Kierkegaard
It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey.
Soren Kierkegaard
Saturday, November 28, 2009
On Some of The Similarities, Differences, and Potential Integrations of Freudian Psychoanalysis and Adlerian Psychology
Just finished...Nov. 29th, 2009.
Freud and Adler -- once co-workers, then competitors -- each with his own particular vision of clinical psychology and particularly personality theory, psychological health, psychopathology, and psychotherapy.
Their respective psychologies, once more or less fully developed, were a study in opposites, specifically:
1. Freud's psychology was a study in human conflict, primarily between the 'id' (man's biological instincts and resulting hedonistic, narcissistic, and aggressive-violent impulses) and between 'the 'superego' (man's ethical, legal, and social conscience -- primarily his view of what is 'right' and 'wrong', 'good' and 'bad' -- from a family, community, political and cultural perspective, as well as what is dangerous to his or her own self-preservation); in contrast, Adler's psychology is a study in 'wholism', 'unity in the personality', 'and a united course of action' -- each individual's aiming all of his or her particular main thoughts and courses of action towards some abstract and/or more particular unique 'fictional final goal' -- his or her 'lifestyle goal' -- as established early in childhood, through conscious as opposed to unconscious memories of early life experiences, through the 'family constellation' which involves the person's unique 'position' in the family and all which that entails relative to other family members, and 'pursued in a primary teleological, purposeful line of action' -- the person's unique line of 'superiority striving' aimed at 'compensating' for underlying feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, insufficiency, inferiority...the whole package of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors coming together in the person's 'lifestyle package or plan' aimed ultimately towards the fulfillment of his or her individual lifestyle goal/fictional finalized goal...(That was one very long sentence...I hope I didn't lose you...we will come back to more of the specifics in due time...);
2. Freud's psychology originated in the dualistic and dialectic thinking of Hegel (thesis/id, anti-thesis/superego, synthesis/ego) combined with some Nietzschean and Schopenhauerean ('bi-polar tragedy', Apollo vs. Dionysus, and overpowering irrationality) philosophy as well. In contrast, Adler's philosophy can be equated more with Spinoza's 'wholistic, rationalistic' philosophy as well as the ancient Greek philosophy of Epictetus ('Man is not disturbed by things but by the view he takes of them.'). Plus there is a more 'religious-spiritual-altruistic-social interest-community basis' providing the foundation for Adlerian Psychology whereas Freud's psychology is more a psychology that emphasizes the inherent instability of man's psyche and his tendency towards anti-social behavior, hedonistic-narcissistic behavior, as well as self and social destruction (see his 'death instinct' from 1920, 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle'). In this regard, Freud's is a more pessimistic philosophy and psychology vs. Adler's more optimistic philosophy and psychology;
3. Freud's is a 'push' psychology -- we are pushed by our 'instincts', 'drives', and 'impulses'; whereas Adler's is a 'pull' psychology -- we are pulled by our 'goals', our 'plans', our 'superiority striving', our 'teleology';
4. Freud's is a 'deterministic' psychology -- we are 'determined' by our genetics, our instincts, our fantasies, in combination with our early childhood experiences and social learning; Adler's is a more 'free-will' psychology -- we all have the freedom to change the direction of our life path if we want to badly enough and have the support to do so;
5. Freud believed in the imperative causal determinants of 'unconscious, repressed memories and fantasies'; in contrast, Adler believe in the metaphorical importance of our 'conscious early memories' in reflecting or projecting the direction of our 'fictional final goal' or worded otherwise, our 'lifestyle goal and path';
6. One of Freud's most important concepts was the concept of 'transference' which in hidden ways bears strong similarities to Adler's main concept of 'lifestyle' -- but in ways that have never before, at least to my knowledge, been properly addressed and discussed in the literature. This is where DGB Pyschology steps in and provides its 'Hegelian dialectic influence'. Having some training (Adlerian Psychology, Gestalt Therapy) and/or self-education in both Psychoanalysis and Adlerian Psychology, I feel that I am in a rather unique position to provide the type of 'transference-lifestyle' dialectic integration that I am talking about here. The 'mental and logical gyrations' required to get from point A (transference) to point B (lifestyle) are significant because Freud changed the meaning of his concept of 'transference' as his overall Psychoananlytic Theory changed around his concept of transference. Perhaps in this process here, I am even giving to the term 'transference' a meaning that Freud never gave it. But in some ways, it is like Adler went back to Freud's abandoned 'traumacy theory' (just as Arthur Janov did, and Fritz Perls did, and all of the new 'Traumacy and/or Seduction Theorists' have) and built his concept of 'inferiority feeling' and 'superiority striving' from it. Closely related to Adler's concept of 'superiority striving' was Freud's fleeting concept of the 'mastery compulsion' (1920, Beyond The Pleasure Principle). Wedged between the three concepts of 'inferiority feeling', 'superiority striving' and 'mastery compulsion' was one of Adler's other most important concepts of 'compensation'.
7. So how do these ideas all come together? To begin with -- lots of 'dialectic interplay' between Freudian and Adlerian concepts which can be further extended outwards to include Perls and Gestalt Therapy ('the unfinished situation'), Jung (the Shadow and Persona), Melanie Klein (different 'ego positions' like 'the depressive position', the 'paranoid position' and I would add others like 'the approval-seeking position', 'the anal-schizoid or distancing position', 'the rebellious, narcissistic-hedonistic bad boy or bad girl position'), Fairbairn's 'The Rejecting-Exciting Object/Topdog/Superego', Eric Berne's 'The Nurturing Parent' (Topdog/Superego)...The Narcissistic-Hedonistic Topdog/Superego...and more...
8. A distinction needs to be made between 'transference relationships' and 'transference memories'. As soon as we add the concept of 'transference memories' to Freud's work, then the linking connection between this concept and Adler's concept of 'lifestyle memories' starts to become more easily discernable. We need simply take one further step out of the realm of the unconscious and the repressed (Freud) and into the realm of the conscious or subconscious (Adler) and mix all of the concepts together that are mentioned briefly above -- and voila -- DGB Psychology using its dialectic process has started to 'dialectically bridge the gap' between Freud, Adler, Jung, Klein, Fairbairn, Berne, Janov, Perls, and more...
9. And one further thing we need to do: dialectically integrate Freud's Traumacy and Seduction Theories with his later Narcissistic and Narcissistic Fantasy Theories...i.e, dialectically bridge the gap essentially between Freud and Masson.
10. Now, I know that I have left about 99 percent of you trying to grapple with all these abstract implied connections above that obviously need to be fleshed out if there is to be any real communication here, it seems apparent also that we need a case example to illustrate some of these various connections that I am trying to bring together in one super-integrative philosophical and psychological package. Does anyone want to step up to the plate and be my guinea pig? Be my case example?
Speak up, anyone, while I mull over an alternative plan that I don't really like...
We can all sit on these ideas for a day or two before I take this huge range of different but interconnected ideas to the next level of multi-dialectic-democratic-integration.
Perhaps Hegel was right. And partly even Plato...Perhaps hidden in the depths of our collective minds and souls is an integrative potential source of knowledge that is so great, so powerful, that it almost deserves to be called 'Absolute Knowledge' ...Except man's full psychological nature is still too vast and mystical to fully comprehend even by the combined efforts of all the greatest psychologists and philosophers.
In this regard, I prefer the term 'Multi-Integrative-Dialectic Knowledge'.
Perhaps collectively, the full range and focus of psychological knowledge that has been put together by all of the 'Psychological Superstars' mentioned above...and more: people like Freud, Adler, Jung, Rank, Theodor and Wilhelm Reik, Ferenczi, Karen Horney, Klein, Fairbairn, Sullivan, Winnicott, Guntrip, Berne, Kohut, Janov, Aaron Beck, George Kelley, Albert Ellis, Fritz and Laura Perls, Hefferline, Goodman, Virginia Satir, Erich Fromm, Maxwell Maltz, Nathaniel Branden, Sartre, Carl Rogers, Rollo May, Abraham Maslow and the rest of the Humanists and the Humanistic-Existentialists...Even the Behaviorists and a better from my perspective, the 'Cognitive Behaviorists'...one of whom I wrote my Honours Thesis for -- Dr. Donald Meichenbaum.
I will let you ponder on these rather obscure thoughts and connections for now...
And on that note, I will bid you a goodnight...
-- dgb, Nov. 29th, 2009,
-- david gordon bain
-- dialectic gap-bridging negotiations...
-- are still in process...
Freud and Adler -- once co-workers, then competitors -- each with his own particular vision of clinical psychology and particularly personality theory, psychological health, psychopathology, and psychotherapy.
Their respective psychologies, once more or less fully developed, were a study in opposites, specifically:
1. Freud's psychology was a study in human conflict, primarily between the 'id' (man's biological instincts and resulting hedonistic, narcissistic, and aggressive-violent impulses) and between 'the 'superego' (man's ethical, legal, and social conscience -- primarily his view of what is 'right' and 'wrong', 'good' and 'bad' -- from a family, community, political and cultural perspective, as well as what is dangerous to his or her own self-preservation); in contrast, Adler's psychology is a study in 'wholism', 'unity in the personality', 'and a united course of action' -- each individual's aiming all of his or her particular main thoughts and courses of action towards some abstract and/or more particular unique 'fictional final goal' -- his or her 'lifestyle goal' -- as established early in childhood, through conscious as opposed to unconscious memories of early life experiences, through the 'family constellation' which involves the person's unique 'position' in the family and all which that entails relative to other family members, and 'pursued in a primary teleological, purposeful line of action' -- the person's unique line of 'superiority striving' aimed at 'compensating' for underlying feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, insufficiency, inferiority...the whole package of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors coming together in the person's 'lifestyle package or plan' aimed ultimately towards the fulfillment of his or her individual lifestyle goal/fictional finalized goal...(That was one very long sentence...I hope I didn't lose you...we will come back to more of the specifics in due time...);
2. Freud's psychology originated in the dualistic and dialectic thinking of Hegel (thesis/id, anti-thesis/superego, synthesis/ego) combined with some Nietzschean and Schopenhauerean ('bi-polar tragedy', Apollo vs. Dionysus, and overpowering irrationality) philosophy as well. In contrast, Adler's philosophy can be equated more with Spinoza's 'wholistic, rationalistic' philosophy as well as the ancient Greek philosophy of Epictetus ('Man is not disturbed by things but by the view he takes of them.'). Plus there is a more 'religious-spiritual-altruistic-social interest-community basis' providing the foundation for Adlerian Psychology whereas Freud's psychology is more a psychology that emphasizes the inherent instability of man's psyche and his tendency towards anti-social behavior, hedonistic-narcissistic behavior, as well as self and social destruction (see his 'death instinct' from 1920, 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle'). In this regard, Freud's is a more pessimistic philosophy and psychology vs. Adler's more optimistic philosophy and psychology;
3. Freud's is a 'push' psychology -- we are pushed by our 'instincts', 'drives', and 'impulses'; whereas Adler's is a 'pull' psychology -- we are pulled by our 'goals', our 'plans', our 'superiority striving', our 'teleology';
4. Freud's is a 'deterministic' psychology -- we are 'determined' by our genetics, our instincts, our fantasies, in combination with our early childhood experiences and social learning; Adler's is a more 'free-will' psychology -- we all have the freedom to change the direction of our life path if we want to badly enough and have the support to do so;
5. Freud believed in the imperative causal determinants of 'unconscious, repressed memories and fantasies'; in contrast, Adler believe in the metaphorical importance of our 'conscious early memories' in reflecting or projecting the direction of our 'fictional final goal' or worded otherwise, our 'lifestyle goal and path';
6. One of Freud's most important concepts was the concept of 'transference' which in hidden ways bears strong similarities to Adler's main concept of 'lifestyle' -- but in ways that have never before, at least to my knowledge, been properly addressed and discussed in the literature. This is where DGB Pyschology steps in and provides its 'Hegelian dialectic influence'. Having some training (Adlerian Psychology, Gestalt Therapy) and/or self-education in both Psychoanalysis and Adlerian Psychology, I feel that I am in a rather unique position to provide the type of 'transference-lifestyle' dialectic integration that I am talking about here. The 'mental and logical gyrations' required to get from point A (transference) to point B (lifestyle) are significant because Freud changed the meaning of his concept of 'transference' as his overall Psychoananlytic Theory changed around his concept of transference. Perhaps in this process here, I am even giving to the term 'transference' a meaning that Freud never gave it. But in some ways, it is like Adler went back to Freud's abandoned 'traumacy theory' (just as Arthur Janov did, and Fritz Perls did, and all of the new 'Traumacy and/or Seduction Theorists' have) and built his concept of 'inferiority feeling' and 'superiority striving' from it. Closely related to Adler's concept of 'superiority striving' was Freud's fleeting concept of the 'mastery compulsion' (1920, Beyond The Pleasure Principle). Wedged between the three concepts of 'inferiority feeling', 'superiority striving' and 'mastery compulsion' was one of Adler's other most important concepts of 'compensation'.
7. So how do these ideas all come together? To begin with -- lots of 'dialectic interplay' between Freudian and Adlerian concepts which can be further extended outwards to include Perls and Gestalt Therapy ('the unfinished situation'), Jung (the Shadow and Persona), Melanie Klein (different 'ego positions' like 'the depressive position', the 'paranoid position' and I would add others like 'the approval-seeking position', 'the anal-schizoid or distancing position', 'the rebellious, narcissistic-hedonistic bad boy or bad girl position'), Fairbairn's 'The Rejecting-Exciting Object/Topdog/Superego', Eric Berne's 'The Nurturing Parent' (Topdog/Superego)...The Narcissistic-Hedonistic Topdog/Superego...and more...
8. A distinction needs to be made between 'transference relationships' and 'transference memories'. As soon as we add the concept of 'transference memories' to Freud's work, then the linking connection between this concept and Adler's concept of 'lifestyle memories' starts to become more easily discernable. We need simply take one further step out of the realm of the unconscious and the repressed (Freud) and into the realm of the conscious or subconscious (Adler) and mix all of the concepts together that are mentioned briefly above -- and voila -- DGB Psychology using its dialectic process has started to 'dialectically bridge the gap' between Freud, Adler, Jung, Klein, Fairbairn, Berne, Janov, Perls, and more...
9. And one further thing we need to do: dialectically integrate Freud's Traumacy and Seduction Theories with his later Narcissistic and Narcissistic Fantasy Theories...i.e, dialectically bridge the gap essentially between Freud and Masson.
10. Now, I know that I have left about 99 percent of you trying to grapple with all these abstract implied connections above that obviously need to be fleshed out if there is to be any real communication here, it seems apparent also that we need a case example to illustrate some of these various connections that I am trying to bring together in one super-integrative philosophical and psychological package. Does anyone want to step up to the plate and be my guinea pig? Be my case example?
Speak up, anyone, while I mull over an alternative plan that I don't really like...
We can all sit on these ideas for a day or two before I take this huge range of different but interconnected ideas to the next level of multi-dialectic-democratic-integration.
Perhaps Hegel was right. And partly even Plato...Perhaps hidden in the depths of our collective minds and souls is an integrative potential source of knowledge that is so great, so powerful, that it almost deserves to be called 'Absolute Knowledge' ...Except man's full psychological nature is still too vast and mystical to fully comprehend even by the combined efforts of all the greatest psychologists and philosophers.
In this regard, I prefer the term 'Multi-Integrative-Dialectic Knowledge'.
Perhaps collectively, the full range and focus of psychological knowledge that has been put together by all of the 'Psychological Superstars' mentioned above...and more: people like Freud, Adler, Jung, Rank, Theodor and Wilhelm Reik, Ferenczi, Karen Horney, Klein, Fairbairn, Sullivan, Winnicott, Guntrip, Berne, Kohut, Janov, Aaron Beck, George Kelley, Albert Ellis, Fritz and Laura Perls, Hefferline, Goodman, Virginia Satir, Erich Fromm, Maxwell Maltz, Nathaniel Branden, Sartre, Carl Rogers, Rollo May, Abraham Maslow and the rest of the Humanists and the Humanistic-Existentialists...Even the Behaviorists and a better from my perspective, the 'Cognitive Behaviorists'...one of whom I wrote my Honours Thesis for -- Dr. Donald Meichenbaum.
I will let you ponder on these rather obscure thoughts and connections for now...
And on that note, I will bid you a goodnight...
-- dgb, Nov. 29th, 2009,
-- david gordon bain
-- dialectic gap-bridging negotiations...
-- are still in process...
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Hegel's Worst Epistemological Mistake: Following Plato into The Heavens When It Wasn't The Heavens He Was Investigating
Epistemologically speaking, I would classify myself as a 'dialectic-rational-empiricist'. What does this mean?
Well, part of my brand of epistemology is grounded in Hegel's dialectic philosophy, and more particularly, in Hegel's dialectic logic. However, the other part of my brand of epistemology remains solidly grounded in the 'rational-empirical' work of philosophers like Epictetus, Aristotle (being careful of his 'binary, either/or, classification' problems), Bacon, Locke, Hume, Nietzsche, Russell, Wittgenstein, Foucault, Derrida, Ayn Rand, Alfred Adler, Korzybski, S.I. Hayakawa, Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis, George Kelley, Maxwell Maltz, Nathaniel Branden, and more...
The problem here is that there exists the problem of Hegel's brand of 'dialectic logic' colliding and conflicting with 'rational-empirical' epistemology, particularly when and where Hegel basically leaves the 'rational-empirical', scientific, and 'Enlightenment Epistemology' camps in favor of his own brand of 'German Epistemological Idealism' which seems to follow very much in the path of Plato's ancient Greek 'Rational Idealism'. (i.e., see Plato's Theory of The Forms, The Cave, and The Shadows) According to Plato, 'absolute or ultimate knowledge' is to be found inside your head, not outside your head...the hallmark of 'rational idealistic thinking'...) Plato got this idea from Parmenides, and unfortunately for Western Philosophy, made this idea a great part of his legacy to Western Philosophy and History...It messed Fichte and Hegel up, perhaps Schelling too...as they all attempted unsuccessfully to close 'The Great Kantian Divide between 'Subjectivity' and 'Objectivity', and between 'Physics' and 'Metaphysics'...See my essay called 'Parmenide's Poison'...
The Great Kantian Double Divide still exists and there is not a philosopher in the world who is ever going to 'close' this Great Epistemological Double Divide -- not Spinoza, not Fichte, not Schelling, not Hegel, not anyone...
Such divides as 'The Subjective-Objective Divide', The Physics-Metaphysics Divide', 'The Mind-Body Divide', 'The Mind-Brain Divide', and 'The Intensional-Extensional Divide' will always exist; we all have to learn to accept these different divides and do our best to work around, or through, them...using first our senses and observational abilities, and then our best reasoning abilities based on our observations...This is what I am calling 'rational empiricism' and what General Semantics calls 'The Extensional Orientation'. Mainly what is needed here is a 'Consciousness of Abstracting, Interpreting, Inferring, Generalizing, Associating' -- a 'Consciousness of Going Up and Down The Cognitive-Emotional Abstraction Ladder' -- and a 'Consciousness of Spending Too Much Time Up in The Upper Levels Of The Abstraction Ladder Without Coming Back to Earth for Re-Grounding Purposes'...
One of the things that Hegel assumed falsely is that the dialectic would 'subsume' and 'incorporate' in its process and evolving cycle -- i.e., the dialectic process of thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis -- everything in its dialectic path and history. This is not true. Things get 'abstracted or screened out of the dialectic process' -- and left behind. Sometimes these 'things' or 'ideas' or 'concepts' or 'theories' deserve to be screened out and left behind. Other times they don't.
Man remains 'the ultimate abstracter' -- for both right and wrong, good and bad -- in this whole human aspect of the dialectic process. And since the abstraction process is a part of the dialectic process, all of the dangers mentioned above relative to 'spending too much time up in the higher levels of the cognitive-emotional abstraction ladder' apply to the dialectic process and dialectic logic as well.
And here is where Hegel left earth to chase 'Platonic Dreams' of an 'Ultimate Epistemology' -- and with it -- 'Ultimate or Absolute Knowledge'.
This was Hegel's worst epistemological mistake -- and DGB Philosophy has to work hard to 'undo' the damage caused by this huge epistemological mistake. It may take this essay and a number of others to more clearly explain and undo the type of Hegelian epistemological damage I am talking about.
One of man's greatest strengths -- his ability to reason -- is also one of his greatest weaknesses. Unfortunately, our power to reason (to generalize, to associate, to abstract, to interpret, to 'recognize patterns and regularities in life', to 'infer causes', to use logic ...) comes with no warning sticker on the package: 'Handle with great care -- or this magnificent tool that nature/God gave you will turn into your worst nightmare and your worst tool of self-destruction.'
What I have said here will suffice for now.
-- dgb, Nov. 24th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
Well, part of my brand of epistemology is grounded in Hegel's dialectic philosophy, and more particularly, in Hegel's dialectic logic. However, the other part of my brand of epistemology remains solidly grounded in the 'rational-empirical' work of philosophers like Epictetus, Aristotle (being careful of his 'binary, either/or, classification' problems), Bacon, Locke, Hume, Nietzsche, Russell, Wittgenstein, Foucault, Derrida, Ayn Rand, Alfred Adler, Korzybski, S.I. Hayakawa, Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis, George Kelley, Maxwell Maltz, Nathaniel Branden, and more...
The problem here is that there exists the problem of Hegel's brand of 'dialectic logic' colliding and conflicting with 'rational-empirical' epistemology, particularly when and where Hegel basically leaves the 'rational-empirical', scientific, and 'Enlightenment Epistemology' camps in favor of his own brand of 'German Epistemological Idealism' which seems to follow very much in the path of Plato's ancient Greek 'Rational Idealism'. (i.e., see Plato's Theory of The Forms, The Cave, and The Shadows) According to Plato, 'absolute or ultimate knowledge' is to be found inside your head, not outside your head...the hallmark of 'rational idealistic thinking'...) Plato got this idea from Parmenides, and unfortunately for Western Philosophy, made this idea a great part of his legacy to Western Philosophy and History...It messed Fichte and Hegel up, perhaps Schelling too...as they all attempted unsuccessfully to close 'The Great Kantian Divide between 'Subjectivity' and 'Objectivity', and between 'Physics' and 'Metaphysics'...See my essay called 'Parmenide's Poison'...
The Great Kantian Double Divide still exists and there is not a philosopher in the world who is ever going to 'close' this Great Epistemological Double Divide -- not Spinoza, not Fichte, not Schelling, not Hegel, not anyone...
Such divides as 'The Subjective-Objective Divide', The Physics-Metaphysics Divide', 'The Mind-Body Divide', 'The Mind-Brain Divide', and 'The Intensional-Extensional Divide' will always exist; we all have to learn to accept these different divides and do our best to work around, or through, them...using first our senses and observational abilities, and then our best reasoning abilities based on our observations...This is what I am calling 'rational empiricism' and what General Semantics calls 'The Extensional Orientation'. Mainly what is needed here is a 'Consciousness of Abstracting, Interpreting, Inferring, Generalizing, Associating' -- a 'Consciousness of Going Up and Down The Cognitive-Emotional Abstraction Ladder' -- and a 'Consciousness of Spending Too Much Time Up in The Upper Levels Of The Abstraction Ladder Without Coming Back to Earth for Re-Grounding Purposes'...
One of the things that Hegel assumed falsely is that the dialectic would 'subsume' and 'incorporate' in its process and evolving cycle -- i.e., the dialectic process of thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis -- everything in its dialectic path and history. This is not true. Things get 'abstracted or screened out of the dialectic process' -- and left behind. Sometimes these 'things' or 'ideas' or 'concepts' or 'theories' deserve to be screened out and left behind. Other times they don't.
Man remains 'the ultimate abstracter' -- for both right and wrong, good and bad -- in this whole human aspect of the dialectic process. And since the abstraction process is a part of the dialectic process, all of the dangers mentioned above relative to 'spending too much time up in the higher levels of the cognitive-emotional abstraction ladder' apply to the dialectic process and dialectic logic as well.
And here is where Hegel left earth to chase 'Platonic Dreams' of an 'Ultimate Epistemology' -- and with it -- 'Ultimate or Absolute Knowledge'.
This was Hegel's worst epistemological mistake -- and DGB Philosophy has to work hard to 'undo' the damage caused by this huge epistemological mistake. It may take this essay and a number of others to more clearly explain and undo the type of Hegelian epistemological damage I am talking about.
One of man's greatest strengths -- his ability to reason -- is also one of his greatest weaknesses. Unfortunately, our power to reason (to generalize, to associate, to abstract, to interpret, to 'recognize patterns and regularities in life', to 'infer causes', to use logic ...) comes with no warning sticker on the package: 'Handle with great care -- or this magnificent tool that nature/God gave you will turn into your worst nightmare and your worst tool of self-destruction.'
What I have said here will suffice for now.
-- dgb, Nov. 24th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
Monday, November 23, 2009
I Am Honoured To Have My Second Member of The General Semantic Community Pop By For A Closer Look...
Welcome aboard Bruce,
You are the second member of the General Semantic Community to pay a visit to Hegel's Hotel. I was equally honoured to have S.I. Hayakawa's son, Alan Hayakawa, write me a short, encouraging email when I spent an essay on my American Politics blogsite trumpeting S.I. Hayakawa's wonderful educational, community, and political work, saying that we needed more Republicans today in his spirit and essence as opposed to many of the 'Right Wing Extremist Either/Or, Us or Them' brand of Republicans that seem to be making all the noise and getting all the media attention and spotlight these days.
Incidently, my favorite Senator today is Democrat Senator Barney Frank.
Let me share with my readers your background, which they should be able to get to your various links via my side bar... Incidently, I just implemented the 'followers' gidget and so far I like it. It allows me the chance to check out other readers' and writers' blogsites who may have become interested in my work here on Hegel's Hotel...
.................................................................................................................................
Bruce Kodish
About me
I've received wide acknowledgment as a leading scholar-teacher of the korzybskian discipline of applied epistemology known as 'general semantics'.
In 1998, with my wife Susan Presby Kodish, Ph.D., I received the Institute of General Semantics' prestigious J. Talbott Winchell Award. With"deep appreciation and warm thanks" the award acknowledged the Kodish's "...many contributions severally and together to the wider understanding of general semantics as authors, editors, teachers, leaders", and "their concern with the alleviation of social and individual problems, and their active interest in the on-going work in general semantics."
I'm currently writing the first full-length biography of Alfred Korzybski, author of Manhood of Humanity and Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. Researching and writing this book have become my primary occupation for now.
I continue a lively interest in physical therapy/rehabilitation and have a part-time practice as a physical therapist, specializing in Mechanical Diagnosis & Therapy and Posture-Movement Education.
..................................................................................................................................................................
dgb, cont'd
Speaking about my own bacground now, I was introduced to the work of Alfred Korzybski indirectly through S.I. Hayakawa's classic book: Language in Thought and Action. That was in a high school English course I took in 1972. Like Kant once said regarding a book he was reading by David Hume: 'It woke me from my slumbers.' General Semantics became a focal point of my Honours Thesis in Psychology seven years later in 1979. And in short time here, it will become more fully integrated into Hegel's Hotel.
I just have a little more preliminary work on epistemology to do here and that is basically to let my readers know where I believe Hegel went wrong in his approach to epistemology -- and that is when he basically left such Pre-Enlightenment and Enlightenment Philosophers in favor of a 'evolutionary regression' to 'Platonic Rational Idealism'.
General Semantics would call this the 'intensionally-minded' person -- a person who gets caught up inside his or her head and stays there -- as opposed to the 'extensionally oriented' person who keeps 'observing the world around him or her, makes rational inferences, generalizations, and abstractions from these observations -- and more than anything, stays rationally-empirically grounded in the spirit and mold of philosophers like Aristotle (without getting caught up in the classification problems that Aristotle got himself into), Galileo, Newton, Sir Francis Bacon, John Locke, Einstein...and most of the other Enlightenment philosophers. Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein should probably be included as well.
Anyways, once again, welcome aboard Bruce. Feel free to add your contributions and feedback whenever you wish. If I have inappropriately interpreted General Semantics, let me know, although, to be sure, I will be extrapolating on General Semantics and taking ideas that I have learned from General Semantics in new and modified directions.
Cheers!
-- dgb, Nov. 23rd, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
You are the second member of the General Semantic Community to pay a visit to Hegel's Hotel. I was equally honoured to have S.I. Hayakawa's son, Alan Hayakawa, write me a short, encouraging email when I spent an essay on my American Politics blogsite trumpeting S.I. Hayakawa's wonderful educational, community, and political work, saying that we needed more Republicans today in his spirit and essence as opposed to many of the 'Right Wing Extremist Either/Or, Us or Them' brand of Republicans that seem to be making all the noise and getting all the media attention and spotlight these days.
Incidently, my favorite Senator today is Democrat Senator Barney Frank.
Let me share with my readers your background, which they should be able to get to your various links via my side bar... Incidently, I just implemented the 'followers' gidget and so far I like it. It allows me the chance to check out other readers' and writers' blogsites who may have become interested in my work here on Hegel's Hotel...
.................................................................................................................................
Bruce Kodish
About me
I've received wide acknowledgment as a leading scholar-teacher of the korzybskian discipline of applied epistemology known as 'general semantics'.
In 1998, with my wife Susan Presby Kodish, Ph.D., I received the Institute of General Semantics' prestigious J. Talbott Winchell Award. With"deep appreciation and warm thanks" the award acknowledged the Kodish's "...many contributions severally and together to the wider understanding of general semantics as authors, editors, teachers, leaders", and "their concern with the alleviation of social and individual problems, and their active interest in the on-going work in general semantics."
I'm currently writing the first full-length biography of Alfred Korzybski, author of Manhood of Humanity and Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. Researching and writing this book have become my primary occupation for now.
I continue a lively interest in physical therapy/rehabilitation and have a part-time practice as a physical therapist, specializing in Mechanical Diagnosis & Therapy and Posture-Movement Education.
..................................................................................................................................................................
dgb, cont'd
Speaking about my own bacground now, I was introduced to the work of Alfred Korzybski indirectly through S.I. Hayakawa's classic book: Language in Thought and Action. That was in a high school English course I took in 1972. Like Kant once said regarding a book he was reading by David Hume: 'It woke me from my slumbers.' General Semantics became a focal point of my Honours Thesis in Psychology seven years later in 1979. And in short time here, it will become more fully integrated into Hegel's Hotel.
I just have a little more preliminary work on epistemology to do here and that is basically to let my readers know where I believe Hegel went wrong in his approach to epistemology -- and that is when he basically left such Pre-Enlightenment and Enlightenment Philosophers in favor of a 'evolutionary regression' to 'Platonic Rational Idealism'.
General Semantics would call this the 'intensionally-minded' person -- a person who gets caught up inside his or her head and stays there -- as opposed to the 'extensionally oriented' person who keeps 'observing the world around him or her, makes rational inferences, generalizations, and abstractions from these observations -- and more than anything, stays rationally-empirically grounded in the spirit and mold of philosophers like Aristotle (without getting caught up in the classification problems that Aristotle got himself into), Galileo, Newton, Sir Francis Bacon, John Locke, Einstein...and most of the other Enlightenment philosophers. Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein should probably be included as well.
Anyways, once again, welcome aboard Bruce. Feel free to add your contributions and feedback whenever you wish. If I have inappropriately interpreted General Semantics, let me know, although, to be sure, I will be extrapolating on General Semantics and taking ideas that I have learned from General Semantics in new and modified directions.
Cheers!
-- dgb, Nov. 23rd, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Hegel's Worst Epistemological Mistake: Following Plato into The Heavens When It Wasn't The Heavens He Was Investigating
Epistemologically speaking, I would classify myself as a 'dialectic-rational-empiricist'. Part of my brand of epistemology is grounded in Hegel's dialectic philosophy, and more particularly, Hegel's dialectic logic. The other part of my brand of epistemology is grounded in the 'rational-empirical' work of philosophers like Epictetus, Aristotle (being careful of his 'binary, either/or, classification' problems), Bacon, Locke, Hume, Nietzsche, Russell, Wittgenstein, Foucault, Derrida, Ayn Rand, Alfred Adler, Korzybski, S.I. Hayakawa, Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis, George Kelley, Maxwell Maltz, Nathaniel Branden, and more...
One of the things that Hegel assumed falsely is that the dialectic would 'subsume' and 'incorporate' in its process and evolving cycle -- i.e., the dialectic process of thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis -- everything in its dialectic path and history. This is not true. Things get 'abstracted or screened out of the dialectic process' -- and left behind. Sometimes these 'things' or 'ideas' or 'concepts' or 'theories' deserve to be screened out and left behind. Other times they don't. Man remains 'The Ultimate Abstracter -- For Both Right and Wrong, Good and Bad -- in this whole human aspect of the dialectic process.
One of the things that Hegel assumed falsely is that the dialectic would 'subsume' and 'incorporate' in its process and evolving cycle -- i.e., the dialectic process of thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis -- everything in its dialectic path and history. This is not true. Things get 'abstracted or screened out of the dialectic process' -- and left behind. Sometimes these 'things' or 'ideas' or 'concepts' or 'theories' deserve to be screened out and left behind. Other times they don't. Man remains 'The Ultimate Abstracter -- For Both Right and Wrong, Good and Bad -- in this whole human aspect of the dialectic process.
On Western Philosophy's Worst and Best Epistemologists...
- Parmenides and Plato were probably the two worst epistemologists in the history of Western philosophy -- and Fichte and Hegel fit in close behind to the extent that Fichte developed a 'subjective fetish' and Hegel was too epistemologically infatuated with Plato 'outer limits idealism'.
- Aristole was at least empirically grounded by his senses and by his sense of emphasizing observation before starting the 'abstractive' and 'generalizing' process of 'classifying' different plants and animals into similar and different types...
- However, Aristotle fell victim to the 'either/or' syndrome. A is A, and B is B, and A can't be B, nor can B be A. Well that 'either/or' assumption just doe not fit 'evolutionary logic' and what we see everywhere around us in life. Because life is full of 'genetic combinations' and 'mutations'.
- This is where Hegelian Dialectic Logic is vastly superior to Aristotelean Logic. Because Hegel introduced a theory of 'dialectic evolution' before Darwin did. The formula of 1. thesis; 2. anti-thesis; and 3. synthesis for the most part is more 'structurally similar' to both Natural Evolution and Human Evolution than Aristotle's 'either/or logic'.
- Indeed, we have to be very wary of any form of 'classifying' because life will always 'break the boundaries' of any human classification system. Once this happens -- if man is using Aristotelean Logic and/or any other form of 'Classification Logic' including any 'theory' or any 'model' of whatever it is that he or she is investigating in nature -- mistakes (and sometimes serious mistakes) are going to be made unless we are all well aware and well educated in the most famous Alfred Korzybski/General Semantic statement: THE MAP IS NOT THE TERRITORY.
- Let me point to an example of how this Aristotelean 'either/or' mentality vs. the Hegelian 'integrative dialectic' mentality has worked in the history and evolution of physics.
- In attempting to properly understand 'matter' and 'energy', man first created the 'particle' theory (thesis). Then some inherent weaknesses showed up in this theory which were addressed by the newer 'wave' theory (anti-thesis). This too showed some inherent weaknesses until some scientist (Plank?) developed the dialectic model of the 'particle-wave' theory (synthesis) which became the basis for 'quantum physics' and numerous offshoots of quantum physics/mechanics none of which I pretend to understand.
- But I do understand the Hegelian and the Korzysbki basis of what happened here. Specifically, the 'best model' that scientists have come up with so far relative to explaining the characteristics of matter and energy (light and sound) seem to come from the 'dialectically integrative model' of particle-wave theory. In this way, dialectical integrative logic has shown itself to be superior to Aristotelean either/or logic.
- I could give you a hundred other examples. I will just give you one: Is 'bi-polar disorder' ('manic-depression' by its old name) an illness or an excuse? Most people would probably say it is an 'illness'. However, the notion of 'dialectic logic' allows for the fact that it may be both. We do not need to stretch our imagination very far to realized that 'illness' can often be used as an 'excuse' in order to avoid responsibility, accountability, and blame. And be paid for being 'sick'. How about the 'depressed' woman just recently who was taken off her long term sick benefits because of pictures on Facebook partying up a storm...
- November 21, 2009 9:49 PM
david gordon bain said...
- The biggest danger of using -- and potentially abusing -- Aristotelean Logic is the habit of 'neatly filtering life processes and structures into distinctly separate categories or classification systems' and then getting more and more frustrated as you find out that 15, 20, or 2000 different classification systems can be tried out -- and if you are astute enough, you will sooner or later realize that life is not 'co-operative' and/or 'submissive' when it comes to fitting nicely into man-made conceptual categories and won't ever entirely fit into any of them perfectly.
- Even Hegel can 'howl to the moon' about his 'dialectic epistemology' eventually ending up in 'Absolute Knowledge' -- and this is where Hegel suffers from 'Parmenides and Plato's Epistemolgical Disease' -- i.e., confusing the ideal with the real. If you want to talk ethics, then Plato has something to say. But if you want to talk epistemology, quickly throw Plato into the garbage. Not enough philosophers did. Kant was okay. He understood the difference between the 'physical' vs. the 'metaphysical' and the 'phenomenal' (subjective) vs. the 'noumenal' (objective).
- Unfortunately, Fichte, Hegel, and Schopenhauer all went into 'Platonic Overcompensation' to try to deny what Kant was saying was true. On matters of epistemology, Kant's 'epistemological and metaphysical skepticism' was much closer to the truth than anything 'idealistically' written by either Fichte or Hegel. Hegel's 'dialectic epistemology' has to be 're-grounded' -- reconnected with the epistemology of philosophers like Aristotle, Bacon, Newton, Galileo, Locke, Russell, Wittgenstein, Einstein, Korzybski, Ayn Rand -- these were some of the best epistemologists in Western Philosophical history.
- But even Ayn Rand didn't -- to my awareness -- understand some of the limitations of Aristotelean Logic. Hegel and Korzybski both did. But Korzybski was a far greater epistemologist than Hegel. Korzybski was in my opinion the greatest epistemologist in the history of Western Philosophy. And the irony of this is that Korzybski isn't even taught in most philosophy programs, undergraduate or graduate. That I will do my best to change.
- November 21, 2009 10:12 PM
Thursday, November 19, 2009
More Clarification On The Impossible Dream of Hegel's Vision of a 'Final, Ultimate or Absolute Synthesis'
I will try to clarify what I mean by 'the only Ultimate Synthesis being death'. Every minute we are alive both the mind and the body are both constantly thrown into imbalance or dis-equilibrium. It is the nature of life. If I step up from my chair here, my body is thrown into imbalance until something happens in my brain, or more specifically I believe, in my inner ear, to restore the balance.
In the language of Gestalt Therapy, we are constantly 'creating' and 'destroying' or 'opening' and 'closing' -- 'new gestalts'.
If I am hungry, my body is thrown out of balance until I eat -- and then my body is restored to balance. Both internally and externally, we spend our whole lives seeking to 'restore lost balance' and for every person this perception of 'what we want and/or need to restore our sense of personal balance -- is different. On the grandest of all scales, we can say that this is our personal and philosophical quest for 'Utopia'.
Plato chased his own particular vision of Utopia, Aristotle his, Kant his, Fichte his, Schelling his, Hegel his, and today, I am pursuing my own particular 'Utopian Vision' on Hegel's Hotel, while you, Niki, pursue yours over here on Living Outside The Dialectic.
Communitarianism, for some people, might be viewed as a name that they give to their own personal quest for Utopia, and dare I say it, 'Anti-Communitarianism' -- for those of you who don't like the vision and/or the taste of how they perceive 'Communitarianism' -- becomes a rebellion, an anti-thesis, and an counter-vision, a counter-Utopia against both Hegel and his ideal of 'The Ultimate Synthesis' as well as the whole vision of a 'Communitarian Ideal Utopia'.
One of the problems is that 'Communitarianism' becomes such a huge abstraction that it could/can easily imply 8 billion different 'sub-Communitarian Utopias'. I like my personal freedom and rights just as much as you obviously do Niki, and I do not support any type of 'Utopian System' that decreases my personal liberties and rights in the name of 'Big Government'.
But more to the point is this: As long as we are living and breathing, there will never, every be any 'Absolute Synthesis and Harmony' -- even within ourselves, let alone in the context of trying to find any kind of 'perfect harmony' with our spouse, our family, our neighbors, other countries, and all levels of municipal, state or provincial, and federal government.
'Like the sound of one hand clappin', it just ain't going to happen.' (Bob Dylan).
So when I say that the only 'Ultimate Synthesis' is death, what I mean is that as long as people are living, breathing, eating, and trying to make a living, there will always be both personal and civil 'disharmony' in constantly changing proportions -- it is the nature of the beast of living.
So for any one person to say that there is any one 'Final, Ultimate Conflict Resolution and/or Synthesis' out there (i.e., Hegel), that person simply does not understand the dynamics of living and man's constant quest for equilibrium (balance) as long as he/she is alive and breathing.
Thus, the only 'Final Synthesis' -- is death.
I hope that helps to clear things in terms of what I mean.
-- dgb, Nov. 18th, 2009
-- David Gordon Bain
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