At the bottom of the personality, rising and driving up forcefully from the body, with all of the body's imagined and real needs, wants, wishes, and impulses is the Id -- the word 'impulses' is preferable to the word 'instincts' because it is less 'deterministic', more 'free-will oriented', and in my opinion, less 'semantically troublesome' than the term-concept of 'instinct' which begs the question: at what point does an 'impulse' become an 'instinct').
Finally, in the middle of the personality -- and mediating between the Superego and The Id -- is The Ego (the 'compromiser', and ideally, the final decision-making part of the personality).
This model was created by Freud towards the end of his career (1923, The Ego and The Id)...and still works very, very well...There are some problems, liabilities, and issues with it -- the model is not perfect but no model is -- but overall, the model gets an 'A' for a combination of efficiency and simplicity.
Freud's 'triadic model of the personality' was foreshadowed by the combined philosophy of: Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche...
In particular, Nietzsche's brilliant little first book, 'The Birth of Tragedy' -- which Nietzsche later disowned as being 'too Hegelian' -- was the psychological bridge between Hegel and Freud.
You can see in Nietzsche's distinction between 'Apollonian' and 'Dionysian' forces in the personality, the precursor for Freud's later Superego and Id, respectively. You can also see the birth of Freud's concept of The Id in Schopenhauer's idea of 'The Will as an Overpowering Cosmic Irrational Force'.
What DGB Psychology does to this 'Classic Freudian Model of The Personality' is essentially three things:
1. DGB Psychology 'splits' the Superego into three 'Superego States': 1a. 'The Nurturing Superego'; 1b. The Hedonistic-Narcissistic (Dionysian) Superego; and 1c. The Righteous-Rejecting ('Apollonian') Superego. This follows pretty closely with what Eric Berne did with Transactional Analysis in the 1960s. (See Eric Berne, Transactional Analysis)
2. DGB Psychology renames 'The Ego' as 'The Central (Mediating, Executive) Ego';
3. DGB Psychology brings part of 'The Id' up from 'the unconscious' -- the 'basement' of the personality -- gives it 'ego status', and 'splits' it into the following 'Underego States': 3a. 'The Righteous-Rejecting (Rebellious) Underego'; 3b. 'The Hedonistic-Narcissistic (Dionysian) Underego; and 3c. 'The Approval-Seeking (Apollonian) Underego' (again, following fairly closely to the work of Eric Berne in Transactional Analysis in the 1960s).
Then DGB Psychology divides 'The Unconscious' or 'Subconscious' (the word 'subconscious' is less semantically challenging) into the following four parts:
4. The Creative-Destructive Dynamic Subconscious (The Dream, Fantasy, and Nightmare Maker);
5. The Experientially Learned Transference-Lifestyle Complex Template (Freud, Adler, Perls)
6. The Genetic, Mythological, and Biochemical Subconscious (Partly from Jung, partly from Schopenhauer and Freud -- i.e., the deepest elements of 'The Id')
7. The Unrealized Potential (Blueprint) Self (From Jung)
What this model does -- aside from recognizing, appeciating, and utilizing the work and ideas of a number of other brilliant psychologists besides Freud (such as: Abraham, Adler, Jung, Perls, Berne...), is open up the possibility of more of an 'Object Relations' discussion which was a direction that Freud started in 1905 anyway when he first used the term 'the sexual object' as opposed to 'the sexual aim' and 'the psycho-sexual stages of development' and 'the erotogenic (sexual) zones'. (1905, Three Essays on The Theory of Sexuality).
Talking about 'object relations' allows us to explore such ideas as: 'internal and external objects', 'good and bad objects', 'nurturing and rejecting objects', 'exciting internal and external objects', 'abandoning internal and external objects', 'distancing internal and external objects', 'approval-seeking internal and external objects', 'raging internal and external objects', 'violent internal and external objects'...and so on...We will talk about this whole interconnected realm of associated subject matters at a later date.
We will continue to develop this model as we move along in later essays.
Let us go back now, once again, and do a very quick review of the beginning of Psychoanalytic history through the 1880s and 90s.
The First Two Theories/Models of Psychoanalysis (1. The 'Traumacy' Theory/Model; and 2. The 'Seduction' Theory/Model)
Freud's first model of Psychoanalysis -- with Breuer's and Charcot's and some might say Janet's help -- was a very good one. It was a very simple model. It is still used today in almost all forms of psychotherapy to various greater or lesser extents. I mean how many of us would even consider going into psychotherapy without there being some form of 'traumatic stress factor' in our lives -- past and/or present -- that would create the 'perception of the need to go into psychotherapy' in the first place.
With Freud's and Breuer's first model of Psychoanalysis -- and without getting too technical about all aspects of it -- there were at least three different aspects of the model that stood out about it, and made it controversial, right from the start. First, what was the model, what was the theory -- in its simplest form:
The theory went something like this: A person experiences a 'traumatic episode' in his or her 'childhood' that he or she cannot properly deal with. He or she does not know how to handle the traumatic episode. So -- the childhood traumacy is 'buried it in a closet of the personality' -- a part of the personality that Freud and Breuer labeled as 'the unconscious'.
Furthermore -- and here is where Freud started to separate from Breuer -- Freud began to argue that the process of 'locking the traumatic childhood episode' in the deepest closet of the personality -- the unconscious -- and keeping it locked up in there, even into adult hood, also needed a name for it -- to which Freud gave the name 'repression', and so began one of the most important evolutionary developments in the history of Psychoanalysis which was 'the psychology of defense'. Later, in the early 1900s, Alfred Adler would introduce the idea of 'compensation' which can be viewed as an important addition to Freud's theory of the 'psychology of defense'. The principle of 'compensation' is used extensively not only in Adlerian Psychology but also in Jungian Psychology as well.
Once Freud and Breuer had introduced the idea of 'childhood traumacies' and 'childhood traumatic memories' which became basically the person's 'childhood negative secret' -- both to the world and even to him or herself -- then the goal of Psychoanalysis became to 'find and/or unravel that childhood negative secret'.
Because according to Freud's and Breuer's evolving early (pre-1896) Psychoanalytic theory, the 'negative secrets' that get locked up or 'repressed in our unconscious' do not go away. Indeed, they come back to haunt us in the form of a whole myriad of possible 'negative day to day symptoms' that become disturbing both to us, and to the people around us, in our adult lives, who are trying to live with us.
This is how such terms as 'neurosis' and 'anxiety neurosis' and 'obsessional neurosis' and 'hysteria' came to be born in Psychoanalysis. They became the labels that Freud and others (perhaps even Charcot before Freud) started to put on the various different types of 'negative symtoms' that they started to see over and over again in their clinical practice.
'Hysteria' was viewed mainly as a 'woman's psychological disorder' -- in the case of 'conversion hysteria' a woman might have a 'paralyzed arm' with no apparent 'physical or physiological origin'. So the woman is sent to a 'neurologist' like Charcot and later Freud who start to see 'distinctions' between those 'neurological problems' that are caused by 'physical or physiological origins' vs. those 'seemingly or apparent neurological problems' that are caused by 'psychological origins' which come down basically to 'distorted and/or pathological ideas' in the person's head (mind-brain).
And regarding the 'seemingly or apparent neurological problems' with 'psycho-genic or psychological origins ('pathological ideas') in the person's 'mind-brain' -- so began the history of 'Clinical Psychology' in general, and 'Psychoanalysis' in particular.
At the very beginning, 'hypnosis' played a deciding factor in the distinction between neurological problems of a 'physio-genic' vs. a 'psycho-genic' nature. If someone like Charcot could 'hypnotize' a woman who came to him with a 'paralyzed arm' and under hypnosis, Charcot could 'unparalyze' the woman's arm -- well, that would certainly seem to indicate -- as long as there was no 'doctor-patient charade' being pulled off here -- that the patient had a 'neurological problem' connected with a 'psycho-genic' cause -- meaning basically a 'pathological idea'.
So in essence, you could have two different type of 'neurological problems' -- or 'neuroses'; 1. those caused by physical and/or physiological origins; and 2. those caused by psycho-genic or psychological origins. Freud, early in his developing 'neurological career' became a 'specialist' in the latter type of neurological problem or 'neurosis' -- i.e., the psychologically based ones. And in this regard, Freud became a 'specialist' in hunting down 'pathogenic ideas' -- which for the most part, he was finding in the 'repressed, negative memories and secrets of childhood'.
Furthermore, right from the time of his involvement with Charcot and then Breuer, Freud was becoming more and more convinced that most if not all of the 'repressed, negative memories and secrets of childhood' that his patients were eventually sharing with him, first through hypnosis, then a little later in his career in the 1890s through the 'pressure technique', and then finally later in the 1890s through his beginning of the use of 'free association' -- involved 'sexual secrets'. (Today we might not be nearly as surprised or shocked by this conclusion of Freud's but back then in the middle of the 'Victorian era', this idea by Freud didn't go over too well -- especially when in 1896, Freud started talking in front of a professional medical community of 'fathers' about 'childhood sexual assaults and seductions' by fathers with or against their daughters, or between older and younger siblings or between, 'uncles' or 'friends of the family', or 'babysitters', or strangers... and young female children...)
Freud, from my historical interpretation of things, learned very quickly -- in fact in one professional psychiatric conference in April, 1896 -- what the potential social, political, and economic consequences for himself could be for 'opening his mouth and being politically incorrect'. (Back then in 1896, 'political correctness' was 180 degrees different than it is today. Freud was going up against a 'Patriarchal Power Base of Powerful Men' who did not want their patriarchal power based challenged and/or undermined by a young, rebellious, and ambitious new neurologist with some very, very controversial, provocative, and 'patriarchally disturbing' ideas...
Thus, in this professional psychiatric conference of April, 1896, Freud's new ideas about 'childhood seduction and sexual assault/abuse/attack/rape' were called a 'scientific fairy tale' by the conference master (Krafft-Ebing) -- and Freud was basically 'booed off the stage for his provocative presentation of his newest paper, 'The Aetiology of Hysteria', on the evening of April 21st, 1896).
And Freud didn't talk or write too much about childhood sexual assault -- especially between a father and his daughter -- for the rest of his career. Thus, Freud's highly controversial 'Seduction Theory' didn't last very long -- less than a year, really -- and slowly, 'Freudian Sexual Fantasy Theory' and his equally controversial (but less legally disturbing for guilty adult men and particularly fathers) Oedipal Theory would rise up in its place, and still, to this day, exists in Classical Freudian Psychoanalysis but not in two of its younger 'siblings', i.e., newer models of Psychoanalysis -- 1. 'Object Relations'; and its still younger 'sibling'/extension/model/theory -- 'Self Psychology'.
So did Freud 'morally lose courage'? -- as Masson interpretively claimed in his own 'career-changing' book entitled 'The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of The Seduction Theory', 1984, 1985, 1992 -- which effectively ended Masson's career as a Psychoanalyst, as 'The Director of The Freud Archives', and as probably the third most politically powerful person in The Freudian Empire and The Psychoanalytic Hierarchy -- behind only Anna Freud who died in 1982 and Kurt Eissler who died in 1999.
Yeah, I think he did. I think Freud lost 'moral courage' after this very traumatic April 21st, 1896 conference meeting. In fact, personally, I think the evidence is pretty strong to support Masson's historical interpretation. Which is not to say that any of us -- not Masson, not me, not anyone still living today -- will ever be able to definitively say that he or she can 'go back in history and get back inside Freud's mind and back into everything Freud was thinking back in 1896...and afterwards...'
Still, one only has to ask the following questions: How much did Freud write about 'child sexual seduction/abuse/assault' after 1896?' And in particular, how much did Freud write about 'fathers seducing, exploiting, assaulting, attacking, raping...their daughters' after 1896?
And the answer is....precious very, very little...especially regarding the second question, and particularly considering the fact that in 1896 Freud was ready to build all of Psychoanalysis around his '(childhood) seduction/assault theory' which he called 'the solution to a more than thousand-year-old problem -- a caput Nili'. -- Freud, 1896. (Assault on Truth, p. 3).
To which I add one more further qualification to my point of view here. How many of us today wouldn't have done the same if we had been in Freud's shoes? Unlike Freud, Masson in the 1980s wouldn't let go of 'Freud's Abandoned Seduction Theory' -- he hung in there with a 'Pit Bull bite' -- and, in doing so, he effectively 'trashed his career' as one of the 3 most powerful people in Psychoanalysis during this time period. (Well, behind Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler, there was also some sort of 'board of directors' of 'The Freudian Empire' and/or 'The Freudian Archives' who collectively voted that Masson be 'fired' as 'The Director of The Freud Archives'.)
So -- do we give Masson an 'A' for 'moral and political courage'?
Or do we give Masson an 'E' for 'political correctness, expedience, and intelligence'?
In other words, do we say that Masson was 'politically stupid' for saying and writing what he did, particularly in the 'blunt politically incorrect' (i.e., saying and writing that 'Freud lost moral courage') manner that he did?
I mean if I subscribed to a 'Machiavellian' type of philosophy, and I had been back there to 'politically advise' Dr. Masson at the beginning of the 1980s (I had by this time graduated from The University of Waterloo with my Honours B.A. in psychology and I had freshly enrolled into a Masters Degree Program in Adlerian Psychology which I abandoned a year later, and I had also stepped inside The Gestalt Institute of Toronto by this time....but no, I had not heard of the name 'Dr. Jeffrey Masson' at this point in my 25 year young life yet...nor had I heard about the drama that was about to unfold around him, but had I), I might have said to him something like this (perhaps in hindsight thiinking about how Masson could have eventually strongly affected the direction of Psychoanalysis, politically, theoretically, and therapeutically, after the main two powers that be at the time -- Anna Freud and Eissler -- eventually passed away):
'Dr. Masson, take a valium, please (metaphorically speaking of course). I value the 'truth' just as much as you do. But perhaps there is a way that you can 'couch' your perspective and 'wrap up' your editorial opinion, especially your interpretive generalization about Freud's character, i.e., his 'alleged loss of moral courage' (which none of us can know about for sure because none of us can get back into his head) -- wrap it up in a way that even Dr. Anna Freud and Dr. Kurt Eissler might be able to more easily digest and tolerate your very provocative editorial opinion and your rather 'ambitious return to the buried past of Psychoanalysis'.
In effect, perhaps Dr. Masson, perhaps you can 'bury the strongest parts of your editorial opinions about Freud's character for a while in your subconscious' -- and with all due respect to both you and Dr. Anna Freud as well as the 'slippery epistemological truth' whatever that might be (and it is not likely to be only 'one generalized truth' but rather an 'assortment of different concrete truths' depending on the context of each particular situation -- this being the case, perhaps you can wait at least until Anna Freud dies before you let loose with that 'full lock-jaw, all teeth, Pit Bull bite' of yours against Classical Psychoanalysis and Dr. Sigmund Freud's perhaps over-villified character...'
Probably some 'transference issues' at work here which by no means diminishes in anyway the 'epistemological and humanistic-existential importance of your message', nor lessen its relevance to the fact that Anna Freud herself -- in my eyes -- should have modifed a 'distorted, one-sided portion of Psychoanalytic Theory that narcissistically marginalized the rights of the applicable women to have their 'real live' childhood sexual assaults fully recognized for what they are, and were' -- a horror show as depicted initially by Freud in 'The Aetiology of Hysteria', and not, as later depicted by Freud as some 'distorted fantasy on their part that never actually happened'.
In short, Dr. Masson, Psychoanalysis is probably worse off today for not having you up near the top of the power hierarchy.
In this regard -- and I am talking in 2010 now -- Classical Psychoanalysis has no name, no face, no personality, no idealistic vision, no white horse that it can ride on the back of...
And that should have been you Dr. Masson -- idealistically speaking, the man on the charging white Psychoanalytic horse...to change the face of Psychoanalysis, to change 'The House That Freud Built'...and to help 'Rebuild It'...to 'Re-Idealize' it...to 'Humanistically-Existentialize' it...even with your own imperfections...
The man to welcome more and more women into Psychoanalysis -- and to treat them equally, both as clients and as Psychoanalytic Students and Becoming Analysts -- in a way that does not still continue to marginalize women, suppress them, alienate them, and pretend that some of their worst, most horrific nightmares relative to men sexually exploiting them, especially relative to some fathers sexually exploiting their daughters -- (which is not to say that it cannot happen the other way around too, and that women are just as capable of exploiting men in their own particular ways...again, there is a need for 'dialectic-democratic-egalitarian justice'; not one-sided favoritism and/or marginalization directed towards either men or women or seniors or children...)
The 'House That Freud Built', Psychoanalysis -- in 2010 -- as in the 1980s -- still needs to be rebuilt. That is one of the main things that is happening here in Hegel's Hotel.
I believe that I have some major theoretical differences of opinion with Dr. Masson -- as well as with Freud.
I am a 'post-Hegelian dialectic thinker'. I try as much as possible not to be an 'Aristotelean Either/Or thinker'.
I am a 'dialectical integrationist and wholist'.
Call this 'theoretically sitting on the fence' if you wish.
I think it is much, much more.
Look at life as one 'very, very large box' -- the 'almost infinitely large box of life'.
Anytime some theorist comes along -- whether it be Freud, or Adler, or Jung, or Perls, or Masson, or myself, or anyone else...and we espouse and trumpet a particular theory, we are essentially wrong before we even start.
Every theory, every idea, every model, every characteristic carries within it the seeds of its own self-destruction (a paraphrasing of Hegel's dialectic theory).
Why? Because a theory always trumpets a particular point of view -- it asks, sometimes demands, that we look at this particular aspect of life, and not that particular aspect of life. If we are trumpeting 'white', then 'black' is marginalized. If we are trumpeting 'men', then 'women' are marginalized. If we are trumpeting 'children', then 'seniors' or 'parents' are marginalized...
This is 'Jacques Derrida Philosophical Theory 101'. (Derrida was hugely influenced by Hegel).
We cannot trumpet any 'theory of life' without effectively 'marginalizing' some aspect of life that we have 'left out of our theory'. Because the 'Infinite Box of Life' will always be bigger than any 'Man-Made, One-Sided Theory of Life'.
The best we can do is to properly appreciate the full extent of 'Post-Hegelian Humanistic-Existential Multi-Dialectic Theory' (I guess I am partly going through the back door to 'trumpet my own DGB Dialectic-Philosophy-Psychology...here).
By fully recognizing and appreciating that it takes two 'opposing bi-polar theories' to make one good -- or at least better, i.e., more 'dialectically wholistic and integrative', theory that covers both opposing sides of life, and is not inherently incomplete, and thus, eventually self-destructive.
By itself, Freud's 'Traumacy Theory' collapses -- it self-destructs -- because it is inherently one-sided. We need to search out the 'bi-polar opposite' of 'traumacy theory' which is a combination of 'pleasure theory', 'narcissistic fixation' theory, 'fantasy theory', 'Oedipal Theory'...and more...
Freud did all of this...but Freud was more of an Aristotelean 'Either/Or' thinker than he was a 'Hegelian dialectic thinker'. By this, I mean that even though Freud's fundamental Classical Model of The Personality -- i.e., 'The Id', 'The Superego', and 'The Ego' -- is based on 'Classical Hegelian Dialectic Theory (i.e., 'thesis', 'anti-thesis', and 'synthesis'), still for the most part in Freud's professional career, whenever Freud developed a 'new' theory, he left his 'old' theory behind. This very bad thinking habit of Freud's was based on Aristotelean Either/Or thinking.
When Freud developed his rather 'narrow-minded' and infamous 'Seduction Theory', he left behind a better, less narrow-minded theory which 'explained' more of human behavior and neurosis as a whole: i.e., his Traumacy Theory. Thus, 'Freud's 'Seduction Theory' should have been kept as a 'sub-section' or 'sub-theory' relative to his Traumacy Theory. Relative to his more general Traumacy Theory, Freud's Seduction Theory could have been, and should have been called his 'Sexual Traumacy Theory'. Thus, his Seduction/Sexual Traumacy Theory should have been incorporated as part of his larger, and more generally applicable Traumacy Theory. His Traumacy Theory shouldn't have been left behind anymore than his Seduction Theory should have been. And here is the kicker -- both should have been incorporated into and integrated with his later Fantasy and Oedipal Theory and Object Relations Theory.
My motto is: 'Let no good theory -- or partly good theory -- be left behind.
We saw this in the evolution of physics where 'particle theory' became integrated with 'wave theory' to become a more 'dialectically solid theory' that we now call 'particle-wave theory'. The latter -- dialectically stronger theory -- paved the wave for what we now call 'Quantum Physics'.
This is exactly what needs to be done in Psychoanalysis.
Multi-Integrative Psychoanalysis where the 'bi-polar opposite theories' start to come back together...back into one 'Multi-Dialectic Whole'...
Worded otherwise, call this: 'Quantum Psychoanalysis'. (Don't ask me where the name 'quantum' came from in physics but it sounds good...and it sounds 'integrative'...as attested by 'particle' and 'wave' theory dialectically coming together in the form of 'particle-wave' theory...
And dare I say this -- knowing that I will probably come across as a complete egotist (which is partly true on a good day...) -- but I am probably one of the few theorists -- if not the only one -- who can completely rebuild Classical Psychoanalysis in the 'most multi-dialectical, integrative and wholistic fashion' that I have creatively contrued in my head (mind-brain) here over the course of my own philosophical and psychological evolutionary period of some 35 years.
I had no idea that I would end up back on the subject of Psychoanalysis -- a subject that I took an interest in, and basically taught myself in the 1980s.
I can only remember taking a handful of 'introductory Psychoanalysis courses' in university. I think I took one course that introduced me to 'Object Relations'.
I have not met one Psychoanalyst or ex-Psychoanalyst (except by email) in my lifetime -- at least that I can remember. I probably did at one point but not to the point of actually discussing Psychoanalysis (except again, one rather important person by email).
But I have become 'obsessive' in re-building Psychoanalysis -- even though I have no 'official credibility' by which to do so. But it is a 'free internet' and 'integrating ideas' is free also in North America...something that I do believe I am pretty good at...
To be sure, there is some huge 'creative Transference and/or Sublimation Complex' at work here in my 35 years of work on this project as I continue to write hundreds of integrative essays in Hegel's Hotel...
In Hegel's Hotel,
- Freud and Masson are united...and speak together in the same hotel conference room...
- Masson and Classical Psychoanalysis are re-united under the banner of a larger, 'more enlightened' and 'more sexually egalitarian' and idealistic Psychoanalysis for the 21st Century...In Hegel's Hotel, as of this essay, I just started to call this 'DGB Quantum Psychoanalysis'...
- Freud and Adler are reunited in the same hotel conference room
- Freud and Jung are reunited in the same hotel conference room
- Freud and Perls are reunited in the same hotel conference room
- Freud and Ferenczi, Rank, Wilhelm and Theodor Reik, are all united in the same hotel conference room...
In Hegel's Hotel,
We strive for dialectic contact, engagement, energy, passion, a 'tolerance and respect for disagreement', negotiation, and integration...
In Hegel's Hotel,
All the Classical Psychoanalysts, Object Relationists, Self Psychologists, ex-Psychoanalysts, neo-Psychoanalysts, and anti-Psychoanalysts....
Come home to roost...to help Rebuild The House That Freud Built...
In a more 'dialectically-democratic' environment...
With me playing the primary role of mediator, negotiator, integrator...
Enough writing for today...my other work is calling me....
-- dgb, January 30th, 2010
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
