Just finished...April 1st, 2010.
For anyone who has studied Freud even on the most basic, introductory level, you probably know that Freud 'conceptually divided' or 'compartmentalized' into three parts: 1. The Id; 2. The Superego; and 3. The Ego.
It is important -- indeed imperative -- that we not get lost in our travels here, and separated from the fact that we are talking about 'model-building' or 'theory-building' or 'map-making' here with there being a world of difference between 'the map' and the 'territory' the map is supposed to represent.
'The map is not the territory' is Korzybski's most famous metaphor and the foundation of General Semantics. General Semantics 101 (Korzybski, Science and Sanity, 1933; S.I. Hayakawa, Language in Thought and Action, 1939, 1940, 1972...).
When we realize this, then it can help us not to get too emotionally attached -- and partly blinded -- by the limitations, weaknesses, boundaries, and means of classification that we are using in the model/map/theory we are presenting to the public.
We can get into a world of 'semantic and philosophical pain' when we do not distinguish properly between our 'man-made world of more or less arbitrary concepts and conceptual boundaries' and the world of 'real world phenomena' that generally does not fit completely and perfectly into our particular classification system/model/map/theory.
Of course, even the concept of 'real world phenomenon/phenomena' is a 'conceptual, semantic, and philosophical snake pit of proposed meaning' because who amongst us is willing to arrogantly claim that we absolutely know without any shadow of a doubt 'what is real' and 'what is not'?
Of course, even the concept of 'real world phenomenon/phenomena' is a 'conceptual, semantic, and philosophical snake pit of proposed meaning' because who amongst us is willing to arrogantly claim that we absolutely know without any shadow of a doubt 'what is real' and 'what is not'?
The 'subjective-objective' split has driven philosophers and epistemologists in particular 'snaky' for a thousand years...and we are no closer to breaking any epistemological new ground here in this philosophical dichotomy, conundrum, quagmire....nightmare....Did I miss anything?
As Nietzsche has asserted in so many words -- and i am paraphrasing -- There is no objective world, only human subjectivity. One of Nietzsche's exact quotes is, 'There are no facts; just interpretations.'
You see the problem -- or the main problem is -- other than the fact that both: 1. our 'sensory-perceptual' system and; 2. our 'rational-empirical' (or 'perceptual-interpretive') system is not perfect (the latter significantly less so than the former), is that our whole 'sensory-perceptual-interpretive-evaluative (SPIE)' system is absolutely full of narcissistic self-interest, subjectivity, and bias...
Do the 'facts' determine our value judgments; or do our value judgments determine the 'facts'? And/or both?
This becomes more and more true, the more we become habitualized by the 'Narcissistic --What's In It For Me? -- Capitalist Culture' that we live in... People begin to lose their sense of 'social interest', 'community interest', and caring for what others want other than themselves...Self-interest and social interest are two character qualities that need to be 'homeostatically in balance' with each other. We need to be able to stand up for what we want and to express our beliefs and values clearly, but at the same time, we need to be able to listen to the beliefs, values, interests, and wants of others as well -- and to care about resolving conflicts of interest between different people, and different groups of people...
Also, money changes everything...
As soon as an employer pays a scientist a salary to conduct a particular experiment -- and the employer has a 'vested interest in the outcome of the experiment' -- then, the employer, the employee, and our society as a whole that allows this to happen, has 'narcissistically corrupted science' to the point where it no longer deserves to be called 'science', and the scientist no longer deserves to be called a 'scientist'. The scientist has become a 'narcissistically corrupted scientist' where 'payment towards a particular corporate goal' has compromised, distorted, subverted his or her own 'scientific objectivity' and the so-called 'objective scientific results of the scientific experiment'.
Also, money changes everything...
As soon as an employer pays a scientist a salary to conduct a particular experiment -- and the employer has a 'vested interest in the outcome of the experiment' -- then, the employer, the employee, and our society as a whole that allows this to happen, has 'narcissistically corrupted science' to the point where it no longer deserves to be called 'science', and the scientist no longer deserves to be called a 'scientist'. The scientist has become a 'narcissistically corrupted scientist' where 'payment towards a particular corporate goal' has compromised, distorted, subverted his or her own 'scientific objectivity' and the so-called 'objective scientific results of the scientific experiment'.
When you are looking for the content and quality of the food ingredients listed on a food package, don't be fooled by what is on the front of the package -- the front of the package contains 'narcissistic advertising' and 'semantic mysticism' geared towards telling you what you want to believe (i.e., that the food is 'good' for you; go ahead and buy it...) -- turn the package over and you will find the more 'objective, scientific' information on the back of the package, not the front. Unfortunately, turn the package over and you are bound to be disappointed, disillusioned, disturbed...
Without straying any further into the domain of 'Corporate and Political Narcissism', even in the domain of our own personal perceptions and behavior, whoever we are, and whatever room we walk into, we are going to notice and pay attention to different things and/or different people in the room according to our own self-interest .
An artist will be attracted by the art on the wall, a writer will be attracted by the books in the library, an internal designer will be attracted (or repulsed) by the internal design of the room...many of the men will become focused on the woman/women in the room who they deem attractive, and likewise with the women regarding the men, assuming a heterosexual orientation, if not the context and factors of the situation regarding 'perception' change again...
An artist will be attracted by the art on the wall, a writer will be attracted by the books in the library, an internal designer will be attracted (or repulsed) by the internal design of the room...many of the men will become focused on the woman/women in the room who they deem attractive, and likewise with the women regarding the men, assuming a heterosexual orientation, if not the context and factors of the situation regarding 'perception' change again...
In short, the content and focus of our perception depends as much on what is 'going on inside' of us as much as it does on what is going on 'outside' of us...
Back to Freud and his Classic 'Triadic' (Id, Superego, Ego) Model of The Personality that reflects a Hegelian assumptive dialectic foundation of the personality (Thesis, Anti-thesis, Synthesis)...
1. Thesis...'The Id'...(Home of all our driving instincts, impulses, wants, needs, hedonism, pleasure-principle, sex, violent tendencies...)
2. Anti-Thesis...'The Superego' (Home of our ethical-moral conscience, assuming we have one, society's laws, norms, expectations, values, our family's (parents') expectations, moral-ethical conscience...self and social restraints...etc.)
3. Synthesis...'The Ego' (Home of the 'Grand Mediator', The 'Negotiator', The 'Compromiser', The 'CEO' of the Personality unless the ego's power has been undermined or overwhelmed sufficiently by one or more of the other 'internal special interest lobbysts' in the personality with 'specific narcissistic and/or anti-narcissistic biases'...i.e., towards either getting one's 'impulses and needs looked after' (The Id's job)....or 'denying/restraining these same impulses, needs, wants, etc because they are too dangerous, too socially risky, and/or too self-threatening' (The Superego's job).
It is a simple, beautiful model of the personality...and easy to work with...
To repeat, this is a very 'Hegelian, dialectic' model....the Id in conflict with the Superego and the Ego mediating and resolving most conflicts...unless the Ego is undermined, manipulated, cajoled, coerced, and/or overwhelmed by the Superego, and/or alternatively, undermined and/or overwhelmed by the deeper, darker forces coming up from the Un/Subconscious Id...(or in Jung's counter-but-similar-model, 'The Shadow'...)
As with any model, there are some weaknesses and limitations to the Classic Freudian model...
It is good that the model is a 'dialectical model' in that it brings out certain 'dialectic conflicts' in the personality, although some of these conflicts such as the internal conflict between 'sexual' and 'anti-sexual' choices of behavior, it describes more clearly and efficiently than others.
In this regard, Freud's model starts up where Nietzsche's dialectic model in 'The Birth of Tragedy' leaves off.
Specifically, Nietzsche's dialectic distinction between the 'Apollonian Personality' (ethical, cognitive, anti-sexual...) and the 'Dionysian Personality' (sexual, sensual, hedonistic...) provides much of the bridge between Hegelian Philosophy and Freudian Psychology.
Specifically, Nietzsche's dialectic distinction between the 'Apollonian Personality' (ethical, cognitive, anti-sexual...) and the 'Dionysian Personality' (sexual, sensual, hedonistic...) provides much of the bridge between Hegelian Philosophy and Freudian Psychology.
However, there are many, many other dialectic conflicts at work in the personality, going off at the same and/or different times that are not as well described by the Classic Freudian model...
In this regard, I like to view my own still evolving DGB Philosophy-Psychology model of the personality as a more 'multi-dialectic model' of the personality than Freud's model. This, hopefully, allows us to view an assortment of other dialectic conflicts in the personality in a more clear light...
Some of these other 'dialectic distinctions' that Freud at least partly missed in his model have been addressed, or at least partly addressed, by other personality theorists such as:
Some of these other 'dialectic distinctions' that Freud at least partly missed in his model have been addressed, or at least partly addressed, by other personality theorists such as:
1. Adler: The distinction between 'feelings of inferiority' and 'superiority striving'...
Adler -- and Adlerian Psychology -- liked/likes to view his/its own particular model of the personality as a more 'wholistic, unified' model of the personality than Freud's Psychoanalytic model.
This is a highly debatable point because Adler's distinction between inferiority feelings and superiority striving brings us very close to another highly inflammatory dialectic conflict both inside the personality and outside the personality relative to other men and/or women, parents and/or children, people of opposite sexes, different colors, different religions, different ethnic and/or cultural groups, different political groups...and so on...It brings out the potential conflict between 'Us' and 'Them', 'You' and 'Me', 'dominant' and 'marginalized' groups, dominant and marginalized individuals...it brings out issues of 'positive' vs. 'negative' self-esteem; it brings out problems of 'authoritarianism' vs 'democracy' or 'egalitarianism'; in short, it brings out any and all extensions of 'the master/slave relationship'....
As democratic as Adler was aiming to be in his 'wholistic, unity -- as in 'no conflict' -- in the personality' model of the personality -- still, his 'democratic idealism' was clashing big time with the 'internal reality' of the master/slave relationship inside the personality (i.e., 'intra-psychically') as well as outside the personality in the socio-economic-political world ('interpersonally').
You see, culturally as well as politically, we like to view ourselves -- meaning both Canada and the U.S. -- as 'democratic countries'.
And yet a quick overview of just how many of our relationships are 'authoritarian' and 'undemocratic' in nature, puts our whole 'idealistic, democratic vision of ourselves' highly into question.
Our parent-child relationships are usually mostly authoritarian.
Our teacher-student relationships are usually mostly authoritarian.
Our employer-employee, manager-supervisor, and supervisor-worker relationships are usually highly authoritarian.
Our legal systems are mainly authoritarian.
Our economic systems are mainly authoritarian.
Our educational systems are mainly authoritarian...
And intertwined within all of these different types of authoritarian relationships...
We try to 'run a democracy'...or pretend that we run a democracy...
At best we might say that we live in an 'authoritarian democracy' or a 'democratic autocracy'.
Everywhere we look -- either 'socially' and/or 'intra-psychically' -- we see deep entanglements and conflicts between authoritarianism and democracy, between the 'will to power' and the 'will to negotiate and interact fairly and equally based on the underlying philosophy of democracy and egalitarianism'.
This is one of the deepest, most challenging dialectic conflicts in the personality -- as well as in our external socio-political-legal-economic world...What we see outside of us and all around us, we can also see inside of us -- indeed, our socio-political-legal-economic world is simply a 'reflection' and a 'projection' of our internal world and our internal conflict between authoritarianism and democracy...between our will to power and control vs. our will to be democratically fair...
How do we reflect this dialectic conflict between authoritarianism and democracy in our model of the personality?
Freud's distinction between the 'Superego' vs. 'The Ego' goes part of the way but does not fully bring out the type of distinction that we are looking for here...
A better distinction of what we are looking for here is a distinction between 'The Superior Ego' and 'The Inferior Ego', or 'The Superego' and 'Underego' (partly picked up by The Gestalt Therapy distinction between 'topdog' and 'underdog') -- with, ideally, 'The Central Ego' mediating and resolving conflicts democratically -- or less ideally -- being over-run by the respective strength of either the Superior Ego (Superego, Topdog) or The Inferior Ego (Underego, Underdog), or conversely by either The Apollonian Ego or The Dionysian Ego in a partly different conflict dynamic around the issue of 'sexuality' as opposed to 'power'. Oftentimes, the respective issues of 'sexuality' and 'power' collide and/or 'conflate' together like too different waves coming at each other from different directions...In such a fashion, we get issues of 'The Master/Slave Relationship', 'Dominance and Submission', and 'Sado-Masochism' often playing themselves out in 'the bedroom'...
There are at least two or three other 'dialectic conflicts' in the personality that I would like to give voice to here...and these conflicts have been addressed by two other schools of psychology -- one of which is a 'subset' of Psychoanalysis -- and that is the school of 'Object Relations', created mainly by the highly unorthodox Psychoanalyst -- Melanie Klein.
Melanie Klein's work, in turn, was picked up and modified by the likes of Ronald Fairbairn, Winnicott, and Guntrip, modified further by Heinz Kohut and turned into 'Self Psychology', while at the same time Eric Berne was further modifying some of Melanie Klein's ideas in the form of his own newly developed school of psychology called 'Transactional Analysis'.
This is my own -- or at least partly my own -- brand or rendition of a combination of Object Relations and Transactional Analysis blended in with Freudian Classical Psychoanalysis and Adlerian Psychology as developed above...Check out the theorists cited above for their own respective, original contributions in this regard...
Melanie Klein mainly originated, and focused on, the distinction between 'good' and 'bad' object...Melanie Klein was developing her controversial ideas in the 1930s. The concept of 'object' goes back to Freud and at least 1905 (Three Essays on Sexuality, Standard Edition)...
From 'good' and 'bad' object, we evolve to the ideas of 'good' and 'bad' parent, and 'good' and 'bad' child...
Some of you old enough to remember, might recall the best-selling book, 'I'm Okay, You're Okay'. This was a Transactional Analysis book that was basically an extension and modification of Kleinian Object Relations thinking...
Some of you old enough to remember, might recall the best-selling book, 'I'm Okay, You're Okay'. This was a Transactional Analysis book that was basically an extension and modification of Kleinian Object Relations thinking...
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I'm OK, You're OK
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I'm OK, You're OK, by Thomas A Harris MD, is one of the best selling self-help books ever published. It is a practical guide to Transactional Analysis as a method for solving problems in life. From its first publication during 1969, the popularity of I'm OK, You're OK gradually increased until, during 1972, its name made the New York Times Best Seller list and remained there for almost two years. It is estimated by the publisher to have sold over 15 million copies to date[1]and to have been translated into over a dozen languages[citation needed].
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Thus, in Kleinian Object Relations, and its extension and modification into Transactional Analysis (originally created by Eric Berne), the 'triangular' dialectic model of Classic Freudian Psychoanalysis (Superego, Ego, and Id) has changed into a more 'square' or 'rectangular' model of Object Relations with 'four ego-quadrants' (or ego-compartments or ego-states), which with more creative evolution developed a fifth ego-compartment in Transactional Analysis (the 'Adult' between the Nurturing Parent and the Critical Parent, as well as between the Compliant Child and The Rebellious Child).
In the DGB model of the personality, the 'Adult' in Transactional Analysis is renamed 'The Central Ego' which can be found in some Psychoanalytic models of the personality. 1. The Central Ego is surrounded by: 2. 'The Nurturing (Supportive, Encouraging, Oral-Giving, 'Good') Parent (Topdog, Superego, Superior Ego)'; 3. 'The Critical (Righteous, Judgmental, Anal-Rejecting, 'Bad') Parent' (Topdog, Superego, Superior Ego); 4. 'The Compliant (Approval-Seeking, 'Good') Child (Underdog, Underego, Inferior Ego); and 5. 'The Rebellious (Defiant, Anal-Rejecting, 'Bad') Child (Underdog, Underego, Inferior Ego...
Two more ego-states that can be added to this model are: 6. 'The Dionysian Topdog (Superego, Superior Ego'); and 7. 'The Dionysian Underdog (Underego, Inferior Ego).
The distinction between The Anal-Righteous Topdog and The Dionsyian Topdog, or conversely, The Anal-Righteous Underdog and The Dionysian Underdog is that the first is about power, righteousness, and revenge, whereas the second is about sensuality, seduction, and sex. (Often, the two are mixed together in the same or interconnected 'rebellious' package...)
From a three-component Classic Freudian model, we have now 'evolved' to a '7-compartment DGB model'...
Still under reconstruction...
Left out of this equation or model -- or at least partly left out of this equation or model -- is 'the dark force of the underlying, unconscious, repressed sexual and/or violent Id'...However, the 'Id' is at least partly picked up by the concept of 'The Rebellious, Defiant, Bad Child' -- particularly to the extent that you can see the issues of 'sex' and/or 'violence' operating within the psychic domain of 'The Bad Child'...
For some theorists who may like this DGB personality model, they may want to keep the concept of 'The Id' or 'The Shadow' as a dark, underlying force that can propel itself 'upwards from the domain of the sub(un)conscious' and into the various ego-states -- particularly 'Rebellious Anal-Rejecting and/or Dionyisan Ego-States'...I have no problem with this outlook although I will be presenting a little different picture down below...
What we have described above is 7 ego-states that reflect, in general, a more conscious part of the personality, including various different types of intra-psychic and/or transference conflicts and/or conflicts and/or neuroses...
The more sub(un)conscious elements of the personality have not been articulated yet -- at least in this essay -- and they still await us below.
From what has just been stated, we can see the 'rise' of another dialectic relationship and potential for conflict -- the dialectic relationship between the more conscious and the more sub(un)conscious elements of the personality.
If there is one ego-state that is most clearly missing in our '7 ego-state' model above, it is this: 'The Romantic Ego'.
The Romantic Ego becomes the 8th ego-state in our now '8 ego-state model'. The Romantic Ego can revolutionize the inside of our personality just as quickly and clearly as Jean-Jacques Rousseau revolutionized 'Enlightenment Philosophy' and moved it in the direction of first 'Romantic Philosophy' and then 'Humanistic-Existentialism'.
For any and/or all of you who have been 'overtaken' or 'subsumed' by love, you know as well as I do that this process of having 'fallen in love' can and usually will come to 'dominate' all other facets of your/our personality. All of your 'rational thought' can just go flying out the window...in a 'Cupid-hit' moment...
The 8 ego states listed above are all 'psychologically important, intra-psychically active, and therapeutically important' to work with. If you wanted even greater simplicity, you could probably bring it down to the first five -- using Transactional Analysis, two 'parent ego states' (The Nurturing Parent and The Critical Parent), 'two child ego states' (The Good, Compliant Child, and The Bad, Defiant Child), and 'The Central, Mediating Ego' to process and integrate the other four ego states. These four or six ego states are almost entirely formed and cemented in childhood.
Whether we talk about the 'Split Self' or 'The Integrated Self' depends very much on how good a job our Central, Mediating Ego does at integrating our 4 or 6 'auxiliary special interest, lobbyist' ego states.
Now, for purposes of greater psychological and philosophical consideration, both for ourselves striving for greater self-awareness and self-balance, and for a therapist who may want to help a client in these dimensions as well, I will list off a number of 'bi-poloar spectrum ego-states', any one of which can 'cause' a 'bi-polar disorder' if we get too 'stuck' at one extreme end of the bi-polar spectrum or the other (or an alternating combination of both) -- specifically:
01. 'The Enlightenment-Romantic Bi-Polar Spectrum';
02. 'The Humanistic-Existential Bi-Polar Spectrum';
03. 'The Autocratic-Democratic Bi-Polar Spectrum';
04. 'The Narcissistic-Altruistic Bi-Polar Spectrum';
05. 'The Apollonian-Dionysian Bi-Polar Spectrum';
06. 'The Constructionist-Deconstructionist (Creative-Destructive) Bi-Polar Spectrum';
07. 'The Reductionist-Holistic Bi-Polar Spectrum';
08. 'The Introversion-Extroversion Bi-Polar Spectrum';
09. 'The Contact-Withdrawal Bi-Polar Spectrum';
10. 'The Rational-Empirical (Observation-Interpretation) Bi-Polar Spectrum';
11. 'The Concreteness-Abstraction Bi-Polar Spectrum';
12. 'The Rootedness-Transcendence Bi-Polar Spectrum';
13. 'The Conscious-Unconscious Bi-Polar Spectrum';
14. 'The Safety-Risk Bi-Polar Spectrum';
15. 'The Impulse-Restraint Bi-Polar Spectrum';
16. 'The Sexual-Non-Sexual Bi-Polar Spectrum';
17. 'The Passive-Aggressive Bi-Polar Spectrum';
18. 'The Yin-Yang Bi-Polar Spectrum';
19. 'The Testosterone-Estrogen Bi-Polar Spectrum';
20. 'The Thought-Action Bi-Polar Spectrum';
21. 'The Religion-Science Bi-Polar Spectrum';
22. 'The Religious-Atheist Bi-Polar Spectrum';
23. 'The God-AntiGod (Christ-AntiChrist, God-Satan) Bi-Polar Spectrum';
24. 'The God-Archetype Bi-Polar Spectrum';
25. 'The Love-Hate Bi-Polar Spectrum';
26. 'The Peace-War Bi-Polar Spectrum';
27. 'The Married-Single Bi-Polar Spectrum';
28. 'The Heterosexual-Homosexual Bi-Polar Spectrum';
29. 'The Dominant-Submissive Bi-Polar Spectrum';
30. 'The Sadistic-Masochistic Bi-Polar Spectrum';
31. 'The Anal (Work, Discipline, Order, Authority, Leadership, Accountability, Defiance...) -Oral (Giving, Getting, Love, Nurturing, Caring, Empathy, Sensitivity...) Bi-Polar Spectrum';
32. 'The Giving-Getting Bi-Polar Spectrum';
33. 'The Structure-Process Bi-Polar Spectrum';
34. 'The Change-No Change' (Similarity-Difference) Bi-Polar Spectrum;
35. 'The Parent-Child Bi-Polar Spectrum';
That is 35 bi-polar 'homeostatic balance' spectrums off the top of my head...
07. 'The Reductionist-Holistic Bi-Polar Spectrum';
08. 'The Introversion-Extroversion Bi-Polar Spectrum';
09. 'The Contact-Withdrawal Bi-Polar Spectrum';
10. 'The Rational-Empirical (Observation-Interpretation) Bi-Polar Spectrum';
11. 'The Concreteness-Abstraction Bi-Polar Spectrum';
12. 'The Rootedness-Transcendence Bi-Polar Spectrum';
13. 'The Conscious-Unconscious Bi-Polar Spectrum';
14. 'The Safety-Risk Bi-Polar Spectrum';
15. 'The Impulse-Restraint Bi-Polar Spectrum';
16. 'The Sexual-Non-Sexual Bi-Polar Spectrum';
17. 'The Passive-Aggressive Bi-Polar Spectrum';
18. 'The Yin-Yang Bi-Polar Spectrum';
19. 'The Testosterone-Estrogen Bi-Polar Spectrum';
20. 'The Thought-Action Bi-Polar Spectrum';
21. 'The Religion-Science Bi-Polar Spectrum';
22. 'The Religious-Atheist Bi-Polar Spectrum';
23. 'The God-AntiGod (Christ-AntiChrist, God-Satan) Bi-Polar Spectrum';
24. 'The God-Archetype Bi-Polar Spectrum';
25. 'The Love-Hate Bi-Polar Spectrum';
26. 'The Peace-War Bi-Polar Spectrum';
27. 'The Married-Single Bi-Polar Spectrum';
28. 'The Heterosexual-Homosexual Bi-Polar Spectrum';
29. 'The Dominant-Submissive Bi-Polar Spectrum';
30. 'The Sadistic-Masochistic Bi-Polar Spectrum';
31. 'The Anal (Work, Discipline, Order, Authority, Leadership, Accountability, Defiance...) -Oral (Giving, Getting, Love, Nurturing, Caring, Empathy, Sensitivity...) Bi-Polar Spectrum';
32. 'The Giving-Getting Bi-Polar Spectrum';
33. 'The Structure-Process Bi-Polar Spectrum';
34. 'The Change-No Change' (Similarity-Difference) Bi-Polar Spectrum;
35. 'The Parent-Child Bi-Polar Spectrum';
That is 35 bi-polar 'homeostatic balance' spectrums off the top of my head...
Move into biology and bio-chemistry and you could get hundreds more...such as:
36. 'The Blood-Sugar Bi-Polar Spectrum';
37. 'The Blood Pressure Bi-Polar Spectrum';
38. 'The Immune System Bi-Polar Spectrum';
39. 'The Thyroid Bi-Polar Spectrum';
40. 'The Cholesterol Bi-Polar Spectrum'.
Every mineral that the body needs to survive -- such as selenium, zinc, iron, potassium, iodine, calcium... -- can also kill us if we ingest too much of this same mineral...Call this the 'dialectical bi-polar paradox or dichotomy of life and death'.
Indeed, Freud was probably not too far off base when, at the end of his career, he differentiated between the 'life' and 'death' instinct...However, I would re-word this as our 'life and death bi-polar spectrum' (listed above).
Enough nutritious food and we stay alive and healthy; too much food and we start to kill ourselves by compromising our body organs and functions...
Enough exercise and we keep all our organs healthy and in good working order; too much exercise and our body organs and functions could start to break down and we kill ourselves...
Dieting to get our body down to a 'good, healthy weight' that we can carry properly is generally going to be good for our health as long as we don't do it too fast and too extreme; diet too hard, too fast, too much, and we could end up killing ourselves...
Our 'transference complexes', played out in one way, can help us to become happy, healthier individuals; however, played out in another way and they could lead to destruction and/or self-destruction.
If you haven't already, are you starting to capture the full idea of what I mean by 'dialectic, bi-polar, homeostatic balance', biology, philosophy, psychology, politics, religion, law, business, economics, ecology, etc...
It has been said thousands of times before in similar and/or different words...
Everything needs to be in balance...
Now I must add that I have played with the idea of giving some or all of these different 'dialectic pairs' of bi-polar spectrums separately named 'ego states' in their own respective name -- most specifically: 'The Apollonian Ego', 'The Dionysian Ego', 'The Narcissistic Ego', and 'The Altruistic Ego'...
It has been said thousands of times before in similar and/or different words...
Everything needs to be in balance...
Now I must add that I have played with the idea of giving some or all of these different 'dialectic pairs' of bi-polar spectrums separately named 'ego states' in their own respective name -- most specifically: 'The Apollonian Ego', 'The Dionysian Ego', 'The Narcissistic Ego', and 'The Altruistic Ego'...
But there is significant duplication and overlapping of values and goals here...and the biggest risk is turning a reasonably simple, straightforward model into a much more complicated and convoluted one...
Thus, I distinguish between the relatively more simple versions of the model I have created here vs. the more extensive, exhausting version of the model.
As I have stated previously in other essays, that leaves four other 'sub/unconscous' components of the personality underlying the psycho-dynamics of what I have articulated above, and these are:
9. The Un/subconscious, Creative-Destructive Dream, Fantasy, and Nightmare Weaver (perhaps this is the work of The Central Ego while we are asleep and/or are otherwise preoccupied);
10. The Un/subconscious Personal Transference Memory and Complex Template;
11. The Un/subconscious Genetic, Mythological Memory, God, Archetype, and Complex Template (Jung's influence);
12. The Un/subconscious Potential, Evolving (Good and/or Bad, Healthy and/or Toxic) Blueprint or Template of The Self (Spiritually or religiously speaking, we might call this our 'Spirit' and/or our 'Essence' and/or our 'Soul').
This is the '12 part model of the personality' that I will predominantly work with.
The first 8 parts of the personality, I will quickly list again, in my own DGB language:
1. The Oral-Nurturing Superego;
2. The Anal-Righteous (Critical, Rejecting, Apollonian, Constructive) Superego;
3. The Narcissistic-Dionysian Superego;
4. The Oral-Receptive, Oral-Approval-Seeking, Anal-Compliant Underego;
5. The Anal-Rebellious (Defiant, Deconstructive) Underego;
6. The Narcissistic-Dionysian Underego;
7. The Romantic-Spiritual Ego;
8. The Central Mediating and Executive Ego
All of these different ego states have both healthy and/or pathological dimensions attached to them....depending on how we play them out...
For those of you who are not familiar with the Freudian 'oral-anal' distinction which are both capable of being very ambiguous, semantically confusing concepts, I will quickly give you my interpretation of what these concepts mean:
'Oral' pertains to the domain of 'ingesting or taking in through the mouth' and often the 'pleasure' associated with this action: specifically, eating, drinking, sucking...and more metaphorically speaking, 'oral' in the context of many Freudian papers, and the categories listed above, pertains to the domain of 'giving' and 'getting', and in particular, giving and getting love...like in the case of the mother as 'primary nurturer' and the child as the 'recipient of this unconditional maternal love'...under normal, healthy child-rearing conditions...
'Anal', in contrast', pertains more to the area of 'work' and 'performance' and 'discipline' and 'being judged' on the basis of your performance....and 'detoxification' (hygiene, neatness, cleanliness, organization or disorganization...), 'punctuality', 'parsimony', 'collecting', 'hoarding' or not hoarding, 'cheapness', 'being able to save money'...
From all or most of these often inter-related character traits, we get the 'anal-retentive' personality...'the neat freak', 'the control freak', loves rules, love routines, loves order...and so on...
On the opposite side of the 'anal' polar spectrum, we get, in DGB, if not in Freudian, terminology, 'the anal-explosive' personality (messy, disorganized, hoarding, unclean, un-neat, un-hygenic, habitually late, rebellious, hates rules, breaks rules, impulsive, hates routine, hates authority, hates 'The Establishment', hates 'The Status Quo', critical of existing rules, sometimes likes to create new rules and new ways of organizing things...philosophical ramifications of the 'anal explosive personality' are 'Deconstructionism' and 'Post-Modernism'...Socrates, Hume, Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida, Masson, and yours truly being prime examples of this type of personality...
It is important to understand that every individual person reflects different degrees of 'extremism' in all these listed character traits and the more abstracted categories of 'oral' vs. 'anal' and 'anal retentive' vs. 'anal-explosive'....Also, every individual person reflects and displays 'mixed character traits' and 'mixed categories'...Everything is not all 'black' and 'white' except perhaps in the final distinction between 'life' and 'death', and even here 'mistakes in classification' have been made...
I will make one last point that I have developed in another set of essays (Gods, Myths, Philosophers, and Psychologists...) before I close this essay.
'Gods, heroes, villains, myths, and external transference objects/figures' in DGB Philosophy-Psychology become 'external projections and reflections' of the internal structure and dynamics of our psyche...
In contra-distinction, 'archetypes' and 'archetype-myths' are 're-internalizations' of these same externally projected Gods, heroes, villains, and myths...
In contra-distinction, 'archetypes' and 'archetype-myths' are 're-internalizations' of these same externally projected Gods, heroes, villains, and myths...
On this note, we will close for today...
-- DGB, Tuesday March 30th, finished up on April 1st, 2010.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
