Just finished...dgb, June 16th, 2010.
Every theorist owns a part of the truth and a part of the untruth that is that specific element of the Universe that the theorist has invested so much of his or her time and energy on trying so obsessively to understand and explain. It might be self-enlightening to examine the underlying conflict, motivation and resultant direction of the bias that propels one's own obsessive-compulsion in this particular domain. -- dgb, June 16th, 2010.
A/ Introduction
Classical Psychoanalysis suffers from 'Bi-Polar Disorder' and/or 'Repression/Suppresion Syndrome'. -- dgb
To many psychologists today, their reaction to the assertion above may be: 'Who cares?' -- the idea being here that Classical Psychoanalysis is all but irrelevant today, that it, in effect, has already been thrown in the garbage can by most psychologists and psychiatrists.
Meanwhile, there are others that have been taught this school of psychology who still hold onto its beliefs with a 'pitbull's jaws' -- they maintain a 'holding on bite' that is inflexible to change, evolution, modification...and incapable of bringing Classical Psychoanalysis up to a revitalized, and revitalizing, psychotherapeutic process in the 21st. century.
Finally, there are the new breed of 'Traumacy-Seduction Theorists' who believe that Freud made a grievious theoretical error over a period of about 3 to 8 years (1897 to 1900 to 1905) that has resulted in about 110 years of clinical damage to any and/or all of those Psychoanalytic clients who have suffered by it from let us say 1900 to 2010. Dr. Jeffrey Masson was the most outspoken member of this last group and he made the theoretical and clinical issue extremely public between the years of about 1980 and 1994.
The essence of Dr. Masson's controversial historical interpretive analysis -- and editorial opinion of Freud -- is that Freud essentially 'lost moral courage' after he presented his new theory of the 'causes of hysteria' in 1896 (the paper was called: The Aetiology of Hysteria) to a well established group of psychiatrists in which Freud very controversially asserted that hysteria -- or at least 'defensive' hysteria -- could not happen without the effect of 'repressed early childhood sexual abuse' (due to the vicitimization of the father, or sometimes an older sibling, a family 'friend' or relative, or a stranger). The reception of Freud's paper was extremely hostile and rejecting, one psychiatrist calling Freud's theory a 'scientific fairy tale'. For legitimate or illegitimate reasons, Freud abandoned his 'new theory' shortly after this professional presentation, and changed it radically in about a 180 degree direction over the next 3 to 8 years.
Freud's 'Traumacy-Seduction Theory' was one that had been evolving from the early 1880s (the case of Anna O, onwards to 1896), and it was one that had evolved through Freud in conjunction with the work and ideas of Charot and Breuer before him, and perhaps Janet and other neurologists/hypnotists during this same time period as it pertained to what at that time was being called 'hysteria' and the beginning of other psychological diagnostic categories that Freud was differentiating from each other such as 'obsessional neurosis' and 'anxiety neurosis'. This was basically the beginning of Clinical Psychoanalysis -- at least in terms of what we now call 'depth' psychology. Freud, in partial conjunction with the others mentioned above, was the first to associate 'adult neuroses' and 'psychological disorders' with 'childhood experiences and memories'...and later 'fantasies'...
To this day, Freud's 1897-1900-1905 abandonment of The Seduction Theory -- along with its network of replacement theories, i.e., The Oedipal Complex, Childhood Sexuality, The Psycho-Sexual Stages of Childhood Development (Oral, Anal, Phallic, Genital), and Neurosis Being Viewed as The 'Cover Up Symptomology' For Repressed Childhood Sexual Perversions (such as Voyeurism, Exhibitionism, Fetishes, Sadism, Masochism, Dominance, Submission...) -- arguably remains the most provocative and controversial component, and many would say 'most outdated' when it comes to such highly emotionally charged Freudian concepts as 'Castration Anxiety' and 'Penis Envy', in Classical Psychoanalysis...
Through all of this, I lay claim to the idea that Classical Psychoanalysis after 1897 became more and more like the 'neuroses' it was treating...i.e., Freud's 'split Traumacy-Seduction vs. Oedipal-Fantasy theory' before and after 1897 basically created a 'split school of Psychoanalysis' -- suffering from both 'bi-polar disorder' and from 'repression/suppression syndrome'...When it comes to Classical Psychoanalytic theory and therapy, Psychoanalysts 'keep trying to forget' the important work that Freud did before 1897 -- and yet, over and over again, like 'hysterical symptoms -- and what they symbolically represent', this 'repressed and/or suppressed pre-1897 work keeps coming back to haunt Classical Psychoanalysis because it cannot and should not be forgotten. Like 'the id' -- or as I like to say 'The Narcissistic-Dionysian Ego' -- which is an inherent part of our 'biochemcial-psychology', Freud's work before 1897 -- and specifically, his 'Traumacy-Seduction Theory' cannot and should not be forgotten.
It is quite possible that Freud did indeed 'cave in' to 'political and economic pressure, coercion, and correctness', unwilling to stand strong against those professional men, and I repeat 'men' -- possibly for narcissistic reasons -- who did not like the direction that Freud was taking his 'Aetiology of Hysteria' theory...
But if 'Freud lacked or lost moral courage', so too did a whole generation of psychiatrists, medical doctors, and Victoria civilians in general who simply did not want to open the can of worms of 'childhood sexual abuse'... Indeed, it would take another 60 or 65 years before 'feminists' started to venture back into this same 'politically incorrect' territory. And in those 60 to 65 years, we would have to accuse every Psychoanalyst who did not fully endorse the essence of Freud's Oedipal Complex (i.e., every daughter having 'repressed fantasies-turned into distorted memories-of being -- or wanting to be -- seduced by her father) of also lacking 'moral courage' -- of 'toting the Political Establishment Classical Psychoanalytic line' when in their heart they didn't fully or even partly, believe in this all-encompassing, overgeneralized, Freudian theory which in some if not many clinical cases might actually be 'covering up' the clinical phenomenon of childhood sexual abuse . Maybe Freud got it right the first time, caved under political-economic pressure, and manipulated The Traumacy-Seduction Theory into a bogus -- or at least partly bogus -- Childhood Sexuality and Fantasy Theory?
I find this 'malicious ethical intent' theory on Freud's part very hard to believe given Freud's usually very brave and persistent stand on his own controversial theories. But who knows, given the political-economic climate at the time amongst professional superiors and peers who could have in effect destroyed Freud's professional, medical career?
Still, if this is what happened, then we would have to also partly blame thousands of psychoanalytic theorists and practictioners since Freud for falsely holding onto the same unethical premise (in the face of growing knowledge of the actual size of the childhood sexual abuse problem) and this would include both Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler -- the two most powerful Psychoanalysts through the 60s, 70s, and early 80s, until Anna Freud died in 1982.
And even after Anna Freud died, and with Jeffrey Masson rhetorically hammering his case home against Freud's abandonment of the seduction theory and what it did relative to the mistreatment of women (particularly those suffering from childhood sexual abuse) by Psychoanalysts everywhere who were misinterpreting 'memories of childhood sexual abuse' as The Oedipal Complex unconsciously at work (daughters wanting to be 'seduced' by their fathers).
To the extent that this was happening in Classical Psychoanalytic Offices -- and still might be happening -- to this extent, this was undoubtedly either Freud's worst theoretical and repetitive clinical error, or, more inexcusably, one of his worst ethical transgressions in his professional history. (He had a few of them such as his personal and professional activities with cocaine and the Emma Ekstein botch nasal surgery affair.) Could this have been'psychoanalytic political correctness' at its worst, unbridled by literally thousands of 'overtrusting, uncritical, and/or unchallenging' Classical Psychoanalysts that followed Freud and said virtually nothing, at least publicly...until Masson broke this scandal in the late 70s, and throughout the 80s and early 90s?
Or did Freud simply overgeneralize (like he did many times in his career) first one way (The Seduction Theory) and then the other way (The Oedipal-Fantasy Theory) -- and he couldn't at any point in time between 1897 and 1905, or anytime afterwards for the rest of his professional career, find any way of integrating the two polar opposite theories that perhaps stand in juxtaposition to each other just like the 'particle theory' and the 'wave theory' of energy and matter stood in juxtaposition to each other, until some scientist(s) finally found a way to dialectically bring the two opposing theories together into one 'bi-polar theory' which we now call 'Quantum Physics'?
This is the road that I have found to be the most intriguing (given my post-Hegelian philosophical leanings) and to have potentially the greatest theoretical and clinical benefits as I work towards an integrative 'Traumacy-Seduction-Oedipal-Fantasy' theory that I will also refer to as 'Quantum Psychoanalysis'...
Other psychoanalysts such as Melanie Klein, Ronald Fairbairn, Winnicott, and Guntrip...would later take Psychoanalysis a whole new direction and -- and avoid this 'Seduction-Oedipal Controversy' almost completely -- by creating the new 'sub-school' of Psychoanalysis -- 'Object Relations' which would later be taken by some theorists (Kohut et al...) into another sub-school of Psychoanalysis called 'Self-Psychology'.
Someone else, more knowledgeable on this matter than me, would have to tell me what the percentage of 'Classical Psychoanalysts' is amongst today's psychoanalysts as contrasted to say a combination of 'Object Relationists' and 'Self-Psychologists' (Kohut, etc...)
I'm not even a psychoanalyst and yet psychoanalysis remains my favorite hobby and in Hegel's Hotel one of my biggest -- and favorite -- projects is to 'try to make Psychoanalysis whole again'....just like Humpty Dumpty...
Again, there will be many who say, 'Why bother?'
As opposed to the most anal-retentive Classical Psychoanalysts who hang on with the 110 year old pit bull bite and snap: 'Leave Classical Psychoanalyis alone! It was and is meant to be exactly the way that Freud presented it to us -- after 1897!'
In between, comes me, with my Nietzschean deconstructive sledgehammer in hand, and my reconstructive crew following close behind me...checking my new architectural designs as I aim to 'fit' Classical Psychoanalysis into a substantial section of floors in Hegel's Hotel, bringing with me a whole host of Freud's closest friends, co-workers, students, and hottest enemies...Adler, Jung, Reich, Rank, Ferenczi, Anna Freud, Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott, Guntrip, Kohut, Berne, Bird, Perls, and Masson...
They all have an important place in Hegel's Hotel...
Only, by the time I finish with Classical Psychoanalysis, there is no way that it can still be called 'Classical Psychoanalysis'...I prefer the term 'DGB Quantum Psychoanalysis' myself...But if that is too offensive to all the living Psychoanalysts out there -- and a 'trespassing' onto their 'copyright territory' -- then I can live with the name 'DGB Quantum Depth Psychology'.
I'm flexible...as I think every psychotherapist and every school of psychology should be...
The object is for the psychotherapist and the school of psychology to adapt and evolve to the 'individiual phenomenology, symptomology, and etiology of the client' -- not the reverse.
'Righteous rigidity' is pathological to man's personality and evolution...unless we are holding onto the most essential values of man's personal and/or collective life...and even these are sometimes debatable...such as 'Thou shalt not kill'. (abortion, euthanasia, the death penalty...)
We move back in time in the history of Psychoanalysis to the crucial years between 1897 and 1905...
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B/ The Great Psychoanalytic Schism and The Potential Evolution of Classical Psychoanalysis into 'Quantum' Psychoanalysis in The 21st Century
1897 to 1905 were the crucial years of the 'theoretical and clinical schism' for Freud as he 'disavowed' much of his work before 1897, holding onto some ideas, but radically re-interpreting and re-evaluating other ideas -- most notably his traumacy-seduction theory -- in such a way as to turn Psychoanalysis on its ear as much as Marx turned Hegelian philosophy on its ear.
Between the fateful years of 1897 and 1905, Psychoanalysis was in the process of evolving from a 'traumacy' theory of psychopathology (neurosis, paranoia...) to a 'fantasy' theory of psychopathology.
From a DGB Post-Hegelian point of view, the essential question becomes: Can these two theories be integrated, and if so, how?
My answer to this question is: Yes, they can be integrated with the necessary concepts required to fufill this integration -- i.e., to bridge the schism in Psychoanalysis that developed between 1897 and 1905 -- not yet fully developed in Freud's conceptual arsenal. By the time they were developed, it was perhaps too late; the schism in Psychoanalysis was already there, and Freud wasn't going to turn back, i.e., he probably did not have the inclination to turn back, to attempt to integrate his pre-1897 work with his post-1897 work, and/or he didn't have the full creative repertoire to do it...And some of the concepts that he would have needed to pull off the job that I am going to pull of below, and in assorted follow-up essays, would have required Freud to reach outside of Classical Freudian Psychoanalysis and into the theoretical reperoire of Adlerian Psychology (Compensation Theory, Inferiority Feelings, Superiority Striving, The Lifestyle Goal...), Object Relations (which was a long way from being fully developed), Transference Theory and Narcissistic Theory which were still in need of further development (and which would never be developed in the particular fashion that I will develop them here), Transactional Analysis, Gestalt Therapy, and 'Massonian Deconstructionism' of The Oedipal Complex and Classical Psychoanalysis...
I have two strong theoretical advantages over Freud and his thinking between 1897 and 1905. The first is about 110 more years of evolution in clinical psychology, personality theory, psychopathology, and psychotherapy. And the second is that I am not as 'righteously pigeon-holed' in my thinking as Freud was. Freud was a brilliantly creative thinker but he could also get 'righteously stuck' inside theories and arbitrary conceptual boundaries of his own making...
To paraphrase the words of Hegel: Every theory, every concept, carries within it, the seeds to its own self-destruction. (How easily comparible to Freud's concept of 'the death instinct'! How ironic that Freud didn't see the 'death instinct' in his own theories and concepts!! But, then again, who amongst us can fully see the limitations and weaknesses of our own theories and concepts?
We build our theories and concepts up like Gods only to have someone else come along, read them, and trash them like straw houses....The moral of this story is that we have to build stronger houses that can withstand more public and academic criticism...and in this regard a house with 'two foundations' is likely to be stronger than a house with 'one foundation'...A 'Traumacy-Seduction Theory House', in and by itself, has shown itself to be at least a partly weak house -- it doesn't adequately explain the full extent and involvement of 'narcissistic desire, impulse, fantasy...' in the manifestation of human behavior, sexual behavior, neurosis, and psychopathology...
At the same time, an 'Oedipal-Childhood Sexuality-Fantasy Theory House' does not adequately explain the full extent and involvement of human traumacy, rejection, failure, and abuse in the manifestation of human behavior, sexual behavior, neurosis, and psychopathology...
Why not build a Psychoanalytic House -- a 'Quantum Psychoanalytic House' -- with both foundations holding up the house at the same time, the one foundation holding the house up strong, even as the other foundation falters or lacks full support...when the ultimate 'multi-bi-polar nature' of human behavior presents itself in the type of paradoxical, irratic, seemingly irrational, hypocritical, manipulative and controlling manners that any experienced psychotherapist is used to seeing and listening to?
Freud built Classical Psychoanalysis on a bi-polar model of the human personality and human behavior that differentiated between the 'id' (containing the biological, biochemical, and psychological impulses, desires, and drives in the personality) as partly or fully restrained, suppressed, repressed, disavowed...etc...by the human conscience or 'Superego' and as mediated by 'The Ego' as the ultimate integrating, synthesizing force in the personality serving two opposing masters in the personality, and tryin to 'please' them both with 'compromises', 'compromise-formations', 'conflict-resolutions', and 'integrations' ...
I am simply adding another bi-polar function here in the personality, and to Classical Psychoanalysis in the form of Quantum Psychoanalysis -- the 'traumacy' section of the mind-brain vs. the 'fantasy' section of the mind-brain...and the endless creative-destructive, phobic-counter-phobic transfrerence dynamics that can play out between them...in the world of 'paradoxical craziness' that we call 'human behavior'...
I will leave you to chew on what I have written so far...before we move on...
-- dgb, June 16th, 2010.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
