You would think that this distinction would be obvious but not so in Classical Psychoanalysis.
Around about 1897, Freud stopped talking about 'memories' and focused his studies, his writing, and his clinical practise on -- 'phantasies' (or 'fantasies', some such as Melanie Klein have made the distinction between 'phantasies' and 'fantasies' by including 'negative fantasies' under the label 'phantasies').
Very little discussion about 'memories' after 1897 to the point where Classical Psychoanalysis today is often described or defined as the study of 'human fantasies'. I shake my head at that one as it seems to me to be a very 'reductionistic' definition and description of what Classical Psychoanalysis could be, can be -- and is capable of becoming.
But since I am an outsider without any power in this regard -- except in the content of my own writing, and within the walls of 'Hegel's Hotel', while at the same time, I am still basically writing about 'Psychoanalyisis' and 'Psychoanalytic topics', I make the following distinction between Freud's work, i.e., 'Classical Psychoanalysis' and my own work, '(Optimal, Multi-Dialectic) Quantum Psychoanalyis' which can also either be equated with, or fall under the broader branch of, 'GAP-DGB Psychology and Philosophy'.
To be clear, here is the distinction that I myself make between a 'memory' and a 'fantasy'...
1. A 'memory' is something that actually happened -- or at least something that the person recalling the memory 'thinks' happened in his or her life. On a broader scale, a 'memory' can include anything in our brain that we can recall that we think constitutes 'knowledge' in some category and/or fashion.
2. A 'fantasy' usually needs -- in fact, dare I say 'always needs' -- either a 'memory' or at least some sort of 'visual or perceptual image' in order to bring the 'fantasy' alive in our brain. In this regard, a 'fantasy' is generally -- unless it is working from a very 'satisfying' memory that can be reworked in our mind over and over again until we get tired of it -- tied to some sort of 'unsatisfying' or 'incomplete' or 'unfinished' memory and/or image (this memory or image could be 'traumatic', involve 'rejection', 'failure', 'insufficient satisfaction', etc.) that again, as in a very 'satisfying memory', we re-work over and over again in our mind (an indication of the 're-creation' and/or 'repetition' and/or 'mastery' compulsion) using 'conceptual additions, modifications, and compensations' to turn the less than satisfying memory into a much more satisfying and 'complete' one until we get bored with this fantasy -- and move onto another 'more exciting' one.
In this regard, to distinguish in one important way from Classical Freudian Psychoanalysis, DGB (Optimal, Multi-Dialectic) Quantum Psychoanalysis investigates the integrative dialectic interaction between 'memories' and 'fantasies' and yet at the same time clearly distinguishes the one from the other.
One of Freud's biggest failings is that he didn't do this and seemed to 'conflate' the two together 'epistemologically' basically after 1897, and more strongly after 1905, linking both memories and phantasies (or fantasies) together under the common label of -- 'phantasies'.
In this way, Freud didn't have to get involved in the 'epistemological can of worms' of trying to determine 'what was real' and 'what was not real' but instead concluded that everything cited by the client was to be considered to be 'subjectively real' for the client and further more to be considered a 'phantasy'. Thus, no more -- or at least very little more -- talk about 'childhood traumacies' and 'sexual traumacies' and 'childhood sexual seductions or assaults'....everything became linke with 'childhood sexual impulses and desires and fantasies'....Like Jeffrey Masson, I consider this to be a huge 'philosophical/epistemological error' on Freud's part that no longer generally or properly recognized the difference between a 'real childhood (sexual) assault' and an 'imaginary one that was disguising the client's own sexual wish'.... A huge epistemological (reductionistic) error on the part of Freud that the rest of Psychoanalyis continues to 'swallow whole' (introject) to this very day.
I call this the 'Silencing of The Lambs' and I include Anna Freud, Kurt Eissler, Janet Malcolm, and the rest of the 'quiet' Psychoanalyists working and making a very good living today -- as 'lambs'.
For what it's worth....I write from the academic underground...Masson wrote from the academic foreground and the only way 'they' (meaning the powers of The Psychoanalytic Establishment in the early 80s (primarily Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler) could 'silence' Masson was by 'pushing him out of Psychoanalysis.
At some point, the powers that run an Institution may have to choose between the 'reputation, credibility, and legacy' of their Founder -- in this case, Sigmund Freud) and the ongoing functionality, legitimacy, and 'logical, egalitarian reason' of the evolving philosophical ideas that make up the institution.
Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler chose wrong -- they defended Freud's reputation and character over fundamental philosophical changes that needed to be made in The Institution in order to better serve the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century -- and particularly, in order to better serve the needs of women, and their ongoing striving for equal rights with men.
In this regard, in remaining loyal to father Freud, both Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler chose a path that continued to 'suppress' and 'betray' the ongoing evolution of women's rights.
In the end, this was their mutual fundamental failing as two of the leading psychoanalysts of the late 20th century.
And like 'good kids' that do everything their parents say, and repeat back to them everything their parents want to hear, the Psychoanalytic Powers that be continue to hold onto this 'failed legacy' of Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, and Kurt Eissler...
Or in short, Classical Freudian Psychoanalysis,
Continues to fail women...
In order 'not to upset' Sigmund Freud's legacy and image...
As they say in poker and in business, sometimes you simply have to know when to cut your losses...
Psychoanalysis -- and more particularly, the Governing Bodies of The International Institution of Psychoanalysis,
Still wish to 'sweep their organizational, theoretical, and therapeutic problems under the carpet'.
Still abide by the organizational 'solution' of basically 'saying nothing' and hoping, assuming, expecting that the problem (i.e. 'The Oedipal Complex', the role of 'fantasy' as opposed 'memory', and the role of 'impulse and desire' as opposed to 'traumacy' in psychotherapy...) will eventually go away....It has for over 100 years but unfortunately the same problem -- the same 'neurotic symptom' -- keeps coming back to haunt them over and over again like it is attached to the 'repetition compulsion'... It won't go away...
In the face of other schools of psychology that long ago got the message...
That some of Freud's ideas are blatantly sexist and full of masculine, narcissistic bias...
Classical Psychoanalysis still hasn't gotten out of The Victorian Era...
And still hasn't come around to the 21st century...
DGB Quantum Psychoanalysis aims to offer some help here...
My goal is not to 'bash Freud's character' although that partly goes with the territory...Freud made a couple of really bad theoretical and therapeutic mistakes.
Still I admire the extent of Freud's creativity and understand that 'making mistakes' is part of the territory that comes with 'taking risks' that other theorists and psychotherapists are unwilling to make -- such as Joseph Breuer to give you an example.
Breuer probably was a much more 'empirically minded and empirically based scientist and doctor than Freud was. Breuer was much more careful with his 'generalizations' and didn't like it when Freud started to jump to poorly grounded 'over-generalizations' that weren't completely supported by the clinical facts (such as 'sexual traumacy' and then 'sexual fantasy' being at the bottom of every 'neurosis' and 'neurotic symptom').
However, Freud was the much more creative thinker than Breuer and took us to a lot more different theoretical and therapeutic places than Breuer ever took us to...Although, my idea of a 'good psychotherapist' comes a lot closer to the 'flexibility' and 'compassion' of Breuer working with 'Anna O' in the early 1880s than the more 'rigid righteousness' of Freud working with 'Dora' in the early 1900s.
Freud was always 'getting caught' inside the 'rigid righteousness' of his self-made 'box' called 'Psychoanalysis'. He didn't mind 'exploring' outside the box himself -- and this was perhaps his greatest theoretical strength. But he didn't like other theorists 'exploring outside the Psychoanalytic Box' for him -- generally, but not always, rejected such 'wild' ideas coming from other theorists and therapists outright (Adler, Jung, Wilhelm Reich, Ferenczi, Rank, and more...) -- and this was probably Freud's 'number 1 weakness' as both a theorist and therapist'. Freud didn't like being told that he was 'wrong'.
Freud remains the source of my greatest creative inspiration. And yet, in ways that other theorists and therapists haven't stated before -- or some that have (Masson) -- I have to keep 'banging with a hammer' through the Psychoanalytic Establishment's 'neurotic resitance' in order to get to what I believe is both theoretically and therapeutically closer to being 'right'.
If I was 'inside the Psychoanalytic Establishment', I would be trying to do this more 'diplomatically' and probably with a 'much gentler approach'.
But I'm not inside The Psychoanalytic Establishment, I'm outside of it, impatient, running out of time to accomplish the things I want to accomplish in my lifetime....
So sometimes, like in this essay, as Nietzsche would say, I have to 'philosophize with a hammer'.
Psychoanalysis moves only slightly faster than the skeletons of the dinosaurs in The Royal Ontario Museum...
I think Jung called neurosis 'psychic entropy'.
That fits for me -- and it also fits for my view of The Psychoanalytic Establishment.
Up to this point, in time there has still not been enough necessary motivation and/or willpower for Classical Psychoanalysis to change. They are like a professor who has been teaching the same way -- and the same things -- for 30 years (in Psychoanalysis' case, over 100 years). They are well-paid and simply don't want to change.
Psychoanalysis calls their clients neurotic tendencies 'resistance to change'...
Is that 'counter-projection'?
As long as the money keeps rolling in...
And there are no lawsuits...
As long as 'the lambs remain silent'...
Who wants to change?
Not the client with his or her 'resistance'?
And certainly not Classical Psychoanalysis...
As long as the client is still paying his or her bill?
Is this the way of the world these day?
As long as the 'lambs are silent'...
And the money is still rolling in...
What motivation is there for change?
Just look at Nortel, GM, and Chrysler...
In the North American car industry, it took 'bankruptcy' and 'massive goverment funding'
To do what should have been done years and years before,
But there too,
There was 'psychic entropy' as the money was still rolling in,
And even when it wasn't.
Is this the way of The Psychoanalytic Establishment?
To me, it certainly looks like it.
-- DGB, Aug. 27th-29th, 2010,
-- David Gordon Bain
