Hi Mr. Bain
I've come across you blog by searching for Hegel and psychoanalysis and some of your writing seems interesting.
Have you ever read Norman O. Brown? He sees psychoanalysis as dialectical as well. Wilhelm Reich also writes about the dialectic too, what do you think of him?
Anyway, could you tell me what you think are the key texts to understand splitting or ego states (As in "Object Relations theorists and the Transactional Analysts -- of 'ego states' and the concept that Freud came back to in the twilight of his career (around 1938, I believe, or a few years previously) of 'ego-splitting'.).
cheers,
Trevor
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Hi Trevor,
Nice to hear from you...and your feedback...
Regarding your questions,
1. I didn't know about Normon Brown until you wrote me....I did a quick perusal on the internet to find him....and read a little summary of his work...hard to evaluate a writer on one quick summary of his work....seems a little too 'one-sided' for me in his viewpoint...too latter day Nietzschean, too Dionysian...too liberal...too Reichian...too 'let the unconscous go wild'....although he separates 'thought' from 'deed' and opts for 'polymorphously perverse thinking and feeling', but not necessarily 'polymorphously perverse doing'...which brings us back to the question,
Newer extended version of what I wrote to Trevor: 'At what point do you draw the line between what you do and don't bring up from the unconscious in all its unbridled wildness and brazeness? At some point, there still needs to be a more 'civilized, ethical, reality-based ego or superego' cutting off what is socially, morally, and legally unacceptable...otherwise, you have the makings of a modern-day 'caveman' mentality...a 21st century 'Lord of The Flies'...not that we aren't half way there anyway but Capitalism by itself overstimulates man's capability for narcissism...we don't need to further try to justify and rationalize our narcissistic overstimulation...by ethically saying that it is okay...an 'every man and woman for him and herself and don't worry about stepping on one's neighbor and co-worker and boss or employee'...we have far too much of that already...
2. Reich I am familiar with as he greatly influenced Fritz Perls and the beginning of Gestalt Therapy....I like Reich...although he might have gone a little -- or a lot -- over 'the deep end' at the end of his life...or not...
3. Object Relations....a lot of books...a good one is Harry Guntrip, Psychoanalytic Theory, Therapy and The Self....others...Philip Manfield, 'Split Object, Split Self'', Bacal and Newman, Theories of Object Relations: Bridges to Self Psychology...Melanie Klein is usually considered to be the founder of Object Relations (good and bad object, internal and external objects...although Freud may also be considered to be the first Object Relationist....as in 'Three Essays in Sexuality...he wrote....and I am paraphrasing partly: 'A distinction must be made between 'the sexual aim' and 'the sexual object'...Ronald Fairbairn came shortly after Melanie Klein with some interesting ideas (rejecting object, exciting object) as well...
4. Tranactional Analysis, see Eric Berne...Games People Play....Check the internet for quick stuff on TA...Structural Analysis...distinctions between ego-states...'Nurturing Parent vs. Critical Parent, The Adult Ego State, The Compliant Child, The Rebellious Child, The Free Child...
5. Freud....1938, 'The Splitting of The Ego in The Process of Defense'....a short little essay 3 or 4 pages..which was a continuation of the same type of idea written much earlier in 1894 'The Neuro-psychoses of Defense'....and then not written about for approx. another 40 years!!! Extended version of what I wrote to Trevor: Actually, this previous comment needs to be corrected a bit. In 1894, Freud was already in the process of 'moving away from' Janet's idea of 'the splitting of consciousness' (1892-1894, 1893)...The 'splitting of consciousness' implies what 60 or 70 years later (Object Relations, Transactional Analysis) might be referred to as a 'splitting of one ego state into two or more ego states, both or all potentially or already conscious, such as in Janet's original terminology, I believe of the 'ego' and 'alter-ego' (a 'Dr. Jeckyll vs. Mr. Hyde conception, for example, or as in a regular case of hysteria at the time, such as Jung later developed in his idea of 'the personna' vs. 'the shadow'...)....Now in this splitting of consciousness or splitting into opposing or different ego states you can get a full range of possibilities relative to 'degree of consciousness vs. subconsciousness or unconsciouness', particularly as pertains to 'the alter-ego' or 'shadow' element of the personality...usually the 'darker and more uncivil, destructive part of the personality', and/or alternatively the more creative, inspirational part of the personality when properly integrated with the rest of the personality...In contradistinction to Janet's idea of 'splitting of consciousness' then, Freud and Breuer (and particularly Freud as things evolved) were more interested in what might be called a 'splitting of consciousness' into 'consciousness and unconsciousness' where the 'unconscious' housed 'consciously unacceptable ideas, feelings, and wishes...', and thus, were in essence 'excommunicated' or 'repressed' from the conscious personality into the 'unconscious dungeon' below (what would some 30 years later be called 'the id'...see 'The Ego and The Id', 1923)....and 'neurotic symptoms' became 'signposts' or 'compromise-formations' between 'unconscious, forbidden desires' and 'conscious or unconscious defenses' or 'allusions to immediacy of the underlying content of the id' -- allusions that both partly hid but partly alluded to the underlying psychic content of the id...as manifested in dreams, fantasies, jokes, slips of the tongues and 'neurotic symptoms'...
The material above brings up some potential Psychoanalytic 'conceptuology', 'classification', and 'labelling' problems such as: 'Should the Id be considered as an ego-state? And if not -- if we considered it to be more 'unconscious, primitive, and uncivilized' than an 'Object Relations' ego-state (as if the 'anal-sadistic, rejecting superego or topdog ego' is any less primitive and uncivil -- then perhaps, we can argue that the 'id' has its own 'ego-state' as a 'representative' (something like a 'union' or 'union steward'...what Freud originally called 'the pleasure-ego' and/or what I have been calling 'The Narcissistic-Dionysian Ego'...) that argues and negotiates on 'the id's' behalf in the 'parliment of ego-states' which is the multi-dialectic nature and dynamics of the human personality at work...
That should give you material to start with Trevor....depending on how deeply you want to explore this whole subject matter...
Good luck!
Dave
