Why Anaxamander is One of The Most Important Philosophers in Western Philosophy (and How His Primitive, Archaic -- But Inherently Brilliant -- Ideas Are Still Being Used)

October 26th, 2010...



I have reached a point in my self studies in philosophy where I have at least a pretty solid basic overall knowledge of most of the history and evolution of Western philosophy...

And one thing, one point, keeps coming back to me over and over again...

The second oldest recognized philosopher in Western history -- one Mr. (or shall I give him the post-humous respect that he deserves and say 'Dr.') Anaxamander who philosophized  in the late 500 BC years -- in my opinion is still not given his rightful due respect as one of the greatest philosophers in Western history....comparable to Lao Tse or Confucous in Eastern Philosophy, and even though his work is very sparse, vague, and fragmented, what remains of it, if interpreted in the right light -- and of course I have 'the right light' -- is in essence a philosophical masterpiece, both a precursor of, and the philosophical equivalent for such an early age, of Hegel's much, much more fully recognized and honoured 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' (1804).

In short, Anaxamander's philosophy was a 500 BC 'roughly construed' template or archetype of 'The Phenomemology of Spirit' some 2300 years plus before the 'real Hegelian  thing' came into published existence in 1804.

In fact, it is quite possible that Anaxamander invented the word 'arche' (see....http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Bios/Anaximander.html) which means basically 'first principle' as in the word 'archetype' which would become an indispensible word in Jungian Psychology some 2400 years plus... (more on the connection between Anaxamander and Jungian Psychology below...)

Anaxamander has been connected to 'evolutionary theory' and has been called the first 'evolutionist' because he believed that men evolved from fish. Anaxamander could still be right here, or we could go even further back in the evolutionary life chain and say that man probably evolved from 'amoeba'...if not some even more 'archetypal substance'.... 

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Amoeba (genus)


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search

For other uses, see Amoeba (disambiguation).

Amoeba



Scientific classification

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Amoebozoa

Phylum: Tubulinea

Order: Tubulinida

Family: Amoebidae


Genus: Amoeba

Bory de Saint-Vincent, 1822

Species

Amoeba proteus

Amoeba (sometimes amœba or ameba, plural amoebae) is a genus of Protozoa.[1]


Contents
1 Terminology

2 History

3 Anatomy

4 Genome

5 Reaction to stimuli

5.1 Hypertonic and hypotonic solutions

5.2 Amoebic cysts

5.3 Marine amoeba

6 References

7 External links


 Terminology

There are many closely related terms that can be the source of confusion:



Amoeba is a genus that includes species such as Amoeba proteus

Amoebidae is a family that includes the Amoeba genus, among others.

Amoebozoa is a kingdom that includes the Amoebidae family, among others.

Amoeboids are organisms that move by crawling. Many (but not all) amoeboids are Amoebozoa.

History

The amoeba was first discovered by August Johann Rösel von Rosenhof in 1757.[2] Early naturalists referred to Amoeba as the Proteus animalcule after the Greek god Proteus who could change his shape. The name "amibe" was given to it by Bory de Saint-Vincent,[3] from the Greek amoibè (αμοιβή), meaning change.[4]Dientamoeba fragili was first described in 1918, and was linked to harm in humans.[5]


Anatomy


Anatomy of an amoeba. The cell's organelles and cytoplasm are enclosed by a cell membrane, obtaining its food through phagocytosis. Amoebae have a single large tubular pseudopod at the anterior end, and several secondary ones branching to the sides. The most famous species, Amoeba proteus, averages about 220-740 μm in length while moving,[6] making it a giant among amoeboids.[7] A few amoeboids belonging to different genera can grow larger, however, such as Gromia, Pelomyxa, and Chaos.

Amoebae's most recognizable features include one or more nuclei and a simple contractile vacuole to maintain osmotic equilibrium. Food enveloped by the amoeba is stored and digested in vacuoles. Amoebae, like other single-celled eukaryotic organisms, reproduce asexually via mitosis and cytokinesis, not to be confused with binary fission, which is how prokaryotes (bacteria) reproduce. In cases where the amoeba are forcibly divided, the portion that retains the nucleus will survive and form a new cell and cytoplasm, while the other portion dies. Amoebae also have no definite shape.[8]

Genome

The amoeba is remarkable for its very large genome. The species Amoeba protea has 290 billion (10^9) base pairs in its genome, while the related Polychaos dubium (formerly known as Amoeba dubia) has 670 billion base pairs. The human genome is small by contrast, with its count of 2.9 billion bases[9].

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dgb...continued...


Here is how Anaxamander was smarter than all the other Pre-Socratic philosophers, most of whome were looking for the 'ultimate primordial archetype substance of life'...

Thales said 'water'....
Anaxamenes said 'air'...
Heraclitus said 'fire'....

But Anaxamander -- who fit in there historically right after Thales -- was sharper than all the other Pre-Socratics when he argued that each one of these so-called (in my words, not theirs) 'primordial, archetypal life substances' was in essence 'restricted by its particular molecular structure and boundaries' (again, my 21st century words, not in Anaxamander's 500 BC vocabulary ) that precluded the evolutionary existence and/or development of all the others...thus, none of these particular substances in themselves ('water', 'air', or 'fire') could be the 'primordial, archetypal life substance' that they were all looking for...

There had to be some larger, over-riding principle and/or 'structure' that contained them all, and in particular, 'contained all of the opposites' that Anaxamander saw around him in life...

Anaxamander conceptualized and named this 'over-riding, infinite storage structure' of all of 'life's (and death's) chaotic, unorganized, undifferentiated opposite structural and dynamic pieces'  -- 'The Apeiron'...

Now I will argue right here and now -- and I will argue in front of any other philosopher -- that 'The Apeiron' -- as archaic as the concept may appear to us at first glance now -- was, and is, the most important concept that was ever invented in the history and evolution of Western Philosophy. More important than any concept that Socrates or Plato or Aristotle created...We will come back to Lao Tse, Heraclitus, and Spinoza because they had some important conceptual insights into this same 'life mystery' that Anaxamander was shining his philosophical light on...

What Anaxamander had his conceptual finger on was an idea that was superior to Darwin's theory of evolution and far superior to his own idea that 'man evolved from fishes'....

I will give Anaxamander's philosophical and cosmological theory a 21st century name and call it 'binary evolution theory' or 'multi-dialectic theory'.

Anaxamander, in essence, was the 'Hegel' of Pre-Socratic times...Hegel some 2300 years plus before the real Hegel published 'The Phenomenology of Spirit'...and Heraclitus, like Lao Tse in The East, added one more essential piece to Anaxamander's 'binary theory of evolution' that was indispensible to Anaxamander's 'binary evolution theory' that he didn't get to -- and that was/is the theory of 'homeostasis' or 'homeostatic balance' or 'equilibrium'...which Walter Bradford Cannon would 'formalize' some 2500  years later in modern medicine in his classic book called 'The Wisdom of The Body' (1932)...

We could almost say that Heraclitus' philosophical relationship to his (indirect?) teacher, Anaxamander, was similar to Marx's philosophical relationship to his main (indirect) teacher -- Hegel. Except the relationships were essentially different. Marx turned Hegel's idealistic dialectic philosophy upside down and made it both 'materialistic' and 'one-sided towards the political left' whereas Heraclitus both learned from Anaxamander, indeed, added an essential component to Anaxamander's theory of binary evolution (homeostasis or equilibrium) but Heraclitus was not as 'visionary' a philosopher as Anaxamander was. Anaxamander had a 'better overall philosophical world picture' of how everything in life and death came together -- and blew apart -- Anaxamander saw the 'competition of opposites' and their 'will to defeat each other' whereas Heraclitus saw the 'attraction of opposites', how they needed each other to survive and evolve which is the one part of Anaxamander's binary evolution theory that he missed -- i.e., the 'attraction and need of opposites for each other'...

Anaxamander saw only how opposites tried to conquer and destroy each other like 'Sparta' and 'Athens' continually tried to conquer and destroy each other. Anaxamander didn't see how Sparta and Athens 'needed each other' to fend of 'outside threats'...like 'the Persian Army'.

Which brings us to another important Western philosophical, psychological, and political concept that has taken thousands of years to develop -- another essential part of DGB Multi-Dialectic Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...just like the concept of 'binary or dialectic evolution' -- and that is the concept of 'binary or dialectic negotiation, integration -- and unity'. A totally Hegelian concept (with the name being added here within the confines of 'Hegel's Hotel'). 

So Anaxamander saw the 'competition of opposites' whereas Heraclitus saw the 'co-operation of opposites' -- both essential ideas in 'the geneological conceptual tree' that branches from Anaxamander (the main 'tree trunk'), to Heraclitus, to Spinoza, to Kant, to Fichte, to Schelling, to Hegel, to Nietzsche (The Birth of Tragedy) to Freud, to Jung, to Perls, to Foucault, to Derrida, ...and all the way up to 21st century philosophy -- and DGB 'Multi-Dialectic or Binary Evolution and Homeostatic Theory'...
Schelling is basically a 'dialectic' version of Spinoza. I love them both for what they accomplished philosophically -- and spiritually. Spinoza was a 'philosophical bridge' between religion and science -- but nobody, even in 'the philosophically liberal' country of Holland at the time, could see Spinoza's integrative brilliance. All they could 'smell' in Spinoza's spiritual brand of 'wholistic philosophy and religious-scientific pantheism' was a 'sneaky form of atheism'. And Spinoza is lucky that that 'particular Church judged perspective' of his philosophy at the time didn't get him killed. It did get him 'ex-communicated' from both the Judist Church and his community.  Spinoza was not the first or the last philosophical genius to be rejected by his community.

Creative brilliance is the birth child of three things:

1. An unusual -- and sometimes shocking -- organization of The 'Apeiron-Chaotic-Shadow Self';

2. An unusual integration of the ideas of others before you who you have learned from;

3. 'Thinking outside the box' in both the above respects...

Either some people have it and some people don't, and/or we all potentially 'have it' except some people are more 'suppressed' and 'repressed' by 'the philosophy of the herd'...

What was Spinoza's religious crime?

I partly cry for the man who had the courage in the 1600s to say...'God is in everything'...(and everyone)...God is both our Creator and our Creation...The two are mutually indispensible parts of each other...Spinoza was Heraclitus partly reincarnated except Spinoza was a far gentler man than Heraclitus was and Heraclitus was a 'dialectic philosopher' whereas Spinoza wasn't...They were both 'pantheists' in that they both 'saw God in everything'...all of life's Creations...)

Wow! What a brilliant concept! But how do we bring this concept back to Anaxamander?

By means of the psychological concepts of 'introjection' and 'projection'...

Man is the Ultimate Projector...He (and she) projects him and herself into EVERYTHING!!

Into 'God'...into other 'people'...into 'structures' and 'statues'...into 'animals'...into 'art'...into 'philosophy' and 'psychology' and 'politics' and 'architecture' and 'culture' and 'religion'...Wherever man goes, whatever he sees, he 'projects him/herself into his outer environment'....

In this regard, man also is 'the Ultimate Narcissist' -- man is the legend of Narcissus -- he looks into the pond and sees his reflection, he looks into everything and everyone and sees a reflection of him or herself...he or she just doesn't always know that they are doing this -- about 80 or 90 percent of the time (unless you teach yourself how to 'catch your projections' -- this 'cognitive process' is carried out almost entirely un(sub)consciously...

Now, how can all of this -- Spinoza, Schelling, pantheism, projection and introjection, archetypes, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Perls, Foucault, Derrida... -- be tied and integrated back to Anaxamander?
You've got to think outside the box...or perhaps, rather, 'inside the box' where all others are 'thinking outside the box'...
The 'Apeiron' can be defined as 'Primordial, Archetypal Undifferentiated Binary Chaos'...

And the 'Primordial, Archetypal, Undifferentiated Binary Chaos'...Is Not Only Outside of Us...It Is Also Inside of Us!!!

Freud called 'it' -- i.e., our 'Internal Apeiron' -- 'The Id'...

Jung called 'it' -- again, our 'Internal Apeiron' -- 'The Shadow'...

And the 'Id-Shadow-Primordial Binary Self' is an 'Internal Mass of Undifferentiated, Disorganized, Opposing, Social and/or Anti-Social, Loving and/or Hating, Kind and/or Evil Thoughts, Ideas, Impulses, Feelings, Talents, Skills, Potentials...Waiting to be differentiated, expressed, rise to the surface of the personality, and/or stay underneath and manipulate the personality from underneath...'Satan', 'Dionysus', 'Hell', 'Hades', all different concepts, ideas, Gods, myths, mythologies, symbols, projections...aimed at describing our darkest, inner primordial selves...and the clash between 'God' and 'Satan' -- our inner most beautiful and most evil selves...Satan evicted from God's Kingdom...and forever alienated, disavoved, always looking to strike back at the God, the man, the part of his Dialectical Binary Self that rejected him and kicked him out of 'Heaven'....which is the 'Spirit and The Soul of The Self in Dialectical Unity, Wholism, and Peace with him or herself...which is then 'projected' out into the 'community', or conversely, the 'disavowed and rejected internal Shadow of ourselves -- whether it be the metaphorical, symbolic, mythological 'Dionysus' or 'Satan' or whoever....'projects' his rejected, sad, mad, and/or blatantly evil Satanic Self back out into the World, The Heaven, that rejected him...

And this, my dear readers, is the essential 'geneological tree' that connects Anaxamander to me...through all the rest of the philosophers who I may or may not have mentioned...

Regardless of whether my 'lofty, unorthodox vision' of man, life, and evolution is viewed as 'creatively brilliant' or 'outrageously stupid', I could not have developed this vision without all of the philosophers and psychologists who I have read and who I hold the greatest of respect for...

I love my parents and their 'Protestant religious beliefs' -- and how they apply them in their day to day lives...

But my interpretration of 'The Bible' changed in university -- decades ago, in the 1970s, if only in its initial percolating form -- the day I opened Erich Fromm's 'The Forgotten Language' (1951) and read how he interpreted The Bible 'metaphorically' and 'mythologically' rather than 'literally'.

It is the 'Fromm-Jung-Freud-Schelling-Spinoza-Heraclitus-Anaxamander' Connection that has just a few minutes ago resulted in my creation of probably the most unorthodox, shocking interpretation of 'The Cross' that you will probably ever get...and it is not meant to offend anyone, regardless of religious or non-religious mindset...

In this DGB 'Dialectical-Humanistic-Existential-Pantheist' interpretation of The Cross...

1. You have 'God' at the top of The Cross...symbolizing both the 'highest of man's rational, sane, humane, self and social ideals' as well as the 'highest of man's creative and humanistic-existential potentials'....paradoxically and ironically representative in this regard also of Nietzsche's (paraphrased) 'Will To Creative Self-Empowerment'...

2. You have 'Satan' at the bottom of The Cross...symbolizing both man's inherent potential for 'assertive, unorthodox opinions, perspectives, and lifestyles' (which may not necessarily be bad but still perceived as 'bad enough' to be 'disavowed, dissociated, alienatated from society') and for what Satan is usually most symbolized for -- mans' potential for Evil against both himself and/or others which is usually arrived at through some radical internal combination of 'trauma', 'rejection', 'abandonment', 'betrayal', 'alienation', 'disavowal', 'internal dissociation', 'righteousness', and 'narcisissm'...

3. On the 'right' side of The Cross, you have 'Apollo' symbolizing man's 'most Logical, Rational, Just and Fair, Equal Rights and Democracy Oriented, Enlightened Self'...

4. On the 'left' side of The Cross you have 'Dionysus' symbolizing man's most 'Sensual, Sexual, Romantic, Creative, Irrational, Unpredictable, Romantic Self'...

5. Finally, in the middle of The Cross, you have 'Jesus' who can represent either of two things: 1. 'the Integrative, Harmonious, Peaceful, Dialectically Unified Self'; and/or 2. 'The Crucified, Internal, Strife and Conflict-Ridden, Alienated, Disavowed Self', the Ultimate Symbol of Man's Internal and External Propensity for Fear, Anger, Rage, Violence, War...When The Personality Is Not Dialectically Connected and At Peace and Harmony With Itself...

The first symbolization of Jesus is probably closer to a 'Christian' symbolization of Jesus (introjected and integrated into the personality and the Self); the second symbolization is a symbolization of Jesus' victimization by his fellow man (and/or by Himself)' when He failed at His -- which is now 'our' -- task of integrating peacefully both within ourselves and within our community of others...

  
I will let you chew on this essay for a while...

-- dgb, Oct. 26th, 2010,

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...For Now...Have Been Completed...

From Kant to Korzybski to DGB Quantum Psychoanalysis

Kant's epistemology was important but too perfectionistic to be practically applicable. This is where Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, and Alfred Korzybski all needed to step in to save epistemology from a Kantian death.

You see, Kant was both right and wrong at the same time. He drew our attention to the 'subjective-objective -- or Kantian -- split'. He correctly ascertained that none of us could get outside of our own minds, bodies, and senses in order to 'fully know' the 'complete objectivity' of the 'real object'.

In other words, there will always be human error involved in the sensory and interpretive perception (or perceptual interpretation) and evaluation of any 'external object'.

This is a given. And speaking as a person whose eyesight is definitely not the same now as it was when I was 20 years old and my vision was '20-20', and could hit an eighty mile an hour fastball...the importance of our senses is likely to become more and more appreciated as we begin to lose their 'accuracy' with age.

So what Kant was missing here, given the perfectionist that he was, was the idea of 'perceptual and conceptual representation' being important -- indeed, essential -- to our survival, even if it was imperfect.

In Kantian epistemology, there is essentially no distinction between 'physics' and 'metaphysics' because even physics becomes 'metaphysical' because no one can step outside of themselves -- and outside of their own senses and perceptual-conceptual-evaluation system -- to get a 'perfect representation of any physical object'.

In this regard, technically speaking, all physics becomes metaphysics because, paraphrasing Kant, no one can 'perfectly know the real ('noumenal' was the technical term Kant used back then) object'.

Technically, that may be true but we do not need 'perfect knowledge' in order to survive, and indeed, will never achieve 'perfect knowledge' unless we are talking about a math question like 2 plus 2 equals 4. Here -- and only here -- can we achieve 'perfect knowledge'.

All other knowledge, we can view as 'imperfect' and 'subject to change' based on 'new incoming information' which may -- on the basis of new or different observation, preferrably from more than one source, logical, interpretive deduction, common sense, and so on -- effectively 'over-rule, other past, outdated forms of information and/or purported knowledge'.

Such was the case, for example, with 'the world becoming perceived and conceived as round' as opposed to 'flat', and 'the Earth becoming perceived and conceived as revolving around the Sun' as opposed to 'the Sun revolving around the Earth' (i.e., 'The Copernican Revolution'). The 'objective world' did not change in either of these cases of 'revolutionized conceptuology and epistemology' -- it was just man's generalized 'view' or 'perspective' of the 'objective or real or noumenal world' that changed.

So, whereas Kant said that we 'Kant Know' our 'real, objective, noumenal world' because of the inherent subjectivity of our Sensory-Perceptual-Interpretive-Evaluative' ('SPIE') System, each of Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, and Korzybski would say that we 'Can Know' our 'real, objective, noumenal world' -- it is just that this knowledge is always going to be imperfect, never perfect -- again, because of the inherent subjectivity tied up to our SPIE System. But our knowledge can still be 'good enough' to function properly, particularly if we learn a set of 'good rules' to 'good epistemological functioning'.

This DGB concept of 'Good Enough Epistemology' can be compared to Donald Winnicott's Object Relations concept of 'Good Enough Mothering'.

As long as we can see the car coming as we cross the street, our 'internal epistemology' can be considered 'good enough epistemology' even if we cannot see 'every little scratch or dent' on the car coming our way.

Alternatively, if we 'don't see the car coming', then our 'internal epistemology can be considered not good enough for purposes of functional survival'.

Whereas Kant basically told us that we cannot use a 'representative model' of the 'external, real, objective, (noumenal) world', because we have no way of 'knowing' whether the 'representative model' is right or not, on the other hand, Russell, Wittgenstein, and Korzysbki, all agreed to disagree with Kant, not choosing to be quite so 'anally retentive and technically perfectionistic', and argued instead in favor of a 'probability of accuracy' of a 'representation model' as long as certain 'epistemological rules' were adhered to.

Korzybski went the furthest of the three (Russell, Wittgenstein, and Korzybski) in this regard, laying down a set of 'epistemological rules' that he turned into a 'school' of philosophy and epistemology called 'General Semantics'.

What Russell, Wittgenstein, and Korzybski did that was different than what Kant would not do is, they provided a 'range and a degree of probability' of 'truth value' of particular 'assumed or proclaimed truth assertions/ statements'.

This is essentially the same 'pragmatic' way of 'establishing truth' as what our courts of law do when they say that 'the man has been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt'. (That is not to say that innocent men and women can't still be convicted guilty on the basis of 'conceptualized false truths' -- with Kant rolling over in his grave and saying, 'I told you so'...)

But we all have to function on the basis of what we think or believe are 'truths' -- even if they aren't. In this regard, a distinction can be made between 'iron clad truths' and 'evolving, uncertain truths' but even this distinction is not iron clad because how many of our so-called 'iron clad truths' have been shown to be 'untruths' over time?

It happens all the time over time because both the world inside and outside of us is always changing -- and some of our 'conceptual representation skills and results' improve over time because of advances in technology such as the microscope, the telescope, the hearing aid, the MRI, the CT Scan, the Ultra Sound Machine, the Xray Machine...and so on...

Other than that, the only iron-clad truths that remain indisputable over time, and more time, are truths such as: 2 plus 2 equals 4.

Unfortunately, man cannot live only on the basis of 'mathematical truths' -- which means that we still need to find some fascimile of 'epistemological truth' in the works of the likes of Aristotle, Sir Francis Bacon, John Locke, David Hume, Kant, Hegel, Russell, Wittgenstein, Korzybski, and Ayn Rand...

This is what Hegel's Hotel is still evolving to do, DGB Quantum Psychoanalysis is still evolving to do, and 'Central Ego Functioning and Dysfunctioning' is aiming to do.

The results of this work on 'The Central Ego' will then be integrated with the rest of the DGB Quantum Psychoanalytic Model as we move along.

Enough for today...
-- dgb, Oct. 18th, 2010.

-- David Gordon Bain

Re-Organizing Hegel's Hotel...

Under Construction...

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Organizing Hegel's Hotel the way I want it to be organized has been my most disappointing failure so far. There never seems to be enough time to the extent that I want to keep moving forward with new essays. Alas, my problem. Excuses are a dime a dozen.

Anyway, everything is subject to change -- and that includes both me, and Hegel's Hotel.

Hope springs eternal -- remember that in your darkest days...I'm coming out of a pretty dark year in which economics has ground Hegel's Hotel to a very slow building process. However, that too is at least partly an excuse. Either a job is done properly or it is not. In and out of my various frustrations, obstacles, and disappointments -- I still want Hegel's Hotel done right.

Here is the new organization of Hegel's Hotel subject to smaller alterations -- and a more precise table of contents -- along the way.


Table of Contents


Hegel's Hotel: On The Integration and Evolution of Western Multi-Dialectic Philosophy, Psychology...

Floor (Blog) 1: Introductory Essays on The Dialectic
Floor (Blog) 02: More Essays on The Dialectic
Floor (Blog) 03: Anaxamander's Floor: Essays on Pre-Socratic Western Philosophy
Floor (Blog) 04: Lao Tse's Floor: Essays on Ancient Chinese Philosophy
Floor (Blog) 05: Plato's Floor: Essays on the philosophy of Socrates and Plato
Floor (Blog) 06: Aristotle's Floor: Essays on the philosophy of Aristotle
Floor (Blog) 07. Epicurus' and Epictetus' Floor: Essays on Epicurus and Epictetus
Floor (Blog) 08: The Scholastic Floor: Essays on Scholastic (Early Religious) Philosophy
Floor (Blog) 09: The Early Scientific Floor: Essays on Early Scientific Empiricism
Floor (Blog) 10: The Early Rationalist Floor: Essays on Descartes and Spinoza
Floor (Blog) 11: The British Empirical Floor: Essays on the Epistemology of Locke, Berkley, and Hume
Floor (Blog) 12: Diderot's Floor: Essays on The French, British, and American Enlightenment...
Floor (Blog) 13: The Enlightenment 'Gone Mad': Essays on The Reign of Terror
Floor (Blog) 14: Kant's Floor: Essays on the Epistemology and Metaphysics of Immanuel Kant...
Floor (Blog) 15: Fichte's Floor: Essays on the Philosophy of Johann Fichte...
Floor (Blog) 16: Schelling's Floor: Essays on the Philosophy of Friedrich Schelling...
Floor (Blog) 17: Hegel's Floor: Essays on the Philosophy of G.W. Hegel...

To be continued...

-- dgb, Oct. 17th, 2010.

-- David Gordon Bain

From Classical Psychoanalysis to Object Relations to Transactional Analysis to DGB Quantum Psychoanalysis

Just finished....Oct. 12th, 2010.


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'Transactional Analysis' developed out of 'Object Relations' which is a sub-school of Psychoanalysis, quite a bit different than, but still connected to, Freud's 'Classical Psychoanalysis'.


Object Relations is generally viewed as having been created by Melanie Klein although Freud himself created the term 'object' -- as in 'sex object' -- a term that has sometimes been used controversially to reflect the idea of a person being 'objectified' as a 'sexual object', rather than a 'sexual person' in his or her own right. Also, Melanie Klein was influenced (and analyzed) by Karl Abraham who created the term 'bad mother' as opposed to 'good mother', and also there was the important influence of Paul Federn who created the term 'ego states' which would become critical to the eventual creation of Transactional Analysis by Eric Berne in the 1950s and 60s.

Let's take a look at this progression and particular 'evolution' of Classical Psychoanalysis into 'Object Relations' Psychoanalysis.

One of Freud's first distinctions in his classic essay (or rather, set of three essays) 'Three Essays on Sexuality' (1905) was to distinguish between a 'sexual object' and a 'sexual aim'.


Now, when we get to Melanie Klein some rather radical new ideas started to be introduced into Psychoanalysis, and there was great instability and upheval within the Classical Establishment as to what to do with, and about, these radical new ideas.


For simplicity's sake, I will mention four interconnected ideas here that were about to revolutionize -- or split in half -- the world and theory of Psychoanalysis.


This was in the mid 1920s when Freud himself was in the process of revolutionizing Psychoanalysis for at least the second time -- introducing 'the death instinct' in 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle' (1920), and then the 'ego', 'id', and 'superego' in 'The Ego and The Id' (1923). Still in place, were many of Freud's earlier ideas that form the basis of 'Classical Psychoanalysis' such as: 'The Oedipal Complex', 'The Psycho-Sexual Stages of Development' (the oral phase, anal phase, phallic phase, and genital phase), 'Instinct Theory', 'Repression and The Defense Mechanisms', 'Repressed Memories and Impulses', 'Screen Memories' (that both hid and alluded to the more psychologically important 'repressed memories and/or instinctual impulses'), 'Narcissism', 'Primary and Secondary Thinking Processes' ('Symbolic-Mythological-Dream-Like Thinking' from the Unconscious vs. 'Rational Everyday Type Thinking' that is much more logically coherent than the more 'bizarre type of dream thinking we get when we are asleep and/or in the throes of 'psychotic illusions and delusions'....'forgetting', 'slips of the tongue' and other 'keys to the unconscious'...


Back to Melanie Klein. Klein started talking about 'internal' and 'external' objects as well as 'good' and 'bad' objects...and Psychoanalysis was set on its ear...Let me not give all the credit to Melanie Klein here because Klein was influenced (and analyzed) by the very important Psychoanalyst, Karl Abraham, who introduced the idea of 'The Bad Mother' as opposed to Freud's concept of 'The Oedipal (Good or Idealized) Mother'.


Here is a short history of Abraham's influence on Psychoanalysis and on Melanie Klein, borrowed from Wikipedia...

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Karl Abraham


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Karl Abraham


Born 3 May 1877


Died 25 December 1925



Nationality German


Fields psychiatry


Karl Abraham (3 May 1877 – 25 December 1925) was an early important and influential German psychoanalyst, and a collaborator of Sigmund Freud, who called him his 'best pupil'.[1]

Life

He was born in Bremen, Germany. His studies in medicine enabled him to take a position at the Burghölzli Swiss Mental Hospital, where Eugen Bleuler practiced. The setting of this hospital initially introduced him to the psychoanalysis of Carl Gustav Jung. In 1907, he had his first contact with Sigmund Freud, with whom he developed a lifetime relationship. Returning to Germany, he founded the Berliner Society of Psychoanalysis in 1910.[2] He was the president of the International Psychoanalytical Association from 1914 to 1918 and again in 1925.

Karl Abraham collaborated with Freud on the understanding of manic-depressive illness, leading to Freud's paper on 'Mourning and Melancholia' in 1917. He was the analyst of Melanie Klein during 1924-1925, and of a number of other British psychoanalysts, including Edward Glover, James Glover, and Alix Strachey. He was a mentor for an influential group of German analysts, including Karen Horney, Helene Deutsch, and Franz Alexander.

Karl Abraham studied the role of infant sexuality in character development and mental illness and, like Freud, suggested that if psychosexual development is fixated at some point, mental disorders will likely emerge. He described the personality traits and psychopathology that result from the oral and anal stages of development (1921;1924a). In the oral stage of development, the first relationships children have with objects (caretakers) determine their subsequent relationship to reality. Oral satisfaction can result in self-assurance and optimism, whereas oral fixation can lead to pessimism and depression. Moreover, a person with an oral fixation will present a disinclination to take care of him/herself and will require others to look after him/her This may be expressed through extreme passivity (corresponding to the oral benign suckling substage) or through a highly active oral-sadistic behaviour (corresponding to the later sadistic biting substage) (1924a). In the anal stage, when the training in cleanliness starts too early, conflicts may result between a conscious attitude of obedience and an unconscious desire for resistance. This can lead to traits such as frugality, orderliness and obstinacy, as well as to obsessional neurosis as a result of anal fixation (Abraham,1921) . In addition, Abraham based his understanding of manic-depressive illness on the study of the painter Segantini: an actual event of loss is not itself sufficient to bring the psychological disturbance involved in melancholic depression. This disturbance is linked with disappointing incidents of early childhood; in the case of men always with the mother (Abraham, 1911). This concept of the prooedipal “bad” mother was a new development in contrast to Freud’s oedipal mother and paved the way for the theories of Melanie Klein (May-Tolzmann,1997). Another important contribution is his work “A short study of the Development of the Libido” (1924b), where he elaborated on Freud’s “Mourning and Melancholia” (1917) and demonstrated the vicissitudes of normal and pathological object relations and reactions to object loss. Moreover, Abraham investigated child sexual trauma and, like Freud, proposed that sexual abuse was common among psychotic and neurotic patients. Furthermore, he argued (1907) that dementia praecox is associated with child sexual trauma, based on the relationship between hysteria and child sexual trauma demonstrated by Freud.
Abraham (1920) also showed interest in cultural issues. He analyzed various myths suggesting their relation to dreams (1909) and wrote an interpretation of the spiritual activities of the monotheistic Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (1912).

Death

Abraham died prematurely on Christmas Day, 1925, from complications of a lung infection and may have suffered from lung cancer.[3]


Abraham, K. (1920). The Cultural Significance of Psycho-analysis. In Hilda, C., Abraham, M.D.(Ed) (1955). Clinical Papers and Essays on Psycho-Analysis. London : The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis.


Abraham, K (1921). Contributions to the theory of the anal character. In Stein, D.J, Stone, M. H. (Ed) (1997). Essential papers on obsessive-compulsive disorders. New York: New York University Press.

Abraham, K (1924a). The influence of oral erotism on character-formation. In Perzow, S. M., Kets de Vries, M.F.R. (Ed) (1991). Handbook of character studies: Psychoanalytic explorations. Madison, CT: International Universities Press.

Abraham, K. (1924b). A short study of the development of the libido. In Frankiel, R.V. (Ed) (1994). Essential papers on object loss, New York: New York University Press.


Quotes

A considerable number of persons are able to protect themselves against the outbreak of serious neurotic phenomena only through intense work

What did we get ourselves into?


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And here follows a short summary of Paul Federn's influence on both Psychoanalysis and on Eric Berne, the latter a psychoanalyst himself, who left Psychoanalysis to create 'Transactional Analysis'.

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From Wikipedia...

Paul Federn (October 13, 1871 - May 4, 1950) was an Austrian-American psychologist who was a native of Vienna. Federn is largely remembered for his theories involving ego psychology and therapeutic treatment of psychosis.



After earning his doctorate in 1895, he was an assistant in general medicine under Hermann Nothnagel (1841-1905) in Vienna. It was Nothnagel who introduced Federn to the works of Sigmund Freud. Federn was deeply influenced by Freud's Interpretation of Dreams, and in 1904 became devoted to the field of psychoanalysis. Along with Alfred Adler and Wilhelm Stekel, Federn was an early, important follower of Freud. In 1924 he became an official representative of Freud, as well as vice president of the Vienna Society. In 1938 Federn emigrated to the United States and settled in New York City, however it wouldn't be until 1946 that he would be officially recognized as a training analyst at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. In 1950, Paul Federn committed suicide following a recurrence of what he believed was incurable cancer.[1]

In the late 1920s, Federn published important books such as "Some Variations in Ego-Feeling" and "Narcissism in the Structure of the Ego". In his works he elucidated upon the concepts of "ego states", "ego limits", "ego cathexis" and the median nature of narcissism. Although an ardent supporter of Freud's teachings, Federn's concept of the ego as experience coinciding with "ego feeling" was inconsistent with Freud's structural approach. Out of loyalty to his mentor, Federn had a tendency to downplay his own theories, even though the conclusions he reached were far different from Freud's.


Federn advocated an unorthodox approach concerning analysis of psychosis. He believed that a patients' attempt at integration should involve strengthening his defenses, while at the same time avoiding repressed material. He also believed that transference involving psychosis should not be analyzed, and that negative transference should be avoided. In regards to schizophrenic patients, he believed that their egos possessed insufficient cathectic energy, and that it was a lack rather than an excess of narcissistic libido that caused a psychotic individuals' difficulties with the object.


Federn was also interested in social psychology. In a 1919 work titled "Zur Psychologie der Revolution: die Vaterlose Gesellschaft", he explains the challenge to authority by the post-World War I generation as unconscious parricide whose goal is to create a "fatherless society".

Although Federn's psychoanalytical theories had limited influence, he had several important followers in Europe and America.

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Probably Federn's most important American follower was Eric Berne who created 'Transactional Analysis' in the late 1950s and the 60s, as reflected significantly in his 1960 best-seller, 'Games People Play'.
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Paul Federn (October 13, 1871 - May 4, 1950) was an Austrian-American psychologist who was a native of Vienna. Federn is largely remembered for his theories involving ego psychology and therapeutic treatment of psychosis.


After earning his doctorate in 1895, he was an assistant in general medicine under Hermann Nothnagel (1841-1905) in Vienna. It was Nothnagel who introduced Federn to the works of Sigmund Freud. Federn was deeply influenced by Freud's Interpretation of Dreams, and in 1904 became devoted to the field of psychoanalysis. Along with Alfred Adler and Wilhelm Stekel, Federn was an early, important follower of Freud. In 1924 he became an official representative of Freud, as well as vice president of the Vienna Society. In 1938 Federn emigrated to the United States and settled in New York City, however it wouldn't be until 1946 that he would be officially recognized as a training analyst at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. In 1950, Paul Federn committed suicide following a recurrence of what he believed was incurable cancer.[1]

In the late 1920s, Federn published important books such as "Some Variations in Ego-Feeling" and "Narcissism in the Structure of the Ego". In his works he elucidated upon the concepts of "ego states", "ego limits", "ego cathexis" and the median nature of narcissism. Although an ardent supporter of Freud's teachings, Federn's concept of the ego as experience coinciding with "ego feeling" was inconsistent with Freud's structural approach. Out of loyalty to his mentor, Federn had a tendency to downplay his own theories, even though the conclusions he reached were far different from Freud's.

Federn advocated an unorthodox approach concerning analysis of psychosis. He believed that a patients' attempt at integration should involve strengthening his defenses, while at the same time avoiding repressed material. He also believed that transference involving psychosis should not be analyzed, and that negative transference should be avoided. In regards to schizophrenic patients, he believed that their egos possessed insufficient cathectic energy, and that it was a lack rather than an excess of narcissistic libido that caused a psychotic individuals' difficulties with the object.


Federn was also interested in social psychology. In a 1919 work titled "Zur Psychologie der Revolution: die Vaterlose Gesellschaft", he explains the challenge to authority by the post-World War I generation as unconscious parricide whose goal is to create a "fatherless society".

Although Federn's psychoanalytical theories had limited influence, he had several important followers in Europe and America.

Most important of these, at least that I am aware of, was Eric Berne who would extrapolate on Federn's concept of 'ego-states' in creating his own model and theory of personality theory under the name of 'Transactional Analysis'. He followed shortly after with his best-selling book, 'Games People Play' (1964).

http://www.ericberne.com/
Transactional Analysis became a very effective way of simplifying many evolving 'Object Relations' ideas such as those of Karl Abraham, Paul Federn, Melanie Klein, and Ronald Fairbairn. You could probably add Eric Erikson in there too although he is usually labelled as a 'post' or 'neo' Freudian rather than as an 'Object Relationist'.

Two other Transactional Analysis books also did quite well on the book market. Thomas Harris' book, 'I'm Okay, You're Okay' (1969) was a best-seller. And so too was a book by Muriel James and Dorothy Jongeward called 'Born To Win' (1971) that integrated some Gestalt Therapy with Transactional Analysis.

Classical Psychoanalysis is like the 'hub of a bicycle wheel' and all of these different theorists and theories and models and schools of psychology are like the spokes on the Freudian bicycle wheel. When it came to his own theories of psychology and psychotherapy, Freud was 'nurturing' to a point and then very 'anal-rejecting' when it came to other theorists and therapists 'crossing' or 'transgressing' particular Freudian boundaries. That is a shame really because I still view them all -- Adler, Jung, Rank, Ferenczi, Steckel, Wilhelm and Theodore Reich, Abraham, Federn, Melanie Klein, Ronald Fairbairn, Horney, Fromm, Berne, Perls, Masson, and many, many others as all coming from the same 'bicycle hub' and all being capable of being integrated back to the Central Freudian Bicycle Hub. 

It just would take, or will take, just one 'master integrator'  -- permit me to blow my own horn here with a little 'narcissistic self-expression' -- to 're-build' the Freudian bicycle in such a manner that we can see how all the different spokes go back to the same hub and are all 'functionally inter-connected'. What Freud missed in the study of the human psyche, others who worked with him didn't and they all shared a 'portion' of the 'wholistic psychological truth'. Obviously, I am only one person, one theorist, and I cannot be expected to capture everything that makes up the human mind.

But this is where we come to Hegel's idea of 'The Absolute' as in 'The Absolute Multi-Dialectic, or Pluralistic, Wholistic Truth' which can only be 'better' and 'better' captured by multitudes of human minds over years and years, generations and generations, through the process of 'dialectic evolution' -- thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis, then start all over again at a 'higher' level of evolution -- and every now and then you need a 'Master Integrator', someone like Kant or Hegel to bring hundreds or even thousands of years of human thinking back together again. 'Philosophical Reductionism' is, metaphorically speaking, Humpty Dumpty being 'ripped into a hundred or a thousand pieces' for the purpose of 'reductionistic analysis'...every philosophical and/or scientifical and/or political and/or economic thinker thinking that he or she has 'captured that Final Wholistic Truth'. But we are all mistaken, or at least partly mistaken, just ants in an anthill playing our own particular part in bringing 'some knowledge' back to the anthill,  until every generation or two or three, some special philosopher comes around who is able to 'package a tremendous amount of human knowledge together into one theoretical package. Anaxamander, Lao Tse, The Han Philosophers, Heraclitus, Spinoza, Kant and Hegel were all very special in this regard -- particularly, in my opinion, Hegel who was the best of them all.

Hegel was one of those very special -- one in a thousand years -- philosophers who at least partly -- but in a very important and meaningful way -- put 'Humpty Dumpty back together again' in terms of human knowledge and human multi-dialectic evolution, from all the 'philosophical reductionists' who preceded him.

I am just trying to repeat Hegel's formula here but in a unique and modified humanistic-existential way, that in the sphere of human psychology and the structure and dynamics of the human mind, I am labelling as 'DGB Quantum Psychoanalysis'.

This is a massive integrative project where the 'hub of our psychological wheel' is based in Freudian Classical Psychoanalysis -- and everything else we have talked about so far, or will still talk about, all the other major different schools of psychology can be viewed as spokes that branch off in different directions from the Freudian Hub. They all are meaningful, useful, and/or necessary to help understand how the 'whole wheel of the human mind functions and turns with all the different spokes each playing their individual roles in helping to understand how the wheel turns wholistically as one'.

I call this 'multi-dialectic or pluralistic or quantum truth'.
Am I too idealistic? Maybe.

To use a different metaphor, sometimes I get lost in the forest of my own trees.

If I can't be clear with myself, then how can I expect to be clear with my readers?
 
 I am walking through an awfully big forest -- mind-boggling at times.

At some point, I may divide 'Hegel's Hotel' into a smaller hotel called 'Freud's Hotel'.
My focus has largely been on Freud for the last year or so -- both his individual creative brilliance and his creative limitations, including, at times, more controversally, his ethical failures.
 
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The difference between Classical Psychoanalysis and Object Relations, and Transactional Analysis as an extension of Object Relations, is in the number of hypothesized or conceptualized or classified 'compartments in the personality'. This is perhaps the main 'distinguishing point' between all different schools of philosophy. How many different 'compartments' or 'pieces' will we break Humpty Dumpty down into? Or worded otherwise, how 'reductionistic' will we be. In the end it is all about 'functional conceptual convenience'.  It is not about one school being 'right' and another school being 'wrong'....It is about how many different pieces do you want to cut the pie that is 'the human psyche' into in order to best understand how it works? 

This is what can be aptly labelled as the philosophy and/or the psychology of 'as if'. 

Let us view the human psyche 'as if' it can be broken down into '2 compartments'. Or '3 compartments'. Or '4 compartments'. Or '6 compartments'. Or '8 compartments'. Or '12 compartments'. Which one works the best? What are the advantages and/or limitations of each? Such is the nature of 'reductionistic psychological theorizing'.  The important point is to be able to 'bring the model back together wholistically onces you have broken it down into X number of pieces or compartments. 

Classical Freudian Psychoanalysis had '3 compartments' -- the Id, the Ego, and the Superego'. Object Relations in its simplest form started working with four main compartments -- 'good object', 'bad object', 'good self', 'bad self'. Transactional Analysis simplified the technical language and started working with a model that was an extension of the overgeneralized Object Relations model stated above and which added an extra compartment or two...: 'nurturing parent', 'critical parent', 'compliant child', 'rebellious child'...and 'adult (or central adult) ego'.

That is a 'five compartment TA model'.

Mine is more technical than this as I go back to integrate with the Freudian and Object Relations and Nietzschean past...as well as less clearly, Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, and Jungian Psychology:

The DGB Quantum Psychoanalytic Model of The Personality

1. 'The Nurturing (Altruistic) Superego'; 2. 'The Narcissistic (Selfish, Egotistic, Power-Seeking) Superego'; 3. 'The Dionysian (Hedonistic, Pleasure-Seeking) Superego'; 4. 'The Apollonian (Righteous-Critical-Rejecting) Superego'; 5. 'The Central (Mediating, Problem-Solving, Conflict-Resolving) Ego'; 6. The Co-operative (Compliant, Approval-Seeking) Underego; 7. 'The Narcissistic (Selfish, Egotistic, Power-Seeking) Underego'; 8. 'The Dionsyian (Hedonistic, Pleasure-Seeking) Underego'; 9. 'The Apollonian (Righteous-Critical-Rejecting) Underego.

Some of these 'ego-states' declared above are 'introjected' from our parents as 'Internal Objects' (Object Relations). Others develop and evolve along the way, based partly on the past, partly on the present, and partly on the future.

The more 'introjected' a particular ego-state is, the more likely it is to be 'irrational, neurotic, pathological, unless we have had time to examine its contents 'rationally' and 'made adjustments' in the contents of this material which largely may otherwise depend on the rationality or irrationality of our 'parents childhood teachings' (both by word of mouth, and by observing their actions).

Underneath these '9 different ego states', we have, in The DGB Quantum Psychoanalytic Model, at a generally greater level of 'subconsciousness' or 'unconsciousness'  the following 'subconscious ego states':

10. 'The Dynamic-Symbolic-Creative-Destructive Unconscious';

11. 'The Transference Memory-Lifestyle-Complex Template' (Adlerian Influenced);

12. 'The Genetic-Mythological-Archetype-Transference Template' (Jungian Influenced);

13. 'The Id' (Freudian Influenced);

14. 'The Genetic Potential Self, Spirit, and Soul' (Jungian Influenced).

There is your 'DGB Quantum Psychoanalytic Model of The Personality'...

Have a good day!

-- dgb, Oct. 12th, 2010.

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still in Process...











What is Games People Play?


The original 1964 copy of Games People Play, published by Grove Press Games People Play is the bestselling book by psychiatrist Dr. Eric Berne that uncovered the dynamics of human relationships. Since its publication in 1964 to the newly released and updated 40th anniversary edition, over 5 million copies have been sold worldwide in over ten languages. The book remains immensely popular and has recently experienced a huge increase in sales due to renewed interest.



The book Games People Play represents many things to many people. One modern critic said:



"Games People Play is now widely recognized as the most original and influential popular psychology book of our time. It’s as powerful and eye-opening as ever."



The famous author Kurt Vonnegut Jr. said of Games People Play:



"An important book . . . a brilliant, amusing, and clear catalogue of the psychological theatricals that human beings play over and over again. The good Doctor has provided story lines that hacks will not exhaust in the next 10,000 years"



Students of Dr. Berne used Games People Play as a springboard to publish their own works, such as Dr. Thomas A. Harris, author of I'm OK - You're OK and Claude Steiner, author of Scripts People Live. These individuals, as well as others inspired by Dr. Berne, used Transactional Analysis and the ideas within Games People Play to further uncover the dynamics of human relationships.



But to many others, the ideas presented within Games People Play provided a deeper understanding of their sown ocial interactions as well as their motives in these transactions. One reader wrote:



"Many times in my life, I was placed in social situations that left me feeling so depleted afterwards and I could not exactly grasp why this was happening. When I read Games People Play, I started to understand how many people play these games that end up making me feel used and hopeless. After a year or so, I also began realizing that I play some of these games myself... This is when I really decided to change my life. I began living with a new awareness of the behaviors of not only others but my own as well!"



Perhaps the greatest contribution of Games People Play is the story listed above. With over 5 million copies sold, millions of individuals and couples across the world have used Berne's techniques to identify and solve their problems.





The new 40th anniversary edition of Games People Play, with a new introduction by Dr. James Allen, President of the ITAA, and a reprint of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s famous Life Magazine Book Review.







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What are the games in Games People Play?

In Games People Play, Berne defined games as:



"A game is an ongoing series of complementary ulterior transactions progressing to a well-defined, predictable outcome. Descriptively, it is a recurring set of transactions... with a concealed motivation... or gimmick."



To re-state Berne's definition, one can think of a game as a series of interactions (words, body language, facial expressions, etc.) between two or more people that follow a predictable pattern. The interactions ultimately progress to an outcome in which one individual obtains a "payoff" or "goal." In most cases, the participants of the games are unaware that they are "playing."



The first game that Berne introduces in Games People Play is "If It Weren't For You" or IWFY. Berne uses this game as an example to explain all types of games. Berne writes:



Mrs. White complained that her husband severely restricted her social activities, so that she had never learned to dance. Due to changes in her attitude brought about psychiatric treatment, her husband became less sure of himself and more indulgent. Mrs. White was then free to enlarge the scope of her activities. She signed up for dancing classes, and then discovered to her despair that she had a morbid hear of dance floors and had to abandon this project.



This unfortunate adventure, along with similar ones, laid out some important aspects of her marriage. Out of her many suitors, she had picked a domineering man for a husband. She was then in a position to complain that she could do all sorts of things "it if weren't for you." Many of her woman friends had domineering husbands, and when they met for their morning coffee, they spent a good deal of time playing "If It Weren't For Him."



As it turned out, however, contrary to her complaints, her husband was performing a very real service for her by forbidding her to do something she was deeply afraid of, and by preventing her, in fact, from even becoming aware of her fears. This was one reason... [she] had chosen such a husband.



His prohibitions and her complaints frequently led to quarrels, so that their sex life was seriously impaired. She and her husband had little in common besides their household worries and the children, so that their quarrels stood out as important events.



Berne goes on to devote nearly ten more pages to IWFY in Games People Play. For the sake of brevity, only the most relevant points will be discussed here. Berne's complete analysis of IWFY and many other games can be found in Games People Play.



Both Mr. and Mrs. White are participating in a game; they are not consciously aware of their active participation. As with any game, at least one party must achieve a "payoff" for the game to proceed. In this game, Mrs. White, and to a lesser degree Mr. White achieve their respective payoffs. In Mr. White's case, by restricting Mrs. White's activities, he can retain the role of domineering husband, which provides him comfort when things do not necessarily go his way.



Mrs. White obtains her payoff at many levels. On the psychological level, the restrictions imposed by Mr. White prevent Mrs. White from experiencing neurotic fears or being placed in phobic situations. By having Mr. White prevent her from being placed in these situations, Mrs. White does not have to acknowledge (or even be aware of) her fears. On the social level, Mrs. White's payoff is that she can say "if it weren't for you." This helps to structure the time she must spend with her husband, as well as the time spent without him. In addition, it allows her to say "if it weren't for him" with friends.



As with any game, it comes to an abrupt end when one player decides (usually unconsciously) to stop playing. If instead, Mr. White said "Go ahead" instead of "Don't you dare", Mrs. White loses her payoff. She can no longer say "if it weren't for you" and then must go out and confront her fears. By continuing to play this game, each participant receives his or her payoff, but the price is a marriage with serious problems.



IWFY, like most other games, when perpetuated, can lead to adverse effects. Identification of the game is the first step. Once the player(s) recognize they are playing a game, efforts can be made to improve upon the problem. This is the basis of Transactional Analysis Therapy.

Quantum Dialectic Evolution...and Quantum Dialectic Humanistic-Existentialism...

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"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the


most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."


-- Charles Darwin


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Life explodes -- and evolves -- in the context on internal and external opposition, paradox, contradiction...It is through the engagement of internal and external opposition, contradiction, paradox...that we achieve polar tension, the negotiation, integration, and release of tension, the beginning of new life, and the feeling of 'homeostatic (dialectic) balance'...That is why I prefer to call 'evolution' -- 'multi-dialectical evolution' or 'quantum dialectic evolution'...

Many if not most schools of psychotherapy (Freud, Jung, Perls, Berne, Satir, ...), marriage and family counselling, employer-employee relations, philosophy (Anaxamander, Lao Tse, Schelling, Hegel, , politics, and law encompass in some fashion the principle and spirit of 'Dialectic Integrative Evolution'...Let the old either/or impasses, alienations, dissociations, disavowments, disconnections, disengagements 'DIE'...and be 'Dialectically Reborn' in the spirit of looking for, and finding, 'win-win problem solutions and conflict resolutions' that bring people together, not tear them apart...This won't always happen but it can happen far more often that it does if 'The Will to Humanistically and Existentially Negotiate and Integrate' is present amongst both opposing parties...

'The Will to Humanistic Compassion' is the will to see another person's point of view and metaphorically walk in his or her or their shoes...

'The Will to Existential Self-Assertiveness' is the will to stand up for your self, your own rights, needs, goals, visions, wishes and wants, and to be the best person you possibly can be in the context of others who may or may not share the same needs, goals, visions, wishes and wants as you...

United we have the spirit, the philosophy, the psychology, the economics, the business attitude of 'DGB Quantum Dialectic Humanistic-Existentialism'.

The Spirit of The Individual Engaging Freely and Integrating Humanistically and Existentially Within The Context of The Spirit of the Marriage, the Family, The Local, The Municipal, The Provincial (or State), the Federal, and the International Community, the Local Business and The Larger Political-Corporate World...

All coming together into One...and yet everyone free to either engage and/or disengage to pursue their own individual needs and desires without transgressing on the rights of others to express their own needs and desires...

That is Hegel's Hotel in a nutshell...

Quantum Dialectic Humanistic-Existential Idealism...

Is it 'Communitarian'? Well that depends on how you want to define 'Communitarianism'?

I might be willing to call it 'Quantum Dialectic Humanistic-Existential Communitarianism'...

The abstract, academic words are flying...

Time to give it a rest...

-- dgb, October 10th, 2010,

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still in Process...


-- dgb, October 10th, 2010

Look For The Superman or Superwoman...The God or Goddess...The Creator...That is Very Much Alive Within All of Us...Thus Spoke Zarathrusta...

I profess to being frustrated...frustration can lead to self-criticism...which in turn, if exasperated enough, can crystallize into self-hate....This process involves 'climbing the abstraction ladder of self-recrimination'...and the secret to undoing this process and its negative focus, its negative crystalization, is to backtrack exactly the same way that you got to where you are dwelling in your self-depression, self-despair, self-anger, self-rage, and/or self-hate.

Regarding the first -- self-depression -- we need to know this right up front and off the bat.

Self-depression is 'emotional constipation' -- depression is to grief like resentment is to anger and/or rage -- both depression and resentment involve a 'hanging on bite'. Plus they are usually interconnected -- resentment feeding depresion, and depression feeding resentment.

You remember the old saying, 'Poop or get off the pot.'  Well, such is the deal with both depression and resentment -- and anxiety is another 'hanging on' emotion in the same category. Depression needs to find some closure in 'grief', just as resentment needs to find some closure in 'anger and/or rage'. To the extent that we keep either and/or both of these hanging on emotions locked up inside ourselves with no release -- well, that is like keeping our 'poop locked up inside us with no release -- no detoxification'...The poisonous toxins associated with these 'unreleased emotions' keep circulating inside us and in the process poisoning our whole personality, from top to bottom...In effect, they end up 'poisoning our soul'...

More concretely, how do you undo this negative, self-created, process?

Let's start with the statement: 'I hate myself.'

Well, David Hume would say that there is no such thing as 'self' -- that it is just an arbitrary and convenient abstraction that man has created to talk about a whole array of individually unique thoughts, emotions, impulses, restraints, value choices, decisions, and actions...

There is some truth to this perhaps, but even if there is, I like the 'abstractive convenience' of being able to talk about 'myself' or 'my self'...regardless of whether my 'I' or my 'self' -- or both -- are abstractive conveniences or 'phenomenal realities' that are the 'proactive or reactive generating force behind all of my thoughts, emotions, impulses, restraints, value choices, decisions, and actions...

Still, if you are David Hume, or Zarathrusta, or any good psychotherapist or priest or friend or family member...the obvious first therapeutic questions become: What do you hate about yourself? or, Exactly, what part of yourself -- and/or your behavior -- is it that you have come to hate about yourself? And, How long has this 'self-hate' been going on?

You see, part of the object of psychotherapy is to get from 'the intellectually abstract to the emotionally real, concrete, and contactful forces that may sometime (or often) lead us up the wrong (neurotic, psychotic, pathological...) problem-solving and/or conflict-negotiating channel...'

As both Alfred Korzybski and Fritz Perls have asserted in no uncertain terms: We can kill ourselves with abstractions that prevent us from 'engaging contactfully' with either both ourselves and/or with others around us. This 'lack of direct and concrete contact' can prevent us from both 'closing our emotional issues' and also solving our problems and/or resolving our relationship conflict issues...

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 Zarathrusta speaks: Exactly what part of yourself is it that you have come to hate?

A Poisoned Soul speaks: I hate the fact that I have not become the person I wanted to be at this point in my life...I hate the fact that I have perhaps spent my entire adult life working in a 'false career' (although parts of it I have enjoyed). I hate the fact that I am supposed to be smart and yet I feel economically, financially, and professionally stupid... I hate the fact that I always seem to choose the 'path of least resistance' because I despise jumping through 'Establishment Hoops'...I hate the fact that I seem -- by past and recent experience -- to be terrible at marketing my own skills and abilities... I hate the fact that I did not properly protect a job that was at least paying me a decent middle class income that covered my bills with some 'disposable income' left over, an evening job to boot which left me all day, every day, to write an essay or two in Hegel's Hotel... I hate the fact that I am now working two jobs -- both day and night -- that are paying me less than the one evening job was paying me before, and now I have barely any time, maybe the weekend if I am lucky, to write in, and build Hegel's Hotel... I hate the fact that almost all of my time and energy is devoted to simply paying my bills -- and barely doing that...and perhaps more than anything, I hate not being able to financially help out my parents at this point in their lives when they need it most even though they spent huge amounts of money supporting me through my university years...and now I am not returning their favor...

Zarathrusta speaks: How do you really feel? 

The Poisoned Soul Speaks: How do I really feel? I just spilled my guts to you and you ask me how I really feel? I feel enraged. I feel like I want to strangle you. You are supposed to be my philosophical Guru. I reveal to you almost everything that is poisoning my soul and you have the nerve to ask me how I really feel -- as if everything I just spilled out to you in raw emotion doesn't mean anything to you, or to me in terms of my rage against myself? What kind of philosophical Guru are you? I want you to nurture me, encourage me, feel compassion for me, and show me how to become a Superman -- the Superman I know I am capable of becoming...but am failing miserably at. I want you to show me how to improve my 'Will to Power' and my 'Will to Self-Empowerment'...I want you to be my Philosophical God...

Zarathrusta Speaks: God is dead....and if this is what you want from me...I am dead also...I do not exist except as your False Idol...Worship no False Idols before you...that you hold above you...Be your own God...Be your own Creator...I am but a Mirror to Your Self...I am a Mirror of your own Projected Self-Ideals....the Projected Self-Ideals that you are too scared to live up to....and thus, you thrust them on me...saying 'daddy, help me'...

You engage in your books and in your writing at the expense of engaging directly, face to face, with people....a well educated man...a self-educated man....chasing more and more philosophical Gurus....chasing more and more books...

At what point do you stop this chase for more and more wisdom, more and more education...At what point do you stop looking at me as your Guru...and your God...and turn to yourself for leadership...

You want me to be your Superman...the Superman that you are afraid to be yourself...Looks inwards my dear man, turn the mirror of the Superman back upon yourself...and then express your Superman, once you have found him,  outwardly from yourself.

Be your own Guru.

Whether God created you in his own image, or you created God in your own image...it doesn't matter...the philosophical message is the same:

Be your own God...Be your own Creator...Be the compassionate, kind, ethical, and courageous person who you want your God to be...Chase no False Idols outside of you when the existential answers you are looking for are to be found inside of you....they only need to be unlocked...by you... No one can do this for you...The 'existential courage' you seek from the outside can only be found inside of you...

You torture yourself because you are not being 'all that you can be'....And if this is what you need to do in order to draw attention to this fact, then so be it...You are waist deep in a quagmire and looking for help...perhaps daddy to help you out of your quagmire...But daddy has his own quagmire to deal with...and is not here to help you...Indeed, if you every get out of your own quagmire, perhaps you can help him get out of his.

Or you can moap around all day in self-resentment and/or self-pity...or you can scream and plead all day looking for 'environmental help' that may or may not ever show up to help you...This is the 'waiting for the bus' syndrome...

But in the end do you have the courage, the strength, and the direction of movement to pull yourself out of your own quagmire, and set yourself free again...free to be creative again...free to show your own leadership, free to express your own Godliness...through the kind of work that lifts your Spirit again?

The mirror of Your Own Self-Idealism that you call 'God' is Reflecting Back at You...

And telling you to solve your own problems...

God may or may not be dead outside of you...(Is there life without death -- even amongst the Gods?)

But His/Her/Their Creation -- and Reflection -- is very much alive inside of you...

And just waiting for your self-awareness and self-courage...

To set your Creative Internal Godliness 

Free...

Transform your poisoned soul into your celebrating soul...

Just by following the wisdom and the talents of your Internal Creator....

Thus Spoke Zarathrusta...

-- dgb, Oct. 10, 2010.

A Distinction Between 'Existential Self-Hate' and 'Introjected, Character Self-Hate'...

A distinction can be made between 'Existential Self-Hate' which is more 'here-and-now', self-imposed, and contextual....and 'Introjected or Character Self-Hate' which has more to do with 'hate messages' that we have incorporated from someone else as a child -- our father, mother, and/or someone else -- i.e., were directed to us as a child from someone else in our immediate environment, were over time 'introjected, internalized, or swallowed whole' into our own personality or character, and now it is our own 'Introjected Self-Hating Superego' that is giving our own 'Rejected Child Underego' the same basic critical and/or hate messages that we remember receiving from that 'external, rejecting transference role model' as a child....This is the essence of a 'Topdog/Underdog Rejection Ego-Split' which is a lot tougher to get rid of because it has been so 'conditioned' into our personality over many, many years....


In one or two upcoming papers, we will see how we can move more from a negative, one down, position of 'self-depression' or 'self-hate' to a much more positive, emotionally uplifting position of 'self-celebration'....
 
-- dgb, Oct 8th, 2010,
 
-- David Gordon Bain,
 
-- Dialectical Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
 
-- Are Still in Process...
 
 

Today's Inspirational Quote:

"A smile is a curve that sets everything straight."
-- Phyllis Diller

On Self-Hate...and The Self-Torture Game...

Is self-hate a hate crime? A crime against humanity? Are there any or many crimes that don't involve some element of hate? Perhaps those that involve greed?

Back to self-hate...Hate crimes are crimes of pathological abstractionism. This pathological abstractionism is either learned through 'introjection' (such as listening and copying one's parents, or peers, or members of a particular group...) or through abstractifying personal experience. We have perhaps a very bad experience with one or a few members of a particular group of people who are then 'abstractified' by nationality, religion, culture, skin colour, sex, etc. And at this point, (y)our hate, instead of being perhaps justified towards one or a few people who actually hurt or traumatized us becomes unjustified towards a thousand or a million or more people who had nothing to do with your hurt or trauma. Such is the nature of hate crimes.

Now self-hate is abstractified hate turned inwards to the extent that we overgeneralize our perceived bad qualities at the expense of missing our perceived or unperceived good qualities, and then focus in on these bad qualities, crystalize them, stagnant them, make them our 'defining negative characteristics' and start to wallow in them (depression), rage against them (like raging against aging which we can only do so much about) or raging against some other characteristic or quality that maybe we can do something about, or maybe we can't -- or won't. Perhaps we have one of those characteristics that our 'Shadow' controls and 'throws us for a loop' every time we think we have things back on track again. Our 'Self-Saboteur'.

In the end, self-hate penetrates -- or can easily penetrate -- the gap between our self-ideal and our self-image.  The larger this self-ideal to self-image gap is, and the more torturous and unrelenting our 'Critical Superego' is, the more we are likely to get caught up in the 'self-torture game', the 'self-hate game', except it is no game in any sense of the word 'game' meaning 'fun'. And the more we abstractify and crucify ourselves, obviously the worse this 'game' can get. And at the point of over-abstractification, and over-crucification, self-hate can indeed become a crime of hate...in the form of an ethcial and/or legal transgression against oneself...

How do you stop this process?

Well, we can do at least three different things or some combination of any or all of them.

1. You self-ideal or self-expectations are too high. Lower them. Make them less demanding. More tolerant. More human. Allow yourself the capability of error and/or the possibility of 'a lesser performance' than you expected from yourself' that might be relevant to unforseen circumstances that you did not anticipate, and/or simply to your being human and fallible;

2.  Find one or more ways of 'raising your performance level'. Dig deeper. Find your way through or around the obstacle. Don't let the obstacle become your albatross, your 'ball in chains'... Persevere...

3. If your life is really dark and bleary...dreary...change it...radically if need be...or at least get out of your routine...as the cliche says, you have only one life to live so find one that you can enjoy...even if that means jumping from bad job to bad job until you find one that you can live with....and keep striving upwards towards that 'existential fit'...same with your relationship(s) if need be...again, find one that works for you, and/or shake up the longstanding one that may need a new 'facelift'...Relationships need to evolve just as people do, or else they will become 'living dead things'...

Enough for tonight...sometimes you need to experience your 'darkness' before you can get back to your 'light'...and sometimes you may even need to integrate some of your 'darkness' with your 'light'...your 'personna' with your 'shadow'...your 'topdog' with your 'underdog' in order to become a more 'vibrant, live person' again rather than that 'living dead thing'...or that person who has 'torn him or herself to shreds' in that nasty 'self hate and self-torture game'...I've given you three ways to get out of it...

-- dgb, Oct. 6th, 2010.

Marx and Economics

Marx was right. Economics rules the world. How many shattered beings, how many shattered lives, lie debased and/or stretching for help, under the ruins of shattered economics? 

 -- dgb, Oct. 5th, 2010.

Another Look At The Latest DGB Model of The Personality...

My first 'model' of the personality was created in 1979 with the completion of my Honours Thesis, Evaluation and Health.

Looking back at this first model now, I would call it mainly a model of 'The Central Ego' -- and a contrast between the different 'ways we can talk to ourselves', i.e, 'think to ourselves', in ways that can have radically different results on both our emotional and behavioral lives...between 'positive internal energy' and 'negative internal energy', between 'functional' or 'adaptive' ways we can relate to ourselves and 'dysfunctional', 'maladaptive', 'neurotic', 'psychotic', and/or otherwise pathological ways we can relate to ourselves...before we even begin to relate to our outside world...My primary influences here were all the 'cognitive' and 'cognitive-behavioral' psychologists that I had directly or indirectly (through books) come in contact with  such as: Afred Korzybksi, S.I. Hayakawa, and the mutual field of 'General Semantics' that they were working in, Albert Ellis and Rational-Emotive Therapy, Aaron Beck, George Kelly, Jerome Frank, Nathaniel Branden, Ayn Rand, and the person I was writing this essay for, my University of Waterloo advisor at the time, Donald Meichenbaum, with his freshly published book, Cognitve-Behavior Modification: An Integrative Approach (1977)...At the time, I didn't know how lucky I was to be writing for a man who was in the process  of building a very impressive reputation for himself... This quick summary of Dr. Meichenbaum career below came from an interview in April, 2002, by Victor Yalom....

http://www.psychotherapy.net/interview/donald-meichenbaum

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Donald Meichenbaum, PhD is Professor Emeritus of Clinical Psychology at the University of Waterloo, and founding member of The Melissa Institute for Violence Prevention and Treatment. He holds the dual distinction of having been voted "one of the ten most influential psychotherapists of the century" (reported in the American Psychologist) and being the most cited psychology researcher at a Canadian university.

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This first DGB model of the personality in 1979, as well as expressing the dominance of my 'rational-empirical' and 'cognitve' approach to psychotherapy at the time also showed the beginnings of my 'humanistic' and 'humanistic-existential' approach to psychotherapy with influences such as Erich Fromm, Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Fritz Perls, Rollo May, and more...The Fritz Perls influence would become much more developed in the 1980s and lead me to Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis,  the study of Object Relations, Eric Berne and the study of Transactional Analysis, Jeffrey Masson and The Seduction Theory Controversy, Carl Jung and Jungian Psychology, G.W.Hegel the main philosophical creator of 'dialectic philosophy and psychology' which would lead to the dominant perspective in my thinking, , and from Hegel and the study of Dialectic Philosophy, the study of Western -- and a tidbit of Eastern -- Philosophy in general...

Finally, very very slowly over about 30 years, my latest significant influence by Carl Jung would awaken the 'mythologist' in me which was very much a 'Shadow' of my 1979 personality and would be for some 20 to 30 years after that...I am just starting to 'feel comfortable' with this new, creative element of my personality...as I write now...in 2010....

In 1979, I had not even significantly grasped the essence of the 'dialectic approach' that would in the 2000s stimulate the birth of my major integrative philosophical-psychological perspective and work -- a conglomeration of some 1000 essays or more that are so far strewn in disorganized fashion throughout -- 'Hegel's Hotel'...  

I have just now started a derrivative of Hegel's Hotel called -- Freud's Hotel... And there will be probably many more derrivatives coming to spread out all of my work and its myriad of different philosophical and psychological influences...

Hegel's Hotel remains very much a still disorganized work in progress, with hopefully more and more organizational sub-classifications coming in the upcoming months...

My most recent model of the personality combines a 'nuclear family model' of the personality comprised of different internalized, 'compartment-ego-states'; with a larger mythological model of the personality that features elements of Greek and Roman Mythology, as well as Christian and Anti-Christian Mythology/Religion...

It is hard to adequately explain the model without a diagram but try to envision this...

Jesus on The Cross -- The Archetype Image of Our Central Ego -- with the concept-mythological images of 'heaven', 'air', 'romantic fire', 'water', and 'the earth' and 'sensual-sexual fire and the underground' being featured along the different sections on the cross -- 'Heaven' at the top', 'air, sky, and wind' a little further down on the top of the cross...'romantic fire' on the left hand side of the cross, 'water' on the right-hand side of the cross, 'the earth' towards the bottom of the cross, and 'sexual fire and the underground or underworld at the very bottom of the cross....

Now think of the 'light-soul' in the top part of the cross that features 'heaven' (Zeus, Jupitor, God), and the 'dark-soul' in the bottom part of the cross that features sensual- sexual fire and the underground (Dionysus, Satan, Hades, Pluto, Hell...)...

Now think of 'The Id' and 'The Shadow' as representing personality elements on the way to the deepest underground of the personality....And think of the Creative and Destructive Unconscious or Subconscious that respectively reflect images from either our 'Light-Soul' or our 'Dark-Soul'...or a combination of both...

And also on the way to the deepest Underground of our personality we have our 'Transference Templates, Memories, Images, Figures, Scenes, and Complexes'....as well as our 'Genetic Mythological Templates, Archetypes, Symbols, Figures, Scenes, and Complexes'...our Transference Templates and Complexes influenced by our childhood experiences, family dynamics, and upbringing; our Mythological Templates and Archetypes reflecting a much deeper, more archaic, primitive part of our human heritage and history...

Think of all these different factors as potentially 'bombarding internal forces' on our Central Ego -- on our personal, internalized, 'Jesus Christ Archetype' that can either be our 'Master Problem-Solver and Spiritual Self-Healer' or conversely become 'crucified' by the overwhelming barrage of different forces from all areas of the inside of personality, particularly from the deepest Underground of our personality...

In the most successful behavioral functions of our Central Ego -- our Master Spiritual Self-Healer, Problem-Solver, Mediator, Integrator, and Conflict-Resolver -- we put 'Humpty Dumpty back together again...we even reunite God and Satan in a new, creative energetic, functional relationship in which Satan becomes 'the prodigal, estranged and demonic Angel, that is detoxified, healed, and re-welcomed back into heaven...but not a completely 'angelic, God dominated Heaven above the sky'...but rather a new 'integrative, Heaven on earth, a Garden of Eden, with Adam, Eve, and The Snake all living harmoniously together....with both spiritual and sensual-sexual aspects of this relationship as well as rational and romantic components, idealistic and realistic components, and a sense of strong Earth-bound rootedness, stability, and security combining with various ventures into the sky, the water, and the different fires of the personality, contact and withdrawal in all relationships and in all aspects of the psyche, convergence and divergence, separation and union, separating as two...and coming back again as one...in a back and forth, productive, creative cycle..

In effect, our 'Light-Soul' and our 'Dark-Soul' are harmonized into something that may not be 'angelic' but that is a combination of what man essentially is -- a 'Centaur', a combination of both spiritual and sensual-sexual components...part man...and part animal...united harmoniously in the same being....

And this is only one of a thousand potential competing and attracting 'bi-polarities' in man that need to be successfully 'negotiated' and 'integrated' -- or see ourselves as the archetype of Jesus Christ essentially 'crucified on the cross'...


Have I made the essential dynamics of my model and its various components clear?

This is where I stand now on Nov 10th, 2010, at least on an abstractified level, with more of the particular details to follow...some of them I have already outlined in past essays...

Have a good day!

-- dgb, Nov. 10, 2010,

-- David Gordon Bain

From Audri and Jim Lanford...Your Inspirational Quote For The Day...

Today's Inspirational Quote:

"Beware of undertaking too much at the start. Be content with
quite a little. Allow for accidents. Allow for human nature,
especially your own."  -- Arnold Bennett