Life is a journey from chaos to organization and back to chaos again -- the 'arc of life' if you will -- and that is focusing on one side of life, what I refer to as the 'Apollonian side' of life which is the 'organizational' side of life. In contrast, mythologically speaking, two other very relevant sides of life are: 2. the 'Aphroditian' (romantic)side of life'; and 3. the 'Dionysian' (sensual-sexual) side of life.
The personality evolves from chaos -- a newborn baby entering a world that he or she has no experience dealing with...
Impulses -- indeed instincts for food, warmth, touch, nurturing, comfort, safety... -- propel the baby forward with the only tool that baby has at his or her disposal upon entering this frightening new world: his or her vocal chords.
Movement -- first, disorganized movement, and then more organized, co-ordinated movement with a purpose -- start to develop shortly thereafter, and baby, barring any health and/or adaptive complications, is on his or her way towards developing a greater and greater cognitive-emotional-physical skillset for dealing with the world and fulfilling his or her needs in conjunction with the world...
Cognitvely speaking, there are three main skillsets that baby needs to develop in the process of what is happening above: 1. association (recognizing similarities and regularities); 2. distinction (recognizing differences); and 3. memory that can be divided into two types: 'associative memory' and 'distinctive memory' (as well as the more usually distinguished short and long-term memory).
Long term 'associative and distinctive memories' that are carried over from childhood to adulthood we will refer to here as 'transferences'. From the word and concept of transference, we get such derrivative words and concepts as: 'transference complexes', 'transference neuroses', 'transference fixations', transference obsessions', 'transference avoidances', 'distancing transferences', 'rebellious transferences', 'approval-seeking transferences', 'schizoid transferences', 'violent transferences', 'oral transferences', 'anal transferences', 'oral-nurturing transferences', 'oral-obsessive transferences', 'anal-schizoid transferences', 'anal-rejecting transferences', 'anal-distancing transferences', 'impulsive transferences', 'defensive transferences', 'compensatory transferences', 'approach-avoidance transferences', 'transference memories', 'transference encounters', 'transference relationships'...and on and on we could/can go...
The road between newborn baby and adult personality theory travels through transference theory.
Alfred Adler had some very important things to say about transference theory but unfortunately (or fortunately) by the time he got around to saying these things, he had long since stepped outside of, and away from, the Classic Freudian Paradigm, and thus, he needed to invent a new terminology which we will call here 'lifestyle theory' complete with a whole host of different, competing assumptions and associated theories that 'hid' the associative (or potential associative) connection between Freudian Transference Theory and Adlerian Lifestyle Theory. That is where I will come in to 'bridge the dialectic gap'.
Furthermore, the direction that Freud had started to go relative to 'Pre-Classical Traumacy and Transference Theory' was suddenly aborted shortly after 1896, a whole new set of associative assumptions and theories were built up after 1896 to replace the associative assumptions and theories that Freud had built up until 1896, and thus, a distinction that we can make here and now between 'transference-traumacy theory' and 'transference-fantasy and impulse theory', most Classical Freudians cannot even contemplate because they have been taught 'transference theory' entirely within the 'Classical Freudian Paradigm' or perhaps, a competing post-Classical paradigm' such as 'Object Relations Theory' and/or 'Self Psychology' which has developed different assumptions and theories about transference...
However, no-one within Freudian circles, to my knowledge, has asked the question: How would Freudian Transference Theory been different if he had never abandoned his 'Traumacy-Seduction Theory' after 1896?
That is where I come in again and provide a 'Quantum-Integrative-Traumacy-Fantasy-Defense' Theory of Transference that combines elements of: 1. what Freud wrote before 1896; 2. What Freud wrote after 1896; and 3. what Adler wrote long after he had left Freud and Psychoanalysis. Thus, in essence, I am addressing and aiming to bridge two gaps here: 1. 'the pre-1896-post-1896 Freudian gap'; and 2. 'The Freudian-Adlerian gap'. You can add one more 'gap' to these two gaps, and that is the 'Freudian-Jungian gap'.
If this sounds complicated and confusing now, particulary if you are a reader less familiar with all the different stages (and seeming contradictions) of Freudian Theory, hopefully, it will become less so as we move along here.
Regarding Jung, there is some important Jungian Theory -- and 'DGB-Jungian Quantum-Integrative Theory' -- that we need to discuss before we move on to a more complete discussion of 'DGB Quantum-Integative Transference Theory'.
The Jungian and DGB-Jungian Theory that I am talking about we will encapsule under the concept and theory of 'The Mythological-Symbolic Genetic Self'. This more or less falls under the domain of what Jung called the 'Collective Unconscious'.
It is to this subject matter that we will turn to...probably tomorrow.
-- dgb, Jan. 26th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain
