Just finished....Feb. 9th, 2011...
Let me throw some ideas at you that are a little unorthodox, but I think important.
Theories of the mind or 'mind-brain' and how it works, and breaks down into 'neurosis', 'psychosis', 'psychopathology' and/or 'mental illness' -- all different names for elements of the same essential types of 'psychological breakdown' -- tend to mimic theories of the body, either consciously or unconsciously, and how the body breaks down into different types of 'physical illness' and 'disease'.
Let me start with the analogy of what I will call 'The Trans-Bodily Highway'. This is a hugely complicated network of arteries, veins, capillaries, and 'the lymphatic system' which are all functionally designed to either carry 'nutrients' to the individual body cells, and/or help to protect these same cells from 'toxic invasion', including 'carrying away' all toxins and dead or damaged cells, i.e., 'throwing out the trash' if you will...
If along the way on this trans-bodily highway, we run into 'abysses' or 'gaps' or 'splits' in the highway, or conversely, 'blockages', 'dams', or 'avalanches', we are going to have the beginning of 'bodily breakdown and physical disease'. We could have a 'blood clot' or a 'cholesterol and fat buidup' that blocks the route...We could have an 'ulcer/abyss in the stomach that prevents the stomach from working properly....Thus, the body needs a 'road crew' of 'repair workers' that continually patrol these highways to fix all 'potholes' and 'blockages'...If that doesn't happen, then we are looking at more serious -- perhaps deadly -- problems and consequences...
We can also talk about the 'main engine' (the heart) and the 'captain's room' (the brain, mind-psyche, 'mind-brain', whatever you want to call it -- complete with all sub-components, either physically visable or metaphorically conceptualized), and we can talk about the millions or billions of little 'sub-engines' or 'pistons' (the 'mitochondria') which make up tiny, miniscule, microscopic engines in each individual cell that produce 'energy' for that particular cell -- and for the body as a whole.
In a sense, Freud's 1920 'life' and 'death' instinct polarity is supported by the existence and functioning of the mitochondria. Oxygen is needed in the mitochondria as well as glucose (and a host of other biochemical pieces) in order for the 'engine in the mitochondria to fire off properly'.....and give us the 'engery of life'...or 'the life instinct'...
However, at the same time, 'oxygen' -- like all phenomena and concepts have both 'good' and 'bad' properties attached to it, paradoxically 'life enhancing' properties and 'death enhancing properties' at the same time....This is one of the dichotomies or paradoxes of life and death which basically co-exist at the same time. For the 'firing off of the engine' using oxygen, glucose, and whatever else to comlete the chemical reaction gives us the 'side-effect' of 'oxidation' which 'kills cells', 'damages cells', 'ages us', and eventually kills us'....
So much for oxygen bein the 'breath of life'...It is that...but paradoxically, it is also the 'breath of death'....which can only be slowed down by what we call 'anti-oxidants' that protect our cells from 'oxidation damage' and 'slow down the aging and dying process'....
Has anyone seen that tv show on Spike TV called '1000 Ways to Die'....We can generally classify all deaths into two types: someone 'took too much of something', 'or did too much of something', or coversely, 'the person didn't take enough of something', or 'didn't do enough of something'.....And thus, they died... On the nutritional side of things, perhaps they ate too many 'trans fatty acids' or ingested too many 'free radicals' or conversely they didn't 'ingest enough anti-oxidants'.
And so it is with the human psyche as well...Indeed, mind and body are very much connected in both health and pathology...
What we are leading up to here, is the concept of 'Bi-Polar Disorder' (or BPD for short) which affects both mind and body, indeed is responsible in some way or another, for all human 'illnesses', 'diseases', and/or 'disorders' -- physical and psychological alike. Conversly, when all 'bi-polar spectrums' -- both physical and psychological -- are sufficiently homeostatically-dialectically balanced and integrated', we have what can be called
'human health'.
The idea of Bi-Polar Disorder or 'BPD' assumes either consciously or subconsciously that there is some underlying type of 'Bi-Polar Functional/Dysfunctional Spectrum' at work -- or not at work that should be.
For example, let us look briefly at 'Diabetes' which can be view as a physical type of BPD. In 'Type 1' Diabetes, a person's pancreas don't create 'insulin' which is needed to help 'transport' sugar or 'glucose' from the blood to the individual cells that need the glucose for 'energy production' in the 'mitochondria' (the 'engine') of the cells. Therefore, there is a 'blockage' or 'impasse' at the 'doorway' between the arteries and the cells and the person will die if he or she is not injected with 'insulin' fast.
Alternatively, if a Type 1 or Type 2 diabetic (or 'pre-diabetic') -- or for that matter, any of us -- is 'low' in blood sugar, then he or she is going to have to 'eat some food', or in more dramatic cases of 'really low blood-sugar' run for a chocolate bar or glass of orange juice before he or she ends up 'passing out' from lack of 'glucose' and 'energy' in both the arteries and the individual cells. This too is a form of BPD -- which signifies too different type of 'Diabetic BPD' -- 'low blood-sugar' (LBS) and 'high blood-sugar' (HBS).
In Type 2 Diabetes where the person's pancreas still produce insulin, the problem is usually 'obesity' -- too much fat and/or cholesterol around the 'gateway' or 'doorway' between the arteries and the cells, and this 'fat/cholesterol' 'blocks' or 'impedes' the function and the effect of the insulin which is designed to help 'transport' the glucose in through the gateway between the arteries and the cells. Biochemically speaking, niacin, chromium, manganese, and other vitamin-minerals 'help' the insulin to properly carry out its function. So, it's not all about 'insulin' but certainly insulin is a 'key player' in this whole biochemical process. When insulin 'can't' get the glucose from the arteries into the cells because of a 'fat and/or cholesteriol blockage' at the doorway to the cell, this in medical terms is called 'insulin resistance'.
So looking at this whole 'physical disease and medical' picture from a 'psycho-theorist's perspective, all physical disease or disorder -- as with psychological disorder, neurosis, psychosis, psychopthology, mental illness -- is a form of BPD. Two different forms of BPD that we can distinguish from each other are: 'Obessive-Compulsive Disorder' (OCD) which means a person 'can't or won't metaphorically or literally turn a certain tap of 'human impulse' OFF; and alternatively, in contradistinction to OCD, what I will call 'RBD' which stands for 'Restraining-
Blocking Disorder' (RBD) or in more Freudian terminology, 'Anal-Rejecting-Schizoid Disorder' (ARSD) which means that a person 'can't or won't turn the metaphorical or literal tap of 'human impulse' ON.
This type of 'bi-polar theorizing' goes right back to the beginning of Western -- and Eastern (Lao Tse, 'yin'/'yang') -- Philosophy.
In Greece, our second oldest Western philosopher, Anaximander (610 BC to 546 BC), was theorizing that different 'opposites' -- or different 'bi-polarities' -- were constantly in 'powerplays' or 'power-fights' with each other, with usually one of the two bi-polarities 'dominating the spotlight or limelight' while the other 'losing bi-polarity') was 'suppressed', repressed' 'non-willingly' to the 'Shadows' of The World (in Anaximander's terminology, 'The Shadow' of the World was 'The Apeiron').
For 2500 years, most people, academics, scholars...would not really appreciate just how brilliantly profound and prophetic Anaximander's ancient 'dialectic' philosophy was -- as it would basically become the focal point of Hegel's 19th century Dialectic Logic and Philosophy in the latter's classic philosophical treatise, 'The Phenomenology of Mind/Spirit' (1807), as well as Foucault's 20th century 'Power-Philosophy' and Derrida's 20th century 'Deconstruction'.
Sandwiched in between Hegel and Foucault/Derrida was Nietzsche, Freud, and the beginning of clinical psychology.
Nietzsche's much overlooked first book, 'The Birth of Tragedy' (BT) was the 'psychological bridge' between Hegel and Freud. BT can be viewed as the 'pre-birth' of Psychoanalysis. In this amazing little book, Nietzsche goes back to ancient Greek Tragedy, and shows how at the heart of all these early Greek Tragedies was the underlying 'dissociaton' or 'split' (my words, not Nietzsche's) between 'The Apollonian (anal-controlling) Spirit' and 'The Dionysian (oral-and-genital gratifying) Spirit' of man...
What we had in Nietzsche's brilliant little first book (BT), was essentially the beginning of the (unarticulated) concepts of 'The Id', 'The Ego', and 'The Superego' (Freud), 'The Personna' and 'The Shadow' (Jung) as well as the beginning of the (unarticulated) concepts of 'BPD', 'OCD', and what I call 'RBD' (Restraining-Blocking Disorder) or 'ARSD' (Anal-Rejecting-Schizoid Disorder) ....although, rightfully, these concepts can also be partly traced all the way back 2000 years earlier to the partly articulated 'Powerplay Philosophy' of the under recognized and appreciated Anaximander.
Let us not also forget to give due credit to Hegel who actually foresaw the beginning of 'clinical psychology and psychotherapy in the early 1800s... See 'Introducing Hegel'...Lloyd Spencer, 1992).
In my next essay, I would like to trace all of this 'new and/or old DGB conceptuology' through the beginning, history, the evolution, the 'dissociation', and 'the potential quantum-integration' of Psychonalysis.
Before I leave you in this essay, let me make one further point.
In Diabetic Pathology, at the 'gateway' between the artery and the cell, we have a 'Restraining-Blocking Disorder' going on such that glucose can't get through the 'cell gateway' to the mitochondria/engine/energy production of the cell. We may also have a case of 'insufficient Insulin Drive' such that there is not enough 'push' to get the glucose through a possibly 'blocked' gateway.
All mental pathology can viewed in this same manner: 'too much drive in the oral, anal, genital, and/or aggressive impulses usually aimed at an object', 'not enough drive in the oral, anal, genital, and/or aggressive impulses usually aimed at an object', 'too much restraining-blocking going on', and/or 'not enough restraining-blocking going on'...
Under such conceptuology, all mental disorders become some form of BPD, OCD, and/or RBD...
Also, go back to the example of diabetes for a minute. We can also say that there is a 'split' or 'dissociation' in the body going on at 'the gateway between the artery and the cell'. 'Transportation', 'circulation', and 'integration' cannot complete itself because of the 'blockage' that has led to the 'split' or the 'dissociation' in the body between the artery and the individual cell...
So also, will we find this same general principle at work in all different types of 'pathologies or dissociations or splits in the mind'.
One final set of distinctions to communicate to you here....and that is to articulate some of the main forms of 'OCD', not by current psychological diagnostic standards, but by the type of conceptual distinctions that I am developing here:
Different Types of OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder')
All different forms of OCD share the common characteristic of experiencing the feeling of not being able to 'turn off some sort of human impulse'...
1. Oral OCDs: usually called 'addictions' in contemporary diagnostic terminology... in this case, 'addictions pertaining to the mouth...such as 'eating', 'smoking', 'drinking', 'ingesting drugs', 'oral sex'...
2. 'Genital OCDS': usually called 'sexual addictions' today...
3. 'Seduction-Abandonment OCDs': The seemingly uncontrollable urge to 'seduce, conquer, and then abandon...'
4. 'Anal OCDs': What are usually called OCDs in current diagnostic terminolgy which include such things as 'counting', 'checking', 'cleaning', 'washing', and 'hoarding' which is arguably a more complicated one but which seems to generally include the 'obsessive need to not throw away anything'...
5. 'Transference OCDs': All 'transference disorders' are some type of OCD listed above, or some OCD not mentioned... All transference disorders have a unique, unusual 'signature thought, feeling, and/or behavior' attached to them which has led to the art and science of 'profiling'....
6. 'Serial Behavior Patterns...particularly 'serial rapes', 'serial killings', 'serial arson', 'serial burglaries', 'serial fraud'...and the like: To the extent that they all have 'unique, unusual signatures' attached to them, particularly what might be called 'psycho-sexual signatures', are behavioral extensions of 'Transference OCDs'...
Enough for today...
-- dgb, Feb. 9th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain
