The Man or Woman Behind The Iron Plate....

I am in the process of starting to build an integrative psychoanalytic blogsite...You can find it evolving as we speak at this URL listed below....

http://hegelshoteldgbpsychoanalysis.blogspot.com/



The more civil we become, the more rules and laws that are made, the more politically correct we become, the more life becomes 'staged' -- as opposed to 'real'.

We lose the spontaneity, the creativity, the risk, the courage, of the 'real encounter'.

Our life, and our love, gets locked and lost behind a steel armour-plate, or wthin an iron vault -- the one we wear into the office every day to 'present our professional self', and/or the one we build more and more for every love relationship that has gone bad on us.

We protect ourselves from identifying who we really are, and give away no hidden vulnerablities, but in the process we lose the 'I and Thou, Here and Now' of a real encounter, a real relationship...one where we wear our heart on our sleeve -- and say, in effect, 'Hey world, for better and/or for worse, this is me.'

As young people, we experience real encounters and real love, when we truly let ourselves go in the presence of someone we deeply care about.

 But then we learn about the inherent risks of letting ourselves go so completely....how it can come back to almost destroy us in a powerful, intimate relationship gone bad.

There has to be a balance in mutual self-disclosure, or one person does indeed become more vulnerable than the other. Nobody wants to be 'played'.  Nobody wants to be the victim of someone else's manipulations unless perhaps both are playing by the same rules, perhaps trying to 'out-manipulate' each other  -- and know it. 

There is the 'transference love' of 'over-idealizing' another person who we really  don't know very well. Don't underestimate this type of love because it can be powerful even if it is 'over-inflated exuberance and infatuation'. But be wary. High, unrealistic expectations can be impossible to live up to -- like Obama's image from his campaign speeches -- optimistic, hopeful, striving for a better America...a better, more united, less racist and hateful world...

Great ideals, to be sure, but most of them buried beneath an earthquake of 'narcissistic realism'...

The man couldn't live up to the near 'flawless' image and the personna that he portrayed... How could anyone? Jesus Christ perhaps...but that is mythological  idealization and idolization projected outwards....We all look for heroes and idols who can make our world a better world, make ourselves feel better about ourselves...We all partly want to -- but don't believe -- we can fully live up to 'these ideals' ourselves...

'Beware false (and/or over over-inflated, overly perfectionistic) ideals and idols...They will bury us under the same earthquake of -- let's say, 'human fallibility' -- if we take them too righteously, too seriously, too perfectionistic -- and don't allow some room for human tolerance (which is definitely not the same as saying that we should ignore all narcissistic transgressions...)


Transference love can spark 'chemistry' and lead to a deeper, more profound love.

But it can also be fleeting and 'turn' as fast as Freud turned 'The Seduction Theory' into 'The Oedipal Theory'....(As a side note, I think that Freud quickly hid 'his real clinical, therapeutic self' on May 4th, 1896 behind a 'steel iron plate' in his own subconsious and replaced it just as quickly with a still 'provocatively shocking' but much more 'Professionally and Politically Correct Personna' that the Victorian doctors liked a lot better...because it didn't point an accusing finger at perhaps their own narcissistic transgressions...) With every significant 'trauma' in our own lives, we can all generally quickly learn to do the same...

Behind, or within, transference love, there is the potential for a much deeper type of romantic and/or friendship love that comes with really learning to know someone at their most  intimate levels -- without turning our back on them when we come into contact with their own perceived and/or hidden weaknesses, their compensations, their complexes  and things about them that we may really have a lot of trouble dealing with. (Look in the mirror and this may be the same thing that we have the most trouble dealing with in ourselves as well -- and/or our polar opposite.)

When we can't get by these 'relationship impasses' and take the relationship to a deeper level...and intstead, we or our partner turns and walks away...for good....over time, over the years, these jaded, broken relationships take a high physical and emotional toll on our psyches...We lose the 'real us'...we lose the ability to live and love at the deepest levels... We begin to operate more and more by the principle of....'No risk...no loss'...

With each further love relationship gone bad, and/or moment of 'professional weakness and vulnerability' that comes back to haunt us, we learn -- or at least we attempt to learn -- how to compensate from our perceived past mistakes, and perhaps, in the process, get better and better at 'idealizing and mastering our own Public Personna'....

In effect, we become....

The man or woman behind the iron plate...

This is not the path to 'Self-Enlightenment'....

But rather the path to greater and greater 'Self-Protection'...

The Path to Self and Social Alienation....

Want to know how to fix this problem, and turn it around...

Pay more attention to your five or six year old son or daughter, or grandson or grandaughter....

Watch how they play and interact....

And are real....

In the end, we all balance different components of our 'Real Inner Self' with our 'Social Personna' which may reflect greater or lesser degrees of who we really are...

It's a matter of ...

Are we 'findng' more and more of our Self....

Or 'losing' more and more of our Self...

With each passing relationship that we are involved in,

With each passing encounter,

With each passing transaction....

That we make....

Or don't make....


-- dgb, June 30th, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain

In The Beginning....

In the beginning....

Let me suggest...

That our Creator decided....

To create a world....

That would be...

At different or the same times...

Dramatic, tragic, comical, absurd, painfuil, suspenseful, celebratory, remorseless, optimistic, pessimistic, evolutionary, de-evolutionary, honest, deceitful, transparent, manipulative, narcissistic, altruistic, loving, caring, unloving, uncaring, uniting, splitting, attractive, repulsive, competitiive, co-operative....

Full of powerplays designed to conquer....

Interwoven amongst....

Co-operative, assertive, humanistic, dialectic negotiations...

Two sides looking for mutually satisfying answers....

Or not....
Problem solutions and conflict resolutions...

Aimed at surmounting seemingly insurmountable impasses...

Demanding the best of man's creative, evolutionary integrative spirit....

Sometimes it's there...

And sometimes it's not...
Are we looking for win-lose negotiations and resolutions...

That we, and only we, win?

Or are we looking for win-win negotiations and synergies...

Thst will sustain and bind an ongoing relationship together...

In mutual respect, integrity, honesty and trust...

Regardless of what colour, what sex, what nationality, what religion, what culture, what background...we come from...

As Martin Buber would say...

Here and Now,

I and Thou....

-- dgb, June 23rd,

-- David Gordon Bain,

On Dialectic Complexes, Gods and Archetypes, Mythologies, The Id, The Instincts/Impulses, and Their Many Viscisitudes (Mutations, Defenses, and Compromise-Formations)...

More modifications and extensions......Finally finished!...June 25th, 2011...

Sorry, my friends...coming off another 72 hour work week, this essay has become a little 'disjointed'....Today, being my only day off this week, I am going to try to finish up this essay in some kind of organized, coherent fashion....dgb, Sat. June 25th, 2011
.................................................................................................

Let's get a better understanding of how dialectic philosophy can be applied to the study of psychology and biology -- and their parallelism -- at the deepest levels.

What do we mean by a 'Complex'?

A 'complex', as it shall be defined here, is two or more variables, processes, factors, components...that come together into one or more 'molecular structure(s) and/or process(es)' (on the biological level), and/or on the metaphorical equalivalent psychological and/or philosophical level.

On a 'building' level, we are likely to call one 'structure' that is built out of wood, concrete, bricks, or whatever (for a functional purpose -- like being 'lived' in, or 'worked' in) -- a 'building'; whereas more than one connected building (with similar interconnecting functions), we are more likely to call a 'complex'.... such as an 'apartment complex'.

Now, dialectically speaking, whenever there has been an integration between two 'competing' or 'opposing' ideas, we have what we will call a 'dialectic complex'.

For example,

Let 'T' stand for 'Thesis';
Let 'A' stand for 'Anti-thesis';
Let 'S' stand for 'Synthesis'...which implies a 'uniting' of thesis and anti-thesis...
To form a 'TAS (Thesis-Anti-thesis-Synthesis) -- or Dialectic -- Complex'.

In this regard, I have asked the question previously,

How might 'the id' have been defined differently if Freud had created it before 1897 rather than in 1923?

James Strachey writes in his editor's introduction to 'The Ego and The Id'...

The term 'das Es', (the German word for what became labelled in English as 'the Id', see below), (1) as Freud himself explains below (p.23), was derived in the first instance from George Groddeck, a physician practising at Baden-Baden, who had recently become attached to psycho-analysis and with whose wide-ranging ideas Freud felt much sympathy.  (1923, SE, V. X1X, p. 7)...


Previous to Groddeck, the term 'das Es' is reported by Strachey as having been used by Ernest Schweninger (Groddeck's teacher), and before that by Nietzsche.

Writes Strachey again,

(1) There was to begin with a good deal of discussion over the choice of an English equivalent. 'The id' was eventually decided upon in preference to 'the it' (my emphasis), so as to be parallel with the long-established 'ego'. (1923, SE, V. X1X, p. 7)...(Now what Strachey meant here by 'parallel' is totally ambiguous -- we will address this issue later in terms of the folloing question:

Does the id deserve to have a co-related 'ego-state' attached to its 'instinctual function' -- such as 'The Dionysian Ego'. My answer to this question is in the affirmative and thus I distinguish -- in Nietzschean style -- between 'The (more primitive, archaic, uncivil) Dionysian Ego' and 'The (more civil, ethical, righteous) Apollonian Ego'. 

However, we are getting a little ahead of ourselves here. The first decision I had to make was whether I wanted to change or modify or extend Freud's definition(s) of the id to mean something other than what Freud meant by it. Here, i have finally come up with the answer 'no' -- I want to keep the original Freudian, instinctual meaning of the id and simply surround it by other concepts that Freud neglected, suppressed, didn't see the need for -- or whatever such as 'The Shadow' and 'The Personna' which are very useful Jungian concepts, and such as the concept of 'Traumactic-Transference Childhood Experiences and/or Memories' (TTCEMs), and such as the concept of 'Narcissistic Childhood Infatuations-Obsessions-Fantasies' (NCIOFs), and such as 'The ID Vault' and/or 'The SID (Shadow-Id) Vault'.

These new and/or 'opposing school' concepts allow us to do a host of different things that Freud 'boxed himself' or 'vaulted himself' out of...because he became 'fixated' on 'Instinct-Drive-Fantasy' Theory. Thus, for example, in the 1905 'Dora' case, Freud 'boxed himself' into a particular way of 'psycho-analyzing' the case that he would not have viewed in the same paradigm had he 'analyzed' Dora around 1894-95 when he was using his 'Traumacy Theory'. A 'good Classical Psychoanalyst' should be able to dialectically move back and forth in flexible fashion between 'traumacy' theory and 'fantasy' theory without beimg 'dominated' by either one or the other theory except as the clinical evidence 'best tells us' which way to move...Was Dora 'repressing her sexual instincts' relative to 'two old men' (her father, and her father's friend), or was she 'caught in the middle' between two old men trying to manipulate and exploit her -- one who 'sexually wanted' her (her father's friend) and the other -- her father -- who seemed to want to 'trade her off' in exchange for 'his friend's wife'...i.e., 'You can have my daughter if I can have your wife.'... Which seems like the better interpretation to you -- all else being equal -- and not being privy to all the specific details that Freud was privy to? Was this case really as 'sexually bizarre' (in terms of Dora's own wishes) as Freud was trying to make us believe? Or was Freud simply 'boxed in' by the 'biological and instinctual reductionism' of his own 'instinctual fantasy' theory? I opt for the latter explanation.


Let us turn to the 'ego' for a few minutes before we come back to the id...


'The ego' goes at least as far back in German philosophy as Fichte to mean 'the whole Self', whereas Freud, depending on the context, vascillated between using 'the ego' as an equivalent to 'the whole Self' -- like Fichte -- vs. using it to mean a more specific part of the 'whole Self or Psyche' that has particular reality-based, safety, mediating, conflict-resolving, and decision-making functions, as differentiated in Freud's 1923 model from 'the id' and from 'the superego' -- the 'three different psychic agencies that Freud viewed as making up the combined whole of the psyche or Self'.

................................................................................................

Strachey goes on to write...

It (the id) cleared up and in part replaced the ill-defined uses of the earlier terms 'the unconscious', 'the Ucs', and 'the systematic unconscious'. (1923, SE, V. X1X, p. 7)...

.....................................................

Freud may have cleared up some 'old confusions' relative to his ambiguous and/or 'sliding' use of 'the unconscious' before 1923 but 'equating' the id with 'the unconscious' (as Freud was partly prone to do even after he wrote 'The Ego and The Id' in 1923) would create some new ambiguities and confusions as well as solve some old ones.  

Obviously, the 'id' was being separated and distinguished from the 'ego' and yet this in itself created problems because elsewhere Freud would write that 'the id' was the 'oldest, most primitive and uncivil part of the ego' -- indeed, the 'ego' was 'born' from 'the id'....as it evolved and became more 'civil', 'less primitive', more concerned with 'ethical' and 'safety' matters even as it was still, at the same time, trying its best to 'satisfy the impulses and/or instincts of the id'...or at least work out 'compromise-formations' that partly satisfied the desires of the id....

Also, Freud's 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle', written three years earlier than 'The Ego and The Id' in 1920, was creating some new complications as well...In 1920, Freud, in writing probably his most abstract, 'metaphysical' essay, had distinguished between man's two most basic 'instincts' -- 'the life instinct', and 'the death instinct' -- which, now in 1923, were being 'deposited' within the 'container' or 'confines' of 'the id'.

However, the id was not simply a 'reservoir' or a 'container' -- Freud gave the id a 'personality', which mythologically speaking, was seemingly a 'trialectic' integration between 'Dionysus' (for simplicity sake, let's call 'Dionysus' the God of 'pleasure'), 'Narcissus' (The God of 'self-absorption') and 'Satan' (the God of 'evil').

The id, which according to Freud, was located in the deepest region of the unconscious (only to be unlocked and understood properly by Psychoanalysis) , was not 'organized' in its makeup at all but was rather 'chaotic' and 'disorganized', 'contradictory', 'no ethics', wanted 'immdediate gratification', and was constantly 'driving the ego crazy' with its 'demands from down below for instant gratification'...(while, at the same time, 'the superego' was generally harping and nagging at the ego from the 'upper, righteous' side of the personality -- metaphorically, visually, and/or geographically speaking. 

Now I have no problem working with this Classic Freudian model as described above -- except for some of the reductionistic elements of it, and also, with the particular integration that Freud made between man's 'aggressive impulses and behaviors' and Freud's controversial understanding of 'the death instinct'....But these problems, we will delve deeper into in another essay...

Let's go with the Classical Freudian model that we have....and hopefully 'metaphorically enrich' it....

I have already 'gone beyond' Freud -- and here I am starting to integrate some Jungian ideas into my 'post-Freudian DGB model' -- when I said that the 'Id' can be described as a 'trialectic integration' between three ancient Gods: Dionysus, Narcissus, and Satan. Now -- as my creative mind starts to 'rev up its juices', let's introduce a fourth: 'Thor'. 

............................................................................................

From Wikipedia...

In Norse mythology, Thor (from Old Norse Þórr) is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, destruction, fertility, healing, and the protection of mankind.

.....................................................................

Well, from the little description above, we can depict 'Thor' as a 'bipolar God' -- capable of 'destruction' as well as 'fertility', 'healing', and 'the protection of mankind'.

Is 'the Id' capable of 'great destruction'. Yes.

Is 'the Id' capable of 'fertility', 'healing', and 'the protection of mankind'. Well, at least partly yes....'No fertility'...and 'no mankind'...Nietzsche has certainly trumpeted the virtues of Dionysus....even while overlooking 'Dionysian Self-Destructive Dangers'....that coincidentally or non-coincidentally...Nietzsche himself fell into during the last ten years of his life... Nietzsche fell into a 'Great Big Black Dionysian Hole' which I have also equated elsewhere with the concept of 'The Nietzschean Abyss'...

So what do we have in mind here by the concept of 'The Id' which Freud may or may not have accepted. Probably he wouldn't have because the concept -- the way I envision it -- reaches into Jungian Theory and pulls some ideas back into Freudian Theory.

The Id -- as I conceive it here in DGB Quantum-Dialectic Integrative (QDI) Psychoanalysis -- in its most primitive, uncivil, unadulterated form, is basically an 'Archetype' that exists in 'The Shadows/Unconscious/Subconscious' of The Personality or Psyche. Now an 'Archetype' as I am defining it here is an 'introjection' of an archaic mythological symbol and/or God -- or in this case here - a 'conflation' (multi-dialectic integration) of four different mythological Gods -- Dionysus, Narcissus, Satan, and Thor. 

What I like most about adding 'Thor' into the mix is the idea of Thor (like Zeus) being able to 'send out highly charged lightningbolts of creative and/or destructive energy'....

So 'The Id' in this context here becomes an Archetype or 'Internalized/Introjected Conflation of Four Ancient Gods -- Dionysus, Narcsissus, Satan, and Thor -- 'shooting lightning bolts of highly charged energy from deep in The Shadows of The Personality up into The Conscious Personality -- for 'The Ego', or what we will call here, 'The Central Ego' -- to deal with in whatever way it -- as in 'The Central Ego' of our 'Self' -- deem most appropriate under the particular context of the situation...

Now if we equate The Ego -- or as conceptualized here, 'The Central Ego' -- with 'The Archetype' of 'Zeus', then we have a potential 'battle' in the making -- a 'battle of The Gods' -- between 'Zeus' and 'Apollo' on the 'upper side' of the personality (which can be equated with 'the white blood cells' and/or 'immune system' and/or 'the army' of the personality or to use a different analogy altogether, 'the electrons' of the personality) being 'sent down' either quickly or slowly to meet the 'rising surge of some particular type of dangerously perceived Id Complex'....

The two opposing, dialectic -- or bipolar -- forces in the personality ('protons' vs. 'electrons', 'red blood cells' vs. 'white blood cells') are charging towards each other like The Greek and Persian Armies....meeting at some point either in 'the conscious' or 'subconscious' mind...

If the 'id complex' is stronger than the opposing 'ego defense force', then 'the id complex' can 'overwhelm' The Central Ego...and in effect...'take control of the personality'....

If the 'ego defense force' is stronger than the uprising of the id complex, then what the ego defense force will essentially do -- at least metaphorically -- is either 'destroy' and/or 'surround' and 'contain' the rising id force....very much like the 'white blood cells' of the body would either destroy, eject, and/or surround and contain any 'perceived foreign invader' caught within the confines of the body...

It is relative to this idea of 'immune system containment' or 'ego defense containment' that I derive the concept of 'The Id Vault'.

'The ID' itself -- which can be used partly as an acronym for 'Impulsive Desire', 'Intense Drive', 'Inner Demand'... -- can be viewed as a primitive, uncivil, hedonistic, narcissistic, sometimes nasty...'ego-state of the subconscious' where 'driving forces of life and death energy are shot up into the conscious personality to somehow be handled (or not handled) by the accepting or rejecting forces of 'The Central Ego' in conjunction with the more or less righeous, stringent forces of 'The Apollonian Superego'....

Now in contrast, 'The ID Vault' is a 'place of ego defense' where the 'white blood cell' forces of the ego have 'surrounded' and 'contained' the upwards rising 'red blood cell' energy of some type of 'ID Complex'....and 'institutionalized' this ID Complex if you will -- brought it under the 'organized and harnessed control of the ego'....If the 'ego defenders' 'fall asleep on the job' or 'get drunk and incapcitated'....then the ID Vault becomes undefended...and 'The Id Complex' slips out of The Id Vault....enters and/or becomes 'alive and strong' in the conscious personality....and can wreak havoc or even 'take control' of The Central Ego...In this regard, our 'Alter-Ego' is likely to 'come alive' in our personality...

Now for some 'biblical' mythology, metaphors, and interpretations...

The Id can be equated to the combined forces of Dionysus-Narcissus-Satan-Thor....with 'Hell being the home of The Id in The Subconscious Shadows of The Personality'...

The Righteous, Apollonian Ego can be equated to an Archetype of an integrative combination of 'God or Zeus with Apollo'...and The Central Ego can be equated to The Archetype of 'Jesus Christ', the mediator and potential healer of 'alienated, estranged, ex-communicated Gods, Archetypes, and energies in the Personality... Zeus, Apollo, and God all are housed in 'idealized Heaven'...

Satan is 'the estranged, alienated, ex-communicated angel of God' -- banished from Heaven, and now abiding in 'Hell' -- and becomes a part of 'The Fearsome Foursome': Dionysus, Narcissus, Satan, and Thor.  

The 'fight for control of the mind and body becomes the mythological fight between God and Satan, between good and evil, with Jesus Christ -- the potentially healing mediator -- acting as 'therapist' between 'God' and 'Satan' as they strive or don't strive to become more harmonious, balanced, workable 'team members' again integrating 'the subconscious desires and fantasies' of the id (from 'Hell in the personality') with the 'idealistic, righteous ethics' of the superego (from 'Heaven in the personality'). 

Mythologically speaking, 'neurosis' can be defined and/or described as the 'neurotic conflict' set up by 'the alienated dissociation and estrangement' of Zeus, Apollo, and God from 'Heaven' -- at war with Dionysus, Narcissus, Satan, and Thor....residing in 'The Underground Furnace of The Personality as metaphorically depicted by 'Hell' -- with the Id (containing potential components of 'Satan' as well as Dionysus, Narcissus, and Thor), constituting the driving force, the driving foursome, the driving conflation of four Gods and/or Archetypes -- from Hell...

In this manner, 'the myth' of 'God and Satan' becomes a parable of internal conflict and neurosis in the personality...

Turning to the realm of metaphorical biology,  a 'neurotic conflict' and/or a 'neurotic disorder' can be likened to an 'auto-immune conflict and/or disorder'.  The principle is basically the same. And the mind-body is looking for -- fighting for -- some 'workable state of homeostatic (dialectic, democratic) balance.

Let's leave this essay here. We have covered enough material  for today. 



-- dgb, June 25th, 2011

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- and 'Quantum-Dialectic-Integrative Psychoanalysis'...

-- Are/Is Still in Process...









  

The Spider-Web of 'Causality', Accountability, and Responsibility Usually Runs Deep; 'Blame' is Often Passed Down The Power Hierarchy Until a 'Scapegoat' Is Found -- A 'Manager' or a 'Front-Line' Worker Without The Ability or The Power To Properly Defend Himself/Herself: At 'The Centre of The Web' is Often One Common Denominator -- Money

Who Killed Davey Moore? -- Bob Dylan, 1964

Who killed Davey Moore

Why an’ what’s the reason for?



“Not I,” says the referee

“Don’t point your finger at me

I could’ve stopped it in the eighth

An’ maybe kept him from his fate

But the crowd would’ve booed, I’m sure

At not gettin’ their money’s worth

It’s too bad he had to go

But there was a pressure on me too, you know

It wasn’t me that made him fall

No, you can’t blame me at all”



Who killed Davey Moore

Why an’ what’s the reason for?



“Not us,” says the angry crowd

Whose screams filled the arena loud

“It’s too bad he died that night

But we just like to see a fight

We didn’t mean for him t’ meet his death

We just meant to see some sweat

There ain’t nothing wrong in that

It wasn’t us that made him fall

No, you can’t blame us at all”



Who killed Davey Moore

Why an’ what’s the reason for?



“Not me,” says his manager

Puffing on a big cigar

“It’s hard to say, it’s hard to tell

I always thought that he was well

It’s too bad for his wife an’ kids he’s dead

But if he was sick, he should’ve said

It wasn’t me that made him fall

No, you can’t blame me at all”



Who killed Davey Moore

Why an’ what’s the reason for?



“Not me,” says the gambling man

With his ticket stub still in his hand

“It wasn’t me that knocked him down

My hands never touched him none

I didn’t commit no ugly sin

Anyway, I put money on him to win

It wasn’t me that made him fall

No, you can’t blame me at all”



Who killed Davey Moore

Why an’ what’s the reason for?



“Not me,” says the boxing writer

Pounding print on his old typewriter

Sayin’, “Boxing ain’t to blame

There’s just as much danger in a football game”

Sayin’, “Fistfighting is here to stay

It’s just the old American way

It wasn’t me that made him fall

No, you can’t blame me at all”



Who killed Davey Moore

Why an’ what’s the reason for?



“Not me,” says the man whose fists

Laid him low in a cloud of mist

Who came here from Cuba’s door

Where boxing ain’t allowed no more

“I hit him, yes, it’s true

But that’s what I am paid to do

Don’t say ‘murder,’ don’t say ‘kill’

It was destiny, it was God’s will”



Who killed Davey Moore

Why an’ what’s the reason for?



Copyright © 1964, 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1992, 1993 by Special Rider Music

The Stranger Awakens....

If you are only living your life to pay off your bills, what are you living for? Like a slave lives to please -- or at least not unplease -- his master? Hanging on with a Pit Bull grip to a job that barely keeps your head above water?  I guess that you can at least say...that your head is still above water....There are too many 'Titanic-like' scenes out there....not winning the war against the water....

Where is the meaning here? Where is the passion? In simply doing anything and everything you can to survive?

Where is your creative Self? Is it being actualized in your work? Or is it being buried in your work? Where is your mind while you work? In your work? Or trying to escape your work? Are you Kafka working in an insurance company? Doestevsky who wants to bring you passionate notes from the Underground. Are you Camus who wakes up one day and feels that you have lived your whole life as The Stranger? Or feels yourself on Trial -- for living a life that you didn't live?

There are a generation of Baby Boomers who have already entered -- or are in the process of entering -- Senior Citizinship, and for this generation -- My Generation -- the Day of Reckoning has come....The Day of The Trial....

Did you accomplish what you set out to accomplish? Did you fufill a good chunk of your life goals? Are you with the man or woman you want to be with? Are your kids off to a good start in life, encouraged by the wisdom you left them? Do your grandchildren add sweetness, innocence, energy, and trial and error curiosity to your life?

Or did you get sidetracked somewhere? Down some wrong path? Sidetracked by addiction? By a man or woman at the office? Sidetracked by spending too much time at work...and not enough time at home? Somehow you were not there to guide your children through school and play, reading and writing, the sports games that you both loved and hated, but didn't share with your children? Your children idealized, and idolized you, even when you weren't the perfect father or mother....Did you let their image of you slip away, become jaded, by just not being there for them, one, two, or maybe even a hundred or a thousand, too many times? You were trying too hard to pursue other goals in your life...and perhaps looking back at it now....would have made an extra effort to have made yourself more available for their needs than you were?

Or not? We all have things we can look back at and smile about....cherish....and then the other half of the things that we missed while we were doing what we did....

Can we look back at things now and say that we captured the main essence of what we wanted? Or did we miss a significant part of the main essence of what we wanted?

I drive a wheel-chair van now, have been doing so for the last month.

This has been an eye-opening experience for me.

A heart-wrenching experience for me. Inside, I cry sometimes after hearing another story....

The young man who was paralzyed by a drunk driver...

Lots of stroke patients....Way too many stroke patients....One man whispers into my ear as I take him to the door. 'I don't want to be here any longer than I have to be...But I just can't remember anything....' I left him inside the door of an Alzeimer's Society....

Lots of dialysis patients.....A patient with a horror story that made me quiver...Diagnosed with the early signs of colon cancer, he had his colon taken out....a month or two later he had pneumononia and didn't even know it....His primary symptom that finally took him to a hospital was shortness of breath...a smoker with developing emphysema...but this was different...He collapsed in the hospital...and woke up two months later from a coma....Septic poisoning had invaded his bloodstream and when he woke up he found that his kidneys didn't work any longer....and that he would have to wear an oxygen mask...He now goes to dialysis five days a week. The coma episode was about six years ago.

The stroke victim who was just too addicted to alchohol...I see these types of men very frequently as I take them home from work to a men's shelter....They have lost their wives or girlfriends, their homes, their families, say that they are going to get help, enter a rehab program, and the next day....when I pick them up....they are stinking drunk again....Will power isn't the same as fantasy power...

The stroke victim I started to tell you about...same story...lost his wife, home, and family to alcohold addiction....contemplated suicide...prayed to God to relieve him from his insanity...and the next day he had his stroke...He never drank again...but lives in a residential home owned by nuns....takes dialysis...The good part is that he has rediscovered his wife and kids....and thanks God for that...feels in his heart that he got a better deal and a second chance at life...

Tragedy, traumacy, and in some cases, a decent resolution....

That is what I see all day....

And think about for at least a good part of the night...

Every new job...

As much as you may resent certain elements of it....

Also contains the possibility of a new Awakening...

A twinging of the heart strings...

Of The Stranger Inside...


-- dgb, June 15th, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Dialectic Gap-Negotiations...

-- Are Still in Process...

The Best Ideas Have Sex -- A Lot of Sex -- With Other Ideas!

I heard someone on the radio a few evenings ago say that, 'Good ideas have sex.'

Now I have drawn this metaphorical comparison before myself in a number of different essays.

But I don't think quite so starkly...

So I had/have to run with this idea a bit more...

We have all heard such comments as...

'That sounds like a very fertile idea, Mr. Jones....

Let's see where we can go with that...'

The idea of 'good ideas having sex'...

Sounds very Freudian...

I can just hear Freud saying....

'Well, if good ideas are having sex....

Then that is because, underneath all our...

Copulating ideas,

We all want to literally have sex...

Good sex, great sex....

And this is just one more example...

Of how man 'sublimates' his sex drive....

Much like artists and architects....

Playing with phallic symbols and vessels...

And much like the symbols....

That occur in our myths and dreams as well...

The Greek God, Zeus, and his 'Godly-Ram' status....

The Alpha-Male....Don Juan...Casanova....

Perhaps The Greatest Alpha-Male Idea....

In the history of Western Philosophy....

Was the idea most clearly articulated by Hegel....

Of ....The Dialectic...and Dialectic Interplay....

Thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis...


Conceptual copulation!

-- dgb, June 15th, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations

-- Are Still in Process...

A Man After My Own Heart -- Or Before My Own Heart...

Dialectical Psychoanalysis:


Toward Process Psychology

JON MILLS

Mills, Jon (2000). Dialectical Psychoanalysis: Toward Process Psychology. Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought, 23(3), 20-54.


Abstract


While claiming allegiance to empirical science, psychoanalysis can further profit from philosophical fortification. Largely unknown to psychoanalytic discourse, Hegel's process philosophy has direct applications for advancing contemporary psychoanalytic thought. Through a proper appreciation of his dialectical method, Hegel's philosophy enriches current theoretical innovations and adds to our understanding of psychic reality. Throughout this project, I will outline Hegel's logic of the dialectic and show its intimate relationship to psychoanalytic inquiry. Hegel's dialectic gains descriptive and explanatory power in articulating the dynamic activities of mind as well as tracing the historical development of psychoanalysis itself. With the adoption of process psychology, dialectical psychoanalysis may offer future advances in psychoanalytic theory, clinical investigation, and applied technique.


http://www.processpsychology.com/new-articles/Process-Psychology.htm

More Descriptions, Critiques, Modifications, and Extensions Of 'The Id' In The Context of 'The Personality-as-a-Whole'

Let's start with this little summary of 'the id' in relation to 'the ego' and 'superego' as found on Wikipedia...

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Id, ego and super-ego are the three parts of the psychic apparatus defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche; they are the three theoretical constructs in terms of whose activity and interaction mental life is described. According to this model of the psyche, the id is the set of uncoordinated instinctual trends (my emphasis); the ego is the organised, realistic part; and the super-ego plays the critical and moralising role.[1]


Even though the model is "structural" and makes reference to an "apparatus", the id, ego and super-ego are functions of the mind rather than parts of the brain and do not correspond one-to-one with actual somatic structures of the kind dealt with by neuroscience.

The concepts themselves arose at a late stage in the development of Freud's thought: the "structural model" (which succeeded his "economic model" and "topographical model") was first discussed in his 1920 essay "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" and was formalised and elaborated upon three years later in his "The Ego and the Id". Freud's proposal was influenced by the ambiguity of the term "unconscious" and its many conflicting uses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id,_ego_and_super-ego

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The id is the set of uncoordinated instinctual trends...
 
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Allow for the fact here that man -- 'theorizing man' -- generally has a tendency or an 'instinct' if you wish to turn things like 'biological processes' into 'theoretical structures'.
 
Like the Wikipedia piece above stated -- and I will extend their logic -- if you did an 'autopsy' on the brain, you would not find an 'id'. Therefore, when we use the term 'id' -- or 'ego' or 'superego' for that matter -- we are dealing with a 'visual model' 'and theoretical metaphors' that are designed to help us understand the 'psycho-dynamic processes of the mind' but at the same time, that do not have 'empirical biological structures' that they are representing. We are dealing with 'fictional as if' models that can still be very functionally useful even though you can't point to a part of the brain and say -- 'There is the id.'
 
With that 'caveat emptor', let us continue. 
 
  Theorists love 'generalizations' and 'abstractions' (and 'assumptions' and 'reductionisms') -- that is what they build their theories from.
 
Certain words are inherently troublesome like 'repression' and 'the unconscious' and 'instincts'. We could argue for the rest of our time here together about what is an 'instinct' and what is 'not an instinct'. In my opinion, it is better not to take this discussion too seriously. Use the term 'instinct' flexibly -- or not at all. If you get too 'anal-retentive' on this point of definition, we will become mired in quicksand.
 
Here is how I wish to define the 'ID' (turning it into an acronym) -- as the 'entire set of coordinated and/or uncoordinated 'Impulsive Drives' at work in the personality at any point in time -- operating on either a conscious and/or subconscious level -- including separate or combined levels of biological, psychological, social, political, economic, religious, artistic... motivation.'
 
Now there are two follow-up questions to this definition that may seem silly but which need to be given an answer: 1. Does the ID have a 'home' in the psyche or does it just 'free-float' in, say, a 'hundred different particular 'impulsive drives', that may move anywhere and everywhere in the psyche?
 
I say that the ID has a 'home' in the psyche -- the 'starting-point' of all 'instinctual and/or impulsive drives' -- and that 'home' can be likened to 'the engine room' on a ship, the 'energy source' of all impulsive drive human motivation. Let's give this 'home' a name and call it 'the ID Reservoir' or 'The ID Room', which we will locate in the 'subconscious' of the personality. The ID Room can be viewed as being 'the most primitive and uncivil part of the human mind-brain-psyche (mbp), the starting-point of the evolution of man, the starting point of the mbp of a newborn infant -- and this idea basically follows 'Classic Freudian Conceptuology'. 
 
The Ego evolves out of The ID. But the ID keeps its original 'home' in the mbp -- and its original function -- 'Impulsive-Drive-Satisfaction' (IDS).
 
Once the Ego has fully evolved, it generally follows 'the reality principle' as a more prioritized and sacred value than the potentially self-destructive inherent danger of 'the unbridled pleasure principle' -- that, if we are not careful, can start to lead us quickly or slowly down the path of 'the death instinct'. This is the path that the ID will invariably choose -- left on its own accord and to its own devices -- without the 'safeguarding defenses' of the Ego.
 
More Classic Freudian Conceptuology simply re-stated by yours truly -- with one addition so far -- the addition of 'The ID Reseroir' or 'The ID Room'. This is meant to help clarify some ambiguity in Classic Freudian Theory.
 
Now I am going to introduce another distinction that Freud never made, and because he never made it, it introduced some confusion in later (post-1914) Freudian Theory.  
 
 The confusion was created by Freud's formal introduction in 1914 of the concept of 'narcissism' -- a very valuable conceptual addition to Psychoanalysis -- but how did it fit into Freud's overall conceptual theory? Basically, Classical Psychoanalysis as it had been developing before his introduction of the concept of 'narcissism' -- was thrown into disarray by this new concept.
 
 Freud has been criticized for being a 'biological reductionist'. He has been crticized for his 'pansexualism'. One of the first things that Jung did when he separated from Freud was he 'loosened up' Freud's definition of the concept of 'libido'. For Freud, this concept meant 'sexual energy' -- plain and simple. Jung changed the definition of 'libido' to mean 'life energy' meaning more than just  'sexual energy'. Freud wanted no part in this change of definition.

Another term that Freud used along the same lines as 'libido' was the term 'Eros'.

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Eros (Ancient Greek: Ἔρως, "Intimate Love"; UK: /ˈɪərɒs/, US: /ˈerɑːs/), in Greek mythology, was the primordial god of sexual love and beauty. He was also worshipped as a fertility deity. His Roman counterpart was Cupid ("desire"). In the Theogony Hesiod makes him a primordial god, while in some myths, he was the son of the deities Aphrodite and Ares.



.............................................................................................................

So Freud went through a whole host of stages in his 'dualistic and dialectic theorizing' where he distinguished between the 'pleasure' and 'reality' principles (and 'egos')....the 'sex' and 'aggressive' instincts', the 'life' and 'death' instincts...And stuck in the middle between Freud's earlier and later conceptuology (i.e., from 'the pleasure principle' to 'beyond the pleasure principle'...and his distinction between the 'life' and 'death' instincts, 1920, came his rather 'intrusive' concept of 'narcissism' -- and what did it mean relative to all the other concepts?

Now (as in 1914 and afterwards) Freud was talking about 'narcissism' as opposed to 'sex' being the 'primal energy' of man...And then there was the 'death' and 'aggressive' instinct ('Thantos' as opposed to 'Eros') ...How did it all fit together? Freud lacked clarity in bringing all these concepts into line with each other...leaving us in at least partial if not total confusion...

So let me strive for my own clarity here in a way that makes sense to me...in a mixture of Jungian and Classical Freudian conceptuology...

We all start our life with a combination of 'life' (Eros or libido) and 'death' (Thantos) energy. The second we take our first breath of life this 'dualistic and dialectic process' is under way as 'oxygen' supports both our 'life energy' ('oxygenation') and our 'death energy' ('oxidation') at the same time. Oxygenation supports the ongoing process of life. Oxidation, on the other hand -- the 'negative, destructive side effect' of oxygenation -- supports the beginning of the 'death or dying process'...'Oxygen' is a 'bipolar product' causing opposite 'bipolar reactions' in our mind and bodies that support and enhance both life and death. So we have our first support of Freud's 'life' and 'death' instincts...All the talk -- and money -- today is about 'newer and better anti-oxidants' that are purported (rightly or wrongly) asserted to slow down the process of oxidation, aging, and dying... Thus, eventually, once science triumphs over God or our Creator, we will all live forever!

Let's divide Freud's 'life instincts' into the following categories which overlap each other...

1. 'The Narcissistic Instincts' (egotism, self-survival, self-enhancement, self-esteem, selfishness, self-absorption, greed...some of which are 'normal' and 'healthy', others of which are more or less 'pathological' and 'unhealthy';

2. 'The Hedonistic or Pleasure or Dionysian Instincts' (sensuality, sexuality, eating, drinking, partying, celebrating ...);

3. 'The Nurturing or Altruistic Instincts' (encouragement, love, caring, compassion, empathy, sympathy, concern...)

4. The 'Ethical, Righteous, or Apollonian Instincts' (ethics, morality, fairness, justice, equality and equal rights...).

Now by my logic, for every instinct we have, we all have an 'ego-function' and an 'specialized ego structure' whose role is like a 'special interest lobbyist group' that is designed to hammer home to 'The Central Ego' the importance of that particular line of 'instincts' or 'needs' or 'ego functions'...

Thus, from the five main 'life instincts' and 'ego functions' of the psyche, I have created five main 'Ego-Structures':

1. The Nurturing-Altruistic (and/or Romantic) Ego;
2. The Narcissistic Ego;
3. The Hedonistic-Dionysian Ego;
4. The Righteous-Apollonian Ego;
5. The Central Mediating and Executive Ego.

And each of these differrent 'ego-states' can be split into two based on the principle of 'power' and 'suppression' or 'superiorty' and 'inferiority' or 'topdog' and 'underdog' or 'superego' and 'underego' complexes...That now gives us 10 different 'ego structures and/or states'...like a 'Parliament' inside the Personality....

So our 11th 'Room' or 'Structure' in the psyche if you will is 'The Parliament Negotiating Room' or worded otherwise, 'The Psycho-Drama Room'.

Below this, and moving into our subconscious....we have:

Room 12: 'The Dream (and Nightmare) Weaver's Room';

Room 13: 'The Shadow-ID  or SID Room';

Room 14: 'The Transference Memory and Fantasy Complex Template';

Room 15: 'The Primal-Archaic (Gods, Archetypes, Myths, and Symbols) Template';

Room 16: The Genetic Potential (Blueprint) Self;

Room 17: Anaximander's Apeiron and/or Nietzsche's Abyss (Chaos, Darkness, amd Lack of Organization, Power and Control, Loss of Self...and Self-Control).

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I think we will leave it at that for today...

-- dgb, June 11th, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain

Traumacies, Fantasies, Impulses, Defenses, and Their Vicissitudes

Finished...April 6th, 2012...

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What I would like to do in this essay is to compare and contrast the work of Freud in 1894 (The Neuro-Psychoses of Defense), 1895 (Studies in Hysteria), and 1896 (The Aetiology of Hysteria) with the work of Freud in 1920 (Beyond The Pleasure Principle) and 1923 (The Ego and The Id).

Of particular speculative interest -- and this 'speculation' falls under the category of 'would have', 'could have', 'should have' -- is the question of what might have happened to Psychoanalysis if Freud had written The Ego and The Id in say, 1903, 1893, 1894, or 1905 rather than in 1923? 

Now, obviously, Freud's mindset and abstraction process had not evolved enough in the early to mid 1890s when he was just getting going with his psychological -- and 'early or pre-Classical' Psychoanalytic -- thinking to have written The Ego and The Id at such an early date. But what the question does is to direct us to look at how Freud's 1923 conceptuology of 'the ego', 'the id', and 'the superego' would have mixed -- or not mixed -- with his 'pre-Classcial, reality-traumacy-seduction-repression theory'.

You see, me being the 'post-Hegelian, dialectic, integrative bi-polarity thinker' that I am, I look at the question of 'What would have 'Classical' Psychoanalysis have looked like if Freud had integrated all 46 years of his 'pre-psychoanalytic' and 'psychoanalytic thinking (1893-1939), rather than throwing the first four years of his work into a 'Dissociation Pit' -- like the 'neurotics' and 'neuroses' he was describing in his clients. (And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. Friedrich Nietzsche )


These early, pre-1897, pre-classical Psychoanalytic works listed above need to be reconciled, integrated, and harmonized with his later work -- not treated like Psychoanalsysis suddenly developed its own 'neurotic disorder' with Freud  'repressing' -- or in a better choice of words, 'dissociating' -- the first four professional years of his career. 

For the most part, I dislike the Freudian concept of 'repression' because of its reductionistic and non-empirical nature --  my own preferable terminology consists of words like: 'alienating', 'dissociating', 'suppressing', 'restraining', 'splitting', 'avoiding'...trying as much as possible to stay away from the concept of repression except in discussing the way that Freud used this term...for the most part reductionistically and non-empirically...and not in the best interests of Psychoanalysis in my opinion. There might be some 'extreme but rare exceptions' to this rule of thumb in the form of  'really repressed memories' of horrific childhood experiences...But for the most part, I would prefer to use one or more of the other terms listed above...As Freud himself came to realize, 'repression' is by no means the only form of 'psychic defense'.  

Remember, this is the man -- Freud -- who burned many of his most personal letters from Fliess, and presumably, important others. Indeed, he would have most certainly done the same if he had ever gotten a hold of his own letters to Fliess, but history was smiling on historians in this latter case, not on Freud, and thus, we are left with a truer historical picture -- not an 'loyalty inspired and idealized' one -- of what was really happening during the crucial early development years of Psychoanalysis (1893-1897).

Freud had a very strong wish to keep most of his private life -- strictly private. But all of his most intimate letters to Fliess have made it through World War ll, and into the history books for philosophers, psycho-theorists and psychoanalytic historians like myself to interpret and evaluate as each of us believes this historical material should be interpreted and evaluated. There are still very polarized opinions on this matter, and for the most part, I offer an integration of these polarized opinions.

Masson was the 'golden child' of psychoanalysis at the beginning of the early 1980s who was given the 'key to the vault' to publish all of Freud's very intimate letters to Fliess (before then, the ones that seemed to tarnish Freud's reputation in any way were  screened out of publication), but then Masson got into these letters, didn't like what he saw --  and said so -- accusing Freud of 'losing moral courage' around the issue of real childhood memories, specifically, real childhood sexual assault or 'seduction' memories.

The main 'protectors' of The Freudian legacy -- mainly his daughter, Anna Freud, and the highly esteemed senior Freudian loyalist, Kurt Eissler -- were obviously berating themselves for letting Masson into The Freudian Archives in the first place because of the disastrous public relations scandal that followed -- Masson, more specifically, accusing Freud of 'backing away' and 'hiding' from the very 'professionally and politically unpopular' subject of childhood sexual abuse after a very volatile, confrontational meeting of The Vienna Psychiatry and Neurology Society on April 21st, 1896, in which Freud read his very famous or infamous paper, depending on your perspective, 'The Aetiology of Hysteria', which connected childhood sexual assault to the overall 'cause' of hysteria.  Krafft-Ebing, the leader of the evening meeting called Freud's paper a 'scientific fairy tale'.

I have followed Masson's path through Freud's complete letters to Fliess through 1895 and 1896 in particular, and some of them don't shine a good light on Freud -- particularly the Emma Ekstein medical atrocity, and arguably, Freud's abandonment of his pre-1897 combined 'reality-traumacy-seduction' theory -- especially, IF this 'theory abandonment' reflected a loss of moral courage on Freud's part to stand up to his medical peers and superiors.

Granted, these medical peers and superiors may have had -- indeed, most certainly did have -- 'leverage' over both his professional reputation and his income level relative to 'referring' or 'not referring' patients to him....and Freud had a growing family that he needed to shelter, feed, and clothe -- a type of situation where most of us may have at one point or another in our professional career been told to 'keep something quiet' or risk the consequences...or alternatively, you just know that saying something may not be a good idea relative to keeping your job and/or your career...

Still, regardless, the reputation of both Freud and Psychoanalysis is significantly at stake here. The nuts and bolts of the situation comes down to this moral question: Did Freud turn his back on his clients, particularly his female clients, and betray them -- like Judas? Or did Freud radically change the theory of Psychoanalysis 180 degrees because he believed that this was 'the right' thing to do based on a 're-interpretation of his clinical evidence'?

It is two very complicated, connected questions with both Freud's and Psychoanalysis' reputation and integrity hanging in the balance. It certainly seems like most Psychoanalysts back in the 1980s 'rejected and wrote Masson off as an academic radical' (at least in public, anyway). The position of professional and academic 'non-psychoanalysts' is less clear.

It comes down to whether you believe or not that Freud's whole change in direction of Psychoanalysis from 'reality theory' to 'fantasy theory' was, in effect, a 'cover-up' of chldhood sexual abuse -- or not. The evidence is still not fully clear, and probably never will be. There is evidence to suggest that Freud was in the process of 'changing' his reality theory to fantasy theory as early as December, 1895, which would make the evening of April 21st, 1896 far less dramatically significant.

Freud's creation and writing of 'The Interpretation of Dreams' was also coming hard about this time, and may have also influenced his changeover from reality theory to fantasy theory. There was the Emma Ekstein medical mishap of February, 1895 that was still 'playing or misplaying in Freud's head' -- in the form of medical and ethical guilt -- and from this guilt, may have sprung his concept (or Fliess') of 'longing'....Freud started to call Emma a 'hysterical bleeder' -- a patient who 'bled' because she 'longed' to be back in the presence of her 'male therapist' (presumably Freud), and she 'bled' to 'get his attention'....

That interpretation does not look very good on Freud at all as this was a woman who almost bled to death because Fliess, when he was doing 'the nasal-sexual surgery' (whatever that supposed connection was about) that he shouldn't even have been doing -- left about a foot of medical gauze or more in her nasal cavity, forgot about it, went back from Vienna to Berlin, and it was almost a month later when another doctor, examining Emma's badly infected nasal passage, suddenly found and pulled on the gauze -- and a torrent of blood rushed out after the gauze had been pulled out....And a year later Freud was calling Emma a 'hysterical bleeder'...

All of this is to say that there was mixed evidence as to why Freud did what he did when he started to abandon 'reality theory' for 'fantasy theory'....and some of the evidence isn't good...

Without The Psychoanalytic Establishment ever admitting that Freud may have -- or actually did -- 'screw up' bigtime -- still, it would seem that most Psychoanalysts have quietly left the school of Classical Psychoanalysis in order to pursue one or more other 'sub-schools' of Psychoanalysis -- ones that don't deny 'reality theory', ones that don't deny childhood sexual abuse, ones that quietly discard perhaps the most contentious theory in Psychoanalysis -- 'The Oedipal Complex' which Masson argued was being used to suppress the reality of actual sexual assault memories, and instead being 're-interpreted' by Freud, particularly in a father and daughter case scenario, as his female client's 'own repressed sexual fantasy' relative to her dad -- which Freud viewed as being completely 'normal', a common fantasy amongst all young girls growing up with their respective dads.

That word 'repression' becomes a word impossible to argue -- a self-fulfilling prophecy for the theorist, in this case Freud. Allegedly, only a psychoanalyst has the 'knowledge and experience' to know what is 'repressed' and what is not, leaving everyone outside of Freud's 'Secret Society' in the dark, and in the lurch.

If Freud made two 'big' errors in the evolution of Classical Psychoanalytic Theory, the first 'big mistake' that he made -- before he even abandoned the 'reality-truamacy-seduction theory triad' -- was being 'obsessed' with the word 'repression'.

For Freud, particularly in his early days, Psychoanalysis was not Psychoanalysis unless it contained the central, linch-pin, idea of 'repression' -- the idea that just happened to make Psychoanalysis a 'Secret Society' with psychoanalysts in the 'we know' position and 'outsiders' in the 'you do not know' position...That's how pathological religious organizations work...they are viewed from inside as being beyond criticism from outsiders -- and that is what was taking Freud further and further away from the solid grounding of 'rational-empirical science' as Joseph Breuer was trying to hang onto -- while Freud was 'trying to fly to the moon and back'...


Even if Freud was moving towards 'fantasy theory' on at least partly legitimate clinical grounds, with a 'mixed bag of historical evidence' in this regard, I still share with Masson the basic belief, that regardless of what Freud's motives were at the time -- and some of them don't look very good at all -- Freud did indeed 'screw up' by abandoning his 'reality-traumacy-seduction theory triad' which, up to April 1896, provided the logical, rational-empirical grounding and theoretical foundation of Psychoanalysis.

Unlike Masson, I don't use this argument to say that 'all psychiatry and/or psychotherapy is bad', or that Psychoanalysis should go back to its pre-1897 reality-traumacy-seduction theory completely -- and reject any 'fantasy' theory created and written after 1896....I'm not even sure Masson himself totally buys into this idea -- he did just recently (2010) re-edit Freud's classic work 'The Interpretation of Dreams' (and did a good job of it in my opinion).

My theoretical position is that we need to go back -- or at least I need to go back in Psychoanalytic history, combine it with what I know today -- and sort out the respective roles that both 'reality' and 'fantasy' play in people's lives.

'Memories' are important -- and so too are 'fantasies'. What is there relationship to each other -- if any -- and how do they both have a crucial effect on man's individual health and/or 'neurotic and/or psychotic pathology'?

In this regard, we -- or at least 'I' again -- need to re-examine the relative 'health' and/or 'neurotic pathology' of Classical Psychoanalysis itself.  What theoretical 'errors' did Freud make, and where did these errors leave 'sick points' in Classical Psychoanalysis.

Many theorists have done this before me in high degrees of detail, each reaching his or her own conclusions (Rank, Abraham, Ferenczi, Adler, Jung, Steckel, Klein, Horney, Fromm, Perls, Masson...), and each 'modifying' Psychoanalysis in a partly, or significantly, new direction.


To use another metaphor, we might say that these 'theoretical weaknesses' that Freud left behind him, have left a hole in the side of The Great Ship, Classical Psychoanalysis, that has left it 'teetering' like the Titanic after it started to take in water left by the 'huge, sharp-edged iceberg'...

Is Classical Psychoanalysis still floating? Or is it not? Again, opinions are polarized.

As suggested above, I do not opt for an 'either/or' solution to this problem. Although I largely support Masson in his belief that Freud 'ethically transgressed' big time in a couple of different areas -- specifically, the Emma Ekstein mishap, and in his inappropriate overuse of the Oedipal Complex in a way that could easily hide the real existence of childhood sexual abuse in a client -- still, as I mentioned above, I believe that were some 'legitimate clinical' reasons why Freud came to the conclusion that not all 'human neurosis' is fully based in traumacy and abuse, but rather, 'compensatory, and defensive fantasy wishes and impulses' need to be significantly considered as well -- Freud just went 'overboard' in an 'all or nothing' approach to his clinical data -- from all 'trauma' theorizing between 1893 and 1896, Freud basically had reached an almost all 'instinctual fantasy' approach by 1923 which, in my eyes, was an inappropriate 'major dissociation' from the importance of his pre-1897 trauma work.  

The major focus before 1897 was 'unconscious (or repressed or dissociated) memories of early childhood trauma, whereas by 1923 'the unconcsious' had become dominated by 'the id' -- our 'instinctual reservoir of psycho-biological impulses'.

How about an emphasis on an 'unconscious' that contains all of:

1. Our 'psycho-biological or id impulses';

2. Our dream weaver and/or censor;

3. Our memory, learning, and transference templates;

4. Our symbolic, mythological archetypes that can be found in our dreams, our artwork, and the psychoses;

5. Our genetic and pre-existential constitution,  our Potential Self, consisting of all of our most unique, individual, skills and talents;

6. A place of chaotic disorganization which could be called a part of our id, or something else;

7. A place -- and this is what I would call our Organized as opposed to Disorganized Id -- where our psycho-biological impulses are first differentiated, polarized, and then modified as they move up the 'ladder' of our unconscious towards our conscious personality...

These are some of the different ideas that I would like to develop as we move along here

Most people would probably now say that Classical Psychoanalysis is a 'relic' from the 'Victorian' era, and that there are other better models of Psychoanalysis that are creatively evolving in the 21st century --like Object Relations and Self-Psychology, and Lacanian Psychoanalyis, and Bionian Psychoanalysis...and 'Classical' Psychoanalysis -- with its concepts of 'The Oedipal Complex' and 'Castration Anxiety' and 'Penis Envy' -- belongs in a Psychoanalytic Museum. Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler would have certainly taken exception to this assertion but how many psychoanalysts are there left who still want to hang on with that 'obsessively fixated, anal-retentive,  bite'....

If certain Classical Psychoanalysts are still using a theory 'frozen by time', then they have probably become frozen themselves.

I can certainly see Jeffrey Masson nodding his head in agreement from New Zealand -- even if it is me 'imagining' this from the man who called all of today's Psychoanalysis 'sterile'. (He was speaking in the early 80s and probably directing his complaint against 'Classical' Psychoanalysis with its potentially 'pathological' clinical usage of 'The Oedipal Complex, and perhaps its potential waste of time looking for deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper...and still deeper 'associations'...whether 'objective' or 'subjective', 'memories' or 'fantasies'...trust your psychoanalyst in all his or her professional wisdom to 're-interpret' them and/or 're-construct' them...until they are completely in line with 'Classical' Freudian Psychoanaytic Theory...even if this is the cart leading the horse rather than the horse leading the cart...)

Reality vs. fantasy -- we really have to clean up what we know to be the difference.

One is real -- and one is not. And Freud wanted to 'superimpose' the one onto the other. Well, sometimes, to be sure, they are superimposed onto each other....but then the question become: 'HOW'? To the point of a 'repressed sexual fantasy' completely underemining and fabricating an alleged 'sexual assault memory'? Maybe in a very extreme case....But do we really want to believe that this type of 'distortive cerebral activity' happens in all cases of little girls growing up in the same household as their father? A very 'convenient' defense for an 'actual father victimizer' over his much less powerful 'victim' daughter...Now I don't want to stereotype 'victimizers' and 'victims' because often we need to look at this whole problem of 'victimization' 'dialectically' such as in cases of 'domestic violence' where oftentimes men and women are both victims and victimizers in the same scernario leading to the escalation of a domestic conflict into domestic aggression and violence....But in Freud's 'moral challenge' case, we have to wonder whether Freud was indeed throwing a 'smoke and mirrors' theory over top of cases of 'real, cold-blooded, narcissistic reality' involving some fathers actually having sexually victimized their daughters...This would make 'The Oedipal Theory' at least a partly 'pathological' theory, if not more than that...Consequently, the silent abandonment of all or most critical thinking Psychoanalysts from the Sinking Classical Freudian Ship Titanic...and into other ''better floating' ships like The Object Relations Ship, The Self-Psychology Ship, The Bionian Ship, the Lacanian Ship, etc...

Or alternatively, the Good Classical Freudian Ship Titanic needs some very serious body work to patch some very large holes caused by a very large, sharp iceberg (The Oedipal Theory and Repression Theory and 'Penis Envy' Theory and 'Castration Anxiety Theory'.... Deconstructing or Self-Destructing under 80 years or more of very hard, critical, outside environmental pounding.....Every theory eventually crumbles under the weight of its own tombstone that it is carrying.....See Freud's Death Instinct...)


Sometimes -- to be sure -- our 'narcissistic biases and desires' can 'distort' the reality of our memories, but more than likely, this is usually done consciously, on purpose for narcissistic motives....Not 'unconsciously and repressively'! Or do we 'defer' to the 'Classical' Psychoanalysts and their self-fulfilling prophecy of 'repression' that can only be properly 'interpreted' by someone 'well-taught and well-trained' within their 'Secret Society'....(brainwashed, anyone?)

I love psychoanalysis -- and Freud -- 'projectively' like I love my father -- it/he just needs/needed to break through some seriously 'anal-retentive, narcissistic, righteous paradigms' that he couldn't see outside of...(kinda like my father...zap...ouch!...did I just say that?...perhaps that makes me a 'dictatorial control freak' as well...in my father's own image...only more of a 'deconstructive anarchist' -- and 'reconstructionist/re-builder' -- at the same time...You gotta love psychoanalysis for its ability to give you enlightening, sometimes harsh, personal insights....A lot of these insights may come with your better and better ability to interpret 'transference and sublimation projections'...more on this integrative concept later...)


Anyways, I am stubborn, and I want to 'fix' Classical Psychoanalysis; not pretend that it doesn't have a problem, or abandon it all together...

I want to freshly integrate 'Pre-Classical' and 'Classical' Psychoanalysis with 70 years of post-Classical psycho-theoretical and psychotherapeutic evolution...And yes, I guess that means that what I am creating here can no longer be right classified as  'Classical' Psychoanalysis...even though I hold onto more parts of it than many...

The name I used to call my 'post-Classical' rendition of Classical Psychoanalysis was 'DGB Psychoanalysis' -- as in 'Dialectic-Gap-Bridging' Psychoanlysis. Now I have changed the name to 'Quantum-Dialectic' Psychoanalysis, the idea being that when we creatively engage in a 'democratic-dialectic-gap-bridging' approach to problem-solving and conflict-resolving where 'dominant/suppressive/oppressive masters' and 'suppressed/dissociated/oppressed slaves' -- regardless of whether we are talking about opposing people or opposing ideas and/or theories and/or paradigms -- are taken out of the master/slave paradigm and inserted into a 'dialectically-democratically-dynamically egalitarian paradigm-process', then 'good things can happen in the relationship -- very good things -- and this can result in a 'quantum leap' in the 'quality of our lives'...

Masterr/slave relationships almost always carry an element of either overt and/or covert hostility, aggression, rebellion, anarchy....power and/or revenge seeking...as well as dissociative alienation....the stuff that bad relationships are made out of...They are the seeds of Narcissistic Capitalism and/or visa versa....and in effect, these polar, pathological psycho-dynamics are no different then the same type of variables that also can be connected to Mao Tse Tung, Lenin, Stalin -- and probably even Karl Marx in his later years as he became more of an anarchist than a democrat....

Marx did much to describe the plight of the alienated worker, the master/slave relationship as first formulated by Hegel, and its extrapolated connection to the relationship of aristocrat to the working class proletariat, employer to employee, upper to lower class, the widening gap of power and control and  money, the 'growing abyss' between the classes, greed and narcissism, covert collusion and manipulation, a lack of tranparency and accountability amongst those who control the 'money vault' -- whether private or public -- a lack of equality and integrity and respect...This whole network of pathological factors are just as relevant -- if not more relevant -- today, then they were back in Marx's time...and to repeat, I believe that Marx became less humanistic and more radically aggressive later in his writing career. His early work remains probably his best work in terms of its 'humanistic-existential value'...which Erich Fromm picked up and ran with...

What we are talking about here -- the difference between the authoritarian personality and the democratic personality, and between the authoritarian relationship and the democratic relationship -- goes right back to the main core of our psycho-dynamic relationship with our parents which is then 'introjected' or 'internalized' into our personality....and we end up having to live with for our entire lives...

If we have had an authoritarian, dictatorial, and or aggressively autocratic parent -- either father or mother -- then it is quite likely that we are going to be struggling with 'power and authority' issues, our whole lives....either as a 'dictator' ourselves, and/or as a person 'submitting to' and/or 'rebelling against' all 'projected dictators'' in our social environment...

Indeed, it can be easily argued that one of, if not the, most important 'core nuclear conflicts' in our personality is going to be the issue of 'control and power' vs. 'giving up or letting go of control and power'....

Offshoots of this 'internal and external power-control conflict' include the conflict between 'competition and co-operation', between 'unity and separation', between 'approach and avoidance', between 'seduction and abandonment', between 'love and power', between narcissism and altruism, between leadership and being led....

And somewhere in this list lies the conflict between 'cold-hearted reality' and 'narcissistic fantasy'....or stated differently...'objective reality' and 'subjective fantasy'....with the reality being that 'subjective narcissistic fantasy' is often going to 'sugar coat'  and/or completely replace 'cold-hearted, narcissistic reality'...

Take, for example, a childhood sexual assault....committed by a father against his daughter....a case of 'cold-hearted, narcissistic reality'.....And now we have a relatively young 'radical' doctor who specializes in the treatment of 'hysteria' and he is trying to assert that 'all cases of hysteria are caused by childhood sexual assaults and/or manipulations/seductions of the (usually female) victim, with the victimizer usually being the father, an uncle, a 'friend' of the family, an older brother, or a stranger...

How are the 'good Victorian doctors of Vienna' going to react to such a radical  theory and theorist? Suppress him!....Oppress him! Ostrasize him! Exclude him! Dissociate him until he 'comes around' with a 'new theory' that the 'good doctors' could live better with -- one that doesn't 'trumpet' the co-connection between childhood sexual assault and adult hysteria....and which could get some of the 'good doctors' into trouble...politically, legally, and/or professionally...

Was their world really much different than ours today?

We see -- or don't see -- this type of 'Covert, Manipulative, Leverage, Power-Dynamic' going on all the time in private corporations, in the government, in the media...all around us...every day we do or don't go to work...'Power and Dominance vs. Less Power and Suppression, Dissociation, Ostrazization, Opression, Alienation...'...

And so too we see -- or don't see -- this same type of power-dynamics at work in our own personality....

But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum...

Where there is power and dominance vs. less power and suppression....

The Suppressed and Ostracized Will Usually Come Back to Haunt Us...See Anaximander...600 and something B.C...

Call this 'The Return of The Suppressed or Ostracized or Dissociated'....

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Whence things have their origin,
Thence also their destruction happens,
According to necessity;
For they give to each other justice and recompense
For their injustice
In conformity with the ordinance of Time.

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Kinda sounds like Freud's 'Death Instinct' -- i.e., all things returning from whence they came (whether that be 'the earth' (Freud and Freud's mother), or 'The Apeiron' -- or 'Chaos' (Anaximander) or possibly 'The Abyss' (Nietzsche)...

It also sounds like Freud's 'Return of The Repressed' which I have re-worded up above....which alternatively can be viewed as a form of 'Cosmic Justice' and 'Cosmic Retribution'...the idea that 'The More Powerful' and 'The Less Powerful' will continually chase each other through Time -- one 'de-volving' and 'losing power' while the other 'evolves' and 'gains more power' until the less powerful becomes more powerful and the more powerful becomes less powerful, the 'two dialectic, opposing and conflicting polarities' switching with each other over time as they both race through time...'taking turns' in the 'light of sunshine' and the 'darkness of the shadows' in life, in death, and being re-born again....'

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How different is this to the 'magical trick' that Freud's mother showed her 'astonished' young boy who was just starting to 'formulate his philosophy of life and death'....to reappear some 58 years later in his 1920 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle'...

'Another memory was of his mother assuring him at the age of six that were made of earth and therefore must return to earth. When he expressed his doubts of this unwelcome statement she rubbed her hands together and showed him the dark fragments of epidermis that came there as a speciment of the earth we are made of. His astonisment was unbounded and for the first time he captured some sense of the inevitable. As he put it: "I slowly acquiesced in the idea I was later to hear expressed in the words 'Thou owest nature a death.'

(Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, 1953,1981, p. 16)
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What is the historical-philosophical link between Anaximander, Hegel, and Freud?

1. Anaximander's 'Apeiron' where chaos reigns and opposites are born; Anaximander's 'The Fragment' which talks of 'cosmic justice' and ...things returning and dying at the place, and/or in essentially the same manner that they were born....

2. Hegel: Both theories and people carry the seeds of their own self-destruction...Again, they more or less 'die by returning to the place they were  born'. (my interpretive translation)...

3. Freud: The life and death instinct. Eros and Thanatos. Being born from the earth and returning to the earth. What perhaps Freud didn't completely understand or articulate was the idea that the life and death instinct are fused together in a thousand different ways...Oxygen keeps us alive and oxidation kills us. Not enough iron and we die. Too much iron and we die. Not enough chromium and we die. Too much chromium and we die. Not enough insulin and we die. Too much insulin and we die. Not enough selenium and we die. Too much selenium and we die. The right balance of each keeps us alive.

The right balance and integration of everything keeps us alive...At least until something finally catches up with us....and then we return to from where we came from -- the earth.  

-- dgb, June 9th, 2011, some modifications and updates November 26th, 2011, Jan. 17th, 2012....

-- David Gordon Bain

Gods, Myths, Traumacies, Instincts, and Ego-Functions: First Steps Towards an Integration of Freudian Traumacy and Instinct Psychology -- and Jungian Personna and Shadow Psychology

Well, I am on a roll...the third essay I have started today although I doubt if I will finish this one today....Still, the creative juices are flowing...

Let me turn your psychological and philosophical world upside down and inside out in this essay....

If you read my last essay, you will see that we have established the connection between 'instincts' and 'ego functions' as ego functions are created in both the conscious and subconsdious mind to satisfy the 'internal acute and/or chronic tensions' produced by 'the instincts' -- the 'life' and 'death' instincts in Freud's 1920 conceptuology...and beyond...

Did I tell you that we also 'turn our instincts and ego-functions into Gods'?

No, I don't think I told you that part.

We turn our instincts and ego-functions into Gods via the psychological means of 'subconcious, creative projection'.

Pick a God -- for example, any Greek God -- and you have the essence and mythological embellishment of a 'projected human instinct and ego-function' that came originally from inside the human mind, not outside.

However, since we don't often see how we 'project onto things' because this is normally a 'subconscious' process, i.e., it generally happens out of 'conscious awareness', we therefore assume that our 'God' came -- or comes -- from outside, not inside our human psyche....And we don't only project onto and into 'Gods' and 'myths' -- we project onto and into -- everything! Including Hegel's Hotel!

If you are brave enough, here is an exercise you can try. Pick a God -- any God or Hero or Guru, human or superhuman, or both -- and put that God into an 'empty chair'. Talk to your God, telling Him or Her how you idealize Him or Her.  Tell your God in what way, what characteristics, what ideals, what beliefs, what values, you'idealize' and 'idolize' them...

Then'flip seats' and sit on the previously empty chair now playing the part of your 'God' talking to you. Let your God tell you how well and/or how poorly you are living up to, or not living up to, the 'ideals' that you have projected onto your 'God'...And in this manner, bring out the stark bipolarity between your 'Godly Superiority Complex' and your 'Ungodly Inferiority Complex'....and become aware of your congruences and your discrepancies, your Godly strengths, and your ungodly deficiencies and weaknesses...and how big a 'gap' there is between them...

Note what you have learned about yourself and seek to 'integrate' the 'dissociation' between your 'Godly Topdog' and your 'Ungodly Underdog'...Find where you can meet more in the middle to create less internal stress in your life and more effective, creative production...

Our 'Internal -- or External -- Gods' often take on the psychic role of our 'Harsh, Righteous, Rejecting Superego' and together with our victimized but manipulative Ungodly Underdog or Underego, we start to play an 'Unfitting Game' which otherwise, if it devolves seriously enough, can be called 'The Self-Torture Game'....not a great way to live our life but most people I imagine know full well what I am talking about and 'play this game' with greater or lesser regularity....

Neither playing The Self-Torture Game acutely and/or playing it chronically is usually a good thing for our psyche, except perhaps to the extent that it helps to turn us into better, more productive people...But generally, this process is more likely to be self-destructive, self-hurting...and non-productive as our underego or underdog keeps trying to find new and creative-destructive ways to 'escape the harsh criticism of our righteous superego/topdog.

Let us define two new terms.

In this regard, I want to integrate another part of Jungian Psychology with Freudian Classical Psychoanalysis...which I have already taken some steps in this direction in previous essays...between 'Id Psychology' and 'Shadow Psychology'...

From these two partly similar, partly different, paths of psychology comes the following DGB Jungian-Freudian integrative concept:

The 'Shadow-Id Dissociation Vault' or 'The SID Vault' for short...

The SID Vault is meant to join together pre 1897 Freudian Traumacy Psychology with post-1896 Freudian Instinct and Fantasy Psychology as well as Jungian 'Shadow' Psychology with Freudian Traumacy and Id Psychology.

Let me distinguish here between 'The ID Vault' which contains the 'life' and 'death' instincts' as articulated by Freud and further expanded on by me below which in turn is contained by the larger SID Vault which contains 'traumacies' and/or other 'dissociated or suppressed ideas or expriences or characteristics as well as the 'instinctive impulses' of The Id (Vault) that are deemed too threatening to let out of what might be metaphorically referred to as our internal 'Psychiatric Ward'...or worded otherwise, our 'Quarantine Room'...

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Quarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian (seventeenth century Venetian) quarantena, meaning forty-day period. Quarantine can be applied to humans, but also to animals of various kinds. (From Wikipedia, on the internet...)

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Now the SID Vault (Jungian and Freudian theory integrated by yours truly) -- which contains the ID Vault (a DGB extension of Classical Psychoanalysis) -- can be viewed as the main 'engine' of the psyche with communicative connections to both 'the heart' and 'the loins'...as well as 'The Central Ego', 'The Auxillary Egos'....and 'the mind-brain-psyche' as a whole...assuming all transportation and communicative functions are in proper working order....

When these transportation and communicative functions are not in proper working order, we get what might be called 'clog ups' like in a 'beaver pond' where bacteria and fungi, and algae, can start to grow, and like a 'blod clot' that is a serious danger sign and an accident -- like a stroke or heart attack -- waiting to happen... 

In the human psyche, when 'Traumacy-Transference ID (Impulse-Defense) Complexes' start to 'clot together', we get similar types of 'symptomatic, neurotic symtoms and behaviors' that can be likened to 'blood clots' in the personality. The Circulation-Tranportation-Communication-Creative-Dialectic Integration Process in the pesonality, in effect, has broken down and is non-functioning, at least in the area of the 'Traumacy-Impulse-Defense Transference Clot'. 

Are you still with me? 

A lot of this is Classic Freudian psychology -- wholistically summarized in a dialectically integrative manner that includes both Traumacy-Seduction Theory as well as Instinct-Fantasy Theory...

With some significant Jungian Mythological Psychology and Shadow Psychology integrated into the picture as well...

Let's now pursue Jungian Shadow Theory a little further...

The Shadow in Jungian psychology 'shadows' the Personna in the same way that I will say here that it 'shadows' The Central Ego...

The 'Alter-ego' of what dominates in The Central Ego is suppressed, disowned, and confined inside The SID Vault....   


Until something happens...a stressful psychological trigger...a death in the family, a lost job, a divorce or separation, serious conflicts with the wife, husband, and/or children...or alternatively, perhaps...a defensive, compensatory outlet.... drug and/or alcohol ingestion past a point of 'self-control'...

And then all Hell starts to break loose in The SID Box as 'an inmate' or 'an assortment of different inmates' escape custody from the Quarantine Room...and start to go Helter, Skelter in the personality....

You get the drift?

Dionysus or Satan or whoever 'the inmate' is comes blasting out of The SID Box like a volcano erupting....Hell hath no fury like a SID Box erupting...

Mr. Hyde....meet Dr. Jeckyl....or throw Dr. Jeckyl aside like a rag doll...

This is what has in Freudian circles been called...

The Return of The Repressed....

Or stated otherwise here....

The Return of The Suppressed...

The Dissociated...

The Estranged...

The Alienated....

The Disenfranchised...

The Ridiculed...

The Rejected...

The Forgotten...

Any questions?

-- dgb, June 7th, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain,