When you 'play an Impulsive Desire or Drive ('ID') card', there is always a significant chance that the card will be thrown back in front of your face.
That is why our 'ID cards' are generally held back like 'hidden cards in poker' -- and often behind a poker face.
Unless we are familiar and comfortable with the person we are interacting with, generally speaking, we keep our ID cards 'locked up'....in what I call our 'Id Vault' (or 'Id Asylum')....which is surrounded by 'ego defenders' that are like 'armed guards' ready to 'grab and throw back any 'ID Inmates' that try to break out of our 'ID Asylum'.
However, you go on a chat line with anonymous people who you are not face to face with, or you have a few drinks at the office Christmas Party....or after work....and then maybe a few more drinks...and you start to put your 'ego defenders'...your 'armed guards of the Id Asylum'...out of commission...They start to get silly, sloppy, careless...stupid...konk out around the asylum door....
And the id inmates start to have a party....A Dionysian Party....One by one...or maybe only one real bad one...escapes out the Asylum Door...The ego defenders are all 'passed out' around the Asylum door.....
Straight up to The Dionysian Ego go the 'badder id inmates'....reinforcing The Dionysian Ego...making him or her bolder....without a sense of Apollonian Ego accountability....
The Dionysian Ego 'floods The Central Ego'....and 'grabs the steering wheel from Management'....
In a New York Moment....our Dionysian Ego takes over our Ship....and makes an 'Executive Decision'.....coming straight from 'Idsville'....and 'The Loins of The Personality'....
What happens next is anyone's guess...
But when all the ego defensders that were supposed to be on guard over The Id Asylum, when the Central Ego which is supposed to make all of the 'Executive Decisons', and when the Apollonian Superego which is supposed to 'oversee' and 'criticize' The Central Ego when it starts to 'slip in its socially accountable duties'....when all of these wake up the next morning...after the office party....or after 'the after work party'...
Recalling what you said or did in a New York Moment....
How comfortable are you going to feel going back to work in the morning?
How badly did you let your guard slip?
Are you on the front page of all the National Newspapers?
'Wife Takes Golf Swing At Husband's Windshield!!
'Politician Says He's Mountain Climbing in The Appalacians; Found In Lover's Arms in Rio de Janeiro!'
Sometimes its embarrassing...humiliating....painful....to be human....
Ya gotta move on......
-- dgb, Aug. 28th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Saturday, August 27, 2011
'Parallel Universes': On The Flow -- and Blockage -- of Energy In Different Areas of The Body and Mind (Part 1)
Just finished...
...............................................................
There are a number of different senses in which we live in 'parallel universes'.
One, is in the 'mind-body' continuum or spectrum where 'physicists' may use one set of symbols (words, terms, language) to describe what they have learned about 'physical events' that happen in the world, 'biologists' may use another set of symbols (words, terms, language) to describe what they have learned about 'biological events' that happen in the world, 'chemists' may use still another set of symbols (words, terms, language) to describe what they have learned about the 'chemical events' that happen in the world, and finally, the 'psychologist' may use still another set of symbols (words, terms, language) to describe what they have learned about the 'psychological (cognitive-emotional-behavioral) events' that happen in the world.
Every 'realm of study' constitutes a 'reduced (more manageable) part' of the 'world-as-a-whole' under 'epistemological and/or evaluative' investigation.
All 'reduced or reductionistic realms -- or worlds -- of study' (or at least the 'phenomena' they are supposed to represent) interact with each other in a continual flow of 'synthesized energy' that stimulates the growth of even more reduced, specialized areas of study such as 'bio-chemistry', bio-physics', and 'bio-psychology'.
The realm of 'multi-interactive-negotiative-dialectics' (for example, biology, chemistry, physics, psychology, philosophy, politics, and socio-economics all dialectically interacting and integrating together) can be viewed as a 'paradigm' in itself that investigates how all of these different factors might affect one particular, specialized area of study -- say, in this case, the study of man's psychology.
Freud was a 'bio-psychologist' in that he was constantly re-working different bio-psychological theories to try to best show how biology, personal experience, and psychology intertwined with each other to form the 'finished product' of man's adult personality.
Thus, every realm of study constitutes a 'box or paradigm of learning and/or teaching', and oftentimes, we need to 'step outside of one box or paradigm of learning/teaching' -- and into another -- in order to start learning about a 'new realm of the world-as-a-whole', and/or alternatively, as a student of 'Multi-Interactive-Negotiative-Dialectics (MIND), where all the different realms of study that are judged to 'dialectically interact' with each other are studied together inside the same MIND paradigm.
...................................................................
Not listed above with most of these famous figures being largely ignored and/or denied (because they eventually left Psychoanalysis) within the 'over-arching paradigm of Psychoanalysis' is the work of Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, Wilhelm Reik, Karl Abraham (remained loyal to Freud), Otto Rank, Wilhelm Stekel, Sandor Ferenczi, Erich Fromm, Karen Horney, Fritz Perls, Eric Berne, Arthur Janov (Primal Therapy -- a return to Freud's 'Traumacy Theory'), Alfred Korzybski, S.I. Hayakawa, Albert Ellis, Carl Rogers, Rollo May, Maxwell Maltz, Nathaniel Branden, Jeffrey Masson, and a whole host of others who didn't jump to the top of my mind in the quick runoff of this list....
Bion and Lacan we will have to save until a later date when I can better familiarize myself with their respective work although I can already see elements of Bion's work fitting within the paradigm of my own work (minus his rather obscure, technical, confusing terminology -- Lacan probably only gets worse...)
Before I return to all these great psychologists and the massive integration of different aspects of their respective theoretical paradigms, let's turn first to the realm of biology for a moment -- another paradigm -- and one of many possible perceived 'parallel universes', as in the parallel -- and integrated -- universes of the mind and body.
Firstly, both the mind and the body have what might be called an 'open' and 'closed' door policy. To the first, we give the psychoanalytic name 'oral receptive' (attitude and/or personality) and to the latter we give the name 'anal rejecting' or 'anal schizoid' (attitude and/or personality).
The first attitude allows for the 'open intake of essential nutrition'; whereas the latter aims to 'close down the perceived possibility and/or likelihood of toxic intake'. In the parallel universes that we are talking about here, the first allows for the intake of physical, biological, and/or bio-chemical nutrition in our 'bio-chemical-physical universe' and 'psychological-cognitive-emotional nutrition' in our psychological universe; whereas the latter closes down the perceived possible and/or probable intake of either 'bio-chemical-physical toxins' on the one hand and/or 'psychological-cognitive-emotional toxins' on the other hand.
The first type of attitude -- the oral-receptive attitude -- ensures the ongoing 'internal nutritive sustenance, survival, and ideally optimal flourishing of the mind and body'; whereas the second attitude -- the anal-rejecting or anal-schizoid attitude -- is designed to defend the mind and/or body against external and/or internal 'toxic invaders'.
In our bio-chemical-physical internal world, we have 'red blood cells' to carry our 'necessary nutrients' to all the different cells of the body to ensure the ongoing survival, functioning, growing, and flourishing state of these cells. At the same time, we have 'white blood cells' and other 'body defenders' -- both internal and external, macroscopic and microscopic -- designed in different ways to also help ensure the ongoing safety, survival, functioning, growing, and flourishing of our body.
In the parallel universe of our 'mind' -- the 'software component' if you will of our 'computer-mind-brain' with our brain functioning as the 'hardware enclosure that contains our software' -- the role of an 'oral-receptive' attitude in conjunction with a polar opposite 'anal rejecting' attitude (like the 'hot' and 'cold' water taps) help to provide a 'homeostatic-dialectic balance' between 'taking in the right things' and 'keeping out the wrong things'. Or alternatively, 'releasing the right things' and 'restraining the wrong things'.
This 'oral-receptive' vs. 'anal-rejecting' system does not work perfectly -- indeed, it can become 'pathologically malfunctioning' -- the 'oral receptive attitude and/or personality' can become 'too oral receptive' and/or the 'anal-rejecting/schizoid attitude and/or personality can become too 'anal-rejecting/schizoid' in which case we may either need to see a 'doctor' relative to 'fixing our bio-chemical-physical world' and/or alternatively, we may need to see a 'psychotherapist' and/or 'conduct successful self-psychotherapy' in the case of 'fixing our psycho-cognitive-emotional-behavioral world'.
In either case, we are looking at a 're-alignment of our 'oral intake-anal expulsion homeostatic-dialectic system' to get back to a better 'working balance between the two parts of the same bipolar system.
Too much 'yang' (masculine energy) in our system and we add some 'yin' (feminine energy). Too much 'yin' (feminine energy) in our system and we add some 'yang' (masculine energy).
It is a 'biological truth' that both sexes have different degrees of 'testosterone' and 'estrogen' within their respective bodies (as well as different individual degrees as well); and the same can be said of 'the parallel universe of our mind' which also can be viewed as comprising different degrees of 'masculine' (yang) and 'feminine' energy (yin)'.
Lao tse's ancient Chinese philosophy of 'yin' and 'yang' works as well today as it did some 2500 years ago, and, to my limited knowledge of today's Chinese medicine and healing, it is still used to a significant degree. Some of the pragamatic aspects of this type of thinking are common sense obvious: if the body is too 'hot and inflamed, demonstrating a high temperature' (too much 'yang') -- you cool it down with 'cool cloths' or 'ice' (more yin). That was more 'yin' -- not 'gin'.
Now before I get into trouble with today's feminists in regards to what constitutes 'masculine energy' vs. 'feminine energy', I will leave this subject area and progress elsewhere. Let me finish here by adding -- as I have argued in other essays -- that there are literally 'hundreds' if not 'thousands' of 'bipolar functions' in the parallel and integrative universes of the mind and body. Two opposite bipolarities aim for 'balanced, integrative functioning somewhere in the middle with the flexibility of moving to either extreme in extreme circumstances. This is how our Creator -- with 'Intelligent Design' -- created the universe, the world, and us. And I am only trying to 'as accurately as possible represent the miracle of Creation and Evolution'...no matter how it came about.
What we call today 'bipolar disorder' (which used to be called 'manic-depression') is only one such example of literally hundreds or even thousands of others of which I have given you two: 1. 'Oral-Anal Bipolar Disorder'; and 2. 'Yin-Yang (Passive-Aggressive) Bipolar Disorder'. Add these two to the third standard psychiatric one: 3. 'Manic-Depression Bipolar Disorder'. And I could probably list off about 10 or 20 more off the top of my head of which I will share with you ten altogether: 4. 'Liberal-Conservative Bipolar Disorder'; 5. 'Apollonian-Dionysian Bipolar Disorder'; 6. 'Narcissistic-Altruistic Bipolar Disorder'; 7. 'Topdog-Underdog (Superego-Underego) Bipolar Disorder'; 8. 'Inferiority-Superiority Bipolar Disorder'; 9. 'Righteous-Rebellious Bipolar Disorder'; 10. 'Cognitive-Emotional Bipolar Disorder'....
Within our biological world, our body has a multitude of different 'organs' and 'sub-organs' (each with its own set of bipolar functions) that are designed to carry out particular functions that ensure our ongoing survival and optimal flourishing both individually, and as a species.
These individual organs and sub-organs are designed to 'function in cohesion with the other organs of the body for the good of the whole body -- i.e., 'one for all, and all for one', like 'The Three Muskateers'.
Generally speaking, the wholistic goal of all the different organs and sub-organs working together, in cohesion with each other, is to ensure the ongoing safety, survival, and flourishing of the organism, again, both individually and collectively as a species.
Particularly relevant in this regard, is the 'transportation of nutrients to all the individual organs and cells of the body'. Too many 'dead cells' -- unreplaced -- and we're dead! The body can't function -- can't survive and flourish -- without living organs and cells doing their respective duties towards the 'good of the whole', i.e., towards the 'growth and evolution' of the body (organism, individual person), and on a species level, towards the good of the growth and evolution of the species.
-- David Gordon Bain
...............................................................
There are a number of different senses in which we live in 'parallel universes'.
One, is in the 'mind-body' continuum or spectrum where 'physicists' may use one set of symbols (words, terms, language) to describe what they have learned about 'physical events' that happen in the world, 'biologists' may use another set of symbols (words, terms, language) to describe what they have learned about 'biological events' that happen in the world, 'chemists' may use still another set of symbols (words, terms, language) to describe what they have learned about the 'chemical events' that happen in the world, and finally, the 'psychologist' may use still another set of symbols (words, terms, language) to describe what they have learned about the 'psychological (cognitive-emotional-behavioral) events' that happen in the world.
Every 'realm of study' constitutes a 'reduced (more manageable) part' of the 'world-as-a-whole' under 'epistemological and/or evaluative' investigation.
All 'reduced or reductionistic realms -- or worlds -- of study' (or at least the 'phenomena' they are supposed to represent) interact with each other in a continual flow of 'synthesized energy' that stimulates the growth of even more reduced, specialized areas of study such as 'bio-chemistry', bio-physics', and 'bio-psychology'.
The realm of 'multi-interactive-negotiative-dialectics' (for example, biology, chemistry, physics, psychology, philosophy, politics, and socio-economics all dialectically interacting and integrating together) can be viewed as a 'paradigm' in itself that investigates how all of these different factors might affect one particular, specialized area of study -- say, in this case, the study of man's psychology.
Freud was a 'bio-psychologist' in that he was constantly re-working different bio-psychological theories to try to best show how biology, personal experience, and psychology intertwined with each other to form the 'finished product' of man's adult personality.
Thus, every realm of study constitutes a 'box or paradigm of learning and/or teaching', and oftentimes, we need to 'step outside of one box or paradigm of learning/teaching' -- and into another -- in order to start learning about a 'new realm of the world-as-a-whole', and/or alternatively, as a student of 'Multi-Interactive-Negotiative-Dialectics (MIND), where all the different realms of study that are judged to 'dialectically interact' with each other are studied together inside the same MIND paradigm.
...................................................................
After Freud and Klein, Bion is possibly the third great contributor to the understanding of the psychology of the working mind. If, following Fairbairn, we consider Freud's approach as a "psychology of impulses," we could consider Klein's as a "psychology of affects" and Bion's as a "psychology of intuition." However, there are not three different psychologies, for each one has added to the predecessor.
.....................................................................................
Now I don't know much about 'Bion's paradigm of the mind', and I would call Klein's approach not only the 'psychology of affects' but also the psychology of 'internal and external object relations'. Furthermore, if Klein can be called 'The Queen of Object Relations' -- a title I believe she rightly deserves, then Fairbairn deserves to be called 'The Prince of Object Relations' -- for significantly advancing the study of 'internal and external object relations' beyond Klein's work, and I believe Kohut deserves to be called 'The Prince of Narcissism'.
All of these different Psychoanalytic theorists listed above have developed different 'sub-paradigms' of the study of Psychoanalysis, and like the author cited above, I believe that each of these different theorists has added to the work of their predecessors -- with the need for one special integrative theorist to put parts of all these individual sub-paradigms into one all-encompassing, over-arching Psychoanalytic Paradigm.
And lest we forget, which Psychoanalysis usually does -- I call this 'selective amnesia' -- Freud was not only 'The King of Impulse Psychology' but he was also 'The King of Traumacy Psychology'.
Indeed, Freud can easily be called 'The King of Traumacy Theory, Seduction Theory, Repression Theory, Transference Theory, Dream Theory, Instinctual Impulse Theory, Narcissistic Theory, Ego-Defense Theory, Death Instinct Theory, and Personality Theory'.
Now there is one theory listed here that I largely stay away from -- i.e., 'Repression' Theory, which I prefer to call 'Dissociation Theory' and/or 'Self-Estrangement (Self-Alienation, and/or Schizoid) Theory'. The concept of 'repression' is a very elusive and problematic concept and one that I have found is not fundamental to 'the etiology of neurosis and/or psychopathology'.
There is also a second theory listed above, 'Death Instinct' Theory, which I would prefer to call 'Death Impulse' Theory and modify it significantly from the way that Freud presented it. I will make my own presentation in this regard at a different time.
Not listed above with most of these famous figures being largely ignored and/or denied (because they eventually left Psychoanalysis) within the 'over-arching paradigm of Psychoanalysis' is the work of Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, Wilhelm Reik, Karl Abraham (remained loyal to Freud), Otto Rank, Wilhelm Stekel, Sandor Ferenczi, Erich Fromm, Karen Horney, Fritz Perls, Eric Berne, Arthur Janov (Primal Therapy -- a return to Freud's 'Traumacy Theory'), Alfred Korzybski, S.I. Hayakawa, Albert Ellis, Carl Rogers, Rollo May, Maxwell Maltz, Nathaniel Branden, Jeffrey Masson, and a whole host of others who didn't jump to the top of my mind in the quick runoff of this list....
Bion and Lacan we will have to save until a later date when I can better familiarize myself with their respective work although I can already see elements of Bion's work fitting within the paradigm of my own work (minus his rather obscure, technical, confusing terminology -- Lacan probably only gets worse...)
Before I return to all these great psychologists and the massive integration of different aspects of their respective theoretical paradigms, let's turn first to the realm of biology for a moment -- another paradigm -- and one of many possible perceived 'parallel universes', as in the parallel -- and integrated -- universes of the mind and body.
Firstly, both the mind and the body have what might be called an 'open' and 'closed' door policy. To the first, we give the psychoanalytic name 'oral receptive' (attitude and/or personality) and to the latter we give the name 'anal rejecting' or 'anal schizoid' (attitude and/or personality).
The first attitude allows for the 'open intake of essential nutrition'; whereas the latter aims to 'close down the perceived possibility and/or likelihood of toxic intake'. In the parallel universes that we are talking about here, the first allows for the intake of physical, biological, and/or bio-chemical nutrition in our 'bio-chemical-physical universe' and 'psychological-cognitive-emotional nutrition' in our psychological universe; whereas the latter closes down the perceived possible and/or probable intake of either 'bio-chemical-physical toxins' on the one hand and/or 'psychological-cognitive-emotional toxins' on the other hand.
The first type of attitude -- the oral-receptive attitude -- ensures the ongoing 'internal nutritive sustenance, survival, and ideally optimal flourishing of the mind and body'; whereas the second attitude -- the anal-rejecting or anal-schizoid attitude -- is designed to defend the mind and/or body against external and/or internal 'toxic invaders'.
In our bio-chemical-physical internal world, we have 'red blood cells' to carry our 'necessary nutrients' to all the different cells of the body to ensure the ongoing survival, functioning, growing, and flourishing state of these cells. At the same time, we have 'white blood cells' and other 'body defenders' -- both internal and external, macroscopic and microscopic -- designed in different ways to also help ensure the ongoing safety, survival, functioning, growing, and flourishing of our body.
In the parallel universe of our 'mind' -- the 'software component' if you will of our 'computer-mind-brain' with our brain functioning as the 'hardware enclosure that contains our software' -- the role of an 'oral-receptive' attitude in conjunction with a polar opposite 'anal rejecting' attitude (like the 'hot' and 'cold' water taps) help to provide a 'homeostatic-dialectic balance' between 'taking in the right things' and 'keeping out the wrong things'. Or alternatively, 'releasing the right things' and 'restraining the wrong things'.
This 'oral-receptive' vs. 'anal-rejecting' system does not work perfectly -- indeed, it can become 'pathologically malfunctioning' -- the 'oral receptive attitude and/or personality' can become 'too oral receptive' and/or the 'anal-rejecting/schizoid attitude and/or personality can become too 'anal-rejecting/schizoid' in which case we may either need to see a 'doctor' relative to 'fixing our bio-chemical-physical world' and/or alternatively, we may need to see a 'psychotherapist' and/or 'conduct successful self-psychotherapy' in the case of 'fixing our psycho-cognitive-emotional-behavioral world'.
In either case, we are looking at a 're-alignment of our 'oral intake-anal expulsion homeostatic-dialectic system' to get back to a better 'working balance between the two parts of the same bipolar system.
Too much 'yang' (masculine energy) in our system and we add some 'yin' (feminine energy). Too much 'yin' (feminine energy) in our system and we add some 'yang' (masculine energy).
It is a 'biological truth' that both sexes have different degrees of 'testosterone' and 'estrogen' within their respective bodies (as well as different individual degrees as well); and the same can be said of 'the parallel universe of our mind' which also can be viewed as comprising different degrees of 'masculine' (yang) and 'feminine' energy (yin)'.
Lao tse's ancient Chinese philosophy of 'yin' and 'yang' works as well today as it did some 2500 years ago, and, to my limited knowledge of today's Chinese medicine and healing, it is still used to a significant degree. Some of the pragamatic aspects of this type of thinking are common sense obvious: if the body is too 'hot and inflamed, demonstrating a high temperature' (too much 'yang') -- you cool it down with 'cool cloths' or 'ice' (more yin). That was more 'yin' -- not 'gin'.
Now before I get into trouble with today's feminists in regards to what constitutes 'masculine energy' vs. 'feminine energy', I will leave this subject area and progress elsewhere. Let me finish here by adding -- as I have argued in other essays -- that there are literally 'hundreds' if not 'thousands' of 'bipolar functions' in the parallel and integrative universes of the mind and body. Two opposite bipolarities aim for 'balanced, integrative functioning somewhere in the middle with the flexibility of moving to either extreme in extreme circumstances. This is how our Creator -- with 'Intelligent Design' -- created the universe, the world, and us. And I am only trying to 'as accurately as possible represent the miracle of Creation and Evolution'...no matter how it came about.
What we call today 'bipolar disorder' (which used to be called 'manic-depression') is only one such example of literally hundreds or even thousands of others of which I have given you two: 1. 'Oral-Anal Bipolar Disorder'; and 2. 'Yin-Yang (Passive-Aggressive) Bipolar Disorder'. Add these two to the third standard psychiatric one: 3. 'Manic-Depression Bipolar Disorder'. And I could probably list off about 10 or 20 more off the top of my head of which I will share with you ten altogether: 4. 'Liberal-Conservative Bipolar Disorder'; 5. 'Apollonian-Dionysian Bipolar Disorder'; 6. 'Narcissistic-Altruistic Bipolar Disorder'; 7. 'Topdog-Underdog (Superego-Underego) Bipolar Disorder'; 8. 'Inferiority-Superiority Bipolar Disorder'; 9. 'Righteous-Rebellious Bipolar Disorder'; 10. 'Cognitive-Emotional Bipolar Disorder'....
Within our biological world, our body has a multitude of different 'organs' and 'sub-organs' (each with its own set of bipolar functions) that are designed to carry out particular functions that ensure our ongoing survival and optimal flourishing both individually, and as a species.
These individual organs and sub-organs are designed to 'function in cohesion with the other organs of the body for the good of the whole body -- i.e., 'one for all, and all for one', like 'The Three Muskateers'.
Generally speaking, the wholistic goal of all the different organs and sub-organs working together, in cohesion with each other, is to ensure the ongoing safety, survival, and flourishing of the organism, again, both individually and collectively as a species.
Particularly relevant in this regard, is the 'transportation of nutrients to all the individual organs and cells of the body'. Too many 'dead cells' -- unreplaced -- and we're dead! The body can't function -- can't survive and flourish -- without living organs and cells doing their respective duties towards the 'good of the whole', i.e., towards the 'growth and evolution' of the body (organism, individual person), and on a species level, towards the good of the growth and evolution of the species.
Now, on a 'body' level, the body -- and all its individual parts -- generally works 'harmoniously towards the good of the whole'. Not always, but usually, as long as we are supplying our body with 'the right ingredients' that it needs in order to function properly.
However, once we get into the respective realms of our 'psychological' and -- let's lump all these other realms together -- our 'socio-economic-legal-political realms' -- it is much more common for 'intra-psychic' and 'inter-social' conflict to run rampant to any and all extreme(s).
Welcome to the world of human psychology.
== dgb, Aug. 27th, 2011,
However, once we get into the respective realms of our 'psychological' and -- let's lump all these other realms together -- our 'socio-economic-legal-political realms' -- it is much more common for 'intra-psychic' and 'inter-social' conflict to run rampant to any and all extreme(s).
Welcome to the world of human psychology.
== dgb, Aug. 27th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
1d. Two Different Definitions of 'The Id' -- One, 'Classical'; The Other, 'Existential' (The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde)
Just finished!....Aug. 20th, 2011....
...............................................................
Through the last 10 or 20 essays, I have been trying to re-work a new, 21st century, expanded definition of Freud's classic concept -- 'the Id'.
The first 'Classical' definition of 'the id' is pretty simple -- just think 'instinctual desire' or 'instinctual drive', or even 'impulsive drive' which I prefer -- eliminating the semanticily problematic word 'instinctual'....In this sense of the concept of 'the id', the id can be viewed as that place or 'resevoir' or 'compartment' in the personality that carries and, in harmony and/or conflict with 'the ego', 'releases', in part or in full or not at all, in disguise or in blatant transparency, our mind-body's instinctual/impulsive desires/drives as they become more and more 'pressing' and 'figural' in our subconsicious, preconscious, and/or conscious personality.
The second definition of 'the id' is more 'existential' in its meaning and builds partly around the first definition, and partly outside of the first definition. It is more connected to what 'the id' translates to in English -- which is 'the it', or 'the It'.
This meaning of the concept of 'the id' -- or 'the it' -- is more connected to Freud's idea of 'repression' -- or 'dissociation' or 'suppression' or 'disavowal' or 'projection' or 'displacement' or 'sublimation' or a hundred other concepts that pertain basically to the idea of the id's 'estrangement and disconnection' from the generally more 'civilized' thoughts, feelings, wishes, and motivations of the generally more 'socially sensitve' ego.
We have a 'Stranger' that often walks in our own midst, and The Stranger is comprised of the many, often shocking (even to ourselves, let alone others) 'visicitudes' and 'permutations' of our own Id Formations and Complexes.
The Id takes the place in Classic Freudian terminology of what has been also called 'the alter ego' in some other conceptual formulations, perhaps most closely associated with the work of Pierre Janet who some have argued established the basic foundations of Psychoanalysis just before Freud did.
Both Freud and Janet were influenced by the 'traumatic/hypnotic' work of Charcot. Freud set himself up as a 'conceptual competitor' to Janet in some of his earliest publications such as 'The Neuro-Psychoses of Defense'. There respective early work in the early 1890s was a little different -- and a lot the same, although Freud would not admit this.
Quite frankly, I prefer Janet's two concepts of 'subconscious' and 'dissociation' to Freud's similar but different concepts of 'unconscious' and 'repression'. Janet's concepts, in my opinion, are less abstract, less confusing, less distortable, less exploitable...although even they can cause significant semantic confusion.
When comparing and contrasting the different concepts used by different theorists it is imperative -- abeit often confusing and difficult -- to figure out to what extent these different words and/or concepts are referring to the same type of underlying 'observed and/or interpreted clinical phenomenon' as opposed to something partly different -- or even entirely different.
For example, what Freud referred to as 'conscious' memories or sometimes 'screen' memories can also be referred to as 'preconscious' memories (in the Freudian sense) or even 'subconscious' memories in the sense that they generally lay 'beneath the threshold of usual day to day consciousness' but at the same time are usually 'retrievable' in a matter of minutes given the right 'associations'.
In contrast, what Freud referred to as 'unconscious' memories (and/or 'fantasies'), or more particularly, 'repressed' memories and/or fantasies are perceived -- at least by Freud and Psychoanalysis -- to be 'deeply buried', 'extremely buried' within the deepest realm of the 'subconscious' and/or 'unconcious' with either 'hypnosis' and/or 'multiple free associations', usually conducted by an experienced therapist, required to 'unlock' these extremely deeply buried memories and/or fantasies. However, there have been books written on people -- suddenly through one or more particular associations -- having a 'flashback', or a series of flashbacks, to what had previously been entirely 'unconcious and/or repressed memories' usually of an extremely 'traumatic, childhood nature' involving some sort of childhood physical and/or sexual abuse. This is where Freud started his career leading up to May 4th, 1896 (a letter he wrote to Fliess) in which Freud began to 'retract' his 'traumacy' and 'sexual traumacy' theories in favor of the beginning of his 'id (instinctual desire/drive) theory that was to become the backbone of 'Classical' Psychoanalysis. His previous traumacy/seduction theory is usually referred to as 'Pre-Classical' Psychoanalytic Theory.
And I continue to seek to bridge the gap between the two.
In this regard, I seek to basically knock down the metaphorical 'Berlin Wall' in Classical Psychoanalysis that started to be constructed by Freud himself on that fateful day of May 4th, 1896, and as hard as Dr. Jeffrey Masson, the former, very brief, Projects Director of The Freud Archive, tried in the early 1980s to smash this wall down himself -- or perhaps more appropriately and particularly, tried to rhetorically demonstrate to The Psychoanalytic Establishement, and indeed, to the whole world that the 'Pre-Classical' Psychoanalysis that Freud created before May 4th, 1896 was much better than the 'Classical' Psychoanalysis he created after May 4th, 1896 -- still, Masson was largely unsucccessful, at least within the confines of Psychoanlaysis -- and the metaphorical 'Berlin Wall' that segregated 'Pre-Classical' (pre-May 4th, 1896) Psychoanalysis from 'Classical' (post-May 4th, 1896) Psychoanalysis remained standing, just like 'the real Berlin Wall' remained standing between East and West Berlin between 1961 and 1989.
The 'Psychoanalytic Berlin Wall' has been standing a lot longer -- from May 4th, 1896 to the present writing of this essay (Aug. 20th, 2011) -- and the 'twin, polar siblings', 'Traumacy-(Seduction)-Reality' Theory and 'Impulsive Drive-Fantasy' Theory are still crying to re-unite with each other, just like East and West German family members were crying to re-unite with each other, until they actually did in November 1989. There is nothing more heart-inspiring than an unexpected joyous reunion after years (and some time many, many years) of heart-wrenching separation.
Freudian Reality-Traumacy Theory and Impulse-Fantasy Theory are like opposite sides of the same coin -- or like 'Janus', one side facing the past, and one side facing the future (with both meeting in the present).
It just takes the right (orthodox or unorthodox, accredited or not accredited) Psychoanalytic theorist to explain how this all comes together like East and West Berlin/Germany finally did in 1989. In the case of the psychoanalytic theorizing -- that's me -- 'the post-Hegelian, cosmic integrationist'.
......................................................................................................
Berlin Wall
View from the West Berlin side of graffiti art on the wall in 1986. The wall's infamous "death strip", on the east side of the wall, here follows the curve of the long closed Luisenstadt Canal.
The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls,[1] which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" and other defenses. The Soviet-dominated Eastern Bloc officially claimed that the wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" in building a socialist state in East Germany. However, in practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that marked Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period.
The Berlin Wall was officially referred to as the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart" (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall) by GDR authorities, implying that neighbouring West Germany had not been fully de-Nazified.[2] The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame"—a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt—while condemning the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB) that demarcated the border between East and West Germany, both borders came to symbolize the "Iron Curtain" that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.
Before the Wall's erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, many by crossing over the border from East Berlin into West Berlin, from where they could then travel to West Germany and other Western European countries. Between 1961 and 1989, the wall prevented almost all such emigration.[3] During this period, around 5,000 people attempted to escape over the wall, with estimates of the resulting death toll varying between 100 and 200.
In 1989, a radical series of political changes occurred in the Eastern Bloc, associated with the liberalization of the Eastern Bloc's authoritarian systems and the erosion of political power in the pro-Soviet governments in nearby Poland and Hungary. After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, a euphoric public and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the wall; the governments later used industrial equipment to remove most of the rest. The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, which was formally concluded on 3 October 1990.
..................................................................................................
'Pre-Psychoanalysis' -- meet 'Classical' Psychoanalyst, your long estranged son, and give each other a hug...
Janet and Freud -- both taught by Charcot -- like two sibling rivals -- or at least Freud was -- competing for top billing, both creating their own particular 'brand' of 'Psychoanalysis' originally from two slightly different versions of 'traumacy theory' (1890-1896), before Freud went on to start creating his polar opposite 'instinct-fantasy' theory after the spring of 1896.
Personally, I vote for Bertha Pappenheim (Anna O.) and Joseph Breuer as the original two 'co-founders' of Psychoanalysis (1880-1882). All the main ingredients were established in what is historically viewed as the first 'Psychoanalysis' (that Freud didn't participate -- he only heard about it years later). Breuer used hypnosis -- or watched Anna O. put herself into her own 'hypnotic trance' (Breuer would call this a 'hypnoid state' which would theoretically fall by the wayside.) Using the hypnotic trance, Breuer would trace 'hysterical symptoms' back to their 'initial causal memories' (I call these 'transference memories'.) Through playing out the 'talking cure' and 'abreaction' or 'emotional catharsis', working together, Anna O. and Breuer would 'rid Anna O. of her targeted hysterical symptom'....and they would move on to the next symptom....
The only problem was that Anna O. could create 'new' hysterical symptoms faster than Breuer and Anna O. working together could rid herself of the old ones. Perhaps Anna O. became a little too attached to her therapist ('transference love') which seemed to be validated when Anna O. 'hallucinated' that she was having his baby' (at which point Breuer exited Stage Right, presumably to protect his marriage. His wife was -- I don't know whether I read this somewhere or whether I am surmising it -- complaining that her husband was always 'working'. Until the 'red light' finally went on, Breuer, I guess was persistently trying to eliminate Anna O's 'symptoms'...Enough..).
Somewhere between Charcot, Breuer, and Anna O. on the one hand (the early 1880s) and Janet and Freud on the other hand (the early 1890s), came Robert Louis Stevenson, author of 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde', written in 1885, first published in 1886. From this book -- and probably before -- came the idea of 'ego' and 'alter ego'. Janet would follow up on this idea. Freud just talked about 'splits between conscious states of mind and unconscious states of mind' -- with the 'unconscious state of mind being purposely 'repressed' from 'the conscious ego'. It wasn't until 1923 -- a full 30 years later than when Freud wrote 'The Neuro-Psychoses of Defence' in 1893 -- that Freud created the concept of 'The Id' which has some pretty strong resemblances to Robert Louis Stevenson's (and everyone else's) idea of 'the alter-ego'.
This more ore less begs the question: Is 'the id' the same basic concept as the 'alter-ego'.
It would certainly be very easy to argue that 'Mr Hyde' was not only an 'alter ego' of Dr Jekyll's but also an 'id formation involving an evil manifestation of the death or destructive instinct'.
Unfortunately, therapeutically and clinically speaking, this late Freudian idea of 'the death instinct' doesn't take us anywhere -- unless you connect it with the 'traumacy theory'.
If you connect a person's particular destructive impulses with a particular traumatic memory, then you have the person 'play out the traumatic meory in its fullest possible emotional detail (abreaction/catharsis), then at this point you may start to be able to work through the person's 'toxic poisons' connected to this memory -- and the 'here and now destructive impulses' that this memory (or collection of memories) has been feeding for X number of years -- then at this point you have something that you can clinically work with.
This is not rocket science. Freud knew this in 1893. He learned it from Breuer and Charcot and Janet and Bernheim....But for reasons that I have speculated on elsewhere, Freud chose to 'disown' this knowledge (probably for a combination of pragmatic, political, professional, and economic reasons) -- particularly his 'Seduction (Childhood Sexual Abuse) Theory' that was very politically and professionally unpopular...Freud was under professional and economic duress on May 4th, 1896, when he started the process of 'abandoning' his infamous 'Seduction Theory'.
There were certain ideas that never entered Freud's consciousness at all buth which were picked up in pieces by other theorists. The idea of 'transference memories' never entered Freud's -- or any other psychoanalyst's consciousness except in part by ex-psychoanalysts such as Alfred Adler ('lifestyle memories') and Arthur Janov ('The Primal Scream'). Likewise, the idea of 'conscious or preconscious memories representing transference memories that in turn could be connected to 'repetition compulsions' and 'neurotic symptoms' is something that I pulled out of Adlerian Psychology and 'introjected' into Psychoanalysis.
My concept of 'The Id Vault' as representing a combination of 'restrained id impulses' and 'ego defenses' (that 'restrain' the id impulses) is an extension of Freud's idea of 'bound' and 'unbound' id energy.
Likewise, an equally strong argument can be made for the clinical functional importance of conceptualizing a 'traumacy vault' which represents a combination of 'traumacy feelings' and related 'compensations, defenses, and impulses'...
Placed together, we might want to seriously consider the concept of a 'Shadow-Traumacy-Id (STI) Vault' and/or a 'Shadow-Traumacy-Id Complex' (or a 'Shadow-Id' or a 'Traumacy-Id' Complex) or a 'Transference Repetition Compulsion Complex'....
Where traumacy came from, the id follows...
And the 'ego-defensive system' follows the 'traumatized and traumatizing id'....
A 'Shadow-Traumacy-Id Complex' defended against by the ego is like an 'auto-immune disease'. The mind (or ego and/or rejecting superego) is attacking another portion of the mind (a Shadow-Traumacy-Id Formation or Complex).
Either the rejecting ego and/or superego has to be metaphorically given a 'valium' -- note, I said metaphorically.
And/or the 'toxic, destructive STI Complex' needs to be 'detoxified' and more creatively integrated into the rest of the personality.
Otherwise, the one part of our personality will keep 'eating, sabotaging, and destroying' the other part of our personality, and/or visa versa.
That is enough for tonight....
-- dgb, Aug. 20th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain
...............................................................
Through the last 10 or 20 essays, I have been trying to re-work a new, 21st century, expanded definition of Freud's classic concept -- 'the Id'.
The first 'Classical' definition of 'the id' is pretty simple -- just think 'instinctual desire' or 'instinctual drive', or even 'impulsive drive' which I prefer -- eliminating the semanticily problematic word 'instinctual'....In this sense of the concept of 'the id', the id can be viewed as that place or 'resevoir' or 'compartment' in the personality that carries and, in harmony and/or conflict with 'the ego', 'releases', in part or in full or not at all, in disguise or in blatant transparency, our mind-body's instinctual/impulsive desires/drives as they become more and more 'pressing' and 'figural' in our subconsicious, preconscious, and/or conscious personality.
The second definition of 'the id' is more 'existential' in its meaning and builds partly around the first definition, and partly outside of the first definition. It is more connected to what 'the id' translates to in English -- which is 'the it', or 'the It'.
This meaning of the concept of 'the id' -- or 'the it' -- is more connected to Freud's idea of 'repression' -- or 'dissociation' or 'suppression' or 'disavowal' or 'projection' or 'displacement' or 'sublimation' or a hundred other concepts that pertain basically to the idea of the id's 'estrangement and disconnection' from the generally more 'civilized' thoughts, feelings, wishes, and motivations of the generally more 'socially sensitve' ego.
We have a 'Stranger' that often walks in our own midst, and The Stranger is comprised of the many, often shocking (even to ourselves, let alone others) 'visicitudes' and 'permutations' of our own Id Formations and Complexes.
The Id takes the place in Classic Freudian terminology of what has been also called 'the alter ego' in some other conceptual formulations, perhaps most closely associated with the work of Pierre Janet who some have argued established the basic foundations of Psychoanalysis just before Freud did.
Both Freud and Janet were influenced by the 'traumatic/hypnotic' work of Charcot. Freud set himself up as a 'conceptual competitor' to Janet in some of his earliest publications such as 'The Neuro-Psychoses of Defense'. There respective early work in the early 1890s was a little different -- and a lot the same, although Freud would not admit this.
Quite frankly, I prefer Janet's two concepts of 'subconscious' and 'dissociation' to Freud's similar but different concepts of 'unconscious' and 'repression'. Janet's concepts, in my opinion, are less abstract, less confusing, less distortable, less exploitable...although even they can cause significant semantic confusion.
When comparing and contrasting the different concepts used by different theorists it is imperative -- abeit often confusing and difficult -- to figure out to what extent these different words and/or concepts are referring to the same type of underlying 'observed and/or interpreted clinical phenomenon' as opposed to something partly different -- or even entirely different.
For example, what Freud referred to as 'conscious' memories or sometimes 'screen' memories can also be referred to as 'preconscious' memories (in the Freudian sense) or even 'subconscious' memories in the sense that they generally lay 'beneath the threshold of usual day to day consciousness' but at the same time are usually 'retrievable' in a matter of minutes given the right 'associations'.
In contrast, what Freud referred to as 'unconscious' memories (and/or 'fantasies'), or more particularly, 'repressed' memories and/or fantasies are perceived -- at least by Freud and Psychoanalysis -- to be 'deeply buried', 'extremely buried' within the deepest realm of the 'subconscious' and/or 'unconcious' with either 'hypnosis' and/or 'multiple free associations', usually conducted by an experienced therapist, required to 'unlock' these extremely deeply buried memories and/or fantasies. However, there have been books written on people -- suddenly through one or more particular associations -- having a 'flashback', or a series of flashbacks, to what had previously been entirely 'unconcious and/or repressed memories' usually of an extremely 'traumatic, childhood nature' involving some sort of childhood physical and/or sexual abuse. This is where Freud started his career leading up to May 4th, 1896 (a letter he wrote to Fliess) in which Freud began to 'retract' his 'traumacy' and 'sexual traumacy' theories in favor of the beginning of his 'id (instinctual desire/drive) theory that was to become the backbone of 'Classical' Psychoanalysis. His previous traumacy/seduction theory is usually referred to as 'Pre-Classical' Psychoanalytic Theory.
And I continue to seek to bridge the gap between the two.
In this regard, I seek to basically knock down the metaphorical 'Berlin Wall' in Classical Psychoanalysis that started to be constructed by Freud himself on that fateful day of May 4th, 1896, and as hard as Dr. Jeffrey Masson, the former, very brief, Projects Director of The Freud Archive, tried in the early 1980s to smash this wall down himself -- or perhaps more appropriately and particularly, tried to rhetorically demonstrate to The Psychoanalytic Establishement, and indeed, to the whole world that the 'Pre-Classical' Psychoanalysis that Freud created before May 4th, 1896 was much better than the 'Classical' Psychoanalysis he created after May 4th, 1896 -- still, Masson was largely unsucccessful, at least within the confines of Psychoanlaysis -- and the metaphorical 'Berlin Wall' that segregated 'Pre-Classical' (pre-May 4th, 1896) Psychoanalysis from 'Classical' (post-May 4th, 1896) Psychoanalysis remained standing, just like 'the real Berlin Wall' remained standing between East and West Berlin between 1961 and 1989.
The 'Psychoanalytic Berlin Wall' has been standing a lot longer -- from May 4th, 1896 to the present writing of this essay (Aug. 20th, 2011) -- and the 'twin, polar siblings', 'Traumacy-(Seduction)-Reality' Theory and 'Impulsive Drive-Fantasy' Theory are still crying to re-unite with each other, just like East and West German family members were crying to re-unite with each other, until they actually did in November 1989. There is nothing more heart-inspiring than an unexpected joyous reunion after years (and some time many, many years) of heart-wrenching separation.
Freudian Reality-Traumacy Theory and Impulse-Fantasy Theory are like opposite sides of the same coin -- or like 'Janus', one side facing the past, and one side facing the future (with both meeting in the present).
It just takes the right (orthodox or unorthodox, accredited or not accredited) Psychoanalytic theorist to explain how this all comes together like East and West Berlin/Germany finally did in 1989. In the case of the psychoanalytic theorizing -- that's me -- 'the post-Hegelian, cosmic integrationist'.
......................................................................................................
Berlin Wall
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the chess opening variation, see Berlin Defence.
 |
The Berlin Wall was officially referred to as the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart" (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall) by GDR authorities, implying that neighbouring West Germany had not been fully de-Nazified.[2] The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame"—a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt—while condemning the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB) that demarcated the border between East and West Germany, both borders came to symbolize the "Iron Curtain" that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.
Before the Wall's erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, many by crossing over the border from East Berlin into West Berlin, from where they could then travel to West Germany and other Western European countries. Between 1961 and 1989, the wall prevented almost all such emigration.[3] During this period, around 5,000 people attempted to escape over the wall, with estimates of the resulting death toll varying between 100 and 200.
In 1989, a radical series of political changes occurred in the Eastern Bloc, associated with the liberalization of the Eastern Bloc's authoritarian systems and the erosion of political power in the pro-Soviet governments in nearby Poland and Hungary. After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, a euphoric public and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the wall; the governments later used industrial equipment to remove most of the rest. The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, which was formally concluded on 3 October 1990.
..................................................................................................
'Pre-Psychoanalysis' -- meet 'Classical' Psychoanalyst, your long estranged son, and give each other a hug...
Janet and Freud -- both taught by Charcot -- like two sibling rivals -- or at least Freud was -- competing for top billing, both creating their own particular 'brand' of 'Psychoanalysis' originally from two slightly different versions of 'traumacy theory' (1890-1896), before Freud went on to start creating his polar opposite 'instinct-fantasy' theory after the spring of 1896.
Personally, I vote for Bertha Pappenheim (Anna O.) and Joseph Breuer as the original two 'co-founders' of Psychoanalysis (1880-1882). All the main ingredients were established in what is historically viewed as the first 'Psychoanalysis' (that Freud didn't participate -- he only heard about it years later). Breuer used hypnosis -- or watched Anna O. put herself into her own 'hypnotic trance' (Breuer would call this a 'hypnoid state' which would theoretically fall by the wayside.) Using the hypnotic trance, Breuer would trace 'hysterical symptoms' back to their 'initial causal memories' (I call these 'transference memories'.) Through playing out the 'talking cure' and 'abreaction' or 'emotional catharsis', working together, Anna O. and Breuer would 'rid Anna O. of her targeted hysterical symptom'....and they would move on to the next symptom....
The only problem was that Anna O. could create 'new' hysterical symptoms faster than Breuer and Anna O. working together could rid herself of the old ones. Perhaps Anna O. became a little too attached to her therapist ('transference love') which seemed to be validated when Anna O. 'hallucinated' that she was having his baby' (at which point Breuer exited Stage Right, presumably to protect his marriage. His wife was -- I don't know whether I read this somewhere or whether I am surmising it -- complaining that her husband was always 'working'. Until the 'red light' finally went on, Breuer, I guess was persistently trying to eliminate Anna O's 'symptoms'...Enough..).
Somewhere between Charcot, Breuer, and Anna O. on the one hand (the early 1880s) and Janet and Freud on the other hand (the early 1890s), came Robert Louis Stevenson, author of 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde', written in 1885, first published in 1886. From this book -- and probably before -- came the idea of 'ego' and 'alter ego'. Janet would follow up on this idea. Freud just talked about 'splits between conscious states of mind and unconscious states of mind' -- with the 'unconscious state of mind being purposely 'repressed' from 'the conscious ego'. It wasn't until 1923 -- a full 30 years later than when Freud wrote 'The Neuro-Psychoses of Defence' in 1893 -- that Freud created the concept of 'The Id' which has some pretty strong resemblances to Robert Louis Stevenson's (and everyone else's) idea of 'the alter-ego'.
This more ore less begs the question: Is 'the id' the same basic concept as the 'alter-ego'.
It would certainly be very easy to argue that 'Mr Hyde' was not only an 'alter ego' of Dr Jekyll's but also an 'id formation involving an evil manifestation of the death or destructive instinct'.
Unfortunately, therapeutically and clinically speaking, this late Freudian idea of 'the death instinct' doesn't take us anywhere -- unless you connect it with the 'traumacy theory'.
If you connect a person's particular destructive impulses with a particular traumatic memory, then you have the person 'play out the traumatic meory in its fullest possible emotional detail (abreaction/catharsis), then at this point you may start to be able to work through the person's 'toxic poisons' connected to this memory -- and the 'here and now destructive impulses' that this memory (or collection of memories) has been feeding for X number of years -- then at this point you have something that you can clinically work with.
This is not rocket science. Freud knew this in 1893. He learned it from Breuer and Charcot and Janet and Bernheim....But for reasons that I have speculated on elsewhere, Freud chose to 'disown' this knowledge (probably for a combination of pragmatic, political, professional, and economic reasons) -- particularly his 'Seduction (Childhood Sexual Abuse) Theory' that was very politically and professionally unpopular...Freud was under professional and economic duress on May 4th, 1896, when he started the process of 'abandoning' his infamous 'Seduction Theory'.
There were certain ideas that never entered Freud's consciousness at all buth which were picked up in pieces by other theorists. The idea of 'transference memories' never entered Freud's -- or any other psychoanalyst's consciousness except in part by ex-psychoanalysts such as Alfred Adler ('lifestyle memories') and Arthur Janov ('The Primal Scream'). Likewise, the idea of 'conscious or preconscious memories representing transference memories that in turn could be connected to 'repetition compulsions' and 'neurotic symptoms' is something that I pulled out of Adlerian Psychology and 'introjected' into Psychoanalysis.
My concept of 'The Id Vault' as representing a combination of 'restrained id impulses' and 'ego defenses' (that 'restrain' the id impulses) is an extension of Freud's idea of 'bound' and 'unbound' id energy.
Likewise, an equally strong argument can be made for the clinical functional importance of conceptualizing a 'traumacy vault' which represents a combination of 'traumacy feelings' and related 'compensations, defenses, and impulses'...
Placed together, we might want to seriously consider the concept of a 'Shadow-Traumacy-Id (STI) Vault' and/or a 'Shadow-Traumacy-Id Complex' (or a 'Shadow-Id' or a 'Traumacy-Id' Complex) or a 'Transference Repetition Compulsion Complex'....
Where traumacy came from, the id follows...
And the 'ego-defensive system' follows the 'traumatized and traumatizing id'....
A 'Shadow-Traumacy-Id Complex' defended against by the ego is like an 'auto-immune disease'. The mind (or ego and/or rejecting superego) is attacking another portion of the mind (a Shadow-Traumacy-Id Formation or Complex).
Either the rejecting ego and/or superego has to be metaphorically given a 'valium' -- note, I said metaphorically.
And/or the 'toxic, destructive STI Complex' needs to be 'detoxified' and more creatively integrated into the rest of the personality.
Otherwise, the one part of our personality will keep 'eating, sabotaging, and destroying' the other part of our personality, and/or visa versa.
That is enough for tonight....
-- dgb, Aug. 20th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
1c. The Movement of The Id -- and 'Narcissistic Energy' -- Through The Personality
Just finished...August 12th, 2011...
..............................................
In this essay, I will look at different ways of 'splitting' and 'extending' Freud's
Classic triadic 'id-ego-superego' model, created by Freud in 1923.
Today, August 10th, 2011 -- if my math is right -- that is about 88 years past the date at which the 'id-ego-superego' was published.
In some ways, the model is still humming along famously, still useful to a very significant extent. And yet other models and theories have risen up in its place, both inside and outside of Psychoanalysis.
The Classic Freudian triadic model has been picked apart like vultures picking apart a dead carcass. This is not necessarily a bad thing -- we might call it 'conceptual evolution' as long as the new models show some signs of significant 'improvement' over the old one -- and/or at least a different way of looking at the human psyche/self/personality that adds new dimensions to the old Freudian model.
Otherwise, we would be talking about 'conceptual de-evolution' -- which of course, is based on subjective judgment as well as what we like to call 'objective, empirical' results -- but of course, they too are more subjectively and narcissistically biased than what we would generally like to think.
I am certainly not a 'subjective relativist' but, at the same time, it is very hard to get away from Nietzsche's ominous proclamation: 'There are no facts, just interpretations' -- and Kant told us basically the same thing in more compicated words.
Hume tried to bring everything down to the level of what can be 'sensually verified' but that too 'caused' significant difficulties. (Hume never liked to use the word 'caused' because 'causes' are 'interpretive entities' beyond the realm of the 'empirical senses', and thus, they are 'associative assumptions', not 'verifiable sensual, empirical data'. From this line of 'hard-line, empirical thinking', 'behavioral psychology' was born that doesn't chase such things as 'instincts' and 'values' and 'beliefs'....and/or anything else inside the 'black box' of the human psyche.
Freud did of course -- to the point of 'pushing the limits of inferential believablity' -- but that was Freud...
Freud's model has been modified, extended, reduced, exchanged for different concepts altogether... in a wide assortment of different ways to satsify the many different perspectives of many different Post-Freudians -- again, both inside and outside of the school of Psychoanalysis.
Adler, Jung, Klein, Horney, Fromm, Perls, Berne -- amongst a wide array of other Post, Anti-, and/or Neo-Freudians have all added their individual perspectives and models inside the 'Personality Theory/Model' spectrum.
In probably every case, you can tell as much or more about the individual theorist from the personality model that he or she has created than you could if you conducted an 'inkblot (Rorschach) test' on the particular theorist under scrutiny.
Freud spent most of his professional years focusing on 'Id Psychology' -- from May 1896 to pretty well the end of his career and life in 1939.
And yet when you think about it, there is a lot of Id Psychology that has been largely left open -- and/or evasively abstract -- since Freud died.
A significant number of psychoanalysts who were studying, practising, and writing about psychoanalysis when Freud was alive have left and gone on to create their own individual schools of psychology. Some of the large list of 'ex-psychoanalysts' is listed up above. Other psychoanalysts -- such as Klein, Balint, Bion, Fairbairn, Winnicott, Guntrip, Kohut, Lacan, and many other psychoanalysts who have stayed within perimeters of 'Psychoanalysis' (if in name only) have 'pushed the theoretical boundaries of Psychoanalysis significantly outwards' -- or knocked them down altogether -- creating new 'sub-schools' of Psychoanalysis.
However, not many psychoanalysts who I am familiar with seem to really want to significantly 'play with the old classic, triadic Freudian model of the personality' -- in an effort to make it better. The unwritten message seems to be that you don't 'mess' with the legacy of Freud's work. Masson may have been the last theorist to want to completely 'deconstruct' Classical Psychoanalysis and go back to 'Pre-Classical (pre-1897) Freudian Traumacy-Seduction Theory. And most of us who have studied Psychoanalysis to any significant degree know where that landed Masson....(Out of Psychoanalysis on his derriere...before he moved on to the study of animal psychology in the 1990s.)
And yet here I am wanting to 'play' with Freudian theory -- and test the outer limits of my creative abilities as well as where 'Post-Freudian Classical Psychoanalysis' could still go -- and I am not even a Psychoanalyst. (Let's just call me an 'underground student and theorist of Psychoanalysis').
No psychoanalytic theorist that I know of has ever seriously -- since the early 1980s -- tried to 'link, integrate, synthesize...' Freud's and Masson's work.
That is my specialty. And I have nothing to lose professionally -- no Psychoanalytic career to hang on to which makes my job that much easier -- without the potential political, professional, and economic barriers that Masson faced back in the early 1980s.
I have already asked the question: What would have happened if Freud had created the concept of 'the id' in 1894-1895 rather than in 1923? How would it have been different?
Rather than describing the id as a 'biological instinct reservoir', I am surmising that he may have described it as a 'traumatic memory reservoir'....
What a huge difference this would have made to the future of Psychoanalysis -- a 'reality based id' rather than a 'fantasy based id'...a 'traumatized id' rather than a 'pleasure based id'....that would eventually in 1923 move 'beyond the pleasure principle' and become a 'reservoir for both the life and death instinct' of which the 'life instinct' would include both the 'sexual instinct' and the 'self-preservation instinct'; and the 'death instinct' would include the 'aggressive, destructive, and self-destructive instinct'....
Where does 'narcissism' fit into this equation.
By 1914, Freud had become intrigued by the concept of 'narcissism' and published his classic paper 'On Narcissism'. But narcissism at least partly collided with his theory of 'libido' because 'narcissism' (self-absorption) wasn't quite the same as 'libido' (sexual energy). They intermixed but they weren't quite the same. Which took precedence over the other -- narcissism (self-absorption, self-esteem, egotism, self-enhancemnt...) or libido (psycho-eroticism)?
I don't think Freud ever totally answered this theoretical and clinical problem even though he argued at different times that both were 'primary' in the form of 'infantile eroticism' and 'infantile narcissism'.
Where does narcissism fit in with 'the life and death instinct' and the 'self-preservation instinct'?
Is narcissism 'healthy' or 'pathological' -- or potentially both?
Where does 'narcissism' 'fit' on the 'hierarchy of human instincts' -- assuming we want to even call it an 'instinct' somewhere in line with Freud's 'life' and 'death' instinct?
These are very 'metaphysical' questions with potentially 'moving parameters' relative to how 'narcissism' should even be defined....
Narcissism can probably be defined in as many different ways as 'love' can....which can lead us to another series of questions: What is the relationship betwwen narcissism and love, narcissism and hate, narcissism and altruism, narcissism and self-preservation, narcissism and self-esteem, narcissism and sex, narcissism and traumacy, narcissism and destruction, narcissism and self-destruction, even narcissism and suicide?
I put narcissism at the very top (and bottom) of the 'human instinct hierarchy'....
In this regard, I put narcissism above both the life and death instinct in terms of 'primal priority'...
Everything branches off from human narcissism in terms of human psychology, physiology, biology, and biochemistry...
This falls into line with Ayn Rand's 'Virtue of Selfishness', Nathaniel Branden's 'The Psychology of Self-Esteem', Maxwell Maltz's 'Psycho-Cybernetics' (the first psychology book I ever read back in 1972), and even, I imagine, Heinz Kohut's 'Self-Psychology' (which I have not analyzed in any detail). It also falls at least partly in line with Alfred Adler's 'Superiority-Striving'...
I feel partly reluctant to use a sensitive example here but theoretical concepts and theories -- if they are to have any sense of 'following real life' -- have to show that they can follow real life. If Freud was on his death bed -- which he was -- dying of cancer, and in excruciating pain, and he whispered to his personal doctor, Max Schur, to increase his next dose of morphine to the point where he didn't have to deal with this cancer and all this pain anymore, that can hardly be called an act of 'self-preservation' on Freud's part. But it does follow the pleasure-unpleasure principle to the extent of 'wanting to rid himself of horrible pain', it does follow Adler's principle of 'wanting to move from a perceived worse place to a better one', and it does follow -- or at least can be viewed as following -- the principle of 'narcissism', i.e., doing what Freud thought was 'best at that point for him'....
So let us assume that a newborn baby is born with 'narcissistic self-interest' throbbing through his or her body and psyche....seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, and addressing -- to his or her very limited capabilities -- the business of 'survival' or 'self-preservation'....which can be viewed as a step down from the over-riding principle of 'narcissism'.
From 'narcissistic energy', we can branch out into 'biological energy', 'hormonal energy', 'hedonistic energy', 'self-preservative energy', 'sexual energy', 'egotistic energy', 'work energy', 'play energy', 'existential energy', even 'altruistic' or 'love energy'...
What is the connection between 'narcissism' and 'altruism' as well as having the contrasting relationship of seemingly 'bipolar, opposite concepts and phenomena'...
Well, the word ancd concept of 'narcissism' -- like most if not all other words/concepts of its abstract nature -- can be seen to function at at least two different levels of abstraction: 1. as a description of a phenomenon -- which we will label as 'primary narcissism' from which all other forms of human energy are born including 'altruism'; and 'secondary narcissism' which is what we generally equate with the more commonly used word -- 'selfishness' which can thus be defined as the opposite of 'altruism'.
However, 'primary narcissism' is -- well -- more 'primal' in the human psyche than both 'love' and 'altruism', and indeed, both love and altruism are born from primary narcissism. How is this?
I say, 'I love you.' There is a 'subject' (I) and an 'object' (you), and a particular feeling that I feel towards you that I am calling 'love'.
In order for me to love you, you have to be very important to me, and in this regard, trigger a 'strong, positive emotion' within me that I am calling 'love'. But here is the important point: Without my 'I' involved -- as in me being strongly attacted to, or strongly valuing you -- there is no emotion within me that I can call 'love'. In other words, I need you to be involved in this feeling, but I also need 'me' to be involved in this feeling. Without the 'I' as well as the 'you' -- there is no love. Thus, 'love' has a 'narcissistic' base to it. It has to involve the 'I' before it involves the 'you'. Or worded alternatively, 'love' is based in 'self-interest'. If you weren't very, very important to -- me -- then there would be no love that I feel towards you.
To summarize my point above, love is built from narcissism and in turn, altruism is built from love (assuming we are talking about 'real altruism' and not 'fake altruism' which has a feeling of 'obligation' attached to it).
What is the relationship between 'narcissism' and 'traumacy'?
In this regard, I take you back to November 7th, 1906, the 5th meeting of The Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. Subject of The Discussion: 'On The Organic Bases of Neuroses' -- The Speaker: Dr. Alfred Adler.
Present also at the meeting: Freud, Bass, A. Deutsch, (Paul) Federn, Heller, Hitschmann, Hollerung, Hautler, Rank, Reitler, Stekel, Kahane.
I view this meeting as being a crucial point in both Psychoanalytic and Adlerian history -- a point in time where Freud and Adler were perhaps the closest they would ever come to each other in terms of the ideas that Adler presented here on 'organ inferiority', 'compensation', and 'supervalent cerebral activity' that would eventually cause them to split company but here in this meeting Freud was quite impressed with Adler's new line of thinking.
The rest of the group was split in terms of those who liked Adler's new line of thinking, and those who criticized it -- mainly with legitimate, valid criticisms.
Adler needed to qualify his conclusions as not all 'neuroses' were initiated by perceived and/or real 'organ inferiorities'. (Adler incidently had 'rickets' when he was three years old and also almost died from pneumonia at four years old. It was at that point that Adler decided that he wanted to be a doctor -- which would become the prototype of his evolving theory that was just 'being born' in this session: 1. a 'perceived organ and/or psychological inferiority'; 2. 'compensation' or 'overcompensation' aimed at 'overcoming' the perceived inferiority feeling; 3. 'supervalent cerebral (mind-brain) activity' in the direction of the compensation which Adler would later come to call 'superiority striving'.)
It is interesting to note that while Freud more or less walked away from his traumacy and seduction theory in the spring of 1896, here you can possibly see the beginning of Freud returning to it in modified theory and different terminology. Freud was heading toward his 1914 concept of 'narcissism' and by 1923 he had arrived at the concept of 'narcissistic injury' -- a valuable concept that can be equated with the idea of 'ego-traumacy', which was more or less a 'throw-back' to his old 1895 'traumacy theory'.
When Freud introduced the concept of 'narcissism' into Psychoanalysis in 1914 (Adler had left Psychoaanalysis to start his own school of psychology in 1911), Freud felt that he had a concept -- narcissism -- that was better than both Jung's concept of 'non-sexualized libido' (a general life energy) and Adler's concept of 'the masculine protest'.
Freud -- who still, in 1920 and til the end of his career -- was basically a 'biological reductionist' and a 'pansexual' theorist, did not like the fact that Adler (at this point in his career around 1920) was trying to usurp his own concepts of 'castration anxiety' and his newer concept of 'narcissism' with the Adlerian concepts of 'inferiority feeling' and 'the masculine protest'.
Thus, at the beginning of 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle', Freud rhetorically retaliated against Adler in which he wrote a 'protest' against Adler's concept of 'inferiority feeling' and 'masculine protest'. Freud did not deny the significance of these concepts but rather deemed them as 'inferior' to his own concepts of 'castration anxiety' and 'narcissism'.
A lot of the rhetorical conflict here in my opinion was about 'language' and 'knit-picking' over their respective 'terminology' and 'conceptuology'.
To me -- with a little 'language translation' -- they were both saying essentially the same thing. But they needed someone like me to provide the necessary 'conceptual and theoretical translation'.
To me, they were both saying something about 'self-esteem' -- and in particular -- 'sexual self-esteem', and again more particularly, primarily 'masculine self-esteem' (a 'narcissistic bias' as they were both 'men').
Firstly, Freud's concept of 'castration anxiety' is barely used anymore whereas Adler's concept of 'inferiority or insecurity feeling' still goes on strong.
Most students of psychology today would probably argue that Freud's concept of 'castration anxiety' was created in a very 'sexually prim and proper' Victorian Society where the 'threat of castration' may have been used in many families against a little boy by either his mom and/or dad to 'deter' him from 'touching his thing'....as it was culturally deemed 'bad behavior'.
Even as an adult clinician and theorist Freud was linking masturbation with 'neurasthenia' (low energy, low sexual energy, depression...) whereas I would be more prone to argue the opposite -- i.e., the less we have a sexual outlet of some kind or another -- even if the sexual outlet/object is ourselves -- the more likely we are to feel agitated, depressed, cranky, low motivation and/or energy, etc...
Freud had some pretty 'wacky, neurotic' ideas about masturbation, castration anxiety, and 'penis envy' -- at least by today's standards -- but, for the most part, we chalk this up to the Victorian time and culture that Freud was living in. He was caught in a 'neurotic, cultural, sexual paradigm'...
However, if you loosen Freud's concept of 'castration anxiety' up a bit, maybe call it 'psychological castration anxiety' or 'masculine performance anxiety', then we are starting to move closer and closer to what Adler meant by 'the masculine protest'.
Unfortunately, Adler got caught up in the tail end of the same 'cultural, sexual paradigm' that Freud was caught up in -- and thus, Adler used the same concept of 'the masculine protest' to describe the 'neurotic plight of women' as well as men. He would have been better creating the concept of 'the feminine protest' to better describe the 'neurotic' -- and/or 'non-neurotic' -- movement of women (as they moved towards trying to improve their civil rights both individually and collectively).
The concept of 'the masculine protest' led to some semantic confusion and difficulties for Adler. He would have been better to compare and contrast 'masculine' vs. 'feminine' anxiety, depression, resentment, anger, rage, etc. and its 'compensating' features.
What Adler was talking about here was basically 'sexual self-esteem' which may have not been too far off what Freud was trying to talk about with his concepts of 'castration anxiety' and 'penis envy'. Adler and Freud were perhaps more on the same page than they themselves believed.
Freud's concept of narcissism took him closer to Adler's area of 'self-esteem'. Rather than sticking solely with his concept of '(sexual) libido', and being accused by Adler, Jung, and others of 'pansexualism' or 'sexual reductionism', Freud created a concept -- narcissism -- that would take him into the area of what might be called 'ego-libido' as opposed to 'id or sexual-libido'. The concept of narcissism, as in 'ego-libido', was thus being connected with the idea of 'egotism' which was more about 'self-esteem' than 'sexuality' (although egotism -- and/or the lack of it -- was often connected to sexual issues).
In a similar fashion, Adler's concept of 'the masculine protest' was also connected to issues of both 'egotism (self-esteem) and sexuality'.
If a culture has a particular 'masculine ideal' and an individual man does not believe that he is anywhere close to living up to that 'masculine ideal' -- i.e., there is a serious gap between his 'masculine ideal and his masculine image' (another 'fitting game') -- then then 'heavy' masculine anxiety, fear, panic, depression, despair, resentment, anger, rage, and many different forms of 'neurotic compensation' can follow...
This is what Adler meant by 'the masculine protest', the concept could equally be developed in terms of 'the feminine protest', and both could be equated back to Freud's evolving concepts in 1920 and onwards such as 'narcissistic injury', 'narcissistic wound', 'narcissistic blow', 'narcissistic scar', right up to Kohut's concept of 'narcissistic rage' in 1972.
These are all incredibly important, modern-day, theoretical and clinical concepts.
If anything, Freud wanted to steer away from Adlerian Theory even as he was at least partly practising it himself -- in his own 'narcissistic' terminology.
We have to give Adler his 'just due' and 'top status' here -- it was Adler who opened up the subject of 'organ inferiorities', 'compensation', and 'supervalent cerebral activity' (in the direction of the 'compensation') in 1906 long before Freud's ideas on 'narcissism' and 'narcissistic injuries' started to surface in his work (1914, 1920, 1923...). Furthermore, Freud's idea of 'the mastery compulsion' in 1920 (Beyond The Pleasure Principle) sounded alot like the 1906 ideas listed above of 'compensation' and 'supervalent cerebral activity'...as well as Adler's later concept of 'superiority striving'...
I will probably work more often with the idea of 'narcissism' and all its conceptual derrivatives and/or viscisitudes than I will with the concepts of 'the masculine and feminine protest'. However, if I feel I need the latter two concepts, I will certainly use them, hoping that you will know what I have just written about in this essay...There will probably be 'synopses' of the same material again...
For our purposes here, what we are interested in is the 'rise and fall of narcissistic energy' and all its various derrivatives: 'sexual energy', 'egotism', 'hedonism', 'existential energy', 'creative energy', 'destructive energy', 'neurotic energy', 'dream energy', 'psychotic energy', and the rise of all these different types of energies -- derrivatives of our 'primary narcissistic energy' -- from the very bottom of the psyche (The Genetic-Biological Self, The Id, Nietzsche's Abyss and/or Anaximander's Apeiron) up to 'The Experiential, Memory, Transference, and Learning Templates', to 'free-floating narcissistic id energy' to 'blocked narcissistic id energy (The Shadow-Id Vault) to 'escaped and/or 'loosely bound' narcissistic Id energy', to 'The Dream, Fantasy, and Nightmare Weaver', and then up into the preconscious and conscious Ego ...which itself can be divided up into conceptualized 'Underego-States', 'Ego-States' and 'Superego States'..
There is a lot of potential new and old Freudian theory here....as well as Object Relations Theory, Self-Theory, Adlerian Theory, Jungian Theory, Bernean Theory (Transactional Analysis), Gestalt Theory (Perls), Massonian 'Deconstructive and Reconstructive Theory'...and more...
But that is enough for today...
We have covered a lot of theoretical ground...
-- dgb, Aug 12th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain
To be continued...
..............................................
In this essay, I will look at different ways of 'splitting' and 'extending' Freud's
Classic triadic 'id-ego-superego' model, created by Freud in 1923.
Today, August 10th, 2011 -- if my math is right -- that is about 88 years past the date at which the 'id-ego-superego' was published.
In some ways, the model is still humming along famously, still useful to a very significant extent. And yet other models and theories have risen up in its place, both inside and outside of Psychoanalysis.
The Classic Freudian triadic model has been picked apart like vultures picking apart a dead carcass. This is not necessarily a bad thing -- we might call it 'conceptual evolution' as long as the new models show some signs of significant 'improvement' over the old one -- and/or at least a different way of looking at the human psyche/self/personality that adds new dimensions to the old Freudian model.
Otherwise, we would be talking about 'conceptual de-evolution' -- which of course, is based on subjective judgment as well as what we like to call 'objective, empirical' results -- but of course, they too are more subjectively and narcissistically biased than what we would generally like to think.
I am certainly not a 'subjective relativist' but, at the same time, it is very hard to get away from Nietzsche's ominous proclamation: 'There are no facts, just interpretations' -- and Kant told us basically the same thing in more compicated words.
Hume tried to bring everything down to the level of what can be 'sensually verified' but that too 'caused' significant difficulties. (Hume never liked to use the word 'caused' because 'causes' are 'interpretive entities' beyond the realm of the 'empirical senses', and thus, they are 'associative assumptions', not 'verifiable sensual, empirical data'. From this line of 'hard-line, empirical thinking', 'behavioral psychology' was born that doesn't chase such things as 'instincts' and 'values' and 'beliefs'....and/or anything else inside the 'black box' of the human psyche.
Freud did of course -- to the point of 'pushing the limits of inferential believablity' -- but that was Freud...
Freud's model has been modified, extended, reduced, exchanged for different concepts altogether... in a wide assortment of different ways to satsify the many different perspectives of many different Post-Freudians -- again, both inside and outside of the school of Psychoanalysis.
Adler, Jung, Klein, Horney, Fromm, Perls, Berne -- amongst a wide array of other Post, Anti-, and/or Neo-Freudians have all added their individual perspectives and models inside the 'Personality Theory/Model' spectrum.
In probably every case, you can tell as much or more about the individual theorist from the personality model that he or she has created than you could if you conducted an 'inkblot (Rorschach) test' on the particular theorist under scrutiny.
Freud spent most of his professional years focusing on 'Id Psychology' -- from May 1896 to pretty well the end of his career and life in 1939.
And yet when you think about it, there is a lot of Id Psychology that has been largely left open -- and/or evasively abstract -- since Freud died.
A significant number of psychoanalysts who were studying, practising, and writing about psychoanalysis when Freud was alive have left and gone on to create their own individual schools of psychology. Some of the large list of 'ex-psychoanalysts' is listed up above. Other psychoanalysts -- such as Klein, Balint, Bion, Fairbairn, Winnicott, Guntrip, Kohut, Lacan, and many other psychoanalysts who have stayed within perimeters of 'Psychoanalysis' (if in name only) have 'pushed the theoretical boundaries of Psychoanalysis significantly outwards' -- or knocked them down altogether -- creating new 'sub-schools' of Psychoanalysis.
However, not many psychoanalysts who I am familiar with seem to really want to significantly 'play with the old classic, triadic Freudian model of the personality' -- in an effort to make it better. The unwritten message seems to be that you don't 'mess' with the legacy of Freud's work. Masson may have been the last theorist to want to completely 'deconstruct' Classical Psychoanalysis and go back to 'Pre-Classical (pre-1897) Freudian Traumacy-Seduction Theory. And most of us who have studied Psychoanalysis to any significant degree know where that landed Masson....(Out of Psychoanalysis on his derriere...before he moved on to the study of animal psychology in the 1990s.)
And yet here I am wanting to 'play' with Freudian theory -- and test the outer limits of my creative abilities as well as where 'Post-Freudian Classical Psychoanalysis' could still go -- and I am not even a Psychoanalyst. (Let's just call me an 'underground student and theorist of Psychoanalysis').
No psychoanalytic theorist that I know of has ever seriously -- since the early 1980s -- tried to 'link, integrate, synthesize...' Freud's and Masson's work.
That is my specialty. And I have nothing to lose professionally -- no Psychoanalytic career to hang on to which makes my job that much easier -- without the potential political, professional, and economic barriers that Masson faced back in the early 1980s.
I have already asked the question: What would have happened if Freud had created the concept of 'the id' in 1894-1895 rather than in 1923? How would it have been different?
Rather than describing the id as a 'biological instinct reservoir', I am surmising that he may have described it as a 'traumatic memory reservoir'....
What a huge difference this would have made to the future of Psychoanalysis -- a 'reality based id' rather than a 'fantasy based id'...a 'traumatized id' rather than a 'pleasure based id'....that would eventually in 1923 move 'beyond the pleasure principle' and become a 'reservoir for both the life and death instinct' of which the 'life instinct' would include both the 'sexual instinct' and the 'self-preservation instinct'; and the 'death instinct' would include the 'aggressive, destructive, and self-destructive instinct'....
Where does 'narcissism' fit into this equation.
By 1914, Freud had become intrigued by the concept of 'narcissism' and published his classic paper 'On Narcissism'. But narcissism at least partly collided with his theory of 'libido' because 'narcissism' (self-absorption) wasn't quite the same as 'libido' (sexual energy). They intermixed but they weren't quite the same. Which took precedence over the other -- narcissism (self-absorption, self-esteem, egotism, self-enhancemnt...) or libido (psycho-eroticism)?
I don't think Freud ever totally answered this theoretical and clinical problem even though he argued at different times that both were 'primary' in the form of 'infantile eroticism' and 'infantile narcissism'.
Where does narcissism fit in with 'the life and death instinct' and the 'self-preservation instinct'?
Is narcissism 'healthy' or 'pathological' -- or potentially both?
Where does 'narcissism' 'fit' on the 'hierarchy of human instincts' -- assuming we want to even call it an 'instinct' somewhere in line with Freud's 'life' and 'death' instinct?
These are very 'metaphysical' questions with potentially 'moving parameters' relative to how 'narcissism' should even be defined....
Narcissism can probably be defined in as many different ways as 'love' can....which can lead us to another series of questions: What is the relationship betwwen narcissism and love, narcissism and hate, narcissism and altruism, narcissism and self-preservation, narcissism and self-esteem, narcissism and sex, narcissism and traumacy, narcissism and destruction, narcissism and self-destruction, even narcissism and suicide?
I put narcissism at the very top (and bottom) of the 'human instinct hierarchy'....
In this regard, I put narcissism above both the life and death instinct in terms of 'primal priority'...
Everything branches off from human narcissism in terms of human psychology, physiology, biology, and biochemistry...
This falls into line with Ayn Rand's 'Virtue of Selfishness', Nathaniel Branden's 'The Psychology of Self-Esteem', Maxwell Maltz's 'Psycho-Cybernetics' (the first psychology book I ever read back in 1972), and even, I imagine, Heinz Kohut's 'Self-Psychology' (which I have not analyzed in any detail). It also falls at least partly in line with Alfred Adler's 'Superiority-Striving'...
I feel partly reluctant to use a sensitive example here but theoretical concepts and theories -- if they are to have any sense of 'following real life' -- have to show that they can follow real life. If Freud was on his death bed -- which he was -- dying of cancer, and in excruciating pain, and he whispered to his personal doctor, Max Schur, to increase his next dose of morphine to the point where he didn't have to deal with this cancer and all this pain anymore, that can hardly be called an act of 'self-preservation' on Freud's part. But it does follow the pleasure-unpleasure principle to the extent of 'wanting to rid himself of horrible pain', it does follow Adler's principle of 'wanting to move from a perceived worse place to a better one', and it does follow -- or at least can be viewed as following -- the principle of 'narcissism', i.e., doing what Freud thought was 'best at that point for him'....
So let us assume that a newborn baby is born with 'narcissistic self-interest' throbbing through his or her body and psyche....seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, and addressing -- to his or her very limited capabilities -- the business of 'survival' or 'self-preservation'....which can be viewed as a step down from the over-riding principle of 'narcissism'.
From 'narcissistic energy', we can branch out into 'biological energy', 'hormonal energy', 'hedonistic energy', 'self-preservative energy', 'sexual energy', 'egotistic energy', 'work energy', 'play energy', 'existential energy', even 'altruistic' or 'love energy'...
What is the connection between 'narcissism' and 'altruism' as well as having the contrasting relationship of seemingly 'bipolar, opposite concepts and phenomena'...
Well, the word ancd concept of 'narcissism' -- like most if not all other words/concepts of its abstract nature -- can be seen to function at at least two different levels of abstraction: 1. as a description of a phenomenon -- which we will label as 'primary narcissism' from which all other forms of human energy are born including 'altruism'; and 'secondary narcissism' which is what we generally equate with the more commonly used word -- 'selfishness' which can thus be defined as the opposite of 'altruism'.
However, 'primary narcissism' is -- well -- more 'primal' in the human psyche than both 'love' and 'altruism', and indeed, both love and altruism are born from primary narcissism. How is this?
I say, 'I love you.' There is a 'subject' (I) and an 'object' (you), and a particular feeling that I feel towards you that I am calling 'love'.
In order for me to love you, you have to be very important to me, and in this regard, trigger a 'strong, positive emotion' within me that I am calling 'love'. But here is the important point: Without my 'I' involved -- as in me being strongly attacted to, or strongly valuing you -- there is no emotion within me that I can call 'love'. In other words, I need you to be involved in this feeling, but I also need 'me' to be involved in this feeling. Without the 'I' as well as the 'you' -- there is no love. Thus, 'love' has a 'narcissistic' base to it. It has to involve the 'I' before it involves the 'you'. Or worded alternatively, 'love' is based in 'self-interest'. If you weren't very, very important to -- me -- then there would be no love that I feel towards you.
To summarize my point above, love is built from narcissism and in turn, altruism is built from love (assuming we are talking about 'real altruism' and not 'fake altruism' which has a feeling of 'obligation' attached to it).
What is the relationship between 'narcissism' and 'traumacy'?
In this regard, I take you back to November 7th, 1906, the 5th meeting of The Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. Subject of The Discussion: 'On The Organic Bases of Neuroses' -- The Speaker: Dr. Alfred Adler.
Present also at the meeting: Freud, Bass, A. Deutsch, (Paul) Federn, Heller, Hitschmann, Hollerung, Hautler, Rank, Reitler, Stekel, Kahane.
I view this meeting as being a crucial point in both Psychoanalytic and Adlerian history -- a point in time where Freud and Adler were perhaps the closest they would ever come to each other in terms of the ideas that Adler presented here on 'organ inferiority', 'compensation', and 'supervalent cerebral activity' that would eventually cause them to split company but here in this meeting Freud was quite impressed with Adler's new line of thinking.
The rest of the group was split in terms of those who liked Adler's new line of thinking, and those who criticized it -- mainly with legitimate, valid criticisms.
Adler needed to qualify his conclusions as not all 'neuroses' were initiated by perceived and/or real 'organ inferiorities'. (Adler incidently had 'rickets' when he was three years old and also almost died from pneumonia at four years old. It was at that point that Adler decided that he wanted to be a doctor -- which would become the prototype of his evolving theory that was just 'being born' in this session: 1. a 'perceived organ and/or psychological inferiority'; 2. 'compensation' or 'overcompensation' aimed at 'overcoming' the perceived inferiority feeling; 3. 'supervalent cerebral (mind-brain) activity' in the direction of the compensation which Adler would later come to call 'superiority striving'.)
It is interesting to note that while Freud more or less walked away from his traumacy and seduction theory in the spring of 1896, here you can possibly see the beginning of Freud returning to it in modified theory and different terminology. Freud was heading toward his 1914 concept of 'narcissism' and by 1923 he had arrived at the concept of 'narcissistic injury' -- a valuable concept that can be equated with the idea of 'ego-traumacy', which was more or less a 'throw-back' to his old 1895 'traumacy theory'.
When Freud introduced the concept of 'narcissism' into Psychoanalysis in 1914 (Adler had left Psychoaanalysis to start his own school of psychology in 1911), Freud felt that he had a concept -- narcissism -- that was better than both Jung's concept of 'non-sexualized libido' (a general life energy) and Adler's concept of 'the masculine protest'.
Freud -- who still, in 1920 and til the end of his career -- was basically a 'biological reductionist' and a 'pansexual' theorist, did not like the fact that Adler (at this point in his career around 1920) was trying to usurp his own concepts of 'castration anxiety' and his newer concept of 'narcissism' with the Adlerian concepts of 'inferiority feeling' and 'the masculine protest'.
Thus, at the beginning of 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle', Freud rhetorically retaliated against Adler in which he wrote a 'protest' against Adler's concept of 'inferiority feeling' and 'masculine protest'. Freud did not deny the significance of these concepts but rather deemed them as 'inferior' to his own concepts of 'castration anxiety' and 'narcissism'.
A lot of the rhetorical conflict here in my opinion was about 'language' and 'knit-picking' over their respective 'terminology' and 'conceptuology'.
To me -- with a little 'language translation' -- they were both saying essentially the same thing. But they needed someone like me to provide the necessary 'conceptual and theoretical translation'.
To me, they were both saying something about 'self-esteem' -- and in particular -- 'sexual self-esteem', and again more particularly, primarily 'masculine self-esteem' (a 'narcissistic bias' as they were both 'men').
Firstly, Freud's concept of 'castration anxiety' is barely used anymore whereas Adler's concept of 'inferiority or insecurity feeling' still goes on strong.
Most students of psychology today would probably argue that Freud's concept of 'castration anxiety' was created in a very 'sexually prim and proper' Victorian Society where the 'threat of castration' may have been used in many families against a little boy by either his mom and/or dad to 'deter' him from 'touching his thing'....as it was culturally deemed 'bad behavior'.
Even as an adult clinician and theorist Freud was linking masturbation with 'neurasthenia' (low energy, low sexual energy, depression...) whereas I would be more prone to argue the opposite -- i.e., the less we have a sexual outlet of some kind or another -- even if the sexual outlet/object is ourselves -- the more likely we are to feel agitated, depressed, cranky, low motivation and/or energy, etc...
Freud had some pretty 'wacky, neurotic' ideas about masturbation, castration anxiety, and 'penis envy' -- at least by today's standards -- but, for the most part, we chalk this up to the Victorian time and culture that Freud was living in. He was caught in a 'neurotic, cultural, sexual paradigm'...
However, if you loosen Freud's concept of 'castration anxiety' up a bit, maybe call it 'psychological castration anxiety' or 'masculine performance anxiety', then we are starting to move closer and closer to what Adler meant by 'the masculine protest'.
Unfortunately, Adler got caught up in the tail end of the same 'cultural, sexual paradigm' that Freud was caught up in -- and thus, Adler used the same concept of 'the masculine protest' to describe the 'neurotic plight of women' as well as men. He would have been better creating the concept of 'the feminine protest' to better describe the 'neurotic' -- and/or 'non-neurotic' -- movement of women (as they moved towards trying to improve their civil rights both individually and collectively).
The concept of 'the masculine protest' led to some semantic confusion and difficulties for Adler. He would have been better to compare and contrast 'masculine' vs. 'feminine' anxiety, depression, resentment, anger, rage, etc. and its 'compensating' features.
What Adler was talking about here was basically 'sexual self-esteem' which may have not been too far off what Freud was trying to talk about with his concepts of 'castration anxiety' and 'penis envy'. Adler and Freud were perhaps more on the same page than they themselves believed.
Freud's concept of narcissism took him closer to Adler's area of 'self-esteem'. Rather than sticking solely with his concept of '(sexual) libido', and being accused by Adler, Jung, and others of 'pansexualism' or 'sexual reductionism', Freud created a concept -- narcissism -- that would take him into the area of what might be called 'ego-libido' as opposed to 'id or sexual-libido'. The concept of narcissism, as in 'ego-libido', was thus being connected with the idea of 'egotism' which was more about 'self-esteem' than 'sexuality' (although egotism -- and/or the lack of it -- was often connected to sexual issues).
In a similar fashion, Adler's concept of 'the masculine protest' was also connected to issues of both 'egotism (self-esteem) and sexuality'.
If a culture has a particular 'masculine ideal' and an individual man does not believe that he is anywhere close to living up to that 'masculine ideal' -- i.e., there is a serious gap between his 'masculine ideal and his masculine image' (another 'fitting game') -- then then 'heavy' masculine anxiety, fear, panic, depression, despair, resentment, anger, rage, and many different forms of 'neurotic compensation' can follow...
This is what Adler meant by 'the masculine protest', the concept could equally be developed in terms of 'the feminine protest', and both could be equated back to Freud's evolving concepts in 1920 and onwards such as 'narcissistic injury', 'narcissistic wound', 'narcissistic blow', 'narcissistic scar', right up to Kohut's concept of 'narcissistic rage' in 1972.
These are all incredibly important, modern-day, theoretical and clinical concepts.
If anything, Freud wanted to steer away from Adlerian Theory even as he was at least partly practising it himself -- in his own 'narcissistic' terminology.
We have to give Adler his 'just due' and 'top status' here -- it was Adler who opened up the subject of 'organ inferiorities', 'compensation', and 'supervalent cerebral activity' (in the direction of the 'compensation') in 1906 long before Freud's ideas on 'narcissism' and 'narcissistic injuries' started to surface in his work (1914, 1920, 1923...). Furthermore, Freud's idea of 'the mastery compulsion' in 1920 (Beyond The Pleasure Principle) sounded alot like the 1906 ideas listed above of 'compensation' and 'supervalent cerebral activity'...as well as Adler's later concept of 'superiority striving'...
I will probably work more often with the idea of 'narcissism' and all its conceptual derrivatives and/or viscisitudes than I will with the concepts of 'the masculine and feminine protest'. However, if I feel I need the latter two concepts, I will certainly use them, hoping that you will know what I have just written about in this essay...There will probably be 'synopses' of the same material again...
For our purposes here, what we are interested in is the 'rise and fall of narcissistic energy' and all its various derrivatives: 'sexual energy', 'egotism', 'hedonism', 'existential energy', 'creative energy', 'destructive energy', 'neurotic energy', 'dream energy', 'psychotic energy', and the rise of all these different types of energies -- derrivatives of our 'primary narcissistic energy' -- from the very bottom of the psyche (The Genetic-Biological Self, The Id, Nietzsche's Abyss and/or Anaximander's Apeiron) up to 'The Experiential, Memory, Transference, and Learning Templates', to 'free-floating narcissistic id energy' to 'blocked narcissistic id energy (The Shadow-Id Vault) to 'escaped and/or 'loosely bound' narcissistic Id energy', to 'The Dream, Fantasy, and Nightmare Weaver', and then up into the preconscious and conscious Ego ...which itself can be divided up into conceptualized 'Underego-States', 'Ego-States' and 'Superego States'..
There is a lot of potential new and old Freudian theory here....as well as Object Relations Theory, Self-Theory, Adlerian Theory, Jungian Theory, Bernean Theory (Transactional Analysis), Gestalt Theory (Perls), Massonian 'Deconstructive and Reconstructive Theory'...and more...
But that is enough for today...
We have covered a lot of theoretical ground...
-- dgb, Aug 12th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain
To be continued...
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
1b. The Splitting and Extending of The Id -- Part 2: The Evolution and The Viscisitudes of The Id
Just finished...August 9th, 2011...
There are a number of Freudian ideas that I wish to develop here this morning in congregation with a number of other ideas that I have either 're-cycled' from other philosophers and/or psycho-theorists and/or developed on my own.
One Freudian idea that I would like to develop is 'the psycho-sexual stages of development'. This idea has been largely discarded by most modern day psychologists but I wish to take another path with it.
Another is Freud's idea of 'unbound' and 'bound' instinctual (Id) energy which fits with a distinction that I have been trying to develop between 'free-floating or free-rising id energy' and 'restrained id energy' (within 'The Shadow-Id Vault).
An idea by Carl Jung that I have modified is the idea of 'The Collective Unconscious' that has never sat entirely well with me but which seemed to still have some theoretical, clinical, and pragmatic value.
In place of The Collective Unconscious which in Jungian conceptuology consists of the 'Unconsious Symbolism, Mythology, Gods, Heroes, Villains, and other Archetype-Figures shared by the whole human race' -- is my concept of 'The Genetic-(Biological-Existential) Self'.
There are a few different ideas in my own concept that I wish to distinguish from Jung's concept of The Collective Unconscious.
Firstly, every person's genetics is significantly unique. If the roots of my individual genetics come from Scotland, they are still going to be significantly different from another person who may also have his or her genetic roots in Scotland, and even more different than a person whose genetic roots come from, say, Israel or Iran.
The most unique part of our individual genetics are those individual talents and capabilities that belong to no other person alive other than to ourself.
I will refer to this aspect of our genetics as our 'Existential Genetics'.
This idea flys counter to what Jean Paul Sartre wrote in 'Being and Nothingness' and his famous principle of 'Existence Before Essence'....Well, I am an 'Essence Before Existence' theorist who follows in the footsteps of Erich Fromm in this regard rather than any of the 'tabula rasa' theorists such as 'the strict empiricists' and such as Sartre.
...................................................................................
From Wikipedia...
Tabula rasa is the epistemological theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception. Generally proponents of the tabula rasa thesis favour the "nurture" side of the nature versus nurture debate, when it comes to aspects of one's personality, social and emotional behaviour, and intelligence. The term in Latin equates to the English "blank slate" (or more accurately, "erased slate") (which refers to writing on a slate sheet in chalk) but comes from the Roman tabula or wax tablet, used for notes, which was blanked by heating the wax and then smoothing it to give a tabula rasa.
.................................................................................................
It is only because man has a 'genetic essence' that he can feel like 'A Stranger' when he becomes 'estranged' or 'dissociated' from his 'essence'. This is another type of 'fitting game' that man plays -- 'The Existential Fitting Game'....At some point in our life we are probably going to put ourselves 'On Trial' to 'accuse' and/or 'defend' ourselves relative to how well and/or how poorly we have played 'The Existential Fittting Game' during our life. I call it a 'game' but this game can be a deadly, serious one in which the 'consequences of Our Trial' can have a hugely drastic impact on our psyche and Self relative to how harshly, mildly, or supportively we (our Superego) end(s) up judging our life -- and our 'performance' within our life.
Also, from within the confines of our Genetic Self is the 'birth' and 'first appearance' of our 'Shadow-Id' which at this point can also be called our 'Narcissistic-Hedonistic-Existential Self'. Within the behavioral realm of a newborn baby we can see the beginning of both the 'oral' phase and the 'anal' phase. The 'oral phase' is connected with 'consuming nutrition' that the newborn baby needs to stay alive.
However, the baby's sole means of 'consuming nutrition' -- 'sucking' -- which has classically been viewed as the prototype of 'the oral phase' -- can also be viewed as the baby's first venture into 'the anal phase' which requires that the baby 'do some work' in order to 'consume the nutrition' that he or she needs to stay alive.
From a biological perspective, we can say that the mind-brain-body has five main functions:
1. Consuming nutrition (The 'oral' phase);
2. Metabolizing and circulating nutrition to the individual cells (the 'first dynamic' phase;
3. Expelling toxins (the 'anal' phase);
4. In the case of male biology, 'expelling genetic nutrition' (sperm) such that it is absorbed and integrated with female bio-genetics (the egg);
5. Making sure that the 'individual parts of the whole and their multi-dialectic interconnection with each other' engage in optimal functioning (the 'second dynamic' phase).
The same five principles -- metaphorically speaking -- can be viewed as applying equally importantly to the ongoing functioning of the mind-brain-psyche-Self'.
In the same way that 'the oral phase' can be viewed as consisting of our need to 'consume food and oxygen', so too can we say that our mind-brain-psyche-self needs to consume love, support, nurturing, encouragement, caring, empathy, social sensitivity, altruism, hope, optimism...
Without these 'different elements of essential psychological and emotional nutrition', the mind-brain-psyche-self (MBPS) will not evolve, grow, and function properly. Rather, it will continually be searching for what it feels that it is chronically and sometimes acutely missing. Call these 'Unfinished Positive-Oral Transference Gestalts' (UPOTGs).
On the 'anal' side of the ledger, the newborn baby is learning the first intitial steps towards being an 'active participant' (i.e., 'working') for the consumption of its food -- even though in Classic Freudian Conceptuology, this is still considered 'the oral phase' or 'the oral-sucking phase' of human 'psycho-sexual' development.
From my conceptual and theoretical perspective, the 'oral phase' of human psycho-physical development consists of the 'intake of proper physical and psychological nutrition' -- which on the 'psychological-emotional side' includes a sufficient and necessary threshold of love, affection, nurturing, caring, empathy, sensitivity, encouragement, hope, optimism, etc...as mentioned above...
Anything less than this, and the person's 'psychological self-esteem' (and 'narcissistic self-confidence') is going to be compromised, and throughout their adult life they are likely still going to be searching for their missing UPOTG's as also mentioned above...
Mainly in line with classic Freudian conceptuology, but a little different, I view the 'anal phase' of human growth as including the 'ability to work and to manifest one's (God-and/or-Creation given) talents and capabilities', the ability to protect and enhance one's own 'self-boundaries', and the ability to avoid and/or eliminate both physical and psychological-emotional 'toxins'.
The 'anal-phobic or anal-allergic' personality is the 'neat freak' and/or the 'hygiene freak', whereas the 'anal-obsessive-compulsive or anal-addictive or anal-explosive' personality is the 'Pigpen' from The Peanuts Comic Strip or 'Diogenes' from ancient Greek philosophy -- metaphorically and/or literally 'obsessed' with, and 'addicted to' dirt, mud, uncleanliness, disorder, choas, anarchy, and the like....
The 'anal-retentive' personality is the person who is just a little (or a lot) too 'morally uptight', 'prim and proper', 'Victorian', 'prudish', usually a 'neat freak', 'obsessed with being on time', an 'organization freak', very 'self-controlling', 'self-judgmental' and 'judgmental of others', a hard worker, often a 'workaholic', 'obsessed with schedules, planning', 'lacking in spontaneity', 'lacking in being able to relax', 'lacking in being able to let go of stresses', 'often lives alone with cats', or alternatively, is so consumed by 'social schedules' that they cannot get a minute to themselves....to breathe and relax and connect with their 'internal essence'....
These character types -- the oral and the anal type (and the derrivatives of each) -- were first brought to the light of day by the one and only Dr. Freud....and I have embellished some of these characteristics based on my own personal and social experience....
'The Oral-Narcissistic Personality' wants to be 'fed' and 'pampered like a King or Queen...or Prince or Princess...
'The Oral and/or Anal-Sadistic Personality' is mean, cruel, likes to hurt people...
'The Oral-Nurturing Pesonality' is the 'non-confrontational therapist type' -- the all loving, all caring, mother, father -- and/or therapist....
'The Oral-Approval-Seeking or Pleasing Personality' is the person who hates to be rejected and/or disapproved of, and constantly strives for 'love, acceptance, and approval'...
'The Anal-Rebellious Personality' rebels against authority figures and 'Establishment Rules, Laws, Values, Regulations, Ethics, Morals...'
'The Anal-Righteous Personality' is righteous and judgmental about almost everything...
'The Anal-Schizoid Personality' is a distance-seeker, a person who tends to avoid contact and/or intimacy with other people...
'The Borderline (Psychotic) Personality' is a person from my personal experience who is 'very tightly wound together', absolutely needs safety, security, routines, environmental saftey nets, social encouragement, and a lack of 'unpleasant surprises or shocks to the fragile narcissistic ego' because these can lead to 'narcissistic collapses', 'nervous (and/or psychotic) breakdowns', deep plunges into 'The Nietzschean Abyss' (like Nietzsche himself plunged into for the last 10 years of his life)...A person with a 'Borderline Personality' as I will use this concept is a person that walks on a very narrow plank between 'being' and 'nothingness', between security and insecurity, between 'having a precarious foothold on reality' and plunging into Nietzsche's Abyss...
'The Oral-Obsessive-Compulsive-Addictive Personality' is a person who easily falls prey to any number of possible 'oral addictions' such as food, alchohol, drugs, gambling, sex...In the 'food' department, 'anorexia' is the opposite of an 'oral obsessive food addiction' -- where food is despised, detested, as something that is going to make one 'fat'. 'Bulimia' splits the difference between addiction and phobia...usually a woman 'eating or even binging' -- and then 'vomitting' right afterwards...Both anorexia and bulimia -- in a post-Freudian sense -- can be viewed as 'anal eating disorders' in that food is viewed as a 'toxin' either to be avoided or vomitted out...
The 'Workaholic' is an 'anal personality disorder' where lack of balance in the rest of the person's life is dominantly suppressed by the amount of time and energy the person spends at work or with work....
Manic-Depression and other BiPolar Disorders....There are too many other types of bipolar disorders to list here -- I have listed them elsewhere -- but with what used to be called 'manic-depression' you have a cycle of 'mania' where a person 'runs wild' and 'does practically anything and everything'...excessive shopping, spending, drinking, breaking all routines, sexual encounters, you name it (sounds great until you get to the 'post-mania personal, social, economic, and family consequences')....and then finally plunges back to earth into a period of guilt and depression...before , after a given period of time, probably months, the 'mania' phase takes over again....('Sin and then pay for your sins'....seems to be one way of summing this type of 'two phase transference game' up....)
In the next part of this essay, we will follow the 'evolution' and/or 'de-evolution' of the id from 1. 'The Genetic-Biological-Existential (GBE) Self' into 2. 'Nietzsche's Abyss' (The Disorganized 'Caldron' of The Id) to 3. 'free-floating Shadow-Id Complexes' in The Subconscious to 4. 'The Experiential Learning and Transference Template' to 5. 'The Shadow-Id Vault' to 6. more 'free-floating Shadow-Id Complexes' to 7. 'The Dream and Nightmare Weaver' and then into 'The Pre-Conscious and Conscious Ego' which we will discuss in the next part of this essay afterwards...
Enough for now,
-- dgb, August 9th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process....
There are a number of Freudian ideas that I wish to develop here this morning in congregation with a number of other ideas that I have either 're-cycled' from other philosophers and/or psycho-theorists and/or developed on my own.
One Freudian idea that I would like to develop is 'the psycho-sexual stages of development'. This idea has been largely discarded by most modern day psychologists but I wish to take another path with it.
Another is Freud's idea of 'unbound' and 'bound' instinctual (Id) energy which fits with a distinction that I have been trying to develop between 'free-floating or free-rising id energy' and 'restrained id energy' (within 'The Shadow-Id Vault).
An idea by Carl Jung that I have modified is the idea of 'The Collective Unconscious' that has never sat entirely well with me but which seemed to still have some theoretical, clinical, and pragmatic value.
In place of The Collective Unconscious which in Jungian conceptuology consists of the 'Unconsious Symbolism, Mythology, Gods, Heroes, Villains, and other Archetype-Figures shared by the whole human race' -- is my concept of 'The Genetic-(Biological-Existential) Self'.
There are a few different ideas in my own concept that I wish to distinguish from Jung's concept of The Collective Unconscious.
Firstly, every person's genetics is significantly unique. If the roots of my individual genetics come from Scotland, they are still going to be significantly different from another person who may also have his or her genetic roots in Scotland, and even more different than a person whose genetic roots come from, say, Israel or Iran.
The most unique part of our individual genetics are those individual talents and capabilities that belong to no other person alive other than to ourself.
I will refer to this aspect of our genetics as our 'Existential Genetics'.
This idea flys counter to what Jean Paul Sartre wrote in 'Being and Nothingness' and his famous principle of 'Existence Before Essence'....Well, I am an 'Essence Before Existence' theorist who follows in the footsteps of Erich Fromm in this regard rather than any of the 'tabula rasa' theorists such as 'the strict empiricists' and such as Sartre.
...................................................................................
From Wikipedia...
Tabula rasa is the epistemological theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception. Generally proponents of the tabula rasa thesis favour the "nurture" side of the nature versus nurture debate, when it comes to aspects of one's personality, social and emotional behaviour, and intelligence. The term in Latin equates to the English "blank slate" (or more accurately, "erased slate") (which refers to writing on a slate sheet in chalk) but comes from the Roman tabula or wax tablet, used for notes, which was blanked by heating the wax and then smoothing it to give a tabula rasa.
.................................................................................................
It is only because man has a 'genetic essence' that he can feel like 'A Stranger' when he becomes 'estranged' or 'dissociated' from his 'essence'. This is another type of 'fitting game' that man plays -- 'The Existential Fitting Game'....At some point in our life we are probably going to put ourselves 'On Trial' to 'accuse' and/or 'defend' ourselves relative to how well and/or how poorly we have played 'The Existential Fittting Game' during our life. I call it a 'game' but this game can be a deadly, serious one in which the 'consequences of Our Trial' can have a hugely drastic impact on our psyche and Self relative to how harshly, mildly, or supportively we (our Superego) end(s) up judging our life -- and our 'performance' within our life.
Also, from within the confines of our Genetic Self is the 'birth' and 'first appearance' of our 'Shadow-Id' which at this point can also be called our 'Narcissistic-Hedonistic-Existential Self'. Within the behavioral realm of a newborn baby we can see the beginning of both the 'oral' phase and the 'anal' phase. The 'oral phase' is connected with 'consuming nutrition' that the newborn baby needs to stay alive.
However, the baby's sole means of 'consuming nutrition' -- 'sucking' -- which has classically been viewed as the prototype of 'the oral phase' -- can also be viewed as the baby's first venture into 'the anal phase' which requires that the baby 'do some work' in order to 'consume the nutrition' that he or she needs to stay alive.
From a biological perspective, we can say that the mind-brain-body has five main functions:
1. Consuming nutrition (The 'oral' phase);
2. Metabolizing and circulating nutrition to the individual cells (the 'first dynamic' phase;
3. Expelling toxins (the 'anal' phase);
4. In the case of male biology, 'expelling genetic nutrition' (sperm) such that it is absorbed and integrated with female bio-genetics (the egg);
5. Making sure that the 'individual parts of the whole and their multi-dialectic interconnection with each other' engage in optimal functioning (the 'second dynamic' phase).
The same five principles -- metaphorically speaking -- can be viewed as applying equally importantly to the ongoing functioning of the mind-brain-psyche-Self'.
In the same way that 'the oral phase' can be viewed as consisting of our need to 'consume food and oxygen', so too can we say that our mind-brain-psyche-self needs to consume love, support, nurturing, encouragement, caring, empathy, social sensitivity, altruism, hope, optimism...
Without these 'different elements of essential psychological and emotional nutrition', the mind-brain-psyche-self (MBPS) will not evolve, grow, and function properly. Rather, it will continually be searching for what it feels that it is chronically and sometimes acutely missing. Call these 'Unfinished Positive-Oral Transference Gestalts' (UPOTGs).
On the 'anal' side of the ledger, the newborn baby is learning the first intitial steps towards being an 'active participant' (i.e., 'working') for the consumption of its food -- even though in Classic Freudian Conceptuology, this is still considered 'the oral phase' or 'the oral-sucking phase' of human 'psycho-sexual' development.
From my conceptual and theoretical perspective, the 'oral phase' of human psycho-physical development consists of the 'intake of proper physical and psychological nutrition' -- which on the 'psychological-emotional side' includes a sufficient and necessary threshold of love, affection, nurturing, caring, empathy, sensitivity, encouragement, hope, optimism, etc...as mentioned above...
Anything less than this, and the person's 'psychological self-esteem' (and 'narcissistic self-confidence') is going to be compromised, and throughout their adult life they are likely still going to be searching for their missing UPOTG's as also mentioned above...
Mainly in line with classic Freudian conceptuology, but a little different, I view the 'anal phase' of human growth as including the 'ability to work and to manifest one's (God-and/or-Creation given) talents and capabilities', the ability to protect and enhance one's own 'self-boundaries', and the ability to avoid and/or eliminate both physical and psychological-emotional 'toxins'.
The 'anal-phobic or anal-allergic' personality is the 'neat freak' and/or the 'hygiene freak', whereas the 'anal-obsessive-compulsive or anal-addictive or anal-explosive' personality is the 'Pigpen' from The Peanuts Comic Strip or 'Diogenes' from ancient Greek philosophy -- metaphorically and/or literally 'obsessed' with, and 'addicted to' dirt, mud, uncleanliness, disorder, choas, anarchy, and the like....
The 'anal-retentive' personality is the person who is just a little (or a lot) too 'morally uptight', 'prim and proper', 'Victorian', 'prudish', usually a 'neat freak', 'obsessed with being on time', an 'organization freak', very 'self-controlling', 'self-judgmental' and 'judgmental of others', a hard worker, often a 'workaholic', 'obsessed with schedules, planning', 'lacking in spontaneity', 'lacking in being able to relax', 'lacking in being able to let go of stresses', 'often lives alone with cats', or alternatively, is so consumed by 'social schedules' that they cannot get a minute to themselves....to breathe and relax and connect with their 'internal essence'....
These character types -- the oral and the anal type (and the derrivatives of each) -- were first brought to the light of day by the one and only Dr. Freud....and I have embellished some of these characteristics based on my own personal and social experience....
'The Oral-Narcissistic Personality' wants to be 'fed' and 'pampered like a King or Queen...or Prince or Princess...
'The Oral and/or Anal-Sadistic Personality' is mean, cruel, likes to hurt people...
'The Oral-Nurturing Pesonality' is the 'non-confrontational therapist type' -- the all loving, all caring, mother, father -- and/or therapist....
'The Oral-Approval-Seeking or Pleasing Personality' is the person who hates to be rejected and/or disapproved of, and constantly strives for 'love, acceptance, and approval'...
'The Anal-Rebellious Personality' rebels against authority figures and 'Establishment Rules, Laws, Values, Regulations, Ethics, Morals...'
'The Anal-Righteous Personality' is righteous and judgmental about almost everything...
'The Anal-Schizoid Personality' is a distance-seeker, a person who tends to avoid contact and/or intimacy with other people...
'The Borderline (Psychotic) Personality' is a person from my personal experience who is 'very tightly wound together', absolutely needs safety, security, routines, environmental saftey nets, social encouragement, and a lack of 'unpleasant surprises or shocks to the fragile narcissistic ego' because these can lead to 'narcissistic collapses', 'nervous (and/or psychotic) breakdowns', deep plunges into 'The Nietzschean Abyss' (like Nietzsche himself plunged into for the last 10 years of his life)...A person with a 'Borderline Personality' as I will use this concept is a person that walks on a very narrow plank between 'being' and 'nothingness', between security and insecurity, between 'having a precarious foothold on reality' and plunging into Nietzsche's Abyss...
'The Oral-Obsessive-Compulsive-Addictive Personality' is a person who easily falls prey to any number of possible 'oral addictions' such as food, alchohol, drugs, gambling, sex...In the 'food' department, 'anorexia' is the opposite of an 'oral obsessive food addiction' -- where food is despised, detested, as something that is going to make one 'fat'. 'Bulimia' splits the difference between addiction and phobia...usually a woman 'eating or even binging' -- and then 'vomitting' right afterwards...Both anorexia and bulimia -- in a post-Freudian sense -- can be viewed as 'anal eating disorders' in that food is viewed as a 'toxin' either to be avoided or vomitted out...
The 'Workaholic' is an 'anal personality disorder' where lack of balance in the rest of the person's life is dominantly suppressed by the amount of time and energy the person spends at work or with work....
Manic-Depression and other BiPolar Disorders....There are too many other types of bipolar disorders to list here -- I have listed them elsewhere -- but with what used to be called 'manic-depression' you have a cycle of 'mania' where a person 'runs wild' and 'does practically anything and everything'...excessive shopping, spending, drinking, breaking all routines, sexual encounters, you name it (sounds great until you get to the 'post-mania personal, social, economic, and family consequences')....and then finally plunges back to earth into a period of guilt and depression...before , after a given period of time, probably months, the 'mania' phase takes over again....('Sin and then pay for your sins'....seems to be one way of summing this type of 'two phase transference game' up....)
In the next part of this essay, we will follow the 'evolution' and/or 'de-evolution' of the id from 1. 'The Genetic-Biological-Existential (GBE) Self' into 2. 'Nietzsche's Abyss' (The Disorganized 'Caldron' of The Id) to 3. 'free-floating Shadow-Id Complexes' in The Subconscious to 4. 'The Experiential Learning and Transference Template' to 5. 'The Shadow-Id Vault' to 6. more 'free-floating Shadow-Id Complexes' to 7. 'The Dream and Nightmare Weaver' and then into 'The Pre-Conscious and Conscious Ego' which we will discuss in the next part of this essay afterwards...
Enough for now,
-- dgb, August 9th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process....
Sunday, August 7, 2011
A New Look at The Similarities and Differences Between The Classical Freudian Psychoanalytic Model of The Psyche and The DGB Quantum (Multi-Dialectic) Psychoanalytic Model of The Psyche
Under construction...
........................................................................
The Classical Freudian Psychoanalytic model is pretty simple and straightforward -- but missing some contemporary elements of Psychoanalytic and non-Psychoanlytic theory and therapy.
'The Superego' is our family and culturally and sometimes religiously influenced 'ethical/moral/restraining conscience';
'The Id' is our 'pressing biological (life and death) instincts' that are demanding 'here and now satisfaction and/or relief';
'The Ego' is our 'central mediator, problem-solver, and conflict-resolver' that seeks to 'bridge or close the gap' (another 'fitting game', this time) between our Superego and our Id.
Now both man's thinking -- individually and collectively -- and 'models' of how he thinks are going evolve and change over time.
There are many things you can say about Freud's 'Classical Psychoanalytic' model of the personality or psyche.
You could say that it is 'simple and elegant'.
You could say that it is 'simple but incomplete'....
You could say that it is 'simple but misleading in its over-reductionistic simplicity'.
Now there are two things that you can say have evolved -- and/or are still evolving over time:
1. man's mind-brain, psyche, personality...itself;
2. our assortment of different 'evolutionary spinoffs' of the Freudian model that are aimed at either a) capturing this continued evolutionary process of man's mind-brain-pscyhe-self; and/or b) capturing what Freud missed or didn't pay sufficient attention to.
I have no problem starting with the Classic Freudian model of the personality.
However, in constructing my own model, I have engaged in a threefold process:
1. 'The splitting and extending of the id';
2. 'The splitting and extending of the superego';
3. 'The splitting and extending of the ego'.
.......................................................................................
1a. The Splitting and Extending of The Id -- Part 1: The Shadow-Id
Freud viewed 'the id' as being basically a bundle of dynamic, volatile, largely unconscious instinctive energy in the personality that may be 'erotically charged with energy (libido)', 'more conservtively charged with self-preservative energy' and/or 'destructively and/or self-destructively charged with death energy' (thanatos).
Freud -- by 1923 when he created the concept of the id -- left out an old part of his 'repressive equation': specifically traumacy and particularly sexual traumacy and/or what I would call 'narcissistic (self-esteem) injury or traumacy'. In Gestalt language, Freud left out what might be called 'traumatic and/or any other form of unfinished business'...that is dysfunctionally using up stress energy in the un/subconscious.
As Freud used to say before 1896, this 'repressed (or suppressed or otherwise disowned, dissociated, disavowed, estranged, projected...) energy needs to be 'therapeutically abreacted' and the more potentially 'dangerous' this repressed or suppressed energy is (meaning full of potential destructive and/or self-destructive energy), the more important that this energy is 'abreacted' in the safe confines of a professional therapist's office who knows what he or she is doing....
It is in this regard, that I have integrated one of Freud's main concepts -- 'the Id' -- with one of Jung's main concept -- 'the Shadow'. Integrated together, I get the concept that I like -- 'The Shadow-Id'.
The Shadow can be 'Id-like'. And/or the Shadow can be 'traumatically dysfunctional'. And/or the Shadow can be a subconsciously operating 'existential potential'.
Together, the Shadow and the Id -- or the 'Shadow-Id' -- operate primarily in the 'subconcsious shadows' of the personality with 'rising' conscious manifestations, viscisitudes, compromise-formations, sublimations, repetition complusions, obsessive compulsions, projections, fixations, fetishes, addictions, compensatory defensive behaviors such as avoidances, phobia, anal-schizoid (distancing) behavior, aggressions, paranoia, manic-depression, other forms of 'bi-polar dysfunction syndrome', psychotic disorders, and/or other forms of 'existential-transference formations'....
Did you catch and understand all that?
For those of you not very familiar with Psychoanalytic and modern day psychiatric jargon, I will walk through all these concepts at a slower, individual, defining, pace...on another day....
For tonight,
I am calling it a night....
To be continued tomorrow morning...
-- dgb, Aug 8th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain
......................................................................................................
........................................................................
The Classical Freudian Psychoanalytic model is pretty simple and straightforward -- but missing some contemporary elements of Psychoanalytic and non-Psychoanlytic theory and therapy.
'The Superego' is our family and culturally and sometimes religiously influenced 'ethical/moral/restraining conscience';
'The Id' is our 'pressing biological (life and death) instincts' that are demanding 'here and now satisfaction and/or relief';
'The Ego' is our 'central mediator, problem-solver, and conflict-resolver' that seeks to 'bridge or close the gap' (another 'fitting game', this time) between our Superego and our Id.
Now both man's thinking -- individually and collectively -- and 'models' of how he thinks are going evolve and change over time.
There are many things you can say about Freud's 'Classical Psychoanalytic' model of the personality or psyche.
You could say that it is 'simple and elegant'.
You could say that it is 'simple but incomplete'....
You could say that it is 'simple but misleading in its over-reductionistic simplicity'.
Now there are two things that you can say have evolved -- and/or are still evolving over time:
1. man's mind-brain, psyche, personality...itself;
2. our assortment of different 'evolutionary spinoffs' of the Freudian model that are aimed at either a) capturing this continued evolutionary process of man's mind-brain-pscyhe-self; and/or b) capturing what Freud missed or didn't pay sufficient attention to.
I have no problem starting with the Classic Freudian model of the personality.
However, in constructing my own model, I have engaged in a threefold process:
1. 'The splitting and extending of the id';
2. 'The splitting and extending of the superego';
3. 'The splitting and extending of the ego'.
.......................................................................................
1a. The Splitting and Extending of The Id -- Part 1: The Shadow-Id
Freud viewed 'the id' as being basically a bundle of dynamic, volatile, largely unconscious instinctive energy in the personality that may be 'erotically charged with energy (libido)', 'more conservtively charged with self-preservative energy' and/or 'destructively and/or self-destructively charged with death energy' (thanatos).
Freud -- by 1923 when he created the concept of the id -- left out an old part of his 'repressive equation': specifically traumacy and particularly sexual traumacy and/or what I would call 'narcissistic (self-esteem) injury or traumacy'. In Gestalt language, Freud left out what might be called 'traumatic and/or any other form of unfinished business'...that is dysfunctionally using up stress energy in the un/subconscious.
As Freud used to say before 1896, this 'repressed (or suppressed or otherwise disowned, dissociated, disavowed, estranged, projected...) energy needs to be 'therapeutically abreacted' and the more potentially 'dangerous' this repressed or suppressed energy is (meaning full of potential destructive and/or self-destructive energy), the more important that this energy is 'abreacted' in the safe confines of a professional therapist's office who knows what he or she is doing....
It is in this regard, that I have integrated one of Freud's main concepts -- 'the Id' -- with one of Jung's main concept -- 'the Shadow'. Integrated together, I get the concept that I like -- 'The Shadow-Id'.
The Shadow can be 'Id-like'. And/or the Shadow can be 'traumatically dysfunctional'. And/or the Shadow can be a subconsciously operating 'existential potential'.
Together, the Shadow and the Id -- or the 'Shadow-Id' -- operate primarily in the 'subconcsious shadows' of the personality with 'rising' conscious manifestations, viscisitudes, compromise-formations, sublimations, repetition complusions, obsessive compulsions, projections, fixations, fetishes, addictions, compensatory defensive behaviors such as avoidances, phobia, anal-schizoid (distancing) behavior, aggressions, paranoia, manic-depression, other forms of 'bi-polar dysfunction syndrome', psychotic disorders, and/or other forms of 'existential-transference formations'....
Did you catch and understand all that?
For those of you not very familiar with Psychoanalytic and modern day psychiatric jargon, I will walk through all these concepts at a slower, individual, defining, pace...on another day....
For tonight,
I am calling it a night....
To be continued tomorrow morning...
-- dgb, Aug 8th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain
......................................................................................................
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