Quantum-Dialectic Psychoanalysis: 1.3. The Integration of General Semantics (Maps, Territories, and Rational-Empiricism) with DGB, Post-Hegelian, Quantum-Dialectic Theory

1.3.1. Maps and Territories: Narcissistic Influences and Ethical Idealism

In 1979, before I even knew who Schopenhauer was, I had just finished my Honours Thesis in psychology, an essay called 'Evaluation and Health' that was mainly about 'Maps and Territories' -- focusing  on a General Semantic model of the way the world works, and the way man's mind-brain-nervous system works, as created by Aflred Korzysbski, the founder of General Semantics,  in his classic (albeit none too 'crystal clear' in itself) philosophical treatise, 'Science and Sanity' (1933).

Korzybski and Wittgenstein were operating in the same time period -- Korzsbski's first book (Manhood of Humanity, 1921) was published the same year as Wittgenstein published his famous 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'.

Until this morning, I was not clear about who influenced who because their ideas about 'reality, language, and epistemology' at the 'bottom level of abstraction' were too similar 'in structure' not for at least one to have influenced the other. 

It turns out that Koyrzybski in 'Manhood' quoted Wittgenstein from 'Tractatus'  as I found out in the discussion 'Institute of General Semantics' (IGS) discussion forum below (See Wittgenstein and Korzybski on the internet as the relevant material didn't completely present itself below.): 

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IGS Discussion Forums: Learning GS Topics: Wittgenstein and Korzybski

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Author: Steve (stevierayd) Wednesday, April 16, 2008 - 10:34 pm
I find John Searle, professor of Philosophy, to be a very good communicator. See a lecture series that feature him on "Philosophy of Mind". I found this old video in which he discusses Wittgenstein's writings. It provides a very clear, well articulated summary of his philosophy. http://methodsofprojection.blogspot.com/2008/03/ bryan-magee-interviews-john-searle-on.html A couple of notions discussed reminded me of general semantics: In Wittgenstein's early writings he was very interested in differentiating talk that made sense from talk that didn't make sense. His ideas included the notion of language as having a structural similarity with the world they were about. Later, his philosophy evolved the notion of language as a tool, that we should look at how the language is being used to understand the meaning. Please contribute any known connections between Wittgenstein and Korzybski
Author: David Linwood (dlinwood) Thursday, April 17, 2008 - 07:36 pm
Steve: Korzybski refers to Wittgenstein in "Manhood.." and in Science and Sanity. I have uploaded attachments which pinpoint most of these references. "What can be shown cannot be said." There is a discussion using Theory of Types between Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein, quoted in S&S. David Linwood There is another small internet piece that introduces Korzybski's ideas in very simple fashion. You can find it here: Science and Sanity by Flemming Funch, 30 Dec 94. ................................................................................................................ In a nutshell, Korzybski got around -- at least significantly -- the whole 'Kantian Split' problem between our  'noumenal-objective world' (outside our senses)  and our 'phenomenal-subjective world' (inside our senses, perceptions, interpretations, evaluations, and choices...) in a way that none of the other German Idealists (partiicularly Fichte and Hegel) did. Fichte was too 'subjectively obsessed' -- he basically got rid of the notion of a 'noumenal-objective world' altogether; and Hegel got caught up -- and lost up --  in his ideal notion of  'The Absolute', the idea that man would eventually 'transcend' his 'finite imperfections' through the process of 'historical- dialectic evolution'. (In my opinion, Hegel didn't sufficiently take into account man's 'narcissistic- egotistic-greed-and-survival-oriented nature', a 'flaw' in Hegel's work that Schopenhauer would more than compensate for. Now, Schopenhauer's philosophical compensation for Hegel's 'over-idealism' could be used in a backhanded way to support the  very theory that Hegel was promoting: again,  'historical-dialectic-evolution' with Schopenhauer compensating for Hegel's 'narcissistic oversight', Kierkegaard compensating for another 'Hegelian oversight' -- his 'global and historical abstractionism' -- and the world marching on to the beat of 'The Hegelian Historical-Dialectic-Evolutionary- Deterministic Drum'. Still, one wonders why -- some 200 plus years later -- we don't seem to be any closer to Hegel's idealistic vision  of 'The Absolute' -- at least in an 'ethical', 'behavioral' and 'humanistic-existential' sense, and partly in an 'epistemological' sense, than we were in Hegel's time.... Indeed, we seem closer to Schopenhauer's much more pessimistic, narcissistic, Hobbesean, 'Lord of The Flies' world, than anything resembling Hegel's idealistic vision of 'The Absolute'... unless we are talking about 'Absolute Narcissism'... But that is a subject for another debate....and relative to the subject of epistmology, the only thing that we need to -- strongly -- concern ourselves with in this regard is the distortion of any 'objective' sense of the words 'knowledge' and 'epistemology', being 'subjectively manipuated' by narcissistic, human interests -- and the power and money to go with it...    Indeed, just as Nietzsche proclaimed that 'God is dead!', so too...(and Nietzsche basically took us here as well,  as did Marx and Engels, and Foucault and Derrida,  and Erich Fromm...): 'Science is dead!', and 'Politics is dead!...and 'Any and every body of human  knowledge and ethics is dead! -- just so long as these different areas of human culture are manipulated by money, power, survival, greed -- or in two words, 'Narcissistic Capitalism'. As long as we have politicians being 'bought off' by lobbyists of all types but particularly lobbyists for  large corporatations -- democracy, whether it be 'representative democracy' and/or 'participative democracy -- remains impossible. The only ones being 'represented' are the 'corporations with the money'...at least until we get some form of 'democratic, metaphorical' -- 'Storming of The Bastilles'  by private citizens -- united together -- who are sick and tired of being ruled by politiicans who have been 'bought' by corporate, and/or other lobbyist interests. I have gotten way ahead of myself here. Before we get back to the subject of 'ideal, ethical epistemology', let me just say that I am not necessarily a proponent of 'Socialism' -- particularly as it was practised in both (Mao Tse Tung) China and (Lenin, Stalin) Russia -- but rather what I am looking for here on a 'socio-economic-legal-political level' is some type of better 'dialectic engagement' between the philosophies of Adam Smith and Ayn Rand on the 'Capitalist' side of things, vs. the philosophies of Marx, Engels, and Erich Fromm on the 'Socialist' side of things, with the dialectic philosophies of Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Foucualt, Derrida, and Presidents like Jefferson and  Eisenhauer... warning  us of the dangers of narcissistic interests at the top end of the 'corporate food chain', and the destructive forces, that their 'collusion' with politicians,  can have on so-called 'democracy', on civil, Western society... and on The Pursuit of  The American Dream... for The Working Class Heroes... Of both sexes and all races, Not just a few members of The Corporate Elite... In essence, I am ideally looking for a more 'ethically and epistemologically transparent' form of 'Multi-Dialectic-Integrative-Humanistic- Existential-Ethical Socialist-Capitalism' --  a world where neither  'Corporate Owners'  nor 'Big Unions' dominate, manipulate, and exploit; a world where politicians aren't 'bought off  by lobbyists'; a world where all classes, races,  religions, and both sexes of people can share in 'The Democratic, North American Dream'... No one is fed 'advertising lies' or 'fraudulent claims',  and no one is 'pushed downwards' into 'the gutter of silent, economic desperation' so that others can 'push upwards' into their 'ivory, economic towers' that, in the most narcissistic cases, are basically built up from 'blood-money'... such as middle class people being forced out of their houses so that others can live in bigger mansions... The point I am making here is that you cannot have 'Objective Epistimology' in any idealistic Ayn Rand 'Atlas Shrugged' or 'The Fountainhead' sense of her Capitalist Ethics, in a world of manipulative, narcissistic, fraudulent Capitalism that defies any sense of an idealized 'Howard Roark'. You can't have any idealized vision of Capitalism when... All ethical behaviors are dead! And reversing this trend Starts with Senators and other Politicians Being equally vulnerable to the laws of the land And being charged, convicted, and sentenced... For taking bribes... From corporate lobbysts... The word 'lobbyst' comes from the fact that this breed of people 'worked the parliament lobbies' In England... We need to take lobbysts out of the lobbies Where politicians work... And if they want something... They will have to step into... A public forum... And speak 'transparently' in this forum... With cameras, microphones, Politicians, media, and the genral public... Watching and listening to their every word... No more 'collusions' in 'back rooms' and 'lobbyists'.... We need to take away the 'lobbies' from lobbysts.. Those of us who retain some semblance of 'ethical, political, and ecomomic idealism', need to come out of our hiding places And help us move 'upwards',  Towards, A better form of... 'Ethical, Humanistic-Existential, Win-Win, Capitalism'.... as opposed to any brand or version of 'Exploitive, I win, you lose, Capitalism'... The type we are living under now... What I have stated above is a big part of my own idealistic dream and vision of what 'Hegel's Hotel' is... An 'ethical idealistic vision' where all people -- preferrably open-minded, democratic-minded, people  Of both sexes, every race and nationality, Religious and non-religious people, Conservative and liberal people, Republicans and Democrats, Can gather together and Hopefully, both assertively speak, And compassionately listen... To all the diverging and converging... Ideologies... Like life itself... Dialectics engaging, unionizing... And then splitting apart... When they no longer work... To be replaced by other evolving, Newly engaging dialectics... Coming from every direction... The more different converging And diverging paradigms... We can learn to comprehend... And functionally use, The better equipped we are to meet... A multi-dialectic, pluralistic, Constangly changing, constantly evolving, World... Let's move out of the world of 'socio-economics, law and politics', And on to my main 'epistemological piece' here... (before I get waylaid by other 'contextual variables'...) -- dgb, Nov.29th, updated, Dec. 3rd, 2011.. -- David Gordon Bain

Quantum-Dialectic Psychoanalysis: 1.2 Foundational Assumptions: Concepts, Theories, Doctrines, and Paradigms

1.2  Foundational Assumptions: Concepts, Theories, Doctrines, and Paradigms

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A Quote From Plato

I think a man's duty is one of two things: either to be taught or to find out where the truth is, or if he cannot, at least to take the best possible human doctrine and the hardest to disprove, and to ride on this like a raft over the waters of life and take the risk; unless he could have a more seaworthy vessel to carry him more safely and with less danger, some divine doctrine to bring him through. -- Simmias, from The Phaedo, The Death of Socrates, Great Dialogues of Plato

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Let me take a page or two out of my memory of my General Semantic (Korzybski, Hayakawa) lessons from the 1970s....and then expand from this into my basic theory of theories on both epistemology and evaluation -- or in Schopenhauer's words -- 'representation' and 'will'.

Let's quickly start with 'The Kantian Split'. Immanuel Kant -- the first of the great German Idealists -- conceptually divided the world into two parts: 1. The 'Noumenal' (Objective) World; and 2. The 'Phenomenal' (Subjective) World. For simplicty's sake, and hopefully to avoid confusion, I will turn Kant's technical terms from 300 years ago -- 'noumenal' and 'phenomenal' -- into terminology that is, as I say, hopefully easier to work with today: 'objective' (noumenal) and 'subjective' (phenomenal).

Now Kant's key premise was that we 'Kant Know' our objective world because it is beyond the scope of our senses. In fact, anything belowing to the subject of 'metaphysics' -- i.e., 'above physics' (like 'the existence or non-existence of God') -- is beyond the scope of our senses, and therefore, essentially 'unknowable'....(unless you want to enter into the 'slippery slope' of 'faith' -- as in I believe that my husband or wife will be 'faithful' -- which, has little or no value in the realm of 'rational-empiricism', which, ideally speaking, is based on a combination of 'sensory experience' and 'rational logic').

In fact, when you come right down to it -- even my desk, which is staring me right in the face, is, in Kant's view, as 'the thing in itself', essentially 'unknowable' in the strictly 'objective' sense because, our objective world, strictly speaking, is the part of our world that is beyond the scope of our senses.    

However, this is point at which all three of Kant, Fichte, and Schopenhauer -- as well as my at least partly idealized Hegel -- made crucial epistemological errors.

Firstly, what Kant should have said rather than 'We Kant Know our objective world.', is 'We Kant Know everything about our objective world.' The latter statement is much more logical, accurate, and functional in terms of its 'practical believabilty' factor and 'where we can go with it, and what we can do with it'. In contrast, Kant's radical assertion and premise 'drove almost all of the academics and philosophers of the time to do 'crazy things'.....like real estate investors would do in the case of a 'collapse of the real estate market', or 'stock market investors would do in the case of a 'collapse of the stock market'....For, with Kant's new at the time 'Kantian Split', it certainly seemed to all academics and philosophers that 'the epistemological world had come to an end'.....As Nietzsche would eventually say that 'God is dead!', so too was Kant, years before Nietzsche, essentially saying -- or at least seeming to say (there's that 'subject/object' differentation again...) -- that 'Epistemology is dead!

From there, Fichte 'flew into a world of subjectivity and said essentially that there is no noumenal-objective world -- or at least that it doesn't matter!'); whereas Schopenhauer laughed at, and ridiculed Fichte for being so stupid as to believe that there is no 'real, noumenal, objective' world....but then, seemingly paradoxically, Schopenhauer went off to create his own 'cosmic thing in itself' in the form of a 'Cosmic Will to Live/Survive' -- a Copernican switch from the 'cosmic world of objects' to a 'cosmic wold of impulsive desires'.  (Can you hear Nietzsche and Freud coming?) 

Everyone in this time period seemed to be obsessed with creating some form of 'collective or cosmic idealism' -- or in Schopenhauer's case -- an 'anti-thesis' in the form of a 'cosmic, collective, and individual narcissistic pessimism'.

Ironically or paradoxically again, Schopenhauer who hated Hegel with a passion and called him a 'clumsy charlatan' (See a summary of Schopenhauer's life on Wikipedia.); indeed, Schopenhauer disagreed with all 'the German Idealists' in his 'anti-idealistic' stance pertaining to man's individual and collective 'will to survive' and 'will to fulfill his innermost narcissistic desires'. (My use of the term 'narcissistic' here does not come from his use of it, but rather mine, in that the term hadn't been created yet while Schopenhauer was alive (except as the ancient Greek myth), and wouldn't be created until the arrival of Havelock Ellis and then Sigmund Freud at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century.

It is interesting to note that Schopenhauer's ideas about a 'will to live or survive' pre-date the work of Darwin, although there was a point where they were both alive together -- Darwin more likely to be influenced by the older Schopenhauer than the other way around. Schopenhauer died (1860) a year after Darwin published 'Origins of The Species (1859). Schopenhauer finished his most important work, 'The World as Will and Representation' in 1818 when Darwin was 9 years old, and published it a year later in 1819. Schopenhauer was born in 1788, Darwin in 1809.

There are parts of Schopenhauer's work that I find very attractive. You can see the Thomas Hobbes influence in his work, as he describes what I will call the 'Narcissistic Shadow' in human behavior that generally seems to find its way to the top of the human personality from the bottom... Nietzsche and Freud jumped all over this aspect of Schopenhauer's work -- Nietzsche intentionally, Freud vicariously, and/or more directly later in his life. According to Freud, Freud didn't read Schopenhauer until later in his life and I believe there is a Freudian quote out there somewhere that says something to the effect of, 'I fear my work is starting to look more and more like Schopenhauer's  (presumably Schopenhauer's pessimistic view of human nature).

Schopenhauer's critique of Fichte's work is compelling, basically accusing Fichte of 'losing touch with reality' when he got rid of Kant's 'noumenal world' (Google, Fichte, Wikipedia). Paradoxically however, Schopenhauer's work has a partly similar feel to it as Fichte's work in its 'cosmic narcissistic determinism' (Schopenhauer) as opposed to Fichte's 'cosmic idealistic determinism'.

I love the title of Schopenhauer's main work: 'The World as Will and Representation', and if I was critiquing his work and re-writing it, I would call my own work, partly in tribute to Schopenhauer: 'The Mind as Representation and Will: A Study of Epistemology, Narcissism, Ethics, Conflict and Choice in Man's Evaluation and Health Cycle.' This would be my final extension and conclusion to what I started in 1972 and 'left unfinished' in my 1979 Honours Thesis, entitled more simply: 'Evaluation and Health'.

There were a lot of 'Grand Narratives' being written in the 'German Idealism' and 'Post-Idealism' period: Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer...Nietzsche and the rest of the 'Post-Modernists' and 'Deconstructionists'  basically ridiculed 'Grand Narratives'....and I say, "Hold on, wait a minute -- without 'Grand Theorists, Grand Constructionists', we have nothing, we have no architecture, we have no culture, we have no political or economic or legal idealism, we have no 'philosophical idealism', we have no 'schools of psychology'..."

We have no 'TOEs' -- 'Theory Of Everythings'....

Being the 'Post-Hegelian, Humanistic-Existential, Deconstructionist-Reconstructionist' that I am, 'I dance between different dualisms, bi-polarities, and dialectics....I engage them and challenge them to interact with each other in a creative, constructive manner...that brings something new and exciting to the table...'

'Synergy -- and The Creative, Innovative Synthesis'...

I have a TOE -- a Theory of Everything -- and I am proud of it...

It might read something like this:

'The world -- being a subset of the cosmic universe -- is comprised of the endless dialectic collisions and engagements -- both positive and negative, co-operative and aggressive, creative and destructive -- between life and death, health and sickness, opposite personalities, opposite sexes, testosterone and estrogen, yin and yang, good and bad will, narcissistic and altruistic, concreteness and abstraction, theories and counter-theories -- and probably a million or billion bi-polarities like this....some dominating, some retreating into 'The Shadows' -- or 'The Apeiron' -- in the words of one of the oldest and wisest philosopher in Western History -- Anaxamander. With due respect to Hegel, this 'Grand Narrative' that I am writing here is built first and foremost on the words of Anaxamander; not Kant or Fichte or Hegel...In this regard, I have thought numerous times of re-naming this philosophical treatise of mine -- 'Anaxamander's Hotel' or perhaps 'Anaxamander's Axiom' -- as opposed to 'Hegel's Hotel'....but so far I have refrained, perhaps largely because 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' remains my favorite philosophical work, even if I have only read small pieces of it, and interpretations of it....Still it remains the 'idealistic centrepiece' of my work surrounded by as many of my favorite works, philosophers, and psychologists as I can 'synthesize' into one creative whole: Anaxamander, Heraclitus, Lao Tse, Plato integrated with Aristotle, Alexander the Great integrated with Diogenes, Epictetus, Epicurus, Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Adam Smith integrated with Karl Marx, Diderot, Voltaire, Tom Paine, Montasquieu, Jefferson, Rousseau, Goethe, Schiller, Schelling, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Sartre, Foucault, Derrida, Russell, Wittgenstein, Korzybski, Hayakawa, Rand, and the psychologists....Freud, Jung, Adler, Fromm, Perls, Klein, Fairbairn, Kohut, Guntrip, Ellis, Rogers, Beck, Branden, Strachey, Bird, Anna Freud, Kurt Eissler, and Masson....

Oh yes, back to Korzybski and Hayakawa....Here is a theoretical problem that I have mulled over in my head for a while....How do you combine the rather straight-forward epistemological work of Korzybski and Hayakawa with the dialectic theory of Hegel?

I am starting to find ways on how to do this...

We will make that the object of our sole attention in the next essay....

-- dgb, Nov. 22nd, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain...

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still in Process...

Quantum-Dialectic Psychoanalysis: 1.1. My Academic, History, Beginning Concepts, Theories, and Paradigms -- and The Birth of 'Hegel's Hotel'

Re-worked...re-written....November 26th, 2011...


 1.1: My Academic History, Beginning Concepts, Theories, and Paradigms -- and The Birth of 'Hegel's Hotel' 

Good day!

My name is David Bain and most of the material written in my network of blogsites here has been written by me, with the exception of a blogsite that pays tribute to my dad's 21st century Canadian Romantic Poetry, which is well worth taking a look at. My father has published a book of poems through the 'normal, formal' publishing channels, Many of these poems add a very nice 'romantic' section to my work here, almost like they had been written during The German Romantic period.

I started writing 'Hegel's Hotel' in July, 2006, which amounts to about 5 and half years now. I am sure I have over a thousand essays on line now although I haven't counted. Of course, that means nothing if the quality isn't there to meet the quantity. Hegel's Hotel is a much broader extension of my Honours Thesis in Psychology, written way back in 1979. At that point, I was heavily into a combination of rational empiricism, Cognitive Therapy, Enlightenment and Romantic Philosophy, and Humanistic-Existentialism.

The work was rather 'dry', 'cognitive', and 'mechanical' -- even though it aimed to support a philosophy of man's individual freedom and 'striving for meaning and relevance' within this 'paragdigm of freedom' (or at least partial freedom). Still, this first model was 'stiff and cybernetic-machine-like' -- kind of like me as I was rather 'anal-schizoid' and 'distancing' at this point in my life, as I had just left home at this point in my life and was trying to both 'escape' and 'deal with the internal psycho-dynamics of my dad's rather volatile temper and authoritarianism' contrasted against his 'visionary self, political, and social activist, liberal, democratic spirit',

My dad was active everywhere in the community, helping political leaders, negotiating with political leaders for better sports facilities in the community, organizing leagues, running leagues...and so on....

By the time I reached university, I was 'running away from all these different types of social activism and my dad's righteous authoritarianism, preferring instead to engage in 'my own narcissistic fantasy world' -- which had been an 'escape mechanism' all my life up to this point when I needed it, which was becoming more and more predominant in my late teems -- and now, here I was at The University of Waterlook, studying psychology, which culminated in my Honours Thesis, 'Evaluation and Health', finished in 1979.

Having finished my first 'model of the human psyche',  I knew I had to probe much deeper into the underlying dimensions of the human psyche -- into what I would now call 'the subconscious', as opposed to Freud's use of the term 'unconscious' which I find much more semantically confusing and problematic.

That was over 30 years ago.

My present use of the term 'subconscious' means basically 'out of awareness' -- and what is out of awareness can re-emerge back into awareness at any given point in time and place -- usually, if not always, through the process of 'association'.

Association, in this regard, can be divided into two types: 1. 'structured and directed'; and 2. 'unstructured and undirected'.

The latter type of 'unstructured, undirected type of association was pointed out in the 'melancholic reminiscences and/or cognitive-emotional meanderings' -- both 'reality' and/or 'fantasy' based -- in 'the first recognized client of Psychoanalysis' -- referred to in the literature as 'Anna O.' -- and her 'doctor/therapist' between 1880 and 1882  was Joseph Breuer -- who would later hook up with, and recite this case, to the one and only Sigmund Freud. This latter type of unstructured, undirected form of association became known in Psychoanalysis and labelled by Freud as 'free association' as opposed to the other type of more 'directed association'.


That was over 30 years ago....and my life didn't go quite as planned...

In a paraphrasing of a popular aphorism.....

'Life, for many of us, is what happens to us -- and what we do -- while we are busy making other plans.

That frist model I made of the human psyche -- very rational-empirical and Enlightenment oriented in its paradigm -- I now view as largely a model of 'Central Ego Functioning and Dysfunctioning'.  At some point down the road here, I will 're-work and dialectically update' that 1979 model.

In 1980-81, I became involved in The Adlerian Institute of Ontario -- though 'OISE' (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education) and The Adlerian Institute in Chicago -- and started a part-time Masters Degree Program there.

However, after two years, I ran out of money and motivation -- I had already engaged and disengaged the 'freedoms' and 'unfreedoms' of 4 years of university life. I was partly 'motivationally burnt out' with 'academic studies. And The Gestalt Institute of Toronto on Cecil Street was capturing much more of my attention and energy down a few block from OISE at St. George and Bloor Street. At the Adlerian Institute, we sat at desks like in University; at The Gestalt Institute, we sat on cushions on the floor -- more like out of the Yorkville 60s, and like my 'more cozy group therapy workshops' at The University of Waterloo.

Adlerian Psychology fed well into my 'Cogntive Therapy' approach to psychotherapy that I had advanced through most my University Studies and Honours Thesis. But it also fed well into my 'intellectual defense mechanisms and emotional avoidances' which I partly wanted to get away from, and thus, my attraction to Gestalt Therapy which 'heightened my anxieity levels' but also my 'excitement levels' as I engaged in all types of different Gestalt Workshops, off and on, through the 1980s. Within these different Gestalt Workshop settings, I was constantly 'in contact with', and/or 'avoiding' my 'approach-avoidance conflict with 'emotional and behavioral risk-taking'. Probably, I did more avoiding...as I was still very 'anal-schizoid', 'socially phobic', and 'distancing'... I was a scared client....

Influenced by both The Adlerian Institute and by The Gestalt Institute -- the first, working inside a conceptual and theoretical paradigm of 'unity in the personality'; while the second operating on the basis of a more Freudian based 'conflict in the personality' model -- I was captured by the intellectual challenge of trying to sort out the reasons for the seemingly paradoxical different models of the psyche, and more importantly, how to integrarte them into one model, which was further complicated when I first started seriously studying Psychoanalysis, mainly of the 'Object Relations' variety at this point in time during the early and mid 1980s. The net result of all my integrative thinking, I called 'GAP' Psychology -- as in 'Gestalt-Adlerian-Psychoanalytic' Psychology. Furthermore, I was investigating 'the gaps' between the different theories, and 'the gaps' in all of our 'existential lives'....

I had moved one step closer to the birth of 'Hegel's Hotel', and somewhere in that time period, I started to read a little Carl Jung as well...another 'dialectic psychologist' using a 'conflict model' of the personality in a similar vein as Freud, Perls, and all the 'Object Relationists'....as well as Eric Berne and his 'Transactional Analysis'...

Gestalt Therapy didn't finish up the way I wanted it to....

I had started the 3 year professional program around 1990...I finished year one, and they weren't happy with the degree of my 'evolution' into 'emotional and behavioral risk-taking' -- this seemed to be becoming a lifetime problem unless I was in a bar with a few 'Black Russian cocktails under my belt'... They didn't doubt my intellectual capabilities but they wanted me to repeat Year 1.  I didn't feel I had the monetary resources to do this, not to mention the emotional resources, and in this regard, psychologically...I 'was already gone'....

I had to take a few rather huge emotional steps backwards...and gather my thoughts on where I was going, intellectually and emotionally, after this rather devastating emotional blow...Professionally and economically, I was doing fairly well -- from about 1984 to 1996, I was locked into a pretty comfortable, middle class government job in the public transportation business...that was doing me fine...

Around about this time period -- say, about 1992 -- two things happened: 1. I started to get involved more in the history and evolution of Western Philosophy, working backwards from Perls to Jung, to G.W. Hegel who seemed to be the 'mastermind' philospher between himself, German Idealism, and all of these different 'dialectic psychologists' who I had studied, and/or was still in the process of studying....including the mastermind of Psychoanalysis -- Sigmund Freud.

Also around this time (1992), I walked into a downtown Toronto bookstore on Queen Street -- and as fate would have it -- pulled a book off the shelf that seemed intriguing, by an author who I didn't know....The book was called 'Final Analysis' -- and the author was the one and only Dr. Jeffrey Masson, former Projects Director of The Freud Archives. I picked up another book right beside it by the same author -- 'The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of The Seduction Theory'.

Those two books -- and their follow-up research with my own interpretive analysis -- would keep me busy for the next 20 years, off and on, until now, and the various essays that I have written on this subject matter in 'Hegel's Hotel' over the last few years...

This includes a short email interview a couple of years ago with the same Dr. Jeffrey Masson, who has been living since the early to mid 1990s in New Zealand, studying animal psychology, emotions in animals, veganism, and assorted other subject matter, writing books on all these subject matters, including a brief return or two to the subject of Freud's 'loss of moral courage' in his abandonment of the seduction theory and the connected subject matter of childhood sexual abuse, and how The Psychoanalytic Establishment -- and most of the academic and general public at large -- still won't recognize and/or acknowledge that Freud made a rather 'huge, epistemological and ethical mistake' -- suggesting it was 'manipulatively on purpose' between about 1895 and 1903 regarding his 'switchover' from 'Reality-Traumacy-Seduction' Theory to 'Instinct-Fantasy-Oedipal' Theory and what is now known as the difference between 'Classical' (1897 onwards) Psychoanalysis as opposed to 'Pre-Classical' (before 1897) Psychoanalysis. 

I have addressed this crucial turning point in Psychoanalytic history in numerous previous essays, and will probably address it one more time (hopefully, the last) in one of the next few essays to come, but right now let's pass over it, and finish up what I would like to accomplish for today.

More and more by 2006, my ultimate goal -- or 'endgame' -- had become a massive philosophical and psychological undertaking: to integrate all of Western philosophy and all of Western Clinical Psychology -- or at least significant elements of each -- into on 'Grand Narrative', one doctrine, one treatise, the likes of which we have not seen since 'the last of the Grand Narratives' which could be Hegel's classic 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' or Schopenhauer's 'counter-classic' 'The World as Will and Representation'....To these, we could add Adam Smith's 'The Wealth of Nations', Marx's 'On Capital', Kant's 'The Critique of Pure Reason', Schelling's various integrations between Spinoza, Kant, Fichte, and Hegel..., Nietzsche's 'Philosophy of The Superman, The Abyss, The Tight Rope, and The Will to Power (or 'Self-Empowerment') -- if you are a 'Superman', then you can 'fly' over the Abyss, if you are like me, then you climb and/or crawl 'the tightrope' (and don't look down) over the Abyss of 'failure, depression, paralyzing anxiety, and/or existential death' on your way from 'being' to 'becoming'... Strachey's Standard Edition of the 24 Volumes of Freud's Complete Works....Korzybski's 'Science and Sanity', Cannon's 'The Wisdom of The Body', Hayakawa's 'Language in Thought and Action'....Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged', 'The Fountainhead', and 'Objectivism', Erich Fromm's 'Man for Himself', 'The Sane Society' and 'The Art of Loving', Maltz's 'Psycho-Cybernetics', Branden's 'The Psychology of Self-Esteem'...and maybe some day...if  I live long enough...

'Hegel's Hotel'...


That, of course, is what I am working on here, and have been since 2006.

In Hegel's Hotel, everyone is welcome -- regardless of race, culture, poltical or religious denomination, philosopher, psychologists, poet...-- as long as you have a 'democratic, open-minded, spirit', you want to learn, you want to integrate, and you don't mind hearing other theorists trumpet theories and ideas that may be completely or partly different than your own...

Hegel's Hotel was created in the spirit of 'the Gestalt hotseat and empty chair bi-polar' form of the psychotherapy...and thus, in this regard, every essay in Hegel's Hotel is meant to metaphorically and symbolically be a form of 'academic hot seat and empty chair therapy' where the 'finished product' at the end of the essay is designed to be  a 'creatively negotiated integration' of one or more numerous bi-polar conceptual and theoretical encounters and interactions during the course of the essay...

The 'ideal' is that I am successful in this capacity in every essay, although to be sure, there are going to be some essays where I am more successful than others, and indeed, there may be some where I fail in what I have attempted to do....But I do not want to get caught up, and/or bogged down, in essay to essay technicalities and gliches -- if I can't write the essay better in short order, then I would sooner move on to the next essay, particularly if I have lost my motivation in writing the previous one, perhap even leaving it  unfinished....and hanging at the brink of 'nothingness' -- a 'chasm' or 'abyss'...that maybe in a later essay I will better be able to 'bridge'...

I love Nietzsche -- and his 'narcissisitic triumphs'....that I may one day experience the ultimate high of 'The Superman' which from time to time I have experienced in 'small individual segments'...As one of the latest television commercials highlights, to the extent that I can remember it, 

'Everyone aspires to be the best at whqt they most want to do; no one aspires to be 'second best'...

And so it is with me as I do 'intellectual battle' with some of the greatest minds in the history of Western Philosophy and Psychology...

And my favorite theorist to do 'intellectual battle' with -- as well as be both 'amazed' and 'disappointed by' in different contexts....is none other than -- Sigmund Freud.

Freud, in my opinion, is the greatest of the great theorists, and love him or hate him -- or both -- he is still the best; clinical psychology and psychotherapy (although many or most may now claim that Freud is seriously 'outdated' and 'not relevant'), in my opinion, still starts and ends with Freud. Freud has 'rejected' more ideas about the internal workings of the human psyche than most theorists have 'created'....

The same goes for the controversy surrounding Masson's belief that Freud 'lost moral courage'....I have spent many, many hours in the emotional throes of this claim, probably spent too much time on it as I have 'gotten bogged down' on it and stopped moving on with my 'end game'....

Masson is one of my favorite, more direct and immediate, mentors -- I believe that he should be honoured by The Psychoanalytic Institute for his courage and bravery in re-opening up the controversy surrounding Freud's abandonment of his 'Reality-Traumacy-Seduction' Theory, and re-opening the usually 'politically incorrect' topic of 'childhood sexual abuse'... He fights on with his case, in his own way, while I aim to 'fix' the problem by coming up with an 'integration' between Pre-Classical Psychoanalysis and Classical Psychoanlaysis in a way that makes 'good, old, rational-empirical, common sense' -- or at least partly.  There remains a part of the makeup of man's psyche -- and his overall existence -- that defies good, old, rational-empirical, common sense, and in this regard, we need to turn to a more 'paradoxical, romantic, multi-dualistic, and dialectic' model of the human psyche that encompasses much of 'The German Idealistic and Romantic Period' (and some of its paradoxes and inconsisitencies).

We all have an 'ego' and an 'id' -- or what I would prefer to call a 'divided ego' that constantly needs to be 're-synthesized', as well as what I would call a 'Shadow-Id' (synthesizing Freud and Jung) or 'Sid' for short. Sid is our 'alter-ego' that can be both our best friend and worst enemy....Sid's 'life and death energy' can be 'bound up' in our subconscious in a structure that I have come to call our 'Shadow-Id Vault', or 'Sid Vault', or 'SIV' -- or Sid's life and death energy can 'break free' of our SIV (if our SIV is not 'properly defended' by 'ego defenders'...and thus broken free or 'unbound' from our SIV, Sid can travel north (topologically and metaphorically speaking), up into our 'conscious personality' and either 'disturb' or 'enliven' any one of our various 'working ego states'.....or in more extreme contexts...effectively 'storm and overwhelm our Central Ego' like 'The Storming of The Bastille'... Our 'inside' and 'outside' worlds, taken together, are generally comprised of a a collection of interwoven 'introjections' and 'projections' with 'transference/sublimation elements' connected to both such that the one is more or less a 'mirror reflection of the other' --either 'overtly' or 'covertly' so... in the latter case, through 'symptoms' and 'signs' and 'compromise-formations' and 'art' and 'work' and 'hobbies' and 'architecture', and 'politics' and 'economics' and 'philosophy' and what can be overall summarized as -- 'culture'...

None of this is terribly different than what Freud had to say -- from about 1920 onwards -- with my simply adding a couple of more 'simple concepts' to help distinguish what Freud left a little confusing before he died...

None of this takes into account the controversial period in Psychoanalytic history between 1895 and say, 1905, The Seduction Theory Controversy, The Oedipal Theory Controversy, the 'gap' or 'abyss' between 'reality-traumacy-seduction' theory and 'instinct-fantasy-impulse' theory...all of which I am looking to 'build a bridge' over top of....as well as the 'gaps' between Freud and Adler, Freud and Jung, Freud and Perls, Freud and Object Relations, Freud and Transactional Analysis, and so on...

This is the 'substance' and 'essence' of this aspect of Hegel's Hotel which I have called: Quantum Psychoanalysis (Bridges Over, and Through, Psychoanalysis): A Phenomenology of Mind, Body, and Spirit For The 21st Century'...


Freud was 56 years old the year he wrote 'The Dynamics of Transference'...

Maybe, if you are lucky enough, and if I am good enough, you will find another creative offshoot of 'The Dynamics of Transference' in the midst of this collection of essays...

I am confident that I am smart enough, creative enough, and have all of the necessary knowledge in my head to write some of the best essays in the history and evolution of  Psychoanalysis -- even if these are not from 'The Ivory Tower of Academia' but rather 'Notes From The Underground'.  Hey, what is beyond my control, is beyond my control...

For those of you 'non-believers' or readers who think I have a bad case of 'megalomania' or 'narcissistic over-self-aggrandization'... (Remember, we all aspire to be 'the best'...)...and regardless,

I will re-cycle the classic Trudeau line -- 'Watch me!'....

And put up the ultimate 'chef's test' -- 'The proof is in the pudding.'

Now, for the rest of my readers who have already sampled past essays, and who are simply interested -- indeed, hopefully, excited -- about the direction and content of my integrative work here,  I say:

Welcome aboard, or I am glad you are still on board, I wish you the most pleasant and meaningful voyage...have a safe trip....there will be some 'ups' and 'downs', and let us both creatively grow together through our shared or indivdual 'good and bad weather'...

In the words -- or at least main words (I changed and added a couple) of Johann Fichte...I wish to write....

A Crystal Clear Report to the General Public Concerning the Actual Essence of the Newest (Multi-Dialectic-Integrative (MDI) --  or Dialectic-Gap-Bridging (DGB) -- or 'Quantum') Psychoanalytic Theory: An Attempt to Grab, Excite, Motivate the Reader to Understand...


That's enough for today...


-- dgb, November 19th, updated November 26th, 2011...

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Dialectic Gap Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still in Process...

Bi-Polarities and Paradoxes, 'The Sick Point' and 'The Health Point', In The Human Psyche

To be re-packaged.......Started Nov. 9th, modfied and updated Nov. 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 2011...dgb

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Introduction

I hate to label and stereotype myself according to a 'word' or a 'group of words strung together' because this word or these words can become 'self-limiting', and evolution is basically built on the principle of 'breaking self-limits'...The cosmos and the human mind are outer and inner reflections of each other...and both work on the principle of 'bi-polarity' and 'paradox', as well as 'separation' and 'union'...'Evolution' is not a straight-forward event, but rather a process of 'trial' and 'error', 'thesis', 'anti-thesis', and 'growing and decaying and growing again synthesis'....

The minute we start to 'self-stereotype' ourselves, and put ourselves in a 'self-imposed prison'.... there is usually a 'devil's advocate' -- our 'Rebel With or Without a Cause' -- at work within us (our opposite bi-polarity) who/that starts to develop 'the opposite thesis'.... Call this 'devil's advocate' our 'Id', our 'Shadow', our 'Alter-ego'....any of these labels work, or sometimes one label may work better than the others, to describe the often 'hidden' or 'partly hidden' 'opposite tendency' in the human psyche...

We can be judgmental one moment, compassionate the next, we are constantly regulating betwen 'impulse' and 'restraint'....between 'primal' and/or 'primary' (id, shadow, alter-ego) wishes and 'secondary, moral-ethical shoulds and should nots' -- overseen and usually mediated by what I call our 'Central Mediating or Executive Ego' which generally 'negotiates compromises' between 'our wants' and 'our shoulds' -- assuming that one of the two sides isn't much stronger than the other -- and 'dominating the scene of the negotiation'.....

I don't mind using the Classical Freudian distinction between the 'oral' and the 'anal' personality, partly modified and extended by myself -- as 'metaphorical structures and processes' -- although we all have different degrees of both 'types of characteristics' running through our personality at all times...
The 'oral personality' -- or 'character type' -- is focused on the 'bi-polar spectrum of either 'giving' and/or 'receiving', 'altruism' and/or 'narcissism', sensusal, hedonistic pleasure of a giving and/or getting nature, as well as 'emotional nurturing', again of an either giving or getting nature...




There is room for 'sub-character types' within the larger spectrum of the 'oral personality' as, for example, 'the oral-narcissistic person' is usually quite different than 'the oral-giving person', at least in terms of 'dominat mode of interaction', although to repeat, wherever there is 'one strong polarity' in a person, you will usually find the opposite polarity more buried and hidden, but usually, still very covertly active...Usually, it is not very hard to find 'the covert rebel' working behind the scenes in the personality of a very 'oral-giving, co-operative, pleasing, approval-seeking' type personalty...'Anal-righteousness' is much more often 'buried' than 'smiling agreement'...
which brings us to 'the anal personality or character type'...

The 'anal polarity spectrum' actually includes a number of 'sub-anal-polarity spectrums'with assorted different and sometimes opposite characteristics such as: order vs. chaos, organization vs. disorganization, neatness vs. messiness, hygiene vs. uncleanliness, collecting (meticulously neat and organized) vs. hoarding (horribly messy and usually unhygenic), disciplined vs. non-disciplined, punctual vs. non-punctual, parsimonious vs. non-parsimonious, working vs. not working, righteousness vs. rebelliousness, toxifying vs. detoxifying, power and revenge, domination and submission, anal-retentiveness and/or anal-explosiveness, anal sadism and/or anal masochism, anal-confrontational and/or anal-paranoid-schizoid (distrustful and distancing)...

The 'active, oral hedonistic and/or narcissistic' person is more likely to be 'crudish, lewdish, rudeish' whereas the 'anal-retentive person' is more likely to be 'prudish'.... 

Those are some the main 'oral' vs. 'anal' bi-polar' distinctions that I use...

Amongst many Eastern philosophers the distinction between 'yin' (female characteristics usally associated with 'peace', 'tranquility', and 'more passiveness') and 'yang' (male characteristics usually associated with 'more active assertion and/or aggression) has been used for thousands of years, perhaps starting with the ancient Eastern philosopher, Lao Tse...(or some unknown person who taught Lao Tse).....Now, in the Western world, this stereotypical and sexual description of 'yin' and 'yang' may make some feminists uncomfortable....but let us not forget that we are all at least 'partly bi-sexual' in at least two or three different ways: 1. we all have differing levels of 'testosterone' and 'estrogen' in our bodies; 2. testosterone increases sexual drive in both men and women; and 3. most of us have pretty clear 'internalized templates' of 'mom' and 'dad', and both of these templates affect our day to day behavior, as well as what types of people we are attrracted to and/or repelled by...

Crucial to all of these potential and actual millions of  'bi-polarities' -- including the one that Freud got stuck on -- 'reality' vs. 'fantasy' -- is the principle of 'homestatic' and/or 'dialectic balance'....

In general, 'out of balance' creates 'sickness', and 'in balance' creates 'health'....

In this regard, what a 'therapist' -- or ourselves as 'self-therapist' -- is looking for is a 'sick point' (I think this idea can be traced to Fritz Perls and Gestalt Therapy) which is a point at which there is an 'empathetic break in self and/or other-compassion'. (I think this idea can be traced to Heinz Kohut.)

The sick point occurs at the point where there is an 'negotiation and integration breakdown' between either two bipolarities in the personality, and/or between our selves and some other or others outside in the world. This 'sick point impasse and/or breakdown' is often the resulting of 'righteousely opposing ideologies'...

Paradoxically, this 'sick point' is also the potential 'health point' if and/or when both parties in the impasse want to try to honestly face each other and work through their conflictual differences.

Employer/employee breakdowns are most likely to break off when either or both have lost compassion and empathy for the other's point of view....and cannot see the world through the eyes of their 'bi-polar opposite'...

'Bi-polarity Disorder' is an acute and/or chronic situation where opposing factions or polarities in the personality' take turn 'running amok'...


In all of the respects above, I don't mind calling myself a 'Neo-Hegelian-Dialectic or Bi-Polar Theorist'. I am constantly in search of 'dialectic, bi-polar truths' as opposed to 'one-sided, partial truths' that leave us in a 'conceptual blackout' on the bipolar side that has not been adequately accounted for -- i.e., it has been suppressed, minimized, denied, etc...I can also be viewed as a 'Neo-Derridian Dialectic or Bipolar Philosopher' in this same regard -- Derrida obviously having been significantly influenced by Hegel, directly or indirectly...Similarily, when talking about Freud or Jung's respective personality theories, wherever there is an 'ego' or a 'superego', there is also an 'id' usually hidden behind the scene, or wherever there is a 'personna', there is also a 'shadow' again hidden usually behind the scene ...The object of any bipolar, dialectic theory and therapy is to find a 'good, working balance' between 'two, partial bipolar truths' that need to be integrated together; not dissociated from each other like Freud sadly did between his 'reality-traumacy-seduction theory' and his bipolar 'childhood sexuality-impulse-drive-Oedipal theory'...The two polar theories simply need to be properly integrated to get to a better, working balance that 'Classical' Psychoanalysis is still sadly and unbelievably missing...In short, Freud 'missed a golden opportunity to arrive at a dialectic, bipolar truth' in 1896 when he instead bounced from one opposing theory to its opposite like a ball in a pinball machine...In the words of John Lennon, Freud's two opposing theories needed both then, and still now, to -- 'Come Together'... That is what I am writing this essay -- and a host of ones previous to it -- for....in two more words -- 'conflict resolution'....   dgb, Nov. 13th, 15th, 2011

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To be further edited, Nov. 15th, 2011...
The blindspot of any theory is its opposing theory. If a theory doesn't ideally have an 'opposing theory or theories' that it can be 'dialectically integrated and balanced with', then it is either not a 'complete' theory -- and/or it is a 'truth' or a 'fact'. Why? Because the world is essentially constructed in a mold of billions of 'bipolarities' and/or 'multi-bi-polarities', all searching for a working balance with each other....some more successful at finding each other...than others... -- dgb, Nov. 13th, 2011...

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As theorists -- and we are all 'theorists' in multiple matters each and every day we are alive -- the biggest mistake we can make is to confuse our 'theories' with 'truths' and 'facts'. That is what we call being 'close-minded'...

To become more 'open-minded' we need to be able to look at, and respect, the possible 'truth-value' in theories that oppose our own'...In fact, in some contexts, indeed, many contexts, there is greater 'truth-value' in 'integrative, multiple co-factor or dialectic (two-way) truth' then there is in the more simple, easier to comprehend 'Aristolean type of proclaimed truth' that we have been brought up and taught to look for -- i.e., 'either/or, black and white truth' like '2 plus 2 equals 4' or she is either 'pregnant or not pregnant -- she can't be both'....

Many 'truths' in the world simply do not fit into an either/or, black or white mold'....They may involve an 'integrative gray'....and indeed, a possible hundred or thousand 'shades of gray'...Such is the case in genetics and mutations....and such is the case in people interacting with, and influencing, each other...

Indeed, a theory and its opposite (or its numerous opposites), when integrated together, should provide a better theory, a more powerful theory, than either of, or any of, the different theories dissociated and alienated from each other. Dissociation and alienation can occur on either/or both a 'phenomenological-existential' level and a 'conceptual-theoretical' level...

Thus, we have Freud's clients being dissociated/alienated from either and/or both their memories and/or their desires -- or at least particular, uncomfortable ones... It is impossible to say that we 'know' a person well without knowing a combination of their memories and their desires...and the interaction between them....

Thus, 'memory-reality-traumacy' phenomenological events and 'compensation-defense-fantasy-desire' events become dialectially intertwined and inclusive in all of us; not 'dissociated, alienated, and mutually exclusive' from each other.

For Freud to try to 'separate' and 'dissociate' the two from each other -- conceptually and theoretically, saying, in essence, after 1896, that his 'memory-reality-traumacy' theory was 'wrong' and his 'fantasy-impulse' theory was 'right', was a most unfortunate example of Freud falling into 'The Aristotlean Black or White, Either/Or Trap'...

Freud chose to discriminately favour 'fantasy-desire-impulse' theory over 'memory-reality-traumacy' theory in a 180 degree turnaround of what, up to 1896 had been a 'reality-memory-bound' theory of what today is called 'Pre-Psychoanalysis', and after 1896, for reasons that are still controversially debated today, instead developed an 'instinct-fantasy-desire' bound theory of what today is called 'Classical' Psychoanalysis...

This is a strong example of a situation where I favor 'integrative-multiple-co-factor (dialectic-two or more ways) truth' over Freud's choice of basically discarding one form of 'truth' in favor of another. In essence, the 'more exciting and fashionable truth' became the focus of Freud's mindset over the 'old, established, stable, and less exciting truth'. It was like Freud 'falling out of love with his wife' and 'falling into love with his wife's sister'...It was a 'win-lose situation' both for his wife (if that is indeed what happened) -- and for Psychoanalysis...which did indeed happen...

The focus on one theory -- just as in one phenomenological desire and interest -- often dissociates and alienates another theory/desire/interest to the point where the 'excluded theory/desires/interest' recedes into The Shadow of our Psyche -- still a significant 'player' in the game of either 'psychic and/or cosmic truth' -- but no longer recognized or respected as such...(see the philosophy of Derrida's 'Deconstruction')....

I would posit a theory -- building on both what I have learned and what I have experienced -- that states that most, if not all, of human 'psychological neurosis, pathology, emotional suffering' comes from the perception of feeling socially excluded, rejected, and/or failing in some horrific moment, of feeling in some way 'less' than those around us, of becoming mad at both the world and at ourselves for this perceived self and social breakdown, of reaching a point of not feeling comfortable in our own skin, even of loathing ourselves for what we believe we failed to do, and punishing ourselves, terrorizing ourselves, internally -- sometimes nonstop and escalating -- for any of these, and/or all of these, perceived self and/or social failures...in effect, we are at war within ourselves...and at the same time, we are at war with the world...or some perceived portion of it...

Significant Freudian, Adlerian, and Jungian influence here...as well a Cognitive Theory...all screened through my own mind and personal experience...

Now, regarding 'integrative conceptual and/or theoretical truth-value'...

Two opposing theories -- integrated together -- can, and should, be better than either opposing theory trying to stand alone on what amounts to 'only one theoretical leg'... This is the essence of Hegelian Dialectic Theory....Partly paraphrasing Hegel (I don't have the exact quote here)...'Every theory carries within itself the seeds of its own self-destruction'...The area that the theory is most likely to 'self-destruct' in, is the area of its 'polar blind spot' -- i.e., 'the area better covered by one of its opposing theories'...

The particle theory and wave theory of matter and energy both have blindspots when taken apart from each other that seriously limit the value of each respective theory. However, when the two theories are integrated -- as they were in the early 20th century -- the resulting, integrative theory becomes much more powerful than either of the two theories taken apart from each other. In effect, they became 'good marriage partners'.

Adler's 'theory of inferiority feelings' would not have been as powerful a theory if it had not been integrated with his theory of 'compensation' and 'superiority striving' which, for each individual, according to Adler, culminates in his or her unique, particular 'lifestyle plan'. Now, I have integrated Adler's thinking here back into my version of what might be called 'DGB Neo-Classical 'GAP' (Gestalt-Adlerian-Psychoanalytic) Theory with some Jungian 'Analytic' Theory, Transactional Analysis, Frommian Theory, and General Semantic-Cognitive Theory in there as well...too many influences to get them all in the name...

Ideally speaking, every theory -- at least every 'relevant theory' that has been around for a good number of years -- when integrated together, helps to 'minimize the blind spots' left behind by other theorists and their particular 'spectacles' for looking at the world and themselves the way they do, their 'pardigms', their 'philosophies', their 'theories', 'sub-theories', and 'concepts'...

What you need to put all these different 'world and self views' into a less restrictive and larger, more comprehensive, overall 'world view' is a superb, synthesizing theorist who is familiar with all these different theories, and has the creative and logical abilities to 'blend them all together into one, cohesive package'...

That's me!

Now, if I could go back in time to May, 1896, and visit Dr. Freud at his home in Vienna, and get in to see him for an hour or so, I would tell him to 'give his head a shake, that he was letting his personal and professional biases and traumacies -- the Emma Ekstein episode, the April 21st professional meeting with The Vienna Psychiatry and Neurology Society, lack of clients and money that was threatening his career -- influence a 'paradigm-changing' decision that he was about to make that would, in essence traumatize Psychoanalysis and dissociate Psychoanalysis from its reality and traumacy underpinnings.' To use Freud's own terminology, Freud was about to 'repress' -- or at least 'suppress' -- the philosophical and psychological foundation of Psychoanalysis that he had spent over six years building (let's say, 1890 to 1896).

All the justifications and rationalizations in the world could not 'wipe out' the number of 'sexual assault victims' that walked through Freud's door between 1890 and 1896. By the spring of 1896 -- for whatever the combination of 'real reasons' that led to Freud's momentous decision to scrap the 'traumacy and seduction theories' -- Freud was simply developing an entirely different 'mindset' or 'paradigm'; in essence, he wanted to 'chase down' his clients' 'sexual fantasies'; not their 'sexual traumacies'.

His colossal mistake was his decision to 'turn his internal personal and professional conflict -- his theoretical and therapeutic impasse' into an 'either/or, mutually exclusive' decision...that would make his soon-to-be 'fantasy-instinct' theory dominant, and his abandoned 'reality-traumacy' theory dissociated, repressed, suppressed, disavowed, submissive, relegated to The Shadow, The ID Vault, The Dissociation Chamber...-- whatever word or collection of words you wish to use here, unless of course you believe that Freud 'did the right thing' in basically abandoning his 'Reality-Memory-Traumacy' Theory after 1896...

My advice to beginning psychology students who are just starting to study Freud....or conversely turn away from him because of what they have heard and/or read in small smatterings....

'Do not tarnish -- and dismiss -- Freud with one paintbrush...The man still remains the most brilliant psychologist of the mind who ever lived, in my opinion...He was human, like all of us are human, and subject to both personal and professional traumacies and fears on the one hand, as well as conceptual and theoretical overgeneralizations and reductionisms on the other hand....The best way to read Freud in my opinion, is to pretend that he never rejected his work before 1897, pretend that he never rejected his Reality, Memory, Traumacy, and Seduction Theories which were all built during this time period....Instead, read all of Freud's 50 years of theorizing as if it is 'wholistically connected' -- not 'dialectically divided and dissociated' by the years 1896 and 1897....What Freud wrote up to 1896 is just as important to the history and evolution of Psychoanalysis -- and 'Classical' Psychoanalysis (Unsuppressed) -- as anything he wrote after 1896. Where there seem to be 'theoretical collisions and contradictions', that is only because Freud was dealing with abstractions and generalizations that he 'compartmentalized and classified' in one direction, while ignoring clinical evidence -- real human, phenomenoligical events, moments, memories, relationships... -- that supported the theory or theories Freud was in the process of rejecting...

To support the theory of human sexuality and sexual fantasy does not wipe out the very real existence of human sexual traumacy and assault...

To support the theory of 'The Oedipal Complex' does not wipe out the very real existence of childhood sexual assault...adults assaulting children and older children assaulting younger children...

Freud's 1896 'The Aetiology of Hysteria' is one of the vest essays he ever wrote -- it certainly shows Freud at his concrete, compassionate, compelling best in terms of describing some of the horrific things that adults can do to children which were ending up in his therapy office many years later as real, live people -- usually women -- diagnosed as 'hysteric' because no one could make any kind of rational sense out of their bodily, emotional, and/or psychological symptoms -- the leftover 'damage' that had been incurred from their early (or later) traumacies -- which therapists like Breuer, Janet, and Freud were just starting to make sense out of in a way that was 'shocking' the professional medical world.

The knee-jerk reaction of the professional world was to 'reject and ridicule' these ideas -- to call them a 'scientific fairy tale' -- and, in my opinion, it is a historical shame that Freud took this professional rejection and ridicule  too closely too heart....(probably it was the 'intimidation' in the form of 'professional blackballing' and 'lack of referral of clients' that brought Freud more to his knees than it was their rejection and ridicule (because to Fliess in his letters, Freud just ridiculed them back. Still, Freud was relatively young in his profession and was essentially at the 'economic' mercy of the medical community if they turned on him and stopped sending him patients which Freud said to Fliess, through his letter of May 4th, 1896 that that was exactly what they were doing to him after his scientfic meeting with them of April 21st, 1896.)

Through all his 'brave talk' to Fliess through this time period, it certainly looks to me like -- under professional and economic duress -- Freud, in the words of Masson, eventually 'lost moral couage' becuase, to my knowledge, Freud never wrote anything significant on childhood sexual abuse -- particularly as pertaining to a father against his own daughter -- again.

Blame the Psychiatry and Neurology Society of Vienna partly for this outcome -- for 'medically blackballing' Freud and 'taking away his income' -- I'm not sure how differently most of us would react under the very real threat, and indeed temporary actuality, of losing his income, and perhaps even eventually his profession...

Still, the matter of just exactly was 'going on inside Freud's head, from top to bottom' (we know partly from Freud's very intimate letters to Fliess), remains a contentious issues.

In between the Freudian idealists, ideologists, mythologists, and protectors (Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler mainly back in the early 1980s when the whole Masson scandal broke out...) on the one hand, and the Freudian 'conspiracy theorists' on the other hand, is probably the 'reality' of why Freud did what he did -- i.e., turn psychoanalysis on its head and start creating a new 'brand' of Psychoanalysis based on human 'fantasy' and 'instinct' theory and later 'narcissistic' theory, as opposed to 'reality' and 'traumatic memory' theory...

Freud's 'dream theory was coming hard by the beginning of 1896, and with it his 'sexual instinct' and 'sexual fantasy' and 'childhood sexuality' theories...But it remains very hard to believe that Freud -- who wrote one of the most compelling essays in his career on childhood sexual abuse in early 1896, would drop 'this line of thinking' almost seemingly in a 'Vienna Moment' without someone practically 'scaring the death' out of him...And that someone could very well have been the collective 'Vienna Psychiatry and Neurology Society'....Perhaps partly mixed in with the Emma Ekstein medical fiasco of February 1895 because in the same letter of May 4th, 1896, Freud was also going engaging in some 'historical and interpretive revisionism' regarding what 'caused' poor Emma Ekstein's 'post-nasal surgery hemmoraging traumacies'....

From the obvious 'cause' of medical incompetence and/or neglegence on Fliess' part, specifically, for 1. conducting the totally unorthodox, unsanctioned surgery in the first place; to 2. leaving a long piece of gauze up Emma's nose, and not telling Freud, while Fliess left Vienna and travelled back to his home in Berlin -- to any rational-empirical outsider, either there and then, or here and now, Fliess and Freud come across as 'backroom butchers'...And yet here was Freud in his letter of May 4th, 1896, writing to Fliess and still trying to 'console both of their guilt and moral consciences'...saying that Emma was hemmoraging because she was 'hysterical' and was a 'hysterical bleeder' and bled because she longed to see her two 'backroom butchers' again, and unconsciously, thought that 'bleeding' would bring one or both of them back to her 'bedside'....

I shake my head...

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Now, I am going to turn this essay in a direction that many of you may not like...

Let me preface this by saying that I like it when my essays are well-received, I like it when psychologists and particularly psychoanalysts, feel comfortable enough with my work that they want to advertise on this site...

However, sometimes, as in this case, I simply cannot dissociate myself from what I truly believe, and I charge ahead, knowing in the back of my mind that it is a good philosopher's duty to sometimes write what is 'politically incorrect' and/or what many people may just not want to read...

In this case, I am not like Freud in wanting, or feeling the need, to be like a 'magician' and shock and amaze people... but rather,  I feel the need to make a strong point that seems to continue to elude the significance of the lay public, academics, and professionals alike...

And/or people simply do not want to believe, what first, Jeffrey Masson, the former Projects Director of The Freud Archives, had to say about Freud, particularly in the years 1895 and 1896, and now, I am saying in partly similar, partly different words, as Masson, but with a different 'end game' in mind -- i.e., specifically 'massive theoretical integration' rather than 'massive rejection' of Freud's post-1896 work (which is not entirely true with Masson, at least these days, because I have a beautiful, new, hardcover edtion of Freud's 'The Interpretation of Dreams', edited by Masson, in 2010. I give Masson credit for not 'painting all of Freud's post-1896 work with the same black brush or poison dart'....To be sure, Masson still makes his own editorial comments that are still consistent with his 1980s perspective; he simply makes these comments without disturbing the flow of what many consider to be Freud's greatest work...).

Still, the big Freudian-Psychoanalytic scandal of the 1980s was Masson, as Projects Director of The Freud Archives, saying (and I am paraphrasing) that Freud 'lost moral courage' when he 'suppressed' the Seduction Theory after April 21st, 1896 because of 'professional and economic pressure' being applied to him by The Vienna Psychiatry and Neurology Society after the fateful April 21st, meeting...(I have more or less repeated the same argument above, and also addressed the Emma Ekstein medical disaster, which Masson did too back in his 1984, 1985, 1992 book, 'The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory'...

Masson's argument continued that Freud basically 'covered up' childhood sexual assault by inventing his concept of 'The Oedipal Complex' (real sexual assault memories by female clients being 're-interpreted' by Freud as 'distorted, unconscious, romantic-sexual fantasies that the client had towards her father as a child and perhaps 'embellished' and 'repressed' later as a teenager (as most female children have these types of 'fantasies' towards their respective dads, and alternatively, most male children have towards their respective mothers... According to Freud, this is 'normal psycho-sexual childhood development' with some 'different, individual variations' on the Oedipal theme...I would editorialize and say that most of us partly identify with both our mother and our father, assuming we were raised by both, while at the same time being partly 'attracted' and partly 'repelled' by 'adult surrogates' of both parents, either 'swinging back and forth between transference relationships with surrogates of either or both parents (and/or 'narcissistic images' of ourselves, or the opposite, and/or looking for a 'balance' between the key characteristics of both parents...and/or a balance between ourselves and our opposite...).

Masson argued (and again I am paraprhasing -- I think you can find this argument in 'In The Freud Archives' by Janet Malcolm although Masson later accused Malcolm of seriously misquoting him on many things she  supposedly quoted him on....but I don't believe this argument...I will look for the reference and cite it here later) -- the argument was that Classical Psychoanalysis would have to 'recall all their patients -- like The Pinto' -- from about 1900 onwards to try to determine how many 'real sexual assault memories' might have been 'falsely diagnosed as the Oedipal Complex fantasies'...

Now, one of the two Senior Saints of Freudian Psychoanalysis back in 1982 -- Kurt Eissler (Anna Freud being the other) -- argued in this fashion: How could The Psychoanalytic Establishment continue to employ a man as 'Projects Director of The Freud Archives' who had openly in public stated that 'Freud lacked moral courage and integrity'?

The answer, determined by The Psychoanalytic Board of Directors -- which included Anna Freud and Eissler -- was simple: They couldn't. Masson had 'publicly denounced and defamed' Freud; therefore, Masson had to be fired from his job as Projects Director of The Freud Archives. Which he was...And Masson left Psychoanalysis altogether...

As outrageous as most people today (no different than the non-psychoanalysts around him when he was alive) -- and I include academics, professionals, and the general public -- may believe, and have believed, that Freud's ideas, and particularly his post-1900 pysychoanalytic interpretations -- were outrageously radical and convoluted, still, until Masson came along in the 1980s, no one really questioned Freud's 'moral and ethical integrity'... There were a few -- Max Schur, Freud's personal doctor, started to ask some 'tough questions' that Masson grabbed a hold of, tightly, like a Pit Bull, and wouldn't let go of...

So my question is this: What if Masson was essentially right: that Freud was metaphorically speaking, in a high stakes game of poker with his medical peers and superiors, in April and May, 1896, where they held all 'the high cards', the 'professional, political, and economic leverage', and Freud, starting to feel the pressure in terms of 'unreferred and lost patients'....essentially 'folded his cards'....drew a new set of cards....and started playing a 'different game of Psychoanalysis' with a 'different set of cards' -- i.e., 'Fantasy Theory' rather than 'Reality Theory'?

And what if Freud essentially 'hid' the phenomenon of 'childhood sexual abuse' -- particularily 'incest' -- behind his new 'trump card' -- his new 'source of the Nile' -- i.e., 'The Oedipal Complex'?

And what if 'Classical' Psychoanalysts today, are still playing with 'the Oedipal Card', and in so doing, are doing what Freud started doing after 1900, and up until the end of his career -- i.e., 're-interpreting 'reality theory' (incest) as 'fantasy theory' ('repressed' childhood and teenage sexual fantasies hidden behind 'false childhood memories')...

So, now we are faced with the dilemma and question:

Which is it?: Are childhood or teenage sexual assault memories hidden behind analyst-interpreted 'repressed childhood or teenage sexual fantasies'? Or are 'false' childhood or teenage sexual assault memories hidden behind 'repressed' childhood or teenage sexual fantasies?

Or either/or both depending on the context of the situation? 

Or how about this which perhaps makes the most 'rational-empirical sense': Most of us can tell the difference between a 'memory' and a 'fantasy' and although there may be some lesser or greater degree of distortion and/or 'one-sidedness' of the memory based on things like 'time', 'interest and attention', and 'narcissistic bias', still, unless we are deliberately trying to deceive, and/or there is something 'seriously psychotic' at work within our personality, we can usually tell the difference between what 'experientially happened to us' and what 'we would like to happen to us'...again, assuming no serious, epistemological dissociation at work within us....We must remember that there is no 'ideal objective epistemology' except in the form of some credible, reliable 'subjective-objective-integrative epistemology'...And this process of 'determining reality' has never been perfect -- not even in a court of law....


It is not a cut and dry, black and white problem, except that in individual cases it is going to be one or the other, with the therapist not having been back in the client's childhood to be able to witness which was which?

And conveniently, by Freud 'drawing a hand of new cards' back after a very disappointing April 21st, 1896 meeting, 'his new cards' -- even though they seemed almost as 'crazy' as his 'first set of cards' -- did not draw attention to 'sexually abusive fathers' -- which could have made all the difference in the world to the 'male doctors' in The Vienna Psychiatry and Neurology Society'...

One way, some of them may have been what we could call today 'sexual predators'; the other way they were 'normal' fathers...

Was this a 'Freudian manipulation'?

Or simply a 'coincidence' -- with Freud opting for what he believed was a 'better theory'?

One way, Freud's 'ethical integrity' remains in tact....

The other way -- like Joe Paterno this past week --

Freud's 'ethical integrity' takes a huge negative hit...

And nothing is written in stone...

Because it is all 'conjecture', 'historical speculation'....

As to just exactly what was going on inside of Freud's mind...

In 1895 and 1896,

Particularly, when Freud had already taken one 'ethical hit' in 1895,

With the botched Emma Ekstein 'nasal-sexual surgery'....

This whole controversy also reflects very much on Jeffery Masson's psychoanalytic career...

One way he is perceived as a 'narcissistic radical'...

And the other way he is perceieved as trying to...

Rescue 'the moral integrity' of The Psychoanalytic Establishment...

Which is more important: the moral and ethical integrity of Penn State?

Or the 'moral-ethical legacy' of Joe Paterno?

Similarily, which is more important: the moral and ethical integrity of The Psychoanalytic Establishment?

Or the 'moral-ethical legacy' of Sigmund Freud?

Is this a case of very few people seeing, or wanting to see, that 'The Emperor, in 1896, had no clothes on'....

Or did Sigmund Freud do the 'right' thing...

And this is all a 'smoke and mirrors' ethical controversy?

With Max Schur, then Jeffery Masson, and now me....amongst a host of other more diplomatic, and carefully treading, theorists and therapists...

Wasting our collective intellects, writing time, and energies...

Trying to diplomaticly and/or brashly and bluntly assert that something 'rotten happened in Vienna' after the spring of 1896: in a nutshell, Freud lost much of his 'empathetic compassion' for his patients, and partiularly his sexually abused patients, in the process of 'trying to safeguard his own profession and source of income'...and also in the process of developing his 'sexual fantasy model of the human psyche'...


I will let you mull on this for as long as you wish -- or don't wish -- to...

In the days that come, I will list off some of the most revelevant quotes that I think mark a radical change in Freud's personality after 1896 -- i.e., he became less empathetic, less compassionate -- and more narcissistic....
Have a great day!


-- dgb, Nov. 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain