Don't get fooled by at least partly arbitrary labels and classification systems...
Don't get married to your ideology and 'hang on with a pit bull bite' to any one particular narrative and/or paradigm...Narratives and paradigms are always changing -- if not with us, with others -- based on both changes in the world, compensations in the world, and changes in the way we view the world...
Ideologies should be flexible enough to handle both changes in our internal and external environmental systems...which make up -- or at least should make up -- the context and the background of our changing, evolving ideologies...
Ideologies -- and this includes theories, philosophies, schools of psychology, and the like -- should be based on the principle of 'representation': of representing something of tangible (and/or sometimes more 'intangible' in cases of more controversial, contentious ideology...) substance, meaning, functional benefit, and/or value...
It is easy to get 'locked' into an 'either/or' battle and plant our feet like 'stubborn mules' -- we are raised on contentious, either/or battles...Capitalism vs. Socialism, Liberalism vs. Conservatism, Traumacy Theory vs. Instinct Theory....Psychoanalysis vs. Post, Neo, or Non-Psychoanalysis, Freudian Theory vs. Kleinian Theory, Classical Theory vs. Object Relations, and the like...
Now, having been to one and only one scientific Psychoanalytic Meeting so far in Toronto, Ontario, I was quick to see that the sample of psychoanalysts that I was meeting with were -- as a whole -- making a concerted effort to integrate/synthesize/synergize all the various schools and sub-schools of psychoanalysis, and competing or non-competing psychoanalytic ideas...From my vantage point, the main thrust of the meeting seemed towards bringing together 'Psychoanalysis-As-A-Whole' as opposed to getting into an 'either/or' argument about 'Classical Freudian Theory' vs. 'Object Relations' or 'Traumacy Theory' vs. 'Instinct and Fantasy Theory'...
Having said that, Object Relations seems to be carrying the main core foundation of Psychoanalysis today -- and with that, I heard one psychoanalyst speculate that about 80 percent of psychoanalysts today practice some form of 'traumacy theory and therapy'....
Now the psychoanalyst who I talked to was quick to point out that Freud never (completely?) abandoned traumacy theory and that his theory o f'war neurosis' was based on the idea of 'post-traumatic stress syndrome/disorder....
However, Freud's 'death instinct theory' more or less took over for his idea of 'post-traumatic stress syndrome'...which was a case of Freud turning from a theory/ideology based on 'tangible, concrete evidence' to one based much more contentiously on his 'biological instinct theory' -- i.e., 'life instinct vs. the death instinct' which may have some value in different contexts such as 'aging', 'oxidation', and 'free radical theory' but not as a replacement for a 'traumacy theory' that he never really returned to including his better ideas of a 'mastery compulsion' and his 'post-traumacy stress syndrome' theory which is still very much alive and in use in modern psychiatric/psycho-therapeutic circles -- psychoanalytic and non-psychoanalytic circles alike.
The foundation of my Quantum Psychoanalytic Model of The Personality is built first and foremost on Freudian Theory -- all 50 years of Freud's theorizing including both his early Traumacy Theory and his post 1896 Instinct-Fantasy Theory, as well as elements of Freud's Transference Theory, Narcissistic Theory, Life and Death Instinct Theory, and Ego-Id-Superego Theory.
This having been said, I am just as much an Object Relations theorist as I am a Freudian theorist, and in some important ways Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott, and Guntrip are all more central to my thinking than Freud. You can see that in my personality model, and in my last essay on the 'anal-schizoid' personality.
With Freud, you have a biologically and sexually reductionistic theory and model of the personality. The 'id' dominates the psychology of the unconscious -- which again makes the Freudian conceptualization of the unconscious an entity largely if not entirely driven by 'biological, life and death, sex and survival, instincts (with little room for discussion of 'traumacy and transference templates', 'unconscious self-esteem issues' and the like...
Freud tried to 'compensate' for the criticisms he was receiving about being a 'sexual reductionist' by introducing the concept of 'narcissism' in 1914 to compete with both Adlerian and Jungian theoretical modifications to Freudian theory by creating a concept (narcissism) that was 'broader' and more 'abstract' than his sexual 'libido' concept...The concept -- which I like and use -- integrated elements of 'human sexuality and hedonism' with elements of 'egotism' and 'self-esteem'...An important psychoanalytic development...but still, with Freud, you couldn't 'change a leopard's spots' -- he was still 'biological instinct theorist' -- and Freud neither believed in any type of 'non-libidinous libido' or 'life as opposed to sex energy'...for Freud 'love' was a 'censored' version of 'lust'...and 'life energy' was basically 'watered down -- or 'cultured down -- sex energy'...
In 'An Autobiographical Study', Freud was 'freaking out' over Adler's use of the term 'masculine protest' (a term that Adler unfortunately stopped using because it was always being misinterpreted)... For Freud, Adler's 'masculine protest' was rooted in Freud's concept of 'castration anxiety'...which needs some DGB disentanglement and clarification...
If you are a 4 or 5 year old boy, and your mom says to you, 'Siggy, if you don't quit playing with your 'thing', I'm gonna tell your dad, and he's gonna cut your 'thing' -- your 'playtoy' -- off! -- well, under this type of family and/or cultural raising, we can see the logical validation, at least to some extent, of Freud's later concept of 'castration anxiety'....perhaps relevant to the upbringing of a good 'sample size' of Victorian men...probably not relevant to nearly as many men today who were likely were raised under more 'liberal' sexual values than Dr. Freud...
Now, if on the other hand, you are, say a 50 to 60 year old man, and not imprisoned in a Syrian torture chamber, you are probably far less worried about the idea of 'castration anxiety' than you are about the idea of 'performance anxiety' -- complete with 'falling testosterone levels', 'compromised circulation functioning', and likely high cholesterol levels that may be the largest culprit in compromised circulation...
Indeed, you might have a hard enough time motivating yourself to go for a 'walk' let alone go for a 'run'...and your most 'athletically impressive feats' may start to feel like they are 'light years behind you, and may take a lot more digging to find in your also 'compromised memory cells'...
In this context, it would seem that Adler's concept of 'the masculine protest' (to feel like a 'real man'), and alternatively, 'the feminine protest' (to feel like a 'real woman')-- would seem to have a lot more theoretical and therapeutic significance attached to it than Freud's largely 'anachronised' Victorian, patriarchal concept of 'castration anxiety'...which for the most part, has probably gone the way of the 'do-do bird', unless there are special, individual circumstances that are prevailing...
Now, if you really want to push the concept of 'castration anxiety' metaphorically, like 'birth anxiety', you could say that it is an early form of 'separation anxiety', an anxiety of 'detachment'....in which case, you might still argue that 'castration anxiety' underlies all cases of 'performance anxiety', and/or that 'detachment-separation anxiety' underlies both -- the real fear being a 'schizoid fear' of 'not belonging', of 'not feeling or being attached' -- to our detached sense of 'body image', 'self-image', and 'social image', 'I no longer like the man I see in the mirror -- don't even want to look in the mirror, don't want to see a picture of myself, and if I am rejecting myself, then so too will everyone else -- consequently the 'schizoid person's 'masculine or feminine protest' -- by moving away from people, into an 'existential abyss', a 'heart of darkness', 'detachment from social engagement', 'detachment from living'...
Death can be viewed as the absence of life -- both biologically and existentially...
The 'existential abyss' can be a place of 'existential death' -- unless or until 'compensatory and/or counter-acting 'life forces' are 'stimulated' and 'motivated sufficiently' to offset these 'existential death forces of social detachment', and to 're-awaken' the person's 'social engagement skills' that slowly may help to pull the person out of his or her 'existential death pit'...
This line of thinking is very 'Guntrip influenced', and consequently, my much broader perspective (than Freud's) relative to what types of psycho-dynamics can go on in our unconscious relative to 1. 'The Genetic Potential Self', 2. 'The Existential Abyss', 3. 'The Existential Womb or Safety Room', 4. 'The Shadow-Id-Ego', 5. 'The Apeiron', 6. 'The Traumacy-Transference Templates', 7. 'The Shadow-Id-Ego Vault', 8. 'The Dream-Fantasy-Creative-Destructive Weaver', and 9. 'The Existential-Spiritual Celebration Room or Mountain'....all have psychological, psycho-pathological, and psycho-therapeutic significance...
And finally, as far as Freud's more or less 'arbitrary distinction' between 'the ego' and 'the id'...
Well, the ego was born from the id, and retains id functions...both consciously and unconsciously...thus, it is not unreasonable to talk about 'the id-ego' and/or the 'ego-id'....as one particular 'ego-compartment' with particular 'ego-functions' even if many of these functions occur at a mainly 'unconscious' or 'subconscious' or 'preconscious' level...
Remember 'The Fichtean Wholistic Ego' before Freud started to do his 'Humpty Dumpty routine' of 'dissecting the ego' apart into different 'compartments', 'rooms', and/or 'functions'...
Just because Freud called 'the id' -- 'the id' -- doesn't mean that it isn't connected to our 'Fichtean Wholistic Ego'. Remember, before Freud called the id, the id -- he called it 'the pleasure ego' and distinguished it from 'the reality ego'.....Thus, Freud more or less arbitrarily changed the (conscious) 'pleasure ego' into (the unconscious) 'id'.....A 'rose' by any other name is still the same plant that we are calling a 'rose'....
One thing the 'id' is not.....It is not a 'container', a 'reservoir'....rather, it is a conscious, preconscious, and unconscious psycho-dynamic 'shadow-id-ego' function...The 'id' works in 'the shadows' -- often generating 'unpopular', 'anxiety-provoking', 'immoral' and/or 'uncivilized' memories, fantasies, ideas, impulses, drives....Our 'central reality ego' does our best to 'keep these drives under control and in the shadows, defending against them, compensating for them, sugar-coating them, watering them down, making them more 'socially acceptable', etc..
But still, the ego and the id are meant to be working 'integratively with each other as dialectical partners' -- as 'The Shadow-Id-Ego'; not dissociated from each other as occurs in neurosis, psychopathology -- and 'the schizoid personality'....
-- dgb, July 8, 2012
-- David Gordon Bain...
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations, Creations, Integrations, Synergies....
-- Coming Together to Build Bridges, Not Walls....
