Friday, August 24, 2012
The Updated DGB Model of The Personality
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If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. Albert Einstein
Read more athttp://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/albert_einstein.html#h2w8ckzbKBOV9xwC.99
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Well, I am not sure that Einstein was referring to his theory of relativity or his Y equals MC squared formula when he gave us the quote above....but still, there is a lot of significance to what he is saying. All else being equal, simple explanations, models, and/or theories are generally preferable to more complicated, convoluted ones.
The 20 compartment model -- which has grown to 21 compartments as of today -- now looks like this:
A/ The Superego States or 'Compartments'
1. The Nurturing Superego;
2. The Dionysian-Narcissistic-Hedonistic ('DNH' or Pleasure-Seeking) Superego;
3. The 'Oral Phobic' and/or 'Anal-Righteous-Schizoid-Distancing' Superego (There are actually two different types of 'distancing superegos' here: a) 'The Oral Phobic Superego' that is afraid to confront; and b) 'The Anal-Righteous-Schizoid-Distancing Superego' which judges, criticizes, rejects, and abandons silently -- often, the two work in tandem;
4. The Overtly Righteously Critical Superego (3 and 4 are connected in their 'righteously critical' characteristic but distinctive in terms of their respective 'silent, covert, judgment' vs. 'overtly critical judgment' characteristics;
B/ 'Main Floor' Decision-Making Ego-States
5. The Private, Integrative 'Shadow-Id-Ego-Superego';
6. The Public 'Persona-Ego';
7. The Central Decision-Making, Conflict-Resolving (CEO) Ego;
8. The 'Board Room' and/or 'Psychotherapy' Room;
C/ The Underego States or 'Compartments'
09. The Disapproval-Avoiding (Approval-Seeking or 'Oral Phobic') Underego;
10. The Dionysian-Narcissistic-Hedonistic (DNH or Pleasure-Seeking) Underego;
11. The Oral-Phobic and/or The Anal-Righteous-Schizoid-Distancing Underego;
12. The Overtly Righteous-Rebellious-Deconstructive Underego;
D/ The More 'Subconscious' Ego-States
13. The Dream and Fantasy Weaver (which is The Central Ego working overtime and subconsciously at night as well as during the day, turning Shadow-Id-Ego Factions into dreams, allusions, jokes, sarcasm, art, sublimations, projections, transference complexes, displacements, reaction formations, denials, distortions, compromise formations, and other forms of defense mechanisms);
14. 'Escaped' Integrative 'Shadow-Id-Ego (SHIE)' Factions;
15. The Screening 'Shadow-Id-Ego Vault';
16. Rising Shadow-Id-Ego Factions (Including Reality, Traumacy and Fantasy Factors);
17. The Memory-Learning-Generalization-Transference-Lifestyle Complex-Templates;
18. The Shadow-Id-Ego (Including The Life and Death Instincts, and The Sex and Ego Instincts);
19. The Black Hole or Abyss, Chaos, The Apeiron;
20. The Womb;
21. The Genetic-Existential-Potential Self (including the capability for re-creating thousands of years of genetic, mythological picture symbols and their unique, individual meaning, the capability for learning language symbols and their unique, individual as well as shared, social meaning, and the unique set of individual talents and capabilities that our Creator has given us).
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Monday, August 13, 2012
The Psychology of The Addictive Personality: Transference-Shadow-Id-Ego Impulses, Negative Transference-Immediacy Stressors, The Black Abyss, and Different Types of Compensatory, Self-Destructive and/or Healthy Pathways Out of It....
Work hard, play hard -- but watch out for the self-destructive playpens. -- dgb, Aug. 13, 2012
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Well, let's take a quick look at our DGB model of the personality as it stands today -- and then see how we might this model to an understanding of the 'addictive personality type'.
A distinction can be made between two types of neuroses:
1. 'The Dionysian Personality': 'The hyper-impulsive type' (low frustration control); and...
2. 'The Apollonian Personality': 'The hypo-impulsive type' (low impulse spontaneity, over-controlled, overly suppressed...)
These two personality -- or 'sub-personality' -- types are taken from Nietzsche's first book, 'The Birth of Tragedy'. They are by no means the only personality and/or sub-personality types that we can look at, but they are certainly two major ones that we can probably all identify with, at least to some significant extent. Ultimately, or ideally, we are looking for the 'ultimate or ideal balance' between these two personality types, which we may or may not spend our whole lives trying to achieve this type of balance with 'partial successes', 'partial failures', and 'greater successes' and 'greater failures'.
Who among us can work hard every day with great success, play hard every day with great success, and never feel 'one wheel coming off the cart', or 'the other wheel coming off our cart' at any particular measuring point in our life -- and not feel that we are often, if not usually, 'riding a one-sided cart' that is 'tipping towards the Dionysian Side' or 'tipping towards the Apollonian Side' -- or 'flip-flopping back and forth like a 'crazy person' which is only our mind- body trying to find an acceptable balance point between two opposite extreme personality polarities (or seemingly not)', which is often referred to as a 'bipolar disorder' -- or, alternatively, using a more old-fashioned, and often, more concretely descriptive name -- a 'manic-depressive' disorder? (which is Dionysus and Apollo, or in Freudian language, the id and the superego, taking turns controlling the ship and neither doing a very good job of it because The Central, Mediating Ego can't or won't find the 'middle ground balance' between them....).
See this essay below for the completion of the essay above....
The Newest GAP-DGB Quantum Psychoanalytic '20 Compartment' Model of The Human Psyche (May 26, June 5, 6, 10, Aug. 14, 2012)
http://hegelshotel-mostrecentpapers.blogspot.ca/2012/05/newest-gap-dgb-philosophy-psychology.html
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Well, let's take a quick look at our DGB model of the personality as it stands today -- and then see how we might this model to an understanding of the 'addictive personality type'.
A distinction can be made between two types of neuroses:
1. 'The Dionysian Personality': 'The hyper-impulsive type' (low frustration control); and...
2. 'The Apollonian Personality': 'The hypo-impulsive type' (low impulse spontaneity, over-controlled, overly suppressed...)
These two personality -- or 'sub-personality' -- types are taken from Nietzsche's first book, 'The Birth of Tragedy'. They are by no means the only personality and/or sub-personality types that we can look at, but they are certainly two major ones that we can probably all identify with, at least to some significant extent. Ultimately, or ideally, we are looking for the 'ultimate or ideal balance' between these two personality types, which we may or may not spend our whole lives trying to achieve this type of balance with 'partial successes', 'partial failures', and 'greater successes' and 'greater failures'.
Who among us can work hard every day with great success, play hard every day with great success, and never feel 'one wheel coming off the cart', or 'the other wheel coming off our cart' at any particular measuring point in our life -- and not feel that we are often, if not usually, 'riding a one-sided cart' that is 'tipping towards the Dionysian Side' or 'tipping towards the Apollonian Side' -- or 'flip-flopping back and forth like a 'crazy person' which is only our mind- body trying to find an acceptable balance point between two opposite extreme personality polarities (or seemingly not)', which is often referred to as a 'bipolar disorder' -- or, alternatively, using a more old-fashioned, and often, more concretely descriptive name -- a 'manic-depressive' disorder? (which is Dionysus and Apollo, or in Freudian language, the id and the superego, taking turns controlling the ship and neither doing a very good job of it because The Central, Mediating Ego can't or won't find the 'middle ground balance' between them....).
See this essay below for the completion of the essay above....
The Newest GAP-DGB Quantum Psychoanalytic '20 Compartment' Model of The Human Psyche (May 26, June 5, 6, 10, Aug. 14, 2012)
http://hegelshotel-mostrecentpapers.blogspot.ca/2012/05/newest-gap-dgb-philosophy-psychology.html
Monday, August 6, 2012
Ethical Capitalism vs. Narcissistic, Manipulative Capitalism: Fairness, Good Will, and Trust vs. Betrayal, Bad Will, and Distrust
Capitalism affects everything we think, feel, and do -- and in this respect capitalism has to change.
More specifically, capitalism has to return to a base and a foundation of 'good ethics' and 'fairness'. The other 'brand' of Capitalism that we are seeing more and more every day -- narcissistic (one-sided) manipulative Capitalism -- will simply not sustain itself. It has bred a 'culture of narcissism' -- which includes a culture of exploitation, manipulation, deceit, distrust, disloyalty, betrayal, and paranoia.
This is not rocket science. If you betray, deceive, and/or treat a customer or an employee unfairly, the customer or employee is going to think, feel, and behave differently towards you. In the middle of this 'triangulation' of new thinking, feeling, and behaving is going to be the key element or essence of resentment-anger-rage. And one way or another, that is going to come back on you, the betrayer, the manipulator, the deceiver. If you don't fall into this category, then you are doing things 'right' -- you are practicing 'ethical capitalism'. If you do fall into this category, then you need need to seriously look at yourself in the mirror, and ask yourself if the 'end justifies the means'. In the business world, we have built -- and/or are still in the process of building -- a corporate-industrial society based on the unsustainable characteristics of deceit, betrayal, manipulation, distrust, and disloyalty. And it works both ways -- employers deceiving employees, and employees deceiving employers. Anger, resentment, alienation -- carry the day -- government-wise, and corporately, 'everything is broken'. People, in general, no longer trust the 'bill of goods' that their politicians, their cable and internet providers, their banks, their telephone companies, their oil companies...are selling them...
Over-spending at the top of the food chain, in the upper echelons of government power, are being compensated for with 'serious spending cuts' at the bottom of the food chain, among those citizens who are going to feel it first, and feel it worst. The same civilians who are paying $24 for every politician's pension (to every $1. that the politician chips in on his or her own pension) are themselves experiencing reductions -- and even cutoffs -- in their own pensions. What we used to be eligible for at 55 or 60, in a few years we may not be eligible for until we turn 67. Which means that for many civilians who have worked hard all their lives, they simply won't be retiring unless or until they are 'forced' out of the workforce.
Cable and telephone companies 'seduce you with lures' that tell you, that you are going to 'save money' for more and more services...they 'hook you'....and then 'they eat you alive'.....you sign a contract (which should be illegal because they are generally designed to 'hide' crucial information that you won't find out about until you 'try out your new service' and/or you get your first or second bill online, or in your email, or by mail only to find out that your bill has just jumped from its usual $150 to $700..... And you ask yourself, 'What did I miss? Did the salesperson tell me something that I didn't hear?' And 'the corporate design' of the whole situation was that you weren't intended to get 'the bad news' until after you signed the contract....
I could go on and on...hidden bank charges coming from every direction, every account....
Mortgage deals that involve 'easy payments' in the first couple of years -- and payments that will leave you 'homeless' after the 'back loaded interest rates' kick in...
Are these just cases of 'caveat emptor' -- 'buyer beware'....
Or is there something really insidious going on here that is destroying the whole infra-structure, the whole fabric, of our society?
Unless we 're-set' our 'ethical values' to take away the 'lures' and 'hooks' that involve 'exploitative, manipulative tricks', capitalism in North America is going to collapse -- from the bottom up....until even the people in the highest echelons of power start to collapse with the collapsing infrastructure and the lower classes below them...
Capitalism requires ethics to sustain itself -- plain and simple.
The more ethics becomes non-existent -- or becomes a 'twisted, distorted, one-sided type of narcissistic ethics' -- in the face of depleting resources, and greater and greater credit liabilities -- the faster the collapse will happen. It has already well begun.
And even the psychotherapy profession needs to sit up and take notice...Because the tell-tale signs, and a cross-section of the affected people, will be entering your offices every day....And in this regard, the psychotherapy profession needs to be a part of the solution to the problem -- not a part of the problem.
From what I can see -- based on my historical interpretation of the circumstantial evidence and Freud's own words -- manipulative capitalism seemed to be 'alive and active' in 1895-1896 -- alive and active in The Vienna Psychiatry and Neurology Society in April-May of 1896; and alive and active in Freud's and Fliess' attempted cover-up of their serious medical transgression in the spring of 1895.
What is different today is that 112 years later -- in the face of 112 years of collapsing 'Capitalist Ethics' -- we have the potential 'implosion' in the next 5 to 10 years of World Capitalism, one country after another, like a set of touching dominoes.
Capitalism needs to be like a 'circulating lake and river system' -- with 'money' essentially being 'the economic nutrient' that needs to circulate all over the lake and river system -- from the owners and employers and upper class, down through the middle class, and the lower class -- with each economic class being able to 'sustain itself'.
When you have a 'blockage' -- a 'dyke' or a 'beaver dam' that stops the free and fair flow of money down through each economic class -- because of 'greed' and 'bad ethics' at the top of the food chain that 'cuts off the circulation of the lake and the river to all its different parts' -- and/or alternatively, 'cuts off nutrients and oxygen to all the peripheral parts of the body' -- well, you get what might also be called 'gangrene capitalism'.
That is what we have today.
Gangrene capitalism.
-- dgb, Aug 12, 2012...
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I like Adam Smith. I like Ayn Rand. I like making money as much as the next person. But you don't have to read Karl Marx and Erich Fromm for very long to realize that Capitalism -- Narcissistic Capitalism in particular -- can have some very nasty self and social side effects. Or maybe they are the 'main effects'. Collusion, corruption, price gouging, price fixing, betrayal of the customer, betrayal of the employee by the employer, betrayal of the employer by the employee, lack of integrity, lack of ethics, alienation, distrust, a deadened spirit....
What this all comes down to is whether you really care about the customer, co-worker, employer or employee you are working for or with -- or not....This is the essence of the difference between Narcissistic Ethics and Capitalism vs. Dialectic-Humanistic-Existential Ethics and Capitalism -- caring about the person you are dealing with -- or not. Are you really trying to help them? Or do you give one iota how much you hurt people in your pursuit of money? In the end, it comes down to this question and this question only: Do you have a set of ethics and integrity that shows that you care about the people you are doing business with -- or do you not?
Narcissistic Capitalism breeds betrayal bad will, and distrust of the customer and/or co-worker, employee, employer whereas DHE Capitalism and Ethics breeds co-operation, good will, and trust in the other.
Money changes everything. It enters the picture as a heavy potential 'conflict of interest' factor -- in narcissistic capitalistic ethics the goal is to maximize profitability and income even at the expense of betraying the customer and/or co-worker, employee, employer...which is in effect robbing the social, economic. corporate, and political world of good will, trust, and co-operation...Instead, a broadening world of bad will, distrust, and paranoia seep in, or rush in, to take its place...And this is the world we live in... dgb, Aug 8, 2012
From one of my favorite mentors...Bob Dylan...
It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding), 1965
Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.
Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proves to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.
Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover
That you'd just be
One more person crying.
So don't fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It's alright, ma, i'm only sighing.
As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don't hate nothing at all
Except hatred.
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.
While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind it's gates
But even the president of the united states
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.
An' though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, ma, i can make it.
Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.
You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.
A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy
Insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not fergit
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to.
Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, ma, to live up to.
For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something
They invest in.
While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say god bless him.
While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in.
But i mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright, ma, if i can't please him.
Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares propaganda, all is phony.
While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes
Must get lonely.
My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards
False gods, i scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, i have had enough
What else can you show me?
And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, ma, it's life, and life only.
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/b/bob_dylan/its_alright_ma.html ]
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.
A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy
Insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not fergit
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to.
Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, ma, to live up to.
For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something
They invest in.
While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say god bless him.
While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in.
But i mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright, ma, if i can't please him.
Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares propaganda, all is phony.
While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes
Must get lonely.
My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards
False gods, i scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, i have had enough
What else can you show me?
And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, ma, it's life, and life only.
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/b/bob_dylan/its_alright_ma.html ]
http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/its-alright-ma-im-only-bleeding
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Re-Working Freud's Concept of 'Transference' to Include Memories...
I believe that I am probably the best transference theorist on the planet right now -- and for that matter, with all due respect to any existing or past existing psychoanalyst, including Freud and Brian Bird, and many of my other 'transference mentors' -- Adler, Klein, Fairbairn, Kohut, Berne, Perls, Janov...-- none of them, in my opinion, could put together the 'whole picture of transference' -- aside from maybe, Fritz Perls -- because everyone else got 'pieces of the puzzle' right -- but not the whole bewildering puzzle. And no, I'm not 'high' -- except high on my abilities and on my 'transference knowledge' which has been weaved together, not just by 'thinking inside the box' (i.e., 'the psychoanalytic box') but by thinking outside the box also -- indeed, by weaving my way in and out of probably all of the major schools of psychology and personality theory, and thus, being able to 'see' the phenomenon of transference from a wide assortment of different perspectives/paradigms.
Call me crazy, now, if you wish -- but the proof can be found in the taste of the pudding that I am about to make for you....
There is only one person in the world who can write about transference exactly the way I can -- and that is me.
The first thing that I need to do is to tear down a number of Freudian assumptions because if you are a psychoanalyst, and you are still 'hanging on' to these 'false Freudian assumptions, then you will never understand transference properly.
The first thing you need to understand is that Freud's understanding of transference was completely undermined and sabotaged by his abandonment/suppression of his traumacy and seduction theories -- his reality theory -- after 1896.
Freud's 'reality theory' -- his traumacy-seduction theory -- was the backbone of psychoanalysis up until 1896-97. It was the foundation of psychoanalysis -- certainly more so than his theory of 'repression' which gradually became expanded to his theory of 'defense'.
To this day, I would argue that the backbone/foundation of any form of psychoanalysis should be: 1. reality theory; 2. traumacy theory; 3. fantasy theory; 4. transference theory; 5. humanistic-existential theory; 6. 'attachment-detachment theory'.
And I would argue that the most important concept that Freud ever created -- beside perhaps his concept of 'defense' -- was his concept of 'transference'. Having said that, Breuer -- more by good luck than good planning -- was conducting a form of 'traumacy-transference therapy' in the early 1880s (Anna. O.) and Charcot certainly understood the co-relation between traumacy memories and hysteria.
Finally, Janov, a little bit before Freud, was doing a spinoff of the same type of work that Freud was doing. However, Freud's focus was on the idea of 'repression' (memories that are purposely held back from consciousness because they are deemed too unbearable to think about) whereas Janov was using the idea of 'dissociation' which in turn could be distinguished more by the idea of a 'dissociative split' between 'ego' (or 'Apollonian ego') and 'alter-ego' ('Dionysian ego') as opposed to Freud's 'split' between 'consciousness' and 'unconsciousness'.
It was not until 1938 that Freud wrote in one of his final papers about the 'Splitting of The Ego in the Process of Defense'. However, back in his metaphysical papers around 1914, 1915, and up until he wrote 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle' in 1920, Freud did make the distinction between 'the pleasure ego' ('The Dionysian ego' in an extension of Nietzsche's language from 'The Birth of Tragedy', 1872) and 'the reality ego' (i.e., 'The Apollonian Ego', again extending Nietzsche's language from The Birth of Tragedy.)
Freud's idea of 'the splitting of the ego' in a significant way, anticipated and/or represented 'the birth of Object Relations' although Freud didn't really think like an 'Object Relationist' in this paper enough to call it an 'Object Relations' paper (he was still very much 'Classically bound'. In contrast, Melanie Klein, under the influence of Karl Abraham, would explode in this direction shortly thereafter.....her distinction of 'internal object' vs. 'external object', and her distinction of different 'ego positions' such as the 'the paranoid position', 'the schizoid' position', and the intertwining of the two. Before Klein, Karl Abraham was moving significantly in this direction and contributed a number of important ideas that would influence Melanie Klein such as 'the Pre-Oedipal Bad Mother', early childhood 'object loss', and 'oral fixation' based on a lack of 'proper attachment to the Pre-Oedipal mother and a resulting 'transferred lifelong oral-narcissistic dependency'.
Of worthy note, Karl Abraham -- and Sandor Ferenczi, for that matter -- were still writing about 'childhood sexual abuse' and its relationship to neurotic and psychotic disorders (1907, 1911) long after Freud had given up this primary if not sole line of thinking. In other words, Karl Abraham was combining Freudian 'reality' and 'instinctual fantasy' theory in a way that was probably better balanced than Freud himself.
Now nothing is rarely black and white -- except perhaps mathematics -- until 'Apollonian Either/Or Classification Thinking' makes it so....until Apollonian thinking 'forces' or 'constricts' essentially 'unboxable natural phenomena' into 'classification-either/or-conceptual-theoretical-paradigm boxes'...
'You can't step into the same river twice.' -- Heraclitus
Skipping back to the very volcanic year of 1895, 'Studies on Hysteria' was supposed to be an extrapolation of Freud's and Breuer's 'traumacy theory'.
And yet we turn to page 302 of Volume 11, of The Standard Edition, 'Studies on Hysteria' where Freud introduces the hugely important concept of 'transference' for the first time ever, and lo and behold, Freud uses a clinical example to illustrate his new concept of transference that describes his still not officially born yet 'wish theory', not his on its way out 'traumacy theory'.
What are we to make of this?
Well, I will tell you what I make of it.
Freud was a 'classic, Aristolean, either you put it in this box, or you put it in that box' thinker...
Worse than that, Freud was a 'this box is the right box' and 'that box is the wrong box' type of thinker, and this my friends, takes us right back to ancient Greek philosophy of Anaximander -- who would eventually directly or indirectly influence Hegel (thesis-anti-thesis-synthesis), Heidegger (an early existentialist who influenced Derrida's philosophy of 'deconstruction'), Derrida ('Deconstruction') and , Foucault' (the influence of power on 'knowledge').
It says on the internet, when you look up 'binary opposition' that...
Binary opposition originated in Saussurean structuralist theory.[
However, I say that the concept of 'binary oppostion' -- and 'deconstruction' originated out of Anaximander's theory of 'The Apeiron' and 'The Birth of Opposites'...
Anaximander's theory of knowledge too -- like Foucualt's, only over 2000 years before either Foucault or Derrida was born -- is a theory that emphasizes the influence of power (and money) on knowledge'.
Paraphrasing Anaximander -- in his ancient cosmology -- Anaximander believed that 'opposites were born in chaos' which he called 'The Apeiron'. The Apeirion was a world outside of the world, where order was born from chaos. 'Binary opposites' (not Anaximander's terminology, of course, but the later Structuralist's terminology) competed with each other, conflicted with each other, fought with each other with 'the binary loser' ending up 'thrown back into Chaos again (The Apeiron) to nurse its wounds and regain strength and energy again to come back into this world again and re-challenge 'the binary winner' again -- like a 'title fight' where the 'loser' demands a 're-match' at a later time and place....
Well, just take this whole ancient Greek philosophy of Anaximander's -- his theory of Chaos/The Apeiron and his theory of the conflict and competition of 'binary opposites' with the 'binary winner' enjoying the 'sunshine of life' and the 'binary loser' being 'cast away' into 'The Shadows of Life' (The Black Hole, The Abyss, The Apeiron) to rejuvenate, regain strength and energy and wisdom -- and then eventually come back to 'The Sunshine of Life' to do battle with the previous 'binary winner' again with the possible 'changing of the guard' in 'the rematch'.
This has Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Derrida, Foucault, Perls written all over it but I have thought over and over again that perhaps my 'philosophical system' here that I have called 'Hegel's Hotel' -- maybe it should have been called 'Anaximander's Hotel' -- because when all is said and done Anaximander is the ultimate 'grandfather' -- the oldest 'dialectic' philosopher in Western Philosophy...Only Lao Tse rivals him, to my knowledge, in Eastern Philosophy -- and Anaximander is older.
So what is my point here?
My point is this?
Freud was constantly either 'choosing between two binary opposite theories' and bringing one into the 'sunshine light of day' while the other 'losing binary opposite theory' was 'dissociated' and 'sent packing' back to Chaos, The Apeiron, The Abyss, The Realm of The Repressed'....Either that like in the case of his 'reality-traumacy-seduction theory' vs. his 'fantasy-wish theory' or Freud was 'playing off two binary opposites against each other like 'the pleasure principle' vs. 'the reality principle', 'the life vs. the death insinct' and 'the ego vs. the id'...
But back in 1895....Freud was simply making a lot of 'false connections'...and this started with his theory of repression (which didn't account for the other defenses yet) and transference which Freud partly kissed goodbye about the first time he started writing about it in 1895 ('Studies on Hysteria', p. 302) and the year after that in 1896 ('The Aetiology of Hysteria') when 'memories' started to lose their central importance in Psychoanalysis, and in came 'wishes, fantasies, instincts and their vicissitudes'.
Thus, what was lost before it was ever found in 1895-96 was the concept of 'transference encounters', 'transference scenes', 'transference traumacies', 'transference memories', and yes -- even 'transference fixations, wishes, fantasies, impulses, drives' -- defining moments in our childhood history where our transference memories/complexes/conflicts start to build around these 'defining moments' in our early childhood -- usually the most significant ones between about 3 and 6 years old....until they comprise the central core -- and 'the core, nuclear conflicts' -- of our personality structure and psycho-dynamics.
These 'defining moments' can also be viewed as 'narcissistic unfinished situations' -- specifically, usually but not always -- 'narcissistic injuries' or 'traumatically perceived damages to our self-esteem' that we spend the rest of our lives (the 're-creation', 'repetition', and 'mastery' compulsion, i.e., serial behavior patterns) trying to 'reverse', 'overcome', 'compensate for', 'defend against', from an assortment of different 'ego positions' or 'ego-states'...superego, underego, righteous ego, hedonistic ego, approval-seeking ego, distancing ego....
And now everything starts to make sense....specifically how 'transference traumacies' and 'transference fantasies' are intimately attached to each other -- the first reflecting our 'inferiority complex' and the second reflecting our 'superiority striving' or 'mastery compulsion'.
Here is where Freud and Adler split apart -- and here is where they can be brought back together again...still with assumptive differences between them, i.e., 'conflict in the personality (Freud) vs. 'unity in the personality' (Adler)...but now there is much less distance between the two theorist as 'sex' and 'self-esteem' are usually also intimately connected...
Within my post-Freudian 'Classical-Object Relations' integrative perspective, and my 'traumacy-fantasy' perspective, what I am calling 'transference memories' are essentially the same types of usually conscious early memories that Adler called 'lifestyle memories'...and in Adlerian terminology, 'transference repetition patterns' become 'lifestyle goals and patterns'...again, the only major difference now separating the two schools of psychology being the 'unity' vs. 'conflict' assumption and the 'sex' vs. 'self-esteem' assumption, or worded later in Freudian theory, the 'life' and 'death' instincts vs. the 'superiority striving' or 'self-esteem' goal...
And everyone else's work can quickly become connected as well -- at least if we are so motivated -- the connection between this line of thinking and Janov's 'primal memories' is obvious, Berne's 'Games People Play' now becomes 'Transference Games People Play', transference becomes Fritz Perls' 'childhood unfinished situation'.....because the self-esteem traumacy has left a 'huge gap, a huge hole in our psyche/self-esteem that we are looking to 'heal'...
Transferences can contain mixtures of 'life forces' and 'destructive, death forces'....
The Seduction Theory can be 're-attached' to The Traumacy Theory...
One sided theories invariably self-destruct...and fail...
Because they are not 'homeostatically and dialectically balanced'.
Freud's traumacy theory didn't take into account 'wishes and fantasies'...
And Freud's instinct-fantasy-wish-drive theory didn't take into account traumacies.
Both theories ended up with 'false connections'...
Because neither theory could cover the binary opposite theory that the other theory missed...
Freud was caught in an 'either/or paradigm'...
He didn't have to be...
Traumacies and fantasies are not mutually exclusive events...
In fact, in transference situations, they are both attached to the same transference complex.
Freud couldn't catch that....
Or he didn't want to because he wanted to escape from his 'childhood sexual abuse theory'...
Because, due to the leverage of The Vienna Psychiatry and Neurology,
Persisting with this most unpopular theory -- this supposed 'scientific fairy tale'...
Was costing him client referral and money...
In essence, his job, his career, and his means of supporting his family...
So either way you want to look at it,
Whether it was out of ignorance or intention,
Freud failed with two opposing theories, that taken independently of each other,
Neither was sufficient by itself to satisfy the full landscape of the human psyche -- and the structural foundation and territory of psychoanalysis...
Freud's traumacy and seduction theories failed to the extent that they didn't account for fantasy theory...
And Freud's fantasy theory failed to the extent that it didn't properly account for reality, traumacy, and sexual traumacy theory....
My 'dialectic' theory works...
Because both these territories are covered...at the same time...
Freud was a smart man.
Why couldn't he figure that one out?
Money.
Money changes everything.
Object Relations is still evolving...
Because it doesn't have Freud's name...
Attached to it...
But Classical Psychoanalysis...
Should be locked up...
And encrypted in a Victorian museum...
Until the traumacy theory is put back into
Classical Psychoanalysis...
And all The Discriminatory Narcissistic Bias...
Against Women...
Is taken out of Classical Psychoanalysis...
It's nice to show off a Model T Ford...
But don't try to pass it off...
As a 2012 Mercedes Benz...
Freud wasn't God...
He was human like the rest of us...
Full of narcissistic biases...
And transference neuroses...
That were introjected....
Into 'Classical' Psychoanalysis...
His daughter, Anna Freud, couldn't see this...
Kurt Eissler couldn't see this...
The Board of Directors of...
The International Psychoanalytic Institute...
Couldn't see this...
Masson could...
And lost his Projects Director of The Freud Archives...
For saying so...
Masson couldn't see...
The potential interactions and integrations...
Between Pre-1897 Classical Psychoanalysis...
And Post-1896 Classical Psychoanalysis...
But I'm serving them up to you tonight...
Here....on a golden platter...
I think back to what Masson wrote to me...
Two years ago when I interviewed him...
And he's probably still right...
..........................................................................
9. Question.
DGB. Any commendations and/or criticisms regarding my work in Hegel's Hotel?
Maybe I am being too bold here -- I expect you will be truthful. Have I
influenced your thinking at all? I see you have an interest in the 'Us and
Them' phenomenon which has been a central 'dialectic' focal point of writing
for me in Hegel's Hotel; and also, we at least used to share a common interest
in the topic of 'counter-phobias' (if Janet Malcolm's quote here is right)
which remains a central focal point of my Psychoanalytic investigations.
9. Answer.
JM. Well, I have only read your work sporadically and not in depth. I can sense
your sincerity, and I respect your attempt to fuse both trauma and the later
Freud. It is not easy, and you are making a concerted attempt. Analysts
would do well to pay attention to your work, but of course they won't,
because you are not part of the establishment. That is a pity.
10. Final DGB comments:
Jeff, I have the utmost respect for your work and your character. I know that we disagree on the 'integration' issue -- you skeptical that it will work, and me confident that I can make it work. But regardless, your work on The Seduction Theory has been a source of great inspiration to me, impassioned me to follow up on your work wherever it may take me, and to do the best job I possibly can to make sure that your exhausting work in Psychoanalysis has not been in vain, and that you take your rightful, respectful place in the history and ongoing evolution of Psychoanalysis.
It has been the greatest pleasure meeting you and I hope that we can maintain some degree of ongoing contact with each other.
Sincerely, David Gordon Bain
.......................................................................................................................................
Email Transaction From Jeffrey Masson Regarding The Interview...
Sunday March 14th, 2010
(Dave),
I read what you wrote, and I appreciate the generous comments about me. It
was very kind. Like you, I do not expect any reconciliation. And the truth
is, I really have lost interest in psychoanalysis. Perhaps if they had
responded as you have, or as you wish they had, it would be different.
Surely Freud has written some wonderful papers, has had some amazing
insights, has given us valuable material to think about. But I do believe
he missed out on something terribly important. Now, as to why he did so, I
cannot pretend to know. My hunch, my theory, my belief, is that it was due
to a lack of moral courage. But I could easily be wrong. You might be
right: he may have been headed in that direction in any case. We will
probably never know. But he did abandon what was an important and
courageous theory, and the result is that women and children were
disbelieved and suffered as a consequence. I am amazed, like you, that not
a single analyst has been able to acknowledge this! I just can't really get
my mind around this. So I have to wish them godspeed, and be on my way.
Same with you. I appreciate what you do, but I am concerned now with other
things and cannot give much more attention to this matter. Sorry. You are
doing a fine job on your own! Best, Jeff
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Ph.D.
P.O.Box 25930, St. Heliers, Auckland 1740
New Zealand
www.jeffreymasson.com
.....................................................................................................................................
Good night...
-- dgb, Aug 5, 2012...
-- David Gordon Bain
Call me crazy, now, if you wish -- but the proof can be found in the taste of the pudding that I am about to make for you....
There is only one person in the world who can write about transference exactly the way I can -- and that is me.
The first thing that I need to do is to tear down a number of Freudian assumptions because if you are a psychoanalyst, and you are still 'hanging on' to these 'false Freudian assumptions, then you will never understand transference properly.
The first thing you need to understand is that Freud's understanding of transference was completely undermined and sabotaged by his abandonment/suppression of his traumacy and seduction theories -- his reality theory -- after 1896.
Freud's 'reality theory' -- his traumacy-seduction theory -- was the backbone of psychoanalysis up until 1896-97. It was the foundation of psychoanalysis -- certainly more so than his theory of 'repression' which gradually became expanded to his theory of 'defense'.
To this day, I would argue that the backbone/foundation of any form of psychoanalysis should be: 1. reality theory; 2. traumacy theory; 3. fantasy theory; 4. transference theory; 5. humanistic-existential theory; 6. 'attachment-detachment theory'.
And I would argue that the most important concept that Freud ever created -- beside perhaps his concept of 'defense' -- was his concept of 'transference'. Having said that, Breuer -- more by good luck than good planning -- was conducting a form of 'traumacy-transference therapy' in the early 1880s (Anna. O.) and Charcot certainly understood the co-relation between traumacy memories and hysteria.
Finally, Janov, a little bit before Freud, was doing a spinoff of the same type of work that Freud was doing. However, Freud's focus was on the idea of 'repression' (memories that are purposely held back from consciousness because they are deemed too unbearable to think about) whereas Janov was using the idea of 'dissociation' which in turn could be distinguished more by the idea of a 'dissociative split' between 'ego' (or 'Apollonian ego') and 'alter-ego' ('Dionysian ego') as opposed to Freud's 'split' between 'consciousness' and 'unconsciousness'.
It was not until 1938 that Freud wrote in one of his final papers about the 'Splitting of The Ego in the Process of Defense'. However, back in his metaphysical papers around 1914, 1915, and up until he wrote 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle' in 1920, Freud did make the distinction between 'the pleasure ego' ('The Dionysian ego' in an extension of Nietzsche's language from 'The Birth of Tragedy', 1872) and 'the reality ego' (i.e., 'The Apollonian Ego', again extending Nietzsche's language from The Birth of Tragedy.)
Freud's idea of 'the splitting of the ego' in a significant way, anticipated and/or represented 'the birth of Object Relations' although Freud didn't really think like an 'Object Relationist' in this paper enough to call it an 'Object Relations' paper (he was still very much 'Classically bound'. In contrast, Melanie Klein, under the influence of Karl Abraham, would explode in this direction shortly thereafter.....her distinction of 'internal object' vs. 'external object', and her distinction of different 'ego positions' such as the 'the paranoid position', 'the schizoid' position', and the intertwining of the two. Before Klein, Karl Abraham was moving significantly in this direction and contributed a number of important ideas that would influence Melanie Klein such as 'the Pre-Oedipal Bad Mother', early childhood 'object loss', and 'oral fixation' based on a lack of 'proper attachment to the Pre-Oedipal mother and a resulting 'transferred lifelong oral-narcissistic dependency'.
Of worthy note, Karl Abraham -- and Sandor Ferenczi, for that matter -- were still writing about 'childhood sexual abuse' and its relationship to neurotic and psychotic disorders (1907, 1911) long after Freud had given up this primary if not sole line of thinking. In other words, Karl Abraham was combining Freudian 'reality' and 'instinctual fantasy' theory in a way that was probably better balanced than Freud himself.
Now nothing is rarely black and white -- except perhaps mathematics -- until 'Apollonian Either/Or Classification Thinking' makes it so....until Apollonian thinking 'forces' or 'constricts' essentially 'unboxable natural phenomena' into 'classification-either/or-conceptual-theoretical-paradigm boxes'...
'You can't step into the same river twice.' -- Heraclitus
Skipping back to the very volcanic year of 1895, 'Studies on Hysteria' was supposed to be an extrapolation of Freud's and Breuer's 'traumacy theory'.
And yet we turn to page 302 of Volume 11, of The Standard Edition, 'Studies on Hysteria' where Freud introduces the hugely important concept of 'transference' for the first time ever, and lo and behold, Freud uses a clinical example to illustrate his new concept of transference that describes his still not officially born yet 'wish theory', not his on its way out 'traumacy theory'.
What are we to make of this?
Well, I will tell you what I make of it.
Freud was a 'classic, Aristolean, either you put it in this box, or you put it in that box' thinker...
Worse than that, Freud was a 'this box is the right box' and 'that box is the wrong box' type of thinker, and this my friends, takes us right back to ancient Greek philosophy of Anaximander -- who would eventually directly or indirectly influence Hegel (thesis-anti-thesis-synthesis), Heidegger (an early existentialist who influenced Derrida's philosophy of 'deconstruction'), Derrida ('Deconstruction') and , Foucault' (the influence of power on 'knowledge').
It says on the internet, when you look up 'binary opposition' that...
Binary opposition originated in Saussurean structuralist theory.[
However, I say that the concept of 'binary oppostion' -- and 'deconstruction' originated out of Anaximander's theory of 'The Apeiron' and 'The Birth of Opposites'...
Anaximander's theory of knowledge too -- like Foucualt's, only over 2000 years before either Foucault or Derrida was born -- is a theory that emphasizes the influence of power (and money) on knowledge'.
Paraphrasing Anaximander -- in his ancient cosmology -- Anaximander believed that 'opposites were born in chaos' which he called 'The Apeiron'. The Apeirion was a world outside of the world, where order was born from chaos. 'Binary opposites' (not Anaximander's terminology, of course, but the later Structuralist's terminology) competed with each other, conflicted with each other, fought with each other with 'the binary loser' ending up 'thrown back into Chaos again (The Apeiron) to nurse its wounds and regain strength and energy again to come back into this world again and re-challenge 'the binary winner' again -- like a 'title fight' where the 'loser' demands a 're-match' at a later time and place....
Well, just take this whole ancient Greek philosophy of Anaximander's -- his theory of Chaos/The Apeiron and his theory of the conflict and competition of 'binary opposites' with the 'binary winner' enjoying the 'sunshine of life' and the 'binary loser' being 'cast away' into 'The Shadows of Life' (The Black Hole, The Abyss, The Apeiron) to rejuvenate, regain strength and energy and wisdom -- and then eventually come back to 'The Sunshine of Life' to do battle with the previous 'binary winner' again with the possible 'changing of the guard' in 'the rematch'.
This has Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Derrida, Foucault, Perls written all over it but I have thought over and over again that perhaps my 'philosophical system' here that I have called 'Hegel's Hotel' -- maybe it should have been called 'Anaximander's Hotel' -- because when all is said and done Anaximander is the ultimate 'grandfather' -- the oldest 'dialectic' philosopher in Western Philosophy...Only Lao Tse rivals him, to my knowledge, in Eastern Philosophy -- and Anaximander is older.
So what is my point here?
My point is this?
Freud was constantly either 'choosing between two binary opposite theories' and bringing one into the 'sunshine light of day' while the other 'losing binary opposite theory' was 'dissociated' and 'sent packing' back to Chaos, The Apeiron, The Abyss, The Realm of The Repressed'....Either that like in the case of his 'reality-traumacy-seduction theory' vs. his 'fantasy-wish theory' or Freud was 'playing off two binary opposites against each other like 'the pleasure principle' vs. 'the reality principle', 'the life vs. the death insinct' and 'the ego vs. the id'...
But back in 1895....Freud was simply making a lot of 'false connections'...and this started with his theory of repression (which didn't account for the other defenses yet) and transference which Freud partly kissed goodbye about the first time he started writing about it in 1895 ('Studies on Hysteria', p. 302) and the year after that in 1896 ('The Aetiology of Hysteria') when 'memories' started to lose their central importance in Psychoanalysis, and in came 'wishes, fantasies, instincts and their vicissitudes'.
Thus, what was lost before it was ever found in 1895-96 was the concept of 'transference encounters', 'transference scenes', 'transference traumacies', 'transference memories', and yes -- even 'transference fixations, wishes, fantasies, impulses, drives' -- defining moments in our childhood history where our transference memories/complexes/conflicts start to build around these 'defining moments' in our early childhood -- usually the most significant ones between about 3 and 6 years old....until they comprise the central core -- and 'the core, nuclear conflicts' -- of our personality structure and psycho-dynamics.
These 'defining moments' can also be viewed as 'narcissistic unfinished situations' -- specifically, usually but not always -- 'narcissistic injuries' or 'traumatically perceived damages to our self-esteem' that we spend the rest of our lives (the 're-creation', 'repetition', and 'mastery' compulsion, i.e., serial behavior patterns) trying to 'reverse', 'overcome', 'compensate for', 'defend against', from an assortment of different 'ego positions' or 'ego-states'...superego, underego, righteous ego, hedonistic ego, approval-seeking ego, distancing ego....
And now everything starts to make sense....specifically how 'transference traumacies' and 'transference fantasies' are intimately attached to each other -- the first reflecting our 'inferiority complex' and the second reflecting our 'superiority striving' or 'mastery compulsion'.
Here is where Freud and Adler split apart -- and here is where they can be brought back together again...still with assumptive differences between them, i.e., 'conflict in the personality (Freud) vs. 'unity in the personality' (Adler)...but now there is much less distance between the two theorist as 'sex' and 'self-esteem' are usually also intimately connected...
Within my post-Freudian 'Classical-Object Relations' integrative perspective, and my 'traumacy-fantasy' perspective, what I am calling 'transference memories' are essentially the same types of usually conscious early memories that Adler called 'lifestyle memories'...and in Adlerian terminology, 'transference repetition patterns' become 'lifestyle goals and patterns'...again, the only major difference now separating the two schools of psychology being the 'unity' vs. 'conflict' assumption and the 'sex' vs. 'self-esteem' assumption, or worded later in Freudian theory, the 'life' and 'death' instincts vs. the 'superiority striving' or 'self-esteem' goal...
And everyone else's work can quickly become connected as well -- at least if we are so motivated -- the connection between this line of thinking and Janov's 'primal memories' is obvious, Berne's 'Games People Play' now becomes 'Transference Games People Play', transference becomes Fritz Perls' 'childhood unfinished situation'.....because the self-esteem traumacy has left a 'huge gap, a huge hole in our psyche/self-esteem that we are looking to 'heal'...
Transferences can contain mixtures of 'life forces' and 'destructive, death forces'....
The Seduction Theory can be 're-attached' to The Traumacy Theory...
One sided theories invariably self-destruct...and fail...
Because they are not 'homeostatically and dialectically balanced'.
Freud's traumacy theory didn't take into account 'wishes and fantasies'...
And Freud's instinct-fantasy-wish-drive theory didn't take into account traumacies.
Both theories ended up with 'false connections'...
Because neither theory could cover the binary opposite theory that the other theory missed...
Freud was caught in an 'either/or paradigm'...
He didn't have to be...
Traumacies and fantasies are not mutually exclusive events...
In fact, in transference situations, they are both attached to the same transference complex.
Freud couldn't catch that....
Or he didn't want to because he wanted to escape from his 'childhood sexual abuse theory'...
Because, due to the leverage of The Vienna Psychiatry and Neurology,
Persisting with this most unpopular theory -- this supposed 'scientific fairy tale'...
Was costing him client referral and money...
In essence, his job, his career, and his means of supporting his family...
So either way you want to look at it,
Whether it was out of ignorance or intention,
Freud failed with two opposing theories, that taken independently of each other,
Neither was sufficient by itself to satisfy the full landscape of the human psyche -- and the structural foundation and territory of psychoanalysis...
Freud's traumacy and seduction theories failed to the extent that they didn't account for fantasy theory...
And Freud's fantasy theory failed to the extent that it didn't properly account for reality, traumacy, and sexual traumacy theory....
My 'dialectic' theory works...
Because both these territories are covered...at the same time...
Freud was a smart man.
Why couldn't he figure that one out?
Money.
Money changes everything.
Object Relations is still evolving...
Because it doesn't have Freud's name...
Attached to it...
But Classical Psychoanalysis...
Should be locked up...
And encrypted in a Victorian museum...
Until the traumacy theory is put back into
Classical Psychoanalysis...
And all The Discriminatory Narcissistic Bias...
Against Women...
Is taken out of Classical Psychoanalysis...
It's nice to show off a Model T Ford...
But don't try to pass it off...
As a 2012 Mercedes Benz...
Freud wasn't God...
He was human like the rest of us...
Full of narcissistic biases...
And transference neuroses...
That were introjected....
Into 'Classical' Psychoanalysis...
His daughter, Anna Freud, couldn't see this...
Kurt Eissler couldn't see this...
The Board of Directors of...
The International Psychoanalytic Institute...
Couldn't see this...
Masson could...
And lost his Projects Director of The Freud Archives...
For saying so...
Masson couldn't see...
The potential interactions and integrations...
Between Pre-1897 Classical Psychoanalysis...
And Post-1896 Classical Psychoanalysis...
But I'm serving them up to you tonight...
Here....on a golden platter...
I think back to what Masson wrote to me...
Two years ago when I interviewed him...
And he's probably still right...
..........................................................................
9. Question.
DGB. Any commendations and/or criticisms regarding my work in Hegel's Hotel?
Maybe I am being too bold here -- I expect you will be truthful. Have I
influenced your thinking at all? I see you have an interest in the 'Us and
Them' phenomenon which has been a central 'dialectic' focal point of writing
for me in Hegel's Hotel; and also, we at least used to share a common interest
in the topic of 'counter-phobias' (if Janet Malcolm's quote here is right)
which remains a central focal point of my Psychoanalytic investigations.
9. Answer.
JM. Well, I have only read your work sporadically and not in depth. I can sense
your sincerity, and I respect your attempt to fuse both trauma and the later
Freud. It is not easy, and you are making a concerted attempt. Analysts
would do well to pay attention to your work, but of course they won't,
because you are not part of the establishment. That is a pity.
10. Final DGB comments:
Jeff, I have the utmost respect for your work and your character. I know that we disagree on the 'integration' issue -- you skeptical that it will work, and me confident that I can make it work. But regardless, your work on The Seduction Theory has been a source of great inspiration to me, impassioned me to follow up on your work wherever it may take me, and to do the best job I possibly can to make sure that your exhausting work in Psychoanalysis has not been in vain, and that you take your rightful, respectful place in the history and ongoing evolution of Psychoanalysis.
It has been the greatest pleasure meeting you and I hope that we can maintain some degree of ongoing contact with each other.
Sincerely, David Gordon Bain
.......................................................................................................................................
Email Transaction From Jeffrey Masson Regarding The Interview...
Sunday March 14th, 2010
(Dave),
I read what you wrote, and I appreciate the generous comments about me. It
was very kind. Like you, I do not expect any reconciliation. And the truth
is, I really have lost interest in psychoanalysis. Perhaps if they had
responded as you have, or as you wish they had, it would be different.
Surely Freud has written some wonderful papers, has had some amazing
insights, has given us valuable material to think about. But I do believe
he missed out on something terribly important. Now, as to why he did so, I
cannot pretend to know. My hunch, my theory, my belief, is that it was due
to a lack of moral courage. But I could easily be wrong. You might be
right: he may have been headed in that direction in any case. We will
probably never know. But he did abandon what was an important and
courageous theory, and the result is that women and children were
disbelieved and suffered as a consequence. I am amazed, like you, that not
a single analyst has been able to acknowledge this! I just can't really get
my mind around this. So I have to wish them godspeed, and be on my way.
Same with you. I appreciate what you do, but I am concerned now with other
things and cannot give much more attention to this matter. Sorry. You are
doing a fine job on your own! Best, Jeff
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Ph.D.
P.O.Box 25930, St. Heliers, Auckland 1740
New Zealand
www.jeffreymasson.com
.....................................................................................................................................
Good night...
-- dgb, Aug 5, 2012...
-- David Gordon Bain
Saturday, August 4, 2012
The Newest Revision of The Gap-DGB Model of The Personality
A few adjustments have been made since my last model was articulated back a month or two ago....
This model integrates a number of different variables...such as:
1. Traumacy and Fantasy Theory;
2. Classical Psychoanalysis, Object Relations, and Self-Psychology;
3. Psychoanalysis, Adlerian Psychology, Jungian Psychology, Transactional Analysis, Gestalt Theory and Therapy, Cognitive-Behavioral Theory and Therapy, Linguistic-Semantic Theory and Therapy, Self-Esteem Theory and Therapy, Humanistic-Existential Theory and Therapy (Fromm, Horney...)...
For ease of discussion, because the model is so large, let me divide the model into two workable pieces or divisions:
A. The Object-Relations-Transactional Analysis Part of The Model
Part 1: The More Conscious Elements of The Personality (Psyche, Wholistic Ego)
i) Four 'Superego Functions and Compartments or States'
1. The Nurturing (Altruistic, Caring, Loving, Giving...) Superego;
2. The Righteous-(Critical-Rejecting-Ethical-Apollonian) Superego;
3. The Pleasure-Seeking (Dionysian-Hedonistic-Narcissistic) Superego;
4. The Distancing-Rejecting (Anal-Schizoid) Superego;
ii) Four 'Underdog or Underego Functions and Compartments or States
5. The Co-operative (Compliant, Pleasing, Aproval-Seeking, Disapproval-Avoiding) Underego;
6. The Pleasure-Seeking (Dionysian-Hedonistic-Narcissistic) Underego;
7. The Righteous (Rebellious, Deconstructive, Destructive-Anarchist) Underego;
8. The Distancing (Anal-Paranoid-Schizoid, and/or Oral-Phobic) Underego.
iii) The Executive (Mediating-Conflict-Resolving-Problem-Solving) Central Ego Functions and States
09. The Sensory-Emotional-Spiritual Central Ego;
10. The Private Central Ego;
11. The Executive-Mediating-Conflict-Resolving-Problem Solving) Central Ego;
12. The Public Central Ego.
13. The Psychotherapy Room and/or The 'Sin Den', 'The Addiction Room', and/or 'The Room of Competing Life and Death Forces -- and Possible Self-Destruction;
Part 2: The More Subconscious and/or Preconscious Elements of The Personality (Psyche, Wholistic Ego)
14. The Dream, Fantasy, Creativity, and/or Nightmare-Destruction Weaver;
15. Conflated Traumacy-Transference and Transference-Fantasy Complexes;
16. The Shadow-Id-Ego Vault;
17. The Experience-Learning-Memory-Transference Template;
18. The Evolving Shadow-Id-Ego;
19. The Black Hole (The Nietzschean Abyss, Anaxamander's Apeiron, Chaos, Guntrip's Schizoid Drop or Collapse);
20. The Genetic-Biological-Hormonal-Existential Evolving Potential Self (The GPS which can and will stand for both 'The Genetic Potential Self' and 'The Greater Potential Self)
That is all I have time for right now....
Added Aug. 5, 2012....
This is a 'Multi-Bi-Polarity Model of The Personality' because both our mind and our body subscribes to the principle of 'homeostasis' or 'homeostatic-dialectic-democratic balance'.
Some of the polarities that can be found in the model above include:
1. Narcissism vs. altruism;
2. Love vs. Hate;
3. Reality and Traumacy vs. Creative, Destructive, and/or Erotic Fantasy Impulses;
4. Topdog vs. Underdog or Superego vs. Underego;
5. Approach vs. Avoidance;
6. Approval-Seeking vs. Rebellious Defiance;
7. Nurturing Caring and Encouragement vs. Critical and Rejecting Righteousness;
8. Narcissism vs. Righteousness;
9. Dionysianism (Pleasure-seeking, impulsiveness, spontaneity, lateness, disorder, chaos) vs. Apollonianism (order, organization, neatness, hygiene, punctuality, classification systems, compartmentalization, ethics, morality, accountability, responsibility...);
10. The ego vs. id;
11. Unity vs. Conflict;
12. Wholism vs. Reductionism;
13. Polar extremism (either/or, black vs. white) vs. compromising, integrating, synthesizing;
The model has a lot of interacting and/or dissociating parts attached to it -- representative to the best of my ability of the sorts of things that actually happen within the integrating and/or disintegrating, attached or detached, personality....
More to come, of course...
-- dgb, Aug. 4, 2012....Happy Birthday, Mom...
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Approaches, Interactions-Negotiations and Syntheses...
-- Are Still in Process...
This model integrates a number of different variables...such as:
1. Traumacy and Fantasy Theory;
2. Classical Psychoanalysis, Object Relations, and Self-Psychology;
3. Psychoanalysis, Adlerian Psychology, Jungian Psychology, Transactional Analysis, Gestalt Theory and Therapy, Cognitive-Behavioral Theory and Therapy, Linguistic-Semantic Theory and Therapy, Self-Esteem Theory and Therapy, Humanistic-Existential Theory and Therapy (Fromm, Horney...)...
For ease of discussion, because the model is so large, let me divide the model into two workable pieces or divisions:
A. The Object-Relations-Transactional Analysis Part of The Model
Part 1: The More Conscious Elements of The Personality (Psyche, Wholistic Ego)
i) Four 'Superego Functions and Compartments or States'
1. The Nurturing (Altruistic, Caring, Loving, Giving...) Superego;
2. The Righteous-(Critical-Rejecting-Ethical-Apollonian) Superego;
3. The Pleasure-Seeking (Dionysian-Hedonistic-Narcissistic) Superego;
4. The Distancing-Rejecting (Anal-Schizoid) Superego;
ii) Four 'Underdog or Underego Functions and Compartments or States
5. The Co-operative (Compliant, Pleasing, Aproval-Seeking, Disapproval-Avoiding) Underego;
6. The Pleasure-Seeking (Dionysian-Hedonistic-Narcissistic) Underego;
7. The Righteous (Rebellious, Deconstructive, Destructive-Anarchist) Underego;
8. The Distancing (Anal-Paranoid-Schizoid, and/or Oral-Phobic) Underego.
iii) The Executive (Mediating-Conflict-Resolving-Problem-Solving) Central Ego Functions and States
09. The Sensory-Emotional-Spiritual Central Ego;
10. The Private Central Ego;
11. The Executive-Mediating-Conflict-Resolving-Problem Solving) Central Ego;
12. The Public Central Ego.
13. The Psychotherapy Room and/or The 'Sin Den', 'The Addiction Room', and/or 'The Room of Competing Life and Death Forces -- and Possible Self-Destruction;
Part 2: The More Subconscious and/or Preconscious Elements of The Personality (Psyche, Wholistic Ego)
14. The Dream, Fantasy, Creativity, and/or Nightmare-Destruction Weaver;
15. Conflated Traumacy-Transference and Transference-Fantasy Complexes;
16. The Shadow-Id-Ego Vault;
17. The Experience-Learning-Memory-Transference Template;
18. The Evolving Shadow-Id-Ego;
19. The Black Hole (The Nietzschean Abyss, Anaxamander's Apeiron, Chaos, Guntrip's Schizoid Drop or Collapse);
20. The Genetic-Biological-Hormonal-Existential Evolving Potential Self (The GPS which can and will stand for both 'The Genetic Potential Self' and 'The Greater Potential Self)
That is all I have time for right now....
Added Aug. 5, 2012....
This is a 'Multi-Bi-Polarity Model of The Personality' because both our mind and our body subscribes to the principle of 'homeostasis' or 'homeostatic-dialectic-democratic balance'.
Some of the polarities that can be found in the model above include:
1. Narcissism vs. altruism;
2. Love vs. Hate;
3. Reality and Traumacy vs. Creative, Destructive, and/or Erotic Fantasy Impulses;
4. Topdog vs. Underdog or Superego vs. Underego;
5. Approach vs. Avoidance;
6. Approval-Seeking vs. Rebellious Defiance;
7. Nurturing Caring and Encouragement vs. Critical and Rejecting Righteousness;
8. Narcissism vs. Righteousness;
9. Dionysianism (Pleasure-seeking, impulsiveness, spontaneity, lateness, disorder, chaos) vs. Apollonianism (order, organization, neatness, hygiene, punctuality, classification systems, compartmentalization, ethics, morality, accountability, responsibility...);
10. The ego vs. id;
11. Unity vs. Conflict;
12. Wholism vs. Reductionism;
13. Polar extremism (either/or, black vs. white) vs. compromising, integrating, synthesizing;
The model has a lot of interacting and/or dissociating parts attached to it -- representative to the best of my ability of the sorts of things that actually happen within the integrating and/or disintegrating, attached or detached, personality....
More to come, of course...
-- dgb, Aug. 4, 2012....Happy Birthday, Mom...
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Approaches, Interactions-Negotiations and Syntheses...
-- Are Still in Process...
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