A New Multi-Dialectic, Cross-School Understanding of Transference: A Tribute to The 100th Year Anniversary of Freud's Classic Essay, 'The Dynamics of Transference (1912), and The 130th Year Anniversary of The End of Joseph Breuer's Therapeutic Relationship With Anna. O. (1882)

The history of the concept of transference -- arguably Freud's most important concept in his lifelong professional career (although Freud at one point argued that 'repression' was his most important concept and the foundation of psychoanalysis) -- goes back formally to 1895 (Studies on Hysteria, S.E. Vol. 2, p. 302) when Freud first technically introduced the concept, but looking back in hindsight, 'the psycho-dynamics of transference' can be traced back to what is generally considered the first case in psychoanalysis -- The 'Anna O. case', and Joseph Breuer's interaction with this first psychoanalytic patient.

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From Wikipedia....

Anna O. was the pseudonym of a patient of Josef Breuer, who published her case study in his book Studies on Hysteria, written in collaboration with Sigmund Freud. Her real name wasBertha Pappenheim (1859–1936), an Austrian-Jewish feminist and the founder of the Jüdischer Frauenbund (League of Jewish Women).

Anna O. was treated by Breuer for severe cough, paralysis of the extremities on the right side of her body, and disturbances of vision, hearing, and speech, as well as hallucination and loss of consciousness. She was diagnosed with hysteria. Freud implies that her illness was a result of the resentment felt over her father's real and physical illness that later led to his death.^[1]

Her treatment is regarded as marking the beginning of psychoanalysis. Breuer observed that whilst she experienced 'absences' (a change of personality accompanied by confusion), she would mutter words or phrases to herself. In inducing her to a state of hypnosis, Breuer found that these words were "profoundly melancholy fantasies...sometimes characterized by poetic beauty".Free Association came into being after Anna/Bertha decided (with Breuer's input) to end her hypnosis sessions and merely talk to Breuer, saying anything that came into her mind. She called this method of communication "chimney sweeping", and this served as the beginning of free association.

Anna's/Bertha's case also shed light for the first time on the phenomenon called transference, where the patient's feelings toward a significant figure in his/her life are redirected onto the therapist. By transference, Anna imagined she was pregnant with the doctor's baby. She experienced nausea and all the pregnancy symptoms. After this incident, Breuer stopped treating her.

Historical records since showed that when Breuer stopped treating Anna O. she was not becoming better but progressively worse.^[2]She was ultimately institutionalized: "Breuer told Freud that she was deranged; he hoped she would die to end her suffering".^[3]

She later recovered over time and led a productive life. The West German government issued a postage stamp in honour of her contributions to the field of social work.^[4]

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From The Anna O. case, and other cases like it, with similar psycho-dynamics and therapeutic dynamics entering into the 'pyschotherapeutic/psycho-analytic' relationship, Freud drew up the following theoretical conclusions which, in my opinion, make up the essence of the most important conclusions that Freud ever committed to paper relative to the art and paradigm of psychoanalysis ...In short, and in my words, 'transference' enters into the psychotherapeutic relationship from the client's very first interactions with the therapist although 'crystallizing' into a coherent 'style of encounter' and 'style of relationship' that usually carries a greater or lesser degree of 'perceptual-interpretive-evaluative distortion and mis-evaluation' -- a 'false connection' in Freud's own words back in 1895 -- based on 'the historical etiology (cause, influence) of that part of the client's current 'neurosis' that is rooted in the person's usually early childhood past entering into the present, here-and-now immediacy of the therapeutic relationship -- past and present, in effect, 'conflating' into one 'style of the client interacting with the therapist'  ... In Freud's own words, in what I will repeat here as a long quote....

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From 'Studies on Hysteria', 1895, S.E. Vol. 2, p. 301....

I have already (p. 266) indicated the important part played by the figure of the physician in creating motives to defeat the psychical force of resistance. In not a few cases, especially with women and where it is a question of elucidating erotic trains of thought, the patient's co-operation becomes a personal sacrifice, which must be compensated by some substitute for love. The trouble taken by the physician and his friendliness have to suffice for such a substitute. If, now, this relation of the patient to the physician is disturbed, her co-operativeness fails, too; when the physician tries to investigate the next pathological idea, the patient is held up by an intervening consciousness of the complaints against the physician that have been accumulating in her. In my experience this obstacle arises in three principal cases.

(1)  If there is a personal estrangement -- if, for instance, the patient feels she has been neglected, has been  too little appreciated or has been insulted, or if she has heard unfavourable comments on the physician or the method of treatment. This is the least serious case. The obstacle can easily be overcome by discussion and explanation, even though the sensitiveness and suspiciousness of hysterical patients may occasionally attain surprising dimensions.

(2)  If the patient is seized by a dread of becoming too much accustomed to the patient personally, or losing her independence in relation to him, and even of perhaps becoming sexually dependent on him. This is a more important case, because its determinants are less individual. The cause of this obstacle lies in the special solicitude inherent in the treatment. The patient then has a new motive for resistance, which is manifested not only in relation to some particular reminiscence but at every attempt at treatment. It is quite common for the patient to complain of a headache when we start on the pressure procedure; for her new motive for resistance remains as a rule unconscious and is expressed by the production of a new hysterical symptom. The headache indicates her dislike of allowing herself to be influenced. 

(3)  If the patient is frightened at finding that she is transferring onto the figure of the physician the distressing ideas which arise from the contents of the analysis. This is a frequent, and indeed in some analyses a regular, occurrence. Transference (this is Freud's first use of the label and concept of transference in the history of psychoanalysis as noted by the main editor of The Standard Edition of Freud's Complete Works, James Strachey) on to the physician takes place through a false connection. (Strachey notes in this last regard that a long account of 'false connections' and 'the compulsion to associate' -- later to be followed by 'the compulsion to repeat' -- will be found above in a footnote on p. 67 -- Freud had already discussed them in relation to obsessions at the beginning of Section 2 of his first paper on 'The Neuro-Psychoses of Defense', 1894). I must give an example of this. In one of my patients the origin of a particular hysterical symptom lay in a wish (my editorial note: this last line here by Freud has huge historical significance: 1895 can be viewed as the year of the beginning of Freud's greatest psychoanalytic theoretical mistake -- his switchover from his previous 'traumacy-memory' theory to his just emerging (as you can note in this last line above) to 'wish' or 'fantasy' theory -- the mistake was not in his developing his emerging 'wish-fantasy theory' but rather in his 'mutually exclusive, either/or' approach to this apparent conflict between 'traumatic memories' and 'wishful fantasies' which left his 'traumatic memory theory' more or less dead in the water. What Freud didn't see -- but should have -- was the 'dialectical interaction' between 'memories' and 'fantasies' that often created a new brand of 'neurotic' symptoms that might be construed as 'conflations' or 'mixtures' of 'memory and fantasy woven together'. Far from being mutually exclusive, Freud's pre-1895 'traumatic memory theory' and his just emerging here 'wishful fantasy theory' can usually be viewed as two inherent and interacting parts of the same 'neurotic transference complex'.  For one reason or another -- perhaps because of Freud's background training in science and Aristolean 'either/or' thinking -- Freud could get  no sense of the Hegelian idea of 'dialectic interaction between thesis and anti-thesis resulting in 'the synthesis of a dialectically interactive-integrative 'memory-fantasy compulsion' that is the essence of any and all neurotic transference obsessive-compulsions. The 'memory-traumacy' or, worded otherwise, 'the narcissistic injury' associated with the original 'traumacy-transference memory fixation' would be propelled forwards -- or worded otherwise, be 'the traumatic-transference propulsion force' that would dialectically connect our traumatic-narcissistically injured past with our present and future, and with the psycho-dynamic 'wish' of 'reversing the essence and history of our traumacy-transference neurotic complex'  in a more favorable direction with a more narcissistically favourable version of the 'encounter ending' to the original traumacy-transference neurosis.  In the combined words of Alfred Adler, Karen Horney, and Eric Berne -- conflated together -- this 'more narcissisitically favourable punch line or ending' to the original ending of the original traumatic encounter-memory with its 'perceived self-esteem demeaning punch line in the original script' can be viewed as either taking us...1. away from people; 2. towards people (in an approval-seeking or disapproval-avoiding manner); or 3. against people in a confrontational manner (Horney); or from a position of perceived 'inferiority' or 'insecurity' to one of greater 'superiority' or 'security' (Adler); and/or create the existence of what might be called '(transference) scripts and games' that people play. Of course, none of these ideas entered Freud's consciousness in any type of organized and coherent fashion -- at least not with the power to 'stick' in his ongoing theory of psychoanalysis -- and the rest is history -- Freud's incomplete understanding of transference, and the need for present theorists and therapists to elicit the help of Object Relations (Klein, Fairbairn-Winnicott-Guntrip...)-Adlerian Theory (Adler) -Gestalt Theory (Perls, Hefferline, Goodman) -Transactional Analysis (Eric Berne)-Primal Theory and Therapy (Arthur Janov) with the addition of such concepts and theories as 'topdog-underdog' and/or 'superego-underego' and/or 'superiority-inferiority' dialectic interactions' , inferiority and superiority complexes working in dialectic interaction with each other as part of the same neurotic-traumatic-wishful-transference process; also, the addition of the importance of the idea of 'conscious early memories' and their 'metaphorical transference-lifestyle significance' to a better and greater understanding of neurotic traumacy-(lifestyle)-transference conflicts, With Gestalt Theory, we have the addition of the idea of 'the unfinished situation' as an essential part of the neurotic-traumacy-wishful-transfrence process relative to its 'obsessive-compulsive nature' and the perceived wish of the individual person for some sense of better 'ego-satisfaction' and make a 'split ego more whole again'....

In the words of Brian Bird, transference can and should be viewed as a 'universal phenomenon' (1972) -- but more than this as essentially, usually stemming from a 'self-esteem deficiency problem' which can be traced to either a specific historical moment-encounter-memory and/or a more 'serial set of similar moment-encounter-relationship-memories' which in turn result in an 'obsessive-compulsive' wishful drive of the highest proportions that can propel a person to either or both the heights of creativity and greatness and/or to the deepest depths of the abyss of personal despair. In the words of Brian Bird (1972), 

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'Perhaps all great discoveries, or at least all 'creative leaps' are made, via the transference, within the discoverer's own person. Perhaps all monumental breaches of the confines of the known depend not only upon the basic givens of genius but upon a capacity of greatly heightened cathexis of certain ego apparatuses, a development which, in turn, may require the kind of power generated by the ego only in a transference situation. (Brian Bird, 'Notes on Transference: Universal Phenomenon and Hardest Part of Analysis, 1972)

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I (dgb) use the label-concept of 'transference-sublimation' to describe the phenomenon that Bird is describing above.  

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To limit our discussion of transference to just the 'distorted' elements of a 'transferred relationship' consisting of 'drives, impulses, defenses, allusions, and compromise-formations', from a person of past importance (who may or may not be still alive and relevant today) to a different person of importance in the present would be a mistake. 

For one thing, not all elements of the transference should be viewed as 'distorted'. If a woman has had a physically abusive father whose abusive characteristics have been 'transferred' onto the similar characteristics of a 'physically abusive' boyfriend or husband who she is now emotionally involved with -- one can hardly rightly call this transference similarity 'distorted'. No indeed. This is where Freud's 'wishful fantasy' theory enters into the picture and the woman's generally unconscious wish to turn a 'bad father-transference figure' into a 'good boyfriend/husband transference figure' the latter of whom is wished to generally not be abusive (in the essence of one type of 'transference-reversal' wish) but not so 'unabusive'  that the boyfriend/husband loses his 'similarity in transference characteristics' to the original father-bad transference figure'. If the boyfriend/father loses entirely the idea of 'similarity' with the father, then that would/will in effect detract from the 'handicap challenge' of a person with an inferiority complex towards her father having the same or similar amount of 'neurotic twisted respect and the accompanying 'erotic transference desire'. Extrapolating on the words of Ronald Fairbairn, we must not lose track of the idea in these types of transference situations and relationships that what was originally our 'rejecting (transference) object or figure has now, in the immediacy of our present situation, become our 'exciting object' with a neurotically distorted desire and drive on our part to 'undo' the damage or in some way 'reverse the transference' of the original transference relationship with the person we are now relating to in the present who we still (neurotically) wish to be reminiscent of the original, past transference figure.    

Did you get all that? 

All of these ideas need to be greatly expanded but not here at this time. 

One last point to close my thinking about transference at the end of 2012. 

Transference should not only be associated with the similarity between a past and present relationship. 

Rather, transference, in the role of 'universal phenomenon', should be associated with the totality of the entire 'traumatic memory-wishful fantasy neurotic transference conflict-complex. 

This would equate transference with almost the whole entirety of psychoanalytic psychotherapy -- i.e., in terms of 1. 'raising the client's traumacy-fantasy transference awareness', 2. doing the best that both client and therapist can do in tandem with each other in coming to terms with a better, more productive and functional, resolution of the client's traumacy-fantasy transference conflict, and 3. never losing track of, awareness of, and proper respect for, the immediacy of the present, here and now relationship as an encounter and a relationship in its own unique, humanistic-existential right that in the end is different than, and should not be 'analyzed to death' as simply a 'clone' of a relationship from the client's past that does not properly appreciate the current wishes and needs of both the client and the therapist in a newly evolving dynamic, dialectic -- and ideally mutually caring -- relationship ....

Happy New Year to all my readers and their loved ones...

-- dgb, Dec. 31st, 2012, 

-- David Gordon Bain, 

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations and Creations...

-- Are Still in Process...

1.4. Conceptual and Theoretical Foundations For a Multi-Dialectic-Synergetic System of Psychology-Psychotherapy-Wellness

Let me see if I can clearly articulate a short summary of the key ideas that are incorporated into the title above...

This overall theory or assumptive paradigm presumes the idea that everyone has both an 'essence' and an 'existence' that is partly similar to, and partly different than, anyone else's and everyone else's unique integration of essence and existence.

Thus, under this working assumption, it is totally to be expected that there is no such thing as any type of 'perfect unity, harmony, and cohesion' between any two or more people -- indeed, not even within one individual person. There is always going to be a greater or lesser degree of covert and/or overt conflict between individuation and unity, separateness and togetherness, closeness and distance, reductionism and wholism, entropy and growth, conservatism and liberalness, the status quo and change....And these make up only a small sample size of the many dichotomies, paradoxes, and bi-polarities that are 'built in' to both man's 'essence' and his 'existence'....Indeed, essence and existence form their own particular bi-polarity....just like 'nature' and 'nurture'....

We cannot escape this seemingly infinite number of active and/or inactive, covert and/or overt, dominant and/or submissive, bi-polarities in our personality. They are probably the biggest part of the 'essence' of what makes us human. Our 'collective bi-polarities' are the biggest part of what make us 'collectively human', whereas how each and everyone of us chooses to cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally deal with each and every one of these bi-polar dichotomies that enters our consciousness -- or doesn't -- is the particular 'trademark' that gives each and everyone of us our own 'unique character'.....our unique character being the particular 'blend' of 'bi-polar and/or unilateral choices' that each and everyone of us makes both habitually-chronically-repetitively, and also, uniquely each and every day...indeed, each and every moment... 

Repetition is certainly a part of the essence of being human but so too is the willingness and sometimes the courage needed to 'step outside of our particular safety zone', our particular 'habitual paradigm of existence'. To the extent that we want to make our life a process of 'continually being re-born' -- which is not a process that interests all (some prefer safety, security, rootedness more than they prefer an opportunity for 'creative transcendence and personal growth'...another paradox and bi-polarity of life that demands individual choices) -- but to repeat, the opportunity for creative transcendence and personal growth demands that we be able to continually 'break down' or 'deconstruct' our past and present 'assumptive and lifestyle paradigms' and 'build' or 're-build' changing and/or expanding and/or integrating new ones....

And so it is with Psychoanalysis. 

There are some who live and die by the 'authoritative credo' of 'What the Master and/or The Establishment teaches, is what you will learn, and any significant deviation from what The Master -- in this case, usually Freud -- and/or The Wide Variety of Growing and Evolving Psychoanalytic Teaching Establishments that are out there in the world today, are teaching -- well, any significant deviation in this regard, is 'not Psychoanalysis'. 

 In terms of authoritarianism and 'Secret Societyism', and sticking to particular stagnant and outdated concepts and theories and paradigms, Freud was undoubtedly the worst -- or best -- depending on your point of view. If you are into authoritarianism, conservatism, and sticking with the Classical Freudian status-quo, then Freud was likely your man -- your Master. But all men, all women, and all 'Masters' have limitations and liabilities in their concepts, theories, and paradigms -- both personal and professional -- and usually the two significantly overlap. Furthermore, they usually overlap -- i.e., our 'personal and professional paradigms' -- within the unique paradigm and/or set of paradigms that make up our 'personal transference complexes and templates'. This is what Brian Bird called 'transference as a universal phenomenon', and what I will add as a 'uniquely individual, universal phenomenon'. 

Thus, we should not be surprised when we become 'enlightened' as to just how Freud's unique personal transference complexes and templates meshed into his professional ones (call this 'transference sublimation') resulting in the particular configuration of concepts, theories, and paradigm that we now, mostly historically, but not entirely, call 'Classical Psychoanalysis'. 

Now, Psychoanalysis today has evolved into something immensely more complicated and integrated, or not integrated, than what Freud called 'Classical Psychoanalysis'. Gone for the most part -- to my knowledge and awareness -- are concepts and theories like 'castration anxiety' and 'penis envy' and perhaps -- as 'Object Relations' becomes more and more of a dominant 'sub-school force' in Psychoanalysis -- gone to, at least partly, are Freud's classic concepts and theories of 'the id' and 'The Oedipal Complex'. Not entirely, to be sure, but Object Relations doesn't really need and/or use these two classic Freudian concepts and theories. Or does it? Perhaps Object Relations needs some semblance of Freud's concept and theory of the id -- and 'the pleasure-unpleasure principle' -- at its rock bottom foundation of Object Relations Theory. I mean 'the drive' to meet and unite with people is both 'contact driven' but sometimes, indeed oftentimes, it is 'sexually and/or aggressively' driven as well. Object Relations needs a 'drive, impulse, traumacy, and fantasy theory' at its base, and for this, Object Relations may be better off leaning back into both 'Pre-Psychoanalytic Freudian Traumacy Theory' and 'Classical Freudian Drive and Fantasy Theory' than to shun and dissociate itself from both of these earlier Psychoanalytic Theories. 

In short, from my particular point of view, Psychoanalysis -- should become a New, Multi-Dialectic-Interactive-Integrative-Expansive Psychoanalysis for the 21st Century -- and in this regard, needs to both incorporate significant parts of its own historical past -- meaning both Traumacy Theory and Fantasy-Drive Theory with Object Relations Theory and Self Psychology, and also perhaps elements of the likes of Bionian and Lacanian Theory, as well as 'Outside Schools of Psychoanalysis That Used To Be Inside' such as important elements of Adlerian Psychology, Rankian Psychology, Cognitive-Behavior Therapy (Ego Psychology), Gestalt Therapy and other forms of Humanistic-Existentialism....as well as keep expanding in new, and wonderfully creative, meaningful directions. 

In this latter respect, we need to treat Psychoanalysis like a 'person' -- full of both 'healthy, growing' and 'neurotic, entropic, self-destructive' capabilities....and in Rank's words 'unlearn' the types of concepts, theories, and procedures that are not taking us anywhere, and/or are taking us down a 'neurotic, entropic, self-destructive' path....

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en·tro·py  (ntr-p)

n. pl. en·tro·pies

1. Symbol S For a closed thermodynamic system, a quantitative measure of the amount of thermal energy not available to do work.

2. A measure of the disorder or randomness in a closed system.

3. A measure of the loss of information in a transmitted message.

4. The tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity.

5. Inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or society.

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This is what I call a truly 'Multi-Dialectic-Interactive-Integrative-Expansive School of Psychology...and it is my goal within Hegel's Hotel to 'show a path -- obviously, it won't be perfect, it will have flaws in its own right that others will pick apart and deconstruct -- down this multi-dialectic-interactive-integrative-synergetic-expansive route'.... 

Think of Classical Psychoanalysis as being like the 'hub' of a wheel in a bicycle with spokes leaving the hub at all different angles and directions....There is a dialectic interaction between the hub and the spokes of the wheel that propels the bicycle forward in the direction that we wish to steer 'the whole bicycle' using the 'combined angle diversity of all the different spokes attached to, and propelling outwards from, the hub'...

However, the original 'Freudian, Classical Psychoanalysis' was a highly 'Exclusive, Secret Society' -- very 'anal-selective' and 'anal-retentive', a 'projection-sublimation' of 'The Master's' own personality. Freud said that 'what Adler was doing was no good', and 'what Jung was doing was no good', and 'what Rank was doing was no good'.....and....therefore, 'take these Adlerian spokes' off the wheel, and 'take these Jungian spokes off the wheel'...and 'take these Rankian spokes off the wheel'...and before long you had a 'bicycle', if you still want to call it that, that that was barely running on a few highly selective Freudian spokes....The 'bicycle creation' had come to match 'the personality of its creator' -- highly 'anal-retentive' with lots of 'entropy' in the system -- a concept-phenomenon that Freud himself emphasized after bringing it over from physics -- and metaphorically speaking, 'the death force' that Freud had created inside Psychoanalysis was slowly squeezing out its 'life force'....Many of the 'life forces' had been taken out of the system, or never entered into the system in the first place -- a product of Freud's 'over-reductionist, anal-retentive' personality...

None of these editorial comments are really new, of course -- other critics have been stating essentially the same thing in similar or different words for the last 90 years or so...over 100 years if you go back to Joseph Breuer's criticisms of Freud's theoretical reductionism...

To a certain extent, Modern Day Psychoanalysis is now trying to put some of these 'old Psychoanalytic spokes-- e.g. traumacy theory' back on the wheel, as well as some 'new or newer ones (Object Relations, Self Psychology, Attachment Theory, Bionian Theory, Lacanian Theory...')....

Without this evolving, modern-day, process, and an inclusion of some earlier excluded concepts and theories, and/or additions of some new ones, the old Freudian Classical Psychoanalysis would have probably 'grounded itself' -- run out of 'forward propulsion' from 'lack of number and angle diversity of spokes in the wheel' -- it would have died from 'entropy' like all organisms and systems eventually do....The only way to keep a system such as Psychoanalysis alive is to 'pump new energy' into the system to counteract the destructive effects of entropy....

To an even greater extent than Modern Day Psychoanalysis, that is what I am doing here -- adding more 'energy' into the Psychoanalytic System -- more so than Modern Day Psychoanalysis because I do not feel confined and restricted by keeping Adler's, or Jung's, or Rank's, or Berne's, or Janov's, or Perls', or Masson's work out of the system...


This, I would say most definitely, makes my particular 'brand' of 'Expansive-Boundary-Breaking-Multi-Dialectic-Interactive-Integrative-Synergetic Psychoanalysis' the most unorthodox but all-encompassing brand of Psychoanalysis in the world today....with potentially 'the liveliest life force' and 'anti-entropic defensive forces' within its overall dynamic, theoretical-therapeutic system-process...

To be sure, you could say that this brand of 'All-Expansive Psychoanalysis' is also limited by the character and knowledge of its creator -- 'yours truly, DGB, me' -- and by the unique configuration of my evolving theoretical paradigm -- but it is a lot larger and livelier a multi-dialectic-system-process than any other Psychoanalytic system or process -- or any other school of psychology for that matter (I even incorporate more philosophy than anyone else) -- that is out there....

Enough of my own 'chest-beating'....

Crucial to this particular system-process is....

1. The idea of 'The Genetic Dialectic Self-Potential Self' which includes all of our inherent more generic species-wide skills, talents, abilities, etc., as well as our more unique individual  skills, talents, abilities, with the first type including our ability to use mythological symbols and archetypes in our inherent 'primal-picture-mythological-symbol-imagery-thinking process'; Freud distinguished between what he called 'the primary process' (ruled by 'the pleasure principle') and 'the secondary process' (ruled by 'the reality principle' which in turn, although Freud didn't explicitly state this, is ruled more by 'the unpleasure principle', meaning those things that we need to do survive and function better but don't want to do; thus, the pleasure principle is ruled by internal drive and passion whereas the unpleasure principle requires more 'cognitive willpower' and fear of pain and/or negative consequences as opposed to being internally driven by pleasure and passion...); thirdly, I am distinguishing 'the primal process' from 'the primary process' which the former involves the use of 'symbolic-mythological picture imagery' as opposed to 'the pursuit of pleasure'...);

2. The idea of The Unborn Baby in 'The Womb Room' which -- assuming that everything is going right -- is like 'The Garden of Eden' where 'each and every need (aside from maybe 'change of fetal position' is mother-delivered', and to be contrasted sharply by 'nature's eventual expulsion of the 'in the process of being born baby from the womb';

3. The idea of 'The Great Existential Abyss of Freedom' which the newborn baby is harshly exposed to -- involving both a separation from the womb and a separation from the baby's complete 'symbiotic attachment' with the mother; to 'go backwards' is impossible can remain a 'lifelong wish' -- or 'partial wish' -- or 'temporary wish' -- or 'surrogate replacement wish' -- in the throes of great environmental and/or internal stress-- creating the first core nuclear conflict in the newborn baby between ' a wish for 'Primal Dependence' and 'Attachment-Unity to The Mother or Mother-Surrogate' and 'the wish for Self-Individuation, Self-Empowerment, and Existential Independence'...

4. The idea of the wish and search for a 'Mother-Surrogate' and/or a 'Surrogate Comfort Womb Room' and/or 'Surrogate Comfort Pleasures' all of which may turn into 'Surrogate Comfort and/or Safety Addictions' that in turn may incorporate -- the likes of 'normal' 'transitional toys' such as 'soothers', 'blankets', 'teddy bears' and the like....to later in life 'food addictions', 'drug addictions', 'alcohol addictions, 'sex addictions', 'shopping addictions', 'obsessive-compulsions', 'physical comfort rooms', 'metaphorical-conceptual comfort boxes' that we are afraid to step out of in the face of 'the individual, existential need to constantly be re-born....to constantly re-create ourselves outside of our self-perceived paradigm-boxes' (influences here: Rank, Fromm);

  5. The idea of the development of more 'unique, individual customized' core nuclear conflicts during both 'The Pre-Oedipal' and 'The Oedipal Phase' of human development taking into account 'the whole Family and Non-Family Constellation of Traumacy-Non-Traumacy-Learning-Transference Factors, Co-Factors,  and Evolving Fantasies, Compensations, Impulses, Ego Defensive Processes, Complexes and Templates' that will provide 'the more or less deterministic' elements or templates of our evolving character type (including our genetically passed on skills, capabilities, talents, and character predispositions...that is certainly, as Freud wrote in his classic 1912 paper, 'The Dynamics of Transference', amenable to some change and modification over time (with the introduction and effect of new experiences, new awarenesses, new compensations and behavioral strategies, etc...added onto, or replacing, our old cognitive-emotional mindsets and behavioral strategies...), but still, there is usually a 'core repetition and projective re-creation compulsion' that is very, very resistant to change, and just does not totally go away...often or usually...'til death do us part'....


That is where we will leave our presently evolving theoretical system for today....

Best wishes to everyone and their friends and families for the holiday season and the new year...

-- dgb, Dec. 24th, 2012...

-- David Gordon Bain...

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations and Creations...

-- Are Still in Process...

    





  

On The Essence of The Multi-Dialectic Phenomenology of Spirit: (As Contrasted Against Sartre's 'Existence Before Essence' Premise)

'The Phenomenology of Spirit' is a central concept in my own modified, extended rendition of Hegel's work -- 'Hegel's Hotel' -- taken from the title of Hegel's most important philosophical work by the same name, written in 1807, although it is unfortunately more often translated today as 'The Phenomenology of Mind'.  The semantic problem hinges around the German word 'Geist' which means both 'spirit' and 'mind' in German.

Unfortunately, the word 'mind' does not conjure up the same type of idea that 'spirit' does -- the latter of which is generally more easily connected to to the ideas of 'feeling' and 'soul' than the word 'mind' is.

Hegel's famous book takes us on an analytic trip of collective-and-individual-historical-evolutionary-determinism from primitive times to German Idealism, culminating with Hegel's work, and heading through the dialectic process of 1. thesis; 2. anti-thesis; 3. synthesis; (although Hegel never used these actual words to describe this essential dialectic process) and start the process all over again at a higher level of evolution....the ultimate end of human growth and evolution supposedly culminating in what Hegel called 'The Absolute' as in 'Absolute Godliness' where man reaches a level of consciousness and self-consciousness where he has, in effect, actualized God's creative intent -- and let it be added, no matter how 'ugly' it may have gotten in the very volatile dialectic movement and actualization of human thinking and behavior to get to this ultimate evolutionary ending of 'actualizing God's creative intent'. In Hegel's idealistic picture of human evolution, some very nasty human behavior -- such as, say The French Revolution and The Reign of Terror -- will eventually end in a 'happy, idealistic human ending where man ultimately reaches God's own level of Absolute Consciousness'...

For me -- and Hegel's Hotel: GAP-DGB Philosophy-Psychology -- 'The (Multi-Dialectic) Phenomenology of Spirit' works quite differently than what Hegel had in mind -- much less 'cerebral' and much more 'spiritual'; still partly historically and dialectically deterministic, but at the same time, potentially much more individual and multi-dialectic-romantic-humanistic-existential, as well as being potentially multi-dialectic-romantic-humanistic-existential in a larger group sense as well. 

Let me see if I can explain. 

My modified and extended version of Hegel's 'phenomenology of spirit' is predicated on three working assumptions: 

1. Man is essentially 'multi-bipolar' and 'dialectic engagement' is necessary to 'harmonize' our conflicted, opposing bipolarities so that they are working together within us and outside of us towards the same end, rather than tearing us apart -- ending in self-destruction and self-tragedy (Nietzschean style)....Conflicted bipolarities, unrecognized, disowned, dissociated from each other, and/or otherwise unresolved within the personality can drag us down into the abyss of self-destruction and self-defeat; in contrast, recognized, accepted, and resolved 'self-splits' can move us more forcefully and integratively towards actualizing our 'ideal phenomenology of spirit';

2. 'Self-splits' are usually formed, using primarily Freudian terms here in one or more of the three following stages of early childhood development: 1. The Pre-Birth Womb; 2. The Pre-Oedipal Stage (birth to 2 yrs old); and/or 3. The Oedipal Stage (3 to 7 yrs. old). Self-splits are partly inherent in the normal 'multi-bipolar' biological and cognitive-emotional-behavioral functioning of the organism, but self-splits are also exasperated by mainly early childhood traumacy -- what can be called 'core, nuclear, traumacy-transference rejection or failure scenes with resulting internal conflict' that can, and usually do, have a lifelong evolutionary and/or regressive and/or pathological effect on our developing personality...

3. At least fifteen of our essential bipolarities come down through our evolution from seemingly the beginning of human time, and can be found in almost all cultures of human mythology....

Let me list what I consider to be fifteen main ones...


Fifteenth Essential-Existential Bipolarities in Both Man's Nature and His Existence


Most of you have probably seen these four cornerstones of human existence laid out in some form of ancient mythology: 1. water-peace-tranquility-harmony; 2. earth-vitamins-minerals-food-shelter-groundedness-rootedness-security; 3. fire-blood-energy-passion-forcefulness; 4. air-wind-sky-ambition-creativity-transcendence....   

Of which we can deduce at least two rather self-apparent bipolarities: 1. fire vs. water; and 2. air and sky vs. earth and ground. These are two of the mythological and humanistic-existential bipolarities and dichotomies that we all have to deal with in some fashion during the course of living....A balance between both bipolarities -- or our four mythological cornerstones of existence -- is essential for a healthy human 'multi-dialectic, phenomenology of spirit'....

From the early mythological Greeks -- as laid out by Nietzsche in 'The Birth of Tragedy' (1872) -- we come to a third essential bipolarity in the nature of man -- Apollo vs. Dionysus (or as later laid out by Freud, 'the ego and the superego' vs. 'the id'). Again, evolving harmony and integration of these two polar characteristics in the nature of man -- Apollo and Dionysus -- leads, generally speaking, to a more idealistically evolving 'multi-dialectic, phenomenology of spirit' -- whereas 'dissociation' between the two tends to lead to the opposite -- in Nietzsche's words, a 'birth of tragedy'....

A fourth bipolarity in the nature of man can be identified as 'separation and individuation' vs. 'union and togetherness'. 

A fifth bipolarity in the nature of man can be identified as 'narcissism' vs. 'altruism'.

A sixth bipolarity in the nature of man can be identified as 'righteous judgment' vs. 'nurturing acceptance'. 

A seventh bipolarity in the nature of man can be identified as 'construction' vs. 'deconstruction'. 

An eighth bipolarity in the nature of man can be identified as Apollo vs. Aphrodite-Eros-Cupid or 'Enlightenment Reason, Fairness, Justice, Equality, Goal-Setting, Planning, Law-and-Rule Making' vs. 'Romantic Impulsiveness, Spontaneity, Unpredictability, and Ethics-Law-and-Rule-Breaking'

In Platonic triadic fashion, man has 'three energy centres': 1. the mind (Apollo); 2. the heart (Aphrodite-Eros-Cupid); and 3. the loins (Dionysus, Bacchus). Thus, the distinction between the 'Apollo-Dionysus bipolarity' and the 'Apollo-Eros bipolarity'. 

This also adds a ninth human bipolarity, that being the bipolarity between Dionysus (loins) and Eros/Cupid (heart). 

A tenth bipolarity can be identified as  (Narcissus) narcissism vs. (Apollo) ethics-morality-fairness-justice...

An eleventh bipolarity -- and here we may be partly overlapping with an earlier bipolarity (separation vs. union) can be identified as self-independence vs. environmental and/or social dependence...

A twelfth bipolarity or dichotomy as identified by Erich Fromm can be articulated as 'freedom' vs. 'unfreedom' -- the idea being that 'freedom' in terms of 'freedom to be and to become' can cause 'dizzying anxiety' relative to 'fear of failing or looking foolish' -- and a wish to turn around and seek anonymity and/or existential safety in the midst of the 'hiding crowd'...

A thirteenth bipolarity I will list as the bipolarity between love and hate and/or love and war, as well as between good and evil....

A fourteenth bipolarity I will identify as the bipolarity between moving towards people, and/or  moving towards caring, sharing, compassion, intimacy and love -- and moving away from people, away from caring, sharing, compassion, intimacy and love...

A final fifteenth bipolarity I will list as the Freudian bipolarity between 'life' and 'death' forces....    

Assumptively speaking, interacting with these fifteen essential-existential bipolarities in man are: 

1. The genetic aspect of our 'essential-existential life-template' as partly laid out in our 'Genetic Self and Potential Self' which includes our most unique talents and skills...

2. Our traumatic or non-traumatic early childhood transference scenes, usually depicted in our earliest childhood memories which become a part of our 'evolving transference-lifestyle script' for better and/or for worse, for love and/or for hate, for health and/or for pathology, for good and/or for evil, for dissociative conflict and/or for united harmony...


The result of all these essential and existential co-factors -- coming together and/or splitting us apart -- determines the evolving nature or 'emotional thermostat' of our 'multi-dialectic, phenomenology of spirit'...

Which, generally speaking, works better and feels better in a positive, harmonious, balanced, united direction than being torn apart in opposite directions, or worse perhaps, being united in hate, destruction, and death....

In an optimal group and/or organizational setting....

Where there is a spirit of mutual trust, respect, caring, and encouragement...

Every member of the group lays out deeper and deeper layers of his or her own unique phenomenology of spirit -- good, bad, and/or indifferent -- and through dialectic exchanges with other members of the group, as well as the 'overall, building, evolving, healing elements of the group phenomenology of spirit', create an environment that both optimally and ideally leads to a healthier and more exhilarating phenomenology of spirit in the individual, as well as adding to a healthier and more exhilarating group...

This, to me, is when both the individual and the group can approach what Hegel called...

'The Absolute', 'God', and/or 'Godliness'....

Not in terms of 'cerebral consciousness'...

But rather in terms of the multi-dialectic-romantic-humanistic-existential....

'Spirit of Man'....


-- dgb, Dec. 14th, 2012

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations, Creations, Integrations...

-- Are Still in Process....

Nietzsche's Ultimate Failure and Nemesis in Life -- Dissociating Himself From His Own Underlying Christian Spirit

Christianity can have both a exuberant, healing influence on the human soul -- and a toxic, debasing one. It depends on how far we take the 'spirit' of Christianity, and to what extent religious and political leaders have tampered with its meaning.

Nietzsche's ultimate failure in life was that he could not -- or would not -- identify, care about, empathize with, show love for -- those people who he negatively stereotyped as being members of 'the herd'. (This is the same reason Romney lost the last election.)

Instead, Nietzsche chose to fly as 'Superman' or ride his 'Dionysian-Narcissistic-Dark Horse' -- until he crashed. Legend has it that Nietzsche's last 'sane' act before he became 'insane' in 1899 -- was a 'Christian Act' -- stepping between a master and his horse to take the whippings that the master was directing towards his horse. Perhaps, assuming that this legend is true, and it may not be, this was Nietzsche's 'Christian Day of Atonement' before Nietzsche fell into his 'dark abyss of insanity', to be altruistically looked after by his mother for 8 to 9 years (1889-1897) until his mother died, at which point his sister took over and looked after him altruistically for the last 3 to 4 years.  

I was brought up as a Protestant-Christian, basically dissociated myself from my religion, proceeded to live a more 'narcissistic-self-serving' lifestyle....with some underlying elements of empathy, caring, loving, altruism...in effect 'Christian elements' still surfacing from time to time in my character... Other than that, I was brought up in 'the me first' generation...

Hegel's Hotel synergizes the spirit of Nietzsche with the spirit of Christianity -- not to point of self-denial or self-suppression, but with the point being the emphasis of The Christian Spirit on empathy, caring, loving, altruism, and generosity -- the flip side of Nietzschean Narcissism.

In other words, from a Hegelian-GAP-DGB perspective, Nietzschean philosophy, synergized with Christian empathy and altruism, offers a better philosophy of life than Nietzsche's Dionysian Philosphy taken alone, or for that matter, Christianity, when it is steeped in self-denial and self-suppression.

-- dgb, Dec. 10th, 2012,

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations, Integrations, and Creative Synergies...

-- Are Still in Process...

Taking Stock of The Driving Force Behind 'Hegel's Hotel' -- The Synergy of Opposing Ideas and Our Multi-Dialectic Phenomenology of Spirit (Part 2): Early Childhood Development And Its Influence on The Psycho-Structures, Direction and Evolution of The Lifelong Personality

In this essay here, I will take a trip down history lane, examine some of the work of the early Freudians on early childhood development, later Object Relationists and Attachment Theorists, and currently accepted psychoanalytic theory as well as adding my own editorial comments and modifications to come up with the phases of early childhood development, the 'psycho-structures', and the multi-dialectic, multi-bi-polar, psycho-dynamics that are serving me at this point in my theoretical development.

We will start with 'pre-birth' and the concepts and theories before and after birth that I believe influence early childhood development up to around the age of 7, and the relevance of these concepts and theories on later adult life. Let us start with The Genetic (Potential) Self (GPS). 



1. The Genetic Potential Self (GPS)

This includes all the genetic hardware and software that our parents have genetically given to us through their DNA, both good and bad, and indeed, includes all genetic material that may stretch hundreds or even thousands of years back in our family tree. It includes many of our genetic skill sets, our genetic strengths and weaknesses, it includes our ability to learn language, and it includes mythological and metaphorical picture symbols that make themselves available in our dreams -- and when certain things break down in our neurological and/or biochemical processes, sometimes under extreme stress -- our hallucinations. From our picture symbols, we can take the Jungian route and talk about 'Gods', 'Heroes', 'Villains', and 'Archetypes' at a later time although I have written a number of essays on this subject in the past.

2. Our 'Womb Room' 

Under normal circumstances, this should be a safe haven for the unborn baby. It is beyond the scope of my expertise to know what kinds of things can happen under a 'not normal womb environment'. Suffice is to say that 'toxins' can enter this environment -- drugs, alcohol, and perhaps or probably an emotionally unstable mother...But when everything is right, call this the 'Garden of Eden' for the unborn baby -- until its 'eviction time'. 

3. Birth Trauma: Eviction From The 'Garden of Eden' -- The New-Born Baby's Abyss and His or Her Movement Towards The Safety and Nurturing of The 'Good Enough Mother'

 Otto Rank talked about 'birth trauma' which threw Classical Psychoanalysis into a righteous uproar -- a challenge to Freud's beloved 'Oedipal Complex Theory' -- and libido -- as the root of all neurosis. Rank was the first to coin the term 'pre-Oedipal' -- a now (2012) but not then (1925) well-accepted concept in Psychoanalysis. Back then, Rank's 'birth trauma theory' and 'pre-Oedipal' concept were both rejected by Ferenzci -- Rank's best friend -- as well as by Freud, and by the process of association -- or dissociation -- the rest of The Psychoanalytic Establishment.  

If it hadn't been for the early work of Rank, Abraham, and Ferenzci, and the later Object Relationists and Self-Psychologists, and the provoked rebellion and scandal of The Traumacy-Seduction Theory by Masson in the 80s, Psychoanalysis would have probably died on the cross of The Oedipal Complex and Libido-Fantasy Theory by now. What was missing, most essentially, was the application of the concepts of '(dialectical) contact-engagement and the mutual influence of the therapist on the client, and the client on the therapist in the here-and now, I and Now' situation -- the difference between a 'sterile, reductistic relationship' (Classical Psychoanalysis) and a much more dynamic, humanistic-existential relationship where the therapist acts as an individual person and not as an emotionally schizoid, distancing robot. How can you teach relationship skills and contact-engagement if you are not demonstrating any of these skills in the therapeutic room. Interpretation after interpretation leads only to relationship sterility -- and, in effect, a death-like relationship. Human immediacy in the here-and now brings relationships alive. Rank knew that. Ferenzci knew that. That was not Freud's therapeutic goal or ideal -- he wanted the emotionless interpreter (the therapist) to harness the 'destructive energy of the client's out of control and dangerous id'. Need it be said, that Freud always wanted control. 

Getting back to the idea of 'birth trauma', Rank believed that birth trauma is our first, primary -- and prototype for -- all later 'separation anxieties'. Who knows what a newborn baby is feeling as he or she comes out of the birthing channel, and abruptly lands in the outside world, and how much individual reaction there is to this experience? And this assumes that there were not any notable traumas within the womb itself that entered the pre-born baby's consciousness or subconsciousness. 

Rank used the concept of 'birth trauma' generically as a common experience for all individuals, all newborn babies coming into the world and not knowing what is going on...The quicker the transition to a 're-creation of a womb-like environment -- warm and tight' -- the easier this transition is likely to be for newborn baby. But we can expect that there is going to be an element of 'chaos' and 'unpredictablity' and 'emotional instability' for baby until he or she starts to begin to expect and feel a 'new predictability' in the routines of being fed and cleaned and going back to sleep....This is also where newborn baby's first instinctual skill within his or her own self control -- i.e., 'sucking for nutrition' -- comes into play and baby is slowly on the path to 'individuation', the path from 'complete environmental dependency and support to greater and greater self-support, assuming everything proceeds properly along this path.   

So we have three different things happening during this earliest time period of life: 1. an 'eviction into unpredictable chaos'; 2. a re-establishing of environmental support, emotional predictability, stability, groundedness, and trust under 'good enough to ideal mothering conditions'; and 3. the beginning of the path to indivuation and greater and greater self-support, assuming a 'good enough' family culture that encourages this type of individual development.....otherwise, certain 'neurotic developments' may start to take place in the child. Perhaps the main three of these 'overly developed defensive strategies' that we may carry with us our whole life, as distinguished by Karen Horney, are: 1. movement towards people (i.e., movement towards a 'clinging' emotional and/or behavioral dependency on people); 2. movement away from people (the distancing, anal-schizoid, or emotionally schizoid personality type); and/or 3. movement against people in an overly paranoid, defensive, aggressive manner (the rebellious and/or anarchist, deconstructive personality type). 

This brings us to the end of what might be called the 'Pre-Oedipal Phase' of early childhood development, leading  into the Oedipal Phase, using a partly Classical Psychoanalysis classification system, with an Object Relations and Attachment Theory influence (Abraham, Rank, Winnicott, and others) bringing us up to present Psychoanalytic Theory. 

It would seem that the deepest emotional and social schisms -- marks of the anal or emotionally schizoid (distancing) personality -- are most likely to occur in this earliest phase of post-birth life, with 'not good enough mothering (and/or fathering)' perhaps being the most significant factor in this development phase gone wrong, assuming no significant pre-birth traumacies, no genetic or neurological or biochemical irregularities that may complicate the picture in our current wish to better understand autism for example which seems to add the symptomology of impaired language and communication skills of a type that goes 'significantly beyond the anal-schizoid personality', indeed, autism seems to show some of the characteristics of Freud's earliest 'hysteria and obsessional neurosis' patients but again, with some significantly impaired language skills which would seem to separate autism from hysteria and obsessional neurosis -- that is just my own personal observation and tentative interpretation -- and having said this, we move now into what Freud called the Oedipal Phase of early childhood development.      


To be continued...


  A/ The 'Object Relations' Rooms

01. Our Nurturing Superego Room; 
02. Our Hedonistic (Pleasure-Seeking, Dionysian) Superego Room;
03. Our Narcissistic Superego Room; 
04. Our Righteous-Critical Superego Room;
05. Our Social Persona Room;
06. Our Central Processing Ego Room;
07. Our Private-Id-Ego-Superego Room;
08. Our Phenomenology of Spirit Thermostat Room;
09. Our Comfort-Safety-Creative Room;
10. Our Approval-Seeking Underego Room;
11. Our Hedonistic (Pleasure-Seeking, Dionysian) Rebellious Underego Room;
12. Our Narcissistic Underego Room;
13. Our Righteous-Rebellious-Critical Underdego Room;

B/ Our Primarily Subconscious, Traumacy, Impulsive-Drive, Transference Template, and Restraint Rooms

14. Our Dream and Fantasy Weaver Room;
15. Our Uncontained, Rising Shadow-Id-Ego-Superego Elements;
16. Our Shadow-Id-Ego-Superego Vault Room;
17. Our Memory-Learning--Transference-Lifestyle Templates;
18. Our Evolving, Rising Shadow-Id-Ego-Superego Elements;
19. Our Personal Abyss (Our Black Hole, Pit, Apeiron, Chaos);
20. Our Pre-Born Child Influences (including Our Genetic-Existential Potential Self). 



Of particular interest here, is my new concept of 'Our Phenomenology of Spirit Room' which is basically our 'Spirit Thermostat' -- a combination of our 'life and passion spirit', 'death and destructive spirit', with all of our other 'rooms' in our personality contributing to the ongoing, evolving, changing, positive and/or negative spirit of our 'Phenomenology of Spirit Thermostat Room (PSTR)'. Influences on the quality and quantity of spirit within this room come from both our internal self (meaning all of the different rooms I have listed above) and from our external environment. 

More on this model, in the essay to follow....

-- dgb, December 5th, 2012...

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations and Synergetic Creations...

-- Are Still in Process...