Still under construction....Things are churning and turning in Hegel's Hotel, and it may still be a day or two before I can go back to this essay, pick up the pieces, and probably take it in a new direction...dgb, March 30th, 2009.
.................................................................................
I want to go back and re-visit our definition of 'dialectic' as well as distinguish between some of the different types of dialectics that we will be investigating in many of the next series of essays that deal particularly with 'DGB Personality Theory'.
'Dialectic Theory' -- at least as it is currently being defined here in Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology -- explores, investigates, interprets and evaluates 'the particular chemistry, back and forth influence and bi-causality, associated with any encounter, relationship, and/or life or death process where the sum total is more than the sum of the individual parts working towards the completion of the particular process being investigated'.
When the particular situation or process that is being interpreted and evaluated involves more than two factors, more than two individual entities pushing against each other or relating with each other, then we can start talking about the ideas of 'multiple-dialectic theory', 'multiple-inluence', and/or 'multiple causality'.
The reason for this type of emphasis, is that too often in Western Society, we tend to emphasize a type of 'either/or' philosophy that lends itself to the ideas of 'one-sided causality', 'one dimensional thinking', 'one-sided responsibility and/or blame', and 'over-compensatory thinking and action' triggered by this process of one-sided thinking.
The results for trying to 'solve a particular problem' or 'resolve a particular conflict' using this one-sided and/or overcompensatory approach to problem-solving and conflict-resolving can be catastrophic -- sometimes, or even oftentimes, the 'supposed solution' to the problem turning out to be significantly worse -- or at least just as bad -- as the original problem or conflict itself.
In any society, any democracy, there is always going to be a 'clash between different individuals rights and freedoms, wishes, goals, and philosophies'.
Similarily, there are also going to be clashes between individual liberties and wishes on the one hand vs. ethical-moral, and/or legal responsibilities and restraints relative to the country, state, province, and/or town/township/city that we live in.
Thus, we can distinguish between an 'individual rights vs. individual rights dialectic' and an 'individual rights vs. state, government, and/or society legal responsibility dialectic'.
Similarily, we can distinguish between 'friendly' vs. 'hostile' dialectics, 'competitive' vs. 'co-operative' dialectics, 'will to power' vs. 'will to negotiate' dialectics, and 'authoritarian-dictatorial' vs. 'equal rights-democratic' dialectics.
In Hegel's Hotel -- i.e., in the smaller Personality Theory model -- we can talk about numerous different types of dialectics such as between: 'The Potential Self' and 'Mythological Archetype Figures'; or between 'The Potential Self' and 'Transference Dynamics and Complexes', or between 'The Potential Self' and 'The Central Ego', or between the 'Nurturing Topdog' and 'The Critical Topdog', or between 'The Critical Topdog' and 'The Approval-Seeking Underdog' or between 'The Critical Topdog' and 'The Rebellious Underdog'.
So you can see where I get the idea of 'multiple dialectics' from. And this is just using my own DGB Philosophy-Psychology terminology. You change the particular model that we are working with and this is going to have an impact on the way we talk about the particular 'dialectic-dynamics' associated with the language and the conceptuology of the new model we are talking about. For example in Freudian language, we could talk about 'ego' vs. 'id' dialectics or 'superego' vs. 'id' dialectics whereas we could change to a Jungian model and then talk about the dialectics between 'personna' and 'shadow'.
All of these are conceptual distinctions are meant to give us a 'parameter or container' by which to talk about the distinctions in life that these concepts are meant to refer to -- i.e., their 'real life ('phenomenal, phenomenological, and/or existential) referents'.
The 'distinction between two different and opposed ideas' is to allow us the freedom to talk about these 'real life' differences that can be categorized using the terminology and conceptuology that we have chosen to use.
'I think, therefore I am.' (Descartes said that).
'I am, therefore I think.' (I -- and DGB Philosophy -- just said that, although 'Existence before essence' by Jean-Paul Sartre comes pretty close to the same idea, and more importantly, it was primarily Hegel who introduced the idea of 'dialectic influence' or 'dialectic causality' meaning 'two-way -- not one way -- influence'.)
DGB Philosophy-Psychology explores the integrative dimensions and dialectics, meaning the two way dimensions and characteristics between both Self and Other(s), as well as between the Self and other parts and/or dimensions of the Self.
Two other conceptual distinctions that may be functionally useful relative to our Hegel's Hotel Personality Theory model -- is the distinction between 'vertical dialectics' and 'horizontal dialectics'.
Vertical dialectics refers to different levels of 'unconsciousness' (for example, the deep level of mythology, symbolism, and archetype figures) mixing together with 'individual transference complexes' (based on individual memories, old and new) being interwoven together by our Central Ego (partly asleep, partly awake while we are asleep in bed) in a state of 'preconsciousness' -- 'three different levels or floors of functioning in the Hegel's Hotel personality model' -- all coming together in the form of one 'confluent creative product or outcome' -- such as a dream, which we may or may not remember when we wake up.
Here is where 'DGB Transference Theory' starts to come together with 'DGB Personality Theory'.
In DGB Transference Theory, a distinction can be made between a 'Relationship Transference' on the one hand(such as a 'Father Complex' and/or a 'Mother Complex'), and between an 'Encounter or Specific Memory Transference'. Now DGB Transference and Personality Theory does not believe in -- and look to uncover -- an 'unconscious memory' like a Freudian Psychoanalyst would, or does (looking for an 'Oedipal Memory/Fantasy') through a process of 'free association, memory uncovering, and/or memory reconstruction; and/or like a 'Seduction/Sexual Assault/Traumacy' Psychotherapist might go looking for an 'unconcious traumacy, childhood seduction, and/or sexual assault' memory in a client through some similar and/or different process of 'memory uncovering' or 'memory reconstruction'.
No, in this domain, I subscribe at least partly to Jeffrey Masson's line of thinking that argues -- that if a 'bad -- i.e., traumatic (sexual seduction and/or assault) memory' happened, then it will likely be 'remembered'. However, unlike Masson, I still believe that there could be, indeed likely is to be, some element of 'significant subjective, narcissistic distortion and individual bias' at work in the 'recalling' of this memory.
This brings into question the relative 'objectivity and truth value' of these types of memories vs. the possible and/or actual 'distortion and subjective-narcissistic bias' that may be found in these types of memories. Should a therapist unquestioningly look at these types of memories in terms of their 'truth value'? This was the rather painful philosophical and psychological question that I believe Freud was wrestling with back around 1896-1899 that is just as philosophically as hard to answer today as it was back then. The truth probably lies in the fact that every case situation -- and every psychotherapeutic client -- is different, and each offers a unique blend of 'objective truth value' and/or 'subjective narcissistic distortion' in their recall of their individual memories.
Now it may be fine for a therapist -- at least at the beginning of a therapeutic relationship -- to work with the 'subjectively perceived truth value' of a client's particular recall of his or her childhood memories. I do not subscribe to any therapeutic technique of 'leading the witness', 'leading the client' in the direction of some pre-held, stereotyped psychological theory' -- regardless of whether that be towards a Classic Freudian 'Oedipal-Childhood Sexuality-Distorted Memory to Fantasy' theory; or towards a pre-Classic 'Traumacy-Seduction Theory-Memory-as-Truth' theory brought back to life and practised by some modern-day Traumacy-Seduction Psychotherapists today.
Both 'thesis' and 'anti-thesis' psychological theories and psychotherapies can suffer equally from narcissistic bias and distortion -- and each can be equally dangerous in a court of law. Beware the judge and/or jury who has to deal with either or both types of therapists in a court of law. Without further 'empirical evidence' and/or 'credible witnesses', I personally believe that all 'unsubstantiated memories' should be thrown out of a court of law. Our courts of law -- and here we are talking about both family and criminal law, indeed, all law --need to hold strongly to the principles of 'supporting empirical evidence' and/or 'strong, credible witnesses' to substantiate any type of 'memory' that may or may not have 'significant truth value'. We must hold firmly to the idea of 'innocent until proven guilty' -- and to me -- an unsubstantiated memory (childhood or adulthood) needs to be strongly substantiated before a person is convicted of being guilty of some crime that he or she may not have comitted. The same goes with all so-called 'expert testimony'. The potential result of not adhering to this principle of 'strong empiricial evidence' and/or 'supporting evidence' and/or 'credible testimony' -- is the very real danger of turning our present day Family, Domestic, and/or Criminal Courts into a 'deeply biased' modern-day 'Salem Witchunt'.
In this modern day at least partial version of 'The Salem Witchhunts' and/or 'the era of McCarthy looking for Communists', it is modern day 'men' and fathers' who have become most susceptible to these 'witchunts' -- to the legal accusation, prosectution, persecution, and conviction of men as 'victimizers' if not as 'witches'.
Make accountable and prosecute the men who are guilty of the crimes they have been accused of -- whether it be sexual assault, domestic assault, and/or childhood assault.
But let us not indulge as a society in 'Sexual Profiling' here -- of either sex (the mainly previous edition of 'Patriarchal Narcissistic Bias and Law' was and/or is no better or no worse than the presently evolving version of 'Feminist Narcissitic Bias and Law').
Here at Hegel's Hotel and DGB Philosophy we don't want to indulge in 'Sexual Profiling of either sex' any more than we want to indulge in 'Racial Profiling' of any race.
With all due respect, we need to 'undo' some of the societal damage already created by the presence of literally hundreds of egalatarian and/or narcissistic feminist lobbyist groups constantly bombarding both Washington and Ottawa 'for a continual enhancement or embellishment of female civil rights' into present day law. These feminist lobbyists groups have very real political and legal power -- and/or are strongly capable of influencing the continual evolution of new civil laws without the presence of an equally strong presence of 'masculine rights group' to counter-act the strong lobbying force of feminine rights groups which continues to 'chip away at' -- either directly or indirectly, purposely or non-purposely -- the masculine rights and freedoms of 'men' and 'fathers' in Western society that men used to previously take for granted.
You see it is not only 'corporate lobbyist groups' who we have to worry about in Washington and Ottawa -- but all 'special interest lobbyist groups' that are very capable of 'upsetting the very precarious homeostatic-dialecitic-democractic legal balance of society' in narcisstic favor of and bias towards the particular special interest lobbyist group that keeps pounding away at North American politicans and lawmakers looking for more and more laws in their favor.
This problem of special interest lobbyst groups is not only causing great problems in the financial and economic sector of 'Main Street' Americans and Canadians but also in another sector of society entirely -- in the political, legal, and economic battle of the sexes -- narcissistically biased feminist lobbyst groups are causing an oppositely biased legal division between the sexes that is causing as many if not more civil rights problems than these 'new domestic and sexual laws supporting the protection of women and children' are supposed to be solving.
Let us make this totally clear. I support 'Egalitarian Feminist Rights' (the pursuit of equal sexual rights in society). I do not support 'Narcissistic Feminist Rights' (the pursuit of every possible sexual legal advantage of women over men). The first group of 'egalitarian feminists' support the concept of 'democracy' and 'equal rights' -- for both sexes, every race, every culture... The second group of 'narcissitic feminists' are simply 'biased, narcissistic patriarchs and male chauvanists' -- disguised in women's clothing wanting all the 'narcissistic legal advantages that men used to have in a patriarchal dominated society'.
I have steered away from the Freudian problem of 'The Seduction Theory' and the modern-day version of The Seduction Theory Problem in the form of 'violence in the family', 'domestic violence', 'sexual violence', 'violence between the sexes', and Family/Domestic/Sexual Court Law -- in general I have steered away from this 'Huge Can of Philosophical, Political, and Legal Worms' -- for the past year or two because I wanted to establish a solid philosophical base for Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy before I started to rhetorically attack or 'deconstruct' our modern day 'family' and 'sexual' laws. I wanted something more solid to stand on other than the full extent of my own righteous anger, indeed at some points, rage.
As already stated before, numerous, numerous times -- I absolutely believe in, and support, the principles of Democracy and Equal Rights between men and women -- and a strong civil, political, legal, and economic adherence to these democratic and equal rights principles.
However, today 'Feminist Narcissism' that is in no way egalitarian to both sexes but rather gives women a decided political and legal edge in Family and Sexual Criminal Law is just as rampant, just as out of control, and just as destructive to present day society as the fading Patriarchal Narcissistic Political and Legal Bias that it is fast replacing -- indeed, has already dominantly replaced.
Let us step away for a minute from the whole emotional mess of 'men' vs. 'women' in domestic and family courts today and back up a few steps. Did I mention the dialectic between 'men' and 'women' as being a dialectic that is also extemely important to fully talk about in any philosophical and/or psychological enterprise worthy of this name?
I just picked up a book about half an hour ago that I hadn't read in about 30 years.
I was led back to the book -- I just located the book in my library earlier this morning -- by a 'memory'. The memory came back to me in the form of one word -- 'Antigone'. The book was called, 'The Forgotten Language', written by Erich Fromm, one of my favorite 'philosopoher-psychologists', published in 1951. I first read it somewhere between 1974 and 1976, I do believe.
In 'The Forgotten Language', Fromm gave an alternative humanistic-existential perspective and approach to 'dream interpretation' to that postulated by Freud relative to his sexual wish fulfillment theory in the latter's classic book, 'The Interpretation of Dreams', 1900.
You see, in order to understand why Freud abandoned -- or at least partly abandoned -- his Traumacy-Seduction Theory back between 1896 and 1899, you have to also at least partly understand the theory that Freud was in the process of replacing The Traumacy-Seduction Theory with -- and that was, a combination of three theories: 1. Memory Distortion, Screen Memories, and Memories Containing Wish-Fulfillment Fantasies' within them; 2. Infantile and Childhood Sexuality; and 3. The Oedipal Complex (based on The Oedipal Myth where Oedipus unknowingly fufilled a prophecy that he was trying desparately for most of his childhood, teenage, and early adult life to avoid -- specifically, that he would kill his father and marry his mother).
Freud argued in 'The Interpretation of Dreams' that all men -- as children -- have an 'incestual wish to have sex with their mother, and to kill their father so that they can 'possess' the mother. Incestual sex with the mother by the male child is a dominant male child wish, according to Freud, and the underlying mythological base of 'The Oedipal Myth' and the classic Freudian 'Oedipal Complex'.
Fromm argues, alternatively, that the Sophocles myth of Oedipus is actually a trilogy, and when all three myths are interpreted together, it can be seen that the dominant theme in this trilogy is not 'incestuous sex between son and mother' but rather the 'Patriarchal Authoritarian Rebellion' of the son against the father.
Fromm's interpretation has flooded me with some new philosophical interpretations of my own. Indeed, I think this represents another important turning point in the evolution of Hegel's Hotel.
We will now start to look at some of the implications of the dialectic divergence and convergence of 'patriarchal myths, laws, and societies' vs. 'matriarchal myths, laws, and societies' in the history of Western -- and Eastern -- and Middle Eastern -- Culture have on the evolution of Hegel's Hotel.
That will have to wait for another day.
-- dgb, March 30th, 2009.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
From the internet...Eric Berne and Transactional Analysis........www.businessballs.com website.
© Alan Chapman 1995-2007. Transactional Analysis theory was developed by Dr Eric Berne in the 1950's.
transactional analysis
Eric Berne's Transactional Analysis - early TA history and theory
Transactional Analysis is one of the most accessible theories of modern psychology. Transactional Analysis was founded by Eric Berne, and the famous 'parent adult child' theory is still being developed today. Transactional Analysis has wide applications in clinical, therapeutic, organizational and personal development, encompassing communications, management, personality, relationships and behaviour. Whether you're in business, a parent, a social worker or interested in personal development, Eric Berne's Transactional Analysis theories, and those of his followers, will enrich your dealings with people, and your understanding of yourself. This section covers the background to Transactional Analysis, and Transactional Analysis underpinning theory. See also the modern Transactional Analysis theory article.
roots of transactional analysis
Throughout history, and from all standpoints: philosophy, medical science, religion; people have believed that each man and woman has a multiple nature.
In the early 20th century, Sigmund Freud first established that the human psyche is multi-faceted, and that each of us has warring factions in our subconscious. Since then, new theories continue to be put forward, all concentrating on the essential conviction that each one of us has parts of our personality which surface and affect our behaviour according to different circumstances.
In 1951 Dr Wilder Penfield began a series of scientific experiments. Penfield proved, using conscious human subjects, by touching a part of the brain (the temporal cortex) with a weak electrical probe, that the brain could be caused to 'play back' certain past experiences, and the feelings associated with them. The patients 'replayed' these events and their feelings despite not normally being able to recall them using their conventional memories.
Penfield's experiments went on over several years, and resulted in wide acceptance of the following conclusions:
The human brain acts like a tape recorder, and whilst we may 'forget' experiences, the brain still has them recorded.
Along with events the brain also records the associated feelings, and both feelings and events stay locked together.
It is possible for a person to exist in two states simultaneously (because patients replaying hidden events and feelings could talk about them objectively at the same time).
Hidden experiences when replayed are vivid, and affect how we feel at the time of replaying.
There is a certain connection between mind and body, i.e. the link between the biological and the psychological, eg a psychological fear of spiders and a biological feeling of nausea.
early transactional analysis theory and model
In the 1950's Eric Berne began to develop his theories of Transactional Analysis. He said that verbal communication, particularly face to face, is at the centre of human social relationships and psychoanalysis.
His starting-point was that when two people encounter each other, one of them will speak to the other. This he called the Transaction Stimulus. The reaction from the other person he called the Transaction Response.
The person sending the Stimulus is called the Agent. The person who responds is called the Respondent.
Transactional Analysis became the method of examining the transaction wherein: 'I do something to you, and you do something back'.
Berne also said that each person is made up of three alter ego states:
Parent
Adult
Child
These terms have different definitions than in normal language.
Parent
This is our ingrained voice of authority, absorbed conditioning, learning and attitudes from when we were young. We were conditioned by our real parents, teachers, older people, next door neighbours, aunts and uncles, Father Christmas and Jack Frost. Our Parent is made up of a huge number of hidden and overt recorded playbacks. Typically embodied by phrases and attitudes starting with 'how to', 'under no circumstances', 'always' and 'never forget', 'don't lie, cheat, steal', etc, etc. Our parent is formed by external events and influences upon us as we grow through early childhood. We can change it, but this is easier said than done.
Child
Our internal reaction and feelings to external events form the 'Child'. This is the seeing, hearing, feeling, and emotional body of data within each of us. When anger or despair dominates reason, the Child is in control. Like our Parent we can change it, but it is no easier.
Adult
Our 'Adult' is our ability to think and determine action for ourselves, based on received data. The adult in us begins to form at around ten months old, and is the means by which we keep our Parent and Child under control. If we are to change our Parent or Child we must do so through our adult.
In other words:
Parent is our 'Taught' concept of life
Adult is our 'Thought' concept of life
Child is our 'Felt' concept of life
When we communicate we are doing so from one of our own alter ego states, our Parent, Adult or Child. Our feelings at the time determine which one we use, and at any time something can trigger a shift from one state to another. When we respond, we are also doing this from one of the three states, and it is in the analysis of these stimuli and responses that the essence of Transactional Analysis lies. A wonderful analogy - 'the person who had feelings' story - explains how experiences and conditioning in early life affect behaviour in later life. See also the poem by Philip Larkin about how parental conditioning affects children and their behaviour into adulthood. And for an uplifting antidote see the lovely Thich Nhat Hanh quote. These are all excellent illustrations of the effect and implications of parental conditioning in the context of Transactional Analysis.
At the core of Berne's theory is the rule that effective transactions (ie successful communications) must be complementary. They must go back from the receiving ego state to the sending ego state. For example, if the stimulus is Parent to Child, the response must be Child to Parent, or the transaction is 'crossed', and there will be a problem between sender and receiver.
If a crossed transaction occurs, there is an ineffective communication. Worse still either or both parties will be upset. In order for the relationship to continue smoothly the agent or the respondent must rescue the situation with a complementary transaction.
In serious break-downs, there is no chance of immediately resuming a discussion about the original subject matter. Attention is focused on the relationship. The discussion can only continue constructively when and if the relationship is mended.
Here are some simple clues as to the ego state sending the signal. You will be able to see these clearly in others, and in yourself:
Parent
Physical - angry or impatient body-language and expressions, finger-pointing, patronising gestures,
Verbal - always, never, for once and for all, judgmental words, critical words, patronising language, posturing language.
N.B. beware of cultural differences in body-language or emphases that appear 'Parental'.
Child
Physical - emotionally sad expressions, despair, temper tantrums, whining voice, rolling eyes, shrugging shoulders, teasing, delight, laughter, speaking behind hand, raising hand to speak, squirming and giggling.
Verbal - baby talk, I wish, I dunno, I want, I'm gonna, I don't care, oh no, not again, things never go right for me, worst day of my life, bigger, biggest, best, many superlatives, words to impress.
Adult
Physical - attentive, interested, straight-forward, tilted head, non-threatening and non-threatened.
Verbal - why, what, how, who, where and when, how much, in what way, comparative expressions, reasoned statements, true, false, probably, possibly, I think, I realise, I see, I believe, in my opinion.
And remember, when you are trying to identify ego states: words are only part of the story.
To analyse a transaction you need to see and feel what is being said as well.
Only 7% of meaning is in the words spoken.
38% of meaning is paralinguistic (the way that the words are said).
55% is in facial expression. (source: Albert Mehrabian - more info)
There is no general rule as to the effectiveness of any ego state in any given situation (some people get results by being dictatorial (Parent to Child), or by having temper tantrums, (Child to Parent), but for a balanced approach to life, Adult to Adult is generally recommended.
Transactional Analysis is effectively a language within a language; a language of true meaning, feeling and motive. It can help you in every situation, firstly through being able to understand more clearly what is going on, and secondly, by virtue of this knowledge, we give ourselves choices of what ego states to adopt, which signals to send, and where to send them. This enables us to make the most of all our communications and therefore create, develop and maintain better relationships.
modern transactional analysis theory
Transactional Analysis is a theory which operates as each of the following:
a theory of personality
a model of communication
a study of repetitive patterns of behaviour
Transactional Analysis developed significantly beyond these Berne's early theories, by Berne himself until his death in 1970, and since then by his followers and many current writers and experts. Transactional Analysis has been explored and enhanced in many different ways by these people, including: Ian Stewart and Vann Joines (their book 'TA Today' is widely regarded as a definitive modern interpretation); John Dusay, Aaron and Jacqui Schiff, Robert and Mary Goulding, Pat Crossman, Taibi Kahler, Abe Wagner, Ken Mellor and Eric Sigmund, Richard Erskine and Marityn Zalcman, Muriel James, Pam Levin, Anita Mountain and Julie Hay (specialists in organizational applications), Susannah Temple, Claude Steiner, Franklin Ernst, S Woollams and M Brown, Fanita English, P Clarkson, M M Holloway, Stephen Karpman and others.
Significantly, the original three Parent Adult Child components were sub-divided to form a new seven element model, principally during the 1980's by Wagner, Joines and Mountain. This established Controlling and Nurturing aspects of the Parent mode, each with positive and negative aspects, and the Adapted and Free aspects of the Child mode, again each with positive an negative aspects, which essentially gives us the model to which most TA practitioners refer today:
parent
Parent is now commonly represented as a circle with four quadrants:
Nurturing - Nurturing (positive) and Spoiling (negative).
Controlling - Structuring (positive) and Critical (negative).
adult
Adult remains as a single entity, representing an 'accounting' function or mode, which can draw on the resources of both Parent and Child.
child
Child is now commonly represented as circle with four quadrants:
Adapted - Co-operative (positive) and Compliant/Resistant (negative).
Free - Spontaneous (positive) and Immature (negative).
Where previously Transactional Analysis suggested that effective communications were complementary (response echoing the path of the stimulus), and better still complementary adult to adult, the modern interpretation suggests that effective communications and relationships are based on complementary transactions to and from positive quadrants, and also, still, adult to adult. Stimulii and responses can come from any (or some) of these seven ego states, to any or some of the respondent's seven ego states.
modern transactional analysis - recent TA theory and development here
See also:
Love and Spirituality in the Workplace - bringing compassion and humanity to work
Erikson's Psychosocial Development Theory
Assertiveness and building self-confidence
Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT)
Motivation
Facilitation theory and techniques
Emotional Intelligence (EQ) principles
The Four Agreements - Don Miguel Ruiz
Johari Window model
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)
Personality theories and types - Jung, Myers Briggs, Keirsey, Belbin, etc
Reiki healing, therapy, training and history, and the seven chakras
Stress causes and stress relief
Businessballs personal development main site
transactional analysis books
Recommended transactional analysis books:
TA Today - Ian Stewart & Vann Joines
I'm OK You're OK - Thomas and Amy Harris
Staying OK - Thomas and Amy Harris
Games People Play - Eric Berne
What Do You Say After You Say Hello - Eric Berne
Scripts People Live - Claude Steiner
The Total Handbook Of Transactional Analysis - Woollams & Brown
Transactional Analysis For Trainers - Julie Hay
The Transactional Manager - Abe Wagner
transactional analysis
Eric Berne's Transactional Analysis - early TA history and theory
Transactional Analysis is one of the most accessible theories of modern psychology. Transactional Analysis was founded by Eric Berne, and the famous 'parent adult child' theory is still being developed today. Transactional Analysis has wide applications in clinical, therapeutic, organizational and personal development, encompassing communications, management, personality, relationships and behaviour. Whether you're in business, a parent, a social worker or interested in personal development, Eric Berne's Transactional Analysis theories, and those of his followers, will enrich your dealings with people, and your understanding of yourself. This section covers the background to Transactional Analysis, and Transactional Analysis underpinning theory. See also the modern Transactional Analysis theory article.
roots of transactional analysis
Throughout history, and from all standpoints: philosophy, medical science, religion; people have believed that each man and woman has a multiple nature.
In the early 20th century, Sigmund Freud first established that the human psyche is multi-faceted, and that each of us has warring factions in our subconscious. Since then, new theories continue to be put forward, all concentrating on the essential conviction that each one of us has parts of our personality which surface and affect our behaviour according to different circumstances.
In 1951 Dr Wilder Penfield began a series of scientific experiments. Penfield proved, using conscious human subjects, by touching a part of the brain (the temporal cortex) with a weak electrical probe, that the brain could be caused to 'play back' certain past experiences, and the feelings associated with them. The patients 'replayed' these events and their feelings despite not normally being able to recall them using their conventional memories.
Penfield's experiments went on over several years, and resulted in wide acceptance of the following conclusions:
The human brain acts like a tape recorder, and whilst we may 'forget' experiences, the brain still has them recorded.
Along with events the brain also records the associated feelings, and both feelings and events stay locked together.
It is possible for a person to exist in two states simultaneously (because patients replaying hidden events and feelings could talk about them objectively at the same time).
Hidden experiences when replayed are vivid, and affect how we feel at the time of replaying.
There is a certain connection between mind and body, i.e. the link between the biological and the psychological, eg a psychological fear of spiders and a biological feeling of nausea.
early transactional analysis theory and model
In the 1950's Eric Berne began to develop his theories of Transactional Analysis. He said that verbal communication, particularly face to face, is at the centre of human social relationships and psychoanalysis.
His starting-point was that when two people encounter each other, one of them will speak to the other. This he called the Transaction Stimulus. The reaction from the other person he called the Transaction Response.
The person sending the Stimulus is called the Agent. The person who responds is called the Respondent.
Transactional Analysis became the method of examining the transaction wherein: 'I do something to you, and you do something back'.
Berne also said that each person is made up of three alter ego states:
Parent
Adult
Child
These terms have different definitions than in normal language.
Parent
This is our ingrained voice of authority, absorbed conditioning, learning and attitudes from when we were young. We were conditioned by our real parents, teachers, older people, next door neighbours, aunts and uncles, Father Christmas and Jack Frost. Our Parent is made up of a huge number of hidden and overt recorded playbacks. Typically embodied by phrases and attitudes starting with 'how to', 'under no circumstances', 'always' and 'never forget', 'don't lie, cheat, steal', etc, etc. Our parent is formed by external events and influences upon us as we grow through early childhood. We can change it, but this is easier said than done.
Child
Our internal reaction and feelings to external events form the 'Child'. This is the seeing, hearing, feeling, and emotional body of data within each of us. When anger or despair dominates reason, the Child is in control. Like our Parent we can change it, but it is no easier.
Adult
Our 'Adult' is our ability to think and determine action for ourselves, based on received data. The adult in us begins to form at around ten months old, and is the means by which we keep our Parent and Child under control. If we are to change our Parent or Child we must do so through our adult.
In other words:
Parent is our 'Taught' concept of life
Adult is our 'Thought' concept of life
Child is our 'Felt' concept of life
When we communicate we are doing so from one of our own alter ego states, our Parent, Adult or Child. Our feelings at the time determine which one we use, and at any time something can trigger a shift from one state to another. When we respond, we are also doing this from one of the three states, and it is in the analysis of these stimuli and responses that the essence of Transactional Analysis lies. A wonderful analogy - 'the person who had feelings' story - explains how experiences and conditioning in early life affect behaviour in later life. See also the poem by Philip Larkin about how parental conditioning affects children and their behaviour into adulthood. And for an uplifting antidote see the lovely Thich Nhat Hanh quote. These are all excellent illustrations of the effect and implications of parental conditioning in the context of Transactional Analysis.
At the core of Berne's theory is the rule that effective transactions (ie successful communications) must be complementary. They must go back from the receiving ego state to the sending ego state. For example, if the stimulus is Parent to Child, the response must be Child to Parent, or the transaction is 'crossed', and there will be a problem between sender and receiver.
If a crossed transaction occurs, there is an ineffective communication. Worse still either or both parties will be upset. In order for the relationship to continue smoothly the agent or the respondent must rescue the situation with a complementary transaction.
In serious break-downs, there is no chance of immediately resuming a discussion about the original subject matter. Attention is focused on the relationship. The discussion can only continue constructively when and if the relationship is mended.
Here are some simple clues as to the ego state sending the signal. You will be able to see these clearly in others, and in yourself:
Parent
Physical - angry or impatient body-language and expressions, finger-pointing, patronising gestures,
Verbal - always, never, for once and for all, judgmental words, critical words, patronising language, posturing language.
N.B. beware of cultural differences in body-language or emphases that appear 'Parental'.
Child
Physical - emotionally sad expressions, despair, temper tantrums, whining voice, rolling eyes, shrugging shoulders, teasing, delight, laughter, speaking behind hand, raising hand to speak, squirming and giggling.
Verbal - baby talk, I wish, I dunno, I want, I'm gonna, I don't care, oh no, not again, things never go right for me, worst day of my life, bigger, biggest, best, many superlatives, words to impress.
Adult
Physical - attentive, interested, straight-forward, tilted head, non-threatening and non-threatened.
Verbal - why, what, how, who, where and when, how much, in what way, comparative expressions, reasoned statements, true, false, probably, possibly, I think, I realise, I see, I believe, in my opinion.
And remember, when you are trying to identify ego states: words are only part of the story.
To analyse a transaction you need to see and feel what is being said as well.
Only 7% of meaning is in the words spoken.
38% of meaning is paralinguistic (the way that the words are said).
55% is in facial expression. (source: Albert Mehrabian - more info)
There is no general rule as to the effectiveness of any ego state in any given situation (some people get results by being dictatorial (Parent to Child), or by having temper tantrums, (Child to Parent), but for a balanced approach to life, Adult to Adult is generally recommended.
Transactional Analysis is effectively a language within a language; a language of true meaning, feeling and motive. It can help you in every situation, firstly through being able to understand more clearly what is going on, and secondly, by virtue of this knowledge, we give ourselves choices of what ego states to adopt, which signals to send, and where to send them. This enables us to make the most of all our communications and therefore create, develop and maintain better relationships.
modern transactional analysis theory
Transactional Analysis is a theory which operates as each of the following:
a theory of personality
a model of communication
a study of repetitive patterns of behaviour
Transactional Analysis developed significantly beyond these Berne's early theories, by Berne himself until his death in 1970, and since then by his followers and many current writers and experts. Transactional Analysis has been explored and enhanced in many different ways by these people, including: Ian Stewart and Vann Joines (their book 'TA Today' is widely regarded as a definitive modern interpretation); John Dusay, Aaron and Jacqui Schiff, Robert and Mary Goulding, Pat Crossman, Taibi Kahler, Abe Wagner, Ken Mellor and Eric Sigmund, Richard Erskine and Marityn Zalcman, Muriel James, Pam Levin, Anita Mountain and Julie Hay (specialists in organizational applications), Susannah Temple, Claude Steiner, Franklin Ernst, S Woollams and M Brown, Fanita English, P Clarkson, M M Holloway, Stephen Karpman and others.
Significantly, the original three Parent Adult Child components were sub-divided to form a new seven element model, principally during the 1980's by Wagner, Joines and Mountain. This established Controlling and Nurturing aspects of the Parent mode, each with positive and negative aspects, and the Adapted and Free aspects of the Child mode, again each with positive an negative aspects, which essentially gives us the model to which most TA practitioners refer today:
parent
Parent is now commonly represented as a circle with four quadrants:
Nurturing - Nurturing (positive) and Spoiling (negative).
Controlling - Structuring (positive) and Critical (negative).
adult
Adult remains as a single entity, representing an 'accounting' function or mode, which can draw on the resources of both Parent and Child.
child
Child is now commonly represented as circle with four quadrants:
Adapted - Co-operative (positive) and Compliant/Resistant (negative).
Free - Spontaneous (positive) and Immature (negative).
Where previously Transactional Analysis suggested that effective communications were complementary (response echoing the path of the stimulus), and better still complementary adult to adult, the modern interpretation suggests that effective communications and relationships are based on complementary transactions to and from positive quadrants, and also, still, adult to adult. Stimulii and responses can come from any (or some) of these seven ego states, to any or some of the respondent's seven ego states.
modern transactional analysis - recent TA theory and development here
See also:
Love and Spirituality in the Workplace - bringing compassion and humanity to work
Erikson's Psychosocial Development Theory
Assertiveness and building self-confidence
Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT)
Motivation
Facilitation theory and techniques
Emotional Intelligence (EQ) principles
The Four Agreements - Don Miguel Ruiz
Johari Window model
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)
Personality theories and types - Jung, Myers Briggs, Keirsey, Belbin, etc
Reiki healing, therapy, training and history, and the seven chakras
Stress causes and stress relief
Businessballs personal development main site
transactional analysis books
Recommended transactional analysis books:
TA Today - Ian Stewart & Vann Joines
I'm OK You're OK - Thomas and Amy Harris
Staying OK - Thomas and Amy Harris
Games People Play - Eric Berne
What Do You Say After You Say Hello - Eric Berne
Scripts People Live - Claude Steiner
The Total Handbook Of Transactional Analysis - Woollams & Brown
Transactional Analysis For Trainers - Julie Hay
The Transactional Manager - Abe Wagner
Up and Down 'The Elevator' in Hegel's Hotel and Into The Psychology and Personality Theory Section of The Hotel
For distinction and clarification purposes here, let me point out that I wish to reserve at least seven floors in Hegel's Hotel for the strict study of psychology -- most notably, personality theory and its various ramifications and offshoots into psychopathology (neurosis and psychosis or sczhizophrenia); personal growth; and clinical psychology/psychotherapy.
In this regard, I wish to introduce a model of the human psyche that will take up seven floors in the 'Psychology' section of Hegel's Hotel.
This model and the 'seven different floors' are described below:
................................................................................
A Hegel's Hotel Seven Floor Model of The Human Psyche
Hegel's Hotel Personality Theory Section -- Floor 1: The 'First Basement Floor' will be dedicated to studying 'The Genetic, Potential Humanistic-Existential Self' -- 'The Essence, Architectural Design, and/ or Blue Print' of The Individual Self, Psyche, and/or Personality;
Hegel's Hotel Personality Theory Section -- Floor 2: The 'Second Basement Floor': The Genetic and/or Collective Unconscious' including the study of mythology, archetypes, symbolism, creativity and dream work, Freud's 'primary process'...;
Hegel's Hotel Personality Theory Section -- Floor 3: The 'Third Basement Floor' will be dedicated to the study of 'The Id' including all biological and psychiological influences on the personality, sex, violence, 'life vs. death impulses and/or wishes', fantasies, and their mythological, transference, and/or creative-destructive derivatives;
Hegel's Hotel Personality Theory Section -- Floor 4: The 'Fourth Basement Floor' will be dedicated to the study of 'The Personal Unconscious' including learning and memory theory, conscious memories, subconscious memories, screen memories, unconscious and/or repressed memories, and 'The Transference Complex Templates';
Hegel's Hotel Personality Theory Section -- Floor 5: 'The Main Lobby Floor' will be dedicated to the study of 'The Underdog Ego Functions and Agents' including: 1. 'The Co-operative (Approval-Seeking) Underdog Ego'; 2. 'The Rebellious-Righteous Underdog Ego'; 3. 'The Dionysian-Hedonistic-Narcissistic Underdog Ego'; and 4. The Schizoid (Distance-Seeking) Underdog Ego';
Hegel's Hotel Personality Theory Section -- Floor 6: 'The First Mezzanine Floor' will be dedicated to the study of 1. 'The Central Mediating-Executive Ego'; and its corollorary agents 2. The Darwinian-Economic-Survival Ego'; 3. 'The Enlightenment Epistemological and Ethical Ego'; and 4. 'The Romantic-Humanistic-Existential Ego';
Hegel's Hotel Personality Theory Section -- Floor 7: 'The Upper Mezzanine Floor' will be dedicated to the study of 'The Topdog (Super) Ego Functions and Agents including: 1. 'The Nurturing-Supportive-Encouraging Topdog Ego'; 2. The Righteous-Critical-Rejecting-Exciting Topdog Ego; 3. The Dionysian-Hedonistic-Narcissistic Topdog Ego; and 4. The Schizoid (Distance-Seeking) Topdog Ego.
-- dgb, March 26th, 2009; updated April 26th, 2009
In this regard, I wish to introduce a model of the human psyche that will take up seven floors in the 'Psychology' section of Hegel's Hotel.
This model and the 'seven different floors' are described below:
................................................................................
A Hegel's Hotel Seven Floor Model of The Human Psyche
Hegel's Hotel Personality Theory Section -- Floor 1: The 'First Basement Floor' will be dedicated to studying 'The Genetic, Potential Humanistic-Existential Self' -- 'The Essence, Architectural Design, and/ or Blue Print' of The Individual Self, Psyche, and/or Personality;
Hegel's Hotel Personality Theory Section -- Floor 2: The 'Second Basement Floor': The Genetic and/or Collective Unconscious' including the study of mythology, archetypes, symbolism, creativity and dream work, Freud's 'primary process'...;
Hegel's Hotel Personality Theory Section -- Floor 3: The 'Third Basement Floor' will be dedicated to the study of 'The Id' including all biological and psychiological influences on the personality, sex, violence, 'life vs. death impulses and/or wishes', fantasies, and their mythological, transference, and/or creative-destructive derivatives;
Hegel's Hotel Personality Theory Section -- Floor 4: The 'Fourth Basement Floor' will be dedicated to the study of 'The Personal Unconscious' including learning and memory theory, conscious memories, subconscious memories, screen memories, unconscious and/or repressed memories, and 'The Transference Complex Templates';
Hegel's Hotel Personality Theory Section -- Floor 5: 'The Main Lobby Floor' will be dedicated to the study of 'The Underdog Ego Functions and Agents' including: 1. 'The Co-operative (Approval-Seeking) Underdog Ego'; 2. 'The Rebellious-Righteous Underdog Ego'; 3. 'The Dionysian-Hedonistic-Narcissistic Underdog Ego'; and 4. The Schizoid (Distance-Seeking) Underdog Ego';
Hegel's Hotel Personality Theory Section -- Floor 6: 'The First Mezzanine Floor' will be dedicated to the study of 1. 'The Central Mediating-Executive Ego'; and its corollorary agents 2. The Darwinian-Economic-Survival Ego'; 3. 'The Enlightenment Epistemological and Ethical Ego'; and 4. 'The Romantic-Humanistic-Existential Ego';
Hegel's Hotel Personality Theory Section -- Floor 7: 'The Upper Mezzanine Floor' will be dedicated to the study of 'The Topdog (Super) Ego Functions and Agents including: 1. 'The Nurturing-Supportive-Encouraging Topdog Ego'; 2. The Righteous-Critical-Rejecting-Exciting Topdog Ego; 3. The Dionysian-Hedonistic-Narcissistic Topdog Ego; and 4. The Schizoid (Distance-Seeking) Topdog Ego.
-- dgb, March 26th, 2009; updated April 26th, 2009
Life is a Race Against Death...From the Gap-DGB Archives, Undated, About 1999, Updated Mar. 26th, 2009
Life is a race against death,
Don't let your life slip away,
Without embracing it with your fullest passion.
Live and celebrate each day as if,
It is the only day you have.
(After all, none of us are likely to predict,
Which day will be our last.)
There is beauty in even the smallest things,
My Beta fish who has been living with me,
For a year and a half.
I call him -- 'Nietzsche'.
My 'Super-Beta-Fish'.
Each day is both a blessing and a challenge.
If we view each day as a curse,
Then we are doing something wrong,
And we need to do something different.
Make the most of this 'daily blessing'.
And meet each challenge head on.
Choose a project that is important to you.
A project that has meaning for you.
And embrace this project with your fullest passion.
Invest yourself in the project -- totally.
Meet this project with,
Preparation, courage, energy, effort, and action,
Fueled by your internal fire and excitement.
Anxiety is the flipside of excitement.
I learned this from Gestalt Therapy.
(Anxiety is where you start to focus,
On what you have to 'lose',
Rather than on what you have to 'win'.)
Don't let anxiety stop you in your tracks,
And derail you from pushing on with your project.
As well, don't let small mistakes or failures,
Discourage you from your goals.
Not even large mistakes or large failures.
Learn from them.
Make the necessary adjustments and compensations,
And move on.
Encourage yourself, support yourself.
Even when all others have jumped off your bandwagon,
Reward yourself for your small successes,
Let these small successes,
Energize you,
And thrust you forward.
Through the trenches and the mud,
Through the hard times,
Through the rain, the sleet, the snow.
Keep plugging on...
Keep attuned to what your project needs from you,
In the here and now, moment to moment,
One step at a time,
And don't get lost in your abstractions,
Or get bogged down,
Instead, let others feel your excitement,
And share it with you.
Push aside all visions of failure,
Just stick to your concrete goals and tasks,
And don't look up til it's time to take a break.
Don't give up,
And never say 'never'.
The worst thing you can say to yourself is,
'I didn't work hard enough to accomplish,
What I wanted to do.
I didn't work hard enough,
To be who I wanted to be.'
In this regard,
Eliminate the word 'try' from your vocabulary,
'Dont' try, just do!'
'Trying' is too often an internal admission of,
Expected failure,
A self-fulfiling prophecy of 'non-committment',
To your task at hand,
Of not wanting to do, what you say you want to do.
Of not wanting to do the work to get you,
To where you need to go.
If the task is important to your larger goals,
Then don't 'try', just do!
Eliminate all excuses from your repertoire.
And 'will your way' to greater and greater successes.
Then at different 'success-points' along the way,
And especially when you finally,
Reach the end of your project,
When you are significantly happy,
With what you have accomplished,
Take up your champaigng glass, or glass of wine,
At the end of the day,
Preferrably in the company of someone you deeply care about,
And who deeply cares about you,
And say,
I -- or we -- did what we wanted to do.
-- dgb, undated, approximately 1999, updated, Mar. 26th, 2009.
Don't let your life slip away,
Without embracing it with your fullest passion.
Live and celebrate each day as if,
It is the only day you have.
(After all, none of us are likely to predict,
Which day will be our last.)
There is beauty in even the smallest things,
My Beta fish who has been living with me,
For a year and a half.
I call him -- 'Nietzsche'.
My 'Super-Beta-Fish'.
Each day is both a blessing and a challenge.
If we view each day as a curse,
Then we are doing something wrong,
And we need to do something different.
Make the most of this 'daily blessing'.
And meet each challenge head on.
Choose a project that is important to you.
A project that has meaning for you.
And embrace this project with your fullest passion.
Invest yourself in the project -- totally.
Meet this project with,
Preparation, courage, energy, effort, and action,
Fueled by your internal fire and excitement.
Anxiety is the flipside of excitement.
I learned this from Gestalt Therapy.
(Anxiety is where you start to focus,
On what you have to 'lose',
Rather than on what you have to 'win'.)
Don't let anxiety stop you in your tracks,
And derail you from pushing on with your project.
As well, don't let small mistakes or failures,
Discourage you from your goals.
Not even large mistakes or large failures.
Learn from them.
Make the necessary adjustments and compensations,
And move on.
Encourage yourself, support yourself.
Even when all others have jumped off your bandwagon,
Reward yourself for your small successes,
Let these small successes,
Energize you,
And thrust you forward.
Through the trenches and the mud,
Through the hard times,
Through the rain, the sleet, the snow.
Keep plugging on...
Keep attuned to what your project needs from you,
In the here and now, moment to moment,
One step at a time,
And don't get lost in your abstractions,
Or get bogged down,
Instead, let others feel your excitement,
And share it with you.
Push aside all visions of failure,
Just stick to your concrete goals and tasks,
And don't look up til it's time to take a break.
Don't give up,
And never say 'never'.
The worst thing you can say to yourself is,
'I didn't work hard enough to accomplish,
What I wanted to do.
I didn't work hard enough,
To be who I wanted to be.'
In this regard,
Eliminate the word 'try' from your vocabulary,
'Dont' try, just do!'
'Trying' is too often an internal admission of,
Expected failure,
A self-fulfiling prophecy of 'non-committment',
To your task at hand,
Of not wanting to do, what you say you want to do.
Of not wanting to do the work to get you,
To where you need to go.
If the task is important to your larger goals,
Then don't 'try', just do!
Eliminate all excuses from your repertoire.
And 'will your way' to greater and greater successes.
Then at different 'success-points' along the way,
And especially when you finally,
Reach the end of your project,
When you are significantly happy,
With what you have accomplished,
Take up your champaigng glass, or glass of wine,
At the end of the day,
Preferrably in the company of someone you deeply care about,
And who deeply cares about you,
And say,
I -- or we -- did what we wanted to do.
-- dgb, undated, approximately 1999, updated, Mar. 26th, 2009.
Excitement, Contact, Withdrawal...From the Gap-DGB Archives...Undated, About 1999
The past is the past.
It cannot be changed.
For better or for worse,
It is, what it is.
We need to work with the cards,
That we were given,
That landed on our table,
And/or that we put there ourselves.
We need to use these cards,
To our best advantage,
Nourish our self-esteem,
Even when those around us,
Have stopped nourishing it,
With us.
The past is the past.
We cannot change last week.
Or yesterday.
Or even what we said and/or did,
Five minutes ago.
We only have the present.
We need to nourish the present.
Not try to build a relationship,
On guilt and resentment.
Or only responsibility and obligation.
No, we need to build our relationship,
On these three things:
Excitement,
Contact,
Withdrawal.
Withdrawal when we need to withdraw.
Withdrawal without guilt.
Trust me, I know this can be hard,
But I will be back, my loved one.
Withdrawal to refocus, regenerate, re-energize...
And come back to the relationship with new vigor.
Renewed passion and excitement.
This is what a relationship should be built on.
Excitement, contact, withdrawal.
Union, separation, and union again.
Let's not ruin the cycle,
By mixing guilt and resentment into it,
And lose our passion in the process.
Excitement, contact, withdrawal,
And start the cycle over agin.
-- dgb, March 26th, 2009.
It cannot be changed.
For better or for worse,
It is, what it is.
We need to work with the cards,
That we were given,
That landed on our table,
And/or that we put there ourselves.
We need to use these cards,
To our best advantage,
Nourish our self-esteem,
Even when those around us,
Have stopped nourishing it,
With us.
The past is the past.
We cannot change last week.
Or yesterday.
Or even what we said and/or did,
Five minutes ago.
We only have the present.
We need to nourish the present.
Not try to build a relationship,
On guilt and resentment.
Or only responsibility and obligation.
No, we need to build our relationship,
On these three things:
Excitement,
Contact,
Withdrawal.
Withdrawal when we need to withdraw.
Withdrawal without guilt.
Trust me, I know this can be hard,
But I will be back, my loved one.
Withdrawal to refocus, regenerate, re-energize...
And come back to the relationship with new vigor.
Renewed passion and excitement.
This is what a relationship should be built on.
Excitement, contact, withdrawal.
Union, separation, and union again.
Let's not ruin the cycle,
By mixing guilt and resentment into it,
And lose our passion in the process.
Excitement, contact, withdrawal,
And start the cycle over agin.
-- dgb, March 26th, 2009.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
A DGB Simplified, Internalized 'Hegel's Hotel-Floor Model' of The Structure of The Personality...
A DGB Graphic 'Floor' Model of The Personality: 'Division Of Function and Labour' in The Personality (March 25th, 2009)
........................................................................
This can be viewed as a graphic, simplified version of 'Hegel's Hotel' internalized in the personality -- a '7 Floor' model of the personality -- consisting of 4 basement (unconscious and preconscious) levels and three 'main floor' (conscious) levels.
The Top Main Three Floors....Influences: Freud, Bernes, Perls...
(Parental Ego States): Mezannine Floor: Topdog Management Level
1. Nurturing-Supportive Superego (Gaia/Hera, Jesus Christ, St. Joan of Arc, Florence Nightingale, Edith Cavell, Mother Teresa)...concerned with support, encouragement...
2. Narcissitic-Dionysian Superego (Narcissus/Dionysus)...concerned with pleasure...
3. Righteous-Critical Superego (Zeus)...concerned with discipline, responsibility, ethics, accountability, correcting mistakes...
.........................................................................
(Adult Ego States) Main Floor Control Level: Supervisory Level
4. Romantic-Creative Ego (Eros/Approdite, Goethe, Woodsworth, Rousseau, Schelling...)..concerned with love, romance, creativity, mystery, surprise, nature, environment, suspense, mystery, art, music, pantheism, deism....
5. Central Mediating-Executive Ego (Zeus, Anaxamander, Heraclitus, Hegel)...concerned with making the final executive decisions in terms of running the personality...
6. Enlightenment Ego (Apollo, Bacon, Locke, Diderot, Paine, Jefferson, Lincoln, Bertrand Russell, General Semantics -- Korzybski, Hayakawa, Ayn Rand...) ...concerned with epistemology, ethics, equality, democracy
7. Economic and Survival Level: (Hobbes, Schopenhauer, Darwin, Adam Smith, Karl Marx)...concerned with surviving...paying the bills, eating, shelter, clothes, transportation, working, income, business, commerce, economics...
.................................................................................
(Childhood Ego States) Main Floor Underdog Level:
8. Rebellious-Righteous Underdog Ego...concerned with breaking the rules and/or finding better rules...
9. Narcissistic-Dionysian Underdog Ego ....concerned with pleasure...sex...self-interest...
10. Co-operative Underdog Ego (Approval-Seeking/Submissive/Masochistic Ego) ...concerned with agreement, pretending agreement, and/or doing what one is told...subserviance, pleasing...co-operation...
..............................................................................
Basement Levels:
11. 1st Basement: Freud's Floor(Preconscious): Symbolism, Creativity, Art, Dreams, Nightmares, Sublimations, Music, Architecture, Culture....
12. 2nd Basement: Freud's, Adlers', and Perls' Floor: Transference-Lifestyle Complexes, Childhood Memories, Childhood Traumacies, Inferiority and Superiority Complexes, Narcissistic Compensations and Fixations, Identifications, Introjections, Projections, Sublimations....
13. 3rd Basement: Jung's Floor: Archetype figures, mythology, symbolism, Gods, heroes, villains, saints, martyrs, evil doers, Gods in charge of their own area: The Sky (Zeus), The Oceans (Poseidon), The Earth (Gaia), Marriage and Family: (Hera), Truth and Ethics (Apollo), Sensuality, Sexuality, Wine and Celebration (Dionysus), Hell (Satan), Heaven (God, Zeus), Messenger to and from The Underworld (Hermes)....
14. 4th Basement: Jung's Floor: Genetic Self and/or Soul: Includes talents, skills, all that we are capable of being and becoming.
-- dgb, Mar. 25th, 2009.
........................................................................
This can be viewed as a graphic, simplified version of 'Hegel's Hotel' internalized in the personality -- a '7 Floor' model of the personality -- consisting of 4 basement (unconscious and preconscious) levels and three 'main floor' (conscious) levels.
The Top Main Three Floors....Influences: Freud, Bernes, Perls...
(Parental Ego States): Mezannine Floor: Topdog Management Level
1. Nurturing-Supportive Superego (Gaia/Hera, Jesus Christ, St. Joan of Arc, Florence Nightingale, Edith Cavell, Mother Teresa)...concerned with support, encouragement...
2. Narcissitic-Dionysian Superego (Narcissus/Dionysus)...concerned with pleasure...
3. Righteous-Critical Superego (Zeus)...concerned with discipline, responsibility, ethics, accountability, correcting mistakes...
.........................................................................
(Adult Ego States) Main Floor Control Level: Supervisory Level
4. Romantic-Creative Ego (Eros/Approdite, Goethe, Woodsworth, Rousseau, Schelling...)..concerned with love, romance, creativity, mystery, surprise, nature, environment, suspense, mystery, art, music, pantheism, deism....
5. Central Mediating-Executive Ego (Zeus, Anaxamander, Heraclitus, Hegel)...concerned with making the final executive decisions in terms of running the personality...
6. Enlightenment Ego (Apollo, Bacon, Locke, Diderot, Paine, Jefferson, Lincoln, Bertrand Russell, General Semantics -- Korzybski, Hayakawa, Ayn Rand...) ...concerned with epistemology, ethics, equality, democracy
7. Economic and Survival Level: (Hobbes, Schopenhauer, Darwin, Adam Smith, Karl Marx)...concerned with surviving...paying the bills, eating, shelter, clothes, transportation, working, income, business, commerce, economics...
.................................................................................
(Childhood Ego States) Main Floor Underdog Level:
8. Rebellious-Righteous Underdog Ego...concerned with breaking the rules and/or finding better rules...
9. Narcissistic-Dionysian Underdog Ego ....concerned with pleasure...sex...self-interest...
10. Co-operative Underdog Ego (Approval-Seeking/Submissive/Masochistic Ego) ...concerned with agreement, pretending agreement, and/or doing what one is told...subserviance, pleasing...co-operation...
..............................................................................
Basement Levels:
11. 1st Basement: Freud's Floor(Preconscious): Symbolism, Creativity, Art, Dreams, Nightmares, Sublimations, Music, Architecture, Culture....
12. 2nd Basement: Freud's, Adlers', and Perls' Floor: Transference-Lifestyle Complexes, Childhood Memories, Childhood Traumacies, Inferiority and Superiority Complexes, Narcissistic Compensations and Fixations, Identifications, Introjections, Projections, Sublimations....
13. 3rd Basement: Jung's Floor: Archetype figures, mythology, symbolism, Gods, heroes, villains, saints, martyrs, evil doers, Gods in charge of their own area: The Sky (Zeus), The Oceans (Poseidon), The Earth (Gaia), Marriage and Family: (Hera), Truth and Ethics (Apollo), Sensuality, Sexuality, Wine and Celebration (Dionysus), Hell (Satan), Heaven (God, Zeus), Messenger to and from The Underworld (Hermes)....
14. 4th Basement: Jung's Floor: Genetic Self and/or Soul: Includes talents, skills, all that we are capable of being and becoming.
-- dgb, Mar. 25th, 2009.
A DGB Perspective on Freud's Abandonment -- or Partial Abandonment -- of His Traumacy-Seduction Theory Between 1896 and 1899
Under construction...Mar. 25th, 2009
Let us now talk about the possibity of a dialectical bridge beween Freud before and after his short little essay, 'Screen Memories' (1899), the major turning point between his 'pre-psychoanalytic traumatic and seduction theories' and his soon-to-be 'Psychoanalysis-proper' as trumpeted by the publication of his famous book, 'The Interpretation of Dreams' (1900). If it was the issue of 'sexuality' that became one of the main dividing points between Freud and Jung, then it is to the issue of sexuality -- and the polarity between 'sexual traumacy' and 'sexual narcissism' -- that we must return.
Much has been made of this controversial theoretical and clinical turning-point in the evolution of Psychoanalysis: many -- particularly feminists knowledgeable with what went down here -- would say that Freud basically abandoned women -- abandoned alleged female victims of childhood sexual assault -- and turned Psychoanalysis into a much more 'chauvanist men's club' that suppressed and distorted all evidence of childhood sexual assaults under the guise of 'childhood and adolescent sexual fantasy' -- most particulary, relative to a girl's love for her father.
I remember running into this issue for the first time when I picked up Masson's controversial book in the mid to late 1980s, 'The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory' (1984, 1985, 1992). I even remember contacting Mr. Masson in New Zealand by email -- years after he had broken away (and/or been banished) from numerous psychoanalytic societies that he had belonged to (the International Psychoanalytical Association, the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society, the Toronto Psychoanalytic Society, and I believe, the San Francisico Psychonalytic Society. Cited from another of Masson's books, 'Final Analysis: The Making and Unmaking of a Psychoanalyst', 1990,1991.)
My first email to Masson was responded to by Masson with reasonable warmth as he wished me good luck in my work but still he did not wish to re-hash the Seduction Theory Controversy. My second email to him was not treated as warmly -- understandable I suppose in light of all the grief he had taken during those years, and/or also my lack of 'sufficient professional' credentials on the same subject manner.
Now here is the point I wish to make. As much as I loved reading 'Final Analysis' and 'The Assault on Truth' and Janet Malcolm's 'In The Freud Archives'(1983,84), and I probably side closer to Masson's last published points of view, and Freud's pre-1897 point of view rather than Freud's evolving post-1897 point of view: still, most memories -- plain and simple -- from an 'objective' epistemological point of view, cannot be fully or often even at all significantly trusted.
Let us just look at the anectdotal evidence we have here. It has been at least 15 years since I last theoretically invested any time and energy into this remarkable controversy, so excuse me if my own memory is a little rusty here: I said that I picked up Masson's book, 'The Assault on Truth' in the mid to late 1980s. Wrong! I just fished the book out of my personal library here, dusted off the cobwebs, and found out that the last publication date on the book was 1992. That means that I obviously bought the book sometime in or after 1992 but I 'remembered' it to be in the mid to late 1980s. So much for my memory.
I read all three of those books that I just cited above but do I remember which book I read when, and in which order, and how far apart the readings were? I am obviously more than a little suspicious of my own memory at this point. Logically speaking, I would imagine I read 'Assault' first, then 'Final Analysis', then Malcolm's 'In the Freud Archives'. But don't quote me on that -- and I certainly would not want to put my hand on a bible in a court of law because if I did, I would probably have to say simply, 'I don't know'. Do I remember what year it was that I emailed Masson in New Zealand. He was working on 'animal psychology', I believe, by that point in time. (Certainly less stressful than 'human psychology' -- especially when it comes to the subject of 'sex' and 'sexuality'.) Maybe one day I will find the email in my own archives here with a date attached to it. But other than that I can only guess that it was somewhere around 1995-97. Again, don't quote me on that because my memory right now is not holding up to the test. It is certainly flawed.
Do I at least partly make my point? A therapist has no right to totally or even necessarily partly trust' the 'objective epistemological correctness' of any memory that a client cites to him or her for the simple reason that it is a 'memory' and memories can easily fail, distort, embellish, discard...in short, they are very narcissistically biased'.
To trust a memory in a court of law -- without substantiating empirical evidence and/or other credible witness reports is downright ludicrous -- putting a man (i.e., it is usually but not always a man who is being accused when it comes to issues of 'past childhood sexual assaults') in jail on the basis of the unsubstantiated memories and testimony of an alleged victim is hugely dangerous and I would even say ethically and legally reprehensible unless these memories and testimony are otherwise substantiated. (And as far as 'narcissistic bias', let us not forget that you have lawyers who are functioning like 'pre-Socratic Sophist mercenaries' who are paid handsomely to deliver fancy rhetoric and persuasive logic that is designed to narcissistically serve their clients goals and wishes regardless of how close or how far their clients' goals and wishes are connected to any form of 'objective, epistemological truth').
We have come full circle and the epistemological and legal dangers that Freud ran into in the mid to late 1890s when he started to have second thoughts, and then abandon, his infamous Seduction Theory, are as real and dangerous today as they were back then. 'Subjective clinical-therapy memories' have no business being called 'epistemological truths' -- regardless of how 'epistemologically real' they may seem. The same point needs to be made with a hundred times more force when we start to talk about an alleged 'unconscious' and/or 'reconstructed' memory. None of these memories should have any legal force in a court of law unless they can be 'empirically substantiated beyond any reasonable doubt' by other much more credible and stronger forms of evidence. And this does not mean a woman's 'psychological/emotional/physical symptoms' or a psychologist's so-called professional testimony.
Psychologists and psychiatrists can be hugely narcissistically biased simply by the orientation of their training. Who's giving the testimony -- an orthodox, Oedipal Complex believing, Psychoanalyst? Or a 21st century feminist psychologist who may have been sexually assaulted herself and who may be projecting her own situation onto her client (in Psychoanalysis this is called 'counter-transference') and 'subconsciously looking' for evidence of a sexual assault in her client in practically every symptom that she portrays, and in every memory, conscious or unconscious, legitimately told to her or 'interpretively reconstructed' by the therapist. This presents a huge 'epistemological and ethical danger' not only to psychotherapy in general -- regardless of psychological orientation, orthodox Psychoanalytic or the opposite -- but even more so once this whole psychological and epistemological charade moves into a court of law.
Do I believe that guilty men should be held accountable for their 'sexual assaults'? Of course, I do -- if they can be legitimately proven in a court of law -- and allowing for the fact that there is a very big difference between 'inappropriately making a pass at a woman' and 'rape'. They should not be treated the same -- and even as I speak there are many men terrified of making a pass at a woman, even having sex with a woman for the first time without the petrifiying thought that she could ruin his life just by 'turning on him' the next morning.
The laws for 'sexual assault' and nowadays 'domestic assault' are getting broader and broader, with less and less 'empirical evidence' needed to get a legal conviction.
In effect, this means that we are now getting more and more of the opposite kind of problem than we used to have. Now, instead of far too many men get away with serious sexual crimes that they should have been convicted of with significant sentences, now we are convicting men and throwing men into jail left, right, and centre, on the basis of laws that are narcissistically biased in favor of women and on the basis of 'narcissistically biased evidence' that would never have been considered 'empirical evidence' back before our domestic and sexual assault laws started to change.
In effect, the Seduction Theory rules again in North American law -- whether we are talking about recent adult or childhood memories -- with or without any kind of 'legitimate supporting empirical and/or witness evidence'. North American domestic law used to be narcissistically biased in favor of men. Now it is narcissisically biased in favor of women.
As if women are incapable of lying, manipulating evidence, embellishing and distorting facts, creating false testimony, making themselves out to be 'victims', noncapable of violence themselves, non-capable of 'instigating trouble', or 'retaliating to rejection' or 'seducing men in their own right'...all of these potential complications to the 'epistemological truth' in both a psychotherapist's office and even more so in a court of law go out the window in today's North American world of 'feminine -- and feminist -- overprotection'.
So how in the name of God or Zeus or Apollo could Freud give any pretense to 'finding epistemological memory truth' in his clinical office in 1895 when in 2007 we are no further ahead -- epistemologically poisoned equally from both sides by an overbelief in both Freud and/or the opposite pro-feminist, anti-Freud point of view on 'memories' and 'unsubtantiated narcissistcally biased, one-sided testimony'. 'Memories' and 'unsubstantiated, narcissistically biased, one-sided testimony and/or theories' need to be thrown out of all courts of law until this whole 'epistemological and ethical mess' is put back into proper balanced perspective.
Right now our domestic courts are making a mockery of the name 'justice'. Both Freud's Seduction Theory and his Childhood Sexuality and Oedipal Complex theories were one-sidedly biased but today in our domestic courts of law we are all seeing the evidence of his 'Seduction and Sexual Assault Theories Gone Mad'...
What is it -- something like 70 to 90 percent of all men in jail now are there on 'domestic crimes'. Where are all the women filling up the women's jails? I don't see the same problem in the women's jails these days. What does that mean? Women don't know how to throw a punch? Push a man? Grab a man by the ear? Throw a piece of furniture at a man? Seduce a man -- or consent to being seduced by a man -- and then 'flip' the next day when she has sobred up or things didn't turn out exactly the way she wanted them to? 'Flip' on a man if or when he betrays and/or rejects her -- and concoct an embellished and distorted story to the police and the courts to 'get even'?
The epistemological, ethical, and legal problem that we are facing today -- as originally uncovered at least partly by Freud in the 1890s -- is at least partly this: Is it better to 'have not enough men in jail who have committed sexual and/or domestic assault'? Or is it better to 'throw too many men in jail who are not guilty of the crimes they allegedly committed and/or are being punished for crimes that their accusers were at least equally guilty of -- and who are getting off scott free with no tarnishment to their legal and public reputations.' The man's reputation, credibility, and career are in jeopardy as soon as he is arrested; what compensation does he get if he is found to be innocent two or three year later? He could be out anywhere between $3,000 and $10,000 in legal fees, not to mention the fact that he may have lost his job, and/or hugely significant wages, been evicted from his home for two or three years, alienated from his kids, and then the courts find out that the woman's story has been distorted?
Both men and women commonly distort their stories to protect themselves and/or to make their case seem better in a court of law. But who has the most to lose here?: A man who could go to jail for two or three years? Or a woman who could be found out to be a distorter, an embellisher, and/or a flat out liar -- and walk home without virtually anyone knowing about it?
I've seen this type of thing happen in my mobility-van business; thank God that they are starting to put 'cameras' in their vehicles now -- to not have a camera for a mobility driver's or taxi driver's protection and self-defense right now is a horrible and tragic potential false conviction waiting to happen. I've seen driver's get off an accusation with a camera in the car or van where it could have cost him his career and/or time in jail if there had been no camera.
Why should a democratic law that is supposed to be equal to all citizens, male and female, black and white -- have an overt and/or covert 'threshold of guilt' that is obviously very low when it comes to transgressions committed by a man against a woman, and so high when it comes to transgressions committed by a woman against a man? And that is amongst those transgressions committed by women that even make it to a court of law. Most of them are either not reported, and/or if they are reported, they are not taken seriously by police unless the evidence is overwhelming.
The problem is that we as a society tend to 'overcompensate' when 'social tragedies' happen -- say a man getting out of jail or on probation and coming out and killing a woman. Obviously, we want to protect women to the best of our abiltiy from childhood sexual assault, adult sexual assault, domestic assault, and assault period. But 'legally terrorizing' all adult men on the basis of unsubstantiated, distorted, and/or embellished accusations is not the answer.
Before we used to 'overprotect' the guilt of men.
Now we are overprotecting the guilt of women. Or at least the partial and/or shared guilt. Or women are being basically 'clinically brain-washed' by overpowering Oedipal Therapists or Seduction Therapists Gone Mad.
In this regard, beware of trusting 'narcisisstically biased so-called professional experts'.
Let there be no more Dr. Charles Smiths' -- in medicine, forensics, and/or in clinical psychology. Let's be aware of the very real danger of 'narcissistic and/or theoretical bias the resulting interpretation.
So from a psychotherapeutic and clinical point of view, the problem then becomes this: where do we find a 'workable bridge' between Freud's 'Traumacy-Seduction Theory' and his later 'Childhood Sexuality and Oedipal Complex' theories. Or put another way -- between 'Traumacy Theory' and 'Narcissistic (Compensation) Theory'.
I will leave you with this very tough and hugely important theoretical and practical problem for now. And that is my take on Freud for today, March 3rd, 2007, modified on March 5th, 2007, then again freshly modified on Monday January 19th, 2009, and again on March 23rd, 2009.
-- dgb, originally written March 3rd, 2007, latest update, Mar. 23rd-24th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain.
..................................................................................
Psychology and Law: A Critical Introduction
Author(s): Andreas Kapardis
ISBN10: 052182530X
ISBN13: 9780521825306
Format: Hardcover
Pub. Date: 3/3/2003
Publisher(s): Cambridge University Press
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This book provides a comprehensive, up-to-date discussion of contemporary debates at the interface between psychology and criminal law. The topics surveyed include critiques of eyewitness testimony; the jury; sentencing as a human process; the psychologist as expert witness; persuasion in the courtroom; detecting deception; and psychology and the police. Kapardis draws on sources from Europe, North America and Australia to offer an expert investigation of the subjectivity and human fallibility inherent in our system of justice. He also provides suggestions for minimizing undesirable influences on crucial judicial decision-making. First Edition Hb (1997): 0-521-55321-0 First Edition Pb (1997): 0-521-55738-0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This book is the authoritative work for students and professionals in psychology and law.
Let us now talk about the possibity of a dialectical bridge beween Freud before and after his short little essay, 'Screen Memories' (1899), the major turning point between his 'pre-psychoanalytic traumatic and seduction theories' and his soon-to-be 'Psychoanalysis-proper' as trumpeted by the publication of his famous book, 'The Interpretation of Dreams' (1900). If it was the issue of 'sexuality' that became one of the main dividing points between Freud and Jung, then it is to the issue of sexuality -- and the polarity between 'sexual traumacy' and 'sexual narcissism' -- that we must return.
Much has been made of this controversial theoretical and clinical turning-point in the evolution of Psychoanalysis: many -- particularly feminists knowledgeable with what went down here -- would say that Freud basically abandoned women -- abandoned alleged female victims of childhood sexual assault -- and turned Psychoanalysis into a much more 'chauvanist men's club' that suppressed and distorted all evidence of childhood sexual assaults under the guise of 'childhood and adolescent sexual fantasy' -- most particulary, relative to a girl's love for her father.
I remember running into this issue for the first time when I picked up Masson's controversial book in the mid to late 1980s, 'The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory' (1984, 1985, 1992). I even remember contacting Mr. Masson in New Zealand by email -- years after he had broken away (and/or been banished) from numerous psychoanalytic societies that he had belonged to (the International Psychoanalytical Association, the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society, the Toronto Psychoanalytic Society, and I believe, the San Francisico Psychonalytic Society. Cited from another of Masson's books, 'Final Analysis: The Making and Unmaking of a Psychoanalyst', 1990,1991.)
My first email to Masson was responded to by Masson with reasonable warmth as he wished me good luck in my work but still he did not wish to re-hash the Seduction Theory Controversy. My second email to him was not treated as warmly -- understandable I suppose in light of all the grief he had taken during those years, and/or also my lack of 'sufficient professional' credentials on the same subject manner.
Now here is the point I wish to make. As much as I loved reading 'Final Analysis' and 'The Assault on Truth' and Janet Malcolm's 'In The Freud Archives'(1983,84), and I probably side closer to Masson's last published points of view, and Freud's pre-1897 point of view rather than Freud's evolving post-1897 point of view: still, most memories -- plain and simple -- from an 'objective' epistemological point of view, cannot be fully or often even at all significantly trusted.
Let us just look at the anectdotal evidence we have here. It has been at least 15 years since I last theoretically invested any time and energy into this remarkable controversy, so excuse me if my own memory is a little rusty here: I said that I picked up Masson's book, 'The Assault on Truth' in the mid to late 1980s. Wrong! I just fished the book out of my personal library here, dusted off the cobwebs, and found out that the last publication date on the book was 1992. That means that I obviously bought the book sometime in or after 1992 but I 'remembered' it to be in the mid to late 1980s. So much for my memory.
I read all three of those books that I just cited above but do I remember which book I read when, and in which order, and how far apart the readings were? I am obviously more than a little suspicious of my own memory at this point. Logically speaking, I would imagine I read 'Assault' first, then 'Final Analysis', then Malcolm's 'In the Freud Archives'. But don't quote me on that -- and I certainly would not want to put my hand on a bible in a court of law because if I did, I would probably have to say simply, 'I don't know'. Do I remember what year it was that I emailed Masson in New Zealand. He was working on 'animal psychology', I believe, by that point in time. (Certainly less stressful than 'human psychology' -- especially when it comes to the subject of 'sex' and 'sexuality'.) Maybe one day I will find the email in my own archives here with a date attached to it. But other than that I can only guess that it was somewhere around 1995-97. Again, don't quote me on that because my memory right now is not holding up to the test. It is certainly flawed.
Do I at least partly make my point? A therapist has no right to totally or even necessarily partly trust' the 'objective epistemological correctness' of any memory that a client cites to him or her for the simple reason that it is a 'memory' and memories can easily fail, distort, embellish, discard...in short, they are very narcissistically biased'.
To trust a memory in a court of law -- without substantiating empirical evidence and/or other credible witness reports is downright ludicrous -- putting a man (i.e., it is usually but not always a man who is being accused when it comes to issues of 'past childhood sexual assaults') in jail on the basis of the unsubstantiated memories and testimony of an alleged victim is hugely dangerous and I would even say ethically and legally reprehensible unless these memories and testimony are otherwise substantiated. (And as far as 'narcissistic bias', let us not forget that you have lawyers who are functioning like 'pre-Socratic Sophist mercenaries' who are paid handsomely to deliver fancy rhetoric and persuasive logic that is designed to narcissistically serve their clients goals and wishes regardless of how close or how far their clients' goals and wishes are connected to any form of 'objective, epistemological truth').
We have come full circle and the epistemological and legal dangers that Freud ran into in the mid to late 1890s when he started to have second thoughts, and then abandon, his infamous Seduction Theory, are as real and dangerous today as they were back then. 'Subjective clinical-therapy memories' have no business being called 'epistemological truths' -- regardless of how 'epistemologically real' they may seem. The same point needs to be made with a hundred times more force when we start to talk about an alleged 'unconscious' and/or 'reconstructed' memory. None of these memories should have any legal force in a court of law unless they can be 'empirically substantiated beyond any reasonable doubt' by other much more credible and stronger forms of evidence. And this does not mean a woman's 'psychological/emotional/physical symptoms' or a psychologist's so-called professional testimony.
Psychologists and psychiatrists can be hugely narcissistically biased simply by the orientation of their training. Who's giving the testimony -- an orthodox, Oedipal Complex believing, Psychoanalyst? Or a 21st century feminist psychologist who may have been sexually assaulted herself and who may be projecting her own situation onto her client (in Psychoanalysis this is called 'counter-transference') and 'subconsciously looking' for evidence of a sexual assault in her client in practically every symptom that she portrays, and in every memory, conscious or unconscious, legitimately told to her or 'interpretively reconstructed' by the therapist. This presents a huge 'epistemological and ethical danger' not only to psychotherapy in general -- regardless of psychological orientation, orthodox Psychoanalytic or the opposite -- but even more so once this whole psychological and epistemological charade moves into a court of law.
Do I believe that guilty men should be held accountable for their 'sexual assaults'? Of course, I do -- if they can be legitimately proven in a court of law -- and allowing for the fact that there is a very big difference between 'inappropriately making a pass at a woman' and 'rape'. They should not be treated the same -- and even as I speak there are many men terrified of making a pass at a woman, even having sex with a woman for the first time without the petrifiying thought that she could ruin his life just by 'turning on him' the next morning.
The laws for 'sexual assault' and nowadays 'domestic assault' are getting broader and broader, with less and less 'empirical evidence' needed to get a legal conviction.
In effect, this means that we are now getting more and more of the opposite kind of problem than we used to have. Now, instead of far too many men get away with serious sexual crimes that they should have been convicted of with significant sentences, now we are convicting men and throwing men into jail left, right, and centre, on the basis of laws that are narcissistically biased in favor of women and on the basis of 'narcissistically biased evidence' that would never have been considered 'empirical evidence' back before our domestic and sexual assault laws started to change.
In effect, the Seduction Theory rules again in North American law -- whether we are talking about recent adult or childhood memories -- with or without any kind of 'legitimate supporting empirical and/or witness evidence'. North American domestic law used to be narcissistically biased in favor of men. Now it is narcissisically biased in favor of women.
As if women are incapable of lying, manipulating evidence, embellishing and distorting facts, creating false testimony, making themselves out to be 'victims', noncapable of violence themselves, non-capable of 'instigating trouble', or 'retaliating to rejection' or 'seducing men in their own right'...all of these potential complications to the 'epistemological truth' in both a psychotherapist's office and even more so in a court of law go out the window in today's North American world of 'feminine -- and feminist -- overprotection'.
So how in the name of God or Zeus or Apollo could Freud give any pretense to 'finding epistemological memory truth' in his clinical office in 1895 when in 2007 we are no further ahead -- epistemologically poisoned equally from both sides by an overbelief in both Freud and/or the opposite pro-feminist, anti-Freud point of view on 'memories' and 'unsubtantiated narcissistcally biased, one-sided testimony'. 'Memories' and 'unsubstantiated, narcissistically biased, one-sided testimony and/or theories' need to be thrown out of all courts of law until this whole 'epistemological and ethical mess' is put back into proper balanced perspective.
Right now our domestic courts are making a mockery of the name 'justice'. Both Freud's Seduction Theory and his Childhood Sexuality and Oedipal Complex theories were one-sidedly biased but today in our domestic courts of law we are all seeing the evidence of his 'Seduction and Sexual Assault Theories Gone Mad'...
What is it -- something like 70 to 90 percent of all men in jail now are there on 'domestic crimes'. Where are all the women filling up the women's jails? I don't see the same problem in the women's jails these days. What does that mean? Women don't know how to throw a punch? Push a man? Grab a man by the ear? Throw a piece of furniture at a man? Seduce a man -- or consent to being seduced by a man -- and then 'flip' the next day when she has sobred up or things didn't turn out exactly the way she wanted them to? 'Flip' on a man if or when he betrays and/or rejects her -- and concoct an embellished and distorted story to the police and the courts to 'get even'?
The epistemological, ethical, and legal problem that we are facing today -- as originally uncovered at least partly by Freud in the 1890s -- is at least partly this: Is it better to 'have not enough men in jail who have committed sexual and/or domestic assault'? Or is it better to 'throw too many men in jail who are not guilty of the crimes they allegedly committed and/or are being punished for crimes that their accusers were at least equally guilty of -- and who are getting off scott free with no tarnishment to their legal and public reputations.' The man's reputation, credibility, and career are in jeopardy as soon as he is arrested; what compensation does he get if he is found to be innocent two or three year later? He could be out anywhere between $3,000 and $10,000 in legal fees, not to mention the fact that he may have lost his job, and/or hugely significant wages, been evicted from his home for two or three years, alienated from his kids, and then the courts find out that the woman's story has been distorted?
Both men and women commonly distort their stories to protect themselves and/or to make their case seem better in a court of law. But who has the most to lose here?: A man who could go to jail for two or three years? Or a woman who could be found out to be a distorter, an embellisher, and/or a flat out liar -- and walk home without virtually anyone knowing about it?
I've seen this type of thing happen in my mobility-van business; thank God that they are starting to put 'cameras' in their vehicles now -- to not have a camera for a mobility driver's or taxi driver's protection and self-defense right now is a horrible and tragic potential false conviction waiting to happen. I've seen driver's get off an accusation with a camera in the car or van where it could have cost him his career and/or time in jail if there had been no camera.
Why should a democratic law that is supposed to be equal to all citizens, male and female, black and white -- have an overt and/or covert 'threshold of guilt' that is obviously very low when it comes to transgressions committed by a man against a woman, and so high when it comes to transgressions committed by a woman against a man? And that is amongst those transgressions committed by women that even make it to a court of law. Most of them are either not reported, and/or if they are reported, they are not taken seriously by police unless the evidence is overwhelming.
The problem is that we as a society tend to 'overcompensate' when 'social tragedies' happen -- say a man getting out of jail or on probation and coming out and killing a woman. Obviously, we want to protect women to the best of our abiltiy from childhood sexual assault, adult sexual assault, domestic assault, and assault period. But 'legally terrorizing' all adult men on the basis of unsubstantiated, distorted, and/or embellished accusations is not the answer.
Before we used to 'overprotect' the guilt of men.
Now we are overprotecting the guilt of women. Or at least the partial and/or shared guilt. Or women are being basically 'clinically brain-washed' by overpowering Oedipal Therapists or Seduction Therapists Gone Mad.
In this regard, beware of trusting 'narcisisstically biased so-called professional experts'.
Let there be no more Dr. Charles Smiths' -- in medicine, forensics, and/or in clinical psychology. Let's be aware of the very real danger of 'narcissistic and/or theoretical bias the resulting interpretation.
So from a psychotherapeutic and clinical point of view, the problem then becomes this: where do we find a 'workable bridge' between Freud's 'Traumacy-Seduction Theory' and his later 'Childhood Sexuality and Oedipal Complex' theories. Or put another way -- between 'Traumacy Theory' and 'Narcissistic (Compensation) Theory'.
I will leave you with this very tough and hugely important theoretical and practical problem for now. And that is my take on Freud for today, March 3rd, 2007, modified on March 5th, 2007, then again freshly modified on Monday January 19th, 2009, and again on March 23rd, 2009.
-- dgb, originally written March 3rd, 2007, latest update, Mar. 23rd-24th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain.
..................................................................................
Psychology and Law: A Critical Introduction
Author(s): Andreas Kapardis
ISBN10: 052182530X
ISBN13: 9780521825306
Format: Hardcover
Pub. Date: 3/3/2003
Publisher(s): Cambridge University Press
New Price $99.45
List Price $102.00
eVIP Price $94.48
Quantity
New Copy: This item is temporarily unavailable from the publisher, but is expected in soon. Place your order now and we will ship it as soon as it arrives.
Used Price N/A
List Price $102.00
eVIP Price N/A
Marketplace Price $9.98
List Price $102.00
Take 90 Days to Pay on $250 or more
with Quick, Easy, Secure
Subject to credit approval.
This book provides a comprehensive, up-to-date discussion of contemporary debates at the interface between psychology and criminal law. The topics surveyed include critiques of eyewitness testimony; the jury; sentencing as a human process; the psychologist as expert witness; persuasion in the courtroom; detecting deception; and psychology and the police. Kapardis draws on sources from Europe, North America and Australia to offer an expert investigation of the subjectivity and human fallibility inherent in our system of justice. He also provides suggestions for minimizing undesirable influences on crucial judicial decision-making. First Edition Hb (1997): 0-521-55321-0 First Edition Pb (1997): 0-521-55738-0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This book is the authoritative work for students and professionals in psychology and law.
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