Let us imagine the life of a newborn infant -- first in Freudian terms, then in Kleinian terms, then we will split from both Freud and Klein, and move in a different direction.
According to Freud, the newborn infant is 'all id' (1923) -- and all 'primary narcissism' (1914).
Connecting these two concepts is important.
Freud officially introduced his new concept -- narcissism -- in his 1914 essay, 'On Narcissism'.
Perhaps it was partly introduced as a 'counter-concept' to Jung's concept of 'life libido' (as opposed to Freud's 'sex libido'), and Adler's concept of 'The Masculine Protest' (which would eventually become 'superiority striving'.)
Freud's concept of narcissism gave him a concept that had a little more 'generalization capability' than sexuality (although Freud generalized 'sexuality' to the max, and probably beyond).
To be sure, narcissism and sexuality were -- and are -- often intimately connected, but still, narcissism approached the subject of 'self', 'self-interest', 'self-absorption', 'selfishness', and 'self-esteem' (its presence and/or absence) in a partly new and different way than 'sexuality' did.
Narcissism can also be more closely connected to the 'will to survive', the 'will to power', and the 'will to self-empowerment' than sexuality can, although again, the two different factors can be partly or closely tied together in this regard.
So let us get this clear -- by 1914 both Adler (1911) and Jung (1913) had left and/or been left by Freud -- thus, by 1914 (On Narcissism), Freud was rhetorically and theoretical 'doing battle' with both Adler and Jung in public print (on top of past personal correspondence and/or private arguments.)
Now paradoxically -- let's start with Adler here -- two of the respective concepts that were driving Freud and Adler apart -- narcissism (Freud) vs. the masculine protest or later superiority-striving (Adler) -- also could be used as a partial bridge to bring them back together again (albeit that was not going to happen in either of their respective lifetimes. But in my fantasy, I can bring some of their ideas back into harmony with each other).
Paradoxically, as well, both concepts can be seen to have been essentially born as 'twin concepts' from the same Vienna Society Scientific Meeting -- in which Freud and Adler were very much on the same page -- November 7th, 1906. (As a historical aside, Freud would meet Jung in person a year and four months later, March 3rd, 1907, according to Duane Schultz, author of 'Intimate Friends, Dangerous Enemies: The Turbulent Relationship Between Freud and Jung', 1990, p. 64.
Adler was the presenter in this meeting -- about to publish a forthcoming essay and/or book on
'Organ Inferiority and Overcompensation' which was the subject of Adler's presentation.
According to Herman Nunberg and Ernst Federn, co-editors of the 'Minutes Of The Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, Voume1, 1906-1908' (1962, p. 42)....
Freud attributed great importance to Adler's work; it has brought his own work a step further. To judge from the immediate impression, much of what Adler said may be correct.
He singled out two leading ideas as significant and fertile: 1. the concept of compensation, according to which an organic inferiority is counterbalanced by a supervalent cerebral activity; and 2. that the repression is accomplished by the formation of a psychic superstructure. A similar formulation had occurred to him.
(More from the editors...) He (Freud? Adler?) can adduce the fact that in persons whose egotism, excessive ambition, and the like are prominent, analysis uncovers serious organic defects as the deepest cause. (DGB note: In Adler's later work, 'organic defects' would be generalized to 'inferiority feelings', 'inferiority complexes', and the 'compensation' would become 'superiority striving'.)
Nunberg and Federn note: It seems that Freud had in mind what was later characterized as an overcompensation or counterbalance for a narcissistic 'injury' although he uses anatomical language here. Nunberg and Federn also note: By the formulation of a 'psychic superstructure', Freud's similar formulation may have been referring to the formulation that repression is accomplished by the ego.
DGB note: If we combine Freudian and Adlerian language, including still later to come respective conceptuology, we might say (my integration) that early childhood 'ego traumacy' or 'narcissistic injury' results in sustained 'self-esteem damage' and a 'supervalent narcissistic fixation' around this 'injury' -- like inflammation around a physical wound -- that is ongoing, like a wound that never heals (unless it does heal), and an 'immuno-self-esteem-defensive-compensation reaction' that never quits as long as the 'psychic wound' doesn't heal, which tends to often be the case.
The 'immune-self-esteem-defensive-compensation reaction' can take almost an endless variety of customized defensive efforts of which some of the more generic reactions include: distancing (phobic and/or paranoid schizoid behavior), aggression, approval-seeking, addiction, obsessive-compulsion, compromise formation, displacement, sublimation, transference, disavowal (dissociation), projection, reaction formation, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, hysteria, hypochondria, psychosis, and I could keep going, but this is off the top of my head....
One last point here before we stop: It should be noted that the 'shift' in the personality from traumacy and self-esteem injury (inferiority complex) to defense and compensation involves one very important defensive compensation that still needs to be discussed -- specifically, fantasy.
Thus, we have a connecting point between Freudian trauma theory and his later fantasy theory that Freud himself never noticed enough to turn his 'trauma theory' and his 'fantasy theory' into a 'trauma-defensive compensation-fantasy' theory.
This is a huge revelation as it integrates Massonian criticisms of Freud's fantasy theory (and his 'suppression' and/or at least partial -- if not more than partial -- abandonment of his earlier trauma-seduction theory (1893-1896), at the expense of the 'birth' of Freud's burgeoning instinct and fantasy theory after 1896 until the year he died (1939).
1. Thesis: Freud's trauma-seduction (childhood sexual assault) theory;
2. Counter-Thesis: Freud's instinct-fantasy theory from 1897 to 1939, as supported by Anna Freud in 1981-82 before she died (and backed up by Kurt Eissler and the rest of The International Psychoanalytic Board of Directors);
3. Synthesis: DGB Traumacy-(Defensive-Compensation)-Fantasy (T-F) Theory.
This is where I will leave you today.
In our next essay, we will delve deeper into Freud's use of 'the id' as a primary personality construct, and whether this construct is still useful, needs to be modified, and/or needs to be scrapped altogether.
-- dgb, August 3rd, 2014.
-- David Gordon Bain, dgbainsky@yahoo.com
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Associative-Integrative Negotiations....
-- Are Still in Process....
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Sunday, July 27, 2014
The New, Introductory Essays to DGB Neo-Psychoanalysis: Essay 2: Should Psychoanalysis Keep Freud's Concept of 'The Id'?
My goal here is to integrate Freud's 'Early' Psychoanalysis (1893-1896), his 'Classical' Psychoanalysis (1897-1939), Object Relations, and Self Psychology. I will even invent a new label here -- 'Greater Classical' Psychoanalysis which will include both Freud's Early Psychoanalysis and his later Classical Psychoanalysis.
Our starting point for this integration will be Freud's concept of 'the id'. How do we integrate Freud's 'bio-psychoanalysis' with Melanie Klein's and Ronald Fairbairn's respective brands of Object Relations. Melanie Klein already gave us her conceptualization of this integration which included Freud's concept of the id and the 'life' and 'death instincts'.
In contrast, Fairbairn more or less turned away from Freud's bio-psychoanalysis to focus on the 'object attachment seeking goals' of people as opposed to their 'pleasure-seeking (or 'beyond pleasure-seeking') biological drives' (primarily in Freud's view, sex and aggression). Nobody says that this distinction between biological drives (Freud's life and death instincts) and Fairbairn's 'object-attachment seeking wishes, impulses, and/or goals' has to be an 'either/or' proposition. Klein certainly tried to integrate the two sets of motivations, which some psychoanalysts liked and others didn't. In the resulting 'battle' between 'The Anna Freudians' (who didn't like Klein's re-working of Freud's Classical Psychoanalysis) and 'The Kleinians' (who did), Fairbairn positioned his 'school' (which he didn't even like viewing as a school) as 'The Middle School' (which stayed out of the Anna Freud vs. Melanie Klein theoretical feud).
Well, I like Fairbairn's work a lot. However, I am going to try to re-integrate Fairbairn's work with both Melanie Klein's work and Freud's Greater Classical Psychoanalysis (as well as -- later -- to both Adler's work on lifestyle and conscious early memories, and inferiority feelings and superiority striving' as well as to Kohut's work on self-psychology, narcissism, and 'narcissistic transferences').
We have a lot of work ahead of us, and we are just beginning.
Let us start with Freud's concept of 'the id'.
In the divergence of Object Relations (OR) from Classical Psychoanalysis, some OR theorists have hung onto Freud's concept of the id (Melanie Klein and her followers, Hartman, Erickson, Winnicott) while other have not (Sullivan, Fairbairn, Guntrip) (Guntrip, 1971,1973, Psychoanalytic Theory, Therapy, and The Self.) My thoughts that are unfolding below are based very much on this editorial summation on Guntrip's part of the evolution of OR thinking from the dualism of Freud's combined 'psycho-biology' and 'preliminary OR thinking').
In the OR group mentioned in the last paragraph, I probably have been influenced mostly by Fairbairn and Klein, partly by Guntrip in his conceptualization of the 'schizoid personality' often underlying more 'normal' and/or 'normal-neurotic' behavior.
However, I fall into line with the first group of OR thinkers who hung onto Freud's conceptualization of the id, as opposed to Guntrip who believed that psychodynamic thinking -- or at least OR psychodynamic thinking -- was being chained down by Freud's psycho-biological (id) conceptualizations. I disagree with that belief on Guntrip's part but will make my own effort below to more harmoniously integrate Freudian, Kleinian, and Fairbairnian thinking.
If you are a beginning Freud student, you can look up Freud's conceptualization of the id just by googling 'the id' for starters. That is our starting point. My conceptualization of the id can be either viewed as very similar to Freud's -- or very different -- depending on your perspective. Mine is a more OR conceptualization of the id which perhaps may bring the id more in line with Object Relations thinking -- not only of the Kleinian type but also of the Fairbairnian type (which doesn't include the concept of the id).
Basically, the first thing I am trying to do is to turn the id into a functional part of the ego, and visa versa. Freud's conceptualization of the id as being like a 'cauldron' or a 'reservoir' containing 'the life and death instincts' is rather mechanistic and inorganic -- a 'thing', a 'container' -- compared to the idea of the id as a thinking, feeling, driving, wanting, lusting part of the personality. I would conceptualize the id by connecting it to another name -- 'the narcissistic id-ego'. (There is some Kohutian-type thinking entering the picture here).
However, I will distinguish between two parts of the id -- the part mainly defined by Freud as being unconscious (subconscious, below our consciousness) -- as opposed to the part of the id -- our subjective id -- that either 'sneaks' its way up into our conscious personality -- or 'drives' and 'over powers' the defenses of our more 'socialized, morality-reality-based ego' on its way up there, and sometimes into blunt, direct action.
This is entirely different than Freud's insistence that we can only interpret the full desires of the id (which, according to Freud, is totally operating below consciousness), symbolically and symptomatically through 'the vicissitudes of the id' (does this semantic distinction really have any viable, functional meaning?) i.e., through phenomena like dreams, neurotic symptoms, jokes, projections, creations, sublimations, and the like. One way or the other, the subjective desires of our id -- or our 'id-ego' or our 'narcissistic ego' -- whether operating consciously or subconsciously -- are fully active in our personality at all times. Our 'id' is not like an 'alien' inside of ourselves (although sometimes it may feel like it) -- it is ourselves. It is that part of our personality that exists before and after socialization and morality are burned into our ego and superego. Our id and id-ego or narcissistic ego reflect what we want 'selfishly' before empathy and altruism and morality and ethics enter the picture.
So, in effect, our ego is part of our id, and our id is part of our ego. However, there is a part of our ego that identifies with our id, versus another part of our ego that both identifies with our superego (as well as external socialization, morality, ethics, law...) and in this identification defends against our 'idian desires'.
Thus, we can say that our ego is 'split within itself' (actually many ways if we want to classify our 'metaphysical ego-functions and ego-states or ego-compartments' in this manner.)
Or if you go back to Freud's conceptualization, we would have to say that our first 'split' is a 'splitting of the id into the id and the ego' -- or a splitting of our primary, primal, uncivil id-ego into a more civil, socialized, evolving id-ego
Either way, we have to say that our basic, primal-primary id or id-ego either expands or splits in a manner that our more conscious id-ego or ego is caught between a rock and a hard place, or 'internally split in two' -- identifying with either and/or both the narcissistic desires of the id or id-ego as well as the more socialized, civil restraints of that part of the id-ego or ego that identifies with our internalized superego and the external forces of both reality and moral-legal civilization.
Now, let us say for argument sake, that the id splits first into the ego. Before that, at birth, and for the first little while (a highly debatable time period) -- or metaphysically, maybe we are just 'imagining' this 'split' but need to classify it as happening 'conceptually-theoretically' -- the id and ego can be viewed as 'undifferentiated' and even Freud in one of his two last papers, 'The Origin of Psychoanalysis' (1938/39), used the term 'ego-id' right at the beginning of the paper.
So, at this point, we can either go Melanie Klein's route and say that the id and ego start to split at birth, during the relationship between the newborn infant and the mother (or mother's breast); or conversely, we can wait a little bit longer in the toddler's development, and say that the splitting of the id and ego -- or both, or both together -- starts to take place around 3 or 4 years old, 'the Oedipus period of development' -- and can start to be traced by more 'conscious memories of early childhood experiences'.
For purposes of my conceptualization here, I am going to say that the splitting of the id and the ego -- though certainly hugely influenced by the earliest child-mother relationship -- from a more 'subjectively empirical psychoanalytic perspective', can start to be traced with the client's/person's first conscious childhood memory. (Here, I am influenced by Adler).
This will be our working hypothesis as I 'introject' (or project) a hugely important element of Adlerian theory (from about the 1920s) into early Freudian Psychoanalysis (1893-1896).
At this point, I am going to say that 'creativity' starts significantly from our 'id' or 'id-ego' because the id, according to Freud, and supported by me, operates by 'no boundaries' and/or 'the seemingly paradoxical collision' of opposing (bipolar) ideas that can be 'integrated dialectically' as I am about to do.
So without trying to explain why, let me do something highly unorthodox and unique here -- and that is, pull an important part of Adlerian theory (lifestyle theory and the interpretation of conscious early memories) into early Freudian trauma theory.
Next, I will say that important 'lifelong, lifestyle-transference scripts' can be viewed as starting to form -- or at least become visible to a theorist-therapist who knows how to interpret them -- in the person's/client's first conscious memory -- and particularly, usually, the person's/client's first conscious traumatic memory (even if by 'traumatic' here, we mean what might be viewed as 'subjectively traumatic in the eyes and experience of a 3 or 4 year old toddler'. Early childhood rejections, exclusions, and/or perceived failures are very likely to stand out in this regard.
From these experiences -- and their opposites (triumphs, accomplishments, encouragements, and 'narcissistic fixations' of a positive as opposed to a negative, traumatic, sort), can be interpreted in partly psychoanalytic, partly Adlerian fashion, in a way that we (meaning the theorist and/or therapist) can start to 'profile' a person's most important 'transference scripts' (an Eric Berne influence here). These transference scripts can be interpreted from conscious early memories of scenes that we will call 'transference memories' of 'transference scenes'.
And that is where we will stop today.
-- dgb, Monday, July 27th, 2014,
-- David Gordon Bain
.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
The New, Introductory Essays to DGB Neo-Psychoanalysis: Essay 1: Some Definitions of Different Types and Schools of Psychoanalysis and Neo-Psychoanalysis
Comments, feedback to David Bain, dgbainsky@yahoo.com
July 26, 2014
1. Introduction To This Multi-Integrative-Dialectic Project
Let me warn you ahead of time. If you are going to read my work -- and I certainly hope you will -- be prepared to read an integrative combination of orthodox Freudian theory, Object Relations and Self Psychology, different brands of neo-psychoanalysis and cognitive theory/therapy, and my own original, orthodox and unorthodox, formal contributions laid out here for the first time, having studied in the field of psychology as a passionate, obsessional hobby for over 40 years.
I think I have a sufficient academic resume to hold decent credibility of what I write about. I have an Honours BA in Psychology and Human Relations and Counselling Studies from The University of Waterloo (1974-1979), wrote my Honours Thesis for the highly acclaimed Cognitive-Behavioral Therapist, Dr. Donald Meichenbaum, spent two years studying/training at The Adler Institute of Ontario (1980-81), including attending a weekend seminar conducted by one of the founders of The Adler Institute, Dr. Harold Mosak, attended various workshops at The Gestalt Institute of Toronto, including seminars being run by two of the past Directors of The Toronto Gestalt Institute -- the late Jorge Rosner, and Joanne Greenham.
In 2010, I interviewed Dr. Jeffrey Masson in Hegel's Hotel (The Jeffrey Masson Interview) -- it was Masson who ignited my passion for Psychoanalysis ironically after he had already exited it.
On Linked In, you can find the rest of my resume online, including various commendations from an impressive assortment of different psychologists practicing all over the world. There will always be a list of psychologists who do not like what I have to write, but that is the case in any field of endeavor you work in, and it is the positive feedback that helps to keep me going.
All told, I have spent some 40 years of my adult life studying psychology as a hobby -- particularly the research and theory end of things -- and can converse with relative ease, and move in and out of, most of the main schools of psychotherapy that can be classified under one of the following headings: 1. Psychoanalysis, 2.Neo-Psychoanalysis, 3. Humanistic-Existentialism, 4. Cognitive Therapy, 5. Transactional Analysis, 6. Client-Centered Therapy, 7. Gestalt Therapy -- call them 'The Magnificent 7' in the field of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy.
My mission is to 'synthesize and synergize' The Magnificent 7 into one mulit-dialectic-integrative school of psychology that I will call 'Quantum Psychoanalysis and Neo-Post-Psychoanalysis'.
I will do my best to communicate the main essence of this 'Multi-Dialectic-Integrative (Quantum) Psychoanalysis in about 50 mini-lecture-essays that you can read here on Hegel's Hotel -- starting with this one.
I am always working to try to improve my evolving model of the human psyche -- based very much on different parts of Freudian theory with a lot more 'compartments' than Freud's famous triadic model -- id, ego, and superego, as I 'split the ego' not only in partly Freudian, partly Object Relations style, but also 'split the id' and 'split the superego' as well.
Metaphorically speaking, Freud's 'Victorian house' becomes a much larger 'monster home' in the 21st century -- indeed, you can say that it becomes the most important part of my now 8 year old 'Hegel's Hotel' project and contribution, the metaphor being for a 'symbolic hotel' that is built from -- say 50 to 100 philosophers and psychologists or more, each with their own 'room' or 'set of rooms' or 'entire floor', or more.
Certainly, Freud deserves 'numerous floors' in Hegel's Hotel, from the basement up to about the 30th floor, if not an entire 'hotel' in his own name.
Some of the most unorthodox -- and stretching outside the boundaries of 'normal' psychoanalytic thinking -- psychoanalytic ideas back in Freud's lifetime were called 'wild' psychoanalysis by Freud, to indicate their 'crossing' of usual psychoanalytic boundaries into a realm that lay 'outside' of usual psychoanalytic practice. Freud once wrote an essay on 'wild' psychoanalysis towards the end of his career.
Otto Gross and Wilhelm Reich stand out in my mind, and probably Ferenczi towards the end of his career, maybe even Rank as well. All had important contributions to make to psychoanalysis and/or what would eventually become different brands of neo-psychoanalysis.
So I feel that I am in good company and don't mind if you call me a 'wild' (underground) psychoanalytic thinker. In fact, I quite like it.
As long as I can make my case for the rationale behind what I about to write about here. In this regard, there will be lots of quotes from Freud at different times in his professional career, as well as a further assortment of psychoanalytic, neo-post-psychoanalytic, and even some 'wild' psychoanalytic thinkers, all screened and sometimes modified through the brain of yours truly here.
Even Melanie Klein was a 'wild' psychoanalytic thinker when she first introduced her own ideas into psychoanalysis. 'Wild' can mean 'free thinking' and 'creative thinking' as well, in some cases, referring to 'quackery'. I would prefer to stay away from the latter label.
'Quantum' refers to the idea of 'multi-dialectic-multi-bipolar-integrative thinking'.
To the best of my ability, I want to keep these presentations short and simple...
And also, educationally entertaining...
If you are still with me, I am happy, and we will turn to a discussion of 'the id'.
Cheers for those of you who choose to stay on board with me here, and in the presentations about to come..
I will be working hard for you to keep this subject matter interesting, stimulating, intriguing, and aimed at 'stretching' your own personal and professional concepts, theories, paradigms, and boundaries beyond the realm of any type of 'orthodox' psychoanalytic theory being taught today.
There is only one place in the world that you will find the integrative type of theory that is going to be presented here.
And that is here.
We all need a little 'wildness' in our lives to keep it interesting, and to keep ourselves both interested and interesting. Beyond a certain extreme -- well, I don't intend to drop off the deep end here, or at anywhere in my future presentations. I aim to avoid all 'abysses' as we strive to climb to top of Mt. Everest, or alternatively, referring back to my earlier metaphor, build Hegel's Hotel high into the sky. Please join me all motivated climbers and builders.
-- dgb, July 26th, 2014
......................................................................................................................
July 26, 2014
1. Introduction To This Multi-Integrative-Dialectic Project
Let me warn you ahead of time. If you are going to read my work -- and I certainly hope you will -- be prepared to read an integrative combination of orthodox Freudian theory, Object Relations and Self Psychology, different brands of neo-psychoanalysis and cognitive theory/therapy, and my own original, orthodox and unorthodox, formal contributions laid out here for the first time, having studied in the field of psychology as a passionate, obsessional hobby for over 40 years.
I think I have a sufficient academic resume to hold decent credibility of what I write about. I have an Honours BA in Psychology and Human Relations and Counselling Studies from The University of Waterloo (1974-1979), wrote my Honours Thesis for the highly acclaimed Cognitive-Behavioral Therapist, Dr. Donald Meichenbaum, spent two years studying/training at The Adler Institute of Ontario (1980-81), including attending a weekend seminar conducted by one of the founders of The Adler Institute, Dr. Harold Mosak, attended various workshops at The Gestalt Institute of Toronto, including seminars being run by two of the past Directors of The Toronto Gestalt Institute -- the late Jorge Rosner, and Joanne Greenham.
In 2010, I interviewed Dr. Jeffrey Masson in Hegel's Hotel (The Jeffrey Masson Interview) -- it was Masson who ignited my passion for Psychoanalysis ironically after he had already exited it.
On Linked In, you can find the rest of my resume online, including various commendations from an impressive assortment of different psychologists practicing all over the world. There will always be a list of psychologists who do not like what I have to write, but that is the case in any field of endeavor you work in, and it is the positive feedback that helps to keep me going.
All told, I have spent some 40 years of my adult life studying psychology as a hobby -- particularly the research and theory end of things -- and can converse with relative ease, and move in and out of, most of the main schools of psychotherapy that can be classified under one of the following headings: 1. Psychoanalysis, 2.Neo-Psychoanalysis, 3. Humanistic-Existentialism, 4. Cognitive Therapy, 5. Transactional Analysis, 6. Client-Centered Therapy, 7. Gestalt Therapy -- call them 'The Magnificent 7' in the field of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy.
My mission is to 'synthesize and synergize' The Magnificent 7 into one mulit-dialectic-integrative school of psychology that I will call 'Quantum Psychoanalysis and Neo-Post-Psychoanalysis'.
I will do my best to communicate the main essence of this 'Multi-Dialectic-Integrative (Quantum) Psychoanalysis in about 50 mini-lecture-essays that you can read here on Hegel's Hotel -- starting with this one.
I am always working to try to improve my evolving model of the human psyche -- based very much on different parts of Freudian theory with a lot more 'compartments' than Freud's famous triadic model -- id, ego, and superego, as I 'split the ego' not only in partly Freudian, partly Object Relations style, but also 'split the id' and 'split the superego' as well.
Metaphorically speaking, Freud's 'Victorian house' becomes a much larger 'monster home' in the 21st century -- indeed, you can say that it becomes the most important part of my now 8 year old 'Hegel's Hotel' project and contribution, the metaphor being for a 'symbolic hotel' that is built from -- say 50 to 100 philosophers and psychologists or more, each with their own 'room' or 'set of rooms' or 'entire floor', or more.
Certainly, Freud deserves 'numerous floors' in Hegel's Hotel, from the basement up to about the 30th floor, if not an entire 'hotel' in his own name.
Some of the most unorthodox -- and stretching outside the boundaries of 'normal' psychoanalytic thinking -- psychoanalytic ideas back in Freud's lifetime were called 'wild' psychoanalysis by Freud, to indicate their 'crossing' of usual psychoanalytic boundaries into a realm that lay 'outside' of usual psychoanalytic practice. Freud once wrote an essay on 'wild' psychoanalysis towards the end of his career.
Otto Gross and Wilhelm Reich stand out in my mind, and probably Ferenczi towards the end of his career, maybe even Rank as well. All had important contributions to make to psychoanalysis and/or what would eventually become different brands of neo-psychoanalysis.
So I feel that I am in good company and don't mind if you call me a 'wild' (underground) psychoanalytic thinker. In fact, I quite like it.
As long as I can make my case for the rationale behind what I about to write about here. In this regard, there will be lots of quotes from Freud at different times in his professional career, as well as a further assortment of psychoanalytic, neo-post-psychoanalytic, and even some 'wild' psychoanalytic thinkers, all screened and sometimes modified through the brain of yours truly here.
Even Melanie Klein was a 'wild' psychoanalytic thinker when she first introduced her own ideas into psychoanalysis. 'Wild' can mean 'free thinking' and 'creative thinking' as well, in some cases, referring to 'quackery'. I would prefer to stay away from the latter label.
'Quantum' refers to the idea of 'multi-dialectic-multi-bipolar-integrative thinking'.
To the best of my ability, I want to keep these presentations short and simple...
And also, educationally entertaining...
If you are still with me, I am happy, and we will turn to a discussion of 'the id'.
Cheers for those of you who choose to stay on board with me here, and in the presentations about to come..
I will be working hard for you to keep this subject matter interesting, stimulating, intriguing, and aimed at 'stretching' your own personal and professional concepts, theories, paradigms, and boundaries beyond the realm of any type of 'orthodox' psychoanalytic theory being taught today.
There is only one place in the world that you will find the integrative type of theory that is going to be presented here.
And that is here.
We all need a little 'wildness' in our lives to keep it interesting, and to keep ourselves both interested and interesting. Beyond a certain extreme -- well, I don't intend to drop off the deep end here, or at anywhere in my future presentations. I aim to avoid all 'abysses' as we strive to climb to top of Mt. Everest, or alternatively, referring back to my earlier metaphor, build Hegel's Hotel high into the sky. Please join me all motivated climbers and builders.
-- dgb, July 26th, 2014
......................................................................................................................
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Essay 13: A 'Universal' Element in Most Different Schools of Psychotherapy
There is a more or less universal element in most major schools of psychotherapy that perhaps I can describe the essence of here.
Specifically, we all tend to 'dissociate' some of our more 'unsocial (unpalatable, irreconcilable, unbearable) emotions'; they tend to get locked up in what might be called a 'stress bin' or an 'emotional dissociation vault'....and over time this bin or vault full of stressed out, often toxically unexpressed emotions, can make us sick...(and/or miserable to live with).
Release the troubling elixir of emotions from our 'dissociation vault' -- and we relieve stress in both our mind and body...We feel better....
What person does not become 'emotionally out of balance' depending on particular context situations...from time to time? Some obviously more than others, and some obviously to a greater extent than others.... But it is by working through this process -- in the here and now -- that we all can 'alleviate' the stress that may be building up inside our 'Dissociated Stress Vault or Bin (DSV or DSB or just Stress Bin)'
Now, we all have 'Signature Methods of Operation' (SMOs) or 'Signature Transference-Immediacy Constructions' (STICs) or 'Signature Serial Behavior Patterns (SSBPs)' that we create and that we are responsible for both what we put into our Stress Bin and how we vicariously or subconsciously deal with what we put in there. Sometimes what we put in there goes back to our earliest childhood memories....
'Transference' issues belong to the 'there and then' -- these are past learnings and compensations from our often earliest learnings that we 'transfer' or 'associate' with new things (immediacy issues) that are happening in our present day life .
Transference and immediacy issues exist in different parts of the personality. But every now and again -- actually, to different degrees of intensity and urgency -- they are connecting all the time. We base our present experiences and perceptions, interpretations, judgments, very much on what we have experienced, learned, interpreted, judged, and compensated for in the past. Thus, immediacy issues become 'trigger stimuli' for the release of 'unfinished or unresolved transference issues' -- and visa versa.
These are what I call 'TICs' and/or 'TIPs' or 'TIPIs' or 'TIPS' (Transference-Immediacy Constructions, Transference Immediacy Projections, Transference-Immediacy-Projective-Identifications, Transference-Immediacy-Projective-Sublimations'...respectively...)
After a while of watching -- or reading in this case -- a person in action, one can start to get a feel for his or her SMO or STIC...or transference complexes/serial behavior patterns.
If you are a therapist, processing a client's SMO (again, signature method of operation) or his or her transference complexes -- as well as our own SMO based on counter-transference complexes -- is essentially what a therapist should be doing -- or at least a significant part of what a therapist should be doing -- both diagnostically and therapeutically in the therapeutic relationship...
That is what a psychoanalyst does, that is what an Adlerian psychologist does, that is what a Gestalt therapist does, that is what a transactional analyst or cognitive-behavior therapist does (relative to the 'games people play' in TA, and relative to the 'unbearable ideas' that cognitive therapy is looking for...
They diagnose and treat SMOs, STICs, serial behavior patterns, underlying transference complexes and the 'unbearable ideas and feelings' that these transference complexes are based on....
In other words, there is a certain 'degree of universality' to what most therapists are trying to help a client work through in the therapeutic process...
-- dgb, May 27th, 2014...
-- David Gordon Bain...
-- Dialectic GAP -- Gestalt-Adlerian-Psychoanalytic -- Bridging Associations, Integrations, and Negotiations...Are Still in Process....
Specifically, we all tend to 'dissociate' some of our more 'unsocial (unpalatable, irreconcilable, unbearable) emotions'; they tend to get locked up in what might be called a 'stress bin' or an 'emotional dissociation vault'....and over time this bin or vault full of stressed out, often toxically unexpressed emotions, can make us sick...(and/or miserable to live with).
Release the troubling elixir of emotions from our 'dissociation vault' -- and we relieve stress in both our mind and body...We feel better....
What person does not become 'emotionally out of balance' depending on particular context situations...from time to time? Some obviously more than others, and some obviously to a greater extent than others.... But it is by working through this process -- in the here and now -- that we all can 'alleviate' the stress that may be building up inside our 'Dissociated Stress Vault or Bin (DSV or DSB or just Stress Bin)'
Now, we all have 'Signature Methods of Operation' (SMOs) or 'Signature Transference-Immediacy Constructions' (STICs) or 'Signature Serial Behavior Patterns (SSBPs)' that we create and that we are responsible for both what we put into our Stress Bin and how we vicariously or subconsciously deal with what we put in there. Sometimes what we put in there goes back to our earliest childhood memories....
'Transference' issues belong to the 'there and then' -- these are past learnings and compensations from our often earliest learnings that we 'transfer' or 'associate' with new things (immediacy issues) that are happening in our present day life .
Transference and immediacy issues exist in different parts of the personality. But every now and again -- actually, to different degrees of intensity and urgency -- they are connecting all the time. We base our present experiences and perceptions, interpretations, judgments, very much on what we have experienced, learned, interpreted, judged, and compensated for in the past. Thus, immediacy issues become 'trigger stimuli' for the release of 'unfinished or unresolved transference issues' -- and visa versa.
These are what I call 'TICs' and/or 'TIPs' or 'TIPIs' or 'TIPS' (Transference-Immediacy Constructions, Transference Immediacy Projections, Transference-Immediacy-Projective-Identifications, Transference-Immediacy-Projective-Sublimations'...respectively...)
After a while of watching -- or reading in this case -- a person in action, one can start to get a feel for his or her SMO or STIC...or transference complexes/serial behavior patterns.
If you are a therapist, processing a client's SMO (again, signature method of operation) or his or her transference complexes -- as well as our own SMO based on counter-transference complexes -- is essentially what a therapist should be doing -- or at least a significant part of what a therapist should be doing -- both diagnostically and therapeutically in the therapeutic relationship...
That is what a psychoanalyst does, that is what an Adlerian psychologist does, that is what a Gestalt therapist does, that is what a transactional analyst or cognitive-behavior therapist does (relative to the 'games people play' in TA, and relative to the 'unbearable ideas' that cognitive therapy is looking for...
They diagnose and treat SMOs, STICs, serial behavior patterns, underlying transference complexes and the 'unbearable ideas and feelings' that these transference complexes are based on....
In other words, there is a certain 'degree of universality' to what most therapists are trying to help a client work through in the therapeutic process...
-- dgb, May 27th, 2014...
-- David Gordon Bain...
-- Dialectic GAP -- Gestalt-Adlerian-Psychoanalytic -- Bridging Associations, Integrations, and Negotiations...Are Still in Process....
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Essay 12: Hegel's Hotel: Dichotomies and Integrations of The Human Spirit: Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Adler, Klein, Fairbairn, Horney, Perls, Fromm...
Table of Contents
Part 1: Vision and Mission Statement: Homeostatic Balance and Humanistic-Existential Self-and-Social Acceptance-Actualization-Achievement, Contact and Celebration of Excellence;
A/ Hegel's Dialectic Hotel: Thesis, Counter-Thesis, Synthesis, and Start All Over Again (Hopefully At a 'Higher' Level of Evolution)
B/ Nietzsche's Dionysian Superman -- and Apollonian Nemesis: Institutionalized Thinking;
C/ Freud's Dualistic and Dialectic (Triangulated) Man: The Id, The Superego, and The Ego
D/ Other Philosophical Influences;
E/ Other Psychological Influences:
F/ Introducing GAP-DGB Philosophy-Psychology and The Dichotomized Phenomenology of The Human Spirit -- Good and Bad -- Unified and Split -- Ecstatically Achieving and Despairingly Failing;
Part 2: Theory and Therapy;
A/ GAP-DGB Ego-State Theory and Therapy: The Splitting of The Ego, Superego, and Id In The Process of Learning, Transference, Specialized Function, and Compensatory Defense
B/ The Nurturing Superego: Loving, Encouragement, Altruism, and Self-Esteem Enhancement
C/ Turning 'The Terrible Internal Trio' -- 1. The Critical-Righteous Alpha Superego; 2. The Rebellious-(Anarchist-Deconstructive, Counter-Critical and Counter-Righteous) Beta Under-ego; and 3. The Anxiety-Ridden, Attachment-Seeking, Omega Under-ego -- into 'The Terrific Internal Trio';
D/ GAP-DGB Central Ego Theory and Therapy ('SPICIER' versions of CBT: The Cognitive Awareness-Emotional Contact-Behavioral Achievement Wheel, The Communication Awareness Wheel, Dreams-Goals-Behaviors-Achievements, Integrations, Next...);
E/ GAP-DGB Depth Psychology: Education, Diagnosis and Psychotherapy ('FAULT' Freudian-Adlerian-Universal-Lifestyle-Transference 'TIPS' (Trauma, Identifications and Introjections, Projections and Phobias, Sublimations and other Super-Charged Compensations, Complexes, Creations...)
F/ GAP-DGB Re-Attachment Theory and Therapy;
1. Better Internal Object (Subject-Object-Self) Relations;
2. Better External Object (Subject-Object-Social) Relations;
3. Better Self-Work Relations (Searching for Self-Excellence Inside and Outside Ourselves Through Our Spiritual Passion For Our Work)
4. Uniting Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Freud, Adler, Jung, Klein, Horney, Fromm, Perls, and Other Philosophical and Psychological Mentors Inside Ourselves to Create Our 'Own Path' Inside 'Hegel's Hotel', Our Heart Beating To The Drum of Our Own 'Phenomenology of Spirit', and to The Potential of Our Own 'Superman' or 'Superwoman'....Who Dares To Challenge and Traverse 'Nietzsche's Rope' Overlooking 'Nietzsche's Abyss' on the way From Our 'Old' Mountain of Entropy, Apathy, and Sterile Non-Being...to Our 'New' Mountain Plateau of Being, Becoming, Self-Awareness, Self-Contact, Self-Achievement, Self-Excellence... -- Diogenes, Dionysus, and Apollo All Dancing Together Inside Us in United Fashion To 'The Beating of Our Heart and Our Phenomenology of The Human Spirit United and at Its Best....
-- dgb, May 24th, 2014,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic, Gap-Bridging, Attainable, Integrative Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Essay 11: Cognitive-Behavior Theory, Early Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory (1893-1895), and a Movement Towards Integration
Good morning everyone,
In the 1960s, the Behaviorists -- specifically, I believe it was B.F. Skinner -- came up with the idea of 'The Black Box' model-theory, in connection with his/their 'Stimulus-Response' model-theory.
The idea -- or assumption -- was (in very loose, layperson's terms), that if an experimenter gave an experimentee a 'provocative, conditioning stimulus' over and over again -- like a shock if a rat didn't run the maze right, or some food if it did -- then, applying this theory to humans, you wouldn't need a 'psychology of the mind' -- but simply leave it alone as an 'untouched' 'Black Box' inside our 'Brain' or 'Brain-Mind'. Experimenters didn't need to know about 'the Black Box' or man's 'Brain' or 'Brain-Mind' because they could control the 'response' elicited from the Black Box-Brain simply by 'controlling the variables' and the 'provocative conditioning stimuli' that could give the experimenter a reliable prediction of how the rat/human experimentee was going to behave. Welcome to Skinner's view of 'Utopia' -- Walden 2.
Then as a counter-reaction against Skinner's view of 'Utopia' and only 'scientifically investigating' man's 'observable behavior' as opposed to his 'internal, invisible, thought-feeling-impulse mind-brain (black box) process', along came the human-existentialists (actually they were already present), and the 'cognitive theorists and therapists' (they were just beginning to surface in the 50s and 60s), and also an 'integrative cognitive-behavior theorist and therapist' who I wrote my Honours Thesis in psychology for in 1979 (Dr. Donald Meichenbaum) at The University of Waterloo.
And in my Honours Thesis, I created a rather crude, robotic model-theory of man's 'black box-mind-brain' that went a little bit beyond the work of the already existing cognitive theorists/therapists at the time (Aaron Beck, George Kelly, Albert Ellis, before any of them in the 1930s -- Alfred Korzybski followed by S.I. Hayakawa -- and before any of them in ancient Greece, Epictetus -- 'Man is not disturbed by things but by the view he takes of them.', and the cognitive-behavior theorist who I was writing for and who was very familiar with the work of all these cognitive theorists mentioned above -- Dr. Meichenbaum -- who became very well recognized and appreciated for both his clinical-therapeutic work, and his theoretical academic essays and books
..............................................................................................................................................
Donald Meichenbaum is a psychologist noted for his contributions to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). He developed a therapeutic technique called cognitive behavior modification (CBM), which focuses on identifying dysfunctional self-talk in order to change unwanted behaviors. In other words, Dr. Meichenbaum views behaviors as outcomes of our own self-verbalizations.
.............................................................................................................................................
Now, the essay I wrote back in 1979 can be represented (in updated fashion) by the model you see below you, as labelled by the acronym 'SPICIER'.
S -- Stimulus/Sensory...
P -- Perception,,,
I -- Interest (or lack of it, or Anti-Interest)...
C -- Choice of...
I -- Interpretive...
E -- Evaluative...
R -- Response...
You see, this is meant to be a 'SPICIER' model than Skinner's 'Black Box' theory because Skinner's Black Box theory tells us nothing about what is going on inside our 'Black Box' -- meaning our 'Brain'.
It is also a SPICIER model than the cognitive SBR model as supported by such Cognitive Therapists and Theorists as...Albert Ellis, Jerome Frank, Aaron Beck, George Kelley...
Because it delves deeper into the black box or belief or brain theory or brain-mind (SBMR) theory than what you get from just the word 'belief'....which can mean many things...assumptions, associations, inferences, interpretations, perceptions, evaluations, values, transferences....And the SPICIER model introduces the gestalt idea of 'interest' and the humanistic existential idea of 'choice'.
Now, if I wanted to present a 'SPITE-IER' model, then I would introduce the idea of 'Transference' -- and we would have -- Sensual Perception-Interest-Transference Energy-Interpretative-Evaluative-Response'...transference energy adding positive or negative energy to the already existing 'immediacy' or 'here-and-now' energy of the mind-brain's eco-system.
Now, if we introduce one of Freud's first 'neurotic formulas' back in 1893-1895, we come up with something like this -- creatively extrapolated on by yours truly and labelled with another acronym...
N equals DUIT which can mean a number of associated different things...
Neurosis equals Defense against Unbearable, Irreconcilable Transferences...
Neurosis equal Defense against Unbearable, Irreconcilable Theories...
We will leave things here for future discussion...
-- DGBN, May 13, 2014,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic-Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
In the 1960s, the Behaviorists -- specifically, I believe it was B.F. Skinner -- came up with the idea of 'The Black Box' model-theory, in connection with his/their 'Stimulus-Response' model-theory.
The idea -- or assumption -- was (in very loose, layperson's terms), that if an experimenter gave an experimentee a 'provocative, conditioning stimulus' over and over again -- like a shock if a rat didn't run the maze right, or some food if it did -- then, applying this theory to humans, you wouldn't need a 'psychology of the mind' -- but simply leave it alone as an 'untouched' 'Black Box' inside our 'Brain' or 'Brain-Mind'. Experimenters didn't need to know about 'the Black Box' or man's 'Brain' or 'Brain-Mind' because they could control the 'response' elicited from the Black Box-Brain simply by 'controlling the variables' and the 'provocative conditioning stimuli' that could give the experimenter a reliable prediction of how the rat/human experimentee was going to behave. Welcome to Skinner's view of 'Utopia' -- Walden 2.
Then as a counter-reaction against Skinner's view of 'Utopia' and only 'scientifically investigating' man's 'observable behavior' as opposed to his 'internal, invisible, thought-feeling-impulse mind-brain (black box) process', along came the human-existentialists (actually they were already present), and the 'cognitive theorists and therapists' (they were just beginning to surface in the 50s and 60s), and also an 'integrative cognitive-behavior theorist and therapist' who I wrote my Honours Thesis in psychology for in 1979 (Dr. Donald Meichenbaum) at The University of Waterloo.
And in my Honours Thesis, I created a rather crude, robotic model-theory of man's 'black box-mind-brain' that went a little bit beyond the work of the already existing cognitive theorists/therapists at the time (Aaron Beck, George Kelly, Albert Ellis, before any of them in the 1930s -- Alfred Korzybski followed by S.I. Hayakawa -- and before any of them in ancient Greece, Epictetus -- 'Man is not disturbed by things but by the view he takes of them.', and the cognitive-behavior theorist who I was writing for and who was very familiar with the work of all these cognitive theorists mentioned above -- Dr. Meichenbaum -- who became very well recognized and appreciated for both his clinical-therapeutic work, and his theoretical academic essays and books
..............................................................................................................................................
Donald Meichenbaum is a psychologist noted for his contributions to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). He developed a therapeutic technique called cognitive behavior modification (CBM), which focuses on identifying dysfunctional self-talk in order to change unwanted behaviors. In other words, Dr. Meichenbaum views behaviors as outcomes of our own self-verbalizations.
.............................................................................................................................................
Now, the essay I wrote back in 1979 can be represented (in updated fashion) by the model you see below you, as labelled by the acronym 'SPICIER'.
S -- Stimulus/Sensory...
P -- Perception,,,
I -- Interest (or lack of it, or Anti-Interest)...
C -- Choice of...
I -- Interpretive...
E -- Evaluative...
R -- Response...
You see, this is meant to be a 'SPICIER' model than Skinner's 'Black Box' theory because Skinner's Black Box theory tells us nothing about what is going on inside our 'Black Box' -- meaning our 'Brain'.
It is also a SPICIER model than the cognitive SBR model as supported by such Cognitive Therapists and Theorists as...Albert Ellis, Jerome Frank, Aaron Beck, George Kelley...
Because it delves deeper into the black box or belief or brain theory or brain-mind (SBMR) theory than what you get from just the word 'belief'....which can mean many things...assumptions, associations, inferences, interpretations, perceptions, evaluations, values, transferences....And the SPICIER model introduces the gestalt idea of 'interest' and the humanistic existential idea of 'choice'.
Now, if I wanted to present a 'SPITE-IER' model, then I would introduce the idea of 'Transference' -- and we would have -- Sensual Perception-Interest-Transference Energy-Interpretative-Evaluative-Response'...transference energy adding positive or negative energy to the already existing 'immediacy' or 'here-and-now' energy of the mind-brain's eco-system.
Now, if we introduce one of Freud's first 'neurotic formulas' back in 1893-1895, we come up with something like this -- creatively extrapolated on by yours truly and labelled with another acronym...
N equals DUIT which can mean a number of associated different things...
Neurosis equals Defense against Unbearable, Irreconcilable Transferences...
Neurosis equal Defense against Unbearable, Irreconcilable Theories...
We will leave things here for future discussion...
-- DGBN, May 13, 2014,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic-Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
Friday, May 9, 2014
Essay 10: A Multi-Integrative Psychoanalytic and Existential Model of The Human Personality
A/ The Purpose of Models, Theories, and Paradigms
We must not forget that models are models, theories are theories, concepts are concepts, and things are things -- objects, persons, phenomena, processes...
Models are meant to help us understand and explain reality but they will never replace reality -- they are simply good, bad, or ugly representations of reality. As such, models are a mixture of 'representative reality' and 'fiction'. The more 'reality represented', usually the better the model. Reality will always have the last word. Models will always be subject to imperfection and criticism relative to what they attempt to do and explain.
With models and theories, we may put up 'arbitrary structural boundaries' where no such boundaries exist in real life. We make 'chunk' reality into 'compartments' that make it easier for us to study what we are studying but in the end, these 'arbitrary conceptual boundaries' and 'fictional compartments' are what they are -- and that is 'convenient fictional-fantasy devices' that can help make it easier to teach what we are teaching, and to study what we are studying, but still, we must not forget that these devices contain as much 'fantasy element' in their 'structural makeup' as they do 'reality representation'. We must not forget the 'as if' element to our model -- for example, our mind-brain and self-personality-character structure seems to function (and dysfunction) 'as if' the inside of our psyche looks and operates like this...
Different models can be used for different functions.
For example, my old 'Hegel's Hotel' model which is in the process of being integrated into the larger (or when I think about it, smaller) model you see represented by the title above: 'The Hegel-Nietzsche-Freud Estate Complex' -- was, and still is -- meant to convey the idea of a massive philosophy-psychology 'hotel' or 'estate' in which you can walk into -- say 50 different rooms -- and study a different philosopher or psychologist, or a different time period in philosophy, or the different cultures and countries associated with different philosophers and philosophies, or different paradigms in psychology....And then we would have The Great Hegelian-Dialectic Common Room -- spearheaded by the dialectic logic of 1.thesis; 2. counter-thesis; and 3. synthesis-integration-synergy.
In contrast, this DGB model of the human psyche -- or named differently after three great philosophical and psychological influences on my work -- Hegel, Nietzsche, and Freud -- thus, the current name: 'The Hegel-Nietzsche-Freud Hotel' is a metaphor of the inside of the functioning (and dysfunctioning) 'human mind-brain and personality-character structure-Self'. Different models for different purposes.
Anyway, this is the spirit in which the model below is to be viewed and 'tried out for size' -- not only as a rather 'large' or 'over-sized' (depending on who's interpretation and who's judgment) 30 room 'monster house' or 'hotel' compared to Freud's much smaller and simpler 'three room house' model (id, ego, superego). This does not mean that -- 'implicitly speaking' -- there weren't more 'rooms' in Freud's 1923 model. It is just that my current DGB model aims to add some Object Relations and Existential 'rooms' that were not fully or even barely spelled out in the 1923 model, and just starting to surface in Freud's last two papers in 1938 -- 'Splitting of The Ego in The Process of Defence', and 'Outlines in Psychoanalysis'.
Although there are certain elements of Freud's triadic ego-id-superego model that still work very well -- indeed, it matches up very easily with Hegel's 'thesis-anti-thesis-synthesis' dialectic (or trialectic) formula -- still, this is the 21st century and not Victorian Europe; meaning that there have been significant expansions in Psychoanalytic theory since Freud died in 1939, especially down the Object Relations trail, and if Classical Psychoanalysts and/or extreme Freudian loyalists are not utterly intent on keeping Classical Psychoanalysis exactly the way he created it, then there is plenty of room to expand on the original Freudian model in order to better integrate it with both Object Relations and Humanistic-Existential psychology.
So here below, I have developed what I believe to be a much more 'multi-integrative mainly psychoanalytic' model, that can be used either in its entirety, and/or in its more specific regions and smaller parts. For different functions, we may need only to use 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 'compartments' of the model as opposed to the '30 compartment model'.
This 30 room 'Super-House' is not really as baffling as it might sound like it is -- indeed, I invite you to explore not only all the different rooms but also, all the different 'staircases', 'nooks and crannies' in this (hopefully beautiful) Classic Post Victorian House. If you have ever been to Toronto, imagine Casa Loma (or google it).
Hopefully, the brief synopsis of the model, as described below, will bring some clarity to the essence of the model.
Thus, without further adieu, let me try to briefly explain and summarize this new DGB model of the personality from mainly within the paradigm of psychoanalytic thinking.
........................................................................................................................................................
B/ The Newest DGB Model of The Personality Under The Influence of Multi-Integrative-Dialectic (Quantum) Psychoanalytic Thinking: Part 1: Largely Subconscious and Pre-Conscious 'Psycho-Structures' and 'Psycho-Dynamics' in The Personality
1. If we start with the concept of 'The GPS' -- our 'Genetic-Potential-Self' ('The Path', Part 1) with all our inborn potential skills, abilities, and a honing device down 'our Existential Path' that we feel most passionate, comfortable, and at home going down...
2. And then we think of a newborn baby being 'ejected' from the mom's womb into what basically amounts to an 'existential abyss' that is entirely dependent on the mother's good will, willingness, and ability to look after the needs of her newborn son or daughter....
3. Freud said that the newborn baby is all 'id' -- all 'need', 'desire', 'impulse', and 'demanding of satisfaction' of his or her biological needs -- specifically, and I am extrapolating and modifying here on Freud's 'psycho-sexual stages of development' -- his or her 'oral' need of 'sucking' and bringing 'nutrition' into his or her little body to keep it alive; and on the other side of the fences, his or her 'anal-detoxification' need to be cleaned up after having expelled waste matter from the body; and finally, the maternal nurturing and touch of the mother to generate a 'trust bond' and 'attachment' figure that the baby can generally count on to not only satisfy its nutritional and detoxification needs, but also its attachment needs as well.
4. To modify Freud's concept of the 'Id' in order to make it more compatible with Kleinian theory and Fairbairnian theories of Object Relations, and 'the splitting of the ego', I have created a concept that Freud mentioned oh so briefly in the last paper of his life, An Outline of Psychoanalysis (1939), and which is more in tune with my own 'dialectically integrative way of thinking' -- specifically, Freud used the term 'id-ego' or 'ego-id', either of which I fully endorse, not as a concept that is only relevant in the child's infancy when his or her 'ego-id' is as of yet 'undifferentiated'... but will become differentiated, according to Freud, and at that point we will no longer have any use for the term 'ego-id' or 'id-ego', so sayeth Freud.
5. Well, I have lots of use for the concept of the id-ego -- even in our adulthood -- but first, I will describe how either the 'Pre-Oedipal' or 'Oedipal' id-ego -- and I will focus here on the latter can SPLIT during the process of a 'compensatory network of possible defenses' that are created under the influence of what I will call 'OPTSDT' which stands for 'Oedipal Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder-Transference'.
6. Here is how the id-ego can 'split' utilizing and extrapolating on probably the most important aspect of Kleinian Object Relations theory:
i/ The Love-and-Acceptance Wanting Id-Ego;
ii/ The Assertive-Problem-Solving Id-Ego;
iii/ The Phobic-Schizoid (Scared, Withdrawn, Distancing) Id-Ego;
iv/ The Narcissistic-Hedonistic Id-Ego;
v/ The Depressed (Chronically and/or Acutely Frustrated) Id-Ego;
vi/ The Paranoid-Schizoid (Angry, Withdrawn, Distancing) Id-Ego;
vii/ The Paranoid-Confrontational (Angry, Assertive, Righteous) Id-Ego;
7. These 'Post-Kleinian-DGB Positions' listed above become crystalized and locked up inside our 'EMLCDF' -- 'Experience-Memory-Learning-Compensatory-Defense-Fantasy' Transference Templates...as a network of different possible ways to deal with a similar type of 'trauma' in the future of which usually one or two different types of defenses are prototypically emphasized and dominant to the person's 'transference-lifestyle repetition compulsion and profile pattern'.
8. At this point, the ego-id's or id-ego's freshly learned 'Traumacy-Fantasy Transference Complexes' (TFTCs) become 'screened and/or edited the first time over' as they either attempt to 'escape' or are 'conditionally or unconditionally released' from the transference templates and funnelled into what I will call 'The Ego-Id or Id-Ego Vault'. At this point, a more differentiated and adult or parentally introjected part of the id 'splits again'. This time we have one part of the 'Main Adult Ego' 'identifying' with the needs and impulses of 'the more childish id-ego', while the other part of the main adult ego identifies with the 'parental, righteous superego'... The first part of our main adult ego is more prone to let our 'id-ego' out of the 'dissociative-isolation ward' of the id-ego vault and into the conscious or pre-conscious personality. The second part of our main adult ego which is more stringently identifying with our paternal, righteous superego is more prone to keeping our id-ego locked up tightly inside our id-ego vault.
9. A third part of the main adult ego splits again, this time into a 'pre-conscious, compromise-forming, 'symptom-forming', 'dream, fantasy, and nightmare creating', 'projecting', 'sublimating', 'projectively-identifying', 'displacing', 'transferring' ego-state which we will call the 'pre-conscious ego';
10. To summarize so far, from the deepest depth of the personality to the 'pre-conscious' personality, these are the ego-states, the psycho-structures, and the psycho-dynamics that I will be using...
C/ First Stage (Deepest, Most Primal) Sub-Ego-States
1. The GPS (Genetic Potential Self);
2. The Deepest Abyss;
3. The Primal, (Disorganized, and Partly Organizing) Ego-Id;
4. The Trauma-Fantasy Transference Templates;
5. The Ego-Id Vault;
6. The Pre-Conscious, Compromising Ego;
Part 2: The Unconscious, Pre-Conscious, and Conscious Ego-States
10. At this point, the 'split ego complexes' of the Pre-Oedipal and Oedipal period (birth to 6 or 7 years old) become transplanted into the adult ego complex -- even if there is still an underlying 'child-like' current to these 7 conceptualized ego-states (not unlike Berne's TA model);
D/ Second Stage, Mainly 'Child-Like' or 'Under'-Ego-States
7. The Love and Acceptance Wanting ('Omega') Ego-Id;
8. The Assertive, Problem-Solving Adult-Becoming Ego-Id;
9. The Phobic-Schizoid (Omega) Ego-Id;
10. The (Manic) Depressive (Omega-Beta) Ego-Id;
11. The Narcissistic-Hedonistic (Beta) Ego-Id;
12. The Paranoid-Schizoid (Beta) Ego-Id;
13. The Paranoid-Confrontational ('Beta') Ego-Id;
E/ Third Stage, Life Challenges, Ego-States
14. Home Base or Base Camp (Family and Friend Rootedness);
15. Nietzsche's Rope;
16. The Top of Nietzsche's Abyss Under The Rope, Under The Friendly Mountain of Comfortable, Stable Being, and Under The Mountain of Uncomfortable, Anxiety-Provoking, Becoming;
17. The 'Bipolar Twin Mountains of Being and Becoming';
18. The Mountain Top of Having Become -- and Celebrating this 'Becomingness' or 'Self-Actualization' (The Path, Part 3);
F/ Fourth Stage, Adult Ego-States;
19. The Public Persona Ego;
20. The Main Adult Problem-Solving Ego;
21. The Private-Shadow (Primal, Uncivilized) Id-Ego;
22. The Feeling Ego and Phenomenology of Spirit (The Path, Part 2);
23. The Creative (and Destructive) Fantasy, Projection, Dream and Sublimation Ego;
24. The Body Ego;
G/ Fifth Stage Parental Super-ego States;
25. The Overt, Righteous, Conditionally Loving Superego;
26. The Covert, Paranoid-Schizoid Superego;
27. The Narcissistic-Hedonistic Superego;
28. The (Manic) Depressive Superego;
29. The Phobic, Non-Nurturing Superego;
30. The Overt, Encouraging, Nurturing Superego.
That will do for now.
Yeah, I know it's kind of overwhelming...
And to be sure it is far from perfect....
However, it does allow us -- both as theorists and as a therapists -- to do a few extra things with the model, that you can't do with the old Freudian one.
So for now, we will let it stand as it is.
Cheers!
-- dgb, May 9th, 2014,
-- David Gordon Bain
We must not forget that models are models, theories are theories, concepts are concepts, and things are things -- objects, persons, phenomena, processes...
Models are meant to help us understand and explain reality but they will never replace reality -- they are simply good, bad, or ugly representations of reality. As such, models are a mixture of 'representative reality' and 'fiction'. The more 'reality represented', usually the better the model. Reality will always have the last word. Models will always be subject to imperfection and criticism relative to what they attempt to do and explain.
With models and theories, we may put up 'arbitrary structural boundaries' where no such boundaries exist in real life. We make 'chunk' reality into 'compartments' that make it easier for us to study what we are studying but in the end, these 'arbitrary conceptual boundaries' and 'fictional compartments' are what they are -- and that is 'convenient fictional-fantasy devices' that can help make it easier to teach what we are teaching, and to study what we are studying, but still, we must not forget that these devices contain as much 'fantasy element' in their 'structural makeup' as they do 'reality representation'. We must not forget the 'as if' element to our model -- for example, our mind-brain and self-personality-character structure seems to function (and dysfunction) 'as if' the inside of our psyche looks and operates like this...
Different models can be used for different functions.
For example, my old 'Hegel's Hotel' model which is in the process of being integrated into the larger (or when I think about it, smaller) model you see represented by the title above: 'The Hegel-Nietzsche-Freud Estate Complex' -- was, and still is -- meant to convey the idea of a massive philosophy-psychology 'hotel' or 'estate' in which you can walk into -- say 50 different rooms -- and study a different philosopher or psychologist, or a different time period in philosophy, or the different cultures and countries associated with different philosophers and philosophies, or different paradigms in psychology....And then we would have The Great Hegelian-Dialectic Common Room -- spearheaded by the dialectic logic of 1.thesis; 2. counter-thesis; and 3. synthesis-integration-synergy.
In contrast, this DGB model of the human psyche -- or named differently after three great philosophical and psychological influences on my work -- Hegel, Nietzsche, and Freud -- thus, the current name: 'The Hegel-Nietzsche-Freud Hotel' is a metaphor of the inside of the functioning (and dysfunctioning) 'human mind-brain and personality-character structure-Self'. Different models for different purposes.
Anyway, this is the spirit in which the model below is to be viewed and 'tried out for size' -- not only as a rather 'large' or 'over-sized' (depending on who's interpretation and who's judgment) 30 room 'monster house' or 'hotel' compared to Freud's much smaller and simpler 'three room house' model (id, ego, superego). This does not mean that -- 'implicitly speaking' -- there weren't more 'rooms' in Freud's 1923 model. It is just that my current DGB model aims to add some Object Relations and Existential 'rooms' that were not fully or even barely spelled out in the 1923 model, and just starting to surface in Freud's last two papers in 1938 -- 'Splitting of The Ego in The Process of Defence', and 'Outlines in Psychoanalysis'.
Although there are certain elements of Freud's triadic ego-id-superego model that still work very well -- indeed, it matches up very easily with Hegel's 'thesis-anti-thesis-synthesis' dialectic (or trialectic) formula -- still, this is the 21st century and not Victorian Europe; meaning that there have been significant expansions in Psychoanalytic theory since Freud died in 1939, especially down the Object Relations trail, and if Classical Psychoanalysts and/or extreme Freudian loyalists are not utterly intent on keeping Classical Psychoanalysis exactly the way he created it, then there is plenty of room to expand on the original Freudian model in order to better integrate it with both Object Relations and Humanistic-Existential psychology.
So here below, I have developed what I believe to be a much more 'multi-integrative mainly psychoanalytic' model, that can be used either in its entirety, and/or in its more specific regions and smaller parts. For different functions, we may need only to use 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 'compartments' of the model as opposed to the '30 compartment model'.
This 30 room 'Super-House' is not really as baffling as it might sound like it is -- indeed, I invite you to explore not only all the different rooms but also, all the different 'staircases', 'nooks and crannies' in this (hopefully beautiful) Classic Post Victorian House. If you have ever been to Toronto, imagine Casa Loma (or google it).
Hopefully, the brief synopsis of the model, as described below, will bring some clarity to the essence of the model.
Thus, without further adieu, let me try to briefly explain and summarize this new DGB model of the personality from mainly within the paradigm of psychoanalytic thinking.
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B/ The Newest DGB Model of The Personality Under The Influence of Multi-Integrative-Dialectic (Quantum) Psychoanalytic Thinking: Part 1: Largely Subconscious and Pre-Conscious 'Psycho-Structures' and 'Psycho-Dynamics' in The Personality
1. If we start with the concept of 'The GPS' -- our 'Genetic-Potential-Self' ('The Path', Part 1) with all our inborn potential skills, abilities, and a honing device down 'our Existential Path' that we feel most passionate, comfortable, and at home going down...
2. And then we think of a newborn baby being 'ejected' from the mom's womb into what basically amounts to an 'existential abyss' that is entirely dependent on the mother's good will, willingness, and ability to look after the needs of her newborn son or daughter....
3. Freud said that the newborn baby is all 'id' -- all 'need', 'desire', 'impulse', and 'demanding of satisfaction' of his or her biological needs -- specifically, and I am extrapolating and modifying here on Freud's 'psycho-sexual stages of development' -- his or her 'oral' need of 'sucking' and bringing 'nutrition' into his or her little body to keep it alive; and on the other side of the fences, his or her 'anal-detoxification' need to be cleaned up after having expelled waste matter from the body; and finally, the maternal nurturing and touch of the mother to generate a 'trust bond' and 'attachment' figure that the baby can generally count on to not only satisfy its nutritional and detoxification needs, but also its attachment needs as well.
4. To modify Freud's concept of the 'Id' in order to make it more compatible with Kleinian theory and Fairbairnian theories of Object Relations, and 'the splitting of the ego', I have created a concept that Freud mentioned oh so briefly in the last paper of his life, An Outline of Psychoanalysis (1939), and which is more in tune with my own 'dialectically integrative way of thinking' -- specifically, Freud used the term 'id-ego' or 'ego-id', either of which I fully endorse, not as a concept that is only relevant in the child's infancy when his or her 'ego-id' is as of yet 'undifferentiated'... but will become differentiated, according to Freud, and at that point we will no longer have any use for the term 'ego-id' or 'id-ego', so sayeth Freud.
5. Well, I have lots of use for the concept of the id-ego -- even in our adulthood -- but first, I will describe how either the 'Pre-Oedipal' or 'Oedipal' id-ego -- and I will focus here on the latter can SPLIT during the process of a 'compensatory network of possible defenses' that are created under the influence of what I will call 'OPTSDT' which stands for 'Oedipal Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder-Transference'.
6. Here is how the id-ego can 'split' utilizing and extrapolating on probably the most important aspect of Kleinian Object Relations theory:
i/ The Love-and-Acceptance Wanting Id-Ego;
ii/ The Assertive-Problem-Solving Id-Ego;
iii/ The Phobic-Schizoid (Scared, Withdrawn, Distancing) Id-Ego;
iv/ The Narcissistic-Hedonistic Id-Ego;
v/ The Depressed (Chronically and/or Acutely Frustrated) Id-Ego;
vi/ The Paranoid-Schizoid (Angry, Withdrawn, Distancing) Id-Ego;
vii/ The Paranoid-Confrontational (Angry, Assertive, Righteous) Id-Ego;
7. These 'Post-Kleinian-DGB Positions' listed above become crystalized and locked up inside our 'EMLCDF' -- 'Experience-Memory-Learning-Compensatory-Defense-Fantasy' Transference Templates...as a network of different possible ways to deal with a similar type of 'trauma' in the future of which usually one or two different types of defenses are prototypically emphasized and dominant to the person's 'transference-lifestyle repetition compulsion and profile pattern'.
8. At this point, the ego-id's or id-ego's freshly learned 'Traumacy-Fantasy Transference Complexes' (TFTCs) become 'screened and/or edited the first time over' as they either attempt to 'escape' or are 'conditionally or unconditionally released' from the transference templates and funnelled into what I will call 'The Ego-Id or Id-Ego Vault'. At this point, a more differentiated and adult or parentally introjected part of the id 'splits again'. This time we have one part of the 'Main Adult Ego' 'identifying' with the needs and impulses of 'the more childish id-ego', while the other part of the main adult ego identifies with the 'parental, righteous superego'... The first part of our main adult ego is more prone to let our 'id-ego' out of the 'dissociative-isolation ward' of the id-ego vault and into the conscious or pre-conscious personality. The second part of our main adult ego which is more stringently identifying with our paternal, righteous superego is more prone to keeping our id-ego locked up tightly inside our id-ego vault.
9. A third part of the main adult ego splits again, this time into a 'pre-conscious, compromise-forming, 'symptom-forming', 'dream, fantasy, and nightmare creating', 'projecting', 'sublimating', 'projectively-identifying', 'displacing', 'transferring' ego-state which we will call the 'pre-conscious ego';
10. To summarize so far, from the deepest depth of the personality to the 'pre-conscious' personality, these are the ego-states, the psycho-structures, and the psycho-dynamics that I will be using...
C/ First Stage (Deepest, Most Primal) Sub-Ego-States
1. The GPS (Genetic Potential Self);
2. The Deepest Abyss;
3. The Primal, (Disorganized, and Partly Organizing) Ego-Id;
4. The Trauma-Fantasy Transference Templates;
5. The Ego-Id Vault;
6. The Pre-Conscious, Compromising Ego;
Part 2: The Unconscious, Pre-Conscious, and Conscious Ego-States
10. At this point, the 'split ego complexes' of the Pre-Oedipal and Oedipal period (birth to 6 or 7 years old) become transplanted into the adult ego complex -- even if there is still an underlying 'child-like' current to these 7 conceptualized ego-states (not unlike Berne's TA model);
D/ Second Stage, Mainly 'Child-Like' or 'Under'-Ego-States
7. The Love and Acceptance Wanting ('Omega') Ego-Id;
8. The Assertive, Problem-Solving Adult-Becoming Ego-Id;
9. The Phobic-Schizoid (Omega) Ego-Id;
10. The (Manic) Depressive (Omega-Beta) Ego-Id;
11. The Narcissistic-Hedonistic (Beta) Ego-Id;
12. The Paranoid-Schizoid (Beta) Ego-Id;
13. The Paranoid-Confrontational ('Beta') Ego-Id;
E/ Third Stage, Life Challenges, Ego-States
14. Home Base or Base Camp (Family and Friend Rootedness);
15. Nietzsche's Rope;
16. The Top of Nietzsche's Abyss Under The Rope, Under The Friendly Mountain of Comfortable, Stable Being, and Under The Mountain of Uncomfortable, Anxiety-Provoking, Becoming;
17. The 'Bipolar Twin Mountains of Being and Becoming';
18. The Mountain Top of Having Become -- and Celebrating this 'Becomingness' or 'Self-Actualization' (The Path, Part 3);
F/ Fourth Stage, Adult Ego-States;
19. The Public Persona Ego;
20. The Main Adult Problem-Solving Ego;
21. The Private-Shadow (Primal, Uncivilized) Id-Ego;
22. The Feeling Ego and Phenomenology of Spirit (The Path, Part 2);
23. The Creative (and Destructive) Fantasy, Projection, Dream and Sublimation Ego;
24. The Body Ego;
G/ Fifth Stage Parental Super-ego States;
25. The Overt, Righteous, Conditionally Loving Superego;
26. The Covert, Paranoid-Schizoid Superego;
27. The Narcissistic-Hedonistic Superego;
28. The (Manic) Depressive Superego;
29. The Phobic, Non-Nurturing Superego;
30. The Overt, Encouraging, Nurturing Superego.
That will do for now.
Yeah, I know it's kind of overwhelming...
And to be sure it is far from perfect....
However, it does allow us -- both as theorists and as a therapists -- to do a few extra things with the model, that you can't do with the old Freudian one.
So for now, we will let it stand as it is.
Cheers!
-- dgb, May 9th, 2014,
-- David Gordon Bain
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