DGB Personality and Transference Theory Integrates Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Breuer, Freud, Adler, Jung, Fairbairn, Berne, Kohut, Perls, Masson

It's funny. Freud was a Gestalt Therapist before he was a Psychoanalyst.

All of Freud's early work with hysterical patients, using hypnosis (let us loosely say between 1886 and the early 1890s) was geared towards 'finishing the unfinished situation'. Some might say 'making the unconscious, conscious'. Alternatively, I would say 'emotionally resolving unresolved emotional situations from years gone by'.

In conceptuology and terminology that had not been close to fully developed yet, we might say that: Hysterical symptoms were 'compromise-formations' between deep, underlying impulses for self-expression and more surface-level, social resistances, restraints, and/or defenses against the underlying and 'rising' impulses for self-expression.

Let's back up and do a quick history lesson before we go any further.


...............................................................................

From the internet...


The Freud Page

Psychoanalysis


©1998-2009 Maria Helena Rowell


II. HISTORY

Suggestion x Free Association

Hysteria, Charcot, Breuer, Anna O.

Hysteria, now commonly referred to as a conversion disorder, displays physical symptoms (numbness/paralysis of a limb, loss of voice or blindness) that occur in a healthy body.

The French neurologist, Jean Martin Charcot, who was concerned with the treatment of hysteria, believed it to be a genuine ailment that afflicted men and women, and tried to free his patient's from their symptoms through hypnotic suggestion.

Joseph Breuer, a Vienese physician who also chose hypnosis as a clinical procedure, didn't intend just to suppress his patient's symptoms but rather searched for the deep causes of their suffering. He realized, during the treatment of his young patient "Anna O." (1880-82), that the results were far reaching if he let her talk about her feelings and thoughts. He named "spontaneous hypnosis" her trance-like states. Anna named 'talking cure' or 'chimney sweeping' the process that lead to the disappearance of her symptoms whenever she was able to recollect their root events.

Freud studied with Charcot in 1885-86. He collaborated with Joseph Breuer, while progressively formulating his theory on the mind, and considered hypnosis far more satisfactory than the electrotherapy he had tried until 1890.

........................................................................

From the internet...

Hypnosis and Catharsis in Freud
David B. Stevenson '96, Brown University

Freud's early work in psychology and psychoanalysis endeavored to understand and cure the human mind by means of hypnosis. Freud's initial exposure to hypnosis in a clinical setting was over the winter of 1885-1886, when he studied in Paris with Jean-Martin Charcot, a renowned French professor of neurology. Charcot's work centered on the causes of hysteria, a disorder which could cause paralyses and extreme fits. He soon discovered that the symptoms of hysteria could be induced in nonhysterics by hypnotic suggestion and that the symptoms of hysterics could be alleviated or transformed by hypnotic suggestion. This ran contrary to the then-prevalent belief that hysteria had physiological causes; it suggested that a deeper, unseen level of consciousness could affect an individual's conscious conduct.

Freud subsequently collaborated with Josef Breuer, who applied hypnosis not just to cause or suppress the symptoms of hysteria but to actually divine the root causes. In his work with Anna O, he found that by tracing her associations in an autohypnotic state, he could not only find an original repressed incident, but could actually cure her of her symptom. When she related an event to a symptom while in a hypnotic state, her symptom would become terribly powerful and dramatic, but would then be purged, never to trouble her again. This powerful and often traumatic transfer of an memory from the unconscious to the conscious is known as catharsis, an effective method which also seems to corroborate Freud's theories on the mind.

However, Freud soon abandoned hypnosis in favor of conscious psychoanalysis, first for the technique of free association, then eventually for his well-known technique of observational, couch-based psychoanalysis.


.....................................................................


DGB Editorial Comments

Now understand that I am a 'freelance and/or integrative theorist' who does not feel restricted by the boundaries of any one theorist's language, conceptuology, and/or theorizing. In fact, I can, and do, easily integrate them all -- particularily Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Breuer, Freud, Adler, Jung, Fairbairn, Berne, Kohut, Perls, and Masson.

When it comes to pre-Freudian, Freudian, and post-Freudian integrative theorizing about the nature, structure, and different process-dynamics in the personality -- in other words, in this instance, DGB Integrative Personality and Transference Theory -- I will call these 12 personality theorists who preceded me 'The Imperative 12'.

More history...

......................................................................

From the internet...


The Freud Page

Psychoanalysis


©1998-2009 Maria Helena Rowell


Beginnings of Psychoanalysis


Breuer and Freud published their findings and theories in Studies in Hysteria , in 1895. They assumed that hysterical symptoms occurred when a mental process highly charged with affect found its normal path blocked to consciousness and movement. This 'strangulated' affect diverted along wrong paths and flowed off into the somatic innervation (conversion).

Through hypnosis, the thoughts and memories connected with the symptoms would eventually reach consciousness. 'Catharsis' (cleansing in Greek) would come about bringing a normal discharge of affect; despite these facts, symptoms tended to reappear if the relation with the physician was disturbed in any way, signaling that an intense emotional tie with him played an important role in the cure.

The authors stated that these symptoms had sense and meaning, being substitutes for normal mental acts and were caused by unconscious wishes and forgotten memories (psychic traumas).Thus, hysterics suffered mainly from 'reminiscences' that had not been worked-through.

The cornerstone of this theory was the assumption of the existence of unconscious mental processes that follow laws that do not apply to conscious thinking. Later, these processes were better understood and the mechanisms of psychological productions such as dreams could be grasped.


The Fundamental Technical Rule

Finding hypnosis inadequate, Freud refined Breuer's methods, based on his increasing clinical understanding of neuroses. He realized that success of the treatment depended upon the patient's relation to his physician whose task was to make the unconscious become conscious.

An entirely new relation between patient and physician developed out of a change in the technique and the surprising results thus obtained extended themselves to many other forms of neurotic disorders. Freud named this procedure Psychoanalysis - an art of interpretation, in 1896.

Freud thought that disturbing thoughts and conflicting urges were kept unconscious (repression) but, even so, they caused strong guilty feelings and great anxiety, interfering with conscious mental activity, as they consumed vital psychic energy in their struggle for release. As they were incompatible with the individual's normal standards, he would feel compelled to raise defenses against the intrusive ideas and the release of such urges, in order to maintain his inner equilibrium (defense mechanisms).

As Freud believed in the strict determination of mental events and assumed that all memories were interconnected, so that one recollection would lead to the next, he insisted that the patient should tell him everything that came to his mind, regardless of how irrelevant, senseless or disagreeable the idea might seem to him (free association). He found it possible for the patient to recover crucial memories while conscious.

By surrendering to his own unconscious mental activity (a state of evenly-suspended attention), Freud would follow the unconscious flow of his patient's mental productions, in order to trace the connections between the chain of allusive associations and the forgotten memories.

Occasionally, the patient might omit some material and this very gap in the communication would reveal that the association was avoided (resistance) due to its potential evocative power to bring the underlying forgotten memories to the surface of consciousness, along with the emergence of its previously inaccessible meaning.

Freud noticed that in the majority of the patients seen during his early practice the events most frequently repressed were concerned with disturbing sexual ideas. In 1897, he concluded that, rather than being memories of actual events, they were the residues of infantile impulses and desires (fantasies). Thus he assumed that anxiety was a consequence of the repressed libido, which found expression in various symptoms.

By being in touch with his inner experiences in a state of regression, in which long-forgotten 'events' would be remembered, the analysand would relate to the analyst as if the latter were a figure from his past (transference).

Freud would communicate the connection between the patient's fantasies and feelings about the analyst and the origin of these thoughts and emotions in childhood experiences (interpretation).

This powerful re-experience of original conflicts caused great distress to the patient, but the working-through of the emotional pain (insight) rendered the treatment efficient, due to a new balance and distribution of psychic energy, promoting a reorganization of the psychological structures into healthier mental configurations.


..........................................................................


DGB Editorial Comments


Integrative theorizing is not a completely 'random' and/or 'democratic' process. As an integrative theorist, there are times when I have make 'either/or' judgments and decisions. Either I support Freud's ideas or I support Adler's ideas. Either I support Freud's ideas or I support Perls' ideas. Either I support Adler's ideas. Or I support Perls' ideas. Either I support Freud's 'Traumacy and Seduction Theories' or I support his Oedipal and Childhood Sexuality Theories. Sometimes -- indeed, oftentimes -- compromise-formations can be arrived at between the different theories. But not always. Like every theorist before me, my brain becomes a 'filter and editorial screening process' for those ideas that I let into my brain to become a vital part of DGB Personality and Transference Theory -- and those ideas that I don't let through this editorial screening process.

Example 1:

I think Freud invested way too much Psychoanalytic time and energy locked up in the concepts of 'unconscious memories' and 'repression'. These ideas play no part in DGB Personality and Transference Theory. To put it bluntly, they get tossed away.

Between 1974 and 1979, while I was at The University of Waterloo working through my Honours B.A. in psychology, I was involved in numerous 'group psychotherapy' processes. Never once, did I witness -- either in myself or someone else -- an 'unconscious memory becoming conscious'. Never once did I witness the so-called phenomenon of 'repression'. I don't believe in concepts that I can't -- or don't -- experience. In this regard, I am an John Locke rational-empiricist, through and through. Don't give me any 'no-sense' concepts that do not have a 'sensory-experiential' ('phenomenological-existential') foundation. If you do -- then at least properly label these concepts as 'metaphysical' and/or 'mythological'. DGB Philosophy-Psychology uses metaphysical-mythological concepts but they are labelled as such. Metaphysical and/or mythological concepts are not to be confused with 'down-to-earth' concepts that have 'physical referents' that can be seen, heard, and/or touched. Our loved ones, we can see, touch, experience. I've never seen an 'unconscous memory' or a 'repression' seen, touched, experienced. My roughly 12 years off and on at The Gestalt Institute (1979-1991) in Toronto only further reinforced what I am saying here.

I've never seen a 'memory therapeutically worked with' that couldn't be brought to the client's awareness usually in pretty easy and timely fashion. 'Resistance' and 'suppression' are verifiable concepts.

With some degree of apprehension, I will use the concepts of 'suppressed memories' and 'subconscious memories' -- meaning 'out-of-awareness' memories that can usually be quickly brought into awareness with the right associations and/or the right degree of focus of attention -- but these are not to be confused with the ideas of 'unconscious memories' and 'repression'. These latter two concepts give a psychotherapist far too much liberty and license to 'project his or her own theoretical and/or experiential material' onto the client. Psychotherapeutically and legally there is the potential for much abuse and damage here -- in essence, creating or interpreting or reconstructing or analysing 'unconscious or repressed memories that don't exist, and that never existed' in a client's life history. Perhaps Freud, as an Oedipal and Childhood Sexuality Theorist was the worst violator of supposedly unconscious or repressed memories -- see 'Dora' and 'The Wolf Man' -- but the potential for this type of violation exists just as strongly, maybe even more so, at the hands of present-day Traumacy-Seduction Theory Psychotherapists. I cringe at the very real event of some father being dragged into court -- and his life ruined -- because some Traumacy-Seduction-Repressed Memory Therapist has 'interpreted or analyzed or reconstructed' a supposedly repressed memory from a client who doesn't even remember this memory. At least until the therapist convinces him or her elsewise. In most courts, that is called 'leading the witness'. All such cases should be thrown out of court. If a person can't remember something -- it's not a memory. Period.

Don't let some psychotherapist's or even some school of psychotherapy's theorizing --whether from one polar extreme, such as 'Classical Psychoanlytic-Oedipal-Childhood Sexuality-Fantasy' Theorizing; or from another polar extreme, such as Childhood-Traumacy-Seduction-Sexual-Assault' Theorizing -- destroy a person's life and/or a family's life because he/she/they 'projected his/her/their own theory onto a client whose case material didn't support this theory but rather was 'forced' into this theory like trying to put a circular piece into a rectangular box. We are talking about any situation where the therapist is playing the 'fitting game' with the client -- and the client's life experiences don't neatly 'fit into the therapist's theory, diagnosis, and therapeutic gameplan'. Any use of 'unconscious' or 'repressed' memories gives a therapist far too much liberty, license -- and potential for abuse -- of what a client does and doesn't remember.

How many men or women who as children or as adults were sexually assaulted -- don't remember the assault? They may not want to talk about it. But that is a different thing entirely from 'not remembering' it. I don't support everything that Jeffrey Masson has written about Freud's Controversial Abandonment of his Traumacy-Seduction Theory but I support Masson's editorial opinion on this account (The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of The Seduction Theory) -- people can almost always remember if they have been sexually assaulted, to what extent, and the particular details around this event. 'Commit to flames' the ideas of 'unconscious and repressed memories'. Work with 'conscious memories'!
............................................................................


'Hysteria' and 'Neurotic Symptoms' as 'Compromise-Formations' and 'Allusions to Immediacy'


We have to be very careful that we not abuse the label of 'hysteria' and that it represents a legitimate diagnostic phenomenon, and not some 'medically unknown and/or undiagnosed phenomenon' either in present day or in Freud's time such as perhaps 'epilepsy' or a 'brain tumor' or 'schizophrenia' or 'hypochondria'.

Having said this, Freud, in his earliest psychotherapy sessions, worked in much more 'immediacy-oriented, Gestalt-fashion' than he did in his later more interpretive and analytical Psychoanalytical sessions.

I believe that Freud might have taken some serious steps backwards in this regard.
It is important that any form of psychotherapy be well-grounded in immediacy, contact, and the client's experience. The higher a therapist climbs into his or her own abstractions, interpretations, and analysis, more often than not, the less meaningful and therapeutically important this 'flight into therapist interpretation and abstraction' is going to be for the client. Did 'Dora' get anything out of Freud's rather 'wild transference interpretation' of Dora's symptoms? Or did she cut off Freud's treatment of her believing that perhaps she had met a therapist who was crazier than she was? (See Freud's 'Dora case' for your own interpretation and judgment here.)

In contrast, you look back at the way Breuer handled the 'Anna O' case and you have the classic essence of any form of psychotherapy. Psychotherapy is a 'talking cure' -- meaning the client is doing most of the talking, not the therapist. The 'talking cure' leads to 'chimney sweeping' and 'emotional catharsis' -- turning an 'unfinished emotional event' into a 'finished' one. This is the Gestalt theory of 'paradoxical change'. By accepting first who we are, and who we have been, and by 'closing unclosed emotional events' or by 'finishing unfinished emotional events', we then give ourselves the opportunity to move beyond who we are and/or who we have been, to who we now can be. 'The truth shall set you free.'

The further Freud moved away from Breuer's more 'client-centred approach' (which Breuer basically 'fluked' upon) where 'Anna O' basically led the way and 'closed some of her own emotional issues and neurotic symtoms', and the further Freud moved into his own more 'therapist-directed, interpretive and analytic directed, and Oedipal-sexual fantasy directed' form of psychotherapy -- i.e., Classic Psychoanalysis -- the more it is quite possible if not probable that Freud was leaving patients behind in his own 'unilateral dust'. 'Dora' and 'The Wolf Man' being two cases in point.

................................................................................

From the internet...

Freud:
A Very Short
Introduction
Anthony Storr
Neville Jason, Reader
(Naxos AudioBooks)

Civilization and Its Discontents, the Wolf Man, the Rat Man, Anna (and Anna O!), penis envy, the Oedipus Complex, the Electra Complex, The Interpretation of Dreams, cigars, Charcot, Fleiss, hysteria, infantile sexuality, jokes, the unconscious, neuroses, slips of the tongue, the oral, the anal, and death. It is astonishing what the man accomplished in his almost eight decades on earth.
At one point, Storr wonders out loud why Freud was so influential. He cites his marvelous writing style (and it is wondrous, even in translation --- Norman Mailer said Freud was one of the greatest novelists of the 20th Century). But we suspect it is more simple than that.

Most of us want to know what makes us tick, and most of us run into people and events that affect us strangely, that make no sense. We wonder where they come from, what it all means, how could we --- for example --- fall into a trap, any trap, that trap again.

Positing id, ego, and the hidden unconscious gave us a chance to explain these oddities. For those lucky enough, or rich enough, psychoanalysis offered the chance to peer into one's own mind with the assistance of a nonjudging, tolerant, and infinitely patient helper.


§ § §
Storr was a practicing psychoanalyst, which would mean that he should also be patient, observant, non-judgmental. In writing about Freud, he is patient and observant but very judgmental. He wants to make sure that we know that when Freud defined the obsessional character ("order, cleanliness, control") the master was talking about himself: a man of detail, one who was detached, one who did not brook rebellion in the ranks.

Storr suggests that although Freud repeatedly called his handiwork a science --- not a philosophy, not a religion --- those who deviated from the dogma (Fleiss, Jung, Rank) were cut off, even labeled by the other followers as "Neurotic" or "Psychotic."

There are some surprises here. Freud was called "my golden Ziggy" by his mother. He took a dim view of humanity, called it "trash." He was generous. One of his long-term patients he christened The Wolf Man because of a dream he related to Freud --- a dream, perhaps, next to the dreams of Emanuel Swedenborg, one of the most famous in existence:


I dreamed that it was night and I was lying in my bed. Suddenly the window opened of its own accord, and I was terrified to see that some white wolves were sitting on the big walnut tree in front of the window. There were six or seven of them. The wolves were quite white, and looked more like foxes or sheep-dogs, for they had big tails like foxes and they had their ears pricked like dogs when they pay attention to something. In great terror, evidently of being eaten up by the wolves, I screamed and woke up.
Wolf Man lived into the 1970s, was often interviewed on the master's technique. He tells us that Freud chatted with him about his own life, talking of his children, daily events; he even loaned him money, arranged for loans from others when he was broke. The only thing Freud did not do, Storr tells us, was to cure him. Even in later life Wolf Man suffered from depression, from the frightening thoughts that first brought him to treatment when he was a young man.

Freud's books, and monographs as published constitute some twenty-four volumes, but Storr informs us that he did not even begin writing until he was thirty-nine years old. Storr doesn't think much of most of Freud's writings outside of his theories (although he does make an exception for his paper on Michelangelo's Moses). Moreover, he suggests that Freud was not all that great an analyst. He offers up the idea that he saw patients mainly to create or shore up his own theories of the mind.

Storr also gives short shrift to Freud's Interpretation of Dreams. He points out that modern psychoanalysts do not see dreams as hiding repressed sexual fantasies or memories. He merely credits Freud for rescuing dreams from the realm of mystics and witches, and he ignores Freud's insight that dreams represent one of the richest treasure-chests of insight to those who bother to record them.

Many of us who bother to interpret our own dreams learn quickly that they are as Freud saw them --- puns and games, a superb internal movie going on nightly, with hints and clues that can tell us more than we ever dreamed possible what the hell is going on there in our psyches, creating its own subtle symbolic system, the system that possibly rules us, possibly can free us.



Freud preferred his patients --- they weren't called "clients" in those pre-Carl Rogers' days --- to be well educated. He also was not interested in treating the overtly mad, nor those over the age of fifty. (In 1900 the life expectancy was such that to analyze an older person, he suggested, would be a waste). Freud also chose the couch for his analysands because he didn't like "being stared at for eight hours a day."
From his time with Charcot, Freud learned that the traumas could be retrieved and defused through hypnosis. This led to one of his major theories, that of trauma and repression. From his own experience, he learned of the significant phenomena of transference and counter-transference --- a subtle but powerful tool that brought the reality of a patient's passions and needs right into the consulting room where they could be examined by doctor and patient to understood where he or she came from, where he or she was going.

Patients were thus given permission to fall in love with the analyst without fear or shame. And an artful analyst could help one define fears and hopes from childhood, artfully transferred to the consulting room.

He cites Freud's showing the profound importance of how children are raised, and how they are hurt. The child, he proved, is indeed "father of the man." You and I as we exist now were formed by those who created us, nurtured us --- or in some cases, maltreated us.

The major gift of the master, in Storr's view, is that individuals were offered the opportunity to have an uncritical, sympathetic listener, one who would devote extensive time to those who may have needed it the most. It was the chance to be in the presence of one who would listen, would not judge nor criticize, and at appropriate times, could guide one into soul-changing insight.

These three discs run for four hours. Nevill Jason is a fine and precise (and dare we say , a compulsive) reader ... in the dry, BBC sense. Storr's judgmental view of his subject would be more befitting a parent rather than a historical figure. Perhaps it is appropriate that Storr emphasizes Wolf Man's oft repeated sentiment that Freud was "like a father" to him.

..........................................................................


DGB Editorial Comments


The only point on which I take issue with the writer above is on just how 'non-interpretive and non-judgmental a listener' Freud really was -- particularly the older Freud got and the more 'entrenched' his own theories became in his own mind.

I think that there may have been a point at which Freud's theoretical conclusions and the clinical applications of these theories may have come to supersede and dominate any client's feeling of being 'freely and non-judgmentally listened to'.

That point may have come very early in Freud's evolutionary clinical development, maybe as early as 1895 or 1896, maybe even earlier back to the time when Freud actually was practising hypnosis.

Indeed, I wonder if something very important in the evolution of Psychoanalysis wasn't lost in the first Psychoanalytic case -- i.e., Breuer's case -- of 'Anna O'.

Or shortly thereafter.

That was the point at which Freud ceased to be a Gestalt Therapist -- and started to become a 'Psycho-analyst'.

-- dgb, Feb. 18th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

.........................................................................

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson is a writer who lives with his family in New Zealand. He has a 32-year-old daughter, Simone, who works with animals in California. His wife Leila is a pediatrician (visit her website) and they have two sons: Ilan (10) and Manu (5). They live on a beach in Auckland with three cats and three rats.

Jeff has a Ph.D. in Sanskrit from Harvard University. He was Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Toronto. While at the university he trained as a Freudian analyst (from 1971-1979) graduating as a full member of the International Psycho-Analytical Association. In 1980 he became Project Director of the Sigmund Freud Archives.

Given access to Freud's papers in London and the Library of Congress, his research led him to believe that Freud made a mistake when he stopped believing that the source of much human misery lay in sexual abuse. Masson's view was so controversial within traditional analytic circles that he was fired from the archives and had his membership in the international society taken away. Janet Malcolm has written a book about this episode (In the Freud Archives - the subject of a libel suit by Masson) and Jeff has published a series of books critical of Freud, psychoanalysis, psychiatry and therapy.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jeffrey and his family
Skeptical that humans could be understood (at least by psychologists) Masson turned to animals. In 1995 he published When Elephants Weep, an international best seller, followed by the equally popular Dogs Never Lie About Love.

Since those two books he has published 6 more books about animals, looking in every one at their emotions: About cats he wrote The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats (along with a fable, The Cat Who Came in from the Cold); He looked at fatherhood in the animal world and the lessons to be learned for humans in The Evolution of Fatherhood; writing about the emotional world of farm animals in The Pig Who Sang to the Moon turned Jeff into a vegan.

Lately he wondered why animals did not engage in genocide, and wrote Raising the Peaceable Kingdom. Finally he wrote an encyclopedia of his 100 favorite animals (often with an animal-rights angle) called Altruistic Armadillos - Zenlike Zebras. He has just signed a contract with W.W. Norton to write a book about vegetarianism (Veganism) called The Face on Your Plate.

Leila, Jeff and Manu are all vegan. Ilan and his three rats are vegetarian. The cats could not be persuaded to follow either philosophy, and are, alas, carnivores.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What I believe:
I believe that in 500 years (maybe less) people will look back on us and wonder about many things. No doubt behavior we consider normal today will inspire horror in our more enlightened successors. War, for example. But I also think they may believe our disdain of insects is incomprehensible. Perhaps they will marvel that we could so easily cut down trees and perhaps even flowers.

I am completely opposed to any form of animal exploitation, including animal experimentation, keeping animals in zoos or in circuses, (indeed any form of captivity for animals), the use of leather, fur, wool and silk. I am even questioning my use of hearts of palm and maple syrup (thinking about the wounds necessary to create the sap). I also have begun to wonder whether any domesticated animal can lead an ideal life in the company of humans. Cats seem to me to come the closest, when they are able to wander freely and in safety.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Take a look at some of Jeff's favorite books.

Copyright © 2000-2008, All Rights Reserved.

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson's website is dedicated to the emotional lives of animals, vegetarianism, veganism (the ethics of food), animal rights, and human-animal interactions.

Painting of Jeff and family on their beach in New Zealand, by Carina Koning

On The Interaction and Entanglement Between Transference and Contact-Immediacy

1. Transference is very obsessive-compulsive and a life-long process, often going through different evolutions with different relationships. Most of this is on a subconscious level. We never know where the next transference evolution is going to take us in whatever new relationship we happen into. But the subconscious usually takes us to where it/we feel the greatest need. Awareness does not always make a difference because there is such a perceived need to go where we are going anyway -- despite any conscious 'Apollonian' objections.

2. Immediacy and contact still play a big part in any relationship, probably the most important part. You get into too much 'transference analysis' and you can paralyze the relationship you are in. Paralysis by analysis.

3. Similarily with such relationship factors as trust, respect, caring, empathy, assertiveness, excitement....these too remain essential to any long-lasting, successful relationship.

4. But intertwined into the immediacy and the contact of any relationship is the hugely important transference complex and whatever it may be with each person in the same relationship, and each person in each different relationship....

5. And here 'the rejecting person' is often the 'exciting person'....perhaps re-awakening negative childhood memories that we subconsciously and symbolically want to 'fix'...and this can take us back to issues of perceived abandonment, betrayal, being controlled, distancing, bad tempers, alcholism, drugs, and/or whatever the perceived imperfections of our childhood may have been -- 'Father-Complexes', 'Mother-Complexes', 'Sibling-Complexes', 'Stranger-Complexes', 'Relationship-Complexes', 'One Time Memory-Encounter Complexes'....

6. Transferences tend to revolve around 'core nuclear childhood conflicts' and our adult relationships tend to 're-awaken' these conflicts to either 'repeat them' or 'work through' them. Our adult relationships hinge on the success or failure of this enterprise.


-- dgb, Feb. 16th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

Transference as A Narcissistic Self-Esteem Injury in Childhood -- and The Wish to 'Undo' or 'Repair' It In Adulthood (Updated Feb. 13th, 2009)

Transference involves a symbolic re-creation or reincarnation of an old, emotional dialectic. It can be good and/or bad depending on which way it turns. It can be used creatively and/or destructively. In the sphere of love and sex, it is very obsessive-compulsive, very addictive -- the essence of erotic psychology and biochemistry all rolled into one -- and thus, very hard to avoid. Some transferences are much more dangerous than others -- transferences connected to alcoholic, drug-using, and/or abusive fathers and/or moms, transferences connected to abandoning fathers and/or mothers, transferences connected to violent fathers and/or mothers.

Every child eventually has to run into the phenomenon of 'rejection' in some form or another at an early age, some worse than others, some construed worse than others, and these early rejections often 'trigger' the onset of life-lasting transference neurosis or transference complex.

The difference between a 'transference neurosis' and a 'traumacy neurosis' from a DGB perspective is the difference between obsessively wanting to symbolically return to the 'scene of the childhood traumacy/rejection' -- and not.

In a traumacy neurosis, there is usually simply 'avoidance behavior' -- a fear of repeating some traumatic scene all over again, and thus, taking precautionary steps aimed at preventing this type of traumacy from happening again. There is no element of 'attraction', 'excitement' 'romantic infatuation' and/or 'sexuality'.

However, in a transference neurosis -- at least the type of transference encounter and/or relationship that we are talking about here -- we have the paradoxical addition of 'attraction', 'excitement', and 'self-esteem celebration' as well as underlying opposing feelings of fear or anxiety, grief -- and resentment, anger, hate, even to the point of unleashed narcissistic-transference rage (overt or covert) over issues such as perceived abandonment, betrayal, etc.

So a transference love neurosis or complex -- and the type of relationship that it feeds off of -- entails a huge, and very intense, bag of emotions that swing back and forth in bi-polar fashion from anxiety to excitement and back to anxiety, and from love to hate and back to love again, with romantic infatuation and strong sexual feelings also often mixed up in the middle of this smorgasboard of emotions and sensations.

Underlying this paradoxical mixture of emotions, there is usually but not always the subconscious wish to 'undo or repair a childhood rejection' by 'wishing to play out the childhood scene differently in adulthood' -- with a more satisfying 'self-esteem result. But this does not always work; indeed, oftentimes it backfires, as once again, our 'transference protagonist' gets the best of us, and/or alternatively, sometimes also, we can 'lose interest' in our transference protagonist if he or she becomes 'too accepting' of us -- which 'diminishes the original transference excitement around the similarity to the childhood rejector' and then we start subconsciously looking for a newer and more 'challenging' transference figure/protagonist to start the process all over again.

Alternatively again, sometimes we might spend five or ten years 'playing out a particular type of transference drama with a particular type of transference figure/protagonist' until we get to a point where we reject this person, reject this style of relationship -- the person and the process -- and then go bouncing like a pinball machine into the opposite type of transference relationship with an opposite type of 'transference-lover'.


When transference is involved in self-growth, it involves a 'healing' and 'patching' of the self-esteem -- it involves an evolutionary progression from environmental support to self-support (in Gestalt terminology). It involves a 'creative dialectic negotiation and integration' in the personality that is usually highly connected to the creative dialectic negotiation and integration that is happening in the transference relationship at the same time. This adult transference relationship is both similar and/or different than the old transference relationship(s). It is like the Myth of The Phoenix where out of the old, we rise and fly into the new...and are reborn in the process...From a 'caterpillar', we become a 'butterfly'.

When transference is self-destructive and pathological, it involves not only a re-creation of the past, but also a repetition of the past. It involves a regression into 'earlier states of being' that are not self-supportive. Rather than healing and/or patching the 'gap' or 'void' in self-esteem, instead through a recurrence or repetition of adult events similar to childhood events, that gap or void is reinforced and widened until once again it becomes a 'chasm' or an 'abyss' or an 'absess' in the the self-esteem and personality. Transference repeated in this most negative sense involves the re-creation of a 'huge gaping hole in our heart and/or stomach' or wherever we choose to 'lock up' our 'transferred dialectic grief, anxiety, guilt, anger, rage'...

-- dgbn, Feb. 1st, 2009, updated and modified Feb. 13th, 2009.

-- david gordon bain

Philosophical/Psychological Precursors Leading Up To, and Influencing, Two Different DGB Models of The Personality

(Still under construction...as of Feb. 13th, 2009)


1. Introduction


There are many different ways of viewing the personality -- and of envisioning the personality with 'picture-diagrams'. 'Squares' (My DGB 'Multi-Compartment-Box' Model)and/or 'circles' (My DGB 'Sun-Planet-Moon'/'Solar System' Model)are common visual aids in this regard.

Here is a quick summary of some of the main 'personality models' that have been used, and/or are still being used, in the field of psychology, clinical psychology, and psychotherapy.

.................................................................................


A. Nietzsche's Two Different Models of The Personality

i) Nietzsche's 'Two Compartment'-'Birth Of Tragedy' (BT) (Apollo vs. Dionysus) Model

DGB Editorial Comments: A good model; homeostatically based and balanced -- negotiating and integrating the differences between the 'ethical-restraining' and the 'impulsive-spontaneous' elements of, or 'compartments' in, the personality.

ii) Nietzsche's One Compartment 'Dionysian-Will to Power-Superman' Model

DGB Descriptive Comments: A less 'Hegelian' (dualistic and dialectic) model; a more 'existential' model -- 'go for the gusto', 'no restraint', 'live life to the fullest', 'embrace life', 'reach for the top', 'fly high -- don't look back', 'Don't be afraid of the existential abyss' -- 'use the existential abyss as your 'life challenge' -- 'embrace it' -- 'don't back away from it' -- 'don't run from the abyss' -- 'jump the abyss from being to becoming' -- and/or 'build a bridge across it' -- 'life is a process -- or at least it should be -- of constantly leaping existential abysses, or building bridges across them -- this is the life of 'The Superman' -- this is 'The Will to Power' or 'The Will to Self-Empowerment' -- the alternative is 'The Herd Mentality'.

DGB Editorial Comments: This too is a great model of the human personality -- and of living -- but it loses the idea of 'dialectic engagement, negotiation and integration -- it loses the idea of 'homeostatic balance' or 'dialectic-democratic balance' -- 'Apollo' got lost in the shuffle, Apollo is nowhere to be found -- what happened to 'ethics, morals, and social restraints'; Apollo became 'marginalized' in this model while 'Dionysus' became 'idolized' and 'pedestalized' as 'the one and only God worthy of worshipping and following' -- This Nietzschean-Dionysian-Dominating philosophy was the Philosophy of 'The Anti-Christ', a society and a system of values without morals and ethics except for the pursuit of hedonistic self-gratification and self-fulfillment (self-actualization) is a one-sided value-system which is just as bad -- only the opposite -- of what Nietzsche was complaining against, and 'deconstructing' -- the Christian value of 'self-denial'.

..............................................................................


B. Freud

Freud's Classic 'Three Compartment Model' of: 1. 'The Superego' (Social, Cultural, and Ethical-Moral Conscience'; 2. 'The Id' (Realm of Biological Instincts and Impulses Impinging On, and/or Even Bombarding, the Psyche from The Depths of The Personality, and The Sensory-Sexual Apparatus, Below; 3. 'The Ego' (Mediating, Problem-Solving, Conflict-Resolving, Reality-Testing, Negotiating and Compromising Between The Superego and The Id, Integrating, Decision-Making, Executing Action)


DGB Editorial Comments: Freud's 'Three Compartment -- Superego, Id, Ego' Model is closer to Nietzsche's BT (Dualistic, Dialectic, Post-Hegelian, Homeostatic Balance) Model than it is to Nietzsche's later 'Existential-Will-To-Power-Superman' model. We certainly do not want to throw away Nietzsche's 'Superman' Model of the Personality which is probably the cental focus of 'Existentialism' and 'Humanistic-Existentialism' and the whole 'Self-Actualization/Fulfillment' Industry... but neither do we want to throw away Nietzsche's 'BT-Apollo vs. Dionysus' model either. Under Freud, Nietzsche's 'BT' model was re-born and became the central foundation of ('Classic') Psychoanalysis.


C. Jung's 'Personna-Shadow-Archetype' Model

It took me a long time to warm up to Jung's Psychology. Jung was about the last major psychologist who I started studying. There is still much about him and his work that I do not know much about.

Coming out of university, my philosophical and psychological interests centred around General Semantics, Cognitive Therapy, Rational-Emotive Therapy, Nathaniel Branden, Ayn Rand, and Erich Fromm and his brand of Humanism...

All of this was very much of a 'rational-empirical' mindset and perspective.

And that was largely before I started to become interested in Fritz Perls and Gestalt Therapy, Adler and Adlerian Psychotherapy, and Freud and Psychoanalysis.

There was no conscious and/or planned effort to involve myself with the work of Karl Jung -- the 'mystical' and 'mythological' man. This was too far out in left field for me. I was a rational-empricist; not a mysticist, not an alchemist, not an astrologist, not a dream interpreter, not a mythologist.

However, I could not totally avoid Jung. And my studies of both Freud and Perls brought me at least partly -- if only through the back door -- to Jung. Indeed, it was a Jungian line here that I will quote below in its larger context from one of my Gestalt books -- 'The Gestalt Therapy Book' by Joel Latner, 1973,1986 -- that really opened the door to the beginning of my study of Jung, Hegel -- and the creative birth of 'Hegel's Hotel':

..............................................................................

From 'The Gestalt Therapy Book', 1973, 1986, p. 29-30...


Polarities are deeply rooted in organismic functioning. Thirst leads to water seeking; being overheated leads to a search for a way to cool off. Being full of wastes leads to behavior to relieve ourselves of them. Gestalt formation is itself the organization of the field into the poles of figure and ground. These are biological phenomena, part of our self-regulation.

The relationship of the opposites is that the existence of one necessarily requires the existence of the other. (This philosophical statement has its roots in Anaxamander, Heraclitus, and The Han Philosophers -- 'yin' and 'yang' -- inside brackets mine, dgb). This can be seen in the experiential relationship of quantity and quality of sensations and emotions. When pleasure exceeds a certain point, it becomes unpleasant. The two are dynamically linked. This is reflected in ordinary language expressions such as, "Love is the first cousin to hatred,' and "Opposites attract."

The interaction between polarities functions as a dialectical process. The opposites become distinguished and opposed; then, in their conflict, a resolution is achieved that unites the poles in a figure that is greater than the combination of the opposites -- it is a new creation. The classic statement of this process is Hegel's conception of historical development as consisting of forces that form into a coherence called a thesis; the thesis is then opposed by the contradictions inherent in it, which cohere into its anti-thesis. The resolution of the conflict is a synthesis that transforms the opposing forces into a new and unified situation.

In dialectic thinking in Gestalt Therapy, dualities are not irreconcilable contradictions, but distinctions that will be integrated in the process of gestalt formation and destruction. If the excitement present as the field differentiates is permitted to flow into the opposites, the result will be a resolution into a figural creation that is a genuine synthesis of them, and this will eventuate in a return to commonality and the undifferentiated field.

We can see from this that the more powerful the polarizations, the more significant the synthesis. "The greater the contrast," says Jung, "the greater is the potential. Great energy only comes from corresponding great tensions between opposites." In every case, the possibilities are contained within the opposites. What is required is their interaction, so that the dialectic may be permitted to operate. (p. 29-30.)

....................................................................................


These paragraphs above from The Gestalt Therapy Book were essentially the beginning of my more serious study of Jung and Hegel. At this moment, my on again, off again, relationship with The Gestalt Institute of Toronto between 1979 and 1991 became crystalized into my evolutionary forward movement of study after and beyond The Gestalt Institute -- into the realms of Jung and Hegel. I had become a solidified 'right brain, dialectical thinker' as opposed to -- and/or as well as -- a solely 'left brain, rational-empirical thinker'. And I was starting to move ever so slowly into the more 'mystical and mythological realm' of 'Jungian dialectical thinking' as opposed to the less mythologically oriented Gestalt Therapy, and I cannot even tell you at this moment to what extent that Hegel delved into -- if at all -- mythological thinking. There is a 'gap' in my research here that needs to be filled in at some future point in time.

...............................................................................

Right Brain vs. Left Brain
Definition

This theory of the structure and functions of the mind suggests that the two different sides of the brain control two different “modes” of thinking. It also suggests that each of us prefers one mode over the other.

Discussion

Experimentation has shown that the two different sides, or hemispheres, of the brain are responsible for different manners of thinking. The following table illustrates the differences between left-brain and right-brain thinking:

Left Brain Right Brain
Logical
Sequential

Rational

Analytical

Objective

Looks at parts
Random

Intuitive

Holistic
Synthesizing

Subjective

Looks at wholes


Most individuals have a distinct preference for one of these styles of thinking. Some, however, are more whole-brained and equally adept at both modes. In general, schools tend to favor left-brain modes of thinking, while downplaying the right-brain ones. Left-brain scholastic subjects focus on logical thinking, analysis, and accuracy. Right-brained subjects, on the other hand, focus on aesthetics, feeling, and creativity.

How Right-Brain vs. Left-Brain Thinking Impacts Learning

Curriculum–In order to be more “whole-brained” in their orientation, schools need to give equal weight to the arts, creativity, and the skills of imagination and synthesis.

Instruction–To foster a more whole-brained scholastic experience, teachers should use instruction techniques that connect with both sides of the brain. They can increase their classroom’s right-brain learning activities by incorporating more patterning, metaphors, analogies, role playing, visuals, and movement into their reading, calculation, and analytical activities.

Assessment–For a more accurate whole-brained evaluation of student learning, educators must develop new forms of assessment that honor right-brained talents and skills.

Reading

Bernice McCarthy, The 4-MAT System: Teaching to Learning Styles with Right/Left Mode Techniques.

The content on this page was written by On Purpose Associates.

ShareThis

Add a Comment

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rick Yount posted the following on December 18, 2008 at 12:26 pm.
According to John McCrone, writing in the New Scientist magazine in July 2000,the whole notion of RB-LB dichotomies has been proven false by more recent brain scan research. The lateral functions as listed above are over simplifications of reality. Both hemispheres function together in complex ways, and — in extreme cases, where half the brain is removed to treat epilepsy, persons still reflect LB and RB characteristics. McCrone calls the dichotomy “simplistic at best and nonsense at worst.”

margo posted the following on December 18, 2008 at 6:02 am.
LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS

uses logic
detail oriented
facts rule
words and language
present and past
math and science
can comprehend
knowing
acknowledges
order/pattern perception
knows object name
reality based
forms strategies
practical
safe
Number skills
Written language
Reasoning
Spoken language
Right hand control
RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS

uses feeling
“big picture” oriented
imagination rules
symbols and images
present and future
philosophy & religion
can “get it” (i.e. meaning)
believes
appreciates
spatial perception
knows object function
fantasy based
presents possibilities
impetuous
risk taking
Insight
3-D forms
Art awareness
Music awareness
Left hand control

^^these are some functions that i found i hope they can help someone!!:]

Zubaidah posted the following on December 15, 2008 at 12:55 am.
It was useful and very nice. Thanks!

...........................................................................


A short, oversimplified DGB summary of Jung's terminology and conceptuology...


1. 'The Personna': that part of our personality that has adapted to the world in a particular manner and regularly show this 'part' of our character to the outside world. Some similarities to Freud's concept of 'The Ego';

2. 'The Shadow': A 'darker' side of our personality that we for the most part hide and suppress from the outside world, if not ourselves as well. Some similarities to Freud's concept of 'The Id'.

3. 'Archetypes': Mythological figures in our 'collective unconscious' some of which we may become 'fixated' on, and use regularly in our Personna or alternatively in our Shadow.

Here are a few more Jungian concepts from the internet...

............................................................................

Carl Jung
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
"Jung" redirects here. For other uses, see Jung (disambiguation).
"Karl Jung" redirects here. For other uses, see Karl Jung (disambiguation).
Carl Gustav Jung


A recent edition of Jung's partially autobiographical work Memories, Dreams, Reflections.
Born 26 July 1875(1875-07-26)
Kesswil, Thurgau, Switzerland
Died 6 June 1961 (aged 85)
Zürich, Switzerland

Residence Switzerland
Citizenship Swiss
Fields Psychiatry, Psychology, Psychotherapy, Analytical psychology
Institutions Burghölzli
Doctoral advisor Eugen Bleuler, Sigmund Freud
Known for Analytical psychology


Carl Gustav Jung (IPA: [ˈkarl ˈgʊstaf ˈjʊŋ]) (26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology. Jung's approach to psychology has been influential in the field of depth psychology and in countercultural movements across the globe. Jung is considered as the first modern psychologist to state that the human psyche is "by nature religious" and to explore it in depth.[1] He emphasized understanding the psyche through exploring the worlds of dreams, art, mythology, religion and philosophy. Although he was a theoretical psychologist and practicing clinician, much of his life's work was spent exploring other areas, including Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, sociology, as well as literature and the arts. His most notable ideas include the concept of psychological archetypes, the collective unconscious and synchronicity.

Jung emphasized the importance of balance and harmony. He cautioned that modern people rely too heavily on science and logic and would benefit from integrating spirituality and appreciation of unconscious realms. His overarching goal for the person, called individuation, was becoming whole (as opposed to moral or perfect) which involves a struggle to integrate and relate to the unconscious shadow side while still maintaining conscious autonomy.


......................................................................

The Jungian Concept of The Shadow
In this article I will outline some of the Jungian concepts of the Shadow, which has an important role linked closely with the Anima and Animus, the importance of which will be understood by those who have undertaken Trance Exercise 5.

As a side note, it is interesting to note that Jung's concepts of the Shadow (along with the persona, superman and the wise old man) were heavily influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, the prominent German philosopher. Jung used Nietzsche's descriptions as specific archetypal images. It is also worthy of note that Nietzsche had some deeply esoteric aspects in his philosophy, based around the concept of self-overcoming, whereby man can overcome his limitations to become the higher man, on the road to becoming the superman. Jung recognised Nietzsche's deep understanding of and willingness to confront the dark shadows and irrational forces, which lay beneath our 'civilised' humanity.

The three main archetypes, which have a major influence over the individual are the Shadow, the Anima and the Animus. The Shadow Jung notes is always the same gender as the individual. To become conscious of the Shadow takes considerable moral effort, recognising the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. Jung contended that this act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.

The Shadow is considered to be a collection of inferiorities, undeveloped, and regressive aspects of the personality. They are primarily of an emotional nature and have a kind of autonomy, displaying an obsessive or more accurately a possessive quality. Jung describes emotion as an activity that happens to the individual rather than an activity of the individual, further reinforcing the idea of the autonomy of certain aspects of the psyche such as the Shadow.

The actions of the Shadow usually happen where adaptation is weakest, and at the same time reveal the reason for its weakness – that is a degree of inferiority and the existence of a lower level of personality. It is at this lower level, with its uncontrolled or scarcely controlled emotions that one behaves more or less like a primitive who is more or less a 'victim' of these emotions and is practically incapable of moral judgement.

Although with persistent effort the Shadow (to some extent) can be integrated with the conscious personality there are certain features which offer a great deal of resistance to control and prove almost impossible to influence. These aspects are generally associated with projections, which are not recognised as such, and their recognition is an achievement beyond the ordinary.

Projection is defined as "the situation in which one unconsciously invests another person (or object) with notions or characteristics of one's own: e.g. a man, fascinated by a woman because she corresponds to his anima, falls in love with her. Feelings, images, and thoughts can be projected onto others. One also projects negative feelings: e.g. a woman has a grudge against a friend, so she imagines that her friend is angry with her."

If an individual shows no inclination to recognise his projections, then the projection-making factor has a free hand and can realise its object, or bring about a situation characteristic of its power. Again is should be noted that it is not the conscious mind, but the unconscious which does the projecting. The projections are not made, they are encountered. The effect of a projection is to isolate a person from their environment as instead of a real relation to it there is only an illusory one. Projections change the world into a replica of one's own unknown face – the Shadow – and lead to an auto-erotic or autistic condition in which one dreams a world whose reality remains forever unattainable. The resulting feeling of sterility are in turn explain by projection as the malevolence of the environment, and by means of this viscous circle the isolation is intensified.

At a certain point, projections are no longer the realm of the Shadow, but the contra-sexual side of the unconscious, that is the Anima in a man, or Animus in a woman.

The Shadow represents first and foremost the personal unconscious, and its content can therefore be made conscious without too much difficulty. While the Shadow can be seen through and recognised fairly easily, the Anima and Animus are much further away from consciousness and in normal circumstances are seldom if ever realised. As far as the nature of the Shadow is personal, it can be seen through, but in its greater archetypal aspect on encounters the same difficulties as with the Anima and Animus. Jung wrote, "it is a quite within the bounds of possibility for a man to recognise the relative evil of his own nature, but it is a rare and shattering experience for him to gaze into the face of absolute evil."

In an supra-personal context, the mankind as a whole is also heavily influenced by unconscious powers. With the relative division of the East (e.g. Russia) and West (America) a collective projection can be seen. While the Western prides itself in its civilised behaviour and keeps its vices tucked away and hidden behind international "good manners" and diplomacy, the East (communism) in general has shamelessly and methodically thrown back in the face of the West. It is the face of its own Shadow which grins back at Western man from the other side of the "Iron Curtain."

Further reading:

Man and his Symbols by Carl Jung
The Portable Jung edited by Joseph Campbell
The Cambridge Companion to Jung edited by Polly Young-Eisendrath and Terence Dawson
The Invisible Partners by John Sanford

* Trance Exercise 5 is entitled "The Garden of the Philosophers - Wherein the Ruach and Nephesch Are Examined" and follows on from the four trance exercises given in Probatur Temporis.

Back to Esoteric Articles - Magical Path

...................................................................

The Anima
The anima is an image. When Jung writes about the anima as if it were a person, he is referring to the characteristics which it manifests in a series of dreams. The corresponding image of the masculine in a woman's dreams is the animus (see 1951, pp. 11-22). June Singer, a Jungian analyst, argues (1977) that androgyny is both the starting point and the goal of individual development. This suggests a parallel with Freud's theory of bisexuality. Jung's original concept, however, refers only to the "contrasexual other" which appears in dreams and waking fantasies.

Attitudes
Jung (1921) distinguished between two attitudes (extraversion, introversion), which refer to habitual emphases in an individual's psychic orientation. Each attitude is complimented by a tendency to emphasize one of four psychological functions: two rational (thinking, feeling) and two irrational (sensation, intuition).

Eros
By eros, Jung meant a principle of psychic relatedness, whether to another human being, or indeed anything "other"; not specifically or exclusively as sexual passion, but certainly including this. Although a key term in his ideas, his definitions of it are somewhat vague: see (1951), p. 14. The parallel with the myth of Narcissus was noted by Albeaux-Fernet (1972); he, however, makes no reference to Echo, who is central to the myth. Narcissus is a hunter, more interested in his own pursuits than in relating with a female figure (cf. Adonis, below). His love for his own reflection is a punishment given him by Nemesis, the goddess of righteous retribution, for rejecting Echo.

References
Albeaux-Fernet, M. (1972) Cantate à trois voix. Revue des Deux Mondes 1972: 564-571.

Jung, C. G. (1921) Psychological Types. Collected Works, 6, 1971.

_____. (1951) Aion. Collected Works, 9.ii, 1968.

Singer, J. (1977) Androgyny. New York: Doubleday.



............................................................................


It was back in the mid 1980s, I believe, that I first started investigating the introductory elements of Jung's Psychology. I dived in a bit, didn't spend much time there, but was left with a few lasting impressions relative to elements of Jungian Psychology that were different than anything I had studied up to that point -- the emphasis on 'mythology', my introduction to the term 'archetype', the concept of 'collective unconscious' that, as a 'rational-empirical thinker', I was extremely leery about...

Fast forward some 20 years later -- the summer or fall of 2008 -- and I am on 'Facebook'. I keep seeing this advertisement that is 'burning its mark into my brain' -- it is an advertisement for a 'Dylan t-shirt' that reads: 'Kill your idols.'

Now I am a strong, dedicated Dylan fan from my introduction to him back in junior high school or high school in the late 1960s or early 1970s by one of my best friends at the time who has gone on to develop a very stellar career as a rock music journalist, and professor on the history of rock and roll, and rhythm and blues at York University. In our teens, we used to play ping pong in my townhouse basement to the pounding rhythm of Highway 61, Revisited.

So here I am reading this message on a Dylan T-shirt for about the 5th or 10th time, and I finally decide to go to the website where it is being advertised.

Some Dylan fans are blogging on the website about the content of the message -- where did it come from? Did -- or would -- Dylan even print such a message? And so on. I comment that it reminded me of Nietzsche's 'Twilight of The Idols'. Someone else said it could be traced back to Sir Francis Bacon's 'Four Idols'.

Well that did it. I was away to the races. Back I went to the philosophy of Sir Francis Bacon which would lead to a complete change in the 'architecture of Hegel's Hotel'. From the rational-empirical thinking of Sir Francis Bacon -- and his 'Four Idols' -- I have written at least two or three extremely important essays relevant to the evolutionary development of Hegel's Hotel: 'DGB Sun-Planet Theory'; and 'Finding Truth'. But even more important perhaps than Bacon's highly sophisticated rational-empirical thinking was the 'dialectic' that developed in my own writing between Bacon's rational-empirical thinking and Jung's mythological thinking. The result was a whole string of essays that came together on 'Gods, Myths, and Philosphers...' that is still evolving. All of a sudden a DGB rendition of Jungian mythological and archetype thinking was becoming a centre piece in the structure and process of Hegel's Hotel...I was writing essays on the philosophy of 'God and Religion' that I would never have dreamed of writing even 10 years ago probably not even five years ago.

I would never have written something like this:

What are Gods?

Gods are projections -- mirror reflections -- or our own self and/or social ideals.

Gods -- and 'human idols' -- are externalized renditions of internal 'archetypes'.

What are 'archetypes'?

Archetypes are internalized renditions of external 'Gods' and/or 'human idols'.

Where do Gods, Idols, and Archetypes meet?

On the shores of personality theory.

What are Greek Gods?

Greek Gods are projections and reflections of 'human Greek soap operas, drama and tragedy' -- the inner workings of the 'conflicted-multi-dialectical Greek psyche'
-- painted across the Greek sky and down onto Greek fields. This was the work of Homer and The Iliad...

Gods intermingling with humans.

And humans intermingling with Gods.

Human Gods and Godly Humans.

Man made in the image of Gods.

Or Gods made in the image of man...

Both reflecting and mutually involved in, drama, soap operas, and tragedies...

That were very human, all too human...

Gods and humans...

It can only be concluded...

Were meeting...

On the shores of Personality Theory.

-- dgb, Feb. 13th, 2009.

........................................................................


The Four Idols
of Francis Bacon
&

The New Instrument of Knowledge


by Manly P. Hall

In the Novum Organum (the new instrumentality for the acquisition of knowledge) Francis Bacon classified the intellectual fallacies of his time under four headings which he called idols. He distinguished them as idols of the Tribe, idols of the Cave, idols of the Marketplace and idols of the Theater.

An idol is an image, in this case held in the mind, which receives veneration but is without substance in itself. Bacon did not regard idols as symbols, but rather as fixations. In this respect he anticipated modern psychology.



Idols of the Tribe are deceptive beliefs inherent in the mind of man, and therefore belonging to the whole of the human race. They are abstractions in error arising from common tendencies to exaggeration, distortion, and disproportion. Thus men gazing at the stars perceive the order of the world, but are not content merely to contemplate or record that which is seen. They extend their opinions, investing the starry heavens with innumerable imaginary qualities. In a short time these imaginings gain dignity and are mingled with the facts until the compounds become inseparable. This may explain Bacon's epitaph which is said to be a summary of his whole method. It reads, "Let all compounds be dissolved."



Idols of the Cave are those which arise within the mind of the individual. This mind is symbolically a cavern. The thoughts of the individual roam about in this dark cave and are variously modified by temperament, education, habit, environment, and accident. Thus an individual who dedicates his mind to some particular branch of learning becomes possessed by his own peculiar interest, and interprets all other learning according to the colors of his own devotion. The chemist sees chemistry in all things, and the courtier ever present at the rituals of the court unduly emphasizes the significance of kings and princes.

(The title page of Bacon's New Atlantis (London 1626) is ornamented with a curious design or printer's device. The winged figure of Father Time is shown lifting a female figure from a dark cave. This represents truth resurrected from the cavern of the intellect.)



Idols of the Marketplace are errors arising from the false significance bestowed upon words, and in this classification Bacon anticipated the modern science of semantics. According to him it is the popular belief that men form their thoughts into words in order to communicate their opinions to others, but often words arise as substitutes for thoughts and men think they have won an argument because they have out talked their opponents. The constant impact of words variously used without attention to their true meaning only in turn condition the understanding and breed fallacies. Words often betray their own purpose, obscuring the very thoughts they are designed to express.




Idols of the Theater are those which are due to sophistry and false learning. These idols are built up in the field of theology, philosophy, and science, and because they are defended by learned groups are accepted without question by the masses. When false philosophies have been cultivated and have attained a wide sphere of dominion in the world of the intellect they are no longer questioned. False superstructures are raised on false foundations, and in the end systems barren of merit parade their grandeur on the stage of the world.


A careful reading of the Novum Organum will show. Bacon used the theater with its curtain and its properties as a symbol of the world stage. It might even be profitable to examine the Shakespearean plays with this viewpoint in mind.



*************


After summarizing the faults which distinguish the learning of his time, Bacon offered his solution. To him true knowledge was the knowledge of causes. He defined physics as the science of variable causes, and metaphysics as the science of fixed causes. By this definition alone his position in the Platonic descent is clearly revealed. Had he chosen Aristotle as his mentor the definition would have been reversed.



It was Bacon's intention to gather into one monumental work his program for the renewal of the sciences. This he called Instauratio Magna (the encyclopedia of all knowledge), but unfortunately the project was never completed. He left enough, however, so that other men could perfect the work.



The philosophy of Francis Bacon reflects not only the genius of his own mind but the experiences which result from full and distinguished living. The very diversity of his achievements contributed to the unity of his thinking. He realized the importance of a balanced viewpoint, and he built his patterns by combining the idealism of Plato with the practical method of Aristotle. From Plato he derived a breadth of vision, and from Aristotle a depth of penetration. Like Socrates, he was an exponent of utility, and like Diogenes a sworn enemy of sophistry. Knowledge was not to be acquired merely for its own sake, which is learning, but for its use, which is intelligence. The principal end of philosophy is to improve the state of man; the merit of all learning is to be determined by its measure of usefulness.



Bacon believed that the first step was to make a comprehensive survey of that which is known, as distinguished from that which is believed. This attitude he seems to have borrowed from Paracelsus and shared with Descartes. Knowledge may be gathered from the past through tradition. It may be accumulated and augmented by observation, but it must be proved and established by experimentation. No theory is important until it has been proved by method. Thus Bacon set up the machinery of control which has since become almost the fetish of science.


Upon the solid foundation of the known, trained minds can build toward universal knowing, which is the end of the work. Knowledge alone can preserve and perfect human life. In spite of his scientific approach, Bacon in no way discounted the spiritual content in the world. Knowledge might arise from inspiration and the internal illumination of the consciousness, but this illumination is not knowledge until, through experimentation, the truth is physically established.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------






D. Adler's 'Lifestyle-Inferiority-Superiority Striving Model'








E. Fairbairn's 'Rejecting and Exciting Object' Transference Model







F. Perls' 'Topdog-Underdog' Model






G. Berne's 'Multi-Ego-State' Model



........................................................................

2. The DGB 'Layer-Compartment' Model of The Personality


I used to envision the personality as a 'rectangular super-structure' containing different, 'smaller boxes, compartments or rectangles' -- 'sub-structures' or 'sub-compartments' --that come together to form the full personality super-structure.

This model still has some significant function value -- borrowing from all of Freud, Adler, Jung, Fairbairn, Berne, and Frit Perls -- and I will still use it as one of two Alternative DGB Models of the Personality.

Afterwards, I will describe the second alternative DGB model that resembles the workings of the 'solar system'. I will call this model, 'The DGB Sun-Planet-Moon or Solar System Model of The Personality'. This last model can also be referred to as The DGB 'Mythological Model of The Personality'.


2A. The DGB 'Six Layer-24-Compartment' Model of The Personality


A. The 'Topdog-Parent' Layer of The Personality
B. The 'Underdog-Child' Layer of The Personality
C. The 'Adult' Layer of The Personality
D. The 'Creative-Destructive-Dynamic' Transference Layer of The Personality
E. The 'Creative-Destructive-Structural' Transference Layer of The Personality
F. The 'Genetic Potential Self' and/or 'Soul' of The Personality



A. The 'Topdog-Parent' Layer (consists of):

1. The Nurturing Topdog-Super-Ego;
2. The Narcissistic-Dionysian Topdog-Super-Ego;
3. The Righteous-Critical Topdog-Super-Ego;

B. The 'Underdog-Child' Layer (consists of):

4. The Co-operative/Approval-Seeking Underdog;
5. The Rebellious-Defiant-Underdog-Ego;
6. The Narcissistic-Dionysian-Underdog-Ego;

C. The 'Middle-Special Interest-Adult' Layer (Can be constricted or expanded depending on contextual/personal/interpersonal need):

07. Apollo's (Bacon's-Locke's-Russell's-Korzybski's) Epistemological Ego;
08. Apollo's/Kant's Ethical Ego
09. Smith's-Marx-Ayn Rand-Together Capitalist-Socialist(-Humanistic-Existential Economic-Creative Work) Ego;
10. The Leisure-Rest-Relaxation Ego;
11. Spinoza's-(Rousseau's-Schelling's) Romantic-Spiritual-Sensual Ego;
12. Hera's (Mother Teresa's) Family-Community-Altruistic Ego;
13. Locke's Political Dialectic-Democratic Ego;
14. Gaia's (Suzuki's) Environmental Ego;
15. Achilles' Physical Fitness Ego;
16. Kierkegaard's (Perls') 'Immediacy' ('Seize The Moment') Ego;
17. Nietzsche's (Confront and Embrace Your Existential Abyss) Ego;
18. Hume's-Voltaire's-Derrida's 'Positive Deconstruction' Ego;
19. The Sophist-Schopenhauerian Self-Destructive Ego;
20. The Aries Destruction-Violence-War Ego
21. Zeus' (Hegel's) Central Mediating/Executive-Action Ego;


D/22. The Sub(Pre)Conscious Dynamic-Symbolic-Mythological-Creative-Destructive-Archetype-Transference Layer

E/23. The Structural Sub(Pre)Conscious Creative-Destructive-Symbolic-Mythological-Archetype-Transference Layer

F/24. The Unconscious, Genetic Potential Self -- or 'Soul'


............................................................................


We will get into more detailed description and extrapolation of this model at a later date.

Many may find the model too 'big and cumbersome' to work with.

I would like to emphasize that the model can be broken down to practically any smaller size to emphasize and focus on that area, or those areas, that might be most relevant and pragmatic to you.

The model is not meant to 'paralyze you/me/us by analysis'.

Rather, it is meant to provide an 'overall check list' for those areas where we might be able to address and confront various 'homeostatic imbalances' in different parts of our personality and lives.

I will give various examples as we move along. The areas of greatest complexity and difficulty are the 'transference' areas.

The rest is not too hard to apply but obviously needs further amplification.

For example, here is one such amplification regarding the model above:

Regarding the 'SMART Capitalist-Socialist Ego', we come to the conclusion that Adam Smith Capitalism -- stretched to the limits of Narcissistic (Owner-Self-Interest Without Ethics) Capitalism and Globalization -- starts to collapse under the weight of its own self-contradiction. (Any theory -- taken too far -- self-contradicts and self-destructs. -- Hegel). Thus, we get 'SMART' people who embrace the 'Capitalist-Socialist' Democratic-Dialectic -- and The Philosophical Abyss Between Them -- and start negotiating and working through the apparent contradictions and self-contradictions coming from both polar ends of the spectrum while building a philosophical-humanistic-existential bridge between them. From this, ideally and pragmatically speaking, we should be able to build a better and evolutionarily-superior form of Integrative SMART (Smith-Marx-Ayn Rand-Together)Dialectic-Democratic-Humanistic-Existential Capitalsim, Economics, and Creative Work.

That in itself is one huge project left partly for Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy -- and partly or mainly for those who follow this line of democratic-dialectic reasoning.

Regarding The Sophist-Schopenhaurian Ego, this, I recognize as one of two 'anti-idealistic' ego-states in the personality. This ego state which combines Narcissistic and Dionysian elements is built mainly from deceit, manipulation, and 'walking over people'. My only comment here at this time is that the more we engage with people from this particular ego-state, the more we are making the lives and worlds of other people -- and our own life and world -- a miserable place to be in. All mutual trust, respect, and empathic caring -- comes crashing to the ground. A 'Lord of The Flies' existence becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and a poor excuse for living -- or rather destroying life. The sooner we get out of this ego-state the better. Conducting our lives from this ego-state will only bring us bad things, both in the short term, and or over the longer term. What goes around, comes around. The very wise, second oldest philosopher in Western History -- Anaxamander -- basically said that. I fully concur. Human -- and/or cosmic -- justice will eventually get you. Misery -- passed out to other people -- will eventually come back to poison your own life (if it hasn't already). This, in my next model, I view symbolically as a 'Bad (Dark) Sun and Moon Rising' -- The 'Sun' representing the light and the heat of 'The Central Ego'; the 'moon' representing the the light of 'The Positive, Human Spirit and Soul' -- and both 'poisoning' each other through a 'Dark Sun and Moon Rising' from the deceitful and manipulative contents and dynamics of 'The Sophist-Schopenhaurian Ego'. More of this at another time.


-- dgbn, Dec. 30th, 2008, updated and modified Feb. 11th-13th, 2009.


David Gordon Bain

On Lobbyism, Special Interest Groups -- and Washington

The goal of Washington -- and Ottawa -- should not be to eliminate lobbyist and special interest groups altogether but rather to make them more democratically and dialectically visible, transparent -- and accountable for the potential and/or actual 'democratic side-effects' of their special interest requests and/or demands.

I am a philosopher by day and a taxi/mobility dispatcher by night. (Not too long ago, it was the other way around.) So as a taxi and a wheel-chair mobility dispatcher, I know a thing or two about 'lobbyism' and 'special interest groups'. Within the context of my industry, I know how they work. The 'taxi democrats' are on the taxi radio working the radio for their taxi calls, their business. In contrast, the 'taxi lobbyists' work the back rooms, the dispatch office, and the manager's office, looking for 'lobbyst handouts'. In the terminology of the business, they want to be 'fed'. If the 'ethics' in the dispatch and/or manager's office is really bad, then this 'lobbyist process' can go one step further. The dispatcher and/or the manager can get -- or demand (subtly or bluntly) -- a 'kickback' of a part of the proceeds of what the driver is being fed.

Gee, that almost sounds like Blagojevich putting up the Illinois Senator's job 'for sale' to the highest bidder. Lobbyism is not only rampant in Washington and Ottawa. It is likely rampant in any political and/or private corporate office where someone of questionable ethics believes that there is something significant to be gained by 'lobbying'. Indeed, the roots of lobbying can even be seen in kids 'lobbying' this or that parent -- obviously the parent with the least amount of (ethical) or any other form of resistance.

The issue is this: The number of people in Ottawa or Washington may involve hundreds, or indeed even, thousands of different people and/or groups of 'special interest' people all working towards their particular goal of gaining more political-legal power, corporate power, organizational power, and/or simply money. If there are government 'handouts' to be had, you will definitely find lobbyists lobbying this or that politician looking to get one of the available handouts. You might even find these lobbyists contributing significant amounts of money to this political party or that political party or this charitable organization or that charitable organization. Or a certain politician might get some 'free work done' on their Alaska house. At its crudest worst, there might be a 'briefcase of money' exchanged in a very private, covert, meeting place. No cheque, please. Cheques leave a paper trail. Just cash, please. Just cash. Are you listening Mr. Mulroney? Or here's a new idea. How about trying this: Bankrupt your bank or automobile business. (Maybe you ate up too much of the business profits.) Then start throwing your employees out of work. Hundreds of them. Better still, thousands of them. If you are a banker start closing down people's Retirement Investments, Savings, and Bank Accounts. Then watch Washington panic, throw billions and billions of 'new money' at you -- enough for you to gobble up even more profits, a huge surprise surplus for an even better spa vacation, another jet, another house (How many did you say you had, Senator McCain? Hey, but you are not interested in more houses even if they are earned the right way; you and Sarah Palin are interested in 'Joe The Plumber'), more and more lavish spending, a better and better retirement package worth millions and millions of more dollars, while Main Street America is losing more and more billions and billions of dollars. What an astronomical windfall! And now all of a sudden, The Republicans are interested in cutting spending. (When the spending doesn't involve them.)

Is this fair to the rest of the American people?

Is this fair to the democratic process?

Of course not.

Lobbyism must become a dialectically and democratically transparent, negotiated, integrated, and balanced process.

For every vocal, rhetorical, demanding, wheedling, whining, and/or money-giving political lobbyist special interest minority group, there is a hugely important 'silent majority' -- or a 'silent, invisible, Anti-Thesis Lobbyist-Special Interest Group' that needs to be democratically heard from too.

Lobbyism has to be pried out of the backrooms of Washington and Ottawa. There can be no money exchanging hands. That is so blatantly obvious that it barely needs to be said. But it does need to be said. Political charity funds need to be watched over.
So too, obviously, do Political Party Funds. These for far too long, have involved lobbyists 'buying America'.

'The squeeky wheel gets the oil.' (So too does the wheel with the most money and/or power of leverage.)

Conflict of interest issues need to be watched over with a microscope.

Do 'ethical watch dog groups' ever do any good'?

Or do they simply turn a blind eye to whatever their narcissistic political partners are doing -- or not doing?

Is Obama going to make a difference on the issue of lobbying in Washington?

Or are these 'bankruptcy-prone' banks and bankers going to keep getting more and more money while the better, more ethical, and financially solvent banks and bankers -- continue to get nothing? Why not reward the better banks and bankers and let them become bigger and better still -- rather than keep rewarding these inefficient, dyfunctional, money out the back door, banks and bankers that/who keep gobbling up more and more American taxpayer money -- are not accountable for it -- and then keep coming back for more. Or better still, give the 'stimulus' money back to Main Street America rather than to Corporate Wall Street America -- where the money keeps getting used, used up, and 'lost', and then back come the Corporate Lobbysts to Washington again. The biggest irony of this whole situation is that these 'Corporate Lobbysts' consist of the some of the wealthiest, most powerful men in America who when they are not lobbying, are extolling and trumpeting the virtues of 'Government-Unregulated-Adam Smith-Free Trade-Capitalism' and calling 'Socialism' 'The Scourge and The Enemy of America'.

That is -- when it is not in their own 'self-interest'.

President Obama...

Over to you.

-- dgb, February 10th, 2009

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still In Process...

Life Is A Hegelian Pendulum Swing Between Different Polarities and Extremisms -- With 'Twists and Turns' of Existential Freedom -- and Mistakes

Life is a constant Hegelian evolutionary pendulum swing - without the perfect predictictability of historical foresight, hindsight, or determinism.

I will focus on the type of 'historical determinism' as espoused by Hegel in 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' (1807) whereby life, philosophy, psychology, history, politics, culture, and everything else man-made is deemed to basically follow the 1, 2, 3, (thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis) pattern and start all over again at a 'higher evolutionary level of existence'.

Man always knows how to 'throw a wrench into any type of deterministic assembly-line'.

Life is a pendulum swing between 'balance' and 'unbalance', between stretching in different degrees towards one particular brand of extremism, before reaching a point of judgment where one decides that one has had enough of that, and then swinging back again towards the middle, if not past the middle point and out towards the opposite polarity. This pendulum process of life never stops.

This is the Hegelian (or post-Hegelian) 'life-cycle' of thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis - then start the whole process over again, ideally at a higher state of experience and wisdom but that is certainly not guaranteed because man has a high propensity for narcissism, greed, love, sex, jealousy, envy, hate, unilateralism, power, revenge, imperialism, 'tit for tat', destruction, and self-destruction. These factors inevitably undermine the 'ideal' element in the Hegelian evolutionary life cycle, undermine the 'learning from history' factor - and, indeed, add a very common 'tragic' element to the whole process - life and death, evolution and regression, continually hanging in the balance of man's individual and/or collective, reason and/or lack of it.

There is no way of predicting whether man will learn - and/or not learn - individually and/or collectively - from his or her earlier acts of narcissistic and/or righteous transgression. Being human, the potential for 'bending and/or breaking' our Apollonian ethical-moral values in the throes of initiating and/or reacting to an 'Erotic-Narcissistic-Dionysian Seduction' -- is always there. It is what makes us human, all too human (with full credit to Nietzsche for borrowing his words.)

The biblical reality and/or myth of Adam, Eve, and The Garden of Eden has probably been metaphorically re-created and/or replayed a hundred billion times in the history of man. Call it a biblical 'Transference Seduction and Sexual Fixation Scene' if you will -- with men and women of all races, nationalities, cultures, religions, and philosophies coming back to this Mythological and Metaphorical Transference Scene -- over, and over, and over again. Apollo may work his hardest to maintain the ethical-moral dignity and integrity of the human race, but in the end he is probably no match for the combined biological, psychological, sensual, sexual and/or monetary seduction power of Eros, Narcissus, and Dionysus (END).

I try to say this without critical or righteous judgment as all of Apollo, Eros, Narcissus, and Dionysus deserve their 'dialectic-democratic moment in the sun' -- not only in Ancient Greek Mythology where Greek authors like Homer along with Greek Artists and Sculpters, were painting human soap-opera dramas in the sky and on the earth and in 'the Raging Infernos of The World Below' -- 'projective-identifications' of what they were experiencing inside themselves -- and 'disowning' as being 'out there, not in here' (Greek Mythology -- all encompassed -- is a brilliantly creative external painting of the internal workings of the human psyche; but more so, what holds 'mythologically and projectively true' in ancient Greek Society some 2000 to 3000 years ago or more, still hold trues today. Greek Mythology still remain a briliantly creative 'soap opera' painting of the human psyche. The more things change, the more things stay the same. But don't try to 'deterministically figure this soap opera painting out. Because the permutations are endless. With all these Greek Gods whirling around in our individual and collective psyches, much like 'lobbyists' and 'special interest groups' whirling around in Washington and Ottawa, anything is possible -- but not human predictability.

This adds an existential, free-will component to any Hegelian thought of predictable historical determinism.

"Professor Hegel, I have the deepest respect for your work -- for the 'dialectic model and container' that you explained and sold to the world. Your philosophical theory of evolution is superior to, precedes, and subsumes Darwin's Theory of Evolution. Furthermore, it encompasses all areas and levels of human existence -- not just the biological -- but the historical, the scientific, the medical, the artistic, the political, the legal, the religious, indeed, all aspects of human culture, even furthermore, all aspects of life. For this reason, Professor Hegel, your classic treatise, 'The Phenomenology of Mind (Spirit)' is my nomination of the most important philosophical work in Western history. And for that reason, also, Professor Hegel, you are my nomination of the most important philosopher in Western History.'

'Having said this, Professor Hegel, you had a weakness. And 'The Phenomenology of Mind' had a weakness which reflected your weakness. You were a 'rationalist' and an 'abstractionist'. In writing 'The Phenomenology', you were not 'phenomenological' as this word would come to mean. Professor Hegel, you got lost in your concepts. You operated from the 'neck up'. In 'The Phenomenology' you had 'Mind' but you didn't have 'Spirit'. Or worded otherwise, you had the spirit of a rationalist. You had the spirit of Apollo in you. But you didn't have the spirit of a Romantic. Where was Eros? Where was Dionysus? I know you were a passionate man. But where was the passion in your work? Where was your passion in 'The Phenomenology'? Locked up inside you like a Victorian woman wearing a chastity belt?"

"Professor Hegel, I have love-hate relationship with you and your work. You preached the essence and the importance of the dialectic and for this, I am eternally grateful. But there was something essentially important in your work -- that was missing. Call this missing ingredient -- or let's break it down to three actually -- 'concreteness', 'emotionality', and 'passion'. For the most part, Professor Hegel, 'The Phenomenology' was as dry as the Sahara Desert. And as abstract as -- well -- 'The Absolute'."

"Professor Hegel, I know there was an 'existentialist' and a 'phenomenologist' deep inside you, dying to come out. To my knowledge, you were the first philosopher to seriously write about and analyze the phenomenon of 'alienation' and the phenomenon of 'The Master-Slave Relationship'. But the real passion of existentialism was not quite there yet, not quite born yet. We might say that existentialism was in the 'uterus' of 'The Phenomenology'. But it was one of the many dialectic -- seemingly self-contradictory -- paradoxes in 'The Phenomenology' that were either described by you, or interpreted by your readers later. Professor Hegel, while existentialism was in the uterus of 'The Phenomenology' in the process of being -- but not quite yet -- born, you were still hanging on to 'rationalist-idealist' comments like 'The Absolute' and 'Historical Determinism' which were both very, very 'un-existential'. Professor Hegel, you were caught on one side of three of your own dialectic self-contradictions -- reason without emotional passion, abstract concepts without concrete existence, and historical determinism without existential free-will.

"So in the end, Professor Hegel, your prophecy held true. Your masterpiece -- 'The Phenomenology' -- arguably the greatest philosophical work in Western history, self-destructed under the lopsided weight of its own one-sidedness, even as 'The Phenomenology' preached both the functional evolutionary benefit and the historical inevitability of the bi-polar, dialectical interaction, negotiation, and integration of opposing 'things', 'processes', 'ideas', 'theories', and 'philosophies'."

Somebody needed to come into the picture and bring either a 'philosophical wrecking ball' and/or 'a caldron of passionate fire' to the dry, Sahara desert of Hegel's 'The Phenomenology'.

And there was no shortage of great philosophers and psychologists who came into the picture either sooner or later -- and did exactly this. Let's try these 10:

1. Marx
2. Kierkegaard
3. Schopenhauer
4. Nietzsche
5. Freud
6. Jung
7. Perls
8. Foucault
9. Derrida

And with a combined mixture of humble respect and narcissistic egotism, realizing that I haven't climbed onto any pedestal of 'The Philosophy Olympics' -- yet...

10. DGB Post-Hegelian, Multi-Dialectic-Democratic, Humanistic-Existential Philosophy.

I learned the dialectic from Gestalt Therapy and I experienced first hand what it meant to 'dialectically negotiate and integrate the bi-polarities within myself, and more broadly speaking, within us all'.

Fritz Perls was the main creator of Gestalt Therapy. And he learned from Melanie Klein and Sigmund Freud -- both dialectic psychologists. Somewhere in there also, is Carl Jung and a whole host of other dialectical psycholgists and psychotherapists. Dialectic Psychotherapy is Dialectic Negotiation and Integration Within The Self. Integrating Apollo with Eros, Narcissus, and Dionysus. Freud learned from Nietzsche (and Schopenhauer). And as much as both Nietzsche and Schopenhauer would go to their graves -- and did -- denying that Hegel had any significant influence on their work, the reality of the situation is that both were as dependent on Hegel for the content of their respective works as much as 'The Master' is dependent on 'The Slave' to get work done that The Master can't -- or won't -- do.

Now without reading too much into 'The Master-Slave' analogy, I will call Hegel 'The Master' and alternatively call each of the 10 philosophers listed above the 'alternatively introjective and rebellious students' of Hegel -- who both 'introjected Hegel's work' into their own philosophical systems (or anti-systems) and 'rebelled against it too'.

Each of the philosphers mentioned above, including myself, has used a combination of 'Introjected Hegelian Philosophy' and 'Compensatory Anti-Hegelian Philosophy' in their work. If Hegel were alive today, he might say that this is just the normal, everyday course of the dialectic at work and play.

Extreme positions are not succeeded by moderate ones, but by contrary extreme positions. -- Friedrich Nietzsche

Thus, life is a pendulum of alternating extremities searching or not searching for that perfect 'Utopian balance in the middle' - the 'middle path' in Aristotle's words - but without the perfect predictictability of historical determinism, either predicted beforehand, and/or analyzed after the fact.

Much of life is a combination of the collision between 'random chance' (or 'accident') and individual and/or collective fate. New encounters -- whether planned or 'by chance' -- offer the creative opportunity for new evolutionary democratic-dialectics.

-- dgb, February 9th, 2009

-- David Gordon Bain