Just reconstructed...Oct. 3rd, 2009.
In 1914, Freud wrote: 'The theory of repression is the cornerstone on which the whole structure of Psychoanalysis rests.' (Freud, S., On The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement, S.E. V. XIV, p. 16.).
This was Freud's opinion in 1914, one that he himself would come to modify later as realized that repression was only one of a whole host of possible 'defense mechanisms'. To say that the study and the practice of Psychoanalysis hinges on the 'psychology of defense' would be much closer to what Freud was trying to get at although 'repression' probably retains its lofty perch -- particularly in Classic, Orthodox Freudian Psychoanalysis -- as the first and foremost defense mechanism.
Going back to the very beginning of Psychoanalysis, back to Breuer and the the case of Anna O., the therapy that started to take shape through the combined trial and error efforts of Anna O. and Breuer -- referred to in those earliest of days (the early 1880s) as 'chimney sweeping' or 'the talking cure' -- involved a cathartic, emotional release on the part of the patient (Anna O.) when she was put under hypnosis by Dr. Breuer and together they traced back through her personal history a previously 'unconscious memory' that when re-awakened with its full emotional force (abreaction, catharsis), and 'associatively linked' to the current day neurotic ('hysterical') symptom that was the starting point for tracing this unconscious memory back through time using hypnosis -- relieved her of her neurotic/hysterical symptom. Poof! Like magic it was gone. The neurosis was diagnosed as 'hysterical conversion' if a physical symptom -- like refusing to drink any liquid -- was, through hypnosis, linked to a 'psychological cause' such as in Anna O's case -- recalling a memory where a dog was lapping water out of a human's container.
Now, that might sound like a rather silly connection right now -- and far fetched -- but we have to take into account the context of both the culture and the time that this all took place. Psychoanalysis was born from cases like this where 'physical symptoms' with unfounded 'physical causes' were connected by hypnosis -- and later by 'free association' on the psychoanalyst's couch -- with 'unconscious or repressed memories' (this was Freud's first theory of 'neurosis' and 'hysteria') that therefore could be claimed to have 'psychological causes' at their root.
'Hysterics suffer mainly from reminiscences.' is the most famous quote and formula that came out of Freud and Breuer's first main work, 'Studies on Hysteria', 1893-1895, Standard Edition, V. 11, p. 7.
Studies on Hysteria is a really a remarkable work for a number of different reasons. I have never read it from cover to cover but every time I go back to read portions of it, I find something provocatively new.
Such as:
1. There are two things about Freud's thinking that never really changed in all of his years of theorizing about, and practicing, Psychoanalysis:
a) the 'unconscious' or 'repressed' memory etiology -- an unremembered childhood memory that is still alive and very active in the patient's/person's unconscious psyche and causing significant grief in terms of adult, day-to-day symptomology of a neurotic and/or hysterical type;
b) the 'sexual' etiology of all neurosis -- whether this be of a 'traumatic' nature (the trauma theory and later seduction theory) or of an 'instinctual', 'constitutional', 'hormonal', 'sexual fantasy' type (childhood sexuality theory, Oedipal Theory, Fantasy Theory).
2. I have said this before and I will say it again: Freud was a Gestalt Therapist before he was a Psychoanalyst, or put another way, he was a 'Gestalt-Psychoanalyst' who believed in the principle of 'the unfinished situation', 'the unfinished or unabreacted memory' before he moved away from this idea and into 'fantasy theory'. Put still another way, Fritz Perls took over where Freud left off regarding the principle of the 'unfinished situation' and 'the unfinished, unabreacted memory'.
3. Breuer's idea of a 'hypnoid state' (a self-imposed state of hypnotic suggestibiltiy) that was necessary in order to set up the conditions for a memory to become 'unconscious' -- or a part of a 'second, dissociated state of consciousness' that is completely out of touch with our primary state of consciousness and which can later wreak havoc on our primary state of consciousness -- had its roots partly in the work of Pierre Janet and his concepts (and/or their like) of 'dissociation', 'double consciousness', 'split personality', 'ego-splitting', 'Id', 'Shadow', 'alter ego', 'Dr. Jeckyl and Mr(s). Hyde...ideas that would not disappear forever but indeed would come back and make up a vital part of late Psychoanalytic Theory and Jungian Psychology. The idea of 'hypnoid state' never took off, never left the ground, as Freud's theory of defense took its place and became the foundation of Psychoanalysis. Perhaps the supposed 'split between consciousness and unconsciousness' is a misnomer, or at least in a lot of cases -- often we may be better to talk about the other set of ideas listed above: a 'double consciousness', or an 'ego-splitting', a 'Persona' and a 'Shadow', a 'set of dialectically opposed ego-states' such as the 'Apollonian (reasonable) Ego' vs. the 'Dionysian (passionate, hedonistic, narcissistic, unreasonable) Ego'. Sometimes the most relevant question might be: which Dialectically Opposed Ego-State' has control or power over 'The Central Ego' -- 'The Apollonian Ego' or 'The Dionysian Ego', 'The Superego' or 'The Id', 'The Nurturing Superego' or 'The Harsh, Critical Rejecting Superego', 'The Persona' or 'The Shadow', 'The Topdog' or 'The Underdog', 'The Approval-Seeking Underdog' or 'The Rebellious, Narcissistic, Dionysian Underdog', 'The Assertive-Receptive Contact-Seeking Underdog' or 'The Anal-Schizoid/Depressive/Distancing Underdog'....
These are only some of the many potential 'bi-polar splits' or 'ego-splits' in the personality. The key question becomes: Are these different and often opposing ego-states working in conjunction and compromise with each other through the negotiating and integrating work of 'The Central Ego'? Or are some or all of these different, opposing 'ego-states' completely alienated and dissociated from each other, working against each other, each vying for total power in The Central Ego while trying to completely 'marginalize' and/or sabotage and dismantle its 'polar brother or sister'?
This can be -- and often is -- the critical difference between 'health' and 'pathology' or 'neurosis/psychosis'.
But still we need to close the gap between one of Psychoanalysis' own largest 'ego-splits' and 'dissociation' -- the split and dissociation between 'traumacy' and 'fantasy'.
Hegel's Hotel: DGB Psychology -- and my personal vision and version of 'Post-Hegelian, Dialectical-Gap-Bridging (DGB) Humanistic-Existential Psychoanalysis' finally after some 125 years of Psychoanalytic Evolution -- brings Freudian Traumacy and Sexual Traumacy Theory into the 'same ego-compartment' as Freudian Childhood and Adult Sexual Fantasy Theory. They finally need to be dialectically united rather than opposing theorists and therapists (eg. Freud vs. Masson) being dialectically opposed to each other in their thinking (thesis vs. anti-thesis). DGB Psychology now offers the dialectical synthesis between Freud's and Masson's opposing philosophical, theoretical, and clinical perspectives.
Using Classic, Orthodox Psychoanalytic Terminology, memories of childhood traumacy and/or memories of childhood narcissistic fixations become the breeding grounds for later narcissistic-sexual fantasies. The two unite, integrate, in the confines of 'The Id' -- or using alternative terminology -- 'The Shadow', or 'The Narcissistic-Dionysian Ego'.
As soon as we properly understand this seemingly 'dialectical paradox' between supposedly 'mutually exclusive goals and aims', then we overcome the one theoretical and therapeutic problem that Freud never could overcome in his lifetime (he came very close in 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle' but I believe was scared away by the close to Adlerian idea of 'the mastery compulsion' or in Adler's eventual terminology 'superiority striving' and 'the lifestyle goal'.
What no psychological theorist or writer to my knowledge has every -- in a hundred years -- been able to properly connect is how close Adler's idea of 'lifestyle' and 'lifestyle memory' is to Freud's 'could have been' idea of 'memory transference' -- in other words, to Freud's early work on 'unfinished memories' (1893-1895). The only three things separating Freud and Adler were: 1. their disagreement around the idea and importance of 'repression' vs. 'conscious early memories'; 2. Freud's non-awareness and/or nonacceptance of the idea of 'the mastery compulsion' and/or 'superiority striving' perhaps because it was entering 'Adlerian territory'; 3. their disagreement around the respective ideas and importance of 'sexuality' (Freud) vs. 'self-esteem' (Adler) where again, integratively speaking, both are immensely important and are not usually found apart from each other but rather 'integratively, creatively, and/or destructively mixed in the same neurotic complex-package'; and 4. their disagreement around the respective ideas and importance of 'conflict' (Freud) vs. 'unity' (Adler) in the personality. Paradoxically and dialectically speaking, the two were both partly right: the personality is 'conflictually, paradoxically, and dialectically united and/or torn apart depending on the degree of the neurosis'
You see, the one theoretical and therapeutic problem that Freud could never overcome -- and neither could Masson -- was the idea of 'counter-phobia' or 'transference-reversal'. The reason that Freud could never understand it in his early days (before 1900) was because the phenomena of 'counter-phobia' -- the idea of being compulsively attracted to the different components of one's greatest fears -- seemed to totally violate and fly in the face of 'the pleasure principle'. Asked Freud about the time of his abandonment of the seduction theory (and I am paraphrasing, I will search for the proper reference as I am writing), 'How could anyone -- for example a woman who has supposedly been sexually assaulted and/or seduced at a young age by her father or someone else -- an uncle, a brother, a stranger, then have 'sexual fantasies' that seemed to allude to, and be built around the supposedly 'traumatic' nature of this supposedly 'unpleasurable' childhood memory and scene. Indeed, this may have been the key reason why Freud ultimately abandoned The Seduction Theory in favor of The Oedipal Theory (the idea that the woman patient was 'fantasizing' the 'assault/seduction' and that it was a 'normal' fantasy cloaked as a memory relative to a young girl growing up and 'coveting' the 'love of her father'.
There are a couple of very important distinction to be made in this regard.
Firstly, probably the best way to distinguish between a 'traumacy neurosis' and a 'transference neurosis' is whether or not there is a 'counter-phobia' involved in the neurosis or not. If it turns out that we are at least partly -- and obsessively-compulsively (addictively) -- attracted to the object and memory of one of our greatest fears, then we have a transference memory neurosis at work, in addition to a traumatic memory and traumatic neurosis.
Put another way, a transference memory and/or relationship neurosis that is tied up to a traumatic neurosis (in essence, a 'love-hate' transference relationship) must contain the component of a counter-phobia, otherwise it is not a transference neurosis. It is the 'counter-phobia' component of the transference neurosis that gives it its 'signature quality' -- the idea of 'the mastery compulsion' (Freud unfortunately rejected this concept) or 'the repetition compulsion' (which unfortunately, Freud connected to the 'death instinct', an 'inferior theoretical formulation which became the focus of later Psychoanalytic Theory).
You see, if Freud had stuck with his idea of 'the mastery compulsion', then this would not have defied his 'pleasure principle' because, for many if not most of us, there can be no greater pleasure than 'mastering our greatest fear' (especially when this fear -- and the mastery of it -- is integrated with love and sex).
This is where Freud partly failed because he overgeneralized first in one direction (The Traumacy and then Seduction Theory, the second being more of an overgeneralization than the first), and then in the opposite direction altogether(The Oedipal Theory).
This is where Masson partly failed because he overgeneralized back in Freud's original 'Traumacy-Seduction' direction (probably closer to the original truth but still missing an explanation for the factor of 'narcissistic sexual fantasies evolving from traumatic -- and sometimes sexual seduction and/or assault -- memories).
What we need here is a dialectic integration of both theories in a way that brings them together.
This is where I bring the two oppposing theorists, one dead, the other one still very much alive, Freud and Masson, theoretically and therapeutically -- paradoxically and dialectically -- back together again in the same house, under the same roof (and Adler and Jung and Rank and Ferenzci and Reich and Perls are all welcome back too) the House that Freud Built, i.e., Psychoanalysis with a much broader, and more integrative foundation than has ever been seen before -- inside or outside of Psychoanalysis.
We need to introduce one further idea here that was not a part of Freud's early theorizing -- the idea of 'narcissistic neurosis'.
Strictly speaking, wherever there is a 'counter-phobia' at work in a transference neurosis, this is also a 'narcissistic neurosis' because a narcissistic neurosis is all about the often integrated issues of: 'egotism', 'approval-seeking', 'superiority-striving', 'mastery compulsion', 'power', 'revenge', 'hedonism' -- or to put all of these ideas into one capsule, 'self-esteem'.
We now have all but perhaps a few of our most basic ingredients (I have talked about Fairbairn and his ideas of 'exciting' vs. 'rejecting' object, and the concept of 'ego-splitting', 'ego-compartments', and the influence of Eric Berne and Transactional Analysis in other papers) by which we are finally ready to put together a stronger, firmer, more flexible Post-Hegelian-Dialectic-Democratic-Humanistic-Existential version of Psychoanalysis -- a Psychoanalysis with neither a 'Traumacy-Seduction Theory Bias' nor an 'Oedipal-Childhood Sexuality Fantasy Theory Bias' because my Psychoanalytic Theory contains both, side by side, separate and/or integrated,no prejudice.
Let us go back to Transactional Analysis -- back to such popular books in the 60s as 'Games People Play' (1964) and 'I'm Okay, You're Okay' (1969).
I am not sure how close Eric Berne knew he was to the idea of 'transference' and more specifically to the ideas of 'narcissistic transferences', 'counter-phobias', and 'obsessive-compulsive transference games people play with each other (often with deadly consequences)'.
I think Berne was almost right on top of these concepts, albeit without the necessary terminology connecting his 'game theory' and 'ego-splitting theory' to this more radical and/or modernized form of 'transference theory'. Certainly, being Psychoanalytically trained, Berne knew about transference. But he understood transference in its traditional Freudian meaning -- not in terms of his radical new 'game theory'. Kohut's creation of 'narcissistic transferences' was still about seven years from arriving although Psychoanalysts were in the process of working towards this concept:
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Narcissistic Transference
Psychoanalysis: Narcissistic Transference
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Home > Library > Health > Psychoanalysis DictionaryNarcissistic transference is a post-Freudian term introduced by Heinz Kohut, in the context of his theory of narcissism, to refer to a group of clinical phenomena observed during analytic treatment.
For Freud himself, transference concerned the transposition of object relationships; transference and narcissism were such contrary ideas for him that the expression narcissistic transference would have been meaningless in his eyes: "Observation shows that sufferers from narcissistic neuroses have no capacity for transference or only insufficient residues of it" (1916-17a [1915-17], p. 447).
One of the first authors to take narcissism into account in the evolution of the treatment was Béla Grunberger, in 1956. Grunberger deemed narcissism one of the motors of the analytic cure, and this even among neurotics. Out of fidelity to Freud's thinking, he nevertheless refrained from using the term "narcissistic transference," and spoke only of a "narcissistic analytic relationship." In this context he described certain ploys on the part of the patient, as for example "using the analyst to create a double [or mirror] image of himself" or projecting his ideal ego onto the analyst, which would later be evoked by Heinz Kohut.
Kohut brought narcissism into relation not with the ego but with a broader and less limited entity, the self. At the same time he introduced the idea of a line of development of narcissism paralleling the development of object-cathexes and interacting with it. Narcissism and object-love were thus no longer in contradiction with each other, but complementary, and it became possible to speak meaningfully of narcissistic transferences.
In The Analysis of the Self (1971), Kohut describes several aspects of such transferences. "Mirror transferences" correspond to a remobilization of the idealized "grandiose self" and imply the following demand with respect to the other person: "I am perfect and need you to confirm it." A mirror transference easily gives rise to a feeling of boredom or impatience in the analyst, whose otherness it does not acknowledge. Such transferences are of three types (pp. 114-16). The most archaic is "merger transference," in which the patient strives for an omnipotent and tyrannical control over the analyst, who is experienced as an extension of the self. In an "alter-ego transference," the other is experienced as very similar to the grandiose self. Lastly, in the case of mirror transference "in the narrower sense," the analyst is experienced as a function serving the patient's needs. If the patient feels recognized, he will experience sensations of well-being associated with the restoration of his narcissism. An "idealizing transference" is defined by Kohut as the mobilization of an idealized and all-powerful parent imago (p. 37), and it is encapsulated in the sentence "You are perfect, but I am part of you"; it is correlated with a struggle against feelings of emptiness and powerlessness. Kohut's notion that certain people are cathected as parts of the self, integrated into the mental functioning of the patient himself, led him to speak of "self-objects" and to describe narcissistic transference as based on an idealized self-object.
Kohut's approach has been criticized on the grounds that it first relegated the instincts and the Oedipus complex to the background and then eliminated them completely.
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DGB...cont'd..
My version of narcissistic transferences doesn't eliminate either the idea of 'instincts' or the idea of 'the Oedipal Complex' (or at least my broader version of it, i.e., 'Mother Love-Hate Complexes' and 'Father Love-Hate Complexes') as perhaps Kohut's version of narcissistic transferences did.
Now let us quickly divide the ego into four ego-compartments: 1. The Nurturing Superego (or Topdog); 2. The Critical, Righteous (Rejecting) Superego (or Topdog); 3. The Approval-Seeking Ego (or Underdog); and 4. The Rebellious-Righteous Ego (or Underdog) -- with 'narcissistic energy' (my replacement for Freud's 'libido or sexual energy theory') running through any and all 'ego-compartments', indeed all aspects of the personality. For me, narcissism -- as it eventually came to become for Freud -- was the fundamental, first energy of the personality, i.e, the energy of 'self-preservation'. It is only later in life -- when we are taught love, empathy, caring, social sensitivity, ethics, and altruism -- that we can 'introject' these healthy traits into our personality. Some people never do if they never see and/or experience these traits in life.
And finally an example of a 'transference complex and neurosis' from Freud's own life. In the words of Freud's most famous biographer, Ernest Jones, Jones recites one of Freud's earliest conscious recollections:
'Among the (consciously) remembered ones are a few, banal enough in themselves, which are of interest only in standing out in the sea of amnesia. One was of penetrating into his parents' bedroom out of (sexual) curiosity and being ordered out by an irate father.' (Ernest Jones, 1953, 1981, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 1, p. 7).
You see, Ernest Jones, in reciting this conscious early memory, has already judged against its possible (traumatic and/or transference) importance, and thus, marginalized it, because it doesn't fit into orthodox, Classical Freudian Psychoanalytic 'repressed, unconcious memory theory'. It is a perfect example how biographers can screen out -- or at least almost screen out -- a memory that could be critically important to the evolution of Freud's personality, his transference and character structure -- and to the whole future of Psychoanalysis.
Let me be more clear. This is probably the most important memory in Freud's life -- and Jones -- as well as all of Psychoanalysis -- has essentially marginalized it as being relatively unimportant to Freud's future character development.
In contrast, I see this memory as the most important narcissistic transference memories in Freud's character. Symbolically, metaphorically, egotistiscally, narcissistically, sexually, the memory is repeated thousands of time over in Freud's life -- in the confines of the Psychoanalytic Room with The Psychoanalytic Couch.
This memory was the foundation of probably Freud's greatest 'repetition compulsion' -- or in my more Freudian-Adlerian terminology -- counter-phobia and mastery compulsion.
If I am right -- which I am pretty sure that I am -- then, you should be able to see here how false assumptions can steer generations of Psychoanalysts down 'the garden path' away from -- in this case -- the 'transference truth'.
Now if you understand a little about Object Relations and Transactional Analysis and Gestalt Therapy, then you will know where I am going with the transference interpretation of this memory next.
Specifically, everything -- and everyone -- in the memory gets internalized, introjected. The bed in memory becomes the 'couch' in The Psychoanalytic Room.
Freud's external father in the memory becomes Freud's 'introjected rejecting -- and exciting -- object' in the evolution of his transference memory complex and personality.
Now most Psychoanalysts know that Freud had an issue with 'men' but not to the full extent that I will describe this transference 'seduction-abandonment' memory and relationship complex here.
Freud's 'seduction-abandonment' transference neurosis regarding men worked like this:
In the memory, the little Freud is basically evicted from the room by his father who didn't want the younger Freud to know his (sexual) business.
We now introduce Ferenczi's/Anna Freud's concept of 'identification with the aggressor' (victimizer, rejector, abandoner...).
Freud in the righteous, rejecting topdog component of his ego-personality becomes a 'clone of his dad'. Put another way, his 'rejecting dad' is internalized, introjected into the rejecting topdog or superego portion of his personality.
The 'scared little kid' Freud is also internalized or introjected into the bottom right corner (ego-compartment) of the personality -- and becomes 'the approval-seeking underdog'. Freud would develop an 'obsessive-compulsion' to please certain men later in his life -- most notably Fliess and Jung. We can say that Freud developed the strongest 'Father-Transference-Memory Complex' with these two men, Fliess and Jung. We can say that metaphorically or symbolically, this was the little Freud still at work trying to 'please his dad and to get him/them to let him back into the bedroom'. This is what I call an 'Approval-Seeking Father Complex' but also at work here, is what I said earlier about a 'love-hate' transference relationship and a 'seduction-abandonment' transference relationship. To understand the full extent of these latter two phenomena, we need to know how all four ego-compartments can combine into and each play an integral part of, the same Transference Complex.
Enter The Rebellious Ego (or Underdog). This is the young and defiant Freud -- the persistant Freud -- the 'I will not be deterred' Freud. This is the young, defiant, and arrogant Freud at 'the top of his game' then, and later in his life saying in essence: 'Dad, I will be back -- I will find my way back into the bedroom to find out what was going on in there. You, my fine father, can kick me out of the bedroom, you can even kick me out of your life, but you cannot stop me from finding out what you were up to, what you were doing in there. It may take me hundreds of clients and thousands and thousands of sessions but don't think you can shut me out dad, because ,metaphorically if not in reality, I will be back and I will find out what you -- and mom -- were up to in here. I will find out all about your 'sexual secrets'. If not in your lifetime, at least in mine. Trust me, I will be back.'
In that little paragraph there, you have the essence of 'traumacy neurosis', 'underlying anxiety neurosis', 'counter-phobia', 'transference neurosis', 'narcissistic neurois', 'repetition compulsion' and 'mastery compulsion' all rolled up into one.
It was the essence of Freud's rebellious, defiant personality. And it was the essence of Psychoanalysis. Freud worked his whole life to keep going back into 'that room' -- the metaphorical bedroom, the Psychoanalytic Room -- but in this one regard here, Freud never quite got back there. He never completely figured out his own transference neurosis.
Regarding Freud's 'Seduction-Abandonment Father-Transference Complex', there were two stages of this neurosis:
1. the Seduction: wanting the acceptance/approval of men who strongly reminded Freud of his rather's 'righteous-rejecting topdog'. Enter Fliess and Jung;
2. The Abandonment: When this acceptance/approval was not forthcoming -- when he started to 'project' the picture of his father about to evict him from the bedroom onto the adult transference figure of Jung -- then Freud 'flipped' (a 'transference reversal', 'identification with the aggressor' and essentially 'evicted' Jung from Psychoanalysis at about the same time that Jung was about to 'evict Freud and Psychoanalysis' from his own life. In Fliess' case, I think the Emma Ekstein scandal started to kill their relationship and Freud started to do another 'transference flip' where Freud no longer saw Fliess as being essentially 'God walking on Earth' -- and started the process of slowly evicting Fliess from his life.
From a rejecting topdog point of view, some of the other 'victims' of Freud's 'abandonment wrath' included: Adler, Reich, Rank, Ferenczi, Perls (in Freud's one very brief meeting with Perls in, I believe it was, 1936, when the much younger, provocative, creative South African psychoanalyst, Perls, was just about to present a more more or less rejected Psychoanalytic paper on 'Oral Resistances', and tentatively entered (or was about to enter) Freud's room where he was staying or sitting -- and in a few short words, Freud basically 'blew Perls away' by telling him to go back to South Africa. How was that for a 'father-cloned rejecting reaction' -- a perfect example of 'transference identification with the aggressor' or what I call 'negative transference reversal'!
Here is the very short meeting as described by Perls:
Perls: 'I came from South Africa to give a paper and to see you.'
Freud: 'Well, and when are you going back?'
Perls: I don't remember the rest of the (perhaps four minute long) conversation. I was shocked and disappointed. (1969, Fritz Perls, In and Out the Garbage Pail, p. 56.)
Just like Freud was shocked and disappointed as a kid when his dad 'blew him away' in a very similar manner. The little Sigmund had learned very well from his father how to 'blow people off' in order to 'protect his own Secret Society where people were only allowed in if they were a part of the Secret Society'. Based on Freud's obvious disenchantment with Perls' paper on 'oral resistances' (Orthodox Psychoanalysis only believed in 'anal resistances', Perls was no longer considered a part of his 'Secret Society'. Freud had no place for 'Psychoanalytic rebels' -- unless you were female and your name was Melanie Klein.
That was the first and last time Perls would meet Freud.
If Perls was still alive today, I would tell him (not that he probably didn't already know) -- that like many men before him -- Perls in his youngest professional years, had walked straight into Freud's 'introjected rejecting Father-Complex'. Perls, had in effect, become another 'serial victim' relative to Freud's 'internalized rejecting father'.
What comes around, goes around. And what goes around, comes around.
This is how 'rejection', 'abandonment', 'betrayal', 'hate' and 'rage' is transferered from generation to generation, from person to person, and around the world.
Which brings us to the subject of 'narcissistic transference rage', 'serial transference profiling', and 'serial criminals' -- i.e., serial arsonists, serial rapists, and 'serial killers' -- a rather morbid topic but the most extreme extensions of narcissistic transference rage, rejection, and violence with each 'serial perpetrator' leaving his or her own 'transference signature' behind him or her at the crime scene. Imperative clues for the work of the 'serial profilers'.
Henry Lucas, Ted Bundy, and all the rest.
Subject for another day to the extent that we want to, or don't want to, delve into the deepest, darkest part of human behavior -- in relation to transference, transference rage, and transference violence.
Just as Freud said that we are all 'psychotic when we dream', I am saying that we are all 'serial rejectors' of one kind or another, some far more destructive, self-destructive, perverse, and/or violent than others -- depending very much on the nature, quantity and quality of our earliest childhood experiences, memories, rejections, traumacies, tragedies, that paradoxically, can later evolve, and be darkly woven, into 'serial sexual fantasies'.
Freud couldn't quite get his head properly around this 'destructive-erotic paradox' -- how sexuality, aggression, control, power, rejection, revenge, sadism, masochism, and/or violence can all be woven into one.
Freud thought that this phenomenon -- the 'repetition compulsion' -- defied the 'pleasure principle' (who would want to remember 'pain'?), and thus, he added the concept of the 'death instinct' into this aspect of his overall Psychoanalytic theory late in his professional career (1920, Beyond The Pleasure Principle).
He came much closer to the right theoretical solution to the same problem at the beginning of the same essay when he talked about a 'mastery compulsion' -- what another writer has -- in the spirit of Alfred Adler -- called the 'handicap challenge'. We spend our whole life consumed and compelled to 'work upwards' from a perceived childhood 'one down' or 'minus' position, to a more 'egotistical, self-reinforcing, 'one up' or 'plus' position.
This mastery compulsion and handicap challenge can take some people on a very positive path through life in the form of both 'self-becoming' and 'social interest', while it can lead others on a very negative path to self and/or social destruction. .
The choice of our 'life path' comprises an integration of our early life events -- and how we interpret, evaluate, and act upon the foundation of these events.
A 'multi-dialectic, integrative path' of genetic, social, and self-determinism.
Violent childhood memories often breed violent adult behavior. You look at the childhood memories of someone like say, Henry Lucas, a notorious serial killer in the 1960s, which we may discuss in another essay, and you can see very clearly that this man did not have any semblance of a normal childhood life -- or 'normal memories'.
Being 'hit over the head by your mother with a two by four' is not a normal memory.
Neither is 'your mom shooting your dearly loved pet mule -- just because you were attached to it'. These are far from normal childhood memories.
Serial killers don't usually have normal childhood memories and/or relationships.
Their adult life is often just a symbolic replaying of their childhood memories -- with an 'egotistical, narcissistic flip' taking place from being in a childhood 'one down, out of control, underdog position' to being in a more 'topdog, fully in control, rejecting as opposed to rejected position'. At least until they are finally caught.
To summarize, let me simply say that this essay probably more than any other represents my own 'personal vision of Gestalt-Adlerian-Psychoanalyis' (or GAP-DGB Psychology).
A combination of Freudian Theory (transference, introjection, identification, projection...); Object Relations (Melanie Klein: 'good object', 'good mother', 'bad object', 'bad mother'; Ronald Fairbairn: 'rejecting object', 'exciting object', my integration: 'the rejecting-exciting object'); Adlerian Theory (inferiority feeling, superiority striving, lifestyle goal, mastery compulsion -- although the concept of 'compulsion' is closer to Freud than Adler. Freud deterministically believed in 'drives' and 'compulsions'; Adler believed in a more 'free will fashion' in the idea of 'self-chosen goals'); Gestalt Theory (the 'unfinished situation', 'topdog', 'underdog', 'figural gestalts', 'background or shadow gestalts'...); Jungian Psychology (the darker influence of the marginalized 'Shadow' in the personality); and Transactional Analysis (Eric Berne: 'ego states', 'The Nurturing Parent Ego-State', 'The Critical Parent Ego-State', 'The Adult Ego-State', 'The Adapted, Approval-Seeking, Cooperative, Child Ego-State', 'The Free, Rebellious Child Ego State'...).
Enough said -- maybe too much said -- for today.
In short, GAP-DGB Psychology integrates and bridges the 'gaps' between other schools of psychology and psychotherapy.
-- dgb, Sept 8th, 2009, modified Oct 3rd, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
