April 18th-21st, 2010...freshly modified...
Let us start with what we have so far -- a significant extension of Freud's Classical 'Superego-Ego-Id' model.
Hegel's Hotel -- and GAP-DGB Psychology -- is much more 'oral-receptive' to post, neo, and anti-Freudian schools of psychology than Sigmund Freud ever was.
Indeed, GAP-DGB Psychology aims to be the most integrative of all schools of psychology -- with Adlerian Psychology, Gestalt Therapy, Object Relations, Transactional Analysis, Jungian Psychology and all 50 years and 24 Standard Editions of Freudian Psychoanalyis including both pre and post 1897 Psychoanalytic Theory playing a part in what you can either already read in my previous 'Quantum Psychoanalytic' essays, and/or what you are about to read below.
Right now, Classical Psychoanalysis is a 'collapsed school of psychology' even though the 'power brokers that be' -- in line with the 'power brokers that were' -- refuse to admit it.
Most specifically the 'power brokers that were' refer mainly to Sigmund Freud himself until he died in 1939, and after that, primarily Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler particullarly in the late 70s and early 80s when The Seduction Theory Controversy resurfaced and became a public scandal courtesy of the rhetorical arguments and accusations of Jeffrey Masson relative to The Oedipal Complex Theory being used and abused -- or at least potentially so -- as an abstractive 'cover-up' for childhood sexual abuse.
If Masson was/is right regarding the tarnished if not outright toxic and pathological Oedipal Complex Theory (OCT), then all of Classical Psychoanalysis and Sexual Fantasy Theory collapses under the actual and/or potential pathology of OCT. One of the most crucial 'dominos' in Classical Psychoanalysis in effect brings down all the rest. Or so it would seem at first glance. And thus, Classical Psychoanalysis collapses. This would not affect those Psychoanalysists who have already moved on to Object Relations and Self Psychology, neither of which employs the controversial OCT.
I still partly like the Oedipal Complex Theory as an adjunct to Transference Theory but not at the expense of Psychoanalytically distorting real childhood memories of sexual abuse that become re-interpreted as the 'child's/teenager's/adult's own imaginary sexual fantasy'. No theory of psychology or psychotherapy should distort reality -- otherwise, it becomes pathological in itself and any theory of childhood and later adult sexuality that potentially distorts what really happened in childhood becomes the pathological toxin or poison that will eventually spread to, and poison the entire school of psychology -- in this case, Classical Psychoanalysis.
Now obviously the counter-argument from Classical Psychoanalysis for the past 70 years after Sigmund Freud died has been the same: no mistake was made. There is nothing wrong with the Oedipal Complex as it was constructed and defined by father Freud.
But when you think about it, the theory as Freud constructed and defined it is at the very least a broad overgeneralization of the facts. We know that incest exists and has throughout human history. We know that some fathers have committed sexual assaults on their daughters and that this phenomenon continues to happen even as I write here. So how could Freud have the nerve to tell his co-workers, his students, and the general public that if a woman recites a sexual assault memory to her analyst in the process of Psychoanalysis that involves her father assaulting her, then this is not to be taken at 'face value' but rather it is to be re-interpreted as her own unconsciously distorted sexual fantasy?
I'm not saying that false accusations can't and/or don't happen; I am just saying that real childhood sexual assaults involving some fathers assaulting their daughters do happen so how could Freud -- as an empirical scientist and as a theorist who wanted people to believe that his theories were grounded in clinical facts -- have the nerve, especially when he saw the traumatic results of many of these real assaults in the early portion of his career, in one sweeping overgeneralization, to, in effect, 'dismiss' and 'blow away' all such possible cases for what they were: real childhood sexual assaults; not unconcsciously distorted female sexual fantasies... I shake my head...And that generations of Classical Psychoanalysts following behind father Freud including his own daughter Anna on this sweeping overgeneralization also defies my imagination.
It is like father Freud laid a gigantic 'pile of poop' on Psychoanalysis between 1897 and 1905 and called it 'gold', or worse, called it 'nutritious to swallow whole'. In my partly paraphrased words, Freud was saying: 'Introject this into your collective psyches, my dear co-workers, I have just found the source of the Nile -- the Oedipal Complex!' (Didn't he say that about The Seduction Theory too?)
And a few brave co-workers (I'm not sure which ones actually confronted Freud on the nonsense of the Oedipal Complex as he so narrowly defined it, not leaving any room for the opposite possibility, indeed the opposite extreme -- that all hysteria was based on repressed childhood sexual assault -- which he had only a few years before (1896) trumpeted as being The Gospel according to Freud at that time) may have told Freud that he was speaking rubbish, probably not too many.
However, enough must have been said. Harsh rhetorical dialogue was being passed both ways between Freud and a host of rebellers. A long string of co-workers did leave him between about 1905 and 1920. So I can't say that they were all lemmings: Adler, Jung, Steckel, Rank, Reich, Ferenczi...all had their words...and their fallings out... with Freud...and that is before we even start talking about all the post, neo, and/or anti-Freudians that developed most of their work after Freud died....Horney, Fromm, Sullivan, Erickson, Perls...and the Object Relationists...Klein, Fairbairn, Jacobson, Winnicott, Guntrip....and the Self Psychologists...Kohut...and the new breed of 'Traumacy-Seduction' Theorists...led by Masson's 1970s, 80s, and 90s harsh 'anti-Freud tirade' and his own brand of 'Psychoanalytic (and Psychiatric) Deconstructionism'...alongside and fresh after his exit from Psychoanalysis...
What amazes me is that throughout all of this, is that there were still enough 'loyal followers' to keep Classical Psychoanalysis standing....The 'anal retentive' ones...
I have already called them 'lemmings'....I don't want to disrespect all of their work....Ernest Jones supported Fritz Perls unorthodox growth as a Psychoanalyst -- and later 'anti-Psychoanalyst' -- even when Freud didn't. Anna Freud....I have a hard time with her...the 'ultimate Daddy's girl'....seemingly introjected everything that came out of the old man's mouth....'hook, line, and stinker'....Give me Melanie Klein any day...Klein was the much more creative thinker...and yet Klein was the much more self-destructive person....Some of Klein's ideas were a little too 'wild' for me...a little too far off the deep end....but she was the primary founder of Object Relations....and, in contrast, I am not sure that Anna Freud every had a 'wild idea' in her life....Did she ever 'let loose'? Did she ever throw a party? Did she ever go to a party? Did she ever get drunk? Did she ever have a love affair? Did she ever lose control? Or was there just too much riding on her dad's name and reputation to endanger her own name and reputation as 'The Protector of The Freudian Establishment'? Anna Freud -- the ultimate 'Establishment Woman'..solid to the end in her own reputation as the protector of her dad's 'House'....but.....loyalty often bears a huge price to pay such as loss of self-identity and the unwillingness to show any form of self-assertion that may have gone against her dad's wishes...Eissler paid the same price in this regard because I believe that even he saw the negative implications and consequences of the 'Oedipal Complex Gone Offside'...
Do you try to keep protecting someone you love's character, beliefs, and reputation even when, underneath, you may believe that they may have been wrong in what they said or did? I can't believe that, through all of Masson's rhetorical stance against father Freud -- even without the attack on his character -- that, underneath, Anna Freud didn't believe that her father committed a 'big booboo' when he overstated the 'reality' of The Oedipal Complex....when father Freud made it sound like no daughter is, or ever has been, sexually assaulted by her dad. This overgeneralization is just plain irresponsible psycho-theory, psychotherapy, and clinical psychology...It doesn't stand up to a good percentage of the clinical facts....
I am amazed that no strong feminist or group of feminists from the 60s, 70s, or early 80s ever confronted Anna Freud on her basically protecting her dad's male chauvanism and narcissism. But it seems like everyone including Eissler, Janet Malcolm, the media, and the public as a whole -- everyone except Masson that is -- was facing Anna Freud with 'kids gloves on'...even as she protected her father's masculine unethical narcissistic bias against the equality and credibility of women to tell a straight story, a straight memory, without father Freud putting a 'fantasy spin' on it....
Having said this, Anna Freud was 87 years old at the height of Masson 'Seduction Theory Controversy and scandal' -- the same year that she died -- and I am pretty sure that I could not have, would not have, confronted Anna Freud the way that Masson did at this late stage of her life. With all due respect to everyone involved here, I would have, at the very least, 'couched' things a lot more 'diplomatically' than Masson did. You had Eissler saying in effect to Masson, and I am loosely paraphrasing from what I read actually happened, Eissler saying to Masson in effect: Leave the poor lady alone, Jeffrey, she is 87 years old...Let her die in peace...Perhaps we can re-look at this whole issue again in a few years...when things have changed and when Anna Freud is no longer around...but don't tell her in her 87th year that her father was immoral and unethical...You're going to drive the woman to her grave with this accusation pounding in her head....
Masson was uncompromising...he wanted a Psychoanalytic theory that better represented 'clinical reality and truth' -- and he felt that The Oedipal Complex Theory was being used as a collossal 'cover-up' that clinicaly hid and suppressed the reality of underlying childhood sexual abuse....specifically, the reality of some father's sexually assaulting their daughters....Masson believed that Freud's pre-1897 'Traumacy-Seduction Theory' did a much better job of clinically representing these facts than his post-1897 Oedipal Complex Theory did.
In this regard, there was a faceoff between Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler trying desperately to uphold the integrity and character of Sigmund Freud, as well as the integrity and respect of Classical Psychoanalyis as a whole, whereas Masson didn't believe that either Freud or Classical Psychoanalysis deserved any such integrity or respect under the existing circumstances.
A Mexican standoff...an unchangeable rift and a rhetorical fight between the two most powerful leaders in charge of the Freudian Empire in 1981, 82 (i.e., Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler) with the third most powerful leader of the Empire at that time (Masson)...three people who had developed a close bond with each other, Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler, in effect, giving Masson the 'key to the Vault', i.e., putting Masson in charge of The Freud Archives which, in hindsight, was like putting a fox in charge of a henhouse...at least from an Orthodox Classical Psychoanalytic point of view...
And the rest is ongoing Psychoanalytic history.....a court fight or two or three....Masson exiting Psychoanalysis, and moving from California to New Zealand to taking up the study of animal psychology...and always the prolific writer, publishing a whole string of books on animal psychology, particularly on animal emotions such as: 'Dogs Never Lie About Love'...and 'When Elephants Weep'...and Eissler living to the grand old age of 91 years old, dying in 1999....
The Seduction-Oedipal Controversy is still not resolved...Classical Psychoanalysis is still 'schizoid' or 'repressed' in its structure, its foundation, its dynamics...broken in two major pieces like 'Humpty Dumpty' with no one being able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again in one piece....which would take connecting Freud's pre-1897 work with his post 1897 work...
The giant 'pile of poop' that father Freud dumped on Classical Psychoanalysis -- meaning his strict, rigid, one-sided interpretation of The Oedipal Complex -- is still lying there, stale but fresh because no one with sufficient organizational, creative, and enlightenment power and courage, meaning primarily Anna Freud when she was alive (I don't know who is at the top looking over things now almost 20 years since Anna Freud died and over 10 years since Eissler died)...thus, the pile of poop is still sitting there on the carpet floor just as odourous today as the day it was dumped there by father Freud.
I am sorry if my metaphor of a 'pile of poop' or 'crap' or 'shit' is a little crass but it was Freud himself who invented this metaphor to descripe a certain personality type (i.e., the 'anal' personality) -- indeed, his own personality type in all of its good and bad ramifications (mainly bad in this context).
Don't get me wrong here. I love Freud and I love the creativity and intermixture of many of his ideas. But I don't love him to the point of 'father worship' which can be a 'dangerous pathology' depending on what is being 'introjected' or 'swallowed whole' without tasting, chewing, biting, and assimilating as Fritz Perls would say (Perls, Ego, Hunger, and Aggression). In this case, all of the most 'anal-retentive' of Classical Psychoanalysts (Anna Freud, Eissler...and all of the other 'lemmings' who haven't had the courage to think and/or speak for themselves) have 'swallowed whole', i.e., introjected, the pile of shit lying on the floor that father Freud said was 'nutricious'.
It was partly father Freud's fault himself: 'Thou shalt not worship or idolize any other God but me. Copy everything that I say and do...' And that was the 'legacy' he left for the future of Classical Psychoanalysis -- a Victorian anacronism still trying to hold on to Freud's Victorian, masculine, narcissistically biased beliefs in the 21st century...Someone -- amongst those who have not already abandoned the 'house that Freud built' -- with power, creativity, and courage, needs to better sort out the good ideas from the bad ideas that Freud left us with...it doesn't have to be an 'all or nothing package'...
The 'hoarder' is partly 'anal aggressive and/or explosive' and partly 'anal retentive'. He or she 'dumps his or her pile of shit on the floor' (usually in bags of clothes or whatever...) and then stares at this 'bag of shit' on the floor, as if 'transfixed' by it, fascinated by it, mesmerized by it, to the point where he or she 'cannot let it go', cannot clean it up and either organize it, and/or send it to a proper storage unit, and/or put it in a Salvation Army bin, or sell it in a garage sale, or put it in a garbage bin...
Freud was partly 'anally aggressive', partly 'anally implosive or retentive', and partly 'anally explosive'...It almost seemed like Freud cared more about his own ideas than he did the men he worked with....He would sooner 'eject', 'reject', and 'throw away one of his own co-workers' than he would throw away one of his own ideas...(or let someone else do it for him)... Freud was 'conceptually narcissistic'...He didn't mind changing ideas himself but he generally didn't like other theorists (particularly his own co-workers and students) changing them for him. When they didnt, they were usually going, going, and then gone...
Father Freud was the one who dumped the pile of shit -- The Oedipal Complex (in its strictest, most rigid interpretation) -- on the floor for the other analysts to look at -- and smell...Some analysts didn't like the look and the smell of The Oedipal Complex and left Psychoanalysis because of it (mostly 'Object Relationists' and 'neo-Freudians' after Freud had died).
But the really 'anally retentive' ones, including his own daughter Anna, basically 'introjected' (swallowed whole) Father Freud's 'shit'....and nourished it as if it was highly nutricious...'Daddy said it was good, so it must be good.'....'Thou shalt not worship or idolize any other God before you -- except Me!'
Poor Anna...stuck between a rock and a hard place...loyal to her dad's image and to her dad's ideas right up to her death...and yet in doing so, and being so, she can also be viewed as a 'betrayor of women and women's rights in the clinical/psychotherapeutic setting', particularly the right to be heard and heard for what one says; not to be heard and then 're-interpreted' according to a potentially unempirical and unethical Freudian Theory -- i.e., The Oedipal Complex -- which has the very real potential and/or actual effect of covering up female childhood sexual abuse at the hands of some transgressing fathers, that thanks to Freud, have been given a cart blanck 'immunity and protection' of being accused of such a transgression....which is not to say that some memories might not be 'false'; it's just that not all of them are going to be false -- indeed, a significant subset of such memories are probably far more likely to be 'true'....in the end, if it comes down to this, a matter for the courts to decide...but not a matter for any psychotherapist/psychoanalyst to take a 'rigid, one-sided theoretical position' on...that is the ultimate pathology of The Oedipal Complex is its decidedly 'rigid, one-sided perspective' that in effect denies a very dark human sexual phenomenon that we all know in some family situations actually exists...
You would think that some Classical Psychoanalyst -- most specifically Anna Freud -- who definitely had enough power, and you would hope would have the insight, the integrity, and the over-riding, idealistic vision of Classical Psychoanalysis at heart -- brought up to the standards of 1970 and 1980 feminist egalitarianism and idealism -- would have the strength and fortitude to make the proper modifications to 'The Oedipal Complex'...but alas, that was not to happen...
If it was me standing in for Anna Freud, I would have announced publicly to the world something like this:
'Upon careful review and judgment of my father's very controversial pre-1897 'Traumacy-Seduction Theory' vs. his post 1897 'Oedipal-Sexual Drive and Fantasy Theory', I have come to the conclusion that Classical Psychoanalysis, in order to be the very best it can be as a theory and a therapy relative to human experience, thought, feeling, impulse, restraint, and behavioral compromises...needs to integrate both pre and post 1897 theories together giving all Psychoanalysts the free right and opportunity to judge each individual case on the merits of its own findings, which means that if an Analyst believes that there is a very good chance that a female client may have indeed been sexually assaulted by her father at such and such an age, then there is nothing in the Template of Classical Psychoanalysis -- most specifically, in the one-sided rigid, unflexible belief of the Oedipal Complex -- to stop such an Analyst in believing in the possible or probable 'truth' of such a childhood sexual assault because in such circumstances, the practicing Psychoanalytst has the full support and endorsement of the Psychoanalytic Establishment to believe in what he or she thinks is clinically right, and more specifically, to fall back on the Traumacy and/or Seduction Theory if the practicing Psychoanalyst believes that this is appropriate and validated by the clinical evidence...'
If Anna Freud had made a speech something like that, back around 1981, 82 before she died, I would have had the greatest of respect for Anna Freud's bravery and, in my opinion, her ability to successfully mediate and resolve the Seduction vs. Oedipal Controversy....Eissler, I imagine, would have been happy, Masson, may or may not have been happy but I think that he could have lived with that resolution....Anna Freud could have died in peace...Masson may have stayed on in his position as the head of the Freud Archives, or not, he may or may not have decided to leave Psychoanalysis, I don't think that he deserved to be 'pushed out' of Psychoanalysis for declaring his belief in the truth and ethics of what he was standing up for...Indeed, he might have been the head of the Freudian Empire as I write this essay...except then I wouldn't have needed to write the essay...No court cases....no betrayals and abandonments....indeed, the whole situation might have had a much more harmonious resolution and a much happier ending for the three -- Anna Freud, Kurt Eissler, and Jeffrey Masson -- who had become quite attached to each other, Eissler and Masson like a close father and son, before everything rapidly deteriorated, fell apart completely, kept getting worse, and basically split Classical Psychoanalysis wide open again, showing its raw wound again and its traumatic 'ego-splitting' year -- the year that made Classical Psychoanalysis 'schizoid' -- 1896.
And I am left to tell the story of a most unfortunate triadic human relationship tragedy -- blown apart by opposing 'ethical righteousness' -- which is quite a bit different than Janet Malcolm's version of the same tragedy...(Janet Malcolm, In The Freud Archives)...
Janet Malcolm basically supported the Psychoanalytic Establishment and status-quo (i.e., Anna Freud, Kurt Eissler) whereas I am here to give my post-Hegelian, Humanistic-Existential Formula....
Thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis...
Hegel's Hotel and DGB Quantum Psychoanalysis provides the 'synthesis'...
And that is where I will leave things today...
-- dgb, Aug. 19th, 2010.
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
