Let me open this essay by repeating that I want to both historically describe and offer my editorial opinions as far as the theoretical and clinical developments in Freud's work from 1880 to 1939.
At the same time, I wish to ask new questions and provide new answers in terms of taking Freud's work down a series of different theoretical and therapeutic pathways. In this, I am no different than a hundred or a thousand 'post-Freudians' before me.
Still, I think I offer some fresh insights and fresh perspectives from the many who have walked this path before me. More than anything, I am a theorist of 'grand Post-Hegelian integrations' (or at least that is the intention) based on the generic Hegelian dialectic formula of 1. thesis; 2. anti-thesis; and 3. synthesis.
Using one of Freud's own metaphors, I view Freud as the main figure, the main 'grandfather' if you will of a very large 'geneological tree' that spreads downwards, through the 20th century, and includes most of the famous psychologists of the last 120 years or so. That includes psychologists like: Bleuler, Adler, Jung, Rank, Abraham, Wilhelm and Theodor Reich, Stekel, Ferenczi, Jones, Klein, Federn, Horney, Fromm, Sullivan, Fairbairn, Erickson, Winnicott, Guntrip, Kohut, Rogers, Maslow, May, Perls, Berne, Janov, Dubois, Korkzybski, Hayakawa, Beck, Ellis, Kelly, Maltz, Branden, Anna Freud, Eissler, Masson, Meichenbaum... That was off of the top of my head...
Alternatively, we can view Freud, Pre-Psychoanalysis, and Classical Psychoanalysis as 'the sun' around which all the other 'Psychoanalytic planets' -- and 'moons' of these planets -- revolve.
We could also do a geneological tree of Freud's influences -- both scientific and psychological -- some of whom were operating at the same time as Freud such as: Brucke, Helmholz, Breuer, Charcot, Bernheim, Liebeault, Janet...
Insufficiently appreciated, we could also do a geneological tree of Freud's direct and/or indirect philosophical influences which would, for our purposes here, would start with Kant and the beginning of German Idealism, as well as 'dialectic philosophy', moving through: Fichte (the first philosopher-theorist I am aware of who used the term 'ego'); Schelling (an interesting proponent of 'dialectic romantic iidealism and pantheism' in the Spinozian and Herculatean tradition); Hegel (dialectic dualism and dialectic evolution theory taken to a greater level of clarity than his immediate predecessors in the German Idealistic domain, with a 'God-like' goal of 'Absolute Truth' seen as coming at the 'end' or 'finish line' of human dialectic evolutionary advancement...); Schopenhauer ('the great cynic' and trumpeter -- in an 'anti-Hegelian stance' -- of 'cosmic hedonism and narcissism' as the uniting unconcious force of the whole universe); Nietzsche (The Birth of Tragedy, 'BT', 1872 -- Nietzsche's first book -- with its insight into Greek Mythology/Tragedy and the perceived 'psychological split' in the human personality between our civilized, organized, orderly, righteous, restrained, 'Apollonian' driving life force, and our much more uncivilized, sensual, sexual, unrestrained 'Dionysian' driving life force -- can easily be viewed as a precursor of Freudian psychology, and a 'bridge' between Hegel and Freud, foreshadowing the psychoanalytic conflict in the personality between the 'superego' and the 'id'. Freud had a collection of Nietzsche's work -- how much might have 'BT' influenced Freud's own philosophical-psychological thinking? Nobody really seems to know whether Freud actually read this first little Nietzschean book, and other works by Nietzsche, or not... but here's saying that he did...
Indeed, between the work of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, you have all the main 'philosophical pieces' -- not including the scientific, psychological, and hypnotic ones mentioned further above -- in place for Freud to put together into one 'evolving synthesis and synergy' what would eventually become 'Psychoanalysis'.
I have simply taken Freud's 'pre-classical and classical synthesis' one very large step forward to include all the main 'post-neo-and-anti-Freudian psychologists and philosophers of the 20th century who developed their main works after leaving Freud and Psychoanalysis -- or worded otherwise -- 'revolved' around 'the sun' of Freud and Psychoanalysis, and who took their idea on greater or smaller 'orbits' both to and away from Freud.
There is something very 'Hegelian' in my approach which is obviously why this network of philosophical-psychological-political blogsites is called Hegel's Hotel. But until now, I am not even sure that I had accepted and appreciated just how Hegelian -- or perhaps better worded, Post-Hegelian -- my work and my thinking is. I am still less 'historically deterministic' and more 'existentially free-will' than Hegel...But still...
I remain an integrative Hegelian Idealist who has essentially simply carried on much of Hegel's work into the 20th and 21st century, as I said, more influenced by developments after Hegel died in the area of Humanistic-Existentialism (in the philosophy and psychology of 'being' and 'doing' as well as 'knowing'), and by the developments in the respective philosophies of Foucault and Derrida (who were also both significantly influenced by both Hegel and Nietzsche), and I remain 'very Hegelian' in the sense that I idealistically strive towards 'integrating the whole of human knowledge into one massively huge epistemological template' rather than have a 'million and one different reductionistic theorists' out there all thumping their chests and righteously proclaiming to literally or metaphorically hold in their particular 'mini-world of theoretical knowledge' -- the one and only rendition of God's and/or Nature's -- 'Absolute Truth'.
In this regard, I am a 'Multi-Dialectic-Wholistic-Unitarian Theorist' -- meaning that I will read as many different theories on a particular subject matter as I can possibly absorb, understand, make sense of, and dialectically integrate into one post-Hegelian multi-dialectic unified wholistic theory. This is the epistemological -- and ethical -- ideal of both Hegel's classic philosophical masterpiece -- 'The Phenomenology of Mind/Spirit' (1807) -- and also, my own philosophical extension of Hegel's work starting some 200 years later. This is the 'integrative network of blogs and blogsites' you can find surrounding this one -- some fairly well developed, others in need of more development, and others not developed at all...This is the network of blogs I am calling 'Hegel's Hotel'.
Again, I do not believe that any one school of philosophy and/or psychology and/or economics and/or politics...has any right to claim that it has a monopoly on the 'Absolute Truth'...not even Hegel himself except for perhaps the fact that he helped to clarify a very profound 'method of operation' -- which might be referred to as the 'dialectic method' or 'dialectic logic', in which he, and others who follow(ed) him, like Nietzsche initially in BT -- before he 'rejected' Hegel and became a more one-sided 'Dionysian' as opposed to 'Apollonian' philosopher; and a huge network of other later philosphers and psychologists, in greater or smaller portions...impossible to name them all...like Freud, and Jung, and Klein, and Perls, and Foucault, and Derrida, and all of these diverse philosophers and psychologists woven together by me, to the best of my evolving ablity, in Hegel's Hotel...
Of course, some other highly ambitious integrative Hegelian theorist might try to do the same -- and come up with a completely different rendition of the 'Multi-Integrative-Dialectic-Whole' -- or another imperfect template of 'The Absolute Truth'.
Obviously, this multi-dialectic approach is going to be limited by the extent of any one person's own epistemological-ethical evolutionary develoment...meaning that both individually and collectively what Hegel called 'The Absolute Truth' is always going to be finite and limited in contrast to 'The Infinite, Evolving Product of 'God's-Nature's Creation'....Whether you want to believe 'spiritually and/or religiously' in the 'reality of God' and/or in the 'scientific reality of Nature' -- 'God and/or Nature is/are always trillions of steps ahead of what man can finitely -- and hopelessly or hopefully depending on your perspective -- follow'...
Maybe one day -- if I be so fortunate and lucky -- some other brave, ambitious Hegelian Multi-Integrative-Dialectic Theorist might try to integrate my own work here in Hegel's Hotel. My Hegel's Hotel 'Multi-Integrative-Dialectic Truth Template' is no different -- well, hopefully it is significantly different -- than a trillion other partly similar, partly different 'Personal-Epistemological-Ethical-Truth-Templates' (PEETTs) -- or let's just call them our 'PETs'.
Our PETs are, in effect, our own ambitious, arrogant renditions of what we perceive, interpret and evaluate as... 'God's-(Nature's)-Infinite-Flowing-Truths' ('GIFTs') or worded otherwise, 'God's-Nature's PETs'' -- which includes...all of The Universe --Man...Nature...Evolution...and Creation...included... See my Spinozian-Schellingian-Hegelian 'Multi-Dialectic-Wholistic' influence here...
Each man and woman is like a 'mini-edition and reflection of God-Nature'...indeed, everything in God's-Nature's Universe...is a 'mini-edition and reflection of God-Nature'...
Now we are getting to the 'spiritual essence' of Hegel's Hotel....and our 'internal essence' of God-Nature's Creation and Reflection' is our 'Soul' -- our 'Genetic, Potential Self' -- our personal mini-edition of God-Nature and/or God's-Nature's Creation within us....
To have a 'dialectic relationship with God' is first and foremost to have a dialectic relationship with ourselves -- a dialectic relationship between our 'Evolving Self' and our 'Genetic Potential Self' -- of which the latter might also be referred to as our own private 'Genetic Pilot System' ('GPS') or more spiritually as our -- 'Soul'.
This is the Spiritual-Mythological-Religious-Humanistic-Existential-Idealistic side of Davd Gordon Bain -- and Hegel's Hotel. You can say that I am an advocate of the more Spiritual-Enlightenment-Romantic-Humanistic-Existential side of German Idealism -- fast forwarded 200 years to a 21st Century North American Evolution of it...
The better the 'dialectic contact' we make with our Soul -- our GPS -- the 'brighter our Internal Star burns'...'The Star of God's-Nature's Intended Creation within us'...
When there is a 'good fit of self-awareness, self-contact, and self-congruence' between our Evolving Actual Self and our Spiritual Soul -- our GPS -- God/Nature/Creation is happy, and we are happy....Creation has worked its magic...This is what the humanistic psychologists call 'self-actualization'...When we have no such self-awareness, self-contact, and self-congruence -- the more we become a 'self-fraud' -- this is what the existentialists call 'self-alienation'... There is a very strong Erich Fromm and Fritz Perls idealistic influence here...as well as an idealistic Ayn Rand and 'The Fountainhead' influence...Erich Fromm was a 'Socialist Idealist' in the spirit of Karl Marx; Ayn Rand was a 'Capitalist Idealist' in the spirit of Adam Smith -- I welcome all four of these great humanitic-existential idealists into The Grand Foyer and Meeting Rooms of Hegel's Hotel -- they all have 'beautiful suites' that they can call their own ---- as well as everyone else mentioned above -- in Hegel's Hotel...
Sartre's philosophical treatise (Sartre, 1943, Being and Nothingness) and main premise/argument was....'Existence before essence.'
Mine is more the opposite...'Essence before existence'...but this is very short-lived, so short-lived that you can't even snap a picture of it...
Because our whole life is one big dialectic interplay between essence and existence...existence and essence....and in this regard...towards greater or lesser 'self-actualization'....or alternatively...'self-alienation'...
God-Nature plants the Seed of Creation -- or the potential for our Self-Creation -- in our Soul, our GPS -- and we have to turn 'Seed' into 'Deed'.....that is the 'meaning of our existence'...
As Fromm, and I believe Adler before him, have described this life-scenario...
Man is the artist...and the art...
Man is the creator...and the creation...
Man is the marble....and the sculpture...
Man is the painter and the painting...
Man is the musician...and the music...
DGB is DGB...and his projected idealistic-humanistic-existential vision is...
Hegel's Hotel...
In this regard, every individual theorist becomes like his or he own personal 'star' with his or her own 'truth-template', created from the synthesis and synergy of other human stars before him or her...and surrounded by other 'moon' and 'star satellites' as in people...who will in turn learn from them...and then one day will take off on their own personal orbit and become their own personal star with their own 'truth-template' , with other 'satellite stars and moons' revolving around their star, their 'truth template'...until you have a 'skyful of stars' ...and that is 'God's-Nature's Synergetic Multi-Dialectic-Diversified-Holistic-Truth-and-Intention-of-the-Creative-Cosmos'...
Not that I in anyway feel entitled to speak for God...(like practically every Church sign I drive by, some more amusing and/or clever than others...)...
But that is my own 'Mythological Spiritual Interpretation of God-Nature-Creation' in Platonic-Aristotlean, Spinozian-Schelling-Hegelian multi-dialectic fashion...
If you are interested in the more 'spiritual' side of Hegel's Hotel...please see my blogsite on 'dialectic-humanistic-existential-spiritual-mythological-religion-pantheism'...
http://hegelshotel-dgbn-pantheism.blogspot.com/2006/09/aligncenter-1.html
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Man's greatest evolutionary tool -- his ability to reason -- is also his greatest evolutionary liability. The greatest human creations are only matched by the greatest human destructions -- and they both come from the same source: man's mind. -- dgb.
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-- dgb, March 22nd, April 6th, 2011, updated May 4th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain
