I might be part of a dying breed of Classical Psychoanalytic theorists who wants to hold onto Freud's classification system of the 'oral' and 'anal' personality. Maybe not. I am not familiar -- or privy -- to the main directions of Psychoanalytic theory these days.
So we will go our own direction starting from Freud's 'Psycho-sexual Stages of Development -- only we are not interested in psycho-sexual stages of development per se, but rather, the 'functionalities' and 'dysfunctionalities' in the personality starting with the 'Oral' vs. 'Anal' (O/A) Classification system, and adding two more systems of 'functionality' and/or 'dysfunctionality' -- the 'Phallic/Genital' ('PG' -- as in 'Parental Guidance') System and the 'Circulation-Transportation-Communication' ('CTC' or just 'C') System.
At this point, I am just coming to the realization that what I am putting together here has far more 'philosophical reach' than just Psychoanalytic Theory. What I am building here is a network of philosophical principles for the general study and practice of both medicine and psychotherapy.
We have three such systems so far -- 1. The Oral/Anal (O/A) System; 2. The Phallic/Genital (PG) System; 3. The Circulaton/Transportation/Communication (CTC) System.
How many more systems of functionality vs. dysfunctionality do we need?
Two more systems come quickly to mind -- 4. the Ancient Chinese (Daoist or Taoist) 'Yin' vs. 'Yang' (Y/Y) Classification System; and 5. the Heraclitus/Lao Tse/Freudian/Cannon/Gestalt collection of principles that we can summarize under the name of the 'Homeostatic/Dialectic Balance (HDB) -- or 'Equillibrium' (E) -- Principle/System. Freud was working on this principle under 'The Constancy Principle' (which later became the principle of 'Inertia' -- which is a less attractive over-riding principle but rather a principle closer associated to Freud's idea of 'The Death Instinct'), and Fritz Perls in Gestalt Therapy called it the principle of 'Organismic Self-Regulation'.
At some point, I would like to take this whole discussion of 'The DGB Seven Major Principles of Health and Pathology' -- and apply it to the realm of politics, law, and economics. But that will have to wait until another day.
There are two more principles that we need to build our new/old system of medicine and psychotherapy (vs. medial and/or psychopathology).
6. The Principle of Power and Suppression (Anaximander, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida...) vs. Creative Dialectic Integration (Heracltus, Lao Tse, Spinoza, Schelling...
And finally, perhaps the foremost important principle of medicine and psychotherapy that has been totally 'trashed' in the evolution -- or 'de-evolution' -- of Western Medicine:
7. The Hippocratic Oath: 'First, Do the patient no harm.'
The Hippocratic Oath has been trashed under the conflicting Western ideology/philosophy of 'Narcissistic Capitalism' -- or 'Profiteering Without Conscience'. Medicine -- under the ideological umbrella of Narcissistic Capitalism is Medicine Without Conscience. Not only is there a blatant conflict of interest but worse, this conflict is a brutally one-sided affair in which millions of people suffer and/or die at the expense of corporate profiteering -- without conscience, and without the proper government safety nets (because they are part of the narcissistic corporate picture.
As Noel Chomsky has titled in probably his most famous book, the whole thing comes down to:
Profit Over People.
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Profit Over People
Neoliberalism and Global Order
Noam Chomsky
Introduction by Robert McChesney
Original Publication 1999
Description
Why is the Atlantic slowly filling with crude petroleum, threatening a millions-of-years-old ecological balance? Why did traders at prominent banks take high-risk gambles with the money entrusted to them by hundreds of thousands of clients around the world, expanding and leveraging their investments to the point that failure led to a global financial crisis that left millions of people jobless and hundreds of cities economically devastated? Why would the world's most powerful military spend ten years fighting an enemy that presents no direct threat to secure resources for corporations?
The culprit in all cases is neoliberal ideology—the belief in the supremacy of "free" markets to drive and govern human affairs. And in the years since the initial publication of Noam Chomsky's Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order, the bitter vines of neoliberalism have only twisted themselves further into the world economy, obliterating the public’s voice in public affairs and substituting the bottom line in place of people’s basic obligation to care for one another as ends in themselves. In Profit Over People, Chomsky reveals the roots of the present crisis, tracing the history of neoliberalism through an incisive analysis of free trade agreements of the 1990s, the World Trade Organization, and the International Monetary Fund—and describes the movements of resistance to the increasing interference by the private sector in global affairs.
In the years since the initial publication of Profit Over People, the stakes have only risen. Now more than ever, Profit Over People is one of the key texts explaining how the crisis facing us operates—and how, through Chomsky’s analysis of resistance, we may find an escape from the closing net.
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Let us re-order what I am calling The Seven Major Principles of Health and Pathology...in this fashion...
1. The Hippocratic Oath: 'First, Do the patient no harm.';
2. The Oral/Anal Bipolar Principle of a Good Homeostatic Balance Between Proper 'Nutritional Intake' and Proper 'Toxic Expulsion' or 'The Bipolar Interaction Between The Physiology/Psychology of 'Nutritional Ingestion and Incorporation' vs. 'The Physiology/Psychology of Anti-Toxin Defense';
3. The Phallic/Genital Physiology and Psychology of Sexual Tension and Release -- and Reproduction;
4. The 'Yin/Yang' Principle of 'Not too much; not too little' -- the Homeostatic-Dialectic Balance between 'Fire' and 'Water' or 'Testosterone' and 'Estrogen' which can also incorporate a whole host of other more particular biological and/or psychological bipolar functions such as: The Blood-Sugar Bipolar Function (Not too high, not too low), The Thyroid Function (Not too fast, not too slow), The Acidic-Alkaline Balance (Not too acidic (usually the far greater North American health problem), not too alkaline, 'The Immune System Function (Not too strong, not too weak), as mentioned above, 'The Testosterone/Estrogen Balance...'Not too aggressive -- i.e., the 'narcissistic neuroses' (which deny and suppress 'socially sensitivity' and can become 'transgressive'), vs. not too scared and/or shy (the 'anxiety neuroses') which can prevent you from asserting your wishes, values, and perceived needs....and a whole host of other bipolar functional and/or dysfunctional systems...What Lao tse labelled as his 'Yin' vs. 'Yang' philosophy (and which Heraclitus emphasized but did not give a distinguishing name to) became translated later in Western Philosophy into Aristotle's Philosophy of 'The Golden Mean';
5. As one wise doctor told my father, 'Circulation, circulation, circulation' -- the answer to good health starts with good circulation (which within our system here includes the concepts of 'transportation' and 'communication');
6. Choosing 'Creative Dialectic (Democratic) Integration' For The Most Part Over (Pathological) 'Power and Suppression';
7. Homeostatic-Dialectic-(Democratic) Integration, Wholism, Unity, and Balance.
We will talk more about the 'oral/anal' system in my next essay...along with my new dialectic-integrative perspective on 'The Psychology of The Id' and continue to build from there...
-- dgb, June 7th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotations...
-- Are Still in Process...
-- QED-CQDI: What was to be demonstrated above, was/is another example of....
-- Creative Quantum-Dialectic Integration...
