More modifications and extensions......Finally finished!...June 25th, 2011...
Sorry, my friends...coming off another 72 hour work week, this essay has become a little 'disjointed'....Today, being my only day off this week, I am going to try to finish up this essay in some kind of organized, coherent fashion....dgb, Sat. June 25th, 2011
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Let's get a better understanding of how dialectic philosophy can be applied to the study of psychology and biology -- and their parallelism -- at the deepest levels.
What do we mean by a 'Complex'?
A 'complex', as it shall be defined here, is two or more variables, processes, factors, components...that come together into one or more 'molecular structure(s) and/or process(es)' (on the biological level), and/or on the metaphorical equalivalent psychological and/or philosophical level.
On a 'building' level, we are likely to call one 'structure' that is built out of wood, concrete, bricks, or whatever (for a functional purpose -- like being 'lived' in, or 'worked' in) -- a 'building'; whereas more than one connected building (with similar interconnecting functions), we are more likely to call a 'complex'.... such as an 'apartment complex'.
Now, dialectically speaking, whenever there has been an integration between two 'competing' or 'opposing' ideas, we have what we will call a 'dialectic complex'.
For example,
Let 'T' stand for 'Thesis';
Let 'A' stand for 'Anti-thesis';
Let 'S' stand for 'Synthesis'...which implies a 'uniting' of thesis and anti-thesis...
To form a 'TAS (Thesis-Anti-thesis-Synthesis) -- or Dialectic -- Complex'.
In this regard, I have asked the question previously,
How might 'the id' have been defined differently if Freud had created it before 1897 rather than in 1923?
James Strachey writes in his editor's introduction to 'The Ego and The Id'...
The term 'das Es', (the German word for what became labelled in English as 'the Id', see below), (1) as Freud himself explains below (p.23), was derived in the first instance from George Groddeck, a physician practising at Baden-Baden, who had recently become attached to psycho-analysis and with whose wide-ranging ideas Freud felt much sympathy. (1923, SE, V. X1X, p. 7)...
Previous to Groddeck, the term 'das Es' is reported by Strachey as having been used by Ernest Schweninger (Groddeck's teacher), and before that by Nietzsche.
Writes Strachey again,
(1) There was to begin with a good deal of discussion over the choice of an English equivalent. 'The id' was eventually decided upon in preference to 'the it' (my emphasis), so as to be parallel with the long-established 'ego'. (1923, SE, V. X1X, p. 7)...(Now what Strachey meant here by 'parallel' is totally ambiguous -- we will address this issue later in terms of the folloing question:
Does the id deserve to have a co-related 'ego-state' attached to its 'instinctual function' -- such as 'The Dionysian Ego'. My answer to this question is in the affirmative and thus I distinguish -- in Nietzschean style -- between 'The (more primitive, archaic, uncivil) Dionysian Ego' and 'The (more civil, ethical, righteous) Apollonian Ego'.
However, we are getting a little ahead of ourselves here. The first decision I had to make was whether I wanted to change or modify or extend Freud's definition(s) of the id to mean something other than what Freud meant by it. Here, i have finally come up with the answer 'no' -- I want to keep the original Freudian, instinctual meaning of the id and simply surround it by other concepts that Freud neglected, suppressed, didn't see the need for -- or whatever such as 'The Shadow' and 'The Personna' which are very useful Jungian concepts, and such as the concept of 'Traumactic-Transference Childhood Experiences and/or Memories' (TTCEMs), and such as the concept of 'Narcissistic Childhood Infatuations-Obsessions-Fantasies' (NCIOFs), and such as 'The ID Vault' and/or 'The SID (Shadow-Id) Vault'.
These new and/or 'opposing school' concepts allow us to do a host of different things that Freud 'boxed himself' or 'vaulted himself' out of...because he became 'fixated' on 'Instinct-Drive-Fantasy' Theory. Thus, for example, in the 1905 'Dora' case, Freud 'boxed himself' into a particular way of 'psycho-analyzing' the case that he would not have viewed in the same paradigm had he 'analyzed' Dora around 1894-95 when he was using his 'Traumacy Theory'. A 'good Classical Psychoanalyst' should be able to dialectically move back and forth in flexible fashion between 'traumacy' theory and 'fantasy' theory without beimg 'dominated' by either one or the other theory except as the clinical evidence 'best tells us' which way to move...Was Dora 'repressing her sexual instincts' relative to 'two old men' (her father, and her father's friend), or was she 'caught in the middle' between two old men trying to manipulate and exploit her -- one who 'sexually wanted' her (her father's friend) and the other -- her father -- who seemed to want to 'trade her off' in exchange for 'his friend's wife'...i.e., 'You can have my daughter if I can have your wife.'... Which seems like the better interpretation to you -- all else being equal -- and not being privy to all the specific details that Freud was privy to? Was this case really as 'sexually bizarre' (in terms of Dora's own wishes) as Freud was trying to make us believe? Or was Freud simply 'boxed in' by the 'biological and instinctual reductionism' of his own 'instinctual fantasy' theory? I opt for the latter explanation.
Let us turn to the 'ego' for a few minutes before we come back to the id...
'The ego' goes at least as far back in German philosophy as Fichte to mean 'the whole Self', whereas Freud, depending on the context, vascillated between using 'the ego' as an equivalent to 'the whole Self' -- like Fichte -- vs. using it to mean a more specific part of the 'whole Self or Psyche' that has particular reality-based, safety, mediating, conflict-resolving, and decision-making functions, as differentiated in Freud's 1923 model from 'the id' and from 'the superego' -- the 'three different psychic agencies that Freud viewed as making up the combined whole of the psyche or Self'.
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Strachey goes on to write...
It (the id) cleared up and in part replaced the ill-defined uses of the earlier terms 'the unconscious', 'the Ucs', and 'the systematic unconscious'. (1923, SE, V. X1X, p. 7)...
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Freud may have cleared up some 'old confusions' relative to his ambiguous and/or 'sliding' use of 'the unconscious' before 1923 but 'equating' the id with 'the unconscious' (as Freud was partly prone to do even after he wrote 'The Ego and The Id' in 1923) would create some new ambiguities and confusions as well as solve some old ones.
Obviously, the 'id' was being separated and distinguished from the 'ego' and yet this in itself created problems because elsewhere Freud would write that 'the id' was the 'oldest, most primitive and uncivil part of the ego' -- indeed, the 'ego' was 'born' from 'the id'....as it evolved and became more 'civil', 'less primitive', more concerned with 'ethical' and 'safety' matters even as it was still, at the same time, trying its best to 'satisfy the impulses and/or instincts of the id'...or at least work out 'compromise-formations' that partly satisfied the desires of the id....
Also, Freud's 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle', written three years earlier than 'The Ego and The Id' in 1920, was creating some new complications as well...In 1920, Freud, in writing probably his most abstract, 'metaphysical' essay, had distinguished between man's two most basic 'instincts' -- 'the life instinct', and 'the death instinct' -- which, now in 1923, were being 'deposited' within the 'container' or 'confines' of 'the id'.
However, the id was not simply a 'reservoir' or a 'container' -- Freud gave the id a 'personality', which mythologically speaking, was seemingly a 'trialectic' integration between 'Dionysus' (for simplicity sake, let's call 'Dionysus' the God of 'pleasure'), 'Narcissus' (The God of 'self-absorption') and 'Satan' (the God of 'evil').
The id, which according to Freud, was located in the deepest region of the unconscious (only to be unlocked and understood properly by Psychoanalysis) , was not 'organized' in its makeup at all but was rather 'chaotic' and 'disorganized', 'contradictory', 'no ethics', wanted 'immdediate gratification', and was constantly 'driving the ego crazy' with its 'demands from down below for instant gratification'...(while, at the same time, 'the superego' was generally harping and nagging at the ego from the 'upper, righteous' side of the personality -- metaphorically, visually, and/or geographically speaking.
Now I have no problem working with this Classic Freudian model as described above -- except for some of the reductionistic elements of it, and also, with the particular integration that Freud made between man's 'aggressive impulses and behaviors' and Freud's controversial understanding of 'the death instinct'....But these problems, we will delve deeper into in another essay...
Let's go with the Classical Freudian model that we have....and hopefully 'metaphorically enrich' it....
I have already 'gone beyond' Freud -- and here I am starting to integrate some Jungian ideas into my 'post-Freudian DGB model' -- when I said that the 'Id' can be described as a 'trialectic integration' between three ancient Gods: Dionysus, Narcissus, and Satan. Now -- as my creative mind starts to 'rev up its juices', let's introduce a fourth: 'Thor'.
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From Wikipedia...
In Norse mythology, Thor (from Old Norse Þórr) is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, destruction, fertility, healing, and the protection of mankind.
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Well, from the little description above, we can depict 'Thor' as a 'bipolar God' -- capable of 'destruction' as well as 'fertility', 'healing', and 'the protection of mankind'.
Is 'the Id' capable of 'great destruction'. Yes.
Is 'the Id' capable of 'fertility', 'healing', and 'the protection of mankind'. Well, at least partly yes....'No fertility'...and 'no mankind'...Nietzsche has certainly trumpeted the virtues of Dionysus....even while overlooking 'Dionysian Self-Destructive Dangers'....that coincidentally or non-coincidentally...Nietzsche himself fell into during the last ten years of his life... Nietzsche fell into a 'Great Big Black Dionysian Hole' which I have also equated elsewhere with the concept of 'The Nietzschean Abyss'...
So what do we have in mind here by the concept of 'The Id' which Freud may or may not have accepted. Probably he wouldn't have because the concept -- the way I envision it -- reaches into Jungian Theory and pulls some ideas back into Freudian Theory.
The Id -- as I conceive it here in DGB Quantum-Dialectic Integrative (QDI) Psychoanalysis -- in its most primitive, uncivil, unadulterated form, is basically an 'Archetype' that exists in 'The Shadows/Unconscious/Subconscious' of The Personality or Psyche. Now an 'Archetype' as I am defining it here is an 'introjection' of an archaic mythological symbol and/or God -- or in this case here - a 'conflation' (multi-dialectic integration) of four different mythological Gods -- Dionysus, Narcissus, Satan, and Thor.
What I like most about adding 'Thor' into the mix is the idea of Thor (like Zeus) being able to 'send out highly charged lightningbolts of creative and/or destructive energy'....
So 'The Id' in this context here becomes an Archetype or 'Internalized/Introjected Conflation of Four Ancient Gods -- Dionysus, Narcsissus, Satan, and Thor -- 'shooting lightning bolts of highly charged energy from deep in The Shadows of The Personality up into The Conscious Personality -- for 'The Ego', or what we will call here, 'The Central Ego' -- to deal with in whatever way it -- as in 'The Central Ego' of our 'Self' -- deem most appropriate under the particular context of the situation...
Now if we equate The Ego -- or as conceptualized here, 'The Central Ego' -- with 'The Archetype' of 'Zeus', then we have a potential 'battle' in the making -- a 'battle of The Gods' -- between 'Zeus' and 'Apollo' on the 'upper side' of the personality (which can be equated with 'the white blood cells' and/or 'immune system' and/or 'the army' of the personality or to use a different analogy altogether, 'the electrons' of the personality) being 'sent down' either quickly or slowly to meet the 'rising surge of some particular type of dangerously perceived Id Complex'....
The two opposing, dialectic -- or bipolar -- forces in the personality ('protons' vs. 'electrons', 'red blood cells' vs. 'white blood cells') are charging towards each other like The Greek and Persian Armies....meeting at some point either in 'the conscious' or 'subconscious' mind...
If the 'id complex' is stronger than the opposing 'ego defense force', then 'the id complex' can 'overwhelm' The Central Ego...and in effect...'take control of the personality'....
If the 'ego defense force' is stronger than the uprising of the id complex, then what the ego defense force will essentially do -- at least metaphorically -- is either 'destroy' and/or 'surround' and 'contain' the rising id force....very much like the 'white blood cells' of the body would either destroy, eject, and/or surround and contain any 'perceived foreign invader' caught within the confines of the body...
It is relative to this idea of 'immune system containment' or 'ego defense containment' that I derive the concept of 'The Id Vault'.
'The ID' itself -- which can be used partly as an acronym for 'Impulsive Desire', 'Intense Drive', 'Inner Demand'... -- can be viewed as a primitive, uncivil, hedonistic, narcissistic, sometimes nasty...'ego-state of the subconscious' where 'driving forces of life and death energy are shot up into the conscious personality to somehow be handled (or not handled) by the accepting or rejecting forces of 'The Central Ego' in conjunction with the more or less righeous, stringent forces of 'The Apollonian Superego'....
Now in contrast, 'The ID Vault' is a 'place of ego defense' where the 'white blood cell' forces of the ego have 'surrounded' and 'contained' the upwards rising 'red blood cell' energy of some type of 'ID Complex'....and 'institutionalized' this ID Complex if you will -- brought it under the 'organized and harnessed control of the ego'....If the 'ego defenders' 'fall asleep on the job' or 'get drunk and incapcitated'....then the ID Vault becomes undefended...and 'The Id Complex' slips out of The Id Vault....enters and/or becomes 'alive and strong' in the conscious personality....and can wreak havoc or even 'take control' of The Central Ego...In this regard, our 'Alter-Ego' is likely to 'come alive' in our personality...
Now for some 'biblical' mythology, metaphors, and interpretations...
The Id can be equated to the combined forces of Dionysus-Narcissus-Satan-Thor....with 'Hell being the home of The Id in The Subconscious Shadows of The Personality'...
The Righteous, Apollonian Ego can be equated to an Archetype of an integrative combination of 'God or Zeus with Apollo'...and The Central Ego can be equated to The Archetype of 'Jesus Christ', the mediator and potential healer of 'alienated, estranged, ex-communicated Gods, Archetypes, and energies in the Personality... Zeus, Apollo, and God all are housed in 'idealized Heaven'...
Satan is 'the estranged, alienated, ex-communicated angel of God' -- banished from Heaven, and now abiding in 'Hell' -- and becomes a part of 'The Fearsome Foursome': Dionysus, Narcissus, Satan, and Thor.
The 'fight for control of the mind and body becomes the mythological fight between God and Satan, between good and evil, with Jesus Christ -- the potentially healing mediator -- acting as 'therapist' between 'God' and 'Satan' as they strive or don't strive to become more harmonious, balanced, workable 'team members' again integrating 'the subconscious desires and fantasies' of the id (from 'Hell in the personality') with the 'idealistic, righteous ethics' of the superego (from 'Heaven in the personality').
Mythologically speaking, 'neurosis' can be defined and/or described as the 'neurotic conflict' set up by 'the alienated dissociation and estrangement' of Zeus, Apollo, and God from 'Heaven' -- at war with Dionysus, Narcissus, Satan, and Thor....residing in 'The Underground Furnace of The Personality as metaphorically depicted by 'Hell' -- with the Id (containing potential components of 'Satan' as well as Dionysus, Narcissus, and Thor), constituting the driving force, the driving foursome, the driving conflation of four Gods and/or Archetypes -- from Hell...
In this manner, 'the myth' of 'God and Satan' becomes a parable of internal conflict and neurosis in the personality...
Turning to the realm of metaphorical biology, a 'neurotic conflict' and/or a 'neurotic disorder' can be likened to an 'auto-immune conflict and/or disorder'. The principle is basically the same. And the mind-body is looking for -- fighting for -- some 'workable state of homeostatic (dialectic, democratic) balance.
Let's leave this essay here. We have covered enough material for today.
-- dgb, June 25th, 2011
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- and 'Quantum-Dialectic-Integrative Psychoanalysis'...
-- Are/Is Still in Process...
