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There are a number of different senses in which we live in 'parallel universes'.
One, is in the 'mind-body' continuum or spectrum where 'physicists' may use one set of symbols (words, terms, language) to describe what they have learned about 'physical events' that happen in the world, 'biologists' may use another set of symbols (words, terms, language) to describe what they have learned about 'biological events' that happen in the world, 'chemists' may use still another set of symbols (words, terms, language) to describe what they have learned about the 'chemical events' that happen in the world, and finally, the 'psychologist' may use still another set of symbols (words, terms, language) to describe what they have learned about the 'psychological (cognitive-emotional-behavioral) events' that happen in the world.
Every 'realm of study' constitutes a 'reduced (more manageable) part' of the 'world-as-a-whole' under 'epistemological and/or evaluative' investigation.
All 'reduced or reductionistic realms -- or worlds -- of study' (or at least the 'phenomena' they are supposed to represent) interact with each other in a continual flow of 'synthesized energy' that stimulates the growth of even more reduced, specialized areas of study such as 'bio-chemistry', bio-physics', and 'bio-psychology'.
The realm of 'multi-interactive-negotiative-dialectics' (for example, biology, chemistry, physics, psychology, philosophy, politics, and socio-economics all dialectically interacting and integrating together) can be viewed as a 'paradigm' in itself that investigates how all of these different factors might affect one particular, specialized area of study -- say, in this case, the study of man's psychology.
Freud was a 'bio-psychologist' in that he was constantly re-working different bio-psychological theories to try to best show how biology, personal experience, and psychology intertwined with each other to form the 'finished product' of man's adult personality.
Thus, every realm of study constitutes a 'box or paradigm of learning and/or teaching', and oftentimes, we need to 'step outside of one box or paradigm of learning/teaching' -- and into another -- in order to start learning about a 'new realm of the world-as-a-whole', and/or alternatively, as a student of 'Multi-Interactive-Negotiative-Dialectics (MIND), where all the different realms of study that are judged to 'dialectically interact' with each other are studied together inside the same MIND paradigm.
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After Freud and Klein, Bion is possibly the third great contributor to the understanding of the psychology of the working mind. If, following Fairbairn, we consider Freud's approach as a "psychology of impulses," we could consider Klein's as a "psychology of affects" and Bion's as a "psychology of intuition." However, there are not three different psychologies, for each one has added to the predecessor.
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Now I don't know much about 'Bion's paradigm of the mind', and I would call Klein's approach not only the 'psychology of affects' but also the psychology of 'internal and external object relations'. Furthermore, if Klein can be called 'The Queen of Object Relations' -- a title I believe she rightly deserves, then Fairbairn deserves to be called 'The Prince of Object Relations' -- for significantly advancing the study of 'internal and external object relations' beyond Klein's work, and I believe Kohut deserves to be called 'The Prince of Narcissism'.
All of these different Psychoanalytic theorists listed above have developed different 'sub-paradigms' of the study of Psychoanalysis, and like the author cited above, I believe that each of these different theorists has added to the work of their predecessors -- with the need for one special integrative theorist to put parts of all these individual sub-paradigms into one all-encompassing, over-arching Psychoanalytic Paradigm.
And lest we forget, which Psychoanalysis usually does -- I call this 'selective amnesia' -- Freud was not only 'The King of Impulse Psychology' but he was also 'The King of Traumacy Psychology'.
Indeed, Freud can easily be called 'The King of Traumacy Theory, Seduction Theory, Repression Theory, Transference Theory, Dream Theory, Instinctual Impulse Theory, Narcissistic Theory, Ego-Defense Theory, Death Instinct Theory, and Personality Theory'.
Now there is one theory listed here that I largely stay away from -- i.e., 'Repression' Theory, which I prefer to call 'Dissociation Theory' and/or 'Self-Estrangement (Self-Alienation, and/or Schizoid) Theory'. The concept of 'repression' is a very elusive and problematic concept and one that I have found is not fundamental to 'the etiology of neurosis and/or psychopathology'.
There is also a second theory listed above, 'Death Instinct' Theory, which I would prefer to call 'Death Impulse' Theory and modify it significantly from the way that Freud presented it. I will make my own presentation in this regard at a different time.
Not listed above with most of these famous figures being largely ignored and/or denied (because they eventually left Psychoanalysis) within the 'over-arching paradigm of Psychoanalysis' is the work of Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, Wilhelm Reik, Karl Abraham (remained loyal to Freud), Otto Rank, Wilhelm Stekel, Sandor Ferenczi, Erich Fromm, Karen Horney, Fritz Perls, Eric Berne, Arthur Janov (Primal Therapy -- a return to Freud's 'Traumacy Theory'), Alfred Korzybski, S.I. Hayakawa, Albert Ellis, Carl Rogers, Rollo May, Maxwell Maltz, Nathaniel Branden, Jeffrey Masson, and a whole host of others who didn't jump to the top of my mind in the quick runoff of this list....
Bion and Lacan we will have to save until a later date when I can better familiarize myself with their respective work although I can already see elements of Bion's work fitting within the paradigm of my own work (minus his rather obscure, technical, confusing terminology -- Lacan probably only gets worse...)
Before I return to all these great psychologists and the massive integration of different aspects of their respective theoretical paradigms, let's turn first to the realm of biology for a moment -- another paradigm -- and one of many possible perceived 'parallel universes', as in the parallel -- and integrated -- universes of the mind and body.
Firstly, both the mind and the body have what might be called an 'open' and 'closed' door policy. To the first, we give the psychoanalytic name 'oral receptive' (attitude and/or personality) and to the latter we give the name 'anal rejecting' or 'anal schizoid' (attitude and/or personality).
The first attitude allows for the 'open intake of essential nutrition'; whereas the latter aims to 'close down the perceived possibility and/or likelihood of toxic intake'. In the parallel universes that we are talking about here, the first allows for the intake of physical, biological, and/or bio-chemical nutrition in our 'bio-chemical-physical universe' and 'psychological-cognitive-emotional nutrition' in our psychological universe; whereas the latter closes down the perceived possible and/or probable intake of either 'bio-chemical-physical toxins' on the one hand and/or 'psychological-cognitive-emotional toxins' on the other hand.
The first type of attitude -- the oral-receptive attitude -- ensures the ongoing 'internal nutritive sustenance, survival, and ideally optimal flourishing of the mind and body'; whereas the second attitude -- the anal-rejecting or anal-schizoid attitude -- is designed to defend the mind and/or body against external and/or internal 'toxic invaders'.
In our bio-chemical-physical internal world, we have 'red blood cells' to carry our 'necessary nutrients' to all the different cells of the body to ensure the ongoing survival, functioning, growing, and flourishing state of these cells. At the same time, we have 'white blood cells' and other 'body defenders' -- both internal and external, macroscopic and microscopic -- designed in different ways to also help ensure the ongoing safety, survival, functioning, growing, and flourishing of our body.
In the parallel universe of our 'mind' -- the 'software component' if you will of our 'computer-mind-brain' with our brain functioning as the 'hardware enclosure that contains our software' -- the role of an 'oral-receptive' attitude in conjunction with a polar opposite 'anal rejecting' attitude (like the 'hot' and 'cold' water taps) help to provide a 'homeostatic-dialectic balance' between 'taking in the right things' and 'keeping out the wrong things'. Or alternatively, 'releasing the right things' and 'restraining the wrong things'.
This 'oral-receptive' vs. 'anal-rejecting' system does not work perfectly -- indeed, it can become 'pathologically malfunctioning' -- the 'oral receptive attitude and/or personality' can become 'too oral receptive' and/or the 'anal-rejecting/schizoid attitude and/or personality can become too 'anal-rejecting/schizoid' in which case we may either need to see a 'doctor' relative to 'fixing our bio-chemical-physical world' and/or alternatively, we may need to see a 'psychotherapist' and/or 'conduct successful self-psychotherapy' in the case of 'fixing our psycho-cognitive-emotional-behavioral world'.
In either case, we are looking at a 're-alignment of our 'oral intake-anal expulsion homeostatic-dialectic system' to get back to a better 'working balance between the two parts of the same bipolar system.
Too much 'yang' (masculine energy) in our system and we add some 'yin' (feminine energy). Too much 'yin' (feminine energy) in our system and we add some 'yang' (masculine energy).
It is a 'biological truth' that both sexes have different degrees of 'testosterone' and 'estrogen' within their respective bodies (as well as different individual degrees as well); and the same can be said of 'the parallel universe of our mind' which also can be viewed as comprising different degrees of 'masculine' (yang) and 'feminine' energy (yin)'.
Lao tse's ancient Chinese philosophy of 'yin' and 'yang' works as well today as it did some 2500 years ago, and, to my limited knowledge of today's Chinese medicine and healing, it is still used to a significant degree. Some of the pragamatic aspects of this type of thinking are common sense obvious: if the body is too 'hot and inflamed, demonstrating a high temperature' (too much 'yang') -- you cool it down with 'cool cloths' or 'ice' (more yin). That was more 'yin' -- not 'gin'.
Now before I get into trouble with today's feminists in regards to what constitutes 'masculine energy' vs. 'feminine energy', I will leave this subject area and progress elsewhere. Let me finish here by adding -- as I have argued in other essays -- that there are literally 'hundreds' if not 'thousands' of 'bipolar functions' in the parallel and integrative universes of the mind and body. Two opposite bipolarities aim for 'balanced, integrative functioning somewhere in the middle with the flexibility of moving to either extreme in extreme circumstances. This is how our Creator -- with 'Intelligent Design' -- created the universe, the world, and us. And I am only trying to 'as accurately as possible represent the miracle of Creation and Evolution'...no matter how it came about.
What we call today 'bipolar disorder' (which used to be called 'manic-depression') is only one such example of literally hundreds or even thousands of others of which I have given you two: 1. 'Oral-Anal Bipolar Disorder'; and 2. 'Yin-Yang (Passive-Aggressive) Bipolar Disorder'. Add these two to the third standard psychiatric one: 3. 'Manic-Depression Bipolar Disorder'. And I could probably list off about 10 or 20 more off the top of my head of which I will share with you ten altogether: 4. 'Liberal-Conservative Bipolar Disorder'; 5. 'Apollonian-Dionysian Bipolar Disorder'; 6. 'Narcissistic-Altruistic Bipolar Disorder'; 7. 'Topdog-Underdog (Superego-Underego) Bipolar Disorder'; 8. 'Inferiority-Superiority Bipolar Disorder'; 9. 'Righteous-Rebellious Bipolar Disorder'; 10. 'Cognitive-Emotional Bipolar Disorder'....
Within our biological world, our body has a multitude of different 'organs' and 'sub-organs' (each with its own set of bipolar functions) that are designed to carry out particular functions that ensure our ongoing survival and optimal flourishing both individually, and as a species.
These individual organs and sub-organs are designed to 'function in cohesion with the other organs of the body for the good of the whole body -- i.e., 'one for all, and all for one', like 'The Three Muskateers'.
Generally speaking, the wholistic goal of all the different organs and sub-organs working together, in cohesion with each other, is to ensure the ongoing safety, survival, and flourishing of the organism, again, both individually and collectively as a species.
Particularly relevant in this regard, is the 'transportation of nutrients to all the individual organs and cells of the body'. Too many 'dead cells' -- unreplaced -- and we're dead! The body can't function -- can't survive and flourish -- without living organs and cells doing their respective duties towards the 'good of the whole', i.e., towards the 'growth and evolution' of the body (organism, individual person), and on a species level, towards the good of the growth and evolution of the species.
Now, on a 'body' level, the body -- and all its individual parts -- generally works 'harmoniously towards the good of the whole'. Not always, but usually, as long as we are supplying our body with 'the right ingredients' that it needs in order to function properly.
However, once we get into the respective realms of our 'psychological' and -- let's lump all these other realms together -- our 'socio-economic-legal-political realms' -- it is much more common for 'intra-psychic' and 'inter-social' conflict to run rampant to any and all extreme(s).
Welcome to the world of human psychology.
== dgb, Aug. 27th, 2011,
However, once we get into the respective realms of our 'psychological' and -- let's lump all these other realms together -- our 'socio-economic-legal-political realms' -- it is much more common for 'intra-psychic' and 'inter-social' conflict to run rampant to any and all extreme(s).
Welcome to the world of human psychology.
== dgb, Aug. 27th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain
