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Through the last 10 or 20 essays, I have been trying to re-work a new, 21st century, expanded definition of Freud's classic concept -- 'the Id'.
The first 'Classical' definition of 'the id' is pretty simple -- just think 'instinctual desire' or 'instinctual drive', or even 'impulsive drive' which I prefer -- eliminating the semanticily problematic word 'instinctual'....In this sense of the concept of 'the id', the id can be viewed as that place or 'resevoir' or 'compartment' in the personality that carries and, in harmony and/or conflict with 'the ego', 'releases', in part or in full or not at all, in disguise or in blatant transparency, our mind-body's instinctual/impulsive desires/drives as they become more and more 'pressing' and 'figural' in our subconsicious, preconscious, and/or conscious personality.
The second definition of 'the id' is more 'existential' in its meaning and builds partly around the first definition, and partly outside of the first definition. It is more connected to what 'the id' translates to in English -- which is 'the it', or 'the It'.
This meaning of the concept of 'the id' -- or 'the it' -- is more connected to Freud's idea of 'repression' -- or 'dissociation' or 'suppression' or 'disavowal' or 'projection' or 'displacement' or 'sublimation' or a hundred other concepts that pertain basically to the idea of the id's 'estrangement and disconnection' from the generally more 'civilized' thoughts, feelings, wishes, and motivations of the generally more 'socially sensitve' ego.
We have a 'Stranger' that often walks in our own midst, and The Stranger is comprised of the many, often shocking (even to ourselves, let alone others) 'visicitudes' and 'permutations' of our own Id Formations and Complexes.
The Id takes the place in Classic Freudian terminology of what has been also called 'the alter ego' in some other conceptual formulations, perhaps most closely associated with the work of Pierre Janet who some have argued established the basic foundations of Psychoanalysis just before Freud did.
Both Freud and Janet were influenced by the 'traumatic/hypnotic' work of Charcot. Freud set himself up as a 'conceptual competitor' to Janet in some of his earliest publications such as 'The Neuro-Psychoses of Defense'. There respective early work in the early 1890s was a little different -- and a lot the same, although Freud would not admit this.
Quite frankly, I prefer Janet's two concepts of 'subconscious' and 'dissociation' to Freud's similar but different concepts of 'unconscious' and 'repression'. Janet's concepts, in my opinion, are less abstract, less confusing, less distortable, less exploitable...although even they can cause significant semantic confusion.
When comparing and contrasting the different concepts used by different theorists it is imperative -- abeit often confusing and difficult -- to figure out to what extent these different words and/or concepts are referring to the same type of underlying 'observed and/or interpreted clinical phenomenon' as opposed to something partly different -- or even entirely different.
For example, what Freud referred to as 'conscious' memories or sometimes 'screen' memories can also be referred to as 'preconscious' memories (in the Freudian sense) or even 'subconscious' memories in the sense that they generally lay 'beneath the threshold of usual day to day consciousness' but at the same time are usually 'retrievable' in a matter of minutes given the right 'associations'.
In contrast, what Freud referred to as 'unconscious' memories (and/or 'fantasies'), or more particularly, 'repressed' memories and/or fantasies are perceived -- at least by Freud and Psychoanalysis -- to be 'deeply buried', 'extremely buried' within the deepest realm of the 'subconscious' and/or 'unconcious' with either 'hypnosis' and/or 'multiple free associations', usually conducted by an experienced therapist, required to 'unlock' these extremely deeply buried memories and/or fantasies. However, there have been books written on people -- suddenly through one or more particular associations -- having a 'flashback', or a series of flashbacks, to what had previously been entirely 'unconcious and/or repressed memories' usually of an extremely 'traumatic, childhood nature' involving some sort of childhood physical and/or sexual abuse. This is where Freud started his career leading up to May 4th, 1896 (a letter he wrote to Fliess) in which Freud began to 'retract' his 'traumacy' and 'sexual traumacy' theories in favor of the beginning of his 'id (instinctual desire/drive) theory that was to become the backbone of 'Classical' Psychoanalysis. His previous traumacy/seduction theory is usually referred to as 'Pre-Classical' Psychoanalytic Theory.
And I continue to seek to bridge the gap between the two.
In this regard, I seek to basically knock down the metaphorical 'Berlin Wall' in Classical Psychoanalysis that started to be constructed by Freud himself on that fateful day of May 4th, 1896, and as hard as Dr. Jeffrey Masson, the former, very brief, Projects Director of The Freud Archive, tried in the early 1980s to smash this wall down himself -- or perhaps more appropriately and particularly, tried to rhetorically demonstrate to The Psychoanalytic Establishement, and indeed, to the whole world that the 'Pre-Classical' Psychoanalysis that Freud created before May 4th, 1896 was much better than the 'Classical' Psychoanalysis he created after May 4th, 1896 -- still, Masson was largely unsucccessful, at least within the confines of Psychoanlaysis -- and the metaphorical 'Berlin Wall' that segregated 'Pre-Classical' (pre-May 4th, 1896) Psychoanalysis from 'Classical' (post-May 4th, 1896) Psychoanalysis remained standing, just like 'the real Berlin Wall' remained standing between East and West Berlin between 1961 and 1989.
The 'Psychoanalytic Berlin Wall' has been standing a lot longer -- from May 4th, 1896 to the present writing of this essay (Aug. 20th, 2011) -- and the 'twin, polar siblings', 'Traumacy-(Seduction)-Reality' Theory and 'Impulsive Drive-Fantasy' Theory are still crying to re-unite with each other, just like East and West German family members were crying to re-unite with each other, until they actually did in November 1989. There is nothing more heart-inspiring than an unexpected joyous reunion after years (and some time many, many years) of heart-wrenching separation.
Freudian Reality-Traumacy Theory and Impulse-Fantasy Theory are like opposite sides of the same coin -- or like 'Janus', one side facing the past, and one side facing the future (with both meeting in the present).
It just takes the right (orthodox or unorthodox, accredited or not accredited) Psychoanalytic theorist to explain how this all comes together like East and West Berlin/Germany finally did in 1989. In the case of the psychoanalytic theorizing -- that's me -- 'the post-Hegelian, cosmic integrationist'.
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Berlin Wall
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the chess opening variation, see Berlin Defence.
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The Berlin Wall was officially referred to as the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart" (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall) by GDR authorities, implying that neighbouring West Germany had not been fully de-Nazified.[2] The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame"—a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt—while condemning the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB) that demarcated the border between East and West Germany, both borders came to symbolize the "Iron Curtain" that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.
Before the Wall's erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, many by crossing over the border from East Berlin into West Berlin, from where they could then travel to West Germany and other Western European countries. Between 1961 and 1989, the wall prevented almost all such emigration.[3] During this period, around 5,000 people attempted to escape over the wall, with estimates of the resulting death toll varying between 100 and 200.
In 1989, a radical series of political changes occurred in the Eastern Bloc, associated with the liberalization of the Eastern Bloc's authoritarian systems and the erosion of political power in the pro-Soviet governments in nearby Poland and Hungary. After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, a euphoric public and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the wall; the governments later used industrial equipment to remove most of the rest. The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, which was formally concluded on 3 October 1990.
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'Pre-Psychoanalysis' -- meet 'Classical' Psychoanalyst, your long estranged son, and give each other a hug...
Janet and Freud -- both taught by Charcot -- like two sibling rivals -- or at least Freud was -- competing for top billing, both creating their own particular 'brand' of 'Psychoanalysis' originally from two slightly different versions of 'traumacy theory' (1890-1896), before Freud went on to start creating his polar opposite 'instinct-fantasy' theory after the spring of 1896.
Personally, I vote for Bertha Pappenheim (Anna O.) and Joseph Breuer as the original two 'co-founders' of Psychoanalysis (1880-1882). All the main ingredients were established in what is historically viewed as the first 'Psychoanalysis' (that Freud didn't participate -- he only heard about it years later). Breuer used hypnosis -- or watched Anna O. put herself into her own 'hypnotic trance' (Breuer would call this a 'hypnoid state' which would theoretically fall by the wayside.) Using the hypnotic trance, Breuer would trace 'hysterical symptoms' back to their 'initial causal memories' (I call these 'transference memories'.) Through playing out the 'talking cure' and 'abreaction' or 'emotional catharsis', working together, Anna O. and Breuer would 'rid Anna O. of her targeted hysterical symptom'....and they would move on to the next symptom....
The only problem was that Anna O. could create 'new' hysterical symptoms faster than Breuer and Anna O. working together could rid herself of the old ones. Perhaps Anna O. became a little too attached to her therapist ('transference love') which seemed to be validated when Anna O. 'hallucinated' that she was having his baby' (at which point Breuer exited Stage Right, presumably to protect his marriage. His wife was -- I don't know whether I read this somewhere or whether I am surmising it -- complaining that her husband was always 'working'. Until the 'red light' finally went on, Breuer, I guess was persistently trying to eliminate Anna O's 'symptoms'...Enough..).
Somewhere between Charcot, Breuer, and Anna O. on the one hand (the early 1880s) and Janet and Freud on the other hand (the early 1890s), came Robert Louis Stevenson, author of 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde', written in 1885, first published in 1886. From this book -- and probably before -- came the idea of 'ego' and 'alter ego'. Janet would follow up on this idea. Freud just talked about 'splits between conscious states of mind and unconscious states of mind' -- with the 'unconscious state of mind being purposely 'repressed' from 'the conscious ego'. It wasn't until 1923 -- a full 30 years later than when Freud wrote 'The Neuro-Psychoses of Defence' in 1893 -- that Freud created the concept of 'The Id' which has some pretty strong resemblances to Robert Louis Stevenson's (and everyone else's) idea of 'the alter-ego'.
This more ore less begs the question: Is 'the id' the same basic concept as the 'alter-ego'.
It would certainly be very easy to argue that 'Mr Hyde' was not only an 'alter ego' of Dr Jekyll's but also an 'id formation involving an evil manifestation of the death or destructive instinct'.
Unfortunately, therapeutically and clinically speaking, this late Freudian idea of 'the death instinct' doesn't take us anywhere -- unless you connect it with the 'traumacy theory'.
If you connect a person's particular destructive impulses with a particular traumatic memory, then you have the person 'play out the traumatic meory in its fullest possible emotional detail (abreaction/catharsis), then at this point you may start to be able to work through the person's 'toxic poisons' connected to this memory -- and the 'here and now destructive impulses' that this memory (or collection of memories) has been feeding for X number of years -- then at this point you have something that you can clinically work with.
This is not rocket science. Freud knew this in 1893. He learned it from Breuer and Charcot and Janet and Bernheim....But for reasons that I have speculated on elsewhere, Freud chose to 'disown' this knowledge (probably for a combination of pragmatic, political, professional, and economic reasons) -- particularly his 'Seduction (Childhood Sexual Abuse) Theory' that was very politically and professionally unpopular...Freud was under professional and economic duress on May 4th, 1896, when he started the process of 'abandoning' his infamous 'Seduction Theory'.
There were certain ideas that never entered Freud's consciousness at all buth which were picked up in pieces by other theorists. The idea of 'transference memories' never entered Freud's -- or any other psychoanalyst's consciousness except in part by ex-psychoanalysts such as Alfred Adler ('lifestyle memories') and Arthur Janov ('The Primal Scream'). Likewise, the idea of 'conscious or preconscious memories representing transference memories that in turn could be connected to 'repetition compulsions' and 'neurotic symptoms' is something that I pulled out of Adlerian Psychology and 'introjected' into Psychoanalysis.
My concept of 'The Id Vault' as representing a combination of 'restrained id impulses' and 'ego defenses' (that 'restrain' the id impulses) is an extension of Freud's idea of 'bound' and 'unbound' id energy.
Likewise, an equally strong argument can be made for the clinical functional importance of conceptualizing a 'traumacy vault' which represents a combination of 'traumacy feelings' and related 'compensations, defenses, and impulses'...
Placed together, we might want to seriously consider the concept of a 'Shadow-Traumacy-Id (STI) Vault' and/or a 'Shadow-Traumacy-Id Complex' (or a 'Shadow-Id' or a 'Traumacy-Id' Complex) or a 'Transference Repetition Compulsion Complex'....
Where traumacy came from, the id follows...
And the 'ego-defensive system' follows the 'traumatized and traumatizing id'....
A 'Shadow-Traumacy-Id Complex' defended against by the ego is like an 'auto-immune disease'. The mind (or ego and/or rejecting superego) is attacking another portion of the mind (a Shadow-Traumacy-Id Formation or Complex).
Either the rejecting ego and/or superego has to be metaphorically given a 'valium' -- note, I said metaphorically.
And/or the 'toxic, destructive STI Complex' needs to be 'detoxified' and more creatively integrated into the rest of the personality.
Otherwise, the one part of our personality will keep 'eating, sabotaging, and destroying' the other part of our personality, and/or visa versa.
That is enough for tonight....
-- dgb, Aug. 20th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain
