New ending..... Sept. 27th, 2011...
One of Freud's perspectives that radically changed over his long psychological career spanning between about 1890 and 1939 -- almost 50 years -- was his perspective on the 'content' of the unconscious.
First, the unconscious contained 'traumatically repressed' material (1893-1895, 'the traumacy theory'); then it contained 'sexually traumatic repressed' material (1896, 'the seduction theory'); then it contained 'repressed sexual drive' material (1897-1939, 'childhood sexuality', 'the psycho-sexual stages of development', the 'Oedipal' (and 'Electra') Complex, 'the psychopathology of every day life'...).
In 1920, Freud added the factor of 'aggression' into the equation in the form of 'the death instinct' setting up a dualistic interplay between the 'life and death instinct' where before it had been between 'Eros' (the sexual instinct) and 'self-preservation' (ego-defense).
In 1923, Freud created the concept of 'the id' (the 'container' of both the life and death instincts) in contrast to the 'ego' and 'superego' -- both normally defenders of 'civil behavior' and 'self-preservation, although the usual stereotyped conflict set up between 'the ego' and 'the id' is not entirely clearcut because 'the ego instincts' have to be a derrivative of 'the life instincts' which means that the ego has to 'pull its own energy' that it uses to 'fight' or at least 'restrain' the id -- from the id itself. That creates an area of unclarity and confusion unless we simply let this seeming contradiction slide, which I am content to do so.
However, this does suggest that the id, as of Freud's only 1923 formulation, is self-contradictory or significantly in conflict with itself -- both between the life and death instincts, and also between the sexual and self-preservative instincts of which 'the self-preservative instincts' are usually associated with the ego and superego, which in turn create our world of 'ethics, morality, social conscience and guilt' -- which is not the same thing as what we usually mean by 'instinctual impulse' which we have come to associate with 'the id' -- not ethics, morality, social conscience, and guilt. Thus, what before 1923 -- sex vs. self-preservation were usually distinguished by the unconscious vs. the conscious, now after 1923, so such distinction existed any longer. Which is to say, in essence, that all life and death energy -- including what Freud called 'the ego instincts' (i.e., self-preservation) had to, or have to, by this conceptualization, come originally from the id.
To be sure, it is virtually impossible to find complete and perfect 'logical inconsistency' in any philosophical and/or psychological system or paradigm, so as with any theorist, philosopher, psychologist, and/or politician, it is just a matter of time and energy before the 'deconstructionists' find the 'weaknesses, liabilities, and inconsistencies' in Freud's Classical Psychoanalytic System -- as with any other psychological, philosophical, and/or political system.
...........................................................................................................
'Logical inconsistency -- and by extension, hypocrisy -- is the norm in man, not the exception, if not in theory, then in deed. Probably, this is mainly because we all have an "id"!' -- dgb.
.............................................................................................................
So here is a run of different inconsistencies in Freud's theorizing. Firstly, Freud complained about both Jung and Adler 'desexualizing' his theory. In particular, with Jung, Freud accused Jung of desexualizing Freud's concept of 'libido' -- turning it into a more generalized 'life energy' as opposed to Freud's more specifically intended 'sexual energy'.
Now, on the other hand, by the time Freud got to 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle' in 1920, and then attempted to integrate 'BPP' with 'The Ego and The Id' in 1923, Freud was basically including 'all forms of human energy and instincts within the confines of the id' because what else is left over once you say that the id is the reservoir of 'both the life and death instincts'?
So, on the one hand, we more or less have this stereotyped view of the id as being like a 'seething caldron of sexual desire and drive' and yet we can see by Freud's definition above that Freud included 'all sexual and non-sexual desires, drives, impulses, instincts' within the confines of the id.
That means -- to be consistent -- both the ego and the superego have to 'draw' their respective energies -- 'the ego instincts' and 'the instincts for self-preservation' -- from the confines of the id. Furthermore -- to be consistent again -- the id does not always follow 'the pleasure principle' like Freud said it did, but rather, at different times due to numerous different interacting factors, the id may choose to abide by 'the pain principle' in order to desire to act out its impulses of 'death, destruction, aggression, and/or violence'. Freud obviously didn't see this inconsistency.
Let's keep going. Obviously, the id cannot logically be defined as both 'the reservoir of life and death instincts' and 'the life and death instincts and energies themselves' -- this too would be inconsistent. We don't define 'coffee' and a 'coffee cup' by the same name -- rather, we use two different names to distinguish the difference between whether we are talking about 'the coffee' or 'the coffee cup'. We need to do the same thing regarding the id -- we can't logically define the id as both 'the instinctual life and death energies' and 'the caldron or reservoir of these life and death instincts' at the same time. Here is the problem:
When Freud starts talking about 'repression' and the 'repression of particular sexual instincts' within 'the confines of the id', then at that point, we are no longer talking about a 'caldron' or a 'reservoir' but rather, we are talking about a 'jail or locked vault within the unconscious'. And since the id is 'not going to lock itself up -- this is the last thing that it wants to do -- therefore, a 'repression or suppression jail' or the metaphor of 'the locked vault' has to involve the work of 'ego defenders' interested in 'civil behavior', 'ethics', and 'self-preservation'.
Thus, we need to distinguish between 'the id' and 'the id vault' -- just as we need to distinguish between 'unbound-free' id energy and 'bound' or 'restrained' or 'vaulted' id energy which is id energy that is being 'defended against' by the ego.
Finally, after the spring of 1896 -- if fully before -- Freud never talked about 'repressed or suppressed or compensatory, or diverted, or perverted, or pathologized traumacy energy'. By 1923, this perspective was simply no longer a part of Freud's perspective relative to how he viewed the unconcious -- even though up to the spring of 1896, it essentially dominated the way that Freud viewed the interaction between the ego and the (unacceptable, repressed) unconscious.
Thus, in effect, relative to Freud's definition of 'the id', there is inconsistency in this very definition of the id: on the one hand, the id is supposed to contain 'all life and death instincts'; but on the other hand, there is no mention of 'the traumacy factor' anymore even though this is where what Freud calls 'the death instinct' is largely born from; i.e., human traumacy and suffering.
Freud passed over this argument in 1920 (in 'BPP), in favor of his 'Dust Thou Art, and Unto Dust Shalt Thou Return' argument -- taken from the book of Genesis, even though Freud, like Marx, was entirely 'anti-religious' (except to the extent that Freud was subconsciously influenced by his mother in this regard). 'Religion was the opium of the masses' was Freud's standard view against religion...
However, not here...
To understand where Freud's conception of 'the death instinct' came from, we have to seek out one of Freud's early 'transference memories' relative to his mother...The memory is written up in Ernest Jones' famous and infamous biography of Freud's life:
.......................................................................................
Another memory (of Freud's) was of his mother assuring him at the age of six that we were made of earth and therefore must return to earth. When he (little Sigmund) expressed his doubts of this unwelcome statement she rubbed her hands together and showed him the dark fragments of epidermis that came there as a specimen of the earth we are made of. His astonishment was unbounded and for the first time he captured some sense of the inevitable. As he put it: "I slowly acquieced in the idea I was later to hear expressed in the words 'Thou owest nature a death.' (Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, 1953, 1981, p. 16).
..............................................................................................
Thus, Freud's 'death instinct theory' can basically be viewed as a 'completion' or 'sublimation' of one of his early transference memories built around an important encounter with his mother in which she acted like an 'astonishing magician' in front of him.
That too, would become part of Freud's lifelong 'transference longing' -- the wish to both be in the presence of an 'astonishing magician' (Charcot, Fliess, Jung)....and the wish to be one himself....
There is no one who 'astonished' the world more than Sigmund Freud did...whatever else we might think of him, Freud was one of the most 'astonishing' figures in Western history.
You see how our 'transference memories' work (Adler called them 'lifestyle' memories but Adler didn't believe in the idea of 'conflict in the personality' whereas I do).
These 'transference memories' do not have to be 'repressed' or 'unconscious' at all -- even though 'psychodynamically' -- we do not usually understand how great an influence they have on our lives.
In Freud's first conscious 'primal scene' transference memory, he busted into his parents' bedroom only to see them 'engaged in some sort of sexual behavior' that his dad definitely did not want young Siggy to see -- so he yelled at him to get out of the room, which little Siggy -- 'shocked out of his little mind by this moment' -- obediently complied to in his action but in his mind, his world was no longer 'innocent', and he would defiantly find out 'what was going on in his parents' master bedroom', even if it took him the rest of his life (which it did because that is how greatly 'transference memories' transform our view of the world and ourselves). From about age 3 or 4 onwards, Freud was aware of 'the sexual factor' in human behavior....it became his number one 'paradigm' and 'focus of fixed, sublimated interest'.
What other theorists have called Freud's 'pansexualism' can also be viewed as 'the projective transference pair of glasses' that Freud had been wearing since he was about 3 or 4 years old...
In short, much of the 'foundational infrastructure' upon which Classical Psychoanalysis was built could -- and still can be -- interpreted from a handful of Freud's 'non-repressed' conscious early 'transference memories', a few more of which we haven't got to yet.
Until then, or the next subject of interest,
Have a great week!
-- dgb, Monday, September 26th, 2011
