Re-worked...re-written....November 26th, 2011...
1.1: My Academic History, Beginning Concepts, Theories, and Paradigms -- and The Birth of 'Hegel's Hotel'
Good day!
My name is David Bain and most of the material written in my network of blogsites here has been written by me, with the exception of a blogsite that pays tribute to my dad's 21st century Canadian Romantic Poetry, which is well worth taking a look at. My father has published a book of poems through the 'normal, formal' publishing channels, Many of these poems add a very nice 'romantic' section to my work here, almost like they had been written during The German Romantic period.
I started writing 'Hegel's Hotel' in July, 2006, which amounts to about 5 and half years now. I am sure I have over a thousand essays on line now although I haven't counted. Of course, that means nothing if the quality isn't there to meet the quantity. Hegel's Hotel is a much broader extension of my Honours Thesis in Psychology, written way back in 1979. At that point, I was heavily into a combination of rational empiricism, Cognitive Therapy, Enlightenment and Romantic Philosophy, and Humanistic-Existentialism.
The work was rather 'dry', 'cognitive', and 'mechanical' -- even though it aimed to support a philosophy of man's individual freedom and 'striving for meaning and relevance' within this 'paragdigm of freedom' (or at least partial freedom). Still, this first model was 'stiff and cybernetic-machine-like' -- kind of like me as I was rather 'anal-schizoid' and 'distancing' at this point in my life, as I had just left home at this point in my life and was trying to both 'escape' and 'deal with the internal psycho-dynamics of my dad's rather volatile temper and authoritarianism' contrasted against his 'visionary self, political, and social activist, liberal, democratic spirit',
My dad was active everywhere in the community, helping political leaders, negotiating with political leaders for better sports facilities in the community, organizing leagues, running leagues...and so on....
By the time I reached university, I was 'running away from all these different types of social activism and my dad's righteous authoritarianism, preferring instead to engage in 'my own narcissistic fantasy world' -- which had been an 'escape mechanism' all my life up to this point when I needed it, which was becoming more and more predominant in my late teems -- and now, here I was at The University of Waterlook, studying psychology, which culminated in my Honours Thesis, 'Evaluation and Health', finished in 1979.
Having finished my first 'model of the human psyche', I knew I had to probe much deeper into the underlying dimensions of the human psyche -- into what I would now call 'the subconscious', as opposed to Freud's use of the term 'unconscious' which I find much more semantically confusing and problematic.
That was over 30 years ago.
My present use of the term 'subconscious' means basically 'out of awareness' -- and what is out of awareness can re-emerge back into awareness at any given point in time and place -- usually, if not always, through the process of 'association'.
Association, in this regard, can be divided into two types: 1. 'structured and directed'; and 2. 'unstructured and undirected'.
The latter type of 'unstructured, undirected type of association was pointed out in the 'melancholic reminiscences and/or cognitive-emotional meanderings' -- both 'reality' and/or 'fantasy' based -- in 'the first recognized client of Psychoanalysis' -- referred to in the literature as 'Anna O.' -- and her 'doctor/therapist' between 1880 and 1882 was Joseph Breuer -- who would later hook up with, and recite this case, to the one and only Sigmund Freud. This latter type of unstructured, undirected form of association became known in Psychoanalysis and labelled by Freud as 'free association' as opposed to the other type of more 'directed association'.
That was over 30 years ago....and my life didn't go quite as planned...
In a paraphrasing of a popular aphorism.....
'Life, for many of us, is what happens to us -- and what we do -- while we are busy making other plans.
That frist model I made of the human psyche -- very rational-empirical and Enlightenment oriented in its paradigm -- I now view as largely a model of 'Central Ego Functioning and Dysfunctioning'. At some point down the road here, I will 're-work and dialectically update' that 1979 model.
In 1980-81, I became involved in The Adlerian Institute of Ontario -- though 'OISE' (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education) and The Adlerian Institute in Chicago -- and started a part-time Masters Degree Program there.
However, after two years, I ran out of money and motivation -- I had already engaged and disengaged the 'freedoms' and 'unfreedoms' of 4 years of university life. I was partly 'motivationally burnt out' with 'academic studies. And The Gestalt Institute of Toronto on Cecil Street was capturing much more of my attention and energy down a few block from OISE at St. George and Bloor Street. At the Adlerian Institute, we sat at desks like in University; at The Gestalt Institute, we sat on cushions on the floor -- more like out of the Yorkville 60s, and like my 'more cozy group therapy workshops' at The University of Waterloo.
Adlerian Psychology fed well into my 'Cogntive Therapy' approach to psychotherapy that I had advanced through most my University Studies and Honours Thesis. But it also fed well into my 'intellectual defense mechanisms and emotional avoidances' which I partly wanted to get away from, and thus, my attraction to Gestalt Therapy which 'heightened my anxieity levels' but also my 'excitement levels' as I engaged in all types of different Gestalt Workshops, off and on, through the 1980s. Within these different Gestalt Workshop settings, I was constantly 'in contact with', and/or 'avoiding' my 'approach-avoidance conflict with 'emotional and behavioral risk-taking'. Probably, I did more avoiding...as I was still very 'anal-schizoid', 'socially phobic', and 'distancing'... I was a scared client....
Influenced by both The Adlerian Institute and by The Gestalt Institute -- the first, working inside a conceptual and theoretical paradigm of 'unity in the personality'; while the second operating on the basis of a more Freudian based 'conflict in the personality' model -- I was captured by the intellectual challenge of trying to sort out the reasons for the seemingly paradoxical different models of the psyche, and more importantly, how to integrarte them into one model, which was further complicated when I first started seriously studying Psychoanalysis, mainly of the 'Object Relations' variety at this point in time during the early and mid 1980s. The net result of all my integrative thinking, I called 'GAP' Psychology -- as in 'Gestalt-Adlerian-Psychoanalytic' Psychology. Furthermore, I was investigating 'the gaps' between the different theories, and 'the gaps' in all of our 'existential lives'....
I had moved one step closer to the birth of 'Hegel's Hotel', and somewhere in that time period, I started to read a little Carl Jung as well...another 'dialectic psychologist' using a 'conflict model' of the personality in a similar vein as Freud, Perls, and all the 'Object Relationists'....as well as Eric Berne and his 'Transactional Analysis'...
Gestalt Therapy didn't finish up the way I wanted it to....
I had started the 3 year professional program around 1990...I finished year one, and they weren't happy with the degree of my 'evolution' into 'emotional and behavioral risk-taking' -- this seemed to be becoming a lifetime problem unless I was in a bar with a few 'Black Russian cocktails under my belt'... They didn't doubt my intellectual capabilities but they wanted me to repeat Year 1. I didn't feel I had the monetary resources to do this, not to mention the emotional resources, and in this regard, psychologically...I 'was already gone'....
I had to take a few rather huge emotional steps backwards...and gather my thoughts on where I was going, intellectually and emotionally, after this rather devastating emotional blow...Professionally and economically, I was doing fairly well -- from about 1984 to 1996, I was locked into a pretty comfortable, middle class government job in the public transportation business...that was doing me fine...
Around about this time period -- say, about 1992 -- two things happened: 1. I started to get involved more in the history and evolution of Western Philosophy, working backwards from Perls to Jung, to G.W. Hegel who seemed to be the 'mastermind' philospher between himself, German Idealism, and all of these different 'dialectic psychologists' who I had studied, and/or was still in the process of studying....including the mastermind of Psychoanalysis -- Sigmund Freud.
Also around this time (1992), I walked into a downtown Toronto bookstore on Queen Street -- and as fate would have it -- pulled a book off the shelf that seemed intriguing, by an author who I didn't know....The book was called 'Final Analysis' -- and the author was the one and only Dr. Jeffrey Masson, former Projects Director of The Freud Archives. I picked up another book right beside it by the same author -- 'The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of The Seduction Theory'.
Those two books -- and their follow-up research with my own interpretive analysis -- would keep me busy for the next 20 years, off and on, until now, and the various essays that I have written on this subject matter in 'Hegel's Hotel' over the last few years...
This includes a short email interview a couple of years ago with the same Dr. Jeffrey Masson, who has been living since the early to mid 1990s in New Zealand, studying animal psychology, emotions in animals, veganism, and assorted other subject matter, writing books on all these subject matters, including a brief return or two to the subject of Freud's 'loss of moral courage' in his abandonment of the seduction theory and the connected subject matter of childhood sexual abuse, and how The Psychoanalytic Establishment -- and most of the academic and general public at large -- still won't recognize and/or acknowledge that Freud made a rather 'huge, epistemological and ethical mistake' -- suggesting it was 'manipulatively on purpose' between about 1895 and 1903 regarding his 'switchover' from 'Reality-Traumacy-Seduction' Theory to 'Instinct-Fantasy-Oedipal' Theory and what is now known as the difference between 'Classical' (1897 onwards) Psychoanalysis as opposed to 'Pre-Classical' (before 1897) Psychoanalysis.
I have addressed this crucial turning point in Psychoanalytic history in numerous previous essays, and will probably address it one more time (hopefully, the last) in one of the next few essays to come, but right now let's pass over it, and finish up what I would like to accomplish for today.
More and more by 2006, my ultimate goal -- or 'endgame' -- had become a massive philosophical and psychological undertaking: to integrate all of Western philosophy and all of Western Clinical Psychology -- or at least significant elements of each -- into on 'Grand Narrative', one doctrine, one treatise, the likes of which we have not seen since 'the last of the Grand Narratives' which could be Hegel's classic 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' or Schopenhauer's 'counter-classic' 'The World as Will and Representation'....To these, we could add Adam Smith's 'The Wealth of Nations', Marx's 'On Capital', Kant's 'The Critique of Pure Reason', Schelling's various integrations between Spinoza, Kant, Fichte, and Hegel..., Nietzsche's 'Philosophy of The Superman, The Abyss, The Tight Rope, and The Will to Power (or 'Self-Empowerment') -- if you are a 'Superman', then you can 'fly' over the Abyss, if you are like me, then you climb and/or crawl 'the tightrope' (and don't look down) over the Abyss of 'failure, depression, paralyzing anxiety, and/or existential death' on your way from 'being' to 'becoming'... Strachey's Standard Edition of the 24 Volumes of Freud's Complete Works....Korzybski's 'Science and Sanity', Cannon's 'The Wisdom of The Body', Hayakawa's 'Language in Thought and Action'....Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged', 'The Fountainhead', and 'Objectivism', Erich Fromm's 'Man for Himself', 'The Sane Society' and 'The Art of Loving', Maltz's 'Psycho-Cybernetics', Branden's 'The Psychology of Self-Esteem'...and maybe some day...if I live long enough...
'Hegel's Hotel'...
That, of course, is what I am working on here, and have been since 2006.
In Hegel's Hotel, everyone is welcome -- regardless of race, culture, poltical or religious denomination, philosopher, psychologists, poet...-- as long as you have a 'democratic, open-minded, spirit', you want to learn, you want to integrate, and you don't mind hearing other theorists trumpet theories and ideas that may be completely or partly different than your own...
Hegel's Hotel was created in the spirit of 'the Gestalt hotseat and empty chair bi-polar' form of the psychotherapy...and thus, in this regard, every essay in Hegel's Hotel is meant to metaphorically and symbolically be a form of 'academic hot seat and empty chair therapy' where the 'finished product' at the end of the essay is designed to be a 'creatively negotiated integration' of one or more numerous bi-polar conceptual and theoretical encounters and interactions during the course of the essay...
The 'ideal' is that I am successful in this capacity in every essay, although to be sure, there are going to be some essays where I am more successful than others, and indeed, there may be some where I fail in what I have attempted to do....But I do not want to get caught up, and/or bogged down, in essay to essay technicalities and gliches -- if I can't write the essay better in short order, then I would sooner move on to the next essay, particularly if I have lost my motivation in writing the previous one, perhap even leaving it unfinished....and hanging at the brink of 'nothingness' -- a 'chasm' or 'abyss'...that maybe in a later essay I will better be able to 'bridge'...
I love Nietzsche -- and his 'narcissisitic triumphs'....that I may one day experience the ultimate high of 'The Superman' which from time to time I have experienced in 'small individual segments'...As one of the latest television commercials highlights, to the extent that I can remember it,
'Everyone aspires to be the best at whqt they most want to do; no one aspires to be 'second best'...
And so it is with me as I do 'intellectual battle' with some of the greatest minds in the history of Western Philosophy and Psychology...
And my favorite theorist to do 'intellectual battle' with -- as well as be both 'amazed' and 'disappointed by' in different contexts....is none other than -- Sigmund Freud.
Freud, in my opinion, is the greatest of the great theorists, and love him or hate him -- or both -- he is still the best; clinical psychology and psychotherapy (although many or most may now claim that Freud is seriously 'outdated' and 'not relevant'), in my opinion, still starts and ends with Freud. Freud has 'rejected' more ideas about the internal workings of the human psyche than most theorists have 'created'....
The same goes for the controversy surrounding Masson's belief that Freud 'lost moral courage'....I have spent many, many hours in the emotional throes of this claim, probably spent too much time on it as I have 'gotten bogged down' on it and stopped moving on with my 'end game'....
Masson is one of my favorite, more direct and immediate, mentors -- I believe that he should be honoured by The Psychoanalytic Institute for his courage and bravery in re-opening up the controversy surrounding Freud's abandonment of his 'Reality-Traumacy-Seduction' Theory, and re-opening the usually 'politically incorrect' topic of 'childhood sexual abuse'... He fights on with his case, in his own way, while I aim to 'fix' the problem by coming up with an 'integration' between Pre-Classical Psychoanalysis and Classical Psychoanlaysis in a way that makes 'good, old, rational-empirical, common sense' -- or at least partly. There remains a part of the makeup of man's psyche -- and his overall existence -- that defies good, old, rational-empirical, common sense, and in this regard, we need to turn to a more 'paradoxical, romantic, multi-dualistic, and dialectic' model of the human psyche that encompasses much of 'The German Idealistic and Romantic Period' (and some of its paradoxes and inconsisitencies).
We all have an 'ego' and an 'id' -- or what I would prefer to call a 'divided ego' that constantly needs to be 're-synthesized', as well as what I would call a 'Shadow-Id' (synthesizing Freud and Jung) or 'Sid' for short. Sid is our 'alter-ego' that can be both our best friend and worst enemy....Sid's 'life and death energy' can be 'bound up' in our subconscious in a structure that I have come to call our 'Shadow-Id Vault', or 'Sid Vault', or 'SIV' -- or Sid's life and death energy can 'break free' of our SIV (if our SIV is not 'properly defended' by 'ego defenders'...and thus broken free or 'unbound' from our SIV, Sid can travel north (topologically and metaphorically speaking), up into our 'conscious personality' and either 'disturb' or 'enliven' any one of our various 'working ego states'.....or in more extreme contexts...effectively 'storm and overwhelm our Central Ego' like 'The Storming of The Bastille'... Our 'inside' and 'outside' worlds, taken together, are generally comprised of a a collection of interwoven 'introjections' and 'projections' with 'transference/sublimation elements' connected to both such that the one is more or less a 'mirror reflection of the other' --either 'overtly' or 'covertly' so... in the latter case, through 'symptoms' and 'signs' and 'compromise-formations' and 'art' and 'work' and 'hobbies' and 'architecture', and 'politics' and 'economics' and 'philosophy' and what can be overall summarized as -- 'culture'...
None of this is terribly different than what Freud had to say -- from about 1920 onwards -- with my simply adding a couple of more 'simple concepts' to help distinguish what Freud left a little confusing before he died...
None of this takes into account the controversial period in Psychoanalytic history between 1895 and say, 1905, The Seduction Theory Controversy, The Oedipal Theory Controversy, the 'gap' or 'abyss' between 'reality-traumacy-seduction' theory and 'instinct-fantasy-impulse' theory...all of which I am looking to 'build a bridge' over top of....as well as the 'gaps' between Freud and Adler, Freud and Jung, Freud and Perls, Freud and Object Relations, Freud and Transactional Analysis, and so on...
This is the 'substance' and 'essence' of this aspect of Hegel's Hotel which I have called: Quantum Psychoanalysis (Bridges Over, and Through, Psychoanalysis): A Phenomenology of Mind, Body, and Spirit For The 21st Century'...
Freud was 56 years old the year he wrote 'The Dynamics of Transference'...
Maybe, if you are lucky enough, and if I am good enough, you will find another creative offshoot of 'The Dynamics of Transference' in the midst of this collection of essays...
I am confident that I am smart enough, creative enough, and have all of the necessary knowledge in my head to write some of the best essays in the history and evolution of Psychoanalysis -- even if these are not from 'The Ivory Tower of Academia' but rather 'Notes From The Underground'. Hey, what is beyond my control, is beyond my control...
For those of you 'non-believers' or readers who think I have a bad case of 'megalomania' or 'narcissistic over-self-aggrandization'... (Remember, we all aspire to be 'the best'...)...and regardless,
I will re-cycle the classic Trudeau line -- 'Watch me!'....
And put up the ultimate 'chef's test' -- 'The proof is in the pudding.'
Now, for the rest of my readers who have already sampled past essays, and who are simply interested -- indeed, hopefully, excited -- about the direction and content of my integrative work here, I say:
Welcome aboard, or I am glad you are still on board, I wish you the most pleasant and meaningful voyage...have a safe trip....there will be some 'ups' and 'downs', and let us both creatively grow together through our shared or indivdual 'good and bad weather'...
In the words -- or at least main words (I changed and added a couple) of Johann Fichte...I wish to write....
A Crystal Clear Report to the General Public Concerning the Actual Essence of the Newest (Multi-Dialectic-Integrative (MDI) -- or Dialectic-Gap-Bridging (DGB) -- or 'Quantum') Psychoanalytic Theory: An Attempt to Grab, Excite, Motivate the Reader to Understand...
That's enough for today...
-- dgb, November 19th, updated November 26th, 2011...
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
