Final modifications and finished! Dec. 5th, 2011...
The Integration of Classical Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory into DGB Quantum Dialectic Psychoanalytic Theory
In 1920, Freud postulated that man has both a 'life' and 'death' instinct. He probably 'over-used' his death theory to explain things that he better explained between 1893 and 1896 using his more powerful 'reality-traumacy' theory which he basically threw in the garbage pail, starting around 1897.
I do not completely discard Freud's death instinct (or in my vocabulary, 'death energy') theory; in fact, I will use it partly in adherence to the way that Freud used it, and partly in other, hopefully, creative, meaningful ways. Our life can be viewed as following an 'arc', and once we get to the top of our 'life arc', there follows an either slow or fast 'regression' or 'dominance of the death instinct or our death energy', not completely inescapable, because there are things that we can do to improve the situation, but ultimately, inevitable as to its final destination and outcome -- death.
Still, the traumacy theory and narcissistic theory both 'explain' aggressive, destructive, and/or self-destructive impulses better than Freud's explanation of the death instinct, so in this type of matter, we will return to, and expand on, Freud's 1893-1896 Reality-Traumacy-Seduction (RTS) theory.
Freud's post-1896 'abandonment' of his RTS theory was one of Freud's two worst theoretical mistakes. For those of my readers who may not have a general or sufficient understanding of what Freud's 'RTS(PCR)' Theory is -- or was -- let me try to briefly summarize it. The 'PCR' part of this theory includes: 1. 'The Pleasure-Unpleasure Principle' which dominated Freud's thinking until 1920 ('Beyond The Pleasure Principle); 2. 'The Constancy or Equilibrium Theory' (which Freud never abandoned and which basically states that both the mind and the body try to 'maintain a comfortable level of stability, consistancy, or constancy' or 'equilibrium' or 'balance'); and 3. 'The Repression Theory' (which Freud never abandoned and its 'over-use' or 'inappropriate use', I cite as Freud's second biggest theoretical mistake).
'Reality Theory' means that before 1897, Freud thought that he was dealing with 'real experiences', 'real encounters', 'real memories of encounters', 'real relationships'. After 1896, these ideas started to 'slip away' -- not totally, but in large part -- to make way for his 'inbound, sexual fantasy theory', whereby his 1897 created 'Oedipal Complex Theory' (OPT) to all extents and purposes, replaced his 1896 'Seduction Theory' which was basically the theory that all hysteria -- as well as some other major 'neurotic disorders' such as 'obsessional neurosis' -- were, for the most part, 'caused' by 'childhood sexual assault' that included both 'childhood sexual manipulations' and the more forceful, at times brutal, phenomena of childhood rapes. This became labelled as Freud's 'Seduction Theory' which lasted only part of one year -- 1896 -- and one major paper, 'The Aetiology of Hysteria' (1896), which some academics (for example, Masson and myself) believe was one of Freud's finest -- and certainly most compassionate towards his female clients -- papers.
In contrast, and here is where some academics (Masson and myself included), believe that Freud -- 'for politically and/or professlonally expedient motives, or whatever' -- pulled a 'Judas' and abandoned the sanctity and integrity of his female clients' 'real memories' in favor of a radically different 'psychoanalytic interpretation' -- that these 'so-called memories' were not memories at all, but rather his (mainly female) clients' own 'repressed sexual fantasies towards their own father' (which became known as 'The Oedipal or Electra Complex').
That was the Freudian 'Copernican Revolution' in 1896 -- and here's saying that this 'new interpretation' by Freud starting on October 15th, 1897, was at least partly a huge, theoretical blunder -- as well as a public relations disaster -- as it began 'the alienation of many women' (particularly in this century) from Classical Psychoanalysis.
The second theoretical error committed by Freud involved 'over-using' -- or 'inappropriately using' -- his 'repression' theory. Most people don't usually 'forget' their worst life traumacies; they usually acutely remember them. As Freud himself stated: 'Hysterics suffer mainly from 'reminiscences' (1895, Freud and Breuer, Studies in Hysteria). (And not 'always' -- indeed, perhaps not even 'often' -- 'repress' these memories, a 'mindset', theory in itself, and 'paradigm' that dominated Freud's thinking for most, if not all, of his life, and thus too, later, after Freud's death, the mindset and paradigm of Psychoanalysis as a whole. Big mistake as what Freud called 'repression' certainly should not be viewed as any 'foundational theory and/or assumption' of psychoanalysis. Perhaps this theory was 'pre-conditioned' by Freud's start with the therapeutic tool of 'hypnosis'. My addition in the last set of italics here.)
Regarding 'The Oedipal Complex'....
We all have 'Oedipal Complexes' -- meaning more than one in my opinion which ooperates by a more 'extended, metaphorical model' of the Oedipal Complex as opposed to Freud's much more restrictive and literal sense and usage of The Oedipal Complex -- Oedipal Complexes of a sort towards both our mom and our dad, and also, other significant figures in our early childhood lives...Sometimes, a little girl's -- and later, adult woman's -- 'father Oedipal Complex' is referred to as 'The Electra Complex' in which case the usage of 'The Oedipal Complex' is restricted to a little boy's -- and later, man's -- 'repressed sexual fantasies towards his mother'.
As Freud would say (with Fliess' influence), we are all 'psychologically -- (as well as biochemically and hormonally) bi-sexual' in the sense that both sexes contain mixtures in different degrees of both testosterone and estrogen, as well as both 'love' and 'hate' feelings leftover from our childhood psychological development towards both our mom and dad -- and other significant childhood transference figures.
These 'transference encounters, memories of encounters, and memories of relationships -- both good and bad' -- 'merge' together to form both healthy and/or neurotic 'complexes', which merge again, into what I will call from now on, our 'Memory-Learning-Transference (MLT)Template'.
Wthiin this MLT template then, at any moment of our waking or sleeping day, different Transference Complexes' (TCs) are either overtly and/or covertly 'active' in our subconcious, either 'bound up and restrained' in our 'Shadow-Id Vault' (or partly so), and/or they may be 'unbound' and 'free-floating' through both the subconscious and the conscious aspects of our personality, including any or all of the different 'ego-states' that our ego 'splits' into for either 'healthy, functional' and/or 'unhealthy, dysfunctional' purposes that relate to their 'there and then', 'traumatic' and/or 'narcissistic' beginnings.
What we have above is a 'model' and a 'structural-dynamic foundation' that reflects a a significant component of 'Classical' Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory (CFPT) integrated into DGB Quantum-Dialectic Psychoanalytic Theory (QDPT), which, in turn, integrates ALL 50 years of Freud's work, including both before and after 1896 in a much more harmonious, peaceful -- as opposed to 'alienating', 'estranged', 'suppressive' and 'oppressive', i.e., 'neurotic' -- fashion. Put another way, we have the structural foundation of a 'bridge' over 'Freud's Troubled Psychoanalytic Waters' in 1896, whatever those 'troubled waters' stemmed from (and both Masson and myself have historically interpreted what they were in partly similar, partly different, fashions).
Masson may or may not want to be associated with my work. We both agree that I am a more 'integrative' theorist, for better or for worse, In my short email interview with Masson back in 2010, Masson was skeptical that I could 'harmonize' pre-1897 Freudian theory with post-1896 Freudian theory, although he applauded me at the time for trying.
My interpretation of Masson's thinking is that if a female client asserts a 'childhood sexual assault memory' to a classical psychoanalyst in the therapy room, that the analyst should take this memory seriously as being 'real' (unless or until -- or at least this is my take on the situation -- there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary that shows up later in the analytic process -- and/or outside the anaytic process, like might show up in a courtroom of law that may be viewing a 'larger body of evidence').
The analyst, in Masson's mind -- and my own -- shouldn't be automatically re-interpreting the 'allegedly real memory' as a Freudian stereotype of a 'repressed Oedipal sexual fantasy' from the female client's own mind that has no bearing on any 'real memory' from her childhood past that actually happened....
Ouch! This was, is -- and still remains -- a wicked blow to the heart of any woman who has actually been sexually abused in childhood -- and indeed, only too acutely, still remembers this memory, or any number of other, similar types of associated memories; indeed, it is blow to the 'phenomenological and epistemological credibility and integrity' of all women as Freud started the changeover in 1897 from being at 'the forefront and a Masculine Defender of the Women's Rights Movement' to being a 'Victorian, Patriarchal, Establishment Oppressor' of 'The same Evolving Women's Movement'...which he may have helped to set back about 20 or 30 or 40 years, with no help from his daughter or Kurt Eissler in correcting this rather tragic situation...
In the end, Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler chose to protect the legacy and credibility and integrity of Freud over the legacy and credibility and integrity of Psychoanalysis....And that too was -- and continues to be -- a tragic, institutional error and 'cover up' of scandulous proportions on the same scale as 'The Penn State Scandal' which, probably because of the more 'abstract nature' of the Psychoanalytic Seduction Theory Controversy, and the fact that the lay public doesn't fully understand its full implications and applications, never amounted to the type of 'public Psychoanalytic rebellion' that Masson anticipated in the 1980s....
That, and perhaps, the fact that the weight of The Psychoanalytic Establishment carried more credibility with the media and the general public than Masson's own personal rebellion against it.....And, of course, Janet Malcolm -- with her 'real' or 'fabricated' or partly both quotes allegedly coming from Masson's own mouth -- did no public or academic favors to Masson's cause for the rights of women -- and particularly, 'to the rights of sexually assaulted women' undergoing Classical Psychoanalytic 'Therapy' that wasn't even going to 'honour' their memories as being 'real'...
This is my last 'kick' at Freud's abandonment of the 'reality-traumacy-seduction' theory....Up to this point, I have supported Masson's cause -- a cause that I am sure that he will go to his grave defending, and rigthfully so....
But now, I move on, and I move on past Masson's important historical and evolutionary contribution to Psychoanalysis, and do something that I believe Masson still believes is unobtainable -- a 'working, harmonious, synthesis' between Freud's pre-1897 and post-1896 psychoanalytic theory.
In Quantum-Dialectic Psychoanalysis, this 'theoretical estrangement' is overcome...A 'metaphorical bridge' is built over 1895, 1896, and 1897 -- Freud's three most 'neurotic professional years' -- where up until now there has been a 'Nietzschean Chasm, an Abysss'...and no 'bridge'...
I call this 'The Bridge Over Troubled Psychoanalytic Waters'....And even though I am 'only' an 'underground, anti-establishment, outside-psychoanalytic theorist', still I have the working knowledge, the intellectual creativity, and the power of words to accomplish my goal -- the building of this 'metaphorical peace bridge'....
Call me an 'intellectual egotist with an inferiority complex' if you wish...
Laugh at me if you wish as I state that I am metaphorically 'riding a white or black stallion with a one man army' to the forefront of another potential psychoanaytic revolution for the 21st century...
But there is one thing that I can do that neither Freud nor Masson was able to do -- and that is to unite pre-1897 and post-1896 Psychoanalytic Theory.
And I can successfully unite Freud and Adler. And Freud and Jung. And Freud and Melanie Klein. And Freud and Fairbairn. And Freud and Kohut. And Freud and Berne. And Freud and Perls...And Freud and Masson...
Freud was guilty of 'over-generalizing' -- many times. Freud overgeneralized on The Seduction Theory. He overgeneralized on his theory of 'repression'. He overgeneralized on his 'Oedipal Complex Theory'. He overgeneralized on his 'Death Instinct Theory'...
But so too did Masson. I fully admire Masson for standing up to The Psychoanalytic Establishment -- and losing one of the most prestigious jobs at the top of The Psychoanalytic hierarchy in the process -- all in the supreme personal effort to reclaim a lost Psychoanalytic moral principle -- i.e., for the analyst to believe in the legitmacy and the reality of a client's asserted 'personal memory' -- at least unless, or until, there is substantial clinical and/or outside evidence to the contrary of the 'reality' of this memory. And this evidence has got to be more than Freud's rigid, reductionistic -- 'stereotyped' -- belief in his post-1896 Oedipal and Fantasy Theory.
Masson has proven one thing over his lifetime -- that he is very good at 'deconstructing false idols'....
But -- and this I issue to Dr. Masson as a challenge -- has Masson ever built a 'Phenomenology of Mind, Body, and Spirit for the 20th and/or 21st Century'?
No, Masson -- to the limits of my interpretive analysis of his work -- has for the most part remained a skeptic, a pessimist, a cynic, a deconstructionist, and a disillusionist...What remaining 'ideals' and 'idols' do you have left, Dr. Masson? Or do you have any? Are you against 'fantasy' Psychoanalysis? Are you against Psychiatry? And/or are you against all forms of therapy -- which in my opinion seems like a classic 'overgeneralization' in Freudian style of your ongoing, and usually non-admitted 'love-hate relationship' with Psychoanalysis? Underneath your 'anal schizoid demeanor' -- 'I am against all forms of therapy...' Is that all forms of therapy? Or just all forms of 'psychotherapy', or just 'Psychiatry and the administration of drugs?... -- I know there still exists a very passionate. Dr. Masson, you remind me in some ways of R.D. Laing and Thomas Szasz (The Myth of Mental Illness), and what they were 'deconstructing' in the 60s and 70s...
I too, can be all of those...
But after all your hard research and work -- and 'deconstructing', Dr. Masson...
I am left with the following questions:
Do you have anything left to creatively construct for us?
Do you have any new ideals -- besides relative ot animal psychology and veganism (and I respect your work in both these areas, I am not trying to make light of them....)-- that you can build for us?
It seems to me like a kind of 'I'm taking my net and going home' attitude towards not getting your own way...Like Freud, in more ways than you would like to imagine perhaps, you are a 'control freak' -- as well as an 'I will not be controlled freak' -- who is like the guy who goes down the beach 'wiping out other people's sandcastles' -- while not having the courage and/or the ability to 'build your own sandcastle that we can freely evaluate' as being better or worse than the one you just destroyed...or in Derrida's language -- 'deconstructed'...
Where is your own idealistic philosophical and/or psychological 'Grand Narrative'?
Or are you getting too old to create one now?
Hegel's Hotel is my 'Grand Narrative' -- and I am not ashamed to admit it. Hopefully, one day it will be my 'legacy' that I can be proud of at having worked so hard to build it...
Dr. Masson, you are like 'The Demolition Expert'...and then theorists like me have to come up behind you, look to see what you have demolished, and see if there is anything left over from your 'Demolition Derby' to create an exciting, new 'Architectural and Engineering Wonder Building' from your ashes...
For every Demolition Expert...there needs to be a 'Howard Rourke' to come up behind and create a new 'creative masterpiece'...
One of the limiting qualities of all 'post-modernist philosophers' of the 20th and 21st centuries (Derrida, Foucault...) is that they have forgotten how to do this? And/or they will not allow themselves to do this-- to create their own Grand Narrative -- like the Great German Idealists -- Kant, Schelling, I hesitate to say Fichte, and of course, the Master Grand Narrativist...perhaps of all time...G.W. Hegel...Maybe Ayn Rand was the greatest Grand Narrativist -- and one of the few -- of the 20th century. Rand gave us 'Howard Rourke'...
Well, personally, even beneath my own, at times, very 'heavy deconstructionism', I remain a 'Romantic-Enlightenment, Humanistic-Existential Idealist'...
I believe in the Scottish Enlightenment. I believe in The French Enlightement -- until it became pathologically 'The Reign of Terror'. I believe in the work of The German Romanticists and Idealists -- and even their critics, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard....and Nietzsche...the latter of whom gave us 'The Superman' and 'The Will to Power' (or probably better stated, as 'The Will to Self-Empowerment and Self-Actualization').
And I believe in the creative brilliance of Sigmund Freud -- at least until he at least partly 'neurotically deconstructed' in the years, 1895, 96, and 97.
I believe in the real and potential creative brilliance of Freud's 'ultimate sublimation' -- his own Grand Narrative -- Classical Psychoanalysis -- at least on both sides of Freud's most 'neurotic years' mentioned above -- the effect that those years had on the 'evolution' and/or 'de-evolution' of Psychoanalysis -- and the fact that Freud could never really step outside 'the paradigm' of his own 'reductionistic, anal-retentive, sublimated creation', as brilliant as it was, and as brilliant as he was.
The same goes for Masson. Masson is too locked into 'one paradigm' -- or perhaps a 'collection of quasi-paradigms'. Is he a pre-1897 psychoanalytic theorist? Or is he more than this? It is difficult to pinpoint his exact thoughts and feelings on this subject matter these days.
In 2010, Masson edited what, at my first perusal through it, looks like a beautiful and engaging new hardcover edition of Freud's 1900 classic -- 'The Interpretation of Dreams' (ID).
But 'ID' was the heart and soul of the beginning of Freud's 'Fantasy' Theory -- which when combined with Freud 'Chilhood Sexuality Theory' and 'Oedipal Theory', took Freud away from the clinical phenomena of 'real memories' and 'real traumas' and 'real childhood sexual assaults'. So in this respect, ID was both a blessing and a curse to the evolution of Classical Psychoanalysis -- from a Massonian vantage point (and I am interpreting Masson's perspective here) -- in that it both opened up the huge domain of 'fantasy theory' while at the same time effectively 'closing down' or 'covering up' the equally huge domain of what has previously been 'Freudian Reality Theory (before 1897).
This shouldn't have been an 'either/or' choice for Freud. And neither should it have been an 'either/or' choice for Masson. These are not mutuallly exclusive clinical territories. Reality and fantasy sometimes merge into each other but certainly not in the way that Freud would have us believe relative to the implications and applications of his 'Oedipal Complex Theory' (OCT) -- which as Masson has stated to us over and over again -- took Freud away, and us away, as readers and students of Freud, from Freud's 1893-1896 'Reality Theory'.
This should never have happened. But it did. And once Masson got into Freud's most intimate letters and found out much more concretely what types of things were happening to Freud between 1895 and 1897 -- Masson, being the type of 'no bullcrap' guy that he was -- flipped out on Freud for creating a 'clinical myth' in his strict sexual interpretatiion of the OCT, flipped out on The Psychoanalytic Establishment for perpetuating this myth, and took his argument to the general public believing that they would see the grave 'immoral implications and applications' of Freud's OCT, and what Classical Psychoanalysts were still doing in the clinical setting under 'the myth of Freud's neurotic and pathological OCT' .
Or so Masson believed, and still believes. And there others out there, including myself, who believe in the strength of Masson's argument. But not enough of the general public tuned into Masson's argument, or understood it, or cared about it.....leaving Masson to walk off into the sunset....and take the next flight to New Zealand.
I admire the courage of what Masson did in the 1980s -- I couldn't have done what he did, at least in the way that he did it. But now Masson is still 'dabbing' in Psychoanalysis from the 'outside' and 'far away from the madding crowd'....Does he still care about Psychoanalysis, or does he not? Does Masson effectively reject all of Freud's work after 1897, or does he not? It is hard to believe that he does when he just spent so much time releasing his new 2010 edition of Freud's ID.
I communicated to Masson in my interview with him in 2010 that I was/am going to integrate all 50 years of Freud's work, including the 'supposed abyss-like gap' between his 'Pre-1897 and post-1896 work.
Masson replied that he didn't/doesn't believe it can be done -- but then I ask him here and now: What are you going to do with all of Freud's post-1896 work -- throw it into the garbage can -- including all of his usually considered best works: ID (1900), Three Essays on Sexuality (1905), The Dynamics of Transference (1912), On Narcissism (1914), Beyond the Pleausre Principle (1920), and The Ego and The Id (1923)? You throw out these papers and you are throwing about 90 percent (my estimate) -- or 21 of 24 volumes of Freud's work. In effect, you know longer have 'Classical' Psychoanalysis, which at times, seems to be what Masson is saying should be done...but I don't believe that....and his freshly edited version of ID would suggest I am right. At other times, Masson will say that he is both against 'The Dark Science' (presumably 'psychiatry', visions of 'One Flew Over The Cukoo's Nest', and 'The Myth of Mental Illness'...); at other times, Masson will claim that he is 'Against Therapy' altogether....at which point I partly throw up my arms in exasperation and say: 'Dr. Masson, we have heard a lot about what you don't like, what you don't want, and what you don't stand for, but my question to you now is: What do you stand for and what do you want -- other than 'not killing and abusing animals'; and supporting 'veganism'? Do you have any human ideals left and if you are really against 'All Therapy' -- then, why are you still dabbing in Psychoalanalysis? Do you want to see Psychoanalysis improved? Or do you want to see Psychoanalysis disappear off the face of the earth?'
What I am getting from your somewhat puzzling behavior, Dr. Masson, is effectively that you still have an on again, off again, 'love-hate relationship' with Freud and Psychoanalysis...
This I can understand...If I am right in interpreting your partly paradoxical behavior and seeming motivations in this regard, Dr. Masson, then I share these feelings with you - but overtly and unabashedly so -- rather than in 'hit and run style' -- and I do not hesitate in stating that I want to 'make Psychoanalysis better', not keep dragging it in the mud, which I too, have probably been more than a little 'obsessive' about....
But all of this is changing as of now....because I am moving forward, Dr. Massson, into new 'creatively fertile' -- not 'sterile' -- theoretical territory, and I will leave you, Dr. Masson, to keep insisting that you were 'right', when you first stated that Freud 'lost moral courage'....I agree with you, I think he did too, but end of argument -- I am coming back here no more; I am pushing forward into new theoretical territory. I am tired of sounding like a broken record, and if I don't push forward, my work will never get done...
'Outsiders' can become 'insiders' again, or for the first time -- at least often times -- by creating and demonstrating 'better' problem solutions and conflict resolutions to the insiders' own inside (in this case, institutional, theoretical and therapeutic) problems and conflicts. And perhaps some day, some 'Psyhchoanalytic Insider(s)' with enough astuteness, liberalness in thinking, power and clout to make it happen...will indeed, see -- in Classic Hegelian dialectic and paradoxical style -- that there is an opportunity here, not to be missed, for a 'great new richness in evolutionary Psychoanalytic thinking and development'...I am not counting on it...but it could happen....There are some Psychoanalytic seminars open to the public in Toronto -- I get the advertisements for them -- and one day, probably soon, I will walk into one of these seminars...Nothing definitive yet...but I can see it happening...I would like to get a better idea of what is happening in Psychoanalysis -- now -- not 30 years ago when, presumably things were different...
Maybe, maybe not....
As they taught me in Gestalt Therapy...
'Everything is subject to change'...
And great bridges can be built over even the deepest...
And darkest of abysses...
Sometimes, you just have to get away from 'the hard feelings'...
And rigid, inflexible, anal-retentive thinking patterns....
When it comes to better understanding human behavior....
Conceptual and theoretical boundaries were meant to be broken....
And 'flexible, shifting paradigms'...
Are a 'good thing', not a 'bad thing'....
'Conceptual and theoretical narcissism'...
Stagnates flexible thinking patterns...
And makes concepts, theories, and paradigms...
'Sterile'....
This point applies to both Freud -- and Masson.
Masson said in the early 1990s...
That he just wanted to find an 'objective critic'...
He found one...
Does he have the open-mindedness to 'hear' the criticism?
And The Psychoanalytic Establishment too...
Or will this remain a case....
That goes down in history...
As 'The Righteous, Raging Bull' and/or 'The Man With The Hanging-On-Pit Bull
Bite'...
Versus 'The Inpenetratable Ivory Tower, Fortress Wall'
Time will tell...
Who has fell...
And who's been left behind...
When you go your way, and I go mine...
-- Bob Dylan, Most Likely You Go Your Way, And I'll Go Mine'
-- dgb, December 4th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
