I believe that I am probably the best transference theorist on the planet right now -- and for that matter, with all due respect to any existing or past existing psychoanalyst, including Freud and Brian Bird, and many of my other 'transference mentors' -- Adler, Klein, Fairbairn, Kohut, Berne, Perls, Janov...-- none of them, in my opinion, could put together the 'whole picture of transference' -- aside from maybe, Fritz Perls -- because everyone else got 'pieces of the puzzle' right -- but not the whole bewildering puzzle. And no, I'm not 'high' -- except high on my abilities and on my 'transference knowledge' which has been weaved together, not just by 'thinking inside the box' (i.e., 'the psychoanalytic box') but by thinking outside the box also -- indeed, by weaving my way in and out of probably all of the major schools of psychology and personality theory, and thus, being able to 'see' the phenomenon of transference from a wide assortment of different perspectives/paradigms.
Call me crazy, now, if you wish -- but the proof can be found in the taste of the pudding that I am about to make for you....
There is only one person in the world who can write about transference exactly the way I can -- and that is me.
The first thing that I need to do is to tear down a number of Freudian assumptions because if you are a psychoanalyst, and you are still 'hanging on' to these 'false Freudian assumptions, then you will never understand transference properly.
The first thing you need to understand is that Freud's understanding of transference was completely undermined and sabotaged by his abandonment/suppression of his traumacy and seduction theories -- his reality theory -- after 1896.
Freud's 'reality theory' -- his traumacy-seduction theory -- was the backbone of psychoanalysis up until 1896-97. It was the foundation of psychoanalysis -- certainly more so than his theory of 'repression' which gradually became expanded to his theory of 'defense'.
To this day, I would argue that the backbone/foundation of any form of psychoanalysis should be: 1. reality theory; 2. traumacy theory; 3. fantasy theory; 4. transference theory; 5. humanistic-existential theory; 6. 'attachment-detachment theory'.
And I would argue that the most important concept that Freud ever created -- beside perhaps his concept of 'defense' -- was his concept of 'transference'. Having said that, Breuer -- more by good luck than good planning -- was conducting a form of 'traumacy-transference therapy' in the early 1880s (Anna. O.) and Charcot certainly understood the co-relation between traumacy memories and hysteria.
Finally, Janov, a little bit before Freud, was doing a spinoff of the same type of work that Freud was doing. However, Freud's focus was on the idea of 'repression' (memories that are purposely held back from consciousness because they are deemed too unbearable to think about) whereas Janov was using the idea of 'dissociation' which in turn could be distinguished more by the idea of a 'dissociative split' between 'ego' (or 'Apollonian ego') and 'alter-ego' ('Dionysian ego') as opposed to Freud's 'split' between 'consciousness' and 'unconsciousness'.
It was not until 1938 that Freud wrote in one of his final papers about the 'Splitting of The Ego in the Process of Defense'. However, back in his metaphysical papers around 1914, 1915, and up until he wrote 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle' in 1920, Freud did make the distinction between 'the pleasure ego' ('The Dionysian ego' in an extension of Nietzsche's language from 'The Birth of Tragedy', 1872) and 'the reality ego' (i.e., 'The Apollonian Ego', again extending Nietzsche's language from The Birth of Tragedy.)
Freud's idea of 'the splitting of the ego' in a significant way, anticipated and/or represented 'the birth of Object Relations' although Freud didn't really think like an 'Object Relationist' in this paper enough to call it an 'Object Relations' paper (he was still very much 'Classically bound'. In contrast, Melanie Klein, under the influence of Karl Abraham, would explode in this direction shortly thereafter.....her distinction of 'internal object' vs. 'external object', and her distinction of different 'ego positions' such as the 'the paranoid position', 'the schizoid' position', and the intertwining of the two. Before Klein, Karl Abraham was moving significantly in this direction and contributed a number of important ideas that would influence Melanie Klein such as 'the Pre-Oedipal Bad Mother', early childhood 'object loss', and 'oral fixation' based on a lack of 'proper attachment to the Pre-Oedipal mother and a resulting 'transferred lifelong oral-narcissistic dependency'.
Of worthy note, Karl Abraham -- and Sandor Ferenczi, for that matter -- were still writing about 'childhood sexual abuse' and its relationship to neurotic and psychotic disorders (1907, 1911) long after Freud had given up this primary if not sole line of thinking. In other words, Karl Abraham was combining Freudian 'reality' and 'instinctual fantasy' theory in a way that was probably better balanced than Freud himself.
Now nothing is rarely black and white -- except perhaps mathematics -- until 'Apollonian Either/Or Classification Thinking' makes it so....until Apollonian thinking 'forces' or 'constricts' essentially 'unboxable natural phenomena' into 'classification-either/or-conceptual-theoretical-paradigm boxes'...
'You can't step into the same river twice.' -- Heraclitus
Skipping back to the very volcanic year of 1895, 'Studies on Hysteria' was supposed to be an extrapolation of Freud's and Breuer's 'traumacy theory'.
And yet we turn to page 302 of Volume 11, of The Standard Edition, 'Studies on Hysteria' where Freud introduces the hugely important concept of 'transference' for the first time ever, and lo and behold, Freud uses a clinical example to illustrate his new concept of transference that describes his still not officially born yet 'wish theory', not his on its way out 'traumacy theory'.
What are we to make of this?
Well, I will tell you what I make of it.
Freud was a 'classic, Aristolean, either you put it in this box, or you put it in that box' thinker...
Worse than that, Freud was a 'this box is the right box' and 'that box is the wrong box' type of thinker, and this my friends, takes us right back to ancient Greek philosophy of Anaximander -- who would eventually directly or indirectly influence Hegel (thesis-anti-thesis-synthesis), Heidegger (an early existentialist who influenced Derrida's philosophy of 'deconstruction'), Derrida ('Deconstruction') and , Foucault' (the influence of power on 'knowledge').
It says on the internet, when you look up 'binary opposition' that...
Binary opposition originated in Saussurean structuralist theory.[
However, I say that the concept of 'binary oppostion' -- and 'deconstruction' originated out of Anaximander's theory of 'The Apeiron' and 'The Birth of Opposites'...
Anaximander's theory of knowledge too -- like Foucualt's, only over 2000 years before either Foucault or Derrida was born -- is a theory that emphasizes the influence of power (and money) on knowledge'.
Paraphrasing Anaximander -- in his ancient cosmology -- Anaximander believed that 'opposites were born in chaos' which he called 'The Apeiron'. The Apeirion was a world outside of the world, where order was born from chaos. 'Binary opposites' (not Anaximander's terminology, of course, but the later Structuralist's terminology) competed with each other, conflicted with each other, fought with each other with 'the binary loser' ending up 'thrown back into Chaos again (The Apeiron) to nurse its wounds and regain strength and energy again to come back into this world again and re-challenge 'the binary winner' again -- like a 'title fight' where the 'loser' demands a 're-match' at a later time and place....
Well, just take this whole ancient Greek philosophy of Anaximander's -- his theory of Chaos/The Apeiron and his theory of the conflict and competition of 'binary opposites' with the 'binary winner' enjoying the 'sunshine of life' and the 'binary loser' being 'cast away' into 'The Shadows of Life' (The Black Hole, The Abyss, The Apeiron) to rejuvenate, regain strength and energy and wisdom -- and then eventually come back to 'The Sunshine of Life' to do battle with the previous 'binary winner' again with the possible 'changing of the guard' in 'the rematch'.
This has Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Derrida, Foucault, Perls written all over it but I have thought over and over again that perhaps my 'philosophical system' here that I have called 'Hegel's Hotel' -- maybe it should have been called 'Anaximander's Hotel' -- because when all is said and done Anaximander is the ultimate 'grandfather' -- the oldest 'dialectic' philosopher in Western Philosophy...Only Lao Tse rivals him, to my knowledge, in Eastern Philosophy -- and Anaximander is older.
So what is my point here?
My point is this?
Freud was constantly either 'choosing between two binary opposite theories' and bringing one into the 'sunshine light of day' while the other 'losing binary opposite theory' was 'dissociated' and 'sent packing' back to Chaos, The Apeiron, The Abyss, The Realm of The Repressed'....Either that like in the case of his 'reality-traumacy-seduction theory' vs. his 'fantasy-wish theory' or Freud was 'playing off two binary opposites against each other like 'the pleasure principle' vs. 'the reality principle', 'the life vs. the death insinct' and 'the ego vs. the id'...
But back in 1895....Freud was simply making a lot of 'false connections'...and this started with his theory of repression (which didn't account for the other defenses yet) and transference which Freud partly kissed goodbye about the first time he started writing about it in 1895 ('Studies on Hysteria', p. 302) and the year after that in 1896 ('The Aetiology of Hysteria') when 'memories' started to lose their central importance in Psychoanalysis, and in came 'wishes, fantasies, instincts and their vicissitudes'.
Thus, what was lost before it was ever found in 1895-96 was the concept of 'transference encounters', 'transference scenes', 'transference traumacies', 'transference memories', and yes -- even 'transference fixations, wishes, fantasies, impulses, drives' -- defining moments in our childhood history where our transference memories/complexes/conflicts start to build around these 'defining moments' in our early childhood -- usually the most significant ones between about 3 and 6 years old....until they comprise the central core -- and 'the core, nuclear conflicts' -- of our personality structure and psycho-dynamics.
These 'defining moments' can also be viewed as 'narcissistic unfinished situations' -- specifically, usually but not always -- 'narcissistic injuries' or 'traumatically perceived damages to our self-esteem' that we spend the rest of our lives (the 're-creation', 'repetition', and 'mastery' compulsion, i.e., serial behavior patterns) trying to 'reverse', 'overcome', 'compensate for', 'defend against', from an assortment of different 'ego positions' or 'ego-states'...superego, underego, righteous ego, hedonistic ego, approval-seeking ego, distancing ego....
And now everything starts to make sense....specifically how 'transference traumacies' and 'transference fantasies' are intimately attached to each other -- the first reflecting our 'inferiority complex' and the second reflecting our 'superiority striving' or 'mastery compulsion'.
Here is where Freud and Adler split apart -- and here is where they can be brought back together again...still with assumptive differences between them, i.e., 'conflict in the personality (Freud) vs. 'unity in the personality' (Adler)...but now there is much less distance between the two theorist as 'sex' and 'self-esteem' are usually also intimately connected...
Within my post-Freudian 'Classical-Object Relations' integrative perspective, and my 'traumacy-fantasy' perspective, what I am calling 'transference memories' are essentially the same types of usually conscious early memories that Adler called 'lifestyle memories'...and in Adlerian terminology, 'transference repetition patterns' become 'lifestyle goals and patterns'...again, the only major difference now separating the two schools of psychology being the 'unity' vs. 'conflict' assumption and the 'sex' vs. 'self-esteem' assumption, or worded later in Freudian theory, the 'life' and 'death' instincts vs. the 'superiority striving' or 'self-esteem' goal...
And everyone else's work can quickly become connected as well -- at least if we are so motivated -- the connection between this line of thinking and Janov's 'primal memories' is obvious, Berne's 'Games People Play' now becomes 'Transference Games People Play', transference becomes Fritz Perls' 'childhood unfinished situation'.....because the self-esteem traumacy has left a 'huge gap, a huge hole in our psyche/self-esteem that we are looking to 'heal'...
Transferences can contain mixtures of 'life forces' and 'destructive, death forces'....
The Seduction Theory can be 're-attached' to The Traumacy Theory...
One sided theories invariably self-destruct...and fail...
Because they are not 'homeostatically and dialectically balanced'.
Freud's traumacy theory didn't take into account 'wishes and fantasies'...
And Freud's instinct-fantasy-wish-drive theory didn't take into account traumacies.
Both theories ended up with 'false connections'...
Because neither theory could cover the binary opposite theory that the other theory missed...
Freud was caught in an 'either/or paradigm'...
He didn't have to be...
Traumacies and fantasies are not mutually exclusive events...
In fact, in transference situations, they are both attached to the same transference complex.
Freud couldn't catch that....
Or he didn't want to because he wanted to escape from his 'childhood sexual abuse theory'...
Because, due to the leverage of The Vienna Psychiatry and Neurology,
Persisting with this most unpopular theory -- this supposed 'scientific fairy tale'...
Was costing him client referral and money...
In essence, his job, his career, and his means of supporting his family...
So either way you want to look at it,
Whether it was out of ignorance or intention,
Freud failed with two opposing theories, that taken independently of each other,
Neither was sufficient by itself to satisfy the full landscape of the human psyche -- and the structural foundation and territory of psychoanalysis...
Freud's traumacy and seduction theories failed to the extent that they didn't account for fantasy theory...
And Freud's fantasy theory failed to the extent that it didn't properly account for reality, traumacy, and sexual traumacy theory....
My 'dialectic' theory works...
Because both these territories are covered...at the same time...
Freud was a smart man.
Why couldn't he figure that one out?
Money.
Money changes everything.
Object Relations is still evolving...
Because it doesn't have Freud's name...
Attached to it...
But Classical Psychoanalysis...
Should be locked up...
And encrypted in a Victorian museum...
Until the traumacy theory is put back into
Classical Psychoanalysis...
And all The Discriminatory Narcissistic Bias...
Against Women...
Is taken out of Classical Psychoanalysis...
It's nice to show off a Model T Ford...
But don't try to pass it off...
As a 2012 Mercedes Benz...
Freud wasn't God...
He was human like the rest of us...
Full of narcissistic biases...
And transference neuroses...
That were introjected....
Into 'Classical' Psychoanalysis...
His daughter, Anna Freud, couldn't see this...
Kurt Eissler couldn't see this...
The Board of Directors of...
The International Psychoanalytic Institute...
Couldn't see this...
Masson could...
And lost his Projects Director of The Freud Archives...
For saying so...
Masson couldn't see...
The potential interactions and integrations...
Between Pre-1897 Classical Psychoanalysis...
And Post-1896 Classical Psychoanalysis...
But I'm serving them up to you tonight...
Here....on a golden platter...
I think back to what Masson wrote to me...
Two years ago when I interviewed him...
And he's probably still right...
..........................................................................
9. Question.
DGB. Any commendations and/or criticisms regarding my work in Hegel's Hotel?
Maybe I am being too bold here -- I expect you will be truthful. Have I
influenced your thinking at all? I see you have an interest in the 'Us and
Them' phenomenon which has been a central 'dialectic' focal point of writing
for me in Hegel's Hotel; and also, we at least used to share a common interest
in the topic of 'counter-phobias' (if Janet Malcolm's quote here is right)
which remains a central focal point of my Psychoanalytic investigations.
9. Answer.
JM. Well, I have only read your work sporadically and not in depth. I can sense
your sincerity, and I respect your attempt to fuse both trauma and the later
Freud. It is not easy, and you are making a concerted attempt. Analysts
would do well to pay attention to your work, but of course they won't,
because you are not part of the establishment. That is a pity.
10. Final DGB comments:
Jeff, I have the utmost respect for your work and your character. I know that we disagree on the 'integration' issue -- you skeptical that it will work, and me confident that I can make it work. But regardless, your work on The Seduction Theory has been a source of great inspiration to me, impassioned me to follow up on your work wherever it may take me, and to do the best job I possibly can to make sure that your exhausting work in Psychoanalysis has not been in vain, and that you take your rightful, respectful place in the history and ongoing evolution of Psychoanalysis.
It has been the greatest pleasure meeting you and I hope that we can maintain some degree of ongoing contact with each other.
Sincerely, David Gordon Bain
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Email Transaction From Jeffrey Masson Regarding The Interview...
Sunday March 14th, 2010
(Dave),
I read what you wrote, and I appreciate the generous comments about me. It
was very kind. Like you, I do not expect any reconciliation. And the truth
is, I really have lost interest in psychoanalysis. Perhaps if they had
responded as you have, or as you wish they had, it would be different.
Surely Freud has written some wonderful papers, has had some amazing
insights, has given us valuable material to think about. But I do believe
he missed out on something terribly important. Now, as to why he did so, I
cannot pretend to know. My hunch, my theory, my belief, is that it was due
to a lack of moral courage. But I could easily be wrong. You might be
right: he may have been headed in that direction in any case. We will
probably never know. But he did abandon what was an important and
courageous theory, and the result is that women and children were
disbelieved and suffered as a consequence. I am amazed, like you, that not
a single analyst has been able to acknowledge this! I just can't really get
my mind around this. So I have to wish them godspeed, and be on my way.
Same with you. I appreciate what you do, but I am concerned now with other
things and cannot give much more attention to this matter. Sorry. You are
doing a fine job on your own! Best, Jeff
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Ph.D.
P.O.Box 25930, St. Heliers, Auckland 1740
New Zealand
www.jeffreymasson.com
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Good night...
-- dgb, Aug 5, 2012...
-- David Gordon Bain
