Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am not going to beat around the bush here -- my editorial opinions are well documented in many of my previous essays on this subject matter: Freud messed up big time between 1895 and 1897 when he proceeded to reject all of his work -- at least all of his work on traumacy and seduction -- that he had built up previously between 1893 and 1896. There are some precious essays in this time period that Freud wrote that even today make up much of the foundational groundwork for not only modern day Psychoanalysis, but also, most of the other major schools of psychology and psychotherapy as well.
You cannot talk Psychoanalysis without talking 'traumacy' -- and somehow, Freud, in a shocking repudiation of all his hard-earned, clinically supported work between 1893 and 1896, thought you could -- by changing the conversation from 'repressed childhood sexual traumacy and/or abuse' to 'repressed childhood sexual instinct and fantasy'.
One common denominator was left behind after 1896 and that was Freud's concept and theory of 'repression' which Freud viewed as the most important foundational pillar of Psychoanalysis. According to Freud, if you weren't talking about the psychology of repression, then you weren't talking about Psychoanalysis. This became one of the main divisionary chasms between the psychology of Freud and the psychology of Alfred Adler (Adlerian Psychology) who went on to emphasize the psychology of consciousness, unity in the personality, lifestyle, inferiority and superiority feelings and complexes, and the psychology of self-esteem, as opposed to the psychology of sexual instincts, drives, and fantasies.
If I be so bold as to call myself a 'psychoanalytic thinker' -- even though I lack the accreditation to be called a 'psychoanalyst' -- then, I would certainly call myself a 'Gestalt-Adlerian-Psychoanalytic' thinker or a 'GAP' thinker or a 'GAP-DGB' thinker meaning that I seek to 'Dialectically Bridge The GAP' between Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, and Psychoanalysis (meaning all three of Classical Psychoanalysis, Object Relations, and Self-Psychology...and beyond...Bion, Lacan...).
More than anything, I want to re-build and extend the assumptive theoretical foundations of Classical Psychoanalysis in a manner that makes Classical Psychoanalysis 'relevant' again -- and not a 'Victorian Dinosaur or Anachronism' -- I want 'a freshly renovated version of Pre-Classical and Classical Psychoanalysis fused together with Object Relations and Self-Psychology -- ready for clinical usage today and until any further changes in clinical findings justify any further changes in the 21st century. Everything is always subject to change. ('You don't step into the same river twice.' -- Heraclitus)
Now, the model that I am in the process of creating here is a much larger, more integrative model of Psychoanalysis than the one that Freud created.
I am the multi-integrative-dialectical theorist who builds theories, models, and metaphorical bridges for the challenge of it -- and aims to synthesize and synergize the 'Classical Nihilists' with the 'Classical Introjectors'.
Do you want to see Classical Psychoanalysis molding and rotting in a 'Dark Victorian Closet' somewhere, or do you want to see Classical Psychoanalysis come existentially alive in a fashion that takes into account objections to Freud's 'Narcissistically Male (Patriarchal) and Victorian Biased' work, updates and expands Object Relations, Self Psychology, and is in the process of radically revising Freud's Theory of Transference.
More than anything, I want to switch the focus of our attention in the study of psychoanalysis from the focal point of 'repression' to the focal point of 'transference' and 'transference obsessive-compulsion complexes and/or disorders' (TOCC/Ds). If I wish to write about anything related to 'repression', then it will be about those 'repressions' that are hidden within the confines of our conscious/pre-conscious early childhood memories that stunt our self-awareness growth if we are always looking for completely unconscious, repressed memories and/or fantasies.
In this regard, I wish to switch the focus of attention from allegedly 'unimportant conscious screen memories' to 'hugely important conscious transference memories'...of which...
Freud's own early childhood memory of 'busting into his parents' bedroom while they were having sex together' becomes 'the prototypical, flagship example' of what I am talking about in this context....
In this respect -- for those psychoanalysts and/or other students/teachers of clinical psychology who have the courage and open-mindedness to follow me in the direction I am about to take you -- what we are talking about here is essentially another potential 'revolution in psychoanalysis'.
For simplicity's sake -- and I know I am probably missing a few important names and 'revolutions in psychoanalysis' here (and I am not including all the 'post' and 'neo' Freudians like Adler, Horney, Fromm, Sullivan, Erickson, et al) -- let us say that there have been six major revolutions in Psychoanalysis so far: 1. Freud's 'Traumacy and Seduction Theories' or 'Pre-Classical Psychoanalysis'; 2. Classical Freudian Psychoanalysis; 3. Object Relations (Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott, Guntrip, et al...); 4. Kohutian Self Psychology (extending Freud's theory of 'narcissism'); 5. Bionian Psychoanalysis (based partly or mainly on the concept of 'pre-conceptual trauma'); 6. Lacanian Psychoanalysis (which I do not know enough about at this point in time to intelligently comment on...
It should be further noted that Jeffrey Masson created a partly successful, partly unsuccessful revolution of his own, that challenged psychoanalysts to return to Freud's 'Pre-Psychoanalytic Traumacy-Seduction Theory' that, in his mind, was superior -- i.e., more 'reality based' and 'clinically relevant' -- than Freud's post-1896-97 'Instinct-Fantasy Theory'.
I don't think it is any coincidence that there is a substantial 're-appreciation' of traumacy theory' in Psychoanalysis today, based in my opinion, on Masson's important albeit controversial work -- and personal 'martyrdom' in costing his own career in Psychoanalysis.
I largely concur with Masson in his core historical opinions, but seek to 'bridge the gap' between Freud's pre-1897 and post-1896 'reality' vs. 'fantasy' psychoanalytic viewpoints. Those who insist that the 'choice' is between Freud's reality-based 'Traumacy and Seduction (Sexual Trauma) Theories' and his later 'Sexual Instinct and Sexual Fantasy Theories -- including Freud himself -- are missing the main point: There is no person alive who I know of who has not suffered from some form of 'early childhood trauma', and there is no person alive who I know who has not partaken in some form of 'sexual fantasy'. Any nay-Sayers?
This is not an 'either/or' choice -- or at least it does not have to be. Indeed, the challenge of Psychoanalysis is to more fully recognize the paradoxical nature of 'the fusion between early childhood trauma and later, evolving childhood, teenage, and adult sexual fantasy -- as well as 'sublimation' and more general 'narcissistic' and/or 'altruistic career fantasies that can be linked to the original childhood traumacy...
Now, again, if I be so 'narcissistically bold', and based on the classification system above, I would call my own work right here 'a seventh major revolution in Psychoanalytic Theory' -- from a man who is not an accredited psychoanalyst, who has spent the last 10 to 20 years learning psychoanalysis in the confines of his own bedroom-office here, with Strachey's 24 volume Standard Edition of The Complete Works of Sigmund Freud sitting on a bookcase right behind my head here, along with other 'classic' -- in the broader sense of the word -- psychoanalytic -- and non-psychoanalytic -- works.
Basically, I am content to say, that somewhat like Dostoevsky before me -- but of course differently, I write 'Notes From The (Psychoanalytic) Underground'....
And that is where I will leave you in Part 1 of what I hope will be a 'seventh potential major revolution' in psychoanalysis...
Have a good evening!
-- dgb, Sept 4, 2012
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations and Creations...
-- Are Still in Process...
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Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving mad.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Read more athttp://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/fyodor_dostoevsky.html#4R9mgbAq4TACb1Gm.99
