Finished, Oct. 21, 2012...
Good evening,
There are two areas of study that I would like to focus on over the next little while -- and the two are intimately inter-connected. One, is the study of 'transference' (on this the 100th anniversary of one of Freud's most important papers: 'The Dynamics of Transference', 1912).
The second is the study of 'The ID' -- which I purposely spelled in capital letters for purposes of a 'double acronym' and for purposes of moving the study of The Id in a partly different direction than Freud.
Understand, before we get going that: 1. I am certainly not any kind of 'orthodox Classical Psychoanalytic theorist'; 2. I am not the type of Psychoanalytic theorist who wants to 'jump off the Freudian Ship' and jump onto 'The Object Relations Ship', or 'The Bionian Ship', or 'The Lacanian Ship'...If anything, what I want to do is to 'integrate the design of the Freudian Ship with The (Abraham-Klein-Fairbairn-Winnicott-Guntrip-Horney-Federn-Berne) Object Relations Ship....Except we are not going to talk Object Relations theory right now; rather Classical Id Theory going down a slightly different path....
Are you with me?
Let us start with Classical Id theory -- and I will differentiate it as we progress here from my currently evolving DGB ID theory.
In 1920, in 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle', Freud postulated a 'life instinct' and a 'death instinct' -- and he 'deposited' both these paradoxical, warring instincts in 'the id' (which was not to have a name for another 3 years in 1923, in 'The Ego and The Id'). We are told by James Strachey, co-editor of Freud's Complete Works, The Standard Edition, that 'the id' in German means 'the it', as in something quite different -- and 'dissociated/disavowed/detached' -- from (and/or by 'the ego').
Furthermore, the id is completely unconscious, and is like a container or reservoir that containing the completely volatile and unpredictable 'life' and 'death/or destructive') instincts. If you follow Freud by 'the letter of the law', this would seem to indicate that 'the instincts are volatile and unpredictable'; whereas as 'the id' -- being only the 'container' for the instincts, is not. The instincts or impulses or desires or drives or wishes are 'full of life and/or death processes' -- like the 'wish/desire' I had for the coffee I am drinking right now, whereas 'the id' is more like the coffee mug I am drinking the coffee out of -- structural, boring, not particularly interesting to a psychologist anymore than 'the prostate' would be of particular interest to a person studying genetics, sperm, and/or semen...
Life is full of the paradoxical interaction -- including the construction and destruction -- of 'structure' and 'process'...but Freud did call one of his papers, 'The Instincts and Their Vicissitudes' (1915), and by this he presumably meant that neither 'the id' nor even 'the primary instincts' travel to 'the consciousness of the ego' (except allusively and/or symbolically through a dream, a joke, a Freudian slip, a projection, a sublimation, a compromise-formation, a reaction-formation, a displacement, a transference relationship, a 'neurotic symptom and/or complex'...), all of which might be called 'vicissitudes' of the original primal instinct born in the confines of the id...which does start to make the id sound a little more exciting than a 'coffee mug'....and to be sure a 'prostate' has more life in it than a coffee mug -- indeed, it is essential to the birth of new life....Certainly, the prostate -- like any organ -- is 'organic', where a coffee mug is 'inorganic' (except to the extent that the coffee mug is made up of 'organic' ingredients). Anyway, let us not overly confuse the situation.
Perhaps, in this regard, we might want to call the id our 'instinct maker or creator', in which case, from a spiritual standpoint, some might even wish to view the id as both our 'Internal God' and our 'Unadulterated Creator of Spirit'...that is...before our 'defense mechanisms' get to it...and 'sugar coat' it, 'white wash' it, 'derail' it...'modify' it, 'compromise' it...make these desires more 'civil'....).
This is where 'the id' gets a bad name. It has been stereotyped as being inherently 'unconscious' and 'uncivil'. Not fit for civilization. And this brings us to the conflict between 'the ego and the id' (with the 'superego' being an extra 'ethical mutation' of 'the ego' involving the addition of more 'socially introjected', or 'self-introjected', guilt...)....
But did Freud get this all right? Or perhaps stated better, did Freud 'frame' his conceptualized theory of the psycho-dynamics of the ego and the id -- or the 'working psyche' -- in a manner that best described what was 'phenomenologically really happening'? Or are there better models out there of the human psyche that work better -- especially with, say, a hundred years (give or take 10 years) of evolution behind us to study this whole matter.
For Fichte -- and even for Freud at times in his earlier years -- the 'ego' meant the 'self' or 'Self'. (For Hume, even the 'self/Self' was a human invention -- and a conceptual fiction.)
So how could he turn around and argue that the ego was 'born' from the id, and that a newborn baby is 'full of id' with no ego present.
Balderdash! The ego is there. The self is there. The id is there -- as part of the ego/self. The first time it cries, we know it wants something that it doesn't have (it's 'oral' or 'impulsive desire' ego is in place); the first time it 'spits out food' or takes a dump, we know its 'anal-rejecting' ego is in place as well -- this classification system is not perfect -- no classification system is -- but it is very useful up to the point where the boundaries start to blend together. Just think 'nutritious' and 'good for me' for the 'oral desire' or 'oral ego'; and 'toxic' or 'poisonous' or 'not good for me' for the 'anal ego'. Of course, things can always get twisted around -- and turned inside out -- which is the essence of 'neurosis' and 'psychopathology', and much of the point of everything we are distinguishing here.
Remember Freud's primal distinction in his earliest days of theorizing but perhaps not fully articulated until between 1911 and 1915. The 'primary principle' (pleasure) vs. 'the reality principle' (safety) which by 1915 had been worked into 'the pleasure ego' vs. 'the reality ego'....No 'id' needed for this distinction....rather, just a 'splitting of the ego' which would come back to partly haunt or excite Freud (or both) in his last paper, 'Splitting of The Ego in The Mechanism of Defense' (1939)....Oh, oh, here comes Object Relations -- gyrating through Freud's mind -- to put another 'crowbar' in the 'assembly line' of Classical Psychoanalysis....
Do you think 'the id' -- meaning the 'house of the pleasure-pain principle' -- is 'unconscious' in a newborn baby? Do you think it is always even unconscious or subconscious or preconscious in a fully grown -- and 'mainly civilized' -- adult? We have our ego and superego to help protect us from the dangers of our 'unadulterated id'....even at a conscious level. So what is Freud's preoccupation with 'the unconscious' all about? Was that a part of his 'Secret Society Complex'? (I will explain that later via Freud's main 'Transference Complex'. Call it 'Transference Complex #1).
What I am getting at is this: We are all born with an 'ego' or an 'Ego-ID' that is already partly 'split' from the first breath of air and the first gulp of milk that, as a newborn baby, we take.
Yes, the ego is 'holistic' and working toward a common goal -- life and self-survival -- unless, or until, that gets 'pathologized' towards a 'wish of death'.
But lets take this example. I watch the activity of a small bird that drops down on my bird feeder, looking for food to eat. Self-survival again, is the name of the game.
But the small bird also has an 'ego' that is essentially divided into two part-functions: 1. 'Impulsive Drive'; and 2. 'Immunity or Internal Defense'. Both are crucial to self-survival. One moment it grabs a seed or two; the next moment, it's head is up, looking around, and the next moment it is in flight again...Harder to nab a moving target than a sitting one...
Thus, Freud's career long distinction between 'the primary (pleasure-unpleasure) principle' and 'the secondary principle' is at least partly a misnomer. Later on, this was framed as 'the pleasure principle' vs. 'the reality principle', and then 'the pleasure ego' vs. 'the reality ego'.
But if you think about it long enough, the 'reality principle' is essentially the 'unpleasure or pain principle' -- meaning the second half of the 'pleasure-unpleasure principle' -- meaning that they are one and the same with two part functions: one, 'pleasure' meaning 'food', 'shelter', 'sex', etc. and two, 'avoidance of pain or unpleasure' which essentially comes down to 'avoidance of possible predators, dangers, risks, frights, traumacies, longer term bad consequences, etc.', which is essentially what Freud meant by 'the reality principle' or 'the secondary principle'.
All of this is to say,
That we are all born with an 'ID-Ego' which can be divided into two parts and/or two part-functions:
1. The 'ID1-Ego' -- meaning 'The Impulsive-Desire (or Oral-Proactive/Receptive) Ego'; and,
2. The 'ID2-Ego' -- meaning 'The Immunity-Defense (or Anal-Righteous/Schizoid) Ego';
Which comes down to...
3. 'Perceived Need and Wish Satisfaction (Pleasure)' vs. 'Safety, Ethics-Politics-Law, and Detoxification (Avoidance of Pain)';
The 'Oral-Proactive/Receptive' Ego uses, for the most part the law of 'association' -- as in, 'I associate -- and want to bring you closer -- to me'....
Whereas 'The Anal Righteous, Rejecting, and/or Schizoid' Ego uses, for the most part, the law of 'dissociation' -- as in, 'I dissociate myself -- and want to push you further away from -- me'....
A distinction can also be made here between the 'oral addictions' and 'the anal defenses' against the 'oral addictions'. or even the 'anal obsessive-compulsions and/or defenses' (transference, projection, introjection, identification, displacement, denial, sublimation...) which may (or may not) be covering up for a 'submerged, underlying, suppressed, repressed, subconscious') 'oral addiction' or 'oral fixation'....(food, sex, seduction, power, money, alcohol, drugs, clothes, shopping, spending...) or the two sets of symptoms, together might make up a 'compromise-formation' between the impulsive desire and the defense against the desire...
For example, in 'manic-depression', we might say that the 'manic' phase satisfies 'the oral addictions part' and the 'depressive' phase satisfies 'the anal righteousness and self-rejection part'....Rather than a 'better working compromise between the two polar sides of the personality', we get a radically extreme polarity between opposite sides of 'The Id-Ego' being acted out sequentially, with each part (ID-Ego1 and ID-Ego2) -- the 'oral' and the 'anal' side -- taking its respective turn at 'controlling' the 'steering wheel' of 'The Central Executive Ego'...
Coming from a Gestalt background, a 'good hot seat and empty chair therapy session' might help a person with over-extreme polarities warring with each other to gain more 'conscious awareness' of the whole set of dynamics, and ideally, help move the person towards a more integrative, healthy balance...
This is one example of how Psychoanalysis and Gestalt Therapy might be integrated to complement each other....Therapeutically, I like the hot seat and empty seat technique but theoretically, I prefer where I am right now in terms of my development of 'psycho-dynamic structure and process' using Psychoanalysis as my 'base camp', than the simple 'two compartment-topdog-underdog' model that Perls left us with in Gestalt Theory. It's simple and effective -- I just like more to work with, such as 'the transference templates' and 'the pleasure ego' vs. 'the safety ego' or the 'oral ego' vs. 'the anal ego', 'inferiority complexes juxtaposed against superiority complexes', 'Gods' and 'Archetypes', 'Nietzsche's/Zarathustra's Mountain', and 'Nietzsche's Abyss', and 'the tight rope of life between them'...all the 'Object Relations Ego States' (The Nurturing Superego and Underego or Topdog and Underdog, The Hedonistic-Dionysian-Pleasure Topdog and Underdog, The Anal-Schizoid and/or Oral-Phobic Topdog and Underdog, The Apollonian, Anal-Righteous-Rejecting Topdog and Underdog, The Private Shadow Ego, The Public Persona Ego, The Central Executive Ego, The Unconscious, Pre-Conscious, or Conscious, Uncivilized, or Unrefined Id-Ego (Before Splitting), The Dream-Weaver, The Id-Ego Vault, The Oral Addiction (Obsessive-Compulsion) Centre (which is inside The Dionsysian Pleasure Ego), The Anal Addiction (Obsessive-Compulsion) Centre which can be found inside The Apollonian Anal-Righteous Ego...
Topographically, the model now looks like this:
1. The Nurturing Ego which splits into our Nurturing Topdog and Underdog (or Nurturing Superego and Underego);
2. Our Dionysian-Pleasure Ego which can split into topdog and underdog polarities;
3. Our Anal-Schizoid (Angry, Distancing) Ego which can split into topdog and underdog polarities;
4. Our Oral-Phobic (Scared, anxious, distancing) Ego which can split into topdog and underdog polarities;
5. Our Anal-Righteous-Rejecting (Confrontational) Ego which can split into topdog and underdog polarities;
6. Our Private Shadow Ego;
7. Our Public Persona Ego;
8. Our Central Decision-Making Ego;
9. Our Dream-Maker;
10. Our 'Escaped' Id-Ego Complexes and Their Greater or Lesser, Partly Healthy, Partly Toxic Vicissitudes;
11. Our Id-Ego Vault;
12. Our 'Post-Transference' Id-Ego Complexes and Their Partly Toxic Vicissitudes;
13. Our Transference Traumacy and Narcissistic Fixation Templates;
14. Our Version of Nietzsche's Mountain;
15. Our Version of 'Nietzsche's Tightrope Walk of Life' (Our Will Towards Greater and Greater Self-Empowerment, Being, and Becoming);
16. Our 'Symbolic, Existential Replacement Womb' (Or our 'Safety Room' -- or initially and ideally, 'Our Nurturing Mom');
17. Our Newborn, Evolving Id-Ego, Our Impulsive Drives, and Our Beginning Anal Defenses, 'Functional and Dysfunctional Splits in The Personality/Ego/Self;
18. Our Existential Abyss (Nietzsche's Abyss, Anaximander's Apeiron, Freud's Partial Version of The Id as 'Chaotic', 'Unorganized', and Paradoxical, Self-Contradictory, Pre-Polarization)
19. Our Real Pre-Birth Womb;
20. Our Genetic Potential Self
Maybe understandable at this point, maybe not...or probably partly both...
Until the next time...we can spend together....
dgb, Oct. 21, 2012,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process....
