Let us imagine the life of a newborn infant -- first in Freudian terms, then in Kleinian terms, then we will split from both Freud and Klein, and move in a different direction.
According to Freud, the newborn infant is 'all id' (1923) -- and all 'primary narcissism' (1914).
Connecting these two concepts is important.
Freud officially introduced his new concept -- narcissism -- in his 1914 essay, 'On Narcissism'.
Perhaps it was partly introduced as a 'counter-concept' to Jung's concept of 'life libido' (as opposed to Freud's 'sex libido'), and Adler's concept of 'The Masculine Protest' (which would eventually become 'superiority striving'.)
Freud's concept of narcissism gave him a concept that had a little more 'generalization capability' than sexuality (although Freud generalized 'sexuality' to the max, and probably beyond).
To be sure, narcissism and sexuality were -- and are -- often intimately connected, but still, narcissism approached the subject of 'self', 'self-interest', 'self-absorption', 'selfishness', and 'self-esteem' (its presence and/or absence) in a partly new and different way than 'sexuality' did.
Narcissism can also be more closely connected to the 'will to survive', the 'will to power', and the 'will to self-empowerment' than sexuality can, although again, the two different factors can be partly or closely tied together in this regard.
So let us get this clear -- by 1914 both Adler (1911) and Jung (1913) had left and/or been left by Freud -- thus, by 1914 (On Narcissism), Freud was rhetorically and theoretical 'doing battle' with both Adler and Jung in public print (on top of past personal correspondence and/or private arguments.)
Now paradoxically -- let's start with Adler here -- two of the respective concepts that were driving Freud and Adler apart -- narcissism (Freud) vs. the masculine protest or later superiority-striving (Adler) -- also could be used as a partial bridge to bring them back together again (albeit that was not going to happen in either of their respective lifetimes. But in my fantasy, I can bring some of their ideas back into harmony with each other).
Paradoxically, as well, both concepts can be seen to have been essentially born as 'twin concepts' from the same Vienna Society Scientific Meeting -- in which Freud and Adler were very much on the same page -- November 7th, 1906. (As a historical aside, Freud would meet Jung in person a year and four months later, March 3rd, 1907, according to Duane Schultz, author of 'Intimate Friends, Dangerous Enemies: The Turbulent Relationship Between Freud and Jung', 1990, p. 64.
Adler was the presenter in this meeting -- about to publish a forthcoming essay and/or book on
'Organ Inferiority and Overcompensation' which was the subject of Adler's presentation.
According to Herman Nunberg and Ernst Federn, co-editors of the 'Minutes Of The Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, Voume1, 1906-1908' (1962, p. 42)....
Freud attributed great importance to Adler's work; it has brought his own work a step further. To judge from the immediate impression, much of what Adler said may be correct.
He singled out two leading ideas as significant and fertile: 1. the concept of compensation, according to which an organic inferiority is counterbalanced by a supervalent cerebral activity; and 2. that the repression is accomplished by the formation of a psychic superstructure. A similar formulation had occurred to him.
(More from the editors...) He (Freud? Adler?) can adduce the fact that in persons whose egotism, excessive ambition, and the like are prominent, analysis uncovers serious organic defects as the deepest cause. (DGB note: In Adler's later work, 'organic defects' would be generalized to 'inferiority feelings', 'inferiority complexes', and the 'compensation' would become 'superiority striving'.)
Nunberg and Federn note: It seems that Freud had in mind what was later characterized as an overcompensation or counterbalance for a narcissistic 'injury' although he uses anatomical language here. Nunberg and Federn also note: By the formulation of a 'psychic superstructure', Freud's similar formulation may have been referring to the formulation that repression is accomplished by the ego.
DGB note: If we combine Freudian and Adlerian language, including still later to come respective conceptuology, we might say (my integration) that early childhood 'ego traumacy' or 'narcissistic injury' results in sustained 'self-esteem damage' and a 'supervalent narcissistic fixation' around this 'injury' -- like inflammation around a physical wound -- that is ongoing, like a wound that never heals (unless it does heal), and an 'immuno-self-esteem-defensive-compensation reaction' that never quits as long as the 'psychic wound' doesn't heal, which tends to often be the case.
The 'immune-self-esteem-defensive-compensation reaction' can take almost an endless variety of customized defensive efforts of which some of the more generic reactions include: distancing (phobic and/or paranoid schizoid behavior), aggression, approval-seeking, addiction, obsessive-compulsion, compromise formation, displacement, sublimation, transference, disavowal (dissociation), projection, reaction formation, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, hysteria, hypochondria, psychosis, and I could keep going, but this is off the top of my head....
One last point here before we stop: It should be noted that the 'shift' in the personality from traumacy and self-esteem injury (inferiority complex) to defense and compensation involves one very important defensive compensation that still needs to be discussed -- specifically, fantasy.
Thus, we have a connecting point between Freudian trauma theory and his later fantasy theory that Freud himself never noticed enough to turn his 'trauma theory' and his 'fantasy theory' into a 'trauma-defensive compensation-fantasy' theory.
This is a huge revelation as it integrates Massonian criticisms of Freud's fantasy theory (and his 'suppression' and/or at least partial -- if not more than partial -- abandonment of his earlier trauma-seduction theory (1893-1896), at the expense of the 'birth' of Freud's burgeoning instinct and fantasy theory after 1896 until the year he died (1939).
1. Thesis: Freud's trauma-seduction (childhood sexual assault) theory;
2. Counter-Thesis: Freud's instinct-fantasy theory from 1897 to 1939, as supported by Anna Freud in 1981-82 before she died (and backed up by Kurt Eissler and the rest of The International Psychoanalytic Board of Directors);
3. Synthesis: DGB Traumacy-(Defensive-Compensation)-Fantasy (T-F) Theory.
This is where I will leave you today.
In our next essay, we will delve deeper into Freud's use of 'the id' as a primary personality construct, and whether this construct is still useful, needs to be modified, and/or needs to be scrapped altogether.
-- dgb, August 3rd, 2014.
-- David Gordon Bain, dgbainsky@yahoo.com
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Associative-Integrative Negotiations....
-- Are Still in Process....
