Comments, feedback to David Bain, dgbainsky@yahoo.com
July 26, 2014
1. Introduction To This Multi-Integrative-Dialectic Project
Let me warn you ahead of time. If you are going to read my work -- and I certainly hope you will -- be prepared to read an integrative combination of orthodox Freudian theory, Object Relations and Self Psychology, different brands of neo-psychoanalysis and cognitive theory/therapy, and my own original, orthodox and unorthodox, formal contributions laid out here for the first time, having studied in the field of psychology as a passionate, obsessional hobby for over 40 years.
I think I have a sufficient academic resume to hold decent credibility of what I write about. I have an Honours BA in Psychology and Human Relations and Counselling Studies from The University of Waterloo (1974-1979), wrote my Honours Thesis for the highly acclaimed Cognitive-Behavioral Therapist, Dr. Donald Meichenbaum, spent two years studying/training at The Adler Institute of Ontario (1980-81), including attending a weekend seminar conducted by one of the founders of The Adler Institute, Dr. Harold Mosak, attended various workshops at The Gestalt Institute of Toronto, including seminars being run by two of the past Directors of The Toronto Gestalt Institute -- the late Jorge Rosner, and Joanne Greenham.
In 2010, I interviewed Dr. Jeffrey Masson in Hegel's Hotel (The Jeffrey Masson Interview) -- it was Masson who ignited my passion for Psychoanalysis ironically after he had already exited it.
On Linked In, you can find the rest of my resume online, including various commendations from an impressive assortment of different psychologists practicing all over the world. There will always be a list of psychologists who do not like what I have to write, but that is the case in any field of endeavor you work in, and it is the positive feedback that helps to keep me going.
All told, I have spent some 40 years of my adult life studying psychology as a hobby -- particularly the research and theory end of things -- and can converse with relative ease, and move in and out of, most of the main schools of psychotherapy that can be classified under one of the following headings: 1. Psychoanalysis, 2.Neo-Psychoanalysis, 3. Humanistic-Existentialism, 4. Cognitive Therapy, 5. Transactional Analysis, 6. Client-Centered Therapy, 7. Gestalt Therapy -- call them 'The Magnificent 7' in the field of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy.
My mission is to 'synthesize and synergize' The Magnificent 7 into one mulit-dialectic-integrative school of psychology that I will call 'Quantum Psychoanalysis and Neo-Post-Psychoanalysis'.
I will do my best to communicate the main essence of this 'Multi-Dialectic-Integrative (Quantum) Psychoanalysis in about 50 mini-lecture-essays that you can read here on Hegel's Hotel -- starting with this one.
I am always working to try to improve my evolving model of the human psyche -- based very much on different parts of Freudian theory with a lot more 'compartments' than Freud's famous triadic model -- id, ego, and superego, as I 'split the ego' not only in partly Freudian, partly Object Relations style, but also 'split the id' and 'split the superego' as well.
Metaphorically speaking, Freud's 'Victorian house' becomes a much larger 'monster home' in the 21st century -- indeed, you can say that it becomes the most important part of my now 8 year old 'Hegel's Hotel' project and contribution, the metaphor being for a 'symbolic hotel' that is built from -- say 50 to 100 philosophers and psychologists or more, each with their own 'room' or 'set of rooms' or 'entire floor', or more.
Certainly, Freud deserves 'numerous floors' in Hegel's Hotel, from the basement up to about the 30th floor, if not an entire 'hotel' in his own name.
Some of the most unorthodox -- and stretching outside the boundaries of 'normal' psychoanalytic thinking -- psychoanalytic ideas back in Freud's lifetime were called 'wild' psychoanalysis by Freud, to indicate their 'crossing' of usual psychoanalytic boundaries into a realm that lay 'outside' of usual psychoanalytic practice. Freud once wrote an essay on 'wild' psychoanalysis towards the end of his career.
Otto Gross and Wilhelm Reich stand out in my mind, and probably Ferenczi towards the end of his career, maybe even Rank as well. All had important contributions to make to psychoanalysis and/or what would eventually become different brands of neo-psychoanalysis.
So I feel that I am in good company and don't mind if you call me a 'wild' (underground) psychoanalytic thinker. In fact, I quite like it.
As long as I can make my case for the rationale behind what I about to write about here. In this regard, there will be lots of quotes from Freud at different times in his professional career, as well as a further assortment of psychoanalytic, neo-post-psychoanalytic, and even some 'wild' psychoanalytic thinkers, all screened and sometimes modified through the brain of yours truly here.
Even Melanie Klein was a 'wild' psychoanalytic thinker when she first introduced her own ideas into psychoanalysis. 'Wild' can mean 'free thinking' and 'creative thinking' as well, in some cases, referring to 'quackery'. I would prefer to stay away from the latter label.
'Quantum' refers to the idea of 'multi-dialectic-multi-bipolar-integrative thinking'.
To the best of my ability, I want to keep these presentations short and simple...
And also, educationally entertaining...
If you are still with me, I am happy, and we will turn to a discussion of 'the id'.
Cheers for those of you who choose to stay on board with me here, and in the presentations about to come..
I will be working hard for you to keep this subject matter interesting, stimulating, intriguing, and aimed at 'stretching' your own personal and professional concepts, theories, paradigms, and boundaries beyond the realm of any type of 'orthodox' psychoanalytic theory being taught today.
There is only one place in the world that you will find the integrative type of theory that is going to be presented here.
And that is here.
We all need a little 'wildness' in our lives to keep it interesting, and to keep ourselves both interested and interesting. Beyond a certain extreme -- well, I don't intend to drop off the deep end here, or at anywhere in my future presentations. I aim to avoid all 'abysses' as we strive to climb to top of Mt. Everest, or alternatively, referring back to my earlier metaphor, build Hegel's Hotel high into the sky. Please join me all motivated climbers and builders.
-- dgb, July 26th, 2014
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Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Essay 13: A 'Universal' Element in Most Different Schools of Psychotherapy
There is a more or less universal element in most major schools of psychotherapy that perhaps I can describe the essence of here.
Specifically, we all tend to 'dissociate' some of our more 'unsocial (unpalatable, irreconcilable, unbearable) emotions'; they tend to get locked up in what might be called a 'stress bin' or an 'emotional dissociation vault'....and over time this bin or vault full of stressed out, often toxically unexpressed emotions, can make us sick...(and/or miserable to live with).
Release the troubling elixir of emotions from our 'dissociation vault' -- and we relieve stress in both our mind and body...We feel better....
What person does not become 'emotionally out of balance' depending on particular context situations...from time to time? Some obviously more than others, and some obviously to a greater extent than others.... But it is by working through this process -- in the here and now -- that we all can 'alleviate' the stress that may be building up inside our 'Dissociated Stress Vault or Bin (DSV or DSB or just Stress Bin)'
Now, we all have 'Signature Methods of Operation' (SMOs) or 'Signature Transference-Immediacy Constructions' (STICs) or 'Signature Serial Behavior Patterns (SSBPs)' that we create and that we are responsible for both what we put into our Stress Bin and how we vicariously or subconsciously deal with what we put in there. Sometimes what we put in there goes back to our earliest childhood memories....
'Transference' issues belong to the 'there and then' -- these are past learnings and compensations from our often earliest learnings that we 'transfer' or 'associate' with new things (immediacy issues) that are happening in our present day life .
Transference and immediacy issues exist in different parts of the personality. But every now and again -- actually, to different degrees of intensity and urgency -- they are connecting all the time. We base our present experiences and perceptions, interpretations, judgments, very much on what we have experienced, learned, interpreted, judged, and compensated for in the past. Thus, immediacy issues become 'trigger stimuli' for the release of 'unfinished or unresolved transference issues' -- and visa versa.
These are what I call 'TICs' and/or 'TIPs' or 'TIPIs' or 'TIPS' (Transference-Immediacy Constructions, Transference Immediacy Projections, Transference-Immediacy-Projective-Identifications, Transference-Immediacy-Projective-Sublimations'...respectively...)
After a while of watching -- or reading in this case -- a person in action, one can start to get a feel for his or her SMO or STIC...or transference complexes/serial behavior patterns.
If you are a therapist, processing a client's SMO (again, signature method of operation) or his or her transference complexes -- as well as our own SMO based on counter-transference complexes -- is essentially what a therapist should be doing -- or at least a significant part of what a therapist should be doing -- both diagnostically and therapeutically in the therapeutic relationship...
That is what a psychoanalyst does, that is what an Adlerian psychologist does, that is what a Gestalt therapist does, that is what a transactional analyst or cognitive-behavior therapist does (relative to the 'games people play' in TA, and relative to the 'unbearable ideas' that cognitive therapy is looking for...
They diagnose and treat SMOs, STICs, serial behavior patterns, underlying transference complexes and the 'unbearable ideas and feelings' that these transference complexes are based on....
In other words, there is a certain 'degree of universality' to what most therapists are trying to help a client work through in the therapeutic process...
-- dgb, May 27th, 2014...
-- David Gordon Bain...
-- Dialectic GAP -- Gestalt-Adlerian-Psychoanalytic -- Bridging Associations, Integrations, and Negotiations...Are Still in Process....
Specifically, we all tend to 'dissociate' some of our more 'unsocial (unpalatable, irreconcilable, unbearable) emotions'; they tend to get locked up in what might be called a 'stress bin' or an 'emotional dissociation vault'....and over time this bin or vault full of stressed out, often toxically unexpressed emotions, can make us sick...(and/or miserable to live with).
Release the troubling elixir of emotions from our 'dissociation vault' -- and we relieve stress in both our mind and body...We feel better....
What person does not become 'emotionally out of balance' depending on particular context situations...from time to time? Some obviously more than others, and some obviously to a greater extent than others.... But it is by working through this process -- in the here and now -- that we all can 'alleviate' the stress that may be building up inside our 'Dissociated Stress Vault or Bin (DSV or DSB or just Stress Bin)'
Now, we all have 'Signature Methods of Operation' (SMOs) or 'Signature Transference-Immediacy Constructions' (STICs) or 'Signature Serial Behavior Patterns (SSBPs)' that we create and that we are responsible for both what we put into our Stress Bin and how we vicariously or subconsciously deal with what we put in there. Sometimes what we put in there goes back to our earliest childhood memories....
'Transference' issues belong to the 'there and then' -- these are past learnings and compensations from our often earliest learnings that we 'transfer' or 'associate' with new things (immediacy issues) that are happening in our present day life .
Transference and immediacy issues exist in different parts of the personality. But every now and again -- actually, to different degrees of intensity and urgency -- they are connecting all the time. We base our present experiences and perceptions, interpretations, judgments, very much on what we have experienced, learned, interpreted, judged, and compensated for in the past. Thus, immediacy issues become 'trigger stimuli' for the release of 'unfinished or unresolved transference issues' -- and visa versa.
These are what I call 'TICs' and/or 'TIPs' or 'TIPIs' or 'TIPS' (Transference-Immediacy Constructions, Transference Immediacy Projections, Transference-Immediacy-Projective-Identifications, Transference-Immediacy-Projective-Sublimations'...respectively...)
After a while of watching -- or reading in this case -- a person in action, one can start to get a feel for his or her SMO or STIC...or transference complexes/serial behavior patterns.
If you are a therapist, processing a client's SMO (again, signature method of operation) or his or her transference complexes -- as well as our own SMO based on counter-transference complexes -- is essentially what a therapist should be doing -- or at least a significant part of what a therapist should be doing -- both diagnostically and therapeutically in the therapeutic relationship...
That is what a psychoanalyst does, that is what an Adlerian psychologist does, that is what a Gestalt therapist does, that is what a transactional analyst or cognitive-behavior therapist does (relative to the 'games people play' in TA, and relative to the 'unbearable ideas' that cognitive therapy is looking for...
They diagnose and treat SMOs, STICs, serial behavior patterns, underlying transference complexes and the 'unbearable ideas and feelings' that these transference complexes are based on....
In other words, there is a certain 'degree of universality' to what most therapists are trying to help a client work through in the therapeutic process...
-- dgb, May 27th, 2014...
-- David Gordon Bain...
-- Dialectic GAP -- Gestalt-Adlerian-Psychoanalytic -- Bridging Associations, Integrations, and Negotiations...Are Still in Process....
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Essay 12: Hegel's Hotel: Dichotomies and Integrations of The Human Spirit: Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Adler, Klein, Fairbairn, Horney, Perls, Fromm...
Table of Contents
Part 1: Vision and Mission Statement: Homeostatic Balance and Humanistic-Existential Self-and-Social Acceptance-Actualization-Achievement, Contact and Celebration of Excellence;
A/ Hegel's Dialectic Hotel: Thesis, Counter-Thesis, Synthesis, and Start All Over Again (Hopefully At a 'Higher' Level of Evolution)
B/ Nietzsche's Dionysian Superman -- and Apollonian Nemesis: Institutionalized Thinking;
C/ Freud's Dualistic and Dialectic (Triangulated) Man: The Id, The Superego, and The Ego
D/ Other Philosophical Influences;
E/ Other Psychological Influences:
F/ Introducing GAP-DGB Philosophy-Psychology and The Dichotomized Phenomenology of The Human Spirit -- Good and Bad -- Unified and Split -- Ecstatically Achieving and Despairingly Failing;
Part 2: Theory and Therapy;
A/ GAP-DGB Ego-State Theory and Therapy: The Splitting of The Ego, Superego, and Id In The Process of Learning, Transference, Specialized Function, and Compensatory Defense
B/ The Nurturing Superego: Loving, Encouragement, Altruism, and Self-Esteem Enhancement
C/ Turning 'The Terrible Internal Trio' -- 1. The Critical-Righteous Alpha Superego; 2. The Rebellious-(Anarchist-Deconstructive, Counter-Critical and Counter-Righteous) Beta Under-ego; and 3. The Anxiety-Ridden, Attachment-Seeking, Omega Under-ego -- into 'The Terrific Internal Trio';
D/ GAP-DGB Central Ego Theory and Therapy ('SPICIER' versions of CBT: The Cognitive Awareness-Emotional Contact-Behavioral Achievement Wheel, The Communication Awareness Wheel, Dreams-Goals-Behaviors-Achievements, Integrations, Next...);
E/ GAP-DGB Depth Psychology: Education, Diagnosis and Psychotherapy ('FAULT' Freudian-Adlerian-Universal-Lifestyle-Transference 'TIPS' (Trauma, Identifications and Introjections, Projections and Phobias, Sublimations and other Super-Charged Compensations, Complexes, Creations...)
F/ GAP-DGB Re-Attachment Theory and Therapy;
1. Better Internal Object (Subject-Object-Self) Relations;
2. Better External Object (Subject-Object-Social) Relations;
3. Better Self-Work Relations (Searching for Self-Excellence Inside and Outside Ourselves Through Our Spiritual Passion For Our Work)
4. Uniting Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Freud, Adler, Jung, Klein, Horney, Fromm, Perls, and Other Philosophical and Psychological Mentors Inside Ourselves to Create Our 'Own Path' Inside 'Hegel's Hotel', Our Heart Beating To The Drum of Our Own 'Phenomenology of Spirit', and to The Potential of Our Own 'Superman' or 'Superwoman'....Who Dares To Challenge and Traverse 'Nietzsche's Rope' Overlooking 'Nietzsche's Abyss' on the way From Our 'Old' Mountain of Entropy, Apathy, and Sterile Non-Being...to Our 'New' Mountain Plateau of Being, Becoming, Self-Awareness, Self-Contact, Self-Achievement, Self-Excellence... -- Diogenes, Dionysus, and Apollo All Dancing Together Inside Us in United Fashion To 'The Beating of Our Heart and Our Phenomenology of The Human Spirit United and at Its Best....
-- dgb, May 24th, 2014,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic, Gap-Bridging, Attainable, Integrative Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Essay 11: Cognitive-Behavior Theory, Early Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory (1893-1895), and a Movement Towards Integration
Good morning everyone,
In the 1960s, the Behaviorists -- specifically, I believe it was B.F. Skinner -- came up with the idea of 'The Black Box' model-theory, in connection with his/their 'Stimulus-Response' model-theory.
The idea -- or assumption -- was (in very loose, layperson's terms), that if an experimenter gave an experimentee a 'provocative, conditioning stimulus' over and over again -- like a shock if a rat didn't run the maze right, or some food if it did -- then, applying this theory to humans, you wouldn't need a 'psychology of the mind' -- but simply leave it alone as an 'untouched' 'Black Box' inside our 'Brain' or 'Brain-Mind'. Experimenters didn't need to know about 'the Black Box' or man's 'Brain' or 'Brain-Mind' because they could control the 'response' elicited from the Black Box-Brain simply by 'controlling the variables' and the 'provocative conditioning stimuli' that could give the experimenter a reliable prediction of how the rat/human experimentee was going to behave. Welcome to Skinner's view of 'Utopia' -- Walden 2.
Then as a counter-reaction against Skinner's view of 'Utopia' and only 'scientifically investigating' man's 'observable behavior' as opposed to his 'internal, invisible, thought-feeling-impulse mind-brain (black box) process', along came the human-existentialists (actually they were already present), and the 'cognitive theorists and therapists' (they were just beginning to surface in the 50s and 60s), and also an 'integrative cognitive-behavior theorist and therapist' who I wrote my Honours Thesis in psychology for in 1979 (Dr. Donald Meichenbaum) at The University of Waterloo.
And in my Honours Thesis, I created a rather crude, robotic model-theory of man's 'black box-mind-brain' that went a little bit beyond the work of the already existing cognitive theorists/therapists at the time (Aaron Beck, George Kelly, Albert Ellis, before any of them in the 1930s -- Alfred Korzybski followed by S.I. Hayakawa -- and before any of them in ancient Greece, Epictetus -- 'Man is not disturbed by things but by the view he takes of them.', and the cognitive-behavior theorist who I was writing for and who was very familiar with the work of all these cognitive theorists mentioned above -- Dr. Meichenbaum -- who became very well recognized and appreciated for both his clinical-therapeutic work, and his theoretical academic essays and books
..............................................................................................................................................
Donald Meichenbaum is a psychologist noted for his contributions to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). He developed a therapeutic technique called cognitive behavior modification (CBM), which focuses on identifying dysfunctional self-talk in order to change unwanted behaviors. In other words, Dr. Meichenbaum views behaviors as outcomes of our own self-verbalizations.
.............................................................................................................................................
Now, the essay I wrote back in 1979 can be represented (in updated fashion) by the model you see below you, as labelled by the acronym 'SPICIER'.
S -- Stimulus/Sensory...
P -- Perception,,,
I -- Interest (or lack of it, or Anti-Interest)...
C -- Choice of...
I -- Interpretive...
E -- Evaluative...
R -- Response...
You see, this is meant to be a 'SPICIER' model than Skinner's 'Black Box' theory because Skinner's Black Box theory tells us nothing about what is going on inside our 'Black Box' -- meaning our 'Brain'.
It is also a SPICIER model than the cognitive SBR model as supported by such Cognitive Therapists and Theorists as...Albert Ellis, Jerome Frank, Aaron Beck, George Kelley...
Because it delves deeper into the black box or belief or brain theory or brain-mind (SBMR) theory than what you get from just the word 'belief'....which can mean many things...assumptions, associations, inferences, interpretations, perceptions, evaluations, values, transferences....And the SPICIER model introduces the gestalt idea of 'interest' and the humanistic existential idea of 'choice'.
Now, if I wanted to present a 'SPITE-IER' model, then I would introduce the idea of 'Transference' -- and we would have -- Sensual Perception-Interest-Transference Energy-Interpretative-Evaluative-Response'...transference energy adding positive or negative energy to the already existing 'immediacy' or 'here-and-now' energy of the mind-brain's eco-system.
Now, if we introduce one of Freud's first 'neurotic formulas' back in 1893-1895, we come up with something like this -- creatively extrapolated on by yours truly and labelled with another acronym...
N equals DUIT which can mean a number of associated different things...
Neurosis equals Defense against Unbearable, Irreconcilable Transferences...
Neurosis equal Defense against Unbearable, Irreconcilable Theories...
We will leave things here for future discussion...
-- DGBN, May 13, 2014,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic-Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
In the 1960s, the Behaviorists -- specifically, I believe it was B.F. Skinner -- came up with the idea of 'The Black Box' model-theory, in connection with his/their 'Stimulus-Response' model-theory.
The idea -- or assumption -- was (in very loose, layperson's terms), that if an experimenter gave an experimentee a 'provocative, conditioning stimulus' over and over again -- like a shock if a rat didn't run the maze right, or some food if it did -- then, applying this theory to humans, you wouldn't need a 'psychology of the mind' -- but simply leave it alone as an 'untouched' 'Black Box' inside our 'Brain' or 'Brain-Mind'. Experimenters didn't need to know about 'the Black Box' or man's 'Brain' or 'Brain-Mind' because they could control the 'response' elicited from the Black Box-Brain simply by 'controlling the variables' and the 'provocative conditioning stimuli' that could give the experimenter a reliable prediction of how the rat/human experimentee was going to behave. Welcome to Skinner's view of 'Utopia' -- Walden 2.
Then as a counter-reaction against Skinner's view of 'Utopia' and only 'scientifically investigating' man's 'observable behavior' as opposed to his 'internal, invisible, thought-feeling-impulse mind-brain (black box) process', along came the human-existentialists (actually they were already present), and the 'cognitive theorists and therapists' (they were just beginning to surface in the 50s and 60s), and also an 'integrative cognitive-behavior theorist and therapist' who I wrote my Honours Thesis in psychology for in 1979 (Dr. Donald Meichenbaum) at The University of Waterloo.
And in my Honours Thesis, I created a rather crude, robotic model-theory of man's 'black box-mind-brain' that went a little bit beyond the work of the already existing cognitive theorists/therapists at the time (Aaron Beck, George Kelly, Albert Ellis, before any of them in the 1930s -- Alfred Korzybski followed by S.I. Hayakawa -- and before any of them in ancient Greece, Epictetus -- 'Man is not disturbed by things but by the view he takes of them.', and the cognitive-behavior theorist who I was writing for and who was very familiar with the work of all these cognitive theorists mentioned above -- Dr. Meichenbaum -- who became very well recognized and appreciated for both his clinical-therapeutic work, and his theoretical academic essays and books
..............................................................................................................................................
Donald Meichenbaum is a psychologist noted for his contributions to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). He developed a therapeutic technique called cognitive behavior modification (CBM), which focuses on identifying dysfunctional self-talk in order to change unwanted behaviors. In other words, Dr. Meichenbaum views behaviors as outcomes of our own self-verbalizations.
.............................................................................................................................................
Now, the essay I wrote back in 1979 can be represented (in updated fashion) by the model you see below you, as labelled by the acronym 'SPICIER'.
S -- Stimulus/Sensory...
P -- Perception,,,
I -- Interest (or lack of it, or Anti-Interest)...
C -- Choice of...
I -- Interpretive...
E -- Evaluative...
R -- Response...
You see, this is meant to be a 'SPICIER' model than Skinner's 'Black Box' theory because Skinner's Black Box theory tells us nothing about what is going on inside our 'Black Box' -- meaning our 'Brain'.
It is also a SPICIER model than the cognitive SBR model as supported by such Cognitive Therapists and Theorists as...Albert Ellis, Jerome Frank, Aaron Beck, George Kelley...
Because it delves deeper into the black box or belief or brain theory or brain-mind (SBMR) theory than what you get from just the word 'belief'....which can mean many things...assumptions, associations, inferences, interpretations, perceptions, evaluations, values, transferences....And the SPICIER model introduces the gestalt idea of 'interest' and the humanistic existential idea of 'choice'.
Now, if I wanted to present a 'SPITE-IER' model, then I would introduce the idea of 'Transference' -- and we would have -- Sensual Perception-Interest-Transference Energy-Interpretative-Evaluative-Response'...transference energy adding positive or negative energy to the already existing 'immediacy' or 'here-and-now' energy of the mind-brain's eco-system.
Now, if we introduce one of Freud's first 'neurotic formulas' back in 1893-1895, we come up with something like this -- creatively extrapolated on by yours truly and labelled with another acronym...
N equals DUIT which can mean a number of associated different things...
Neurosis equals Defense against Unbearable, Irreconcilable Transferences...
Neurosis equal Defense against Unbearable, Irreconcilable Theories...
We will leave things here for future discussion...
-- DGBN, May 13, 2014,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic-Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
Friday, May 9, 2014
Essay 10: A Multi-Integrative Psychoanalytic and Existential Model of The Human Personality
A/ The Purpose of Models, Theories, and Paradigms
We must not forget that models are models, theories are theories, concepts are concepts, and things are things -- objects, persons, phenomena, processes...
Models are meant to help us understand and explain reality but they will never replace reality -- they are simply good, bad, or ugly representations of reality. As such, models are a mixture of 'representative reality' and 'fiction'. The more 'reality represented', usually the better the model. Reality will always have the last word. Models will always be subject to imperfection and criticism relative to what they attempt to do and explain.
With models and theories, we may put up 'arbitrary structural boundaries' where no such boundaries exist in real life. We make 'chunk' reality into 'compartments' that make it easier for us to study what we are studying but in the end, these 'arbitrary conceptual boundaries' and 'fictional compartments' are what they are -- and that is 'convenient fictional-fantasy devices' that can help make it easier to teach what we are teaching, and to study what we are studying, but still, we must not forget that these devices contain as much 'fantasy element' in their 'structural makeup' as they do 'reality representation'. We must not forget the 'as if' element to our model -- for example, our mind-brain and self-personality-character structure seems to function (and dysfunction) 'as if' the inside of our psyche looks and operates like this...
Different models can be used for different functions.
For example, my old 'Hegel's Hotel' model which is in the process of being integrated into the larger (or when I think about it, smaller) model you see represented by the title above: 'The Hegel-Nietzsche-Freud Estate Complex' -- was, and still is -- meant to convey the idea of a massive philosophy-psychology 'hotel' or 'estate' in which you can walk into -- say 50 different rooms -- and study a different philosopher or psychologist, or a different time period in philosophy, or the different cultures and countries associated with different philosophers and philosophies, or different paradigms in psychology....And then we would have The Great Hegelian-Dialectic Common Room -- spearheaded by the dialectic logic of 1.thesis; 2. counter-thesis; and 3. synthesis-integration-synergy.
In contrast, this DGB model of the human psyche -- or named differently after three great philosophical and psychological influences on my work -- Hegel, Nietzsche, and Freud -- thus, the current name: 'The Hegel-Nietzsche-Freud Hotel' is a metaphor of the inside of the functioning (and dysfunctioning) 'human mind-brain and personality-character structure-Self'. Different models for different purposes.
Anyway, this is the spirit in which the model below is to be viewed and 'tried out for size' -- not only as a rather 'large' or 'over-sized' (depending on who's interpretation and who's judgment) 30 room 'monster house' or 'hotel' compared to Freud's much smaller and simpler 'three room house' model (id, ego, superego). This does not mean that -- 'implicitly speaking' -- there weren't more 'rooms' in Freud's 1923 model. It is just that my current DGB model aims to add some Object Relations and Existential 'rooms' that were not fully or even barely spelled out in the 1923 model, and just starting to surface in Freud's last two papers in 1938 -- 'Splitting of The Ego in The Process of Defence', and 'Outlines in Psychoanalysis'.
Although there are certain elements of Freud's triadic ego-id-superego model that still work very well -- indeed, it matches up very easily with Hegel's 'thesis-anti-thesis-synthesis' dialectic (or trialectic) formula -- still, this is the 21st century and not Victorian Europe; meaning that there have been significant expansions in Psychoanalytic theory since Freud died in 1939, especially down the Object Relations trail, and if Classical Psychoanalysts and/or extreme Freudian loyalists are not utterly intent on keeping Classical Psychoanalysis exactly the way he created it, then there is plenty of room to expand on the original Freudian model in order to better integrate it with both Object Relations and Humanistic-Existential psychology.
So here below, I have developed what I believe to be a much more 'multi-integrative mainly psychoanalytic' model, that can be used either in its entirety, and/or in its more specific regions and smaller parts. For different functions, we may need only to use 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 'compartments' of the model as opposed to the '30 compartment model'.
This 30 room 'Super-House' is not really as baffling as it might sound like it is -- indeed, I invite you to explore not only all the different rooms but also, all the different 'staircases', 'nooks and crannies' in this (hopefully beautiful) Classic Post Victorian House. If you have ever been to Toronto, imagine Casa Loma (or google it).
Hopefully, the brief synopsis of the model, as described below, will bring some clarity to the essence of the model.
Thus, without further adieu, let me try to briefly explain and summarize this new DGB model of the personality from mainly within the paradigm of psychoanalytic thinking.
........................................................................................................................................................
B/ The Newest DGB Model of The Personality Under The Influence of Multi-Integrative-Dialectic (Quantum) Psychoanalytic Thinking: Part 1: Largely Subconscious and Pre-Conscious 'Psycho-Structures' and 'Psycho-Dynamics' in The Personality
1. If we start with the concept of 'The GPS' -- our 'Genetic-Potential-Self' ('The Path', Part 1) with all our inborn potential skills, abilities, and a honing device down 'our Existential Path' that we feel most passionate, comfortable, and at home going down...
2. And then we think of a newborn baby being 'ejected' from the mom's womb into what basically amounts to an 'existential abyss' that is entirely dependent on the mother's good will, willingness, and ability to look after the needs of her newborn son or daughter....
3. Freud said that the newborn baby is all 'id' -- all 'need', 'desire', 'impulse', and 'demanding of satisfaction' of his or her biological needs -- specifically, and I am extrapolating and modifying here on Freud's 'psycho-sexual stages of development' -- his or her 'oral' need of 'sucking' and bringing 'nutrition' into his or her little body to keep it alive; and on the other side of the fences, his or her 'anal-detoxification' need to be cleaned up after having expelled waste matter from the body; and finally, the maternal nurturing and touch of the mother to generate a 'trust bond' and 'attachment' figure that the baby can generally count on to not only satisfy its nutritional and detoxification needs, but also its attachment needs as well.
4. To modify Freud's concept of the 'Id' in order to make it more compatible with Kleinian theory and Fairbairnian theories of Object Relations, and 'the splitting of the ego', I have created a concept that Freud mentioned oh so briefly in the last paper of his life, An Outline of Psychoanalysis (1939), and which is more in tune with my own 'dialectically integrative way of thinking' -- specifically, Freud used the term 'id-ego' or 'ego-id', either of which I fully endorse, not as a concept that is only relevant in the child's infancy when his or her 'ego-id' is as of yet 'undifferentiated'... but will become differentiated, according to Freud, and at that point we will no longer have any use for the term 'ego-id' or 'id-ego', so sayeth Freud.
5. Well, I have lots of use for the concept of the id-ego -- even in our adulthood -- but first, I will describe how either the 'Pre-Oedipal' or 'Oedipal' id-ego -- and I will focus here on the latter can SPLIT during the process of a 'compensatory network of possible defenses' that are created under the influence of what I will call 'OPTSDT' which stands for 'Oedipal Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder-Transference'.
6. Here is how the id-ego can 'split' utilizing and extrapolating on probably the most important aspect of Kleinian Object Relations theory:
i/ The Love-and-Acceptance Wanting Id-Ego;
ii/ The Assertive-Problem-Solving Id-Ego;
iii/ The Phobic-Schizoid (Scared, Withdrawn, Distancing) Id-Ego;
iv/ The Narcissistic-Hedonistic Id-Ego;
v/ The Depressed (Chronically and/or Acutely Frustrated) Id-Ego;
vi/ The Paranoid-Schizoid (Angry, Withdrawn, Distancing) Id-Ego;
vii/ The Paranoid-Confrontational (Angry, Assertive, Righteous) Id-Ego;
7. These 'Post-Kleinian-DGB Positions' listed above become crystalized and locked up inside our 'EMLCDF' -- 'Experience-Memory-Learning-Compensatory-Defense-Fantasy' Transference Templates...as a network of different possible ways to deal with a similar type of 'trauma' in the future of which usually one or two different types of defenses are prototypically emphasized and dominant to the person's 'transference-lifestyle repetition compulsion and profile pattern'.
8. At this point, the ego-id's or id-ego's freshly learned 'Traumacy-Fantasy Transference Complexes' (TFTCs) become 'screened and/or edited the first time over' as they either attempt to 'escape' or are 'conditionally or unconditionally released' from the transference templates and funnelled into what I will call 'The Ego-Id or Id-Ego Vault'. At this point, a more differentiated and adult or parentally introjected part of the id 'splits again'. This time we have one part of the 'Main Adult Ego' 'identifying' with the needs and impulses of 'the more childish id-ego', while the other part of the main adult ego identifies with the 'parental, righteous superego'... The first part of our main adult ego is more prone to let our 'id-ego' out of the 'dissociative-isolation ward' of the id-ego vault and into the conscious or pre-conscious personality. The second part of our main adult ego which is more stringently identifying with our paternal, righteous superego is more prone to keeping our id-ego locked up tightly inside our id-ego vault.
9. A third part of the main adult ego splits again, this time into a 'pre-conscious, compromise-forming, 'symptom-forming', 'dream, fantasy, and nightmare creating', 'projecting', 'sublimating', 'projectively-identifying', 'displacing', 'transferring' ego-state which we will call the 'pre-conscious ego';
10. To summarize so far, from the deepest depth of the personality to the 'pre-conscious' personality, these are the ego-states, the psycho-structures, and the psycho-dynamics that I will be using...
C/ First Stage (Deepest, Most Primal) Sub-Ego-States
1. The GPS (Genetic Potential Self);
2. The Deepest Abyss;
3. The Primal, (Disorganized, and Partly Organizing) Ego-Id;
4. The Trauma-Fantasy Transference Templates;
5. The Ego-Id Vault;
6. The Pre-Conscious, Compromising Ego;
Part 2: The Unconscious, Pre-Conscious, and Conscious Ego-States
10. At this point, the 'split ego complexes' of the Pre-Oedipal and Oedipal period (birth to 6 or 7 years old) become transplanted into the adult ego complex -- even if there is still an underlying 'child-like' current to these 7 conceptualized ego-states (not unlike Berne's TA model);
D/ Second Stage, Mainly 'Child-Like' or 'Under'-Ego-States
7. The Love and Acceptance Wanting ('Omega') Ego-Id;
8. The Assertive, Problem-Solving Adult-Becoming Ego-Id;
9. The Phobic-Schizoid (Omega) Ego-Id;
10. The (Manic) Depressive (Omega-Beta) Ego-Id;
11. The Narcissistic-Hedonistic (Beta) Ego-Id;
12. The Paranoid-Schizoid (Beta) Ego-Id;
13. The Paranoid-Confrontational ('Beta') Ego-Id;
E/ Third Stage, Life Challenges, Ego-States
14. Home Base or Base Camp (Family and Friend Rootedness);
15. Nietzsche's Rope;
16. The Top of Nietzsche's Abyss Under The Rope, Under The Friendly Mountain of Comfortable, Stable Being, and Under The Mountain of Uncomfortable, Anxiety-Provoking, Becoming;
17. The 'Bipolar Twin Mountains of Being and Becoming';
18. The Mountain Top of Having Become -- and Celebrating this 'Becomingness' or 'Self-Actualization' (The Path, Part 3);
F/ Fourth Stage, Adult Ego-States;
19. The Public Persona Ego;
20. The Main Adult Problem-Solving Ego;
21. The Private-Shadow (Primal, Uncivilized) Id-Ego;
22. The Feeling Ego and Phenomenology of Spirit (The Path, Part 2);
23. The Creative (and Destructive) Fantasy, Projection, Dream and Sublimation Ego;
24. The Body Ego;
G/ Fifth Stage Parental Super-ego States;
25. The Overt, Righteous, Conditionally Loving Superego;
26. The Covert, Paranoid-Schizoid Superego;
27. The Narcissistic-Hedonistic Superego;
28. The (Manic) Depressive Superego;
29. The Phobic, Non-Nurturing Superego;
30. The Overt, Encouraging, Nurturing Superego.
That will do for now.
Yeah, I know it's kind of overwhelming...
And to be sure it is far from perfect....
However, it does allow us -- both as theorists and as a therapists -- to do a few extra things with the model, that you can't do with the old Freudian one.
So for now, we will let it stand as it is.
Cheers!
-- dgb, May 9th, 2014,
-- David Gordon Bain
We must not forget that models are models, theories are theories, concepts are concepts, and things are things -- objects, persons, phenomena, processes...
Models are meant to help us understand and explain reality but they will never replace reality -- they are simply good, bad, or ugly representations of reality. As such, models are a mixture of 'representative reality' and 'fiction'. The more 'reality represented', usually the better the model. Reality will always have the last word. Models will always be subject to imperfection and criticism relative to what they attempt to do and explain.
With models and theories, we may put up 'arbitrary structural boundaries' where no such boundaries exist in real life. We make 'chunk' reality into 'compartments' that make it easier for us to study what we are studying but in the end, these 'arbitrary conceptual boundaries' and 'fictional compartments' are what they are -- and that is 'convenient fictional-fantasy devices' that can help make it easier to teach what we are teaching, and to study what we are studying, but still, we must not forget that these devices contain as much 'fantasy element' in their 'structural makeup' as they do 'reality representation'. We must not forget the 'as if' element to our model -- for example, our mind-brain and self-personality-character structure seems to function (and dysfunction) 'as if' the inside of our psyche looks and operates like this...
Different models can be used for different functions.
For example, my old 'Hegel's Hotel' model which is in the process of being integrated into the larger (or when I think about it, smaller) model you see represented by the title above: 'The Hegel-Nietzsche-Freud Estate Complex' -- was, and still is -- meant to convey the idea of a massive philosophy-psychology 'hotel' or 'estate' in which you can walk into -- say 50 different rooms -- and study a different philosopher or psychologist, or a different time period in philosophy, or the different cultures and countries associated with different philosophers and philosophies, or different paradigms in psychology....And then we would have The Great Hegelian-Dialectic Common Room -- spearheaded by the dialectic logic of 1.thesis; 2. counter-thesis; and 3. synthesis-integration-synergy.
In contrast, this DGB model of the human psyche -- or named differently after three great philosophical and psychological influences on my work -- Hegel, Nietzsche, and Freud -- thus, the current name: 'The Hegel-Nietzsche-Freud Hotel' is a metaphor of the inside of the functioning (and dysfunctioning) 'human mind-brain and personality-character structure-Self'. Different models for different purposes.
Anyway, this is the spirit in which the model below is to be viewed and 'tried out for size' -- not only as a rather 'large' or 'over-sized' (depending on who's interpretation and who's judgment) 30 room 'monster house' or 'hotel' compared to Freud's much smaller and simpler 'three room house' model (id, ego, superego). This does not mean that -- 'implicitly speaking' -- there weren't more 'rooms' in Freud's 1923 model. It is just that my current DGB model aims to add some Object Relations and Existential 'rooms' that were not fully or even barely spelled out in the 1923 model, and just starting to surface in Freud's last two papers in 1938 -- 'Splitting of The Ego in The Process of Defence', and 'Outlines in Psychoanalysis'.
Although there are certain elements of Freud's triadic ego-id-superego model that still work very well -- indeed, it matches up very easily with Hegel's 'thesis-anti-thesis-synthesis' dialectic (or trialectic) formula -- still, this is the 21st century and not Victorian Europe; meaning that there have been significant expansions in Psychoanalytic theory since Freud died in 1939, especially down the Object Relations trail, and if Classical Psychoanalysts and/or extreme Freudian loyalists are not utterly intent on keeping Classical Psychoanalysis exactly the way he created it, then there is plenty of room to expand on the original Freudian model in order to better integrate it with both Object Relations and Humanistic-Existential psychology.
So here below, I have developed what I believe to be a much more 'multi-integrative mainly psychoanalytic' model, that can be used either in its entirety, and/or in its more specific regions and smaller parts. For different functions, we may need only to use 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 'compartments' of the model as opposed to the '30 compartment model'.
This 30 room 'Super-House' is not really as baffling as it might sound like it is -- indeed, I invite you to explore not only all the different rooms but also, all the different 'staircases', 'nooks and crannies' in this (hopefully beautiful) Classic Post Victorian House. If you have ever been to Toronto, imagine Casa Loma (or google it).
Hopefully, the brief synopsis of the model, as described below, will bring some clarity to the essence of the model.
Thus, without further adieu, let me try to briefly explain and summarize this new DGB model of the personality from mainly within the paradigm of psychoanalytic thinking.
........................................................................................................................................................
B/ The Newest DGB Model of The Personality Under The Influence of Multi-Integrative-Dialectic (Quantum) Psychoanalytic Thinking: Part 1: Largely Subconscious and Pre-Conscious 'Psycho-Structures' and 'Psycho-Dynamics' in The Personality
1. If we start with the concept of 'The GPS' -- our 'Genetic-Potential-Self' ('The Path', Part 1) with all our inborn potential skills, abilities, and a honing device down 'our Existential Path' that we feel most passionate, comfortable, and at home going down...
2. And then we think of a newborn baby being 'ejected' from the mom's womb into what basically amounts to an 'existential abyss' that is entirely dependent on the mother's good will, willingness, and ability to look after the needs of her newborn son or daughter....
3. Freud said that the newborn baby is all 'id' -- all 'need', 'desire', 'impulse', and 'demanding of satisfaction' of his or her biological needs -- specifically, and I am extrapolating and modifying here on Freud's 'psycho-sexual stages of development' -- his or her 'oral' need of 'sucking' and bringing 'nutrition' into his or her little body to keep it alive; and on the other side of the fences, his or her 'anal-detoxification' need to be cleaned up after having expelled waste matter from the body; and finally, the maternal nurturing and touch of the mother to generate a 'trust bond' and 'attachment' figure that the baby can generally count on to not only satisfy its nutritional and detoxification needs, but also its attachment needs as well.
4. To modify Freud's concept of the 'Id' in order to make it more compatible with Kleinian theory and Fairbairnian theories of Object Relations, and 'the splitting of the ego', I have created a concept that Freud mentioned oh so briefly in the last paper of his life, An Outline of Psychoanalysis (1939), and which is more in tune with my own 'dialectically integrative way of thinking' -- specifically, Freud used the term 'id-ego' or 'ego-id', either of which I fully endorse, not as a concept that is only relevant in the child's infancy when his or her 'ego-id' is as of yet 'undifferentiated'... but will become differentiated, according to Freud, and at that point we will no longer have any use for the term 'ego-id' or 'id-ego', so sayeth Freud.
5. Well, I have lots of use for the concept of the id-ego -- even in our adulthood -- but first, I will describe how either the 'Pre-Oedipal' or 'Oedipal' id-ego -- and I will focus here on the latter can SPLIT during the process of a 'compensatory network of possible defenses' that are created under the influence of what I will call 'OPTSDT' which stands for 'Oedipal Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder-Transference'.
6. Here is how the id-ego can 'split' utilizing and extrapolating on probably the most important aspect of Kleinian Object Relations theory:
i/ The Love-and-Acceptance Wanting Id-Ego;
ii/ The Assertive-Problem-Solving Id-Ego;
iii/ The Phobic-Schizoid (Scared, Withdrawn, Distancing) Id-Ego;
iv/ The Narcissistic-Hedonistic Id-Ego;
v/ The Depressed (Chronically and/or Acutely Frustrated) Id-Ego;
vi/ The Paranoid-Schizoid (Angry, Withdrawn, Distancing) Id-Ego;
vii/ The Paranoid-Confrontational (Angry, Assertive, Righteous) Id-Ego;
7. These 'Post-Kleinian-DGB Positions' listed above become crystalized and locked up inside our 'EMLCDF' -- 'Experience-Memory-Learning-Compensatory-Defense-Fantasy' Transference Templates...as a network of different possible ways to deal with a similar type of 'trauma' in the future of which usually one or two different types of defenses are prototypically emphasized and dominant to the person's 'transference-lifestyle repetition compulsion and profile pattern'.
8. At this point, the ego-id's or id-ego's freshly learned 'Traumacy-Fantasy Transference Complexes' (TFTCs) become 'screened and/or edited the first time over' as they either attempt to 'escape' or are 'conditionally or unconditionally released' from the transference templates and funnelled into what I will call 'The Ego-Id or Id-Ego Vault'. At this point, a more differentiated and adult or parentally introjected part of the id 'splits again'. This time we have one part of the 'Main Adult Ego' 'identifying' with the needs and impulses of 'the more childish id-ego', while the other part of the main adult ego identifies with the 'parental, righteous superego'... The first part of our main adult ego is more prone to let our 'id-ego' out of the 'dissociative-isolation ward' of the id-ego vault and into the conscious or pre-conscious personality. The second part of our main adult ego which is more stringently identifying with our paternal, righteous superego is more prone to keeping our id-ego locked up tightly inside our id-ego vault.
9. A third part of the main adult ego splits again, this time into a 'pre-conscious, compromise-forming, 'symptom-forming', 'dream, fantasy, and nightmare creating', 'projecting', 'sublimating', 'projectively-identifying', 'displacing', 'transferring' ego-state which we will call the 'pre-conscious ego';
10. To summarize so far, from the deepest depth of the personality to the 'pre-conscious' personality, these are the ego-states, the psycho-structures, and the psycho-dynamics that I will be using...
C/ First Stage (Deepest, Most Primal) Sub-Ego-States
1. The GPS (Genetic Potential Self);
2. The Deepest Abyss;
3. The Primal, (Disorganized, and Partly Organizing) Ego-Id;
4. The Trauma-Fantasy Transference Templates;
5. The Ego-Id Vault;
6. The Pre-Conscious, Compromising Ego;
Part 2: The Unconscious, Pre-Conscious, and Conscious Ego-States
10. At this point, the 'split ego complexes' of the Pre-Oedipal and Oedipal period (birth to 6 or 7 years old) become transplanted into the adult ego complex -- even if there is still an underlying 'child-like' current to these 7 conceptualized ego-states (not unlike Berne's TA model);
D/ Second Stage, Mainly 'Child-Like' or 'Under'-Ego-States
7. The Love and Acceptance Wanting ('Omega') Ego-Id;
8. The Assertive, Problem-Solving Adult-Becoming Ego-Id;
9. The Phobic-Schizoid (Omega) Ego-Id;
10. The (Manic) Depressive (Omega-Beta) Ego-Id;
11. The Narcissistic-Hedonistic (Beta) Ego-Id;
12. The Paranoid-Schizoid (Beta) Ego-Id;
13. The Paranoid-Confrontational ('Beta') Ego-Id;
E/ Third Stage, Life Challenges, Ego-States
14. Home Base or Base Camp (Family and Friend Rootedness);
15. Nietzsche's Rope;
16. The Top of Nietzsche's Abyss Under The Rope, Under The Friendly Mountain of Comfortable, Stable Being, and Under The Mountain of Uncomfortable, Anxiety-Provoking, Becoming;
17. The 'Bipolar Twin Mountains of Being and Becoming';
18. The Mountain Top of Having Become -- and Celebrating this 'Becomingness' or 'Self-Actualization' (The Path, Part 3);
F/ Fourth Stage, Adult Ego-States;
19. The Public Persona Ego;
20. The Main Adult Problem-Solving Ego;
21. The Private-Shadow (Primal, Uncivilized) Id-Ego;
22. The Feeling Ego and Phenomenology of Spirit (The Path, Part 2);
23. The Creative (and Destructive) Fantasy, Projection, Dream and Sublimation Ego;
24. The Body Ego;
G/ Fifth Stage Parental Super-ego States;
25. The Overt, Righteous, Conditionally Loving Superego;
26. The Covert, Paranoid-Schizoid Superego;
27. The Narcissistic-Hedonistic Superego;
28. The (Manic) Depressive Superego;
29. The Phobic, Non-Nurturing Superego;
30. The Overt, Encouraging, Nurturing Superego.
That will do for now.
Yeah, I know it's kind of overwhelming...
And to be sure it is far from perfect....
However, it does allow us -- both as theorists and as a therapists -- to do a few extra things with the model, that you can't do with the old Freudian one.
So for now, we will let it stand as it is.
Cheers!
-- dgb, May 9th, 2014,
-- David Gordon Bain
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Essay 9: Old Freudian Theory: Reportive and Editorial Commentary on Freud's 1892 'Sketches For The Preliminary Communication of 1893' : Part 1: Introduction
This is the first of many forecasted editorial commentaries on Freud's always evolving psychological essays and theories from 1892 to 1939.
Now, to a greater or lesser extent, this path has been 'beaten down' by hundreds if not thousands of Freudian commentators before me. You have the 'main beaten path', and then you have a few commentators deviating from this 'main beaten path' to some greater or lesser extent.
Well, I want to go down a relatively unbeaten path (or perhaps an unbeaten path off a beaten path) examining in particular Freud's earliest psychology papers between 1892 and 1897 and find out for myself whether Freud might not have done a better job integrating his early evolving 'reality-sexual abuse-trauma-repressed-memory-return of the repressed through the symptom' theory with his later evolving 'instinct and fantasy' theory, as opposed to declaring them 'mutually exclusive' and stating that his pre-1897 reality-trauma-seduction work was basically a 'mistake', or a 'misinterpretation' of what was really happening, and had to be 'replaced' by his post-1896 evolving 'repressed-instinct/impulse-desire/drive-fantasy-Oedipal' theory.
Being the 'post-Hegelian, dialectic logic, thesis-anti-thesis-synthesis' philosopher that I am, and bringing this Hegelian paradigm perspective into my thinking about Psychoanalysis, I basically look at The International Psychoanalytic Establishment and Jeffrey Masson as having 'landed at two opposite ends of the same dialectically bipolar and potentially integrative spectrum', Masson having supported Freud's early reality-trauma-seduction theory whereas The International Psychoanalytic Establishment -- in maintaining consistency with Freud's interpretation and evaluation of the situation -- chose to, and basically still chooses to, support Freud's later evolving instinct-fantasy-Oedipal theory.
Both positions, in my opinion, need to be 'reconciled' and 'synthesized' in the middle such that the second wave of Freudian theories (instinct/impulse-desire-drive-fantasy-Oedipal) needs to rest on the foundation of the first wave of Freudian theories (reality-memory-trauma-seduction).
Now, in their own way, to what I can see from the information coming out of The Psychoanalytic Institute that I am closest to these days (The Toronto Psychoanalytic Institute'), Psychoanalysis does seem to be very focused on the same basic goal that I just mentioned above -- specifically, examining different 'brands' of existing trauma theory in Psychoanalysis today, coming mainly out of Object Relations, Self Psychology, and Attachment Theory -- but no one that I can see is going back to the origin of Freud's earliest trauma theory between 1892 and 1895.
This being the case, I will take on this job of 'integrating' the two opposing 1. 'Pre-Classical'; and 2. 'Classical' theoretical positions into one combined 'bipolar theory'. .
We start in 1892.
Now, to a greater or lesser extent, this path has been 'beaten down' by hundreds if not thousands of Freudian commentators before me. You have the 'main beaten path', and then you have a few commentators deviating from this 'main beaten path' to some greater or lesser extent.
Well, I want to go down a relatively unbeaten path (or perhaps an unbeaten path off a beaten path) examining in particular Freud's earliest psychology papers between 1892 and 1897 and find out for myself whether Freud might not have done a better job integrating his early evolving 'reality-sexual abuse-trauma-repressed-memory-return of the repressed through the symptom' theory with his later evolving 'instinct and fantasy' theory, as opposed to declaring them 'mutually exclusive' and stating that his pre-1897 reality-trauma-seduction work was basically a 'mistake', or a 'misinterpretation' of what was really happening, and had to be 'replaced' by his post-1896 evolving 'repressed-instinct/impulse-desire/drive-fantasy-Oedipal' theory.
Being the 'post-Hegelian, dialectic logic, thesis-anti-thesis-synthesis' philosopher that I am, and bringing this Hegelian paradigm perspective into my thinking about Psychoanalysis, I basically look at The International Psychoanalytic Establishment and Jeffrey Masson as having 'landed at two opposite ends of the same dialectically bipolar and potentially integrative spectrum', Masson having supported Freud's early reality-trauma-seduction theory whereas The International Psychoanalytic Establishment -- in maintaining consistency with Freud's interpretation and evaluation of the situation -- chose to, and basically still chooses to, support Freud's later evolving instinct-fantasy-Oedipal theory.
Both positions, in my opinion, need to be 'reconciled' and 'synthesized' in the middle such that the second wave of Freudian theories (instinct/impulse-desire-drive-fantasy-Oedipal) needs to rest on the foundation of the first wave of Freudian theories (reality-memory-trauma-seduction).
Now, in their own way, to what I can see from the information coming out of The Psychoanalytic Institute that I am closest to these days (The Toronto Psychoanalytic Institute'), Psychoanalysis does seem to be very focused on the same basic goal that I just mentioned above -- specifically, examining different 'brands' of existing trauma theory in Psychoanalysis today, coming mainly out of Object Relations, Self Psychology, and Attachment Theory -- but no one that I can see is going back to the origin of Freud's earliest trauma theory between 1892 and 1895.
This being the case, I will take on this job of 'integrating' the two opposing 1. 'Pre-Classical'; and 2. 'Classical' theoretical positions into one combined 'bipolar theory'. .
We start in 1892.
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Essay 8: Re-Working Freud's Ego, Id, and Superego Theory (Part 3): Integrating Trauma Theory and Fantasy Theory; Classical Psychoanalysis and Object Relations
Updated April 20th, 2014
I was starting to read 'An Outline of Psychoanalysis' (1938) the other day -- and there it was, or at least the essence of it -- a concept and label that I have been 'playing around' with for a while now -- the concept of 'id-ego' or 'ego-id' (Freud used the latter on page 149 of V. 23 of Strachey's Standard Edition, Chapter 2, 'The Theory Of The Instincts').
Wrote Freud in his last essay, a year before he died,
'We may picture an initial state as one in which the total available energy of Eros which henceforward we shall speak of as 'libido' is present in the still undifferentiated ego-id and serves to neutralize the destructive tendencies which are simultaneously present.' (p.149-150).
Well, far be it for me to challenge but I am going to do it anyway (not unlike thousands of critics or 'reformers' before me).
Who says that the id-ego ever differentiates itself the way Freud claims it does -- and in effect, locks itself in a deep, unconscious chamber, or is locked down there by the evolving ego and superego, and only let's itself be known by its 'instincts and their vicissitudes'.
Just for a minute, let us entertain the idea that the id-ego is capable of doing exactly the same thing that both the superego and ego are capable of doing -- specifically, moving up and down through different degrees of consciousness from unconscious to preconscious, to conscious elements of the Self.
Thus, we could and can differentiate between a thinking, feeling, wanting, driving, unconscious id-ego, pre-conscious id-ego, and conscious id-ego.
Most importantly, that does two different things: one, it puts the id-ego in the same light (and darkness) as the ego and superego. And two, it brings the 'id-ego' into the confines of 'The Wholistic Ego or Self' -- in other words, it doesn't separate the id from the ego like it is some 'alien from Mars' (even if it may seem or feel that way sometimes).
In even different words, if we imagine and subscribe to Freud's conceptual assumption that the id is the 'primal uncivilized ego at birth and through our earliest development when we don't have any idea what is 'socially appropriate' and what is 'socially inappropriate' and in need of 'self-censorship' -- until the internalization (introjection) of greater and greater socialization teaches us to create a 'split within ourselves' that separates our 'undifferentiated, primal, uncivilized, unsocialized id-ego or ego-id' from our evolving, more 'civilized and/or socialized ego' that 1. helps us to better meet 'social and cultural expectations'; and 2. creates a 'barrier' or 'shield' between our more primitive, uncivilized id-ego and our more socialized 'restraining reality-ego'. Finally, we might entertain -- at least I am -- the addition of one more 'ego-split' in this immediate context here and that is 'The Central Mediating (and 'Symptom-Forming') which negotiates 'solutions' between the more primal, uncivilized demands of our id-ego and our more 'restraining impulses of our reality-ego' which is taken to another level of 'splitting' in our 'Ego-Ideal' and 'Superego'.
Now, depending on how conservative or 'anally stringent' you want to be, this re-working of Freud's Classical Psychoanalysis Personality Theory is not that great a stretch upwards and outwards.
I mean think about it. In his last paper, An Outline of Psychoanalysis (1938), Freud describes the 'undifferentiated ego-id' (before the id and the ego 'split' and each become what Freud ultimately defined and described them as).
Well, this is a far cry from Freud's 1923 definition and description of the id as a 'reservoir' or 'cauldron' containing the 'life' and 'death' instincts....that at different times 'escape' or are 'released' from the restricting confines of the id, and start 'free-floating' as 'vicissitudes of the id' up towards the pre-conscious and conscious personality, and eventually present themselves as 'neurotically and/or psychotically (or in dream-fashion)' as 'unconscious symptoms' in the surface psycho-dynamics of the personality.
We have to synchronize what Freud was writing in 1923 with what he was writing in 1938, just before he died. I concur with Harry Guntrip (1971, 1973, Psychoanalytic Theory, Therapy, and The Self) when Guntrip said that Freud was just starting to become more of a serious Object Relations theorist in 1938 before he died in 1939.
The two essays he wrote in 1938 -- 'Splitting of The Ego in The Process of Defense'; and the already mentioned 'An Outline of Psychoanalysis' were certainly heading in a Object Relations direction, although 'Splitting' seemed like a 'tidbit' of an Object Relations paper stuck inside a very Victorian, Freudian, Classical Psychoanalysis paper. Specifically, in the last part of 'Splitting', Freud came back to -- what I would call his largely outdated concept of 'castration anxiety' to explain the client's creation of a 'fetish' to presumably ward off the castration anxiety somehow. Today, I think there would be easier, less convoluted ways of explaining the fetish -- like 'performance anxiety' as opposed to 'castration anxiety'.
In this view, from a client of this type's perspective, 'all women' become viewed as 'hostile, rejecting objects/figures/persons' that/who take away his ability to perform.
Thus, instead, he chooses a 'non-judging fetish object' to 'excite' him without 'having to deal with the projected and/or real negative judgments of the imagined or real 'hostile, critical woman' that he doesn't want to engage with ('castration anxiety' which should probably be viewed as a Victorian-relevant label for what we might now call 'performance-rejection anxiety' and the 'unbearable idea' attached to it -- specifically, something like this: If I do not perform properly, then I am something less than a 'real man' which fits with Adler's idea of 'the masculine protest' -- some men and women will go to great lengths to avoid such a 'masculinity-threatening' or 'feminine-threatening performance challenge').
In the first part of 'Splitting', Freud was coming back to one of his earliest ideas (1893, 1894) -- or rather Janet's which Freud undoubtedly perceived the need to differentiate himself from.
Indeed, Freud found a way with his concept of 'repression' -- and the idea of let us say a 'vertical splitting of consciousness from unconsciousness' (which would eventually become 'the splitting of the ego from the id' in 1923) as opposed to Janet's early idea of a 'splitting of consciousness' which is more of a precursor to an Object Relations type of model and suggests the visualization of a 'horizontal splitting of consciousness or the ego' into -- let us say -- 'the ego' and 'the alter-ego' -- like in the 'Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' which had been written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886 -- and was an idea followed up by Janet around 1892 just as Freud was starting to enter the 'clinical psychology and psychotherapy' picture.
What we are interested in here, is the synthesis of not only Freud's early trauma theory with his later fantasy theory, but also with the synthesis between Classical Psychoanalysis with Object Relations and Self Psychology, is the idea of 'the ego-id' (or 'id-ego) being a thinking, feeling, wanting, impulsively driving 'primal ego-state' that is with us from the day we are born to the day we die (but tends to 'go under cover' for much our life because of its 'uncivil, primal nature').
Call the id-ego not only our primal ego but also our primary ego until socialization and our 'cerebral cortex' starts to take over the more complex tasks of what Freud called our 'secondary process'. The cerebral cortex, and particularly within the cerebral cortex, the pre-frontal cortex (one of four regions of this area of the brain) is that part of our brain that, from a psychological and psychoanalytic perspective, we are calling 'The Reality Ego' and or 'The Central Mediating and Executive Ego' -- that part our mind-brain that deals with reality in whatever manner we choose to deal with it.
Topographically, the type of model I am using is much more 'compartment-laden' than Freud's easy to remember 'id-ego-superego' model, or Gestalt Therapy's 'topdog-underdog' model. Rather, it looks more like Eric Berne's Transactional Analysis model (which was built partly from an Object Relations model). From top to bottom, the DGB Multi-Integrative (Quantum) Psychoanalytic and Neo-Psychoanalytic model looks presently like this:
A/ Superego Compartments
1. The Nurturing-Unconditional Attachment Ego-Ideal and Superego;
2. The Narcissistic-Hedonistic (Pleasure-Seeking) Ego-Ideal and Superego;
3. The Righteous-Critical-Conditional Attachment Ego-Ideal and Superego;
B/ Ego Compartments
4. The Private-Shadow Ego;
5. The Central Mediating and Executive Ego;
6. The Reality Ego and Public Persona;
C/ Underego Compartments
7. The Nurturing-Unconditional Attachment Underego;
8. The Narcissistic-Hedonistic (Pleasure-Seeking) Underego;
9. The Righteous-Critical-Conditional Attachment Underego;
D/ Subsidiary Conscious, Pre-Conscious, and Unconscious Psycho-Dynamic and/or Defense-Mechanism, Ego Compartments
10. The Feeling Ego and Phenomenology of Spirit;
11. The Body Ego;
12. The Dream and Fantasy Ego;
13. The Transference Ego;
14. The Identification and Introjection Ego;
15. The Projection Ego;
16. The Sublimation Ego;
17. The Displacement Ego;
18. The Reaction-Formation Ego;
19. The 'Manic', 'Anal-OCD' and/or 'Oral-Genital Addiction' Ego-Compartment
20. The Paranoid-Schizoid (Distancing/Dissociative) and/or Borderline Personality Ego-Compartment;
21. The Depressive Personality Ego;
22. The Ambivalent, Bipolar Ego;
E/ Pre-Conscious and Unconscious Ego Processes
23. The Screening Ego and Symptom Converter
24. 'Free-Floating' Id and Transference Complexes;
25. The Id and Transference Vault;
26. The Experience-Memory-Learning-Transference (EMLT) Templates;
27. The Unconscious Id-Ego;
28. The Abyss-Ledge;
29. The Abyss;
30. The Genetic Potential Self.
-- dgb, April 28th, 2014...
-- David Gordon Bain...
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Creations...
-- Are Still in Process
I was starting to read 'An Outline of Psychoanalysis' (1938) the other day -- and there it was, or at least the essence of it -- a concept and label that I have been 'playing around' with for a while now -- the concept of 'id-ego' or 'ego-id' (Freud used the latter on page 149 of V. 23 of Strachey's Standard Edition, Chapter 2, 'The Theory Of The Instincts').
Wrote Freud in his last essay, a year before he died,
'We may picture an initial state as one in which the total available energy of Eros which henceforward we shall speak of as 'libido' is present in the still undifferentiated ego-id and serves to neutralize the destructive tendencies which are simultaneously present.' (p.149-150).
Well, far be it for me to challenge but I am going to do it anyway (not unlike thousands of critics or 'reformers' before me).
Who says that the id-ego ever differentiates itself the way Freud claims it does -- and in effect, locks itself in a deep, unconscious chamber, or is locked down there by the evolving ego and superego, and only let's itself be known by its 'instincts and their vicissitudes'.
Just for a minute, let us entertain the idea that the id-ego is capable of doing exactly the same thing that both the superego and ego are capable of doing -- specifically, moving up and down through different degrees of consciousness from unconscious to preconscious, to conscious elements of the Self.
Thus, we could and can differentiate between a thinking, feeling, wanting, driving, unconscious id-ego, pre-conscious id-ego, and conscious id-ego.
Most importantly, that does two different things: one, it puts the id-ego in the same light (and darkness) as the ego and superego. And two, it brings the 'id-ego' into the confines of 'The Wholistic Ego or Self' -- in other words, it doesn't separate the id from the ego like it is some 'alien from Mars' (even if it may seem or feel that way sometimes).
In even different words, if we imagine and subscribe to Freud's conceptual assumption that the id is the 'primal uncivilized ego at birth and through our earliest development when we don't have any idea what is 'socially appropriate' and what is 'socially inappropriate' and in need of 'self-censorship' -- until the internalization (introjection) of greater and greater socialization teaches us to create a 'split within ourselves' that separates our 'undifferentiated, primal, uncivilized, unsocialized id-ego or ego-id' from our evolving, more 'civilized and/or socialized ego' that 1. helps us to better meet 'social and cultural expectations'; and 2. creates a 'barrier' or 'shield' between our more primitive, uncivilized id-ego and our more socialized 'restraining reality-ego'. Finally, we might entertain -- at least I am -- the addition of one more 'ego-split' in this immediate context here and that is 'The Central Mediating (and 'Symptom-Forming') which negotiates 'solutions' between the more primal, uncivilized demands of our id-ego and our more 'restraining impulses of our reality-ego' which is taken to another level of 'splitting' in our 'Ego-Ideal' and 'Superego'.
Now, depending on how conservative or 'anally stringent' you want to be, this re-working of Freud's Classical Psychoanalysis Personality Theory is not that great a stretch upwards and outwards.
I mean think about it. In his last paper, An Outline of Psychoanalysis (1938), Freud describes the 'undifferentiated ego-id' (before the id and the ego 'split' and each become what Freud ultimately defined and described them as).
Well, this is a far cry from Freud's 1923 definition and description of the id as a 'reservoir' or 'cauldron' containing the 'life' and 'death' instincts....that at different times 'escape' or are 'released' from the restricting confines of the id, and start 'free-floating' as 'vicissitudes of the id' up towards the pre-conscious and conscious personality, and eventually present themselves as 'neurotically and/or psychotically (or in dream-fashion)' as 'unconscious symptoms' in the surface psycho-dynamics of the personality.
We have to synchronize what Freud was writing in 1923 with what he was writing in 1938, just before he died. I concur with Harry Guntrip (1971, 1973, Psychoanalytic Theory, Therapy, and The Self) when Guntrip said that Freud was just starting to become more of a serious Object Relations theorist in 1938 before he died in 1939.
The two essays he wrote in 1938 -- 'Splitting of The Ego in The Process of Defense'; and the already mentioned 'An Outline of Psychoanalysis' were certainly heading in a Object Relations direction, although 'Splitting' seemed like a 'tidbit' of an Object Relations paper stuck inside a very Victorian, Freudian, Classical Psychoanalysis paper. Specifically, in the last part of 'Splitting', Freud came back to -- what I would call his largely outdated concept of 'castration anxiety' to explain the client's creation of a 'fetish' to presumably ward off the castration anxiety somehow. Today, I think there would be easier, less convoluted ways of explaining the fetish -- like 'performance anxiety' as opposed to 'castration anxiety'.
In this view, from a client of this type's perspective, 'all women' become viewed as 'hostile, rejecting objects/figures/persons' that/who take away his ability to perform.
Thus, instead, he chooses a 'non-judging fetish object' to 'excite' him without 'having to deal with the projected and/or real negative judgments of the imagined or real 'hostile, critical woman' that he doesn't want to engage with ('castration anxiety' which should probably be viewed as a Victorian-relevant label for what we might now call 'performance-rejection anxiety' and the 'unbearable idea' attached to it -- specifically, something like this: If I do not perform properly, then I am something less than a 'real man' which fits with Adler's idea of 'the masculine protest' -- some men and women will go to great lengths to avoid such a 'masculinity-threatening' or 'feminine-threatening performance challenge').
In the first part of 'Splitting', Freud was coming back to one of his earliest ideas (1893, 1894) -- or rather Janet's which Freud undoubtedly perceived the need to differentiate himself from.
Indeed, Freud found a way with his concept of 'repression' -- and the idea of let us say a 'vertical splitting of consciousness from unconsciousness' (which would eventually become 'the splitting of the ego from the id' in 1923) as opposed to Janet's early idea of a 'splitting of consciousness' which is more of a precursor to an Object Relations type of model and suggests the visualization of a 'horizontal splitting of consciousness or the ego' into -- let us say -- 'the ego' and 'the alter-ego' -- like in the 'Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' which had been written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886 -- and was an idea followed up by Janet around 1892 just as Freud was starting to enter the 'clinical psychology and psychotherapy' picture.
What we are interested in here, is the synthesis of not only Freud's early trauma theory with his later fantasy theory, but also with the synthesis between Classical Psychoanalysis with Object Relations and Self Psychology, is the idea of 'the ego-id' (or 'id-ego) being a thinking, feeling, wanting, impulsively driving 'primal ego-state' that is with us from the day we are born to the day we die (but tends to 'go under cover' for much our life because of its 'uncivil, primal nature').
Call the id-ego not only our primal ego but also our primary ego until socialization and our 'cerebral cortex' starts to take over the more complex tasks of what Freud called our 'secondary process'. The cerebral cortex, and particularly within the cerebral cortex, the pre-frontal cortex (one of four regions of this area of the brain) is that part of our brain that, from a psychological and psychoanalytic perspective, we are calling 'The Reality Ego' and or 'The Central Mediating and Executive Ego' -- that part our mind-brain that deals with reality in whatever manner we choose to deal with it.
Topographically, the type of model I am using is much more 'compartment-laden' than Freud's easy to remember 'id-ego-superego' model, or Gestalt Therapy's 'topdog-underdog' model. Rather, it looks more like Eric Berne's Transactional Analysis model (which was built partly from an Object Relations model). From top to bottom, the DGB Multi-Integrative (Quantum) Psychoanalytic and Neo-Psychoanalytic model looks presently like this:
A/ Superego Compartments
1. The Nurturing-Unconditional Attachment Ego-Ideal and Superego;
2. The Narcissistic-Hedonistic (Pleasure-Seeking) Ego-Ideal and Superego;
3. The Righteous-Critical-Conditional Attachment Ego-Ideal and Superego;
B/ Ego Compartments
4. The Private-Shadow Ego;
5. The Central Mediating and Executive Ego;
6. The Reality Ego and Public Persona;
C/ Underego Compartments
7. The Nurturing-Unconditional Attachment Underego;
8. The Narcissistic-Hedonistic (Pleasure-Seeking) Underego;
9. The Righteous-Critical-Conditional Attachment Underego;
D/ Subsidiary Conscious, Pre-Conscious, and Unconscious Psycho-Dynamic and/or Defense-Mechanism, Ego Compartments
10. The Feeling Ego and Phenomenology of Spirit;
11. The Body Ego;
12. The Dream and Fantasy Ego;
13. The Transference Ego;
14. The Identification and Introjection Ego;
15. The Projection Ego;
16. The Sublimation Ego;
17. The Displacement Ego;
18. The Reaction-Formation Ego;
19. The 'Manic', 'Anal-OCD' and/or 'Oral-Genital Addiction' Ego-Compartment
20. The Paranoid-Schizoid (Distancing/Dissociative) and/or Borderline Personality Ego-Compartment;
21. The Depressive Personality Ego;
22. The Ambivalent, Bipolar Ego;
E/ Pre-Conscious and Unconscious Ego Processes
23. The Screening Ego and Symptom Converter
24. 'Free-Floating' Id and Transference Complexes;
25. The Id and Transference Vault;
26. The Experience-Memory-Learning-Transference (EMLT) Templates;
27. The Unconscious Id-Ego;
28. The Abyss-Ledge;
29. The Abyss;
30. The Genetic Potential Self.
-- dgb, April 28th, 2014...
-- David Gordon Bain...
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Creations...
-- Are Still in Process
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