A DGB Multi-Dialectic, 16 Part Model Of The Personality

Newly Updated Sept. 27th, 29th, 2009.

A/ Introduction

Man's mind, brain, and body -- taken together, and/or taken apart for teaching and learning purposes -- consists of a myriad of different types of opposite desires and restraints that can be differentiated, classified, grouped into what can be called 'multiple bi-polarities' where choices need to be made -- choices of extremism or choices of greater or lesser moderate balance.

Pathology for the most part tends to be associated with extremism. Extreme righteousness. Extreme narcissism. Extreme self-denial and/or self-control.

In this regard, pathology on the psychological level shouldn't be viewed too much different than pathology on the biochemical level where pathology tends to be associated with such things as: high blood-sugar levels (diabetes0, low blood-sugar levels (hypoglycemia), too acidic, too alkaline, hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism, too much fat, not enough fat, too much protein, not enough protein, too many carbohydrates, not enough carbohydrates, too much potassium, not enough potassium, too much iron, not enough iron...and on and on we could go...

For the most part, 'health tends to follow the moderate, middle path', 'The Golden Mean'.

Not always. There is a 'Nietzschean existential factor' that we need to take fully into account. Call this 'the will to self-empowerment' or the 'will to excellence'.

If I want to be a great writer or a great philosopher or a great psychologist, there is a certain 'obsessional' factor here that requires my studying and practicing what I preach and teach for literally countless thousands and thousands of hours. This includes studying great writers and philosophers and psychologists. This goes for any field I or you choose to enter in which we wish to 'strive to be the best we possibly can be' in our particular field(s) of choice.

Thus, a certain element of 'healthy extremism' is involved in 'the will to excel'. However, even here one needs to watch that one's wish and will to excel does not so consume our life that we end up losing our spouse, our family, our friends in the process. Again, even in the will to excel, at some point we need to reconsider the issue of 'balance' and ask ourselves, for example, what is the cost I am paying for my 'workaholism' which may be connected to my 'will to excel'.


Thus, we 'swim' -- and sometimes we 'drown' -- in this swimming pool full of dichotomies, paradoxes, bipolarities and oftentimes, underlying hypocrisies or 'dissociated, disconnected, alienated ego-states' in the personality that may not be properly integrated into the rest of the personality, into the 'whole of the personality', if you will.

The goal of most dialectic bi-polar psychotherapies -- Psychoanalysis, Jungian Psychology, Gestalt Therapy, Transactional Analysis -- including this DGB approach here, is to help bring about more 'wholistic multi-dialectic, multi-bi-polar, integration' both inside and outside of the personality.

-- dgb, Sept. 27th, 29th, 2009.

Evolution -- is 'multiple-bi-polar-dialectic-evolution'. Everything comes about either from 'power over' or from 'integrative union'. Where destruction or anhiliation is not the goal, the second type of evolution among men -- integrative union -- usually works much better with far less human tragedy, traumacy, 'insurgency', and casualties. Not all of the time but most of the time -- dgb, Sept. 27th, 2009.

Physical and psycho-pathology are differentiated -- but similar -- in that they both need to be located on a continuum of a multitude of swinging pendulums of health, balance ('The Golden Mean', 'The Middle Path' -- Aristotle) vs. extremism, extreme swings of the pendulum -- and the resulting physical and/or psycho-pathology that comes with extremism over the edge and, at its worst, into the darkest abyss of humanity, non-humanity, and/or ultimately self-destruction and death.

-- dgb, Sept. 27th, 29th, 2009.


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B/ Other Psychological Models of The Personality and Their Influence

Let us try this again for the upteenth time -- as I once again battle the dichotomoy of simplicity vs. complexity -- and aim to get the DGB model of the personality down to something of reasonable size, clarity, and understandability. Okham's Razor. (All else being equal, the simplest theory is usually the best one.) KISS: KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID.

Having said this, I am trying to integrate a lot of different psychological models here that all have significant value -- to integrate 'the best of the best' if you will.

Synonyms for 'Personality' or 'Personality Structure' in this Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology domain will be: 'Ego', 'Psyche', 'Self', and 'Character Structure'.

View the personality as being like a 'government' or a 'corporation' (preferably egalitarian, democratic, multi-dialectic, and balanced) with numerous different 'departments' (or 'compartments') that have separate functions that are all designed to come together to fulfill the overall function of the government/corporation/personality. In this respect, the personality -- with its different 'ego-states' that I will name and describe, can also be metaphorically compared to the different 'organs' of the body, each having its own separate functions, but each 'working towards the combined good and health of the whole personality/body'.

Some of the other personality models that are out there and which I will simply skim over quickly without giving full justice to, are:

1. The Gestalt Model (Fritz Perls): a '2 Compartment Model': a) 'Topdog'; b) 'Underdog';

2. The Adlerian Model (Alfred Adler): arguably a '3 Compartment Model': a) 'Inferiority Feeling' ('Self-Esteem Deficiency', 'One Down Position', 'Minus Position', 'Insecurity Feeling', 'Unstability Feeling'); b) 'Superiority Feeling' ('Leadership Position', 'One Up Position', 'Superiority Position', 'Fictional Final Goal', 'Lifestyle Goal'); c) 'Means of Moving From a Minus Position to a Plus Position, from a) to b)' ('Compensation', 'Lifestyle Complex', 'Superiority Striving')

3. The Classic Freudian Model: a '3 compartment model': a) 'The Id': biological drives: such as: hunger-food, thirst-water, sexual tension-release, aggression-release, shelter, heat, some might argue stability, rootedness (Erich Fromm), creativity-destructiveness (Erich Fromm), love-hate (Erich Fromm), transcendence (Erich Fromm)...DGB extrapolations: power, money, greed, narcissism, selfishness, revenge, dance, celebration, oral-obsessive-compulsions, addictions...; b) 'The Superego': social conscience, ethical conscience, justice, fairness, reason, righteousness, rejection, 'anal-retentiveness', 'punctuality', 'cleanliness', 'neatness', sadism, dominance, arrogance, 'righteous-narcissism', abandonment, betrayal, discipline, punishment, 'guilt-giver', 'approval-demanding', 'co-operation-demanding', 'acceptance-demanding', 'The Internal Object'; c) 'The Ego': 'The Subjective Sense of Self', 'Me', co-operation-seeking, approval-seeking, pleasing, rebellious, mediating between the Id and the Superego, conflict-resolving, problem-solving, reality-based, reality-interpreting, analyzing, postponing Id gratification, compromising, bending, choosing, caught in the middle between a rock and a hard place (between the Id and the Superego -- two dialectically opposed system of 'wants and needs and gratifications' vs. 'shoulds, and should nots, responsibilities, obligations, social promises, ethics, social values, morals, laws, customs, demands...

4. The Jungian Model (Carl Jung): arguably a '6 compartment model': includes a) 'The Persona' ('The Social Ego' -- 'The Face We Show Society'), b) 'The Shadow' ('The Dark Side of the Personality, , 'Darth Vader' 'The Alter-Ego', 'Mr. or Ms. Hyde), c) 'The Personal Unconscious', d)'The Collective Unconscious', e) 'The (Potential) Self...and a more or less 'assumed' f) 'Central, Integrative, Potentially Healthy Ego'...

5. The Object Relations Model(s) (Freud, Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott, Guntrip...)

Melanie Klein was the biggest neo-Psychoanalytic force here
adding such concepts to Psychoanalysis as: 'External Objects', 'Internal Objects', 'The Depressive Position', 'The Paranoid-Schizoid Position...

Ronald Fairbairn also had a model that was quite interesting which included: a) 'the exciting object'; b) 'the rejecting object'; c) 'the morally idealized and anti-libidinal parent'; d) 'the infantile, libidinal ego'; e) 'the infantile, anti-libidinal ego'; and f) 'the central ego' identifying with the morally idealized parents. Fairbairn's model is a '6 department or compartment model' of the personality. (Harry Guntrip, Psychoanalytic Theory, Therapy, and The Self, 1971,73, p. 98)


6. The Transactional Analysis Model (Eric Berne): Built mainly from an 'Object Relations' perspective of the personality -- and simplified for the 'lay public' -- Berne created a model that looks something like this: a) 'The Nurturing (Encouraging-positive, spoiling-negative) Parent(-Ego); b) 'The Critical, Controlling (Structuring-positive, oppressive-negative) Parent(-Ego)'; c) 'The Adult-(Ego); d) 'The Adapted (Co-operative, Compliant) Child; e) 'The Free (Spontaneous-positive, Immature-negative) Child. That would make this a '5 department or compartment model'.


From these 6 'classic personality theories and models', I have derived and created the following DGB '16 Ego-States model' (which keeps changing, evolving...).

Beyond the 6 classic personality models listed above, this model below also shows the influence of Western Philosophy and Greek Mythology -- as opened up to me by my study of Perls and Gestalt Therapy, Carl Jung and Jungian Psychology (the 'archetypes' and 'mythological gods') and Nietzsche's 'The Birth of Tragedy' (1872).

This can also be viewed as a psychological -- and abbreviated -- version of Hegel's Hotel -- internalized.

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C/ A DGB Multiple-Bi-Polar Model of The Personality (Psyche)


This model can be viewed as having '3 vertical floors' -- similar to the Transactional Analysis idea of 'Parent' (thesis), 'Child (anti-thesis), and 'Adult' (synthesis). Or an extended, extrapolated version of Gestalt Therapy: 'Topdog' (thesis), 'Underdog' (anti-thesis), and 'Middledog (synthesis). Or an extended, extrapolated version of Classic Psychoanalysis: 'Superego' (thesis), 'Id' (anti-thesis), and 'Ego' (synthesis). Or a Jungian version of 'Persona' (thesis), 'Shadow' (anti-thesis), and 'Integrative Persona-Shadow-Self' (synthesis). Or an extended, extrapolated version of the Chinese philosophical model: 'yang' (masculinism, testosterone, aggressive-assertiveness-narcissism, thesis); 'yin' (feminism, estrogen, humanistic-sensitivity-empathy-altruism, anti-thesis), 'yin-yang' (integrative health and balance, 'physical, psychological, mental, creative, and conceptual copulation, cross-fertilization, bio and psychological diversity...' synthesis).

A/ The Topdog (Parent-Authority) Level

1. The Nurturing-Supportive Topdog Ego (Short Form: The NSTE)

Mythologically, the projected Greek Gods that are most relevant are 'Gaia' (Goddess of the Earth) and 'Hera' (Goddess of Hearth and Family). Within the family, this part of the personality tends to be most influenced ideally by the 'unconditional love' of the mother which provides a life-long stability factor to the personality. Pathologically speaking, the extreme here is 'pampering', 'spoiling', 'overprotecting'...

2. The Narcissistic-Hedonistic Topdog Ego (Short Form: The NHTE)

Concerned with power, egotism, control, dominance, and the underlying biochemical factor of pleasure, sensuality, sex, and sexuality. Pathology enters the picture, the more that 'domination' and/or 'sadism' become overly obsessive factors...

3. The Righteous-Disapproving (Rejecting) Topdog Ego (The RDTE)

Stereotypically and mythologically viewed as a 'paternalistic/father' influence on the personality. Concerned with 'doing things right', 'not making a mistake', 'not being wrong', 'not messing up', 'discipline and self-discipline', and ideally speaking, 'being the best we can be at what we do'. Pathological elements enter the picture in the form of 'over-control' and 'over-self-control', and even more so in the form of 'anal-sadistic-rejecting' elements of the personality.


B/ The 'Chief Executive Officer' of the Personality, and 'Closest Advisors To The Throne' Level

4. The Central Mediating and Executive Ego (Other Names: The Dialectic-(Democratic and/or Autocratic) Ego, Zeus' Ego, Heraclitus' Ego, Lao Tse's Ego, Aristole's Ego, Hegel's Ego) (Short Form: The CMEE)

Makes the final decision on all mediating and executive decisions in the personality. Pathology enters the picture when The Central Ego is not fully aware and/or in control and is dominated by one or more underlying and overpowering, extreme ego-states in the personality, and/or is not 'properly balanced by offsetting ego-states in the personality, and/or is not properly trained in 'healthy, balanced perspectives and approaches' to the study and practice of epistemology, ethics, and a balance between narcissism and altruism, humanism and existentialism, liberalism and conservatism...

5. The Narcissistic-Hedonistic-Survival Ego (Other Names: The Dionysian Ego, The Hobbesian Ego, The Machiavellian Ego, The Schopenhauerian Ego) (Short Form: The NHSE)

The specialized and focused, survival-seeking and narcissistic-pleasure-seeking, pain-avoiding, ego-state in the personality.

6. The Rational-Enlightenment (Truth-and-Justice) Ego (Other Names: Apollo's Ego, Bacon's Ego, Diderot's Ego, The Reasonable Ego) (Short Form: The REE)

7. The Romantic-Sensual-Spiritual Ego (Other Names: Aphrodite's Ego, Cupid's Ego, Spinoza's Ego, Goethe's Ego, Rousseau's Ego) (Short Form: The RSSE)

8. The Humanistic-Compassionate Ego (Other Names: The Compassionate Ego, The Altruistic Ego, The Oral-Receptive Ego, Mother Teresa's Ego, The Liberal Ego) (Short Form: The HCE)

9. The Existential-(Self-Accountable) Ego (Other Names: Kierkegaard's Ego, Nietzsche's Ego, Sartre's Ego, The Will to Excel Ego, The Will To Be and Become Ego, The Contactful Ego, The Essence-and-Existence Ego...) (Short Form: The ESAE)


C/ The Underdog (Child-Employee) Level


10. The Approval-Seeking Underdog Ego (Short Form: The ASUE)

Wanting to be co-operative, wanting to please, wanting approval, wanting to be right, wanting to avoid conflict...a combination of 'healthy co-operation' and/or 'unhealthy disapproval-avoiding'...

11. The Narcissistic-Hedonistic Underdog Ego (Short Form: The NHUE)

Pleasure-seeking, egotism-seeking, power-seeking -- from a 'one-down, underdog' position...

12. The Rebellious-Deconstructive Underdog Ego (Short Form: The RDUE)

The 'deconstructive-rebellious' ego-state in the personality -- most easily associated with 'the rebellious child'...anarchy, destruction, and self-destruction are its more pathological elements..

D/ Subconscious Ego-States

13. The Dream (Fantasy, and Nightmare) Making Ego (Short Form: The DME)

The 'Dream and Fantasy Making Ego' in the Personality woven into dreams, nightmares, symbolism, art, literature, creativity, and destruction in its more pathological elements...


14. The Personal Subconscious and Transference Template (Short Form: The PSTT)

Home to all of our most significant memories, encounters, relationships, traumacies, tragedies, narcissistic fixations, peak moments, worst moments -- and the 'transferences' that we weave into these experiences that in turn 'guide us into the future'...

15. The Mythological Subconscious and Archetype Template (The MSAT)

The mythological and creative symbolism that we carry with us from birth to death that comes from our most ancient evolutionary roots...

16. The Potential Self Blueprint-Template (for The Evolution of The Personality) (Short Form: The PSBT)

Those talents and skills that we bring with us from birth that seem to lead us in a particular direction, ideally in a direction that seems to 'fulfill our destiny and the blueprint of our unique, individual personality.

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Obviously, I am biased, and everything is subject to change, to the continuing evolution of my own thoughts and ideas, affected by those who influence me, and which I express through Hegel's Hotel.

However, right now, I like the model. Indeed, I can't see it changing too much. I think that I have cut it down to a manageable and understandable model. I think it has many different pragmatic, theoretical, reality-based, and pragmatic-therapeutic applications.

We will discuss some of the more concrete details and applications of this model as we continue to move along.


-- dgb, Aug. 5th, 2009, updated Sept. 27th, 29th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism

-- Dialectic, Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still In Process...


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Broader, Integrative Foundations, Broader Directions in Psychoanalysis: Traumacy-Sexual Theory Meets Fantasy-Sexual Theory Meets Serial Profiling

Just finished...Sept 8th, 2009.


In 1914, Freud wrote: 'The theory of repression is the cornerstone on which the whole structure of Psychoanalysis rests.' (Freud, S., On The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement, S.E. V. XIV, p. 16.).

This was Freud's opinion in 1914, one that he himself would come to modify later as realized that repression was only one of a whole host of possible 'defense mechanisms'. To say that the study and the practice of Psychoanalysis hinges on the 'psychology of defense' would be much closer to what Freud was trying to get at although 'repression' probably retains its lofty perch -- particularly in Classic, Orthodox Freudian Psychoanalysis -- as the first and foremost defense mechanism.

Going back to the very beginning of Psychoanalysis, back to Breuer and the the case of Anna O., the therapy that started to take shape through the combined trial and error efforts of Anna O. and Breuer -- referred to in those earliest of days (the early 1880s) as 'chimney sweeping' or 'the talking cure' -- involved a cathartic, emotional release on the part of the patient (Anna O.) when she was put under hypnosis by Dr. Breuer and together they traced back through her personal history a previously 'unconscious memory' that when re-awakened with its full emotional force (abreaction, catharsis), and 'associatively linked' to the current day neurotic ('hysterical') symptom that was the starting point for tracing this unconscious memory back through time using hypnosis -- relieved her of her neurotic/hysterical symptom. Poof! Like magic it was gone. The neurosis was diagnosed as 'hysterical conversion' if a physical symptom -- like refusing to drink any liquid -- was, through hypnosis, linked to a 'psychological cause' such as in Anna O's case -- recalling a memory where a dog was lapping water out of a human's container.

Now, that might sound like a rather silly connection right now -- and far fetched -- but we have to take into account the context of both the culture and the time that this all took place. Psychoanalysis was born from cases like this where 'physical symptoms' with unfounded 'physical causes' were connected by hypnosis -- and later by 'free association' on the psychoanalyst's couch -- with 'unconscious or repressed memories' (this was Freud's first theory of 'neurosis' and 'hysteria') that therefore could be claimed to have 'psychological causes' at their root.

'Hysterics suffer mainly from reminiscences.' is the most famous quote and formula that came out of Freud and Breuer's first main work, 'Studies on Hysteria', 1893-1895, Standard Edition, V. 11, p. 7.

Studies on Hysteria is a really a remarkable work for a number of different reasons. I have never read it from cover to cover but every time I go back to read portions of it, I find something provocatively new.

Such as:

1. There are two things about Freud's thinking that never really changed in all of his years of theorizing about, and practicing, Psychoanalysis:

a) the 'unconscious' or 'repressed' memory etiology -- an unremembered childhood memory that is still alive and very active in the patient's/person's unconscious psyche and causing significant grief in terms of adult, day-to-day symptomology of a neurotic and/or hysterical type;

b) the 'sexual' etiology of all neurosis -- whether this be of a 'traumatic' nature (the trauma theory and later seduction theory) or of an 'instinctual', 'constitutional', 'hormonal', 'sexual fantasy' type (childhood sexuality theory, Oedipal Theory, Fantasy Theory).

2. I have said this before and I will say it again: Freud was a Gestalt Therapist before he was a Psychoanalyst, or put another way, he was a 'Gestalt-Psychoanalyst' who believed in the principle of 'the unfinished situation', 'the unfinished or unabreacted memory' before he moved away from this idea and into 'fantasy theory'. Put still another way, Fritz Perls took over where Freud left off regarding the principle of the 'unfinished situation' and 'the unfinished, unabreacted memory'.

3. Breuer's idea of a 'hypnoid state' (a self-imposed state of hypnotic suggestibiltiy) that was necessary in order to set up the conditions for a memory to become 'unconscious' -- or a part of a 'second, dissociated state of consciousness' that is completely out of touch with our primary state of consciousness and which can later wreak havoc on our primary state of consciousness -- had its roots partly in the work of Pierre Janet and his concepts (and/or their like) of 'dissociation', 'double consciousness', 'split personality', 'ego-splitting', 'Id', 'Shadow', 'alter ego', 'Dr. Jeckyl and Mr(s). Hyde...ideas that would not disappear forever but indeed would come back and make up a vital part of late Psychoanalytic Theory and Jungian Psychology. The idea of 'hypnoid state' never took off, never left the ground, as Freud's theory of defense took its place and became the foundation of Psychoanalysis. Perhaps the supposed 'split between consciousness and unconsciousness' is a misnomer, or at least in a lot of cases -- often we may be better to talk about the other set of ideas listed above: a 'double consciousness', or an 'ego-splitting', a 'Persona' and a 'Shadow', a 'set of dialectically opposed ego-states' such as the 'Apollonian (reasonable) Ego' vs. the 'Dionysian (passionate, hedonistic, narcissistic, unreasonable) Ego'. Sometimes the most relevant question might be: which Dialectically Opposed Ego-State' has control or power over 'The Central Ego' -- 'The Apollonian Ego' or 'The Dionysian Ego', 'The Superego' or 'The Id', 'The Nurturing Superego' or 'The Harsh, Critical Rejecting Superego', 'The Persona' or 'The Shadow', 'The Topdog' or 'The Underdog', 'The Approval-Seeking Underdog' or 'The Rebellious, Narcissistic, Dionysian Underdog', 'The Assertive-Receptive Contact-Seeking Underdog' or 'The Anal-Schizoid/Depressive/Distancing Underdog'....

These are only some of the many potential 'bi-polar splits' or 'ego-splits' in the personality. The key question becomes: Are these different and often opposing ego-states working in conjunction and compromise with each other through the negotiating and integrating work of 'The Central Ego'? Or are some or all of these different, opposing 'ego-states' completely alienated and dissociated from each other, working against each other, each vying for total power in The Central Ego while trying to completely 'marginalize' and/or sabotage and dismantle its 'polar brother or sister'?

This can be -- and often is -- the critical difference between 'health' and 'pathology' or 'neurosis/psychosis'.

But still we need to close the gap between one of Psychoanalysis' own largest 'ego-splits' and 'dissociation' -- the split and dissociation between 'traumacy' and 'fantasy'.

Hegel's Hotel: DGB Psychology -- and my personal vision and version of 'Post-Hegelian, Dialectical-Gap-Bridging (DGB) Humanistic-Existential Psychoanalysis' finally after some 125 years of Psychoanalytic Evolution -- brings Freudian Traumacy and Sexual Traumacy Theory into the 'same ego-compartment' as Freudian Childhood and Adult Sexual Fantasy Theory. They finally need to be dialectically united rather than opposing theorists and therapists (eg. Freud vs. Masson) being dialectically opposed to each other in their thinking (thesis vs. anti-thesis). DGB Psychology now offers the dialectical synthesis between Freud's and Masson's opposing philosophical, theoretical, and clinical perspectives.

Using Classic, Orthodox Psychoanalytic Terminology, memories of childhood traumacy and/or memories of childhood narcissistic fixations become the breeding grounds for later narcissistic-sexual fantasies. The two unite, integrate, in the confines of 'The Id' -- or using alternative terminology -- 'The Shadow', or 'The Narcissistic-Dionysian Ego'.

As soon as we properly understand this seemingly 'dialectical paradox' between supposedly 'mutually exclusive goals and aims', then we overcome the one theoretical and therapeutic problem that Freud never could overcome in his lifetime (he came very close in 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle' but I believe was scared away by the close to Adlerian idea of 'the mastery compulsion' or in Adler's eventual terminology 'superiority striving' and 'the lifestyle goal'.

What no psychological theorist or writer to my knowledge has every -- in a hundred years -- been able to properly connect is how close Adler's idea of 'lifestyle' and 'lifestyle memory' is to Freud's 'could have been' idea of 'memory transference' -- in other words, to Freud's early work on 'unfinished memories' (1893-1895). The only three things separating Freud and Adler were: 1. their disagreement around the idea and importance of 'repression' vs. 'conscious early memories'; 2. Freud's non-awareness and/or nonacceptance of the idea of 'the mastery compulsion' and/or 'superiority striving' perhaps because it was entering 'Adlerian territory'; 3. their disagreement around the respective ideas and importance of 'sexuality' (Freud) vs. 'self-esteem' (Adler) where again, integratively speaking, both are immensely important and are not usually found apart from each other but rather 'integratively, creatively, and/or destructively mixed in the same neurotic complex-package'; and 4. their disagreement around the respective ideas and importance of 'conflict' (Freud) vs. 'unity' (Adler) in the personality. Paradoxically and dialectically speaking, the two were both partly right: the personality is 'conflictually, paradoxically, and dialectically united and/or torn apart depending on the degree of the neurosis'


You see, the one theoretical and therapeutic problem that Freud could never overcome -- and neither could Masson -- was the idea of 'counter-phobia' or 'transference-reversal'. The reason that Freud could never understand it in his early days (before 1900) was because the phenomena of 'counter-phobia' -- the idea of being compulsively attracted to the different components of one's greatest fears -- seemed to totally violate and fly in the face of 'the pleasure principle'. Asked Freud about the time of his abandonment of the seduction theory (and I am paraphrasing, I will search for the proper reference as I am writing), 'How could anyone -- for example a woman who has supposedly been sexually assaulted and/or seduced at a young age by her father or someone else -- an uncle, a brother, a stranger, then have 'sexual fantasies' that seemed to allude to, and be built around the supposedly 'traumatic' nature of this supposedly 'unpleasurable' childhood memory and scene. Indeed, this may have been the key reason why Freud ultimately abandoned The Seduction Theory in favor of The Oedipal Theory (the idea that the woman patient was 'fantasizing' the 'assault/seduction' and that it was a 'normal' fantasy cloaked as a memory relative to a young girl growing up and 'coveting' the 'love of her father'.

There are a couple of very important distinction to be made in this regard.

Firstly, probably the best way to distinguish between a 'traumacy neurosis' and a 'transference neurosis' is whether or not there is a 'counter-phobia' involved in the neurosis or not. If it turns out that we are at least partly -- and obsessively-compulsively (addictively) -- attracted to the object and memory of one of our greatest fears, then we have a transference memory neurosis at work, in addition to a traumatic memory and traumatic neurosis.

Put another way, a transference memory and/or relationship neurosis that is tied up to a traumatic neurosis (in essence, a 'love-hate' transference relationship) must contain the component of a counter-phobia, otherwise it is not a transference neurosis. It is the 'counter-phobia' component of the transference neurosis that gives it its 'signature quality' -- the idea of 'the mastery compulsion' (Freud unfortunately rejected this concept) or 'the repetition compulsion' (which unfortunately, Freud connected to the 'death instinct', an 'inferior theoretical formulation which became the focus of later Psychoanalytic Theory).

You see, if Freud had stuck with his idea of 'the mastery compulsion', then this would not have defied his 'pleasure principle' because, for many if not most of us, there can be no greater pleasure than 'mastering our greatest fear' (especially when this fear -- and the mastery of it -- is integrated with love and sex).

This is where Freud failed.

This is where Masson failed.

This is where I bring the two oppposing theorists, one dead, the other one still very much alive, Freud and Masson, theoretically and therapeutically -- paradoxically and dialectically -- back together again in the same house, under the same roof (and Adler and Jung and Rank and Ferenzci and Reich and Perls are all welcome back too) the House that Freud Built, i.e., Psychoanalysis with a much broader, and more integrative foundation than has ever been seen before -- inside or outside of Psychoanalysis.

We need to introduce one further idea here that was not a part of Freud's early theorizing -- the idea of 'narcissistic neurosis'.


Strictly speaking, wherever there is a 'counter-phobia' at work in a transference neurosis, this is also a 'narcissistic neurosis' because a narcissistic neurosis is all about the often integrated issues of: 'egotism', 'approval-seeking', 'superiority-striving', 'mastery compulsion', 'power', 'revenge', 'hedonism' -- or to put all of these ideas into one capsule, 'self-esteem'.

We now have all but perhaps a few of our most basic ingredients (I have talked about Fairbairn and his ideas of 'exciting' vs. 'rejecting' object, and the concept of 'ego-splitting', 'ego-compartments', and the influence of Eric Berne and Transactional Analysis in other papers) by which we are finally ready to put together a stronger, firmer, more flexible Post-Hegelian-Dialectic-Democratic-Humanistic-Existential version of Psychoanalysis -- a Psychoanalysis with neither a 'Traumacy-Seduction Theory Bias' nor an 'Oedipal-Childhood Sexuality Fantasy Theory Bias' because my Psychoanalytic Theory contains both, side by side, separate and/or integrated,no prejudice.

Let us go back to Transactional Analysis -- back to such popular books in the 60s as 'Games People Play' (1964) and 'I'm Okay, You're Okay' (1969).

I am not sure how close Eric Berne knew he was to the idea of 'transference' and more specifically to the ideas of 'narcissistic transferences', 'counter-phobias', and 'obsessive-compulsive transference games people play with each other (often with deadly consequences)'.

I think Berne was almost right on top of these concepts, albeit without the necessary terminology connecting his 'game theory' and 'ego-splitting theory' to this more radical and/or modernized form of 'transference theory'. Certainly, being Psychoanalytically trained, Berne knew about transference. But he understood transference in its traditional Freudian meaning -- not in terms of his radical new 'game theory'. Kohut's creation of 'narcissistic transferences' was still about seven years from arriving although Psychoanalysts were in the process of working towards this concept:

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Narcissistic Transference


Psychoanalysis: Narcissistic Transference
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Home > Library > Health > Psychoanalysis DictionaryNarcissistic transference is a post-Freudian term introduced by Heinz Kohut, in the context of his theory of narcissism, to refer to a group of clinical phenomena observed during analytic treatment.

For Freud himself, transference concerned the transposition of object relationships; transference and narcissism were such contrary ideas for him that the expression narcissistic transference would have been meaningless in his eyes: "Observation shows that sufferers from narcissistic neuroses have no capacity for transference or only insufficient residues of it" (1916-17a [1915-17], p. 447).

One of the first authors to take narcissism into account in the evolution of the treatment was Béla Grunberger, in 1956. Grunberger deemed narcissism one of the motors of the analytic cure, and this even among neurotics. Out of fidelity to Freud's thinking, he nevertheless refrained from using the term "narcissistic transference," and spoke only of a "narcissistic analytic relationship." In this context he described certain ploys on the part of the patient, as for example "using the analyst to create a double [or mirror] image of himself" or projecting his ideal ego onto the analyst, which would later be evoked by Heinz Kohut.

Kohut brought narcissism into relation not with the ego but with a broader and less limited entity, the self. At the same time he introduced the idea of a line of development of narcissism paralleling the development of object-cathexes and interacting with it. Narcissism and object-love were thus no longer in contradiction with each other, but complementary, and it became possible to speak meaningfully of narcissistic transferences.

In The Analysis of the Self (1971), Kohut describes several aspects of such transferences. "Mirror transferences" correspond to a remobilization of the idealized "grandiose self" and imply the following demand with respect to the other person: "I am perfect and need you to confirm it." A mirror transference easily gives rise to a feeling of boredom or impatience in the analyst, whose otherness it does not acknowledge. Such transferences are of three types (pp. 114-16). The most archaic is "merger transference," in which the patient strives for an omnipotent and tyrannical control over the analyst, who is experienced as an extension of the self. In an "alter-ego transference," the other is experienced as very similar to the grandiose self. Lastly, in the case of mirror transference "in the narrower sense," the analyst is experienced as a function serving the patient's needs. If the patient feels recognized, he will experience sensations of well-being associated with the restoration of his narcissism. An "idealizing transference" is defined by Kohut as the mobilization of an idealized and all-powerful parent imago (p. 37), and it is encapsulated in the sentence "You are perfect, but I am part of you"; it is correlated with a struggle against feelings of emptiness and powerlessness. Kohut's notion that certain people are cathected as parts of the self, integrated into the mental functioning of the patient himself, led him to speak of "self-objects" and to describe narcissistic transference as based on an idealized self-object.

Kohut's approach has been criticized on the grounds that it first relegated the instincts and the Oedipus complex to the background and then eliminated them completely.

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DGB...cont'd..

My version of narcissistic transferences doesn't eliminate either the idea of 'instincts' or the idea of 'the Oedipal Complex' (or at least my broader version of it, i.e., 'Mother Love-Hate Complexes' and 'Father Love-Hate Complexes') as perhaps Kohut's version of narcissistic transferences did.


Now let us quickly divide the ego into four ego-compartments: 1. The Nurturing Superego (or Topdog); 2. The Critical, Righteous (Rejecting) Superego (or Topdog); 3. The Approval-Seeking Ego (or Underdog); and 4. The Rebellious-Righteous Ego (or Underdog) -- with 'narcissistic energy' (my replacement for Freud's 'libido or sexual energy theory') running through any and all 'ego-compartments', indeed all aspects of the personality. For me, narcissism -- as it eventually came to become for Freud -- was the fundamental, first energy of the personality, i.e, the energy of 'self-preservation'. It is only later in life -- when we are taught love, empathy, caring, social sensitivity, ethics, and altruism -- that we can 'introject' these healthy traits into our personality. Some people never do if they never see and/or experience these traits in life.

And finally an example of a 'transference complex and neurosis' from Freud's own life. In the words of Freud's most famous biographer, Ernest Jones, Jones recites one of Freud's earliest conscious recollections:

'Among the (consciously) remembered ones are a few, banal enough in themselves, which are of interest only in standing out in the sea of amnesia. One was of penetrating into his parents' bedroom out of (sexual) curiosity and being ordered out by an irate father.' (Ernest Jones, 1953, 1981, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 1, p. 7).

You see, Ernest Jones, in reciting this conscious early memory, has already judged against its possible (traumatic and/or transference) importance, and thus, marginalized it, because it doesn't fit into orthodox, Classical Freudian Psychoanalytic 'repressed, unconcious memory theory'. It is a perfect example how biographers can screen out -- or at least almost screen out -- a memory that could be critically important to the evolution of Freud's personality, his transference and character structure -- and to the whole future of Psychoanalysis.

Let me be more clear. This is probably the most important memory in Freud's life -- and Jones -- as well as all of Psychoanalysis -- has essentially marginalized it as being relatively unimportant to Freud's future character development.

In contrast, I see this memory as the most important narcissistic transference memories in Freud's character. Symbolically, metaphorically, egotistiscally, narcissistically, sexually, the memory is repeated thousands of time over in Freud's life -- in the confines of the Psychoanalytic Room with The Psychoanalytic Couch.

This memory was the foundation of probably Freud's greatest 'repetition compulsion' -- or in my more Freudian-Adlerian terminology -- counter-phobia and mastery compulsion.

If I am right -- which I am pretty sure that I am -- then, you should be able to see here how false assumptions can steer generations of Psychoanalysts down 'the garden path' away from -- in this case -- the 'transference truth'.

Now if you understand a little about Object Relations and Transactional Analysis and Gestalt Therapy, then you will know where I am going with the transference interpretation of this memory next.

Specifically, everything -- and everyone -- in the memory gets internalized, introjected. The bed in memory becomes the 'couch' in The Psychoanalytic Room.

Freud's external father in the memory becomes Freud's 'introjected rejecting -- and exciting -- object' in the evolution of his transference memory complex and personality.

Now most Psychoanalysts know that Freud had an issue with 'men' but not to the full extent that I will describe this transference 'seduction-abandonment' memory and relationship complex here.

Freud's 'seduction-abandonment' transference neurosis regarding men worked like this:

In the memory, the little Freud is basically evicted from the room by his father who didn't want the younger Freud to know his (sexual) business.

We now introduce Ferenczi's/Anna Freud's concept of 'identification with the aggressor' (victimizer, rejector, abandoner...).

Freud in the righteous, rejecting topdog component of his ego-personality becomes a 'clone of his dad'. Put another way, his 'rejecting dad' is internalized, introjected into the rejecting topdog or superego portion of his personality.

The 'scared little kid' Freud is also internalized or introjected into the bottom right corner (ego-compartment) of the personality -- and becomes 'the approval-seeking underdog'. Freud would develop an 'obsessive-compulsion' to please certain men later in his life -- most notably Fliess and Jung. We can say that Freud developed the strongest 'Father-Transference-Memory Complex' with these two men, Fliess and Jung. We can say that metaphorically or symbolically, this was the little Freud still at work trying to 'please his dad and to get him/them to let him back into the bedroom'. This is what I call an 'Approval-Seeking Father Complex' but also at work here, is what I said earlier about a 'love-hate' transference relationship and a 'seduction-abandonment' transference relationship. To understand the full extent of these latter two phenomena, we need to know how all four ego-compartments can combine into and each play an integral part of, the same Transference Complex.

Enter The Rebellious Ego (or Underdog). This is the young and defiant Freud -- the persistant Freud -- the 'I will not be deterred' Freud. This is the young, defiant, and arrogant Freud at 'the top of his game' then, and later in his life saying in essence: 'Dad, I will be back -- I will find my way back into the bedroom to find out what was going on in there. You, my fine father, can kick me out of the bedroom, you can even kick me out of your life, but you cannot stop me from finding out what you were up to, what you were doing in there. It may take me hundreds of clients and thousands and thousands of sessions but don't think you can shut me out dad, because ,metaphorically if not in reality, I will be back and I will find out what you -- and mom -- were up to in here. I will find out all about your 'sexual secrets'. If not in your lifetime, at least in mine. Trust me, I will be back.'

In that little paragraph there, you have the essence of 'traumacy neurosis', 'underlying anxiety neurosis', 'counter-phobia', 'transference neurosis', 'narcissistic neurois', 'repetition compulsion' and 'mastery compulsion' all rolled up into one.

It was the essence of Freud's rebellious, defiant personality. And it was the essence of Psychoanalysis. Freud worked his whole life to keep going back into 'that room' -- the metaphorical bedroom, the Psychoanalytic Room -- but in this one regard here, Freud never quite got back there. He never completely figured out his own transference neurosis.

Permit me a little narcissistic egotism to say that I did. I believe that I have quite probably cracked the nut on Freud's 'Father Traumatic-Transference Neurosis Complex' in a way that no one -- no psychoanalyst or non-psychoanalyst -- before me, has. That is my own judgment. I will let others make theirs.

For three, four, or maybe even five reasons, I believe that I have arrived at a strangely unorthodox but compelling place:

1. I have been spending most of my adult life 'thinking outside the orthodox Psychoanalytic Theoretical Box';

2. I have been strongly influenced by both Adlerian Psychology and Gestalt Therapy, as well as Object Relations and Transactional Analysis in ways that probably no one before me has;

3. I have been spending much of my adult life trying to get to the bottom of understanding 'transference' in ways that no one before me has;

4. My earliest memory bears a strong similarity to Freud's -- being 'evicted from a door' -- only in my case by my friend's mother for ringing their house door too many times, too early in the morning, when at about 4 years old, I was trying to get my friend to come out and play. I was frozen, stiff, emotionally and physically paralyzed by her raging temper that caught me so off guard when she finally came rushing down from upstairs, flew open the door, and screamed at me (for disturbing her personal space and privacy).

5. Thus, there are certain similar, obsessive-compulsive transferences at work in my own personality regarding a full and complete understanding of this phenomenon -- in this regard, Freud's term of 'sublimation' might also be appropriate (which I will define as 'transference complexes entering into your field of study and/or work').

Regarding Freud's 'Seduction-Abandonment Father-Transference Complex Neurosis', there were two stages of this neurosis: 1. the Seduction: wanting the acceptance/approval of men who strongly reminded Freud of his rather's 'righteous-rejecting topdog'. Enter Fliess and Jung; 2. The Abandonment: When this acceptance/approval was not forthcoming -- when he started to 'project' the picture of his father about to evict him from the bedroom onto the adult transference figure of Jung -- then Freud 'flipped' (a 'transference reversal', 'identification with the aggressor' and essentially 'evicted' Jung from Psychoanalysis at about the same time that Jung was about to 'evict Freud and Psychoanalysis' from his own life. In Fliess' case, I think the Emma Ekstein scandal started to kill their relationship and Freud started to do another 'transference flip' where Freud no longer saw Fliess as being essentially 'God walking on Earth' -- and started the process of slowly evicting Fliess from his life.

From a rejecting topdog point of view, some of the other 'victims' of Freud's 'abandonment wrath' included: Adler, Reich, Rank, Ferenczi, Perls (in Freud's one very brief meeting with Perls in, I believe it was, 1936, when the much younger, provocative, creative South African psychoanalyst, Perls, was just about to present a more more or less rejected Psychoanalytic paper on 'Oral Resistances', and tentatively entered (or was about to enter) Freud's room at the conference -- in a few short words, Freud basically told Perls to 'go back to South Africa'. How was that for a 'father-cloned rejecting reaction' -- a perfect example of 'transference identification with the aggressor' or what I call 'negative transference reversal'!

Here is the very short meeting as described by Perls:

Perls: 'I came from South Africa to give a paper and to see you.'

Freud: 'Well, and when are you going back?'

Perls: I don't remember the rest of the (perhaps four minute long) conversation. I was shocked and disappointed. (1969, Fritz Perls, In and Out the Garbage Pail, p. 56.)

Just like Freud was shocked and disappointed as a kid when his dad 'blew him away' in a very similar manner. The little Sigmund had learned very well from his father how to 'blow people off' in order to 'protect his own Secret Society where people were only allowed in if they were a part of the Secret Society'. Based on Freud's obvious disenchantment with Perls' paper on 'oral resistances' (Orthodox Psychoanalysis only believed in 'anal resistances', Perls was no longer considered a part of his 'Secret Society'. Freud had no place for 'Psychoanalytic rebels' -- unless you were female and your name was Melanie Klein.


That was the first and last time Perls would meet Freud.

If Perls was still alive today, I would tell him through this paper that he -- like many men before him -- walked straight into Freud's 'introjected rejecting Father-Topdog' which paradoxically would become according to Perls himself (In and Out of the Garbage Pail) one of the most significant 'unfinished situations' in the remainder of Perls' life.

What comes around goes around. And what comes around goes around.


This is how 'rejection', 'abandonment', 'betrayal', 'hate' and 'rage' is transferered from generation to generation and around the world.


Which brings us to the subject of 'narcissistic transference rage', 'serial transference profiling', and 'serial criminals' -- i.e., serial arsonists, serial rapists, 'serial fetish burglars', and 'serial killers' -- the worst of the worst when it comes to the subject of narcissistic transference rage and violence and the 'signatures' they leave in their 'transference crime scenes'.


Henry Lucas, Ted Bundy, and all the rest.


Subject for another day to the extent that we want to or don't want to delve into the deepest, darkest part of human behavior -- in relation to transference, transference rage, and transference violence. Just as Freud said that we are all 'psychotic when we dream', I am saying that we are all 'serial rejectors of one kind or another, some far more destructive, self-destructive, perverse, and/or violent than others -- depending on very much on the nature and quality of our childhood relationships and memories. Violent childhood memories often breed violent adult behavior. You look at the childhood memories of someone like say, Henry Lucas, a notorious serial killer in the 1960s, which we will in another essay, and you can see very clearly that this man did not have any semblance of a normal childhood life -- or 'normal memories'.

Being 'hit over the head by your mother with a two by four' is not a normal memory. Neither is 'your mom shooting your dearly loved pet mule. Just because you were attached to it.' Serial killers don't usually have normal childhood memories and/or relationships. Their adult life is often just a symbolic replaying of their childhood memories -- with the 'egotistical, narcissistic flip from being the underdog and out of control to being the topdog and fully in control. At least until they are caught.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

For now, let me simply say, that this essay probably more than any other represents my own 'personal vision of Psychoanalyis'.

And if nothing else, as the summation of my life's 'underground, in the shadows of academia' work in this area of transference, let me say that I think that I arrived at a very important place here, that no one before me -- Psychoanalytic or otherwise -- has ever arrived at before. Certainly not in this exact place.

But I have paid my respects to all of the people -- all the theorists and therapists -- who have helped me get here. And there is also the influence of my own 'Father Transference Relationship Complex' which is also very similar to Freud's -- or to anyone who has both tried to 'please' and 'rebel against' an admired but authoritarian father.

Enough said for today.


-- dgb, Sept 8th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

The Main Foundations of GAP-DGB Humanistic-Existential Psychoanalysis (Part 1)

Every time I start an essay on this very provocative and controversial subject matter of 'Freud's and Masson's Seduction Theory Controversy', I keep looking for more and more interpretive and evaluative clarity, first in myself, and second in the way I convey my thinking to you -- I start in essentially the same place and end up up traveling to, and finishing up, somewhere completely, or at least partly different.

Today is no different.

The biggest problem is that I have so many different issues and ideas swirling around inside my head on this subject matter that it is very hard to present one small essay, in concise format, with one small thesis, that starts at point A and ends at point B -- without bringing in points C,D,E,F,G,H,I, J, and K -- at the same time.

Either that, or I have to be able to clearly explain to you how points C,D,E,F,G,H, I, J, and K -- are all critically important to clearly understanding the very complex problem and controversy at hand, meaning the Seduction Theory Controversy on the one hand, and the whole foundation of Psychoanalysis on the other hand.


I opt for the latter strategy even if we don't cover all of these different points in this particular essay. We will probably have to address each and every point, one by one -- and then show how they are all potentially connected.

My goal is extremely ambitious here. Basically, in as few and/or as many essays as it takes, I wish to build a new, multi-dialectic-integrative-humanistic-existential model of Psychoanalysis.

This is what you call 'thinking outside the box' -- inventing a new paradigm that partly includes most if not all of the old paradigms, models, and theories that have either been around since the beginning of Psychoanalyis, or evolved inside it, or outside it, along the way.

This is not Freud's most 'anal-retentive' Classic, orthodox version and vision of Psychoanalysis.

Rather, this is most if not all of Freud's many often paradoxical and opposing theories and sub-theories all united into one -- indeed, even with some outside further additional help from some of the main friends and later protagonists in Freud's life such as Adler, Jung, Ferenzci, Rank, Reich, and even some post-neo-and/or anti-Freudians such as: Klein, Fairbairn, Kohut, Fromm, Horney, Perls, Masson,
and probably others that I are missing off the top of my head right now.

How on earth is such a monstrous goal possible?

How on earth can we restore theoretical order from disorder and chaos?


Let us start by labeling most if not all of the most pertinent points or theories at our potential service here.

'A' is 'Traumacy Theory'.

'B' is 'Seduction (meaning Childhood Sexual Abuse) Theory.

'C' is 'Childhood and Adult Sexuality Theory'.

'D' is 'Defense Theory'

'E' is Oedipal and Internal-External Object Relations (Mother, Father, Sibling... Complex Theory'.

'F' is 'Narcissistic (Traumacy, Self-Esteem, Egotism, Fixation, Mastery, Power, Sexuality, and Revenge) Theory'.

'G' is 'Gestalt Unfinished Situation (or Business) Theory'.

'H' is 'Transference Theory'.

'I' is 'Identification with the Aggressor, Counter-Phobia, and Narcissistic Transference-Reversal Theory'

'J' is Adlerian Lifestyle, Compensation, 'Masculine Protest', 'Feminine Protest', Mastery, Superiority-Striving, and Conscious Early Recollection Theory'.

'K' is Eric Berne's Theory of 'Transactional Analysis' including his theory of different 'Ego-States or Compartments', and various types of 'Ego-Splits'.

'L' Jung's theory of 'Persona', 'Shadow', 'Archetypes', and 'The Self'.

The following quote came into my email box this morning.


'A house must be built on solid foundations if it is to last. The same principle applies to man, otherwise he too will sink back into the soft ground and be swallowed up by the world of illusion.' -- Sai Baba


The same principle can be applied to any theory -- and, in particular here, any theory of personality and/or neurosis.


Our theory of psychological health and disease (or 'neurosis') is exactly the same as our theory of physical health and disease. It is a dialectical model following in the tracks of Anaxamander, Heraclitus, Lao Tse, Hippocrates, the Han Philosophers, Aristotle ('The Golden Mean'), Hegel (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis), and Cannon (The Wisdom of The Body).

Basically, the theory is as simple as this: Disease is either caused by 'too much of a bad thing' and/or 'not enough of a good thing'. One is the disease of 'toxic or pathological or narcissistic excess', the other is the disease of 'nutritional deficiency'. Often, if not usually, both come hand to hand in the same client case.



All that remains -- in the case of psychological health and disease (or 'neurosis'
and/or 'psychosis'/'schizophrenia') -- is to establish what good and/or bad things can happen in the health and/or pathology of the individual person and personality.


Welcome to Psychoanalysis -- in the widest sense of the word, not the narrowest sense of the word.


Let us back track a bit.


I keep going over this whole 'Freud and Classical Psychoanalysis vs. Masson and the 'Psychoanalytic Deconstructionists' relative to this now 113 year old Seduction Theory Controversy' which Masson re-opened very forcefully and dramatically in the early 1980s.

I pound my head with this issue, going back over the clinical facts and the editorial conclusions from both sides, trying to establish for myself where 'right' and 'wrong' is, 'good' and 'bad', 'guilty' and 'innocent'.

One time Freud is wrong but innocent of all moral-ethical charges against him. Another time -- he is not. There is still the 'Emma Ekstein scandal' and what would seem to be Freud's almost 20 year involvement with 'cocaine' (1894-1904) in which Freud was passing out cocaine like it was aspirin to his friends, probably his wife, his patients, probably Fliess and/or visa versa, a patient died to some combination of morphine and cocaine addiction under Freud's watch...even though no one knew at the beginning what the properties of cocaine were, how dangerous it was, how addictive it was, and other doctors were experimenting with it in similar ways, still Freud was involved in some highly risky and dangerous forms of 'medical and surgical treatment' that seemed to fly in the face of (without too much concern on Freud's part) the medical establishment's Hippocratic Oath: 'First, Do the patient no harm!'

But then again, there have always been risky and dangerous forms of 'therapy' in the evolution of medical treatment, and even today, one can quite legitimately ask the question: 'How closely do radiologists and chemo-therapists adhere to The Hippocratic Oath?'

Still, Freud's involvement with cocaine between approximately 1894 and 1904 is a bigger taboo topic than even his abandonment of The Seduction Theory between 1896 and 1899, and someone has to legitimately ask the question -- no different than an athlete who is known to be, or have been, on steroids -- 'To what extent did Freud's cocaine involvement during this time period (1894-1904) affect his theoretical as well as therapeutic work?'

And more specifically, did it have any affect on Freud's abandonment of The Seduction Theory and his evolution into 'Fantasy Theory'?

Doesn't it seem rather strange that no orthodox Psychoanalyst in approximately 110 years has ever professionally touched this question, let alone attempted to answer it, not even to my knowledge, Dr. Masson?

And then there is -- the 'bull in the china shop' -- Dr. Masson. Did Dr. Masson commit any epistemological and/or ethical errors or omissions in this 'Watergate' of a Psychoanalytic controversy/scandal? Such as accusing Freud of 'losing moral courage' when none of us 80 to 100 years later can profess to know for sure what Freud's mindset was back between 1896 and 1900. Did Masson overstep his own ethical boundaries in this respect -- and kill his own career in Psychoanalysis in the process?

And then there is the question of whether Freud's 'Seduction Theory' -- meaning his 'Childhood Sexual Assault Theory' -- was ever fully justified by the clinical evidence in the first place? I have made this point this point before. Freud had a propensity for jumping to fast, provocative generalizations and theoretical conclusions (The Seduction Theory, The Oedipal Theory, The Childhood Sexuality and Sexual Fantasy Theory, The Death Instinct Theory...) that had a tendency of overstepping the boundaries of 'good epistemology' -- 'good rational-empiricism'. It almost seemed like Freud had a propensity throughout his life -- almost as if it was a 'transference repetition compulsion and/or serial behavior pattern' -- to 'shock people first', and then to 'justify' his provocative, controversial, shocking 'scientific conclusions' with 'rhetorical arguments' that were well put together and seemingly tightly argued -- almost like a prosecution or defense lawyer putting together a 'good case' -- even though, when you really delve into the case and get to the bottom of it, you find that the case, is at best, based on very 'flimsy' and 'far-stretched' clinical evidence that could just as well or better support 5 or 10 other completely different clinical theories.

Again and again, I need to impress upon you as a reader, that life offers each and every one of us a myriad of ever changing, connected and unconnected, stimuli that can be interpreted and evaluated in a multitude of different ways depending on our own personal background, our own experiences, our own narcissistic biases and interests...so to create a theory -- any theory -- is to start to 'think inside a box', 'a theoretical box of our own making' which in effect, 'leads the witness', leads the reader, in a particular direction, towards the conclusion and the theory of our own making -- which may be only one of many other possible conclusions and theories that another person could draw from the same 'myriad of connected and/or not connected stimuli'.

Furthermore, as soon as we start to abstract, as soon as we start to 'pick and choose' what evidence we will include and what evidence we will leave out we are once again, leading the witness, leading the reader, on a trip to either 'epistemological and/or ethical clarification' and/or on a trip to 'Never, Never Land' -- a 'boxed theory of our own making', good and/or bad, which for better or for worse, is a 'sound bite' or a 'visual bite' that leaves part of life out and this part of life that is left out may be either non-important to the discussion at hand or it could be critically important and, at the same time, neglected, suppressed, marginalized.

This problem of 'thinking inside a narcissistically biased theoretical box' is just as relevant to Masson and his re-trumpeting the Seduction Theory as it is relative to Freud basically abandoning the Seduction Theory and moving into his replacement theories: 1. 'The Oedipal Theory' and 2. 'Childhood/Adult Fantasy Theory'.

That is why I like, for the most part, to take a combined 'Spinozian-Hegelian' approach and go with the assumption that there is usually a 'combination of truth, distortion, and fantasy in any and every theory' -- not just The Seduction Theory, and not just the Oedipal Theory -- but both as they dialectically engage with each other and potentially come together in integrative theoretical union.

You see, I am like a conceptual, theoretical, and historical 'marriage counselor' going back into history and doing my best to 're-unite' Freud and Adler, Freud and Jung, Freud and Reich, Freud and Ferenczi, Freud and Rank, Freud and Perls, Freud and Masson...

The individual personalities may be impossible to unite -- not then, and not now.

However, the particular 'partisan' ideas which are now a valuable part of the public domain, can be re-integrated any way we want -- and that is exactly what I intend to do.

This idea of uniting seemingly dualistic and paradoxical theories is certainly not foreign to science. In the evolution of physics, 'particle' theory evolved into 'wave' theory which then evolved into a dialectically united 'particle-wave' theory which scientists now call 'quantum physics'.

I don't pretend to understand quantum physics but I certainly do understand the concept of 'dialectic union' which makes up half the essence and content of my own 'dialectic union and separation (or individuation)' theory of evolution.

Let us see what this particular website below has to say about the seemingly dualistic, paradoxical nature of matter and light.


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http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Physics-Particle-Wave-Duality-Paradox.htm

On Truth & Reality
The Spherical Standing Wave Structure of Matter (WSM) in Space

This website is primarily on the subjects of truth and reality. We get about 300,000 page views each week and are one of the top philosophy / physics sites on the Internet. The central thesis is best stated in three parts;

i) We must know the truth to act wisely, and truth comes from physical reality.

ii) Our present and past societies are not founded on truth and act unwisely (overpopulation, destruction of nature, pollution, climate change, religious and economic wars, etc.).

iii) We now know the correct language for describing physical reality (all matter interactions are wave interactions in space), and this knowledge is critical for our future survival, being the source of truth & wisdom.

So how do we prove that this is true? Everyone will agree that true knowledge of reality must explain and solve the fundamental problems of knowledge in physics, philosophy and metaphysics. This website does exactly that. The above subject pages provide short summaries / simple solutions to these central problems of knowledge. To begin it is useful to read the Introduction & Summary to this Physics Philosophy Metaphysics Website.

Short Summary of Quantum Physics

These Quantum Physics pages (on either side) show how this new understanding of physical reality (that all light and matter interactions are wave interactions in Space) explains and solves the central problems of Quantum Theory.

The mistake was to work from Newton's foundation of particles and instantly acting gravity forces in space and time (many things) and then have to add more things to explain light and electricity, i.e. charged particles, continuous electromagnetic fields and waves (Faraday, Maxwell, Lorentz, Einstein's Special Relativity).

Thus by 1900 the central concepts of Physics were;

Matter as discrete particles with both gravitational mass and electrical charge properties (mass-charge duality).

Light as continuous electromagnetic waves (velocity of light c).

Continuous electromagnetic fields created by discrete charged particles (discrete particle-continuous field duality).

Local charge interactions limited by the velocity of electromagnetic waves (velocity of light c).

Over the next 30 years Quantum Theory destroyed these foundations by showing the exact opposite, that;

Matter has wave properties thus a particle-wave duality (de Broglie Waves, Schrodinger's wave equations).

Light has discrete particle properties thus a particle-wave duality (Light 'quanta', Max Planck, Albert Einstein)

Continuous deterministic fields are replaced by discrete statistical fields e.g. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, Niels Bohr's Copenhagen Interpretation, Born's probability waves to predict the location of the particle.

Non-Local matter interactions (instant action-at-distance EPR Bell Aspect)

The solution to this confusion and contradiction is simple once known. Describe reality from One thing existing, Space (that we all commonly experience) and its Properties. i.e. Rather than adding matter particles to space as Newton did, we consider Space with properties of a continuous wave medium for a pure Wave Structure of Matter. This is the Most Simple Science Theory of Physical Reality (despite many claims to the contrary, science does actually work, we just needed the correct foundation of continuous Space rather than discrete matter).

Most importantly, this Dynamic Unity of Reality provides simple solutions to all the 'strangeness' of quantum physics that has resulted from this discrete / disconnected 'particle' conception of matter.
i.e.

Matter is a Wave Structure of Space - the Spherical Wave Center creates the 'particle' effect.

Light is a Wave Phenomena - however, spherical standing waves (matter) act as spherical resonators and only interact (resonantly couple) at discrete frequencies / energies which gives the effect of discrete light 'quanta'.

Reality is both Continuous (Space) and Discrete (Standing Wave Interactions).

Reality is both Local and Non-Local - matter is causally inter-connected in Space by its Spherical In and Out Waves (traveling at velocity c, i.e. Einstein's Locality).

However (and very importantly), with relative motion these matter wave interactions form de Broglie phase waves that travel at high velocities (c2/v), explaining EPR and apparent Non-Locality / Instant-Action-at-a-Distance.

Reality is Causally Connected but Non-Deterministic / Statistical. The waves in quantum theory are real waves (not abstract 'probability waves') but lack of knowledge of the interconnected whole (infinite Space) causes statistical behaviour of matter (as Einstein believed).

I realize this is a pretty abrupt / radical introduction to a new way of seeing things - that it will take some time to adjust. But the Wave Structure of Matter is simple sensible and obvious once known. Each Quantum Physics page has a short summary and important quotes, so it is easy to click around and confirm things for yourself. Enjoy! Think!

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DGB...cont'd..


I am reminded of a movie I recently watched -- a 'crazy' movie that I liked -- called 'Choke'. It was about a sex addict whose mother was locked up in a psychiatric institute and who was looking for some sort of cathartic conflict resolution with his mother while at the same time going around seducing women, having emotionless sex with them.

At one scene in the movie, our main character has successfully managed to seduce a female doctor at the psychiatric institute (who unbeknownst to him is actually a patient disguised as a doctor). However, at the actual point of their sexual engagement, our main character can't get it going. The doctor/patient asks him: 'How is it that you can have sex with pretty well every other female patient and/or nurse in the institute but you can't have sex with me.' And he replies, 'Well, I think it is because I am beginning to like you.' And she replies: 'Well, has it ever occurred to you that maybe the two do not have to be mutually exclusive?'


Well, this is exactly my point here also -- and the point of each and every possible or actual dialectical theory -- seemingly opposing, paradoxical theories do not have to necessarily be mutually exclusive. Rather, they may easily -- or with some dialectical creativity -- dialectically merge into each other.

Freud's Seduction, read: Childhood Sexual Assault, Theory' was too reductionistic -- quite simply, it may partly apply to a certain class of people who have been sexually assaulted (and/or 'seduced') as children but childhood sexual assault is not the root of all neurosis because not every person is sexually assaulted as a child.

Thus, Freud's early (1893-1895) 'Traumacy-Cathartic Therapeutic Release' theory was a better theory because it applied to a much broader range of people -- indeed, probably all of us. But Freud's Traumacy Theory as it stood back between 1893 and 1895 was insufficient. It needed some creative upgrading.

From my perspective, it needed some 1. 'Transference Theory', 2. some 'Adlerian Lifestyle and Conscious Early Memory Theory', 3. some 'Gestalt Unfinished Situation Theory', 4. some 'Narcissistic Fixation Theory', and 5. some 'Oedipal Theory' -- all added to the collective mix -- as well as all the other theories and sub-theories mentioned at the beginning of this essay.

So let us again call this multi-dialectic integrative model that I am proposing, 'The DGB 12 Theory Model of Humanistic-Existential Psychoanalysis, Personality Theory, and Psychopathology (Neurosis and Psychosis)'.

In the essays that follow, we will begin to unravel all the different individual and integrated parts of this rather complicated multi-dialectic model.

But it is worth the time and effort to do this.


Stay tuned...


-- dgb, Sept. 4th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are still in process...


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The Good and Bad of 'Conceptual Constructs' in Describing the Internal Workings of The Personality -- The 'Self', The 'Ego', The 'I'

I am an old-fashioned 'rational-empiricist' -- and student of General Semantics -- meaning that I believe in the 'representational' idea of 'conceptual constructs' reflecting some aspect of 'phenomenal reality' (and/or 'noumenal' reality in a Kantian sense).

Thus, the equation relative to words, concepts, reality, and meaning, from a DGB rational-empirical-General Semantic perspective goes something like this:

1. Words are short forms for concepts (or conceptual constructs).

2. Concepts (or ideas) are mental representations of our phenomenal or phenomenological experience which entails a combination of our observations, interpretations (or inferences) and value judgments.

3. Theories involves interrelationships between concepts which again are supposed to reflect some aspect of the way 'objective reality works', meaning a representational and structural correspondence between our theoretical constructs and what is or was 'really happening out there (or in there).

4. There will always be the so-called 'Kantian (or 'subjective-objective') Split' which means that there will always be some greater or lesser degree of 'structural and/or process error' between what we think is happening in our 'objective world of reality both inside and outside our body' and what really is happening. For example, I just had an MRI done on my liver yesterday in which doctors were trying to get a 'better picture and representational model' relative to what was happening with my liver (and liver pathology). Oftentimes, a 'picture' is worth more than a thousand speculative inferential or interpretive or assumptive guesses without the picture.



Now, when it comes to 'personality theory', concepts or conceptual constructs can be put together and pulled apart faster than a set of Legos. Why? Because we have no way of getting 'pictures' of 'mental images' or 'concepts' or 'ideas'. These things are strictly metaphysical in that they cannot be seen although they are often meant to stand for something that can be seen. For example, the word 'dog' cannot be seen although it is meant to stand for a whole host of similar but different individual dogs such as such and such a dog over here, 'Rover', who can be described more specifically in term of his or her individual characteristics.

However, one of the main problems relative to personality theory is: How do you see a 'Self' or an 'Ego' or a 'Superego' or an 'Id' or a 'Persona' or a 'Shadow'.

These concepts are meant to stand for something -- some aspect of our 'mental or phenomenological (subjective, conceptual) reality that cannot be seen. And things cannot be seen tend to create much more controversy in terms of whether they actually exist or whether we are just 'making something up' that does not exist.

Consequently, philosophers like David Hume -- being the very strict, reductionist- empiricist that he was -- denied the phenomenological concept or conceptual construct of 'The Self' as even having any kind of 'real-objective existence'. Perhaps even more so with concepts like 'The Soul' or 'God' which again have no 'observational reality'.

'Behavioral theorists' -- being strict psychological empiricists -- have also denied the 'real-objective existence' of anything that goes on within our mind in the way of 'mental, representational images'.

Strict empirical behavioral theorists deal with a 'Stimulus-Response(SR)' Model and Formula that denies any existence of any 'mental representations' inside our heads that have anything to do with 'explaining or understanding behavior'.

In contrast, 'cognitive theorists and therapists' advance a model and formula that goes more like this: 'Stimulus-Belief-Response(SBR)'. This model, in contrast to the SR model advanced by the Behavioral Theorists and Therapists takes into account our inner phenomenological process our -- 'inner cognitions or beliefs or mental representations'.

The professor at the University of Waterloo back in 1979 who was marking my Honours Thesis paper was a 'Cognitive-Behavioral Theorist and Therapist', Dr. Donald Meichenbaum, who was trying to bridge the gap (I think very successfully) between the very strict behavioral theorists (like B.F. Skinner) and the more 'rationally-empirically' based Cognitive Theories (like Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck, and George Kelly whose philosophy can be traced back through the Enlightenment, through philosophers like John Locke, Sir Francis Bacon, and all the way back to the ancient Roman philosopher, Epictetus and his famous saying: 'Man is not disturbed by things but by the view he takes of them.').

In 1979, I advanced a model of what now I would call 'The Central Ego' which was a 'Cognitive-Emotional-Behavioral' model influenced by my readings of the Cogntive Theorists, by the General Semanticists (primarily Alfred Korzybski and S.I., Hayakawa) and influenced partly by the 'Objectivist and Self-Esteem Philosophy' of Nathaniel Branden ('The Psychology of Self-Esteem', 1969), as well as indirectly, Ayn Rand who created Objectivist Philosophy and who strongly influenced Branden during the eighteen years they worked and were professionally and personally involved with each other (from 1950-1968).

My 1979 'Central Ego' model could/can also be referred to as a 'Stimulus-Perception or (Sensory Perception)-Interpretration-Evaluation-Response' (SPIER) -- an extension of the more basic Stimulus-Belief-Response (SBR) Cognitive Model. There is not too much about the 1979 model that I would change today except perhaps in an updated format that takes into account everything that I have learned philosophically and psychologically in the 30 years from 1979 to the present. Still, the basic 'Central Ego' model remains the same.

Now going back to the word 'Ego' which is of German origin (at least as far back as I can trace it), dating back at least to the philosophy of Johann Fichte (1762-1814), and meaning basically 'I' or 'Self', often used in an almost 'objective third party sense' as if our 'Ego' is operating outside of ourselves which can create some serious difficulties relative to 'denying accountability and responsibility for what comes out of our Ego -- which is basically just another way of saying 'I' or 'Self'.

The Classic Psychoanalytic Model, for example, tends to be very 'deterministic' with certain classes of thoughts and/or impulses and/or restraints and/or behaviors coming out of one of the three main Psychoanalytic Psychic Departments or Compartments -- 'Ego' (mediating and problem solving compartment of the personality), 'Id' (the impulsive, biological and/or instinctual compartment of the personality), or 'Superego' (the social and internal righteous-ethical conscience compartment of the personality) -- almost as if we have no, or at least, little 'free control' of what comes out of these three 'zones' of the personality, and relative to how we ultimately behave (with all of the 'historical, biological, childhood, and socially determining forces that are at play in the way that we think, feel, want, and act).

In contrast, a more 'humanistic-existential psychoanalytic model' such as the one I am trumpeting here in Hegel's Hotel, as developed from my own thinking, in conjunction with my own source of historical, philosophical, psychological, and experiential influences, adds a more 'free will' and 'first person I' perspective to the more traditional perspective of Psychoanalysis. Perhaps my main influential mentor here is the Humanistic-Existential Psychoanalyst -- Eric Fromm (1900-1980) -- who was a highly influential force on my thinking in the 1970s, and who continues to influence my work today.

Once we start 'splitting the Ego' up into 2 or 5 or 10 or 20 or 25 different compartments, the issue becomes all about 'functional-theoretical-therapeutic convenience' -- every 'ego-theorist' ostensibly looking for some kind of ideal balance between 'simplicity and sophistication' with almost as many different renditions of 'ego-splits' out there as there are theorists. It is all 'cognitively metaphysical' in that no one can see any picture of 'the ego' or any 'sub-compartment of the ego' whether we want to use the Classic Psychoanalytic terminology or some other different rendition of it.

In fact, in the Classic Psychoanalytic model, the 'Ego' is not even equivalent to the 'Total, Wholistic Self' but rather to a sub-component of The Self -- a mainly consciously aware part of our selves as opposed to the activities of the allegedly more unconscious and biologically/narcissistically driven 'Id'.

In contrast, I view the Ego as reflecting every aspect and every mental and emotional activity within the Self. In other words, 'Self' and 'I' and 'Ego' are all equivalent words for the same representation of our entire, wholistic, dialectically integrated and/or split subjective-objective Self -- including both our 'aware' components and our 'unaware' components, both our biologically and psychologically impulsive components and forces as well as our ethically righteous and/or safety restraining components and forces.

We can reduce our personality -- our Self, our Ego, our 'I' -- into as many different useful and/or not useful conceptual constructs as we want, put them together and/or dismantle them at a moment's notice, and/or put some reductionist 'Ego-compartments' into our 'theoretical closet' until we need to pull them back out and use them, but in the end -- like the operation of any company with few or many different 'departments' in it -- still have to come back to the main overall functioning of the company which may come down mainly to the philosophy and activity of 'The CEO' or in our case here -- 'The Central (Mediating and Executive) Ego'.


Every other 'Ego-Compartment' or 'Ego-Split' in the personality, as constructed by me -- which are like 'lobbyists', each appealing to their particular realm of specific, functional and/or dysfunctional interest -- has to, in the end, answer to the CEO of the personality -- the Central Ego -- the 'subjective-objective I' of the personality, even if the Central Ego, like a weak boss, allows itself (ourselves) to be overwhelmed by this internal lobbyist or that one -- for example, overwhelmed in the addictive personality to the hedonistic impulses of the 'Id' or as I prefer to call this portion of the personality -- our 'Dionysian Ego'.

In such instances, we simply need to find ways of 'strengthening the power' of our Central Ego and/or the activities of another conceptually constructed division of our personality -- the 'Superego' in Psychoanalytic terminology, the 'Topdog' in Gestalt Terminology, the 'Apollonian Ego' in my own DGB terminology.

In opposite instances, we may need to strengthen the 'power' of our Dionysian or Narcissistic Ego in order to increase our self-assertiveness and our ability to both say -- and get what we want. We can say that people who 'beat around the bush' all the time and/or 'allude to immediacy' without directly stating the immediacy of what they are thinking and/or wanting are people who have 'weak Dionysian and/or Narcissistic Egos'. The same goes with people who are 'pleasing' and/or 'submissive' all the time -- here we may have to 'strengthen the activities of our Righteous and/or Rebellious and/or Dionysian and/or Narcissistic Ego' in order not to be dominated all the time by someone else's 'will to power' and/or 'will to hedonism' and/or 'will to narcissism'. We need to 'step up to the plate more' unless of course we get some sort of 'Dionysian and/or approval-seeking pleasure' out of staying exactly where we are and playing the 'Submissive Ego' -- or 'Doormat' -- role.

Been there. Done that. Kicked myself for doing it. More narcissistic self-assertion needed please. Sometimes we need to fill up our 'narcissistic tank'. Other times, we need to fill up our 'altruistic tank'. Both tanks are needed for a 'healthy, well-balanced personality. Same with our Dionysian and Apollonian tanks. And our 'Enlightenment' and 'Romantic' tanks. And our 'Humanistic' (compassionate) and 'Existential' (self-accountability) tanks.


These are some of the different types of 'Polar-Ego-Compartments' or 'Polar-Ego-Splits' can be functionally used by a psychotherapist to help a client re-integrate whatever his or her particular dominant polar split is to arrive at a more balanced dialectical-democratic wholism.

Meanwhile, each and everyone of us generally goes through our particular day with one polar-ego-compartment dominating over another -- some version of our 'dominant Persona' pushing aside our 'marginalized Shadow' -- as opposed to finding and using a more ideally operative set or system of 'dual-action-dual-polarities-democratically and dialectically working with and against each other to find a healthier state of being in the middle of these two opposing internal polar lobbyists'

This can be viewed as Aristotle's version of 'the middle path' or my DGB post-Hegelian version of the middle path (even as we are bound to experiment with opposite Nietzschean and/or anti-Nietzschean extremes before we get to the place we are ultimately looking for in the middle).


Such is the 'ideal purpose' of using 'conceptual constructs' to describe and sometimes alter the inner activities of our Self, our Ego, our 'I'.

-- dgb, Aug. 26th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Dialectical Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are still in process...


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A GAP-DGB Multi-Dialectic, 25-Part Model Of The Personality

Let us try this over again and get our model of the personality here down to something more easily manageable and understandable. Okham's Razor. (All else being equal, the simplest interpretation is usually the best one.) KISS: KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID.

Having said this, I am trying to integrate a lot of different models here -- to integrate 'the best of the best' if you will. So this model is not going to be 'simple' but hopefully with some 'history' and 'explanation' added to it, it will be better understandable.

Synonyms for 'Personality' or 'Personality Structure' in this GAP-DGB domain here will be: 'Ego', 'Psyche', 'Self', and 'Character Structure'.

View the personality as being like a 'large government' or 'corporation' with numerous different 'departments' (or 'compartments') that have separate functions that are all designed to come together to fulfill the overall function of the government/corporation/personality.

Some of the other personality models that are out there and which I will simply skim over quickly without giving full justice to, are:

1. The Gestalt Model (Fritz Perls): '2 Department Model': a) 'Topdog'; b) 'Underdog';

2. The Adlerian Model (Alfred Adler): '2 Department Model': a) 'Inferiority Feeling' ('Self-Esteem Deficiency', 'One Down Position', 'Minus Position', 'Insecurity Feeling', 'Unstability Feeling'); b) 'Superiority Feeling' ('Leadership Position', 'One Up Position', 'Superiority Position', 'Fictional Final Goal', 'Lifestyle Goal'); c) 'Means of Moving From a Minus Position to a Plus Position, from a) to b)' ('Compensation', 'Lifestyle Complex', 'Superiority Striving')

3. The Classic Freudian Model: a) 'The Id': biological drives: such as: hunger-food, thirst-water, sexual tension-release, aggression-release, shelter, heat, some might argue stability, rootedness (Erich Fromm), creativity-destructiveness (Erich Fromm), love-hate (Erich Fromm), transcendence (Erich Fromm)...DGB extrapolations: power, money, greed, narcissism, selfishness, revenge, dance, celebration, oral-obsessive-compulsions, addictions...; b) 'The Superego': social conscience, ethical conscience, justice, fairness, reason, righteousness, rejection, 'anal-retentiveness', 'punctuality', 'cleanliness', 'neatness', sadism, dominance, arrogance, 'righteous-narcissism', abandonment, betrayal, discipline, punishment, 'guilt-giver', 'approval-demanding', 'co-operation-demanding', 'acceptance-demanding', 'The Internal Object'; c) 'The Ego': 'The Subjective Sense of Self', 'Me', co-operation-seeking, approval-seeking, pleasing, rebellious, mediating between the Id and the Superego, conflict-resolving, problem-solving, reality-based, reality-interpreting, analyzing, postponing Id gratification, compromising, bending, choosing, caught in the middle between a rock and a hard place (between the Id and the Superego -- two dialectically opposed system of 'wants and needs and gratifications' vs. 'shoulds, and should nots, responsibilities, obligations, social promises, ethics, social values, morals, laws, customs, demands...

4. The Jungian Model (Carl Jung): Includes 'The Persona' ('The Social Ego' -- 'The Face We Show Society'), 'The Shadow' ('The Dark Side of the Personality, , 'Darth Vader' 'The Alter-Ego', 'Mr. or Ms. Hyde), 'The (Potential) Self', 'The Personal Unconscious', 'The Collective Unconscious', 'The Anima', 'The Animus', and 'the rest of the Mythological Archetype Figures'...and a more or less 'assumed' 'Central, Integrative, Potentially Healthy Ego'...altogether that is about an '8 Compartment or Department Model'...although nothing is fully written in stone here...

5. The Object Relations Model(s) (Freud, Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott, Guntrip...)

Melanie Klein was the biggest creative-(destructive) neo-Psychoanalytic force here
adding such concepts as: 'External Objects', 'Internal Objects', 'The Depressive Position', 'The Paranoid-Schizoid Position, and I will add 'The Paranoid-Aggressive' and 'The Manic-Depressive Positions'...to the other more standard Classical Freudian concepts...

Ronald Fairbairn also had a model that was quite interesting which included: a) 'the exciting object'; b) 'the rejecting object'; c) 'the morally idealized and anti-libidinal parent'; d) 'the infantile, libidinal ego'; e) 'the infantile, anti-libidinal ego'; and f) 'the central ego' identifying with the morally idealized parents. Fairbairn's model is a '6 department or compartment model' of the personality. (Harry Guntrip, Psychoanalytic Theory, Therapy, and The Self, 1971,73, p. 98)



6. The Transactional Analysis Model (Eric Berne): Built mainly from an 'Object Relations' perspective of the personality -- and simplified for the 'lay public' -- Berne created a model that looks something like this: a) 'The Nurturing (Encouraging-positive, spoiling-negative) Parent(-Ego); b) 'The Critical, Controlling (Structuring-positive, oppressive-negative) Parent(-Ego)'; c) 'The Adult-(Ego); d) 'The Adapted (Co-operative, Compliant) Child; e) 'The Free (Spontaneous-positive, Immature-negative) Child. That would make this a '5 department or compartment model'.


From these 6 or 7 'classic personality models', I derived and created the following GAP-DGB '25 compartment or department model' below.

Beyond the 6 or 7 classic personality models listed above, this model below also shows the influence I have received by studying both the history of Western Philosophy and basic Greek Mythology -- as opened up to me by both Carl Jung (the 'archetypes' and 'mythological gods') and Nietzsche's 'The Birth of Tragedy' (1872).

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The GAP-DGB Model of The Personality (Psyche)


A/ 'Chief Executive Officer' and 'Advisors To The Throne'

A.1. 'The Chief Executive Officer' of The Personality (President, Prime Minister, King, Queen, Autocrat, Dictator...)

01. The Central Executive-Integrative (Hegel's) Ego

A.2. 'Advisers To The Throne'

02. The Dionysian-Egotistic-Narcissistic ('The DEN of Iniquity' (Schopenhauer's) Ego
03. The Apollonian, Enlightenment (Bacon's and Locke's) Ego
04. The Altruistic (Mother Teresa's) Ego
05. The Survival (of The Fittest) (Darwin's) Ego
06. The Liberal-Socialist's (Locke's, Marx's,) Ego
07. The Conservative-Capitalist (Smith's and Burke's) Ego
08. The Romantic (Spinoza's, Goethe's, Rousseau's, and Schelling's) Ego
09. The Creative-Constructionist's (Optimist's)Ego
10. The Destructive-Deconstructionist's (Skeptic's, Pessimist's, Cynic's) Ego
11. The Humanistic (Fromm's) Ego
12. The Existential (Nietzsche's and Sartre's 'Free-Will', 'Strive to be Superman') Ego


B/ 'The Aristocrats' (The Senate, 'Parental-Leadership Internal Objects')

13. The Oral-Demanding-Narcissistic-Dionsyisan Superego
14. The Anal-Righteous-Critical-Rejecting-Apollonian Superego
15. The Anal-Distancing-Schizoid Superego
16. The Oral-Nurturing-Accepting-Loving (Maternal/Paternal)Superego

C/ 'The Citizens' ('The Proletariat', 'The Middle Class and Peasants')

17. The Oral-Nurturing-Approval-Seeking (Excited)Ego
18. The Anal-Schizoid-Distancing-Depressive (Anti-Emotional) Ego
19. The Anal-Righteous-Rebellious-Rejecting (Exciting/Excited/Angry) Ego
20. The Oral-Demanding-Narcissistic-Dionysian Ego


D/ 'The Creative-Destructive Artists In The Personality' (The Deeper, Symbolic-Mythological, Subconscious Levels of The Personality

21. 'The Creative-Destructive Dream, Fantasy, and Nightmare Maker'
22. 'The Unconscious Lifestyle-Transference-Archetype Memory-Fantasy Template'
23. 'The Mythological-Genetic Collective Unconscious'
24. 'The Id'
25. 'The Genetic, Biological and Humanistic-Existential Potential Self' ('The Blueprint Of The Personality'

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Maybe I went 'overboard into the deep end' on this model. Or maybe I didn't.

Obviously, I am biased, but right now, I like it. I think it has many different pragmatic, theoretical, reality-based, and pragmatic-therapeutic applications.

We will discuss the more concrete details and applications of this model at a later date.

-- dgb, Aug. 5th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism

-- Dialectic, Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still In Process...


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