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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Sunday, September 27, 2009
Saturday, September 5, 2009
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
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
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