Floor 32: From Freudian Psychoanalysis to DGB Multi-Dialectic-Integrative Psychoanalysis

How Might 'The Id' Have Been Conceptualized Differently If Freud Had Created It Before 1897?

2011-04-23T09:15:00.000-07:00

Has anyone ever given any thought as to what might have happened if Freud had invented the concept of 'the id' much earlier in his career -- like 1894, as opposed to 1923?

The concept might have been totally different -- subscribing to Freud's pre-1897 traumacy-seduction assumptions as opposed to his later post-1896 instinctual demand, childhood sexuality, and Oedipal fantasy assumptions.

With my being an integrative dialectic theorist, I look at the period of roughly 1895 to 1905 -- the period when Freud was creating the main philoosphical and psychological assumptions connected with what was going to be called 'Classical' Psychoanalysis -- as being a period when Freud also created an 'isolative-dissociative chamber or container' in which at the same time that he was bringing in Classical Psychoanalysis, he was also throwing out 'Pre-Classical' (Traumacy-Seduction Theory) Psychoanalysis.

This was, to me -- like it has been for a significantly 'split' number of academics and professionals studying this period of the history and evolution of psychoanalysis -- a big theoretical and clinical mistake in that it dissociated Classical Psychoanalysis of a theory (traumacy-seduction theory) that had been working very well up to 1896, and which showed the potential for continued promise, indeed is still probably being employed in some fashion by most different schools of psychotherapy today.

What is psychotherapy without the psychological unfolding and healing in the context of individual and/or group psychotherapy -- of psychological 'trauma', whether it be physical or emotional, an assault, a death, a sickness, a loss, an abandonment, a betrayal, a rejection, a failure, an exclusion, a criticism, a chastisement, an 'ego-slight'...?

All of these factors which were being built up in Breuer's and then Freud's clinical caseload starting from 1880 (with Breuer's Anna O. case) -- and leading onwards to their combined clinical work, 'Studies on Hysteria' (1895), and then a year later, Freud's 'The Aetiology of Hysteria' (1896) in which Freud focused more specifically on the common factor of 'childhood sexual seduction/assault/abuse' -- all of this 'Pre-Classical' traumacy and childhood sexual abuse work remains a critical part of most viable psychotherapies today...

Yet Freud, for whatever reason and/or combination of reasons (and we will certainly talk about this momentous period of Psychoanalysis in greater detail later, as I have already written about it in numerous essays over the last several years), essentially turned his back on this driving force of his early psychotherapy and instead started to develop his now 'Classical Instinct and, to a lesser extent, Ego Theory' which he would basically spend the rest of his life developing (til his death in 1939).

Freud did some great psychoanalytic work after 1896 as well as before but his post-1896 psychoanalytic work became definitively one-sided, reductionistic, and -- sorely lacking the foundational basis of his earlier traumacy theory.

In essence, Psychoanalysis became an institutional example of a 'psycho-neurosis' -- complete with an 'Shadow-Id-Group' or 'Secret-Interest-Group (SIG) Chamber' in which 'bad or threatening ideas' -- whether 'historically traumatic', 'simply unwanted', and/or 'instinctually impulsive' -- are locked away from the rest of the personality/organism/institution.

What I am saying here is that Freud should have integrated his traumacy-seduction, instinct, ego, and ego-defense theory all together -- not dissociated them apart from each other, and then basically, after 1896, he started to bury his traumacy-seduction theory.

Impulses and traumacies often go hand and hand. A person takes a risk -- and then metaphorically, gets his or her neck cut off for taking this risk. The traumatic result of the risk often leads to less risk-taking in future similar circumstances -- 'ego-defensive' adjustments or 'defensive compensations' are taken to guard against future similar traumacy.

Back in 1894-95, the formula for neurosis including 'hysteria', including therapy, was pretty simple.

1. Noxious stimuli/memory; 2. 'an associative (neurotic) false connection'; 3. 'repression of the noxius memory that is being held as a warning sign relative to future similar events'; 4. a 'neurotic symptom' that reflects the false connection; 5. Therapy-Awareness: 'Recover' the repressed/suppressed memory; 6. Therapy-Contact-Abreaction-Catharsis: 'Let the client 're-live' the memory after it has been 'recovered'; 7. Therapy-Conclusion: No more neurotic/hysterical symptom.

An example from the Anna O. case: 1. Noxious stimuli/memory: She saw a dog drinking water out of a human glass; 2. Compensatory defensive self-warning sign and behavior: She would stop drinking; 3 She 'represses' the memory of the dog drinking out of the glass; 4. Neurotic symptom based on 'false associative connection': She won't drink any fluids, only eat fruit; 5. Therapy-Awareness: Hunt down the 'neurotic, repressed memory'; 6. Therapy-Contact-Abreaction-Catharsis: Let the client -- in this case, Anna O. -- 're-live the memory, including all the affect/emotion attached to it; 7. Therapy-Conclusion: No more fear of drinking water -- Anna O. takes a drink of water after her 'memory-catharsis'.

These Victorian 'hysterical ladies' (and some men) were very creative in their 'false connections' to repressed memories. Was it their 'prudent/repressive' sexual family and cultural upbringing? Probably at least partly. The more events -- particularly 'sexual events' -- that are repressed, suppressed, isolated, dissociated from the conscious personality, the greater the likelihood of these 'unconcious dissociations' coming back to 'haunt' the client in the form of 'crazy, creative, neurotic symptoms'.

Freud's main 'character weaknesses' were also his main 'character strengths'. (That is the same with all of us -- our 'extremes' define us, both positively and negatively.) In Freud's case, Freud was overly 'reductionistic' in his theories, highly speculative in some of his memory/dream/phantasy interpretations, very righteously dogmatic and inflexible in his own thinking and/or other people's thinking...

You go back to those old clinical cases and you can pretty easily see that both 'impulses' and/or 'traumacies' were 'neurotically operative' in the form of 'non-remembered memories', and 'bad/false associative connections' relative to these unremembered memories'.

Let us take the 'black snake hallucination' in an Anna O. memory.

She had fallen asleep while nursing her sick father, sitting in a chair beside his bed. She dreamed/hallucinated of a 'black snake' coming from the wall to bite her dad and she tried to 'fend off the snake with her right arm but the arm had 'fallen asleep' on the back of the chair and effectively was 'paralyzed', wouldn't move, as she tried to defend her father but couldn't. In therapy wih Breuer around 1881-82, Anna O's right arm was still 'paralyzed' even though nothing was organically wrong with it. The memory was 'discovered' and 'recovered' under hypnosis, emotionally re-lived, and Anna. O upon waking, moved her right arm.

There is a lot that can still be said about this particular episode with the 'black snake hallucination' alone. To the extent that it 'solved' her paralysis problem, the hypnosis was enough. But Anna O. could create new symptoms faster than Breuer could 'solve' or 'resolve' them. She was a very smart but not a very happy young lady. And getting the 'lion's share' of the nursing responsibility for her father's needs was not likely a responsibility that any young lady would relish -- regardless of how much she loved her father.

Anna O's 'neurotic, hysterical symptoms' could be viewed both individually and collectively as 'compromise-formations' between her 'impulse-traumicy complexes' and the 'repression-isolation-dissociation' of these same impulse-traumacy complexes.

Freud, looking back at this particular Anna O. episode years later (The Five Lectures), was amazingly 'rational-empirical' in stating that Anna O. had probably actually seen a snake around her property which then provided 'fuel' for the dream. This was a lot more 'down to earth' than Freud's later interpretions in the Dora case, The 'Wolf-Man', little Hans, and The 'Rat-Man'.

A therapist should always be extremely careful about his or her interpretations and/or 'reconstructions' -- and always opt for the clients' 'associations' as opposed to imposing his or her own associations on a dream-phantasy interpretation. All else being equal, a simpler interpretation is usually more likely to be on the mark than a highly convoluted one.

Anna O. herself -- who after assorted relapses and trips into a psychiatric institution after her father's death, became a feminist and a social worker later in her life. In the 1920s, she came up with a quotation that is one of the best psychoanalytic quotations that I have ever heard.

Anna O., the woman who partly created and labelled 'the talking cure' and 'chimney sweeping' -- Bertha Pappenheim was her real name -- was quoted some 30 years after her therapeutic work with Breuer in the 1920s as saying:

'Psychoanalysis is in the hand of the physician what the the confessional is in the hand of the Catholic clergyman; it depends upon the person applying it and the (specific) application whether it is a good instrument or a double-edged sword' (Frank Sulloway, Freud: Biologist of The Mind, 1979, 1992).

This having been said, as a dream interpreter -- and I don't profess to be a very experienced one -- you can look either in a person's 'external' and/or 'internal' world for the particular 'stimulus' that might ignite the contents and essence of a dream.

My initial interpretation of the 'black snake' in Anna O's phantasy would be to speculate -- in a more far-reaching fashion than Freud did when he looked back at the phantasy and said that maybe Anna O was frightened by a real snake that she saw on another occasion -- and then 'transferred' it into her dream -- in contrast, my first reaction on the black snake is that it came from her 'mythological' or 'collective' (Jungian) unconscious, and that perhaps it reflected an unconscious/subconscious 'death wish' towards her father --the primary reason for her 'lifeless existence'. While other young women were dating and getting married, she was 'stuck' nursing her father. (God only knows what her mother was doing.)

Whether a therapist -- Breuer at the time of the episode -- would want to share this type of interpretation with Anna O. at that time and place is another question based largely on trust, the client's cognitive-affective capabilities, and timing. Or better still, in a 'Gestalt hotseat', the client could actually 'role play the black snake' and see what awarenesses came out of the role-playing. In Gestalt Therapy -- and I believe in both Freudian and Jungian Psychoanalysis as well, 'every part of the dream reflects a different part of yourself' -- and oftentimes, 'existential splits or conflicts in the personality, in consciousness, and/or between different 'ego-states' -- like between the loving, nursing Anna, and Anna's 'alter-ego' -- the part of her that may have actually been wishing her dad to die so that she could get on with living her life. Also, there is no indication in the case description of Anna O. what Anna's relationship was like with her dad when she was growing up at a younger age when he was not sick -- and whether or not there might have actually been a case of 'childhood (sexual?) abuse between her and her father. That we will never know -- but again, the 'black snake' symbol again throws a possible element of 'evil intent' -- from Anna O. towards her dad, and/or from her dad towards Anna at a younger, healthier age, which might have precipitated angry, reactionary evil intent from Anna towards her dad at the later date. Or it may have been simply anger directed at the fact that she was 'being controlled by her dad's sickness', and then lo and behold, by becoming 'hysterical', she could turn the tables on a 'transference figure of her dad', and 'control her therapist's time and energy by generating new 'hysterical symptoms' faster than Breuer could help her get rid of them. That is what I call 'identification with the sick person in order to gain control of a situation' or alternatively -- 'transference-reversal' with Anna O. playing the role of her 'sick dad' in her 'reverse relationship' with her 'male therapist'. 'What goes around, comes around' -- might be the operative philosophical and psychological piece of wisdom that is most relevant here -- in the style and content of one of the oldest Greek philosophers -- Anaximander. 'You give what you get' -- is just as common as -- 'you get what you give'.

You can see how traumacy, impulse, and the restraint -- repression, isolation, dissociation...-- of threatening ideas impulse all can collectively weave themselves into the same 'transference-complex'. We will develop this complex of ideas as we move along...

Enough for today.

-- dgb, March 18th-19th, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain

The First True Case of Psychoanalysis

2011-01-31T10:39:00.000-08:00

I am about to embark on a critique of as many of Freud's most important and famous essays, ideas, theories, 'anti-theories', and their derrivatives as I can get to.

Now, I am in a bit of a quandry here. I need to do some explaining before I start this ambitious enterprise.

Firstly, I am not a psychoanalyst. I have never seen a psychoanalyst, and never stepped a foot inside a psychoanalytic training session.

Why? Probably money, period. Psychoanalysis has set itself up as an 'aristocratic psychology' -- a 'psychology for the rich' -- and/or that is the stereotype that it has created for itself. To me, this is unfortunate. This in itself restricts Psychoanalysis' potential growth -- theoretically, therapeutically, culturally, and class-wise.

Furthermore, what Freud started, and what The Psychoanalytic Establishment continues to support and maintain -- is a psychology of 'exclusionism'.

This is highly ironic and paradoxical because in my 35 years or so of studying psychology that runs through Humanistic Psychology (Rogers, Maslow, May, Fromm...), Cognitive Therapy (Maltz, Ellis, Beck, Frank, Kelly, Korzybski, Hayakawa, Branden, Rand, Meichenbaum...), Gestalt Therapy (Perls, Hefferline, Goodman, et al...), Adlerian Psychology (Adler, Dreikeurs, Mosak...) Transactional Analysis (Berne), and Psychoanalysis (Freud, Klein, Fairbairn, Guntrip, Kohut, Masson...), if there is one thing I have learned, it is probably this: that most if not all varieties of human neurosis, psychosis, and psychopathology usually start with the individual's perception -- real and/or imagined -- of some form of 'social/family/school/cultural/racist/sexist/ exclusionism'.

Human neurosis can generally be summed up in the sentence: 'I am not wanted here, not invited, not liked, not accepted, not appreciated, not acknowleged, not relevant...

Transactional Analysis summed up the overarching idea above under two polar headings: 1. You're okay, I'm not okay'; 2. I'm okay, you're not okay'; or the two condensed together: 3. You're not okay, I'm not okay.

This applies to Freud himself just as much as it applies to anyone and everyone else...

Freud once said that you had/have to be a psychoanalyst in order to properly understand what comes out of 'the depths of the unconscious' and particularly the 'dynamics of repression'. I say, Well, repression is still a very controversial concept and subject matter that sometimes (often) defies what most would call 'good rational-empiricism'. It can easily become a 'circular concept' with no apparent foundational basis except in the eyes and ears of the theorist who 'believes in the existence of repression'.

A psychoanalyist says, 'You are repressed.' You reply, 'I am not repressed.' And the psychoanalyst then uses your 'resistance' as further evidence that 'you are repressed'.

How do you ever 'prove' the existence of a 'repression' except for the psychoanalyst's 'interpretation' as such, and how do you distinguish it from a much more common and more easily validated concept/phenomenon of 'suppression' or even 'dissociation'?

All of the concepts of 'suppression', 'subconscious', and 'dissociation' have much more 'tangible rational empiricism' attached to them than Freud's concept of 'repression' -- or even 'unconscious'.

I use the term 'unconscious' but often hesitatingly, and generally speaking, I am much more comfortable with the concept of 'subconscious'. I don't think I will ever use the concept of 'repression'. I believe in 'the psychology of defense' but, generally speaking, I do not support the 'psychology of repression'.

Does this take me out of the 'domain of Psychoanalysis'? The Psychoanalytic Establishment would obviously say 'yes' immediately, further supported by the fact that I have no formal training in Psychoanalysis. But The Psychoanalytic Establishment and Institute is partly like 'Hotel California' -- once you get in, you become 'locked into their particular paradigm' which includes Freud's own 'transference neurosis relative to his father'.

When Freud was alive, you had to be like Melanie Klein (no one els was) -- female and perceived as non-threatening -- in order to 'break through the wall of Freud's paradigm' -- and no man has 'broken through the neurotic paradigm of Freud's father-transference neurosis in Classical Psychoanalysis' unless he has either left Psychoanalysis completely (Adler, Jung, Reich, Rank, Ferenczi, Horney, Sullivan, Erickson, Fromm, Perls, Masson...and many more...) or followed 'Melanie Klein's skirt' into the paradigm of Object Relations and Self-Psychology.

Most of Object Relations and all of Self-Psychology developed after Freud had died. But for a few years, it seems possible that there was perhaps a 'running positive dialectic' between Freud and Melanie Klein where Freud may have actually been partly influenced by Klein's work in a way that Pierre Janet never could. You see, 'Object Relations' -- a 'sub-school' of Psychoanalysis -- founded mainly by Melanie Klein, was an extension of Pierre Janet's ideas of 'the splitting of the ego', 'the alter-ego', and 'the dissociated personality' where 'ego' and 'alter-ego' are 'dissociated', 'alientated', 'disconnected' from each other. It is from Janet's ideas -- not Freud's (indeed, Freud fought long and hard against Janet's ideas (Too bad Janet wasn't a woman) -- that the book and movie 'Dr Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde' were at least partly born from.

With all due respect to Freud, the idea of 'the splitting of the ego' which Freud finally acknowledged and accepted towards the end of his career -- and stated that the idea seemed both strangely old and new at the same time (I wonder why) -- and the associated ideas of 'alter-ego' and 'dissociation between opposing ego-states' -- all of these ideas were much more 'theoretically and therapeutically useful' (at least in this author's strong editorial opinion) than Freud's 'hanging on concept' of 'repression'.

Perhaps even 'the Id' should be viewed as having an 'ego-state' extension that I would/do call 'The Dionysian-Narcissistic (selfish, egotistic, sensual, sexual) Ego' ('DNE' for short). The DNE can in turn be 'split' into 'The DNS' and 'The DNU' -- i.e., 'The Dionysian-Narcissistic Underdog or Underego', and 'The Dionysian-Narcissistic Topdog or Superego'. Thus, you can have 'vertical splits' and 'horizontal splits' in the personality: 'superego' vs. 'underego' being an example of a 'vertical power split', and 'Approval-Seeking Underego' vs. 'Dionsysian-Narcissistic Underego' being an example of a 'horizontal power split'.

In my frame of thinking following this line of thinking, I differentiate between 'six auxilliary ego-states' and 'one Central (Mediating, Executive) Ego.

...........................................................................................................

The Gap-DGB Integrative (Psychoanalytic) Model of The Psyche

The six auxilliary ego-states are:

1. The Nurturing-Supportive Superego (NSS);

2. The Dionysian-Narcissistic Superego (DNS);

3. The Righteous-Rejecting Superego (RRS);

4. The Approval-Seeking Underego (ASU);

5. The Dionysian-Narcissistic Underego (DNU);

6. The Righteous-Rejecting (Rebellious) Underego (RRU).

And the main decision-making ego-state is...

7. The Central (Mediating-Executive) Ego (CE)

Working downwards into the subconscious/unconscious, we have

8. The Dream Catcher/Weaver (DCW);

9. The Shadow-Id (Secret Interests) (SI)

10. The Personal Transference-Lifestyle Template (PTLT);

11. The Mythological-Symbolic Archetype Template (MSAT)

12. The Genetic Potential Self Template (GPST);

13. The Undifferentiated to Differentiated (Multi-Bi-Polar) Template (UD-MBP-T)

................................................................................................

The difference between 'repression' and 'suppression' is extremely important because it is easy to conflate, condense, and confuse the two together.

I 'suppress' what I am afraid to ask or tell you -- the concept of 'suppression' is easily validated by self-experience. But 'suppression' implies that I know very well what I want to ask or tell you. In the case of a 'suppressed memory' as opposed to a 'repressed memory', I remember the 'memory' all too clearly -- I am just embarrassed and/or otherwise reluctant to share it with you. A 'repressed memory' implies that I don't remember the memory at all -- which raises doubts about its very existence or is it a 'conceptual construction' created by Freud to explain a phenomena that he couldn't otherwise explain (such as hysteria, or anxiety neurosis, or obsessional neurosis...)?

For much of Freud's career, Freud viewed 'repression' as 'the defense' associated with ALL human neurosis, until he finally realized -- or admitted -- that were many other 'psychological defenses' at man's disposal such as: introjection, identification, projection, displacement, denial, transference, dissociation, retroflection (which is used a lot in Gestalt Therapy) and one that Adler added which is much more important to the etiology of neurosis, and more pervasive than Freud's concept of repression -- and that is the concept of 'compensation'. But even more important and pervasive to the etiology of all neurosis is the concept of 'transference'.

I see 'transference' as the over or under-riding 'defense mechanism' in all neuroses, and every other defense mechanism is a subset of transference.

I distinguish between: 'identification transferences', 'introjective transferences', 'projective transferences', 'compensatory transferences', 'positive transferences', 'negative transferences', 'oral transferences', 'anal transferences', 'genital transferences', 'distancing transferences', 'anal-schizoid transferences', 'anal-rejecting transferences', 'oral-nurturing transferences', 'narcissistic transferences', 'anti-narcissistic transferences', 'altruistic transferences', 'impulse-desire-fantasy transferences', 'impulse-restraint transferences' 'anxiety transferences', 'rebellious transferences', 'violent transferences'... and on and on we could go...

The concept of 'transference' is totally Psychoanalysis as are the concepts of 'narcissism', 'defense', 'projection', 'introjection', 'identification', and most of the other concepts listed above. So how can you call my work anything but 'psychoanalytic' other than perhaps the 'extensions' and 'disagreements' that I have with The Psychoanalytic Establishment...And oh yes, my 'lack of formal training' -- or shall we call that 'brain-washing'?

So call me an 'underground psychoanalytic theorist' if you will -- operating outside the walls of The Psychoanalytic Establishment, and even operating outside of 'The Academic Establishment'. I admire Spinoza's philosophical approach: Don't lock me into any kind of 'Establishment' that is going to try to 'muzzle my thinking' -- or at least the 'public demonstration of my thinking' .

As soon as you become affiliated with any kind of 'organization' or 'institution' or 'political party' or 'religious denomination' or 'corporation' or 'school of thought', you become subject -- and often a 'slave' -- to the organization's agenda and particular brand of 'group think'.

At times 'group think' can be 'enlivening' and 'multi-dialectically challenging and evolutionary'. But this is probably by far the exception rather than the rule. Much more often, 'group think' becomes synonomous with 'no think' or thinking inside a 'stagnant paradigm', or worse a 'dangerous or even evil paradigm'.

The worst cases of 'group think' that come quickly to mind are 'Nazi Germany', 'McCarthyism', 'Witch Hunting', 'The Reign of Terror', any form of 'racial cleansing', 'stereotyping', 'discrimination', 'reverse-discrimination', 'religious extremism', 'political extremism', 'righteous trash-talking', any form of 'supremacy thinking that is socially divisive and exclusionist, let alone violent', 'narcissistic collusions that are non-democratic and exclusionist', 'political and corporate conflict of interests', 'lobbyist special-interest groups that do not have to face up to their 'bi-polar, anti-special interest group' in an open, democratic forum. (All lobbyist groups should have to operate through public, open, democratic forums.)

Back to 'Psychoanalysis'...

In the case of a 'conscious' memory, a 'conscious memory' can also be called a 'subconscious memory' if it is 'psychodynamically alive' in our subconscious (or even in our unconscious) and yet, if someone asks us to recall this particular memory, we can usually recall it within a few minutes, given the right 'prompter' and/or 'association'.

So 'defining' Psychoanalysis can be -- indeed, usually is -- a very subjective, narcissistic-righteous matter.

Freud had a very 'anal-retentive' habit of defining it 'extremely tightly' according to his own parameters (which paradoxically sometimes changed 180 degrees like his still controversial switchover from 'The Traumacy-Seduction Theory' to 'The Childhood Sexuality-Fantasy-Oedipal Theory'). If Freud had said 'the world was flat', I am sure that would have been included in 'The Freudian Bible of Classical Psychoanalysis'.

Freud did a brutal job (meaning no job) of reconciling his pre-1897 Traumacy-Seduction Theory with his post 1897 evolving Childhood Sexuality-Fantasy-Symbolic-Oedipal Theory. He just 'dumped' the first as if it never existed -- that it came from nowhere -- and then developed an 'opposite thesis'. I guess he could do that fairly easily because in 1897 he had no following -- just three volumes of work in The Standard 24 volume Edition to support his work during this time period, and Joseph Breuer 'one too many evenings and a thousand miles left behind'...

But that is why you have me here: to integrate what Freud did not know how to properly integrate. Dialectically integrate. That is why you have me 'trumpeting' the metaphorical structure of Hegel's Hotel as a larger and more useful 'multi-dialectic-humanistic-existential, philosophical and psychological paradigm' -- than 'Freud's Classical Hotel'.

If I am coming down hard on Freud here -- like thousands before me -- it is not because I do not respect Freud. Because I do. Indeed, I believe that he was one of the creatively most brilliant thinkers of the 19th and 20th centuries. But this still doesn't mean that he wasn't commonly -- wrong. And stuck inside a cultural Victorian paradigm, not to mention the theoretical paradigms of his own making.

In Victorian society, masturbation was commonly -- and/or at least publicly -- viewed as 'self-abuse'. So for Freud, stuck inside this Victorian paradigm, ending such 'neuroses' as 'neurasthenia' (chronic depleted energy) would logically involve 'stopping self abuse' -- i.e., stopping masturbation. (Maybe the opposite prescription might have been more appropriate.) In Victorian culture, 'castration anxiety' sounds like it was a very real -- and scary -- phenomenon, especially for a small boy growing up. 'If you keep wanking your thing there, little Siggy, daddy's going to cut it off!'

Personally, I think I partly understand Freud better than he understood himself -- and a thousand psychoanalysts after him have purported to understand him, such as the one and only Ernest Jones -- because such 'biographers' of Freud were all 'psychoanalyzing' Freud according to Freud's own theoretical parameters and assumptions. 'Towing the company' line if you will. 'Upholding the corporate image'. 'Giving Freud -- and all psychoanalysts -- what he and they wanted to hear.'

How can you possibly get any kind of significantly different understanding of Freud unless you have someone who is willing and/or able to see some of the 'deficiencies', 'liabilities', and 'limitations' of these same parameters and assumptions that Freud -- and all Classical Psychoanalysts -- have been locked inside for over 100 years?

I like 'Hegel's Hotel' better than 'Freud's Hotel' because Hegel's Hotel incorporates a better assortment of assumptions, parameters, paradigms, and 'glasses' than those that Freud was using at the time he was theorizing, and that essentially all, or most, Classical Psychoanalysts -- like 'good corporate employees' -- have been using since.

This is not to say that Classical Psychoanalysis has not evolved since Freud died -- it's just that some of the most important assumptions that Freud was using -- and that Classical Psychoanalysis continues to use with little to no modifications and/or updated extensions since Freud died -- are also some of his most flawed assumptions. Like 'Childhood Sexuality Theory' and 'Fantasy Theory' and 'Oedipal Theory'-- without their bipolar 'alter-ego' theory: 'Traumacy-Seduction-Assault Theory'.

The two theories are still clamoring to be integrated. And without trying to be arrogant, I am probably the only theorist with enough of the right type of 'outside knowledge' and (read Adlerian Theory, Gestalt Theory, Transactional Analysis Theory...) -- and internal focus and creativity -- to properly do it.
If this makes me an 'egotist' and/or a 'narcissist', I can live with that. So was Freud. So was Masson. So are most professional athletes. You have to be an 'egotist' to get to the top of whatever 'mountain' you are trying to climb.

Like Ayn Rand would write, that simply means that /I/you/we believe in the strength and power of my/your/our skills and abilities....the skills and abilities that can make us all 'Supermen' and/or 'Superwomen' to the upper threshold of how high these skills and abilities can take us, just as long as we work hard enough, persevere enough, and meet the challenge of any and all obstacles in order to to get to where we want to go...our 'end visualization', our 'end fantasy', whatever that might be...

Not too many 'classical psychoanalysts' had'have the courage to 'think outside the classical box' -- at least publicly -- and if they did/do, then they were/are no longer likely considered to be 'Classical Psychoanalysts'. In Spinozian style, they were/are 'ex-communicated'. They were/are -- 'excluded'. Just look at Masson's rebellion against Freud in the 1980s. Masson stood up for what he believed was right -- and for that -- he is no longer a 'Psychoanalyst', let alone 'The Project Director of The Freud Archives'.

But alas things can change. Resentments can smooth over. 'Dissociations' can 'melt away', given the right circumstances, over time -- and 'bridges' and 'integrations' can start to take their place.

This is Hegel's World. This is Hegel's Hotel. 'Thesis'. 'Anti-thesis'. And finally -- 'synthesis'...'integration'...'either/or', 'right or wrong' melting away into a more harmonious, dialectic union...Perhaps with an 'agreement to disagree'. Or perhaps with a 'compromise towards the middle'. But most importantly, with more 'tolerance' and 'acceptance' for the right of any individual to 'disagree' with 'group think'. And not to be condemned for this...ex-communicated...excluded...

Freud was The Great Excluder...

I wrote already that he got this 'transference-characteristic' from his dad...

How come Freud couldn't see this clearly? Or could he? How come most Classical Psychoanalysts 'minimized' the 'negative transference' relationship between Freud and his dad? Or couldn't see it -- and worse, what the negative repercussions on Classical Psychoanalysis were.

Why? Because most Psychoanalysts -- read in particular Ernest Jones (his biography of Freud) -- did what Freud did. And Freud 'minimized' his dad. Sigmund 'excluded' his dad like his dad excluded -- and minimized -- little Siggy.

Most academics agree that the case of 'Anna O' is the first 'case' of Psychoanalyis. I agree -- in part.
But the 'template' case -- the case on which all of Psychoanalysis rests -- is little Sigmund's first, early childhood -- conscious -- memory.

And Freud -- and thousands of psychoanalysts -- continue to 'walk right around this first conscious memory of little Sigmund', like 'lemmings that follow their leader over a cliff'. I am partly sorry if I am coming across as being overly harsh here, or 'unfair to some more rebellious, individual thinking, psychoanalysts' but in the end we are all responsible and accountable for our own personal and collective 'transference neuroses' -- and doing something about them -- otherwise, why call 'Psychoanalysis' a 'first-rate form of psychotherapy'?

Psychoanalysts have to start thinking about 'conscious early memories' not as 'screen memories' that both hide and allude to other more important 'repressed memories and/or fantasies' but rather as important 'transference memories' in and by themselves. And for that, Psychoanalysts can thank Adler indirectly -- through me. Because what I am doing here is essentially turning 'Adlerian lifestyle and conscious early memory theory' back into an 'updated' form of 'Classical Transference Theory'. Which is so psychodynamically different than 'standard Freudian Classical Transference Theory' that many would ask, how can it possibly be called 'Classical' -- in which case I propose the alternative names of 'Quantum-Integrative Transference Theory' and 'Quantum-Integrative Psychoanalysis'.

'Screen Memories' (1899) is the worst paper that Freud ever wrote -- and Jones loved it....lap, lap, lap... while as Masson argued and I am paraphrasing, Freud was starting to 'conflate' and 'confuse' 'symbolic dream and fantasy material' with 'cold, hard, remembered reality'.

I am sure that Jones had his character strengths -- he did, I believe, support the growth and career of Fritz Perls when Freud wanted nothing to do with Perls because of the latter's 'rebellious' paper on 'Oral (as opposed to 'Anal') Resistances...

Freud excluded and excommunicated all significant 'male rebellers' just like his father 'excluded and excommunicated' little Sigmund...

Freud was a great rebel himself -- but once he achieved power -- he squashed all masculine rebellion in his ranks... This was a major part of his 'topdog/underdog transference bi-polarity and neurosis'... His 'excluding topdog' was his 'introjected dad'; and his 'rebellious underdog' was little Sigmund 'proving to his dad -- and to the world -- that he would find out all his dad's -- and his mom's -- private, most hidden sexual secrets -- with or without the help of his dad...and by transference extension -- with or without the help of his clients/patients, and the world at large.

Oh, yes. The memory. The conscious memory that has been so overlooked by so many psychoanalysts claiming to 'know all the hidden secrets of the mind'...And yet you all let Dr. Freud pull one over on you....as he pulled one over on himself...

Step out of Dr. Freud's 'false paradigm', gentlemen -- and gentlewomen.

Even Freud could -- and still continues to -- lead you down false corridors.

Even Freud could make serious 'false connections'.

Why would an 'archaeologist dig deep' if what he or she is looking for -- some 'supposedly hidden treasure' -- is sitting on the ground right in front of his or her eyes -- and nose?

Why would a psychoanalyst 'dig deep' into a client's unconscious if the answer to 'the riddle of the Sphynx' of the client's personality is lying right in front of the psychoanalyst's ears in an 'ignored', 'minimized', 'excluded' conscious early memory...

Note once again that I am partly Adlerian trained....and I would not have arrived at my own 'transference answer' to the riddle of the Sphynx of Freud's character if I had not been Adlerian trained. I superimposed 'Adlerian Lifestyle and Conscious Early Memory Theory' onto Classical Psychoanalysis.

Indeed, what I am doing here is superimposing the theoretical and therapeutic templates of all of Adlerian Psychology, Gestalt Therapy, Object Relations, Transactional Analysis, and Pre-Classical Freudian Theory -- right back where they belong on top of the template of Classical Psychoanalysis.

Because I am not -- at least in this essay -- and Hegel's Hotel in general -- an exclusionist. In the philosophy and psychology ideas, I am aiming to be much more of an inclusionist and an integrationist.

Now, obviously, I am going to exclude that which I do not believe to be important and/or value-laden. But most certainly, my flexibility, my liberal openess, is much greater than Freud's fixed, anal-retentive theoretical and therapeutic boundaries.

There is no one else in the world who is capable of doing what I am doing here for two reasons: 1. no one has exactly the same 'knowledge template' that I am carrying in my brain; and 2. just as importantly, no one is carrying exactly the same 'transference template' that I am carrying in my brain that demands that I push this story, that I push the integration of the history of Western Philosophy and Clinical Psychology to my vision and version of its evolutionary conclusion...push 'Hegel's Hotel' to its evolutionary conclusion...which will only be fleeting, because all essays are 'thought bites' that have a context in time and place, and even Hegel's Hotel which has already been in the works for 5 years since July, 2006, I believe, and I hope will be finished by March 3rd, 2012, will also be a six year 'thought bite' by the time it is finished if my estimate is accurate...with part of it aging -- like me...

Regarding my own personal transference template, consisting of a network of associated transference 'complexes' and/or 'neuroses', two of them seem to have associative connections with Freud's 'network of transference complexes and neuroses': 1. his 'father-transference complex'; and 2. his 'first conscious memory transference complex' in which he was evicted from the doorway of his parents' master bedroom for 'intruding' at the wrong time. My first conscious memory was very similar although connected with my friend's mother who was very angry at me for pushing her front doorbell more times 'than I should have, too early in the morning'.

Add these two transference similarities to my partial Adlerian training in 'interpreting conscious early memories' from an Adlerian 'lifesyle' perspective, and you have the three most important ingredients that explain why I have been better able to interpret Freud's 'first conscious memory-transference complex' better than anyone before me, particularly any 'Inside The Freudian Box Classical Psychoanalyst'.

Freud copied (introjected, identified with) his dad's 'rejecting topdog/object/superego' around the issue of 'exclusionism'.

And in similar fashion, Classical Psychoanalysis copied (introjected, identified with) Sigmund Freud's 'rejecting topdog/object/superego around this same issue of 'exclusionism'. That makes Classical Psychoanalysis a product of Sigmund Freud's own 'exclusionism-abandonment transference neurosis'.

For those of you who are not familiar with little Sigmund's first conscious memory, he 'busted in on his parents in their bedroom while they were doing the nasty'....and little Sigmund's father screamed at him to get out...(just as the woman/mother in my first conscious memory screamed at me to leave her front door).

A pretty understandable reaction by Sigmund's father...given the circumstances and his likely embarrassment, but that sure didn't help little Siggy any...He needed an explanation..

Indeed, little Siggy ended up spending the rest of his life -- via his transference complex -- vicariously trying to understand perfectly what exactly had transpired in his parents' bedroom...and he was certainly no stranger years and years later to 'his patients' resistance to telling the truth about their sexual secrets'... Indeed, from a transference perspective, he entirely expected it...It was 'deja-vu' for little Siggy turned big Sigmund...the beginning of a very long 'repetition compulsion' and 'mastery compulsion'.

Freud unconsciously re-created his own transference projection scene...the surrogate scene of his earliest conscious memory...The bed was 're-created' as the couch, and the female hysterical patients had become 'transference surrogates' to his mother lying on the bed...Was this his own private 'Oedipal Complex' playing itself out? Freud's own 'narcissistic transference fantasy' relative to 'surrogates' of his mother? Well, part of the transference component was certainly attached to his mother.

At what point the 'erotic' component of transference enters into the picture is a point of debate. Is the erotic component early childhood based, or does it enter into the picture as puberty turns on our 'sexual hormones'?

In DGB conceptuology, 'sublimation' is a 'transference projection phenomenon' first and foremost, with the 'sexual component' being a subset of the transference complex.

'Truth' often has two 'dialectical polar halves' attached to it, and it is very, very common for most of us to miss one of these 'polar halves'...In the family...in our schools...in our ruling political party, in the court system, in philosophy, in psychology...'the squeeky wheel gets the oil while the silent wheel remains in the Shadows of Non-Attention'...the dominant paradigm gets the sunshine, gets the spotlight, gets the goodies, while the 'invisible paradigm' gets lost in The Shadows of Non-Attention...not getting its share of the 'goodies'...and/or the 'equal rights' in many cases...

This was the philosophical brilliance of Anaxamander who foreshadowed the philosophy of Hegel, Derrida, and Foucault over two thousand years before the latter three philosophers came into existence. and this Freud could not see very well before, during, and after his abandonment of his pre-1897 Traumacy-Seduction Theory. It is possible that Freud was at least partly 'overly naive' coming into 1896, or shortly thereafter...

Was he overly naive to believe that all his female hysterical patients had been either 'sexually assaulted' or 'manipulated' and 'seduced' as children? Or were some of his female clients manipulating and lying to him? Or both?

This could have been a significant part of Freud's theoretical and therapeutic dilemma back around 1896-1897? Was Freud right or wrong to take his female clients' assertions regarding their childhood history of sexual abuse at face value? And/or were some or all of his female clients hiding their own narcissistic sexual fantasies behind these assertions of childhood sexual abuse?

Or was there another over-riding disturbing network of political, economic, and professional factors? Did the men who had power over the future of Freud's career essentially intimidate and coerce Freud into 'shutting his story down, shutting his theory of childhood sexual abuse down'?

And what if Freud was getting a complicated and confusing mixture of clinical behaviors and symptoms? Freud's whole theory of 'repression' and 'the pleasure-unpleasure' theory hinged on the idea that his clients were 'hiding the unbearable past' from themselves through the process of 'repression' (excluding traumatic memories from their consciousness). Freud's whole theory leading up to 1896 rested on 'making these unconscious, repressed traumatic memories conscious'...And then presto, the 'hysterical symptom associated with the traumatic, repressed memory, now conscious again, disappeared!'

However, there were complications to this nice, tidy story, with a happy ending...

For example, sometimes a 'hysterical' (neurotic) patient could keep a therapist busy for a lifetime with the continual creation of a vast array of new physical symtoms...Just read the Anna O. case, and see how busy she kept pooer Dr. Joseph Breur in what is generally viewed as the 'first psychoanalytic case'...Not to mention when she started to have 'erotic fantasies' of poor, Dr. Breuer, and told him that she was 'carrying his child'! (Presumably, she wasn't.)

Then there were an assortment of other cases where patients were fantasizing having 'romantic-sexual liasions' with bosses' and the like...Human, all too human...

So you can maybe start to see how Freud was getting into an entangled mess between trying to sort out the workings of 'human sexual traumacy' vs. the workings of 'human sexual fantasy'. The one certainly did not necessarily preclude or exclude the other. But Freud was building up an 'either/or' case for the stronger of the two theories.

1. Repression of sexual traumacy/seduction/assault? Or;

2. Repression of sexual fantasy.

It should be noted that not all of Freud's (or Breuer's) patients traumacies were of a 'sexual' nature. Anna O. stopped drinking liguids when she saw her dog drinking out of her cup or bowel. This memory was brought back to her awareness through 'hypnosis' and 'the talking cure' and she started drinking again. But Freud was locked into the 'sexual etiology'. Breuer was a much more cautious, rational-empirical scientist than Freud and was far more careful than Freud with his generalizations and theories...

However, no-one heard much from Breuer after he and Freud split company. Breuer's theoretical caution was less exciting and less shocking than Freud's dramatic exclamations and explanations...It wasn't as 'newsworthy' as Freud's brash statements, and to be fair to Freud, not as creatively brilliant in many cases...It was Freud who wrote the 24 volume Standard Edition, not Breuer.

Freud was perplexed -- and amazed -- by women's (and men's) sexual secrets.

Aren't we all oftentimes?

Sexual traumacy or sexual fantasy?

What was going on? Which way was Freud to go? Stuck inside Aristotlean logic, he set the whole dichotomy up as an 'either/or' choice. Big mistake. Perhaps the biggest mistate in Freud's career -- at least on the theoretical front. What he needed to do -- and what he didn't do -- was to 'dialectically embrace' the alleged dichotomy and figure out how both sides of the quandry contributed to a larger, 'Bi-Polar, Dialectic Truth', or 'Dialectic Bi-Polar Wholism'.

Freud could see the one 'polar truth' before 1897 but not the other; then, slowly, after 1897, Freud could see the 'opposite polar truth' (wishful fantasy) but not the original one (traumacy, seduction, assault) that he had spent the first 10 years of his professional career learning. What was that if it was not 'professional repression'? The irony of the whole matter is that both existed before 1897, and both existed after 1897.

You show, or tell me, of one person who has lived on this earth for even 5 years who has not experienced the twin polarities of 'traumacy' and 'fantasy', and I will agree to the Freudian concept of 'repression'!

Back between the summer of 1896 and say 1905, it was Freud who was 'The Grand Represser'. (After 1905, he became 'The Grand Excluder' -- as in excluding anyone -- or any male -- from Psychoanalysis who didn't agree with his 'childhood sexuality' , 'sexual fantasy' and 'Oedipal Theory'.

Did political, economic, and professional 'convenience' or 'or perceived necessity' contort and distort and 'unobjectify' Freud's brain? Freud wouldn't be the first to succumb to such a pressure? I am not trying to make excuses for Freud, or even assert that this is what necessarily happened -- Masson put out such a 'theory' in the 1980s, and for this he lost his job and his career. Is it possible that Masson chose to not ethically back down -- where Freud did?

Nobody -- not men or women (Freud had no huge 'women's movement' supporting him back then) -- wanted to hear publicly about 'child sexual abuse' in the 1890s. It was easier to blame the child than it was to blame the father, or the uncle, or the family friend... And nothing had really changed by the 1980s. It was obvious that The Psychoanalytic Establishment still did not want to publicly talk about child sexual abuse when confronted Classical Psychoanalysis on this account. Worse still, was Masson 'theorizing' that it was quite possible/likely that 'Freud lost moral courage'.

Meanwhile, there was a huge article in The Globe and Mail less than a week ago saying that women in prision were not getting the 'mental health' help that they needed -- whereas there were more avenues along this line already in place for men in prison.

I believe the estimates of 'childhood sexual abuse' I saw in the article amongst women in prison and/or amongst other women seeking psychiatric help was up in the 50 percentile, or probably even significantly higher. There was something that was bringing these 'hysterical women' or 'neurotic women with physical symptoms that seemed to go hand in hand with their mental processes' into Freud's practice in the 1890s, and it wasn't all about their 'repressed or suppressed erotic fantasies' (although this did seem to often play a part).

And still in the 1980s, The Psychoanalytic Establishment did not want to talk about how Freud's Oedipal Complex was leading analysts away from diagnosing 'real childhood sexual abuse', not 'figments of their patients Oedipal imagination'.

This might 'defame' Freud's character to say that Freud made such a huge theoretical, diagnostic, and therapeutic blunder! Is it any different today in 2011 or is The Psychoanalytic Establishment still hanging on with a 'Classical Freudian Oedipal hanging on pitbull bite'? Perhaps the more Psychoanalysts who move into Object Relations and Self Psychology, the less they have to stand up as an organization and actually publicly confront this 'ugly' problem.

I still like, and have no problem of using, The Oedipal Complex in my own theoretical work. But not to the 'literal' sense that Freud did. And not to the extent of 'diagnostically and therapeutically distorting a client's childhood reality'.

Economic, political, legal, and professional pressures can have a huge impact in all of us -- and turn us all away from 'the truth', at least as we personally believe in it.

How many of us don't engage in this type of practise every single day we go to work when we tell our boss 'what he or she wants to hear' or conversely, 'suppress' telling him or her what he or she doesn't want to hear?

How can we expect anyone to 'engage in freedom of speech' and 'tell his or her boss' what they really believe when the 'unemployment line' looms so large -- particularly in a bad recession -- as a 'very real factual possibility, a factual truth'?

It was very possible that Freud was no different. But since we are dealing with -- and 'speculating' about -- what 'was going through Freud's own mind at the time' -- none of us will ever know definitively. That is one secret -- his 'ethical innocence and/or guilt' -- that Freud probably took to the grave with him. Now, the 'ethical ramifications' of his decision still lies out in the open - - or at least partly in the open -- for all to see, and judge. Nobody -- other than a working pscyhoanalyst (and his or her clients) -- knows exactly what transpires behind closed psychoanalytic doors... and how many psychoanalysts may actually believe in the client experiential 'validity' of childhood and/or teenage sexual manipulation/assault, in this case, that case, or in many cases....and still 'tow the public company pathological anal-retentive Freudian Oedipal line'...

Not too many of us will ever know that realm of 'psychoanalytic-client privacy' as well...unless psychoanlysts and/or clients start going public with their personal stories... I'm not counting on it...

At best, Freud was too much an Aristotlean 'either/or' thinker, who couldn't get his head around 'dialectic engagement and integration'. He had the right idea with the concept of 'compromise formations'.

However, he didn't properly understand the dynamics of the transference except in his own 'tightly restricted, anal-retentive paradigm' of 'relationship transference between therapist and client'. Brian Bird hadn't written his paper on the 'universality of the transference' yet. That wouldn't happen until the 1960s.

Because of Freud's 'abandonment of the traumacy-seduction theory' and his evolving 'fixation' with 'fantasy theory', Freud -- nor any psychoanalytic theorist since -- until me -- has centred on the concept of 'transference memory'. (Actually, I have to give significant creative and chonological credit to both Alfred Adler, founder of Adlerian Psychology and the creator of the idea of 'conscious early memories as lifestyle memomies', as well as Arthur Janov, author of 'The Primal Scream').

In Psychoanalysis, we hear of 'transference relationships' but we never hear about 'transference encounters' -- and by logical association -- 'transference memories' (concious and/or unconscious).

Yet here is the future of Classical Psychoanalysis -- if Classical Psychoanalysis is to have any future.

From the idea of 'dialectic engagement, negotiation, and integration' -- comes the name of 'Quantum' Psychaoanalysis -- just as previously, in the realm of Physics, and 'thermogenics' -- 'particle' theory was integrated with its anti-thesis, 'wave' theory, to get 'Quantum Theory'.

Likewise here, 'Traumacy-Seduction-Manipulation-Assault' Theory becomes integrated with 'Childhood Sexuality-Fantasy-Oedipal Theory' to become 'Quantum Psychoanalysis'.

We have heard that every 'killer returns to the scene of his crime'. I don't know how true it is or not. But the same idea applies here.

Because, metaphorically and symbolically speaking, every 'neurotically traumatized child' returns to the scene of his 'childhood traumacy-transference scene' over and over and over again...This is what Freud ended up calling the 'repetition compulsion'. But Freud didn't properly understand the repetition complulsion -- he almost did with his concept of 'the mastery compulsion' but perhaps thought he was getting too close to 'Adlerian Theory' (the inferiority complex and superiority striving). Instead, Freud made the mistake of connecting the repetition compulsion to his evolving idea of 'The Death Instinct' (Beyond The Pleaaure Principle, 1920).

The repetition compulsion is often tied to 'death', 'destruction', and/or 'self-destruction', but only in the context of 'psychologically fighting for life', and the 'healing' of one's 'traumatic-transference neurosis'.

The traumatic-transference progression and/or regression goes like this: 1. chilhood traumacy; 2. 'Traumacy-tranference Memory'; 3. 'Compensation', 'Master Compulsion'; and 4. the creation of a 'Traumacy-Transference Fantasy Template' often 'cathected' with romantic and/or sexual energy of a supreme force; that is 5. 'Projected onto an adult 'surrogate transference figure' and this transference erotic love fantasy reigns supreme until one day, one's adult 'surrogate transference lover 'rejects us' in a style that unconsciously on purpose reminds us of our initial childhood traumacy-transference rejection, and childhood traumacy transference rejector (abandoner, betrayer, excluder, assaulter, manipulator...); and then 6. we suddenly and radically change 180 degrees in our thinking and feeling, like Freud did in 1896, and enter a 'heavy negative transference phase' of our 'transference love relationship' ,'heavily cathected with childhood negative energy'; and often end up 7. 'doing unto our rejector what our childhood and/or adult rejector did unto us, or we think our adult surrogate transference figure is about to do to us'...This is what I call 'negative transference identification', 'identification with the rejector, abandoner, betrayer, assaulter, aggressor, manipuator, excluder'.... and it often ends many 'transfernce relationships... This is what I call our full 'transference complex, neurosis, and/or game'. (as in Berne's 'Games People Play' -- meaning for the most part, 'The Positive and Negative Transference Games That We Play'...To stop playing the game (which many people don't want to do because of its heavy romantic-sexual component), we have to come to a full conscious understanding of the psycho-dyanmics of our trnasference complex/neurosis/game, and be able to consciousl choose to 'get off the transference ferris wheel, off the transference roller coaster, off the transference merry-go-round', which by the time we finish our unique, particular good and bad ride is often not very 'merry'....

Freud never got here...although he came close sometimes in different ways...'The Aetiology of Hysteria', 1896; 'The Dynamics of The Transference', 1912; 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle' 1920...

The psycho-sexual secrets of men and women...

Did not usually come easy to Freud,

Nor to any psychotherapist,

Like a Christmas present from client to therapist, with a nice, neat, tidy ribbon and bow attached to it...

No, more often these secrets come together from different 'life experiences, built into psychological compensatory pieces -- woven together, subconsciously into a psycho-sexual transfernce whole'...

It is not only where we have come from with our childhoood transferences, but also, where we are trying to get to subconsiously or unconsciously, in order to 'subjectively feel more whole again'...

But Freud already knew this deep in his own subconscious,

He just couldn't quite completely figure out the psycho-dynamics of his own unconscious (or was unwilling to publicly share all of his private awenesses)...

Regardless, for his clients too, he couldn't quite put all their different psychological pieces together,

Trying as hard -- indeed, obsessing as hard -- as he did....

Where did this 'transference obsession' come from?

From the first time he busted...

Into his parents' bedroom,

This is why Freud's first conscious memory can easily be declared...

The 'first true case of Psychoanalysis'...

-- dgb, Jan. 30th-31st, Feb. 1st, Feb. 3rd., 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain

Posted by david gordon bain at 10:39 AM 0 comments

In Hegel's Hotel, Adler, Jung, Rank, Reich, Ferenczi, Stekel, Fromm, Horney, Federn, Berne, Perls, Masson... All Are Welcomed Back and Re-Integrated With Freud...

2011-01-28T05:59:00.001-08:00

Updated Dec. 19th-20th, 2010.

In DGB Quantum Psychoanalysis, there are no theoretical boundaries except to the extent that the subject matter, the clinical domain, and the case by case facts within this domain may dictate certain boundaries along the way...

Every generalization is always going to be partly wrong; otherwise it would not be called a generalization.

Since theories are made up of generalizations, no theory is ever going to be 100 per cent right. 'Counter-theories' are always going to spring up in the minds of men and women in those areas where a theory seems to, and/or does, come up weak, one-sided, or just plain wrong...

Every perspective, every theory, has its own particular strength or set of strengths...and likewise, at the same time, its own particular weakness or set of weaknesses...Oftentimes, the particular strength of a theory -- when played out too far -- becomes its inherent main weakness. The same general rule of thumb also applies to 'characteristics'.

If one of my main strengths is my boldness and my willingness to 'try something new', this may also be one of my potential main downfalls, one of my main weaknesses.

Indeed, we can see this in Freud's life. His boldness and willingness to 'try new things' largely opened up our study of the 'unconscious', dreams, sexuality, 'neurosis', jokes, the psychology of defenses...and so on... However, sometimes his boldness and willingness to try new things got him into serious ethical trouble such as a 'botched nasal surgery operation that should have never been conducted in the first place, and such as when Freud started 'experimenting' with cocaine around 1884 before he knew what its full chemical properties were, probably taking too much himself, giving it to his fiancee Martha, recommending it in 'glowing terms' to his fellow physicians and researchers, and its potential usage by their patients, giving it to a friend who was addicted to morphine, who subsequently became much more severely addicted to cocaine and eventually died (although he had a very serious and painful illness before he even became addicted to morphine).

........................................................

The Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs
by Edward M. Brecher and the Editors of Consumer Reports Magazine, 1972

Chapter 35. Cocaine

The chief active ingredient in coca leaves, the alkaloid cocaine, was isolated in pure form in 1844. 1 Little use was made of it in Europe, however, until 1883, when a German army physician, Dr. Theodor Aschenbrandt, secured a supply of pure cocaine from the pharmaceutical firm of Merck and issued it to Bavarian soldiers during their autumn maneuvers. He reported beneficial effects on their ability to endure fatigue. 2

Among those who read Dr. Aschenbrandt's account with fascination was a poverty-stricken twenty-eight-year-old Viennese neurologist, Dr. Sigmund Freud (whose subsequent ordeal with nicotine was recounted in Chapter 24). Young Freud at the time was suffering from depression, chronic fatigue, and other neurotic symptoms. "I have been reading about cocaine, the essential constituent of coca leaves, which some Indian tribes chew to enable them to resist privations and hardships," Freud wrote to his fiancée, Martha Bernays, on April 21, 1884. "I am procuring some myself and will try it with cases of heart disease and also of nervous exhaustion. . . ." 3 The account of Freud's experiences which follows is drawn largely from the three-volume Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, by Ernest Jones.

Freud "tried the effect of a twentieth of a gram [50 milligrams] and found it turned the bad mood he was in into cheerfulness, giving him the feeling of having dined well 'so that there is nothing at all one need bother about,' but without robbing him of any energy for exercise or work." 4

In addition to taking cocaine himself, Freud offered some to his friend and associate, Dr. Ernst von Fleischl-Marxow, who was suffering from an exceedingly painful disease of the nervous system (which was later to prove fatal), and who was addicted to morphine. Freud also prescribed cocaine for a patient with gastric catarrh. The initial results in all three cases were favorable. Freud decided cocaine was "a magical drug," and he wrote his fiancee, Martha:

If it goes well I will write an essay on it and I expect it will win its place in therapeutics by the side of morphium and superior to it. I have other hopes and intentions about it. I take very small doses of it regularly against depression and against indigestion, and with the most brilliant success.... In short it is only now that I feel I am a doctor, since I have helped one patient and hope to help more. If things go on in this way we need have no concern about being able to come together and to stay in Vienna. 5

Freud even sent some of his precious cocaine to Martha, "to make her strong and give her cheeks a red color." Indeed, Dr. Jones writes, "he pressed it on his friends and colleagues, both for themselves and their patients; he gave it to his sisters. In short, looked at from the vantage point of our present knowledge, he was rapidly becoming a public menace." 6

..............................................

Life is essentially 'multi-bi-polar' in its very evolutionary essense and the only type of theory that is going to 'capture' the essence of this multi-bi-polar quality of life, is a theory that is also 'multi-bi-polar'...

Bi-polar theories of life can also be called 'dualistic' and/or 'dialectic' theories of life...philosophical theories like those espoused by Anaxamander, Heraclitus, Lao Tse, to a certain extent Plato, to a certain extent Kant, Schelling, and the 'Super-Philosopher' of all 'dialectic theories' -- G.W. Hegel. That is why this philosophical treatise is called 'Hegel's Hotel' because no theory of life addresses the contradictions, paradoxes, dichotomies, and bi-polarities in life better than Hegel's dialectic theory which is generally summarized in the endless cycle of 1. theory; 2. 'anti-or counter-theory'; 3. 'synthesis', or 'integration', or 'synergy'; and 4. start all over again...at a 'better' or 'worse' stage of evolution...

No one has the final word on whether or not a 'movement' in life is to a 'better' or 'worse' stage of evolution although we all have the freedom to pipe in and pipe up with our own editorial conclusions...

Certainly, Hegel's dialectic theory has received arguably more than its full share of criticism over the many years since he published his classic work, 'The Phenomenology of Mind(Spirit)' in 1807.

But still, Hegel's dialectic theory is probably the only theory out there that paradoxically explains the inherent weakness in each and every theory...

Every theory, every characteristic, carries the seeds of its own self-destruction...is a slightly paraphrased Hegelian quote that I cannot find at this exact minute...

Here are some Hegelian quotes (not all of them that I agree with) that I did find:

....................................................

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Quotes

Amid the pressure of great events, a general principle gives no help.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

An idea is always a generalization, and generalization is a property of thinking. To generalize means to think.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Animals are in possession of themselves; their soul is in possession of their body. But they have no right to their life, because they do not will it.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Education is the art of making man ethical.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They are conflicts between two rights.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deducted from it.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

I'm not ugly, but my beauty is a total creation.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

It is easier to discover a deficiency in individuals, in states, and in Providence, than to see their real import and value.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Mark this well, you proud men of action! you are, after all, nothing but unconscious instruments of the men of thought.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Mere goodness can achieve little against the power of nature.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Once the state has been founded, there can no longer be any heroes. They come on the scene only in uncivilized conditions.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

The Few assume to be the deputies, but they are often only the despoilers of the Many.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

The learner always begins by finding fault, but the scholar sees the positive merit in everything.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

To him who looks upon the world rationally, the world in its turn presents a rational aspect. The relation is mutual.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Too fair to worship, too divine to love.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Truth in philosophy means that concept and external reality correspond.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

We do not need to be shoemakers to know if our shoes fit, and just as little have we any need to be professionals to acquire knowledge of matters of universal interest.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

When liberty is mentioned, we must always be careful to observe whether it is not really the assertion of private interests which is thereby designated.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

World history is a court of judgment.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

...........................................................

Why should we limit ourselves to the inevitable weakness of every one-sided theory?

Like a good husband and wife team working in harmony with each other,

Opposing theories can be used harmoniously and integratively to supplement each other's weakness...

To provide a more balanced, wholistic perspective...

When it comes to theories,

The only boundaries that should dictate,

Are those governed by subject-matter, ethics, and integrity...

And even here there is going to be ambiguity and plenty of room for debate,

For example, the subject matter is going to be influenced by 'outside factors',

That can change the nature of the discussion,

Or the boundaries of the subject matter,

Thus, we get 'bio-chemistry', and 'bio-physics',

And an essay like Freud's 'The Neuro-Psychoses of Defence' (1894).

Some boundaries are inherent to the subject-matter under investigation,

But many are simply 'made-made' conceptual and label boundaries,

That are meant to make thinking and understanding easier,

And oftentimes, these can come back to haunt us,

And cause us endless grief,

Until we finally figure out that we have created a man-made conceptual-semantic trap.

Boundaries are meant to be broken...(especially when we make them in the first place).

Giving proper respect to ethical and legal boundaries that are there for good reason.

This aside, we need to keep thinking 'inside and outside the box'.

Ascertaining how inside and outside factors influence each other,

Co-determine each other,

This is what Hegel called 'dialectic thinking'.

I sometimes call it 'dialectic-democratic thinking'.

Or the 'dialectic-integrative evolution of theories'...

Which constantly looks for 'win-win solutions and conflict resolutions'...

To seemingly unsolvable and unresolvable paradoxes, dichotomies, impasses, and riddles...

When a theory becomes too self-limiting by the constriction of its own self-boundaries...

Think outside the boundary...

And then come back to integrate...

What is inside and outside the boundary...

You might be amazed at where it takes you, and what it gets you!

-- dgb, Feb. 26th, 2010; updated March 19th, 2010.

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still In Process...

On The Monumental Achievements of Otto Rank and His Unofficial Title as 'The Founder of Humanistic-Existential Psychoanalysis'

2011-01-28T05:55:00.001-08:00

Written August 18th, 2009.

Let me begin by giving you a 'caveat emptor' (buyer beware).

I am current engaged in by far my most vigorous investigation into the history of Psychoanalysis that is turning up new and partly different information each and every day that I didn't know previously.

Thus, an essay of this type right here -- and every one like it -- that I write on the subject and history of Psychoanalysis is necessarily of a continually evolving nature -- with sometimes strong new information entering my interpretive and evaluative system that may necessitate a sudden, perhaps radical change in judgment based on the relevance of this new information and what it means relative to the issue or problem as a whole that I am addressing.

I can only imagine -- with reasonable confidence -- that the same type of scenario was present for Freud between around 1889 and 1900 as Freud learned from both Breuer and Charcot, and sought for the first time, to start to put these ideas that he was learning from them, from himself, and from his patients, into therapeutic practice.

It is interesting to note for example that in 1889, in Freud's first case, the Frau Emmy case, cited in 'Studies on Hysteria' (1893-1895), Freud is using massage therapy as well as hypnosis, in contrast to the strict 'no touch' policy that Freud would begin to adhere to later in his career (let us say after 1900 although it was probably earlier than this), and which Freud would strictly enforce in his 'orthodox teachings of Psychoanalysis' while other psychoanalysts like Wilhelm Reich and Sandor Ferenczi wanted to -- and were -- practicing a 'wilder', non-orthodox and non-approved, form of touch-based Psychoanalysis.

It would not be the first or the last time that other theorists and therapists would pick up a particular idea and/or technique that Freud had basically 'been there and done that' -- and for one reason or another -- abandoned and/or marginalized the specific idea and/or technique that other theorists/therapists still wanted to go back to and re-investigate because they thought Freud had left something important behind. We can include Reich, Rank, and Ferenczi in this category, as well as Perls and Masson -- and I am sure there are numerous others.

For example, it defies my imagination how in 37 years of studying psychology from the time I first picked up the best-selling book 'Psycho-Cybernetics' (Maxwell Maltz, 1960) in around 1972, to the present, Aug 18th, 2009, I could largely overlook the momentously creative work of Otto Rank, who I will describe as holding the unofficial title of 'the founder of Humanistic-Existential Psychoanalysis',

Otto Rank has been an indirect, 'under the cover of darkness', influential lynch pin of my thinking, my beliefs, my values, in Hegel's Hotel through his influence on the growth of Humanistic-Existential Psychology and Psychotherapy, through such theorists and therapists as Rollo May and Carl Rogers, probably Karen Horney, and most notably Frederick Perls and all of Gestalt Therapy.

While Dr. Masson was complaining in the 1980s and 1990s about the 'emotional sterility' of Psychoanalysis, Rank and Ferenczi, in collaboration with each other, were saying essentially the same thing back in the 1920s and 1930s. (See the Wikipedia article below.)

Perhaps most remarkable in Rank's system of ideas is his ideas on creativity, his ideas on the dialectic dichotomy between man's 'fear of life' and his 'fear of death', and his ideas on 'separation anxiety' as first experienced in 'birth trauma' which then becomes an 'existential metaphor' of his and/or her whole life.

Man is caught in a life-long approach-avoidance conflict between the twin poles of life and death, and the paradoxical wish for individuality and union at the same time.

The "fear of life" is the fear of separation and individuation. The "fear of death" is the fear of union and merger—in essence, the loss of individuality. Both separation and union, however, are desired as well as feared since the "will to separate" correlates with the creative impulse and the "will to unite" with the need for love. To respond obsessively just to one need—by choosing to separate "totally" or to merge "totally" -- is to have the other thrown back at one's self. (See the Wikipedia article below.)

Rank explored how human beings can learn to assert their will within relationship, and advocated a maximum degree of individuation within a maximum degree of connectedness. (See the Wikipedia article below.)

Writes Rank,

On a microcosmic level, therapy is a process of learning how to give and take, surrender and assert, merge and individuate, unite and separate—without being trapped in a whipsaw of opposites. Therapist and client, like everyone else, seek to find a constructive balance between separation and union. In psychological health, the contact boundary that links I and Thou "harmoniously [fuses] the edges of each without confusing them," Rank wrote in Art and Artist (1932/1989, p. 104). Joining together in feeling, therapist and client do not lose themselves but, rather, re-discover and re-create themselves. In the simultaneous dissolution of their difference in a greater whole, therapist and client surrender their painful isolation for a moment, only to have individuality returned to them in the next, re-energized and enriched by the experience of "loss." (See the Wikipedia article below.)

In 1979, in my Honours Thesis, as well as a preceding essay leading up to my Honours Thesis, I was mesmerized by the following Erich Fromm quote which I can see now as showing a definite Rankian influence.

'It is the paradox of human existence that man must simultaneously seek for closeness and independence; for oneness with others and at the same time for the preservation of his uniqueness and particularity. (Erich Fromm, Man For Himself,

I will say and do no more in this essay than to pay special tribute to this man's special contributions to the evolution humanistic-existential psychology and psychotherapy as detailed below from Wikipedia.

-- dgbn, Aug. 18th, 2009

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are still in process.

...............................................................................

Otto Rank

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born April 22, 1884 (1884-04-22)
Vienna, Austria
Died October 31, 1939 (1939-11-01)
New York, New York
Fields Psychology
Institutions University of Pennsylvania
Alma mater University of Vienna
Influences Sigmund Freud, Henrik Ibsen, Freidrich Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer
Influenced Jessie Taft, Carl Rogers, Paul Goodman, Rollo May, Ernest Becker, Stanislav Grof, Matthew Fox, Anais Nin, Henry Miller, Irvin Yalom
Part of a series of articles on
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis

Concepts
Psychosexual development
Psychosocial development
Conscious • Preconscious • Unconscious
Psychic apparatus
Id, ego, and super-ego
Libido • Drive
Transference
Countertransference
Ego defenses • Resistance
Projection • Denial

Important figures
Alfred Adler • Michael Balint
Wilfred Bion • Nancy Chodorow
Erik Erikson • Ronald Fairbairn
Sándor Ferenczi
Anna Freud • Sigmund Freud
Erich Fromm • Harry Guntrip
Karen Horney
Ernest Jones • Carl Jung
Melanie Klein • Heinz Kohut
Jacques Lacan
Margaret Mahler • Otto Rank
Wilhelm Reich
Harry Stack Sullivan
Susan Sutherland Isaacs
Donald Winnicott

Important works
The Interpretation of Dreams
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
Civilization and Its Discontents

Schools of thought
Self psychology • Lacanian
• Object relations
Interpersonal • Relational
Ego psychology
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Otto Rank (April 22, 1884 – October 31, 1939) was an Austrian psychoanalyst, writer, teacher and therapist. Born in Vienna as Otto Rosenfeld, he was one of Sigmund Freud's closest colleagues for 20 years, a prolific writer on psychoanalytic themes, an editor of the two most important analytic journals, managing director of Freud's publishing house and a creative theorist and therapist. In 1926, after Freud accused Rank of "anti-Oedipal" heresy, he chose to leave the inner circle and move to Paris with his wife, Tola, and infant daughter, Helene. For the remaining 14 years of his life, Rank had an exceptionally successful career as a lecturer, writer and therapist in France and the U.S.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 In the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society
* 2 Post-Vienna life and work
* 3 Influence
* 4 Major publications by date of first publication
* 5 References
* 6 External links

[edit] In the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society

In 1905, at the age of 21, Otto Rank presented Freud with a short manuscript on the artist, a study that so impressed Freud he invited Rank to become Secretary of the emerging Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. Rank thus became the first paid member of the psychoanalytic movement, and Freud's "right-hand man" for almost 20 years. Freud considered Rank, with whom he was more intimate intellectually than his own sons, to be the most brilliant of his Viennese disciples.

Rank was one of Freud's six collaborators brought together in a secret "committee" or "ring" to defend the psychoanalytic mainstream as disputes with Adler and then Jung developed. Rank was the most prolific author in the "ring" besides Freud himself, extending psychoanalytic theory to the study of legend, myth, art, and other works of creativity. He worked closely with Freud, contributing two chapters on myth and legend to later editions of The Interpretation of Dreams. Rank's name appeared underneath Freud's on the title page of Freud's greatest work for many years. Between 1915 and 1918, Rank served as Secretary of the International Psychoanalytical Association which Freud had founded in 1910. Everyone in the small psychoanalytic world understood how much Freud respected Rank and his prolific creativity in expanding psychoanalytic theory.

In 1924 Rank published Das Trauma der Geburt (translated into English as The Trauma of Birth in 1929), exploring how art, myth, religion, philosophy and therapy were illuminated by separation anxiety in the “phase before the development of the Oedipus complex” (p. 216). But there was no such phase in Freud’s theories. The Oedipus complex, Freud explained tirelessly, was the nucleus of the neurosis and the foundational source of all art, myth, religion, philosophy, therapy – indeed of all human culture and civilization. It was the first time that anyone in the inner circle had dared to suggest that the Oedipus complex might not be the supreme causal factor in psychoanalysis. Rank was the first to use the term “pre-Oedipal” in a public psychoanalytic forum in 1925 (Rank, 1996, p. 43). In a 1930 self-analysis of his own writings, Rank observes that "the pre-Oedipal super-ego has since been overemphasized by Melanie Klein, without any reference to me" (ibid., p. 149n). In the next edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, Rank will be credited with coining the term "pre-Oedipal", which was previously mistakenly thought to have been introduced by Freud or Klein.

After some hesitation, Freud distanced himself from The Trauma of Birth, signalling to other members of his inner circle that Rank was perilously close to anti-Oedipal heresy. Confronted with Freud’s decisive opposition, Rank resigned in protest from his positions as Vice-President of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, director of Freud’s publishing house, and co-editor of Imago and Zeitschrift. His closest friend, Sándor Ferenczi, with whom Rank collaborated in the early Twenties on new experiential, object-relational and "here-and-now" approaches to therapy, vacillated on the significance of Rank's pre-Oedipal theory but not on Rank's objections to classical analytic technique.

The recommendation in Freud’s technical papers for analysts to be emotionless, according to Ferenczi and Rank (1924), had led to "an unnatural elimination of all human factors in the analysis" (pp. 40-41), and to "a theorizing of experience [Erlebnis]" (p. 41): the feeling experience of the intersubjective relationship, two first-person experiences, within the analytic situation. "The characteristic of that time," remembers Sándor Rado, who was in analysis with Karl Abraham from 1922 to 1925, "was a neglect of a human being's emotional life." Adds Rado: "Everybody was looking for oral, pregenital, and genital components in motivation. But that some people are happy, others unhappy, some afraid, or full of anger, and some loving and affectionate -- read the case histories to find how such differences between people were then absent from the literature." (Roazen & Swerdloff, 1995, pp. 82-83)

All emotional experience by human beings was being reduced by analysis to a derivative, no matter how disguised, of libido. For Freud, emotion was always sexual, derived from a dangerous Id that must be surgically uprooted: "Where Id was [Wo es war]," Freud said famously, "there ego shall be [soll ich werden]" (S.E., 22:80).

“Libido,” according to Freud’s 1921 work on Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (S.E., 18: 90), “is an expression taken from the theory of the emotions.” Emotion is the cause of neurotic disorder. Increases in emotion, according to Freud, are unpleasurable. Cure, for Freud, means analyzing, "working through" and eventually uprooting the emotions of the patient, “like the draining of the Zuyder Zee” (Freud, S.E., 22:80). The analyst makes the unconscious conscious by providing cognitive insight to the patient, thereby subduing the pressing drive for the irrational, for emotions—for the Id—to emerge from the patient’s unconscious.

In a 1927 lecture, Rank (1996) observes that “surgical therapy is uprooting and isolates the individual emotionally, as it tries to deny the emotional life” (p. 169), the same attack he and Ferenczi had leveled against psychoanalytic practice in their joint work. Reducing all emotional experience—all feeling, loving, thinking, and willing—to sex was one of Freud's biggest mistakes, according to Rank, who first pointed out this confusion in the mid-twenties. Emotions, said Rank, are relationships. Denial of the emotional life leads to denial of the will, the creative life, as well as denial of the interpersonal relationship in the analytic situation (Rank, 1929-31).

For Freud, said Rank in Will Therapy (1929-31), "the emotional life develops from the sexual sphere, therefore his sexualization in reality means emotionalization" (p. 165), two experiences that psychoanalysts continued to conflate for half a century after Freud’s death. Until the end of the 20th century, psychoanalysis had no theory of emotional experience and, by extension, no theory of emotional intelligence. Weinstein (2001) identified over two dozen articles in the major psychoanalytic journals lamenting the absence of a theory of emotions. "[S]uch comments persisted through to the 1990s" (Weinstein, 2001, p. 40).

"The emotional impoverishment of psychoanalysis," wrote Ernest Becker (1973) in The Denial of Death, which was strongly influenced by Rank's ideas, "must extend also to many analysts themselves and to psychiatrists who come under its ideology. This fact helps explain the terrible deadness of emotion that one experiences in psychiatric settings, the heavy weight of the character armor erected against the world" (p. 195n).

Written privately in 1932, Ferenczi’s Clinical Diary identified the “personal causes for the erroneous development of psychoanalysis” (Ferenczi, 1995, p. 184). According to Ferenczi, "… One learned from [Freud] and from his kind of technique various things that made one’s life and work more comfortable: the calm, unemotional reserve; the unruffled assurance that one knows better; and the theories, the seeking and finding of the causes of failure in the patient instead of partly in ourselves … and finally the pessimistic view, shared only with a few, that neurotics are a rabble [Gesindel], good only to support us financially and to allow us to learn from their cases: psychoanalysis as a therapy may be worthless" (Ferenczi, 1995, pp. 185-186).

But terrified at the prospect of losing Freud's approval, Ferenczi aborted his enthusiasm for The Trauma of Birth and began to distance himself personally from Rank – whom he shunned during a chance meeting in 1926 at Penn Station in New York. "He was my best friend and he refused to speak to me," Rank said (Taft, 1958, p. xvi).

Ferenczi's rupture with Rank cut short radical innovations in practice, and left no one in the inner circle who would champion relational, pre-Oedipal or "here-and-now" psychotherapy. Classical psychoanalysis, along the lines of Freud's 1911-15 technical writings, would now be entrenched in training institutes around the world. The attack leveled in 1924 by Ferenczi and Rank on the increasing "fanaticism for interpretation" and the "unnatural elimination of all human factors" from the practice of analysis would be forgotten.

Relational, expressive and "here-and-now" therapy would not be acceptable to most members of the American Psychoanalytic Association or the International Psychoanalytic Association for half a century. "[T]hose who had the misfortune to be analyzed by [Rank] were required to undergo a second analysis in order to qualify" for membership in the American Psychoanalytic Association (Lieberman, 1985, p. 293). As far as classical analysis was concerned, Rank was dead.

[edit] Post-Vienna life and work

In May 1926, having made emotional relationship in the "here-and-now" central to his practice of psychotherapy, Rank moved to Paris where he became a psychotherapist for artists such as Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin and lectured at the Sorbonne (Lieberman, 1985).

According to Rank, all emotional life is grounded in the present. In Will Therapy, published in German in 1929-31, Rank uses the term “here and now” for the first time in the psychotherapeutic literature: “Freud made the repression historical, that is, misplaced it into the childhood of the individual and then wanted to release it from there, while as a matter of fact the same tendency is working here and now” (Rank, 1929-31, p. 39). Instead of the word Verdrängung (repression), which laid stress on unconscious repression of the past, Rank preferred to use the word Verleugnung (denial), which focused instead on the emotional will to remain ill in the present: “The neurotic lives too much in the past [and] to that extent he actually does not live. He suffers … because he clings to [the past], wants to cling to it, in order to protect himself from experience [Erlebnis], the emotional surrender to the present” (Rank, 1929-31, p. 27).

In France and later in America, Rank enjoyed great success as a therapist and writer from 1926 to 1939. Traveling frequently between France and America, Rank lectured at universities such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and University of Pennsylvania on relational, experiential and “here-and-now” psychotherapy, art, the creative will, and “neurosis as a failure in creativity” (Rank, 1996).

Just as Erik Erikson was the first analyst to focus on identity and adulthood, Rank was the first to propose that separation from outworn thoughts, emotions and behaviors is the quintessence of psychological growth and development. In the late 1920s, after he left Freud’s inner circle, Rank explored how human beings can learn to assert their will within relationship, and advocated a maximum degree of individuation within a maximum degree of connectedness.

Foreshadowing the central themes of Piaget, Kohlberg, McClelland, Erikson and Kegan, Rank was the first to propose that human development is a lifelong construction, which requires continual negotiation and renegotiation of the dual yearnings for individuation and connection, the will to separate and the will to unite. Decades before Ronald Fairbairn, now credited by many as the inventor in the 1940s of modern object-relations theory, Rank's 1926 lecture on "The Genesis of the Object Relation" marks the first complete statement of this theory (Rank, 1996, pp. 140-149). By 1926 Rank was persona non grata in the official psychoanalytic world. There is little reason to believe, therefore, that any of the other writers credited with helping to invent object relations theory (Melanie Klein or Donald Winnicott, for example) ever read the German text of this lecture, published as Zur Genese der Object-beziehung in Vol. 1 of Rank's Genetische Psychologie (1927, pp. 110-22).

Rank died in New York City in 1939 from a kidney infection, one month after Freud's physician-assisted suicide on the Jewish Day of Atonement. "Komisch" (strange, odd, comical), Rank said on his deathbed (Lieberman, 1985, p. 389).

[edit] Influence

Rollo May, a pioneer of existential psychotherapy in the United States, was deeply influenced by Rank’s post-Freudian lectures and writings and always considered Rank to be the most important precursor of existential therapy. Shortly before his death, Rollo May wrote the foreword to Robert Kramer's edited collection of Rank’s American lectures. “I have long considered Otto Rank to be the great unacknowledged genius in Freud’s circle,” said May (Rank, 1996, p. xi).

In 1936 Carl Rogers, the most influential psychologist in America after William James, invited Otto Rank to give a series of lectures in New York on Rank’s post-Freudian models of experiential and relational therapy. Rogers was transformed by these lectures and always credited Rank with having profoundly shaped "client-centered" therapy and the entire profession of counselling. "I became infected with Rankian ideas," said Rogers (Kramer, 1995).(http://www.ottorank.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/rogers.pdf).

The New York writer Paul Goodman, who was co-founder with Fritz Perls of the Gestalt method of psychotherapy, one of the most popular in the world today, and one that makes Otto Rank's "here-and-now" central to its approach, described Rank’s post-Freudian ideas on art and creativity as “beyond praise” in Gestalt Therapy (Perls, Goodman and Hefferline, 1951, p. 395). According to Ervin Polster (1968), a pre-eminent Gestalt therapist, "Rank brought the human relationship directly into his office. He influenced analysts to take seriously the actual present interaction between therapist and patient, rather than maintain the fixed, distant, 'as though' relationship that had given previous analysts an emotional buffer for examining the intensities of therapeutic sensation and wish. Rank's contributions opened the way for encounter to become accepted as a deep therapeutic agent" (p. 6).

Rank also affected the practice of action-oriented and reflective therapies such as dramatic role-playing and psychodrama. "Although there is no evidence of a direct influence, Rank's ideas found new life in the work of such action psychotherapists as Moreno, who developed a psychodrama technique of doubling ... and Landy [director of the drama therapy program at New York University], who attempted to conceptualize balance as an integration of role and counterrole" (Landy, 2008, p. 29).

Rank's psychology of creativity has recently been applied to action learning, an inquiry-based process of group problem solving, team building, leadership development and organizational learning (Kramer 2007; 2008). The heart of action learning is asking wicked questions to promote the unlearning or letting go of taken-for-granted assumptions and beliefs. Questions allow group members to “step out of the frame of the prevailing ideology,” as Rank wrote in Art and Artist (1932/1989, p. 70), reflect on their assumptions and beliefs, and reframe their choices. The process of “stepping out” of a frame, out of a form of knowing – a prevailing ideology – is analogous to the work of artists as they struggle to give birth to fresh ways of seeing the world, perspectives that allow them to see aspects of the world that no artists, including themselves, have ever seen before.

The most creative artists, such as Rembrandt, Michelangelo and Leonardo, know how to separate even from their own greatest public successes, from earlier artistic incarnations of themselves. Their “greatness consists precisely in this reaching out beyond themselves, beyond the ideology which they have themselves fostered,” according to Art and Artist (Rank, 1932/1989, p. 368). Through the lens of Otto Rank’s work on understanding art and artists, action learning can be seen as the never-completed process of learning how to “step out of the frame” of the ruling mindset, whether one’s own or the culture’s – in other words, of learning how to unlearn.

Comparing the process of unlearning to the “breaking out” process of birth, Rank was the first psychologist to suggest that a continual capacity to separate from “internal mental objects” – from internalized institutions, beliefs and neuroses; from the restrictions of culture, social conformity and received wisdom – is the sine qua non for life-long creativity.

In a 1938 lecture, Rank said: "Life in itself is a mere succession of separations. Beginning with birth, going through several weaning periods and the development of the individual personality, and finally culminating in death – which represents the final separation. At birth, the individual experiences the first shock of separation, which throughout his life he strives to overcome. In the process of adaptation, man persistently separates from his old self, or at least from those segments off his old self that are now outlived. Like a child who has outgrown a toy, he discards the old parts of himself for which he has no further use ….The ego continually breaks away from its worn-out parts, which were of value in the past but have no value in the present. The neurotic [who cannot unlearn, and, therefore, lacks creativity] is unable to accomplish this normal detachment process … Owing to fear and guilt generated in the assertion of his own autonomy, he is unable to free himself, and instead remains suspended upon some primitive level of his evolution"(Rank, 1996, p. 270).

Unlearning necessarily involves separation from one’s self concept, as it has been culturally conditioned to conform to familial, group, occupational or organizational allegiances. According to Rank (1932/1989), unlearning or breaking out of our shell from the inside is “a separation [that] is so hard, not only because it involves persons and ideas that one reveres, but because the victory is always, at bottom, and in some form, won over a part of one’s ego” (p. 375).

In the organizational context, learning how to unlearn is vital because what we assume to be true has merged into our identity. We refer to the identity of an individual as a “mindset.” We refer to the identity of an organizational group as a “culture.” Action learners learn how to question, probe and separate from, both kinds of identity—i.e., their “individual” selves and their “social” selves. By opening themselves to critical inquiry, they begin to learn how to emancipate themselves from what they "know" – they learn how to unlearn.

In 1974, the cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker won the Pulitzer prize for The Denial of Death (1973), which was based on Rank’s post-Freudian writings, especially Will Therapy (1929-31), Psychology and the Soul (1930) and Art and Artist (1932/1989). The feeling of anxiety, writes Rank in Will Therapy (1929-31), divides into two currents, running in opposite directions: one toward separation and individuation; the other toward union and collectivity. The outbreak of neurosis typically comes from the streaming together of these two fears—which Rank also calls the "fear of living" [Lebensangst] and the "fear of dying" [Todesangst] – “which, even in The Trauma of Birth, I had designated as the fear of both going forward and of going backward” (Rank, 1929-31, p. 124). A crisis "seems to break out at a certain age when the life fear which has restricted the I’s development meets with the death fear as it increases with growth and maturity," writes Rank in Will Therapy (1929-31). "The individual then feels himself driven forward by regret for wasted life and the desire to retrieve it. But this forward driving fear is now death fear, the fear of dying without having lived, which, even so, is held in check by fear of life" (pp. 188-189).

The "fear of life" is the fear of separation and individuation. The "fear of death" is the fear of union and merger—in essence, the loss of individuality. Both separation and union, however, are desired as well as feared since the "will to separate" correlates with the creative impulse and the "will to unite" with the need for love. To respond obsessively just to one need—by choosing to separate "totally" or to merge "totally" -- is to have the other thrown back at one's self.

According to Rank (1929-31), "Birth fear remains always more universal, cosmic as it were, loss of a connection with a greater whole [einen größeren Ganzen], in the last analysis with the 'All' [dem All] ... The fear in birth, which we have designated as fear of life, seems to me actually the fear of having to live as an isolated individual, and not the reverse, the fear of loss of individuality (death fear). That would mean, however, that primary fear [Urangst] corresponds to a fear of separation from the whole [vom All], therefore a fear of individuation, on account of which I would like to call it fear of life, although it may appear later as fear of the loss of this dearly bought individuality as fear of death, of being dissolved again into the whole [ins All). Between these two fear possibilities these poles of fear, the individual is thrown back and forth all his life, which accounts for the fact that we have not been able to trace fear back to a single root, or to overcome it therapeutically" (ibid., p. 124).

On a microcosmic level, therapy is a process of learning how to give and take, surrender and assert, merge and individuate, unite and separate—without being trapped in a whipsaw of opposites. Therapist and client, like everyone else, seek to find a constructive balance between separation and union. In psychological health, the contact boundary that links I and Thou "harmoniously [fuses] the edges of each without confusing them," Rank wrote in Art and Artist (1932/1989, p. 104). Joining together in feeling, therapist and client do not lose themselves but, rather, re-discover and re-create themselves. In the simultaneous dissolution of their difference in a greater whole, therapist and client surrender their painful isolation for a moment, only to have individuality returned to them in the next, re-energized and enriched by the experience of "loss."

"[T]he love feeling," Rank observes in a lecture delivered in 1927 at the University of Pennsylvania, "unites our I with the other, with the Thou [dem Du], with men, with the world, and so does away with fear. What is unique in love is that—beyond the fact of uniting—it rebounds on the I. Not only, I love the other as my I, as part of my I, but the other also makes my I worthy of love. The love of the Thou [des Liebe des Du] thus places a value on one's own I. Love abolishes egoism, it merges the self in the other to find it again enriched in one's own I. This unique projection and introjection of feeling rests on the fact that one can really only love the one who accepts our own self [unser eigene Selbst] as it is, indeed will not have it otherwise than it is, and whose self we accept as it is." (Rank, 1996, p. 154)

On a macrocosmic level, taking the experience of love as far as humanly possible, to the boundary of the spiritual, Rank compared the artist's "giving" and the enjoyer's "finding" of art with the dissolution and rediscovery of the self in mutual love. "The art-work," says Rank in Art and Artist, "presents a unity, alike in its effect and in its creation, and this implies a spiritual unity between the artist and the recipient" (Rank, 1932/1989, p. 113). It is in art, and its correlative, love, that microcosm meets macrocosm, the human meets the spiritual. At the height of the individuating impulse, the "will to separate," artists feel most strongly the longing for attachment, the "will to unite." Although artists begin the creative process by separating from their fellow human beings and liberating themselves from conforming to the past, escaping from the anxiety of influence, eventually the creative impulse merges into a desire for a return to "a greater whole," to "the ALL" (Rank, 1929-31, p. 155) -- in human terms, to the "collective" that alone has the power to immortalize the artist with the approval it grants the artwork:

"For this very essence of man, his soul, which the artist puts into his work and which is represented by it, is found again in the work by the enjoyer, just as the believer finds his soul in religion or in God, with whom he feels himself to be one. It is on this identity of the spiritual ... and not on a psychological identification with the artist that [aesthetic pleasure] ultimately depends... But both of them, in the simultaneous dissolution of their individuality in a greater whole, enjoy, as a high pleasure, the personal enrichment of that individuality through this feeling of oneness. They have yielded up their mortal ego for a moment, fearlessly and even joyfully, to receive it back in the next, the richer for this universal feeling (Rank, 1932/1989, pp. 109-110).

In one of his most poetic passages, Rank suggests that this transcendent feeling implies not only a "spiritual unity" between artist and enjoyer, I and Thou, but also "with a Cosmos floating in mystic vapors in which present, past, and future are dissolved" (Rank, 1932/1989, p. 113)--an identity with "the ALL" that once was but is no more. The healing nature of artistic experience, Rank believed, affirms difference but, paradoxically, also "leads to the release from difference, to the feeling of unity with the self, with the other, with the cosmos" (Rank, 1929-31, p. 58). In art, microcosm meets macrocosm. Of the uncanny feeling of emotional unity we experience in surrendering ourselves—giving up temporarily the burden of our difference—to the Other in art, Rank writes in Art and Artist: "[It] produces a satisfaction which suggests that it is more than a matter of the passing identification of two individuals, that it is the potential restoration of a union with the Cosmos, which once existed and was then lost. The individual psychological root of this sense of unity I discovered (at the time of writing The Trauma of Birth, 1924) in the prenatal condition, which the individual in his yearning for immortality strives to restore. Already, in that earliest stage of individualization, the child is not only factually one with the mother but beyond that, one with the world, with a Cosmos floating in mystic vapors in which present, past, and future are dissolved. The individual urge to restore this lost unity is (as I have formerly pointed out) an essential factor in the production of human cultural values" (Rank, 1932/1989, p. 113).

No one has expressed the conflict between the will to separate and the will to unite better than Ernest Becker (1973), whose award-winning The Denial of Death captured the largest—macrocosmic—meaning of separation and union for Rank: "On the one hand the creature is impelled by a powerful desire to identify with the cosmic forces, to merge himself with the rest of nature. On the other hand he wants to be unique, to stand out as something different and apart" (Becker, 1973, pp. 151-152). "You can see that man wants the impossible: He wants to lose his isolation and keep it at the same time. He can't stand the sense of separateness, and yet he can't allow the complete suffocation of his vitality. He wants to expand by merging with the powerful beyond that transcends him, yet he wants while merging with it to remain individual and aloof ..." (ibid., p. 155).

On a microcosmic level, however, the life-long oscillation between the two "poles of fear" can be made more bearable, according to Rank, in a relationship with another person who accepts one's uniqueness and difference, and allows for the emergence of the creative impulse—without too much guilt or anxiety for separating from the other. Living fully requires "seeking at once isolation and union" (Rank, 1932/1989, p. 86), finding the courage to accept both simultaneously, without succumbing to the Angst that leads a person to be whipsawed from one pole to the other. Creative solutions for living emerge out of the fluctuating, ever-expanding and ever-contracting, space between separation and union. Art and the creative impulse, said Rank in Art and Artist, "originate solely in the constructive harmonization of this fundamental dualism of all life" (1932/1989, p. xxii).

On a macrocosmic level, the consciousness of living—the dim awareness that we are alive for a moment on this planet as it spins, meaninglessly, around the cold and infinite galaxy—gives human beings "the status of a small god in nature," according to Ernest Becker: "Yet, at the same time, as the Eastern sages also knew, man is a worm and food for worms. This is the paradox: he is out of nature and hopelessly in it; he is dual, up in the stars and yet housed in a heart-pumping, breath-gasping body that once belonged to a fish and still has the gill marks to prove it ... Man is literally split in two: he has awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order blindly and dumbly to rot and disappear forever. It is a terrifying dilemma to be in and to have to live with" (Becker, 1973, p. 26).

Through the influence of Ernest Becker's writings, Rank's eternal dialectic between "life fear and death fear" has been tested experimentally in Terror Management Theory by Skidmore College psychology professor Sheldon Solomon, University of Arizona psychology professor Jeff Greenberg, and Colorado University at Colorado Springs psychology professor Tom Pyszczynski.

The American priest and theologian, Matthew Fox, founder of Creation Spirituality and Wisdom University, considers Rank to be one of the most important psychologists of the 20th century. See, especially, Fox's book, Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet (Jeremy P. Tarcher, 2002), paperback: ISBN 1-58542-329-7.

Stanislav Grof, a founder of transpersonal psychology, based much of his work in prenatal and perinatal psychology on Rank's The Trauma of Birth (Kripal, 2007, pp. 249-269).

In 2008, the philosopher Maxine Sheets-Johnstone published The Roots of Morality (Pennsylvania State University Press), which contains an analysis of Rank's argument that "immortality ideologies" are an abiding human response to the painful riddle of death. Sheets-Johnstone compares Rank's thought to that of three major Western philosophers—René Descartes, Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida: "Because immortality ideologies were originally recognized and in fact so named by Rank, a close examination of his writings on the subject is not only apposite but is itself philosophically rewarding ... Rank was a Freudian dissident who, in introducing the concept of immortality ideologies, traced out historical and psychological roots of 'soul-belief' (Seelenglaube)... [My chapter] points up the extraordinary cogency of Rank's distinction between the rational and the irrational to the question of the human need for immortality ideologies" (Sheets-Johnstone, 2008, p. 64). Sheets-Johnstone concludes her book on a note reminiscent of Rank's plea for the human value of mutual love over arid intellectual insight: "Surely it is time for Homo sapiens sapiens to turn away from the pursuit of domination over all and to begin cultivating and developing its sapiential wisdom in the pursuit of caring, nurturing and strengthening that most precious muscle which is its heart" (ibid., pp. 405-06).

Today, Rank can be seen as one of the great pioneers in the fields of humanistic psychology, existential psychotherapy, Gestalt therapy and transpersonal psychology.

[edit] Major publications by date of first publication
Year German Title (Current Edition) English Translation (Current Edition)
1907 Der Künstler The Artist
1909 Der Mythus von der Geburt des Helden (Turia & Kant, 2000, ISBN 3-85132-141-3) The Myth of the Birth of the Hero (Johns Hopkins, 2004, ISBN 0-8018-7883-7)
1911 Die Lohengrin Sage [doctoral thesis] The Lohengrin Saga
1912 Das Inzest-Motiv in Dichtung und Sage The Incest Theme in Literature and Legend (Johns Hopkins, 1991, ISBN 0-8018-4176-3)
1913 Die Bedeutung der Psychoanalyse fur die Geisteswissenschaften [with Hanns Sachs] The Significance of Psychoanalysis for the Human Sciences
1914 "Traum und Dichtung" and "Traum und Mythus" in Sigmund Freud's Die Traumdeutung The Interpretation of Dreams eds. 4-7: "Dreams and Poetry"; "Dreams and Myth" added to Ch. VI, "The Dream-Work." In Dreaming by the Book L. Marinelli and A. Mayer, Other, 2003. ISBN 1-59051-009-7
1924 Das Trauma der Geburt (Psychosozial-Verlag, 1998, ISBN 3-932133-25-0) The Trauma of Birth, 1929 (Dover, 1994, ISBN 0-486-27974-X)
1924 Entwicklungsziele der Psychoanalyse [with Sandor Ferenczi] The Development of Psychoanalysis / Developmental Goals of Psychoanalysis
1925 Der Doppelgänger [written 1914] The Double (Karnac, 1989, ISBN 0-946439-58-3)
1929 Wahrheit und Wirklichkeit Truth and Reality (Norton, 1978, ISBN 0-393-00899-1)
1930 (Consists of Volumes II and III of "Technik der Psychoanalyse": Vol. II, "Die Analytische Reaktion in ihren konstruktiven Elementen"; Vol. III, "Die Analyse des Analytikers und seiner Rolle in der Gesamtsituaton". Copyright 1929, 1931 by Franz Deuticke.) Will Therapy, 1929-31 (First published in English in 1936;reprinted in paperback by Norton, 1978, ISBN 0-393-00898-3)
1930 Seelenglaube und Psychologie Psychology and the Soul (Johns Hopkins, 2003, ISBN 0-8018-7237-5)
1932 Kunst und Künstler (Psychosozial-Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-89806-023-3) Art and Artist (Norton, 1989, ISBN 0-393-30574-0)
1933 Erziehung und Weltanschauung : Eine Kritik d. psychol. Erziehungs-Ideologie, München : Reinhardt, 1933 Modern Education
1941 Beyond Psychology (Dover, 1966, ISBN 0-486-20485-5)
1996 A Psychology of Difference: The American Lectures [talks given 1924–1938; edited and with an introductory essay by Robert Kramer] (Princeton, 1996, ISBN 0-691-04470-8)

2009-10-03T07:08:00.001-07:00

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

2009-09-27T08:04:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-05T04:48:00.000-07:00

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)

2009-08-31T12:00:00.001-07:00

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.

..........................................................................

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!

.................................................................................

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...

......................................................................

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

2009-08-26T05:40:00.000-07:00

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...

..............................................................................

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

2009-06-30T19:27:00.000-07:00

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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Integrating Philosophy and Psychology Into A Model Of The Psyche

2009-04-01T15:22:00.001-07:00

Which came first? Philosophy or psychology? And which spawned which? Did philosophy spawn psychology or did psycholgy spawn philosophy?

Technically and academically speaking, philosophy did, or at least 'organized, passed down, and remembered philosophy: it goe back to at least 600 B.C. in ancient Greek philosophy (Thales) -- that is as far back as our records go, and arguably much earlier here and/or other in other parts of the world like China, India, and The Middle East with or without reliable records.

As an organized field of study, psychology spawned out of philosophy. In this regard, Alexander Bain can arguably be considered to be the first psychologist with his first major work in this area being published in 1855, 'The Senses and The Intellect.

However, it could be easily argued that psychology and philosophy have both been a part of man's nature from Day 1 of his creation, and/or from as long as he has had consciousness with perhaps man's 'psychology' motivating him/her to put together a coherent 'world philosophy' and from this, the same world philosophy eventually motivitating him to look inward (Descartes, Bain, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Mesmer, Charcot, Freud, Janet...) back at his/her psychology.

What I have done here is to put together my own personal verson (perspective, paradigm, theory, model, map, school...) of man's psychology based on my editorital organizing of the history and integration of both philosophy and psychology. Thus, we might call this model an integrative 'philosophy-psychology model'.

We start with the concepts of 'self', 'psyche' and 'ego' which I will use here to mean basically the same thing. For our purposes here, the concept of 'ego' -- one of Freud's main concepts that made Psychoanalysis famous -- is my concept of preference.

Now Freud only used the concept of 'ego' to mean a portion of the 'psyche' (as contrasted against the 'superego' and the 'id') whereas I am using the concept of ego to mean the full psyche or full self. Definition matters, and is at least partly arbitrary, partly dependent on the author's purposes and 'organizing desires'. Regardless of who you are reading, you have to know that all authors -- or at least those authors who are venturing into 'different phenomenal and conceptual territory' -- organize differently. It is part of their 'creative signature' and when they use the same words to describe different concepts and/or different words to describe the same or similar concepts, it can become confusing. In the name of art and science, we have to give every author enough leeway, enough creative license, to either succeed or fail at what he or she is attempting to do, gain trust and credibility -- or not, and in so doing, 'break creative barriers' -- or not, all of which is imperative to the ongoing evolution of art and/or science -- culture and life. Jung didn't use the concept of 'ego' (or 'libido') the same way that Freud did. Nor will I use the concept of ego the same way that either Freud or Jung did. I am going a partly similar direction to both of them; and a partly different direction than both of them.

Now the ego is like a piece of pie. When we first look at it after it is baked or brought home from the store, it is 'whole'. So is the ego, the psyche, the self. We are looking at an undivided, wholistic entity. Just as the pie can be cut into as many pieces as we want to, so too, for study and/or educational purposes, for matters of more focused specialization, we can divide the ego, the psyche, the self into as many different 'pieces' or 'compartments' as we want to. This is called 'reductionism' as opposed to 'wholism'. Reductionism and wholism do not have to be 'righteous either/or' conflicting philosophies. You do not have to choose one or the other. You can choose both -- and should choose both -- depending on exactly what you are studying and what you are trying to accomplish. Reductionism should be like the 'close-up lens' in a camera where as 'wholism' is like the 'panoramic lens'. Both serve different purposes but both are 'important tools' in the good photographer's tool kit. This is the same with a 'doctor specialist' who may specialize in the study of the liver but must also know how the liver functions relative to its inter-workings with the rest of the human body. Same with a good psychologist -- or 'psycho-theorist' -- who, regardless of how many different 'pieces' or 'compartments' he or she may divide the self into, must still have an organized picture of how everything comes together into a coherent, organized whole.

For study and educational purposes, I have divided the self or ego -- 'cut the pie' -- into 10 pieces or compartments, seven conscious, and three subconscious. These are:

1. The Interpretive Ego.
2. The Narcissistic Ego.
3. The Socially Sensitive Ego.
4. The Ethical Ego.
5. The Emotional-Romantic-Spiritual Ego.
6. The Dynamic, Subconscious Ego.
7. The Structural (Transference and Archetype-Driven) Subconsicous Ego.
8. The Genetic, Potential, Creative or Destructive Self.
9. The Mediating, Conflict-Resolving Ego.
10. The Executive, Action-Producing Ego.

And this is where I will stop today.

db, July 24th, 2007.

DGB Personality Theory: Model 1: A DGB "Greek Mythology and Soap Opera in The Sky' Model Of The Personality (Updated Mar 2, Mar 5, Mar. 6th, 8th/09)

2009-03-01T09:23:00.001-08:00

The metaphor of Hegel's Hotel can be visualized in at least four different ways each partly similar to each other -- and each partly different.

Two are 'Wellness Hotel' models, or at least can be used as 'Wellness Hotel' models. (They can also be used pathologically and/or to 'map out' different types of pathology in the mind.) Label them respectively,

1. 'The DGB Greek Mythology-Soap Opera Hotel';
2. 'The DGB Philosophers and Psychologists Wellness Hotel;

The other two are different renditions of the two models above (using circles rather than squares and/or rectangles),

3. 'The DGB Greek Mythology Solar System Model';
4. 'The DGB Philosophers and Psychologists Solar System Model.

We will come back to the latter three models later.

In this essay, let us briefly delve into Model 1.

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1/ The DGB 'Greek Mythology and Soap Opera In The Sky' Model

This model draws mainly from Psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud and others...), Jungian Psychology (Carl Jung), Adlerian Psychology (Alfred Adler), Transactional Analysis (Eric Berne), and Gestalt Therapy (Fritz Perls).

The model is to be viewed as an 'As If' or 'Metaphorical' model, not something to be taken literally or that we can physically see and/or divide.

When I refer to different 'rooms' in the personality, these can also be viewed as different 'ego states' and/or 'energy centres'.

When I refer to the concept of 'Archetypes', these can be divided into at least three types:

1. 'God-Archetypes': such as...'Zeus', 'Apollo', 'Dionysus', 'Narcissus', 'Eros', 'Aphrodite', and the rest of the 'Greek Dieties'....(Indeed, why stop at 'Greek Dieties' if we want to press onward into different cultures and historical periods?) We stop where it is convenient, functional, pragmatic to stop...with a change in our own life context perhaps neccessitating or making it pragmatic and functional for us to modify our model accordingly...

2. 'Philosopher-Archetypes': Hegel's Hotel can be divided up not only into Greek Mythological Rooms classified by each particular 'Mythological God' but also into 'Philosopher Rooms' classified by each particularly important philosopher in Western -- and/or Eastern, and/or Middle-Eastern -- history. Thus, Hegel's Hotel can be divided into: 'Anaxamander's Room', 'Heraclitus' Room', 'Parmenides Room', 'Socrates' Room', 'The Sophists' Room', 'Plato's Room', 'Aristotle's Room'...and so on....

3. 'Psychologist-Archetypes': Similarily, Hegel's Hotel can be divided into different psychologist rooms such as: 'Freud's Room', 'Adler's Room', 'Jung's Room', 'Berne's Room', 'Perls' Room'...and so on...

For our purposes here, we will limit ourselves primarily to 'The Greek Mythological God Rooms'...

The others we will take up more specifically in a different model...

When I think of Hegel's Hotel as a Greek Mythology Hotel, I visualize a place like 'Casa Loma' in Toronto, Ontario. Many different 'castles' in Europe would probably serve the same purpose.

Casa Loma is filled with many different rooms, and different types of rooms. But better still, it has 'secret passage ways' that go from different points in the castle -- perhaps an 'upper bedroom' -- down to the 'bottom' of the castle, or even into a real or imaginary 'dungeon'.

Now there are many, many 'Gods' and 'semi-Gods', 'Heros' and 'Villains' in Greek Mythology. I will only list and accentuate those that I believe to be the most important of these Gods, Semi-Gods, Heroes, and Villains for our purposes here. Others can be either added or subtracted at a moment's notice for theoretical and/or climical contextual purposes.

Hegel's Hotel in this model is made up of three floors above ground and three floors underground. 18 rooms in Hegel's Hotel are above ground and three are underground.

One floor underground (18) is a 'passage way' -- controlled by the Greek God, Hermes (Messenger to and from The Underground) -- to the other two 'deeper' floors underground -- (19) 'Freud's Personal Unconscious Floor'; and (20) 'Jung's Collective and/or Genetic Subconscious, Potential Self, and Archetype Floor'.

On the top floor of Hegel's Hotel, we have rooms for the aristocratic, the arrogant, the superior...(which is all of us at different times...)...I will call this 'Nietzsche's Floor'...

A/ Nietzsche's Floor: 1. The Narcissistic-Dionysian Topdog Room; 2. The Nurturing-Altruistic Topdog Room; and 3. The Righteous-Exciting-Rejecting-and-Anxiety-Provoking Topdog Room;

On the bottom floor just above ground, we have rooms for the meek, the mild, the insecure, the inferior, the inadequate, the underdogs, and the orthodox-co-operative...(which is all of us at different times...)...I will call this 'Adler's Floor'...

B/ Adler's Floor: 4. The Narcissistic-Dionysian ('Bad Boy' or 'Bad Girl') Underdog Room; 5. The Altruistic-Nurturing(Approval-Seeking) Underdog Room; and 6. The Rebellious (Righteous)Underdog Room.

In between the top floor and the bottom floor above ground in Hegel's Hotel, we have... "Zeus and His Lobbyists' Floor"

C/ Zeus' Floor: 7. Apollo's Room/Ego (emphasizing reason, truth, and justice); 8. Aphrodite's and Eros' Room/Ego (emphasizing romance, passion, creativity, imagination, the arts, nature...); 9. Dionysus' Room/Ego (emphasizing pleasure, hedonism, sensuality, sexuality, wine, celebration, dancing...); 10. Hera's Room/Ego (emphasizing marriage and family values, solidarity, rootedness, togetherness...); 10. Gaia's Room/Ego (emphasing the earth and environment, staying rooted on earth, and making sure that the earth and our natural environment can continue to support us...); 11. Hephestrus' Room/Ego (emphasizing fire -- and 'fire' in the personality...); 12. Poseidon's Room/Ego (emphasizng water...and the calming force of water...); 13. Hermes' Room/Ego (Messenger to and from The Underground...for good or bad reasons...); 14. Demeter's Room/Ego (emphasizing the food and agriculture that we need to continue to support us here on earth); 15. Artemis' Room/Ego (emphasing the hunt as it is needed to support us here on earth...); 16. Athena's Room/Ego (emphasizing the domestic arts and crafts); 17. Aries' Room (emphasizing war -- democratic, diplomatic, and rhetorical war when it is needed; as a last and only last resort 'the physical war of self-defence'...); 18. Zeus' Room/Ego (God of Gods, Executive Ego of all other Ego-States...)

Again, all of these different 'rooms' in Hegel's Hotel can also be viewed as 'Ego States' and/or 'Energy Centres'. They can also be viewed as being like 'political special interest or lobbyist groups' lobbying for the attention of The Central Executive Ego (Zeus) and the 'fulfillment of each ego-state's/lobbyist's particular set of wishes'.

We will sit on this model for a little while before we start to extrapolate on it more and work it through.

I think we may have a decent model to work with here.

For those of you who may be familiar with some of my other essays, you may recall that in one of my essays I asked the question:

'Where do Gods, Idols, Myths, Philosophers, and Psychologists all meet?'

Answer: 'They meet on the shores of DGB Personality Theory'.

So here we are again -- getting ready to go deeper into one of our conceptualized models of the personality.

Enough for today. I'm late for work. And tomorrow's my birthday. I've booked off work and plan to spend the day and night in Niagara Falls. No writing tomorrow. So call this my 2009 'birthday model' of the human psyche -- put together a day before the 102nd anniversary of Freud and Jung meeting together for the first time on a cold Sunday, March 3rd, 1907. (And 'polished' up on three different days after I came back.)

-- dgb, Mar. 1st-2nd, further modified and updated March 5th,6th, 8th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

Philosophical/Psychological Precursors Leading Up To, and Influencing, Two Different DGB Models of The Personality

2009-02-19T15:51:00.001-08:00

(Still under construction...as of Feb. 13th, 2009)

1. Introduction

There are many different ways of viewing the personality -- and of envisioning the personality with 'picture-diagrams'. 'Squares' (My DGB 'Multi-Compartment-Box' Model)and/or 'circles' (My DGB 'Sun-Planet-Moon'/'Solar System' Model)are common visual aids in this regard.

Here is a quick summary of some of the main 'personality models' that have been used, and/or are still being used, in the field of psychology, clinical psychology, and psychotherapy.

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A. Nietzsche's Two Different Models of The Personality

i) Nietzsche's 'Two Compartment'-'Birth Of Tragedy' (BT) (Apollo vs. Dionysus) Model

DGB Editorial Comments: A good model; homeostatically based and balanced -- negotiating and integrating the differences between the 'ethical-restraining' and the 'impulsive-spontaneous' elements of, or 'compartments' in, the personality.

ii) Nietzsche's One Compartment 'Dionysian-Will to Power-Superman' Model

DGB Descriptive Comments: A less 'Hegelian' (dualistic and dialectic) model; a more 'existential' model -- 'go for the gusto', 'no restraint', 'live life to the fullest', 'embrace life', 'reach for the top', 'fly high -- don't look back', 'Don't be afraid of the existential abyss' -- 'use the existential abyss as your 'life challenge' -- 'embrace it' -- 'don't back away from it' -- 'don't run from the abyss' -- 'jump the abyss from being to becoming' -- and/or 'build a bridge across it' -- 'life is a process -- or at least it should be -- of constantly leaping existential abysses, or building bridges across them -- this is the life of 'The Superman' -- this is 'The Will to Power' or 'The Will to Self-Empowerment' -- the alternative is 'The Herd Mentality'.

DGB Editorial Comments: This too is a great model of the human personality -- and of living -- but it loses the idea of 'dialectic engagement, negotiation and integration -- it loses the idea of 'homeostatic balance' or 'dialectic-democratic balance' -- 'Apollo' got lost in the shuffle, Apollo is nowhere to be found -- what happened to 'ethics, morals, and social restraints'; Apollo became 'marginalized' in this model while 'Dionysus' became 'idolized' and 'pedestalized' as 'the one and only God worthy of worshipping and following' -- This Nietzschean-Dionysian-Dominating philosophy was the Philosophy of 'The Anti-Christ', a society and a system of values without morals and ethics except for the pursuit of hedonistic self-gratification and self-fulfillment (self-actualization) is a one-sided value-system which is just as bad -- only the opposite -- of what Nietzsche was complaining against, and 'deconstructing' -- the Christian value of 'self-denial'.

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B. Freud

Freud's Classic 'Three Compartment Model' of: 1. 'The Superego' (Social, Cultural, and Ethical-Moral Conscience'; 2. 'The Id' (Realm of Biological Instincts and Impulses Impinging On, and/or Even Bombarding, the Psyche from The Depths of The Personality, and The Sensory-Sexual Apparatus, Below; 3. 'The Ego' (Mediating, Problem-Solving, Conflict-Resolving, Reality-Testing, Negotiating and Compromising Between The Superego and The Id, Integrating, Decision-Making, Executing Action)

DGB Editorial Comments: Freud's 'Three Compartment -- Superego, Id, Ego' Model is closer to Nietzsche's BT (Dualistic, Dialectic, Post-Hegelian, Homeostatic Balance) Model than it is to Nietzsche's later 'Existential-Will-To-Power-Superman' model. We certainly do not want to throw away Nietzsche's 'Superman' Model of the Personality which is probably the cental focus of 'Existentialism' and 'Humanistic-Existentialism' and the whole 'Self-Actualization/Fulfillment' Industry... but neither do we want to throw away Nietzsche's 'BT-Apollo vs. Dionysus' model either. Under Freud, Nietzsche's 'BT' model was re-born and became the central foundation of ('Classic') Psychoanalysis.

C. Jung's 'Personna-Shadow-Archetype' Model

It took me a long time to warm up to Jung's Psychology. Jung was about the last major psychologist who I started studying. There is still much about him and his work that I do not know much about.

Coming out of university, my philosophical and psychological interests centred around General Semantics, Cognitive Therapy, Rational-Emotive Therapy, Nathaniel Branden, Ayn Rand, and Erich Fromm and his brand of Humanism...

All of this was very much of a 'rational-empirical' mindset and perspective.

And that was largely before I started to become interested in Fritz Perls and Gestalt Therapy, Adler and Adlerian Psychotherapy, and Freud and Psychoanalysis.

There was no conscious and/or planned effort to involve myself with the work of Karl Jung -- the 'mystical' and 'mythological' man. This was too far out in left field for me. I was a rational-empricist; not a mysticist, not an alchemist, not an astrologist, not a dream interpreter, not a mythologist.

However, I could not totally avoid Jung. And my studies of both Freud and Perls brought me at least partly -- if only through the back door -- to Jung. Indeed, it was a Jungian line here that I will quote below in its larger context from one of my Gestalt books -- 'The Gestalt Therapy Book' by Joel Latner, 1973,1986 -- that really opened the door to the beginning of my study of Jung, Hegel -- and the creative birth of 'Hegel's Hotel':

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From 'The Gestalt Therapy Book', 1973, 1986, p. 29-30...

Polarities are deeply rooted in organismic functioning. Thirst leads to water seeking; being overheated leads to a search for a way to cool off. Being full of wastes leads to behavior to relieve ourselves of them. Gestalt formation is itself the organization of the field into the poles of figure and ground. These are biological phenomena, part of our self-regulation.

The relationship of the opposites is that the existence of one necessarily requires the existence of the other. (This philosophical statement has its roots in Anaxamander, Heraclitus, and The Han Philosophers -- 'yin' and 'yang' -- inside brackets mine, dgb). This can be seen in the experiential relationship of quantity and quality of sensations and emotions. When pleasure exceeds a certain point, it becomes unpleasant. The two are dynamically linked. This is reflected in ordinary language expressions such as, "Love is the first cousin to hatred,' and "Opposites attract."

The interaction between polarities functions as a dialectical process. The opposites become distinguished and opposed; then, in their conflict, a resolution is achieved that unites the poles in a figure that is greater than the combination of the opposites -- it is a new creation. The classic statement of this process is Hegel's conception of historical development as consisting of forces that form into a coherence called a thesis; the thesis is then opposed by the contradictions inherent in it, which cohere into its anti-thesis. The resolution of the conflict is a synthesis that transforms the opposing forces into a new and unified situation.

In dialectic thinking in Gestalt Therapy, dualities are not irreconcilable contradictions, but distinctions that will be integrated in the process of gestalt formation and destruction. If the excitement present as the field differentiates is permitted to flow into the opposites, the result will be a resolution into a figural creation that is a genuine synthesis of them, and this will eventuate in a return to commonality and the undifferentiated field.

We can see from this that the more powerful the polarizations, the more significant the synthesis. "The greater the contrast," says Jung, "the greater is the potential. Great energy only comes from corresponding great tensions between opposites." In every case, the possibilities are contained within the opposites. What is required is their interaction, so that the dialectic may be permitted to operate. (p. 29-30.)

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These paragraphs above from The Gestalt Therapy Book were essentially the beginning of my more serious study of Jung and Hegel. At this moment, my on again, off again, relationship with The Gestalt Institute of Toronto between 1979 and 1991 became crystalized into my evolutionary forward movement of study after and beyond The Gestalt Institute -- into the realms of Jung and Hegel. I had become a solidified 'right brain, dialectical thinker' as opposed to -- and/or as well as -- a solely 'left brain, rational-empirical thinker'. And I was starting to move ever so slowly into the more 'mystical and mythological realm' of 'Jungian dialectical thinking' as opposed to the less mythologically oriented Gestalt Therapy, and I cannot even tell you at this moment to what extent that Hegel delved into -- if at all -- mythological thinking. There is a 'gap' in my research here that needs to be filled in at some future point in time.

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Right Brain vs. Left Brain
Definition

This theory of the structure and functions of the mind suggests that the two different sides of the brain control two different “modes” of thinking. It also suggests that each of us prefers one mode over the other.

Discussion

Experimentation has shown that the two different sides, or hemispheres, of the brain are responsible for different manners of thinking. The following table illustrates the differences between left-brain and right-brain thinking:

Left Brain Right Brain
Logical
Sequential

Rational

Analytical

Objective

Looks at parts
Random

Intuitive

Holistic
Synthesizing

Subjective

Looks at wholes

Most individuals have a distinct preference for one of these styles of thinking. Some, however, are more whole-brained and equally adept at both modes. In general, schools tend to favor left-brain modes of thinking, while downplaying the right-brain ones. Left-brain scholastic subjects focus on logical thinking, analysis, and accuracy. Right-brained subjects, on the other hand, focus on aesthetics, feeling, and creativity.

How Right-Brain vs. Left-Brain Thinking Impacts Learning

Curriculum–In order to be more “whole-brained” in their orientation, schools need to give equal weight to the arts, creativity, and the skills of imagination and synthesis.

Instruction–To foster a more whole-brained scholastic experience, teachers should use instruction techniques that connect with both sides of the brain. They can increase their classroom’s right-brain learning activities by incorporating more patterning, metaphors, analogies, role playing, visuals, and movement into their reading, calculation, and analytical activities.

Assessment–For a more accurate whole-brained evaluation of student learning, educators must develop new forms of assessment that honor right-brained talents and skills.

Reading

Bernice McCarthy, The 4-MAT System: Teaching to Learning Styles with Right/Left Mode Techniques.

The content on this page was written by On Purpose Associates.

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Rick Yount posted the following on December 18, 2008 at 12:26 pm.
According to John McCrone, writing in the New Scientist magazine in July 2000,the whole notion of RB-LB dichotomies has been proven false by more recent brain scan research. The lateral functions as listed above are over simplifications of reality. Both hemispheres function together in complex ways, and — in extreme cases, where half the brain is removed to treat epilepsy, persons still reflect LB and RB characteristics. McCrone calls the dichotomy “simplistic at best and nonsense at worst.”

margo posted the following on December 18, 2008 at 6:02 am.
LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS

uses logic
detail oriented
facts rule
words and language
present and past
math and science
can comprehend
knowing
acknowledges
order/pattern perception
knows object name
reality based
forms strategies
practical
safe
Number skills
Written language
Reasoning
Spoken language
Right hand control
RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS

uses feeling
“big picture” oriented
imagination rules
symbols and images
present and future
philosophy & religion
can “get it” (i.e. meaning)
believes
appreciates
spatial perception
knows object function
fantasy based
presents possibilities
impetuous
risk taking
Insight
3-D forms
Art awareness
Music awareness
Left hand control

^^these are some functions that i found i hope they can help someone!!:]

Zubaidah posted the following on December 15, 2008 at 12:55 am.
It was useful and very nice. Thanks!

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A short, oversimplified DGB summary of Jung's terminology and conceptuology...

1. 'The Personna': that part of our personality that has adapted to the world in a particular manner and regularly show this 'part' of our character to the outside world. Some similarities to Freud's concept of 'The Ego';

2. 'The Shadow': A 'darker' side of our personality that we for the most part hide and suppress from the outside world, if not ourselves as well. Some similarities to Freud's concept of 'The Id'.

3. 'Archetypes': Mythological figures in our 'collective unconscious' some of which we may become 'fixated' on, and use regularly in our Personna or alternatively in our Shadow.

Here are a few more Jungian concepts from the internet...

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Carl Jung
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Carl Gustav Jung

A recent edition of Jung's partially autobiographical work Memories, Dreams, Reflections.
Born 26 July 1875(1875-07-26)
Kesswil, Thurgau, Switzerland
Died 6 June 1961 (aged 85)
Zürich, Switzerland

Residence Switzerland
Citizenship Swiss
Fields Psychiatry, Psychology, Psychotherapy, Analytical psychology
Institutions Burghölzli
Doctoral advisor Eugen Bleuler, Sigmund Freud
Known for Analytical psychology

Carl Gustav Jung (IPA: [ˈkarl ˈgʊstaf ˈjʊŋ]) (26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology. Jung's approach to psychology has been influential in the field of depth psychology and in countercultural movements across the globe. Jung is considered as the first modern psychologist to state that the human psyche is "by nature religious" and to explore it in depth.[1] He emphasized understanding the psyche through exploring the worlds of dreams, art, mythology, religion and philosophy. Although he was a theoretical psychologist and practicing clinician, much of his life's work was spent exploring other areas, including Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, sociology, as well as literature and the arts. His most notable ideas include the concept of psychological archetypes, the collective unconscious and synchronicity.

Jung emphasized the importance of balance and harmony. He cautioned that modern people rely too heavily on science and logic and would benefit from integrating spirituality and appreciation of unconscious realms. His overarching goal for the person, called individuation, was becoming whole (as opposed to moral or perfect) which involves a struggle to integrate and relate to the unconscious shadow side while still maintaining conscious autonomy.

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The Jungian Concept of The Shadow
In this article I will outline some of the Jungian concepts of the Shadow, which has an important role linked closely with the Anima and Animus, the importance of which will be understood by those who have undertaken Trance Exercise 5.

As a side note, it is interesting to note that Jung's concepts of the Shadow (along with the persona, superman and the wise old man) were heavily influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, the prominent German philosopher. Jung used Nietzsche's descriptions as specific archetypal images. It is also worthy of note that Nietzsche had some deeply esoteric aspects in his philosophy, based around the concept of self-overcoming, whereby man can overcome his limitations to become the higher man, on the road to becoming the superman. Jung recognised Nietzsche's deep understanding of and willingness to confront the dark shadows and irrational forces, which lay beneath our 'civilised' humanity.

The three main archetypes, which have a major influence over the individual are the Shadow, the Anima and the Animus. The Shadow Jung notes is always the same gender as the individual. To become conscious of the Shadow takes considerable moral effort, recognising the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. Jung contended that this act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.

The Shadow is considered to be a collection of inferiorities, undeveloped, and regressive aspects of the personality. They are primarily of an emotional nature and have a kind of autonomy, displaying an obsessive or more accurately a possessive quality. Jung describes emotion as an activity that happens to the individual rather than an activity of the individual, further reinforcing the idea of the autonomy of certain aspects of the psyche such as the Shadow.

The actions of the Shadow usually happen where adaptation is weakest, and at the same time reveal the reason for its weakness – that is a degree of inferiority and the existence of a lower level of personality. It is at this lower level, with its uncontrolled or scarcely controlled emotions that one behaves more or less like a primitive who is more or less a 'victim' of these emotions and is practically incapable of moral judgement.

Although with persistent effort the Shadow (to some extent) can be integrated with the conscious personality there are certain features which offer a great deal of resistance to control and prove almost impossible to influence. These aspects are generally associated with projections, which are not recognised as such, and their recognition is an achievement beyond the ordinary.

Projection is defined as "the situation in which one unconsciously invests another person (or object) with notions or characteristics of one's own: e.g. a man, fascinated by a woman because she corresponds to his anima, falls in love with her. Feelings, images, and thoughts can be projected onto others. One also projects negative feelings: e.g. a woman has a grudge against a friend, so she imagines that her friend is angry with her."

If an individual shows no inclination to recognise his projections, then the projection-making factor has a free hand and can realise its object, or bring about a situation characteristic of its power. Again is should be noted that it is not the conscious mind, but the unconscious which does the projecting. The projections are not made, they are encountered. The effect of a projection is to isolate a person from their environment as instead of a real relation to it there is only an illusory one. Projections change the world into a replica of one's own unknown face – the Shadow – and lead to an auto-erotic or autistic condition in which one dreams a world whose reality remains forever unattainable. The resulting feeling of sterility are in turn explain by projection as the malevolence of the environment, and by means of this viscous circle the isolation is intensified.

At a certain point, projections are no longer the realm of the Shadow, but the contra-sexual side of the unconscious, that is the Anima in a man, or Animus in a woman.

The Shadow represents first and foremost the personal unconscious, and its content can therefore be made conscious without too much difficulty. While the Shadow can be seen through and recognised fairly easily, the Anima and Animus are much further away from consciousness and in normal circumstances are seldom if ever realised. As far as the nature of the Shadow is personal, it can be seen through, but in its greater archetypal aspect on encounters the same difficulties as with the Anima and Animus. Jung wrote, "it is a quite within the bounds of possibility for a man to recognise the relative evil of his own nature, but it is a rare and shattering experience for him to gaze into the face of absolute evil."

In an supra-personal context, the mankind as a whole is also heavily influenced by unconscious powers. With the relative division of the East (e.g. Russia) and West (America) a collective projection can be seen. While the Western prides itself in its civilised behaviour and keeps its vices tucked away and hidden behind international "good manners" and diplomacy, the East (communism) in general has shamelessly and methodically thrown back in the face of the West. It is the face of its own Shadow which grins back at Western man from the other side of the "Iron Curtain."

Further reading:

Man and his Symbols by Carl Jung
The Portable Jung edited by Joseph Campbell
The Cambridge Companion to Jung edited by Polly Young-Eisendrath and Terence Dawson
The Invisible Partners by John Sanford

* Trance Exercise 5 is entitled "The Garden of the Philosophers - Wherein the Ruach and Nephesch Are Examined" and follows on from the four trance exercises given in Probatur Temporis.

Back to Esoteric Articles - Magical Path

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The Anima
The anima is an image. When Jung writes about the anima as if it were a person, he is referring to the characteristics which it manifests in a series of dreams. The corresponding image of the masculine in a woman's dreams is the animus (see 1951, pp. 11-22). June Singer, a Jungian analyst, argues (1977) that androgyny is both the starting point and the goal of individual development. This suggests a parallel with Freud's theory of bisexuality. Jung's original concept, however, refers only to the "contrasexual other" which appears in dreams and waking fantasies.

Attitudes
Jung (1921) distinguished between two attitudes (extraversion, introversion), which refer to habitual emphases in an individual's psychic orientation. Each attitude is complimented by a tendency to emphasize one of four psychological functions: two rational (thinking, feeling) and two irrational (sensation, intuition).

Eros
By eros, Jung meant a principle of psychic relatedness, whether to another human being, or indeed anything "other"; not specifically or exclusively as sexual passion, but certainly including this. Although a key term in his ideas, his definitions of it are somewhat vague: see (1951), p. 14. The parallel with the myth of Narcissus was noted by Albeaux-Fernet (1972); he, however, makes no reference to Echo, who is central to the myth. Narcissus is a hunter, more interested in his own pursuits than in relating with a female figure (cf. Adonis, below). His love for his own reflection is a punishment given him by Nemesis, the goddess of righteous retribution, for rejecting Echo.

References
Albeaux-Fernet, M. (1972) Cantate à trois voix. Revue des Deux Mondes 1972: 564-571.

Jung, C. G. (1921) Psychological Types. Collected Works, 6, 1971.

_____. (1951) Aion. Collected Works, 9.ii, 1968.

Singer, J. (1977) Androgyny. New York: Doubleday.

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It was back in the mid 1980s, I believe, that I first started investigating the introductory elements of Jung's Psychology. I dived in a bit, didn't spend much time there, but was left with a few lasting impressions relative to elements of Jungian Psychology that were different than anything I had studied up to that point -- the emphasis on 'mythology', my introduction to the term 'archetype', the concept of 'collective unconscious' that, as a 'rational-empirical thinker', I was extremely leery about...

Fast forward some 20 years later -- the summer or fall of 2008 -- and I am on 'Facebook'. I keep seeing this advertisement that is 'burning its mark into my brain' -- it is an advertisement for a 'Dylan t-shirt' that reads: 'Kill your idols.'

Now I am a strong, dedicated Dylan fan from my introduction to him back in junior high school or high school in the late 1960s or early 1970s by one of my best friends at the time who has gone on to develop a very stellar career as a rock music journalist, and professor on the history of rock and roll, and rhythm and blues at York University. In our teens, we used to play ping pong in my townhouse basement to the pounding rhythm of Highway 61, Revisited.

So here I am reading this message on a Dylan T-shirt for about the 5th or 10th time, and I finally decide to go to the website where it is being advertised.

Some Dylan fans are blogging on the website about the content of the message -- where did it come from? Did -- or would -- Dylan even print such a message? And so on. I comment that it reminded me of Nietzsche's 'Twilight of The Idols'. Someone else said it could be traced back to Sir Francis Bacon's 'Four Idols'.

Well that did it. I was away to the races. Back I went to the philosophy of Sir Francis Bacon which would lead to a complete change in the 'architecture of Hegel's Hotel'. From the rational-empirical thinking of Sir Francis Bacon -- and his 'Four Idols' -- I have written at least two or three extremely important essays relevant to the evolutionary development of Hegel's Hotel: 'DGB Sun-Planet Theory'; and 'Finding Truth'. But even more important perhaps than Bacon's highly sophisticated rational-empirical thinking was the 'dialectic' that developed in my own writing between Bacon's rational-empirical thinking and Jung's mythological thinking. The result was a whole string of essays that came together on 'Gods, Myths, and Philosphers...' that is still evolving. All of a sudden a DGB rendition of Jungian mythological and archetype thinking was becoming a centre piece in the structure and process of Hegel's Hotel...I was writing essays on the philosophy of 'God and Religion' that I would never have dreamed of writing even 10 years ago probably not even five years ago.

I would never have written something like this:

What are Gods?

Gods are projections -- mirror reflections -- or our own self and/or social ideals.

Gods -- and 'human idols' -- are externalized renditions of internal 'archetypes'.

What are 'archetypes'?

Archetypes are internalized renditions of external 'Gods' and/or 'human idols'.

Where do Gods, Idols, and Archetypes meet?

On the shores of personality theory.

What are Greek Gods?

Greek Gods are projections and reflections of 'human Greek soap operas, drama and tragedy' -- the inner workings of the 'conflicted-multi-dialectical Greek psyche'
-- painted across the Greek sky and down onto Greek fields. This was the work of Homer and The Iliad...

Gods intermingling with humans.

And humans intermingling with Gods.

Human Gods and Godly Humans.

Man made in the image of Gods.

Or Gods made in the image of man...

Both reflecting and mutually involved in, drama, soap operas, and tragedies...

That were very human, all too human...

Gods and humans...

It can only be concluded...

Were meeting...

On the shores of Personality Theory.

-- dgb, Feb. 13th, 2009.

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The Four Idols
of Francis Bacon
&

The New Instrument of Knowledge

by Manly P. Hall

In the Novum Organum (the new instrumentality for the acquisition of knowledge) Francis Bacon classified the intellectual fallacies of his time under four headings which he called idols. He distinguished them as idols of the Tribe, idols of the Cave, idols of the Marketplace and idols of the Theater.

An idol is an image, in this case held in the mind, which receives veneration but is without substance in itself. Bacon did not regard idols as symbols, but rather as fixations. In this respect he anticipated modern psychology.

Idols of the Tribe are deceptive beliefs inherent in the mind of man, and therefore belonging to the whole of the human race. They are abstractions in error arising from common tendencies to exaggeration, distortion, and disproportion. Thus men gazing at the stars perceive the order of the world, but are not content merely to contemplate or record that which is seen. They extend their opinions, investing the starry heavens with innumerable imaginary qualities. In a short time these imaginings gain dignity and are mingled with the facts until the compounds become inseparable. This may explain Bacon's epitaph which is said to be a summary of his whole method. It reads, "Let all compounds be dissolved."

Idols of the Cave are those which arise within the mind of the individual. This mind is symbolically a cavern. The thoughts of the individual roam about in this dark cave and are variously modified by temperament, education, habit, environment, and accident. Thus an individual who dedicates his mind to some particular branch of learning becomes possessed by his own peculiar interest, and interprets all other learning according to the colors of his own devotion. The chemist sees chemistry in all things, and the courtier ever present at the rituals of the court unduly emphasizes the significance of kings and princes.

(The title page of Bacon's New Atlantis (London 1626) is ornamented with a curious design or printer's device. The winged figure of Father Time is shown lifting a female figure from a dark cave. This represents truth resurrected from the cavern of the intellect.)

Idols of the Marketplace are errors arising from the false significance bestowed upon words, and in this classification Bacon anticipated the modern science of semantics. According to him it is the popular belief that men form their thoughts into words in order to communicate their opinions to others, but often words arise as substitutes for thoughts and men think they have won an argument because they have out talked their opponents. The constant impact of words variously used without attention to their true meaning only in turn condition the understanding and breed fallacies. Words often betray their own purpose, obscuring the very thoughts they are designed to express.

Idols of the Theater are those which are due to sophistry and false learning. These idols are built up in the field of theology, philosophy, and science, and because they are defended by learned groups are accepted without question by the masses. When false philosophies have been cultivated and have attained a wide sphere of dominion in the world of the intellect they are no longer questioned. False superstructures are raised on false foundations, and in the end systems barren of merit parade their grandeur on the stage of the world.

A careful reading of the Novum Organum will show. Bacon used the theater with its curtain and its properties as a symbol of the world stage. It might even be profitable to examine the Shakespearean plays with this viewpoint in mind.

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After summarizing the faults which distinguish the learning of his time, Bacon offered his solution. To him true knowledge was the knowledge of causes. He defined physics as the science of variable causes, and metaphysics as the science of fixed causes. By this definition alone his position in the Platonic descent is clearly revealed. Had he chosen Aristotle as his mentor the definition would have been reversed.

It was Bacon's intention to gather into one monumental work his program for the renewal of the sciences. This he called Instauratio Magna (the encyclopedia of all knowledge), but unfortunately the project was never completed. He left enough, however, so that other men could perfect the work.

The philosophy of Francis Bacon reflects not only the genius of his own mind but the experiences which result from full and distinguished living. The very diversity of his achievements contributed to the unity of his thinking. He realized the importance of a balanced viewpoint, and he built his patterns by combining the idealism of Plato with the practical method of Aristotle. From Plato he derived a breadth of vision, and from Aristotle a depth of penetration. Like Socrates, he was an exponent of utility, and like Diogenes a sworn enemy of sophistry. Knowledge was not to be acquired merely for its own sake, which is learning, but for its use, which is intelligence. The principal end of philosophy is to improve the state of man; the merit of all learning is to be determined by its measure of usefulness.

Bacon believed that the first step was to make a comprehensive survey of that which is known, as distinguished from that which is believed. This attitude he seems to have borrowed from Paracelsus and shared with Descartes. Knowledge may be gathered from the past through tradition. It may be accumulated and augmented by observation, but it must be proved and established by experimentation. No theory is important until it has been proved by method. Thus Bacon set up the machinery of control which has since become almost the fetish of science.

Upon the solid foundation of the known, trained minds can build toward universal knowing, which is the end of the work. Knowledge alone can preserve and perfect human life. In spite of his scientific approach, Bacon in no way discounted the spiritual content in the world. Knowledge might arise from inspiration and the internal illumination of the consciousness, but this illumination is not knowledge until, through experimentation, the truth is physically established.

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D. Adler's 'Lifestyle-Inferiority-Superiority Striving Model'

E. Fairbairn's 'Rejecting and Exciting Object' Transference Model

F. Perls' 'Topdog-Underdog' Model

G. Berne's 'Multi-Ego-State' Model

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2. The DGB 'Layer-Compartment' Model of The Personality

I used to envision the personality as a 'rectangular super-structure' containing different, 'smaller boxes, compartments or rectangles' -- 'sub-structures' or 'sub-compartments' --that come together to form the full personality super-structure.

This model still has some significant function value -- borrowing from all of Freud, Adler, Jung, Fairbairn, Berne, and Frit Perls -- and I will still use it as one of two Alternative DGB Models of the Personality.

Afterwards, I will describe the second alternative DGB model that resembles the workings of the 'solar system'. I will call this model, 'The DGB Sun-Planet-Moon or Solar System Model of The Personality'. This last model can also be referred to as The DGB 'Mythological Model of The Personality'.

2A. The DGB 'Six Layer-24-Compartment' Model of The Personality

A. The 'Topdog-Parent' Layer of The Personality
B. The 'Underdog-Child' Layer of The Personality
C. The 'Adult' Layer of The Personality
D. The 'Creative-Destructive-Dynamic' Transference Layer of The Personality
E. The 'Creative-Destructive-Structural' Transference Layer of The Personality
F. The 'Genetic Potential Self' and/or 'Soul' of The Personality

A. The 'Topdog-Parent' Layer (consists of):

1. The Nurturing Topdog-Super-Ego;
2. The Narcissistic-Dionysian Topdog-Super-Ego;
3. The Righteous-Critical Topdog-Super-Ego;

B. The 'Underdog-Child' Layer (consists of):

4. The Co-operative/Approval-Seeking Underdog;
5. The Rebellious-Defiant-Underdog-Ego;
6. The Narcissistic-Dionysian-Underdog-Ego;

C. The 'Middle-Special Interest-Adult' Layer (Can be constricted or expanded depending on contextual/personal/interpersonal need):

07. Apollo's (Bacon's-Locke's-Russell's-Korzybski's) Epistemological Ego;
08. Apollo's/Kant's Ethical Ego
09. Smith's-Marx-Ayn Rand-Together Capitalist-Socialist(-Humanistic-Existential Economic-Creative Work) Ego;
10. The Leisure-Rest-Relaxation Ego;
11. Spinoza's-(Rousseau's-Schelling's) Romantic-Spiritual-Sensual Ego;
12. Hera's (Mother Teresa's) Family-Community-Altruistic Ego;
13. Locke's Political Dialectic-Democratic Ego;
14. Gaia's (Suzuki's) Environmental Ego;
15. Achilles' Physical Fitness Ego;
16. Kierkegaard's (Perls') 'Immediacy' ('Seize The Moment') Ego;
17. Nietzsche's (Confront and Embrace Your Existential Abyss) Ego;
18. Hume's-Voltaire's-Derrida's 'Positive Deconstruction' Ego;
19. The Sophist-Schopenhauerian Self-Destructive Ego;
20. The Aries Destruction-Violence-War Ego
21. Zeus' (Hegel's) Central Mediating/Executive-Action Ego;

D/22. The Sub(Pre)Conscious Dynamic-Symbolic-Mythological-Creative-Destructive-Archetype-Transference Layer

E/23. The Structural Sub(Pre)Conscious Creative-Destructive-Symbolic-Mythological-Archetype-Transference Layer

F/24. The Unconscious, Genetic Potential Self -- or 'Soul'

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We will get into more detailed description and extrapolation of this model at a later date.

Many may find the model too 'big and cumbersome' to work with.

I would like to emphasize that the model can be broken down to practically any smaller size to emphasize and focus on that area, or those areas, that might be most relevant and pragmatic to you.

The model is not meant to 'paralyze you/me/us by analysis'.

Rather, it is meant to provide an 'overall check list' for those areas where we might be able to address and confront various 'homeostatic imbalances' in different parts of our personality and lives.

I will give various examples as we move along. The areas of greatest complexity and difficulty are the 'transference' areas.

The rest is not too hard to apply but obviously needs further amplification.

For example, here is one such amplification regarding the model above:

Regarding the 'SMART Capitalist-Socialist Ego', we come to the conclusion that Adam Smith Capitalism -- stretched to the limits of Narcissistic (Owner-Self-Interest Without Ethics) Capitalism and Globalization -- starts to collapse under the weight of its own self-contradiction. (Any theory -- taken too far -- self-contradicts and self-destructs. -- Hegel). Thus, we get 'SMART' people who embrace the 'Capitalist-Socialist' Democratic-Dialectic -- and The Philosophical Abyss Between Them -- and start negotiating and working through the apparent contradictions and self-contradictions coming from both polar ends of the spectrum while building a philosophical-humanistic-existential bridge between them. From this, ideally and pragmatically speaking, we should be able to build a better and evolutionarily-superior form of Integrative SMART (Smith-Marx-Ayn Rand-Together)Dialectic-Democratic-Humanistic-Existential Capitalsim, Economics, and Creative Work.

That in itself is one huge project left partly for Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy -- and partly or mainly for those who follow this line of democratic-dialectic reasoning.

Regarding The Sophist-Schopenhaurian Ego, this, I recognize as one of two 'anti-idealistic' ego-states in the personality. This ego state which combines Narcissistic and Dionysian elements is built mainly from deceit, manipulation, and 'walking over people'. My only comment here at this time is that the more we engage with people from this particular ego-state, the more we are making the lives and worlds of other people -- and our own life and world -- a miserable place to be in. All mutual trust, respect, and empathic caring -- comes crashing to the ground. A 'Lord of The Flies' existence becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and a poor excuse for living -- or rather destroying life. The sooner we get out of this ego-state the better. Conducting our lives from this ego-state will only bring us bad things, both in the short term, and or over the longer term. What goes around, comes around. The very wise, second oldest philosopher in Western History -- Anaxamander -- basically said that. I fully concur. Human -- and/or cosmic -- justice will eventually get you. Misery -- passed out to other people -- will eventually come back to poison your own life (if it hasn't already). This, in my next model, I view symbolically as a 'Bad (Dark) Sun and Moon Rising' -- The 'Sun' representing the light and the heat of 'The Central Ego'; the 'moon' representing the the light of 'The Positive, Human Spirit and Soul' -- and both 'poisoning' each other through a 'Dark Sun and Moon Rising' from the deceitful and manipulative contents and dynamics of 'The Sophist-Schopenhaurian Ego'. More of this at another time.

-- dgbn, Dec. 30th, 2008, updated and modified Feb. 11th-13th, 2009.

David Gordon Bain

The Rationale and Logic Leading to The Ten Essential DGB Philosophical Principles Pertaining to The 'Multiple-Bi-Polar' Nature of Man and Life

2008-10-11T06:45:00.001-07:00

A) Introduction

This is a brand new rendition of the continuing evolution of DGB Philosophical Thinking as of this fine, sunny Sunday morning, October 11th, 2008. This essay is an ongoing derrivative of my last essay on this subject matter, written exactly one month ago, Sept. 11th, 2008). See my September 11th essay called:

DGB Post-Hegelian 'Sun-Planet Theory' and The DGB 'Sixteen Idols of Philosophical Extremism' (Building From Sir Francis Bacon's Four Idols)... and before that, my connected series of essays called: 'Gods, Myths, Philosophies, and Self-Energy Centres...'

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B) Gods, Myths, Philosophers, and Heroes; b) Archetypes; c) Self-Energy Centres or Ego-States; and d) The Inter-Relationship Between Projection and Introjection

The rationale and logic for this line of thought runs something like this:

1. Gods, idols, heroes, mythological figures, and parental figures are all external projections and symbolizations of 'human ideals' -- some relevant and meaningful to a whole culture or society, others relevant and meaningful to some 'subset' of culture or society, and still others that hold only a deeply personal meaning for us, and us alone.

2. 'Archetypes' are subconscious, internalized (or introjected) renditions of externally projected Gods, idols, mythological figures, and parental figures.

3. Thus, 'Gods', etc... and 'archetypes' work hand in hand with each other, dialectically, and ideally democratically, on both an externally projected and an internally introjected level to make up much of the psyhological dynamics of the human personality...When 'Gods' and 'archetypes' collide and conflict with each other -- as part of a 'mythological and/or philosophical battlefield (much like in the battles of Ancient Greek Gods, read, for example, Homer and the Iliad -- so too do the forces within our own personlity/personalities; and visa versa.

4. In other words, myths and Gods are external reflections of the human personality -- much like an artist's completed canvas is an external reflection of his or her own personality; and much too like Government is a reflection of the internal workings of the human personality. Different government dynamics reflect different leader personality dynamics and visa versa. Dictatorships reflect partly different dynamics than democracies -- but not really. Everything is connected. Democracies tend to gravitate towards dictatorships, and dictatorships tend to gravitate towards democracies. 'Democracy' and 'dictatorship' together reflect one dialectical polarity, an important one -- the 'democratic-dictatorial polarity' -- amongst countless similar 'multiple-bi-polarities' that make up: 1. the character (meaning the philosophy and psychology) of man; 2. the biology, chemistry, and physics of man; 3. all aspects of the culture and politics of man; and 4. the essence of life -- and the 'life-death'/'health-sickness' bi-polarities.

Based on the above developed logic, and other related DGB Post-Hegelian, Post-Nietzschean, Post-Spinozian, post-Freudian, post-Cannon principles, here are:

...........................................................................

C/10 essential DGB Philosophy principles, pertaining to the 'multiple-bi-polar nature of man and life and the inter-related dynamics:

1. Individual molecules come together and unite ('differential unity');

2. 'Differentially unified' molecules break apart and 'individuate';

3. Individual molecules 'compete' with each other and/or 'co-operate' with each other with the goal of 'individual and/or group survival' in mind -- both often happening to some degree or another at the same time, sometimes, the 'competition' part dominating, other times, the 'co-operation' part dominating, and in effect, engineering both the 'constructive' and/or the 'destructive' (or 'deconstructive') forces of life and/or death, individual separation and/or differential union.

4. Stage 3 sets the stage for either Stage 1 or 2 to go into effect.

5. 'Freedom' and 'determinism' is another human and life 'bi-polarity', and the two dialectically interact with each other, negotiate with each other, and unite with each other, in the ongoing process and psych-philo-chemistry of 'free-determinism' or 'deterministic freedom'.

6. 'Republicanism' and 'Democratism' is another important human bi-polarity as is 'liberalism' and 'conservatism'.

7. 'Capitlism' and 'socialism' make up another important human bi-polarity.

8. 'Apollonianism' (ethics, equality, justice...)and 'Dionyisianism' (sensuality, sexuality, pleasure...See 'The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche, and also Freud and Psychoanalysis...) is another important human bi-polarity.

9. 'Security or safety' vs. 'risk, newness, and excitement' is another important human bi-polarity.

10. All human bi-polarities gravitate towards a position of 'homeostatic (dialectic-democratic) balance; and when this position gets too boring, too 'status-quo', too routine, too taken for granted, new bio-chemical, philosopical and psychological forces tend to propel a person and/or a society back out towards the edges of one form of 'bi-polar extremism' or another.

I will let you 'chew' on these principles for a while without further elaboration.

Have a great day!

-- dgb, October 11th, 2008.

A 'Multi-Bi-Polar' Model Of The Human Psyche

2008-04-26T06:41:00.001-07:00

We cannot talk about psychology without talking about philosophy. The work of Freud (Psychoanalysis), Jung (Jungian Psychology), Perls (Gestalt Therapy), and Berne (Transactional Analysis) is intimately tied into the separate and combined philosophies of Hegel, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Korzybski, even into the work of the ancient pre-Socratic philosophers, specifically Anaxamander (610-546BC) and Heraclitus (540-480BC).

In this section here, we will focus more on the subject of 'psychology' -- which we will define as the study of the human psyche in its entirety which includes the whole gamut of mind, emotions, and both covert and overt forms of behavior. Now, two types of 'covert' (hidden) behaviors can be distinguished from each other: 1. Covert, Internal, Behaviors (CIB's) such as thoughts and feelings to the extent that they are not expressed in external actions; and 2. the type of covert behaviors that are external and purposeful but designed to be hidden from social view (such as unethical, narcissistic behaviors).

The Mind As Both Structure and Process

We need to look at the mind both as structure and as process. The two are essentially the same thing but at different ends of the dialectic-polarity spectrum. Structure is very slow process (to the extent that it seems like the process is barely moving and/or even stationary). Process in the more usual sense of the word is very fast structure (to the extent that the structure may be very hard to pin point and to pin down as a moving target that may almost seem to lack substance and predictability). People generally prefer to think in terms of 'structures' and 'compartments' rather than 'processes' and 'dynamics' because the first two are more predictable. But both are necessary in order to have a decently good model or 'map' of the human mind in both its structual and process aspects. When we talk about 'structure', we often use the term 'character structure'; when we talk about 'process', we are more likely to use words like 'personality theory' and/or 'personality dynamics'.

From Model-Building/Map-Making To A Multi-Dialectic Understanding of The Human Psyche

Before we start, I want to share a little bit of what I have learned about 'theory or model building', mainly from General Semantics, but partly from Hegel as well, which expresses the idea that no theory, no model, will ever be complete or all-encompassing. In contrast to what Hegel believed however, in DGB Philosophy (Epistemology) there is no 'Absolute Knowledge' unless we want to view Absolute Knowledge as a 'Fictional Ideal', something like Plato's 'Forms' but in a whole different sense than what Plato meant. Plato was one of Western Philosophy's finest 'ethical idealists' -- and he should be revered as such -- but he was also a horrible realist, empiricist and epistemologist. He gave much to religion and little if anything to science. He had his head too far in the clouds to see the 'realness of the empirical world in front of him'. Aristotle quickly saw this, and philosophically filled in this huge gaping void in Platonic Theory (which made it no longer 'Platonic Theory' -- thus making Plato (the spiritualist) and Aristotle (the empiricist, biologist, and scientist) arguably one of the three greatest 'one-two' dialectical combinations in the evolution of Western Philosophy (the other two being Anaxamander and Heraclitus, and Hegel and Marx. See my little diatribe on Anaxamander and Heraclitus below.) From the first (Plato), we got much of what is viewed as 'spirituality, ethics, and religion' today wheras from second (Aristotle) we got much of what is viewed as science and 'grounded, common sense, logic and reason' today. The ongoing dialectic between religion and science is only a continuation and extension of the dialectic between Plato and Aristotle. Both philosophers represent deep but different, polarized dialectical tendencies in the human psyche that should be legitmately and fully represented by a map or model of the human psyche that reflects these same 'dialectical tendencies towards both the split and the reunion of spirituality and science. This is only one of many such 'dialectical polarity-homeostatic functions' in the human psyche. We will talk of many more because my map of the human psyche -- in following the lead of Anaxamander, Heraclitus, Hegel, Nietzsche (in The Birth of Tragedy), Freud, Jung, Perls, and Berne -- is full of converging and diverging dialectical polarities -- the essence and often the tragedy of what it means to be human.

Getting back to the theme of 'map-making' and 'model-building', some ideas that are construed as 'knowledge' are much better than other ideas that might also be construed as knowledge; indeed, we can sometimes easily, sometimes not nearly as easily, distingwuish and agree on the difference between 'healthy' and 'pathological', 'real' and 'unreal', 'fact' and 'fictional' forms of knowledge in the sense that most of us would easily agree that horses are real and unicorns are not real (we do agree on this, don't we?). Other things and/or other life processes might not be nearly as easily to divide into 'black' and 'white' -- they come in as all sorts of epistemological and ethical 'grays' -- and it is these areas that create much human epistemological controversy and disagreement. But then again, it is not only the 'grays' that create disagreement and controversy. Some people prefer 'black' to 'white' and some people prefer 'white' to 'black' and many, many people alternate between preferring both at different times. We are all 'multi-bi-polar' (which can also be reworded as 'multi-homeostatic' or 'multi-dialectic') -- and to be sure, in different words and ways, many a philosopher and psychologist before me (most of whom will be introduced to you here if you are not already familiar with them) has presented much the same point of view. It is this theme of multi-polarism, mult-dialecticism, and multi-homeostaticism (these are all new words that i just created here) that is the central theme both of this section here on man's psychology, and in this philosophical treatise as a whole that engages in ever aspect of man's self, social, culturual, economic, political, scientific, and spiritual activity. Hegel's Hotel: DGB Optimal Balance Philosophy asserts that in order to get to a point of generally stabilized 'optimal balance', we often need to better understand, and in this regard either fully or partly experience (by choice or not), what it means to live in some of man's and life's polar extremes of existence.

A Brief Historical Summary of Philosophical Influences on The DGB 'Multi-Dialectic Model of The Psyche

We will will study most of these philosophers in more detail elsewhere (such as in my historical section) but here is a brief summary of the influencers on the DGB Psyche Model.

Anaxamander (610BC-546BC)

Anaxamander's philosophy and psychology of man is basically a philosophy and psychology of 'war'. This should not be surprising as Anaxamander lived during a time in early Greek hisotry when he was exposed to war all around him -- particularly the Spartans fighting back and forth with the Athenians. From the accounts I gather, the Spartans tended to be more 'authoritative' and 'dictatorial' in spirit and philosophy; the Athenians more 'democratic'. Both lived in 'city-states' that clashed regularly with each other in what might be called in 'Nietzschean terms' a 'will to power'. And 'fighting power' was never totally settled for long -- it was always 'transitory' with first one side dominating, then the other...back and forth...

It is in this 'war context' of 'human nature and human behavior' (has it really changed one iota today?), that Anaxamander built his philosophy of 'polar opposites dueling with each other, with first one polarity dominating the other, enjoying the sunshine if you will, while the other is 'pushed' into the hidden realms of darkness (like the moon while the sun is out), but only temporarily, until this state of affairs revereses itself (such as with the moon enjoying the dominance of light while the sun is hidden in darkness)'. What we have here in effect is the birth of Gestalt Psychology and Gestalt Therapy about 2500 years before its time (which was the end of the 19th century for Gestalt Psychology, the middle of the 20 century for Gestalt Therapy). Anaxamander did not invent the terms 'figure', 'background', 'homeostasis', and 'cosmic homeostatic bio-regulation' (my term), but he very well could have -- it is not a far stretch from what he was talking about in a primitive way perhaps -- but also a very profound way -- and the respective philosophies of Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Darwin, Freud, Jung, Cannon, Derrida, Foucault, and Perls some 2350 to 2500 years later.

I look at Anaxamander as the great-great grandfather of all Western -- and maybe Eastern too -- dialectical philosophy and psychology. I have no trouble connecting the philosophy and psychology I am espousing here with its Anaxamanderian roots -- even if there may be a hundred dialectical philosophers and psycholgists between Anaxamader and me (DGB Optimal Balance Philosophy).

Heraclitus (535BC-475BC)

Heraclitus was born 11 years after Anaxamander died but it seems more than coincidental that Heraclitus' ideas seem to build on Anaxamander's. Heraclitus' ideas show a strong Anaxamanderian influence in his 'philosophy of dialectical opposites'. However, there is an important difference between Heraclitus discussion of opposites and Anaxamander's. Anaxamander's philosophy of opposites is a philosophy of war and competition -- a prelude to Darwin's 'survival of the fittest' and Nietzsche's 'will to power' in its corrupted Nazi embellishment. Anaxamander's was a philosophy of 'dialectical realism and determinism' that also amazingly in my opinion anticipated Hegel's philosophy of 'dialectical determinism' (thesis, anti-thesis, black, white -- without the integrative synthesis or 'compromising, middle ground gray' added yet.) Anaxamander's was an 'either/or' philosophy -- either black or white takes dominance with the other receding into the background until a 'reversal of fortune and opportunity' takes place and the whole situation of dominance and submission, foreground and background, is switched. In this regard, again amazingly in my opinion, Anaxamander also anticipated much of what Gestalt Psychology and Gestalt Therapy had to say and even Derrida's 'philosophy of deconstruction(ism)'.

What Heraclitus brought to the table that was significantly different -- and also an aniticpator of many future dialectical philosophies and psychologies was the idea of the 'unity of opposites' which at first sounds contradictory until you look at what Heraclitus was saying in the context of the idea of 'dialectical integrationism and wholism'. Thus, Anaxamander provided a dialectical 'either/or' philosophy, a philosophy of dialectical competition and war wheras Heraclitus was the first philosopher to basically introduce the idea of 'dialectical democracy' -- two opposing qualities, beliefs, values, perspectives, and/or willpowers coming together into a 'dialectically and democratically integrative whole'. Thus, Heraclitus was the first 'dialectical democrat' and an anticipator of such profound ideas and ideaa yet to come as: 1. Hegel's dialectical determinism with the 'synthesis' component now added into the 'dialectic-wholistic picture'; 2. W.F. Cannon's book and theory of 'The Wisdom of The Body' and his primary principle of 'homeostatic balance'; and 3. the type of dialectical democratic political philosophy that would start to be built in England during the Enlightement by political philosophy giants such as John Locke and others that followed him (forgive me if my British political history is a little sketchy here; I will fill in more details later); likewise in France after, I believe, Napoleoon's influence, also in the U.S. after the American Declaration of Independence and Revolution, and then as later established in the American Constitution, and also as established here in Canada under the British-North America Act (which I believe has since been tarnished by Trudeau introducing elements of 'preferential racial and sexual treatment' into the present Canadian Constitution as he reconstructed it in the 1970s -- which was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of today's 'homeostatic and dialectical imbalance in the Domestic Courts of Canada'. More on this later.)

Now it might be reasonably asked why no philosopher before me has ever made these types of extensive 'philosphical connections' between past and present day philosophies. The answer is 'I don't really know'. I can only give my rather radical perspective on this matter, which is that in the big picture, the large scope of 2600 years of Western philosophy, 'the Anaxamander-Heraclitus connection' is as important -- obviously not in quantity but definitely in my opinion in quality -- as the 'Socrates-Plato-Aristotle' connection. Heraclitus' 'process thinking' is as important a foundation to present day 'scientific thinking' as Plato's ideas are to present day religion. And the Anaxamander-Heraclitus connection comes much, much closer to anticipating: 1. the 'Hegelian dialectical philosophy revolution' of the 1900s'(which was followed even more dramatically by Marx); 2. the Gestalt Psychology and Therapy movement of the 1900s; 3. the Nietzschean-Freudian-Jungian-Perlsian Dialectical Psychology and Psychotherapy Revolution of the 1900s; 4. Fouccault's 'philosophy of power'; and 5. Derrida's 'Deconstruction(ism)' -- than anything that Plato or Aristotle ever wrote.

That's my more than two cents on Anaxamander and Heraclitus.

Plato (427-347BC)

Off the top of my head, there are three things I like about Plato; 1. his ethical idealism and striving for something that is 'higher' than the normal ethics of day-to-day living (whether it is in his time or ours); 2. the part of The Symposium that discusses love and particularly the 'dialectical nature' of love; 3. the part of his philosophy (and I don't even know where to find this in his work but i know that he said it) where he differentiates between 'three different energy systems' in man: 1. the mind; 2. the heart; and 3. the loins. Basically, I call the first type of energy 'Apollonian energy'; the second type of energy either 'romantic energy' and/or 'humanistic energy' depending on the context of the situation; and the third type of energy 'Narcissistic-Hedonistic-Dionysian (NHD) energy. These three different forms of energy systems have made it into my DGB model of the human psyche.

Spinoza (1632-1677)

Spinoza was the ultimate 'wholist' and 'integrationist'. For Spinoza, everything was united, and God was in everything as part of this 'united wholism'. Thus, Spinoza was also the ultimate 'pantheist'.

It is partly through Spinoza and partly through Heraclitus that I get the idea of 'multi-dialectical unity' and 'multi-dialectical wholism' (the unity of many different polar opposites in a combination of tension and harmony with each other at the same time, held together by the 'precariousness of the balance' but capable of exploding apart at any time). This idea has surfaced in the respective philosophies and psychologies of Nietzsche (Birth of Tragedy), Freud (the conflict of the ego and the id, the superego and the id, the pleasure and reality principle, the life and the death instinct, the self and society...), Jung (the 'peronna' and the 'shadow'), Perls and Gestalt Therapy (the 'topdog' and the 'underdog')...and all of their respective ideas are at least partly reflected in DGB Philosophy, DGB Psychology, and The DGB model of the human psyche.

Hegel (1770-1831), Darwin (1809-1882), and W.B. Cannon (1871-1945)

Hegel's dialectical philosophy is the centerpiece of this work -- with 'The Phenomenology of Mind/Spirit' being Hegel's most important work. I own the book but haven't read it myself except for bits and pieces and assorted interpretations of it. It's one of those mind-numbing philosophical classics that not many, including myself, feel up to doing 'semantic' warfare with. Personally, I would sooner read an author who has brought Hegel down to a 'layman's' level of understanding' -- and then work with Hegel on this level. I would sooner work with Hegel on a 'pragmatic' level rather than an 'academic' level, although to be sure, I want my work to have 'academic substance' in it even if I am not jumping through all the academic hoops that might earn me some recognition in this regard.

Hegel's main book -- The Phenomenology -- and his philosophy as a whole is not often regarded as a book on 'self and social evolution' but it is exactly that -- as much so and more as Darwin's 'Origin of the Species'. Hegel and Darwin are not often compared -- I think I have seen the comparison once or twice in print such as in Peter Bowler's magnificant book on evolution, 'Evolution: The History of an Idea'.

Let's compare Hegel and Darwin for a minute -- and then add Cannon's 'Wisdom of the Body' (1932) and a little 'Intelligent Design Theory' into the mix as we progress. (This whole topic will be examined in more detail elsewhere at a different time). Hegel's 'Phenomenology' was written in 1807; Darwin's 'Origin of the Species' in 1859. Hegel's 'Phenomenology' was more a book on philosophy, the history of philosophy, and the history of man in society, in culture. In contrast, Darwin's 'Origin' is more a book on biology 'and the evolution of mutating biological characteristics in different species of plants and animals. (My understanding is that 'man' was left out of this equation but that it didn't take people very long to put 'two and two' together.)

If I were re-naming Hegel's most famous book, 'The Phenomenology of Mind (Spirit)', today, I would call it this: 'Multi-Dialectical Evolution: The Evolution of Ideas, Culture, and Biological Phenomena Over Time'. In other words, Hegel's 'Phenomenology', extrapolated to the fullest, with the hind vision of a philosopher in the 21st century (that's me), has the power to supersede and encompass Darwin's 'Origin of The Species' and Cannon's masterpiece, 'The Wisdom of The Body', both at the same time.

What is homeostasis? Simply and pragmatically 'homeostasis' can be defined as a technical, scientific name for 'optimal balance'. Here's how the free internet, Wikipedia Encyclopedia defines 'homeostasis'.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Homeostasis is the property of an open system, especially living organisms, to regulate its internal environment to maintain a stable, constant condition, by means of multiple dynamic equilibrium adjustments, controlled by interrelated regulation mechanisms. The term was coined in 1932 by Walter Cannon from the Greek homoios (same, like, resembling) and stasis (to stand, posture).

Where am I going with this? Well, the name of my philosophy up to this point has been 'DGB Philosophy' (which includes Psychology, Politics, Biology, Medicine, Economics, Law, Religion, Art, Recreation...) where 'DGB' partly stands for the initials of my name but more importantly stands for 'Dialectical Gap-Bridging'. Now we add the 'homeostatic' factor here, or better still, the 'multi-homeostatic' factor here, and the 'Dialectical Gap-Bridging' idea perhaps starts to make more sense. Specifically, what is the purpose of a 'Dialectical Gap Bridging' philosophy. The answer is -- 'homeostasis' -- or in layman's language -- 'optimal balance'. Thus, 'DGB Philosophy' in a few more words of attempted motivational clarity becomes 'DGB Homeostatic or Optimal Balance Philosophy'. And logically speaking, in order to retain a philosophical consistentcy of purpose, DGB Homeostatic Philosophy would be expected to have a 'DGB Homeostatic or Multi-Homeostatic Model of the Psyche' that corresponds in philosophical principle to Cannon's 'Wisdom of the Body' and his principle of homeostasis.

Thus, we've now made the academic connection between DGB Homeostatic Philosophy and Cannon's 'Wisdom of the Body and Homeostasis'. But how do Hegel and Darwin fit into this equation? Let's back up somewhat and allow me to go on a bit of a creative rampage.

'Thesis', 'anti-thesis', and 'synthesis' -- these are the three words that made Hegel famous (and yet amazingly, I think I read it somewhere, that he never actually used these three words). Now let's take these three words: 'man', 'woman', 'child'. Now we are entering into Darwin's territory of evolution. It doesn't take a rocket scientist nor a brain surgeon nor a Kant nor a Hegel nor a Nietsche nor even a philosophy professor to make an academic -- a pragmatic -- and a rather obvious symbolic -- connection. Indeed, I am surprised that Freud didn't enter this territory before me.

1. Man (thesis)
2. Woman (anti-thesis -- and feel free if you are a feminist to reverse the order above if you wish);
3. Child (synthesis).

Now you have the connection between Hegel, Darwin, and Cannon -- as well as the soon-to-be articulated connection to Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, and Perls.

Indeed, what I am doing right here, right now, could easily be called an act of 'mental copulation and/or intercourse'. Freud would say, 'it all comes back to sex'; Darwin would say, 'it all comes back genes'; Hegel would say 'it all comes back to the dialectic'; Cannon would say, 'it all comes back to 'homeostasis'; and DGB Philosophy says 'that they are all right because the whole jigsaw puzzle is wholistically connected and they all saw different pieces of the same jigsaw puzzle'.

I can remember my father using the phrase 'the cross-fertilization of ideas' in the 1970s, as well as his use of the term 'the information highway' in the same time period. His business work and his strong creative imagination -- his business entailed the manufacturing and selling of 'teaching machines' and 'video software cartridges' to go inside these teaching machines -- at least partly foreshadowed the beginning of internet technology 5 to 10 years later. What I am doing here is partly advancing his ideas, and the ideas of the all the philosophers and psychologists who you will see that grace these pages, in combination with the wonderful help of the most amazing 'information highway' my dad or anyone else could have possibly imagined -- i.e., the internet -- and on the internet the biggest 'library' that anyone could have possibly imagined, including for example, the free Wikepedia encyclopedia that I use so often for my research here -- and with the help of all this, I am trying to translate all of that into something bigger and better philosophically (while still maintaining my 50 hour a week plus 'day job' to financially support my activities here) -- and that is an extensive 2600 year plus integration of Western philosophy and psychology of which this section here is one of about 10 or 20 other significant parts (depending on how much time and energy I have to write them).

Hobbes (1588-1679), Schopenhauer (1788-1860), and Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Thomas Hobbes and Arthur Schopenhauer were cut at least partly from the same cloth: they both appreciated arguably better than any other Western philosophers (maybe you could put Machiavelli in this category too) the significance and the dominance of the 'nasty side of human nature and human behavior'. For Hobbes, this belief in the 'nasty (narcissistic, dionysian) side of human nature and behavior' translated into the need for a very strong, authoritarian government and police force to counteract and compensate for the type of 'anarchy' and 'uncivil behavior' that would reign if such forces were not properly in place. In this regard, Hobbes is probably most noted for his rather draconian political philosophy:

Men in a state of nature, that is a state without civil government, are in a war of all against all in which life is hardly worth living. The way out of this desperate state is to make a social contract and establish the state to keep peace and order. Because of his view of how nasty life is without the state, Hobbes subscribes to a very authoritarian version of the social contract. (See Hobbes on the internet.)

Schopenhauer seems to have seen the world much the same way Hobbes did but did not opt for any kind of political philosphy as any kind of solution to this problem. Whereas Hobbes was influenced by the 'new' scientific philosophy of Galileo and Gassendi which treated the world as 'matter in motion' (See Hobbes on the internet again, same place), Shopenhauer looked to art, music, literature, and Middle Eastern Philosophy (Budhism, Hinduism) for the answers to man's 'Lord of the Flies' existence.

Schopenhauer formulated a double-aspect theory to our understanding of reality, that of the world existing simultaneously but separately as will and representation. He is commonly known for having espoused a sort of philosophical pessimism that saw life as being essentially evil, futile, and full of suffering. However, upon closer inspection, in accordance with Eastern thought, especially that of Hinduism and Buddhism, he saw salvation, deliverance, or escape from suffering in aesthetic contemplation, sympathy for others, and ascetic living. His ideas profoundly influenced the fields of philosophy, psychology, music, and literature. (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

Any 'realistic' model of the human psyche that attempts to at least partly 'explain' and/or 'understand' human nature and human behavior needs to fully recognize and appreciate the significance of what Hobbes and Schopenhauer (and Machiavelli) were writing about, and this part of human nature/behavior was addressed by Freud in his concept of the 'id', as well as by Jung in his concept of 'the shadow'. DGB Philosophy-Psychology follows suit with its combined concept of the 'Narcissistic-Hedonistic-Dionysian (NHD)Ego' -- influenced also by Nietsche's 'Birth of Tragedy' which we will get to now.

Nietzsche added something -- in fact a combination of things -- to Western Philosophy -- that up until his writing (the last half of the 1800s), had mainly been sadly missing. Mainly passion -- a completely unbridled passion and zest for living at the highest possible level of achivement (the life of a 'superman' with a strong 'will to power', or perhaps better stated as a strong 'will to self-empowerment') -- in combination with a raw rage and hatred for anything that compromised this type of living (such as Christianity). Nietzsche was the 'ultimate freedom fighter and affirmer of life at the highest level of possible self-achievement' in combination with the ultimate 'deconstructionist' who could 'philosophically and rhetorically tear to pieces' anything and anyone that/who stood in the way of his life philosophy. As a writer, there is no one I admire more than Nietzsche -- the supreme philosophical writer in Western history -- he let it all out, said what he had to say quickly and concisely, and didn't hold back anything emotionally.

There are philosophers I won't read because of the difficulty in trying to fight through their abstract terminology -- and the 'dryness' of this terminology. With Nietsche, he is hard to put down -- mesmerizing -- full of many of the best quotes in the history of Western philosophy. And everything comes in a raging torment of human pain and suffering -- as well as glory and celebration. Whenever I feel my writing becoming 'dry and arrid' (Kant and Hegel-like) -- no 'fire' and 'oxygen' in it -- I have to turn my attention back to Nietzsche to get my writing moving back in the right direction again. Call this 'The Nietzsche Effect' if you will on 'DGB Philosophy-Psychology'. Call it the 'The Perls-Gestalt Effect' (as I partly learned the spirit of Nietzsche through reading Perls and learning Gestalt Therapy). Or if you want to trace it further back to Greek Mythology via Nietzsche's classic first book: 'The Birth of Tragedy' -- then call it 'The Dionysian Effect'.

Hegel's Hotel can not survive and flourish without the passionate spirit of Dionysus, Nietzsche, and Perls -- anymore than it can survives without the organization, humanism, civility, law and order, ethics and morality of the archetype of the ancient Greek God -- 'Apollo'. Hegel's Hotel needs the homeostatic balance of Dionysus and Apollo to survive and flourish -- the spirit of Apollo in my left hand; the spirit of Dionysus in my right (or visa versa). Together they will help me provide the winning formula for the present and future energy and organization -- the homeostatic balance -- of Hegel's Hotel.

-- dgb, Oct. 20th, 2006; the last two paragraphs were updated on April 26th, 2008.