Before I turn to Klein I would first like
to say that social ontology illustrates that every level of development seems
to have a corresponding type of paranoia. The phallic level of having one’s
reputation ruined can be contrasted to the auto-erotic level and the father
imago of Space in which the ‘end of the world’ (and indirectly the paranoiac
along with it) is also a very easily recognized form which Freud (914b)
mentions in ‘On Narcissism’ (p. 76). At the anal stage there is the reference
to secret groups that have more power than the officialized institutions of
civilization (i.e. CIA, the Illuminati, etc.). I expect variations of these to
exist and that they might follow the proto and deutero distinctions, but I
believe that this will suffice to show the levels of Perfection that are in
play. The last level, the narcissistic, is the one that Klein and others make
the most of. Instead of a reference to social hierarchy the narcissistic stage
involves figures that aren’t referenced by their social power. So while there
are those that can influence one’s reputation at the phallic, or those that
belong to powerful, secret groups that will end one’s life at the anal, at the
narcissistic stage one’s “killer” or slanderer can be anyone. Although, this
“anyone” will be given the coloring of being magical, monstrous, or other-than-
human since the narcissistic stage references humanity in general (Economics,
p. ?). Additionally, as always, there might be some confluence at work with
other levels of Being. This means that someone at the top of social hierarchy
as a celebrity or powerful figure may be selected with both his or her
magical/monstrous aspects and position of power or influence is referenced too.
Although the specific content of the
phantasy involved in paranoia can reference the different levels of social
ontology, Klein’s analysis directs us to a stage specific etiology. However,
this stage changes. In one of her last accounts it is the auto-erotic stage
which seems primary. She writes:
I have formerly also
expounded my contention that paranoia is based on the distrust
and hate of the internalized penis of
the father (see in this connection my comments about the ‘Wolf
man’, Psycho-Analysis of Children, Chapter IX). Further work has led me
to link that distrust and hate of the
internalized penis of the father with
the relation to the mother's breast, for hate and
distrust of the breast are transferred to the penis of
the father. All these factors seem to me of importance in the
understanding of paranoia (Klein, 1961, p. 279).
Here she references the importance of the
part-objects of the auto-erotic stage and the transcription of power from the
(part) mother imago to the (part) father imago. As mentioned in Economics, Klein holds that anxiety
situations appear not just in triangular situations with father-substitutes but
also in the defence of projective identification in which one assumes the place
of the parental imago in order to project one’s triangular (including primal
scene) anxiety into another person. In this way paranoia enshrines the
triangular relation so that even when one assumes the position of the
father-substitute and identifies with someone of a lower generation/class/or
person of less prestige, in whom he causes anxiety, there is still the fear
that this person wants to usurp one and may actually be successful. Thus, in
the myth of the Greek gods, the basic state of paranoia is in the oracle
foreseeing that a god’s son will overthrow him and this is seen in Cronos, for
example, swallowing up all his children to avoid this[1].
In part-object language Klein writes that paranoia:
is an instance of
projective identification which is quickly followed by, and possibly
simultaneous with, internalization. The fear of the object attacked by
hostile projective identification (such as bad faeces put
into it) in turn increases the feeling that the object will intrude into the
subject. It is important to distinguish in analysis between this fear
of being intruded into by the object with whom projective
identification has occurred and the process of introjecting the hostile
object. In the former case the ego is the victim of the intruding object, while
in introjection it is the ego which sets the process in motion, even
though it is bound to lead to persecutory anxiety (279-280)
As investigated in the last chapter, Klein
appears to be differentiating projective identification from what was compared
to a vertical repression in which the need for punishment makes one get off on
bringing about castration anxiety from a father-substitute. So, Klein is saying
that non-verbal arrogant and vain behavior that induces a subject egoist’s
father-substitutes to attack his image and bring about his “castration”
(anxiety) is one thing, but that paranoia from the assumption of the place of
the father-imago is another thing[2].
Fairbairn (1952) also seems to agree that paranoia consists of something more
than just
“the projection of repressed impulses, as is commonly
supposed, but in the projection of repressed objects in the form of
persecutors” (p. 75). He uses “techniques” to describe the paranoid defense,
along with the others, and this implies that some operation involving the ego
and the repressed drive-object relation is in order, as opposed to just a
regression to a specific stage.
In Psychoanalysis of Children Klein (1932)
locates the etiology of paranoia in the “earlier anal stage” but in an earlier
work she clarifies that this is synonymous with Freud’s narcissistic stage (p.
207 fn). “My conclusions are in agreement with Freud's hypotheses,” she writes,
“according to which the fixation-points of dementia præcox [schizophrenia]
and paranoia are to be sought in the narcissistic stage, that of
dementia præcox preceding that of paranoia (Klein, Importance of Symbol,
p. 38). In this view, Klein seems to regard auto-erotic absolute narcissism
with narcissistic stage primary narcissism as closely related but recognizes a
difference between them in regard to etiology. This gives us an important
distinction between paranoid schizophrenia and paranoia in other forms that
don’t have the delusional certainty but have the same feelings that are also
mixed with borderline or neurotic doubt.
In ‘A
Contribution to the Psychogenesis of Manic-Depressive States’, as in many other
places, the reference to feces and part-object castration anxiety in many
stages is referenced. Thus, despite her desire to reference a certain stage as the stage of paranoia she continues to
recognize the confluence of many stages. Additionally, she notes that the “whole
object” of the anal stage exists in the paranoiac but that defenses from more
primitive or earlier stages will have a more profound influence on the
incapacity for later ego and object drives. She writes
The paranoiac, I should say, has also
introjected a whole and real object, but has not been able to achieve a
full identification with it, or, if he has got as far as this, he has
not been able to maintain it. To mention a few of the reasons which are
responsible for this failure: the persecution-anxiety is too great;
suspicions and anxieties of a phantastic nature stand in the way of a full and
stable introjection of a good object and a real one. In so
far as it has been introjected, there is little capacity to maintain it as
a good object, since doubts and suspicions of all kinds will soon turn the
loved object again into a persecutor. Thus
his relationship to whole objects and to the real world is still influenced by
his early relation to internalized part-objects and fæces
as persecutors and may again give way to the latter. It seems to me
characteristic of the paranoiac that, though, on account of his
persecution-anxiety and his suspicions, he develops a very strong and acute
power of observation of the external world and of real objects, this
observation and his sense of reality are nevertheless distorted,
since his persecution-anxiety makes him look at people mainly
from the point of view of whether they are persecutors or not. Where the
persecution-anxiety for the ego is in the ascendant, a full and stable
identification with another object, in the sense of looking at it and
understanding it as it really is, and a full capacity for love, are not
possible (p. 155, emphasis mine).
Three things are important in this passage.
The first is that Klein references that a ‘full identification’ or what I’ve
pointed to as the father complex or trito stage hasn’t been achieved at the
narcissistic stage. The second is that there are also part-object relations from
the auto-erotic stage that may occur simultaneously with the paranoia.
Generally, we can say that the earlier the defusion the more global and
powerful the problems with relating to others is[3].
The third is that at the narcissistic level of Being expressed here both the
fear of engaging with humans in general and in the specific ego functions of
the “acute power of observation” go together. In the narcissistic stage there
is a reference to an external object but, as I expressed in Economics, it is “incomplete” and the
drives to relate to it are expressed in omnipotent wishes when defusion exists
such as psychic powers, magic, “the secret”, or “evil eye”. Despite this,
however, the ego capacity of this stage still deals with perceptions of the
external world as opposed to the preoccupation with one’s inner world of
phantasy in the auto-erotic.
In Shapiro’s famous ‘Neurotic Styles’ the
rigidity of the paranoiac’s perception to investigate his environment, is the
objective basis for how the subject phantasy elements adhere to reality[4].
He also recognizes the assumption
of the father imago in the subject egoist as a form but also recognizes
paranoia in “furtive, constricted, apprehensively suspicious individuals” along
with the “rigidly arrogant, and more aggressively suspicious, megalomanic ones”
(p.54). However, the examples of rigid suspicious perception that he gives also
seem to range across social ontology. He mentions a patient who quickly scanned
his library and noticed a certain book (p. 58). A psychotic paranoid person I
worked with would read the paper and find references to himself by tangential
associations to the material. Thus, in contrast to social ontology, specific
ego functions may be more important in some forms of paranoia and the
illusions/delusions of social ontology may not be front and center.
In Economics
I referenced Freud’s notion of jealousy at the proto phallic or mother-complex
stage in which the individual notices that the love object’s attention or attraction
to another man is a cause for jealousy even though it may be unconscious for
her. In classic characterology, Reich holds that the phallic stage is the main
cause of paranoia. Reich writes that “almost all forms of active and female
homosexuality, most cases of so-called moral insanity, paranoia, and the
related forms of schizophrenia… belong to the phallic-narcissistic character
type” (p.219). However, Reich’s
phenomenological descriptions don’t separate the grandiose or megalomanic type
involve in projective identification and the “suspicious” individuals.
Following the centrality of the phallic
nuclear complexes we can surmise that the phallic stage is the starting point
for the paranoid defense. Then, secondarily, the anal, narcissistic, or auto-erotic
stages can provide coordinates for the social ontology of paranoia (reputation,
secret groups, end of the world) or the importance of the ego cognition
involved in the suspicion.
If we follow Klein then there should be a
schizophrenic stage (auto-erotic), a paranoid stage (narcissistic), and then a
depressive stage (anal) and she often regards the first two as similar (i.e.
paranoid-schizoid) but not identical. However, we also find in her work the
idea of persecutory and depressive anxiety that may not represent the vertical
axis but rather the horizontal axis of psychic bisexuality. This isn’t
necessarily a contradiction because she also recognizes that intermingling of
the active and passive poles and therefore, the anal stage may represent the
capacity for the egoistic pole to have depressive features due to this
intermingling. I must reserve judgment here until more clinical experience
allows me confidence in this matter.
Because of this intermingling, it should
also be salient that a parallel form of persecutory anxiety can arise in the
altruistic pole at the anal stage. I’ve had little clinical experience with the
grandiose type of subject egoistic paranoia, but enough to have a
phenomenological sense for it. However, I’ve had a lot of experience with the
altruistic form of paranoia. In this form individuals often don’t have
elaborated delusions but simply maintain that they are being hunted by the CIA,
police, FBI, etc. and often fear, or are on the look out for, helicopters,
suspicious buildings or vehicles, or the appearance of law enforcement leads to
intense fear and anxiety. The centrality of law enforcement is a solid link to
the anal stage social anxiety of the institution of law enforcement that
relates to the individual’s interaction with civilization. In contrast to the
grandiose SE paranoia which has anxiety related to projective identification
this form references parental substitutes that are seen as above one[5].
I think we should save paranoia as the
designation for the subject egoistic defense that is coupled with megalomanic
or grandiose features and for the altruistic variety in which reference to law
enforcement and the police is highly prevalent. The latter types seem to be an
instance of the projection of self-criticism onto the object. In social
ontology the object at the anal stage is civilization and the fear of the
police means that they don’t have to live with their conscience continually
attacking them. In this way both Klein’s formulation and Freud’s formulation
have valid insights and can be differentiated clearly in phenomenology and
reference to the relations to imagos. It is still important to acknowledge that
a person may actually function in another libidinal position but have suffered
defusion and enacted the paranoid projective identification defense in the
subject egoistic part of their personality. One patient who functioned
altruistically was a member of the masons and was interested in secret
knowledge and was paranoid of the CIA who seemed to be after him because he
grandiosely thought he had important secrets. However, his demeanor wasn’t
competitive and concerned with power but was deferential and supportive of
others and idealized others. Grandiosity could be inferred from having the CIA
watching him but it wasn’t manifested in how he acted with others. In
individuals with the subject egoistic position being dominant they are often
criminals and there is strong manifest aggression and superiority.
Conceptual clarity is important in these
matters and being able to judge that individuals are “suspicious” of others at
the narcissistic stage because of “magical thinking” shouldn’t be described as
paranoid. For example, in Tausk’s example of the influencing machine there are
phantasies of someone having their mind taken over, having their thoughts
“drained off,” feelings the loss of potency or power, being watched, and having
certain sensations or thoughts being caused[6].
I can understand how someone might call these suspicions “paranoid” but all
these examples cite a lack of separation from the social or sexual object that
illustrates a magical/supernatural connection that is a cause of anxiety.
Grandiose projective identification or people who often can’t say no to others
and are caring or warm to others but fear law enforcement for something wrong
they’ve done (anal) or loss of reputation (phallic) is salient. The latter
corresponds to those that fear being discovered as homosexuals in my experience
but I haven’t had a large enough experience to say this is exclusive to
altruism.
[1] Instead of
seeing the paranoiac indirectly fearing his own death in the end of the world
phantasy this reading implies that he himself is the world.
[2] This becomes
a strong reading of the oedipus myth in which Oedipus’ hubris regarding the
search for his father’s killer(s) becomes an incentive for Tiresias to appear
as someone who will tell him the truth. However, instead of being castrated
there is a self-castration.
There is also an interesting difference in the Kleinian
and Reichian/Fairbairnian position on the need for punishment being an ego
defence vs. Klein’s claim that it is a hostile introject.
[3] The paranoia
of one patient got so bad he moved onto government land so he could be alone in
the wilderness and not have to deal with people. This flight from otherness in
general, as opposed to the fear of engaging with others is illustrated in this.
[4] This should
be contrasted to the earlier auto-erotic level of perception in which
perceptions don’t concern human objects but details in the environment. Shapiro
similarly mentions the obsessive-compulsive character as having a rigidity
concerning noticing objects in the external world. As mentioned in Economics,
the trito or father complex stage in which the nuclear complexes are mastered
through instinctual renunciation exists also in pre-phallic stages. Therefore,
between auto-erotic phantasy and narcissistic stage wishes that still cognize a
human object we should find an auto-erotic trito stage in which external reality
(as opposed to phantasy) is established and a fixation on that external reality
is possible. Thus, without the auto-erotic trito being reached, Klein notes
that defences against the auto-erotic oedipal leads to a lack of interest in
external reality (“outside world”) and repression of the most basic relations
to others in the lack of affect and anxiety found in some people. Klein writes:
The ego's exaggerated and
premature defence against sadism checks the establishing of
a right relation to reality and
the development of phantasy. The further sadistic appropriation
and exploration of the mother's body and of the outside world (the mother's
body in an extended sense) are brought to a standstill, and this causes the
more or less complete suspension of the symbolic relation to the things
and objects representing the contents of the mother's body and, hence, of
the relation to the subject's environment and
to reality. This withdrawal becomes the basis of
the lack of affect and anxiety, which is one of
the symptoms of dementia præcox. In this disease, therefore,
the regression would go right back to the
early phase of development in which the sadistic
appropriation and destruction of the interior of the mother's body, as conceived
of by the subject in phantasy, together with the establishing of
the relation to reality, was prevented or checked owing
to anxiety (p. 39). Klein, M. (1930). The Importance of
Symbol-Formation in the Development of the Ego1. Int. J. Psycho-Anal.,
11:24-39
Hypothetically, the “living machine” form of
obsessionals with no emotions and no inner life would have defended against the
auto-erotic nuclear complex while having made it to the auto-erotic trito. In
Greek myth we find two opposed stories of the moon (Selene) and the dawn (Eos).
The former loved Endymion and the latter loved Tithonus. Endymion’s body stayed
youthful forever while remaining asleep while Tithonus chattered on endlessly
while his body aged. Placing these gods as prior to the rule of Cronos
(Time/the narcissistic stage) it seems probable that they relate to these early
functions of affect block and the other autistic trait of chattering endlessly
at people without noticing their disinterest or annoyance.
[5] In parallel, the primitive depression in
altruism also resembles projective identification in which the parental imago
is usurped and the individual feels outside of his body, in a black hole, wants
to disappear in sleep, or just “not present” or “out of synch” with others.
These are early forms of Death in which the parental imago is not there or
available and the child experiences abandonment or aloneness. There
is some obvious overlap with dissociative disorders in this formulation that,
again, makes the need for conceptual clarity very important.
[6] There is still some confusion for me about the narcissistic stage
as the encounter with otherness and the encounter with the transitional object.
From the work of Tausk and others it is apparent that things (transitional
objects) have a significance at the narcissistic stage and can be the cause of
powerful psychotic delusions and culturally often magic is attributed to things
(amulets, hats, wands, etc.). I’m not sure if the transitional object appears
in either the masculine or feminine lines of development, or if it is split
between the egoistic or altruistic poles, whether it is an object for both, or
whether it may appear in the narcissistic trito stage when the two poles become
more intermingled. In Economics I mentioned that the narcissistic stage
referenced anxiety situations in terms of the big bad wolf “huffing and
puffing” on the houses of the 3 little pigs and that I’ve worked with patients
who had a triangular situation with houses. I would like to say that just as
there is a move from the opposite sex parent in the phallic nuclear complex to
a sibling in order to respect the difference between the generations, that it
seems like there can be a move from the house to certain things/items in the
house on the way to the narcissistic trito. So far, in my clinical experience
the relation to the house and then items seems to appear in feminine patients
(OE and SA).
