Friday, January 30, 2015

Something Impressive in Narcissism

The ability to hate so quickly.

To feel snubbed or scorned.

To instantly gratify oneself with a fantasy of returning the favour.

 

Saturday, January 17, 2015

American Sniper pt 2 sheep, wolves, sheep-dogs

I did want to say one more thing about American Sniper. In the beginning the protagonist's father gives him a lesson as a kid in a flashback. He tells him that there are sheep, there are wolves, and that there are sheep-dogs. The first are weak and don't stand up for themselves, the second are evil/mean and prey on others, and the last group stands against the wolves and protects sheep. The father threatens to beat or punish his kids for being either the first or second and proposes to raise them as the third.

I thought this was a poignant way to discuss egoism and altruism and their eventual balance in the phallic trito.

However, this picture is very mechanistic and doesn't show the psycho-dynamics that can take place.

Freud holds there are both aggressive and affectionate id drives and egoism and altruism are easiest to see in relation to these.

The egoist, as opposed to the person functioning with full psychic bisexuality, has a block on affection. They strike one as serious, cold, business-like, etc.

The altruist has a block on aggression. They strike one as timid and bashful and won't stand up for themselves, but their affection whether for children, for the suffering, or wanting to be hugged and "cuddle" is there.

However, this can be reversed because of psycho-dynamics. I've seen overcompensated affection in some object egoists who are very 'bitchy' and judgmental of others but have a relationship with a puppy or child in which they lavish a sick affection on them. I've also seen overcompensated aggression in object altruists in which they can be impulsively violent and don't have a problem hurting those who are much weaker, while the subject egoist would ignore those so far beneath him.

The psychopath has always struck me as a designation for the criminal subject egoist. He's a gangster type.

The anti-social has mostly seemed a compensated altruist. While previously wanting approval from others, they have received enough injuries and now are misanthropes who think everyone is alone in the world and they don't have problems stealing or committing crimes to get by. Again, they don't strike one as wanting to be admired for their physical or intellectual potency as the psychopath does, they just commit crimes because people are rotten and so they are too and they need their drugs or they don't have the discipline or willpower to make good money in other ways.

 



American Sniper- Anal ontology

I saw American Sniper last night. I think it's primary importance was ideological and re-writing the Iraq war as having a direct link to Al-Qaeda, but that doesn't interest me here. Rather, it's psychoanalytic importance is in a subject egoist's encounter with 'the butcher'.

The protagonist is the best sniper with the most kills and this locates him at the anal level of Being. Although, his main focus seems to be fighting against his double, Mustafa, a Syrian sniper who also has a family and is a crack shot, behind Mustafa is 'the butcher'. The butcher dismembers his enemies and is shown using a drill on a child's limbs. In the evacuated cities the butcher is the law and keeps the locals in fear. He doesn't have a position at the top of social hierarchy as a president or someone with official political or legal power, but represents a greater power behind this.

This is similar to Gangs of New York where there is a gangster, 'the butcher,' who similarly has such unofficial power and owns the police there.

     

In Game of Thrones, the structural equivalent is Tywin Lannister who is the true power behind the throne. When he is first introduced in season 1 he is butchering a deer.


I don't think it's coincidence that he loses his life while in the privy (on the toilet) and that he's killed by his son who is a dwarf which emphasizes him being much taller/greater.



I've discussed the importance of beheading as a form of death that is prominent in the anal electra complex. In the parallel oedipus complex at the anal stage dismemberment from 'the butcher' seems to be the corresponding type of death.

Additionally, at the anal electra complex I've mentioned female patients who only date black men (or the racial other that exists in their culture). These patients represent the men of the racial other as superlatively desiring them. Baines in The Piano is 'half-native' with his tribal facial tattoos and occupies this structure for Ada. In American Sniper the word 'savage' is used many times to talk about the Al-Qaeda butcher and the men who follow him. The same ontological, racial other is in evidence here.

Additionally, I've also indicated that in The Piano and in several patients there seems to be a displacement downward from above: the interest in beheading becomes an interest in the feet. Several OE patients have had a strong interest in shoes, finding feet disgusting, or have an interest in keeping their shoes as clean and shiny as possible. It seems that a similar logic may apply to the impulse of dismemberment. Instead of the loss of limbs there is a compensatory valorization of the torso:





The pic in the middle is from searching okcupid shirtless. I've head often about the cliche of men posting pictures of themselves without their shirts. Although one can take it as a being part of the OE libidinal position, I think this is wrong. Often subject egoist's try to impress women with 'mansplaining' or trying to show off their potency. This isn't the same as causing desire but rather assuming that to show that they are the best or most potent will see them win the woman as a trophy- causing desire is different. When Baines shows himself naked to Ada in The Piano he doesn't have a superlative body and neither are there other moments in the film in which he tries to establish his potency. A single act alone is hard to interpret but if you study the person's behavior over time in several types of relations (i.e. with peers, with superiors, romantically, etc.) then it's much easier to get a sense for it.

I've also pointed out several times before that erotogenic zones are shared in the masculine and feminine. Oedipus and bellerophon both involve the lion and blindness, electra and antigone both involved a representation of the self as brother and an attack on the parental couple. The classic active-passive distinction regarding id drives is at work here.

The dismemberment id drive is also found in Dionysus who I've linked to object altruism and together with subject egoism is 'the masculine' in the drives.


Sunday, January 11, 2015

primal scene repetition in subject altruism

In earlier posts I discussed the primal scene in altruism in relation to both pseudo-stupidity (a reaction to not wanting to know the truth about the phallic mother's betrayal in subject altruism) and having one's head spinning, going around in a whirlpool, being "flushed down the toiler," as one patient put it (the reaction to betraying the phallic mother and fearing her punishment in object altruism). In SA the main myth I've looked at is Perseus and the rescue of Andromeda and for OA the myth of Ixion was looked at (the latter being much more precise).

For subject egoism I've talked about the actual prima scene repetition in the form of cuckoldry. The SE repeats the trauma of the phallic mother betraying him with the father in the object drives or the trauma of being found impotent at his chosen skill or field in the ego drives. I gave the example of Gordon Ramsay making a living at the primal scene repetition in projective identification (i.e. he assumes the place of the parental imago and humiliates chefs who have chosen this field, who represent his self imago).

There is a similar repetition with the SA of course.  After the encounter with the Medusa the next situation is the rescue of Andromeda after the slaying of the sea serpent. Perseus claims Andromeda for marriage but finds she is already engaged to her uncle who shows up at the wedding to fight for her. Of course, as a hero myth, Perseus is able to overcome her uncle by using Medusa’s head to turn him to stone but the ear marks of the primal scene loss are clear. 

This is, of course, the rescue fantasy and it is eminently related to subject altruism.  


The ego drive SA primal scene is observable in many children’s cartoons. For example, in Inspector Gadget the titular character has a niece, Penny, and a dog, Brain, that often ensure the inept Inspector survives and solves the case. However, the dim-witted cyborg detective retains his fame but without Penny or Brain getting any credit. To rescue the other’s fame (the object’s Prestige in a generation or class above one’s) is met with zero recognition or approval and this is a source of pain. Similarly, many people in the substance abuse groups I run talk about 'Sir-save-a-ho' in which a man may rescue a “fallen woman” with a bad reputation or in bad straits only to find her cheating on him/bad-talking him/or abusing his money or possessions. The object drive repetition often sees the person staying with the beloved and coming up with excuses for them: "she gets stupid when she gets drunk but she doesn't mean it".    

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Blank Space- Volar stage




Sometimes contemporary pop culture reaches me in my lonely tower. I was impressed when I found out this was a Taylor Swift song and especially by the acting (?) she does in the video.

I think that the "blank space" also nicely ties to the volar deutero stage and Odysseus calling himself 'Nobody' in his encounter with Polyphemus.

The feeling that one is a nothing and the other is everything (i.e. both man and woman) is something I've been posting about and trying to conceptualize in my patients.

In this song it seems like the subject altruist isn't the only "nothing" but that the object egoist too can feel a "blank space" in herself that must be filled with the "everything" romantic object. The difference seems to be, of course, that aggressive impulses are directed at the object in the OE but directed against the self in the SA.

More precisely, the aggression is towards the object's things (his car, his clothing, his pictures).

In the volar stage I've also discussed 'the home' as the first form of transitional object. This seems to go along with Klein's notion of the inside of the mother's body being important and the phantasy that there are other babies inside of there. In The Lost Boys there is a scene I didn't comment on in which the boys/vampires are all sleeping outside down in a cave when Sam et al go into the cave to kill them.

As important as these phantasies may be in Kleinian technique, what interests me theoretically is their 'depersonalized' aspect in both ego drive and object drive relations. I've had a patient who found her boyfriend with another woman soon after their breakup and who went to his next party (so he wouldn't know it was her) and clogged his toilets, put salt in his washing machine to rust it out, stained his carpets, etc.

So, following the structure of the phallic trito father complex in which love of the parent becomes subject to the incest taboo and is reconfigured as love for a sibling, I've had the idea that attachment to the house, as a transitional object for the father-substitute, would become reconfigured as attachment to things or possessions.

In the trito stage of the phallic father complex the incestuous feelings for siblings has to be renounced in order to traverse the father complex and form 'genital' character. Similarly, the attachment to, or relations with things or possessions, which seem to be exchangeable for imago relations (i.e. both ego and object drive) in general, have to be renounced. (In Kleinian terminology, this if a full internalization of the object).

So, the woman in the video hasn't defused from the volar Elektra complex to attack the object's house, but still has an overly intense relationship with a sibling substitute because she hasn't renounced her desires to form volar trito drives/ideals.

Additionally, the volar deutero, as with every psychosexual stage, means a low ego ideal in which emphasis on drive related striving is diminished and feelings of entitlement to have the authority of the father-substitute, or be important to him/her, is central.

The proto-drives of the volar stage are intense. They represent the need to have others feel awe and wonder at you and for the person to feel the pressure to be something greater than human, or a singularity/name in history, to be immortal...

The deutero-dimension, in which the hand is the part-object for the masculine, means that sleight of hand/magic tricks in which you get the brief sense that you caused awe or wonder in people is a form of the low ego ideal and sense of entitlement to the authority of the volar/immortal fathers. (This is for subject egoists, where object altruists might also just want to cause delight or mystery for others)

In the second verse we find:

Cherry lips
Crystal skies
I could show you incredible things
Stolen kisses, pretty lies
You're the king baby I'm your queen
Find out what you want
Be that girl for a month
But the worst is yet to come
Oh no
Screaming, crying, perfect storms
I could make all the tables turn
Rose garden filled with thorns
 
The emphasis is on the man being 'the king' and the woman making herself over into who she thinks he wants to be incredible to him. However, no one can live up to the volar stage idealization in the object drives and so, after feeling close to "the king" for a month, the object will invariably not give you the perfect mirroring you need or not seem as socially important as you thought they did, and the relationship falls apart.

I've identified kings before as anal stage rulers at the tops of social hierarchies, but they often have been seen as more than human or had their names recorded in history and seem immortal for certain periods of time so they can also clearly be volar father-substitutes. I say certain periods of time, because I wonder how many people study the history of their cultures and have to memorize all the kings there were? In contrast, Plato and Shakespeare will always be immortal as well as Napoleon for what they have done, not just because they happened to be born to a person in power.

... one last thought is that the status of language itself as a transitional object. I'm still with the hypothesis that the auto-erotic stage is the prime determinant on whether one becomes a true intellectual or not. It determines whether one is at home in the body or in the mind. This also seems like it would be the difference between a person loving possessions or things or loving words, maybe music, or something in the arts.


Blank Space

Nice to meet you
Where you been?
I could show you incredible things
Magic, madness, heaven, sin
Saw you there and I thought oh my god
Look at that face, you look like my next mistake
Love's a game, wanna play
New money, suit and tie
I can read you like a magazine
Ain't it funny rumors fly
And I know you heard about me
So hey, let's be friends
I'm dying to see how this one ends
Grab your passport and my hand
I could make the bad guys good for a weekend

[Pre-Chorus]
So it's gonna be forever
Or it's gonna go down in flames
You can tell me when it's over
If the high was worth the pain
Got a long list of ex-lovers
They'll tell you I'm insane
Cause you know I love the players
And you love the game

[Chorus]
Cause we're young and we're reckless
We'll take this way too far
It'll leave you breathless
Or with a nasty scar
Got a long list of ex-lovers
They'll tell you I'm insane
But I got a blank space baby
And I'll write your name

[Verse 2]
Cherry lips
Crystal skies
I could show you incredible things
Stolen kisses, pretty lies
You're the king baby I'm your queen
Find out what you want
Be that girl for a month
But the worst is yet to come
Oh no
Screaming, crying, perfect storms
I could make all the tables turn
Rose garden filled with thorns
Keep you second guessing like oh my god
Who is she? I get drunk on jealousy
But you'll come back each time you leave
Cause darling I'm a nightmare dressed like a daydream

[Pre-Chorus]
So it's gonna be forever
Or it's gonna go down in flames
You can tell me when it's over
If the high was worth the pain
Got a long list of ex-lovers
They'll tell you I'm insane
Cause you know I love the players
And you love the game

[Chorus]
Cause we're young and we're reckless
We'll take this way too far and leave you breathless
Or with a nasty scar
Got a long list of ex-lovers
They'll tell you I'm insane
But I got a blank space baby
And I'll write your name

[Bridge]
Boys only want love if it's torture
Don't say I didn't say I didn't warn you
Boys only want love if it's torture
Don't say I didn't say I didn't warn you

[Pre-Chorus]
So it's gonna be forever
Or it's gonna go down in flames
You can tell me when it's over
If the high was worth the pain
Got a long list of ex-lovers
They'll tell you I'm insane
Cause you know I love the players
And you love the game

[Chorus]
Cause we're young and we're reckless
We'll take this way too far and leave you breathless
Or with a nasty scar
Got a long list of ex-lovers
They'll tell you I'm insane
But I got a blank space baby
And I'll write your name

Thursday, January 1, 2015

terminology problem

I realized in a recent discussion that psychoanalytic terminology makes things very confusing for newcomers.

When Klein used object relations she was often talking about internal objects, which are the representations of parental and sibling imagos, in good or bad aspect, that are accompanied with part-object relations (i.e. feces, urine, etc.).

In my work I've tried to show that these aren't contingent or random. Although there are definitely non-universal adaptations they still must fit in the framework that I've classified between perfection and death. Although, the imagos usually only show up in these ways in borderline and psychotic individuals who have foreclosure of the paternal imago. When the paternal imago isn't foreclosed then the egoist's imago of the father is  one who is supposed to lead the workgroup (phallic) or rule civilization (anal), or foster one in the workgroup, or form one for civilization (anal) for the altruist. These are in the ego drive aspect of, course.

All the internal objects relate to imagos that relate to certain ego and object drives whether they function or not (i.e. have been repressed).