Psychoanalytic Problems 1927

I was reading an article from Otto Rank from 1927, which is after he left/was kicked out of the orthodoxy. I wanted to share some of his takes on Freud's positions primarily, and some of his ideas secondarily. Through Rank's eyes we can see that there was already a lack of consensus and confusion about psychoanalytic ideas, even when Freud was still alive. Rank is a gifted thinker, who had very much been an insider and worked closely with Freud.

If we now wanted clearly to demonstrate the problematical points of the psychoanalytic doctrine, then the presupposition would be a systematic presentation of psychoanalysis by which one would, so to say, automatically push up against all gaps, obscurities, and uncertainties. But such a systematic presentation with this in view has hitherto not been attempted just because our psychoanalytic knowledge was too incomplete and uncertain. Freud himself has again and again warned us against a too hasty systematization. His and his pupils' work, which helped the psychoanalytic doctrine to further development and elaboration in describing the advancement of the analytic theory and method, was naturally historical. That is, they pursued definite themes emerging in the investigation up to a certain point to wait for some further connection which sometimes came quite late, sometimes not at all, sometimes finally from an unexpected direction. This empirical method preferred by Freud himself had the advantage that premature systematic presentations were avoided, but the disadvantage that a number of facts had to remain unexplained and could be made intelligible only relatively late in attempting a systematic presentation. Even Freud's recent systematic works on the ego-psychology are, if we may say so, “empirically “drafted. They fight shy of embracing the whole of the psychoanalytic doctrine; rather, mostly admittedly, they link on to isolated problems which emerged earlier, and since have found no further explanation. In some of these works Freud himself emphasizes this fact by partly wondering that analysis has not earlier set to work on these pressing problems, partly stating that the final solutions lead to simple facts which one could have found in simpler ways.

This general contrast between the historical and the systematic ways of presentation which is somehow parallel to the contrast between “empirical “and “speculative, “leads us into the very midst of one of the chief problems of the psychoanalytic investigation itself. I do not want to approach a psychology of the scholar nor the way in which scientific discoveries are made and developed. But it may be mentioned that a number of resistances arise not only from the inflexibility and incidentalness of the material but also from the intellectual and emotional attitude of the investigator. This seems to be one reason why the empirical development and historical presentation must necessarily alternate from time to time with an attempt at systematic presentation. (1927, p. 2)


These are important statements. Those who brought academic discourse into psychoanalysis often want to accuse Freud of having a system and a system that is reductionistic at that. It irritates me to think of the dilettantes who made their names in saving psychoanalysis from Freud. 

In the historical viewpoint lie dangers which may become grave theoretically and practically. On the one hand one will always be inclined to overestimate the recent discoveries to the disadvantage of the earlier ones. This, however, makes progress possible for the investigator himself and for the science, but one should not be too dogmatic, otherwise it fails in its purpose. It need hardly be emphasized that a second reversed danger threatens from the conservative tendencies of our attitude to hold on to what is already familiar and assimilated and to defend oneself against all that is new. The only possibility of a real and gradual advance seems to be to receive the new reluctantly in trying to make it compatible with what is already familiar. (ibid., p. 3)

How much of current psychoanalysis is simply reinventing the wheel and emphasizing little truths over and against Freud's structural theory!  

It is the same with the so-called” extended concept of sexuality “ which according to my view was unfortunately chosen, and has rightly given rise to the most severe protests. As under the habitual manner of speech something quite definite was already understood by “sexuality, “it must lead to constant misunderstanding if one designates things briefly as sexual which conform to the extended concept of sexuality. It was thus necessary to insert the concept of “libido “for this extended concept of sexuality. But it is characteristic that hitherto even in analytic circles, there is no clearness as to the meaning of this concept. Also the Platonic term “Eros, “proposed later by Freud, has not been adopted... Similarly it happened to the concept of repression, perhaps the most productive viewpoint of the whole analytic psychology. Here also it became the custom to designate every kind of psychical defense as repression. This led to careless negligence of a theoretical and practical nature. And although Freud himself had explained at the beginning, repression is only one of the forms by means of which the ego wards off unpleasant impulses, yet he himself uses almost exclusively the term repression even where another form of defense is operative and hence another term would be more in place. (p. 7)

The true mark of a psychoanalytic thinker is whether he or she understands Freud's wide use of sexuality. Those who criticize Freud for his use of the term are hacks.

With that we come to the two most important concepts of psychoanalysis, the Oedipus and the castration complexes. Here also we see the same fate being accomplished, but perhaps here in the most unfortunate way. This signifies less a criticism than the fact that these concepts could be explained only with advancing knowledge, whereby they were stretched beyond their limit. Psychoanalytic terminology has here only partly shared in the advance beyond these primitive mythological concepts. We need only reflect about the simple state of affairs which Freud originally designated with the term “Oedipus-complex “and which to-day must include everything if it is not to be misunderstood. The exact presentation of this mere change in the concept, which however was no real change but only an expansion, would require a comprehensive systematic presentation of the whole of psychoanalysis. Originally only referring to the simple state of affairs expressed in the Oedipus-myth, the relation of the brothers and sisters was soon attributed to the Oedipus complex. On the other hand Freud attempted to trace the whole later formation of the super-ego back to the Oedipus-complex, whilst one extends the concept in the other direction to a “prenatal Oedipus-situation. “If thus the Oedipus complex finally includes everything in it, then it was certainly easy to explain it as the “nuclear complex of the neuroses...  In doing this the Freudian concept of the Oedipus complex proved to be a first rough comprehension of a highly complicated psycho-biological and social state of affairs which needed further analytic illumination. (p. 8)

I appreciate Rank's point and there should be many more complexes than just calling everything the Oedipus complex. However, the point still remains that everything that is interpersonal, and a repetition, was already included in classical psychoanalysis. 

It was the same with the concept of the castration complex—likewise also borrowed from the myth—but originally belonging to the Oedipus stratum. It likewise was expanded in two directions, and at present everything is put in the castration complex, even the Oedipus complex itself, as recently an analytic colleague said to me in private conversation. Besides castration at the (genital) Oedipus stage, it signifies giving up the mother's breast (Starcke), yes, birth (Alexander) whilst Freud himself moreover used it as a synonym for anxiety... (p.9)

What Rank leaves out here is that he contributed to this with early ideas of Oedipus blinding himself as castration. The genitals are replaced by different erotogenic zones and there is cause to see all the anxiety laden relation to non-genital zones as carrying the significance of castration. To smugly refer to this adds nothing to the dynamics and the zones of earlier stages and phases should be studied for their own ontic relations, but the level of meaning that is imparted to these earlier stages does become structured by castration.   

My first review

I've been lucky to get some good endorsements for my work, and got my first review a few months ago.

I was surprised by it. It was angry and seemed to purposely misstate what the book was about.

The reviewer, Alexandros Chatziagorakis, didn't even state or give a review of the interpretative process at all.

It is a review without a review, or just an angry view.

He begins his plaints with : "In my opinion, this book appears to have been written without the reader in mind."

"Nor am I clear what the purpose of this book is: to provide a new methodology, to build on psychoanalytic theory, or to analyze a particular film?"

"When constructing a new methodology... This process should begin with a clearly defined aim and objectives that would explain why there is a need for a new methodology and what purpose it will serve." 

Regarding all these, the answer is on page one of the book: 

"In film there is a living unconscious. The subtleties of a disordered personality can be captured, and the conflicts between characters can be enhanced by cinematography to create a felt sense for how powerful or seductive the pain in our relationships can be. Despite the value of articulating this, the aim of this book is to show how a return to Freudian psychoanalysis is capable of giving us much, much more. As one critic of psychoanalytic criticism puts it:

Psychoanalytic readings purport to show the meaning behind the text that is concealed by its manifest content, but it is not clear that this is what psychoanalytic readings of Hollywood cinema achieve . . . [A]rguably, far from providing an objective code to unlock the real (hidden) meaning of the text, psychoanalytic criticism quite frequently describes what is going on at the surface of it . . . However, if this is the case, the psychoanalytic critic posing as theorist erroneously claims for himself the insight that rightly belongs to the text itself.

(Allen, 1999, p. 142)

Allen is skeptical about how much insight psychoanalytic critics bring to a text, as opposed to using the insight on the surface of the text to illustrate one of their theories. Others are not as kind. If literary critics do not dispute the status of psychoanalysis as a coherent model of understanding, many dismiss the applications of it as boring. One sees a character attach a lot of importance to a non-human object and calls it a transitional object; one sees a woman seductively portrayed and calls it the masculine gaze; one finds a triangle with two men and a woman and labels it oedipal. Others search for images or references to penises or feces, and still others do wordplay with the names and places of the text—lending to the impression that psychoanalysis is a silly game for the vulgar or overly erudite." 

The methodology is an answer to Allen's criticism. As I say on page 2 

"I would side with Allen in suggesting that the mere description of surface phenomena in the text is simply a game of matching, and that this game leaves the text’s valuable latent content unearthed. However, while Allen takes aim at predominately Lacanian based criticism (Metz, 1982; Mulvey, 1989; Doane, 1991; Žižek, 1992), he does not acknowledge a parallel tradition that does build latent content of psychological significance: the psychoanalytic criticism of the double. Plots of the double, trafficking as they do in repressed psychological content actively represented through double figurations, bypasses what has long been perceived as a failing of the Lacanian analysis of film." 

The book takes the criticism of the existing psychoanalytic criticism to heart and then counters that the tradition of the literary double does offer the "objective code to unlock the real (hidden) meaning of the text." 

So, after an introductory chapter that seeks to offer up the "psychoanalytic orientation" and introduces the clinical technique that I will use in the clinical vignettes in order to back up the theory, I go on to review the former criticism that made use of the double. 

The reviewer states, "the book not only lacks a clear aim and focus, but, ironically, there’s not a clear narrative either"

I state the problem with psychoanalytic criticism as pronounced by a prominent critic, and I then go on to review the existing double criticism in order to show how 'the symptom reading' differs and expands upon it, and then I offer up the process of how the film 'The Lost Boys'   inspired the reading, and then I outline the process of applying the reading to other films. 

I think this is a pretty linear narrative.

Of course there are moments in which I explain psychoanalytic theory that break this up, but I state very clearly my intention and who my reader is

"My main interest, along with building on the model of mind in The Economics of Libido (2015), is to attract the reader who may have been repelled by psychoanalytic criticism in the past."

I want to give a coherent model of mind, which has been a major complaint against psychoanalysis, and give a more sophisticated reading to answer the criticism against psychoanalytic criticism. What's difficult about this? 

Again, rather than actually explaining my interpretative procedure or analysis of the film, at all, the reviewer suddenly launches into complaining about what I don't do:

"Moreover, I think that the analysis of ‘The Lost Boys’ could have been more multi-dimensional and sophisticated. By focusing only on what’s happening in the film, Pederson doesn’t take account of the wider social, historical and political context, the time and place where the film was released, and how it challenged or criticized the prevailing societal norms and rules."  

I am careful to make a disclaimer:

"First, the latent meaning the symptom reading produces is in no way exhaustive, nor does it claim exclusivity. Just as there are several ways to interpret or utilize dreams, a narrative can be interpreted in several ways." 

  

I am giving a psychoanalytic methodology and doing a lot of work to spell out psychoanalytic theory so that someone could use the methodology for another film. It's not my aim or interest to approach films in a sociological way. 

The only thing that appeared positive in the review was about the clinical vignettes. However,  instead of stating my intentions to offer up the psychoanalytic model of mind as a framework for others to both understand its coherence, novelty, and efficaciousness as well as use it for doing their own film readings, the reviewer only complains. 

"With regards to the clinical vignettes, I found them very interesting (considering that the author employs an unfamiliar (to me) clinical method where he combines his psychoanalytic training with EMDR); however, I am not sure how these clinical examples fit with the film analysis and the proposed methodology."

So, while I don't do enough to give a non-psychoanalytic context and interpretation to a film, I'm also in trouble for giving psychoanalytic theory that isn't directly relevant to the film. Nice. 

Interestingly, the reviewer seems to show a little bad conscience at the end.

He lets the reader know that he read the title of the book and was hoping for another kind of book, and then actually alludes to the narrative of the book when he had previously complained that there wasn't one:

"When I came across the title of Pederson’s latest book, I (wrongly) expected him to discuss films using a psychoanalytic interpretative approach. So, perhaps my disappointment was driven by my mistaken assumptions and the fact that my expectations were not met... As a reader, I got the impression that this book is about the “double” in psychoanalytic theory, clinical practice, and in film (with ‘The Lost Boys’ used as the sole example). If this indeed was the author’s intention, it has to be made more explicit, and the title of the book should reflect this too."

The book is precisely about how double interpretations are an answer to Allen's criticism of psychoanalytic criticism, and places my extension of it in this context. Moreover, it builds a model of mind and uses clinical vignettes to show how and why this is possible. It was initially problematic to me to offer a methodology with just a single film (as opposed to the three in my initial proposal), but I warmed to the publisher's requirement that I split it up into several books. Giving this foundation for future work seemed valuable. 

If the reviewer had ever published a book before he might know that the company chooses a title to maximize search results for it. My first book had a number of searchable terms in the title while the title I wanted for this one did not. But, I think the title of the book is more dull than misleading in this case. There's nothing in it that would make one expect something so very different than what was delivered.

Ultimately, one would hope that a reviewer would engage with the interpretative framework or the model of mind that are introduced (i.e. the aim of the book and the two things of substance). 

Instead, these glaring omissions, along with the omission of Allen's criticism of the field as the beginning of the book's narrative, give the impression that some people want my book to be ignored. If I had to guess, I would say that they want to continue their traditional form of psychoanalytic interpretation and psychoanalytic theory without having a troubled mind.  

What a disappointment that this is my first review.