It is, moreover, a suggestive fact that the existence of the pair of opposites formed by sadism and masochism cannot be attributed merely to the element of aggressiveness. We should rather be inclined to connect the simultaneous presence of these opposites with the opposing masculinity and femininity which are combined in bisexuality— a contrast which often has to be replaced in psycho-analysis by that between activity and passivity. Three Essays, p.160
In myth we are supposed to see the child's own aggression turned against himself. The impulse to swallow the mother turns into the mother (or in this case Cronos) swallowing the child. Later the desire to mutilate turns into one's own dismemberment and the impulse to murder can end up causing one's own psychic death in madness.
I previously thought that this was the Talion rule (eye for an eye) and it illustrated the aggression that would cause anxiety and therefore would require various OCD defences (i.e. obsessive checking to see if things are on/off, obsessive counting, etc.). Now I wonder if it isn't showing destruction turned into degeneration.
By the same token, I wonder if the resonance of the child with the object that would first be sensuous contemplation, imitation of it, and later love could in parallel fashion, through narcissistic deflection, be put onto objects?
In this way, the maiden who is rescued from the dragon becomes a treasure, the desire to marry becomes a desire to amass wealth, and the overwhelming separation from the object becomes the overwhelming separation from things in the hoarder.
Externalization of aggression onto objects makes them into weapons, as Klein shows, and externalization of libido onto objects makes greedily desired. Does the masculine always externalize on things?
Does the feminine subject's superego consist of fear of attacks (as outlined in being swallowed, dismembered, etc.) culminating in the desire to be beaten?
If voyeurism is the passive form of exhibitionism in both the sexual sense of watching sex and the social sense of vicarious pleasure through another's joy, then do we have an anti-exhibitionism which begins the self-effacing conscience of the woman and an anti-voyeuristic possessiveness or selfishness which inaugurates the phallic quality of the man?
In myth I think we have a nice parallel between the dwarf and the elf. The dwarf becomes the obsessional digging in his mine for treasure and the elf becomes the hysteric in communication with nature around her and hidden away from people. The dwarf is away from people because his libido is towards objects while the elf is hidden because her aggression is directed at self in "anal" shyness as Reich calls it.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Reich's sociology in myth
On the basis of Bachofen's work Neumann (1953) postulated that the development of the ‘feminine’ progresses from matriarchy to patriarchy. On the threshold between the two stages the woman is supposed to experience a kind of ‘Stirb und werde’ (die and become), which takes the form of a ‘marriage with death’, such as Apuleius describes in his tale of Amor and Psyche (Neumann, 1952). In the prophecy with which this tale begins, Psyche's partner is first depicted as a death-bringing monster. Only after the girl accepts her fate and surrenders herself completely to the male in patriarchal captivity does he turn out to be a most satisfactory lover-amor in person.
If dreams evolve along this archetypal pattern of ‘consummated marriage with death’, a woman should be able to enjoy sexual gratification during intercourse with a man. If, on the other hand, the dreamer resists or escapes instead of yielding to the male and consummating the marriage, then it can be predicted that she will be unable to accept dominance by the man during genital intercourse and consequently be unable to reach orgasm.
Beyme, F. (1967). Archetypal Dreams and Frigidity. J. Anal. Psychol
If dreams evolve along this archetypal pattern of ‘consummated marriage with death’, a woman should be able to enjoy sexual gratification during intercourse with a man. If, on the other hand, the dreamer resists or escapes instead of yielding to the male and consummating the marriage, then it can be predicted that she will be unable to accept dominance by the man during genital intercourse and consequently be unable to reach orgasm.
Beyme, F. (1967). Archetypal Dreams and Frigidity. J. Anal. Psychol
psychoanalytic basics- the death drive I
It is, moreover, a suggestive fact that the existence of the pair of opposites formed by sadism and masochism cannot be attributed merely to the element of aggressiveness. We should rather be inclined to connect the simultaneous presence of these opposites with the opposing masculinity and femininity which are combined in bisexuality— a contrast which often has to be replaced in psycho-analysis by that between activity and passivity. Three Essays, p.160
In ‘Aggression, the Death Drive, and the Problem of Sadomasochism’ Sternbach argues that the death drive should be reconceived of as a drive to tension reduction within an organism. Sternbach, along with many others, fails to see any connection between a tendency to inorganicity and destructive impulses. Harkening back to the earlier conception of the drives in which one feels both hungry and amorous he links destructiveness to the feeling of overcoming mounting tension in the psyche. Basically, Sternbach articulates the position many previous analysts held in referring to aggression as rooted in frustration and pointing to how the aggression of other mammals appears in specific contexts (i.e. mating) in otherwise stable coexistence. However, I still believe that this is a narrow definition and doesn’t account for other phenomena which show up in psychopathology .
There are differences of temperament and while one child one child is very interested in the breast or in the environment around it another will require more coaxing to even show an interest. Similarly, we know that cancer always exists in the organism and that in cases that aren’t environmentally based the immune system simply stops fighting it off. Additionally, in neurasthenia the person may lose appetite and the body may begin to wither away. This loss of energy or degeneration corresponds to what Freud calls the ‘unpleasurable relaxations of tension’ that are still facts to be explained even if an appeal to an inborn pull to inorganicity is given up (Freud, The Economic Problem of Masochism, p.160). I don’t want to rehabilitate some mythological death drive but rather draw attention to the notion that when there are two opposing forces and tension is increased there seems to be two options for an organism to lower psychic energy and stave off a traumatic experience:
1. get rid of or scare the object supplying the opposing force (destruction)
2. get rid of or diminish the part of self that experiences the demand (degeneration)
If we are able to keep these two reactions separate and not just say that one is aggression outward and the other is aggression forced inward then we have what I believe could be the biological root of later gender difference. Firstly, aggression that is turned round on the self classically has consequences like epilepsy in which the muscular apparatus doesn’t degenerate but becomes chronically tense and subject to convulsion. Secondly, many religious traditions have recognized separate energies, in yin and yang for example, and such observations aren’t inherently metaphysical like the claim of an afterlife is. Thirdly, grouping them together would be reductionistic and set the stage to say a woman is an impotent or castrated man. When analysts refer to suicide as being an aggressive act or, go along with Freud in saying that pity is a reaction formation against sadism it ignores the qualitative difference in feeling. Just as the narcissist may over-value himself it seems like a hysteric may over-value the object and confronted with the prospect of being alone she wouldn’t end her life as an aggressive act toward the internalized parent as the narcissist might. Rather, from the beginning she might have endured separation from the mother as a self-sacrifice and her longings for death (‘half in love with easeful death’), the common usage of melancholia, show a different relation to self than the narcissist’s. Aggression and destructiveness are a very important part of life but they aren’t everything. Some patients need to be coaxed from their dissociative and degenerated states and convincing them that they are covertly being aggressive or ‘joining’ them in hopes that inhibitions on aggression may be overcome will be for naught.
In ‘Aggression, the Death Drive, and the Problem of Sadomasochism’ Sternbach argues that the death drive should be reconceived of as a drive to tension reduction within an organism. Sternbach, along with many others, fails to see any connection between a tendency to inorganicity and destructive impulses. Harkening back to the earlier conception of the drives in which one feels both hungry and amorous he links destructiveness to the feeling of overcoming mounting tension in the psyche. Basically, Sternbach articulates the position many previous analysts held in referring to aggression as rooted in frustration and pointing to how the aggression of other mammals appears in specific contexts (i.e. mating) in otherwise stable coexistence. However, I still believe that this is a narrow definition and doesn’t account for other phenomena which show up in psychopathology .
There are differences of temperament and while one child one child is very interested in the breast or in the environment around it another will require more coaxing to even show an interest. Similarly, we know that cancer always exists in the organism and that in cases that aren’t environmentally based the immune system simply stops fighting it off. Additionally, in neurasthenia the person may lose appetite and the body may begin to wither away. This loss of energy or degeneration corresponds to what Freud calls the ‘unpleasurable relaxations of tension’ that are still facts to be explained even if an appeal to an inborn pull to inorganicity is given up (Freud, The Economic Problem of Masochism, p.160). I don’t want to rehabilitate some mythological death drive but rather draw attention to the notion that when there are two opposing forces and tension is increased there seems to be two options for an organism to lower psychic energy and stave off a traumatic experience:
1. get rid of or scare the object supplying the opposing force (destruction)
2. get rid of or diminish the part of self that experiences the demand (degeneration)
If we are able to keep these two reactions separate and not just say that one is aggression outward and the other is aggression forced inward then we have what I believe could be the biological root of later gender difference. Firstly, aggression that is turned round on the self classically has consequences like epilepsy in which the muscular apparatus doesn’t degenerate but becomes chronically tense and subject to convulsion. Secondly, many religious traditions have recognized separate energies, in yin and yang for example, and such observations aren’t inherently metaphysical like the claim of an afterlife is. Thirdly, grouping them together would be reductionistic and set the stage to say a woman is an impotent or castrated man. When analysts refer to suicide as being an aggressive act or, go along with Freud in saying that pity is a reaction formation against sadism it ignores the qualitative difference in feeling. Just as the narcissist may over-value himself it seems like a hysteric may over-value the object and confronted with the prospect of being alone she wouldn’t end her life as an aggressive act toward the internalized parent as the narcissist might. Rather, from the beginning she might have endured separation from the mother as a self-sacrifice and her longings for death (‘half in love with easeful death’), the common usage of melancholia, show a different relation to self than the narcissist’s. Aggression and destructiveness are a very important part of life but they aren’t everything. Some patients need to be coaxed from their dissociative and degenerated states and convincing them that they are covertly being aggressive or ‘joining’ them in hopes that inhibitions on aggression may be overcome will be for naught.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
call to body psychotherapists
Where are you?
Where are the body-psychotherapists who know that it isn't armouring on certain part of the body that lets you know there was trauma at the ocular, oral, anal, phallic phase but the way that it's shaped the body around these areas?
Where are the body-psychotherapists who notice that some people have moon faces from the side with chins that jut out, or who have pointed ears and angular heads like Nosferatu, who have dark circles under and a high forehead like Frankenstein, and so many other sensibilities in the face alone?
Where are you so that we can work through myth and culture together and clean up the mess that depth psychology has been in?
Where are the body-psychotherapists who know that it isn't armouring on certain part of the body that lets you know there was trauma at the ocular, oral, anal, phallic phase but the way that it's shaped the body around these areas?
Where are the body-psychotherapists who notice that some people have moon faces from the side with chins that jut out, or who have pointed ears and angular heads like Nosferatu, who have dark circles under and a high forehead like Frankenstein, and so many other sensibilities in the face alone?
Where are you so that we can work through myth and culture together and clean up the mess that depth psychology has been in?
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Character in Reich II, Reich's sociology
Psychic Contact and Vegetative Current:
the sexual coquetry found in hysteria also shows this duality of function. Flirtation is the expression of repressed genital desires, i.e. directed towards the world. At the same time it is a defence against genitality, the expression of an anxious "feeling out" of the object, to determine, as it were, where the genital danger is coming from. This is the only possible explanation for the extensive sexual life of hysterical women suffering from severe genital anxiety 302
Reich is in effect describing the basis of the repetition-compulsion. The genital danger in question is elaborated by other analysts as fear of rape:
The content of hysteria is equivalent to 'I am vulnerable to frustration' stated in many different ways.
The hysteric lives out an invitation to rape and lives in perpetual fear of it.
There is a fusion of orality and vaginality in the hysterical woman.
The hysteric attempts to protect herself from childish impulses and at the same time gratify them. p.264 Kramer, C.H. (1967). Maxwell Gitelson: Analytic Aphorisms
I was unsure for a long time about the validity of this construction but when I looked at Reich's work on anthropology and then at later ethnographies the transition to sex-negative culture does seem to be attached to fears of rape.
Malinowski had opportunity to observe another primitive society that lay south of the Trobriand Islands in the Amphlett chain. This people were very similar to the Trobrianders in race, customs and language, writes Malinowski, but they differed considerably in their social organization; they already manifested a strict sexual morality in regard to premarital intercourse, which they condemned, and they lacked any such institutions as found among the Trobrianders for fostering sex activity; characteristically, the family life was much more privatized. Even though maternal authority still prevailed, a much stronger role for patriarchal influence had emerged, and “this, combined with the sexual repressiveness, establishes a picture of childhood sexuality more similar to our own”. Malinowski states: “In the Trobriands, though I knew scores of natives intimately and had a nodding acquaintance with many more, I could not name a single man or woman who was hysterical or even neurasthenic. Nervous tics, compulsory actions, or obsessive ideas were not to be found.” There were occasional occurrences of cretinism, mental retardation and speech difficulties; also infrequent outbreaks of anger and violence. The natives ascribed all this to black magic… “During my stay in the Amphletts, my first and strongest impression was that this was a community of neurasthenics. Coming from the open, hearty, gay, accessible Trobrianders it was astonishing to find oneself among a community of people distrustful of the newcomer, impatient in work, arrogant in their claims, though easily cowed, and extremely nervous when tackled more energetically. The women ran away as I landed in their villages and kept in hiding the whole of my stay… I at once found a number of people affected with nervousness”. (Sex-Pol, p.127-8)
In Gregor's Anxious Pleasures a similar response is recorded:
Today the Mehinaku recall their first contact with a white man as follows: Everyone was very frightened and fled to the forest leaving only the best bowmen in the village. When the white man came… the young girls covered their bodies with ashes so they would be unattractive and not carried off by the white man… 19 M
Reich was right that there was a sociological difference between matriarchy and patriarchy but was wrong in claiming it was the Oedipus complex. Or, at least he never differentiated between the Oedipus complex as sexual impulses towards the mother vs.
wanting to "marry the mother". For this same reason he didn't conceive of orgastic potency as related to the perversion brought up in the relation to the phallic mother. The difference between the Trobriand Islanders and later patriarchal cultures is that the uncle is represented as the head of the family and the mother doesn't depreciate him as she would the husband who could have caused her disappointment. The phallic mother is the sociological condition that arises in patriarchy but the Oedipus complex as a drive to duty, a superego of guilt, and the following identification with the chief as group leader (from latency) is clearly present with the Trobriand Islanders.
the sexual coquetry found in hysteria also shows this duality of function. Flirtation is the expression of repressed genital desires, i.e. directed towards the world. At the same time it is a defence against genitality, the expression of an anxious "feeling out" of the object, to determine, as it were, where the genital danger is coming from. This is the only possible explanation for the extensive sexual life of hysterical women suffering from severe genital anxiety 302
Reich is in effect describing the basis of the repetition-compulsion. The genital danger in question is elaborated by other analysts as fear of rape:
The content of hysteria is equivalent to 'I am vulnerable to frustration' stated in many different ways.
The hysteric lives out an invitation to rape and lives in perpetual fear of it.
There is a fusion of orality and vaginality in the hysterical woman.
The hysteric attempts to protect herself from childish impulses and at the same time gratify them. p.264 Kramer, C.H. (1967). Maxwell Gitelson: Analytic Aphorisms
I was unsure for a long time about the validity of this construction but when I looked at Reich's work on anthropology and then at later ethnographies the transition to sex-negative culture does seem to be attached to fears of rape.
Malinowski had opportunity to observe another primitive society that lay south of the Trobriand Islands in the Amphlett chain. This people were very similar to the Trobrianders in race, customs and language, writes Malinowski, but they differed considerably in their social organization; they already manifested a strict sexual morality in regard to premarital intercourse, which they condemned, and they lacked any such institutions as found among the Trobrianders for fostering sex activity; characteristically, the family life was much more privatized. Even though maternal authority still prevailed, a much stronger role for patriarchal influence had emerged, and “this, combined with the sexual repressiveness, establishes a picture of childhood sexuality more similar to our own”. Malinowski states: “In the Trobriands, though I knew scores of natives intimately and had a nodding acquaintance with many more, I could not name a single man or woman who was hysterical or even neurasthenic. Nervous tics, compulsory actions, or obsessive ideas were not to be found.” There were occasional occurrences of cretinism, mental retardation and speech difficulties; also infrequent outbreaks of anger and violence. The natives ascribed all this to black magic… “During my stay in the Amphletts, my first and strongest impression was that this was a community of neurasthenics. Coming from the open, hearty, gay, accessible Trobrianders it was astonishing to find oneself among a community of people distrustful of the newcomer, impatient in work, arrogant in their claims, though easily cowed, and extremely nervous when tackled more energetically. The women ran away as I landed in their villages and kept in hiding the whole of my stay… I at once found a number of people affected with nervousness”. (Sex-Pol, p.127-8)
In Gregor's Anxious Pleasures a similar response is recorded:
Today the Mehinaku recall their first contact with a white man as follows: Everyone was very frightened and fled to the forest leaving only the best bowmen in the village. When the white man came… the young girls covered their bodies with ashes so they would be unattractive and not carried off by the white man… 19 M
Reich was right that there was a sociological difference between matriarchy and patriarchy but was wrong in claiming it was the Oedipus complex. Or, at least he never differentiated between the Oedipus complex as sexual impulses towards the mother vs.
wanting to "marry the mother". For this same reason he didn't conceive of orgastic potency as related to the perversion brought up in the relation to the phallic mother. The difference between the Trobriand Islanders and later patriarchal cultures is that the uncle is represented as the head of the family and the mother doesn't depreciate him as she would the husband who could have caused her disappointment. The phallic mother is the sociological condition that arises in patriarchy but the Oedipus complex as a drive to duty, a superego of guilt, and the following identification with the chief as group leader (from latency) is clearly present with the Trobriand Islanders.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
myth-artwork
Hercules kills the Centaur, by Giambologna, 1599. I've come across some beautiful pieces in my research and thought I'd share.
feminine subject- Ixion
This is the myth of Ixion
A son of Phlegyas (Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. iii. 62; comp. Strab. x. p. 442, who calls him a brother of Phlegyas), or, according to others, a son of Antion by Perimela, of Pasion, or of Ares. (Schol. ad Pind. Pyth. ii. 39; Diod. iv. 69; Hygin. Fab. 62.) According to the common tradition, his mother was Dia, a daughter of Deïoneus. He was king of the Lapithae or Phlegyes, and the father of Peirithous. (Apollod. i. 8. § 2 ; Hygin. Fab. 14.) When Deïoneus demanded of Ixion the bridal gifts he had promised, Deioneus stole some of Ixion's horses in retaliation. Ixion concealed his resentment and invited his father-in-law to a feast at Larissa. When Deioneus arrived, Ixion pushed him into a bed of burning coals and wood. As no one purified Ixion of this treacherous murder, and all the gods were indignant at him, Zeus took pity upon him, purified him, and invited him to his table. But Ixion was ungrateful to his benefactor, and attempted to win the love of Hera. Zeus made a phantom resembling Hera, and by it Ixion became the father of a Centaur, who again having intercourse with Magnesian mares, became the father of the centaurs. (Pind. Pyth. ii. 39, &c. with the Schol. ; Schol. ad Eurip. Phoen. 1185; Lucian, Dial. Deor. 6.) Ixion, as a punishment, was chained by Hermes with his hands and feet to a wheel, which is described as winged or fiery, and said to have rolled perpetually in the air or in the lower world. He is further said to have been scourged, and compelled to exclaim, "Benefactors should be honoured." (Comp. Schol. ad Hom. Od. xxi. 303 ; Hygin. Fab. 33, 62; Serv. ad Virg. Aen. vi. 601, Georg. iii. 38, iv. 484; Schol. Venet. ad Il. i. 266.)
In parallel to Perseus who had to make a gift to a king as well (bring him the head of the Medusa) Ixion had to provide a gift to Deioneus. In a previous post I mentioned that this gift giving and the mildness of the task (compared to the many labours of Heracles) represents a different sensibility and one which I've identified with the feminine subject or masochist.
Ixion didn't provide the gift and Deioneus stole some of his horses. This theft of the horses brings up the aspect of Hermes as the god of thieves who also later shows up to give his punishment. The theft of horses is important in relation to the last two posts because after the polyphallic the horse or flight is the symbol of the next stage.
Considering the feminine ego ideal of self-effacement ("being nice") it makes sense that aggression would be expressed as a covert activity and not as an open confrontation. This theft (projected onto the king) could show up in kleptomania (social) or the impulse to "steal" sex with the resulting premature ejaculation in the worry of being caught.
Ixion's madness after the deed is something I'll have to compare with other myths at a later time. However, the madness of Orestes was for matricide and the horses are symbols of the post-polyphallic mother. This is either the phallic mother (if the father's name has been denigrated or he is absent) or I'm toying with the idea that it can be the phallic-oedipal (perverse impulses towards the mother in the narcissist instead of love qua duty for her).
For Ixion to be rescued by Zeus in the schema I've prepared it would mean a return to the anal stage. The strongest characterlogical feature of this stage is the negativism and obstinacy against another person's will. So the return to Zeus would represent a reversal of gratitude towards the father. Taking stock of Hermes position as messenger of the gods and what I've called a subject masochist schizoid position the reversal of such would likely be the irreverence in humour that I brought up in the last post. Hermes performing the punishment of Ixion by fixing him to a floating fiery wheel in which bottom and top are continually reversed seems like a very apt metaphor for all discussed in the last post. Having to exclaim 'benefactors should be honoured' also brings to mind Ixion continuing to enact the opposite.
I'm not sure what to make of the centaurs being produced by Ixion and will have to look into the other half man-half beast groups. However, if the horse is a symbol of the mother then it seems likely that it bespeaks a mother identification and the anal and the phallic stages are the two most important stages for this.
The importance of this myth would to be to show that the gift-giving, feeling of gratitude, and the feminine ego ideal are reversed by falling back on an anal fixation. The work of Chasseguet-Smirgel, who tirelessly mentioned the anal component of perversion, would draw support from this. Maybe I can post a few excerpts from her writing soon.
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