Regression in the Service of the Ego - Erst Kris and Danielle Knafo

Regression as a construct has been pathologised in our culture - and for myself, with my present pursuit of learning about Integral Theory, I feel as though a round of House of Representatives-style calls of 'Shame! Shame!' should rouse, as soon as I make utterance of the word, 'regression'. Regression in many ways can be  identified as the antithesis of an evolutionary process (and thus an Integral frame) although, as the paper below shows, regression can be re-modelled and re-cast, as an essential and functional component of healthy development.

Danielle Knafo's article 'Revisiting Ernst Kris's Concept of Regression in the Service of the Ego in Art' restores the concept of regression, not as celebrated, but as a valued component of the creative process, modifying the feedback loop between inspiration and elaboration. I've not get got so far with my intent to deepen my understanding of creativity through exploration of the Cabalah - this article gives me a psychoanalytic process model, perhaps something that I can use as a benchmark once I really have a proper opportunity to dig into the Lurianic and/or Sephardic mysteries.

Knafo proposes examining regression from three perspectives, that overlap:

1) temporal - a return to earlier stages of psychosexual development;
2) boundary - risky decompensation in blurring boundaries of self, identity and reality;
3) topographical - freer access to primary process modes of thought.

Looking back to Ernst Kris' 1936/1952 concept of regression in the service of the ego, Knafo identifies Freud's theory of wit (where preconscious thought is given over for a minute to unconscious revision), Freud's notion of flexibility of repression, and ego psychology's adaptive functions of the ego each as the birthing grounds for the concept. Kris' formulations of creativity are proposed to map shifts in psychic levels (primary-secondary process) and cathexes of ego functions (inspiration-elaboration). There is a paradox presumed here, where the ego is meant to be both withdrawing (in inspiration) and controlling, at the same time. Organisation needs to be flexible, in order to accommodate cycles of these.

Of the inspirational-elaborative cycle, in inspiration the artist is passively receptive to her own id impulses, experiencing rapture and a sense of being driven by external force. The elaborational phase involves reality testing, formulation and communication, very much like a problem solving matrix. Inspiration donates content, transformation takes place in elaboration.

The cycle of inspiration (regression) and elaboration (criticism) may be determinant of whether the art manifests as normal or psychotic - too much regression and private meaning predominates, too much elaboration and the art becomes cold and mechanical. Kris views art as a transformation of magic ritual into communication, but when the proportions are psychotic, the communication turns to sorcery. The art of psychotics performs a restitutive function, not a communicative or a Klienian reparative one.

In view of normal/non-normal modes of ego functioning, Anna Freud was perhaps the first to de-pathologise regression, stating that it must be appreciated as a component of normal development. It's also critical in mother child bonding from a neuroscience perspective- the activation of a baby's mirror neurons is most enhanced by the mother's regression to right-brain functioning which is ensured by hormonal changes through pregnancy.

Knafo offers that regression in the service of the ego be considered as an ability to maintain contact with early body and self states and with early object relationships accompanied by different modes of thinking. Theorists writing about creativity typically compare aspects of creativity to a return to childhood. Playfulness in Surrealism, Naive and Neoprimitive movements all work to create not only a figure in a ground, but, in some ways, grounded figures - risk-free possession, blurring of boundaries and expression of unconscious fantasy combine to resemble the synchretistic vision of a young child. The synchretistic mode was identified originally by Piaget, referring to an undifferentiated perception where the object is perceived in all of it's forms, ending at the age of eight years. Paralleling the end of Gardner's 'golden age', the onset of the latency stage per Freudian theory sees the repression of libidinal yearning and the onset of abstract reasoning abilities, where boundaries between primary and secondary process thinking become firm and less flexible.

Artists typically have a distance mode available to them that the child does not, and that is not accounted for in the 'transitional object' (like a toy bear) portrayals of artists and their artworks. Indeed, a tyranny of madness may be prevalent, far more so than childish regression, where a fear of letting go, lest the mental hold of the outline of the work slip - the passive receptivity, must be retained, at all costs. Contorted and frozen facial expressions and body postures,  characteristic modes of thought, entry into the psychopathic mind - all these are strategies that may be courted by the artist at work. Distinction between loss of structural autonomy versus loss of functional autonomy assist us in understanding how artists, in this phase, do not succumb to psychosis, and madness, to look at it this way, the artists' ego must be very strong, indeed.

A great description is given by the artist Bracha Lichtenberg-Ettinger:

'a kind of fragilization that happens, together with a loosening of the ties between the thoughts, a wild attention which is the opposite of concentration; and what is usually nonsignificant sounds or colour get full of sense and things become full of some kind of life, and fragments of memories hang in the air, and then you enter a zone without memories.....'

Past, present and future become undifferentiated. Self and other, and inner and outer reality conflate. Neuroscience shows for creatives lower levels of cortical activity (defocused attention), more right hemisphere activation (primary process thinking) and low levels of frontal lobe activation (no superego in sight, greater associative thinking).

It makes me wonder whether regression is the appropriate word, here, really, or whether artists are simply more capable of flexible adoption of adaptive cognition processes, as befitting of circumstance. Regression needs a new wardrobe, either way - as a construct, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the undervaluing of relationship, connection, in our culture can closely be tied to a sort of supercilious attitude, culturally maintained and held, towards regression.

Ref:

Knafo, D. (2002). Revisiting Ernst Kris's Concept of Regression in the Service of the Ego in Art, Psychoanalytic Psychology, 19, 24 - 49.

Charisma in Perverse Relatedness - B.E. Dujovne

In the journal article 'Perverse Relatedness' (see reference below) the film 'Gods and Monsters' is deconstructed  by Dujovne to reveal the destructive narcissistic organisation of the key character in the movie, who is loosely based in character upon British film director, James Whale.

At the surface level, the plot shows an older man trying to entangle a young gardener in a confusing sexualised relationship. By the end of the drama it becomes clear that Whale intends for Boone (the young gardener) to kill him.

According to Dujovne, perverse relatedness in the clinic involves ego syntonic intent - perhaps most clearly emphasised in a client's pleasure in destroying help, and the helper. It is the province of the narcissistic personality type, that feels entitled to manipulate, exploit and destroy others to meet own ends. The Whale character that is portrayed in the movie is arrogant, contemptuous and defiant, justifying his revenge against his childhood sufferings with disdainful contempt for moral order. He's idealised a bad self, and so caring relationships are devalued, attacked and destroyed, with pleasure.

Whale is introduced in the film as a man convalescing from stroke, suffering flashbacks of enforced factory work that began under the enforcement of his father at 14 years of age. His childhood hatred seems to provide a cohesiveness, and he has been a recluse for 14 years. The stroke has penetrated his self-sufficiency, and has left him vulnerable, and dependent. His ex-lover is permitted to enter the scene early in the movie, but we are given to understand that Whale denigrates even this caring relationship. We see his contemptuous treatment of his housekeeper and his students - he appears vitalised by humiliating others, making one male student strip one piece of clothing per one question asked. He admits only love for a soldier he knew for a very short time - but, already dead, this love perhaps captures the character's perverse excitement about death and eroticism, fused together.

Boone is a handsome, unsophisticated, tattooed yard worker, who demeans the world as 'bullshit' and who believes he could, would, never be successful. He lies about having been a soldier - wanting a grand narrative to justify his existence. Whale, who at one time played with death narratives in the creation of horror movies, now, in narcissistic defensive response to major illness, half realised, hones in on Boone's needs for a father and treats him in the dehumanised way of his own father. He is aware that he deceives Boone, and enjoys attacking him.

Whale invites Boone to use his pool, without bathers, conveying his freedom from sexual taboo and social restriction. Verbally shocking statements are delivered in formal diction, and Whale works the relationship, using equalising statements, delivering adulation, engaging in a battle of will.

Whale through flattery manipulates Boone into false moments of intimacy, simultaneously denying Boone's communication, and strategically attacking Boone's self-image. He uses confusing-creating maneuvers to deliberately blur Boone's sense of what is real, denying Boone the truth of the words that express what he sees. A matador dance takes place - Boone needing relationship, Whale now expressing outright contempt and disdain, alternatively acting out with histrionics and pressuring Boone with passivity and silence.

In an effective maneuver to elicit compassion where Whale shows Boone how incompentent his artwork is - Boone, to distract Whale from his seeming humiliation, offers to pose, nude. Whale invades him sexually, intending to incite murder in Boone, with masochistic exhibitionism. Boone saves himself, disentangling himself from the perverse system almost at murder point. All that is left for Whale is suicide, drowning himself in his own swimming pool, seemingly triumphant in his all-powerful, idealised, destructive self.

Whale follows the law of his own desires, using ideology to seduce and exploit, gaining pleasure in destroying any goodness Boone offers. He frustrates Boone, lying in word and action, blurring Boone's sense of reality, violating his self-set limits. 'The perverse individual is skillful at pressuring the other into acting out and is expert at finding the perverse place in the other (Dujovne, 2002).

Boone himself oscillates between co-construction, deconstruction, passivity and counter-attack. Dujonve offers that 'the significant fuel for participation in a perverse dyad is fascination with the tantalising perverse ideology that thrives in the altered reality of the system' Ideology is communicated through actions and words, and Whale seduces Boone with infinite possibilities that exist without dependence: 'I love no one, I need no one, I envy no one'. Whale offers Boone the illusory hope that he may be able to get out of the sterile realities of his existence without actually having to deal with them.

The film asks that we consider our own perverse relatedness (or that might just be my way of responding to the world, there, with my grand 'We'. Let me rephrase that).

This film asked me to look at the ways that I seek to draw others into my own perverse agenda, in particular for me via the strategy of my own self-flagellating humilities. While I don't (think I) sell illusions to others, nor do I attempt to deflect attention to nonimportant matters (key strategies of the perversely related), I've been a party to a therapy 'game' in my own anorexic trauma-ridden past, subconsciously destroying chances of receiving help so provided.

I worry too that amongst my NLP-educated student peers, there's a blanket of 'needs' language that fluffs over a hegemony of self-satisficing perversity, with control and domination as it's shiny edging. I watch like a hawk for these tendencies within myself, and then take myself to task over paranoia and pettifoggering.

Ultimately, there's some usefulness in coming to terms with our own perverse reality orientation and ideology, and knowing what activates/animates us, for my thinking. The prompt to the consistent turn inwards and question, framed precisely here in the face of being denyed the truth of own perception, is perhaps the ultimate victory of Boone, in this movie.

Ref:

Dujovne, B. E. (2002). Perverse Relatedness, Psychoanalytic Psychology, 19(3), 525-539

Subjectivity, Work and Action - Christophe Dejours

Dejours' article (see reference below) addresses the 'psychodynamics of work'. He notes in his opening lines that for many of his clients, work is inseparable from suffering. Oddly enough though, he also characterises work as being 'at the origin of intelligence and ingeniousness'. The chosen challenge for subjectivity sees outcomes in terms of self-fulfillment or mental pathology - but either way, it's a chosen attitude.

Work is always completed 'for someone' - it is completely constructed in social relation. 'It is the power to feel, to think, to invent'. From a psychodynamic perspective, work is encountered when the personality must confront a task that is subject to material and social constraints. Dejours proposes that there is no such thing as purely screwing-toothpaste-lids-onto-toothpaste-tubes kind of work. There is always a gap between the prescriptive and the concrete reality of a situation - work seeks to bridge it. The prescriptive cannot define the total of reality, so 'the real' must constantly be defined as what subjects must add to a task in order to complete it.

Here it becomes interesting - 'the real' therefore is defined in failure - the real manifests itself to the subject in resistance to procedure, or knowledge, the real is defined in a thwarting of control. The real manifests itself in an affectively unpleasant moment of realisation for the subject - frustration, discouragement, powerlessness.

This affective suffering becomes the point of departure - the concentration of subjectivity that it entails prefigures a period of expansion as the subject acts to surmount the resistance of reality. Suffering is at once a subjective impression of the world and the source of an attempt to conquer (conquer!) the world...suffering lies at the origin of the intelligence that sets out in search of the world,in order to challenge, transform, and increase itself....subjectivity itself is transformed, increased and revealed to itself. [Italics and exclamation are mine]

Gives me a new way to think about that poor, naked, emaciated, body nailed bloodily to a cross, really.

Dejours proposes that intellectual work in no way can be reduced to mere cognition - subjectivity is not a looming ghost, but rather is governed by a particular body and a unique corporality. The body is the locus of skill in work - sensitivity to the tasks to be deployed can only be attuned through the body. We create a dialogue with that with which we work - with people, with machines, we create a strange vitalist fantasy, of projection, of availability, of need.

The body that we use is not the biologists body - rather it is the corpspropriation, that which relates to Other, that feels, that re-acts. The erotic body is the one through which we engage with the world. Dissociation from this body equates to mental illness in our culture. While this body is visible to the world, the suffering within it is not. The unseen suffering is thus un-valued, in our culture.

As highlighted above, being intelligent always means being a step outside of the procedure and instruction - codes must be violated, normative organisation must be traversed, in order to achieve. This too, however, is an invisible, and thus un-valued [or perhaps, more correctly for my thinking, not-correctly valued] skill.

Is work a necessary condition for the emergence of subjectivity? In a way that parallels the emergence of a subject in relationship, subjectivity in love? I don't think so - Dejours proposes rather that the development of subjectivity comes about through the relationship between suffering and reality.

Dejours argues that in psychodynamic theory proposes a paradox of double centrality, in the existence in a subject of suffering and drives on one hand, and the reality of the world and the unconscious on another. Freud defines the instinct as 'a measure of the demand made upon the mind for work in consequence of it's connection with the body'.

To tie this to the notion of work as Dejours has undertaken to analyse it, of poeisis, would require semantic ties to Traumarbeit (dream work) Trauerarbeit (work of mourning), Durcharbeiten (working through), Verdrangungsarbeit (work of repression), Arbeitsanforderung (work requirement), Verdichtungsarbeit (work of condensation) and so on.

This (above) places work and subjectivity in a consubstantial relationship - work in this way would allow that subjectivity be revealed to itself. Work then forms the transcendental condition for the revelation of absolute life. This brings the question of work into the realm of political theory.

Ordinary work, of course, does not present itself as a solipsistic relationship between self and self. Work is a social relationship - characterised by inequality, power and domination, expressed in a hierarchy. Work is the experience of resistance in a social world . To coordinate contradiction and conflict arising from the inevitability of personal style emerging from individual intelligence, the real organisation must be adjusted - out of the prescriptive organisation. Arriving at a collaborative effort implies worker commitment to disentangle deviations from procedures [whatever communally defined procedures might have been originally established, maybe]. Collective activity thus presumes a series of arguments, ideally oriented to efficiency, quality and social objective -  a de facto compromise, that is at once both technical and social. Living together is not self-evident, it demands deontic activity.

So why do we self-limit our subjectivity in the name of collective will?

- violence from conflict demands it?
 - the limited resources and invisibility in/of work demands that real work becomes visible. Judgment can be established when visibility is maximised.

The recognition of doing makes it possible to work with people we don't particularly seek for company. Cooperation may also function to ward off social solitude. Ultimately, rational compromise between individual subjectivity and collective action is possible in holding a centrality of work.

Back to the drawing board (literally! :) ) for me.

Ref:

Dejours, C. (2007). Subjectivity, Work and Action, Critical Horizons, 7, 45-62.

Online reading:

http://www.eap.philosophy-australia.com/issue_2/EAP2_THE_ENDURING_SIGNIFICANCE_OF_AXEL_HONNETH'S_CRITICAL_CONCEPTION_OF_WORK.pdf

http://www98.griffith.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/10072/1678/1/CLWRworkinglife.pdf

http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/res/article/viewFile/2465/2312

Millais, Ophelia, 1852

'Ophelia', Sir John Everett Millais  1829-1896 

http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=9506&searchid=9260

Ref:

Kim, K. (2009). "The time is out of joint" in New Essays on the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. (Ed. A. Drake). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, p. 141 - 168.

The words that grace the moving beyond

The last eight lines from a poem called '90 North' by Randall Jarrell:

'Where, living or dying, I am still alone;
Here where North, the night, the berg of death
Crowd me out of the ignorant darkness,
I see at last that all the knowledge

I wrung from the darkness—that the darkness flung me—
Is worthless as ignorance: nothing comes from nothing,
The darkness from the darkness. Pain comes from the darkness
And we call it wisdom. It is pain.'




I'm working through an essay on the symbolism that is recruited by a self-harmer in acts of self-mutilation. In psychoanalytic theory, a thread from Klein through to Segal through to Woodruff runs, addressing this question, the detailed accounts of the traumatised psychotic patients seeming to me to become more sensitive, more astute, through these women's accounts, over time, through history. Psychoanalysis is not a well established academic field, and it's a field that does not lend itself easily to models and systematisation, at that. Offerings made available through journal articles in this field speak of a uniqueness that is perhaps an outcome of this un-trammelled corner of human expertise - the papers tend  to have a feel of direct transmission from the author's fingertips, and seem free, in some ways of the overbearing APA standardisation procedures that I'm now accustomed to.


The modelling that is valuable for me, here, comes directly from the practitioners, not neat Venn diagrams and statistical significance at alpha 0.05. The modelling comes from the increasing emphasis through history placed in their own accounts of what is occurring, for them, as they work with, and beside, these patients. The most powerful accounts seem to arise through their explication of their involvement in countertransference, through the understanding of themselves, as they were, as they are, that they are brave enough to release to the world, in, of all places, academic papers.


[sharp change of subject]


These lines from Jarrell's poem grounds a place to work from, for me - it speaks not of annihilation but more of that continual starting over, the continual re-dressing that has to take place, as the world shifts through time, of what we thought we knew. Like these women who publish papers on the symbolism of inordinate acts of cruelty enacted instrumentally against the self, re-dressing and re-naming what was, and shifting to what is, into the darkness, is the work of being trully human, to me. 


Language is birthed as we break our symbiotic relationship to our maternal figure in human development. That question of whether all symbol formation, from the time we are small children onwards is an attempt to crawl back into the womb, in some ways, speaks to me of the unity discourse, the basis of so much of our spirituality.


Where be the One?


or should it be


Why be the One?

A custodia matutina usque ad noctem