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.
No comments:
Post a Comment