Mid-February Comments on Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization

Marcuse argues that the distribution of goods in culture, as well as the way we work, has been imposed upon us. For him, repression is not a product of some necessary condition of scarcity; rather, it is a type of organization of scarcity which creates existential attitudes that are forced upon individuals by this type of organization. He is clear to point out that this sort of organization does not distribute goods in accord with individual needs but, instead, through dominations that use violence and schemas of rationality. Keep in mind that Marcuse is a Marxist and as such believes that there is a ruling class that has appropriated the wealth and oppressed a working class. In contrast with the Marxian formula, which attempts to respond to individual abilities and interests, according to Marcuse, the ruling class attempts to hold into place distributive strategies that maintain economic power. Furthermore, these strategies use language to create forms of ideological rationality that coax people into supporting their own domination.

Domination itself is complex and operates both externally and internally whenever these ideologies prescribe needs and wants, values, rationality, and purpose. Once forced externally, individuals internalize them [a process Foucault accounts for in a sophisticated way with his work on the relation between power and knowledge]. More insidiously these internalizing processes can actually come to constitute the personal identity of individuals, thereby turning citizens (both ruling class and working class) into “docile” subjects [Foucault's term]. Thus, for Marcuse, repression accounts for both internal and external forces and processes, conscious and unconscious elements of a theory of mind that restrains and constrains individuals. Along these Marxist lines, domination ultimately starts with the organization of labor, habituating individuals to work in mechanical-like fashion as a part of their submission to social authority. Adjunct to this primary region of domination, is the administration of social life through media, entertainment, advertising, and the production of commodities that feeds right back into the “rational” domination of labor.

Psychologically, when individuals comply with this domination, they must also engage in forms of self deception that overcome the cognitive dissonance involved in domination. Marcuse is keenly interested in the psychological processes that occur–both consciously and unconsciously–as a part of these social processes. With his concept of domination, he joins the separate discourses of psychology and social/political theory as part of his model of liberation. Both discourses together allow him to develop Freud’s anthropology and Marx’s social theory in an integrated way. In short, particular organizations of labor and psychological ideologies create structures and organizations that maintain domination strategies. For Marcuse, these structures create historically-imbedded versions of the reality principle and therefore, different forms of repression. Unfortunately, these forms of domination create types and degrees of repression that go beyond what is necessary for the continuation of the species; it is this additional amount, this “surplus,” in which he is most interested. Examples include patriarchal forms of monogamy [which maximizes capitalist production!] and public control over the private lives of individuals [such boundaries having been dangerously eroded]. This also necessitated desexualization unless it served procreative purposes, thereby limiting unduly restricting the accepted phenomenological field of sexual behaviors in general. In sum, domination creates labor organization, which creates, value/moralities; these, in turn, constitute ideologically-informed individuals and their behaviors. For example, pleasure for the sake of pleasure is taboo and is unacceptable for legitimate citizens. Perversions are only those behaviors that cut against the grain of the logic of mass production.

Furthermore, within this logic, there is an ideologically-formed performance principle. Within a competitive model that is a manifestation of domination, the ruling class perpetuates hierarchical levels of “success” that are underwritten by [not so] hidden acquisitive and antagonistic motivations [Weber's "work ethic"]. The performance principle thus ranks individuals in accordance with their behavioral output as it fits with the historical form of the reality principle. Again, I want to point out that the problem of labor sits in the bottom of the reality principle.

Within this conception of labor being the primary locus of domination, individuals exist in a state of alienation, working at pre-established jobs that serve ideological forms of domination. As such, they do not fulfill their own needs and preferences, instead living with an absence of gratification and a negation of the pleasure principle. Instead of a person’s libido serving himself or herself, it serves only the organizational structure of domination. This restriction of erotic energy coming from alienated labor also exists in all other dimensions of life in which we become passive spectators to the video games, the movies, the Internet drama, advertising, marketing, and all other “hyper-realities” [Baudrillard's words] that have come to constitute ideological “realities” and constituted individuals. As such, Marcuse focuses not just on the Marxian elements [labor, social/political], but the psychological–the devastating effects of alienated labor practices that operate within a reality principle. Because time is also structured outside of the work hour, even “free” time or “leisure” time is already structured from the ground up to coincide with omnipresent ideology. Marcuse believes that we can critically analyze historical forms of surplus repression and develop transformative organizational strategies that abolish them. He also believes that as these underground forces strengthen, they [have and] will trigger counter forces toward more social control, domination, and even totalitarianism. The end result of this is the total destruction of the self-constituting individual [about whom Sartre and Beauvoir write so much about]. This explains why the increased sophistication of technologies has not resulted in the liberation of individuals.

We’ll start taking a look at Marcuse’s proposed ontology and liberating anthropology the next segment.

Kevin Boileau, Ph.D., J.D.
Writing in Seattle, WA
USA

Continuing comments on Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization

As I said in the last segment, Marcuse interprets Freud to say that there is a form of power reversal [my terms!] that can be reached whenever conditions of repression pass a certain point; there is also an intrinsic human tendency to rebel. Marcuse sees this as Freud’s anthropology of liberation and seeks to analyze the aspects of human nature that lead to this rebellion. Presumably this rebellion occurs at both the individual level and the social level [upon which both Sartre and Foucault have written extensively]. Marcuse thinks psychoanalysis can be used as an effective strategy to uncover these dynamics and dialectics.

Unfortunately, Marcuse believes that this core element of Freud’s instinct theory has been suppressed by Western culture, that numerous theoreticians and clinicians have denied the primacy of these underlying, vital sexual energies. The consequence of this is that sexuality–which contains the emancipatory potential that Marcuse identifies–is relegated to a non-foundational position in the construction of a human anthropology. For Marcuse, Freud interprets these instinctual energies that seek pleasure as “Eros.” Marcuse believes that if our culture liberated Eros we could release these suppressed energies into a newly constructed constellation of social relations. This is not to say that he is promoting promiscuity; rather, he is arguing that our closing of Eros has resulted in a type of repressed culture–one that Nietzsche wrote of in the Genealogy of Morals. By releasing Eros, Marcuse believes that we can reconstruct human relations–and human self structure. Presumably, this would mean a re-balancing of the valorization of the epistemological quest with the aesthetic element that has been pushed to the periphery.

Marcuse, like Freud, believes human nature is a dialectic between Eros and Thanatos, both together which have immense explanatory value in cultural phenomena. It is safe to say, however, that both believe that the weakening of the life instincts elevates the strength and power of the death instincts, including sadism, aggression, war, and violence. Thus, for Marcuse, the more restrictions we place on Eros eventually weaken the life instincts and eventually release the destructive forces. Unfortunately, we live in a culture that represses, suppresses, and controls the release of Eros. Ergo, we live inside our own destruction. The implication is clear, and he [Marcuse] believes that the right strategy is to reduce repression.

By way of parenthetical statement, I want to point out that our seminar group will be reading Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man after we finish Eros and Civilization. As such, I’d like to make a few comments about the importance of Marcuse’s program of social change and how his appropriation of Freud’s hydraulic model allows him to develop that program. I want to highlight that Marcuse attempts to use a natural science model as a foundation for individual and social revolution. In short, Marcuse like Freud, believed that human nature itself contains creative and rebellious elements that would necessarily respond to oppressive forces.

Basically, Marcuse shows how humans become dominated by culture and society, why their underlying free natures are appropriated and distorted by those cultures and societies. Marcuse also shows that revolutions fail because the underlying natural powers in humans are crushed underneath these new, socially-constructed selves. One can thereby see how Marcuse is utilizing Freud’s theory of human nature as a pivotal core for a critical theory and as a theoretical foundation for liberation and revolution.

The key to Marcuse’s theory of liberation starts with his assumption that the reality principles is always historically specific. That is, there is no transhistorical, universal reality principle that oppresses the pleasure principles in individuals. This allows him a micro-analysis of the specific forms of oppression that the reality principle takes. In this analysis, “surplus repression” is the sort of historically-specific repression that goes beyond basic repression, which is only the amount of instinctual repression necessary for the perpetuation of humans. Surplus repression changes from culture to culture and is, therefore, a phenomenon interesting in its own right. In short, it is in some ways an analogue to Marx and Engels’ idea of surplus value. I suggest considering what sorts of effects the creation of surplus value creates just like the sorts of effects the creation of surplus repression creates. Critical Theory studies this imbalance. The second concept that Marcuse explores is the “performance principle,” which is the current historical form of the reality principle. For Marcuse, the notions are inherent in Freud; it is easier to agree that they come from a Marxian interpretation of Freud. By using Freud’s theory of human nature, Marcuse is able to show how a radical social and political theory is possible.

We will continue with these comments later.
As a footnote, I’d like to point out that there are some individuals in our culture who take this radical approach seriously, and who are constantly “thinking against themselves” in the hopes of teaching better thinking methodology. One of these individuals is my dear and good friend, Dr. Peter Boghossian, who is simply a master presenter and a masterful debater. I have known all his presentations to be accessible, crystal clear, and bulletproof. Through his sort of radical critique, we can lay the formal groundwork for a critical social theory and other valuable applications. La lotta continua, Dr. Boghossian.
KCB
Writing in Seattle

February Seminar in Psychoanalysis & Philosophy: Notes Regarding Wachtel

Now that this seminar group has taken a look at some of the psychoanalytic ideas of Andre Green and Morris Eagle, we will be reading from Paul Wachtel’s book, Relational Theory (and the Practice of Psychotherapy). This will bring us closer to asking the right questions about the nature of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic thought.

In his book, Wachtel acknowledges that the Freudian classical view of analysis has transformed in great part to more relationally-oriented thinking. This sort of orientation highlights that each human is always embedded in a “matrix of relationships,” past and present, that shape a person’s present experience. Wachtel highlights that most relationally-oriented practitioners and thinkers rightly focus on past relationships and the relationship between analyst and analysand, but that there has not been sufficient attention to one’s present relationships and their effects on one’s experience. Later on in the text, Wachtel develops an account of “cyclical psychodynamics,” which is his approach to assimilating the content of present relational interactions of an analysand into the analysis itself. What is more interesting to me is his belief that cyclical psychodynamics must pay attention–as well–to the “larger world of race, class, and culture.” I find this thought particularly interesting because EPIS (The Existential Psychoanalytic Institute of Seattle) has come to similar conclusions based on its own, independent research. In fact, our Seminar in Cultural Criticism & Psychoanalysis focuses directly on the assumption that we must take cultural phenomena into account in our psychoanalytic methodologies lest we recapitulate in the consulting room what ails the analysand or the patient in his or her regular life.

It is also my belief that much of the discursive transformation in psychoanalytic models is isomorphic with underlying philosophical and historical shifts from modernism to postmodernism, especially regarding questions of epistemological and moral truth. For example, much of what psychoanalysis was in the past purported to “discover” the truth about a patient through archaeological excavation and clever hermeneutic process. In contrast, more contemporary, relational models also focus on the co-construction and articulation of an analysand’s past and present experience. The valorization of construction over discovery also has its concomitant manifestations in clinical practice. For example, in the “old days,” most analysts would try to purify the transference by remaining silent. The assumption here is glaring: that there is primarily an intra-psychic structure that can be revealed in a so-called “one-person” format by the analyst’s pretensions of being a Cartesian-styled spectator. Fortunately, however, Heidegger’s revolutionary criticism of the metaphysics of presence showed us–by derivation–that the analyst could never really retreat to ghostlike status in the consulting room and, furthermore, that his [the analyst's] silence and quietude always had relational effects on the analysand/patient. Thus, even the analyst in the consulting room is embedded within a matrix of power relations, language, ideologies, culture, custom, geography, personal history, and more.

Thus, by replacing the Cartesian, subject-object dynamic with Heideggarian ontology–in which the analyst is already in the world and fully embedded herself–[and mind you, for most analysts there is lack of awareness of the existential influence]–questions of “objective truth” are replaced by articulations of experience. There is much to say, and we will in the near future, but for now, let’s read Wachtel and see how existential phenomenology has already anticipated the empirical, and more specifically how it provides both theoretical and clinical foundation.

Dr. Boileau
Writing in Seattle

Notes Regarding February Seminar in Cultural Criticism & Psychoanalysis (Marcuse)

In our January, 2012 meeting, we took a preliminary look at Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization which he, himself, called “A Philosophical Inquiry Into Freud. After we finish this work, we will review and analyze his One-Dimensional Man, both texts usable as prelude to further study in Critical Theory, especially in relation to psychoanalytic thought and practice. My hope today is to present some of his preliminary ideas in a way that will help us move through the text in a discerning and perspicuous way.

In Eros and Civilization (EC), Marcuse tries to refute Freud’s argument that a non-repressive society is impossible. According to Marcuse, social progress [think Modernism! think Enlightenment!] requires a mandated labor and the correlate of instinctual repression. More specifically, he believes that unrestricted sexual gratification competes with the discipline required for the hard work that not only sustains existence but also which creates cultural value. Therefore, pleasure and happiness must be sacrificed for [asinine,] relentless work, reproductive sexuality, and social restraint. His analysis implies that conditions of scarcity are required for our survival and that the aggressive tendencies of humans require strict laws in order to prevent cultural annihilation. In contrast, Marcuse argues that these beliefs about repression, aggression, and socialization are historically specific; further, he argues that there is a hidden trend in psychoanalysis which might be able to unlock a non-repressive structure of society.

More specifically, Marcuse analyzes and re-constitutes Freud’s explanation of how the reality principle overcomes the pleasure principle. He asserts that the reality principle enforces society’s rules and prohibitions by imposing them externally onto individual humans. This sort of domination shapes thoughts, feelings, and behavior, desires, “needs,” usage of language, and even consciousness. Thus, society represses instinctual needs and replaces them with an organized [in Foucault's terms, "governmentality"] and distorted form of beliefs, perceptions, and judgments. For Marcuse, this social domination of individuals becomes social psychology–historicized and political. In short, Freud shows us what we have repressed for material progress; Marcuse re-interprets this analysis as a historicized theory of socialization. Thus [think Nietzsche], all of the ostensible values of productivity, monogamy, religion, morality, and progress are nefarious euphemisms that are underwritten by the misery and suffering we have imposed upon ourselves.

Marcuse believes, though, that there is a hidden trend in psychoanalysis that discloses aspects of human nature that oppose the sort of domination imposed by repression and renunciation. Marcuse argues that Freud’s theory of the instincts reveals that they [our instincts] aim toward the convergence of freedom, happiness, and needs. Along these lines, memory includes images of gratification and happiness that have been prohibited by repressive culture. Under this theory, it is psychoanalysis that can explore these hidden traces of lost potential gratification and happiness.

Recall that for Freud, the suppression of memory occurs through the repression of painful experiences; it is psychoanalysis that can free them by dissolving neurotic thoughts and behaviors. In contrast, Marcuse accentuates the liberating elements of memory and recollection of happy and pleasant experiences. In short, the remembrance of freedom and happiness would operate as dialectical tension against the alienating forms of contemporary culture (reproductive monogamy, relentless work). Marcuse believes that society dominates individual consciousness by suppressing those positive and liberating memories, thereby devaluing experiences guided by the pleasure principle [following Nietzsche's pronouncements in the Genealogy of Morals]. Thus, only fear of punishment and guilt linger in the memory, not potentials of happiness and freedom. Further, the unconscious contains memory of the absence of wants and repression that occurred in the womb. The memory of this integral gratification of the womb–free from repression or fear–provides the content that psychoanalysis can trigger against current forms of repression. It is this point of Freud’s that Marcuse believes contains the seeds of an anthropology of liberation. What ought to be intriguing for analysts and other psychotherapeutic clinicians is how these elements of liberation can exist in the consulting room in hidden and repressed form, and furthermore, how the analyst’s own repressive tendencies can preclude their emergence. In non-clinical settings, these dynamics manifest in parallel fashion, perhaps even more occluded by social interaction.

In the next segment we will continue to develop Marcuse’s critique of Freud, along with his [Marcuse's] account of non-repressive individuality and sociality.

KCB
writing in Seattle

Advance Purchase for New Release from EPIS Publishing Co.

EPIS Publishing Co. is please to announce the imminent release of its first 2012 publication entitled Three Essays on Phenomenology (with subtitles following). If you’d like a discounted, advance purchase on the volume, please send an email to epispublishing1@gmail.com. or a check mailed to the following address, for $20.00:
323 16th Ave E, #103
Seattle, WA 98112.

Here is the Preface for the book:
These three essays represent a period of intense philosophical research and writing in conjunction with Professor David A. Boileau (now deceased) during the early years of this new millennium. Like so much other intellectual work, I consider them as preliminary and introductory—unfinished in many ways. Before his passing, David Boileau and I were working on various theoretical criticisms of modern humanism, especially how inadequate conceptions of phenomenology resulted in anthropological distortion, in moral theory, social relations, and psychology. It is in these essays, that I attempt to begin working out the phenomenological problems in psychology, examining the relation between ego distortions and moral behavior, and finally proposing a line of inquiry into radical subjectivity. This volume is the very first volume in the proposed “ZeroPoint Series,” which initiates a line of inquiry into the possibilities for introspective and radical cognitive autonomy, which might have applications for clinical work in psychoanalysis, cultural criticism, social and political philosophy, and moral theory. It is my belief that each one can be further developed and that together they can lead to new critical perspectives in the accounting of radical subjectivity. I am planning further volumes in this series. I also acknowledge that although I have turned to a number of thinkers for discussion and understanding of this work, that it contains a number of mistakes and lacunas, all of which are solely mine.

Here is the back cover description:
These three essays are phenomenological investigations into moral theory, humanistic/modern social relations, and the possibility of radical subjectivity. The first essay, Chasing the Self, is a criticism of 20th-Century psychology, arguing that it rests upon scientific assumptions that prevent a fuller and richer anthropological conception of humans. It is rich in theory and has practical, clinical applications. The second essay, Existential Psychoanalysis, is a study of Jean-Paul Sartre’s dialectic between psychoanalytic distortions in self-concept and the resulting moral problematic of sado-masochistic social relations. It is well researched and is a valuable contribution to the complicated question concerning radical subjectivity. The third and final essay, Prolegomena to The Possessive Self, concerns the problem of the Other by examining and criticizing the possessive self of the Enlightenment. By criticizing the very construction of the modernist self, the “I” of humanism is dismantled, opening up theoretical and practical possibilities for new structures in social relations. All three essays are introductory and open up fertile possibilities for continued development of their ideas and assertions.

KCB
Writing from our Seattle, WA, office

Seminar in Existential Phenomenology: Heidegger (Part 2)

This is more preliminary commentary and analysis as our seminar group moves toward the February session in existential phenomenology. We need to emphasize how important Husserl’s phenomenological attitude is for Heidegger study. This means that we must focus initially on our everyday experience of the world in a way that is unadulterated by theory and concept. The goal is that by avoiding these distortions caused by learning and by knowledge, we can see the world as it is in itself. When I look at things in the world, I always see them in terms of an intentionality (a concept we covered in our Brentano studies, which was an idea he took from the Scholastics). What this means for us, however, is that when we look at something, we always see it as something; it means something for us in terms of the place it occupies within a constellation of meanings. This notion, which Heidegger follows, allows him to develop further one of his basic, anti-Cartesian positions that consciousness is always outside itself, in the world. This is the very important idea that my consciousness is always embedded in relationships to the world, to others, to ideas, and so forth, from the ground up. It is, in fact, one of the fundamental tenets of existential psychotherapy and existential analysis. Thus, consciousness is never just conscious. In contrast, it is always conscious of something. Furthermore, the world is never something qualitatively different from consciousness–out there–as Descartes would have us believe. Instead, consciousness is always its world: they go together as conceptual poles of an intrinsic quality to being human and not separate.

It might also then be helpful to consider Heidegger’s early History of the Concept of Time because there are some passages in it that explain phenomenology. We must consider how we relate to the concept of intentionality. In the natural attitude, which Heidegger exposes for collapsing the ontological within the ontic, we think of ourselves as any other object (one can also see here the strong influence of Kierkegaard in this way of thinking). Nevertheless, Heidegger utilizes phenomenology to show that we humans are not the same as other things. For example, even though we humans relate to the furniture of the world, we can also take a point of view on that relation. Thus, when I reflect on any relation I have to an object in the world, the object is immanent in consciousness–to that reflection– and not transcendent to it as it is in my basic relational stance to my world of things. In the transcendent mode, the material world is alien (and full of nausea, for Sartre). Thus, I am both a part of the world and separate from it. What is interesting is that the recognition of this split between me and the world leads to objectivity. More interesting is that it arises from the immanent reflection upon a transcendent perception. That is, without transcendent perceptions there would not be the experience of objectivity. For example, my intentional experience of a car comes from an immanent reflection on my transcendent relation/perception of car in the world.

In the phenomenological reduction, we focus attention not so much on the object of perception but on the act of perceiving as we reflect on the (transcendent object) in perception. This allows the objectivity of the transcendent object to appear in consciousness. Thus, in the Husserlian epoche–the bracketing of the world–we focus on thinking about the act of perceiving as something immanent to reflection. We don’t focus on the object as external/transcendent. This is where phenomenological analysis starts, for Heidegger. It is also the basic stance for an existentially oriented psychotherapist or an existential psychoanalyst in the dyadic encounter with patient or client. It dialectically opposes the natural attitude of positive science, and of Descartes.

As William Large points out, a real object, i.e., a car, is external to consciousness. The objective car, in contrast, is internal to consciousness. For Husserl, there is an absolute split between the world and consciousness. In contrast, Heidegger parts company with Husserl here by questioning how this split is possible when the concrete living beings who have this split in consciousness are also a part of the world. The problem that Heidegger sees is that we have not investigated the Being of consciousness with the same rigor as we have investigated those objects that are immanent within consciousness. For Heidegger, even Husserl did not get beyond the Cartesian position of a substance ontology. This leads Heidegger to the question about the being of the being who relates to the world intentionally.

Pushing this issue further, Heidegger realized that traditional phenomenology, including that of Husserl, operated in such a way to make the inquiry into subjectivity vanish as a problem as we prioritized objectivity through knowledge. In short, the phenomenological under-structure to modern, Western philosophy takes knowledge to be the primary way of relating to the world; the understanding of consciousness is based on this prioritization. In stark contrast, Heidegger questions whether there is not a more fundamental way of relating to the world than through the (immanent) subject-object split that occurs through the prioritization of knowledge (as way of being). Instead of being ensnared in this prioritization, Heidegger sought to un-conceal a more fundamental ontological basis for epistemological inquiry. Thus, Heidegger’s approach to the question of being is phenomenological. Let’s pursue what he means by this, as well as its relation to ontology. Then, let’s focus on the question of being itself.

For Heidegger, laying bare Husserl’s implicit ontology means that this question can only be approached through the question of what it means to be a human being. We will see that this is so because what differentiates humans from other objects is that its life matters to it; the meaning of its life–as projected possibility–matters to it. In Being and Time, section 7 of the introduction, Heidegger explores what he means by phenomenology. It involves the attempt to reach the “things themselves,” (and thereby overcome Kant’s position that we cannot access the noumenal realm). Heidegger urges us not to presuppose the same metaphysics that Husserl did. He believes that we can uncover new possibilities within our past by going back all the way to the ancient Greeks who had an original experience of the world that has been distorted by substance metaphysics through time. More specifically, he argues that phenomenon as appearance (object of consciousness) is not opposed to an underlying thing in itself. That is, we have come to believe [think Plato's theory of the forms] that appearance is deceptive and that it is somehow unrelated to an underlying thing in itself. However, in Heidegger’s etymological search he discovers that there is a more primordial meaning to phenomenon than appearance and that is that which can be brought into the light, that which shows itself. There are objects of consciousness, therefore, only because there are things made visible by the light. Furthermore, by investigating underneath our traditional metaphysics with all its conceptual and theoretical categories, we can return to a more fundamental level and mode of experience that occurs in our everyday lives. It is descriptive phenomenology that can accomplish this task. Logos thus implies a making clear of things in our everyday life. Thus, to speak the truth means foundationally to clarify and bring to the light, and only derivatively to assert a true judgment. Heidegger believes that this unconcealment is based on the ancient Greek notion of aletheia. This unconcealing process occurs by description rather than by argument. It is the attempt to allow beings to reveal themselves as they are and not in terms of theoretical or conceptual categories or explanations that distort and make hidden. For Heidegger, this phenomenological method leads to fundamental ontology by examining the meaning of the Being of phenomena. For him, it is Dasein that can ask these questions about meaning and therefore approach the meaning of Being in general.

Let’s now make a few comments about being. These comments are few, at this point, and preliminary, so we will attempt to refine them over time by future sections on these points. It can be said that Heidegger tries to think Being (and essence) as a creative occurrence of the new rather than as a “noetic and teleologically predetermined order” [as occurs in Aristotle], according to Kisiel’s introduction to Werner Marx’s excellent text on Heidegger. For Heidegger, we must replace thinking the essence of man as substance with the a notion of essence as occurrence. This implies the temporal rather than the analytic, static interpretation of human existence. We must work hard to challenge tradition when it becomes “dormant” (or in therapeutic terms, sedimented), re-awakening primordial and re-vitalizing experiences within it. This requires us to overcome a passive stance in our orientation toward being and instead, adopt a more assertive, proactive questioning of the natural attitude. It is work. Thus, we follow Nietzsche in his admonition that the Apollinian outweighs the Dionysian, and therefore we must engage in a deconstruction of the structures that have become accepted and hardened–implicit in all experience–and thereby revitalize the new which is always hidden in the old. By returning to the Greek beginnings of our Western culture, we may radically start from primordial experience that is unadulterated by the centuries of traditional belief and value structures that have only served to conceal. He [Heidegger] assumes that these originary experiences still exist though hidden in our current cultural framework and that by “thinking against ourselves” (as Von Will would say) or by reconsidering the meaning of Being, we can reveal the creative power of those early experience sin our civilization. This, in turn, would open up new epistemological possibilities, set within new frameworks of value. I will continue these sorts of questions at my next sitting.

KCB
Writing for the Existential Psychoanalytic Institute of Seattle

Introductory Comments to January Phenomenological Process Seminar (Part I)

This seminar has become one of our most intriguing and valuable intellectual and clinical gatherings. We bring clinical case studies or social transactions and then analyze them from a purely phenomenological & existential point of view. Participation is unanimous and everyone reports a great deal of personal satisfaction and growth. I’d like to make some suggestions–reminders for the old and news for the new–because I think it will make this shared time even more gratifying and valuable, both personally and professionally.

We are using a number of texts as foundation, and I want to encourage all of us to continue purchasing, reading, analyzing and utilizing them as theoretical and methodological fulcra for case study analysis. Sokolowski’s text, Introduction to Phenomenology, while not formally required, is an excellent introduction to this sort of thinking, and I highly recommend it to all participants. Not only does he carefully place phenomenology historically, he unravels what it is and what it does. Chapters 8 & 9 are especially helpful treatments of the self and of temporality. The bibliography is an excellent source of further reading.

As main texts, we have using Van Deurzen’s Skills in Existential Counselling, and Spinelli’s The Interpreted World, along with the his later Practising Existential Psychotherapy. All three have excellent outlines, diagrams, and models for existential clinical thinking, and they are indispensable to this seminar.

Along these lines, Spinelli in the later text (Practising), which focuses on the relational world, has a condensed chapter on philosophical foundations including the following concepts: He says that at bottom there are three main principles in this way to approach clinical work. He is speaking of the human condition.

First, he asserts that there is always relatedness, including subjectivity and its relation to others, the way we exist our subjectivity, and how we each create a world. Second, he asserts that we live in existential uncertainty–always–and as we see, this is both a burden and privilege from a transcendental point of view. Third, we always live in anxiety as we try to uncover and construct meaning, moving forward temporally in our lives. You would do well to carefully read this chapter and actually methodically and slowly apply it to either a case or to a social transaction. I would also like to point out that Part Two of this applications-oriented text is an excellent starting point for clinicians who want to learn this type of therapeutic orientation.

In the near future–perhaps February–we will be adding additional texts to our resource base. One of them is Giorgi’s The Descriptive Phenomenological Method in Psychology, which he bases on Husserl’s work, as well as other important thinkers. Chapter Five is an excellent recapitulation of the phenomenological method, and I advise reading it. Don Ihde wrote a book entitled Experimental Phenomenology. Chapter One is a solid rendition of the phenomenological method. There are many other texts which we will bring to the table in 2012, but if you read through these five carefully, you will have a good start on the “process” aspects of phenomenology and a solid method for our seminar.

KCB
Writing in Seattle

Introductory Comments on January Seminar in Culture & Psychoanalysis (Part 1)

We will be discussing two texts by Herbert Marcuse this year, starting with Eros and Civilization in January. Recall that the purpose of this seminar is to review intelligent criticism that helps us understand the relation between culture and the way we think about psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and mental health in general. That is to say that clinical work does not occur in a vacuum; instead, it operates from a deeper foundation of the construction of value, scientific paradigm, language, power relations, and many other factors. Marcuse was very sensitive to these issues in his own right and offers an exciting volume that we will use as a basis for discussion.

He is deeply concerned with the fact that our civilization is repressed and that individuals are dominated by various forms of a repressive system. He, like Nietzsche, queries about the possibility of a transvaluation of values that would lead to non-repressive forms of culture. He proposes in his book the idea of “non-repressive sublimation,” in which the sexual impulses maintain their erotic energy, bypass their immediate object, and eroticize (energize) non-erotic relationships between individuals. Otherwise, we exist in forms of personal and social alienation that separate the intellectual from the instinctual, of pleasure from thought. Therefore, for Marcuse, we must engage in intellectual liberation from totalitarian forms of thought that regress our instinctual nature. This necessarily is a social and political issue. While the Existential Psychoanalytic Institute of Seattle is not necessarily an agent of political activism, it does recognize that the political does meet both the professional and the clinical. Because we are sensitive to these influences and “effects,” and because we recognize that critical social and political theory is necessary for the development of contemporary psychoanalytic thought and practice, we offer this seminar to our members. We’ll proceed here by way of a series of questions.

1. What is the relationship between social/political issues and psychology (psychoanalysis), according to Marcuse? On this note, what is totalitarianism? How does it affect psychology/psychoanalysis?

2. Has the sacrifice of libido and happiness (through social & cultural repression) actually paid off in our culture/society? What sort of evidence can we give either way? Are there counter-finalities (Sartre’s term from the Critique of Dialectical Reason) that have proven more harmful than any perceived gains?

3. In “Freudian terms, is the conflict between pleasure principle and reality principle irreconcilable to such a degree that it necessitates the repressive transformation of man’s instinctual nature?”; or does it allow for a new, non-repessive relationship to nature [note Heidegger's exegesis on the four-fold] as well as for new, non-repressive social and existential relations between individuals?

4. Following the previous question, might it be true that the “repressive” form of civilization is only historically accidental but not necessarily true in any analytic sense?

5. Is it true that Freud’s theory itself refutes his consistent denial of a non-repressive civilization? Do the achievements of a repressive civilization create the seeds for the gradual abolition of repression?

6. What is the relationship between the pleasure principle and the reality principle, according to Freud?

7. Does the reality principle safeguard the pleasure principle?

8. Does the social organization of personal desire/instinct thereby render their resulting aim and direction less than fully authentic, somehow untrue to individuals?

9. What does Freud mean when he asserts that the reality principle never entirely overcomes the pleasure principle and therefore has to be constantly re-established?

10. Can we overcome inner repression? Should we?

11. Is there a possible synthesis for the dialectical struggle between the pleasure principle and the reality principle?

12. What is happiness? How is it related to pleasure?

13. How is regression progressive? How can this inform psychotherapeutic/analytic practice?

14. How does Freud think that the repressive function at the ontogenetic level is interrelated to the phylogenetic level? How can this dialectic inform knowledge between clinical practice and cultural criticism/critical social theory?

KCB
Writing in Seattle

Some Ideas for January Seminar in Psychoanalysis (Part I)

This month in the psychoanalytic seminar, the EPIS group is going to review Parts II and III in Morris Eagle’s text, From Classical to Contemporary Psychoanalysis,  as we transition into Wachtel’s text, Relational Theory (and the Practice of Psychotherapy). We will start by comparing contemporary conceptions of mind in psychoanalytic theories with Freud’s earlier view. I suggest thinking a great deal about the metaphors that they use; consider historical and other reasons why these metaphors shifted, along with clinical reasons. Also consider Eagle’s assertion that contemporary psychoanalytic theories do not offer a systematic theory of mind. Here are some questions and issues you might ponder in preparation for the seminar: 1) what is the critique of the Freudian, “hidden reality” conception of the unconscious? 2) How does contemporary analysis, as a whole, alter this view? 3) How is Sartre’s idea of mauvaise foi consonant with and perhaps informative about the contemporary notion that the unconscious is just those experiences that remain implicit and unrefined? 4) How is personal “ownership” of one’s experience relevant to the definition and conception of what counts as unconscious? 5) How is the failure to make relevant connections within one’s experience part of the unconscious? How is this relevant to Bion’s notions of Alpha and Beta elements and linking? 6) How does the contemporary analytic notion of constructing meaning parallel postmodern epistemology? How does the Freudian position track modernist epistemology? 7) What is Sartre’s famous criticism of Freud’s idea of the censor? How does the notion of signal anxiety perhaps overcome this challenge? 8) Are pre-linguistic experiences more authentic than post-linguistic (given the charge that language distorts)? 9) How does the relationalist notion that the unconscious is just a concatenation of transactional patterns compare to the existentialist notion of sedimentation? 10) Is the mind socially constructed or is it a stable inner structure?

With regard to Eagle’s chapter on conceptions of object relations in contemporary analytic theory, we must define what an “object” is.  Thus, we can ask these questions (amongst others):  11) How do we compare Freud’s conception to the modern relationalists’? Which is more accurate? 12) Is there a way to theoretically and clinically resolve the dialectical tension between drive theory and relational theory as it pertains to object relatedness? 13) How does object relations relate to sexuality in contemporary views? 14) Why do we need objects?

With regard to contemporary views on psychopathology, here are some questions that may trigger lively discussion: 15) How is pathology linked to environment failure? maladaptive representations? clinging to original representations? 16) How can the quest for autonomy conflict with the desire to retain attachment to early object? 17) How can pathology come from failure to internalize a secure base? 18) What is Kohut’s idea that pathology comes from self defects? 19) What is the distinction between unmet needs and conflictual wishes regarding pathology, according to Kohut? 20) How can pathology be viewed as a restriction of a full range of experience? 21) How is a failure to regulate affect indicative of pathology?

As a way to transition into Wachtel’s text, Relational Theory, please start considering the epistemological problems of both the one-person view and the two-person views of understanding another person. Consider how the transition from modernity to postmodernity might have affected at a structural level this transition. Along these lines, consider Kuhn’s ideas about scientific paradigm shifts and “abnormal” science that occurs within revolutions in ideas. Consider whether there are factors exogenous to the clinical experience that might have influenced this paradigm shift.  Question: 22) How can we represent the current weltanschauung?

KCB
Writing in Seattle

Introductory Comments to January Seminars (Part 1)

As we approach the four core January seminars, I’d like to use some space here to raise some questions and issues about the material in an informal and casual way, with the intent to focus members toward a 2012 dialectic. Last night, we started our new Seminar in Film, Phenomenology & Psychoanalysis. We watched Roman Polanski’s first feature film, entitled Knife in the Water, had good food and drink, and overall a generally enjoyable evening. In a few months, we will watch, analyze, and discuss another film, so feel free to send your suggestions to EPIS.

Let’s now move on to the four core seminars. We intend to read all of Heidegger’s Being and Time, along with supplemental texts and perhaps some of his later work as it bears on BT.

We need to try to understand what Heidegger means by Being. He uses the term “Sein,” which should not be thought of as an entity but rather as the infinitive that means “to be.” In contrast, Heidegger uses das Seiende to mean “being” in the sense of an entity. As such, we can ask: 1) How does the distinction between these two terms act as foundation for his ontology? 2) How does Heidegger change the question from what things exist to the question of what it means to exist at all? This shifts the focus from a taxonomic inquiry into the things that exist to the inquiry into the meaning of Being. For example, we can ask “What is a psychoanalytic institute?” This question is, for Heidegger, about an entity. In contrast, we could ask “What does it mean to belong to a psychoanalytic institute?” This second question is more foundational than the first because the determination of meaning determines the institute. Therefore, Heidegger concludes that the meaning precedes the entity. By avoiding the question of whether or not something exists or what kind of an entity it is, we ask a more fundamental question. Similarly, we can the question “What does it mean to be at all?” As Michael Gelven points out in his commentary, p. 9, in all the ways we exist or act, the “being” question is foundational. By looking at all the ways we exist and what is common to them all, we can pursue what it means “to be” in the first place. By thinking about what it means to be a human being we can then determine what a human being is. For Heidegger, the very fact that we can ask this basic question shows that our existence is meaningful to us.

Heidegger also takes up the issue of the subject-object dichotomy. In the tradition, we conceptually distinguish the knower from a world that can be known. However, Heidegger repudiates this distinction and argues that at the most foundational level we are already in the world. in order to even have the subject-object distinction we must already be in the world. Therefore, opposing Schopenhauer, the world can never actually be my representation be it is never outside me. Yet, if we pursue the Being question, we realize that the world matters to us in various ways. We care about it in various ways that exemplify how and what it means to us in any given aspect. Therefore, for Heidegger, fundamental ontology must precede any inquiry in to subject-object explorations into facts and values. We can see here that the very subject-object distinction is itself an abstraction and only covers a restricted realm of inquiry.

Heidegger thus takes it upon himself to analyze human existence and reinterprets traditional problems in philosophy in terms of transcendental awareness or meaning categories. As I mentioned, the focus shifts from entities to the underlying meaning of thinking them. That is, we re-focus our inquiry on an entity toward what it means to be in the world through/by thinking that entity; these are what Heidegger calls “existentials.” Questions at this point could be: 3) How can we determine all of these existentials? 4) Are they cultural and/or historically dependent? A good way to start this exploration is to think of them as presuppositions in experience that make that experience possible. They are, therefore, a priori and transcendental. More formally, the quest is to identify and explain the modes of awareness that allow one to ask questions about the meaning of one’s existence, i.e., how we construct meaning.

For Heidegger, there are two movements in the construction of the analysis of existence. The first movement is from the everyday or inauthentic perspective. The second movement is a re-analysis in terms of human’s temporal structure. This fundamental ontology–the study of Being–was for Heidegger that which had been covered up by traditional metaphysics, which was the study of entities and the motivation of natural & social science. Because knowing is only one of the ways that we exist, we must first examine all the ways that we exist and then understand how knowing and science are just one of those ways. This was his choice of “first” philosophy, which would serve as the basis for all other philosophical exploration.

Furthermore, the analysis of this ontology must be phenomenological, which we will discuss in the Seminar. For example, we could ask 5) How are ontology and phenomenology compatible, given that phenomenology studies appearances and ontology studies that which is real?; or, 6) how does this phenomenology operate? Another question could be as follows: 7) How can an existential analysis of Dasein give us answers to the question about Being?; and 8) isn’t he actually engaged in constructing a philosophical anthropology rather than an ontology?

Perhaps the clue is in Dasein itself, who is the one who engages in this ontological search. Thus, as Gelven points out, the answers about Being can only be analyzed through self-reflective human consciousness and therefore, existential analysis must be a part of ontology. That is, the study of Being cannot be separated from the study of man. As Heidegger himself said in What is Called Thinking?, “every way of thinking takes its way already within the total relation of Being and man’s nature, or else it is not thinking at all.” (p. 79, NY: Harper & Row, 1968). There is no difference between the study of man and a study of Being.

We will continue our musings on BT in later installments, focusing next on Heidegger’s introductions to the text. We will also pen some comments with regard to the other seminars, on psychoanalysis and on cultural studies.

KCB
Writing in Seattle