Psychic Deadness

PSYCHIC DEADNESS

M I C H A E L

E I G E N

PSYCHIC DEADNESS

PSYCHIC DEADNESS

Michael Eigen, Ph.D.

K

A

R

N

A

C

First published in 1996 by Jason Aronson Inc., NJ, USA

Reprinted in 2004 with the author's permission by H. Karnac (Books) Ltd, 118 F i n c h l e y Road, London NW3 5HT

Copyright © 2004 by Michael Eigen

The rights of Michael Eigen to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted in accordance with §§77 and 78 of the Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CLP. for this book is available from the British Library ISBN; 978 1 85575 386 0 www.karnacbooks. com

Printed & bound by Antony Rowe Ltd, Eastbourne

T o all who strive to make this w o r l d a place the heart can live i n . *

* This dedication is inspired by Edward Dahlberg's, Can These Bones Live.

Come f r o m the f o u r winds, O breath, and breathe u p o n these slain, that they may live. Ezekiel 37:9

Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction

PART ONE: THEORETICAL SOUNDINGS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Psychic Death The Destructive Force Goodness and Deadness Bion's N o - t h i n g M o r a l Violence Two Kinds of N o - t h i n g The Area o f Freedom: The Point o f N o Compromise

PART TWO: CLINICAL PROBES 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

The I m m o r a l Conscience The Counterpart , Counterparts i n a Couple From Attraction to Meditation Primary Process and Shock Being T o o Good I n Praise of Gender Uncertainty Emotional Starvation Disaster Anxiety W i n n i n g Lies

xi xiii

1 3 25 37 45 49 55 69

89 91 101 115 127 139 149 159 173 187 201

18 Boa and Flowers

213

Epilogue

225

Credits Index

227 229

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank the editors who published some o f these chapters i n journals and books while this work was i n progress: Jerome Travers, Mark Stern, Otto Weininger, Nathan Schwartz-Salant, Chris Farhood, Jay Greenberg, Stephen Levine, Emmanuel Ghent, Stephen Mitchell, and M a r t i n Rock. W r i t i n g a book like this becomes more tolerable when one feels there are people who want to read it. W o r k i n g w i t h psychic deadness is, at best, difficult, and it helps to have lines o f communication "out there." Many people have asked me to speak o n this s u b j e c t — t o o many to mention. But please know that I am grateful for these opportunities and that I think o f you. T h e g o o d words o f many colleagues—including Jessica Benjamin, Mark Epstein, M a r i o n M i l n e r , A r t Robbins, Jeff Seinfeld, Adam Phillips, and H a r o l d Boris—have fueled faith i n work that thrives i n dark nights. Members of my seminars and my patients provide daily b r e a d — t h e challenges and the stimu­ lations that nourish life. So do my wife, Betty, a n d my c h i l d r e n , without w h o m none o f my books could have been written.

Introduction

IV^any i n d i v i d u a l s t o d a y seek h e l p b e c a u s e t h e y feel d e a d . A sense o f i n n e r d e a d n e s s m a y persist i n a n o t h e r w i s e f u l l a n d m e a n i n g f u l l i f e . D e a d n e s s c a n b e r e l a t e d t o e m p t i n e s s a n d m e a n i n g l e s s n e s s , b u t is n o t i d e n t i c a l w i t h t h e m . I have seen i n d i v i d u a l s w h o a r e f i l l e d w i t h e m o t i o n s a n d m e a n i n g , b u t s o m e h o w r e m a i n u n t o u c h e d by t h e i r experiences. T h e y r e m a i n impervious a n d i m m u n e t o t h e p o t e n t i a l r i c h n e s s o f w h a t t h e y u n d e r g o . T h e y c o m p l a i n o f a deadness t h a t persists i n t h e m i d s t o f p l e n t y . S a m , d e s c r i b e d i n C h a p t e r 12, " P r i m a r y Process a n d S h o c k , " c h a n g e d ca­ reers f r o m science t o w r i t i n g i n a n a t t e m p t t o b r e a k t h r o u g h h i s deadness. H e f e l t t h a t science e x a c e r b a t e d a n i n n e r d e a d n e s s a n d h o p e d p o e t r y a n d f i c t i o n w o u l d h e l p h i m c o m e alive. T o h i s c h a g r i n , h e l e a r n e d t h a t o n e c o u l d b e d e a d as a w r i t e r t o o . H e h a d g i r l f r i e n d s a n d e m o t i o n s g a l o r e . W h e n h e w r o t e , h i s b e i n g was s a t u r a t e d w i t h m e a n i n g . H e m a d e h i s w r i t i n g s b r i s t l e w i t h t h e alive­ ness h e w i s h e d h e h a d . H i s w o r k c a m e alive, b u t i n h i s p e r s o n t h e deadness c o n t i n u e d . H e gave t o h i s w r i t i n g s w h a t h e w i s h e d he c o u l d have. S a m ' s l i f e was n o t a h o r r o r story. H e l i v e d a g o o d l i f e blessed w i t h m a n y advantages, p h y s i c a l h e a l t h , m e n t a l gifts, a n d t a l e n t s . H i s p a r e n t s c a r e d f o r h i m , t r i e d t o n u r t u r e h i m . S a m f e l t t h e y o v e r d i d i t . H e p i c t u r e d h i s m o t h e r as sexu­ a l l y s e d u c t i v e a n d h i s f a t h e r as a r a g i n g b a b y , a l t h o u g h t h e y w e r e b o t h profes­ s i o n a l p e o p l e w h o s h o w e d c o m p e t e n t a n d w e l l - m e a n i n g faces t o t h e w o r l d . T h e y t r i e d t o d o a g o o d j o b w i t h Sam too. T h e y c o u l d n o t realize w h a t a t o l l the daily b r e a k d o w n s o f t h e i r " o f f i c i a l selves" t o o k o n t h e i r c h i l d r e n , o r i f t h e y r e a l i z e d this, they were helpless t o stop. S a m ' s was n o t a case o f successful p a r e n t s b e i n g u n i n v o l v e d w i t h t h e c h i l ­ d r e n . I t was m o r e a case o f successful p a r e n t s w a n t i n g t o b e successful w i t h t h e i r c h i l d r e n t o o . T h e y p o u r e d themselves i n t o t h e i r c h i l d r e n l i k e they p o u r e d themselves i n t o t h e i r w o r k . H o w e v e r , t h e c h i l d r e n w e r e n o t able t o deal w i t h the f l o o d o f feelings that t h e parents p o u r e d i n t o t h e m . Sam's parents t r i e d to give h i m a l l t h e n o u r i s h m e n t t h e y w a n t e d themselves. I t was as i f S a m w e r e

xiv

Introduction

their proxy. They gave him what they wanted—or some version of what they imagined they wanted. I n their minds, Sam was getting everything they wanted to get. Most of all, he was getting them—vastly nourishing, giving, caring par­ ents. Sam was getting the childhood and parents they had always wanted. They tried to give Sam more than life could offer. Thus they lived beyond themselves emotionally, and broke down throughout the day. They could not be supernourishing beings. His father yelled so loudly at daily frustrations that Sam cringed with contempt and terror. His mother tried to cajole and seduce Sam out of his bad feelings. She could not tolerate his fear and hate. She needed a happy and successful child, one who thought the world of her. Her husband's rages were more than enough for her to deal with. Her child should give her pleasure. T o deal with a child's destructive urges seemed overwhelming: she tried to love and soft-talk them away. She was frequently depressed and weak. Her dreams of a perfect family were shattered, although she kept hoping things were better than they were. Sam learned the hard way and early that he would have to take care of him­ self emotionally, but he was not a very good substitute caretaker. He felt more depleted than nourished by his parents* attention and lacked the psychic equip­ ment to genuinely process their and his turbulence. He became smart and adept at scanning states of mind and developing verbal formulas for them. But the better he became at figuring out what others or he were feeling and why, the unhappier he felt. He could not buy happiness by becoming successful or smart or talented or caring, no more than his parents could. A sense of deadness developed as he grew into adulthood. At first, he could not believe it was there. He felt so much and had so much in life. How could he, who was so alive, so full, be dead? Yet the deadness did not go away. It be­ came persistent, and he monitored it. He put a mental barium tracer on it and could locate it virtually at will. In time, he did not have to look for it. It was in the background, spoiling his experiences. Against his will and outside his con­ scious control, he deadened himself as a form of self-protection, a shield he wished he did not have. He came to therapy for help in freeing himself from self-deadening processes. Sam is one example of a successful person feeling deadness in an otherwise pleasurable life. Mr. Y., described in Chapter 3, "Goodness and Deadness," is another. Like Sam, Mr. Y. lived an apparently good life from childhood on. He was a good student and athlete and was well liked by his peers. Unlike Sam, he felt his parents were too restrained in their display of attention and feel­ ings, although they were proud of his accomplishments. Whereas Sam felt his parents were overinvolved with him, Mr. Y. felt his were underinvolved. They cared for him, but were low keyed and reticent. They expected him to be the competent person he was. Sam grew up in a steamy and stormy emotional atmosphere, whereas Mr. Y. described a temperate, orderly one. Mr. Y. enjoyed his relatively easy life. People gravitated toward him, and things went his way. He was a "nice" guy, good at what he did. But he had long

Introduction

xv

been aware of a lack of passionate intensity, and as time went on, his tepid emotional life increasingly bothered him. For many years, the challenges of work and relationships kept him busy. But as he grew in status and position, his inner deadness grew in importance too. It was easier to advance in work and make new friends than to meet the deadness he feared could derail him. By the time I met him, he was beginning to feel that if he did not do some­ thing with the deadness within, nothing else he did would be worthwhile. People who meet Sam or Mr. Y. would not guess they are dead. In certain regards, they even seem enviable. Neither Sam nor Mr. Y. lacked friends or opportunities for self-realization. Not all people who have gone dead are so lucky. On the other end of the scale is Deborah, who looked like a corpse and is described in Chapter 1, "Psychic Death." She was living a horrible life and looked horrifying. No one would envy her. She seemed almost beyond help. Deborah was raised by professional parents in the suburbs, who alternately doted on her and attended to their careers. Deborah experienced extremes of parental attention and self-absorption, a mixture of emotionality and vacancy, of too much and too little. Many children are subjected to such a regime. Why did it take such a toll on Deborah? Are there more Deborahs, perhaps in less extreme form, than are realized? Deborah's very presence was a critique of a world that could produce her. Her corpse-like body seemed a cruel finger pointing at a world that did not know what to do with children. Her visage and bearing signaled meaningless, useless suffering without end. And yet she was looking for help. In spite of the death that possessed her, she was trying to find someone to help her or, per­ haps, someone to help her help herself. However, she was dangerously near the edge and was sliding. It was a real question whether she could find help before the end. Lucy was someone in between (see Chapter 10, "Counterparts in a Couple"). She found it difficult to partake of the pleasures of life, but she did feel deep joy. She feltjoy in her children, her art, her husband. But she also was depressed and was even more than depressed. A deep deadness threatened to suck up her existence. It often seemed that the deadness in her being was her most intimate companion. For many years, she felt most herself and knew herself best when she hid in the center of her deadness. She spent many sessions rag­ ing against her deadness and crying, but she never felt more at home than when she crawled into it and disappeared. In a way, she valued deadness more than life. We will see that, for someone like Lucy, deadness is not something that will go away. It is a very real counterpart to her existence, a part of her life. We can trace it back to a suppressed, sometimes depressed mother and a guilt­ inducing father. But her deadness has become a habit, away to soothe, i f also torment, herself. It has become second nature. Over the years, Lucy learned to use deadness as a source of nourishment. It would be cruel and wasteful for therapy to try to eradicate her deadness, her most intimate complaint and

xvi

Introduction

f r i e n d . B u t therapy can help aliveness grow. What emerges is n o t an end to deadness, b u t a new and better movement between aliveness and deadness, a r h y t h m or oscillation. The psyche cannot do away w i t h its states, b u t i t can grow to make more r o o m for them. The above sampling of individuals plagued by deadness suggests that the sense o f deadness varies i n f o r m and background. I t can cripple an entire life or only part o f a life. I t occurs i n individuals who have been overstimulated or understimulated or a combination of the two: parents can erratically overstuff or deprive a c h i l d of emotional transmissions. Often a parent, especially the mother, has suffered depression, although it is n o t clear that this must be so. I n any case, understanding the background o f psychic deadness is n o t suffi­ cient to ameliorate it. For example, M r . Y. and Deborah had been i n various forms of analysis for years and had extensive understanding o f their psycho­ social backgrounds and personality patterns w i t h o u t o b t a i n i n g relief o f their deadness. O n the contrary, self-deadening processes increased over time for b o t h o f them and, i n Deborah's case, dangerously so. Some patients do benefit f r o m catching on to how they shut down i n face o f pain. The shutting-down process can sometimes be caught i n the act. Pa­ tients can be helped to connect shut down with distressing moments. Repeated failures i n relationships and work, a w o u n d i n g rejection or loss, f r i g h t e n i n g emotions that become destructive: many kinds and combinations o f precipi­ tants are possible. Often the therapy relationship becomes a k i n d o f labora­ tory, i n which varying states o f deadness-aliveness can be tied to what is going o n between patient and therapist as well as i n the patient's life. Nevertheless, understanding and practicing better response patterns do not do the trick with many individuals. T h e i r deadness tends to overwhelm under­ standing and resolve. For some individuals, whatever they do to help themselves gets lost i n the deadness. Something more or else is needed, and no treatment formulas may do. I n many cases, the growth o f knowledge must be coupled with adequate emotional transmission by the therapist. The emotional tone o f the therapy can be the most i m p o r t a n t element. Yet an atmosphere that works i n one case may n o t i n another, even when the background o f b o t h seem similar. I n the end, n o t h i n g may save the patient and therapist f r o m w o r k i n g to discover what the patient is l o o k i n g f o r — t h a t is, the precise c o m b i n a t i o n o f psychic n u t r i ­ ents, responses, attitudes, and tones required for a given individual, or even a given m o m e n t , so that a person can begin to open and the deadness may lift. A l t h o u g h theoretical and clinical formulas may add to the deadness, the vast reservoir o f theoretical ideas and clinical wisdom can be used as stimuli or probes or resources to sensitize one to issues and concerns i n a given case. I f theory is useless or even harmful without the "right" clinical tone or touch, one's tone and touch can become more finely nuanced and richly communicative i f i n f o r m e d by a background o f theoretical groping.

Introduction

xvii

There are so many psychological schools and theories today that it is useful to describe briefly the tapestry of ideas that inform my clinical intuitions. Thus the first part of this book "Theoretical Soundings," is devoted to sketches of m a j o r t h e o r i s t s w h o h a v e h a d the

m o s t to say to m e a b o u t p s y c h i c d e a d n e s s .

These chapters are not meant to be exhaustive, systematic explications. Rather, t h e y are soundings. At times t h e y become dialogues, reveries, arguments, q u e s ­ tions—part of a search to bring someone's thought to its limits, a search for what can be useful or enlightening or sensitizing. To an extent, a walk with any theorist is like walking the plank. Sooner or later we reach the end of the walk for now, with nothing l e f t but the l e a p into the ocean of l i f e . The second part of this book, Clinical Probes, portrays attempts to be in the ocean. It explores clinical realities with a variety of patients and brings out in detail what it is like to immerse oneself in work with psychic deadness and related problems. What happens when deadness lifts or fails to lift, and a person opens or fails to open? In these chapters patient and therapist struggle with factors that maintain psychic deadness, as they try to find and support whatever in a person seeks life. Some of these struggles are related to larger social realities as well as deeply personal ones. THEORETICAL SOUNDINGS The major theorists I write about in Part I are Freud, Klein, Bion, and Winnicott. These are authors I have wrestled with for many years and who themselves have wrestled with problems related to psychic deadness. Each of these authors has threads to pull that go in many directions, open many vistas. One cannot readily get to the bottom of their work: one exhausts oneself before exhausting them. After being immersed in the work of these authors and the terrible clinical realities with which they deal, popular representations of their thought seem appalling. At the same time, these authors have played a role in generating some of the most interesting recent writings on psychic deadness (Boris 1993, 1994, Emery 1992, Green 1986, Grotstein 1990a,b). O t h e r m a j o r w r i t e r s t h a t h a v e b e e n i m p o r t a n t to m e i n c l u d e L a c a n , Reich, J u n g , and Kohut. But limits m u s t be set, and I h a v e chosen for discussion a sampling of writers among those I use most, all of whom burrow deeply and fiercely into the deadness that many individuals bring to the consulting room today. Freud

Freud often seemed more interested in why psychoanalysis failed than in why it succeeded. In an amazing three pages, written near the end of his life, he flashes a kaleidoscopic array of images of therapeutic failure, clustered around an obscure inability or resistance to change (1937). He writes of people whose

xviii

Introduction

libido is either too sticky or mobile, too slow or quick, to change objects, so that the growth of relationships is stillborn or short-circuited. He characterizes another group of individuals by an attitude that shows "a depletion of the plasticity, the capacity for change and further development." He says of this group that "all the mental processes, relationships and distributions of force are unchangeable, fixed and rigid." He associates images of "inertia" and "entropy" to this state of being. He notes that although once he thought of this inability to develop as "resistance from the id," he now envisions something more pervasive, if obscure: "some temporal characteristics are concerned—some alterations of a rhythm of development in psychical life we have not appreciated" (1937, p. 242). In yet another group of individuals, Freud has the impression of a "force which is defending itself by every means against recovery" ( 1937, p. 242). This force is something more than a sense of guilt and need for punishment. For Freud, it is traceable "back to the original death instinct of living matter" (1937, p. 243). Regardless of the questionable scientific status of Freud's concept of a death instinct, its poetic and heuristic power is striking. He no longer attributes widespread masochism, resistance to recovery, or even neurotic guilt to permutations of the pleasure principle. T h e fact that many people cling to suffering leads him to imagine a darker desire, wish, drive, or instinct: a pull or even flight toward death. T o be sure, Freud's work had always envisioned some push-pull of forces. Even on a bare neurological level, he early envisioned old brain excitations inhibited by cortical functions. Excitations had to be modulated, dampened, controlled, channeled, insulated: a barrier was required to regulate the flow of internalexternal stimuli and to protect against untoward surges and excitatory flooding. In his later writings he continues to refer to a tendency to tone down stimuli, even reduce stimuli to zero, a kind of on-off double movement in the psychoorganism: aliveness is increasing-decreasing at the same time toward its maximum-minimum. By the end of his life, the image of a psyche that could not change, that fought recovery, that succumbed to inertia and entropy, that was mired in useless suffering, that zeroed itself out, became prepossessing. His conceptual equipment may or may not be up to the task required by self-cancelling/nulling processes, but his writings circle around phenomena critical for us today. He focuses our gaze on an array of self-deadening processes and makes us wonder what we can do with them. Chapter 1 focuses on aspects of Freud's life and writings that give us a sense of what we are up against when we attempt to lift the deadness.

Ferenczi Almost as soon as Freud wrote of a death drive, Ferenczi (1929, p. 104) was quick to add that "aversion to life" can arise as a result of "signs of aversion or

Introduction

xi x

i m p a t i e n c e o n the par t o f the m o t h e r . " H e e m p h a s i z e s the effects o f early t r a u m a i n cases w h e r e life s e e m e d impossible . Yet, o n e o u g h t n o t oversimplify a n d polarize F r e u d a n d F e r e n c z i , p o i n t i n g to F r e u d ' s e m p h a s i s o n drives a n d F e r e n c z i ' s o n the quality o f care. S u c h a stark contrast w o u l d be unfai r a n d misleading . B o t h writers have extremel y c o m p l e x a n d s e a r c h i n g views o f what m a k e s a d e c e n t life possible. I n d e e d , F e r e n c z i feels that, becaus e o f the weight o f the d e a t h drive in infancy, m a t e r n a l c a r e is all the m o r e i m p o r t a n t . T h e c h i l d n e e d s s u p p o r t i n carryin g h i m o r h e r over into life. ' T h e c h i l d has to be i n d u c e d , by m e a n s o f a n i m m e n s e e x p e n d i t u r e o f love, tenderness , a n d care, to forgive his parents for havin g b r o u g h t h i m int o the w o r l d , " lest h e s u c c u m b to the destructive u n d e r t o w . F e r e n c z i depict s a state o f affairs i n w h i c h the p a r e n t s m u s t ally themselves with the life force o f the infant, lest it slip into the n o n b e i n g to w h i c h it is so close. A g o o d dea l o f weight is p l a c e d o n the p a r e n t s ' responsibilit y to mediate the infant's j o u r n e y into life, b u t the rewards also are great, since "tactful treatmen t a n d u p b r i n g i n g graduall y give rise to progressive i m m u n i z a t i o n against physical a n d psychica l i n j u r i e s " (1929 , p. 1 0 5 ) . F e r e n c z i ' s wor k forms a n i m p o r t a n t par t o f the b a c k g r o u n d given ne w turns by K l e i n , B i o n , a n d W i n n i c o t t . E a c h o f these author s digs d e e p int o processes that constitute "aversion to life." I m e n t i o n F e r e n c z i n o w becaus e h e stands as a b e a m o f light, explicitly e m p h a s i z i n g th e i m p o r t a n c e o f the analyst's love i n c o u n t e r a c t i n g destructive forces. F r e u d seem s to take this rol e o f the analyst for granted , a n d writes m o r e o f the in s a n d outs o f the patient's difficulties i n loving. H e does n o t e m p h a s i z e h o w the analyst's difficulties i n lovin g contribute to the destructive force i n treatment . Nevertheless, F e r e n c z i ' s e x p e r i m e n t s t e a c h us that love is no t e n o u g h . T e n d e r , tactful care i n the treatmen t situation doe s no t always yiel d g o o d results. S o m e t i m e s therapist love stimulates greater destructive urges (see C h a p t e r 13, " B e i n g T o o G o o d " ) . W h a t if s p o i l i n g t e n d e n c i e s are so great that they overw h e l m the forces o f good? W h a t about situations i n w h i c h goodness incites m o r e i n t e n s e destructive frenzies? W h a t i f the i n d i v i d u a l lacks the capacity to use a n o t h e r p e r s o n for growth , a n d therap y is abou t h o w s u c h a capacity b e c o m e s constituted? W h a t does a therapist d o i f therap y is u n u s a b l e by a n i n d i v i d u a l w h o nevertheless is (possibly literally) d y i n g to be h e l p e d ? K l e i n , B i o n , a n d W i n n i c o t t , e a c h i n thei r o w n way, closely e x a m i n e what m i g h t be h a p p e n i n g w h e n destructive forces a n n i h i l a t e the possibility o f seeki n g a n d o b t a i n i n g h e l p a n d w h a t m i g h t be n e e d e d i n o r d e r to be able to use a n o t h e r p e r s o n for growth purposes .

Klein K l e i n focuses o n ways i n w h i c h i n t e r n a l objec t relation s organiz e a n d m o d u late the deat h drive, the destructive force within ( K l e i n ' s phrase , 1946, p. 2 9 7 ) . F o r K l e i n , anxiety is mos t essentially a n n i h i l a t i o n anxiety, a signal o r expres-

XX

Introduction

sion o f the death instinct, and psychic deadness or motionlessness is a defense against the anxiety that means the death instinct is operating (see Chapters 2 a n d 3). I n a way, d e a d n e s s is a defense against d e a t h .

I n Klein's work, l i b i d o tends to f u n c t i o n as a defense against death work. Love circulates i n the psyche i n the f o r m o f good feelings/good objects, which try to offset bad feelings/bad objects. The psyche develops a k i n d o f fantasy p u m p , attempting to use fantasies o f good objects (with good affects) to coun­ teract bad ones. The m o d e l makes use of respiratory/digestive/circulatory images. Bad affects/objects are expelled; good objects/affects are taken i n . But things are never so simple, and the reverse also happens (e.g., bad in-good o u t ) , along w i t h other possibilities and combinations. I n a way, Klein p i n p o i n t s processes w i t h i n the psyche that replicate the mother's f u n c t i o n . Freud notes that an elemental f u n c t i o n o f the mother is to respond to the infant's distress and to make i t feel better. The mother, among other things, is an affect or m o o d regulator, taking the edge o f f destructive spins. Ferenczi sees this as a basic f u n c t i o n o f the therapist: the therapist's lov­ i n g care helps the patient over destructive agonies, i n c l u d i n g and especially those maintained by early, persistent, or cumulative trauma. For Klein, there are internal psychic processes that operate like a mother, attempting to wash bad feelings away w i t h good ones. Internal attempts to regulate bad feelings can r u n amok. T o o m u c h split­ ting and projection o f bad objects/bad feelings can t h i n the personality through dispersal, so that one passes f r o m rage/dread t h r o u g h progressive phases o f deadness. O n the other hand, f i l l i n g or stuffing oneself w i t h g o o d objects/ good feelings can be deadening too, especially i f one uses g o o d feelings to seal oneself off f r o m one's spontaneous affect flow and the natural impact o f events. Klein is a k i n d o f specialist in showing the consequences o f different ways that the psyche deals w i t h the death drive. She traces movements o f destruc­ tive urges t h r o u g h o u t the psychic universe. For her, deadness is an epiphe­ n o m e n o n or defensive outcome o f ways that the psyche tries to w o r k w i t h destructive anxieties. I n Chapters 2 and 3, "The Destructive Force" and "Good­ ness and Deadness," I examine how far her account can take us and where i t seems to leave off. As w i t h Freud, it pays not to dismiss her writings, even i f the conceptual status o f a psychobiological death drive is d o u b t f u l - H e r detailed focus o n the dynamics o f destruction makes her work relevant for o u r clinical and social concerns today.

Bion Bion intensifies the stakes darkly i m p l i e d by Freud's "force against recovery" and Klein's "destructive force w i t h i n . " He writes o f a "force that continues after . . . i t destroys existence, time, and space" (1965, p. 101, see Chapter 6,

Introduction

xxi

"Two Kinds of No-thing"). This is a ghastly vision or construction. Can such a force be possible? How can x destroy existence and still go on working? Bion tends to use affect rather than drive language. He does not use formal concepts such as life or death drive, but speaks of enlivening-deadening processes. How does the psyche deaden itself? What is the dread of aliveness that can ruin a life? In some individuals, the psyche seems to undo itself, work in reverse, reduce itself to nothing. Can such extreme self-damage be reversed? Can one who has died come alive? Bion is less interested in polemics than in discovering what psychoanalysis is and what it can do. The formal status of a destructive force is less important than its function as a marker, a way to note, focus, and trace destructive processes. The notion of a force that goes on working after it destroys existence stands as a barrier against underestimating the horror of self-nulling processes. Whether the cause is genetic or environmental, once the destruction of personal existence gathers momentum it can blight any help extended to it. What can a clinician do in the face of such total negation? Chapters 4 to 6—"Bion's No-Thing," "Moral Violence," and 'Two Kinds of No-thing"—present variants of nulling processes that Bion charts. The idea of a self-cancelling psyche is chilling, but Bion helps us tag some of its workings, so that we can extend the range of what we can do. Winnicott

Winnicott's work is a kind of biography of the sense of aliveness as it unfolds in infancy and throughout a lifetime. He depicts different forms that aliveness takes at various developmental phases. He charts waves of aliveness. In Chapter 7, "The Area of Freedom," I organize concepts that Winnicott uses to depict aliveness around an experiential navel he describes as "the chosen area" where "there is no room for compromise" (1964, p. 70). I call this navel Winnicott's "area of freedom" since feeling free is at the core of the movement of his thought. The waves of aliveness that flow from Winnicott's point of no compromise or area of freedom evolve through his writings on transitional experiencing, object usage, unintegration, madness, and the incommunicado core. His writings add successive layerings to what it feels like to be alive, how precious core aliveness is, and how fragile it can be. A most awful deadness arises when violence is done to the point of no compromise. Winnicott's writings about the evolution of aliveness have, as background, a clinical concern with individuals who feel terrible deadness and unreality arising from violence done to the area of freedom. His work repeatedly takes up the thread of what is needed for individuals to be alive in a genuine and viable way. As his work unfolds, he explores what interpersonal attitudes and nutrients are necessary conditions for the growth of aliveness and what conditions lead to deadness.

xxii

Introduction

Winnicott's work joins Bion's, as both depict ways that aliveness can be too much for people—either oneself or others. Bion's emphasis is on ways the psyche is too undeveloped (embryonic), deficient, and/or malevolent to support its own aliveness. Winnicott, in addition, emphasizes an external factor, an incapacity in the Other to support the child's aliveness. He feels that so much depends on the quality of response that the destructive aspect of aliveness meets. The destructiveness inherent in aliveness is so important to Winnicott that he credits it with the very creation of the sense of externality. T h e external world becomes alive and real if it survives one's destructive aliveness. T h e Other becomes real and alive by surviving the impact of one's aliveness. Winnicott is extremely sensitive to how the inherent aliveness of the infant/child can break the parent down. The aliveness of the infant/child can be very threatening. A parent may rejoice in the baby's aliveness, but also be envious, afraid, enraged, and smothering. A parent may hot be able to take the full force of the baby's aliveness in all its forms and may need to tone it down, modulate it, even spoil and deaden it. For Winnicott, much depends on how the parent comes through the impact of the baby's aliveness. Whether and how the Other survives destructive onslaughts becomes crucial for how the world will be experienced, and perhaps whether there even will be a world. To what extent can a parent come through a child's onslaught relatively intact? T o what extent does he or she become retaliatory, "gone," collapse into reactive fury or spiteful/fearful withdrawal, or become suffocating? Winnicott does not believe in a psychobiological death drive, but is concerned with the deadness that results from the failure of innate aliveness to create/discover a sense of Otherness or externality, a world to live in—a world that can tolerate aliveness. T o put it dramatically, there can be no Other if no one survives one's impact. T h e evolution of one's sense of aliveness depends partly on the quality of responsiveness versus retaliatory reactiveness of one's milieu. Winnicott tries to convey his meaning with a grim, yet apt example: You will see what I mean, and allow for oversimplification, if I refer to the way in which one of two worlds is waiting for the child, and it makes all the difference which you and I were born into. One: a baby kicks the mother's breast. She is pleased that her baby is alive and kicking though perhaps it hurt and she does not let herself get hurt for fun. Two: a baby kicks the mother's breast, but this mother has a fixed idea that a blow on the breast produces cancer. She reacts because she does not approve of the kick. This overrides whatever the kick may mean for the baby. T h e child has met with a moralistic attitude, and kicking cannot be explored as a way to place the world where it belongs, which is outside. [1970, p. 287]

This does not mean Mother must always go along with or give in to the child. Not at all. Mother will feel the whole spectrum of aliveness herself. She will be

xxiii

Introduction

annoyed, hate the baby, feel boundless j o y and peace, fatigue, and hell. B u t this is n o t a fixed, moralistic, life-despising attitude, b u t an alive stream o f feel­ ings, i n c l u d i n g an adequate responsiveness to the baby's needs. There is a p o i n t at which "destructive aliveness o f the individual is simply a symptom o f being alive" (Winnicott 1968, p. 239). T o what extent can we sur­ vive, enjoy, tolerate, and use each other's aliveness? For an individual who is used to being dead, a therapist's aliveness may be horrifying. Part o f the art and luck and skill i n w o r k i n g with psychic deadness is discovering what combi­ nation o f aliveness-deadness is manageable and eventually usable by a person.

CLINICAL PROBES T o enter the consulting r o o m w i t h a f i x e d idea is akin to the second mother W i n n i c o t t describes above (1970, p. 287), who fills her baby w i t h anti-life mor­ alism, rather than allows f o r an alive m o m e n t - t o - m o m e n t flow. We cannot say exactly what therapy is or what i t can do, any more than we can say exactly what a person is: b o t h are subject to processes o f discovery. The theoretical soundings we have taken do not provide rules or recipes. There is n o guaran­ tee that i f we follow a, b, and c, that t h e n x, y, and z must happen. People are more baffling than that, as are the intricacies and intangibles o f the clinical encounter. O u r theoretical soundings are part o f a broader j o u r n e y o f clinical sensitiv­ ity. T h i n k i n g sensitizes us to nuances o f feelings, to imaginative possibilities. B u t we keep c o m i n g back to what i t is like being with a particular person at a particular time. We keep d i p p i n g i n t o the impact someone is having o n us, the sensations, feelings, imaginings, and thoughts that grow f r o m mute impact. I n the second part o f this book, I describe impacts that patients have had o n me and my struggle to process aspects o f those impacts. This is especially difficult when an impact is deadening. But i f one stays with a deadening i m ­ pact, one begins to experience different sorts o f deadness. One begins to note varieties o f deadening processes, as o u r eyes get used to seeing shadowy forms i n the dark. My work tends to be an impressionistic-expressionistic, evocative psycho­ analysis, one i n which subject-to-subject impact speaks. The clinical probes i n Part I I emphasize growth o f the capacity to tolerate the b u i l d - u p o f experienc­ ing, and the breakdown or inability to j u m p s t a r t this capacity. The p r o b l e m can be h o r r i f y i n g when the experience that threatens to keep b u i l d i n g u p is some f o r m o f deadness. I n some o f the chapters, such as Chapters 16 and 17, "Disaster Anxiety" and "Winning Lies," society becomes the patient, since individual deadness involves a violent process and violence runs t h r o u g h the social fabric. Violence is n o t only an attempt to enliven the self: it also deadens the self and often is part o f

xxiv

Introduction

self-deadening processes. T h u s the clinical study o f deadness is also a small attempt to make social life better. Each clinical encounter touches f u r t h e r nuances o f psychic deadness. Each chapter turns the kaleidoscope a bit to see what deadness can c o n t r i b u t e to growth or how it swallows existence. I n Chapter 10, "Counterparts i n a Couple," we discover a deadness that is part o f psychic binocular (multi-ocular) vision, part o f o u r doubleness or multiplicity, part o f the over-undertone o f experi­ ential resonances. I n Chapter 12, "Primary Process and Shock," we discover a deadness that is a hole or a blank where the primary processing ability should be. Chapter 14, " I n Praise o f Gender Uncertainty," explores relationships between deadness and gender identity difficulties, w h i c h can become life­ threatening w i t h o u t help. Chapters 13,15, and 1 6 — " B e i n g T o o G o o d , " "Emo­ tional Starvation," and "Disaster Anxiety"—show ways that the deadening i m ­ pacts that life has o n patients spill over i n t o therapy and are transmitted to the therapist's supervisor and, t h r o u g h the supervisor, to the therapy f i e l d in general. As the chapters u n f o l d , the importance o f psychic deadness and re­ lated phenomena takes on new life and meaning. We develop a better sense o f what we are u p against, o f the sorts o f materials with which we work. O u r appreciation o f facets o f psychic deadness grows as we keep d i p p i n g i n t o it, as we keep opening to it. It may be a truism that no two therapies are identical, n o two snowflakes the same. But i t is a truism with.dramatic consequences. Chapter 18, "Boa and Flowers," brings home how h i g h the stakes are i f we fail to f i n d the precise set o f therapeutic experiences that an individual may need. When we w o r k with intractible psychic deadness, we are w o r k i n g with our own capacity to evolve. I heard somewhere o f a k i n d o f baby b i r d needing to peck its m o t h e r i n a cer­ tain spot i n order to elicit an adequate maternal response. I t strikes me there are certain patients w h o keep pecking away at the therapeutic field, trying to elicit the as-yet u n k n o w n responses needed for their development. T h e rage of a psychically dead person can be terrifying. Yet I cannot help feeling that his or her fury is an attempt to peck or stimulate the evolution o f a missing capacity i n the therapist and i n the therapy field. This b o o k is an attempt to help peck that capacity into being. Patients and therapists w h o must deal with persistent deadness are partners i n a psychic evolution that is very m u c h alive. REFERENCES Bion, W. R. (1965). Transformations. London: Heinemann. Boris, H . (1993). Passions of the Mind. New York: New York University Press. (1994). Envy. Northvale, N J . : Jason Aronson. Emery, E . (1992). O n dreaming of one's patient: dense objects and intrapsychic isomorphism. Psychoanalytic Review 79: 509-533.

Introduction

xxv

Ferenczi, S. (1929). T h e unwelcome child and his death instinct. I n The Selected Papers of Sandor Ferenczi, M.D: Problems and Methods ofPsychoanalysis,

vol. 3, pp. 102-107.

New York: Basic Books, 1955. Freud, S. (1937). Analysis terminable and interminable. Standard Edition 23: 216-253. Green, A . (1986). On Private Madness. L o n d o n : Hogarth. Grotstein, J . (1990a). Nothingness, meaninglessness, chaos and the "black hole." I: the importance of nothingness, meaninglessness and chaos in psychoanalysis. Contemporary Psychoanalysis

26:257-290.

(1990b). Nothingness, meanihglessness, and the black hole I I . Contemporary Psychoanalysis 26:377-407. Klein, M; (1946). Notes on some schizoid mechanisms. In Developments in Psychoanaly­ sis, ed. M. Klein, P. Heimann, S. Isaacs, and J . Riviere, pp. 292-320. London : Hogarth, 1952. Winnicott, D. W. (1964). T h e concept of the false self. I n Home is Where We Start From, ed. C . Winnicott, R. Shepherd, and M. Davis, pp. 65-70. New York: Norton, 1986. (1968). Comments on my paper, "The Use of the Object." I n Psychoanalytic Explorations, ed. C , Winnicott, R. Shepherd, and M. Davis, pp. 238-240. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. (1970). Individuation. In Psychoanalytic Explorations, ed. C . Winnicott, R. Shepherd, and M. Davis, pp. 284-288. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.

PART I

THEORETICAL SOUNDINGS

1

Psychic Death

T h e sense o f being dead has become a popular clinical theme. M o r e people than i n the past now seek help for feeling dead. A l t h o u g h feeling dead is a central complaint o f many individuals, it is not clear where this deadness comes f r o m or what can be done about i t . i There are many variations o f psychic deadness. For some people, deadness does n o t consume m u c h psychic space. I t is a circumscribed counterpole or sub­ theme i n a fuller, richer existence. I t comes and goes or nags i n the background. At times it becomes prepossessing, and one wonders, with a chill, what one would do i f i t swallowed existence, i f it became all there was. One waits for i t to fade and usually it does. I t moves along with a variety o f moods and states o f being. Some people have pockets o f deadness that are relatively constant. They become used to living w i t h areas o f deadness. They wish they were m o r e alive, that life offered more, b u t they make do with their p o r t i o n . I f life is decent enough, a bit o f deadness is n o t too m u c h to pay for satisfactions. One adapts to being less than one m i g h t be, to feeling less than one m i g h t feel. One talks oneself i n t o i m a g i n i n g one is about as happy as one can be, as happy as one is going to be. One more or less succeeds i n believing oneself, since one fears (rightly) that things could be worse. For some people, the sense o f deadness is pervasive. They describe t h e m ­ selves as zombies, the walking dead, empty and unable to feel. A n extreme example o f massive deadness was an anorexic-bulimic woman, Deborah, who passed t h r o u g h my office several years ago. She weighed under eighty pounds and looked like a corpse. H e r bones were like piercing icicles that stung and r i p p e d me apart. I wept u p o n hearing her story, a familiar one b u t yet a story shocking i n its outcome. Deborah's parents were successful professionals. There was a history o f neglect, a m i x t u r e o f over- and understimulation, the usual story o f emo­ tional poverty i n a luxurious setting. Overeating-vomiting-starving parodied the too m u c h - t o o little that characterized her life.

4

Psychic Deadness

Deborah's parents both indulged and deprived her. They catered to her fears and pushed her aside. A t times i t seemed as t h o u g h she had two sets o f par­ ents: one that spoiled her and catered to dependency and another that required her to be healthy and independent and to act as i f she d i d n o t need them. Deborah was left w i t h a double imperative: she c o u l d n o t live w i t h o u t her par­ ents, a n d she should leave them alone. Each time Deborah sought help, she got worse. H e r therapists tried to fos­ ter and support her independence, b u t her dependency needs were too great. One therapist i n college was so stimulated by her neediness that he began an affair w i t h her. Deborah relished, yet feared their closeness. The outcome was devastating. When he backed o f f and became colder, her sense o f forlornness intensified. Ordinary therapy d i d n o t f i l l the hole i n her being A f t e r college Deborah d r i f t e d i n and o u t o f therapy and i n and o u t o f jobs. She felt helped by some therapists more than by others. The therapy situation itself was tantalizing and frustrating. I t offered the hope o f contact and elic­ ited l o n g i n g , yet at the end o f sessions, therapist a n d patient parted. H o p e and l o n g i n g went u n f u l f i l l e d . Intense neediness met a void. N o a m o u n t o f tran­ sient contact seemed adequate. The very structure o f therapy annihilated the desire i t elicited. Having an affair w i t h a therapist made things worse; n o t having an affair also made things worse. Contact was overstimulating, and lack o f contact was too depriving. I n time, Deborah f o u n d an analyst w i t h w h o m she c o u l d stay. They w o r k e d many years together. He was a highly respected man i n the field, one o f the best. Yet i t was d u r i n g this treatment that Deborah's downward plunge accelerated and seemed to become irreversible. H e r analyst ended up refusing to continue treatment w i t h her, apparently h o r r i f i e d by the t u r n o f events. He t o l d her, she said, that had he known what was going to happen, he would never have started w i t h her. How c o u l d he have known? W h o w o u l d have known? Once more the pattern was repeated: a promise o f too m u c h and then the d r o p t h r o u g h the hole i n the b o t t o m o f the universe. Perhaps any therapy w o u l d have been a promise o f too much for Deborah had a dual attitude toward it: therapy solves n o t h i n g and ought to solve everything. The wish for therapy to be more than i t is can be overwhelming. Part o f Deborah's tragedy was that she f o u n d an analyst who was good enough f o r her to want to be w i t h . His very goodness overstimulated her. She wanted more f r o m h i m than he could provide. His skill and caring heightened her u n f u l f i l l e d longing, and at some p o i n t her whole system shut down. Therapy could n o t support the intensity i t fueled. Yet Deborah c o n t i n u e d to seek help. This must mean that she believed change was possible, hope was alive, b u t i t also c o u l d mean that she was stuck in a pattern, a sort o f sticky free fall, like a p i n b a l l b o u n c i n g t h r o u g h therapy slots u n t i l movement stopped and the game ended.

5

Psychic Death

Therapy was a chronic part of her life; she clung to it, then d r o p p e d it, over and over again. Some o f her therapists d i d the same w i t h her. T o some extent, she regulated the dosage of therapy she was able to take. She usually left therapy before i t or her feelings overwhelmed her. Was she better o f f d i p p i n g i n and out? Staying i n may have killed her. Normally therapists like i t when a patient comes more often, stays longer, and works more deeply. One assumes that dedicated work leads to better out­ comes. I n Deborah's case, the attempt to work more intensely broke open a hole i n her psyche. She became n u m b and far away f r o m herself. Her life got caught o n a trajectory that moved f r o m deadness to deadness. Therapy no longer was life calling to life, b u t a magnet drawing out depths o f deadness. What can be said about such psychic deadness? How can we meet it? We do not know why a person like Deborah falls so far out o f life, while another simi­ lar to her pulls out o f i t and builds a satisfactory existence. Deborah vanishes through a hole i n her psyche, while another finds a way to swim i n the empti­ ness. A t times it seems as though a toss o f the dice determines whether the hole one falls i n supports life or not.

FREUD Freud's work is rich with ambiguities, contradictions, and complexities. Freud may say there is no death i n the unconscious, yet he writes of unconscious death wishes. By unconscious death wishes he usually means that / w i l l live forever, but you will die. The unconscious acts as a magnifying machine. My hostility toward you becomes absolutized i n the wish for you to die. C o m m o n speech bears witness to this passion i n the phrase, " I wish you were dead!" The Freudian w o r l d is one of high (or low) drama. T h e " I versus you" runs deep i n Freud's picture o f psychic life. The Freudian ego originally reacts with hostility to the external world. Externality creates discomfort. The ego tries to avoid it, to wish i t away. F r o m the outset one escapes, even annihilates reality. The you is partly an enemy f r o m the beginning. T h e Freudian you follows the track o f pain. Pain is O t h e r , alien, n o t - I . Wherever pain is, you are. I f pain comes f r o m inside the body, then the inside of the body becomes Other, not-I, something that is happening to me, an alien, hostile, or indifferent you. The boundary o f I-feeling shifts. I-feeling tends to identify with pleasure and react against pain. One tries to set pain outside one's boundaries: I try to exclude pain f r o m myself. Pain may be the most intimate fact o f existence, b u t I make believe it is a stranger. Above all, d e a t h — t h a t stranger o f strangers, other of others, alien of a l i e n s — wells up f r o m my body, seizes me, takes me away. Processes that constitute me and support my life are also enemies. Death wipes meaning out of life. I n the

6

Psychic Deadness

middle o f a beautiful experience a voice mocks, "What g o o d is it? You will be a corpse someday." People live with an eye glued to death; i n Deborah's case, w i t h two eyes. Deborah's knowledge of death swallowed her up. She became a parody of death, a living corpse. Perhaps she imagined she could control death by aping it, by becoming its proxy. Perhaps she wanted to stuff death i n t o people's (her par­ ents') faces to show them the lie they lived. She became i n her body a haunting critique o f self-absorbed luxury, a physical image o f psychospiritual starvation. I n Freud's writings there are death symbols as well as sexual symbols. A n obsession with dying ran t h r o u g h Freud's life and work. Freud's attempt to reduce death anxiety to castration anxiety was never fully convincing. L i b i d o theory could not wish death away. Death kept p o p p i n g u p i n its own right, and finally Freud legitimated it i n his theory by declaring death an instinct or drive. I n Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920) Freud writes o f a death instinct that is initially turned inward. There is a drive toward death f r o m the beginning, and there are many facets to this faceless drive. Freud emphasizes the conservative p r i n c i p l e o f instincts, the tendency to regress to earlier states, to repeat a position. The logical conclusion o f the slide backward is zero. The earliest state is n o state at all, zero stimulation, zero complexity. I n semi-biological, physical terms, Freud depicts organic life becoming i n ­ organic again, because the inorganic state was original, the p o i n t o f departure and point o f return. Life sustains its complexity only so long and then collapses. Cellular units are b o u n d together and then fall apart. T h e b i n d i n g o f any sort o f unity is precarious, subject to u n b i n d i n g . Life feeds on death and death o n life. Life deflects death outward for a time. A m b i t i o n , the will to power and mastery, sadism, and destructiveness, are some indications o f variable life-death drive fusions. Life holds death captive, directs its attention toward objects, makes death want things, persons, places, positions. I t is as i f l i b i d o attracts death's interest, fascinates death, busies death with 1

1 Through much of his psychoanalytic career, Freud gave a certain primacy to castration anxiety in clinical neuroses. Perhaps he felt that if it were possible to "resolve" castration anxiety, one would not be pathologically afraid of death. Thu s he tended to filter death anxiety through castration anxiety. Yet death retained a certain autonomy (e.g., going on a train journey as a death symbol or the third woman in ' T h e Theme of the Three Caskets" [1913, pp. 291-301]). Even after Freud introduced the death drive, castration anxiety exercised a privileged position: T believe that the fear of death is something that occurs between the ego and the superego. . . . These considerations make it possible to regard the fear of death, like the fear of conscience, as a development of the fear of castration" (1923, p. 58). I n the last decade, Freud still gave centrality to castration anxiety, yet wondered whether the death drive did not play a crucial role in the individual's inability to change. T h e full relationship between castration fantasies and the death drive has yet to be worked out.

7

Psychic Death

diversions. The deception, masquerade, and rerouting take effort. Systems wear themselves o u t by the work o f sustaining themselves. O n e dies, i n part, f r o m exhaustion. Yet i t is not enough to speak of inertia, collapse, or the wearing down of sys­ tems. I f death is a drive, it exerts force or pressure i n a certain direction. When the life drive does not bind the death drive, the latter unties sentient unities. Psycho organismic being is dismantled, broken apart, reduced to chunks o f inorganic material. Death is more an active breaking down than a passive falling apart. I t is t e m p t i n g to dramatize Freud's vision w i t h mythic language and phrases f r o m everyday speech. We speak o f life or death as taking or losing h o l d or its grip. We speak o f life's victory over death or death's over life, as i f the two were gods eternally wrestling, at war. We say death or life wins or loses. Freud also uses the language o f struggle, combat, tension, and difficulty. W h e n an i n d i ­ vidual dies he is i n the grips o f a process that has won out. F r o m F r e u d ' s p o i n t of view, i t is d o u b t f u l that there can be such a t h i n g as an easy death or an easy life. A n individual like Deborah makes one feel the force o f Freud's death drive. Deborah is a symbol and e m b o d i m e n t o f death. One death w o r k i n g in her. One feels a dark force taking her more and more o u t o f life, sucking life dry. One feels a negative process w o r k i n g even after life loses the battle.

feels

I t was n o t only Deborah's body that lacked flesh and fullness; her psyche had undergone an enormous reduction. T h e r e was n o t m u c h left o f her. Per­ haps she never had been too f u l l a person, but I have n o d o u b t that there was more to her, that there were more possibilities. Death had eaten away almost all i t could eat away. T h e shell o f D e b o r a h — a b u n d l e o f reflexes—persevered. She moved f r o m office to office l o o k i n g for therapists to feed the death w i t h i n or to miraculously stop i t . She c o u l d n o t die before the death inside her devoured every c r u m b o f potential aliveness i n every corner o f her being. I t was as i f she had to stay alive u n t i l there was n o t h i n g m o r e f o r death to eat. Deborah's life is carried away by something deadly that accelerates over time. Does Freud's f o r m u l a t i o n adequately depict the death momentum? Is it enough to say a drive toward tensionlessness won out? A r e n ' t there explosive tensions i n inorganic matter? Explosive processes seem to be part o f the universe. What would a tension-free universe be like? W o u l d a tension-free universe be a pro­ cess-free universe, n o universe at all? Deborah's life is a silent scream stretched over time. I t is an explosion that no one can hear because i t occurred and goes o n o c c u r r i n g i n a place where no O t h e r is. Deborah explodes i n a vacuum. No one hears Deborah cry. She does n o t hear herself crying, yet quiet crying o f her insides continues. A l l the loudness has gone i n t o her visual appearance: her skeleton rips the eyes o f the Other, tears the Other's heart. The more she vanishes the m o r e f u l l o f impact the place where she was becomes. The blackness she leaves b e h i n d or falls i n t o is n o t t e n s i o n free, b u t a heightened, c o n d e n s e d , blank, magnetic-like f i e l d

8

Psychic Deadness

increasing i n force. What processes govern this force? What can be said about the black hole consuming Deborah's life?

MAXIMUM-MINIMUM It is i m p o r t a n t to note that notions o f m a x i m u m - m i n i m u m states are part o f the fabric o f Freud's writings. For Freud the primal trauma is flooding, a maxi­ m u m state o f excitement. Freud pictures a system that can generate more stimu­ lation than it can handle. A one is too much for oneself paradigm can be applied to many facets o f psychophysical b e i n g — n e u r o l o g i c a l , sexual, social, emotional, and cognitive. Freud posits mechanisms that dampen and regulate the psycho-organism's tendency to become overwhelmed. A stimulus barrier offers resistance to the promiscuous streaming o f excitations. Psychological defenses resist the rise o f libidinal promptings. Freud's picture is always o f systems with double or oppo­ site tendencies, one offsetting and regulating the other. I n an i n f o r m a l fashion, one can speak o f being overwhelmed or flooded by energy, stimuli, drives, emotions, ideas. A t such moments, filter or containing systems break down or are inadequate. One may enjoy the flood, b u t one may only be able to take so m u c h o f it and no more, or i t may be too dangerous to begin with. I n response to massive flooding, one may massively shut down. I t is as i f the psycho-organism short-circuits, turns off, being unable to bear its sen­ sitivity. The blankness o f too m u c h is replaced by the blankness o f n o t h i n g . Instead o f too alive, we have too dead. Which is the greater anxiety i n Freud's w o r k — t h e dread o f aliveness or the dread o f death? The Freudian ego lives this double anxiety. There is n o end to the permutations. W h e n one is dead, one fears aliveness; when alive, one fears death. There are sublime moments of aliveness when there is n o r o o m f o r the fear o f either life or death. There is a deadness that fears b o t h life a n d death and a deadness that fears neither. There are two t e n d e n c i e s — t o w a r d m a x i m u m aliveness and toward total deadness, toward b u i l d i n g u p and tearing down, toward increasing tolerance o f energy and complexity, toward a zero p o i n t o f sensitivity and stimulation. For Freud all life is made u p o f these two tendencies, summarized u n d e r the rubrics o f Eros and the death instinct, a doubleness that marks all psychic p r o d ­ ucts. Whether or n o t one likes Freud's double instinct theory, issues related to the theme o f psychic aliveness-deadness cannot be wished away. >

A QUANTITATIVE FACTOR The play o f aliveriess-deadness runs through Freud's work. H e is concerned with the raw presence-absence o f sexual energy, its rise and fall, reroutings, rechannelings, its fate as it meets with internal-external obstacles and resistances.

9

Psychic Death

As his work developed i n t o "official" psychoanalysis, with an emphasis o n conflicts between and w i t h i n psychic systems, and between psychic systems and the external world, his interest i n sheer presence-absence and i n the s t r e n g t h ­ weakness o f raw sexual energy persevered. Remarks o n psychaesthenia a n d actual neurosis are sprinkled t h r o u g h o u t his work. For Freud, psychaesthenia is a c o n d i t i o n marked by low sexual vitality, by weak life energy. Freud believes there is a physical c o n t r i b u t i o n to this psycho­ logical depletion. Perhaps the i n d i v i d u a l is congenitally endowed w i t h less vitality or perhaps energy loss is t i e d t o the actual d a m m i n g o f l i b i d o . I n so­ called actual neurosis, the d a m m i n g o f l i b i d o results i n anxiety rather than depletion. Freud suggests that masturbation o r the use o f condoms c o u l d reflect or provoke psychaesthenia, actual neurosis, or mixtures o f the two. Physical actions have psychological effects and vice versa. 2

Libido sluggishness/blockage can reflect/lead to states o f low/high psychic arousal (variations o f m i n i m u m — m a x i m u m states). Either depletion o r anxi­ ety may be dominant, may seesaw, or be mixed indistinguishably. Individuals can feel helpless when faced by either extreme. O n e can fade o u t via deple­ tion or be obliterated by anxiety. Perhaps sluggish or blocked sexuality is different f o r individuals w i t h a low or h i g h energy endowment. W h e n more sexual energy meets a barrier, more tension is created, w h i c h is reflected i n a higher anxiety level. L o w sexual energy may be more readily pacified by i n n e r - o u t e r barriers and yield to iner­ tia o r weakness. T h e idea o f an innately l o w - h i g h fixed quantity o f energy, interacting with i n n e r - o u t e r barriers-openings, can be used to describe a wide variety o f conditions. Freud's work is a tantalizing m i x t u r e o f phenomenological description and insistence o n a quantitative factor beyond phenomenology. T h e two levels o f discourse often interact and fuse. O n e feels the quantitative factor i n everyday life. H o w m u c h energy one has f r o m m o m e n t t o m o m e n t and over time, how alive or wasted one feels: one is o n intimate terms w i t h one's level o f energy. One feels rushes o f energy, its waxing a n d waning. Now one is u p l i f t e d by the flow o f energy, now one is flooded, cast down, o r feels too little energy ("no wind i n one's sails"). Such terms as " d r i f t i n g , " "stagnant," "flow," and " f l o o d , " are among the plethora o f ways i n which language spontaneously gives a r u n ­ n i n g account o f o u r felt pulse, o u r energic moods. There is n o obvious f i t between the felt quantitative f a c t o r — h o w m u c h or how little energy one feels—and the fixed quantity o f energy beyond conscious­

2 Since many readers associate conflict within psychic systems with the development of ego psychology, it is useful to point out that it is an inherent part of Freud's thinking: e.g., eros/death drive as id forces, ego as hallucinatory and reality tester, superego as persecutory and inspirational. See my book, The Psychotic Core (1986), for selected portrayals of Freud's intrasystemic complexities.

10

Psychic Deadness

ness that fuels psychic systems. High-energy individuals can suffer massive depressions and depletion, while low-energy individuals persevere. W h e n the hare, when the turtle? A l l combinations a n d reversals are possible. Freud's writings are a meditation o n the plasticity-fixity o f psychic life. T h e hidden snake o f energy takes myriad f o r m s — n o w evanescent, now intractable. The idea o f a fixed quantity o f energy variously distributed t h r o u g h psychic subsystems informs Freud's depiction o f t h i n k i n g - f e e l i n g splits i n hysterical and obsessional states. I n obsessive states, ideas are substituted f o r affects; i n hysteria, diffuse emotionality is substituted f o r ideas. M a x i m u m t h i n k i n g ­ m i n i m u m feeling, m a x i m u m f e e l i n g - m i n i m u m t h i n k i n g : both the f o r m and intensity o f neurosis depend o n how m u c h energy is where. The variable fluidity-fixity o f energy bounces i n and o u t o f different boxes o f t i m e , u n i t i n g - d i v i d i n g different developmental moments. For example, hysteria is more advanced because i t is genital; obsessiveness is more primitive because i t is anal. Yet Freud likens hysterical emotionality to the diffuse and global affective storms o f infancy, whereas obsessive t h i n k i n g marks an advance i n interiority. A rise i n energy can increase t i g h t e n i n g or expiosiveness, so that hysterical-obsessive operations, so radically different, slide i n t o each other or shift positions i n a broader field.

T O O L I T T L E - T O O M U C H : A NEED FOR INTENSITY E m p t y i n g o u t feeling, emptying o u t t h o u g h t , e m p t y i n g o u t energy versus hyperfeeling, h y p e r t h i n k i n g , hyperenergy: g o i n g t h r o u g h extremes is an i m p o r t a n t part o f life. Extreme states a d d intensity, diversity, and richness to living. T h e poet William Blake celebrates this aspect o f life i n his aphorism, "Enough or too m u c h . " Winnicott's patient i m p l i e d this when he eschewed the midway path i n favor o f a "blend that includes b o t h extremes at the same time" (1986, p. 133). Blake and Winnicott's patient express a hunger f o r intensity. We need to feel and t h i n k intensely. Intensity nourishes us, waters o u r bodies and beings. T o go t h r o u g h something intensely and enjoy the afterglow is akin to or bet­ ter than an infant's good feeding and sleep. Extremes o f intensity ( e m p t y - f u l l , r a d i a n t - d u l l ) fuel wonder, awe, and curiosity.

IMMOBILITY I t is n o t the presence-absence o f duller or more heightened states that vexes Freud so much as when something is off with the movement between or through them. Individuals who r u n through states or objects too quickly and easily, who have too much mobility o f libido, may n o t be affected by what they go t h r o u g h .

Psychic Death

11

N o t h i n g sticks or builds. They have a lot o f experiences, but do n o t deepen or grow through them. Even more disturbing is too little movement. Freud notes i n certain i n d i ­ viduals "a depletion o f the plasticity, the capacity f o r change and f u r t h e r development" (1937, p. 241). M o r e forcefully, he notes that i n these people "all the mental processes, relationships and distribution of force are unchange­ able, fixed and r i g i d " (1937, p. 242). Freud's image here is death, the immobility and rigidity of the corpse. When Freud wrote this he was an o l d m a n , soon to die. I t is easy to think that Freud's writings surged with fluctuations o f l i b i d o theory when he still felt w i n d i n his sails. Jung implies as much (1943, 1945) when he suggests that Freud's psy­ chology is most apt for the first half o f life. Freud's daily walks t h r o u g h the city, his summer hikes i n the country are an indication that he enjoyed vigorous movement well into his sixties. As his mobility decreased, the image o f death came to occupy a greater place i n his work. It is not that deadness wasn't important to Freud earlier. As noted above, Freud had been keenly aware of the ebbs and flows o f energic moods, o f being now more alive, now more dead. However, he tended to understand deadness as the loss or weakness o f life energy, n o t as the positive work o f death. Deadness was a sort o f privatio bonum, of too little libido, whether constitutionally, the result of changing i n n e r - o u t e r conditions, or through energy drain connected with con­ flict. He was more concerned with the fear o f death or the loss of aliveness than with death as a force working i n personality, especially a force working against change. I t was not u n t i l Freud's last two decades that death achieved explicit, formal, conceptual status as a major actor on the psychoanalytic stage. I t was, of course, always a part o f Freud's associative flow and informal usage. As age and illness took their toll, the display o f fireworks f r o m Freud's l i ­ bido theory slowed down. T h e slippery, sliding fluid, the electrical dance o f libido that sprayed vast arrays o f symptoms, character scenarios, and cultural productions was rendered immobile, fixed, and r i g i d by death work. Death work was responsible for the personality's inability to develop. For Freud (1937, p. 242) "a k i n d o f psychical entropy" i n o l d people and "a certain amount o f psychical inertia" (fear o f change, reluctance o f the l i b i d o to enter new paths) at any age are n o r m a l . What struck h i m was the d e p t h and insistence of an inability or refusal to change that went beyond age and usual hesitation. The individual's wish to grow met an impasse, an unbudgeable x. Change or growth or development stopped. T h e source o f the blockage was deeper than ego or character. I t seemed to come f r o m the very foundations o f personality and faded into the depths o f the individual's prehistory. I n his later life, Freud writes o f a "force . . . defending itself by every pos­ sible means against recovery and which is absolutely resolved to h o l d o n to i l l ­ ness and suffering" (1937, p. 242). This force has "different and deeper roots" than ego-superego resistances. The intensity and pervasiveness o f the sense

12

Psychic Deadness

o f g u i l t and need for punishment (for instance, superego punishing ego for libidinal wishes), far f r o m explaining immobility, are an example o f it. Why should guilt g r i n d personality to a halt? Why should the need for punishment have such extravagant effects? One imagines that therapy w o u l d mobilize enough personal elasticity to enable work with g u i l t and punishment. What Freud n o t e d was that i n certain individuals, elasticity itself is i n question. A k i n d o f psychic rigor mortis sets i n . The need to punish the wish for pleasure does n o t account sufficiently for the enormity o f stagnant rigidity. Pleasure does n o t seem to be the bottom-line motivater o f personality i n such cases. The personality seems driven by unplea­ sure. I t is the death drive or unpleasure principle that gives such force to guilt and punishment. Freud implies that inelasticity is rather widespread. H e writes o f a masoch­ istic core i n many people that is l i n k e d with the negative therapeutic reaction and sense o f guilt. T h r o u g h o u t most o f his career he saw such recoils against life as reactive prohibitions against libidinal strivings. Now he threw i n the towel, admitting a darker, primary force, with roots i n "unspecified places." The darker primary force was anti-life yet b u i l t i n t o life: "the original death instinct o f liv­ i n g matter" (1937, p. 243). The i m p o r t a n t structural change i n his theory is that resistances to change or growth or cure or development do not originate primarily f r o m the top down (superego against ego against id) b u t f r o m the b o t t o m up. T h e unbudgeable rigidity that Freud points to is rooted i n the very foundations o f psychic life and i n the very nature o f matter. Freud (1937, pp. 240-247) notes that his entire life's work must be reinterpreted i n light o f this revision. No amount o f psychoanalysis can wish immobility away. The play o f i m m o ­ bility-mobility is a structural given. Moreover, i f "the concurrent or mutually opposing action o f . . . Eros and the death-instinct" (1937, p. 243) makes up the phenomena o f life, death work goes into the making o f psychoanalysis as well. Freud is more concerned with why psychoanalysis does n o t work than why it does. "For the m o m e n t we must bow to the superiority o f forces against which we see our efforts come to n o t h i n g " (1937, p. 243). Yes, for the moment, a moment stretched over time. Yet, as we stare into the darkness, our eyes see shapes and movements previously unnoticed. Death work is n o t u n i f o r m . There are many death worlds. A person like Deborah goes f r o m death to death. She experiences many sorts of death i n one lifetime, many variations i n the death her lifetime is,

FREUD'S SENSITIVITY Was Freud's death drive sour grapes, the revenge o f an o l d man on youth? Was it the outcome o f aging processes, illness, a w o r l d war, the death o f a child? A l l these factors may have contributed to the growing significance o f death i n the later Freud.

13

Psychic Death

Freud is exquisitely and agonizingly sensitive to the w a x i n g - w a n i n g o f energic moods. He is hyperaware o f shifts i n energy states on a daily and hourly basis. Freud's theoretical interest i n the flow o f energy dovetails w i t h his sensi­ tivity to energic moods. Freud's sensitivity to somatic shifts covers a variety o f states. H e possessed a comesthetic/interoceptive/proprioceptive/kinesthetic sensitivity that magnified his cardiac, respiratory, and digestive sensations. H e could alarm himself with a catalogue of shifting somatic symptoms, so m u c h so that he was convinced he would die i n his fifties. His letters to Fliess (Masson 1985) are quite open about his somatic/sensory anxieties and moods. His sensitivity included an array o f psychic sensations. He experienced psych­ aesthenic depletion, sexual d a m m i n g and anxiety, hysterical emotionality and diffuseness, and obsessive passions. He had a talent for tolerating and com­ plaining about manic-depressive swings i n creative work. He had an intuitive conviction that mood shifts played an important role i n creative processes. He could be mentally active and try out hosts o f possibilities i n a trial-and-error fashion, but he also was gifted w i t h an ability to wait. H e seemed to have an innate respect for shifting emotional states and moods, a belief i n their alter­ nation or periodicity i n larger rhythms o f development. Freud's sensitivity to r h y t h m led h i m to t h i n k that death work probably involves "some temporal characteristics," "some alterations o f a r h y t h m o f development i n psychical life which we have not yet appreciated" (1937, p. 242). We do not know what Freud had i n m i n d , what alterations o f developmental rhythms he m i g h t have charted. H a d Freud lived another twenty years, what would he have f o u n d i n the death drive? What would his dynamics o f i m m o b i l ­ ity look like?

MOVEMENT BETWEEN Let us b r i n g together some o f Freud's expressions o f i m m o b i l i t y , strung together f r o m a telling two pages i n Analysis Terminable and Interminable (1937, pp. 241-242). Adhesiveness o f l i b i d o , a depletion o f plasticity and the capa­ city f o r development and change, psychic inertia and entropy, something unchangeable, fixed, and rigid, a force against recovery: Where does such i m ­ mobility come from? By 1937 Freud no longer localizes this anti-development force i n the ego. The n o t i o n o f localization is called i n t o question. The anti-growth force does not have any specific locale. I t pervades the psyche, depends on u n k n o w n fundamental conditions i n the mental apparatus, and works i n unspecified places. I t is part of the individual's inherited equipment and so antedates his historical struggles. Since we cannot map this force i n terms o f its psychic co­ ordinates, the "distinction between what is ego and what is i d loses m u c h o f its value" (1937, p. 241).

14

Psychic Deadness

T o describe the anti-growth force i n terms o f its i m m o b i l i z i n g effect is not strong enough. Entropy implies increasing disorder. T o speak o f entropy and inertia is to suggest a psyche working i n reverse, n o t only n o t growing but also u n d o i n g growth. Can we speak o f a psyche u n d o i n g itself? What sort o f pro­ cess eats itself up, nulls itself, nulls everything? There is something transpersonal in a force f i e l d that wipes everything out. A n analyst may feel attacked or poisoned by the patient's anti-growth tendency. The analyst may feel unable to move or breathe; therapy may feel suffocating. H o w can one endure this? A force field that wipes everything o u t also wipes o u t the analyst's sense of his own anti-growth tendency. A n analyst who cannot sense his own anti-growth tendency may become overly absorbed or polarized by that o f the patient. The analyst loses balance and perspective; anti-growth is everywhere. The patient's and analyst's anti-growth tendencies fuse and suck the life out o f the situation. Analyst or patient may fight or withdraw to salvage some semblance o f i n d i ­ viduality, b u t the amorphous p u l l to oblivion is n o t assuaged easily. I t is impor­ tant that the analyst find his own anti-growth sense. Focusing o n his own anti­ growth tendency, paradoxically, makes r o o m for the patient's. Countertransference literature is filled w i t h reference to the analyst's use o f his paralysis, weakness, contempt, and fear-rage. The analyst struggles to stay alive, to maintain a viable psychic existence, but the odds are against it. A t times the best one can hope for is that the entropy/inertia/inelasticity—the constant wipe-out—forces one to stare at limits o f one's capacity. Intense, persistent, and heightened experience o f incapacity may spur movement at the edge, at l i m i t points, always with a certain unpredictability, as the song goes, "on a w i n g and a prayer." What is unnerving is n o t simply that the patient is stuck, but that he or she seems to be falling i n t o the stuckness. Images o f quicksand, suction, black holes, o f d r i f t i n g and vanishing beyond the p u l l o f h u m a n gravity prevail: all movement seems to be aimed at taking one f u r t h e r and f u r t h e r outside exis­ tence. The ability to move here and there, to zigzag, to correct one's position is lost. I n life, one movement corrects another. One tries this, then that. A slow­ m o t i o n film o f Matisse drawing a line shows his hand oscillating, although the line seems straight. A f i l m o f a baseball player making a great catch shows his glove tracking the ball, correcting one movement with another. Such moment­ to-moment estimates escape the naked eye. Yet it is precisely the lack o f open­ ended searching and zeroing i n on a target (a new l i n e , a good catch) that makes the patient's fall o u t of existence so lethal and heavy. I n the fall out o f existence, one movement does n o t seem to qualify another. There is simply the leaden fall. A m o m e n t u m quietly builds that cannot be deflected. The patient's whole life gradually becomes b u i l t around insidiously m o u n t i n g lifelessness. By the time she came to my office, Deborah's existence was consumed by details o f taking care o f herself: strategies for physically get­

Psychic Death

%

15

ting t h r o u g h the day, h o u r by hour, m o m e n t by moment, were all that was left, and they were fading. T h e monotonous oneness o f her concern was deadly. She had become a macabre proxy for the total care she always wanted and failed to break f r o m . Freud earlier wrote o f an "alteration o f the ego" that made personality growth difficult (1937, pp. 238-240). By this, i n part, he meant the defensive deforma­ tions that the ego suffered, so that the ego treats recovery as a danger and analysis as an enemy rather than ally. Now Freud locates a deeper source o f resistance to recovery, n o t i n the ego b u t i n "some alterations of a r h y t h m i n development i n psychical l i f e " (1937, p. 242), an alteration that makes the distinction between ego a n d i d relatively useless (1937, p. 241). This alteration characterizes the foundations o f psychic life. I t cannot be localized, p i n n e d down. I t is structural and atmospheric; it taints the very "space" and "air" in which the psyche moves and breathes. I t means something more than a defor­ mation o f the i d or a warp i n instinctual life. Freud pins the warp n o t i n place b u t i n r h y t h m . The focus here is n o t psy­ chic topography, b u t t i m i n g and movement. The music o f the psyche is off. A rhythmic rather than a structural warp is crucial. A r h y t h m i c warp results i n struc­

tural alterations. Structure depends o n rhythms (as well as the reverse). One wonders what psychoanalysis would look like had Freud chosen time rather than space as his organizing analogy. He d i d what was expedient. Space is more accessible than time. The idea o f psychic space enables one to locate motivations and capacities, to speak o f the psyche as i f i t had c o n t a i n i n g or structural properties (see Freud 1940, p. 145 for an elaboration o f the use and meaning o f mental space, see Matte-Bianco 1975, Part I X ) . One can make spatial diagrams; yet, when facing bedrock resistance to c h a n g e — a n apparently immutable force against recovery, an unyielding r i g i d i t y — t h e idea o f psychic space reaches a point o f diminishing returns. The idea of psychic space is fruitful as long as Freud can use i t to stage l i b i d i n a l dramas. Space was the place o f movement. When movement ceased, space was useless. What could space teach us about a world where movement stopped? What could space mean i n a world without movement? Is it odd to say that time begins where space leaves off? Philosophy and com­ m o n sense teach that space and time go together, and they do. However, i n psychic reality one may leap i n t o time after space dies. I n average life, space and time constitute each other. A person moves and rests, goes about the busi­ ness o f living, takes space-time interweaving for granted. I f psychic movement dies and space falls away or hardens, a person may cling to time to escape the grave o f space. T h e psyche does n o t die evenly. Space may die before time. For Deborah, time was still more alive than space. T i m e haunted her. She was going to die. She was already quite dead. Yet temporal anxieties stirred her. She d i d n o t have m u c h time left. W o u l d she die before she lived? W o u l d it be over before she had a chance? There was n o t h i n g left for her b u t the care o f

16

Psychic Deadness

her dying body, yet time pressured her. T i m e was dreadful. Perhaps she would come alive i n time! Perhaps there was still a chance for a m o m e n t o f sensitiv­ ity, a time o f heightened aliveness. T h e r e was no body or place left for this to happen. I f it ever would happen at all, it could only be in time. She m i g h t be saved i n time. T i m e m i g h t redeem space. A m o m e n t o f re­ newal m i g h t b r i n g her body back, spread t h r o u g h space. A good moment, a heightened moment, a moment of aliveness could warm existence, thaw space. The likelihood was that time would die while she was still alive. I t would be eaten by death work, the way that space was. Still, time nursed a bit o f hope. Deborah's great cynicism and despair were tied to space, b u t time's badly clipped wings had n o t dropped her entirely.

WINNICOTT Winnicott fights against deadness in his writing. He wants his writing to be alive, to be moving. He says explicitly that he wants his concepts to convey movement, process, paradox and not to deaden (Eigen 1992a; Rodman 1987, p. 42). His "transitional experiencing" and "use o f object" notions express movement between persons, between dimensions o f self, between worlds. He d i d not want to fight deadness i n his office only to die i n his writings. W i n n i c o t t is concerned that his writings n o t simply convey ideas but also evoke experience. W r i t i n g creates/discovers/opens experience. I t is the edge o f what is happening, n o t merely a r e p o r t o f what has come and gone. W i n n i ­ cott's work is an adventure i n psychoanalytic imagination, the creative self in action. Above all, he wants to convey a sense o f creative aliveness, to be alive when he wrote. To an extent, he uses w r i t i n g as Kafka d i d , to "crack the frozen sea w i t h i n . " A t the same time, he tries to speak f r o m the place o f aliveness, to let the sense o f aliveness speak. W i n n i c o t t is always digging i n t o an experience and o p e n i n g i t up. Speaking and writing are forms o f movement. Words pop out o f nowhere, out o f an implicit sense or feeling or premonition, now more gut, now more heart or head. They spill or fly into the air or across a page, sometimes agonizingly slowly and sometimes too rapidly to keep u p with. A t his best, Winnicott links clinical experience with clinical writing. A creative thread runs through both. It is i m p o r t a n t to say this because so m u c h psychoanalytic w r i t i n g has been dead and deadening, a disease. I f psychoanalysts are as dead as their writing, for what can a Deborah hope? A dead analyst may calm an individual who is beset by throbbing impulses, but an anhedonic spirit melds with Deborah's fall out of life, s c a r c e l y c r e a t i n g a r i p p l e o f d e a d n e s s .

The movement between is the i m p o r t a n t m o m e n t i n Winnicott's writings. I w o u l d add the movement through. T o move between or t h r o u g h experiences, to

Psychic Death

17

let an experience b u i l d , to go t h r o u g h something: this is what Deborah can not do. Deborah's between or through is n o t working. Deborah had an affair w i t h a therapist, b u t it fell flat. Impulse led nowhere. The affair collapsed, a n d Deborah was alone, deader than before. The shock of having and losing led to weakening and eventually to the collapse o f impulse. Her learning was that impulse led to deadness. There were little moments when impulse lived, when she was propelled i n t o contact, b u t they d i d n o t last nor did they amount to anything. They were n o t strong or f u l l enough to warrant the pain and emptiness that surrounded t h e m . Deadness was a relief u n t i l it took on a life o f its own. H e r affair with her therapist was doomed f r o m the outset. She and he knew it would come to n o t h i n g . I t would be good to say that she lived i t o u t anyway, but neither he nor she fully lived it. T h e impulse that drove her had failure written on it. I t happened, b u t n o t w i t h all her m i g h t and being. She floated through it, more ghostlike than impassioned. She d i d not love h i m , nor he her. There were n o illusions o f desire. They fell i n t o i t and d i d it. The p u l l , the undertow drew t h e m i n . They sank i n t o i t , and after tasting the sensations, he pulled out. Exploitation? Abuse o f power? I t w o u l d be g o o d to say that they went w i t h the flow, b u t there was n o t m u c h flow. Neither party got m u c h out o f the experience: there was not m u c h experience to get something out of. The hole was already there, and they fell t h r o u g h it. Impulse led to death. B u t no impulse was death as well. T h e r e was m a r k i n g time, treading water, sinking, trying to stop sinking. Over the years there was less and less except for sinking, and finally, only the sinking was left. Deborah's affair w i t h her therapist was a more condensed version o f what happened or failed to happen w i t h her "boyfriends." She never really had a boyfriend. The r h y t h m that goes i n t o making a relationship was n o t there; that is, the rhythm o f relationship was n o t there. N o t h i n g grew or b u i l t on itself. There were moments o f almost contact, but no hits. She could not get m/othings or be swept away. She could n o t let life play on her, uplift her, lift her o u t o f herself. T o have glorious moments one needs to be able to move between states, between selves, between worlds. The rhythmic movement between self and other never quite evolved or took h o l d . By the time college ended, Deborah sensed she was i n trouble, b u t had no idea what the trouble was. She still was h o p i n g things w o u l d r i g h t themselves, that therapy would help, that life w o u l d come to her aid. She never thought her life would become as bad as it d i d . She always thought that she w o u l d p u l l out o f it, that something w o u l d happen. As time went o n , the entropy-inertia swelled u n t i l little was left outside it. A brittle yet tenacious rigidity made i t impossible to flow or float or fly. Deborah's life sank like a dead weight. She brought the sinking weight to my office and cried, "Catch me, catch me! Stop the dying!" I reached out, b u t she stared and demanded what behav­

18

Psychic Deadness

ior recipes I c o u l d offer. I c o u l d offer m y m i n d , heart, a n d soul, m y strength,

my a b i l i t y — b u t no recipe. I was n o t enough for her. She wanted what I could no/offer, something that I wasn't, something I d i d n ' t have. She left after our first few weeks o f sessions. I n such a short time, there was such a deep i m p r e s s i o n — o n me, n o t her. W i n n i c o t t counsels that it is i m p o r t a n t to recognize limits to therapy and that there are people who cannot be helped. H e wants therapists not to hate themselves too badly because o f failure. Failure is part o f living. There can be no therapy without failure. It saves time and energy to know who cannot be helped, since i t enables us to give more time to those who can. Yet it is important to try to work w i t h a Deborah, i f she wants to or stays, i n therapy. Does one know who may be helped and how? I have helped Deborahs o n occasion. A n d there have been Deborahs with w h o m I thought I failed, only to find out years later that our work had been valuable. One may need to sink a l o n g time i n t o the limits o f capacity, i n t o what cannot be done, for bits o f movement to begin, for unexpected openings to occur. What w o u l d have hap­ pened i f Deborah gave me a chance? W o u l d i t have been her most horrible experience o f all, or w o u l d something have happened? By her leaving before we started, she stopped my potential movement to­ ward or away f r o m her. I/she could n o t get i n or p u l l out. There w o u l d be n o movement at all. I would not have the chance to let something b u i l d , or to fall with her, or to sink together. I would n o t have the chance to withdraw, intrude, abandon, die out, come back. My chance, my freedom to move between states was stifled, killed off, aborted. I w o u l d never get the chance to find out how bad we could be together. I would n o t find o u t how she m i g h t murder me. I w o u l d never get to dip into the ways I could n o t take her, how unbearable being w i t h her could be. T h e r e would be no finding out, no chance, no opportunity, n o loss, no fail­ ure, n o learning. There would be no time. Perhaps n o t getting a chance, n o t having time, was the experience Deborah meant me to have. I was to taste a bit o f her death. Perhaps my j o b was to somehow begin to metabolize the unmetabolizable—the death o f time, the death o f promise. She could not move f r o m one state to another, f r o m world to world, self to self, self to other, and back again. Yet I could move i n and out of death. 1 could sink and rise. I could let her state and w o r l d touch me, her monomanic sinking, dying, falling, fading. I could sink, die, fall, fade. But there is a rhythm that takes me i n and out o f these states, a flow between states, a flow t h r o u g h states. I do get something going through worlds o f deadness. I get something i n the fall. Something sticks, grows, a b l i n d appreciation o f what we are up against, what we are, what we can go through. The b o t t o m is as important as the top. Deborah's inability to move between t o p - b o t t o m or i n - o u t must be taken i n by someone, be given some gestation process. For Deborah to be helped, the impossible must happen: the indigestible must be digested, worked over,

19

Psychic Death

processed. Perhaps better, movement between the digestible-indigestible needs to get stimulated a n d sustained. That no one knows how to do that is precisely what must be lived w i t h .

A NOTE ON BIG BATTALIONS:

WHERE DOES PROCESSING START?

It is an oddity i n Freud's work that he enjoys sticking pins i n h u m a n narcis­ sism, yet lobbies f o r ego c o n t r o l and mastery. Freud saw psychoanalysis as mortifying the Western ego, a Copernican revolution i n which the ego is no longer master i n its own house. His writings a b o u n d i n instances i n which instinct, like an impish, irrepressible child, sticks o u t its tongue at ego, evades control, makes ego f l o p o n its backside, is clown more than crown. Yet Freud admires Michelangelo's Moses for the intensity o f ego's victory over instinct. The hallucinatory, anxious, conflict-ridden ego is also the site o f the still small voice o f science, the light o f consciousness. The clown is hero; the hero is clown. Yet Freud is quite serious i n his admiration o f ethical, esthetic, and scientific achievements i n w h i c h the ego makes the most o f its e q u i p m e n t , does n o t succumb to inertia-entropy, channels instinctual drives, and pushes past its deformations. Near the end o f his life Freud writes that the business o f analysis "is to se­ cure the best possible psychological conditions for the functions o f the ego" (1937, p. 250). This is a more tempered view than the war cry, "Where i d is, let ego be." The wish f o r ego mastery and dominance is chastened. I t is enough for ego to have r o o m to function. The j u n g l e grows quickly; ego's achievements are fragile. Death work undoes the culture i t helps b u i l d . Yet there is still i n Freud the tone o f struggle, warfare, the b l o o d o f the warrior. Analysis secures the best possible conditions for ego, as i t m i g h t secure a beachhead or fortify a strategic position. Analysis is n o t i m m u n i z a t i o n f r o m life. Positions can be overrun and achievements reversed. One does the best one can w i t h the materials at hand. O u r modest battle to secure the best possible conditions for functions o f the ego is a fight against odds: " i t seems as i f victory is i n fact as a rule o n the side o f the big battalions" (1937, p. 240). "Hostile forces" have the greater share o f energy. Freud, partly, has i n m i n d instinctual drives, especially death work. But the ego is n o t only besieged f r o m without. I t is its own enemy. T h e ego inflates-deflates, hallucinates, splits, adopts critical perspectives, seeks t r u t h , mixes t r u t h and delusion. Now we side with ego, now w i t h i d ; now with one ego f u n c t i o n , now w i t h another. We move back and f o r t h between positions. The ego is partner, n o t only fighter. We enter i n t o partnership w i t h pro­ cesses that constitute us, support us, u n d o us. We try to get to know what we are made of, perhaps over many millennia. What is the I t or T h o u or O that

20

Psychic Deadness

we are part of, that we stand o u t f r o m , that we feel w i t h i n us and around us, that we fight with, that we immerse ourselves in? What sort o f beings are we? O f what are we capable? Freud's vision is not only one o f battle between and w i t h i n psychic elements b u t also o f u n i o n . The psyche is one fabric. There is connection, nourishment, and support between psychical divisions. A sense o f connection-division char­ acterizes psychical work. What is most alive i n Freud is his portrayal o f a flowing psyche, x t u r n i n g i n t o y, interchangeability, polarization, one t h i n g becoming-standing against-standing f o r another. Equivalence, interchange­ ability, reversal, polarization, all manner o f mixtures and antagonisms: Isn't this what draws us to Freud, this restless flow o f energy, affect, and meaning? For Freud this flow is fundamental. H e felt he never d i d better than his "dream book" (1900), i n which he portrays primary process work, wriggling displacements, condensations, incessant r e s h u f f l i n g o f forms expressing unconscious concerns. As his sense o f the plasticity o f psychic life developed, his work depicted myriad reversals and substitutions: reversibility of affect (e.g., love ** hate); substitution o f meaning f o r affect, meaning for meaning, idea f o r idea, idea f o r affect, affect f o r idea; reversibility o f persons ( I you); reversibility o f tendencies (active *-» passive); reversibility o f direction o f ten­ dencies (toward the self ** toward the o t h e r ) . Freud had one eye on mobility, another on barriers. The psyche was alive with pulsating movement. Yet the flow met i n n e r - o u t e r resistances, had its own inertia, stickiness, backflow (re­ gression), and finally emptied i n t o the river o f death. Perhaps the emphasis o n structuring tendencies, ego integration, and mastery kept analytic atten­ tion too riveted o n dichotomies between free and b o u n d energy, drive dis­ charge and realistic delay, wish f u l f i l l m e n t and disguised rerouting, impulse and control, irrational—rational, pleasure-unpleasure. N o t enough credit was given to what primary process flow achieves, the work it does. Freud overemphasizes the contrast between pleasure and pain and places primary process work firmly o n the side o f pleasure. I n the end, this dichotomy broke down. A psyche fundamentally devoted to pleasure could n o t explain the pervasiveness of pain i n human affairs. Nevertheless, Freud's work possesses resources that contribute to revisualizing what primary process does. Primary process works on the pain it tries to wish away. Even the wishing away o f pain can be a first approach to working w i t h it. O n the one hand, primary process may try to cushion or r i d the psyche o f pain, reroute pleasure around pain, or try to circumscribe and l i m i t pain. I t searches o u t pain and begins to weave webs o f meaning around i t , a psychic wound-licking, cocooning, secreting pearls around irritants. Even as i t tries to delete pain, i t acts o n it, does something to or with i t , alters it. Primary process begins the transformation o f pain. Freud (1920) calls attention to cases i n which primary process focuses re­ lentlessly on pain. Mythic images and literary narratives give the fact o f suffer­

21

Psychic Death

i n g privileged emphasis. Dreams are filled with catastrophic moments. Repeti­ tive p a i n f u l dreams, like the traumatic war neurosis dreams Freud notes, sug­ gest that the psyche is u p against more pain than it can process. Pain breaks t h r o u g h the cocoon o f wishes, shatters pearls o f meaning. There is a break­ down i n the psyche's ability to begin the processing o f pain. Mastery o f pain is too m u c h to expect. But perhaps primary process can bite o f f bits o f painful impacts, rework painful injuries i n fragmentary ways. Rework­ ing o f pain is always partial. One cannot make savage wounds go away. But little by little, primary process can absorb more o f the impact, keep t u r n i n g shock around, make r o o m for the shock. Growth o f even a little digestive capacity goes a l o n g way. Sometimes primary process effectively shrinks a p a i n f u l mass, like a psychic radiation treatment. The images, fantasies, primitive narratives i t secretes can partially break u p and dissolve the pain o n which they act. A t times the subject may so enjoy exercising primary process capacity that the painful moment takes second place to the t h r i l l o f using one's equipment intensely and fully. A poem may be m o r e i m p o r t a n t to a poet than the pain that occasioned it. T h e self a patient finds while speaking about injury can alter one's experience o f what injury is. O n the o t h e r hand, primary process may never catch u p to the sense o f injury. Sensitivity to wounds may always be steps ahead o f processing ability. The growth i n ability to live with this assymetry is a k i n d o f wisdom. One learns to give pain time. I t takes time for pain to d i m i n i s h enough for processing to begin n i b b l i n g at it. The seasoned personality is steeped i n time. Primary process is attracted to wounds. I t begins the b i n d i n g and process­ i n g o f wounds. I t not only attempts to sneak pleasure past f o r b i d d i n g eyes but it also tries to heal. I t tries to r i g h t the psyche, to make one feel better and actually be better. The double tendency to avoid a n d to work over pain is i m p l i c i t i n primary process. O n the one hand, there is shock, blanking out, n u m b i n g , t u r n i n g off, getting r i d of, wishing away, trying to substitute plea­ sure or fullness or oblivion for pain. But there is also recovery, nursing wounds, p r o d u c i n g images and proto-narratives that coat, lubricate, and begin break­ i n g down and metabolizing chunks o f h o r r o r . We t u r n wounds i n t o dreams, poems, religions, art, laws, and social institutions. By feeding injury i n t o dream work, primary process begins the endless task o f m a k i n g something o f suffer­ ing, o f w o r k i n g with pain t h r o u g h images, o f discovering the j o y o f symboliz­ i n g what cannot be e n d u r e d . 3

3 For alternative, related portrayals of the work that primary that process does, see Ehrenzweig (1971) and Bion (1970). This theme runs through my earlier work (Eigen 1986, 1992b, 1993, 1995) and is part of a strong imaginative current of psychoanalytic writers (e.g., Matte-Bianco 1975, 1988, Milner 1957,1987, Noy 1968, Rycroft 1968).

22

Psychic Deadness

Primary process does its work i n better and worse ways. Primary process i t ­ self can be wounded and be unable to work well. Something can go w r o n g w i t h the psyche's ability to process injury f r o m the outset. I f primary process is dam­ aged, i t cannot properly begin the task o f processing catastrophic states. I t is part o f the catastrophe. T h e images and proto-narratives it feeds the psyche lead nowhere, perpetuate damage, and lam movement. Primary process tries to r i g h t itself, to heal itself, b u t may n o t be able to do so. I t may become preoccupied w i t h signaling its own damaged state, its own b l o c k e d processing ability. I f i t does n o t get h e l p and is left to its f a i l i n g devices, its images and proto-narratives can become ever m o r e damaging to itself and the psyche generally. The image-making process becomes part o f a process o f injury, a vicious spiral o f imaging damage that acts i n such a way that more damage results. This spiral can reach a p o i n t where images o f dam­ age are less symbols than they are instances o f the damage itself, momentary glimpses o f the damaging process i n progress. I n extreme instances, the dam­ age is so severe that images are no longer produced or are inaccessible, and the individual begins to vanish as the w o u n d closes over h i m o r her. This is the sort o f trap i n t o which Deborah has fallen. H e r psyche has closed in around her, has failed to support her. Primary process is n o t processing. I t is n o t w o r k i n g o n her sense o f injury, b u t is swallowed u p by it. T o speak o f penis envy or castration anxiety does n o t make sense when one has fallen o f f the edge o f the psychic universe, when the psyche itself seems o n the verge o f vanishing. When Freud writes that the business o f analysis is to secure the best possible psychological conditions for the functions o f the ego (1937, p. 250), a well-enough functioning

primary process must be included among these conditions.

Deborah slipped

through her own primary process foundations, and they became deadening. We can only guess how this happened. Obviously, the Other failed to help her, but she also was unable to use what help m i g h t have been offered. How d i d this happen? What makes this work? Again, we are back to square zero.

REFERENCES Bion, W. R. (1970). Attention and Interpretation. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1983. Ehrerizweig, A. (1971). The Hidden Order of Art. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, Eigen, M. (1986). The Psychotic Core. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, (1992a). T h e fire that never goes out. Psychoanalytic Review 79: 271-287. (1992b). Coming through the Whirlwind. Wilmette, I L : Chiron. (1993). The Electrified Tightrope. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson. (1995). Reshaping the Self. New York: Psychosocial Press. Freud, S. (1900). T h e interpretation of dreams. Standard Edition 4/5:1-361. (1913). T h e theme of the three caskets. Standard Edition 12.

Psychic Death

23

(1920). Beyond the pleasure principle. Standard Edition 18. (1923). The ego and the id. Standard Edition 19.

(1937). Analysis terminable and interminable. Standard Edition 23. (1940). The outline of psycho-analysis. Standard Edition 23. Jung, C. G. (1943, 1945). Two essays on analytical psychology. In The Collected Works of C. G.Jung. Bollinger series, vol. 7. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956. Masson, J. M., ed. (1985). The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess

1887-1904. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Matte-Bianco, I. (1975). The Unconscious as Infinite Sets. London: Duckworth. (1988). Thinking, Feeling, and Being. London: Routledge. Milner, M. (1957). On Not Being Able to Paint. New York:. International Universities Press, 1973. (1987). The Suppressed Madness of Sane Men. London : Tavistock. Noy, P. (1968). The development of musical ability. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child,

vol. 68. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Rodman, R. (1987). The Spontaneous Gesture: Selected Letters ofD. W. Winnicott. Cambridge,

MA: Harvard University Press. Rycroft, C. (1968). Imagination and Reality. New York: International Universities Press. Winnicott, D, W. (1986). Holding and Interpretation. New York: Grove.

2 The Destructive Force

It is difficult to overestimate Melanie Klein's impact o n psychoanalytic t h i n k ­ ing. So many o f her locutions and concerns are part o f psychoanalytic daily life. She shares with nineteenth-century psychiatry, poets, and gothic literature an obsession with splitting. I n Klein's writings, splits i n personality become splits in ego, object, and affect. She embarks o n what may well be one o f the most detailed portrayals o f psychological splitting in the history o f ideas. She shares this preoccupation with Freud and Jung, but gives i t her own t u r n , takes i t to places the founders o f depth psychology d i d n o t quite get to. I f the idea o f splitting is popular today, Melanie Klein is a background influence. Klein shares w i t h existentialism a preoccupation w i t h death. O u r sense o f self, other, a n d time is stained by death on the horizon. For Freud and Klein, death is n o t only a definitive event approaching us b u t also something work­ i n g i n every psychic pore now. K l e i n spins variants o f Freud's death drive t h r o u g h o u t her work. She takes seriously Freud's insistence that Eros and the death instinct permeate every fiber o f psychic life. H o w death work and life work contribute to every psychic event involves "problems whose elucidation would be the most rewarding achievement o f psychological research" (Freud 1937, p. 243). By immersing herself i n death and life processes, Klein contrib­ utes toward the elucidation that Freud invites. Klein makes psychoanalysis more honest by m a k i n g explicit its implicit con­ cern w i t h psychosis. I n an earlier c o n t r i b u t i o n (Eigen 1986, pp. 5 - 3 1 ) , I show how an u n d e r l y i n g concern w i t h madness contributes to Freud's structural concepts and descriptions o f psychic processes. He applies notions drawn f r o m psychotic phenomenology to the treatment o f neurotics. Klein tears the veil away and focuses o n psychotic anxieties, mechanisms, and defenses that make their way t h r o u g h infancy and remain active all life long. She gives credence to the i n t u i t i o n that madness runs t h r o u g h h u m a n affairs and plays a role i n everyone's life. The Kleinian analyst expects to work w i t h psychotic processes and is n o t

26

Psychic Deadness

surprised by psychotic transferences. O n the contrary, analysts touched by Klein are suspicious i f psychotic depths are bypassed i n analytic work. W i n n i c o t t (1971, p. 87) muses with black h u m o r o n the value o f analytic work that goes o n at neurotic levels for years, never t o u c h i n g issues o f madness or a deeper malaise. Fairbairn (1954) describes neuroses as ways o f b i n d i n g deeper frag­ mentation. T h e titles o f two recent books by authors touched by Klein (via W i n n i c o t t and Bion) bear witness to the n o t i o n that b e h i n d a neurosis lies a hidden psychosis: Green's On Private Madness (1986) and Milner's The Suppressed Madness of Sane Men (1987). My own book, The Psychotic Core (1986), deals with aspects o f madness that characterize the h u m a n c o n d i t i o n . Melanie Klein does n o t believe infants are psychotic j u s t because there are psychotic processes i n infancy. However, she does l i n k madness with very early processes and is obsessed with the quest for origins. Madness is n o t simply an aberration, something extrinsic to the h u m a n . Rather, something approximat­ i n g madness is intrinsic to the way the h u m a n psyche works, although it would be brash to define man as mad. I f i t is brash to define man as mad, i t would also be mad to exclude madness f r o m one's sense of the h u m a n . We leave open what to make o f this knot, as i t is beyond our powers to untangle now. This chapter connects Melanie Klein's interest i n psychotic processes with psychic deadness. Klein's portrayals o f psychotic anxieties f o r m a nexus o u t o f which her views o f psychic deadness u n f o l d . To feel the f u l l force o f Klein's views o n deadness, i t is necessary to tease apart m u l t i p l e currents o f her work. My points o f entree are the many times she repeats the l o c u t i o n , " f r o m the beginning o f life." I t is a phrase she repeats with different meanings. One might conclude she holds contradictory views o f psychic origins or that all the originary processes she speaks o f go together in fertile, complex ways. I espouse the lat­ ter view. I t is i m p o r t a n t to give f u l l development to Klein's m u l t i p l e perspec­ tives i n order to see how far her picture o f deadness takes us a n d where i t leaves off.

F R O M T H E B E G I N N I N G OF LIFE Melanie Klein's essay, "Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms" (1946) is a richly condensed summary o f her picture o f psychic life, yet one cannot get the f u l l flavor o f Klein f r o m this essay. Her book, Narrative of a Child Analysis (1961), shocks one i n t o awareness o f Mother's body as war zone. T h e drive to get con­ trol o f Mother's insides, meeting u p with rivals i n her body, psychic dramas played out with body materials: all this receives more graphic treatment i n her account o f moment-to-moment analytic interactions. But the bare bones o f her vision shine with special brightness i n "Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms" (1946). I t is a h i g h p o i n t i n her writings and is my focus here.

The Destructive Force

27

Klein uses the phrase " f r o m the b e g i n n i n g " eight times i n pp. 293-298; the variant, "at the beginning", appears once (p. 296). There are other references to the beginning o f life i n this essay as well. Apparently reference to origins is part o f Klein's style. I t is interesting that she does n o t say " f r o m the beginning o f psychic life," but " f r o m the beginning o f life." I would imagine she meant f r o m the beginning of psychic life, b u t her repeated references to the begin­ n i n g o f life take on a certain power. One begins to t h i n k she really means the beginning o f life itself or at least the infant's life. Does she really i n t e n d us to t h i n k that the infant's mental activity begins concurrently with bodily activity, that the two grow up at the same time and are inseparable? That she asserts the first object is the breast suggests that the beginning o f life she means is life f r o m b i r t h . Are there objects i n the womb? The fact that i n her writings the womb becomes an object to seek, control, and possess leaves the question open. Melanie Klein is very Freudian i n her emphasis on active mental processes. She is perhaps more Freudian than Freud himself i n her emphasis on active ego processes everywhere. The fantasy o f passive u n i o n with the womb is less i m p o r t a n t than the ego's womb-oriented activity. For her the w o m b is n o t merely a safe harbor, a place to withdraw a n d hide b u t also a place o f creativ­ ity, power, appropriation, a status symbol. T h e Kleinian w o m b is a busy place filled with weapons, struggles, battles; i t is a site o f hyperactivity. I t certainly does n o t provide the rest and respite that regression seeks. I n the Kleinian w o r l d , there is no safety anywhere, n o t for l o n g . What is i t like to undergo the changes an embryo or fetus does? Ocean waves and roller coasters seem tame by comparison. I can well imagine n o t moving m u c h w i t h so m u c h going o n . A regressed person i n a fetal position may be trying to ride out the storm. Melanie Klein also may be true to the mother's experience, who must somehow come t h r o u g h a lifetime o f changes i n nine months and perhaps still greater changes i n being with a live infant and child. Nevertheless, it is n o t helplessness i n the face o f immense change that Klein emphasizes. The ego is part o f growth processes, and ego activity adds to the dramatic alterations i n progress. T h e ego helps shape the processes by which it is shaped. Still the ego is driven. Its fierce activity is tied to momentous changes it does n o t control. Like the embryo or fetus, i t develops along a timetable, with characteristic structural and dynamic shifts. Is Klein's ego, like Freud's, partly a mastery ego, dedicated t o m a k i n g the passive active, emphasizing integration and synthesis? Does passivity exist i n Klein's world? What sorts o f relationships are possible between ego and the greater psychic field? There are different sorts o f deadness. Deadness can result f r o m t u r n i n g o f f i n the face o f overstimulation or an o v e r w h e l m i n g situation. I n extreme instances, one may passively die out. I n contrast, Kleinian deadness seems more l i n k e d with active mastery attempts gone w r o n g . T h e ego stifles e m o t i o n i n

28

Psychic Deadness

order to stay o n top, a sort o f rising above oneself. Klein emphasizes the ego's manic defenses and self-hardening processes, attempts to stay above or fortify oneself against painful realities. These attempts result i n emotional depletion or the loss o f contact with emotional reality. One o f Klein's specialties is her delineation o f ego defenses—splitting, idealization, manic denial, projection, and i n t r o j e c t i o n — i n the face o f psychotic anxieties. One wonders whether part of psychic deadness is tied to the ego's attempts to do too m u c h . Doesn't the Kleinian ego ever simply tire itself out or get t i r e d o f itself? I n this chapter, we will t u r n the Kleinian "beginning o f l i f e " kaleidoscope and superimpose some o f the configurations that appear. We move between the ego's relations to objects, affects, and drives and their intertwining. O u r starting p o i n t is Klein's famous emphasis on the death drive as a nucleus o f ego activity.

FROM THE BEGINNING: THE DEATH INSTINCT More than most analysts, Klein places Freud's death drive at the center o f psy­ chic life. N o t only does she share Freud's conviction that the death drive plays a constitutive role i n psychic phenomena but she also contributes original varia­ tions on the theme. She nourishes, extends, and amplifies the ways i n which death currents spread t h r o u g h and m o l d psychic activities. Klein makes the strong assertion that "anxiety arises f r o m the operation o f the death instinct w i t h i n the organism" (1946, p. 296). We do n o t know exactly what she means by "operation" or "death instinct," b u t we have hints. She speaks o f "the primary anxiety o f being annihilated by a destructive force w i t h i n " (1946, p. 297). Whatever the death instinct and its operations may be, it issues i n annihilation anxiety, which is linked to a destructive force within. This linkage marks a radical amplification or shift o f emphasis i n psycho­ analysis. Primary anxiety is n o t tied to libido, b u t to a destructive force within. We are less anxious about sexuality than about destruction. I n his personal life, Freud seemed more obsessed with the fear of death than castration (see Chap­ ter 1). As he moved toward old age, death finally got its due i n his formal theory (libido i n youth, death i n o l d age). Standing o n Freud's shoulders i n his o l d age, Melanie Klein looks squarely i n the face o f death. What makes Klein's emphasis o n death psychoanalytic, i n part, is the way death spreads t h r o u g h the personality and works indirectly. The destructive force w i t h i n , like l i b i d o , undergoes a series of displacements or deflections. It is (1) "felt as fear o f annihilation (death)"; (2) "takes the f o r m o f fear o f persecution"; and is (3) "from the beginning felt as being caused by objects" (1946, p. 296). This is death drive's centrifugal movement ( i n - o u t ) . A t the same time, there is a centripetal movement ( o u t - i n ) , whereby outer persecuting

The Destructive Force

29

objects are i n t r o j e c t e d and become i n t e r n a l persecutors. They t h e n draw on and reinforce "fear o f the destructive impulse w i t h i n " (1946, p. 196). Projection-introjection f u n c t i o n as filters or funnels for the death drive. They provide shapes, forms, arenas o f objects: pathways for the death drive. Melanie Klein maintains that a destructive force within is felt as the primary source o f danger at the same time that one encounters i t t h r o u g h deflections (projective—introjective funnels). The p r i m a l destructive force w i t h i n is more global and formless than its projective—introjective manifestations. Melanie Klein has m o r e to say about the latter than the former. H e r specialty is to delineate ways i n w h i c h the ego channels and binds the death d r i v e — v i a p r o j e c t i o n - i n t r o j e c t i o n and such associated mechanisms as splitting, idealiza­ tion, and denial. B i o n (1965, 1970, see Chapter 4) focuses o n the raw, f o r m ­ less destructive force and its radical u n b i n d i n g o f what ego builds. For Melanie Klein, the formless, originary death drive and its projective­ introjective shapes work f r o m the beginning. There is an originary simultane­ ity o f multidirectional movements toward more or less f o r m and more or less stability. The ego is always under pressure to deal w i t h death drive's twists and turns. Can it possibly be up to this task?

FROM THE BEGINNING: EGO AND OBJECTS To understand Melanie Klein's depiction of early ego-object relations, we can start f r o m four o f her assertions about the b e g i n n i n g o f life: (1) "that object­ relations exist f r o m the b e g i n n i n g o f l i f e " (1946, p. 293); (2) that " f r o m the beginning object-relations are m o l d e d by an interaction between introjection and p r o j e c t i o n " (1946, p. 293); (3) that " f r o m the b e g i n n i n g the destructive impulse is t u r n e d against the object" (1946, p. 293); and (4) "that the i n t r o ­ jected good breast forms a vital part o f the ego, [and] exerts f r o m the begin­ n i n g a fundamental influence on the processes of ego-development and affects both ego-structure and object-relations" (1946, p. 295). For Melanie Klein the first object is the breast, which is split i n t o a good (gratifying) and bad (frustrating) breast. Affects (love and hate) associated with good and bad experiences also are split f r o m each other. One m i g h t imagine too that there is a g o o d ego and bad ego severed f r o m each other. The destructive impulse is turned against the object ( i n - o u t ) while goodness is taken in ( o u t - i n ) . This scheme has many threads to p u l l o n . Melanie Klein's Genesis reads, " I n the b e g i n n i n g was splitting, and splitting divides good f r o m bad: good and bad objects, good and bad instincts, good and bad affects, g o o d and bad egos." Other readers o f Genesis wonder i f she missed earlier elements o f c r e a t i o n — t h e formlessness, chaos, n o t h i n g , breath, emergent life and w o r l d — a n d perhaps missed Eden before the apple is eaten.

30

Psychic Deadness

She begins not simply by dividing light f r o m dark, b u t w i t h the Tree o f Knowl­ edge (good and bad). Is the first object the breast (the apple rather than God)? Is there a first object? Is there life before splitting? What is the breast that gets split into good and bad? Is there a primal swim o f experience i n which well-being and distress variously alternate, fuse, commingle? Do we begin with variable mixtures of agony, bliss, and ordinary just-so states? Are there elements o f polarization at the out­ set, or does polarization take time to crystallize, or both? Is the bipolar self nec­ essarily a split self? When do divisions become splits? I t is easy to question Melanie Klein, but it would be facile to discount her. Bion (1970), Winnicott (1971), and Elkin (1972) are among those to creatively imagine alternative points of depar­ ture while making use of, rather than dismissing, Klein's insights. A region Klein guides us into involves ways that the psyche splits inner and outer worlds to handle the death force. A n overall framework o f Klein's work is that psychic agencies and objects f u n c t i o n to delimit, channel, and dampen what otherwise would be an overwhelming and lethal flow o f death currents. This is more than a hydraulic metaphor. The h u m a n implications are enor­ mous and heart wrenching. I n a time when the news media are saturated w i t h reports o f child abuse, explosive victimization o f every sort, terror o f the streets and b e d r o o m , and terror w i t h i n and between nations and when cheap, denuded violence becomes the language o f entertainment and the currency o f psychic exchange, the dikes against waves o f death force are leaky indeed. A parent repents after blowing up at a child: " I t happened i n a flash. I ex­ ploded. I lost it. I t b u i l t up. I held it i n . T h e n i t happened, like a flame igniting gun powder or gas." C h i l d explodes, and then parent explodes—orgasmic de­ struction. Sometimes blowing up clears the air, b u t often it has devastating results. As the parent continues, i t sounds a b i t like masturbation or other addictions: " I tell myself T i l never do it again, b u t it builds, and has its way." So many people blowing up, having tantrums, inflicting and sustaining serious injury: we seem obsessed by destruction. What it means to regulate aggression is a paramount issue of our time. Klein's work is so i m p o r t a n t because i t does n o t offer an easy way out. Explosions, attacks, rage against the other: these are deflections o f a force that would o t h ­ erwise consume one's self and body. They are signs o f a deeper force one tries to dodge, juggle, play for time w i t h , and make something of. Any victory is par­ tial and is subject to loss, breakdown, starting over. One cannot get r i d o f the death force, but one may to some extent take i t into account. Perhaps (to some extent) one rides the waves, learns body English tricks. One does (to some extent) learn to spot and live w i t h reversals (in » out, love ** hate, self o t h e r ) , instead o f merely playing one side against the other. By gazing at one's predicament, one m i g h t even become more open to a deeper, fuller flow o f life.

31

The Destructive Force SPLITTING OF EGO-AFFECT-OBJECT

The more one looks at the splitting mechanisms Klein depicts, the denser they become. O n e imagines the psyche w i l l take i n goodness (introjection) and get r i d o f badness (projection), a digestive/respiratory model. This is a main line o f her vision, but variations thicken. Since the death force is deflected outward, i t also gets introjected. I n t r o ­ j e c t i o n ** projection flows b o t h ways ( i n ** o u t ) . Similarly, the life force may be projected, resulting i n experiencing objects as better than they are (ideali­ z a t i o n ) . A quite c o m p l e x a r r a y o f p r o j e c t e d — i n t r o j e c t e d g o o d n e s s — b a d n e s s

(life—death t r a n s f o r m s ) r e s u l t , i n c l u d i n g m u t u a l c o n t a g i o n , w h e r e i n g o o d — b a d spill i n t o each other i n confusing ways. T h e g o o d o r bad may refer to drive, affect, object, o r ego. Melanie Klein uses the t e r m "projective i d e n t i f i c a t i o n " to indicate that an object is identified w i t h g o o d o r bad parts o f the self. Similarly, "introjective identification" suggests that good o r bad parts o f the object are i d e n t i f i e d with self. T h r o u g h o u t her major writings she takes f o r granted that identificatory processes are at work i n the projection <-> i n t r o j e c t i o n flow. A powerful array o f psychic possibilities emerges f r o m Klein's meditations o n connections be­ tween identificatory p r o j e c t i o n - i n t r o j e c t i o n and splitting. Good o r bad aspects o f the selfcan be identified w i t h g o o d o r bad aspects o f the object, and good o r bad aspects o f the object can be i d e n t i f i e d w i t h g o o d or bad aspects o f the self. I f one adds dislocations a n d amalgams o f affect, the clinical possibilities become mind-boggling. Ego, object, a n d affect can be taken apart and p u t together i n myriad permutations. Bad ego can hate good ego, g o o d ego can love bad ego, bad object can hate g o o d object l o v i n g g o o d ego, bad object can love bad ego hating good object, bad object can hate bad ego loving good object, good ego can hate bad ego hating g o o d object, a n d o n and o n . This enables mappings o f dazzling arrays o f i n t e r n a l - e x t e r n a l object-ego-affect relations. Freud's vision o f instincts variously d i s t r i b u t i n g (attaching-detaching) them­ selves w i t h regard to objects a n d psychic agencies is here a m p l i f i e d i n ego­ affect-object relational terms.

ROOTS O F DEADNESS Excessiv e Splitting

I f splitting proliferates, i t leads to "impoverishment o f the ego" and "dispersal o f emotions" (1946, p. 316). T h e result is e m o t i o n a l deadness, lack o f emo­ t i o n , a n d unresponsiveness. Bion (1970) works over this material i n spatial t e r m s . E m o t i o n a l d i s p e r s a l or t h i n n i n g i s p a r t l y a f u n c t i o n o f t h e s p a c e i t o c c u ­ pies. A s p a c e m a y b e t o o b i g or s m a l l f o r t h e e m o t i o n o c c u p y i n g i t , a n d v i c e

32

Psychic Deadness

versa. The problem o f space—whether there is too much or too litde space f o r an e m o t i o n — i s less important to Klein than the connection between deadness and latent anxiety. She believes that emotional deadness is a measure o f unconscious anxiety. Emotion is present, but is dispersed by splitting. Deadness is only apparent, a reflection o f splitting processes that stifle emotional life. Klein is committed to a conflict/anxiety model. A central difference between her theory and that o f traditional Freudians is that she focuses o n early split­ ting mechanisms as anxiety producers/regulators, antedating oedipal repres­ sion; i t is unclear what she makes o f p r i m a l repression. S p l i t t i n g r u n amok becomes a cancer eating u p the psyche, substituting itself f o r the emotions o n which i t acts. T h e patient may feel disintegrated, emotionless, i n pieces, and depleted. I n effect, the individual experiences something o f the defense a n d its result (split a n d vacant) while losing contact w i t h the cut-up e m o t i o n . Part o f the enormous valence that splitting has f o r the subject is its func­ t i o n as a l i n k w i t h the emotion i t severs. T h e subject may become attached to feeling c u t i n pieces, fragmented, and severed f r o m himself, because o f the unconscious association o f splitting with the emotion i t disperses. One holds on to splitting because of its unconscious connection to emotional life. One multiplies splits i n vain attempts to capture o r make contact with emotions they disperse. I t may be unclear whether an individual trapped i n splitting is trying to recapture or annihilate contact w i t h his emotional life. Usually b o t h are true. For Klein i t remains possible i n theory to gather and synthesize dispersed emotion. W h e n this happens the patient feels "his i n n e r and outer worlds have n o t only come more together but back to life again" (1946, p. 316). Klein seems to associate splitting-dispersal w i t h death and synthesis w i t h life. Anxiety is associated w i t h life, the r e t u r n o f emotion. She makes a strong case f o r the omnipresence o f anxiety, which now is more dispersed, now more focal. W h e n the patient comes together and alive again "it appears i n retrospect that when emotions were lacking, relations were vague a n d uncertain a n d parts o f the personality were felt to be lost, everything seemed to be dead. A l l this is the equivalent o f anxiety o f a very serious nature. This anxiety, kept latent by dis­ persal, is to some extent experienced all along, b u t its f o r m differs f r o m the latent anxiety w h i c h we can recognize in other types o f cases" (1946, p. 316). The therapeutic task is to b r i n g together split aspects o f self, a n d w i t h cohe­ sion comes more emotions, especially anxiety. Note the therapeutic optimism. Splitting induces deadness. Synthesis, the healing o f splits, recovers aliveness. Deadness is only apparent. Emotions o f anxiety were present all along; they were only dispersed. O n e is n o t dead, only split. Assemble the dry bones and a living, anxious b e i n g appears again. W h e n d i d Kleinian a n x i e t y — i n d e x o f the death d r i v e — s l i d e i n t o Freudian anxiety, the index o f libido? Freud and Klein agree that psychic acts include life and death drive components. N o act is without either. Yet Klein explicitly ties anxiety to death. For the schizoid personality, one who lacks the feeling o f

The Destructive Force

33

feelings, it is a sign o f life. I do n o t t h i n k Klein was aware of this slippage, and I do not want to criticize her for it. B u t we can learn f r o m i t , as anxiety floats, freely or not, between death and life. Anxiety may be enlivening for one who lacks emotion and is unresponsive, and often this is so. Yet i t is also the case that many dead individuals cannot bear any rise o f emotion, i n c l u d i n g anxiety. Melanie Klein does n o t take u p the possibility o f death work going so far that anxiety is left behind. She holds fast to the belief that anxiety underlies deadness. I t is n o t simply that dead­ ness dampens anxiety, but that deadness results f r o m attacks on anxiety. A n x i ­ ety may get cut up and dispersed, b u t does n o t die out. Scratch deadness and get anxiety; the opposite possibility is n o t meaningful to her. Klein notes that analysis typically wins the patient's alliance when he or she experiences the relief f r o m anxiety that interpretations b r i n g . W o u l d the tech­ nical corollary for the emotionless patient be that interpretations, w h i c h increase anxiety, b r i n g relief? Klein is n o t naive enough to believe this, b u t she does feel that interpretations that synthesize splits i n the self and dispersal o f emotion will lead to the experience o f anxiety (emotion). She seems to take for granted that the capacity to have feelings is intact, but is temporarily p u t out o f play by active defenses. The consideration that attacks against emotion (or self or object), m i g h t damage (disperse) n o t only emotion b u t also the capacity for emotions is n o t compelling for her. B i o n (1965) raises the problem o f damaged or undeveloped equipment or capac­ ity. I n such a patient, emotionlessness is not simply a reversible c o n d i t i o n — synthesize splits to obtain e m o t i o n — s o m u c h as an index of damage or the lack of development. Maximal and m i n i m a l emotional states may flip-flop, n o t only as substitutes for each other b u t also as signs o f apparatus/equipment mishap and mayhem (a catastrophe the personality has undergone or is u n d e r g o i n g ) . The idea that the lack o f e m o t i o n is as m u c h or more a sign o f the death drive as anxiety is n o t congenial to Klein's theoretical style. Yet one could see both anxiety and emotionlessness as fluctuating arms o f death work i n certain contexts. One can be obliterated by anxiety or the lack o f emotion, by too much or by too little. Anxiety may collude with and express death, life, or both. Anxiety is floating, colorless, at home with many masters. There are threads i n Klein's formulations we could pull o n to link emotional deadness w i t h a death force. I t is worthwhile to do so, bearing i n m i n d that Klein took another path.

A DESTRUCTIVE FORCE WITHIN Earlier, I called attention to Klein's references to a nuclear "destructive force w i t h i n " (1946, p. 297). She focuses o n ego reactions to an inner destructive force. Anxiety, splitting, projective-introjective identification, denial, and dis­

34

Psychic Deadness

persal are some o f the ego's responses to the destructive force. T h e nuclear destructive force works b e h i n d the scenes silently, b u t its deflections can make a lot o f noise. The destructive force remains u n k n o w n (unknowable?), an hypothesis or construct, b u t for Klein it is very real. The ego's primary anxiety is of being annihilated, n o t by external danger but by a destructive force w i t h i n . The ego cannot localize the danger. I t cannot p i n down where i t comes f r o m or what it is. I t has no frame of reference for the destructive force w i t h i n . There are no boundaries, limits, or place: just the raw anxiety o f annihilation, the originary dread (Bion's "nameless dread"). Klein traces the biography o f annihilation anxiety via ego attempts to split and disperse its dread. The results o f successive acts o f dispersal can be dead­ ening, and Klein focuses on this sort o f deadness. Her emphasis is o n splitting— integration mechanisms, rather than on ways that the death force m i g h t permanently alter or damage the ego or paralyze, j a m , warp, and damage u n ­ conscious processing ability. Yet she feels that the ego splits and disperses itself, as well as affects and objects; apparently she felt the ego could more or less pop i n t o shape via the interpretations o f splits. Klein does not seriously consider the possibility that there are cases i n which psychic damage is so extensive that splitting is ineffectual or unavailable. I n such instances, the personality has n o t followed the path of anxiety, b u t has taken another route. K l e i n hints this when she says that emotionlessness can be equivalent to anxiety. By this she means that anxiety is h i d d e n by emo­ tionlessness or that emotionlessness is a f o r m or signal o f anxiety. B u t one can add that emotionlessness, like anxiety, can act as a signal o f the death drive. A n d , to be strictly congruent, emotionlessness, like anxiety, can be an expres­ sion o f death work. It is i m p o r t a n t to note that in my reformulation, neither side o f a polarity (emotionlessness anxiety) is made primary at the other's expense. T h e double arrow expresses the possibility that either can transform into the other, or oppose the other, or meld together i n various ways. Surely Klein's vision that emotionlessness is a f o r m o f anxiety is significant. M u c h mileage can be gained f r o m understanding deadness as frozen e m o t i o n , defense against e m o t i o n , e m o t i o n i n disguise (attacked, denied, split, dispersed e m o t i o n ) . But such a view can be cruel i f the capacity to support emotion is missing or damaged. Analytic work can have a moralistic or blaming tinge i f emphasis is placed o n the ego's active complicity and defensiveness, when the problem is actually deeper. There are individuals who have difficulty generating emotions or sus­ taining and processing emotions once they are generated. I t is as i f emotions belong to a universe that does not exist or fall o f f the edge o f the universe into nowhere. For such individuals it is not a matter of p u t t i n g together what was split, so m u c h as creating conditions f o r growth of capacity. T o use a m o d i f i e d Bionic (1965, 1970) f o r m u l a t i o n , emotionlessness takes

The Destructive Force

35

the place where emotion m i g h t have been. Lack o f capacity is experienced as emptiness. The opposite also occurs: emotion takes the place where emptiness might have been. There can be n o t only the lack of capacity to generate, sus­ tain, and process emotions but also the lack o f capacity to sustain and process gaps, empty times, nothingness moments. Ideally, one is able to move be­ tween states, now f u l l and now empty, using all the organ stops one can. But individuals get trapped by emptiness, or addicted to fullness, or wiped o u t by oscillations. A n advantage to a more open-ended f o r m u l a t i o n is that one can consider the possibility o f a relatively defensive or undefensive use of feeling or lack of feeling, depending on the context of the moment. Klein is c o m m i t t e d to view­ ing anxiety as primary, emptiness as derivative. The possibility that anxiety could arise as a response to e m p t i n e s s — b o t h as a dread o f emptiness and an attempt to fill emptiness—is n o t meaningful to her. Perhaps she d i d n o t know how to empty out or value blankness for its own sake as a life-giving state. Hers is an anxiety theory, and for her emptiness is a f o r m o f anxiety. T h a t anxiety could be a f o r m o f emptiness was unimaginable: it would n o t make analytic sense. Yet i t is precisely a radical openness to what emptiness or anxiety m i g h t mean in a given instance that is crucial i n work w i t h individuals who need to learn how to tolerate the build-up o f states and o f movement between states. B o t h emptiness and anxiety may enliven or denude existence, depending o n how they f u n c t i o n i n broader psychic contexts. Bion's depiction o f a destructive force is more devastating and open than Klein's and gets more clinical mileage. He imagines "a force that continues after . . . i t destroys existence, time, and space" (1965, p. 101). I t is n o t neces­ sary to decide which is primary, anxiety or emptiness. Either can be obliterat­ ing. Yet the destruction Bion contemplates goes farther. A force that goes o n working after i t destroys existence, time, and space includes the destruction of anxiety and emptiness. O b l i t e r a t i n g states can be obliterated. There is no end to n u l l i n g . This possibility fits many individuals who are too damaged, collapsed, or rigidified to support workable splitting processes. I n such individuals b o t h emptiness and anxiety function to wipe out personality. Both are arms o f a force that gathers m o m e n t u m and may become unstoppable. I f collapse goes far enough, neither primary emptiness nor primary anxiety is available, nor are their transforms, displacements, or reversals of m u c h use. I f degradation (de­ struction) is advanced enough, any affect or lack o f affect may further promote degradation and collapse. I n the context of such massive destruction, even anxiety and emptiness lose their impact and die out. Anxiety and emptiness become denuded o f f u n c t i o n other than being results or parts o f destruction that keeps on going. A t this p o i n t individuals are too far gone to be concerned about anxiety or emptiness. They are so gripped by the fall into deadness that they scarcely notice or care about fluctuations o f anxiety-emptiness.

f 36

Psychic D e a d n e s s

REFERENCES Bion, W. R. (1965). Transformations. London : Heinemann. (1970). Attention and Interpretation. London: Tavistock, 1983. Eigen, M. (1986). The Psychotic Core. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson. Elkin, H . (1972). O n selfhood and the development of ego structures in infancy. Psy­ choanalytic Review 59:389-416.

Fairbairn, W. R. D. (1954). An Object-Relations Theory of the Personality. New York: Basic Books. Freud, S. (1937). Analysis terminable and interminable. Standard Edition 23. Green, A. (1986). On Private Madness. London : Hogarth. Klein, M. (1946). Notes on some schizoid mechanisms. I n Developments in PsychoAnalysis, ed. M. Klein, P. Heimann, S. Isaacs, a n d j . Riviere, pp. 292-320. London: Hogarth, 1952. (1961). Narrative of a Child Analysis. London: Hogarth. Milner, M. (1987). The Suppressed Madness of Sane Men. London : Tavistock. Winnicott, D. W. (1971). Playing and Reality. New York: Basic Books.

3 Goodness and Deadness

FROM THE BEGINNING, THE GOOD CORE What gives Melanie Klein's work its special power is n o t simply that the ego defends itself against annihilation anxiety but that i t does so with whatever sense o f goodness it can muster. Is the Good u p to this task? Can i t survive (triumph?) i n the face o f endless waves o f destruction? W h a t does Melanie Klein add to this ancient theme? For I hold that the introjected good breast forms a vital part of the ego, exerts from the beginning a fundamental influence on the process of ego-development and affects both ego-structure and object-relations. . . . T h e gratifying breast, taken in under the dominance of the sucking libido, is felt to be complete. This first internal good object acts as a focal point in the ego. It counteracts the processes of splitting and dispersal, makes for cohesiveness and integration, and is instrumental in building up the ego. . . . Projection, as Freud described, originates from the deflection of the death instinct outwards and in my view it helps the ego to overcome anxiety by ridding it of danger and badness. Introjection of the good object is also used by the ego as a defense against anxiety. [Klein, 1946, pp. 295-298]

Freud early notes that the m o t h e r regulates distressful affects o f the infant. The m o t h e r comforts, soothes, cares for, a n d feeds the infant a n d makes the bad feelings go away. Melanie Klein takes a gratifying o r ideal feed as the privi­ leged paradigm o f m a k i n g the infant feel good. The m o t h e r contributes the gratifying object (breast), b u t there is an innate tendency o n the infant's part to make this gratifying o r good object an ideal a n d complete one. T h e good breast becomes a heavenly one. Instead o f good, beatific. Melanie Klein does n o t make m u c h o f what the i n f a n t or m o t h e r contrib­ utes, b u t takes the amalgam as a nucleus o f the ego. She takes f o r granted that

38

Psychic Deadness

the infant associates the goodness i t feels w i t h the object (breast) and perhaps attributes causality to the object, so that i t is the introjected good breast that is a pole or core o f ego experience a n d f u n c t i o n i n g . Melanie Klein does n o t spend time t h i n k i n g about what good feelings the infant m i g h t experience outside o f introjection, an omission that bothered B i o n , Winnicott, and Milner. H e r focus is the ego's use o f the introjected good breast as a defense against annihilation anxiety. T h e experience o f goodness (introjected goodness) is used to offset, d i m i n i s h , and regulate bad feelings primarily associated with a destructive force w i t h i n . T h e infant relies o n use o f the object to regulate the death instinct. I t is i m p o r t a n t to note that Klein's discourse slides across many levels and dimensions w i t h o u t overly worrying about problems her amalgam may pose. She mentions, i n passing, that the mother's love and understanding are i m p o r t a n t to the infant i n going t h r o u g h disintegration and psychotic anxi­ eties. Klein is n o t oblivious to M o t h e r as regulator, transformer, and holder. Yet she seems to regard the mother as something o f a safety net or back-up system, "the infant's greatest stand-by" (1946, p. 302), as most i m p o r t a n t i f the infant's introjective-projective systems fail. I n Klein's work there is a slippage a n d confluence between reality and fan­ tasy, w i t h variable shifts o f emphasis. H e r hallmark is her emphatic insistence o n the real effects o f fantasy. Introjective and projective identification are great fantasy pumps. They put bad stuff and feelings i n t o the mother and take good things and feelings f r o m her. A l t h o u g h one projectively fantasizes bad into the other and introjectively fantasizes good i n t o the self, the consequences o f these fantasies are very real. " I t is i n phantasy that the infant splits the object a n d the self, b u t the effect o f this phantasy is a very real one, because i t leads to feelings and relations (and later o n thought-processes) being i n fact cut o f f f r o m one another" (1946, p. 298). As far as the ego is concerned the excessive splitting off and expelling into the outer world of parts of itself considerably weaken it. . . . T h e projection of good feelings and good parts of the self into the mother is essential for the infant's ability to develop good object-relations and to integrate his ego. However, if this projective process is carried out excessively, good parts of the personality are felt to be lost . . . ; this process too results in weakening and impoverishing the ego. [Klein 1946, p. 301] *

A l l sorts o f combinations o f projective-introjective fantasy involving good­ bad ego/affect/object are possible. Optimally, fantasy regulates the balance o f g o o d a n d bad feeling: p u m p i n g o u t the bad p u m p i n g i n the good. For Klein this is more than fantasy regulation o f m o o d and well-being. Fantasy plays an * Quotations from this source reprinted by courtesy of the Estate of Melanie Klein and T h e Hogarth Press.

Goodness and Deadness

39

i m p o r t a n t role i n regulating the death drive. Well-being, w h i c h f o r Klein is associated w i t h the good breast or introjected good object, is a t o o l i n this fan­ tasy regulation. The good ego-object-afFect-breast combination keeps saving the personality f r o m death. Fantasy—or failure o f fantasy—has very real conse­ quences for the life a n d death o f the self, and possibly the organism. I t is part o f Klein's genius to depict ways that this simple scenario o f expel­ l i n g bad and taking i n g o o d is ever i m p e r i l e d . One gets r i d o f the good and takes i n the bad, as well as the reverse. I n a d d i t i o n , good and bad elements o f self-affect-object spill i n t o each other. Excessive splitting a n d contamination go together. The ego fantasy p u m p cannot keep up w i t h the death drive and frequently is commandeered by it. W h e n it is, b o t h good a n d bad feelings can be part o f and f u r t h e r death work.

Excessive Goodness and Deadness One o f psychoanalysis's most i m p o r t a n t contributions to understanding the h u m a n c o n d i t i o n involves the various ways it explores relationships between idealization and violence (Eigen 1986,1992,1993). Melanie Klein adds varia­ tions to this theme a n d also links idealization to deadness. Klein takes for granted the infant's natural tendency to idealize the good object, whether it is inner or outer. This tendency seems to be an in-built, spon­ taneous one. W h e n frustration a n d anxiety m o u n t , the i n f a n t takes refuge i n the internal, idealized good object. The infant seeks to b u r r o w i n t o , h o l d onto, and e n f o l d i t s e l f w i t h its s e n s e o f w e l l - b e i n g a n d g o o d n e s s . T h e i d e a l i z e d good object is a b u f f e r a g a i n s t death f o r c e a g e n t s , i n t e r n a l p e r s e c u t o r s , b a d states. I f persecutory fear becomes too great, idealization may be overused to defend against or balance i t . In extreme instances, the ego becomes a shell around a split-off idealized core, which is working overtime to blot o u t the onset o f horrific states, whether invasion by split-off anxiety, menacing presences, or persecutory affects-objects-ego bits. Ego f u n c t i o n i n g becomes vastly t h i n n e d and curtailed inasmuch as its focus gets reduced to revving u p contact with the idealized core. The ego may experience its loss o f f u n c t i o n i n g as a growing deadness: the ego is really dying. The idealized, introjected good core may get projected o n t o external ob­ jects to such an extent that the ego feels i t has no goodness o f its own. I t may feel utterly at the mercy o f others for anything good: only the object is good. The ego may lose faith i n its ability to love and create, as idealization takes the place o f the capacity to love, think, and perceive. T o use some o f Melanie Klein's expressions, "good parts o f the personality are felt to be lost" (1946, p. 301), and there is "a feeling that the ego has no life and no value o f its o w n " (1946, p. 302). Thus excessive idealization, whether o f internal or external objects, leads to "weakening and impoverishing the ego" (1946, p. 301). The ego loses

40

Psychic Deadness

spontaneity and aliveness as i t clings to idealized i n n e r or outer objects for salvation. T h e sense o f deadness suffered correlates with the very real loss or constriction o f ego functions. Idealization and Hallucination The correlation o f deadness with the loss o f ego f u n c t i o n is heightened by Melanie Klein's linking o f idealization with hallucination. "Idealization is b o u n d up with the splitting o f the object, for the good aspects o f the breast are exag­ gerated as a safeguard against the fear o f the persecuting breast. W h i l e ideali­ zation is thus the corollary o f persecutory fear, i t also springs f r o m the power o f the instinctual desires which aim at u n l i m i t e d gratification and therefore create the picture o f an inexhaustible and always b o u n t i f u l breast—an ideal breast" (1946, p. 299). Melanie Klein takes off o n Freud's picture o f the infant hallucinating a breast when i t is hungry: hallucinated f u l f i l l m e n t takes the place o f painful hunger and n o breast. She imagines that the infant hallucinates an ideal breast (an ideally good state) while omnipotently denying frustration, pain, persecutory feelings, and bad states. For K l e i n , denial equals a n n i h i l a t i o n i n the u n c o n ­ scious, and bad states are tied to an image o f a bad object—the frustrating, absent, persecutory, or u n f u l f i l l i n g object. Thus what gets denied and a n n i h i ­ lated is n o t just a state or an object, b u t an object relation and, more, the ego's capacity for an alive object relation: " O m n i p o t e n t denial o f the existence o f the bad object and o f the painful situation is i n the unconscious equal-to anni­ hilation by the destructive impulse. I t is . . . n o t only a situation and an object that are denied and a n n i h i l a t e d — i t is an object-relation which suffers this fate; and therefore a part o f the ego, f r o m which the feelings towards the object emanate, is denied and annihilated as well" (1946, p. 299). The suggestiveness o f Klein's descriptions goes far beyond her actual vocabu­ lary. H e r descriptions seem to treat denial and annihilation as i f differences between them were insignificant. Yet denial o f psychic reality may differ i n i m p o r t a n t ways f r o m the obliteration or annihilation o f psychic reality. Denial may be equivalent to annihilation i n the deep unconscious, but one cannot say that a n n i h i l a t i o n is equivalent to denial. Similarly, although denial a n d splitting go w i t h p r o j e c t i o n - i n t r o j e c t i o n , i t is not clear that they are always salient or primary factors i n hallucination. There is a suggestion i n Klein that annihilation and hallucination o f u n l i m ­ ited gratification go together. H e r overreliance o n splitting and denial as death drive regulators obscures other ways i n which annihilation and hallucination relate to each other. Hallucinating a beatific state when, i n fact, there is p a i n is an amazing capacity. I n such a state there is no r o o m f o r bad feeling. Bad feeling is obliterated o r b l u r r e d by g o o d feeling. O n e may cling t o a n d become

Goodness and Deadness

41

addicted to the ideal good state. In such a case, the onset of bad feeling may trigger an intensified clinging to the beatific moment. T h e bad feeling may not be split off and denied so much as overwhelmed, flooded, blacked or whited out by addiction to an annihilating, totally filling blast of light or other ideal state. That is, uniting with an ideal object can have an annihilating impact in its own right without the use of denial and splitting, although these mecha­ nisms also may be present. Even denial and splitting are washed away by the annihilating beatific flood, which leaves no room for anything else. If flooding is more primordial than splitting-denial, one can imagine seis­ mic shifts of affect, with the ego trying to hold on to or to let go one or an­ other state. Various mixtures and alternations of holding on-letting go may come a little closer to depicting some responses to the flow of blissful-distressful moments, prior to splitting-denial.

TOO MUCH GOODNESS Even such terms as holding on-letting go may be too activist to convey a sense of the atmospheric problems involved. There are individuals who feel dead­ ened by too much good feeling, and others who feel killed off by too much bad feeling. In the former, too much good feeling has a numbing effect. These individuals may complain that they cannot feel themselves. These are "nice" people who do not feel real. They ordinarily feel all right, but lack intensity. They cannot crack the shell of good feelings and get to themselves. One such person, Mr. Y., lived a charmed life. From childhood on he was good in everything; he was a star athlete, at the top of his class academically, and everyone liked him. His charmed existence continued through adulthood; after attending the best schools, he got the best jobs, and people gravitated to him and made life easy. Yet he felt he wasn't living his life; he wasn't " i n " it. It was as if his life took off without him. It was not that he was an observer or that someone else lived for him. It was more that his life took off without consult­ ing him. It never felt bad enough, long enough, for him to call it into ques­ tion. Yet as time went on he missed himself. He came to therapy for help in slowing his life down so he could get aboard, Mr. Y. felt good, but complained of deadness. T h e good feeling he felt numbed and deadened him. Such notions as splitting, repression, or empty parenting did not seem to fit Y.'s world. They did violence to it. What seemed more apt were notions having to do with timing, pace, and connection. How could Y. and his life connect with each other? What would each have to do to develop a partnership? Y.'s life didn't seem to leave much room or time for him. How could Y. and his life learn to take each other into consideration? Like sex partners who missed each other, could they develop a better sense of timing? Apparently Y. and his life

42

Psychic D e a d n e s s

neve r h a d a c h a n c e to be alon e together, to e x p e r i m e n t with e a c h other , to l e a r n about e a c h other' s n e e d s a n d tempos. T h e y d i d not wait for e a c h o t h e r o r fin d a c o m m o n pace. T h e g o o d feeling that Y. felt was hi s life's, not his. I t s p e d h i m along, m a d e it impossible to c o m p l a i n . A s the years w e n t by, the g o o d feeling b e c a m e deade n i n g , cloying, a n n o y i n g . I t got i n the way, like a veil a r o u n d possible experi e n c e . Y. was k i d n a p p e d by his life, c a r r i e d a l o n g by g o o d feeling. H e c a m e to therapy for h e l p i n finding , c l a i m i n g , a n d c o n n e c t i n g with his life. A s time w e n t o n , p e r h a p s his life w o u l d also want to f i n d a n d be with h i m . Y. was a relatively healthy e x a m p l e o f a process that c a n be lethal. I have see n p e o p l e w h o are little m o r e tha n shells o f g o o d feeling. T h e y live i n tepi d pools o f well-being. W h e n q u e s t i o n e d they say they feel fine, but d o n o t do m u c h with thei r lives. I n e x t r e m e cases, it is as i f b l a n k g o o d feeling ate t h e i r insides away. S u c h p e o p l e c a n s p e n d t h e i r lives g o i n g i n a n d o u t o f hospitals. T h e g o o d feeling periodicall y wears off a n d violenc e may threaten , o r the pers o n may b e c o m e i n c o h e r e n t a n d confused . N o t i o n s like splitting or repressio n d o n o t h i t the m a r k with these individu als. T h e y are less split o r represse d t h a n d r u g g e d . It is as if thei r system gives itself p e r i o d i c shots o f m i l d e u p h o r i a , w h i c h gradually dies out. B a d states are less d e n i e d a n d represse d than b l u r r e d , b l a n k e d , or blissed out. A c l o u d o f wellb e i n g envelops the personalit y for a time a n d t h e n thin s a n d disperses. T h e psychophysica l system p r o d u c e s n a r c o t i c states that act as p a i n killers. T o a n extent, s u c h individual s l e a r n h o w to m a n i p u l a t e the use o f g o o d feeling as a p a i n killer. It is as if they f i n d a secret set o f b r a i n implant s a n d l e a r n what buttons to press. W h e n so e n g a g e d , they often have a mildl y cryptic, c h e r u b i c , z o m b o i d look. A t som e p o i n t they b e c o m e distracte d a n d s e e m to forget w h e r e the buttons are, o r forget to press t h e m . P e r h a p s the g o o d feeling b e c o m e s too engagin g a n d the stupo r too extensive. I n e x t r e m e cases, b l a n k g o o d feeling gobbles m e m o r y , thought , i m a g i n a t i o n , p e r c e p t i o n , a n d , finally, itself. O b l i t e r a t i o n by goodnes s periodicall y wears thin , a n d the onset of b a d states may m a r k the onset o f b r e a k d o w n a n d the n e e d for hospita l care o r m e r e l y the break-up o f the marriage , relationships , or work. B a d feelings may be as b l a n k a n d meaningles s as g o o d feelings: they j u s t i n c r e a s e as g o o d one s wea r out. H o s p i t a l care (or a n e w r e l a t i o n s h i p o r j o b or c h i l d ) m a k e s the b a d feelings go away, a n d the i n d i v i d u a l c a n o n c e m o r e coast a l o n g o n g o o d o r better feelings f r o m m o n t h s to years. I often find that s u c h peopl e were u n a b l e to tolerate b e i n g a disturbanc e to their parents, n o r c o u l d thei r parent s tolerate the d i s t u r b a n c e a c h i l d naturally brings. I n s o m e way, these c h i l d r e n b e c a m e the facsimile o f g o o d feelings that thei r parent s w i s h e d to e x p e r i e n c e . Parent s like to see thei r c h i l d r e n feel good . B u t these patients lost thei r m i n d s i n o r d e r to m a i n t a i n a n a t m o s p h e r e

Goodness and Deadness

43

of stuporous good will. Did their parents exhibit an emotional frailty that was too much for an infant to bear? Why do good feelings dissolve functioning in some people and support it in others? Freezing a n d Dissolving

Some individuals are frozen in bad feeling, others in good. It is as if they are sealed in blocks of affect ice of one or another valence. One can imagine that the originary affect flow got frozen in a limited sampling of positions by inhospitable climatic conditions. The personality contracts around affects it is used to, home-base affects that govern the tone and emotional atmosphere of one's life. Most people seem to take for granted and somehow work around or with the dominant affect nuclei that set the tone of their lives. A certain personality hardening makes life livable. Kleinian hardening involves defensive processes, such as splitting, denial, projection-introjection, and repression, that deflect and distribute affect pools in characteristic ways, e.g., in typical arrays of ego-object dramas. There are individuals also whose lives seem reduced to a preoccupation with raw affect sensations. One or another affect blots out or becomes their entire sense of being. They seem to fall into affect states as into quicksand. The emotion may be intense and enlivening for a time, but eventually becomes monotonous or consuming. What ought to be a rich and varied stream of emotions becomes a series of monotones or holes. The sense of one feeling playing off and enriching others is missing. Each affect becomes the world for a time, and the self dies out with each one. Such individuals do not seem able to utilize splitting, denial, or projection—introjection to funnel and rework affect. These defenses would make for a more variegated emotional terrain. They could pit feelings against each other, pit a feeling against itself, develop comparisons of feelings. The quicksand state is characterized more by sinking and dissolving than by dissociative processes. One affect sinks in or is dissolved by another: there is dissolution rather than dissociation. Perhaps, in such individuals, there is an inability to maintain dissociations (dissociations dissolve) and a correlative splitting deficit. It is clinically important to recognize forms of disappearance other than dissociation and repression. Expressive terms like contraction, freezing, sinking, and dissolv-

ing keep the clinical atmosphere open. There are individuals who seem to sink and dissolve in fathomless affect pools that finally dissolve themselves. Many of these individuals challenge our ability to think and feel and push us over the edge of what it is possible to imagine. We ought not make believe we know too much about such null states, especially if we lack the ability to help these people.

44

Psychic D e a d n e s s REFERENCES

Eigen, M. (1986). The Psychotic Core. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson. (1992). Coming through the Whirlwind. Wilmette, I L : Chiron. (1993). The Electrified Tightrope. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson. Klein, M. (1946). Notes on some schizoid mechanisms. In Developments in PsychoAnalysis, ed. M. Klein, P. Heimann, S. Isaacs, a n d j . Riviere, pp. 292-320. London: Hogarth, 1952.

4

Bion's No-thing

A he term no-thing in Bion's work is embedded i n a r i c h network o f associa­ tions and moves i n several directions at once. I t points to a general charac­ teristic o f mental life as s u c h — i t s intangibility, invisibility, immateriality, or spacelessness. I t also points to "specific no-things," w h i c h may f u n c t i o n as mental aches akin to hunger or gaps that call for accretions o f meaning. Mean­ ing itself is a no-thing, n o t a t h i n g . Bion's introduction of terms like no-thing and no-thingness into psychoanaly­ sis indicates that the d o m a i n o f psychoanalysis cannot be exhausted or even approached properly by means o f a medical model (Bion 1970). Like Lacan, Bion refuses to understand psychoanalysis i n exclusively naturalistic terms. T o treat the psyche like a t h i n g is to k i l l i t . U n l i k e Lacan, B i o n does n o t shy away f r o m the ineffable as a t e r m and reality that may promote or destroy growth.

INTOLERANC E OF NO-THING For Bion the term no-thing functions as a guardian o f psychic life. I t protects the psyche f r o m overconcretization, literalization, or objectivization. Once no­ t h i n g becomes central i n awareness, one cannot i n good conscience make believe that the psyche can be reduced to the status o f a t h i n g . T o say that n o - t h i n g is seems to be a contradiction i n terms. Yet the "is n o t " o f n o - t h i n g that keeps space o p e n for development or for u n d o i n g develop­ ment is, f o r Bion, a crucial psychological reality. How one relates to what is not plays an i m p o r t a n t role i n how one relates to what is. The temptation to f i l l i n , to thingify, or otherwise to nullify n o - t h i n g is u b i q ­ uitous. The natural p u l l o f perception ties us to objects, and when our gaze turns inward we are attracted to or frightened by fantasy objects. Mental sets or habits become part o f a gravitational p u l l w i t h chronic ways o f thingifying no-thing. B i o n also notes that a certain rigidity, tied to a defective or embry­

46

Psychic Deadness

onic mental apparatus, can prevent no-thingness from playing a fuller role in our development. To escape the difficulty of interacting with no-thing, we not only fill no-thing with things but also relate to no-thing as a thing. Representations and thoughts are no-things that lend themselves to thingification inasmuch as they are easily confused with and reduced to their objects. Such confusion not only characterizes psychosis but also common sense—it is natural for the common-sense attitude to take the object world for granted and not inquire into how objects are psychically given. In the following quotation Bion, typically, keeps his vision on the cutting edge of extremes: Intolerance of a no-thing, taken together with the conviction that any object capable of a representative function is, by virtue of what the sane personality regards as its representative function, not a representation at all but a no-thing itself, precludes the possibility of words, circles, points and lines being used in the furtherance of learning from experience. They become a provocation to substitute the thing for the no-thing, and the thing itself as an instrument to take the place of representations when representations are a necessity as they are in the realm of thinking. [1965, p. 82]

Bion emphasizes intolerance and conviction as ways of preventing no-thing from having a basic say in personality. Intolerance and conviction are facets of rigidity. Conviction alone need not reflect rigidity, but may arise out of a concern for experience. However, this passage couples conviction with intolerance to show that filling in nothing is not necessarily a neutral action. For Bion sanity includes respect for polar terms of experience. I f an object has a signifying function, one can credit the object and its meanings. One touches a tree but not its meanings, yet relates to both dimensions. In madness, respect for the tension between dimensions slips, steps are skipped, end terms are fused, and mediating terms exaggerated. An object that can function as a representation is taken as a no-thing itself, and a no-thing (e.g., a system of meanings) is taken as an object. By making objects into nothings and vice versa, the mind practices a decisive evasion. No-thing as a term of experience is nulled by being converted into objects of common sense or nightmare. One soothes or scares oneself into oblivion and tries to soothescare others as well. For Bion the tolerance of no-thing is linked with modulated openness and learning from experience. Conversely, the eradication of no-thing, by treating objects as no-things and no-things as objects, makes it impossible to use symbols as vehicles for experiential learning. He associates this state with murder. The above quotation continues: "Thus actual murder is to be sought instead of the thought represented by the word * murder,' an actual breast or penis rather than the thought represented by those words, and so on until quite

Bion's No-thing

47

complex actions and real objects are elaborated as part of acting-out" (1965, p. 82). If action is substituted for thinking, murder may take the place of a murderous thought. This can and does happen in a literal way, just as promiscuity or addiction canfillthe space where erotic and nourishing reverie might have been. However, Bion means something more than literal murder and sexual enactment as results of short-circuited thinking. Murder is not confined to or perhaps even primarily concerned with bodies. Short-circuited thinking is already a kind of murder, a murdering of the mind. When words are used to evacuate rather than to build meaning, meaning is murdered. No-thing is murdered insofar as it is treated as an object. The realm of experiencing as such is lost or aborted: physical things or thoughts as things are substituted for the evolution of experience. Actual murder is substituted for thoughts of murder. That is, the capacity to think about murderous feelings is killed off. Instead of learning from experience, one kills experience or rather kills the capacity to support experiencing. Actual psychic murder is substituted for meeting oneself and others. A playwright may use scenes of rape or murder to express violation and death of the self or personality. His portrayal may achieve greater or lesser success depending on his ability to sustain the build-up and unfolding of emotional intensity and the dramatic representational world with which he is working. Possibly he may slip so that his scenes become part of and even further the death process he wished to illuminate. A play may kill or heighten experiences with which it grapples. Similarly, an analytic interpretation may kill or support the growth of experience, including the experience of violation and dying out of self. Much depends on the analyst's ability to sustain the build-up of the patient's impact until the realities at handfindvoice. Inability to achieve this build-up may murder the experience of the patient's psychic death and perhaps the possibility of life as well. That the murder at stake includes the killing of mind, psyche, self, and personality is underlined by Bion's emphasis on stupor. The passage continues: "Such procedures do not produce the results ordinarily achieved by thought, but contribute to states approximating to stupor, fear of stupor, hallucinosis, fear of hallucinosis, megalomania, and fear of megalomania" (1965, p. 82). Hallucinosis and megalomania do not always play a negative role in Bion's thought and perhaps at times stupor has a positive function as well. Stupor can be a going blank, into a state of emptiness. Hallucinosis can be trancelike intuition. Megalomania may be giddiness or dizziness upon seeing too much at once, a godlike moment of revelation. Fear of such stupor-hallucinosismegalomania can be inhibiting. One sides with common sense at the expense of alternate states of consciousness. One refuses the risk of becoming too unfamiliar.

48

Psychic Deadness

I n contrast, stupor associated w i t h the k i l l i n g o f f o f mind-psyche-self­ personality is n o t patient blankness or mute gestation, b u t an attempt to r i d oneself o f no-thing, to blank n o - t h i n g out, or to f i l l i t w i t h numbness. Instead o f waiting o n the living m o m e n t , one throws oneself away. I n this context, hallucinosis is n o t a gateway for i n t u i t i o n , but a d u m p for the debris o f what m i g h t have been mental activity. Megalomania is n o t a " h i g h " l i n k e d w i t h tra­ versing the immeasurable awesomeness o f the psychic universe, b u t an empty pretension closing door after door. One cannot rest i n a dead m i n d . One finds no repose i n stupor-hallucinosis­ megalomania. One is afraid o f one's mental death, even if one is very far along the death process. One is trapped between stupor-hallucinosis-megalomania and the fear o f i t and oscillates between them. One is unable to use or relate to either fear or stupor, but is arrested i n a k i n d o f narcotic electrocution. T o an extent, the conviction that n o - t h i n g does n o t exist or that an object is n o - t h i n g itself rationalizes the inability to tolerate n o - t h i n g . This is akin to behaving badly i n school because one is ashamed that one cannot read. One masks deficits with bravado when the simple admission o f inability m i g h t lead to learning. A n individual's difficulty is c o m p o u n d e d by the inability to a d m i t inability. There seems to be a tendency to b l u r the p a i n f u l experience o f inability and to fill this space w i t h stupor-hallucinosis-megalomania and fear. This is akin to F r e u d ' s fantasy o f the infant hallucinating a breast when i t is painfully hungry. Eventually p r o p e r skills, motivations, and m a p s develop, but the tendency to

blot o u t painful emotional realities remains. T h e ability to play down emotional pain is necessary for the healthy enjoy­ m e n t o f life. The difficulty B i o n writes about arises when the need to d u l l pain hardens i n t o an anti-representational attitude, a conviction that representing painful emotional realities is useless. This conviction is tyrannical. I t does more than rationalize and mask deficit or inability. I t immobilizes the psyche i n face o f its task to increase the capacity to connect w i t h experience i n f r u i t f u l ways.

REFERENCES Bion, W. R. (1965). Transformations. London: Heinemann. . (1970). Attention and Interpretation. London : Tavistock.

5 Moral Violence

B i o n characterizes psychic m u r d e r as moral violence. The conviction that the object is n o - t h i n g itself acts as a coercive demand that the object be more and less than what is possible. The psyche becomes entangled i n the reductionistic misuse o f basic categories and f u n c t i o n s , e.g., space, t i m e , causality, and definition.

SPACE AND T I M E The crime against the object or n o - t h i n g or personality is also a crime against space and time. I n one clinical example B i o n shows how space and time can be used i n a shell game o f identities: "His presence shows that he knows that I am present. This fact is used . . . to deny my absence. H e reacts i n the session as i f I were absent. This behavior . . . is i n t e n d e d to deny my presence" (1965,

p. 53).

The patient's presence indicates that he knows the analyst is present and that he is present as an I , a person. The fact o f presence is t u r n e d i n t o a denial o f absence, which annihilates the analyst's person, since no person can be fully and only present. T h a t is, the analyst's presence is taken as a sign that he ought n o t be absent. He must be there totally for the patient. This means that he cannot have his own m i n d or history or unconscious (which can never be total presence). I t is as i f the presence the analyst can give whets the patient's appetite for what cannot be given. I n this context what is missing fuels the hatred o f emo­ tional reality rather than inspires the urge to grow. The analyst is then angrily reacted to as i f he were wholly absent, so that the k i n d o f presence he m i g h t provide is wasted. The slipperiness or fluidity o f psychic space and time is used to trap and p i n the object. The object can be accused o f being somewhere else, i n the w r o n g place, and unable to f u l f i l l impossible demands.

50

Psychic Deadness

"The state o f m i n d I have described is represented for me by a m o d e l — t h a t o f an adult who violently maintains an exclusively primitive, o m n i p o t e n t , help­ less state. The m o d e l by which I represent his 'vision* o f me is that o f an absent breast, the place or position, that I , the breast, ought to occupy b u t do not. The *ought* expresses moral violence and omnipotence" (Bion 1965, p. 53). I n this tyrannical state o f m i n d there is n o r o o m for a place or position where the object is not. The n o - t h i n g is filled, deformed, or k i l l e d o f f by the demand or conviction that an object ought to be there. T h e r e mustbe n o place where an object used to be or m i g h t be, only total presence. W i t h this affective ideol­ ogy o f absolute c o n t r o l , there can be no spontaneity. The personality cannot endure the tension o f openness. Space a n d time mean there is always elsewhere, another place, another t i m e — t h e space and time for thinking, feeling, imagining, and acting. I n p r i n ­ ciple, space a n d time are developmental concepts: something more can hap­ pen. Processes are at work; experience builds on itself. T h e r e is an u n f o l d i n g , gaps, leaps, something new, something o l d , m u l t i d i r e c t i o n a l pulls and move­ ments, tensions between continuity-discontinuity. T h e closing off o f n o - t h i n g places severe restrictions o n developmental or m u l t i r e l a t i o n a l processes. For example, time must be reduced to "now" or "never" (in this instance, now = never): "The factors that reduce the breast to a p o i n t reduce time to 'now.' T i m e is denuded o f past and future. T h e 'now' is subjected to attacks similar to those delivered against space, or more precisely, the point. I t is b o t h exhausted and split. This leads to expression which can mislead for such a patient will say 'at the m o m e n t ' when he means 'never* and 'yesterday* or ' t o m o r r o w ' when he means a split-off fragment o f * now*" (Bion 1965, p. 55). Someone may seem to be communicating when i n fact he is signaling that his w o r l d is extremely reduced and that he lacks the tools that make c o m m u ­ nication possible. He swings between omnipotence-helplessness i n a black hole now, using words and behavior to signal his conviction that n o development is possible. The flow o f time and history is stultified by an impossible demand: to have or be everything w i t h o u t being capable o f tolerating anything. Evacua­ tive activity, especially getting r i d of self, becomes an obsession and psychic m u r d e r a way o f life.

CAUSATION A t a higher level a person may be able to "have" and "use" thoughts and even use them to t h i n k about emotional reality. However, his t h i n k i n g process may aim more at tying u p emotional reality than c o n t r i b u t i n g toward its evolution. Causal t h i n k i n g readily lends itself to hardening psychic arteries. A n individual may develop a version o f his life that acts as a barrier against f u r t h e r discovery.

51

Moral Violence

He "knows" what happened and why. I f the analyst enters the knowledge game, a fight for superior omniscience may take the place o f the quest to deepen and enrich experience. (See my book, The Psychotic Core, 1986, chapter 8, f o r a sys­ tematic distinction between omniscience and omnipotence.) T h i n k i n g through emotional problems is hard work involving swings between depression, anxiety, and excitement. T o learn f r o m experience requires the tolerance o f gaps that exert force o n the f i e l d o f meaning. Fertile meaning grows o u t o f experience and gaps i n experience a n d is n o t imposed i n a dis­ connected way. One stays open to f u r t h e r nuances, shifts, corrections. More upheaval is always possible. The difficulties inherent i n sustaining affectively relevant t h i n k i n g and com­ municating may, at times, n o t only seem oppressive b u t also persecutory. One may feel attacked by natural limitations and barriers, such as deficiencies i n one's mental equipment. T h e challenge o f sustaining t h o u g h t processes may itself be felt as a persecution: one is persecuted by the persistence o f unsolved, possibly unsolvable problems. O f t e n one cannot solve difficulties head o n , b u t must regroup, try various approaches, wait, and rest. The same p r o b l e m may re-emerge i n a new light, or new ways o f relating to a p r o b l e m may develop. I n such instances the sense o f persecution may act as a spur. A problem grips one, will n o t let go, and forces f u r t h e r movement. M e a n i n g grows organically f r o m the press a n d t u g o f experience. However, the sense o f persecution may escalate so that one "is persecuted by the feelings o f persecution" (1965, p. 57). O n e becomes too impatient and intolerant o f working with difficulties and the concomitant waiting, resting, and resetting. Experience itself becomes too persecutory to bother w i t h , and one develops the conviction that respect for experience is futile The sense o f per­ secution becomes too depressing, a n d depression becomes too persecutory. The rhythmic pattern o f breaking down and b u i l d i n g u p inherent i n mental life is aborted or runs amok, and the individual tries to r i d himself o f his psyche as m u c h as possible. Causal t h i n k i n g can facilitate psychic evacuation or play a role i n short­ circuiting psychic processes. I t binds the sense o f persecution with rationaliza­ tions, "reasons" that explain away pain. One flies over difficulties with a k i n d of scanning that does not allow a closer look. One substitutes pseudo-coherence for the hard-won coherence that grows i n the struggle to give experience a voice. The source of anxiety in the patient is his fear of depression and an associated PS ** D interchange, the mechanism of the selected fact. I categorize the idea of cause, in this context, as D , that is, a relatively primitive pre-conception used to prevent the emergence of something else. The patient's communication in so far as it is to be described as logical, is a circular argument, supposedly based on a theory of causation, employed to destroy contact with reality, not to fur­ 2

Psychic Deadness

52

ther it. I n this respect it qualifies for one of Freud's criteria for psychosis— hatred of reality. But the reality that is hated is the reality of an aspect of the patient's personality. [Bion 1965, p. 59]

I t is n o t necessary to give a detailed explanation o f Bion's " g r i d " a n d such terms as " D " to understand the gist o f what he means here. I n the present context " p r e - c o n c e p t i o n " functions as a barrier against the e v o l u t i o n o f psychic life. T h e pretense o r conviction o f "knowing the reasons" stops dis­ covery. Instead o f using maps to explore, one substitutes maps f o r wrestling with oneself. B i o n contrasts causal t h i n k i n g with learning via the selected fact. I n the lat­ ter process some aspect o f a situation triggers the growth o f meaning. One experiences differences i n ways that terms o f a situation are interrelated. There is a spontaneous redistribution o f processes, a series o f transformations. One develops t h r o u g h shifting relational networks. T h e growth o f meaning triggered by the selected fact is l i n k e d w i t h a rela­ tively free PS « D interchange. Groupings o f phenomena f o r m , break apart, and re-form. One gradually builds more tolerance for various tensions, i n c l u d ­ i n g affective states, which are associated w i t h splitting a n d creative b r i n g i n g together. I n this context paranoid-schizoid a n d depressive mechanisms con­ tribute to the overall growth o f experience, meaning, and personal being (Eigen 1985). B i o n stresses the moral c o m p o n e n t o f causal t h i n k i n g as especially destruc­ tive o f experience a n d imaginative reflection o n experience. A moralizing attitude may pervade causal t h i n k i n g and act as the l i n k between objects or between parts o f the patient's o r analyst's constructions. T h e shift o f emphasis will be away f r o m letting experience b u i l d to making i t f i t a moralistic bias. The observation o f the constant conjunction o f phenomena whose conjunc­ t i o n or coherence has n o t been previously observed, and therefore the whole process o f PS D interaction, d e f i n i t i o n , a n d the search f o r meaning that is to be attached t o the c o n j u n c t i o n , can be destroyed by the strength o f a sense o f causation a n d its moral implications. Patients show that the resolution o f a p r o b l e m seems to present less difficulty i f it can be regarded as b e l o n g i n g to a moral domain; causation, responsibility, and therefore a c o n t r o l l i n g force, as opposed to helplessness, provide a framework within which omnipotence reigns (1965, p p . 6 4 - 6 5 ) . 2

2

1 Bion's symbol PS * * D represents a spontaneous oscillation between nulling and creating meaning. This bipolar capacity is part of our equipment, and we evolve as we enter new relationships with it. Perhaps it too evolves as we use it. PS, D, and PS D represent different ways of relating to no-things and different ways that no-things are constituted. They signify particular attitudinal contexts, psychic capacities, and operations or ways that psychical objects (specific sets of no-things) are given and used.

53

Moral Violence

Moralistic, causal t h i n k i n g substitutes for the open growth o f meaning. For example, assigning blame ("You are the cause o f my problems"; " I t is all my fault") may be an attempt to c o n t r o l rather than suffer an experience. H i d ­ den i n this attitude is the demand that absolute control ought to be possible, that this whole mess is caused by someone. I t is easier to p i n the tail o n the don­ key than to experience difficulties requiring solution. The individual's demand for o m n i p o t e n t causality organizes life, instead o f b u i l d i n g capacities needed to work w i t h experience and its evolving PS D interactions.

DEFINITION D e f i n i t i o n , like causal t h i n k i n g , may be used to b i n d or organize experience i n overly restrictive ways. B i o n contrasts d e f i n i t i o n w i t h notation as ways of marking a constant c o n j u n c t i o n or newly perceived relationship. N o t i n g and attending to a newly observed g r o u p i n g o f phenomena leaves the question o f definition open. I t may be argued that even notation requires a certain a m o u n t o f i m p l i c i t definitional activity. T o mark x o f f f r o m y implies the observation o f different groupings o f characteristics. T o understand or perhaps even observe a fact, one must have a hypothesis about i t . However, the urge to define is n o t the same as the practice o f opening oneself u p to the spontaneous arrangement o f phe­ nomena. D e f i n i t i o n may close as well as open observation. T o o often, d e f i n i ­ tion is substituted for exploration. Definitions give one the illusion o f know­ ing more than one actually does, especially with regard to emotional life. One may become trapped by d e f i n i t i o n a l biases and lose contact with the domain that gave rise to the observations u p o n which explicit definitions are based. One can define phenomena out o f existence. Bion especially notes problems associated with the negative aspect o f defini­ tions. Definitory hypotheses work by marking a constant conjunction and exclud­ ing others. A field marked o f f by definition may gain meaning through constant conjunctions outside the defined area. A too-rigid dedication to the definitory field may mitigate against the perception of deeper and broader sets o f relations. Freud notes that t h i n k i n g is work. Bion focuses o n the work aspect o f t h i n k ­ i n g and o n problems i n b u i l d i n g a psyche capable o f sustaining the tension o f such work. I n many instances the psyche may n o t have evolved enough to sup­ p o r t healthy primary process t h i n k i n g . Often precocious secondary t h i n k i n g masks deficits i n the ability to d o adequate primary process work. I n such an instance "definition can be used to i n h i b i t t h o u g h t " (1965, p. 99). Definition maybe substituted for the task o f b u i l d i n g primary process t h i n k ­ ing that is capable o f w o r k i n g w i t h affective states i n f r u i t f u l ways. B i o n calls attention to transformations involved i n constituting the k i n d o f primary pro­ cess that can do viable work, such as t u r n i n g raw or cataclysmic affective states

54

Psychic Deadness

into usable dream images. Emphasis on t h i n k i n g as i n h i b i t i n g action draws attention away f r o m the problem o f constituting productive primary process work. Higher-level t h i n k i n g may work overtime to cover defects i n affective processing. The individual, for example, may use naming and definition to b i n d or contain persecutory feelings rather than to explore them. I n Bion's words, " I f persecutory feelings are strong the constant conjunction o f elements can lead to a naming o f the conjunction with intent to contain it, rather than mark it for investigation" (1965, p. 99). I n such an instance the individual has all he can do to keep u p w i t h his self­ attacks or nameless dreads and intimations o f catastrophe. H e has all he can do to try to cauterize his sense of fragmentation or to p u t a verbal tourniquet around disintegration. Here the aim of n a m i n g is to stop h o r r i b l e movement. The result is the proliferation o f elements meant to tie the psyche up rather than to enable i t to evolve. A less extreme b u t still serious use o f t h i n k i n g to exclude growth capitalizes o n one's ability to take n o t h i n g for granted. One can use "cat" n o t only to exclude "dog" b u t as a letter g r o u p i n g that also excludes animal characteris­ tics. The "smart" subject can p e r f o r m a series o f reductions i n order to be left with as little meaning as possible. What remains o f the word "cat" with its sen­ suous reverberations is simply a visual sign indicating the place where the f u l l word used to be, a "no-cat." The m i n d bent on destroying meaning can denude a term "to the p o i n t which is merely a position without any trace o f what used to occupy that position" (1965, p. 99). Such a m i n d , although filled with a hatred o f emotional reality, is very ac­ tive. The subject may take perverse enjoyment i n twisting meaning inside out, in reversing and reducing the significance o f things. He is adept at beating meaning at its own game. H e sees meaning at every t u r n and is ready to knock it down, to keep as closely as possible to a baseline o f pure meaninglessness. The subject thrives o n meaning i n a backward way. H e can define the thera­ pist and himself out o f existence by emphasizing what they are not. The thera­ pist who sees this h a p p e n i n g may be terribly frustrated. Nevertheless, w i t h patience and painstaking work, one may see the day when this mental "live wire" takes himself seriously.

REFERENCES Bion, W. R. (1965). Transformations. London: Heinemann. Eigen, M. (1985). Towards Bion's starting point: between catastrophe and faith. Inter­ national foumal

of Psycho-Analysis

66: 321-330.

(1986). The Psychotic Core. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.

6

Two Kinds of No-thing

O n e can use symbols to represent or get r i d o f emotional reality. Symbols usable i n a process o f discovery express gaps susceptible to investigation. Fer­ tile symbols m i x the k n o w n and u n k n o w n i n productive ways. They h o l d the u n k n o w n (no-thing) open so that g r o w t h is possible. The same image, sound, movement, or letter g r o u p i n g can be part of an attempt to evacuate and n u l l emotional reality. Perhaps one cannot take the build-up o f tension involved i n the growth o f a t h o u g h t or feeling. Perhaps life has taught one to hate emo­ tional reality: one may have learned f r o m bitter experience that emotional reality is worthless or impossible. A n individual, for example, may experience a sense o f r e b i r t h f o r which he is willing and able to struggle. However, the sense of r e b i r t h may also be used to evaporate emotional reality. A n individual may n o t go t h r o u g h what is nec­ essary i n order to make his vision more real. One must evaluate a r e b i r t h sym­ b o l w i t h regard to its f u n c t i o n i n a particular context. A t times i t is n o t a sym­ b o l at all, but rather a sign that the individual is i n trouble beyond his capacity and control. The same r e b i r t h symbol may help open or close emotional real­ ity, depending o n such factors as attitude and capacity. A mixture o f deficit a n d hate may make i t exceedingly d i f f i c u l t to bear the rise o f complex emotional realities. A n individual may collapse to the p o i n t o f least resistance and f i l l the deficit w i t h hateful actions. H a t e f u l actions often involve hateful d e f i n i t i o n s and the assignment o f blame, as i n the case o f racial prejudice. Bion's references to violence and m u r d e r evoke a sense o f unbearable intensity that is escaped by short-circuiting psychic life. A reduced psyche incapable of supporting affective growth takes the place o f an individual reaching t h r o u g h a n d beyond difficulties. A truncated time and space, moral­ istic causality ( b l a m i n g ) , and definitions that cancel rather than open life are r i g i d r e m a i n s o f w h a t m i g h t h a v e been a r i c h a n d o p e n p s y c h e . Bion uses various sets o f signs and symbols to evoke a sense o f the two main no-things at stake. T h e a i m o f his notations is to facilitate the g r o w t h o f

56

Psychic Deadness

experience. He traces a hair-breadth l i n e between creative a n d destructive attitudes. The life and death o f the psyche are at stake. I f we develop ways o f experiencing and representing life-and-death processes, we may stand a chance o f acting less destructively and find ways o f m a k i n g the most o f ourselves.

T H E P O S I T I O N A N OBJECT DOES N O T OCCUPY: P O I N T (.) A N D L I N E ( )



) to represent the breast and phallus. B i o n used the p o i n t (*) and line ( A (•) may stand for what is left o f the breast after attacks and denudation^ or i t may f u n c t i o n as a sign for what is u n k n o w n about the breast, to be amplified by experience. I n the first instance one cannot tolerate the growth o f mean­ i n g and relationship. A deficient mental apparatus or too m u c h hate reduces the breast or object to its bare m i n i m u m , to what m i g h t be manipulated or controlled or made to fit i n t o the subject's megalomanic-helpless position. I n the second instance the u n k n o w n elicits curiosity a n d learning. For Bion the breast and phallus are highly significant subsets o f what the (•) and ( ) may be used to represent. The signs have a more general func­ t i o n than the terms "breast" and "phallus," since they can be used to represent transformations typical o f many kinds o f objects. They can be used to signal that processes o f denudation or growth o f meaning are at w o r k and to mark creative or destructive phenomena for exploration. Thus (•) and (; ) are signs w i t h a genetic history or d i r e c t i o n . They indicate that meaning is being b u i l t u p or t o r n down. I f meaning is b u i l t up, i t may enable the f u r t h e r growth o f experience or act as a r i g i d organizer that reduces experience to its m o l d . Similarly, tearing down meaning may clear the way for new meaning or be an attempt to undercut the possibility o f meaning altogether. A value o f using signs like (•) and ( ) is to emphasize the u n k n o w n i n every situation. We do not know a p r i o r i what is f u n c t i o n i n g and how. Bion is concerned that psychoanalysts prematurely leap i n t o the why when the what and how are also inexhaustible; * and are unknowns to be approached by observation. B i o n writes, "The p o i n t (*) or the line ( ) and all sub­ stantival terms m a y . . . be regarded as unknowns having two values: one, a sign for a constant c o n j u n c t i o n and the other, a sign for the position, unoccupied, o f the object" (1965, p. 100). A n i m p l i c a t i o n of B i o n ' s f o r m u l a t i o n is t h a t t h e u n k n o w n is a p e r m a n e n t p a r t o f e x p e r i e n c e . A l l t h e s o m e t h i n g s i n t h e w o r l d c a n n o t Fill i n t h e n o - t h i n g .

The p o i n t and line will always resist meaning and meaninglessness. They can always signal something more or something less. They cannot be reduced to m e a n i n g — t h e y cannot be made totally m e a n i n g f u l . N o r c a n they be placed, try a s one m i g h t , totally o u t s i d e the d o m a i n o f m e a n i n g .

Two Kinds o f No-thing

57

I n some sense Bion's work might be criticized as being surprisingly sopho­ moric. He takes a commonplace, the u n k n o w n , seriously. The sense of the u n k n o w n plays an i m p o r t a n t role i n mental health. How we relate to the u n ­ known is crucial. Bion's apparently complicated work is embarrassingly simple; it guards the u n k n o w n i n human experience. Intellectual imagination probes the limits o f intellect i n order to keep experience alive and open. Upheaval, horror, and deadness are met along the way. They are challenges that human sensitivity faces. I n the example above, a p o i n t is a sign for a constant conjunction, and a sign for the position that an object does not occupy. A n object may be regarded as a constant conjunction or as open sets o f relations. I n this regard, Heidegger (1957, pp. 25-42) writes that "identity is a relation." A n object is a relational f i e l d that grows i n meaning. I t is known and u n k n o w n . I t gains i n meaning i n many ways, including by being part of larger constant conjunctions or relational fields. The known about an object emerges as a figure out o f a larger unknown. M o r e l i m i t e d and specific unknowns are carved out o f gaps i n knowledge. T h e position an object does not occupy may be understood i n common-sense terms as the place where an object was or will be. The object's absence is felt against its past or future presence. I t is i n this d o m a i n o f c o m m o n sense that one becomes trapped by longing. One imagines the object was there i n a way that may be duplicated. What is missing is attributed to the missing object, and one believes that the object's presence w i l l make all the difference (or u n d o the difference). Often enough, the object's actual presence becomes sorely disappointing, and one's longing becomes a source o f confusion. For B i o n the position an object does not occupy includes b u t goes beyond common-sense terms. T o view the object i n terms o f constant conjunctions that grow i n meaning means that one never sees exactly the same object twice, that the object is experienced i n terms o f what i t is n o t yet or is no longer, and that the very is-ness o f the object includes references to movement, lacu­ nae, incompletion, possibilities. T o see the object solely i n terms o f what i t i s — or what one imagines i t to b e — i s a tyranny. One is boxed i n by the concrete demand for absolute presence or immutability. The position that an object does not occupy leaves r o o m for movement and requires giving u p an ideology o f c o n t r o l or mastery. I f the object may be treated as a constant c o n j u n c t i o n , so may the position it does not occupy. T h a t position is inherently l i n k e d with the object as the background o f felt meanings against w h i c h i t stands o u t as figure. One's rela­ tionship to silences that riddle and sustain an object grows. The position that an object does not occupy clings to the object and is n o t a simple fact o f absence that can be undone. Only by going t h r o u g h the object to what it is not can one appreciate what i t is. T h e relationship between an object and the position it does n o t occupy is akin to the structure o f metaphor. N o presence can fill i n the position an

58

Psychic Deadness

object does n o t occupy, not any more than literal meaning can satisfy the de­ mands o f metaphor. Metaphor creates new realities by b r i n g i n g together terms that make a difference. Bion points o u t that i t is precisely the difference be­ tween terms that is generative. I f the terms were identical or too similar, n o t h ­ i n g creative w o u l d occur i n their interaction. The fact that one t e r m does n o t take the place o f another is crucial: a new place o f interaction is created. For Bion a central task o f h u m a n k i n d is to grow a psyche capable o f sustain­ ing the evolution o f new places o f interaction o f diverse terms o f experience. A l l too often one or another term collapses or bullies others so that each fails to make its c o n t r i b u t i o n to the growth of metaphor, psyche, individual, group, or society. I t is d i f f i c u l t to sustain the tension o f interaction o f viewpoints and the c o n t r i b u t i o n each makes to the growth o f experience. L e a r n i n g f r o m experience involves learning not to take oneself or others literally. We make our contributions like terms o f a metaphor and become parts o f new unities that make life m o r e m e a n i n g f u l . By b u i l d i n g a tolerance f o r what we and others are not, we make r o o m for positions we do n o t occupy, so that there can always be more interactions that make a difference. Bion's use o f a p o i n t to represent an object, the object's directional thrust, and the position that an object does n o t occupy warns us against taking sub­ jective processes literally. A literal mark does n o t tell us what i t may mean i n a given situation, since the same sign can p o i n t i n many directions. T h e p o i n t is a condensation packed with possibilities. I t gains meaning as experience o f i t grows. Bion notes that a p o i n t is indestructible (1965, p. 95). T h e r e is n o end to the fragmentation i t can endure. A p o i n t is a representation, a construction, not simply a literal mark. This product of m i n d may be used by m i n d for a variety o f purposes, i n c l u d i n g portrayals o f agonizing clinical realities. For example, an individual may be bent on d o i n g away w i t h psychic life as m u c h as possible, yet be unable to do away with i t altogether. H e seeks a p o i n t o f absolute pointlessness. He cuts himself ad i n f i n i t u m , yet the pieces act like so many subjective points that turn against h i m . H e undergoes massive n u m b ­ ing or b l a n k i n g out, yet his m i n d works at top speed i n the interstices o f the blankness and numbness. Even as he j u m p s out the window he fails to r i d h i m ­ self o f his t o r m e n t i n g m i n d . I n his fall a heightened p o i n t o f consciousness mocks h i m (Eigen 1973). A p o i n t may represent a n o - t h i n g , yet an individual can neither reduce himself to a p o i n t n o r a no-thing. H e can n o more convert n o - t h i n g to a p o i n t than he can make the p o i n t vanish forever. Strictly speaking, a p o i n t is a n o - t h i n g insofar as i t functions as a represen­ tation or construction. I n the psychic domain, the subject works w i t h different kinds o f no-things, such as a point, a line, fantasy objects, and intuitions. Any representation may be multidirectional and polyvalent. For example, a p o i n t may fade or grow larger. Only by living with a particular p o i n t can one tell

59

Two Kinds o f N o - t h i n g

whether i t expresses a movement toward zero, toward one, or toward m u l t i ­ plicity. A p o i n t may also be used to represent a static n o - t h i n g , a dead rather than fertile void.

MINUS SIGNS Bion refines his f o r m u l a t i o n by using minus signs to signify the position that an object does not occupy (1965, p. 100). He does this f o r convenience, so that we have a shorthand for distinguishing the object (+ *) f r o m the position i t does n o t occupy ( — ) . This is a transitional f o r m u l a t i o n that he later replaces w i t h arrows i n reverse t )• I t serves the purpose o f visually representing the idea/experience that every object has a position that i t does n o t occupy. For Bion, the position that an object does n o t occupy is a generic part o f the con­ cept o f object, a c o n d i t i o n for the growth o f object experience, an invariant structure or principle that makes experience o f the psychoanalytical w o r l d o f objects possible. Each (psychological/psychoanalytical) object (a no-thing) represented by a p o i n t (another k i n d o f no-thing) has plus and minus aspects. The plus and minus aspects may have various meanings depending o n what sort o f processes they represent or are part of. For example, the growth o f meaning can be used dogmatically and rigidly to close o f f f u r t h e r growth o r as a bridge leading to bridges. U n d o i n g meaning may open doors. I n certain instances an individual may misuse the capacity to u n d o meaning, i n which case the n u l l i n g capacity snowballs and the c r e a t i n g - n u l l i n g r h y t h m gets lost. Ideally, an individual entertains what B i o n calls a "binocular" perspective. H e experiences an object i n terms o f what i t is and is not. B i o n relates the fail­ ure to distinguish positive and negative aspects o f a or to the personality's relationship to the • and aspects o f itself. One fails to live with a particular • or i n ways that disclose its d i r e c t i o n , meaning, or f u n c t i o n i n a given situation. Insofar as one can relate to • or aspects o f self, a more global • or will transform i n t o f u r t h e r positive and nega­ tive facets as possible meanings develop. A t a near common-sense level — * or "retain meaning, as does the n o - t h i n g (because at least there is a trace o f whatever it is that does n o t occupy the position) so l o n g as time itself is n o t reduced to the m o m e n t w i t h ­ o u t a past or a f u t u r e " (1965, p. 100). T h e place that an object does n o t occupy may be rich i n reverie, longing, hope, expectation, irritation, desire, or openness. + - and — • go together and qualify each other as experience evolves, w i t h varying emphasis o n one or the other i n a particular instance. ( I will continue to focus o n + and — rather than for ease o f exposition). I f the psyche is n o t capable o f supporting a coherent temporal flow, • may

60

Psychic Deadness

represent "a position w i t h o u t d u r a t i o n " and so be meaningless. I n such a case — • (positions unoccupied by * )would also be meaningless and indistinguish­ able f r o m . . As suggested above, such a position represents a developmental failure. I n some way the psyche collapsed or failed to constitute itself as viable. For B i o n i t is i m p o r t a n t to explore the nature o f the collapse or deficiency and its consequences. I n earlier work (1985, 1986), I b r o u g h t o u t ways that Bion approached a less accessible dimension o f psychosis than Melanie Klein. He explored realms masked by projective identification and by its relatively structured and r i g i d use o f space. For some individuals the hatred o f emotional reality is so intense or their mental apparatus is so defective that they cannot use projection to organize experience. Even when projective identification is achieved, i t may be used to b i n d a more formless h o r r o r o r nameless dread. T h r o u g h o u t his writings Bion explores the sense o f catastrophic formless­ ness a n d its role i n creativeness and psychosis. H e cannot rest with any o f his formulations and keeps trying to strip the skin away f r o m a catastrophic dread that can undergo transformation into personal development or contribute to the personality's living death. The n o t i o n o f a • that represents position w i t h ­ o u t d u r a t i o n is one such attempt to describe the r e d u c t i o n o f life to utter meaninglessness. T o the degree that a patient has come close to achieving the position rep­ resented by the meaningless • , he may try to "manipulate the analyst to give interpretations so that the session is used to deny complete meaninglessness a n d thus to provide reassurance against the dread that all meaning, all source o f meaning, has been annihilated. This dread is associated with belief i n the breast as the source o f meaning as, physically, i t is felt to be the source o f m i l k " (1965, p. 101). T h u s a patient who has more or less managed to achieve a meaningless existence may develop a parasitic relationship w i t h the analyst's meaning­ creating f u n c t i o n . Hope is n o t lost i f one is still frightened by the approach o f total meaninglessness and the analyst is used as a source o f reassurance that life is n o t as bleak as the patient fears i t is. T o the extent that the analyst falls victim to his good w i l l and soothes mean­ inglessness away, he may be hated for j o i n i n g a lie. H e becomes a thief who steals the patient's meaningless self. H o p e boomerangs and becomes too great a b u r d e n : it adds to meaninglessness i f it leads to dishonesty. Patient and ana­ lyst dread the vista o f utter meaninglessness. I t does n o t seem possible to main­ tain integrity and humanness i n such a situation. B i o n offers no way out o f this problem, b u t he does offer more ways into it. H e calls attention to the patient's delusional confusion o f the source o f mean­ i n g w i t h the breast as the source o f n o u r i s h m e n t . One comes to confuse a meaningful experience—intense satisfaction at the b r e a s t — w i t h the source o f meaning itself. Meaning, which is not simply physical, is understood i n terms

Two Kinds o f N o - t h i n g

61

o f a physical m o d e l — t h e breast as the source o f milk. A physical object can be treated like a t h i n g and destroyed. However, neither meaning n o r meaning­ lessness can be destroyed. They are immaterial, invisible, u n r e a l i z a b l e and, in p r i n c i p l e , i n f i n i t e . I f - is used t o represent a meaningless position (e.g., position w i t h o u t dura­ t i o n ) , — • may express directionality w i t h i n a one-dimensional w o r l d o n the way toward zero dimensions, a movement o f meaninglessness toward more meaninglessness. — * represents meaningless positions that are n o t yet occu­ pied o r the p r i n c i p l e that there is always a f u r t h e r meaningless p o i n t to which one has n o t yet come. I f this is so, suicide may n o t be an effective way to e n d the course o f meaning a n d meaninglessness, since there does n o t appear to be a one-to-one correspondence between physical a n d mental domains. A patient who knows this may stay alive i n order to force the analyst i n t o mean­ ingless positions that remain beyond h i m . T h e therapy d u o may become col­ lectors o f meaning-less points, b u t c o n t i n u e to search beyond the points collected. I f patient a n d analyst succeed i n using the analyst's ability to i n t e r p r e t as reassurance against the loss o f meaning, a stalemate results. T h e patient is protected against the challenge o f b u i l d i n g the capacity to tolerate the inter­ play o f meaning a n d meaninglessness. Fear o f meaninglessness has the last word. M e a n i n g is used to ward o f f experiencing the loss o f meaning and loses value as a vehicle f o r expression a n d e x p l o r a t i o n . M e a n i n g itself becomes meaningless, an evacuative technique or cosmetic. Dread is b l u n t e d or lost as skill i n cynically treating meaning like a thing increases. A t r i u m p h a n t use o f one's own or the other's cognition is substituted f o r experiencing one's con­ d i t i o n . O n e k i n d o f cipher is superimposed u p o n another. I n contrast, i f spurious mastery is avoided, patient a n d analyst may explore hitherto unsuspected realms o f no-thing. They begin t o tolerate glimpses o f a fierce n u l l i n g will and a tendency that continues after will fades. Different tones and functions o f n o - t h i n g can be discriminated a n d partly l i n k e d to attitudi­ nal contexts. Bion's focus o n n o - t h i n g led t h r o u g h a series o f signs that represent the growth o f awareness o f what n o - t h i n g can mean, (e.g., • a n d ). T h e use­ fulness o f these signs as tools for e x p l o r i n g transformations o f n o - t h i n g is far f r o m exhausted. Nonetheless, Bion reaches a p o i n t i n his discussion where he 1

Bion's symbol, PS **• D, represents a spontaneous oscillation between nulling and creating meaning. PS, D, and PS D represent different ways of relating to no-things and different ways that no-things are constituted. They signify particular attitudinal contexts, psychic capacities, and operations or ways that psychical objects (specific sets of no-things) are given and used. Since I discussed these symbols more fully elsewhere I n t m s 1 a m (1985), my present emphasis is on • , — • , and tracking a specific line that runs through Bion's portrayals of no-thing. 1

62

Psychic Deadness

feels the need for signs that represent more purely the directionality, dyna­ mism, and movement o f n o t h i n g . H e uses reversed arrows ( * ~ t ) indicate that the movement toward, i n t o , or t h r o u g h no-thingness is infinite. This is true n o t only i n the realm o f meaning but also i n the realm o f meaninglessness. t

o

A R R O W S I N REVERSE ( o - f ) Bion's two backward arrows (*—t) must be understood w i t h reference t o his g r i d , which can be f o u n d o n the inside covers o f Transformations (1965) a n d related works. The grid's vertical axis (from top to b o t t o m : i ) marks the growth o f a raw affective impact i n t o elements usable for dreams and myths, and f r o m there to progressively more differentiated and abstract levels o f thought. T h e horizontal axis (left to right:—*) discriminates ways i n which the m i n d works on affects, images, a n d thoughts at successive phases o f their development (or maldevelopment). My simple summary needs qualification and refinement, b u t serves the purpose o f indicating that Bion's backward arrows (*— |) represent the g r i d working i n reverse. ( f ) represents the u n d o i n g o f meaning, its move­ ment backward toward a mute affective impact and beyond that t o w a r d zero. («—) represents the u n d o i n g o f psychic work or mental capacities, so that what we ordinarily mean by mental activity—the mind's use o f meaningful o b j e c t s — becomes n u l l and void. Bion conveys the character o f the n u l l i n g movement i n the f o l l o w i n g quo­ tation: " I f we use the g r i d we may replace and by «TT a n d . Such signs represent objects that are devoid o f characteristics a n d lack dura­ t i o n , or p o s i t i o n — a n d , therefore, existence. But the sign * ~ t indicates that the object is n o t static. «—f represents a force that continues after • has been a n n i ­ hilated and i t destroys existence, time, a n d space" (1965, p. 101). A few pages earlier Bion writes that the p o i n t is indestructible (1965, p. 95). Now he conceives o f its destruction and o f an annihilating force c o n t i n u i n g after point, existence, time, a n d space have vanished. H e adds i n a footnote, " I d o n o t wish to c o m m i t myself to the theory that there is a realization approximating to this force" (1965, p. 101). Bion is n o t saying that there is a psychic state i n which there is n o t h i n g b u t pure destruction. However, con­ ceiving o f such a possibility can help one observe vast n u l l i n g processes i n cer­ tain clinical realities; this is a little like postulating a pure vacuum to help one understand falling bodies. Bion's depiction o f a destructive force that is n o t l i m i t e d by existence, time, and space may be theoretical, b u t i t is n o t an arbitrary fancy. I t grows o u t o f clinical and personal experience and is rooted i n the conviction that i t is our evolutionary task to develop a psyche capable o f working better w i t h its capaci­ ties, i n c l u d i n g destructive tendencies. One ought n o t t o assume one knows more about destructiveness than one does, n o r explain i t away too easily. B i o n

Two Kinds o f N o - t h i n g

63

sets a barrier against precocious a n d facile attempts t o "explain" destructive­ ness by n o t i n g how illimitable and inexhaustible i t may be. T h a t < - f represents a force that continues after a n n i h i l a t i n g existence, time, and space indicates that i t continues its work o f f the g r i d after the g r i d has been annihilated, bypassed, reversed, o r otherwise p u t o u t o f play. The arrows p o i n t past the grid's o r i g i n , t h r o u g h zero, i n t o a sub zero dimension. They lead t h r o u g h n o - t h i n g after n o - t h i n g after n o - t h i n g , one k i n d o f nonex­ istence after another. T h e r e are many different kinds o f no-things, some leading i n t o existence and some out o f it. Bion makes sure that the realms o f n o - t h i n g associated with * ~ t are n o t mistaken f o r more usual no-things associated with t h i n k i n g about objects i n their absence. He writes, "The state represented by *7f is different f r o m th£t represented by • or . I f these signs merely represent the place where t h e object was or could be there is n o t h i n g inherently difficult i n sup­ posing that they could be used for t h i n k i n g about objects in their absence" (1965, p. 101). T h i n k i n g about objects i n their absence characterizes n o r m a l representa­ tional thought. T h e place-that-an-object-is-not invites reverie, science, writing, or art. Such actions f o l l o w o r discover rules that enable no-things to be communicated. Emotional, spatial, or musical realities may be expressed, dis­ covered, created, or elaborated by points and lines arranged i n telling patterns. T o an extent, the author exerts control over the points a n d lines he uses and c o m b i n e s a n d rearrange s t h e m u n t i l h e is reasonabl y satisfied with the results

or feels i t unlikel y o r too difficult to d o better. Where * ~ t replaces the manipulation o f p o i n t a n d line, such esthetic, sci­ entific, o r common-sense control slides away a n d veers toward zero rules and limits. What remains is a force outside existence, an inexistent force that con­ tinues gathering momentum after it has annihilated existence. I w o u l d say that it is a force that clears o u t all resistance (and thus d i f f e r e n t i a t i o n ) , b u t Bion means i t to represent resistance as such, an active force that stops and undoes growth i n psychoanalysis, a force w i t h i n a n d between personalities that pre­ vents their u n f o l d i n g . For B i o n i t is a force that continues after h u m a n per­ sonality is totally eradicated. B i o n makes i t clear that he is trying to investigate an inexistent force or inexistent dimensions populated by inexistent objects. H e writes: T h e problem posed by *-f can be stated by analogy with existing objects. «—f is violent, greedy and envious, ruthless, murderous and predatory, without respect for the truth, persons, or things. It is, as; it were, what Pirandello might have called a Character in Search of an Author. I n so far as it has found a "character" it appears to be a completely immoral conscience. This force is dominated by an envious determination to possess everything that objects that exist possess including existence itself, [Bion 1965, p. 102]

64

Psychic Deadness

Existing no-things may be used to p o i n t to inexistent no-things, b u t the two realms o r categories are distinguishable. As w i t h Freud, Bion uses analogy as a tool f o r psychic exploration. A language has grown u p to give expression to murderous, greedy, envious, ruthless, and predatory no-things that lack respect for t r u t h , persons, or things. We experience these no-things as real and exist­ i n g , although they are attitudes and systems o f psychic propensities that can­ n o t be touched like a chair or dissected like a b r a i n . We speak o f a bad atti­ tude and l i n k i t to destructive actions i n daily life, although the bad attitude is n o t a t h i n g that can be located i n spatial terms. For B i o n an existing n o - t h i n g , such as an evil attitude, may be the outcome o f work done by a n o - t h i n g outside existence. A n existent n o - t h i n g may func­ tion as a home for a nonexistent no-thing. B i o n gives " i m m o r a l conscience" as an example o f an existing n o - t h i n g that may house a nonexistent n o - t h i n g or systems o f no-things. I n this case what we call character is the result o f and/or a place o f residence o f a force beyond existence. T h e nonexistent force i n f i l ­ trates existence i n order to proliferate and annex all o f it and t u r n i t i n t o n o n ­ existence. I n such a case o f "possession" the aim o f character is to annihilate existence. This happens as a matter o f course when character f o r m a t i o n is too r i g i d a n d stops aliveness. The o l d saying that a psychopath (sociopath) has no conscience is grossly misleading i n l i g h t o f Bion's insights. The p r o b l e m is that he has too m u c h o f the w r o n g k i n d o f conscience: an immoral conscience. A m a l i g n a n t k i n d o f superego (de) f o r m a t i o n replaces ego development. The psychopath is driven by i m m o r a l imperatives and autistic righteousness. H e feels wronged and aims to set things right. The world owes h i m better, his just deserts. He recoils against life's injustice and takes life i n t o his own hands to supply the necessary correc­ tive: his t r i u m p h . So-called i d and mastery demands become rights o f charac­ ter: " I must take/have/be what I ( t h i n k I ) want or else." To whatever crimes or sins he commits, his superego whispers or, more likely, shrieks or cackles, " I t is only j u s t . " Ego analysis is futile w i t h o u t addressing the nonexistent force that underwrites the persistent self-congratulatory, m o c k i n g superego. O n one level, wronged existence demands more existence, often i n the key o f vengeance and greed. I m m o r a l no-things make use o f things for their own purposes, pleasure, or power. Space, time, t r u t h , things, and people become occasions for manipulation, scheming, amoral t r i u m p h . Bion penetrates fur­ ther to the sense of nonexistent no-things that act parasitically and swallow existent no-things and things. I t is as i f nonexistent no-things are n o t satisfied not to exist. They cannot bear that anything should be what they are n o t — that any t h i n g or n o - t h i n g should be at all. They can tolerate neither the one­

sided fanaticism o f immoral conscience nor the complexity of flexibility. They use existence to feed nonexistence rather than the reverse. I f nonexistence envies existence, i t cannot be satisfied by existence. Exis­ tence remains a tantalizing, i f alien, Other. The term "possession" is a buzzword

65

Two Kinds o f No-thing

for Bion. T h r o u g h o u t his work he sees i t as part o f a c o n t r o l l i n g attitude that blocks the flow o f life. Here i t is associated with envious d e t e r m i n a t i o n — t h e i m m o r a l conscience, character stifled by relentless will. As an analogy f o r the nonexistent force that swallows existence, Bion depicts a personality reduced to will or determination. T h e " I have a r i g h t t o / I must get" o f psychopathy is character reduced to inflexible determination, a will intolerant o f resistance or limits. Yet this will is a barrier par excellence, an enemy o f m a t u r a t i o n . N o t h i n g outside i t qualifies or balances its determination to reduce life to a single purpose, to food f o r itself. Everything exists to feed its nonexistence. The patient caught between existence and nonexistence often uses what existence he has to signal that he does n o t exist. T h e force o f nonexistence acts as a k i n d o f undertow that existence can scarcely resist. Yet there may still be enough alive negativity to compel helpful attention before the personality goes under. The case is far worse when existence is something the patient made up i n order to have a take-off p o i n t f o r feeling that he does n o t exist.

SPACELESS SPACE A n individual may identify m o r e w i t h nonexistence than with existence, i m ­ pulsively oscillate between them, or experience paralyzing conflict. He may exist enough to feel nonexistence as genuinely painful or be so m i r e d i n nonexis­ tence that almost any k i n d o f aliveness is excruciating. A person may go so far out o f existence that existence appears as an hallucination or as something conjured up. Each o f these cases is characterized by some ratio o f nonexistence to existence. What sense does i t make to postulate a nonexistent force or n o - t h i n g that swallows up psychic reality o r existent no-things and things? Bion notes that he is extending use o f Freud's discovery o f "the other space," a space n o t gov­ erned by common-sense perception a n d the law o f contradiction. The rule that a t h i n g cannot b o t h be a n d n o t be is inadequate.

p.

102]

[1965,

The p r o b l e m is simplified by a rule that "a t h i n g can never be unless i t b o t h

is and is not." [1965, p. 103]

B i o n gives Falstaff as an example o f a n o - t h i n g that is an existing t h i n g . Falstaff may be more real than some people we meet i n daily life. I n what sort o f place does he have his reality and make his impact? No-things do n o t exist like actual people, b u t people cannot truly exist w i t h o u t no-things. Rules that apply to things do n o t apply t o no-things. W h e n Bion writes that "the invariant under psycho-analysis is the ratio o f no-thing to t h i n g " (1965, p. 103), he does n o t merely p o i n t to relationships

66

Psychic Deadness

between abstractions and physical reality. H e is a t t e m p t i n g to describe the variable realness o f no-things. Some no-things are more real than others. Not all characters embodying Falstaff's traits are as real as Falstaff. Falstaff is closer to "the t h i n g itself." Falstaff is a nonexistent n o - t h i n g that achieves existence and a certain k i n d o f t h i n g status as a convivial representation o f i m m o r a l conscience. He gives pleasure, entertains, instructs, illuminates, makes life more real. Bion expresses this by indicating that + • and can coincide. I n Shakespeare's play the no­ t h i n g is enriching, the nonexistent force or element or object makes a posi­ tive c o n t r i b u t i o n to our lives. A n o t h e r favorite o f Bion's was M i l t o n ' s Paradise Lost I n Transformations (1965) he quotes this work only once and i n a different context, b u t i n conver­ sations he often quoted whole sections o f this poem. M i l t o n ' s Satan represents the negative no-thing's agony at its failure either to achieve or swallow u p existence. I t portrays the envious determination, self-pity, and sense o f injus­ tice that drives i m m o r a l conscience toward t r i u m p h at any cost. Satan's woe and hate fuel a character that is a r i g i d distillation o f something more f o r m ­ less. Bion's reversed double arrows (*~T) represent the purely negative opera­ tion o f the formless f o r c e — a dynamic state denuded o f character, beyond the ruthless operation o f i m m o r a l conscience. I t achieves different sorts o f exis­ tence i n Falstaff and Satan, who simultaneously represent stages i n the break­ down o f existence. As noted earlier, the force represented by <—f continues to work even after i t destroys point, existence, time, and space. I t is pure, f o r m ­ less destructiveness, where the term "destructiveness" is a r i g i d and l i m i t i n g n a m i n g o f a d o m a i n for which we lack a language. B i o n variously describes «— | as a force, "the ultimate non-existent 'object'," "the 'space' and ' t i m e ' annihilated object," and an all-consuming "space," a space that annihilates anything that attempts to appear i n i t (1965, p. 104). Fears o f such a space are often seen i n psychotic and claustrophobic patients. B i o n also cites the Mad Hatter's tea party i n Alice in Wonderland as a portrayal o f aspects o f timeless and spaceless space. Individuals i n the grip o f such a space feel they have n o r i g h t to their own space, no rights o f self—everything must or o u g h t to belong to space. They feel pressured to give themselves up. Anywhere the individual turns he feels himself "occupying property that belongs to 'space'" (1965, p. 104). H e feels forced to misuse, disregard, or abandon the development o f personality and psychic functions. "'Space' and the psyche are not felt to be capable o f coexis­ tence" (1965, p. 104). Evolution o f psyche is stifled, swallowed up. Psychic life disappears or is never b o r n . So m u c h o f Bion's writings show ways we substi­ tute a make-believe psyche (an hallucinated psyche or delusional belief i n a psyche that is n o t there) for psychic gaps and deficits.

67

Two Kinds o f No-thing

B i o n notes that the term "space" is too positive t o cover the f u l l scope o f what he has i n m i n d . I n its positive aspect i t is analogous to "pure, violent e m o t i o n , dominated by greed" (1965, p. 104). I t empties itself o f all objects as fast as they appear, yet is itself, so to speak, filled w i t h infinitely n u l l i n g emo­ tion. H e thus adds the term "no-space" as the place where space or emotion was, the no-place o f no-emotion. "Space" a n d "no-space" (emotion and no­ emotion) may be approximated by anxiety and repose o f psychotic intensity (1965, p. 105). A certain doubleness pervades all o f Bion's formulations, even o f the force that tends to reduce everything to n o t h i n g , the force that continues working after the psyche disappears. A k i n d o f m a x i m a l tension characterizes the attempt t o achieve maximal tensionlessness. A n o t h e r way o f stating the rela­ tionship between space a n d no-space, an analogical approximation o f what is expressed by is that low-pressure no-space (no-emotion) devours high­ pressure space (infinitely greedy, violent e m o t i o n ) , whereas space continues to occupy no-space. Bion further trims his reversed double arrow notation f r o m t o «-t (1965, p. 107), b u t we must save discussion o f this transformation f o r another study. Now i t is enough to note that he places a + and — i n f r o n t o f « J f . D o i n g so, i n part, indicates the tension and oneness o f whatever sets o f polarities are used to approximate the work that± represents, e.g., the psychospiritual equiva­ lence of stupor and greedy ambition, the stuporous drive to kill life rather than let i t escape one's clutches. is Bion's most simplified a n d elegant arrow notation f o r the force that takes us o f f the g r i d a n d continues w o r k i n g after u n d o i n g psychic life. I t is o f f the map and perhaps unmappable. Yet, oddly, i t seems to throw u p representations o f itself and its own u n d o i n g activity, sorts o f bleeps that need t o be interpreted o r explored i n some way. B i o n refuses to assign a too restrictive or definitive meaning to these notations (e.g., ), b u t uses t h e m as flares that provide glimpses o f dark w o r k before they fade f r o m view.

REFERENCES Bion, W. R. (1965). Transformations. London : Heinemann . (1970). Attention and Interpretation. London : Tavistock. Eigen, M. (1973). Abstinence and the schizoid ego. International foumal of PsychoAnalysis 54; 493-497. (1985). Toward Bion's starting point: between catastrophe and faith. Interna­ tional Journal

of Psycho-Analysis

66: 321-330.

(1986). The Psychotic Core. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson. (1993). The Electrified Tightrope. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson. Heidegger, M. (1957). Identity and Difference. New York: Harper 8c Row, 1969.

7

The Area of Freedom: The Point of No Compromise

W h y d i d Winnicott's paper, "Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenom­ ena" (1953), become his most popular work? " M i n d and Its Relation to the Psyche-Soma" (1954), read two years earlier at the British Psychoanalytic Soci­ ety, was at least as important, and W i n n i c o t t expressed even more satisfaction w i t h some later papers. One reason is that the transitional object paper gave practitioners some t h i n g to h o l d o n to. Discussion of processes could be anchored to observation o f behavior, e.g., attachment to a d o l l or blanket. For many practitioners, Winnicott's paper became a k i n d o f transitional object itself, a m e - y e t - n o t ­ me possession, a vehicle to aid expression and orientation. I t offered some­ t h i n g more or less concrete to d i g i n t o and rally around. Papers o n the transitional object proliferated. They were part o f the new "Age o f the M o t h e r " i n psychoanalysis. Early m o t h e r - i n f a n t interactions came to center stage. Winnicott's speculations were refreshing because they were n o t couched i n dogmatic language. Practitioners f r o m any school could use them. They were especially welcome to those who felt i n h i b i t e d by Melanie Klein's and Margaret Mahler's concepts, yet were receptive to a d e p t h psychological approach to intersubjectivity. Winnicott's work is a breath of fresh air. He makes his way t h r o u g h the claus­ trophobia o f psychoanalytic minefields a n d gives voice to his sense o f freedom as a psychoanalytical person. I do n o t t h i n k Winnicott's work can be under­ stood without reference to the importance he placed o n "feeling free." Even practitioners who view the transitional object i n a most reduced sense, merely as "mother substitute," understand that i t represents a growth o f freedom for the self.

70

Psychic Deadness OBJECTS, P H E N O M E N A , A N D A R E A

W i n n i c o t t ' s f o r m u l a t i o n s allow themselves to be taken i n many directions. Transitional objects may be soothing insofar as they stand f o r the breast or mother. They may be used to deny separation. However, i n certain instances they emphasize separation and stand f o r an endless gap they forever try to f i l l . Transitional objects may carry forward the richness o f experience o r be a place marker for an experience never had. They may stand f o r r i c h o r unreal m o t h ­ ering and mediate a rich o r unreal self. Transitional objects are i m p o r t a n t f o r what they are not, as well as f o r what they are. They are n o t m o t h e r or self, although feelings o f mother a n d self are invested i n them. They are something else—something other than M o t h e r and me, although filled w i t h the latter two. They are something less than M o t h e r and me and something more. They are objects that can be handled, cared for, abused, lost, and rediscovered. They can be controlled. Above all, they are mine. W i n n i c o t t describes t h e m as first n o t - m e "posses­ sions." N o t the first object o f object relationships, b u t "the first possession." T h e importance o f possession is already a sign, a p r e m o n i t i o n , o f all that can­ not be possessed, o f the vast claims I will have to abandon, o f the vast claims I will have to discover, o f new u n k n o w n worlds ahead i n which possession and freedom clash and play. W i n n i c o t t introduces his concept with the term "objects," b u t quickly en­ larges i t to "transitional phenomena" and "transitional area." H e speaks first about concrete objects because i t is easier to see an object than to grasp an area o f experience. People know what he means when he calls attention to an infant's addiction to a blanket or doll. W i n n i c o t t uses this object as a lever to open u p an area o f experience that is neither quite inner n o r outer. T h e first b i t o f not-me possession is neither wholly other nor simply part o f the self. I t is n o t a hallucination, b u t an actual object filled w i t h meaning, w i t h meaning for me: i t is my own w i t h bits o f me and Mother and itself blended i n a way that does n o t fit any single category. Transitional p h e n o m e n a may include an infant's b a b b l i n g o r a child's repeated songs while p r e p a r i n g f o r sleep. T h e transitional expands i n t o art, science, religion, and culture i n general or contracts i n t o addictions and fe­ tishes. Winnicott's concept covers a lot o f g r o u n d . I t is n o wonder he has been criticized f o r being vague. Vague b u t usable. I t is n o wonder that many practi­ tioners have tried to tie h i m down.

T H E I N T E R M E D I A T E AREA Winnicott pointed to the area that "felt free" by noting that it was neither Klein's internal object w o r l d n o r Freud's reality object world. W i n n i c o t t d i d n o t want to be trapped by subjectivity n o r by the claims o f objective perception. T h e

The Area o f Freedom: T h e Point o f N o Compromise

71

terms "inner" and "outer" were buzzwords for Winnicott. I n psychoanalysis they were tied to dogmas related to "internal fantasy," "reality resting," and the like. He d i d n o t f i n d enough r o o m i n Klein and Freud for the sort o f experiencing that felt free. Inner and outer also had broader connotations b o t h clinically a n d cultur­ ally. I n i n f o r m a l clinical terms, " i n t e r n a l fantasy" called u p the specter o f being stuck i n one's own w o r l d , entombed i n a fantasy bubble. Idealism seemed to be m i r e d i n various (often productive) solipsisms. The attitude embodied i n Hobbes's saying, "The m i n d knows n o t h i n g b u t what the m i n d creates," was mathematically f r u i t f u l . T h e various German egologies d r i l l e d wells o f subjec­ tivity. Nevertheless, there were casualties (eg., the premature deaths o f youth­ f u l explorers o f subjectivity, as well as madness). T h e subject entrapped by his own webs began to feel unreal to himself. The split between the i n t e r n a l sub­ ject, o n the one hand, and his body as object l i n k e d with the material universe, on the other, became too m u c h to bear. H u m a n personality collapsed under the strain. Everything inside and outside began to feel alien. W i t h Freud, the last bastion o f personal u n i t y — t h e ego—was u n d e r c u t . Freud succeeded only too well i n his w i l l to celebrate the mortification o f the Western ego, no longer master i n its own house. Germanic egology recoiled o n itself, and the backlash set i n . For Jung, subjectivity was an archipelago o f centers orchestrated by a g r a n d Self synchronous with the W o r l d Spirit, w h i c h included materiality i n its u n f o l d i n g project. Winnicott's touch was lighter. He d i d n o t want to be boxed i n even by Jung's open-ended schemes. N o psycho­ analytic language that he knew o f enabled h i m to feel free or d i d justice to the freedom feeling. A t the e n d o f his life, W i n n i c o t t was still shedding language skins. The p r o b l e m pressing o n h i m was how to develop an account o f experience that was n o t boxed i n by inner and outer. One gambit was to develop the cat­ egory o f "between" or the "intermediate." Existentialism and phenomenology were well o n their way by the time Winnicott began searching for a voice. M a r t i n Buber had developed his own "between" i n land Thou (1958). His saying, "All real living is meeting," catches something of the tone W i n n i c o t t was searching for. Nevertheless, Buber was n o t a pediatrician who became a psychoanalyst. He was n o t obsessed with the b i r t h and growth o f the infant self or the hair-breadth twists and turns of psychosomatic tonalities i n sessions. For W i n n i c o t t , the "be­ tween" was a developmental concept. He was concerned n o t only w i t h the m o m e n t o f meeting b u t also with the meeting's biography and evolution. H e was concerned with an area o f experience that felt free. But the freedom feel­ ing too has its developmental movement, its u n f o l d i n g . W i n n i c o t t described a succession o f homes for i t . T h e "transitional area" was one o f his attempts to let freedom r i n g , b u t n o t his last. Winnicott's attempts to offer a developmen­ tal account o f personal freedom also underwent development, as he became freer.

72

Psychic Deadness T H E SUBJECTIVE P O O L A N D L I N K I N G W I T H EXPERIENCE

W i n n i c o t t associates transitional objects and phenomena w i t h illusion, which he describes as "at the basis o f initiation o f experience" (1953, p. 14). Transi­ tional objects are also signs o f "progress towards experiencing" (p. 6) and o f an "area o f experience." The emphasis here is o n experience and experiencing. What is crucial for W i n n i c o t t is l i n k i n g u p w i t h one's own experiencing, that which makes one feel true and real. W h e n one is most alive and real, can one locate experiencing as simply i n ­ side or outside? Inside and outside c o n t r i b u t e to aliveness, b u t is this most precious x localizable? I t h i n k o f St. Paul not k n o w i n g where he or m i n d or body was d u r i n g a moment o f grace. A t such a moment, inner and outer d i d not seem to be relevant categories. Either and b o t h would be too confining. W i n n i c o t t uses the term "illusion" i n a positive sense to signify the c o n t i n u ­ ity or lack of rupture i n the me-yet-not-me moment, i n which self and object are n o t located i n opposition to each other. The infant is not asked to decide whether he has created or discovered the object. T h e need to objectify or locate self and object would r u p t u r e or p u t the brakes o n l i n k i n g and would dispel illusion. W i n n i c o t t was concerned about avoiding promiscuous use o f the term "sym­ b o l . " X as a symbol o f Y(or o f W, Y, Z, A, B, C) is a f o r m o f thought overused i n psychoanalysis. Actual experiencing is swallowed up by symbol h u n t i n g . Thus a l t h o u g h the transitional object may have symbolic meanings, W i n n i c o t t insists that "the point o f it is not its symbolic value so much as its actuality" (1953, p. 6 ) . Whatever i t may stand for, i t simply is. T h e being o f the transitional object is what counts most. I n its being, i t stands beneath distinctions that sup­ p o r t use o f the symbol. I n an i m p o r t a n t sense, "being" is a developmental concept for W i n n i c o t t . Whatever being is, i t is involved i n a process o f becoming. A clearer sense o f distinction between i n n e r - o u t e r grows i n the process o f development. For W i n n i c o t t , "the t e r m transitional object . . . gives r o o m f o r the process o f becoming able to accept difference a n d similarity" (1953, p. 6). What is i m ­ portant here is the process o f becoming, o f developing a sense o f division rooted i n the unity o f being. He speaks o f "giving r o o m , " o f making space for what is not overly restrictive, o f r o o m to breathe and move, an area o f freedom. One comes through u n i o n , distinction, distinction-in-union i n order to l i n k u p w i t h the experiencing that is fed by, yet transcends, dualistic categories. W i n n i c o t t uses organic growth terms, like r o o t and core. " I t h i n k there is use for a term for the root o f symbolism i n t i m e " (1953, p. 6). He is concerned w i t h an area that underlies and gives rise to the growth o f symbolism. His focus is n o t the symbolic end products themselves, b u t o n processes that give b i r t h to symbols. He finds it important to p o i n t out that the term "symbolism" changes mean­

The Area o f Freedom: The Point o f No Compromise

73

ing, that o u r understanding o f symbolic processes is l i m i t e d and open, and that use o f symbols is n o t u n i f o r m . For one group, the wafer i n c o m m u n i o n is the body o f Christ, for another i t is "a substitute, a r e m i n d e r . . . . Yet i n both cases it is a symbol" (1953, p. 6 ) . A n d i n b o t h cases there may be a heightening o f experiencing, an intense sense o f the meaningfulness o f life, a healing o f divi­ sions. Whatever the ratio o f symbokreal may be, the experience zYs^/fcontributes to the sense o f life's holiness. We may enter i n t o various relationships w i t h illusory experience as i t branches into art, r e l i g i o n , or madness. "We can share a respect f o r illusory experience" (1953, p. 3) or f o r m groupings on the basis o f such shared experi­ ences. W i n n i c o t t calls the similarity o f illusory experience "a natural root o f g r o u p i n g among h u m a n beings." Again, root, a growth term, is used. Winnicott tries to feel his way toward the roots o f personality or self and social group­ ings. He rides experience like a gentle s u r f b o a r d , as far as he can. He wants to live his way toward where we come f r o m , to a growing place or places out o f which personality branches. Roots grow t h r o u g h o u t the life o f a p l a n t and remain vehicles o f nourishment f o r upper areas. W i n n i c o t t does n o t like being tied down to his own terms. H e means to use them flexibly, although there is a gentle fierceness i n his w r i t i n g , something rigorously uncompromising. He is concerned that the experiencing he so val­ ues may be compromised or swallowed up by terms. I t is the growth o f experi­ encing, especially freedom, that concerns h i m . Terms are pointers and expres­ sive vehicles that may f u r t h e r experiencing, b u t they are dangerous helpers, easy to solidify or pervert. I t is thus i m p o r t a n t f o r h i m that entrance to the transitional area may take many forms. The vast area between subjectivity and objectivity teems with pos­ sibilities. One may l i n k u p w i t h transitional experience even f r o m a split-off sliver o f self, a self lost i n unreality. As an example, W i n n i c o t t describes a case in which the only t h i n g that was real for a woman was the unreality o f her life (1953, pp. 2 0 - 2 5 ) . Her transitional area o f experience masked and gave voice to a sense o f something missing at core and roots. She was missing. Real parenting was missing. Yet she and her mother could appear marvelous. They had so m u c h to offer around the blank core, i n c l u d i n g real goodness and good intellect. Her transitional objects i n c h i l d h o o d supported her sense o f the basic good­ ness o f life and tried to convince her that things were g o i n g well, that life was as it should be. I n this case, transitional objects supported a lie. They main­ tained her, b u t threw her o f f the scent. T o the degree that they f u n c t i o n e d symbolically, they symbolized something that was n o t real. They themselves were a realityrnanque. What was most real about t h e m was their maintenance o f a false self. They blotted o u t what was missing. The very goodness o f her parents made repeated loss o f them devastating, u n t i l what became most real was the loss that could n o t be represented and lived. The sense o f loss became buried

74

Psychic Deadness

in an image o f goodness. I t had to be discovered i n the patient's inability to live, i n her loss o f real experiencing. The patient sank into a "pool o f subjectivity" and discovered how she tried to maintain herself over the underlying sense o f no-life or nothing. She hoped the analyst would j o i n up with the inner mother who buoyed her up and protected her f r o m the n u l l dimension. She hoped the analyst would be there as she wished her parents were, so that the missing reality would stay out o f reach. I f this tendency won out, the analyst w o u l d sink into "the general pool o f subjectivity" (p. 25) and j o i n up with her mother to protect her f r o m the gap or absence. Instead she was able to make use o f the analyst's silence and his destruction o f silence to recognize the silence at her core, the no-parents and no-self. She could experience her need to use the analyst's life to stay above the deadness. She could taste the freedom that recognition o f lack provides. She began to treasure the space made possible by real absence, a gap not stuffed by false­ ness. She could do this because o f the real support the analyst gave her to experiencing what was n o t there. A t last the missing real, the no-thing or t h i n g that was not there, became part o f real existence. I n what was missing, she f o u n d r o o m to l i n k up with herself, stretch, and begin to grow.

FROM OBJECT TO MESSING FUNCTION What a distance was traversed i n Winnicott's paper o n transitional experienc­ ing! From the discussion o f concrete objects clung to by infants to a missing sense o f realness i n an adult patient. I n pathology, objects are used as substi­ tutes for missing functions. I n a healthy infant, use o f objects carries the real self forward. Winnicott focuses attention on b o t h health and pathology i n tran­ sitional experiencing. His example o f an adult woman's missing sense o f realness announces the central theme o f his mature clinical writings: the search for a real or T r u e Self. What he is most vexed w i t h i n his adult patients is their missing sense o f real­ ness, their failure to link up with, sustain, and live f r o m True Self feeling. Some live i n a fantasy w o r l d , some i n a w o r l d that is too realistic. The l i n k between attitudes or functions is missing. T h e experience o f the between, the interme­ diate area, the wonder o f illusion, is deficient. The first possession w i t h which W i n n i c o t t was concerned was the patient's own, most real and T r u e Self. His earlier clinical studies tended to emphasize the patient lost iri his or her own world, the p o o l o f subjectivity, a fantasy bubble. His later writings tended to emphasize individuals trapped i n an overly sane, realistic, objective attitude. I n b o t h instances, he laid increasing stress on the developmental f u n c t i o n o f rage i n clearing away obstructions and restrictions. I n this effort, "The Use o f an Object and Relating t h r o u g h Identifications" (1969) was a high p o i n t (see also Eigen 1981a, 1986).

The Area o f Freedom: The Point o f N o Compromise

75

USE OF OBJECT

The apparent simplicity o f W i n n i c o t t ' s formulations masked a b u r g e o n i n g complexity. The simple presence or absence o f an object tells little about how the object is used. What is missing i n an object may be used to reject what is available. What is present can be used to hide what is missing. One can b u i l d a case for or against self or object w i t h whatever is or is n o t there. Complexity itself can become maddening, a source o f rage. H o w g o o d i t is to clear the air o f all the directions i n which our complicated unrealness can take us. How good it is to explode and clear the air of o u r oversimplified one-sidedness. B o t h complexity and one-sidedness can be stultifying. I n his "use o f object" paper, W i n n i c o t t (1969) emphasizes the use o f rage or fury or destruction i n feeling and becoming free. The personality explodes i n reaction to its sense o f unreality. The self tries to break o u t o f its fantasy bubble, its one-sidedness or aimless complexity. Rage, fury, and destruction burst f o r t h . Everything hinges on the response o f the object. I f the object sur­ vives the attack well enough, the patient gains a new sense o f realness and tastes the j o y o f m a k i n g use o f others for real growth purposes. Genuine apprecia­ tion grows. A new dimension o f object relating opens. "From now o n the subject says ' H u l l o object! I destroyed you. I love you. You have value for me because o f your survival o f my destruction o f you. While I am loving you I am all the time destroying you i n unconscious fantasy'" (Winnicott 1969, p. 90). A real sense o f contact emerges. The impossible happens. I can really use another f o r my own true growth. I do n o t have to falsify myself i n order to be with another person. A l l the destruction i n me d i d n o t destroy what counts most, but actually made relating more possible. I do n o t have to develop along the line o f false appreciation. I do n o t have to feel like an ungrateful monster for biting the hand that feeds. We survive each other. We grow with and through each other. Winnicott emphasizes the importance o f the object n o t retaliating or other­ wise collapsing under the onslaught. I n the face o f a b o m b i n g , the other acts naturally, remains himself, sees what is happening, and is responsively support­ ive w i t h o u t the loss o f integrity. The result is subject-to-subject contact and the freedom o f using true properties o f another for personal growth. I n this con­ text, fantasy elaborations o f what we take f r o m others are productive, since we keep r e t u r n i n g to the place o f meeting, clear our minds, a n d start again. We live between aloneness and intersubjective aliveness. "Between" is n o t killed by "making use of." These dimensions extend each other. They carry the real self to more and more worlds, more openings, m o r e experience, f r o m light to light. Winnicott's message certainly sounds like an idealization, a wish. Can such interactions really happen? Is c o m m u n i c a t i o n w i t h o u t compromise pos­

76

Psychic Deadness

sible? Is such flexible benevolence o n the part o f another u n d e r attack pos­ sible? I answer a q u a l i f i e d yes by m a k i n g use o f W i n n i c o t t ' s c o n c e p t o f "unintegration."

UNINTEGRATION There is gentle light i n Winnicott's writings b u t also soft darkness a n d what cannot be called simply light or dark, the intermediate area beyond clear-cut categories. What supports the emergence o f the transitional area a n d objects that shine i n transitional experiencing, and what supports the emergence o f self facing a usable other, is the h i d d e n capacity o f the personality to give itself u p a n d drift. Freud spoke o f "free association" f o r the patient a n d "free-floating atten­ t i o n " f o r the analyst. I n his letters to Fliess, the capacity to d r i f t is an essential element o f his m e t h o d and language o f creativity. I n spite o f many differences, W i n n i c o t t and Freud b o t h feel that creativity makes life w o r t h living: "life is w o r t h living or n o t , according to whether creativity is or is n o t a part o f an individual person's living experience" (Winnicott 1970a, p. 39, see also Eigen 1983a). Freud speaks o f r i d i n g o n the unconscious a n d letting the horse go where i t will. W i n n i c o t t emphasizes d r i f t i n g with experiencing o r the lack o f experiencing, the importance o fjust being: "Be before Do. Be has to develop b e h i n d D o " (1970a, p. 4 2 ) , a n d "Creativity is then the d o i n g that arises o u t o f b e i n g " (1970a, p.i 39). W i n n i c o t t shares Freud's belief i n the critical importance o f unconscious feelings. His emphasis, however, is n o t o n the "repressed unconscious" b u t o n the fact a n d f e e l i n g o f existing "as a basic place to operate f r o m " (1970a, p. 39). H e means existing i n a highly personal way, as one's own self. T h e fierce personalism that stamps Winnicott's work is deeper than and provides relief f r o m one's official personality. A t the e n d o f his life W i n n i c o t t was more concerned than ever w i t h new beginnings, with w o r k i n g and living f r o m scratch. Experiencing for h i m meant creative experiencing, newness, freshness, aliveness, coming i n t o life f o r the first time, f i n d i n g , allowing, stretching, t u r n i n g oneself over. H e dreaded becom­ i n g addicted to some official version o f himself, let alone to someone else's version o f selfhood. Evidently I must be always fighting to feel creative, and this has the disadvantage that if I am describing a simple word like love, I must start from scratch. . . . By creative living I meant not getting killed or annihilated all the time by compliance or by reacting to the world that impinges; I mean seeing everything afresh all the time. I refer to apperception as opposed to perception. [Winnicott 1970a, p. 41]

The Area o f Freedom: The Point o f N o Compromise

77

To see everything afresh all the time, to incessantly start f r o m scratch, means letting built-up versions o f self go so that one can drift. W i n n i c o t t likens this to a time i n infancy before there were b u i l t - u p versions o f self. H e pictures a time o f " p r i m a r y u n i n t e g r a t i o n " when the baby d r i f t e d t h r o u g h a variety o f states without organizing them i n line w i t h specific ego scripts (Eigen 1986, chap­ ters 4 and 8, 1989; Phillips 1988, pp. 7 8 - 8 1 ; W i n n i c o t t 1945, pp. 1 4 9 - 1 5 5 ) . At times the baby "came together" i n m o r e u n i f i e d ways. I n t e g r a t e d units o f experience come and g o . The baby d i d n o t yet feel pressured to harden itself i n t o one or another integrated m o l d . H e d i d n o t yet develop the need to rig­ idly cling to and use integrated moments i n chronically defensive ways. The mother's j o b is to support responsively the infant's being, so that it could follow its own impulsive d o i n g and its own interests and rhythms, as it passes t h r o u g h unintegration to integration a n d back again. " I n order to be and to have the feeling that one is, one must have a predominance o f impulse-doing over reactive-doing" ( W i n n i c o t t 1970a, p. 39). This "impulse-doing" meant acting o u t o f u n i n t e g r a t i o n , f o r m i n g oneself anew o u t o f the d r i f t , c o m i n g together freshly, seeing things w i t h new intensity, t h r o w i n g oneself i n t o the fullness o f experiencing, being g r i p p e d by d o i n g that w i l l make life meaning­ ful because i t grows o u t o f "a basic place." We can see how thoroughly Winnicott's c o m m i t m e n t to freshness has u n ­ dergone distillation i n his final positive emphasis o n unintegration. M u c h ear­ lier he referred to unintegration as resulting f r o m the "failure o f technique o f c h i l d care" (Winnicott 1952, pp. 9 8 - 9 9 ) . A t the end o f his life, he writes, " I t is only here, i n this unintegrated state o f personality, that that which we describe as creative can appear" ( W i n n i c o t t 1971a, p. 64). Even earlier W i n n i c o t t dis­ tinguished unintegration f r o m disintegration, a radically terrifying, catastrophic state. I n his later paper, he also warns that the creative use o f unintegration hinges on sensed environmental support; otherwise, i t may go on too l o n g and pass i n t o disintegration. Unintegration and Madness

I n a sense, unintegration refers to an innate capacity to unhinge oneself, to let links that become chains d r o p away. W h e n W i n n i c o t t introduces the n o t i o n o f primary unintegration, he mentions i n passing how sanity can be imprisoning: "There is . . . m u c h sanity that has a symptomatic quality, being charged w i t h fear or denial o f madness, fear or denial o f the innate capacity o f every h u m a n being to become u n i n t e g r a t e d " (1945, p. 150). A posthumously published paper, "Fear o f Breakdown" (1974), represents the most definitive and beautiful crystallization o f Winnicott's mature views on madness. A d u l t fear o f breakdown refers to breakdown that already happened. The i n f a n t undergoes agonies that its e q u i p m e n t cannot process. Experienc­ ing is life f o r W i n n i c o t t , b u t it also may present too m u c h , too soon; recall that

78

Psychic Deadness

for Freud, the p r i m a l trauma was f l o o d i n g . Sensitivity is taxed w i t h more than it can bear and manage. We have to grow equipment to process what is too m u c h for us. We have to become the k i n d o f beings that catch u p with our breakdowns, n o t so m u c h to master them as to enable experiencing to develop. Early parenting tries to compensate, as much as possible, f o r the infant's insufficient equipment. The mother does a great deal o f processing o f what the infant is going t h r o u g h for the infant. She holds the situation open u n t i l the i n f a n t has the t i m e and ability to accommodate its o w n e x p e r i e n c i n g capacity. She helps the infant over periods o f breakdown. She helps her c h i l d develop a certain flexibility, n o t simply compliance, i n the face o f incapacity and gives her c h i l d time to recover and grow. The situation is complicated by the fact that the parent inevitably adds to the infant's b u r d e n and vice versa. A t any time, too m u c h o f the w r o n g t h i n g or too little o f the r i g h t t h i n g may be present. The m o t h e r may inadvertently tax the equipment she means to ease and cause breakdowns that she then tries to repair; her own e q u i p m e n t may be sorely taxed as well. W h a t is crucial is that personal care survives the breakdown: the mother's devotion comes t h r o u g h her own and the infant's incapacity, for she is the k i n d o f being one can forgive and l i n k u p with after the storm or blackout. T h e thread o f per­ sonal being survives and may be strengthened by disruptions, as new areas o f experiencing continue to open up. Typical W i n n i c o t t i a n therapy addresses "the schizoid spot" that develops to compensate for the persistent failure i n personal care (Winnicott 1971b, p. 67). W h e n the l i n k with one's most basic self and mother cannot survive disrup­ t i o n and breakdown, the individual "cures" himself n o t simply by the use o f repression or splitting but also by means o f serious dissociations f r o m himself and others. Depersonalization/derealization n o t only signals breakdown b u t also results f r o m it. As Freud indicated, the b u i l d i n g u p o f delusional com­ pensations is an attempt to maintain or regain a sense o f continuity, an attempt to continue or start again: self-other connectedness survives h o r r i f i c devasta­ t i o n , especially devastations tied to vicissitudes o f self-other connectedness/ disconnectedness. The sense o f unreality acts not only as a protective cocoon or distancing operation. I n the case o f Winnicott's patients, i t is also a goad, an irritant. They are appalled as their life passes by unlived. Whether they are withdrawn or are very active and keep u p the appearance o f living, they are compelled to bear witness that something crucial is missing i n their sense o f self. They are b o t h ­ ered by being dissociated f r o m themselves and others. They are basically sen­ sitive beings who are bothered by their success or failure i n attempts to i m m u ­ nize themselves f r o m their sensitivity (Eigen 1992). Winnicott's therapy created an atmosphere i n which two people could be alone together w i t h o u t all the time trying to make sense o f what was or was n o t

The Area o f Freedom: The Point o f N o Compromise

79

happening. Developing a capacity for play (transitional experiencing) went along with tolerating unintegration and madness: The person we are trying to help needs a new experience in a specialized set­ ting. The experience is one of a nonpurposive state, as one might say a sort of ticking over of the unintegrated personality. I referred to this as formlessness in the case description. . . . In the relaxation that belongs to trust and to accep­ tance of the professional reliability of the therapeutic setting . . . there is room for the idea of unrelated thought sequences which the analyst will do well to accept as such, not assuming the existence of a significant thread. [1971a, P- 55] One does n o t have to irritably reach after facts or meaning or anything at all. One can just be and grow into and o u t o f just being. One can be missing. The great secret o f being missing, w h i c h is so taboo, can be experienced. One can relax i n t o n o t b e i n g there and stop p r e t e n d i n g . One can stop f o r c i n g oneself this way or that. The possibility o f being truly a l i v e — f r e e — i n the pres­ ence o f another person emerges. Winnicott always emphasizes the importance o f nonintrusiveness on the part o f the analyst. He is all too conscious o f the way analysts impose their dogmas on patients, substituting one sort o f straitjacket for another. Patients are prone to be compliant/rebellious, and too o f t e n , therapy provides an ample oppor­ tunity to continue a reactive style i n more subtle ways. I n Winnicott's writings, nonintrusiveness is often l i n k e d with the analyst's silence and capacity to wait. H e wants to give individuals every chance to get beneath reactive styles, to unintegrate, to grow o u t o f chaos or n o - t h i n g . H e wants to give them every chance to be free. He wrote that when he was younger he was more prone to say clever things, but i n time he learned the wisdom o f silence so that the patient can find h i m ­ self. Nevertheless, it is also clear that W i n n i c o t t talked, could talk a lot, could be directive, presumably as part o f " h o l d i n g " or "provision." W i n n i c o t t i n d i ­ cated that he d i d not remain silent l o n g i f he felt the patient w o u l d be i n j u r e d by too m u c h silence. He m i g h t say something to let the person know he was there or to become aware o f limitations o f Winnicott's understanding. Silence can foster a sense o f omniscience that speaking dispels (Eigen 1986, 1989). W i n n i c o t t also indicated that a p a t i e n t may benefit f r o m displays o f the analyst's hate and madness. There are instances when what is missing is the realness o f hate (Winnicott 1949). N o t h i n g may seem real or believable u n t i l hate is real and believable. A t times what is missing is the realness o f madness. Some o f the best, most surprising, and usable things an analyst can say may at first seem crazy to the patient (and possibly the analyst), yet ultimately make the patient (and possibly the analyst) feel m o r e real ( W i n n i c o t t 1971b,

pp. 73-74).

Psychic Deadness

80

W i n n i c o t t writes a lot about the craziness o f secretly being the opposite sex (1971b, pp. 72-85; 1971c, pp. 119-137). We all have unconscious cross-sexual identifications that can lead to fear and confusion and feel like a k i n d o f mad­ ness. But there are more unbearable and nameless agonies, m o r e formless dreads ( W i n n i c o t t 1974). The analyst who can live at the cutting edge o f his own madness may enter i n t o a creative and redeeming relationship w i t h mad­ ness (Green 1975). He may provide i m m u n i z i n g doses o f madness i n such a way that the patient begins to l i n k up w i t h the unnamably unbearable and develop a relationship w i t h the horrifying holes that scare experiencing away. The analyst's use o f madness, i f placed i n the service o f growth processes and n o t simply or mainly narcissistic masturbation, enables the patient to link up w i t h what he supposed could not be tolerated. Experiencing can l i n k up with itself across periods o f breakdown to the extent that one owns madness (Winnicott's transitional owning) and learns the art o f enabling i t to contrib­ ute to overall movement. As M i l n e r emphasizes, what seems mad a n d perhaps is mad can prove saving (1987; see also Eigen 1973, 1986). W i t h o u t madness one cannot be free, although literal insanity is terrifyingly enslaving (Eigen 1984, 1986, 1992). W r i t i n g about transitional experiencing was one step i n Winnicott's growth toward being able to a d m i t and use madness, to the p o i n t o f feeling freer t h r o u g h i t and becoming more radically helpful. T o the overly operational or objective attitude, transitional experience must seem a b i t mad. Similarly, the subjectively enclosed individual m i g h t idealize transitional experiencing, but actually f i n d i t threatening and disorganizing. Both must let go o f one-sided madness to tolerate the sort o f paradoxical madness that W i n n i c o t t treasured, the madness associated w i t h creative living and the b i r t h o f culture. The let­ ting go W i n n i c o t t describes i n object usage and u n i n t e g r a t i o n is part o f the mad growth that makes life worthwhile. T h r o u g h i t , o u r sense o f the mystery o f freedom deepens. It is no accident that two o f Winnicott's most mature sympathizers recently published books w i t h madness i n the title (Green 1986, M i l n e r 1987). My own book, The Psychotic Core (1986), must be considered i n this category. Late i n life Winnicott wrote, " I was sane and through analysis and self-analysis I achieved some measure o f insanity" (1964a, p. 450; quoted by Phillips 1988, p. 152). I n the closing sentence o f Winnicott (1988), Phillips remarks that "his measure o f insanity is, I t h i n k , an inspiration."

THE INCOMMUNICADO SELF Winnicott's most well-known and apparently valued contributions revolve around his emphasis on the infant—mother dyad: there is no such thing as an infant, but an i n f a n t - m o t h e r psychosomatic field. The quality o f the surround­

The Area o f Freedom: T h e Point o f N o Compromise

81

i n g and supporting m i l i e u is the crucial m e d i u m for development o f the psy­ chosomatic life o f the c h i l d . T h r o u g h o u t his career, W i n n i c o t t stressed the contribution o f the ordinary good-enough mother and what can happen should the environmental provision be lacking. Elements o f c h i l d care that foster personal growth were his persistent concern. I t is natural f o r practitioners to pick u p W i n n i c o t t ' s emphasis o n the " h o l d i n g e n v i r o n m e n t " i n clinical situations. It is also natural for practitioners to d o a double take when, i n the midst of his interactive emphasis, they come u p o n passages that claim that the most precious core o f self is noninteractive-—permanently incommunicado. These are Winnicott's most passionate passages, almost pleas or prayers. They con­ tain his most religious language: Each individual is an isolate, permanently non-communicating, permanently unknown, in fact unfound. . . . At the centre of each person is an incommuni­ cado element, and this is sacred and most worthy of preservation. . . . Rape, and being eaten by cannibals, these are mere bagatelles as compared with the viola­ tion of the self's core, the alteration of the self *s central elements by communi­ cation seeping through the defences. For me this would be the sin against the self. [1963, p. 187] The sin against self is c o m m u n i c a t i o n w i t h the core o f cores, the self beyond reach, the self that is essentially private, one's psychic heartbeat. T h i s is Winnicott's moral imperative: do n o t reach what must be unreachable. D o not seep i n t o the core o f another person so as to steal h i m f r o m himself. Not many practitioners have taken this teaching o f Winnicott to heart. Some­ one as close to W i n n i c o t t as G u n t r i p t r i e d to brush it aside. G u n t r i p never accepts Winnicott's positive valuation o f aggression (Guntrip 1975, Eigen 1981b, 1986), but he also rejects Winnicott's emphasis o n the essential i n c o m m u n i ­ cado self, a permanently noncommunicating core o f cores (Guntrip 1969, Eigen 1973). A self that depends o n an interpersonal matrix for its d e v e l o p m e n t — how can what is most precious about i t be outside the range o f h u m a n com­ munication? A self that must not be f o u n d , that requires hiddenness—this does n o t sit well w i t h the "neediness" G u n t r i p feels to be most basic. For G u n t r i p , Winnicott is n o t W i n n i c o t t i a n enough. However, the p r o b l e m is that W i n n i c o t t is all too W i n n i c o t t i a n . He f o u g h t everything else. He made use o f everything else. I t is hard to t h i n k o f W i n n i c o t t as a fierce fighter because he was a gentle soul, so light o f t o u c h . His w r i t i n g melts i n one's m o u t h like butter. Yet he gave voice to his own b r a n d o f biblical reality i n developmental terms, as u n c o m p r o m i s i n g as a prophet. The incommunicado self is the center o f his work, the still, quiet center. Everything else revolves a r o u n d i t , grows o u t o f i t , guards i t , extends i t . Transitional experiencing, object usage, and unintegration l i n k u p w i t h the unlinkable. They open a path o f experience and expression f o r what is most

82

Psychic Deadness

true and real and free about oneself, a k i n d o f vector o f freedom, a thread o f personal creativeness. Winnicott's language expresses, opens, and discovers waves o f what is most precious and personal, the core that must n o t be betrayed. H e finds a way to make people feel pulsations o f the core i n everyday life, i n analytic sessions, i n cultural work. G u n t r i p is dismayed by Winnicott's insistence o n an incommunicado core, in part because i t reminds h i m o f Freud's i d , w h i c h is basically o u t o f contact w i t h the outside w o r l d . Indeed, W i n n i c o t t k n o w i n g l y uses Freudian l o c u ­ tions to paint a picture of a state o f being before the awareness o f externality. Winnicott's insistence on a sacred, silent core is his version o f the p r i n o r d i a l beyond contact. Freud has a passionately personal relationship to his concepts. But for the sake o f f o r m a l presentation and scientific respectability, he followed accept­ able epistemological guidelines. We never know the i d and the rest o f the repressed unconscious directly, only by inference a n d hypothesis. I f i t is a reality, the i d is as o u t o f reach as are external things i n themselves. By con­ trast, Winnicott's assertion o f a core out-of-contact self is meant as more than a bow to Kantian considerations and is certainly n o t meant to appease canons o f scientific respectability. I t is an expression o f personal faith, an attempt to preserve r o o m for the most precious p o i n t o f existence. W i n n i c o t t describes freedom partly as flexibility o f defensive organization, and he recognizes the usefulness o f an adaptive false self. But he also writes that f o r each person there must be a place o f no compromise: " I suppose that it w o u l d be true i n a general way to say that although a compromise is usually possible i n everyday life, there is no compromise f o r each individual i n some area that is chosen for a special treatment. I t may be science or religion or poetry or games. I n the chosen area there is no r o o m f o r compromise" (Winnicott 1964b, p. 70). Winnicott—spontaneously, through creative struggle overyears, his "secret" c o n t i n u i t y across c h a s m s — b u i l t an expressive fence a r o u n d the core o f cores w i t h his concepts o f transitional area, true self/false self, use o f object, unintegration, and use o f madness. For W i n n i c o t t these were n o t concepts cut o f f f r o m experiencing b u t expressed what for h i m made life feel most real. May we n o t say that here is his chosen area where there is n o r o o m f o r compromise?

MORE THAN THE HEART CAN BEAR W i n n i c o t t does n o t underestimate the complexity o f the situation in which we find ourselves. I n order to use objects or madness and live creatively, we must have the equipment to do so. Psychophysical equipment may be damaged f r o m b i r t h or f r o m something lacking i n the environmental provision. I t may suffer

The Area o f Freedom: T h e Point o f N o Compromise

83

f r o m immaturity that i n some way remains chronic. Depth psychology tries to enable the growth o f psychic e q u i p m e n t as m u c h as possible and develop bet­ ter compensations to the extent that the equipment is irreparable. One does n o t help another individual find or grow equipment for creative living w i t h o u t sacrifice. W i n n i c o t t repeatedly speaks about the i m p o r t a n c e o f the analyst g r o w i n g the capacity to wait (responsive waiting, w a i t i n g - i n ­ aliveness). T h e analyst must outgrow cleverness f o r his own satisfaction and cultivate the silence that lets the core o f core do its work. A t the same time, the analyst must act naturally, like the ordinary good-enough m o t h e r who, for a time, spontaneously molds herself along the infant's developmental lines. Such paradoxical demands permeate analytic work. The analyst must bear and enjoy the tension o f paradoxical living, as paradoxical truths shift f r o m stage to stage. The ordinary good-enough parent bears a lot. Analyst and parent alike sup­ press themselves i n order to help c h i l d r e n and patients find their paths. T o a very significant extent, the helper dampens himself and becomes compliant and uncreative i n order to be a good-enough helper. W i n n i c o t t notes that this is partly offset by the satisfaction gotten for a j o b well done. O u r identifica­ tions w i t h the helped one and the h e l p i n g process partly compensate for the temporary or long-term loss o f self: "Where we are b r i n g i n g up c h i l d r e n or starting babies o f f as creative individuals i n a w o r l d o f actual facts, we d o have to be uncreative and compliant and adaptive; but, o n the whole, we get r o u n d this and find it does n o t k i l l us because o f our identification w i t h these new people who need us i f they too are to achieve creative living" (Winnicott 1970a, p. 54). People who have undergone grave, deadening processes i n order to survive cannot take too m u c h life i n the analyst. T h e analyst learns to keep stimulat­ ing aspects o f the session within semi-tolerable bounds. I f necessary, he becomes dead enough for the patient to feel safe enough to come alive more. As the patient is able to tolerate more aliveness, the analyst may allow his own per­ sonality more play. I n therapy, analyst and patient must grow the e q u i p m e n t to bear and ultimately enrich each other. Yet even i f the analyst must sit o n himself and make i t look easy, m u t e d alive­ ness remains. I n some way the analyst finds ways o f surviving the impact o f deadening processes, even those self-imposed for therapeutic reasons. The core o f cores remains unaltered, hallowed, and hallowing. I t resurfaces and c o n t i n ­ ues being, quietly glowing beyond the necessary darkness. The i n h e r e n t cre­ ativeness that makes life w o r t h living f o r the analyst, suitably modulated, finds ways to let the patient discover and reach for his own openings. W i n n i c o t t firmly believes that we need to attack goodness (1970b, pp. 2 6 2 ­ 268). H e also believes that we deeply wish for the survival o f the goodness we attack. We need to attack falseness, compliance, and hypocrisy, and we hope there is enough to us and o u r lives that something really good and true wins

84

Psychic Deadness

out. Yet that goodness too must be tested. Can i t truly endure? Is goodness indeed m o r e basic than evil, or is i t one more phony layer aching for expo­ sure? Can the good take o u r hatred o f i t as well as o u r love? The pressure the analyst is under is immense. A n ultimate aim o f the analy­ sis is the real survival o f goodness. This requires the sacrifice o f personality and natural inclinations. I t also requires the maintenance o f basic aliveness and spontaneity. T h e analyst must rein himself i n , yet survive his own discipline. The analyst must survive being an analyst. Paradox is all! T h e fact that mutual adaptiveness, recognition, and appreciation charac­ terize m o t h e r - i n f a n t relationships f r o m earlier on than previously believed does n o t mitigate the fact that the mother modulates use o f her equipment to work w i t h the infant's capabilities. Devotion enables the m o t h e r to f i n d ways o f being spontaneously that are usable by the infant. The fact o f the matter is that the m o t h e r cannot do w i t h the infant what she can do w i t h other adults. Yet there is something she can get f r o m being with a baby that slips away f r o m adult living. A loss, a gain. T h e m o t h e r grows equipment she d i d n o t know she had by playing down well-used equipment. As her c h i l d grows, o l d e q u i p m e n t comes back ready for use i n new ways. Every analysis that goes deep, l o n g , and far combines these processes. The analyst must grow the equipment usable for the particular analy­ sis at hand. W h o knows what twists and turns of self this m i g h t take? Let us say i t — w h o knows how he will have to twist himself o u t o f shape f o r a particular person who could not bear to be w i t h h i m otherwise? Still the analyst's r u t h ­ lessness and madness also will contribute to the patient's growth, i f real cre­ ativeness is to survive destruction, i f aliveness is to come t h r o u g h — i f goodness is to stand the test o f the analysis and survive the destructiveness o f patient and analyst alike. Similar considerations may operate i n our relations with colleagues. W i l l our professional m i l i e u survive us and we it i f we make o u r fullest and truest offer­ ings? T o what extent do professional interchanges support transitional expe­ riencing and object usage and contribute to the real growth o f personality and culture? We need each other to bounce off, f i g h t w i t h , communicate a n d noncommunicate with, interact with, gain real confirmation/disconfirmation. But how m u c h exposure can we bear? How m u c h do we dare or have the r i g h t to dare? Winnicott's first major heart attack came shortly after his father died, and this was followed by a long-needed divorce. Apparently Winnicott's psyche­ soma was unable to h o l d and process the affective impact at h a n d w i t h o u t explosive collapse. The t i m i n g o f his coronary, l i n k e d as i t was to a revolution i n his life, seems to establish a somatic vulnerability tied i n w i t h Winnicott's exquisite sensitivity. As a result o f the crises, he resumed his life o n better f o o t i n g and made enormous strides o n b o t h personal and professional fronts. True Self activity

The Area o f Freedom: The Point o f No Compromise

85

increased. I t is n o accident that he associated the T r u e Self w i t h heart and breathing: "The T r u e Self comes f r o m the aliveness o f the body tissues and the w o r k i n g o f body functions, i n c l u d i n g the heart's action and b r e a t h i n g " ( W i n n i c o t t 1960, p. 148). I n this q u o t a t i o n one m i g h t substitute the w o r d "especially" for " i n c l u d i n g . " Near the end o f his life, W i n n i c o t t was even more vulnerable somatically, partly because o f a fragile, aging body but also because o f his need to be alive in experiencing, which at times left h i m too open. His sensitivity could be too m u c h for his psyche-soma to bear. When I saw h i m i n the m i d d l e 1960s he told me he was considering speak­ i n g i n New York. H e repeatedly asked how he would be received. Clearly he was worried about the New York psychoanalytic climate. I t was as i f he was afraid to believe that they could really receive what he had to say, that equipment to make use o f his work grew there. H e had hopes, b u t he was aware o f his vul­ nerability, although he had had practice being o d d man o u t i n his own world. I was flattered by his anxious questions, b u t I was only a graduate student. He treated me like an equal, like someone. ' I would be receptive. I w o u l d love to hear h i m talk. I knew that others i n my situation who would too. B u t what d i d I know about the particular w o r l d he addressed with his fears and hopes? A t that moment, my own oddness i n gradu­ ate school vanished. I saw his awkward intensity and thought, "He's like me. It's all r i g h t to be the k i n d o f person I am." H e moved a r o u n d the r o o m , f o u n d an edge o f the couch, and doubled over, reaching for a way o f conveying some­ t h i n g about the k i n d o f work he d i d . He wanted i t to be alive. H e d i d n o t seem to care m u c h i f he looked f o o l i s h — h e was digging i n t o something, being true to an experience, a life work, an area o f discovery. He was giving me permis­ sion to be myself, so m u c h as I dared. Now I am tempted to write that i n his anxious state he was expressing a foreboding, a p r e m o n i t i o n . He came to New York and gave his "use o f object" paper i n 1968.1 am told he was attacked and d i d n o t defend himself; true to the mother-analyst's posi­ tion i n this paper, he d i d n o t counterattack or retaliate. H e went to his hotel r o o m and had a heart attack. The tension between hope and fear, between ruthlessness and waiting, must have m o u n t e d to a breaking p o i n t once again. He was lionized posthumously. W i n n i c o t t c o n t i n u e d w o r k i n g creatively three more years u n t i l his death. His prayer, "May I be alive when I d i e " (C. W i n n i c o t t 1978), pertains to more than physical death. I t refers to his need for sensitive aliveness i n the midst o f nothingness, attack, catastrophe, madness, and a variety o f agonies. W i n n i c o t t sometimes paid a h i g h price for his need for aliveness, b u t i t gave as well as perhaps took everything. Winnicott's title for his autobiography was Not Less than Everything (C. W i n n i c o t t 1978). We do not know to what extent or i n what ways his vision o f the self's attempt to burst shells and f i n d real experiencing was f u l f i l l e d w i t h i n his lifetime

86

Psychic Deadness

or after his passing. Clearly, he d i d n o t always survive the d e s t r u c t i o n that greeted h i m , his own or others. B u t his vision o f survival is a legacy. I n one o f his last pieces, while speaking o f the monarchy, W i n n i c o t t writes: T h e survival of the thing (here monarchy) makes it valuable, and enables people of all kinds and ages to see that the will to destruction had nothing to do with anger—it had to do with love of a primitive kind, and the destruction occurs in the unconscious fantasy, or in the personal dream that belongs to being asleep. It is in the personal inner psychic reality that the thing is destroyed. I n waking life, survival of the object, whatever it is, brings a sense of relief and a new sense of confidence. It is now clear that because of their own properties things can survive, in spite of our dream. In spite of the backcloth of destruction in our unconscious fantasy. The world now begins to exist as a place in its own right; a place to live in, not as a place to fear or to be complied with or to be lost in, or to be dealt with only in day-dream or fantasy indulgence. [1970b, pp. 263-264] H e r e is the voice o f a master, the r i n g o f simple nobility. I t comes f r o m a n d touches the heart. The l i v i n g o f this v i s i o n — f i n d i n g , creating its realness— involves risks that r e q u i r e e q u i p m e n t t o s u p p o r t t h e m . T h e achievement W i n n i c o t t depicts is made possible by evolution o f psychosomatic e q u i p m e n t sufficient to support i t , at least for moments a n d t h e n across moments. One's e q u i p m e n t may fail and leave one stranded i n aliveness too m u c h f o r the heart to bear. W h a t is alive i n one's w o r k may be passed o n to others. Surely some­ t h i n g o f W i n n i c o t t ' s "area o f no compromise" is g r o w i n g f o r us today.

REFERENCES Buber, M. (1958). I and Thou. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Eigen, M . (1973). Abstinence and the schizoid ego. International Journal of PsychoAnalysis 54:493-497. (1981a). T h e area of faith in Winnicott, Lacan and Bion. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 62:413-433. (1981b). Guntrip's analysis with Winnicott. Contemporary Psychoanalysis 17: 103-117. (1983a). A note on the structure of Freud's theory of creativity. Psychoanalytic Review 70:41-45. (1983b). Dual union or undifferentiation? A critique of Marion Milner's view of the sense of psychic creativeness. International Review ofPsycho-Analysis 10:415428. (1984). O n demonized aspects of the self. I n Evil: Self and Culture, ed. M. C . Nelson and M. Eigen. New York: H u m a n Sciences. (1986). The Psychotic Core. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson. (1989). Aspects of omniscience. I n The Facilitating Environment: Clinical Appli­ cation ofWinnicotts Theory, ed. M. G . Fromm and B. L . Smith. Madison, C T : International Universities Press.

The Area of Freedom: The Point of No Compromise

87

(1992). Coming through the Whirlwind. Wilmette, I L : Chiron . Green, A. (1975). T h e analyst, symbolization and absence in the analytic setting (O n changes in analytic practice and analytic experience). International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 56: 1-22. (1986). On Private Madness. London : Hogarth. Guntrip, H . (1969). Schizoid Phenomena, Object-Relation, and the Self. New York: International Universities Press. (1975). My experience of analysis with Fairbairn and Winnicott. International Review of Psycho-Analysis 2:145-156. Milner, M. (1987). The Suppressed Madness of Sane Men. London: Tavistock. Phillips, A. (1988). WinnicotL Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Winnicott, C. (1978). D. W. Winnicott: a reflection. I n Between Reality and Fantasy, ed. S. Grolnick et al. New York: Jason Aronson. Winnicott, D. W. (1945). Primitive emotional development. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 26. (1949). Hate in the countertransference. International Journal of PsychoAnalysis 30. (1952). Anxiety associated with insecurity. I n D. W. Winnicott: Collected Papers. New York: Basic Books, 1958. (1953). Transitional objects and transitional phenomena. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 34:89-97. (1954). Mind and its relation to the psyche-soma. British Journal of Medical Psy­ chology 27:201-209. (1960). Ego distortion in terms of True and False Self. I n The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment New York: International Universities Press, 1965. (1963). Communicating and not communicating leading to a study of certain opposites. In The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment. New York: International Universities Press, 1965. (1964a). Book review: Memories, Dreams, Reflection by C . G.Jung . International Journal

of Psycho-Analysis

45:450—455.

(1964b). T h e concept of the false self. In Home Is Where We Start From. New York: Norton, 1986. (1969). T h e use of an object and relating through identifications. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 50:711-716. (1970a). Living creatively. In Home Is Where We Start From. New York: Norton, 1986. (1970b). T h e place of the monarchy. In Home Is Where We Start From. New York: Norton, 1986. (1971a). Playing: creative activity and the search for self. In Playing and Reality. New York: Basic Books. (1971b). Creativity and its origins. In Playing and Reality. New York: Basic Books. (1971c). Interrelating apart from instinctual drives and in terms of crossidentifications. In Playing and Reality. New York: Basic Books. (1974). Fear of breakdown. International Review of Psycho-Analysis 1: 103-107.

PART I I

CLINICAL

PROBES

8

The Immoral

Conscience

Self-righteousness often masks an i m m o r a l conscience. I t may sound o d d to call conscience i m m o r a l — i s n ' t conscience the home o f our sense o f morality?— b u t the sense o f Tightness that conscience carries may work f o r g o o d or ill. M i l t o n ' s Satan i n Paradise Lost is f i l l e d w i t h self-pity, agonizing and majestic loneliness, and ruthless envy and revenge pervaded by a sense o f being j u s t i ­ fied. His course is set by a sense o f being wronged, getting his own back, set­ ting things right. A l l real tenderness or caring f o r another's g o o d is a n n i h i ­ lated. W h a t is left is maligned consciousness that is convinced that whatever it does is j u s t i f i e d by its sense o f injury. T h e c h i l d abuser often justifies his or her actions w i t h self-righteous accusa­ tions against the victim: the c h i l d is evil and needs correction. The c h i l d abuser often declares that he or she was just trying to set things right. The abuser may have been an abused c h i l d , which adds to his sense o f justice. T h e o l d saw that psychopaths or sociopaths lack a conscience is wrong. The p r o b l e m is they have too m u c h o f the w r o n g k i n d o f conscience, an i m m o r a l conscience. A voice tells them that they are r i g h t to steal, k i l l , m a i m , injure, whatever their heart desires—it is onlyjust. They are balancing the scales. Hitler was driven by such an i m m o r a l conscience w i t h his sense o f n a t i o n a l self­ righteousness, and i t d i d n o t take m u c h to enlist the i m m o r a l conscience o f multitudes. B u t one does n o t have to be H i t l e r to be a H i t l e r . THE NEED TO BE RIGHT AND FEEL GOOD Ben Ben was a therapist dedicated to living the g o o d life. H e d i d things that made h i m feel g o o d and helped others do the same. Ben was also a t r u t h f u l person. 3

1 I have written about Ben's therapy at length in my 1992 book, Coming through the Whirlwind.

92

Psychic Deadness

He loved psychological t r u t h . I n public demonstrations he was adept at get­ ting people i n touch w i t h sadness, fear, or r a g e — a l l i n the service o f discover­ ing joy. T r u t h meant w o r k i n g at what stopped good feelings, so that one could, as Joseph Campbell suggested, "follow one's bliss." I n his personal life, Ben had a short temper that he d i d not t h i n k he needed to control. O n the contrary, he was p r o u d o f his outbursts. His fury was part o f his realness. Ben felt doubly j u s t i f i e d i f the target o f his anger could not show anger like he could. I n such a case Ben was being real n o t only by showing his rage b u t also by h e l p i n g another person do the same. Ben's dedication to feeling good, true, and real masked intolerance, rigidity, and the need to control. Those who were i n h i b i t e d or slow i n self-expression were j u d g e d as phony. They were n o t real like he was. A t best they were n o t i n contact with themselves. More likely they were superficial or lying to themselves. His rage would help them be more real. T h e results were disastrous i n Ben's intimate relationships. Similarly, his economic situation was precarious. Whatever he b u i l t fell apart. His dedica­ tion to feeling good worked well enough i n the 1960s, but he d i d not know what h i t h i m when inflation soared. H e reached middle age with little to show for it, except a certain talent i n the therapy situation and an image o f himself as a fine performer. H e had always assumed that some day he w o u l d become a father and b u i l d a family. However, he could n o t see that he drove away those closest to h i m . He placed others in an impossible predicament. H e demanded that they be as free as he, yet serve h i m and cater to his whims. They should be his clones and servants—mirror selves. Ben's bouts o f anxiety and depression increased as his failure to control others and life began to matter more. T i m e was passing. He was getting older. His life failed to take h o l d and b u i l d o n itself. W i t h all his "realness" he was left only w i t h an image o f himself as a p e r f o r m e r — a n d this image, that had so l o n g offered h i m w a r m t h and solace, now chilled h i m . Ben f o u n d his way i n t o my office when his latest relationship was faltering. H e was deeply involved w i t h a serious woman. He could not fault her for being superficial, b u t he raged at her f o r being more depressed and contained than he. Ben experienced her sense o f inferiority as w i t h h o l d i n g . She needed time to process experience and she balked at his push for quick emotional fixes. She was n o t easily rushed or b u l l i e d . Ben's insistence that she be instantly avail­ able threatened to r u i n their chances o f staying together, and they were con­ sidering marriage. The l o n g u p h i l l climb o f our therapy is beyond the scope o f this chapter. Ben stayed w i t h me for many years, and the course o f his life was reversed. He has made something substantial o f himself and has built a professional, f a m ­ ily, and personal life that matters. My emphasis here is o n his almost total b l i n d ­ ness to the i m m o r a l aspect o f his attitude toward others and himself. He felt right i n what he d i d , no matter how w r o n g things t u r n e d out. His t r a i n i n g and

93

The I m m o r a l Conscience

expertise as a mental health practitioner fed, rather than balanced, an underly­ ing self-righteousness. H e hunted truths like a headhunter m i g h t h u n t heads— yet his use o f t r u t h always seemed to bolster his position. I could empathize with the traumatic background that fostered dissociations in his personality, but it was more i m p o r t a n t that Ben develop the capacity to see himself. He was good at accusing others or himself and weeping and rag­ ing i n reaction to his accusations, but he was not very good at staying with an experience and letting i t b u i l d . His dedication to t r u t h seemed to get r i d of experience. The i m m o r a l conscience kills experience. Its sole aim is to be r i g h t and feel good. Such an attitude does not care i f it twists self or other out o f shape. Ben had chronically twisted his sweetheart's words and actions i n ways that made her seenvugly to herself. What mattered was his will or ego or needs. He spoke rapidly and he turned whatever she said against her, so that she was driven to silence. H e won, she lost. But he had been o n the verge o f losing the possibil­ ity o f living a satisfactory life. f

THE FORCE The i m m o r a l conscience works like a b l i n d force. I t impels one to act as one does. One apparently cannot help oneself. Yet i t has its own radar that can be devastatingly accurate. There is c u n n i n g precision to its explosiveness. I t can be destructive i n uncannily f i t t i n g ways. Greek tragedy attests to an esthetic, i f terrifying, order that links unconscious intentions w i t h punishing events. Per­ haps this aspect o f Greek tragedy was what most attracted Freud, whose work was a detailed working out o f "fate neurosis," the ways that fate follows lines o f character. Perhaps the Jewish Bible is not far o f f in l i n k i n g the fate o f a nation with its (in)ability to follow God's good laws. H u m a n k i n d is now at a place where the work o f i m m o r a l conscience is poisoning the planet, and the goodness o f law is made poisonous or vacuous by cynical manipulation, disregard, or funda­ mentalist rigidity. Bion (1965) writes o f a force that continues "after . . . i t destroys existence, time and space" (p. 101)—after it destroys personality or selfhood. Such a force is like a Pac Man that feeds on existence. I t envies aliveness and does not want any life to escape i t . Yet wherever i t does its work, existence or aliveness disappears. We cannot say that such a force truly exists—since by d e f i n i t i o n it destroys existence, i n c l u d i n g its own. But Bion makes a terribly strong and dramatic statement by p i c t u r i n g the r o l l i n g o n o f destructiveness ad i n f i n i t u m , a r o l l i n g on t h r o u g h subzero dimensions after all that can be destroyed has been destroyed.

94

Psychic Deadness

Such a g r i m depiction o f pure destructiveness may exist only as an idea, but it stands as a w a r n i n g n o t to explain destructiveness away, n o t to pretend that we can c o n t r o l or master destructiveness i n any simple way. We can try to do the best we can i n w o r k i n g w i t h i m m o r a l conscience, o u r fatal flaw. O u r fatal (fate-full) flaw tends to h i t us through b l i n d s p o t s — i t is our b l i n d spot par excellence. Must we wait to see the results o f the whole o f o u r lives before we learn about it? Must h u m a n k i n d wait to see the results o f the whole o f history before learning? A n d what k i n d o f seeing is possible or fruitful? What can we do w i t h o u r seeing (or see and do with o u r doing)? Are we capable o f the k i n d o f learning that can make a difference?

Walker Walker was more than depressed. He felt drawn out o f life by a lethal m i x t u r e o f inertia and poisonous thoughts. H e seemed to come to therapy i n order to be able to say that at least he tried i t before going under. H e c o u l d use his time in therapy to say that n o t h i n g w o r k s — a n excuse to give himself up totally to the force. Walker felt too weak to do anything about the force. I t sapped his strength, sucked h i m f r o m w i t h i n . Most terrifying o f all was the way he justified the force. He marshaled intellectual arguments on its behalf and sided w i t h the mock­ ing, cynical voice that cackled, "Everyone is phony. Life is a sham. I t is all a big lie. N o t h i n g is w o r t h i t . " Most chilling o f all was the self-righteous edge o f his tone and demeanor as he justified the devil's call (see Eigen 1984 for portray­ als o f the devil i n psychotherapy). Events i n Walker's life made his submission to the force understandable. His father had been blown u p on a ship while trying to h e l p others. His older brother had been accidentally shot to death by a f r i e n d i n h i g h school. His intelligent m o t h e r had tried to shape h i m according to what she said rather than what she d i d . She got remarried to someone—a Harvard g r a d u a t e — w h o drank himself i n t o oblivion and, finally, death. A n d she d r a n k herself blotto daily. For years Walker had tried to help her b u t failed. H e never quite gave up because he so wanted and needed to save her. Yet he hated her for lying to h i m as he was growing up. She foisted her snobbish, self-righteous better-than­ t h o u ideology o n Walker, who was enjoined to act and to be better than she. She g r o o m e d h i m to be what she pretended to be. The falsity o f it stuck i n his gut w i t h o u t his realizing what was happening. H e kept t r y i n g to repair the damage by m a k i n g her better, by making her live up to her own expectations, by m a k i n g her come alive. There was a time when Walker tried and life carried h i m along. He married and built a house h i m s e l f — h e was very handy. He drew, b u i l t f u r n i t u r e , and played music. He studied healing and for a time was a healer. H e was a pho­

The I m m o r a l Conscience

95

tographer and something o f a computer expert. He never went to college. Instead he j o i n e d the army and afterward raced cars. I n time his wife went o f f w i t h his best f r i e n d and a good p o r t i o n o f his i n ­ heritance. He never recovered f r o m the b l o w — h i s wife was p r o o f o f life's f u t i l ­ ity. T o try was conceit. The undertow began to steal h i m f r o m himself. Walker missed many o f his sessions. W h e n he showed u p he reported the latest string o f futilities. There were momentary flareups o f aliveness—a walk­ ing t r i p i n the wilderness, a few moments w i t h a new g i r l f r i e n d , some success as a computer expert. B u t his eyes were riveted on the darkness. Life drained away. Moments of aliveness m o c k e d h i m and merely reinforced how dead he felt the rest o f the time. He was absolutely righteous about his conviction that deadness was the t r u t h about his life, that everything else was phony or futile. Feeling bad had won out over feeling good as the baseline o f experience, b u t the need to be r i g h t was as intense as e v e r — t o be r i g h t about life's uselessness. The p r o o f was the lying Walker saw everywhere. T h e p r o o f was the way h u m a n beings poisoned the world. The p r o o f was i n the seemingly irreversible collapse o f his own m i n d and body, more like air slowly leaking f r o m a balloon than an explosion. Walker saw the t r u t h and was convinced he was r i g h t and that what he saw was n o t worth seeing. For Walker only the force was real. A l t h o u g h Walker gave u p o n life, life d i d n o t give up on h i m . People l i k e d h i m and his beautiful, i f dark, way o f speaking. H e tried to be h e l p f u l to others i n his own way, at least at times. H e was a b i t like the son o f Kong, the white ape who was as helpful as his father, the dark K i n g Kong, was destructive. As the son o f Kong drowned he saved others by keeping them i n the hand he raised above the f l o o d . There were openings a n d countermessages i n his dreams f r o m the very depths o f his being (or n o n b e i n g ) . They produced images o f cataclysms, espe­ cially floods, i n keeping w i t h his official presentation o f himself. They portrayed helplessness, upheaval, the loss o f self. But good women figures and creative men also appeared. These reflected tendencies that Walker insisted were dying or gone or useless. His dream life d i d n o t seem to believe h i m , n o r he i t . Life d i d n o t die out i n Walker's dreams. The dreams went their way, tending to their business, sometimes p r o d u c i n g images that went along w i t h Walker's attitude, b u t at other times r u b b i n g h i m wrong. They refused to be b u l l i e d or encompassed by his despair. His dream life remained, at least i n part, beyond the force. I t continued to produce bits of potentially usable creativeness that came t h r o u g h the faithfully expressed cataclysms. One o f these g o o d dream figures was a teacher w h o m Walter never saw before. The teacher was kindly, firm, and inspiring and used whatever materi­ als were at hand. Walker's damaged state d i d n o t stop h i m . The teacher was pardy an idealized version of myself, b u t also the guide within. I , like his dreams, kept c o m i n g back for more, a male authority dedicated to new possibilities.

96

Psychic Deadness

He w o u l d have to r u n away f r o m me before I totally succumbed to h i m . W o u l d he have to r u n away f r o m his own psyche as well? C o u l d he truly a n d perma­ nently escape his inner guide? Walker tried to k i l l therapy o f f and, to a significant extent, succeeded. B u t body breathed, m i n d t h o u g h t , soul f e l t — e v e n i f the force n u l l e d their work as fast as i t started. Walker's psyche produced the teacher who transcends death. I f such an image was possible, Walker could n o t have given u p completely. T h e wish for creativity was somewhere alive and challenging. I t was easy f o r Walker to connect w i t h destructiveness, b u t n o t w i t h creativeness, a n d i t was this liv­ i n g l i n k that, above all, was missing.

I M M O R A L CONSCIENCE A N D OMNISCIENCE Freud made m u c h o f the "omnipotence o f t h o u g h t , " b u t d i d n o t systemati­ cally distinguish between omnipotence and omniscience. Following Freud, the mental health field has neglected the distinction between omnipotence a n d omniscience, although m u c h is to be gained by reflecting o n their difference. Omnipotence tends to refer to the exercise o f limitless power i n physical terms, o f m i n d over matter. Omniscience refers to more purely mental power, m i n d over m i n d . Both can be exceedingly dangerous, b u t u n b r i d l e d omniscience represents the greater danger f o r h u m a n k i n d as a whole. The imaginary omnipotence o f the bully sooner or later comes u p against some chastening physical l i m i t . A stronger bully will knock h i m d o w n , a n d he will be forced to find his place i n the scheme o f things. This applies t o i n d i ­ viduals and social groups alike. One runs u p against undeniable limits i n the struggle f o r physical power. The situation is n o t so clear i n the realm o f mental power. M i n d is invisible a n d intangible. T h e b e l i e f i n secret m e n t a l powers is n o t easily subject to disconfirmation because i t transcends the play o f bodies. T h e terror that one's very m i n d or self may be taken over by alien mental powers is greater than the brutal ordeals o f physical slavery. Religions instinctively express this t e r r o r by representing the greatest bliss and t o r m e n t i n immaterial terms (i.e., G o d and Satan as pure spirits). I n today's w o r l d the know-it-all is more lethal than the bully. I f one thinks one knows more than one does a n d acts o n this overestimated "knowledge," the consequences can be grave indeed, given the deadly scope a n d art o f cur­ rent weaponry. What one thinks one knows or fears one doesn't, imaginary rather than actual knowledge is likely to determine the outcome o f an uncer­ 2

Exceptions may be found in the work of D. Meltzer (1973), W. Bion (1970), and especially H . Elkin (1972). I discuss omniscience at length in The Psychotic Core (1986), Chapter 8. 2

T h e I m m o r a l Conscience

97

tain chain o f events. I t is difficult to bear the tension o f uncertain outcomes. Omniscience forecloses uncertainty. Miscalculation f r o m the standpoint o f omniscience can be disastrous; the Bible was r i g h t i n associating the seduction o f omniscience w i t h disaster. I n clinical terms omniscience murders experience and is very prevalent. The conviction that one knows what one doesn't and is r i g h t i n one's stance molds experience along very narrow channels. O n e uses truths one discovers to b l i n d oneself to other truths. A k i n d o f psychic r i g o r mortis sets i n . One truncates experience to fit one's preconceptions rather than suffer the upheaval o f bath­ i n g i n living waters. One gladly glosses over the sense o f p r e t e n d i n g to know more than one does for the ease o f manageability o f untidy subjectivity. Ben flew above his experience, whereas Walker was stuck below it. Each felt he was r i g h t about his w o r l d view. For years Ben knew he was o n the side o f i n n e r t r u t h and was helping others to get there. His anger was justified. H e was trying to open others u p . He was trying to get t h e m to be as honest as he so that they could live their own lives. H e was adept at turning everything around to fit his viewpoint. H e could n o t see that over the course o f many years his life was at a standstill or going d o w n h i l l . I t took t i m e , loss, the threat o f further loss, and desperation to make an o p e n i n g possible. Even then Ben fought for his Tightness, his truth—against the clang o f years. H e w o u l d have to stay with what he knew was right and oppose time and existence, or learn to work with the flow o f life. Walker too was addicted to a r i g i d , m u r d e r o u s t r u t h . H e c o u l d see life's lies at a glance and was determined n o t to give i n t o the seduction. Life made p r o m ­ ises i t could not keep. Phoniness was everywhere. People d i d n o t know how to get along with one another, and i t was n o longer worth learning and probably n o t possible. Walker felt r i g h t about the n o t h i n g n e s s o f t h i n g s and his "why b o t h e r " conclusion. The T i g h t n e s s o f his t r u t h annihilated possibility. Ben could n o t d r o p down to life, and Walker c o u l d n o t rise up to i t . Ben c o u l d n o t give u p his manic h i g h — h e was an emotional turn-on a d d i c t — a n d Walker could not escape inertia and lethargy. One c o u l d n o t stop flying; the other could barely crawl. For Ben and Walker existence recoiled against itself, yet each held onto his Tightness for dear life or, more precisely, held onto Tight­ ness against life. T h e sense o f being r i g h t substituted for real living. I t provided some com­ pensation for what one d i d n ' t or c o u l d n ' t have or be. I t filled gaps and stopped movement to unoccupied positions. I t k i l l e d o f f the possibility o f there being unoccupied positions to move to. B o t h Ben and Walker followed conscience, their sense o f T i g h t n e s s , their truths. But something was off with their conscience. Each outsmarted life's occupied the place where living defeats and openings. I t was as i f Tightness m i g h t have been. Ben not only revved things u p b u t he also had a morality o f superaliveness. Walker n o t only p u l l e d the p l u g b u t he also had a morality o f

98

Psychic Deadness

futility. The Tightness of each was intense. Ben's Tightness added intensity to rigidity, and Walker's T i g h t n e s s added intensity to slackness. The intensity of Tightness tied Ben and Walker to oblivion. In the course of a long therapy Ben raged against seeing himself, but see­ ing himself also led to heartfelt weeping. He cried his heart out over the kind of person he was—what life had made of him and he of himself—and struggled for a more appreciative and serviceable vision of virtue, deformation, and lack. T o this day Walker has not yet wept these bitter tears, at least not with me, and the outcome is in jeopardy.

R I G H T N E S S , D E F I C I T , AND H A T E : A N O T E O N E V O L U T I O N It may be that our minds originally grew up tofitthe needs of survival. At some point in our history mind became aware of itself, and we grew into creatures who possessed a sense of emotional truth. For some portion of humanity issues of hozuvte survive became as (and sometimes more) important than sur­ vival itself. The possibility of conflict between integrity and survival arose. Bion (1962,1970, Eigen 1986,1992) notes that a mental apparatus that grew up to meet survival issues may be ill equipped for issues of emotional truth. The intrinsic quality of life, the lies we live, the collective and individual self­ poisoning processes, the search for fuller, truer living—our equipment to handle such concerns may be in infancy or perhaps just being born. It may be only in the last 5 to 20,000 years that our interest in these kinds of problems has begun. This may be part of what the Bible means by dating Creation about 5,000 years ago. Our equipment gives birth to problems it cannot handle. It is hoped that this will stimulate the further development of equipment. In this process a sense of deficit—acute at times—must be lived with. At times we are like the child who covers up his inability to read with bravado or even delinquency. It is doubt­ ful we will ever catch up with ourselves or learn to read ourselves satisfactorily. But we can keep on learning. We can become partners in the business of developing the equipment (capacities) to better work with ourselves. Hate often m o l d s itself along lines of deficit. We have a sense of injury. We compare ourselves with others and note injustices. Hate and envy may propel equalizing activity. We may try to get ahead of others and ourselves and out­ flank our sense of deficit. However, materialistic success may not compensate for deficiencies in our equipment to utilize such success. Our productions—emotional, economic, and technological—outstrip our ability to process them. Hatred as a chronic response to deficit may increase productivity for a time, but may narrow or diminish or harden the growth of ability to process it. I do not think we can live without hate, and hate certainly

99

The Immoral Conscience

has its uses—we hate lies and injustice as well as truth—but hate does not solve the problem of the growth of equipment. The need to feel right can be exploited to cover deficits and is often linked with hate. Together they are elements of an immoral conscience that makes believe it knows more than it does—misuse of unconscious omniscience—to gain some spurious advantage over others, self, life, or deficit. A danger is uncontrolled inflation succeeded by unprofitable collapse, a destructive sequence—victory of the force that wipes everything out. Life's equipment is blessed with normal tranquilizing mechanisms. Babies blank out when they are too stressed. To an extent it is normal to soothe away bad feelings with good ones, to substitute pleasantness (imaginary or real) for difficulty. Feeling right is one such natural narcotic. Like hate, it blurs emotional complexity and uses intensity to narrow the psychicfield.To be right about everything is promiscuous, but can we settle for less? To be right about anything can be dangerous depending upon dosage and its use (misuse). To be right about something—our lives, our truths—tofinallyget it right—what can be more gratifying? What else is it all about? Yet we ought to label our sense of Tightness: "High Voltage—Handle With Care." REFERENCES Bion, W. (1962). Learning from Experience. London: Heinemann. (1965). Transformation. London : Heinemann. (1970). Attention and Interpretation. London : Tavistock. Eigen, M. (1984). O n demonized aspects of self. I n Evil: Self and Culture, ed. M. C . Nelson and M. Eigen, pp. 91-123. New York: Huma n Sciences. (1986), The Psychotic Core. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson. (1992). Coming through the Whirlwind. Wilmette, I L : Chiron. Elkin, H . (1972). O n selfhood and the development of ego structures in infancy. Psy­ choanalytic Review 59:389-416.

Meltzer, D. (1973). Sexual States of Mind.

Perthshire, Scotland: Clunie.

i

9 The Counterpart

OVERVIEW W h a t a b u r g e o n i n g literatur e ther e is o n the counterpart. F r o m its i n c e p t i o n , d e p t h psychology has b e e n fascinated with the multiplicit y o f the self. F r e u d informally wrote o f the u n c o n s c i o u s as a n o t h e r k i n d of consciousness . H i s structural theory charts the interweavin g o f systems o f othernes s w i t h i n the person ality. J u n g amplifies this vision by d e s c r i b i n g a n a r c h i p e l a g o o f e n c o u n t e r s with the o t h e r n e s s o f self, l i n k e d by growt h o f a true self t h r e a d . F o r L a c a n , the u n c o n s c i o u s is O t h e r , m a d e u p o f m u l t i p l e O t h e r s , a n o t h e r plac e o r scene, a n o t h e r language . W i n n i c o t t ' s false self is a c o u n t e r p a r t o f the true self. I t may protec t the true self o r act as a substitute, a counterfeit . T h e false self is a reactive defensive system. T h e true sel f is the active c e n t e r o f p e r s o n a l i t y . I t is a l l i e d w i t h undefensiv e b e i n g , out of w h i c h creative d o i n g grows. T r u e self impulse s grow o u t o f o p e n b e i n g . Pulsation s o f the true self often s e e m m a d , t y r a n n i c a l , o r fearful, as well as i n s p i r i n g , w h e r e a s a h e a l t h y false self may m a k e life m o r e fun, effective, a n d sane. S o m e p e o p l e , l i k e V a n G o g h , live solely fro m true self feelin g (see W i n n i c o t t o n V a n G o g h i n R o d m a n 1987, p. 1 2 4 ) . T o o great a n i n t o l e r a n c e o f the false self or false self deficienc y c a n be disastrous. S o m e t i m e s it is h a r d to tell the differenc e betwee n the true a n d false self, a n d sometime s the distanc e between t h e m is u n b r i d g e a b l e . F r e n c h author s have u s e d the terms " c r y p t " o r "vault" to describ e a sealedoff aspect of personality. M o r e recently , B o l l a s (1989) uses the t e r m "ghostline personality. " S u c h attempts portray d e a d counterparts . T h i s discussio n o f the othernes s o f the sel f is o r g a n i z e d a r o u n d thre e m a i n themes : the taint, the split, a n d the force o r nullity.

Psychic Deadness

102

THE TAINT

Smith frequently described himself as tainted.1 The taint ran through his personality, his being. He felt this from his earliest days. He was a very alive and energetic man and lived a full life. He did a lot of true self living. Yet he felt the fabric of his life was warped: his true self was warped. He was a gay psychoanalyst who had affairs with young men. At the same time, he remained married to one woman throughout his adult life and had grown children, one of whom was a homeless schizophrenic. When I saw Smith, he was a nearly broken man suffering from advanced heart disease. He sought help because one of his affairs threatened to ruin his professional career. It seemed as if the skew in his self had taken a cumulative toll. What was the true self, what false? Smith kept up a front with his family, yet had true affectional ties with his wife and children. He loved music. He was at once controlling, assertive, manipulative, and seductive, a charming man. At professional meetings, his remarks were discerning, probing, and open. He was sensitive to the most alive currents in the field. In his homosexual affairs, he lived out dramas around what Khan (1979, pp. 12-16) describes as "the idolized self," a kind of manic, megalomanic bingeing on ideal feelings. At such moments, he felt most alive, but out of the corner of an eye he stared at the warp. The warp never left him. Poets write of a worm that spoils the rose of experiencing. Religions depict a tendency to spoil integrity or goodness. The Jewish Bible erects a bulwark against the spoiling tendency, a system to manage the evil inclination, but difficulties proliferate. What violence the love of Jesus has unleashed upon the world! Psychoanalysis explores links between ideal and violent feelings and joins the sensitive thread in history of those who unmask lies we live. Weil's (1958) "repressed bad self," a "garbage" or "shit self"; Balint's (1968) "basic fault," especially the abysses of the "malignant regression"; and Bion's (1970) evocation of a poisoned self, a self not simply poisoned by a bad breast but by the lie one lives—these are among many ways to circle in on the "off point," the skew, the warp, the wound that never heals. THE SPLIT The taint is often organized and expressed by splitting processes. In Smith's case, splitting was highly complex and dangerous. An observing mental ego 1 Smith is also described in my earlier writings: " O n Demonized Aspects of the Self" (1984) and The Psychotic Core (1986).

The Counterpart

103

never stopped w o r k i n g and oscillated among several attitudes. A t times it was a befuddled onlooker, as i f stupefied by events. Consciousness ticked like a clock, b u t d i d n o t make sense o f anything. Smith's life m i g h t have been lived by someone else except that, by an accident o f fate, i t happened to be hap­ pening to h i m . By degrees a bemused smile w o u l d appear o n the face of consciousness, a dapper devil, a sickly transcendence, the mockery of the victim victor, the eter­ nal "heh-heh." Below the smile was the mute explosive body, really a body self: a screaming self, an exploding heart, or perhaps a heart that failed to explode but withered. Ideal feelings blew i n and out, l i g h t i n g the whole system and then leaving it i n darkness. A t times, the ideal filled Smith's eyes: a young man appeared who looked like perfection. A t times, an eye-heart connection was made, and Smith courted his beloved as i n a dream. M o r e rarely still, a blessed moment o f eye-heart-genital connection arose, which, as likely as not, would be spoiled by something. A t times, the spoiler was an acute pang o f hate, or doubt, or too zealous possessiveness. A t times, p a i n f u l differences obtruded as fusion m o u n t e d , or revulsion and unsatiated demand soiled the aftermath. Smith m i g h t try to rev u p the ideal feeling: i f only it w o u l d last l o n g enough to see an experience t h r o u g h . He could coast o n it for a time, but effort was needed to keep i t going. His realistic eye never stopped seeing. N o fault escaped h i m , n o t his own, nor his lover's, b u t as l o n g as the ideal feeling lasted, faults were irrelevant, even funny and endearing. W h e n " n o r m a l " ego f u n c t i o n i n g returned, Smith's efforts went i n t o repair­ ing the damage. He picked youths he could nurse. They fell apart, and he took care o f them. His mental or transcendental ego became parental, while his body ego fragility and fragmentation were experienced through his lovers. He some­ times devoted years to efforts of rehabilitation and tended to be successful. Launching someone's life gave h i m great satisfaction. Smith bulled past i n t i ­ mations of his own weakness and felt strong and good as the helper. His life was encompassed by a sense o f goodness. A n i n n e r factory incessantly turned bad feelings into good ones. Yet success was cloying. The warp never left. The taste o f the warp pervaded the goodness. His body could n o t support the life his psyche fabricated, and eventually i t collapsed beneath h i m . I n my books and papers I explore aspects o f a split between an occultly tran­ scendent mental self and a fusional-explosive body self. This split is the core pathological structure o f our time. The mental self may use knowledge of the w o r l d to navigate portions o f life relevant to it. I t may rely o n cognitive maps, instrumental learning (means-end or causal relationships), and interpersonal observation. However, the mental self is more or other than scientist, philoso­ pher, and political strategist. I t is plugged i n t o the ideal as well as real. Psychi c systems carve themselves out o f a n o c e a n o f idea l feeling. Megalom a n i a is m o r e than inflation. I t is a r e m i n d e r o f the m o r e from w h i c h we c o m e .

104

Psychic Deadness

Deflation is as m u c h a disease as inflation. The operational personality overly relies o n means-end know-how, and denudes life o f fantasy. The smaller self fears losing territory to the larger self, and the larger self fears squeezing i n t o restrictions and boundaries that the smaller self takes for granted. W h i c h is more afraid of which? (My book, Coming through the Whirlwind [1992], includes dialogues between smaller and larger aspects o f self as an attempt to heal the split between them.) Ideal feeling may take the f o r m o f omniscience i n the mental self, o m n i p o ­ tence i n the body self (Eigen 1986). O m n i s c i e n c e - o m n i p o t e n c e often fills gaps where one m i g h t sense deficit. C o m i n g u p against deficit opens glimpses o f underlying streams of ideal feeling h e l d at bay by acts o f knowing. T h e com­ plexity o f relationships between terms o f experience may p r o m p t us to side w i t h one term against another (splitting), rather than stay alive to the play o f similarity-difference. We are engaged i n a long-term learning process, t h o u ­ sands o f years o l d , i n w h i c h we dimly a p p r e h e n d workings o f the diverse capacities that make us up and carry us along. O u r destiny is to become part­ ners w i t h our capacities. A t times, i t seems that ideal feeling becomes tainted and distributes itself along m e n t a l self-body self axes i n poisonous ways. T o an extent, splitting activities try to contain the taint. Klein (1946) and Fairbairn (1954) describe ways that selective dissociations save pockets o f health f r o m destructive absorp­ tion. We know only too keenly how containing structures become tainted and become part o f the problem. We are always part o f the problem, since we are figures i n larger structures.

THE FORCE: ADVENTURES I N NULLITY B i o n writes o f "a force that continues after . . . i t destroys existence, time and space" (1965, p. 101). A f t e r everything is destroyed, the force continues destroying. Destruction goes on i n subzero dimensions. The existence of such a force is perhaps impossible, since i t cancels existence, but that is precisely its power. Dante's H e l l is amateurish next to regions o f nullity evoked here. The false self slows the force down. I t variably absorbs, deflects, or binds fringes o f the force. The false self can also f u r t h e r the work o f the force. A t such times i t appears to be an offshoot, a ray o f the force, driving the self deeper into nullity. More often the false self is on the side of life. I t expresses a refusal to die o u t or give up. I t may protect the true self like a bad big brother. True self elements are usually m i x e d up i n i t . The mix-up o f true self—false self may hopelessly confuse a person. The force feeds o n a n d t a k e s a d v a n t a g e o f this c o n f u s i o n t o i n f i l t r a t e the p e r s o n a l i t y , so as to a n n i h i l a t e n o t o n l y t h e t r u e s e l f b u t t h e false s e l f as w e l l . U s u a l l y w e w o r r y

about

desecration

o f the true self, the holy spark w i t h i n . We battle w i t h com­

The Counterpart

105

promises and lies that poison as they save us. Yet the false self has its own brand o f holiness, as i t tricks and wheedles and perseveres, like Jacob and Rebecca, to carve out a place where the best i n us comes out. I t refuses to f o r f e i t the Blessing. The force's conquest o f the true self seems to be easier than conquest o f the false self. The force turns the energy o f personality against itself (aggres­ sion against libido transforms i n t o destructions o f libido as a companion to the destruction o f personality by l i b i d i n a l flooding) and uses evidence o f corrupt­ ibility to solidify despair—the conviction, hypnotic suggestion, or hallucination that integrity is lost forever and life is n o t worth living. A t this p o i n t , it seems that the force is content w i t h t u r n i n g the false self into a devil or systems of devils that persecute, rather than protect, true self elements. These elements collapse under pressure as morale is u n d e r m i n e d by bullying, cajoling, and propagandizing. The force promises the false self that it will lose n o t h i n g and gain everything: i t w i l l get m o r e o f what i t wants a n d grow stronger, b o t h opportunistically and t h r o u g h long-range planning. Taking advantage o f enticements or opportunities can now be used as evi­ dence o f underlying weakness, a succumbing of true self elements. What is noble i n the self hates itself. The false self capitalizes on the true self's grief by converting its hatred o f its corruptibility to hatred o f weakness as such. The false self feeds o n true self weakness and traduces and recruits true self ele­ ments; i t uses those elements to justify itself, i f shame still exists i n the scheme of things. The false self gloats at the true self's shame, provoking the true self to hide or disappear (go to another world) or seek the false self's p r o t e c t i o n . The force uses the false self to block or spoil the true self's connection w i t h God (destruction o f dependence as o p e n i n g ) . True self hopes against hope that false self will save it, converting dependence to parasitic addiction (idola­ try) , as it plunges toward idiocy. The bloated false self exploits the true self's crises o f faith. As l o n g as there are crises there is agony, the personality's fever. What a relief to give i n to false self and feel peace for a time. The true self "learns" that its connection w i t h God is too weak to save i t : for all things that count i n life, its connection w i t h God is simply irrelevant. The false self does so m u c h more for it, so m u c h more quickly. So the true self buries itself i n the false self's energy, and f o r a time life may go on better than ever. The true self's fearful c l i n g i n g gives false self the illusion o f indispensabil­ ity. A t the height o f its power, the false self ignores its sense that the force is using it. I t is too caught u p i n its own m o m e n t u m to care. Yet once the true self has shifted its center o f gravity f r o m God to the false self, the false self's work is over. The force dismantles and destroys it. That the force goes o n w o r k i n g after it destroys existence, time, a n d space means that i t destroys the various counterparts o f existence, time, a n d space (Bion 1965, pp. 1 1 0 - 1 1 2 ) . T h e false self is a privileged system o f counterparts

106

Psychic Deadness

or substitutes. I t does n o t realize that victory weakens it. By absorbing the true self, it cuts itself off f r o m the larger destiny o f existence. By weakening or n u l ­ lifying the true self's connection w i t h God, the false self loses support o f its own ground. Head and gut split off, and the heart spins into oblivion or sentimentality. Bion partly represents this state o f affairs by p u t t i n g existence and related terms i n quotes. The force may be represented and personified by a nonexist­ ent "person" whose hatred and envy is such that " i t " is determined to remove and destroy every scrap o f "existence" f r o m any object that m i g h t be consid­ ered to "have" any existence to remove. Such a nonexistent object can be so terrifying that its "existence" is denied, leaving only the "place where i t was." This does not solve the problem because the place where i t was, the no-thing, is even more terrifying because i t has, as it were, been f u r t h e r denied exist­ ence instead of being allowed to glut itself with any existence i t has been able enviously to find. Denial of the existence o f the "place where it was" only makes matters worse because now the "point," m a r k i n g the position o f the n o - t h i n g , cannot be located (Bion 1965, pp. 111-112). Bion's conclusion (probably his starting p o i n t as well) is that the force may be anywhere. We reach a world of h o r r i f i c boundlessness i n relation to which the term "nameless dread" seems strangely small. I f God is a circle whose cen­ ter is everywhere and circumference nowhere, the force is the counterpart whose center is a vortex or black hole (anywhere and everywhere) and that is determined that no part o f God or God's creation will escape it. Bion gives figurative f o r m to this h o r r i f i c formlessness by personifying i t as a nonexistent "person." I t is hard n o t to t h i n k of Milton's Satan w i t h his yawning abysses, formless infinite, and darkness b o t h visible and palpable. But i t is far too easy to transform Satan i n t o a dashing adventurer, swashbuckling a n d appealing (romantic vitality), a sophisticated and debonair gentleman (ironic) or entertainer (cynical), an efficient engineer, businessman, or entrepreneur. None o f these images is derealized or depersonalized enough. They are bits o f wish fulfillments, promises. Such devils are too lively to circumscribe the realms at stake here. A therapist m i g h t be quite happy i f a patient who is a nonexist­ ent "person" should be lucky enough to fall i n t o the hands o f such a devil and risk a breakthrough i n t o life. It is clinically important to see shades o f unreality. I n Bion's description, "person" is i n quotes; nonexistent is n o t i n quotes. Here, nonexistence is real: the force is real. Yet "person" has become a cipher, a "place" where a person was, a person manque, an as i f personality. Let us assume that the force has already devoured the person or the realness of the person. Now i t devours the unperson or unrealness of the nonperson. I t devours the shell that is left, the counterpart of the person, the empty phony version, the dead false self. The dead false self is an impostor or proxy o f the lively false self. O u r Bionic V i r g i l leads us t h r o u g h worlds of counterpart systems, region after region of nullity.

The Counterpart

107

If the therapist directs his remarks to the person, when the person has va­ cated to region after region of nonperson, his efforts are likely to be appropri­ ated by fringes of the dead false self system and shuttled toward the vortex to disappear. Elements of the therapist's communication and true self elements of the patient may sometimes find each other, whether in the vortex, dead false self, live false self, or in God. Such finding is always possible: it is never too late. But life calling to life does not nullify the helpless paralysis in which life is stuck: it may seem too late when living is more horrible than dying. Much depends on the therapist's range finder. If, by a stroke of luck, ge­ nius, or hard work, he hits the right shade at the right time, something may happen. Usually the shade will shake it off: disturbance is taboo. Freud's depiction of a system that aims to reduce stimulation to zero is an example of a range finder that scores a hit. We observe shades zeroing the struggle to com­ municate. The person does not seem to have a chance. Nevertheless, a shade occasionally shakes off the mist, and instead of only an agonized groan and the fall back to zomboid oblivion, a creaky, pained smile of recogni­ tion reaches out with bony fingers, remnants of a bashful ecstasy. Dry bones, indeed! So much of the problem is that ecstasy has no place to go, and the force channels it.

SMITH'S DISSOLUTION: PEACE AT LAST Throughout most of his life, Smith maintained or lived off a live false self. However, enough true self elements found recognition through the live false self to make live worth living. His sexual and reparative activity, musical inter­ ests, psychoanalytic work, and involvement with his family all enhanced his sense of aliveness. Yet he felt a thread of falseness running through the activities he valued most. Even his most intense sexual moments felt "tainted" (Smith's term). He knewhe was a superior psychoanalyst, but he did not let intimations of his autocratic and manipulative use of patients slow him down. He knewhe was a good father and husband and glossed over his part in his wife's and children's difficulties. Smith had a hardened and impenetrable view of the objectivity of life's events, including characterological makeup. He did not accept responsibility for his children's madness. They had their own lives to live, as did he. We all march to our own drummers, have our own timetables. His wife chose him, and he chose her: they were responsible for their choices. Their lives would have been shallower and poorer without each other. In his own way, he was devoted to his family: he stayedwith them. He was proud of his steadiness, his staying power. He lasted the course. He stayed with his profession as well. He saw it through. He played down his awareness of how controlling and emotion­ ally detached he had been. I f he had regrets or self-recriminations, they were

108

Psychic Deadness

consigned to oblivion. He pointed to the good he had done, and he had done much good. He used his analytic training to maintain a balanced view of things, tipped in his favor. Smith could not let down. Even when he finally wept, he did not let down so much as let things out. Rage toward the mother with whom he identified poured out. She was the strong, mad boss who teased him with the chickens she decapitated. His father caved in and killed himself when Smith was 5 years old. Letting down was more than dangerous: it was deadly. He was aware of becoming a version of his mother, not only to survive but also to be empowered. He feared and hated her, but sympathized with her too. She saw the family through. Without her crazy strength, life would have crushed them. Her power that was part of him enabled Smith to lift himself out of poor, deprived surroundings and make something of himself. / Smith remained plugged into her mad strength all his life. He lost contact with his fear and weakness. He was rightfully proud of how far he had come. He scarcely believed it. Who would have believed his rise from southern rural poverty to big city success? In his estimation, he had made it. He had done it by himself, but could not have done it without the vitality he felt from her. He was trapped by her strength. Why did Smith come to see me? He was nearly twenty years my senior and more highly positioned. 1 seemed frightened and weak next to him. Perhaps he thought he could rehabilitate me like the youths he took over. Yet come he did, and he persisted until his death. We had seen each other at professional meetings and had been in a peer study together. I was surprised to learn that he had listened carefully to my remarks. He felt he could count on me to speak truth and hear him out. I thought I had been quiet in the peer group, although I did get into arguments. Smith felt I honestly tuned into things. He felt he could be free with me. I gradually learned that he also saw in me a strength that came through suffering. Nevertheless, next to Smith I could not help but feel I was to hold the place where fear and weakness might have been, and often I was fear itself. I do not think I ever quite exuded the self-confidence and ease that Smith did. My self-esteem seemed low next to his. Perhaps he hoped to play the phallic idol to my admiring self, but the transference did not quite take this turn. He was so identified with the saving maternal aggressor that it seemed my job to speak truth for the child that got left behind: the child that became a no-thing. His personality seemed eaten by a secret battle to be something rather than nothing. His life was marked by fierce struggle, and his pleasure in professional competence, love of music, and sexual ecstasies provided some relief. Without work and music, life would have been hell. Sexuality led him into tormenting, dangerous situations. He tried to make family life a haven, but it was filled with pain and failure. His wife and children accused him of trying to fob them off with a shell of himself, although he had given them whatever he could. Worst

The Counterpart

109

o f all, Smith related to his secret pain as something to handle, as i f expertise could deal w i t h i t and somehow nullify it. He d i d n o t expect me to nullify it, b u t he chronically d i d so. Smith was the psychoanalyst who understood the origins of his difficulties. H e knew all the why's. He rode above his feelings as fast as he bared t h e m . H e could not sim­ ply suffer a n d cry and say how awful it all was. H e always had to be d o i n g some­ t h i n g to i t , to understand it, t u r n it this way and that, to stay on top o f it. For a time, I suspected Smith o f using me to keep his j o b . I wrote all the needed letters c o n f i r m i n g that he was w o r k i n g o n his problems, that the work­ place need n o t fear h i m . As usual, the threat o f disaster abated. The young man who had accused h i m visited Smith i n the hospital after a heart attack and d r o p p e d the charges. Smith said the young man's family was grateful to h i m for guidance he gave. Smith always managed to get o u t o f bad situations. But he could n o t stop his body clock. I felt m o r e at ease after the crises w i t h work passed, and Smith continued working. I t d i d n o t occur to me that he had come to therapy to die. He seemed to be battling f o r life. T o me, Smith seemed to push past himself, n o t getting low enough to connect w i t h himself. T o me, it seemed that a chronic false self style had become his real self. But Smith kept saying that h e was getting closer to himself, that h e had n e v e r come t h i s c l o s e . He said that, at last, he was getting to his c e n t e r . H e felt a peace that had eluded h i m . Only i n retrospect do I see that Smith l i n k e d u p w i t h himself before he died. I t was a praiseworthy feat, because he d i d i t t h r o u g h layers o f ego cover­ ings that never left. Now I wonder i f Smith d i d n o t choose me precisely because I was offbeat, not i n the mainstream. His maverick qualities h i d u n d e r a far more conven­ tional bearing. He tied things up more than I d i d . I was more at loose ends. I t was precisely my quirkiness he valued. I must have r e m i n d e d h i m of himself, an alternate self, a counterpart. We shared an ironic sincerity, a sense o f devo­ tion. We b o t h had a cynical, m o c k i n g side, b u t m i n e was tempered by faith, his by ego c o n t r o l . Faith is the center. 1 wonder i f this aspect o f the devotion to which he resonated was what attracted h i m . Perhaps I was not only a proxy for the outsider he left b e h i n d but also a caring, mischievous child. I n some ways, my lack o f development worked for me. Smith's stronger, more sophisticated ego placed too m u c h strain on his body. I c o u l d n o t h o l d onto myself as l o n g as he seemed to be able to h o l d onto himself. He was able to maintain a sort o f psychoanalytic consciousness far more rigorously, incessantly than I could. I d r o p p e d i n t o d u m b being more readily and completely than he and had to rouse myself to t h i n k something, whereas he was always t h i n k i n g . He was always c o n t r o l l i n g trauma by psycho­ analytic t h i n k i n g . Sometimes he made my head spin i n sessions, and I had to shut off. I never scored a h i t when I referred to diffusion or fragmentation, b u t I cannot help feeling that the wholeness Smith felt listening to music, especially

J

110

Psychic Deadness

the works o f Gustav Mahler, was partly a measure o f absent dispersal. In addi­ t i o n , his l i k i n g me i n my awkward intensity, his acceptance o f me when I was i l l at ease, surely this must have been some k i n d o f m i r r o r . I well understand how he helped people. Yet he was n o t only smooth, nor I only awkward. There was an earthy aspect to his sophistication, and I was far f r o m naive. What I now see, t h r o u g h o u r defensive layerings and d i f f e r i n g styles, is soul smiling at soul, soul recognizing soul. This is what we felt when we exchanged glances at meetings or felt warmly toward each other across a r o o m . I would not say we were soul brothers or partners, but there was some k i n d o f kinship. I t is n o t enough to say we b o t h knew hell: n o t all hells get along together. Per­ haps i t was where our souls open to heaven that most attracted Smith. O u r therapy was n o t only about missing fear and weakness. Together we created/ discovered a place where ecstatic l o n g i n g could n o t be x ' d out by psychoana­ lytic consciousness or by a narrow f o r m o f it. The path led n o t t h r o u g h diffusion but t h r o u g h emptiness. Smith d i d n o t let down, b u t began to speak o f emptiness. I t is hard to convey how miraculous this felt. What an emptiness ran t h r o u g h the fullness o f his personality! What emptiness he gave vent to! H e spoke o f a bottomless, inexhaustible emptiness, a painful, agonizing emptiness. The fullness o f living d i d n o t stop because o f this emptiness. The fullness o f living kept r i g h t o n going; i t had its own power and m o m e n t u m . But emptiness was everywhere, i n the fullness too. This was the closest Smith came to losing ego c o n t r o l , w i t h the exception o f the first panicky moments o f therapy when he feared the loss o f his university position. I n those first visits, I felt that Smith's personality was disintegrating, b u t he pulled out o f it like a skilled pilot. 1 suspect that f i n d i n g a place to deposit h i m ­ self (psychoanalysis) enabled the nose dive to stop and the controls to r e t u r n . I t was only through the emptiness o f his controls that Smith could contact h i m ­ self. The gradient o f the psychoanalysis was toward this emptiness, although neither he nor I could know this. T o me, it seemed that Smith's contact w i t h himself was several times removed, but i t felt otherwise to h i m . Emptiness wiped out distance: he felt the pain directly. The painful emptiness stayed with Smith, and he with it, for nearly half a year. T h r o u g h i t he began to feel ecstasy. The ecstasy d i d n o t nullify the emp­ tiness, not any more than the emptiness n u l l i f i e d the fullness o f living. These currents went o n together, sometimes more and sometimes less distinguish­ able. I t seems accurate to say that when the intensity o f emptiness peaked, another dimension or w o r l d o f experiencing opened. Smith's ecstasy was n o t what one m i g h t call a cosmic ecstasy, b u t rather a psychoanalytic ecstasy. His smaller psychoanalytic "why" consciousness, addicted to causal visions and explanations, continued ticking. But now the illusion o f control this gave h i m seemed less i m p o r t a n t than the m o m e n t o f experienc­ ing. He began to d i p i n t o his emotional currents a b i t more like the way he

The Counterpart

111

listened to music. The emphasis was less o n the power o f understanding than o n emotional impact and appreciation. His love for psychoanalysis reached a new place. D u r i n g most o f his adult life Smith used psychoanalysis to maintain his equi­ l i b r i u m and enhance his self-esteem. I t functioned as a k i n d o f psychic cool­ i n g system. Now i t became a t o o l to heat things up. Smith now c l u n g to psy­ choanalysis as a vehicle for heightening experiencing, rather than as a weapon o f pseudomastery. Psychoanalytic thinking was the thread that k n i t his life together. What would have become o f h i m w i t h o u t it? I t was n o t j u s t his f o r m a l analyses that were important b u t also the whole psychoanalytic m i l i e u : the readings, meetings, colleagues, a total way o f life. The psychoanalytic insights that p o p p e d i n t o his head were supported by an entire community f r o m which he drew nourish­ ment. Friends, enemies, critics, a d m i r e d and despised protagonists: t h r o u g h psychoanalysis he f o u n d a world, a place. Now he f o u n d m u c h more. Psychoanalysis was becoming what he always hoped it m i g h t be: a way to face himself, to open himself. I t was i n relation­ ship to psychoanalysis that Smith came closest to an act o f repentance and atonement. H e felt grateful f o r psychoanalysis because i t had given h i m a life. For the first time he not only saw butfacedxhe misuse o f his lover (psychoanalysis was his true love). He had used psychoanalysis to close wounds, n o t to open his heart. A t last, psychoanalysis shined as an o p e n i n g o f self. What peace this lacerating m o m e n t brought! " I d o n ' t want to lie now," said Smith. "It's i m p o r t a n t n o t to. I can't stand lying anymore. This is the first t i m e I ' m n o t bullshitting myself. I must get to things as they are. I've got t o . " Smith called to himself t h r o u g h his shells w i t h an urgency that shattered lies. Can anyone stop lying? W o u l d n ' t the total lack o f self-deception be inhuman? Perhaps only the devil, the father o f lies, is totally honest. Yet Smith had to break t h r o u g h to himself. Apparently Smith knew something I d i d n ' t know. I now see that he sensed that death was i m m i n e n t , that he was i n a now-or-never situation. H e kept u p a good f r o n t to the end; after hospital stays, he continued his psychoanalytic practice. I know he valued his w o r k w i t h me. H e repeatedly said, w i t h tears i n his voice, that at last he f o u n d a place where he could get to himself. B u t I suspect his most i m p o r t a n t work went o n outside sessions, o u t o f view. H e l i n k e d getting to himself w i t h my honesty. H e felt lucky beyond belief to be w i t h someone he experienced as honest. I n t h i n k i n g about this now, I feel h o n o r e d by Smith. 1 suppose the cynical me can note how lucky I was to be honored by the sublime Dr. Smith: how flattering to be the only honest m a n i n the w o r l d ! I needn't tell you I ' m n o m o r e lily white than you are, my reader. But I do feel honored to have played a role i n h e l p i n g someone die better than he otherwise m i g h t have. I suspect many therapists have discovered that o u r

112

Psychic Deadness

work blossoms at the m o m e n t o f death. Smith needed me as his true self court­ terpart, and t h r o u g h this protective identification or b i t o f m i r r o r i n g , he located a missing area o f self. If Smith was able to use something i n me to find a new face, a more honest face, thank God. I feel grateful to reciprocate his gratitude. I can picture Smith staring inward w i t h the worn semi-leer he never fully shook off. As he stares, he sees the face o f true self stare back at h i m , w i t h a smile and wink, gazing t h r o u g h h i m to the horizon, the eternal opening. I n the last months I saw h i m , Smith spoke o f a peace he never knew before. He was still alive and t o r t u r e d and striving. But he also felt a deep peace, a reconciliation. He made the l i n k that needed to be made. His insides found features he could recognize i n a way that could n o t be wasted or twisted by words. I suspect what he f o u n d could n o t be communicated, except to say that he f o u n d i t . I n the last dream that Smith reported, a black cat vanished t h r o u g h a base­ m e n t window i n t o the darkness below. We d i d n ' t i n t e r p r e t the dream. The session flew by. I looked forward to seeing Smith again after the weekend. He died walking to the subway after a f u l l day's work,

WHERE T H E FORCE GOES Where d i d the force go? Guilty me says i t caused my failure to interpret Smith's final dream. Perhaps i f I had said the right t h i n g , Smith w o u l d have lived a little longer. The dream obviously was about death. D i d the cat get my tongue? Fie o n you, guilty me! T h a n k God Smith's cat went t h r o u g h the basement, rather than Smith going t h r o u g h the roof. Yet I believe the force was active to the end and beyond the end. As Bion suggests, i t goes o n acting after i t destroys time, space, and existence. The force does n o t stop i n the face o f reconciliation, peace, or atonement. I f anything, these barriers increase its fervor. Goethe made things too easy f o r Faust by depicting the inevitable last-minute salvation. New beginnings need new sets o f problems. Goethe was r i g h t to end w i t h an image o f w o r k i n g the earth, the work that never ends. The force and salvation stay mixed u p to the end. Smith died happy, but was never free f r o m misery. As he got closer to death, his ability to live paradoxically increased. H e became less able to tilt paradox to one side or the other. T o close paradox meant to close his heart. He had a lifetime o f practice i n closing his heart. Smith's b i t o f opening and peace opposed a lifetime o f bad habits. A t the m o m e n t o f death, new battlegrounds open. New possibilities mean new conflicts, new tensions, new twists. We do n o t go f r o m conflict to a con­ flict-free w o r l d . Growth i n enlightenment is better than that. The force is not wished away by death.

113

The Counterpart

One can invent interpretations o f Smith's death, especially its t i m i n g . Let us say straightaway that i t m i g h t all be physical: his biological clock ran out. But it is difficult n o t to entertain more possibilities. D u r i n g most o f Smith's life, the force was happy w i t h Smith's false self, his character, the sets o f bad habits we call personality. There was enough life and true self i n Smith's false self for the force to feed o n ; i n time, i t fed o n dead aspects o f the true-false self too. The force plays b o t h ends against the middle and plans for the future. While it focused on Smith's personality, i t also made inroads on his body. By the time Smith got around to using a true self counterpart to free sparks of true self, the whole psychosomatic system was ready to collapse. There was n o t enough viable psyche-soma left to support the true self engagement he reached. The house of cards collapsed a r o u n d the place where the fire that never goes o u t m i g h t have been. One can imagine the force feeding o n the fire as a new w o r l d opens. Smith and his counterparts d o n shapes called choices or habits to try to do a better j o b . They do not merely start over f r o m the same place. T h e i r w i n k and twinkle and smile seem a bit wiser, a little more open and caring. They feel good to be o n the move.

REFERENCES Balint, M. (1965). The Basic Fault London: Tavistock. Bion, W. R. (1965). Transformations. London: Heinemann. (1970). Attention and Interpretation. London: Tavistock. Bollas, C. (1989). Forces of Destiny:

Psychoanalysis

and Human

Idiom.

L o n d o n : Free

Association Books. Eigen, M. (1984). O n demonized aspects of the self. In Evil Self and Culture, ed. M. C. Nelson and M. Eigen. New York: Human Sciences. (1986). The Psychotic Core. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson. (1992). Coming through the Whirlwind. Wilmette, I L : Chiron. Fairbairn, W. R. D. (1954). An Object-Relations Theory of the Personality. New York: Basic Books. Khan, M. (1979). Alienation in Perversion. New York: International Universities Press. Klein, M. (1946). Notes on some schizoid mechanisms. In Developments in PsychoAnalysis, ed. M. Klein, P. Heimann, S. Isaacs, and J . Riviere. London: Hogarth, 1952. Rodman, F . R. (1987). The Spontaneous

Gesture: Selected Letters ofD.

W. Winnicott. C a m ­

bridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Weil, E . (1958). T h e origin and vicissitudes of the self-image. Psychoanalysis

6:3-19.

10 Counterparts in a Couple

I B e n was a therapist who loved psychological t r u t h . H e wrapped truths around himself like armor and used them as weapons to b l u d g e o n others. I have writ­ ten about Ben i n Coming through the Whirlwind (1992b) a n d "The I m m o r a l Conscience" (1991), a n d use bits o f recent material f o r this chapter (see also Chapter 8 ) . O u r work continues well into its second decade. Ben's u p b r i n g i n g was chronically traumatic. H i s m o t h e r idolized h i m and flew into w i l d rages. She was alternately spoiling a n d stormy. Ben's father knot­ ted h i m w i t h threats o f violence and displays o f self-pity a n d sentimental emo­ tionality. B o t h parents were damaged people w h o p o u r e d themselves i n t o unrewarding w o r k and scarred their c h i l d r e n w i t h intensely demanding, crazy love. Ben w o u l d never recover f r o m years o f trauma, n o matter how m u c h analysis he had. Analysis helped Ben make and maintain a marriage f i l l e d with real possi­ bilities a n d enabled h i m to become a father. Having his own family enabled Ben t o reach levels o f living previously closed to h i m , b u t his gains were n o t w i t h o u t cost. Ben's gains in personal living were always threatened by his nar­ cissistic rage coupled with a misuse o f t r u t h to persecute himself and d o m i ­ nate loved ones. A t any m o m e n t the complexities o f living m i g h t misfire and trigger a fall i n t o a warp, where life is hellish. Periodic somatic breakdowns, which were n o t life threatening, resulted f r o m the strain. A congenital heart p r o b l e m , which w o u l d worsen with age, l o o m e d i n the background. Ben was furious with analysis because it d i d n o t cure his physical problems. He cited psychological texts suggesting that analysis m i g h t b u i l d his psyche so he would n o t have to somaticize. He took seminars w i t h writers he quoted a n d even consulted some o f them. So far none o f t h e m t o l d h i m to leave me. I pointed out to h i m that, i n addition to n o t curing his physical problems, analysis did n o t even cure his psychological problems, a n d this must be disappointing as well as i n f u r i a t i n g . I t meant that Ben must grapple w i t h necessary loss,

116

Psychic Deadness

i n c l u d i n g the loss o f the o m n i p o t e n c e o f analysis, the loss o f the d e m a n d , expectation, or hope o f an ideal cure on this earth. Lucy, Ben's wife, was a good container for his morass, b u t had problems o f her own. She felt more or less comfortable staying at home and taking care o f their child, Ron. However, she was chronically depressed. She f u n c t i o n e d well enough as a mother, b u t dangerously neglected her own self. She gave u p o n her ambitions i n order to b u i l d a home. Lucy's depression kept her i n contact with herself. She hugged herself w i t h her blue feelings, and depression gave her a sense o f inferiority. H e r pace was slower than Ben's, and she c o u l d n o t be stampeded easily. By h o l d i n g o n to her depression, she h e l d o n to her own m i n d . Depression gave her space. T h r o u g h i t she maintained a certain degree o f freedom and autonomy f r o m Ben's demands and d o m i n e e r i n g ways. Ben could n o t bully her blues away. I n time Ron entered m i d d l e c h i l d h o o d , and the family's economic c o n d i ­ tion worsened. The need for Lucy to j o i n the workforce increased, n o t only for family finances (although this was nearly a necessity) b u t also for her own self. Ron was away all day at school, and Lucy could notjustify spending so m u c h time o n housework, even i f the chores comforted her. She spent hours sitting a r o u n d feeling bad about herself or throwing herself into compulsive, m i n d ­ obliterating work. For years Lucy had withstood Ben's attacks on her f o r her failure to make money. Now she j o i n e d them. D u r i n g her first marriage, to an artist, she had gone to art school and painted. W h e n her marriage broke up, art school died o u t and she d i d n o t paint for years. W h e n she married Ben, she went t h r o u g h a program to become a psychotherapist. She was an excellent therapist, b u t hated the work. She could n o t bear her own intensity and d i d n o t want to have to bear the responsibility for life-and-death situations. She was so serious about what she d i d that she was almost crushed by her own sincerity. For a time Lucy and Ben had shared a fantasy about w o r k i n g together: two therapists sharing life, t r u t h , a calling. They would discuss cases, co-lead groups, enjoy colleagues, and learn and teach together. I t took a l o t o f strength for Lucy to stop practicing w i t h o u t breaking u p the marriage. When she d i d , i t meant one more dream o f oneness dashed. You can imagine Ben's outrage at the money, time, and hard work "thrown out." For Lucy, throwing away what she had worked for was an act o f discovery, b u t also o f stagnation. She discovered who she was not: she was n o t a thera­ pist, she was n o t Ben or his satellite. She was not Lucy either, whoever Lucy might be. She was someone who was stagnant, perhaps someone who needed to be stagnant. Yet she was appalled at her own stagnant state. I t seemed endless, bottomless. She would never stop sinking. It was a wonder she kept o n with life, family, and the household. Ben c h r o n i ­ cally raged against her depression, b u t was deeply frightened by it. Lucy scared herself, b u t she also felt deeply filled with satisfaction at being a m o t h e r again.

Counterparts i n a Couple

117

(She had mothered a c h i l d two decades earlier i n her first marriage.) Perhaps this time things m i g h t go better. H e r first marriage had been devastating, but she f o u n d strength i n surviving it. T h e n again, perhaps she d i d n ' t survive i t , although a k i n d o f mute strength d i d . Lucy felt a w o n d e r f u l fullness at b e i n g the center o f the household and b u i l d i n g family life. The fullness was at least as great as the bottomless sinking: neither nulled nor compromised the other. B o t h were basic, irreducible reali­ ties that took Lucy years to grow i n t o . She was bewildered by this double capacity. I t gradually dawned o n her that doubleness pervaded her life. She had been unable to admit i t or, perhaps more accurately, lacked the equip­ ment and frame o f reference to accommodate such pervasive doubleness. For Lucy, family life also meant years o f fatigue. I t was more than enough j u s t to get t h r o u g h the day: exhaustion was a daily fact. Ben w o u l d never know the f u l l meaning o f the fatigue attached to staying i n one place, at home with baby. Baby and me, alone together: this was Lucy's specialty. She w o u l d n ' t have missed it for the world. What could be more precious! But now baby was a c h i l d i n school, and her cover was blown. She sat w i t h herself and saw that she had never made a living, or n o t for long. She was alone with herself and c o u l d n o t move. For l o n g spaces between marriages, she had d r i f t e d , d o i n g a b i t o f this or that or n o t h i n g . Things d i d n ' t b u i l d or evolve. She barely got by. Ben c o u l d n ' t bear Lucy's easy acceptance o f deprivation. He ridiculed her for b e i n g a "deprivation addict." H e wanted her to want more, to get more, to show more, to do more. Lucy sat, and one thing she got out o f sitting was just being. Ben could not sit or just be, except i n f r o n t o f a television. H e always had to be moving and doing. Even i n f r o n t o f a television he was n o t merely empty or vacuous, but gorging o n grandiose fantasies. Lucy could empty out, something that Ben never could do. Lucy could be still and taste being that was now empty, now full. She immersed herself i n contentless being. Ben was forever restlessly filling spaces. One day i t h i t Lucy and me at virtually the same time with crystal clarity: she, a woman who can't move, m a r r i e d a man who can't sit still. Lucy had reached a place where movement seemed impossible.

WHY I WAS SEEING LUCY Ben's and Lucy's previous therapists had c o m m i t t e d suicide w i t h i n a couple o f years o f each other. Ben's therapist ran a car o f f a m o u n t a i n road, and Lucy's j u m p e d out o f a window. I mentioned Lucy's therapist i n The Psychotic Core (1986, pp. 3 3 8 - 3 3 9 ) . B o t h were p r o m i n e n t and well-respected men i n the mental health w o r l d . B o t h were i n the f o r e f r o n t o f the humanistic psychology movement, the " t h i r d force" o f the 1960s. Many w o u l d be envious o f their achievements.

118

Psychic Deadness

I d i d a few months o f couples work with Ben and Lucy before and soon af­ ter their marriage, so it was natural for Lucy to see me when her therapist died. I t was I who called to break the news o f his death to her. We had already estab­ lished a connection and liked and respected each other. I n time she began work w i t h another therapist. Apparently her new therapist was unable to bear her immobility. H e was a competent, well-meaning man who urged her to be m o r e active. Lucy appreci­ ated his support, but could not make use o f his suggestions. She would not push past herself. I n time she began to question whether his approach was r i g h t for her, and after several years he abruptly dismissed her. For awhile therapy had given her f a i t h i n herself, b u t i n the e n d she felt punished f o r n o t d o i n g better. After the h u r t f u l end o f her therapy, Lucy nursed her wounds and her fail­ ure. She kept f u n c t i o n i n g as mother and housewife, while her inner being was collapsing and dying: she was losing herself as a person more than ever. She knew she was there somewhere, but paralysis spiraled. A t great cost she reached o u t to me and I saw her. A t o u r first meeting she showed me how panicky she was. The idea o f see­ i n g a therapist terrified her. First a suicide and then a rejection: What was she exposing herself to now? What struck me most was the color i n her face. Ter­ ror enlivened her. I felt person-to-person contact as fears t u m b l e d o u t o f her guts. I c o u l d see her open and open: tears, grief, rage, fears u p o n fears. Years o f sitting p o u r e d o u t i n moments. The relief was palpable. Lucy was n o t a l o u d person, b u t she was n o t w i t h ­ drawn. T h e r e was a direct line between her deeper self and her face and voice. Ben was a fast t h i n k e r and fast mover. Lucy was slower. She chewed her cud and let things brew. Ben could n o t stand her slowness, and his speed some­ times f r i g h t e n e d and bewildered her. But they were b o t h highly expressive people. They were j u s t alive i n different registers. I n spite o f years o f humanist and feminist ideology, you could see the lines o f a traditional couple i n them. H e was the hunter, w i t h his faster, skillfully impulsive pace. She was the anchor, slow and steady, h o l d i n g the g r o u n d together. However, he tended to fly off, and the g r o u n d opened beneath her. Both were caught i n the modern vertigo. The fact that Lucy and I began working f r o m the m o m e n t we saw each other swept past thoughts I had about risking a referral to another therapist. Not every psychotherapist would agree to see a husband and wife separately, and I m i g h t not do so myself. But life is bigger than categories. I felt i t would be a betrayal o f life to stop the flow now. Lucy thanked me for what I had done and continued to do for Ben and their marriage. We spoke about the difficulties her seeing me m i g h t cause. One would expect that husband and wife sharing one therapist m i g h t involve ?ome nasty

119

Counterparts i n a Couple

business. There were also unanticipated difficulties. A t first, Ben felt deep relief at Lucy's seeking help, and my work with both o f them moved along with its own impetus. We r o l l e d along w i t h therapy's m o m e n t u m .

BACK AND F O R T H W i t h i n a few weeks o f Lucy c o m i n g to see me, Ben's happiness at her getting help was j o i n e d by an increase i n anger. He fell back i n t o verbally p o u n d i n g her f o r her faults. I t was n o t only his anger at sharing me, although this was bad enough. I t was also a feeling that, since Lucy had someone to help her, he d i d n o t have to be so patient. H e could lash out, because someone w o u l d help her nurse her wounds, the same person who helped h i m w i t h his. The triangle reached deep i n t o p r i m a l parenting and involved questions concerning the foundations o f support. C o u l d more than one c h i l d be sup­ ported by a parent? For Ben this was partly a question o f whether his parents could nurture two c h i l d r e n , his sister and himself. His experience was that one got at the other's expense. I t was n o t simply a matter o f whether or n o t there was enough to go a r o u n d ; each got, each lost. T h e problem was n o t quantity, but the method o f distribution. There was a dire fault i n parental structure that made i t impossible f o r more than one to get at the same time. One got only t h r o u g h opposition, t h r o u g h one p i t t e d against the other. T h e r e was always a versus with one u p and one down. There was a radical dysfunction between the one and two. T h e gradient was toward oneness, a succession o f ones at the maternal center. First you, then me; first me, then you. Never two at a time, never three. The two existed w i t h i n the one as a versus, an irritant, a permanent restlessness. There was n o easy one, n o peaceful one. One was permeated by the struggle o f exclusion: one as center o f all, one against all. Two a n d three were swallowed by one, a one maintained by maternal giddiness. Going deeper than siblings, the versus w i t h i n oneness referred to parent and c h i l d . Ben's m o t h e r w o u l d d o anything for h i m , b u t this j u s t i f i e d her r i g h t to abuse h i m . Ben and his m o t h e r were latrines and suns for each other, vic­ tims of maimed psychic structures that had been passed o n for generations. Parent gets at the expense o f the child's loss and vice versa. Together they were one against all, yet each drew strength f r o m the other's loss o f self. They slid between star-audience roles i n hideous ways a n d l o o k e d d o w n at ordinary reciprocity. Ben's anger was never ordinary. Instead, i t was massive, plugged i n t o the parental warp. I t is unlikely that Ben's m o t h e r couldbe passive. For Ben she was a w i l d lady with a comeback for everything. I n her o l d age she was a live wire, a raw nerve, wild, self-absorbed and demanding, w i t h a mate to share her crazy oneness. I n

120

Psychic Deadness

contrast, Lucy's mother had to reach to find activity. Left to herself, she sat vegetating. Lucy feared her mother's stillness, passivity, and inertia. She had dreadful visions o f her mother going under, wasting away, and being unable to take care of herself. Lucy was terrified that she was like her mother, as Ben was like his. Yet when things hadto be done, Lucy's mother roused herself and d i d them. T h a t her mother could take care o f herself amazed Lucy. What a difference between the family photos o f a young, beautiful, lively woman and the aged, empty sitter! Yet the sitter did take care o f herself. A n d the fact is Lucy took care o f herself too, and she took care o f a whole family. She moved even i f i t felt as i f she d i d not move, just as her mother moved even though Lucy d i d not believe she would. Perhaps it was not movement that was lacking, b u t a feeling l i n k w i t h movement. However, Ben's anger at me and Lucy's hatred o f herself made sure we all understood that i n some deep way Lucy was i m m o b i l e . She d i d n o t move o u t i n t o the work w o r l d . Each time she tried, terror drove her back. T o Ben, Lucy seemed a stubborn mule. H e got leads for possible jobs f o r her, one as a thera­ pist, another as a teacher. She could n o t reach o u t for them. Ben's empathic tolerance was exhausted. H e d i d not see the flaming angels that barred her way. Was i t simply that they came f r o m traditional families i n which the man went o u t i n t o the w o r l d and the woman took care o f the home and each was carry­ i n g o n the tradition? Surely this was part o f it, b u t Lucy also felt this was a dan­ gerous alibi, an excuse. She needed more and demanded more. She had to do m o r e . She c o u l d n o t be a person i f she settled f o r less. T h e pressure Ben exerted o n her was also pressure she exerted o n herself. She identified w i t h , as well as fought, his angry voice, because i t spoke truths that were her own. Ben's voice was, i n part, the still, small voice i n her writ large. He had his own reasons for demanding she do more, b u t the demand was also hers. Lucy resented being rushed and resisted the push for years. The fact that Ben and her therapist anxiously, angrily, and perhaps indifferently pushed her had enabled her to bounce o f f outside barriers and postpone the m o m e n t o f reckoning. H e r own impetus to grow fused w i t h their demand and drove her to a standstill. Ben's voice m i g h t be hers writ large, b u t i t was hard for her to hear and believe her own when she had to fight his. B e n t u r n e d his w r a t h o n m e w h e n L u c y ' s therapy d i d n o t get anywhere. F o r m o n t h s t h e r e was n o a p p a r e n t m o v e m e n t . L u c y was t h e s a m e as always. B e n

could be rational and knew that therapy took a l o n g time. He knew many forces worked against it. He could perhaps adopt a make-believe tolerance and shape himself i n terms o f rationality. However, the t r u t h was that he was angry at Lucy's lack o f movement. H e learned he had to h o l d back with her or risk los­ i n g his marriage. But now he could let me have i t for her paralysis. H a d n ' t he helped get her into treatment, hadn't he urged her to see me, hadn't he steered

Counterparts i n a Couple

121

her to me? Now, i f she d i d n ' t move it was my fault. H e had me to blame, and he lost no time taking advantage o f this situation. I could imagine how Lucy must have felt i n the face o f Ben's insistence that she move. What a temptation to freeze, to p u l l i n t o oneself, to hide! My j o b was to do my j o b i n spite o f the pressure, neither rushing n o r retarding the therapy. There is a main line o f therapeutic work that keeps ticking t h r o u g h storms and dry spells. My j o b is to keep locating these m a i n lines o f processes, to f i n d places that count. Ben lost i t o u t o f impatience a n d anger, and Lucy spent too m u c h time b u i l d i n g arks against the floods o f his rage and her ter­ ror. Ben feared losing himself i f he slowed down, and Lucy feared losing her­ self i f she sped u p . Therapy finds places where d i f f e r e n t speeds a n d fears begin to connect and make r o o m for each other. For that to happen I needed to withstand Lucy's fear o f movement and her lack o f a feeling l i n k w i t h her movement, as well as Ben's demand for i t and his dread o f stillness. I t always amazes me when the r i g h t attitude or stance o r place emerges (sometimes i t doesn't; see Chapter 18, "Boa and Flowers"). I t emerges out o f a combination o f letting disturbances and pressures have an impact and b u i l d and at the same time letting go. A n invisible range finder works o u t useful ways o f being for a time; then conditions shift and one starts again. I genuinely respected and cared for, and, let me say it, loved Lucy's still spot, her immobility. Ifelt something positive i n it. I also sensed "pathological" abysses o f inertia and collapse. This was more than double vision: i t was a quivering o f experiencing now this way, now that, now b o t h at once. As I got to know Lucy, i t began to dawn on me that she had reached a remarkable place. The force that goes o n w o r k i n g after destroying time, space, and existence (Bion 1965, p. 101, Eigen 1991,1992a,b, see Chapter 4) d i d its work. Lucy was "gone," "out o f i t , " "killed off." There was a blank where she m i g h t have been. Lucy knew what i t was to die out. Yet there she was also radiantly being and alive i n her terror. A l l dead, all alive, and so many variations between. She lived through n o t h i n g , everything, and so m u c h i n between. T h e i n between was the m e d i u m o f her existence: positive and negative no-things and every-things, positive and negative m i x e d textures. My glimpse o f the place Lucy reached triggered shocks o f recognition. I t was n o t that she never recognized where she lived, b u t her surprise at f i n d i n g me there too enabled her to own her recognition. M e e t i n g me i n the place she lived let her relax a b i t more i n t o this place-no-place instead o f j u d g i n g and f i g h t i n g i t . A new intimacy w i t h herself was b e g i n n i n g . Everyone i n her life tried to get her o u t o f it; everyone was afraid o f it. Surely she w o u l d sink, vanish w i t h o u t a trace, and never come back. The t r u t h is that one never is the same after this t r i p to the other side o f the m o o n , to the b l a n k side o f being. One o f the most amazing and basic facts about Lucy was the fullness and completeness w i t h w h i c h she lived w i t h affective deadness a n d heightened affective aliveness at the same time. I t was as i f I discovered a being w i t h an

122

Psychic Deadness

extra arm or leg or head, with an extra sense. For Lucy i t was an everyday t h i n g , the " p o i n t " o f her existence. I d o n ' t t h i n k she realized that most other people d i d n o t share this p o i n t or had n o t reached i t yet. Perhaps for t h e m i t was unconscious or less conscious. For her it was consciousness itself. She had never quite realized that this was the p o i n t that made her different and set her apart. Perhaps i t was n o t u n t i l she met me there that she could let herself feel just how different she was: the extent o f her underlying sense o f difference other­ wise m i g h t have been overly devastating. Now at last she could relax i n t o this difference. We were partners i n difference. She could begin to let the tension inherent i n singleness-doubleness do its work. After all my talk about appreciating, even loving, Lucy's stillness and i m m o ­ bility, i t may sound o d d to hear that I , like Ben, was also restless and agitated for change. I i d e n t i f i e d w i t h b o t h positions; b o t h are valuable to me. I am neither simply stillness nor m o t i o n , b u t love b o t h . My agitation and restless­ ness d i d not grow mainly f r o m the fear o f stillness. Both poles are real and basic parts of our experiential equipment as we know i t now. I t h i n k because o f my deep appreciation o f Lucy's stillness, my restlessness was contagious. She began bits o f movement into the w o r l d without losing touch w i t h her alone self. Her movements were tentative, b u t palpable. She began t h i n k i n g o f what she could do to make money and what she m i g h t like doing, and she began to f i n d a possible p o i n t o f meeting between must and like. I t was at this point, when Lucy actually was getting ready to do something, that an amazing t h i n g happened. Ben began getting physically i l l : a short trip to the hospital with one problem that came and went i n a week; panic about his chronic heart problem, which t u r n e d out to be no worse than earlier; and finally, the painful urethral passing o f a stone. A few years earlier, Lucy also had passed stones painfully. Perhaps shared symptoms were a matter o f shared diet or coincidence. But I could n o t avoid feeling that Ben needed to feel more like Lucy, so that he could be cared f o r more by me. Also, he secretly envied her life at home, alone with their child. She d i d n ' t have to work and carry financial burdens such as inflations, recessions, patients coming and going, mortgages, or taxes. She could be with their boy and share his growth more intimately and fully than Ben. H o w wonderful i t must be to be a woman, at home with the most precious charge o n earth, living a feeling life. H o w good to give u p the f i g h t and be one w i t h existence. Perhaps Ben was missing out o n the most precious t h i n g o f all. Was illness the only way he could be passive and stay home? Still, illness d i d n o t make h i m a mother; i t made h i m a baby. Lucy took care o f Ben and o f Ron, their son. She nursed Ben through the worst o f his illness. Ben could be a mother only by proxy, t h r o u g h identification w i t h Lucy. He was terrified that his body was failing h i m , and that i n the end he c o u l d count o n it to fail. H e became des­ perate for nurturance and, to an extent, got what he wanted.

Counterparts i n a Couple

123

A t the same time i t was the threat o f Lucy's d o i n g something that had pre­ cipitated Ben's partial somatic breakdown. He d i d n o t fully realize how m u c h he counted o n her to be the background object, the stay-at-home, the one who would be there when he returned. H e had been h i d i n g his essential passive element t h r o u g h his anger at her staying home. Yet when she showed signs of really moving out, he got sick. I f she went i n t o the work w o r l d , he would have n o t h i n g wholly his own. A wish c o m i n g true tends to b r i n g about a crisis.

UNCONSCIOUS PROCESSING

A crisis can stimulate the growth o f unconscious processing. Psychoanalysis is m o r e than m a k i n g the unconscious conscious. I t helps unconscious processing reset itself so that it can do its work better. We rely on unconscious processing to support us and help keep us i n life. We rely on it for new ideas and feelings. I f something is wrong w i t h the unconscious pro­ cessing o f affects and ideas, i f there is a warp or chronic blockage in primary process work, n o a m o u n t o f secondary process compensations or hypertrophy of consciousness w i l l correct the sense o f basic wrongness. A bit o f growth o f unconscious processing between Ben and Lucy can be seen i n their dreams. As Ben was recovering f r o m illness, he dreamt the fol­ lowing: Ben's balls (testicles) were made o f shit. They began inflating like bal­ loons u n t i l they exploded, a shit explosion. T h e n they were flat. T h e flatness especially frightened and mystified Ben, although the whole dream was scary and deflating. The dream constituted a narcissistic injury, since i t r u b b e d Ben's nose i n his shit, here as his shitty balls. There was panic linked w i t h the explosive loss of control, b u t the mortification o f having shitty balls was more cutting. Many things can be said about this dream, and I can only touch o n some o f them. Massive selfhate a n d lack o f self-worth were circumscribed by a specific image: the shit or garbage self was channeled t h r o u g h shitty balls. For Ben it was h u m i l i a t i n g to face having shitty balls. H e ' d like to t h i n k his balls were wonderful, that they were family jewels. How can he trust his unconscious i f it shoots h i m down this way? Ben's unconscious was n o t nice to h i m , b u t i t told h i m t r u t h . One could say that his shitty balls were a heritage f r o m his parents. His father had shitty balls too. He was filled w i t h a sense o f failure, self-pity, and rage. Ben's mother was chaotic. She alternately idealized and emotionally violated Ben i n myriad ways, so that Ben became a sort o f shitty deity. This distortion o f self was permanent. It ran t h r o u g h the family and had been passed o n t h r o u g h generations. The unconscious tends to speak truth i n an exaggerated, reduced way: some­ thing is blown up; something else is left out. The t r u t h o f the unconscious is

124

Psychic Deadness

not the whole or only t r u t h . Unconscious truths qualify one another. Differ­ ent states of self compete with, offset, and feed each other. Ben's whole self is not merely explosive, flattened, inflated-deflated shit. But this state or attitude or feeling or process or structure or thread or theme must be included i n the overall picture: i t is a real part o f experience that is sometimes denied and sometimes is taken as the whole. The discovery that one can be i l l and feel physically shitty may make the whole self feel shitty for a time. Ben was healthy and felt healthy most o f the time. The realization that his body was simply a body, prone to such things as health and illness to which bodies are prone, aroused anxiety. The temptation is to devalue the body and for this devaluation to spread t h r o u g h the whole self. I n Ben's case his partial physical breakdown was coupled w i t h a broader threat to his psychic economy. His wife's new psychosocial movement disrupted Ben's e q u i l i b r i u m , which he maintained partly by being able to p u t her down for not moving. The loss o f an i n n e r - o u t e r scapegoat increased his anxiety and vulnerability and threw h i m i n t o an uproar approaching mayhem. I t may be that his middle-aged body was prone to ailments i t m i g h t have withstood at an earlier time. One might envision a complex psychosomatic complicity, i n which an older body finds it more difficult to contain threats to self and self is more easily affected by physical frailties. Body and character wear each other down. Considerations o f family, history, and body set the stage f o r his c o m i n g to grips with self. Ben felt w i t h special urgency that something about himself needed to be faced. H e was the fact he most needed to meet. Shitty parents, shitty history, shitty body, shitty self: he could n o t simply wipe all this away; he could n o t create himself or his background all over again as i f the shittiness d i d n ' t exist. The shittiness did exist, and he was it, or partly it. Wallowing i n i t would not help. He had to f i n d the r i g h t slant on i t , an attitude that w o u l d help move things along. I t is too easy to get swallowed u p by shit. The dream image was specific: shitty balls, not simply global shittiness. This dream had bite to it. This dream had balls. I t helped Ben to t h i n k that he had misused his generativity, that he had misused his creative capacities. T h i s thought made h i m feel more at one w i t h himself f o r the moment. He applied it not only to his verbal ability to b i n d and dominate others and yoke t h e m i n t o a d m i r i n g h i m for his breathtaking insights b u t also to his capacity f o r friendship. Ben's life was littered with failed friendships, and the stream o f losses pained him. I t dawned on me that Ben d i d n o t use his God-given powers to cultivate ball-to-ball, heart-to-heart relationships with people he really liked. Instead he used his powers to win images. H e went after people who were quick-witted (hostile b r i g h t ) , o n top of things, and more highly positioned. He w o u l d n ' t be caught dead with someone who wasn't flashy or "pizazzy." He had never liked or befriended an ordinary, good-hearted person (a slob, a shlep a shmo). He t

125

Counterparts in a Couple

never had had a heart-to-heart relationship with anyone, except perhaps Lucy and m e . The b r i g h t r e l a t i o n s h i p s he had w e r e "show-offy." T h e brightness was

not u s e d for m u t u a l impact a n d growth. S h i t balls, shit truths, n o t truth balls used for real development. Ben felt something like a moment o f repentance. His life flashed before h i m and he wept. His unspoken, unconscious prayer was answered by Lucy's dream.

LUCY'S DREAM Lucy dreamt she was sitting astride Ben, his erect penis deep inside her. She showed h i m where i t came u p to o n her belly, p o i n t i n g out how big i t was with a sense of p r o f o u n d affirmation. D i d Lucy dream this for Ben? D i d she respond to his shitty, explosive­ flattened balls by showing how valuable and good he was? D i d she contain and transform his bad self feelings? This dream came immediately after Lucy told me how her father p u t rope on the top o f her crib so she c o u l d n ' t climb out. He i n h i b i t e d her movement in many ways. Both her parents were frightened and inconvenienced by nor­ mal baby motility. When she was a bit older her father i n t i m i d a t e d Lucy with exaggerated portrayals o f diseases she would get i f she allowed her body free play. The penis i n her dream was not only Ben's but also her own. She was mother to her own baby (penis = baby) self. She was a f f i r m i n g the value o f her own phallic might, activity, and aliveness. She could feand do. T h e image o f Ben's penis inside her completed a circuit. For the m o m e n t there was a reciprocity of container-contained, the erect and enfolding, a m o m e n t o f wholeness. The contribution o f b o t h partners was needed. The interweaving was beautiful, in fact redemptive. If Lucy's dream answered Ben's terror, his dream showed why she needed him. He was movement itself. Spoiled movement perhaps, b u t movement. He was the soiling, splattering baby, exploding all over the place, the opposite o f the imprisoning restraint that had been imposed o n her. Together they shared the experience o f getting flattened out. But Ben kept the possibility o f explod­ ing alive. I n contrast, Lucy's depression (flattening) was steadier. Ben's was more apt to be the downside o f an exploding manic, grandiose position. In Ben and Lucy's marriage, t e r r o r met terror. W i t h therapeutic help, unconscious could interweave with unconscious to the benefit o f both. Ben's parents were more explosively chaotic than Lucy's, who were o n the side of exaggerated restraint. As they grew up, Ben and Lucy had rebelled against parental warps—yet ironically and i n spite of themselves, each lived out these warps i n new, refined keys (more sophisticated, better educated). They could

126

Psychic Deadness

not wish or will the warp away, b u t they could experience i t more deeply. They could grow around it, sometimes through i t , and perhaps melt bits o f it now and then. Ben's and Lucy's dreams represent a growth o f teamwork. Together they portrayed shitty aspects o f self and a k i n d of tantric cleansing. Shit d i d n o t sim­ ply trigger shit. I d o n ' t t h i n k Lucy's or Ben's parents could have dreamt her dream. The joy o f natural unity grew i n the midst o f peril and fragmentariness. Shit was n o t d e n i e d , b u t was not the last w o r d . The loveliness o f c o m i n g together was real. Ben quickly recovered his physical health and had several dreams involving friendly women. These women were neither seductive nor competitive, but were genuinely friendly and good milled. As may be seen i n my extended account of Ben i n Coming Through the Whirlwind (1992b), this was n o easy achievement. Experiencing simple good will was not something Ben could take f o r granted. Ben grew up i n a seductive-competitive atmosphere ruled by the will to con­ trol and a sense of helplessness. His life was permeated by mistrust. I t was nearly impossible for h i m to believe that goodness was happening to h i m o f its own accord, with no strings attached. Lucy brought simple goodness i n t o his life and at the same time drove h i m crazy and made h i m work. I f there was a shit circle, there was also a good circle. Lucy and Ben medi­ ated goodness for each other, and I for both o f them, and b o t h o f them for me. The good stood the test o f the shittiness. The friendly women i n Ben's dreams were new growth elements, as was Lucy's tantric scene o f fulfilling sexual interlocking. I n the midst of anxieties, terrors, and arrays o f god-awful feelings, something beautiful was growing i n Ben and Lucy, something more f u l f i l l i n g than either knew before. T h e i r own true selves were growing t h r o u g h i t all. W i t h all their never-ceasing difficulties, life was opening u p f o r them.

REFERENCES Bion, W. R. (1965). Transformations. London: Heinemann. Eigen, M. (1986). The Psychotic Core. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson. (1991). The immoral conscience. In The Psychotherapy Patient, ed. J. Travers. Bingham ton, NY: Haworth. (1992a). Notes on the Counterpart. In Clinical Series, ed. N. Schwartz-Salant and M. Stein. Wilmette, I L : Chiron. (1992b). Coming through the Whirlwind. Wilmette, I L : Chiron.

11 From Attraction to Meditation

F r o m attraction to meditation." These were the words the I-Ching answered a woman, M a r i o n , who wanted to know whether analysis with me would be "emo­ tionally e n r i c h i n g and spiritually rewarding." She had heard me give a talk o n counterparts i n a couple (see Chapter 10) and reverberated to the way I spoke f r o m my insides. She also took satisfaction in feeling that she understood me implicidy while some o f her colleagues f o u n d me baffling. After two sessions with me, M a r i o n decided to leave her woman therapist o f nine years who had helped her immensely. I was surprised because I was given to t h i n k I was one o f a stream o f i n t e r m i t t e n t flirtations or affairs that had enabled her to endure the frustrations of her analysis. H e r analysis seemed to have reached the p o i n t o f d i m i n i s h i n g returns a n d beat o n because n o t h i n g better came along. M a r i o n said several times that her therapist's office never changed. I t was immaculate, perfectly orderly. Her analyst's stockings never had a r u n ; her hair was always right. M a r i o n breathed w i t h relief at my disheveled appearance and messy office. W h e n her analyst asked for more sessions to "tidy things u p , " so m u c h was left hanging that M a r i o n replied, 'That's your way, n o t mine. You're tidy, i n c o n t r o l , and want things cleaned up. I ' m messy, a slob." What relief M a r i o n felt. She breathed easier. She h a d wanted to say some­ t h i n g like that for years w i t h o u t realizing it. She felt p u t down by her analyst for being the sort o f person she was. Apparently her analyst wanted to help M a r i o n be m o r e i n c o n t r o l , o n top o f it, b u t M a r i o n j u s t wanted to be herself. So m u c h happened i n our first sessions that I felt deeply enriched by them. O u r conversation spanned many levels—spiritual, e m o t i o n a l , intellectual, and sexual. D u r i n g o u r second session, I became sexually aroused and wondered what to do. W i t h i n a m i n u t e or two, Marion said she felt sexual stirrings for me. W h o stimulated whom?

128

Psychic Deadness

M a r i o n felt ashamed o f her sexual stirrings, b u t was also afraid o f t h e m and perhaps afraid o f my rejection o f her. I stayed w i t h my arousal, and gradually words f o r m e d . My sexual feelings translated i n t o the question, " I ' m not sure i f you're more afraid I ' l l be aroused by you, or more afraid I w o n ' t . " Being able to formulate this question gave me relief. I somehow felt I was able to d o j u s ­ tice to my arousal w i t h o u t disclosing i t directly and perhaps precipitously. " I ' m more afraid you w o n ' t want m e , " M a r i o n answered. I sat there smiling broadly, enjoying the stream o f body tinglings, as b l o o d rushed upward, f i l l i n g my face. I t was a nice m o m e n t for b o t h o f us. I d o n ' t t h i n k the explicitly sexual part o f the session lasted more than a few minutes. Marion's pain returned, and we dove into the pain o f existence. Where d i d sex go when pain returned? Where d i d sex come f r o m when pain subsided?

OUR SECRET The pain was immense. M a r i o n had twice been hospitalized for depression. I t h i n k Marion came i n after several sessions and glowered, i n order to drive this home. " I ' m depressed. I want to k i l l myself." I felt her words sink i n t o me like depth charges. My vision b l u r r e d . I t occurred to me that i t was i m p o r t a n t for me n o t to see her. She was showing me something I was n o t supposed to see. H e r face was menacing. I relaxed i n t o the h o r r i b l e feeling and t h o u g h t o f all the monster movies I saw as a child. They fed my nightmares and dread o f the dark. I must have looked under my bed and checked my closet well i n t o my teens. Marion's h o r r o r and menace washed t h r o u g h me. My m i n d b l u r r e d . W h e n I came to, her face softened. I t h i n k she was surprised at the impact she had o n me. O u r interaction was subtle and wordless, yet I could see she read i t . She looked at me t h r o u g h the impact we were having on each other and was touched by the fact we could do this. I t was our secret, that we could feel each other so deeply, i n so many ways.

SINKING-SWIMMING W h e n M a r i o n first called, she had asked for a supervisory consultation. She is a fine therapist and an i n t r i g u i n g psychoanalyst. I remember her asking ques­ tions at my talk. She was incisive and searching. Her probes got between seams o f psychoanalytic concepts. She seemed especially interested i n Lacan and Melanie Klein and made fascinating mixtures o f their concepts. H e r dogma­ tism frightened me, b u t I appreciated her creativeness. She began our first meeting asking questions about concepts i n s6rne o f my papers. I wasn't tempted to answer. I w o u l d have felt oddly out o f contact had

From Attraction to Meditation

129

I begun an elaboration o f something I wrote years ago. M o r e importantly, Marion's face told me something more was needed. She was l o o k i n g for some­ t h i n g that escaped her. H e r desperation and need could n o t be satisfied by a lecture. Maybe all she wanted to know was that I respected her m i n d , and I conveyed this respect. The m a i n t h i n g was that I kept sinking. I sank i n t o myself, past Marion's intellectual overtures. I sank i n t o the pain I felt when she spoke to me, when I looked at her. I sank i n t o the pain o f our eye contact, i n t o the bliss and pain o f our skin contact. Yes, skin contact, although our bodies never touched. I felt our eye-skin contact was very strong. We sat i n chairs across a small r o o m , separated by several feet. I was keenly aware o f how permeable our skin was. We swam i n and out o f each other t h r o u g h our skin. I sank past Marion's talk of her former therapist, a competent, dedicated, h e l p f u l woman w i t h firm boundaries. Perhaps M a r i o n needed firm b o u n d ­ aries^—or perhaps they starved her. Is i t a choice o f one or the other? First, M a r i o n organized our meeting with an invitation to an intellectual feast and then continued with a critique o f her therapy. I was aware that whatever Marion said o f her o l d therapist she m i g h t say o f me someday. Perhaps she'll find new, more awful things to say o f me. Her o l d therapist got o f f fairly well. Perhaps her old therapist was afraid o f this sinking-swimming in and through each other. Perhaps she f o u n d it irrelevant, a distraction, primitive. Is there a prejudice i n the mental health field that sinking-swimming means the destruc­ tion o f boundaries? How far would we sink? H o w thoroughly w o u l d we swim i n each other's abysses? How m u c h permeability o u g h t two people stand? Natural boundaries were set partly by our eyes. We bathed i n each other's stare. Are eyes permeable and porous? Yes, I t h i n k so. Lovers swim i n each other's eyes, as well as arms. One flies i n t o and w i t h the Other by seeing and being seen. There are eye baths, as well as arrows and snares. Narcissus was devoured by his stare: he drowned i n the eyes o f his m i r r o r . But along w i t h eye-heart, eye-skin, and eye-genital connections, there is eye­ brain. Porousness comes u p against visual hardness, the need to see exactly, objective vision, the seeing o f the heartless b i r d that eats its prey alive. Marion and I bathed i n each other's stares, b u t also came u p against each other's visual shields and swords. We saw ourselves seeing each other and, at times, delighted i n this supraconsciousness. The k n o w i n g brain-I places a sort o f l i m i t o n fusion by catching i t i n the act. I t is a matter o f attitude and m o o d , this kaleidoscopic play o f capacities. A n appreciative steel-trapped brain-eye can let fusion spread. The more, the bet­ ter. There is fusional knowing, as well as detached knowing. Fusion can go places that detachment cannot. The two can l i n k u p w i t h each other, share each other's findings, intensify each other's experiences. A meanly critical attitude freezes fusion. One becomes too afraid, mistrustful, devaluing. Fusion does n o t stop, but becomes more diffuse, sneaky, monstrous.

130

Psychic Deadness

Fusion can be detached too, becoming detached fusion. Sexual addicts know this only too well. The fusional capacity can respond like an open gate, divorced f r o m the personal, open to everything and anything, a promiscuity o f stimula­ t i o n . We do n o t like to t h i n k that we ride a sea of anonymous capacities. I t is scary to realize how m u c h our thoughts t h i n k us and how little we t h i n k them. T h e same is true with streams o f feelings, sensations, imaginings, willings. O u r little I-feeling mounts t h e m and says, I t h i n k , I see, I want: I , I , I . Isn't there something anonymous about our I too? The I-feeling: Isn't that also given to us by an anonymous D o n o r , by anonymous processes? It is amazing how the anonymous and personal permeate each other, break apart, reconnect ceaselessly. I suspect one o f the things that glued M a r i o n and I together was our appreciation o f this sort o f fireworks display. We experienced our personalities falling apart and coming together i n all sorts o f ways. Now an I-feeling shoots like a meteorite across heavens/hells, w i t h this or that b i t o f sensation-feeling-imagining-willing-believing-thinking m i x t u r e . T h e kaleido­ scope turns and the I-feeling fades. We are left staring at n o t h i n g , or there is a rude, naked ticking o f capacities. I t can be f r i g h t e n i n g , staring i n t o n o t h i n g . It also can be wonderful. What a relief to be free o f the tyrant I that is so self­ referential about everything that happens.

SHE

COULDN'T WAIT

I was amazed when M a r i o n picked me as her therapist. I t h o u g h t I was a tran­ sient consultant who w o u l d serve his purpose and then be discarded. A t best, I imagined I was a curiosity, someone a little different. M a r i o n w o u l d satisfy her appetite, then r e t u r n to the tried-and-true. I could scarcely believe she would let go of a safe nine-year-old relationship for the offbeat and u n k n o w n . I have two sets o f feelings about such matters. One is my amazement at being picked: I expect to be rejected. Yet I feel sad at n o t being picked when I feel I m i g h t have helped someone. A quiet voice whispers, " C o u l d n ' t they see I could help? Yes, they had reasons for n o t staying, but. . . . " From greedy self­ depreciation to therapeutic megalomania. M a r i o n t o l d me that her therapist said I ought n o t have spoken the way I d i d when I gave my talk. H e r therapist and many therapists, a c c o r d i n g to M a r i o n , felt my language was too i n f o r m a l , too naked, too open; that I was baffling, provocative, and embarrassing. I was trying to be simple, exact, evoca­ tive, to convey the sense and atmosphere o f a b i t o f work I h o p e d would be useful. One never quite knows oneself and hopes to create an impression dif­ ferent f r o m the one actually conveyed. I t is sobering to realize how irrelevant one is to many, yet w o r t h i t f o r the few who f i n d one's voice moving or freeing. The unfortunate result o f speaking for the few can be a shared sense o f secret superiority that isolates one and makes one i m m u n e to ordinary criticism. Was

From Attraction to Meditation

131

there the danger o f M a r i o n and I f o r m i n g such a bond? Was the fact that my craziness spoke to her craziness (and vice versa) alarming or healing? W o u l d the language and concerns we shared isolate and injure us or b r i n g us more deeply i n t o life? T h e contingencies o f life broke fantasies o f oneness and b r o u g h t us to our first real crisis. I was out shopping w i t h my c h i l d r e n and came back five m i n ­ utes late for Marion's appointment. By my reckoning, I was only three m i n ­ utes late (five minutes by the time I was o n the phone calling h e r ) . I under­ stood that she could t h i n k I was almost fifteen minutes late, since her new time was ten minutes later than her original time. She could say that she forgot her time was changed or that it was n o t changed ten minutes. I f i t was changed five minutes, then I was eight to ten minutes late. My eyes searched anxiously for her on the porch but I knew she w o u l d n o t be there. I half expected her to come back any moment. Perhaps she was late and soon w o u l d r i n g the bell. I looked out the window o n and off, b u t knew she had left. I remember my happy feeling driving home w i t h my kids t h i n k i n g I would be only a few minutes late and w o u l d make my appointment. I was a few blocks f r o m my house when the sinking feeling h i t and i t dawned o n me: she would not wait. The fact that I would arrive and she w o u l d n o t be there somehow set things i n order. There w o u l d be n o secret society. She was r i g h t to slap my grandiosity i n the face. H e r leaving kept things honest. We were n o t i n a love nest or ivory tower or bell jar. What a way to keep things honest: I am n o t there for her, nor she for me. We come and go before and after each other. Perfect! I n an instant we said everything! W o u n d for w o u n d , m o d e r n talion. Hole meets hole, abyss meets abyss. We offer each o t h e r the Great Zero. We create the Great Zero and enter i t together. I t is o u r action p a i n t i n g , o u r bloody comedy. I t is c o m m o n courtesy for patient and therapist to give each other fifteen minutes to show up before going about their business. M a r i o n could n o t give me fifteen minutes. I called and left a message o n her machine, letting her know I was there and was sorry she d i d n ' t wait. I offered to see her after my next appointment. While I was with my next patient, she called to say she was o n her way over. We w o u l d try again. I felt it a sacrifice to give M a r i o n another session. My wife was away seeing her i l l mother. I was home taking care o f the kids. The kids w o u l d take care o f themselves d u r i n g the two sessions I scheduled. Now we had to change plans because o f the additional time I had offered M a r i o n . Perhaps sacrifice is the wrong word. Perhaps it was more an imposition than sacrifice, b u t imposition is too weak. After all, I offered the extra time; no one forced me to. The fact that this was o u r next-to-last meeting before my two­ week vacation must have played a role i n my offer. Was I afraid o f losing Marion, tipping her over the edge, wrecking our relationship? Our relationship was new. We were still finding each other, getting each other's range.

132

Psychic Deadness

I do n o t t h i n k being a few minutes late is a terrible t h i n g . Most people absorb this. More i m p o r t a n t than objective facts were the shock waves I felt. I was late, she left: shock waves. I n the great waves were little waves o f fear­ anxiety-panic guilt. Why d i d n ' t I take the time o f our appointment more seri­ ously? I wanted to make i t u p to M a r i o n , make i t better, repair the rift, re­ establish harmony, undo disconnection and upheaval. But the great Shockwaves involved more than momentary panicky guilt. T o say I was furious or resentful is an understatement that misses the mark. It is crucial to do justice to the extra sum o f intensity that blasted the day, the intensity that Marion and I generated. A disruptive force smashed and battered our day. I am tempted to say an uncontrollable upheaval r u i n e d our day. I t almost ruined the day or might have r u i n e d the day. I t also saved the day. By damaging the niceness o f the day, i t brought our day to another level. Every day has its disruptions, its serious disruptions. I t was n o t enough for M a r i o n and I to be nice to each other. I f our relationship could n o t work with disruptive forces, i t was n o t worth anything. Therapy is a highly distilled ver­ sion o f two people w o r k i n g with the disruptions that a relationship generates. T o say that Marion and I generated disruptions partly misses the mark. I t may be truer to say that we had to f i n d our way around-with-through the disrup­ tions and uncontrollable upheavals that mark emotional life. The shock o f Marion's n o t being there and o f my n o t being there for her acted like a magnet that melded together other shocks I experienced in our relationship, such as her announcing she wanted to k i l l herself, or her menac­ ing glower. I t was i m p o r t a n t to let this impact b u i l d , to experience i t fully, as best I could. I needed to be true to what was happening between us. I t would not devastate my being for long. My day w o u l d re-form around it. Yet I had to admit that what was happening involved a sense o f devastation. Was i t my dev­ astation? Marion's devastation? A free-floating devastation that we happened to r u n into? I t felt like i t would go o n forever, that we could never recover. I t felt like it had always been there and would never go away. We coil a r o u n d and swallow events too big to handle, then stretch to digest t h e m to whatever extent we are able. We coil a r o u n d some segment o f shock and try to metabolize i t . O u r impact on each other matters and requires fidel­ ity and cultivation, even if that impact is devastating. Perhaps what matters most is the elasticity we exercise i n response to the devastating impacts we have on each other. I t is as i f we must test our capacity to stretch to the l i m i t and then draw back to a workable area. We repeat the process and grow or snap. I felt Marion's h u r t feelings at my lateness, her panic that I forgot about her. I half hoped she would say no when I offered an extra hour, but I knew she must say yes. I was glad she d i d , n o t merely sorry. A n i m p o r t a n t ingredient in the steps o f this episode was a sense o f inevitability. She had to go through this and so d i d I . We had to i n f l i c t certain sorts o f i n j u r y o n each other, endure suspense, and then enjoy the relief of momentary resolution.

From Attraction to M e d i t a t i o n

133

Being a bit late triggered the sense o f catastrophe. T h a t the circumstances were n o t really catastrophic gave us a chance to work with the sense o f catas­ trophe i n a nearly tolerable dose. I n ordinary life the sense o f catastrophe paralyzes M a r i o n , warps the tone o f her days, forces her to provoke more suf­ fering than need be, strangles her efforts at living. T h e sense o f catastrophe can never be fully encompassed by our personalities. I n every life there is more catastrophe than a being can handle. We constrict ourselves to areas we imagine we can handle. We bite o f f a bit o f reality and plunge i n , m o l d i t , learn to feel at ease with i t : our little nest, workplace, home, sets o f relationships. We metabolize what little b i t o f the catastrophic sense we can a n d make the best o f it. M a r i o n had her home, her marriage, her work, her family, her w o r l d . She progressed as an analyst, a mother, a wife, a person. Yet n o t h i n g felt satisfac­ tory. She d i d not get where she wanted to be professionally, n o r i n her mar­ riage, n o r as a mother, n o r as a person. Something pulverized her life, poi­ soned her relationships, shattered and deformed her sense o f self. T h e sense o f catastrophe pervaded every b i t o f her life, so that her capacities felt like spider's legs w r i g g l i n g helplessly, ceaselessly, every w h i c h way, u n d e r the impact o f an i n j u r y to the center, a n i n j u r y too i m m e n s e to heal, too pervasive

to locate. Marion's mother also was depressed; an overwhelming depression was passed on t h r o u g h generations. M a r i o n grew o n psychic grounds that were shaky. Whatever she built c o u l d be destroyed by a shift o f the emotional weather. She lived between earthquakes. Catastrophe was part o f the taste o f her milk. She spent so much time learning to survive catastrophe that she d i d n o t have much time for herself. Marion's mother alternately supported her and tore her down. W o m e n were not supposed to get educated. Being a professional broke the m o l d . I n a sense, Marion rode her depression past her mother. H e r depression catapulted her into the therapeutic w o r l d , where her m i n d f o u n d f o o d that fit her. She could t h i n k about herself t h r o u g h others a n d about others t h r o u g h herself. H e r mental gifts nested i n her depressive sensitivity. Her m i n d pirouetted t h r o u g h the psychoanalytic k i n g d o m i n search o f treasures. Here she could be herself, exercise herself. W o r k i n g w i t h severe disturbances i n others came naturally to her. Her own therapy was a place she could let down and let her yucky self out. It was also a place she c o u l d let her best self shine. I knew all this and appreciated Marion's real strengths, her battle against odds, her real triumphs. I empathized with her panicky vulnerability a n d sense of fragility as well. I was able to ask, "Why d i d n ' t you wait for me?" We openly touchecj in's and out's o f n o mother, no other, no g r o u n d , a subzero w o r l d . I t thus came as a surprise when the w o r d that f o r m e d i n my m i n d was "merci­ less." I would not escape the growing sense (accusation?) that Marion's n o t waiting for me, whatever else i t was, was merciless, an act o f cruelty.

134

Psychic Deadness

She meant to devastate me. We created a b i t o f shared devastation. Perhaps I tasted what she lived w i t h , what she had to contend with. T o go t h r o u g h a devastating time was like breaking bread together, the bread o f catastrophe. We would break catastrophe together and metabolize bits at a time. "How merciless, not to wait for me," I said. She could n o t believe her ears. Was I being hostile, letting out my anger at M a r i o n f o r messing u p part o f my day? I had to risk it. The word merciless f o r m e d i n b i g red letters i n my m i n d . It was inescapable. I lived with i t for a little while before saying i t , a m o u n t a i n o f a word, unbudgeable. I f I d i d n ' t say it, the m o m e n t would die, an o p p o r t u ­ nity lost. We were alive together i n a difficult, almost h o r r i b l e way. There was no c o m p r o m i s i n g the moment. "Merciless. You are merciless." She was surprised, interested, relieved. There was also disbelief, a "What­ do-you-mean?" glance. The menacing glower was n o t absent, but not dominant. "Your n o t giving me a chance to show up was merciless." Was I d o i n g this for her or for me? I felt freer, less i n t i m i d a t e d by her i l l ­ ness, her glower. I could locate cruelty i n the glower. I saw a cruel tyrant. Leav­ i n g so precipitously was tyrannical. The fact she was weak, vulnerable, needy, and fragile ought n o t excuse cruelty and tyranny; needy and cruel aspects o f personality often interweave. There was a silence in which I felt we were sinking more deeply into, through, past ourselves. I d i d not know what would happen. W o u l d she be hurt? Enraged? H o w m u c h w o u l d I have to pay for my transgression? We kept sinking past our situation, deeper i n t o our lives, past o u r lives. "Merciless," said Marion. "I've often thought I was merciless. That's a word that w o u l d come to me. I would see myself do something to someone, my hus­ band, my c h i l d , and think I was being merciless. I t never passed my lips. I t was never said." M a r i o n spoke resonantly, fully, a b i t shakily. I felt we shared a m o m e n t o f transcendence. I n a breath it could slip away. As she spoke she saw and sensed the icy cruelty that is part o f life. A hair's-breadth shift o f spirit and she would no longer encompass this icy cruelty b u t be it. I t does n o t take m u c h to feel maligned, i n j u r e d , to feel the f u l l scope o f the evil done to one, the real dep­ rivations and horrors that deform the self. Being abused by existence justifies abusing existence; torture justifies torture. M a r i o n repeated the word merciless a few times, m u l l i n g i t over, trying i t on for size. She spoke i t as a confession, a subtitle to so many actions that ran off automatically and baffled her. She dared not let the other in on her merciless­ ness, lest i t be used against her or dismissed. Such an admission w o u l d give the other an unfair advantage. I f her mercilessness was admitted as evidence against her, she w o u l d lose the imaginary advantage conferred by secrecy. She w o u l d no longer feel she had the r i g h t to prosecute her case.

From Attraction to Meditation

135

She gave me a "How-did-you-know?" glance. I could see i t was n o t a ques­ tion, b u t an appreciative acknowledgment o f a shared capacity. Things often came to her that t u r n e d o u t to be accurate. I n sessions she w o u l d t h i n k or say things that reflected the depths o f her patients' beings. They would come o u t o f the blue, little birds o f m e a n i n g f r o m nowhere. Such words carried the authority o f unconscious w o r k , a taking i n a n d processing o f the patient's impact. My saying something that h a d o f t e n stained her awareness validated the reality o f unconscious transmission, valorized the fact o f permeability a n d porousness. We are porous a n d permeable beings who transmit intuitions to each other. We may deny or abuse this capacity, m i l k i t for all its w o r t h , or pretend i t isn't there, b u t i t is there, ticking messages o f felt significance. My saying what M a r i o n t h o u g h t suggested that she was part o f a c o m m u n i t y that respectfully worked with porousness. She was n o t an isolated freak or weirdo. Unconscious processing o f attitudes-affects was part o f a real j o b by real people, she a n d I among them.

ON BEING MERCILESS AND

A TALENT FOR DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY

I n the next session M a r i o n said she t h o u g h t a l o t about my calling her merci­ less. She felt accused, p u t down, ashamed, worthless. I made her feel among the lowest o f the low. She hated me f o r this. She went i n t o a depressive spin. These were n o t new feelings. She was used to feeling worthless. Abjection was home; t o be a w o r m was business as usual. What was i m p o r ­ tant was that she p u l l e d o u t o f it. She pictured herself as merciless-worthless and felt more backbone. I t felt good to stop making believe she wasn't cruel. She was suffocated by her role as the weak one, the one to w h o m bad things happened. I t was a relief to own u p to d o i n g bad things to others, as well as others d o i n g bad things to her. M a r i o n pulled o u t o f her depressive spin by sticking w i t h a b i t o f psychic t r u t h , the same truth that p l u n g e d her i n t o it. She said the word "merciless" oyer and over, like a mantra. She rode o u t her depression o n this mantra. M a r i o n had l o n g loved psychic t r u t h : her sensibility craved it. Some people have a talent f o r psychic life. They are at home swimming i n the psyche. N o t h ­ i n g fills t h e m more than visions o f psychical reality. Marion's tragedy was that she could n o t get this talent to w o r k for her. She used i t to decimate herself and others. She also used i t t o e n r i c h life, to l i n k u p w i t h others, b u t the dan­ gers were great. She picked wounds, a n d when they opened, she j u m p e d i n and vanished. Wounds took o n a life o f their own; they gorged o n her a n d she on them.

136

Psychic Deadness

What we needed to d o was create a context that enabled her to use her tal­ ent w i t h o u t destroying herself a n d others. T h a t c o n t e x t or background or horizon was stimulated and sustained by the quality o f o u r interplay. I n the depths o f my being I could say, "Wow, M a r i o n ! You really can destroy me; you can destroy my day. We can destroy each other's day. A n d we do/But we some­ how bounce back. We find ways of contacting each other. We reconnect. We destroy o u r connections a n d reconnect. We really d o this repeatedly. O u r relationship survives us, and we survive i t . More than survive: we are hell f o r each other, and t h r o u g h hell, radiance f o r each other." A n i m p o r t a n t element i n this porridge is that I really respected Marion's psychic talent, her contact w i t h psychic life. I d i d n o t simply view i t as a sec­ ondary or compensatory offshoot o f personality problems, a schizoid, border­ line, or narcissistic sensitivity, although i t also may be that. I know the deep joys this talent can b r i n g , a n d I know its pitfalls too. There is such a thing as a talent f o r psychic life, a gift for psychological i n t u i t i o n , sensing, o r construc­ tion. I t can take many forms, including being a therapist. I t is a talent that needs to be accepted as part o f daily life, n o t devalued as something that ought n o t be there i f one were healthier. I w o u l d n o t be surprised i f Marion's past therapists tended to fear or play down her psychological sensitivity. M a r i o n was expert at t u n i n g i n t o psychical reality i n devastating ways. One could be devastated, as she herself was, by her abilities. O n e could see the need for firm therapeutic boundaries, distance, and self-protectiveness, although the result w o u l d be lasting fear o f Marion's psychical foundations and greatest gifts. A c c o r d i n g to M a r i o n , her past therapists assumed the role o f the ones who had the r i g h t to live, as the carriers o f self-worth. T h e i r j o b was to encourage M a r i o n to become one o f the worthy. There was an unbridgeable gulf: they healthy, she sick. They were what she was supposed t o be. They t r i e d to help her past the barrier o f herself. They were encouraging, warm, and supportive (although one also was supercilious, self-justifying, a n d testy). They invited her to j u m p to the other side o f the h e a l t h y - i l l line, their line, perhaps Marion's imaginary line. Perhaps M a r i o n was attracted to me because I was f u r t h e r along i n accept­ i n g my offbeat sensibility a n d i n learning to use i t less destructively. Perhaps I conveyed to her the sense that i t was okay to be the sort o f person she was. T h e r e were n o lines to cross. I t was a matter o f practice and experience. A few sessions ago M a r i o n commented o n what she called my "healthy i n ­ difference." She felt lifted i n t o a new dimension o f psychological care by my m i n u t e a t t e n t i o n to nuances o f shifts i n her m o m e n t - t o - m o m e n t states o f being. She felt I registered shifts i n m o o d a n d i n t e n t i o n : she could see a n d feel her impact o n me. Yet she could see that my own life ticked o n , that my lifeline was n o t deflected by hers. I could pay attention to her, then d r o p her or let her go.

From Attraction to Meditation

137

Marion said she respected my sparse use o f words; she respected my com­ petence. She used the term respect several times. Apparently the w o r d was grow­ ing i n meaning for her. Surely her past therapists respected and helped her. But now i t seemed as i f a lifelong dream were c o m i n g true. Her naked psychic life was respected for its own sake, and she d i d n o t have to do anything to earn this respect, n o t even get better. Psyche called to psyche, psyche resonated to psyche. The psyche has its own range finder, tendrils, ways o f knowing. M a r i o n scarcely believed her luck i n stepping into a w o r l d where sensitivity reverber­ ated to sensitivity i n a raw, respectful way. Marion liked the fact that I c o u l d pay attention to her, yet let her go: my own brand of mercilessness. I t irritated, enraged, and depressed her. I t also made her breathe easier. A t times she could be jealous o f her own psyche: Was I more interested i n her psyche than i n her? She needed the reassurance that I worried about her, that I cared. I n d e e d , I d i d . I was aware she could d r o w n i n depression, that injury and rage c o u l d do her i n . The new dimension o f psy­ chic care I offered m i g h t n o t be enough. I n time she w o u l d get used to i t , use me up. What then? Meanwhile, M a r i o n enjoyed contact with a flow o f double capacities that matched her own. I could be upset, yet i m m u n e to being upset; attuned to suffering yet n o t done i n by it. I could worry, yet follow the psychic threads of the worry. Like her, I could let vagueness and clarity alternate w i t h o u t favor­ ing either, although she tended to favor clarity and I vagueness. We were merciless i n our own ways. Psychotherapy has a merciless aspect. One experiences the pain o f the other, and one's own pain, and does what one has to do. One follows the lines o f psychic interplay to the end. Psychoanalysis is an operation without anesthesia, although one does n o t spit i n the face o f merciful lies. Can one do this work without faith and a lust for psychic reality? W h o does what to whom? I was a b i t late, and M a r i o n left. I called, and she came back. I said the w o r d merciless. She said she wanted to say it. T i m e stood still, and we were n o t h i n g b u t mercilessness, totally absorbed by the merciless­ ness that runs t h r o u g h life. T h e w o r d merciless consumed us f o r a time and became our primary link. The m e r c i f u l t h i n g to do was to experience o u r mercilessness. For the m o m e n t , the most heartfelt thing to do was to sense our heartlessness. O u r mental and sexual arousal b r o u g h t us to this cold spot, f r o m heat to ice. Passion and coldness i n f o r m the exercise o f capacities. We were m a k i n g r o o m for the mercilessness we t r i e d to hide f r o m , the mercilessness that we t r i e d to wish away. C o u l d the heat o f o u r relationship metabolize a b i t o f cruelty? Cruelty can never be fully metabolized. We will be cruel to each other, to ourselves. We learn to make better use o f cruelty. We keep reworking our rela­ tionship to what is cruel i n ourselves. We become creative partners w i t h our merciful-merciless attitudes and moods.

138

Psychic Deadness

I am grateful that my relationship w i t h M a r i o n gave me a chance to rework some o f my own coldness, indifference, mercilessness. My contact w i t h this dimension, through M a r i o n , chilled me and warmed me. Wasn't there some­ t h i n g cool and casual i n showing u p late? I could have made the effort to come o n time. I could have planned better, n o t done so many things, rushed a b i t more. I f I had taken the time o f our appointment more seriously, I w o u l d have been there as expected. I f I had taken Marion's expectation to heart, I would have been there. There was a dismissive, self-absorbed aspect to my casualness. The w o r l d could wait f o r me. I refused to be dominated so totally by schedule, by time, by the other. I was angry at the regimented aspect o f my life. For the moment, i t was Marion's fault. She was to blame for my having to make a living, for my having to go to my office when I was shopping w i t h my kids. Well, d a m n it! The hell w i t h i t ! I ' l l go at my own pace, not hers. I ' l l show u p when I show up. She'll wait, she'll be there. I raced home, and M a r i o n raced away and raced back. Together we faced our self-absorption, our self-protectiveness, our inability to sustain life's ten­ sions and contraries, our need to be and not to be with each other. O u r therapy is only a few months o l d . I t will take a lot o f growing or ingenuity or genius for us to stick with the situations we must find our way t h r o u g h , the states we cre­ ate with each other. That is part of the glory o f this work, a glory that radiates t h r o u g h mercilessness.

12 Primary Process and Shock

S a m is a young, handsome man, a poet who looks like he lifts weights. He reminds me o f certain actors who have fresh, well-packaged looks, faces com­ posed as they wish, a sense o f control r u n n i n g t h r o u g h facial as well as bodily muscles. He is i n c o m m a n d o f his f u n c t i o n i n g . H e is affable and warm, alto­ gether pleasant and engaging. He ought to be likable and actually is. Yet there is something uncomfortable and jittery about h i m , as i f his muscles do not quite work as a shell, and the sensitive underside is exposed. His face seems very naked, yet n o t h i n g seems to be there except raw nervousness. I am interested i n Sam and glad he is seeing me. I am i n my late fifties, he i n his twenties. I n some ways he is living the k i n d o f life I m i g h t have liked to live i n my twenties. H e is a gifted writer enjoying affairs w i t h numerous women. My relationships with women, especially i n my twenties, were tormented, i f also joyous. I went f r o m hell to hell, as well as heaven to heaven. Sam aroused my envy w i t h his great affairs w i t h great women and the pleasures he got f r o m writing (writing: one of my favorite torments). Everything Sam d i d was f u n and pleasurable. He seemed to have a r i g h t to pleasure. Where was Sam's hell? Sam dated his death f r o m a m o m e n t i n college when his father walked o u t of a restaurant i n a fury, leaving Sam and his m o t h e r i n a state o f shock. A t that m o m e n t Sam split o f f f r o m himself and never came together again. A vast emptiness arose between his feelings and a seeing eye above. This emptiness pervaded his pleasures. Living was marred and canceled itself. N o t h i n g devel­ oped i n significant ways. Nevertheless, there were moments i n sex and w r i t i n g when Sam came to­ gether a n d was lifted beyond himself. These moments were short-lived and dwindled i n t o insignificance, b u t they made h i m feel that life ought to be dif­ ferent and that he must n o t settle for the status quo. The o d d t h i n g for me was the way Sam reduced his best moments to an ideology o f pleasure. I n my twenties the best moments stood out against t o r m e n t a n d banality, lifted life to another level, shook me i n t o the faith dimension. Intense plea­

140

Psychic Deadness

sure catapulted me past itself t h r o u g h an open heart toward the face o f God. A light beyond the fires o f h e l l pierced shell after shell o f oblivion. Yet Sam was willing to settle for pleasure, to call life at its best pleasure rather than glory. D i d he take for granted what was most meaningful to me, or d i d he suffer f r o m massive amnesia? As a writer he certainly must know the age-old association o f pleasure with emptiness. D i d Sam's emptiness, l i n k e d w i t h shock, use pleasure to soothe or wash the shock away? D i d pleasure grow out o f emptiness or emp­ tiness out o f pleasure? Were b o t h part o f a reduced field connected with shock? Furious Father left Sam a n d M o t h e r i n shock. The shock o f being left by Father is one image o f a shock that has n o b e g i n n i n g or end. Shock runs t h r o u g h the psyche and molds life a n d character. I wonder i f I have ever met a person who was not i n some state o f shock. Perhaps one's personality or character is a sort o f shock dealing w i t h shocks. The fact o f shock is never outgrown. But what is Sam's shock? I repeatedly ask Sam about the fateful m o m e n t f r o m which he dates his greatest difficulties. I encourage h i m to get i n t o or taste or explore the shock. H e is mostly blank, b u t we learn his father was short-tempered. Sam remem­ bers h i m as impatient and irritable f r o m the outset. As years went by he let himself go and became a fat, morose, loving, angry man. I see a shocked baby when I look at Sam. Actually, a number o f different shocked babies, representing a geology o f shocks. I can't help it. It's my indoc­ t r i n a t i o n , my style. I see shocked babies when I t h i n k o f Sam's father and mother, and their fathers and mothers. The shock w i t h no name takes on a history. You and I are unique bits o f shock waves, contributing our own ripples, pulsations, bits o f quakes and floods. So-called oedipal and preoedipal shocks are prismatic reflections o f shock itself, the generic shock beyond names. We share the capacity for shock w i t h other creatures, perhaps all matter. Maybe every particle and subparticle that ever existed has a capacity for shock, a capacity encoded i n every b i t o f u n i ­ verse. Our unconscious/conscious m i n d infinitizes shock. Our psychic life raises experiencing to an infinite power, blows up extremes. I t is normal to exaggerate. We are partly arrested shocks, shock funnels, h o m o - and heteroerotic shock filters. States o f shock take on a certain stability. As I travel through Sam I come u p o n bits and pieces o f congealed shock and then an enormous m o u n t a i n range topped by the highest peak o f all, M o u n t Shock. Somewhere i n the dis­ tance I hear Sam talking about his mother. He is saying that she is submissive but deeply manipulative. She appears to be i n the r i g h t and uses this fact to get her way. Sam is grateful that she does n o t blow up. H e r patience and perseverance create an illusion o f understanding contact. The shock o f shocks is Sam's real­ ization that she does n o t really understand h i m . What he took as understand­ i n g was simple maternal regard: a generic maternal love, m i x e d w i t h narcis­ sism, b l i n d and mute attachment to a body w i t h emotions, a face w i t h a smile, devotion to an essence, a soul, w i t h o u t a freeing apprehension o f the face on

Primary Process and Shock

141

that soul. Sam felt his m o t h e r insinuating herself i n t o h i m . They were snakes intertwined against the father. H e fears h e will n e v e r w a k e u p f r o m this spell. H e fears h e is w a k i n g u p .

His father's fury meant to shock h i m o u t o f maternal fusion, but only made Mt. Shock grow. Sam's personality cracked along its fault lines. Years of con­ flicts w i t h i n and between parents wore Sam down. Just at the m o m e n t when

Sam looked strong and old enough and big enough to bear his father's fury, his father let go, and Sam was severed f r o m himself. The words I hear i n the distance do n o t surprise me. We recite our versions of wounds, our stories or myths. The contents of Shock M o u n t a i n can be bor ing, b u t I am never bored by the thawing out o f mountains o f shock. Contents are necessary parts or conduits o f processes that go far beyond them. I keep my eye o n shocks and thawing. How wonderful therapy is when the shocks we are begin to thaw. I wonder why Sam picked me. He went through obligatory auditions o f thera­ pists. Maybe he felt understood as a writer. I imagine he looks at me and sees the 20-year-old still f u c k i n g and w r i t i n g like mad i n the basement o f my per­ sonality. Can he also see the pools o f hell? Doesn't he know I d o n ' t t h i n k that pleasure can paste personality together? Sam baffled me. He thinks suffering is n o t essential, that i t ought n o t be there. I f only the fateful shock had not happened, he w o u l d be whole. His life would be a stream o f pleasures. I f only he could repeal the fateful moment, the traumatic d i n n e r , and be one again. A m I cynical to t h i n k o f his fateful shock as a m o m e n t o f destiny? From that moment, living as a pleasure machine would n o t do. I t w o u l d take Sam years to approach this realization. A l l he knew was that he was n o t the same. His personality split or broke apart. Yet his whole being d i d n o t suffer breakdown. He f u n c t i o n e d well. H e wrote, dated, he made a living, he had experiences. Yet the break-up o f his personality stayed with h i m . H e p o u r e d pleasures i n t o it, t h r o u g h i t , a r o u n d i t . H e t r i e d to bliss i t o u t w i t h m e n t a l and physical orgasms. But the fact o f unpleasure would n o t budge. H e could n o t wish the pain o f life away. My vision/prejudice is that Sam's break-up w i l l n o t go away unless he becomes the k i n d of person who can make r o o m f o r and absorb his break-up. Sam's stuck p o i n t demands that he develop a new relationship with himself. He must develop an emotional context capable of absorbing and processing shock and divisions. Sam needs to thaw f r o m the g r o u n d up, as well as f r o m the top down. My feeling is that rigidity o f ideology is matched w i t h rigidity o f primary process work. Sam's belief that suffering is an accidental, n o t an essential, part o f life reflects a constriction that is not merely cognitive. T h e r e is a narrowing o f his ability to sustain a n d process affects and to link affect to thought. Shock cov­ ers incapacity, and incapacity covers shock. Any analyst would suspect that Sam's problems d i d n o t date f r o m the trau­ matic dinner. T h a t must be a screen memory, a privileged m o m e n t that sum­

142

Psychic Deadness

marizes and encapsulates patterns and fault lines o f self. Sam's memory o f early events is barren. As a writer, he is startled by how little access he has to his early self. H e is i n contact only w i t h raw facts o f his history, n o t the living memory. W h e n he tries to let himself go, he feels how far away f r o m his life he is. Orgasms fill holes i n the self for moments, b u t will n o t let pain associated w i t h emptiness m o u n t . Sam wants to be fixed without feeling agony. He wants an imaginary totality, w i t h o u t living t h r o u g h fragmentary processes.

PRIMARY PROCESS AS A CAPACITY The traditional portrayal o f secondary process d o i n g the b i n d i n g work, while primary process aims at discharge, is exaggerated and misleading. Primary process does work too. I t begins the processing o f affects, particularly cata­ strophic affective impacts. Catastrophic affective globs undergo processes o f transformation, via condensation and displacement and so o n , and enter dream work. Bits o f nameless, formless catastrophic impacts are reworked i n t o moods, images, and narratives i n dreams, myths a n d reveries a n d become psychic objects and parts o f successive levels o f thought. One can envision primary process as serpentine, wiggling this way and that. Freud uses l i q u i d and electrical imagery when speaking o f its fluidity. Yet i n primary process work u n i t i n g - d i v i d i n g is going o n . A t least we picture i t that way when we t h i n k o f condensation-displacement. Divisions may be fluid, but they are made use of. We like to t h i n k that our associative streams m i r r o r , i n a glass darkly, what the unconscious may be doing. I confess I am a primary process lover. I n an i m p o r t a n t way, loving the flow o f primary process meanings has made my life worthwhile. The u n f o l d i n g o f my life has been part o f this flow. Many elements help k n i t a life together. Pleasure can l i n k personality to­ gether; so can pain, or power, or catastrophic dread, or a sense o f persecution, or preoccupation w i t h somatic or hysterical concerns. I n this chapter, I want to celebrate the l i n k i n g power o f primary process work. Pour hardened mean­ ings i n a h o t p o t and melt them, liquefy them, pour the l i q u i d i n t o new molds, and do i t again. Liquefy the molds and pots too. It feels so good to be n o t h i n g , to liquefy identity, to be raw identity. I pop u p again, j u s t plain me, everyday me. I am aware o f my l i n k w i t h a deeper unconscious flow that supports me, that throws me over. I dive again. I t h i n k this is the flow that Sam tries to contact with orgasms, alcohol, drugs, writing. He w o u l d like to use pleasure to get to i t , b u t the p r o b l e m is deeper. It is not just a matter o f getting to the flow. I n an i m p o r t a n t way the flow has stopped. Perhaps the flow itself has become a barrier or hiatus. Sam tries to rev up momentary intensity to jump-start the flow. I t is not just that contact is broken. The underlying primary process snake is n o t well enough

Primary Process and Shock

143

to do the j o b . I t is n o t able to start metabolizing catastrophic bits o f affect i n ways that l i n k a person w i t h himself w i t h o u t being a menace to the community. Primary process work links personality together. One can use many images to express this linkage. I t is the b l o o d o f personality, circulating t h r o u g h o u t personality structures, issuing nutrients t h r o u g h o u t the psychic body. I t stimu­ lates, warms, inspires, scares, and incessantly breaks apart and puts together experience i n startling ways. When it works well, i t facilitates the overall growth o f personality. My feeling is that Sam's personality constriction and emptiness involved more than ego deficit. Ego constriction and r i g i d i t y often reflect constriction and rigidity o f primary process f u n c t i o n i n g . Sam's shock affected psychic systems o n many levels. I t ran through his personality. I t made his psychic blood colder, his psychic skin more colorless. A n u m b chill was where a warm flow m i g h t have been. What does one do to help Sam's primary processor thaw out and develop? H o w does one enable the psychic intake-digestive system to work better?

IMPACT AND MOVEMENT A core ingredient i n the k i n d o f work I have i n m i n d is the impact o f the pa­ tient on the therapist. Impact is the primary raw datum. I t is the most private, intimate fact o f a meeting. The therapist may hide yet secretly nurse the deep impact the patient has on h i m . T o p u t the impact i n t o words and share it too soon may spoil its u n f o l d i n g . A n impact needs time to take root and grow. I t occurs instantaneously, b u t needs the analyst's faith, time, and loyalty i n order to prosper. T h e analyst must be true to the patient's impact. Yet many times he may speak away f r o m the impact to keep things going. For example, the therapist can keep the patient busy with m a p p i n g o u t early object relations and traumas and discussing current problems, conflicts, deficits, the i n ' s - o u t ' s o f p a t i e n t ­ therapist interactions. A l l this activity can be h e l p f u l and b r i n g relief. Bits o f the patient's hidden impact may be used i n the therapist's formulations. But f u l l disclosure o f the impact may be destructive. One plays for time and pro­ tects a n d nurses the impact. I n some instances it may be years before an impact can be revealed, and by that time the patient has a different impact, although something o f the original impact remains. Different therapists have different styles i n dealing w i t h impact. Some spray bits and pieces o f it, shotgun style, musing aloud. Others channel it w i t h laser clarity and intensity. Some oscillate between extremes, and most are probably somewhere i n between. One cannot know ahead o f time what parts o f an impact may or may n o t be usable. Parts o f impacts remain outside the psyche's digestive ability, for bet­

144

Psychic Deadness

ter or worse. Other parts dissolve more readily and distribute themselves through affective currents that e n r i c h living. Most often, impacts are shocks, the shock o f one personality impacting on another. Sometimes the shock is pleasant, sometimes not; often i t is mixed, and usually mute. A monolithic shock soon becomes variegated. As one lives with a shock, one comes to know different parts o f i t . One becomes more familiar with its colors, tonalities, textures, tensions. There are blue, white, red, and black shocks, and sometimes one sees stars or hears ringing or voices or music. One's personality may contract or constrict itself around the shock o f the Other, the p o i n t o f impact. I f the shock is great, stiffening may be widespread. One goes blank and waits. The m i n d may race to get its bearings. I f the shock is unpleasant, the chest may freeze. I t takes moments to realize the danger is psychical, not physical, so that the primary processor can come o u t o f h i d i n g and work. I f the shock is w o n d e r f u l (e.g., the shock o f j o y ) , one can't open enough. The t u n i n g fork rings and sound carries. I f the shock is horrible, one can't close enough, and sound flattens as fast as possible. The taste o f a shock comes through i n a micro-moment, although sometimes one wades t h r o u g h layers o f numbness to get the taste. I n this chapter, I do n o t try to delineate the f u l l impact o f Sam's personality and being on me. Some o f i t was pleasant, some not. A curious part o f i t was the o d d sense that this affable, w a r m , verbal, and c o m p e t e n t m a n was an exoskeleton, that he wore his insides on his skin like a shell or crust. We had enjoyable moments together chatting about life and literature. Yet my chat­ t i n g was i n f o r m e d by the deeper impact he had o n me and by the n o t yet verbalizable impression that he wore his insides outside like a shell, that his insides had become a shell. Now and then he m i g h t wait, and I m i g h t note that he seemed m o r e intent on n o t being like his parents than being like himself:' he d i d not want to be remote and angry like his father, he d i d no/want to be submissive and c o n t r o l ­ l i n g like his mother. H e vanished i n his not. There ought n o t be suffering, like there ought n o t be parents. Sam's d r i n k i n g , drugs, and women increased. I n o t e d that h e l a c k e d a processor for his e x p e r i e n c e ; n o t h i n g stuck to h i m o r built o n itself. W e spoke about what it m i g h t take to grow a p r o c e s s o r , to really have insides. H i s d r i n k i n g s u b s i d e d , a n d h e w o n d e r e d a b o u t himself.

Perhaps wonder w o u l d stretch to reverie and dreaming.

ONE PROCESSOR T O ANOTHER

A traditional psychoanalytic view is that the analyst acts as a m o d e l f o r the observing ego, which somehow stimulates growth o f the patient's ego t h r o u g h identification w i t h that o f the analyst. This idea is too top heavy. For t i p o f ice­

145

Primary Process and Shock

berg changes to be truly effective, changes must also occur i n the psychic substratum. What the traditional m o d e l means, yet takes for granted and obscures, is that the analyst is a m o d e l f o r processing psychical states that stymie the patient. This processing is n o t confined to observational functions, b u t involves conscious/unconscious transformational processes o n many levels. For one thing, the analyst's primary processor works over the patient's affective impact, so that this impact begins to be metabolized. T h e analyst's processing o f the patient's impact is m u l t i d i m e n s i o n a l and conveys many messages. For example, it gives the patient a sense o f being taken seriously. More deeply, the patient experiences, i f initially t h r o u g h the analyst, the possibility o f someone processing what could n o t be processed. The patient learns that he is n o t entirely indigestible n o r entirely digestible, that partial transformational movement is possible and necessary. This movement goes on b o t t o m - u p as well as t o p - d o w n , and involves evolution of the deep processor, not only upper story functions. W i t h o u t the growth o f unconscious processing ability, upper story changes feel shallow and narrow, even besides the point. The analyst is n o t only an auxiliary ego for the patient, b u t an auxiliary deep processor, i n c l u d i n g an auxiliary

primary processor, for a time.

For example, Sam refused to experience emptiness because his parents were empty (in his view). Yet emptiness plagued h i m . H e could n o t d i p i n t o his own emptiness and savor i t fully, i n part, because he d i d n o t feel i t belonged to him. Since he associated emptiness with his parents, to give himself over to e m p t i ­ ness meant to lose h i m s e l f i n t h e m . One m i g h t w o n d e r about p r o j e c t i v e ­ introjective aspects o f emptiness. T o what extent was emptiness introjected f r o m the parents, projected i n t o the parents, projected by the parents into Sam, and so on? T o what extent d i d emptiness reflect the failure o f e n v i r o n m e n t a l provision? Such questions provide material to fuel an analysis for years, a n d I do n o t want to minimize their importance. However, my emphasis here is o n a miss­ ing or deficient f u n c t i o n or capacity, a lack o f equipment. Deficit of equipment can be experienced as emptiness. Unconscious identification with parental e m p t i ­ ness and emptiness owing to the failure o f environmental provision can be used to mask emptiness l i n k e d w i t h a deficit o f equipment. One works with projective-introjective emptiness and real emptiness, but it is also i m p o r t a n t to realize when equipment to support emptiness is missing. One needs to be careful about encouraging a person to experience emptiness (or pain) more openly and fully. For some individuals, to go i n t o emptiness is to go o f f the edge o f the psychic universe. This is n o t simply because e m p t i ­ ness is endless (which i t is), b u t because the individual lacks the capacity to process the experience. H e n o t only gets lost i n emptiness b u t also falls t h r o u g h a hole i n his psyche. I n this instance, emptiness fills the place where a primary processor m i g h t have been.

146

Psychic JJeadness

Sam d i d n o t merely refuse or deny emptiness: he was unable to tolerate and process i t . The emptiness itself was a sign o f this lack. Thus I d i d n o t ask Sam to go i n t o his emptiness more f u l l y — t o own the d i s o w n e d — b u t wondered how m u c h o f i t he could or could not take at a given moment. This question is b o t h quantitative and qualitative. How m u c h can you take raises the issue o f what sort o f relationship you have with experience; i t is a matter o f quality. T h e focus is less o n experience than o n the capacity to support and process experience. I n Sam's case, n o amount o f w r i t i n g or sexual orgasms could make u p f o r the missing or deficient processor. By degrees, gently, playfully, deeply, and systematically, I help Sam realize that what he lacks is n o t experience, b u t the ability to do justice to experience. H e cannot dwell w i t h experience or w i t h himself. A long-term challenge is set that whets Sam's appetite. His love o f life makes h i m want to be the k i n d o f person who does justice to his beloved, and a reorientation to what it means to be alive begins.

FRAGMENTARY WHOLENESS Freud's fantasy that the infant hallucinates a breast when i t is absent suggests how hallucination satisfies needs and drives, closes gaps, and covers deficits. A totality is substituted for a fragmentary state, an end for a process, a beatific m o m e n t for the missing O t h e r or t h i n g that is n o t there. Sam finally came for help because orgasms failed to take the place o f miss­ i n g functions. A string o f moments o f wholeness is n o t the same as experience b u i l d i n g o n itself. Structural deficits involve deficits i n the ability to process experiencing that r u n t h r o u g h the psychic body. I n response to Sam's wish for everything at once, I felt, all too keenly, the piecemeal, fragmentary nature o f my remarks. I had to battle to be just plain me. W h a t pressure there was to be the hallucinated totality, the breast, the f i l l ­ i n g Other! What pressure there was to be another o f Sam's orgasms! T o be everything at once is okay for awhile, b u t takes away f r o m another k i n d o f ecstasy. I love to p o u r myself i n t o samples o f experience, bits a n d pieces, fragments. T h e r e are therapeutic ecstasies that include letting depressive affects b u i l d , or letting emptiness build. There is a tough ecstasy i n letting Sam's impact build. So many images, ideas, and possibilities grow o u t o f it. I t is i m p o r t a n t to stay w i t h the void i n the m i d d l e o f Sam's orgasms, i n the m i d d l e o f the orgasms he gives me. The void marks the place where relationship m i g h t grow. Bits o f processing grow by p u l l i n g on loose threads. Loose threads are real links, ecstatic links. I wonder i f Sam saw me because he felt that my lust for loose threads complemented his lust for totality? Maybe he saw me as a loose wire and felt a shock o f relief.

Primary Process and Shock

147

Maybe Sam saw me because I knew about shock. I was a sort o f agent o f shock, notjust a hallucinated breast. Psychoanalysis is a matter not only o f dosing feeds but also o f dosing shocks. Freud was shocking. Has there been a shift i n ideol­ ogy f r o m psychoanalysis as shock to psychoanalysis as soother, f r o m soothsay­ i n g to soothing? Is that why psychoanalysis is bored w i t h itself? My relationship w i t h Sam initiated a new k i n d o f desire or perhaps stimu­ lated a d o r m a n t one. Sam wanted to metabolize our interactions. H e wanted what took place between us to become a part o f h i m , he wanted m o r e to hap­ pen, he wanted the process to b u i l d . H e was interested i n the kinds o f things we d i d , our serious play together with elements o f personality, o u r personalities. T o some degree, the growing intensity o f Sam's desire to get m o r e o u t o f what we d i d stimulated the ability to d o so. Therapy lust stimulated growth o f the processing ability. Sam's personality was starved for g o o d primary process work. I n this regard, I could help support movement his parents could not. They were driven to make Sam their hallucinated totality, whereas I mainly wanted to help stimulate and share a process, the fragmentary hallucinations o f psychoanalysis.

13 Being Too Good

S o m e difficulties that therapists and patients face arise when either one i n the pair seems too good for the other. The painful consequences o f such a situ­ ation was brought home when a therapist (Elaine) sought help w i t h the seri­ ous suicide attempt o f her patient (Susan). Elaine was lovely, well dressed, well spoken, a pleasure to see and be with. She described her patient as extremely disturbed, unpleasant, and ugly. Elaine felt she had done wonders with Susan. Susan was becoming a therapist like Elaine, b u t she never seemed far f r o m breakdown or suicide. She pushed her­ self every step o f the way. What seemed to come easily to Elaine was a series o f impossible hardships for Susan. As Elaine spoke, I felt sympathy w i t h Susan. Elaine depicted a t o r m e n t e d being, always near zero, somehow managing to keep going w i t h a b l i n d persis­ tence that kept splattering a n d starting again. Susan's suffering was immense. What a sensitive, determined person she must be to come t h r o u g h her d i f f i ­ culties, battling enormous odds. I wondered i f her difficulties made her more sensitive with patients. How taken back I was when Elaine responded to my thoughts w i t h emphatic negation. Elaine was exasperated w i t h Susan's d e m a n d i n g anger, low self­ esteem, hysterical clutching, fragmentation. She was tired o f Susan incessantly drowning i n a raging, bottomless p i t o f worthlessness. She wanted m o r e for her patient. She felt Susan should and could be doing better, that there was a h u m p to get over that Susan was p u l l i n g back f r o m . Susan was afraid to give u p suffering and leap i n t o and sustain a better existence. Elaine was angry at Susan for still being so t o r t u r e d after all their work. Elaine felt that her impatience was o n the side o f life. She d i d n o t want to sink i n t o the cesspool o f self-loathing that sucked Susan down. Elaine's was the voice o f health. She extended a hand to lift Susan o u t o f the muck. Susan took that hand, but could h o l d o n only for short bursts. Elaine feared my sympathy with Susan's suffering was an invitation for Susan to regress and die out. Elaine's

150

Psychic Deadness

tendency was to be actively encouraging, h o p i n g Susan would latch o n t o the taste o f life and n o t let go. Ostensibly, Elaine seemed to have more faith i n her patient than I . She appealed to Susan's strengths, while I seemed sympathetic to her weakness. Elaine and I were i n danger of becoming polarized against each other. We could cut her patient u p and throw pieces at each other. I felt defensive. I d i d n ' t mean to succumb to weakness so much as acknowledge how tough i t was for Susan and how courageous she was to persistently come through such suffering. Elaine and I quickly felt unjustly picked o n by the other. She felt my sympathy with Susan as criticism o f herself. She wanted me on her side, n o t her patient's. She attacked me because she felt attacked or i n the c o l d , as she feared I felt she somehow left Susan i n the cold. She came to me for help, n o t to be picked o n . I shut up and sat with my feelings awhile, awash i n self-doubt. I felt badly that I j u m p e d i n too quickly on the side o f her patient's pain. I felt a flaw or hole i n my own personality, my impatience and inability to let b u i l d . I started going down the tubes, angry at myself for messing u p the consultation. Maybe there was time to recoup and start over. Maybe we c o u l d give each other another chance. But when I opened up and tried to start f r o m scratch, the same t h i n g began to happen again. Elaine was beautiful and gifted, b u t seemed filled with her­ self. Again my sympathies shifted to her suffering patient. I n a few moments Elaine and I would be polarized again. She would feel left out, rejected, j u d g e d . We w o u l d not be able to work together. C o u l d n ' t I identify with b o t h Elaine and Susan at the same time? What about Elaine's suffering and struggles? Elaine worked h a r d on herself and had come a l o n g way. Surely I appreciated her love o f creativeness. Was I threatened by a beautiful and b r i g h t woman? D i d I be­ come hostile/defensive to cover my fear? I struggled to stay open. Still, the more I listened to Elaine, the more the gap between Elaine and Susan grew. Susan was taxing, inaccessible, unappreciative, eternally frustrated and frustrating. Elaine was nourishing, creative, emotionally honest, present. Elaine b r o u g h t the good stuff into the r o o m and Susan the bad stuff. Susan kept falling t h r o u g h a hole i n herself; Elaine kept b r i n g i n g her back. Elaine wondered how long she could go on picking Susan u p i n face o f the undertow. Elaine d i d n o t seem very ruffled, scared, or worried, as I m i g h t have been. Rather, she seemed more exasperated and exhausted, as i f Susan were trying the limits o f endurance. She realized she was Susan's lifeline. H e r resources i n b r i n g i n g Susan back to life (or keeping Susan i n life) were being tested. Per­ haps she was d o i n g a little o f what Susan d i d , l o o k i n g for support and encour­ agement to get back i n the ring. My o f f e r i n g support and encouragement p r o m p t e d Elaine to unleash her negativism against Susan and to voice her weariness fully. W o u l d life t r i u m p h over destructiveness? Was all their work for nothing? The depths o f Susan's

Being Too Good

151

self-hate and worthlessness consumed whatever Elaine offered. Susan felt too badly about herself to use a good relationship. Yet she d i d use it. Susan and Elaine kept c o m i n g back for more, even i f the tie between t h e m broke down and seemed r u i n e d f o r a time. Actually, Elaine felt the tie was always there, although sometimes they c o u l d n ' t find it. Perhaps all Elaine wanted f r o m our session was a chance f o r faith to regenerate. I could let i t go at that, and that would be enough. But the distance between Elaine and Susan nagged me. I d o n ' t mean distance i n the usual sense. Elaine was n o t a distant, cold person. She was easy and comfortable to be with. She kept things flowing. She always had something to say and was b r i m m i n g w i t h experience; she was a warmly rich and f u l l person, optimistic, supportive, cre­ ative. Yet I felt left out. I t gradually dawned o n me that I was one of the sick ones, and she was one o f the healthy ones. The earlier part o f our session seemed thousands o f years away, b u t now I began to get a sense o f why I j u m p e d the gun, why I had sided with Susan prematurely. Susan was sick me. I d i d n o t get the sense that Elaine knew i n her bones who sick me was. Elaine was o n the other side o f the line that divided the healthy ones f r o m the sick ones, like Susan and me. I wondered i f Elaine expected sick souls to grow like healthy ones. Perhaps we sick ones have our own ways o f growing. D i d Elaine really expect Susan (or me) to be like her? I needed to know i f there was any way Elaine wanted to be like Susan. What in Susan d i d Elaine find valuable? I usually can f i n d something i n every patient that I need more of. What d i d Susan have that Elaine needed? The shock waves f r o m the earlier part o f the session had died down, although not entirely. W i t h o u t quite realizing i t , I had been trying to keep things calm, trying to give Elaine and me a chance. Superficially, things had been going better. But i f shock is there, one cannot keep i t under the carpet indefinitely. The impact o f the last part o f the session was even greater than the first. I was blown away by Elaine's strong assertion that there was absolutely no way at all that she wanted to be like Susan and absolutely n o t h i n g o f Susan's that she wanted to have. My question was foreign to her. Why on earth would she want to be like Susan or want anything o f Susan's? Susan's life was horrible. What o n earth could Susan offer her? I wondered i f something was w r o n g w i t h me f o r imagining that Susan m i g h t have something to offer Elaine. What was w r o n g w i t h me that I could find something to admire i n Susan's struggle? The distance between Elaine and me seemed greater than ever. Instead o f two professionals estab­ lishing a h e l p f u l supervisory relationship, we were inhabitants o f d i f f e r e n t universes that had not yet discovered each other's signal systems. Elaine's basic position was clear. She had something to offer Susan, b u t Susan had n o t h i n g to offer her. Susan could only bring her down, and she could only b r i n g Susan up. We had gotten back to where the session started, f r o m another route.

152

Psychic Deadness

I was d u m b f o u n d e d and wondered how to be tactful, honest, helpful. A t

some point I said something like "I can't help feeling that Susan feels you're too good for her. She can never be you, or like you enough. She'll always fall short. She's another k i n d o f person. She's the k i n d you can't identify with and don't want to be like. She offers you n o t h i n g o f value for yourself and is for­ ever outside your desire. She can never get i n , unless she becomes like you." Elaine and Susan could analyze this gap forever, but Susan would always drown i n i t , because it was real and Elaine's feelings reinforced it. Susan was i n the b i n d of getting help f r o m a person who somehow experienced her as an untouchable. The helper was k i n d and caring and w a r m — o n e of the good ones. I could feel the problem, because Elaine's goodness made me feel more o f a pariah too, even though I knew Elaine liked me and wanted affirmation f r o m me. She wanted me to affirm her together self, b u t i n doing so, my sick self felt all the more left out. When Elaine spoke to me, I felt she was speaking to the wrong person, to her picture o f creative me that fit creative her. B u t I was somewhere else, like Susan. Susan must be baffled by this duality. She is with a dedicated therapist whose work is superior. She is with someone who wants to help her and has very real ability. Yet Susan cannot locate herself i n her therapist. She cannot find her­ self i n her therapist's psyche. H e r therapist does n o t have a Susan she values i n the depths o f her being, at least n o t yet, not consciously. For Elaine, Susan is a not-me element, an element o f revulsion. There is no p o i n t o f attraction or use she can find for the Susan i n her soul. I haplessly suggested that Elaine try to find some way to lessen the distance between Susan and herself. Maybe she should try to meditate o n Susan's vir­ tues. Can she find something o f use or value for herself i n Susan's being? Must Susan be forever foreign? Elaine is honest. She c o u l d n o t see anything i n Susan that is exemplary. Susan needs help. She needs to move to another level. T o be Susan would be a downward spin f o r Elaine. What value could there be i n that?

Our session ended without solving the problem o f how Elaine and I m i g h t communicate. I felt I had failed her. She probably left feeling criticized. She wanted to feel close to me, b u t I needed to include sick me, sick Susan. Elaine was too good for us, I feared. I d o n ' t t h i n k I ' l l kill myself over that, b u t i t m i g h t be a lot o f pressure for someone like Susan. Jackie consulted me about her patient, Tina. T i n a sounded a lot like Susan, except she was less suicidal. T i n a periodically fell apart and could n o t func­ tion. She was anxious about diseases and needed frequent reassurance that her brain or other body parts were n o t disintegrating. H e r social life was almost n i l , and she had intermittent sexual contact w i t h an otherwise unavail­ able man.

Being Too Good

153

Jackie, like Elaine, was picture-perfect, elegantly dressed, tenaciously intact, warm, and caring. She feared her patient's periods o f disintegration and felt a little guilty over the incessant reassurances she provided. Yet she d i d what her patient needed, and T i n a improved. T i n a grappled w i t h issues o f self-respect, and her life grew. She took better care o f herself and her apartment (positive identification with Jackie), got more satisfaction f r o m work, and began experimenting with some dating. T o Jackie's relief, Tina's periods o f disintegration diminished i n intensity and frequency. Things were going well enough. My p r o b l e m was that I felt I could n o t find Jackie. I d i d not/^/any real con­ tact w i t h her, or any sense that I knew who she was. I could not feelher insides f r o m my insides. W h e n I i n q u i r e d about this, she insisted she was easy to find. So therefore i t was my problem. Things were going well w i t h Tina. Why should I upset the applecart w i t h my problem? I f I became insistent, I w o u l d become traumatizing. Things went along swimmingly. Why should I bother? As w i t h Elaine, I felt left out some­ how. Jackie's presentations o f sessions were coherent, complete, competent. Whatever I m i g h t say seemed tangential, superfluous. I d i d n o t find vital loose ends to p u l l o n . Was my main f u n c t i o n to be reassuring and enhance Jackie's good feeling about herself and her work? Jackie, like Elaine, was m u c h better dressed than I . She was more together than I and took pride i n her warm elegance. She spoke fluently about her work. She d i d n o t seem to have to struggle w i t h what she felt or said, even when she voiced difficulties. She seemed immaculately o n top o f things. The fault lines o f my personality showed more than hers. I felt more flawed than she. But perhaps the fact that I saw her as a sort o f perfect jewel was my problem. Maybe I was making her i n t o something better than she meant to be. Perhaps my self-esteem was simply lower than hers, my personality less intact. Maybe I was feeling the inevitable exclusion o f the less socially adept person. I t wasn't her fault i f she was better than I . Yet the feeling that I could n o t find her nagged at me, although I got no­ where sharing it. T h e n an incident occurred that d i d n o t establish real con­ tact between us, b u t which gave me some indication that I was n o t altogether crazy. Jackie came i n and anxiously reported that T i n a was disintegrating again. Perhaps Jackie was n o t really anxious, b u t simply frustrated, a b i t stalled, uncomprehending. Maybe she was angry at T i n a for disintegrating again. Jackie went over her checklist o f things T i n a fell apart about, b u t could n o t figure out what d i d it. Jackie looked different to me this week. She had a different glow and tone. I c o u l d n ' t p u t my finger on i t b u t something felt different, so I asked. Jackie broke i n t o a big smile and said she was i n love. H e r life changed since I last saw her. She seemed d e l i g h t e d w i t h what was h a p p e n i n g w i t h her. I t was

154

Psychic Deadness

easy for me to say something like, " I guess T i n a c o u l d n ' t take your being i n love." "Noooo. . . . Is that it? Could i t be?" Jackie said, as i f a light had gone on. She made the connection between her changed emotional state and that o f her patient. I became dramatic. "Your patient had a new therapist this week, one she never saw before." I t was the first time I felt I could be o f some use to Jackie. I could feel her experiencing the l i n k between herself and her patient i n a new way. A t the same time, it seemed i m p o r t a n t that she had so utterly ieft herself out o f the equation. W h a t a gap existed between Jackie and Tina! T i n a must have experi­ enced the change i n Jackie, although neither m e n t i o n e d it. Tina's loveless life seemed more acutely empty next to Jackie's love-filled one. T h e gains T i n a made paled by comparison with Jackie's radiance. Jackie's more made Tina's less unendurable. It would take a little time for Tina to get used to the newJackie and for Jackie to get used to herself. T i n a would spontaneously come back together, as soon as she realized that she and Jackie could continue contact, i n spite o f the latter's change o f state. I t was a matter o f giving each other time to regroup and come t h r o u g h a major affective shift i n the therapist I n this case, Jackie was more bubbly and bright, so that Tina's light seemed d i m m e r by comparison. The distance between them need n o t only stimulate envy and t o r m e n t , although it m i g h t i f the therapist fails to recognize the real impact that her changes have. I f rightly handled, Jackie's movement can pro­ vide a model for the possibility of opening and change. Changes i n the analyst generate changes i n the patient, for better or worse. Jackie's breakthrough triggered waves o f affect that were too m u c h , too fast for T i n a to handle. There was too m u c h splendor i n the r o o m for T i n a to take. Yet it was good for T i n a to feel that such splendor was possible. I t existed. Its effects were palpable. W o u l d she be excluded f r o m i t forever? Was she ban­ ished f r o m the kingdom? She tasted i t i n the r o o m . C o u l d she share some o f Jackie's? W o u l d she only get i t t h r o u g h identifying w i t h her therapist, or dare she get some o f her own? Many months later Jackie came i n and started weeping. Something i n her life had gone w r o n g and she was scared. She spoke about her fears and aspira­ tions t h r o u g h her tears. H e r life might be better than Tina's, b u t somehow better was irrelevant. Jackie suffered. She had her own dreads and worries, as well as joys. She may n o t go all the way down the tubes, like Tina. She does not disintegrate like Tina, n o r feel so totally damaged. B u t she can identify w i t h Tina. Tina's lows are not alien to her. They are n o t signals f r o m another planet. She can see herself i n Tina, and T i n a i n herself. They are very m u c h part o f the same soup, fellow travelers facing shared obstacles, one journey­

Being Too Good

155

woman f u r t h e r along than the other, b u t b o t h i n i t together. T h e distance between Jackie's and Tina's lives is immense, b u t f r o m Jackie's view, i t is n o t alien. What is the function o f the supervisor i n instances like the above? O n e func­ tion is to let the impact o f the therapist and her presentation grow. I n the two cases described i n this chapter, the impact included a sense o f discrepancy between therapist and patient. I n each case, the therapist was m u c h better o f f than the patient. Elaine appeared to experience Susan as more alien than Jackie experienced Tina. Nevertheless, there were moments when the differences between therapist and patient peaked, and therapist seemed too g o o d f o r patient. What was possible for the therapist was impossible for the patient. I t is i m p o r t a n t for the supervisor to h o l d and metabolize the difference between analyst and patient. Neither Elaine nor Jackie fully took i n the extent that their better c o n d i t i o n had an impact o n Susan and Tina. For some rea­ son, they could n o t bear to realize that everything they worked so h a r d for i n their own lives could increase their patient's suffering. Elaine and Jackie had made something o f themselves. Now they had to deal w i t h how their achieve­ ments might t o r m e n t others, especially those they tried to help. Another way of describing the difference between Elaine and Jackie and their patients is i n terms o f aliveness-deadness. Elaine and Jackie appeared to be m o r e alive than Susan a n d T i n a , n o t simply m o r e successful, healthy, and attractive. The more one works w i t h deprived and fragmented individuals, the more one realizes how i m p o r t a n t i t is to modulate therapeutic aliveness. A too­ alive therapist easily floods the patient w i t h o u t meaning to. Elaine and Jackie were p r o u d o f their aliveness. Jackie worked at becoming more alive; she felt an i n n e r deadness. Elaine flaunted her aliveness: aliveness was her credo, and she waved it like a banner. Both assumed their patients would be glad to have alive therapists: Susan and T i n a wanted to be more alive. What Elaine and Jackie failed to take to heart was that Susan and T i n a c o u l d n o t tolerate too m u c h aliveness, not their own and not their therapist's. They might want and envy i t , b u t could n o t take i t . The sudden increase o f aliveness that Elaine and Jackie stimulated was as fragmenting, overwhelming, and depress­ i n g as i t was relieving. T h e r e were moments that therapist aliveness made Susan a n d T i n a m o r e h o p e f u l , b u t i t c o u l d evoke despair a n d a sense o f impossibility. The double-edged effect o f aliveness is something a therapist must catch onto as time goes o n . W i t h experience, one may learn to adapt one's intensity level to what the patient can use. A therapist can either be too alive or dead for a particular individual at a given time. As one grows i n attunement, one finds one's psycho-organism automatically regulates emotional volume, t u r n ­ i n g i t lower or higher as situations change.

156

Psychic Deadness

It is difficult for many therapists to recognize that they may be too much or not enough for their patients and that t u r n i n g oneself o n - o f f is an i m p o r t a n t parameter. A n individual who chronically numbs or deadens herself i n order to survive lacks experience and resources to deal w i t h the f u l l range o f emo­ tional aliveness. Therapists who work w i t h dead and fragmented patients (or parts o f many patients) need to develop sensitivity to the impact their own fluc­ tuating aliveness-deadness is having. T h e theme o f envied aliveness, power, and goodness is ancient. Murder is part o f the experience o f exclusion. Biblical psychology can be cruelly honest: to those with more, more will be given; to those with less, even that will be taken away. Therapy is concerned with how to shift the balance o f lives to the more track. M o r e what? Aliveness? Good living? Use o f capacity? Use o f self? Still, there will be more, sometimes less differences i n quality; there will be inequities. Empathic recognition o f the suffering that differences b r i n g helps soften the outrage. Outrage and envy can be useful as motivating spurs. But i n Susan's and Tina's cases, fury too often became destructive. Outrage boomeranged and increased their sense o f damage, despair, inability. The carrot that therapy held out made them feel more helpless and hopeless at the same time that therapy helped them. Elaine and Susan needed to recognize how helping someone can be galling and increase destructiveness for the one needing and getting help. Suppose Elaine included i n her repertoire, and made a systematic part o f therapy, references to how i t must feel getting help f r o m one who seems to be more alive or o n top o f it. Elaine really d i d feel better than Susan. I can imag­ ine her saying something like, " I t galls you b e i n g helped by someone better off than you." A remark like that may seem harsh and w o u n d i n g , but there are many ways to p u t i t that may soften the blow. Variations o f the theme o f being wounded by the helper must get played o u t and taken for granted. I f the patient bites the hand that feeds, the h u r t f u l h e l p i n g hand also must be acknowledged. ' My own personal suffering has been immense, so that it is hard to imagine placing myself above anyone else's distress. I myself a partner i n suffering w i t h those who see me. Nevertheless, I know! may appear better o f f to some or worse o f f to others and that perceptions o f better—worse are vexing. I t is one o f the cruelties o f idealization to imagine the "better" to be less tormented. I n contrast with Elaine, I m i g h t have to say, " I fear your feeling that I am better than you so torments you that getting something t h r o u g h me makes you feel like dying." We need to f i n d remarks that f i t our subjective states. How to be h e l p f u l by being true to ourselves taxes h u m a n ability. I f Elaine reallyfelthow much her goodness and aliveness h u r t Susan, some­ t h i n g i n her touch m i g h t soften. A different tone or atmosphere m i g h t evolve, one i n which Susan needn't feel quite so horrible about herself when she looked at Elaine or one i n which she could share more readily the h o r r o r and pain o f being propelled farther and farther away.

Being Too Good

157

Creative Elaine came to j o i n with creative me, but sick and dead me screamed for r e c o g n i t i o n . Sick/dead me felt unwelcomed by Elaine, a n d Elaine felt rejected i f sick me was n o t happy w i t h her creative self. Elaine d i d n o t have a category for sick me l i n k i n g w i t h sick Susan. Susan a n d me f o r m e d a c o m m u ­ nity o f sick ones that Elaine d i d n o t want to j o i n . W h o excluded whom? My ability to 'help Elaine w i t h Susan was taxed. My perception o f Elaine's superi­ ority made me m o r e defensive, less available to her. I t was my j o b to begin metabolizing the difference between Elaine a n d me, between Elaine a n d Susan, between creative me and sick me. Elaine d i d n o t give me time to begin metabolizing my defensiveness, so as to work better w i t h hers and Susan's. Differences p r o p e l l e d us apart, instead o f creating possibilities for a yaried relationship. The propulsive element was an i m p o r t a n t part o f what happened between Susan and Elaine. Elaine was propelled away f r o m me by my sickness, as Susan was propelled away f r o m Elaine by her health. The p r o p u l s i o n away f r o m the excluding object, i f unchecked and unmitigated, can be suicidal. What died between Elaine and me was the possibility o f w o r k i n g together. What happened or failed to happen w i t h Elaine, Susan, and me is a good example of selective recognition processes. I could n o t recognize Elaine's cre­ ative self unless she recognized my sick self. My sick self was outraged by Elaine's undervaluation o f the sick me i n life (Susan's, mine, hers, anyone's). I would have needed time to grow a r o u n d my outrage and find ways o f establishing communication between the best i n Elaine and the worst i n Susan and me (and perhaps, Elaine?). I w o u l d have needed time to live my way i n t o the p r o p u l ­ sive force that our differences ignited. Perhaps i n time we could soften together and f i n d ways to connect i n the face o f seemingly unsolvable differences. Surely, something like this needs to happen between Susan a n d Elaine, i n a way that Elaine has not yet been able to recognize and suffer. Elaine and I acted out, i n brief, what lacerated her w o r k w i t h Susan over the long haul. The gap between sick self and creative self became a propulsive force, w i t h abruptly violent possibilities (our quick e n d ) . Elaine could n o t give me time enough. Let us hope Susan gives her time enough. Jackie ran t h r o u g h a wider range o f states. She had m o r e patience w i t h me than Elaine. Nevertheless, there was a blankness or lack o f connection between us. We somehow d i d n o t really feel each other. I t h i n k this blankness was part o f what needed to be metabolized. I d o n ' t know where i t came f r o m or what purpose it served. Jackie spoke o f sealing over a horribly traumatic background, and I suspect it partly had to do w i t h that. However, we were n o t fully honest with each other, at least n o t yet. For the time being, I tolerate o u r partial h o l d ­ ing back, our testing the waters, o u r sparring. Jackie speaks o f h o l d i n g back w i t h her patient. She fears the loss o f control i f she is too expressive. She is afraid she will become too emotional and lose everything. Being the competent doctor protects her patient and herself. What

Psychic Deadness

158

good would showing too m u c h o f herself do her patient or herself? Thus, i n spite o f her w a r m t h and good w i l l , an emotional blank spot substitutes f o r expressiveness, partly out o f fear. She fears her anger and tears. I hope she is not too angry at herself for the little she showed me. Perhaps next week I ' l l be the weepy, frightened, angry one. It's never far away.

ADDENDUM After I wrote this chapter, I began to feel Jackie f r o m the inside. T h e i n n e r bell j a r disappeared. Now she seems exquisitely expressive to me. I can feel her moment-to-moment shifts o f feeling, infinite modulations o f grief, fear, joy. She surely runs away f r o m her feelings and deflects i n t o intellectual c o n ­ siderations. She keeps something o f a hard edge and hangs tough. But I can feel her, and I was n o t able to before. What happened? Was she there all along? Was i t me w h o was n o t there? Or d i d something t h a w — i n her, me, or Tina? D i d w r i t i n g this chapter sensitize me to her? Was this chapter a sort o f proxy a t t e m p t at metabolizing my, (her, Tina's) defensiveness? Jackie is more open to considering how her m o o d shifts affect her patient. She inwardly feels the connection between her j o y and Tina's disintegration, and she is aware that her depressive feelings, i f they are n o t excessive, make Tina more comfortable. The possibility opens o f her and Tina traversing a wider range o f states together and l e ar n i n g how they affect each other i n a variety o f ways. How m u c h o f Jackie dare I let i n now? I can feel her feeling self W h a t a quiveringly ecstatic sense! I d o n ' t know how much I can take at a time. Life is always given i n excess, more than we can use or handle. We bite little bits to chew o n — e n o u g h , enough! I can ^ J a c k i e o pe n i n g to what happens between her and Tina. H o w m u c h can she and T i n a take? They are discovering that there is the direct transmis­ sion o f feeling between t h e m . H o w will the discovery o f this k i n d o f openness transform or fail to transform them? T h e flow between us is real. What will we do with it, it with us? I t spreads i n waves between Jackie, Tina, and me and now, also, you.

14 In Praise of Gender Uncertainty

GREG There are individuals who decide what sex they are too quickly. I n extreme instances, the outcome can be tragic. I am t h i n k i n g o f a young m a n , Greg, who consulted me years ago to help h i m get started i n life. He was a lively, tormented, sensitive person who lacked the confidence to develop friendships a n d follow his heart's desire. A l o t o f his energy was diverted into battling w i t h parents who could n o t take his being gay. Yet they had consented to a partial sex change operation when he was 16, at the advice o f a psychiatrist-physician team. Apparently Greg and the medical team convinced each other that Greg was really a woman i n a man's body. Greg l o n g felt himself to be a woman. H e imagined himself as one sort o f female or another, b u t rarely as male. There was n o d o u b t i n his m i n d that nature gave h i m the wrong body. H e f o u n d a medical team that specialized i n sex change operations, with a mission to cor­ rect nature's errors. I was appalled that the adult w o r l d a r o u n d Greg enabled h i m to carry o u t his wish to change his body. Still more stunning was the fact that Greg had started to realize that the operation was a mistake, that really he was and felt like a male. I t came to h i m as a revelation that he dared n o t t h i n k , that he dared n o t live out: he was really a man. This was an unbelievable sensation that went against everything he ever felt. H e had n o t even remotely anticipated that some day he w o u l d come to feel and be a m a n . H e came to therapy for support i n his anguished state. Greg was horrified that he had done something so final and that adults had mediated it. Yet the dawning sense o f being male was his new t r u t h . Greg's life was excruciatingly painful. H e oscillated between male-female sensations, b u t there was n o doubt his self-image was changing. H e liked dressing as a w o m a n , but now felt that he was a male dressing as female, a male being female. This was new. Previously he felt all female. H e wished he could undo the sex change

160

Psychic Deadness

operation. He wanted to act and dress like a female sometimes, but not simply be one. It is impossible to exaggerate the momentous, cataclysmic states Greg suffered through. I liked being with Greg. He had a crazy, flamboyant charm. He was, as they say, outrageous. One moment my heart would be touched by an innocent vul­ nerability. The next I would be catapulted into a weird world where megalo­ mania reigned. Once he spent two months of sessions creating the universe anew. He was Great God Ego doing a better job than the seven-day God. He could not live in a world he did not create. I went through this with him with a mixture of awe, curiosity, delight, apprehension, and occasional repulsion. I never got used to riding bareback all the combinations of megalomania/ vulnerability he would produce.

This two-month period was the most intense and systematic God enactment he performed, although sometimes he would get up in sessions and act like a God Magician, creating some bit of reality he needed to control or make real. It was easier to imagine controlling bits of social-physical reality than control­ ling the flow of truth. The discovery that truth could change b l e w G r e g ' s world away, and he needed to create another one. My fear that Greg would seal himself off in his self-created universe was naive. He had E n s e a l e d off in a hallucinated universe that was exploding. For years he hallucinated himself as a female with absolute certainty. Now his halluci­ nated universe cracked, and he actually shared with me the process by which he created alternate realities, worlds of his own. T h e surprising news was that the new worlds he created were meant for adventure. They were filled with intriguing people and opportunities that Greg must explore. I supported his experience of oscillating identities, now more male, now more female. Now a male with female elements, now a female with male ele­ ments. T h e hybrid nature of sexuality opened possibilities not conceived before. Perhaps increased uncertainty precipitated the sustained God creation. In any case, the new oscillation and creation went along with a breakthrough of social activity and vocational quest. Greg's focus shifted from battling his parents to the puzzle of who he was. He wantedto be an actor, possibly a director. He wanted to go to bars and clubs where theater men went. H e easily met people, got into wild adventures, began acting in plays and taking drama classes. It seemed like he could do a million things at once; he was full of boundless energy. Yet what seemed easy from the outside (I could never do all he did) was filled with anguish inside. Every step of the way felt catastrophic. His sessions eventually became recitations of inferiority feelings, inadequa­ cies, who would be good for him and who wouldn't, and musings on how to make his way without destroying himself. His roller-coaster swings, sense of catastrophe, and round of activities and adventures seemed good enough to

I n Praise o f Gender Uncertainty

161

h i m f o r the time being. More than good enough. He had begun to live a life he could say yes to. After nearly two years he left therapy. I ' d love to know what happened to Greg. I hope he d i d n ' t get AIDS and die j u s t as he was getting to enjoy himself and his mess o f misery and joy. Greg got the main t h i n g he wanted o u t of therapy: he started his life. He was springing loose. But what a blood-curdling time he went t h r o u g h and what a sense o f loss he faced. H e had made precipitous changes to his body with which he would have to live. I t seemed that he was destined to go t h r o u g h life feeling his body d i d not fit h i m or that he and his body only partly fit each other. Are we n o t all i n Greg's situation one way or another? I c o u l d speculate at length about Greg's history, family, object relations, identifications, and the like. I n this chapter I must pick only a few bits f r o m this speculative flow. Contradictions characterized Greg's background. His father was b o t h passive and violent. H e could be weak, quiet, gentle, sweet, and charming, b u t also given to explosive fits. His m o t h e r was self-effacing, b u t ran the household. He was the provider, she the organizer. She dominated f r o m inside, he f r o m outside. Greg bounced f r o m one d o m i n a n t parent to the other, one weak parent to another, tossed by c h a n g i n g combinations o f parental strengths and weaknesses. T o an extent, he used the woman's body as a cocoon. Perhaps i n the face o f Father's violence, he placed himself i n the image o f woman for safekeeping, where he could ride o u t the storm o f his life. T h e explicit threat o f paternal violence made maternal threats less visible. His father m i r r o r e d life's castrat­ ing-annihilating aspect, b u t also was castrated-annihilated. His mother's cas­ trating-annihilating aspect was overshadowed by her f u n c t i o n as background­ inside support. Cracks, shakiness, or violence i n the background-inside support would be tantamount to the g r o u n d o p e n i n g beneath/within h i m , the threat o f totally falling apart and disappearing f r o m w i t h i n . Greg was caught between annihilation outside and disappearance inside. Greg sealed cracks i n the background-inside support by hallucinating h i m ­ self i n t o the external accoutrements o f woman. T h e woman Greg hallucinated himself to be was n o t especially sexual (at least n o t sexuality that welled up f r o m w i t h i n ) . Greg was captivated more by the way he imagined a woman to move, speak, and dress, the adornments o f a w o m a n , than by her sexuality. The background-inside support became an external shell. Greg became a flam­ boyant, outrageous image o f woman, n o t a deeply feeling sexual woman. I n the family Greg came f r o m , the m o t h e r stayed at home, and the father worked. I n this household mothers were n o t supposed to be very sexual, but were to take care o f home and family. The M a d o n n a image played an impor­ tant role i n this Italian-Catholic family, r e i n f o r c i n g its emphasis o n support­ ive, maternal, authoritarian qualities. Yet the flamboyant, made-up woman Greg became was unlike the exterior o f his p l a i n , supportive, c o n t r o l l i n g mother. I t

162

Psychic Deadness

was a sort o f plaster o f Paris woman, not a personality-less, mindless church Madonna b u t an exaggerated, l o u d , screaming version o f a life his mother d i d n ' t lead. Becoming Gay, Becoming Male Greg remained a woman f r o m c h i l d h o o d t h r o u g h adolescence. After he was 18 the idea that he was really male began taking h o l d . Was i t the shift f r o m adolescence to young manhood that b r o u g h t about this shift, a need to f i n d and redefine himself i n terms o f the larger world? The Greg I met was t o r t u r e d and despondent, b u t b u b b l i n g with energy. He needed places to pour himself into. The theater w o r l d titillated h i m . He wanted to connect with i t . But to do this he w o u l d have to work hard and be more than the exteriorized female version o f himself he was used to. He would have to play different roles, take chances. For one thing, he would have to get out o f his house, o u t o f the world o f his immediate family. H e would have to go to studios, bars, and rehearsals and meet people. This drive to get out o f the house and i n t o the w o r l d r u p t u r e d the female k i n g d o m , r u p t u r e d the family. Why d i d his parents let h i m have a sex change operation? Part o f the o d d answer has to be to keep h i m i n the family, to keep a h o l d on h i m . T h e family was i n g r o w n , a w o r l d to itself. As female, Greg w o u l d be D a d d y - M o m m y ' s little g i r l forever. As female, Greg was sexless. T h e family stifled individuating tendencies. Never m i n d that he t u r n e d i n t o a monster female. H e was theirs, he belonged to them, and that's what mattered. The one t h i n g they could n o t take was his drive to get out. This went along with sex, leaving them out, leaving them behind. This is when the idea o f Greg's being gay h i t home. The idea o f being female (another h o m e b o u n d creature) d i d n ' t get to them. Being gay d i d . Being female somehow f i t the family psy­ chosis, whereas being gay r u p t u r e d it. Being gay went along with living his own life, b e i n g himself. This had the unpredictable consequence o f discovering he was male. Being gay meant being male. Getting out i n t o the theater w o r l d and gay bars gave Greg a rush o f freedom. H e pursued acting roles and different sorts o f relationships. He began sexual explorations. I n the gay theater w o r l d he discovered a home away f r o m home, a truer home than his family i n spirit. For the first time i n his life, he felt a sense o f f i t t i n g i n , o f being with like-minded souls. H e d i d n o t leave his t o r m e n t b e h i n d , but f o u n d a more f i t t i n g arena i n which to enact it. By becoming male and gay, he broke the shell o f his mother that had grown a r o u n d h i m . T h e exteriorized version o f a woman he had become was an attempt to get his mother outside h i m . He became a woman who only had outsides, rather than a woman with insides. Becoming gay meant stepping t h r o u g h the female crust i n t o a w o r l d o f like-minded men.

163

In Praise of Gender Uncertainty

When Greg was totally a woman! he was not gay. He was not sexual. The breakthrough into gay life was an act of individuation.

SANDY

Sandy was a woman who felt she was a man. She had partial sex change proce­ dures that took away female breasts and gave her male secondary characteris­ tics. He then passed as a man at work and social life. I n daily life no one knew he was female. Sandy was lonely and isolated. He spent years in group therapy and never told anyone she was a woman who had become a man. He wanted everyone to take him as a man, as he took himself. He did not want anyone to know his secret. He wanted to live as a man, or not at all. It would be easy for Sandy to establish a lesbian relationship, with himself in the male role. But he wanted to be a man with a heterosexual woman. He wanted a true heterosexual relationship, nothing else. From time to time he dated women who liked him, but he could not culminate the relationship with­ out revealing he had no penis. He dared not be honest. Above all, he wanted to be a real man and to be perceived as a real man. I n time he would seem strange to his partner, and the relationship would end. Hiddenness and lone­ liness were his true partners in life. Sandy, so different from Greg, spent years in therapy. It is remarkable that he kept his secret from group members and that his therapist let him do so. In individual therapy he lay bare the depths of his loneliness. I n group he looked for support in seeking and being with others. Group members tried to help him, but his attempts to reach them fell short. They could not feel his pain in an immediate way, since he reached out to them across a barrier, a secret. He felt injured by their perception of him as distant, abstract, strange. No amount of encouragement from his therapist enabled him to open up. He could not cry from the heart. Unlike Greg, Sandy failed to find a milieu of like-minded souls. Greg cried from the heart, laid bare the roots of torment, dared to change identities. Sandy placed his dual status (partly female-male) out of bounds. The fact that he was once a female who partly changed to male was not a subject for explora­ tion. Discussion of the problematic nature of sexuality was banished from therapy. Attempts by the therapist to explore what it was like for Sandy to have a psyche that felt wholly male in a body that was partly both sexes (neither fully one nor the other) were experienced by Sandy as an empathic failure. The therapist was allowed to empathize with Sandy's loneliness, but not explore it. Sandy spent a good deal of time talking about why it was impossible to trust the therapist (or anyone), since trust led to injury.

164

Psychic Deadness

T h e issue of trust was a dangling carrot that tyrannized and tantalized therapist and patient alike. Sandy's picture of trust was that the trusted one would never hurt him. Yet it is not possible for two people to be close to each other without hurting each other. For Sandy, the idea that pain was part of intimacy was intolerable. He had been hurt so severely from childhood on that injury was equated with villainy. Sandy's mother was a witch who had abused and abandoned him. The road toward identifying with Mother was closed. In order to survive, Sandy defined himself in opposition to Mother. He would be everything Mother was not: gentle, sensitive, kind. Sandy found pockets of warmth with his father, who was nice at times but was weak and unable to protect him. Sandy formed the nucleus of his identity around pockets of paternal warmth, but also defined himself in opposition to his father: he failed to protect Sandy, but Sandy would protect himself. I learned about Sandy from a European colleague who was genuinely involved in helping him. I was touched by her sensitivity to Sandy's pain. She was fearful of hurting Sandy, yet managed to maintain her boundaries. How Sandy's vulnerability tyrannized him! His therapist walked on eggshells, but a wrong move made her either the bad mother or the pointless father. Therapy was always on the verge of triggering unbearable pain and furious accusations. Sandy could not get past his sense that he was totally vulnerable, afraid to open up because of pain and injury. Any onset of pain or hint of injury was a signal to close off. T h e idea that the analyst might also be vulnerable, or that the two might come through hurting each other together, did not seem to register. Sandy's mother was not the sort of person who could empathize with a child's pain, yet she inflicted plenty of it. She could not tolerate Sandy or his pain. Parents who are especially good at inflicting pain on children often cannot take any sign of the pain inflicted. They cannot handle distress in themselves or others. So often such individuals try to stop pain by causing more of it. Perhaps there is a sense that more pain obliterates the painful situation. Sandy's dread of empathic failure had a real basis. He learned that vulnerability triggers abuse. Sandy's life was an endless series of Catch-22s. H e could not open up because he feared abuse. H e could not have the heterosexual life he wanted because he lacked a penis. Therapy seemed to hold out a promise of contact with self and other that it could not deliver. It required an honesty Sandy could not get to, yet Sandy was as honest as he could be. H e spoke honestly of his pain, fear of vulnerability, certainty of the Other's and his own failure. H e was honest about feeling he was a man. Therapy, like life, was self-defeating. Sandy used therapy's emphasis on honesty against it and himself. I n a way, Sandy was too honest. He closed his emotional truth around him like a straitjacket. His truths were the pain of emotional vulnerability, the Other's failure, and his sense of being a hetero-

I n Praise o f G e n d e r U n c e r t a i n t y

165

sexual male . T h e s e wer e u n s h a k a b l e certainties. A n y t h e r a p e u t i c invitation to e x t e n d the field o f e x p e r i e n c i n g s e e m e d an invitation to dishonesty. Sandy's very honesty a b o u t the way h e felt s t o p p e d h i m f r o m lettin g feelings grow. Sandy r e a d deeply i n psychology a n d philosophy . H e was s e a r c h i n g for some way to m a k e sense o f his c o n d i t i o n . Yet his intellectua l p r o b i n g c o u l d not budge the certaintie s o f hi s e m o t i o n a l universe . It was as i f h e h a d b e e n t h r o w n u p

on a little island of self after shipwreck, and this bit of self was

all h e knew . H i s i s l a n d p e r s o n a l i t y c l o s e d a r o u n d h i m , leavin g n o trace o f a m b i g u i t i e s a n d oscillations a n t e d a t i n g his certain self. W h a t a painfu l gap existe d between the therapist's wish to e x p a n d e x p e r i e n t i a l possibilities a n d S a n d y ' s n e e d to assess all possibilities i n terms o f w h a t h e knew.

I can imagine several alternative lives Sandy might find more satisfactory

tha n his p r e s e n t o n e . W h a t w o u l d h a p p e n if S a n d y c o u l d c o m p l e t e his sex change? W h a t stops Sandy f r o m b e i n g the male i n a lesbia n relationship ? W h a t stops Sandy from c o m i n g c l e a n , telling all, perhaps finding ( o r starting) a grou p with other s like h i m ? I f h e wer e m o v e d to do so, S a n d y p r o b a b l y c o u l d b e c o m e a therapist for o t h e r s with p r o b l e m s like his. T h e list c o u l d be e x t e n d e d . T h e p o i n t is I c a n i m a g i n e possibilities for Sand y that w o u l d feel dishones t a n d u n r e a l to him. I c a n i m a g i n e alternative lives for myself. M y sex life is heterosexua l a n d I r e l i s h it. B u t ther e also are doubts. I c a n imagine falling i n love with a m a n . I c a n e n t e r t a i n the possibility. O n e n e v e r know s wha t life brings, the c o n d i t i o n s o n e finds o n e s e l f i n , w h e r e a n e m o t i o n will take o n e . I c a n ask myself, like S c h r e b e r , what it migh t be like to be a w o m a n i n sexual intercourse . I s n ' t i m a g i n i n g this possibility a part o f sexual pleasure ? M y sexuality c a n be shaky, fearful, modest , u n c e r t a i n , funky, confident , playful, tender , r a u n c h y , so m a n y things, as the kaleidoscop e turns. I w o u l d n o t w a n t to miss any o f it. Shifting n u a n c e s a d d c o l o r to life. T h e tragedy is that Sandy, insisting o n on e t h i n g , gets n o t h i n g . H e c o u l d n o t tolerate the d e g r e e o f uncertaint y a n d shakines s o f self I've felt. I c o u l d imagin e b e i n g Sandy , bu t h e c o u l d n o t imagin e b e i n g m e . H e c o u l d n o t imagine b e i n g m e drifting a r o u n d n o t k n o w i n g w h o I a m o r w h a t I want. H e never went t h r o u g h a p e r i o d o f u n k n o w i n g i n hi s c o n s c i o u s life. S a n d y seems determ i n e d to b e n d life to his conditions, rathe r than w o r k i n g with a n d bein g w o r k e d over by the material s at h a n d . I n writin g a b o u t S a n d y I go back a n d forth, n o t quite sur e w h e t h e r to call h i m - h e r femal e o r m a l e . I n my m i n d I use f e m i n i n e , s o m e t i m e s m a s c u l i n e p r o n o u n s . I suspect my oscillation reflects a sense that S a n d y has n o t dealt with the d o u b l e n e s s o f his sexua l b e i n g , bu t has w h i s k e d m u l t i p l i c i t y u n d e r the carpet o f a single identity. H e has close d off alternate selves. I n my feeling, at least, I k e e p the possibility o f m u l t i p l e identities o p e n . I n the e n d , I respect his truth a n d use the masculine pronoun. Nevertheless, I cannot h e l p feelin g that my g o i n g b a c k a n d forth inwardly expresses a shakiness , ambiguity, a n d oscillation h e n e e d s to e x p e r i e n c e .

\

166

Psychic Deadness

Certainty and Deadness Sandy's life tightened around him, and he felt increasingly empty. As the years passed, the pain of isolation and loneliness competed with an even worse state: a growing deadness and meaninglessness. How much pain can one take before numbness sets in? The pleasure he got from intellectual activity could not keep pace with the growing deadness. Sandy's deadness was not painless. His deadness was horrifying to him. Life crushed his hope that he would find a woman who would love him as a man. Yet he could not modify his game plan. His true self feeling told him he was a man who needed a heterosexual woman. He could not change his true self feeling. True self feeling can be tyrannical. Sandy's true self feeling was killing him. It is useful to have the capacity for uncertainty and self-doubt built into true self feeling. It is a wonderful moment when one can say, "Aha, so that's who I really am." What a relief to catch on, to have a sense of knowing. Such moments can be definitive, and one can build on them. But they may fade and be qualified by other moments, other revelations of self. One may feel that an earlier version of self was wrong, or partly right and wrong, or right for that time but not for this. Editing is part of the pleasure of life. One edits oneself as one goes along. Life edits one. Sandy does not seem to value self-editing or revision processes. He takes a version of self as the final version, which repeats facets of original traumas in abbreviated forms. Sandy's true self is organized in such a way that it keeps crashing into reality. The original Smash, Pain or Ouch keeps getting replayed, without the qualifying variations that would change the self. It is wonderfully freeing to realize that moderating and modulating oneself can enable one to be more fully and truly. One grows in appreciation of the zigzag, wiggle, detour. The more one lets overtones and undertones of self and Other resonate, the more thrilling life becomes. To try to coincide with one version of self is akin to vanishing, just as sound dies without multiples. I am a heterosexual male, but not the same heterosexual male 1 was thirty or twenty or ten years ago. My sense of maleness has changed more in the past ten years than in the last three decades together. What it means to be a man has gone through enormous changes in my lifetime. I don't get the feeling that Sandy has thought much about what it means to be a man or experimented with different ways of being male. Sandy's true self configuration prevents him from undergoing experiences that would amplify, qualify, open his sense of self, and open him sexually. I wonder if Sandy ever felt deeply wrong about anything, or if he ever subjected his vision of life to serious questioning. Being who he is is agonizing, but the agony does not seem to precipitate an overturning of self, a change of vision. Life is wrong; the Other is wrong. Life has treated him badly; the Other

In Praise of Gender Uncertainty

167

has failed him, treated him badly. O f course he is right. But the rigid quality of addiction to Tightness seals him off from thoughts, images, feelings, and experiences that might make a difference. Some people complain about being too chameleonlike, but it is also possible not to be chameleonlike enough. There are many possibilities between diffusion and immobility. Sandy seems overly caught up in the idea that one ought to coincide with oneself. But one needs to be different from oneself too. T h e self moves between sameness-difference, distinction-union, never solely one nor the other. Sandy seems to have stopped this movement. He seems to have substituted onethingness for everythingness. He has pitted himself against the movement of life and pays the price of torment without change.

Truth Who can predict or control the flow of truth? For years Greg was sure he was female in a male body. As he neared adulthood, the truth that he was male began to dawn on him—that he was now male in a partly female body. Greg's predicament brings home a dilemma we all face. A truth that we believe one moment destroys us the next. Isn't this one reason why Freud advised not acting out during analysis? In analysis truth keeps changing. We can hurt ourselves and others by acting too quickly on what we are discovering. It is precisely the mobility of truth that is one of the important lessons analysis teaches. T h e subject stays open to transformations of affect, thought, and object choices; it dips into streams of consciousness, streams of life. One learns from experience how one truth qualifies another. We are never one truth but many, in wiggly, wobbly ways. We learn we are not only entitled but also obligated not to reduce ourselves to one version of ourselves. We turn ourselves over this way and that. T h e turning never stops. We put it aside to rest, to do something else, to recover from the movement. But when we are ready, we dip in and ride the rapids as best we can. We do not know ahead of time what current will take us where. We may live out/explore some female element, or male element. We are a sort of male-in-female female-in-male Taoist Chinese box. If we look closely at any moment, we see male * * female elements turning into each other, interweaving, pushing against each other, subtly shifting direction, energy, and meaning. Freud's writings show every psychic fiber alive with the play of opposites, restless dualities, multiplicities, clashes * * mixtures fusions reversals of this tendency with that. Truth comes in waves. We select some or some select us to spend time with. We turn a truth (systems of truths) this way and that, walk around it, see it from a number of perspectives, different profiles. Sometimes a truth seems very big but shrinks as we live with it. It doesn't take washing well. Truths we didn't think much of can grow and we may grow with them. There are innumerable flirta-

Psychic Deadness

168

tions with this or that truth, f u n for awhile, uplifting for a time. Sometimes there are good marriages, truths that sustain and surprise us for decades. A good set of truths enables us to keep t u r n i n g our identities around. Each m o m e n t o f t r u t h enables us to experience another facet o f who we are (or a r e n ' t ) . T o work o n our truths is to work on our identities (vice versa), like a potter or sculptor. T o be an artist of identity truthsmust be an alien idea for Sandy. T h e stiffness of his true self is a measure o f the catastrophe it binds and is itself a catastro­ phe. What does therapy need to do i n order to free h i m f r o m the pressure o f trying to be one t h i n g , one way? His therapist is trying. W i l l she f i n d and lead h i m to the place where alternatives are ceaselessly b o r n , the place his own swerving came from? Salvation, partly, is learning the art o f swerving f r o m oneself i n time. A t times swerving leads to derailment, b u t often one swerves i n t o unseen openings and pours oneself into them with all one's m i g h t . What a delight such swervings can be; how lucky we are to go w i t h t h e m ! The art o f self, i n part, is the art o f distance-closeness. H o w to be the o p t i ­ mal distance f r o m oneself at any moment, not too far b u t n o t too close, is an ever-changing task. I f we coincide with ourselves we may enjoy a m o m e n t o f mystical fusion, b u t we also may be fanatic, one-eyed, or no-eyed. T o be too one with ourselves may be to take ourselves too seriously, to n o t leave enough r o o m for the otherness i n us. I f we are too far f r o m ourselves, we may lose ourselves i n echoes: by the time we hear ourselves, we are light years away f r o m the voice. T o freely move closer to the m o m e n t to give us ourselves. By the time Greg left therapy, he was somewhat able to appreciate and use the internal range finder o f self, that inner gesture or psychic body English that moves us f a r t h e r - n e a r e r to ourselves. Sandy's range-finder seemed stuck i n one position. O n e sees how i m p o r t a n t was Freud's (1937) concern with psychic immobility. What conditions make for more or less m o b i l i t y and what sorts o f m o b i l i t y - i m m o b i l i t y ? Psychoanalysis is still a study o f movement and its barriers.

A COP: S T R O N G M A N — W E A K M A N Every h u m a n being is actually many males, many females. I f we took this as an axiom o f daily life, we m i g h t get along better. We m i g h t make r o o m f o r our­ selves and each other. We ought n o t assume we know too m u c h about the capacities that constitute us, who we are, and what we are made of. We are and remain mysteries all o u r lives. I f we are lucky, we learn a little about being partners w i t h ourselves. We are protected f r o m getting too close to ourselves, perhaps f o r good rea­ son. O u r systems o f defenses and barriers act as filters for the radiating light w i t h i n , like the ozone layer shields us f r o m too m u c h radiation. W h e n Moses became contaminated by God's radiation, he p u t a veil over his face to protect

I n Praise o f Gender Uncertainty

169

others f r o m the glow. We cannot take too much o f ourselves or get enough o f ourselves. Part o f maturation is learning how to dose oneself and others out. A t times our filter systems get the better o f us, and we vanish i n or are bro­ ken by defenses that ought to mediate us. J i m , a policeman, lived his life as a good-natured, strong m a n . As l o n g as he felt strong a n d his strength was appreciated, he could afford to be good natured. H e got along well with com­ munity and family. What worked as a younger man d i d n o t work so well as J i m got older. His body could not keep up with his image o f strength. J i m lived a full, r i c h , suc­ cessful life, one busy with relationships, pleasures, and adventures. I n time, his children left home to live their lives, and he could n o longer imagine himself central to their existence. Younger m e n i n the department d i d the things he once d i d . He suffered several serious illnesses, i n c l u d i n g a heart attack, b u t could n o t make r o o m for the changes that were taking place. H e started to d r i n k heavily and become angry w i t h himself and others. His body could no longer support his self-image, and his self-image refused or was unable to make the necessary shifts. J i m , t h e strong, good-natured cop, w o u l d have to make r o o m for weakness i f he d i d n o t want to die prematurely. There is a strong man-weak man dialec­ tic i n every personality, especially i n males. T o o often the strong man has con­ tempt for the weak m a n , and the gap between t h e m grows. T h e weak man becomes a nucleus for a bad self-image that drags the personality down. I n ­ stead o f being able to enjoy the pleasures o f weakness, the weak man is con­ signed to secrecy and feeds o n inferiority, shame, and self-hate, a loathing that grows t h r o u g h sneaky m o r a l superiority and passive—aggressive vengefulness. The polarity o f strength-weakness is heavily charged i n society. I t is good to be strong and bad to be weak. I n order to compensate for this one-sided view­ point, religions have emphasized virtue i n weakness. Mastery and dominance for the strong, surrender for the weak. Yet there is strength i n weakness and weakness i n strength. " I n the storm, the oak breaks, the reed bends," suggests the Tao Te Ching. A n d perhaps one o f the greatest war cries o f all times is, "The meek [weak] shall i n h e r i t the earth." We need to meditate o n the w o r m . W h e n we t h i n k o f weakness, we t h i n k o f the w o r m . "You w o r m ! " we cry i n disgust, a cry o f derisive repudiation. T h e worm is associated with h u m i l i a t i o n , baseness, sneaky aggression, a sense o f unworthiness. I t spoils some o f o u r food and feeds o n o u r bodies when we're gone. Yet it does n o t seem to h a r m living creatures and for eons has helped the soil. The lowly w o r m precedes us by millions o f years. I t apparently can survive i n dark u n d e r g r o u n d places, although i t whitens w i t h o u t sunlight. I t bothers us that a creature crawls w i t h o u t a backbone all its life long. We only crawl a short while before we stand and grow up, higher a n d higher. Poor J i m must fear becoming worm-like! He is having trouble maintaining his straight and tall m o u n t above his backbone. I f he cannot look down at worm­

170

Psychic Deadness

like creatures supporting life, he may become one of them. Something in his psyche whispers he is better off dead than weak. The idea of becoming a worm after living a life of integrity is too much to bear. I want to praise the worm. We need to let the worm into our self-image more openly. It is not so bad being a worm. There are many good points to it. Too much pride in who one is can be as stifling as too little. We need the worm for balance. We need to taste the earth, let it go through us. We need to be close to the ground, not just high above it. Jim's pride in strong manhood is killing him. Perhaps it also is killing society. To play down strength is malicious or silly; to play down weakness is delusional. In one way or another, a strong man-weak man dialogue plays a role in many therapies. Any man is many men. We also need to hear more about the strong woman-weak woman dialogue. I f the repressive force of the strong man image lessens somewhat, dialogues between and within males and females and male-female elements may become more creative. Social realism teaches that if the strong let up, the weak tear them apart. We need to find ways into pro­ cesses of mutual interplay that really work. We do not know i f this is possible, but we cannot wish the messy turmoil away. Jim lived a clean life. Sandy tries too hard to live a clean life. Greg dipped into the mess. He let himself be surprised by who he was and wasn't. He couldn't avoid it. Shouldn't we all take the plunge, in our own ways, in our own measure? A NOTE O N IMAGE AND BODY Is the human psyche too much for the human body? We can imagine anything, but we can not be whatever we imagine. Our visions and perceptions often outstrip our ability to act. We can imagine ourselves both sexes, but only be one. I can imagine more sexual possibilities in five minutes than I am likely to realize in five years. We have a bisexual psyche in a monosexual body, more or less. Such a state­ ment needs qualifications, but it conveys the immensity of what we are about. Psychoanalysis teaches that sexuality has many currents and subcurrents, domi­ nants and subdominants. Our identity includes many subidentities. As a spe­ cies, we tend to try what we imagine. If we can imagine it, someone is trying to do it. And, probably, there is also someone speaking against it. This is part of the glory and hardship of having the sorts of minds we do, of being the sorts of beings we are. There is a gap between what we think and do. I can think of many more sentences to put down on this page than the ones I select. I try for a reasonable fit between what is trying to be expressed and what actually does. Writing is a frustrating pleasure, a pleasurable frustration. Our sexuality also is a teeming ocean of possibilities, but we tend to make do with a mixture that fits us. We edit and re-edit our sexuality in order to

I n Praise o f Gender Uncertainty

171

connect w i t h i t so that we can live i t i n a way that uplifts rather than damages us. I n clinical practice we discover that not everyone connects w i t h his or her sexuality. The key is finding an identity (sets o f identities) that work for a par­ ticular individual at a particular time. Freud taught that every micro-strand o f identity is a plethora o f multiples, alive with contrasting possibilities. One might conclude that a certain amount o f confusion, uncertainty, and self-doubt is normal, that the lack o f confusion is artificial. We speak o f the true self. We ask, is this my true self, is this? A n individual may feel he has f o u n d it. He develops certainty about his true self feeling. In Greg's case, true self feeling (or the f o r m o f it) changed, and he was able to go with it. Jim's and Sandy's remained constant, w i t h accelerating damage. W o u l d n ' t i t be good i f our true self feelings passed t h r o u g h our systems like soil t h r o u g h a worm? Perhaps as a society we need to emphasize more the dif­ ficulties involved i n metabolizing true self feelings, not simply finding them. When do true self feelings pass into our psychic bloodstream as nutrients, when do they k i l l the flow? We need to find ways, and keep finding ways, to l i n k true self feelings to real processes o f living.

REFERENCE Freud, S. (1937). Analysis terminable and interminable. Standard Edition 23:216-253.

15 Emotional Starvation

^J[any people

are starving to death emotionally. Emotional starvation takes many forms and is part o f a wide range o f disorders. T h e images of starving bodies i n Somalia so lacerated us, n o t only because t h e i r essential h o r r o r assaulted our sense of humanity b u t also because they reflected a h i d d e n part o f our own inner c o n d i t i o n . We hide our starved beings f r o m ourselves. A n obese woman, Sheila, complains about overeating. She tells me she is going to q u i t therapy i f I do n o t help her c o n t r o l herself. She is quite demand­ i n g and impatient. I almost say, "You have to be i n therapy to quit i t . " She is not close to starting therapy, and she is already leaving. A few months later she still threatens to quit i f I d o n ' t help her soon. By this time I know that she grew up w i t h a psychotic m o t h e r and alcoholic father. I can feel the pain she must have felt as a c h i l d , but she gives no h i n t o f it. I picture her c h i l d soul falling t h r o u g h ghastly abysses o f maternal madness and traumatized by paternal violence. She shrugs it off. "What good will talking about that do now? You've got to help me stop eating now!" She gets angry i f I say anything about then. She berates me, "Talking about the past is a waste o f time." Her tone contains a menacing warning: " I f you waste my time, I ' l l leave. Do better, or else." The way she talked about wasting time rocketed t h r o u g h me. I was o n the verge o f feeling unreal and getting lost i n self-doubt. The sense of waste gath­ ered m o m e n t u m . I felt how horribly wasted she must have been f r o m early o n . I could n o t let go o f the pain o f her life. I pictured a little g i r l r i p p e d apart by her mother's paranoid depressive attacks, alternately exploited, devoured, attacked, and abandoned. I pictured her cowering i n the face o f her father's raging erruptions and the dreadful r e l i e f that stuporous obliteration brought. Yet I d i d n ' t only talk about the past. I talked about now, the living m o m e n t . She picked o n my empathic remarks about her past to wipe out what m i g h t happen between us i n the present. O u r chance f o r a relationship was being wasted.

174

Psychic Deadness

T h e w o r d "wasted" makes waves! T o be wasted, blown away, destroyed with­ out a trace. T o be waste material, a child's soul turned to shit, a shit-self, shitting itself out, treated like g o l d one m o m e n t and shit the next by o u t o f c o n t r o l , golden-shitty, b r u t a l , sentimental, uncomprehending parents. T o be wasting away, undernourished, ravaged, stuffed with emotional toxins, flooded with eye­ p o p p i n g horrors that eat one's insides out. H e r fat winds like insulation around unendurable pain. Inside she is starv­ ing, wasting away. She does n o t know she is starving. She d i d n o t j u s t starve as a c h i l d . She is starving now. A process has been set i n m o t i o n and mush­ rooms. I look at her enormous body and am lacerated by seeing a skin-and­ bones concentration camp self. I see a starving self. My rational self knows this is imaginative vision. Yet I see and feel i t , as i f a direct transmission is being made f r o m her i n n e r being to mine. Her body gets more and more bloated, as her inner self reaches a vanishing point. My gaze is riveted to the vanishing point. I have an eerie sense that I am witnessing a life r h y t h m gone wrong, that I am being let i n o n a secret. We expand-contract, grow bigger-smaller on a daily basis: emotions rise-fall, f i l l - e m p t y . We may all be millionaires i n emo­ tions, but we need to be able to let them come and go, and there are ways we come and go w i t h t h e m . What has happened to Sheila's e m o t i o n a l flow, its rise-fall, expansion-contraction? I t is as i f the contraction has t u r n e d i n t o an invisible starving self, forever vanishing, while the expansion has t u r n e d i n t o an outer covering o f growing fat. She cannot tolerate any h i n t o f inner starvation. Emotional starvation is converted i n t o physical hunger, which she fights and gives i n t o . She cannot withstand the urge to gorge. I t is an addiction. The bloated, stuporous con­ tent she feels after an orgy o f bingeing is a macabre caricature o f the infant's sleepy satisfaction o n being filled by a good feed. Her constant demand that I help her immediately caricatures the infant's urgency. Yet u n l i k e the healthy infant, she can n o t truly be satisfied nor helped, n o t immediately. I wish she w o u l d gorge on me or on what I m i g h t offer. Yet I d o n o t seem to be able to give her anything digestible, even i n small doses. I am irrelevant to her because I cannot give her everything now. I cannot fill her u p , partly because I do n o t know how to get t h r o u g h to her, nor does she have ability to use me as I am. O u r interactions are uncomfortable and unsatisfactory. Yet she keeps coming. Something must be getting through. As time goes o n , I feel I am starving to death with her. Apparently unlike her, I feel the pain o f n o t making contact, o f the lack o f flow, o f the inability to communicate. H e r potential pain seems immediately translated i n t o anger at me for not h e l p i n g her c o n t r o l herself. She fills up w i t h anger like she gorges o n f o o d . Her anger occupies too m u c h space i n her emotional life and leaves little r o o m for other feelings.

Emotional Starvation

175

She wants me to help her control her anger like she wants m e to help con­ trol her eating. She wants help i n controlling what she cannot experience. She can be filled w i t h anger w i t h o u t tolerating the feeling l o n g enough to taste i t and know what i t is about. Anger, like eating, becomes part o f a blank s t u f f i n g ­ emptying cycle. After a year I begin to get the idea that her wish for c o n t r o l is a vestige o f her wish to have a f u l l psychic life. She n o longer ( i f ever she d i d ) knows what a f u l l psychic life m i g h t be. O u r earlier meetings made i t clear that control is so important to her because she could n o t c o n t r o l parental madness and vio­ lence. Her wish f o r c o n t r o l is partly an indicator o f chaotic helplessness and vulnerability. Yet the idea of c o n t r o l , at least, refers to m i n d , so that there is something she wants that is n o t only physical. Some idea o f internality persists, i f only as a reduced, displaced lack. The idea o f c o n t r o l is vastly overrated, b u t is easy to grasp and disseminate. Destruction and control o f destruction provide enough material to fill o u r days with anxious preoccupations. I t is easy to organize ourselves a r o u n d desperate concerns. The idea that we should be i n c o n t r o l feeds o u r vanity and flatters us with the illusion that we can control our control. But the preoccupation with control obscures other avenues o f growth. Leaders get bad press i f they do n o t seem strong and decisive. Yet the need to appear strong and decisive can cause trouble for multitudes. There are times when it pays to oscillate, to wiggle-wobble, to curve this way and that. There is something good i n h u m a n weakness and indecisiveness, something undevel­ oped that leaves r o o m f o r creativeness. Passivity plays an i m p o r t a n t role i n healthy development. Perhaps the weak will i n h e r i t the earth, after the strong kill each other off. The idea o f partnership offers more promise than control. H o w do we be­ come partners w i t h o u r capacities, ourselves, each other? C o n t r o l , strength, decisiveness enter i n t o the equation as variables w i t h shifting values, depend­ ing o n the moment. Weakness and passivity must be given their due as neces­ sary parts o f generative processes in public as well as private domains. The word "part" is part o f partner: separating-Joining go together. The media's greed for action stuffs us w i t h cyclopean images that destroy the need for intricacy. Intimacy is always intricate. Can we be on intimate terms with ourselves? Can the public d o m a i n survive without intimate input? Is intimacy possible? What is intimacy? Where intimacy is concerned, we are always beginning. Part o f getting to k n o w ourselves and each other involves m a k i n g r o o m for being a beginner. There seems to be little tolerance for learning how to begin i n either pub­ lic or private domains. Leaders are criticized for not already k n o w i n g what to do and how to do i t , when actually learning and self-questioning are neces­ sary. They are frequently impelled to do something when waiting m i g h t be bet­

176

Psychic Deadness

ter. Things happen too fast to let actions ripen. Sheila too cannot wait. She is impelled to act. She must stuff herself w i t h food and anger. Whereas waiting m i g h t be experienced as weakness for a leader, it would be strength f o r Sheila. She cannot let actions ripen. " Y o u a r e starving to d e a t h , " I tell h e r , " W h y d o I c o m e h e r e ? Y o u d o n ' t h e l p m e . I need h e l p c o n t r o l l i n g myself.

Stop me f r o m eating." Anger stuffs the r o o m . She is needy, pleading, weak, and demanding, b u t her fury obliterates everything. "You are starving to death," I say many times, many months: this is my litany, my chant. Those are the words that come, that fit my emotional center, that make me feel connected. I say many other things over the course o f time, but the navel is a sense o f starvation. I am frightened the first time these words pulse out o f m e . A m I crazy? Here she is stuffing herself i n t o oblivion, and I speak o f starvation. A m I maliciously defiant, relishing t a u n t i n g her with paradoxical communication? I can tune into the sardonic satisfaction o f the transcendent therapist, always inverting realities and mentally o u t f o x i n g the patient. But when the words come out o f me, I feel deeply l i n k e d w i t h myself, w i t h Sheila's inner self, w i t h the way i t feels to be together i n the r o o m . Above all, the words are heartfelt. Sheila stares at me blankly. How can I say she is starving? The blankness gives way to puzzlement, even a little curiosity. What happens i f she delays stuffing herself with f o o d and anger for moments, seconds, or minutes? What happens between the urge to eat and obliteration? I encourage her to try to wait even micro-moments and tell me what she feels. " I can't wait," she tells me. " I feel I ' m dying, starving, suffocating. I f I wait a m o m e n t more, I ' l l die." I t is i m p o r t a n t f o r her to know that waiting will lead to other experiences, even i f she can't wait. There are worlds o f experiences she cannot have because she cannot wait. For one t h i n g , she cannot take the build-up o f dyirig. As soon as she feels she's dying, she eats herself (or infuriates herself) i n t o oblivion. She cannot live her dying, i t scares her so. "You substitute one death for another," I say. "Instead o f starving or suffo­ cating, you kill yourself with rage or food. You die a n u m b death instead o f a live one." "Words, words!" she screams. "Words can't help m e ! " U n l i k e writers or madmen, she cannot stuff herself with words. She needs f o o d or rage. After two years Sheila says, "You are trying to help." She begins to feel that waiting is not c o n t r o l l i n g . Something happens when she waits, although she can't take m u c h o f it. Something builds. She must give i n to need, to demand. She cannot deny herself. Yet she sees me waiting. Shefeetsme waiting. She knows something is h a p p e n i n g i n my waiting. She experiences the b u i l d - u p o f my feelings. She sees-feels-knows that she makes me feel something and that i t

Emotional Starvation

177

mounts. "You are waiting for me" she says. That she can see and say this is monumental. There is a m o m e n t o f self-to-self contact, which makes i t possible to realize that self-to-self contact usually is missing. Sheila abruptly says, I ' m waiting for me too." I n the next months she can say, T m usually n o t there. I feel full when I stuff myself. T h e n I feel something. Satisfaction, satiation. T h e n disgust sets i n . I can't bear myself and die. When I start c o m i n g back I get panicky. I eat or blow u p . " "You can't take being there or n o t being there." "Not being there is easier. But I hate myself." N o t many people can take very m u c h o f themselves. We tend to hide this or do n o t even recognize i t . For Sheila, the increase i n b o t h aliveness and unaliveness is scary. " I feel I ' m there a l i t t l e , " she says, "More than when I first came here. I ' m growing a little, and a little is a l o t . " Such a statement marks an amazing t u r n . For Sheila, a lot has been too little. Once gorging starts, n o t h i n g is enough. She reaches a p o i n t o f triumphant, malignant ecstasy, as she becomes bloated. I imagine a tic or some sort of para­ site feeding on b l o o d , like a baby o n m i l k . She may puke so she can eat more. What is she p u m p i n g u p inside her, inflating her stomach like a ballooning breast? The growth o f fat and fury substitutes for emotional growth. That she now has a m o m e n t o f happiness w i t h a little taste o f real growth is astonishing. Experiencing even a little growth provides another reference p o i n t for what life is about. One t h i n g that is beautiful about therapy is the value i t places o n growing the capacity to grow. A therapist has to experience this beauty i n order to have faith i n i t and also perhaps needs faith i n order to experience the power o f this beauty. Sheila must have felt growth was impossible and so lost a sense o f it and vice versa. What sort o f nourishment d i d she find i n life? She had to make do w i t h toxic nourishment and was always ready to react to what she was n o t getting or to the noxious m i x t u r e available. She swallowed poisons to survive. She hated life, herself, and others f o r the degraded, reduced w o r l d that entombed her. She survived like a r o d e n t o n garbage. Where b u t i n therapy could the love o f beauty outlast or outflank the gar­ bage self? What a beautiful garbage d u m p therapy can be. Generations o f psy­ chic pollutants pour i n t o therapy. The beauty o f therapy survives them. How beautiful the ocean i n spite o f all the waste i t metabolizes. Can i t keep u p with the toxins? Let us n o t devalue our capacity to survive o n toxic pollutants. We need it. B u t let us n o t reduce ourselves to it. Sheila was i n danger o f reducing herself to a small, mean, tight personality, one that lived on emotional yuck. She lost or never developed the ability to engage fully i n more nourishing relationships.

178

Psychic Deadness

Her capacity to f i n d and sustain nourishing interchanges atrophied. She was used to no one being there, or someone attacking her or g o r g i n g o n her i n toxic ways. I t was difficult for her to know what to do with relationships that were not toxic or empty or attacking enough. What makes therapy special is that it appreciates psychic garbage. The thera­ pist knows the importance o f the garbage d u m p i n h u m a n interactions. A t the same time, there is a deep sense o f what can happen between people, i n and out o f the d u m p . One hand i n shit, one i n beauty, and w i t h two hands, new, undreamed-of circuits grow. The therapist i n the shit is n o t too alien for the patient. The therapist i n the beauty can then be uplifting. The image o f an ocean metabolizing waste is expressive o f the unconscious processes metabolizing e m o t i o n a l pollutants. We describe the stoppage o f emotional flow i n terms o f walls or holes. We are walled off. T h e r e are holes i n us. We are rigid, tight, or amorphous, jelly. Something bad happens to us and we are h u r t , afraid, angry. We stiffen, break, collapse. Unconscious processes attempt to metabolize injury and the results o f injury, i n c l u d i n g o u r reactions to what hurts us. We keep reworking what bothers us. We become depressed about the splits, walls, and holes that make us u p and become parts o f lasting psychic/social structures. But a certain fluidity remains. We keep trying to reset ourselves. O u r experiences become part o f a back­ g r o u n d tapestry, adding threads, colors, and designs as life goes o n . We do n o t know how things will look as life continues. The background tapestry is part o f the ocean o f unconscious processing that absorbs and incessantly reworks everything that happens to us. O n e hopes for alive unconscious processing that shapes things to our benefit, our special blend o f t r u t h , beauty, garbage. One labors to become partners w i t h a processing capacity that aids f u r t h e r absorption, experiencing, reworking. There is n o reason to t h i n k that we and our processor ever stop evolving, unless disease eats away this precious ability. I n time, Sheila sensed the background tapestry growing i n me. She felt i t grow i n our sessions. Something she made me feel would dissolve i n t o and l i n k with other things she made me feel, so that a Sheila w o r l d o f feelings grew i n me. She heard this Sheila w o r l d i n my voice, saw i t i n my face a n d body. There was n o t h i n g I wanted f r o m this Sheila w o r l d other than its own existence. I t gave me new, other-than-me nourishment. I grew f r o m its growth. Its roots were deeper than anything I consciously experienced. Only intimations were pos­ sible and, now a n d then, flares. This sort o f immersion and reliance o n the background tapestry o f being was new for Sheila. I t made c o n t r o l superfluous. Most people i n her life asso­ ciated growth w i t h c o n t r o l o f a bad, c h i l d self. I n therapy, dependence o n unconscious processing takes the place o f the compulsion to c o n t r o l . Sheila's fat and fury were signals that unconscious processing was n o t w o r k i n g well. Emotional injury was n o t getting reworked as part o f larger movements i n life.

Emotional Starvation

179

Sheila's life was incessantly reducing itself to the sum o f her injuries and the reactive world that adhered to t h e m . The background tapestry o f being failed to develop i n ways that supported, enriched, and strengthened a sense o f generative opening. One needs sup­ port to thaw and open. One needs actual experience that thawing and open­ ing are possible. Sometimes this experience is only gotten by proxy t h r o u g h another person. Sheila's watching my g r o w t h — t h e r e came a p o i n t she could no longer escape the realization that I was growing before her eyes—brought home the reality o f a way of growing that was n o t primarily based o n control. That I could and w o u l d grow t h r o u g h her evolving impact o n me was a revela­ tion. For a time, the therapist is the patient's stand-in i n the dangerous/thrill­ ing m o m e n t o f opening. I t takes years for Sheila to realize she cannot obtain f r o m f o o d the nourish­ ment she wants f r o m a person and that she cannot obtain f r o m a person what­ ever she needs i n order to f i l l holes i n herself. There are people so badly dam­ aged that no amount o f contact w i t h nourishing others may make a difference. Sheila is badly damaged, b u t is able to make use o f therapy over time. T o some extent, she is able to let the therapist survive her i n t i m i d a t i o n tactics a n d demands. I do n o t cave i n too l o n g , partly because she does n o t demand my permanent annihilation. After Sheila is satisfied that she can knock me out for a time, she lets me resurface and regroup. She is fascinated w i t h my elasticity. She damages me, kills me, and I bounce back. Over time, she contacts her own personal elasticity by experiencing mine. W h e n Sheila entered therapy, she enacted elasticity by f i l l i n g w i t h f o o d and emptying out, blowing u p with rage and deflating. Therapy provided a psychic model for the functions that her behavior was caricaturing. One can be filled and emptied o f meaning and o f a wide range o f feelings and imaginings, as well as f o o d and fury. Two people can undergo many sorts o f ruptures o f com­ munication and then reconnect. T h e quality o f going t h r o u g h ruptures and reconnections is crucial. Therapy provides the place and impetus for the qual­ ity o f r u p t u r e - r e c o n n e c t i o n to evolve. Therapy too provides an alternate ideology to the self-defeating ideology o f control that stamped Sheila's t h i n k i n g since childhood. Therapy's focus is more on whether or n o t or to what extent one can tolerate the build-up of experi­ encing. H o w m u c h feeling-thinking-imagining can one take? What happened to the equipment that makes a growing, feeling self possible? Therapy provides a shift of focus, a way o f thinking-feeling-sensing-imagining that becomes skin and air f o r analyst and patient alike. For the time they are together, patient­ analyst breathe therapy air, i n h a b i t therapy skin. Therapy partly helps the patient-analyst tolerate experiencing therapy. Once the therapy self begins growing, i t is felt as precious. I t is n o wonder many patients become therapists. As years go by, Sheila's therapy self feeds her heart's desire, her wish to be an actress, She cannot sit still all day like therapists do. She needs to move.

180

Psychic Deadness

Her experience o f moving me enables her to feel she can move others. She gorges on feelings. H e r fury gives her strength and power. H e r hunger makes her appealing. Her range o f feelings grow i n depth and subtlety and expres­ sive cunning. She allows herself to become a different person when she acts, more o f who she really feels she is, a truer, transmuted self. The garbage d u m p self is real, b u t so is the taste o f heaven. Sandy (see Chapter 14) was b o r n a woman b u t is a mentally man, and be­ came as m u c h a man i n body as medical technology allows. H e was unable to acquire a real penis, and his penisless state haunts h i m . He desperately wants to be a real man w i t h a woman, but attempts at love relationships fall apart, since he dare n o t let his partners know he is penisless. Nevertheless, he passes for a man i n everyday life. No one knows he is/was a woman, except his thera­ pist. His parents are dead. His u p b r i n g i n g was a h o r r i b l e m i x t u r e o f abandonment and abuse. His mother frequently left the family, and when she was present she was given to violent rages. Sandy received some w a r m t h f r o m his father, b u t the latter was too weak and unreliable to h o l d Sandy above the storm. I n therapy, Sandy persistently voices l o n g i n g and vulnerability, yet shuts his therapist out. He is terrified o f being h u r t i f he lets her i n . He verbally acknowledges that his thera­ pist is there for h i m . But when he dips into actual feelings, he feels i n danger o f annihilation. His sense o f injury is massive and overpowering, and he backs o f f f r o m feeling anything. His therapist, Mara, helped keep h i m i n life for more than fifteen years. She consulted me because she felt guilty about such a long therapy that d i d n o t get anywhere. Sandy and Mara live i n Europe. Mara has seen me several times over a five-year p e r i o d when she visited the U n i t e d States. I doubted I could help much. I felt that Sandy was too sealed o f f to p e r m i t what to Mara would be real contact. H e monitors potential contact f r o m a distance. He can see the possibility o f contact, feel longing, imagine touching a n d being touched by another. But the actual happening o f it is light-years away. Sandy insists he must be secretive w i t h people because he must.keep his penisless state a secret. Yet he has no excuse w i t h Mara. They are n o t going to make love. She knows about h i m . W i t h her he cannot hide b e h i n d an organ lack; he must face his inability to make emotional contact w i t h o u t excuses, but is unable to do so. His eternal excuse is massive trauma. He is too traumatized to dare to open. He is too terrified o f emotional injury Mara is d o o m e d to eternal frustration. She has done everything she can. She cajoles, respects, seduces, invites, empathizes, controls, surrenders-but she cannot unlock Sandy's hardened dread. I t is as i f she is the emotional self that Sandy fears to have. Sandy lives o f f Mara's emotional self w i t h o u t having to be it himself. H e has been nourished by her for over fifteen years without acknowl­ edging how m u c h her emotional life has sustained h i m .

Emotional Starvation

181

People who are emotionally starving to death may, paradoxically, feel that even a little emotion is too much, yet no matter how much they get, it is too litde. This is Sandy's predicament. Any threat of emotional contact is too much. A t the same time, whatever he gets f r o m Mara feels puny i n comparison w i t h what he feels he needs. I t is as i f emotional life is simultaneously magnified-minified, too m u c h - t o o litde. Even a little emotion feels explosive. The wound is too great to tolerate feeling. The shut-off or reduction of feeling is constant and fast. Need makes anything too little, and vulnerability makes anything too much. Yet Sandy is aware that Mara nourishes h i m . He keeps c o m i n g year after year. He does not give up. He is getting something, even i f he is frustrated by what he cannot get. Something gets t h r o u g h . I t is also important that Mara feels frustrated. She gets a little taste o f what Sandy's feeling excluded f r o m exis­ tence is like. She cannot establish with Sandy the k i n d o f contact she values, that she feels would help h i m , and that she feels he wants. They b o t h feel frus­ trated with each other and themselves. Neither experiences fully how m u c h Sandy is getting because his complaints remain constant. The problems he sought help with do n o t seem to change. Sandy and Mara feel excluded f r o m each other (as Sandy does f r o m l i f e ) , yet b o u n d by Mara's f l o w o f feeling that Sandy lacks and the secret nourishment and o v e r t frustration this provides. I picture Sandy as a baby secretly sucking Mara's emotional teat. A stuck baby. Clinging, tense, nearly r i g i d , frozen. This baby does n o t seem warmed by milk. I t shuts out sight, taste, smell, and sound. Its muscles are so tight they shut out the feel o f things. Yet the baby cannot let go. I t is stuck to the teat i n terror, glued by need. I t neither starves to death nor is nourished. I t cannot be trans­ f o r m e d by emotional flow nor entirely let go hope o f transformation. I believe Sandy when he says his life is r u i n e d by secrets. As 1 look at h i m through Mara, I see this secret baby, always on the verge o f dying, nearly starv­ ing, never completely letting go o f life. How frustrating i t is to Mara that she is let i n enough for Sandy to keep going, but n o t enough for h i m to be trans­ f o r m e d . The whole p o i n t o f his b e i n g i n therapy is that he must keep his secret, that he must remain secretive and complain about the impoverishment that secretiveness brings. When Mara tells me that Sandy is an avid reader o f psychological writings I am taken aback. I ask her more about this and encourage her to tell me as much about his readings as she can. She reluctantly paints a picture o f Sandy's pas­ sion for psychoanalytic literature. She disparages i t , distrusts it. She feels it is escapist, an intellectualization, part o f his avoidance of emotional contact w i t h people. I have no d o u b t she is right, yet something quickens i n me. I t is a pas­ sion I share with Sandy, a passion Mara lacks. Mara is a down-to-earth, c o m m o n ­ sensical person. For the first time I begin to wonder i f I am more like Sandy than Mara, al­ though I feel I share something with each. I feel my walled-off, secret self, like Sandy. Yet I am emotionally permeable, like Mara. Mara mentions that Sandy

182

Psychic Deadness

reads my writings, is moved by them, is critical o f them. I feel Sandy, light years away, tuned i n to me. We are plugged into a common current. Mara is excluded. D i d we exclude her, or d i d she by her nature exclude herself? I go deep i n t o my Sandy feeling. We share a secret world of psychoanalytic (perhaps psycho­ spiritual?) adventure. I t h i n k o f all the hours I spent alone i n a secret psychoanalytic w o r l d o f my own. Mara is more social. She has not experienced the same sort o f anguished isolation Sandy and I have known. She spontaneously depreciates one o f Sandy's most precious capacities. He loves psychoanalytic imagination. H e lives it. H e tries to f i n d himself t h r o u g h it. I t is a life-and-death matter for h i m . He reads with all his m i g h t and m i n d , a very emotional search. Yet all Mara sees is that he substitutes books for people. It dawns o n me that Mara's insistence on direct emotional contact between people as a criterion for successful therapeutic work is self-defeating for Sandy, at least as he is now. Such an attitude rubs his nose i n his underlying defect or incapacity and insists that he does something he can't do. A t the same time, what he can do is undervalued or p u t down. What he might share is neglected. How o d d to t h i n k that the only thing Sandy m i g h t be able to share is exactly what Mara isn't really interested i n : his secret intellectual life, which deals w i t h emotional realities indirectly, several times removed. T o complicate matters, Sandy shares Mara's feeling that direct emotional contact is what counts, that his intellectual life is defensive. He depreciates what he most treasures, because o f his fear o f real contact. Year after year he casti­ gates himself for n o t being able to do what he can't do: let down walls and enjoy emotional c o m m u n i o n with another human being, get close to someone. He is imprisoned by his sense of vulnerability. He pours himself into readings. His analytic visions b r i n g him moments o f ecstasy. For periods he flies freely i n the w o r l d o f emotional thinking, as an individual with a muscular disease moves freely i n water. I t h i n k o f Freud's remark to Fliess about psychoanalysis being like ancient mystery cults, w i t h secret rites of transformation. Psychoanalysis lives o f f a sense o f the secret. Its concepts are concerned w i t h ways that h u m a n beings keep secrets f r o m themselves. Its methods are ways of o p e n i n g the secret self. Early psychoanalysis doubted that human beings can keep a secret and gambled on its ability to decipher secrets that words and behavior indirectly betray. Psycho­ analytic confidentiality is another f o r m o f keeping (or failing to keep) secrets. I n psychoanalysis we tell secrets secretly. Some version of psychoanalysis is here to stay, as long as secrets give children a t h r i l l . Perhaps one reason psychoana­ lysts seem more infantile than the general population is that the latter's work is more public, whereas psychoanalysts are like c h i l d r e n d o i n g secret things out o f parental view. Isn't it o d d to have a secret psychoanalysis w i t h o u t a psychoanalyst? Such an analysis w o u l d n o t be a psychoanalysis at a l l — o r w o u l d it? Sandy loves psy­

183

Emotional Starvation

choanalysis. He idealizes the psychoanalysis o f his dreams. Apparently he can­ not risk being psychoanalyzed by another person. He cannot risk a real psy­ choanalysis. He engages i n a sort o f reading, rather than talking cure, w h i c h is no cure at all. His inability to make emotional contact with other people is intact. Yet is it fair to say n o t h i n g happens i n his reading, that he merely reinforces a static position? A writer's work holds n o t only his own voice b u t also the voices o f others he writes to and the voices o f others (for example, other writers) he hears or senses as he writes. One writes to/with others who are n o t there. W r i t i n g is longing. One writes with a voice more intimate than one's own. W r i t i n g is fulfillment, plenitude: lack and overflow. I n writing one is closer to the Other (as inner pres­ ence) than one ever will be i n real life. One hopes to draw the inner presence to one through veils o f exteriority (the w o r k ) , a real dream Other. T h r o u g h read­ ing, Sandy enters this bath of voices. He talks to Fairbairn, Winnicott, and Freud, and they speak with h i m , they a n d all the others encoded i n the whispers o f their works. H e has been having conversations with me for years, a n d I have no doubt that the plethora o f selves and others i n my writings speak w i t h h i m . I am probably more alive f o r h i m i n my writings than I ever could be i n real life. This sort o f aliveness is precious. I t should n o t be p u t down. T h a n k God Sandy has it. Is it enough? God f o r b i d ! But where w o u l d h e / I be w i t h o u t it? W r i t i n g opens worlds. Mara lives i n a w o r l d that is closed to Sandy, b u t she has no i n k l i n g or appreciation o f what he does have. Growth goes o n i n h i d d e n mental universes, a secret growing. I go deep i n t o and intensify my Sandy feel­ ing. I glimpse a m a n - w o m a n who finds i n authors more than life offers, yet who needs something f r o m life too. Reading is ecstasy, life pain, although read­ ing is living too, and distinctions fade. But Sandy's pain brings h i m back to himself, forces h i m to feel his alone and distinct. A t moments, everything is outside the pain point, b u t writers infiltrate i t and write f r o m points o f pain. I stay with the Sandy feeling i n me and find Mara supporting Sandy. Mara provides background support for Sandy's secret psychoanalysis. Neither she nor he realize how i m p o r t a n t her emotional self is to his mental activity. H e w o u l d wither w i t h o u t it. My inner crystal says he is thriving i n some way. His color tone is good. H e has an intense i n n e r life. He has some satisfaction i n work. True, he is cut o f f f r o m real encounter. But he has contacts and retires to his cave to work over impressions. H e has areas o f aliveness, along w i t h barriers. Yes, massive trauma drives h i m i n t o secrecy. But my inner Sandy tells me things are more complicated. Secrecy is maintained against massive trauma, not simply because o f it. Extremes o f invasion-abandonment precipitate an electrified wall that Sandy cannot cross. But the wall also maintains islands o f self that the traumatizing O t h e r can't silence. A n area o f secrecy is healthy a n d needs support i n n o r m a l development. Sandy met w i t h conditions that drove the secret self i n t o ever greater secrecy.

pain,

184

Psychic Deadness

He created an untellable secret i n order to protect and save the more intan­ gible i n t i m a t i o n o f secret (sacred) mystery. His partial sex change operation converted the inner sense o f secrecy and h i d i n g i n t o a literal thing to be closed about. H e could martial resources around a fixed t h i n g - n o - t h i n g that must never be shared. The private, incognito dimension o f self partly turns i n t o a concrete dread, a symptom. Sandy's walled-off secret self protects his sense o f mystery. My inner Sandy tells me he is a deformed version o f what he m i g h t have been, but he has not entirely lost the precious thread that links his secret self with God. ^Jie incog­ nito self lives i n God, b u t is supported by Mother. Mara u r g i n g Sandy past his barriers tempts h i m to break his incognito connection with God. His sense o f secrecy has been driven so far back and become so rigidified that the move­ m e n t toward embodiment takes o n annihilating force. Mara lives embodied life. She does n o t see Sandy's angels, his God connec­ tion. For her, his secret self-God connection is schizoid. I f there is a God for her, i t is a God o f human relations, a God that lives t h r o u g h her and others being emotionally connected together. She does n o t want or know or care for a God o f isolation. Mara offers Sandy what he needs but cannot use, not overtly. There must be some secret connection between them, some invisible funnel she nourishes h i m with. Perhaps her feelings seep t h r o u g h his skin. He is porous, permeable. Just seeing her must be delightful. But she pushes h i m . She has a picture o f how she wants h i m to be. She wants h i m to be more like her. She is uncomfort­ able w i t h his secret life. Thus he feels pressure to be what he is not, even though he agrees he should be more the way she wishes. He w o u l d be better off her way. I wonder i f she is jealous o f his secret psychoanalysis, his psychoanalysis that excludes all psychoanalysts i n the flesh, his Platonic analysis, his analysis beyond the pain that she m i g h t give h i m . Mara is simply not interested i n Platonic pain. She is into actual people. She does n o t have to hide the penis she does n o t have, nor worry about losing a secret God connection. She is living her life as fully as possible, through mar­ riage, family, friends, and her profession. Sandy is signaling her f r o m a very different world. I n spite o f the secret pipeline o f nourishment and background support she gives h i m (without sufficient appreciation), the difference between them is enormous. Sandy reads her signal system better than she reads his. He understands what she has to say better than the reverse, and to commune with her he has to leave out vast areas o f secret torture. I try to let Mara know how far back Sandy has been driven i n order to pre­ serve an area of privacy, a secret sense o f being. There is creativeness i n his secrecy, t h o u g h perhaps n o t any usual k i n d , not the creativeness ordained by collective values. His sense o f secrecy itself involves something creative, i f dis­ torted. His Platonic analysis needs to be honored. Mara's good-willed invita­ tion to more healthy living can't be accepted, n o matter how hard he tries,

Emotional Starvation

185

since the equipment to live m o r e like she does is lacking or damaged. I do n o t mean she should stop i n v i t i n g h i m . The therapeutic trick is to play b o t h ends at once. Mara is good w i t h her end, b u t the elusive, schizoid self needs valori­ zation for its own sake, before forays i n t o e m b o d i m e n t can be risked. T o what extent d i d Sandy stymie and confuse his sexuality i n order to push past his body? Sandy b o t c h e d his attempt to have a body. He became a man without becoming a man. H e stopped being a woman w i t h o u t grappling w i t h what he m i g h t have learned f r o m being a woman. He t r i e d to transcend being one or the other sex by a m i x t u r e that prevents h i m f r o m being sexual at all. I n actual living he is asexual, b u t that is n o t transcendence. He is caught i n a mixture o f worlds that is n o w o r l d , n o t even between. H e needs a therapy that can follow the b o u n c i n g ball u n t i l something more begins to happen. Sexual­ ity is now less i m p o r t a n t than preserving secrecy. Secrecy leads to mystery, the secret o f the universe. My inner Sandy tells me that this is where his growth must come f r o m , b u t he doesn't say how. Four years later Mara consults me about Sandy and tells me he is studying at a seminary. This solves n o t h i n g , b u t I ' m delighted. Something is beginning to grow. Sandy is starved f o r emotional contact. But f o r h i m now, emotional contact comes through God. For some individuals, the path to people is through God, although the reverse may be the rule. I have faith that as Sandy fills h i m ­ self with God, his emotional life with people will grow. I can easily imagine Sandy developing a ministry f o r people like himself, caught between or outside the sexes, trapped by secret longing. My discussions w i t h colleagues suggest there are many people who share Sandy's predicament and feelings. I hope that communications like this chap­ ter can do a little to encourage the h i d d e n Sandys to come out, network, explore more possibilities o f living. Whether this happens or not, my analytic crystal ball tells me one t h i n g : Sandy's growth i n capacity for emotional com­ m u n i o n will n o t be quite what M a r a — o r he, or I , or y o u — c a n imagine now.

16

Disaster Anxiety

T h e sense o f danger permeates life. O u r joys are threaded over dread o f ca­ tastrophe. Perhaps we ought to acknowledge how fearful we are about life's dangers by c o i n i n g some generic t e r m to make the f e a r f u l aspect o f self explicit. I n this chapter I use the term disaster anxiety as a loose marker, to make communication a little easier. Freud and other psychoanalysts catalogue a host o f disaster anxieties: b i r t h anxiety, separation anxiety, abandonment-intrusion anxiety, incest and castra­ t i o n anxiety, a n n i h i l a t i o n and death anxiety, to name the most famous. Exis­ tential psychology subsumes Freudian anxieties u n d e r death anxiety, b u t emphasizes that growth itself is an anxious business. T o grow or n o t to grow, the battle w i t h the status quo or habit or what one is used to is growth anxiety. There is free-floating disaster anxiety a n d free-floating growth anxiety. We are anxious about taking the next step. We m i g h t fall o f f the end o f the u n i ­ verse. The recent news report o f a New Jersey c h i l d sinking i n t o a hole i n the g r o u n d o p e n i n g o u t o f nowhere claimed so m u c h attention, partly, because i t fits our intimate dread o f making the w r o n g move without knowing it and paying an unfathomable price. The c h i l d rushed along i n his own energy flow, b u t the g r o u n d could n o t support h i m . We complain about the recitation o f daily disasters i n the television news, yet there is a hunger f o r them. The stream o f h o r r i b l e shows and news reports seems to f i l l and p r o m o t e an addictive craving, as i f we need to b o m b a r d our­ selves w i t h fear. Newscasters even try to make us afraid o f the weather. We feed o n images o f disaster like potato chips. We say to ourselves, "Look, these awful things are real. They do happen. I ' m n o t m a k i n g my fears up; I ' m n o t imagin­ ing the dreadful side o f life. A w f u l things could happen to me too. Some o f t h e m already have, a n d m i g h t again, or something even worse." We try to get inside fears outside, objectify terrors by p o i n t i n g to images o n a screen or re­ ports i n a paper. We try to match inside fears w i t h outside realities.

188

Psychic Deadness

I n some ways having a psyche is too m u c h for us. A n older b r o t h e r makes f u n o f a younger brother. I n the n i g h t the younger one dreams o f monsters and murderers a n d wakes i n terror. O u r psyche is a k i n d o f m a g n i f y i n g machine, infinitizing wounds, fears, rage. Witches and devils replace the bad side o f people, G o d the good side (although this is more complicated). We imagine disaster everywhere, where there are always disasters somewhere. O u r m i n d generalizes, blows up, exaggerates, revs things to an infinite power. Dread becomes boundless. T o what extent do evil imaginings a n d evil realities f i t together? We may overdo i t i n imagination, b u t reality is extravagant too. I t is hard to imagine anything more extravagant than life and death, unless i t is eternal or endless or boundless life and death. I f i t turns out that o u r universe was cre­ ated by an explosion, i t w o u l d n o t be surprising i f explosiveness were part o f life processes. The infant's scream testifies to our connection with explosive­ ness. We o u g h t n o t p r e t e n d that explosiveness is s o m e t h i n g alien to o u r natures. I t is an i n h e r e n t part o f our lives, and we need to learn what to do with i t , n o t p o i n t a finger and try to shame i t out o f existence.

STILLNESS «

STORMINESS

Religions offer contemplation, meditation, or prayer as antidotes to explosive­ ness. These may work f o r some people i n more or less satisfactory ways. But the explosiveness that marks collective affairs, i n c l u d i n g religious movements, does not speak k i n d l y f o r attempts to erase explosiveness w i t h stillness. Many gurus who come to o u r shores suffer erotic, power, and ego explosions. Still­ ness goes u p i n flames. Some o f the most meaningful gurus o f my time (such as Chongyam T r u n g p a and Bhagwan Rajneesh) were blown u p and died young, unable to contain incendiary mixtures o f Eros, ego, materialism, and spirit. Sometimes stillness exacerbates explosiveness. Ken came for help w i t h an abusive temper. He was appalled how easily his fuse blew w i t h his baby daughter and was desperately afraid he w o u l d injure her. He was c o m m i t t e d to Buddhist meditation and f o u n d that while meditat­ i n g his anger w o u l d fade and he w o u l d open. But the contrast between states achieved d u r i n g m e d i t a t i o n and the demands o f ordinary living was too great. Instead o f meditative calm carrying over i n t o family life, the latter exploded the former, and Ken w o u l d become helplessly furious. W h e n he sat (meditated), he felt renewed. Each time he went back to daily living, he felt this peacefulness w o u l d last. When he was i n i t , he felt i t w o u l d last forever, such a fresh, unbreakable, f u l l emptiness. B u t i t w o u l d n o t take long for m i n d f u l awareness to break down. Reality w o u l d take h i m by surprise, h i t a weak spot, p u l l the r u g f r o m under h i m . His wife and c h i l d had their own

Disaster Anxiety

189

programs, their own needs, demands, and desires that pushed his buttons. Family life was guerrilla warfare. Ken felt outraged that his family d i d n o t b u i l d their lives around his calm center. Why d i d n ' t they have calm centers too? C o u l d n ' t they see life w o u l d be wonderful i f they lived f r o m meditative stillness, i f they let peace permeate their lives? Why d i d family life have to involve such turmoil? Turbulence, rather than calm, was the rule. Life was messy. M e d i t a t i o n was clean and clear. Part o f Ken's difficulty was his h i d d e n wish to c o n t r o l his family and per­ haps life itself with one mood. He was n o t content to enjoy calm and then pass i n t o the t u m u l t o f real living. He wished to rule the latter by the former. A n unconscious severity structured his tranquility. Meditation centered h i m , yet masked a tyrannical demand that life n o t be life, his wife n o t be his wife, his c h i l d n o t be his c h i l d . We worked o n b u i l d i n g a capacity to move between states, a capacity for transitions. N o m o o d lasts forever. One state passes over to another. Somehow Ken had gotten the idea that one state should be dominant, a sort o f tyranny o f enlightenment; this is a misuse or naive use o f enlightenment ideology. Such h o l d i n g o f reality by a calm, embracing, transcendent consciousness d i d n o t work for Ken, at least n o t the way he wanted it to. Nevertheless, the meditative calm that Ken experienced had i m p o r t a n t psychological functions. W i t h therapeutic support, Ken dipped into chaotic and mad aspects o f his u p b r i n g i n g , the violence done to h i m , the violence he felt. I n time he realized that he tried to get f r o m meditation the calm he never got f r o m his parents. I n part, he used meditation to calm his parents (in u n c o n ­ scious fantasy), as well as himself. M e d i t a t i o n was a way o f creating calm par­ ents, a calm self. That i t d i d n o t work i n daily living does n o t mean i t d i d n o t work at all. Ken's sitting was extremely i m p o r t a n t to h i m . I t gave h i m himself. I t gave h i m moments that were his alone, expansive moments, moments o f floating t h r o u g h existence w i t h o u t b e i n g crushed. I t took the pain o f life away and made h i m feel things could be different, that he d i d n o t have to give u p o n himself and others. The fact that meditation was h e l p f u l to Ken i n his own self increased his frustration at its failure to transform existence. He placed too great a burden o n meditation as a transformational agent. H e tried to make i t work overtime as a cure-all, while too m u c h wish-fulfillment, demandingness, and c o n t r o l l ­ ingness h i d i n meditative states. Ken felt caught between his allegiance to meditation and his allegiance to real life. H e loved b o t h , b u t more and more he began to hate real life. He was caught between different realities. The way he felt while sitting often seemed more real than the people who bothered h i m . H o w does one open paths between meditation and daily life, so that still­ ness and storminess feed each other? I n Ken's life they competed, tore h i m apart (like his parents). Can therapy provide a bridge, a two-way crossing? One

190

Psychic Deadness

o f therapy's most i m p o r t a n t functions is enabling transitional flows between capacities, dimensions o f experience, states o f being. I n Ken's life the gap between stillness a n d storminess increased, rather t h a n lessened* Ken was unconsciously led by an ideology o f mastery and dominance, a psychic i m p e r i ­ alism, i n which an elite capacity was to dominate (ever replace) others. His motto m i g h t be parodied, "Where storminess is, stillness will be." Overworking a capacity backfires. Stillness cannot substitute for storminess nor vice versa. B o t h contribute to the texture o f experience, the atmosphere and drama o f our lives. I f there is a w o r k i n g rule, perhaps i t should be the plac­ i n g o f a double arrow between psychological capacities, functions, and experi­ ences, e.g., stillness,** storminess. This leaves the relationship between terms open. Now the focus may be on ways that elemental terms o f experience set each o t h e r off, or interpenetrate, or reverse. Stillness ** storminess may oppose and nourish each other, stand for each other, overflow i n t o each other. As we dwell w i t h stillness ** storminess, we may feel that the field o f experi­ ence is more than the sum o f its parts, at the same time that a variable mixture o f stillness ** storminess informs every micro-particle o f experience. I n time, Ken may move closer to a sense o f partnership w i t h capacities that constitute h i m and a partnership w i t h capacities that constitute the fabric o f experience generally. Can we say with assurance what stillness-storminess con­ tribute to personality? A r e n ' t the shifting relationships between terms o f experience perennially open to imaginative exploration? Perhaps i f Ken develops a more open attitude to the interplay o f stillness-storminess, he will be less likely to use one as a club to beat the other. Ken was smart e n o u g h to reach o u t f o r help w h e n his situation became dangerous. For Ken, meditation and life were an explosive mixture. His attempt to cure himself via meditation added fuel to the fire. Ken was caught between loyalties to the meditative self and the family self, two selves or aspects o f self that r i p p e d h i m apart. Ken was loving enough to act o n his fear o f destruc­ tiveness. H e spread therapy like a net between his violent outbursts and the h a r m to loved ones (and himself) that was fast approaching. Therapy was the place of last resort, an act o f desperation. Its long-range j o b was to help an experiential field evolve i n which stillness « storminess contributed to a richer life. Disaster is a blank to be filled i n . Ken tried to dissolve disaster w i t h stillness. This t u r n e d o u t to be a disaster, up to a point. He had to learn to work w i t h the disaster o f letting storminess i n . Letting storminess i n liberates stillness. Insofar as Ken can process disturbances o f existence (bits o f disaster), stillness need n o t f u n c t i o n so defensively. Psychotherapy facilitates m e d i t a t i o n by help­ i n g Ken process what bothers h i m . Processing bits o f disaster does n o t make disaster go away. But one gains as the field o f experience keeps opening. One thrills to opening, and opening o n more than one f r o n t .

191

Disaster Anxiety

TANKS AND F I R E

Religions have always been close to disaster anxiety. They teach us that death is secondary, life primary. We can conquer death by a good life. Goodness takes the sting o u t o f death. This places quite a burden o n the sense o f goodness. Goodness has to work overtime to b i n d the dread o f disaster and violent surges. At times, goodness weakens or breaks down, and fascination w i t h disaster runs amok. Analysis o f cult explosions sheds l i g h t o n the p u l l toward disaster. T h e 1993 blow-out o n M o u n t Carmel near Waco, Texas, provides food for thought. David Koresh and his followers courted violence. They expected the end o f time and the c o m i n g o f God's k i n g d o m i n a blast o f annihilation. There were reports o f abusive conduct w i t h i n the g r o u p , and they were ready for armed confronta­ tion. David Koresh was especially fascinated w i t h biblical writings involving vio­ lent transformation processes. O n some o f the television news clips I saw, David seemed like a gentle, unas­ suming man who played a guitar and sang. Perhaps he was nastier than he seemed in these scenes. One has to take media reports with a grain o f salt. Perhaps he used religious experience to offset low self-esteem. Perhaps he was authoritar­ ian and tyrannical, and exploited erotic possibilities, a mixture of love and delu­ sional egoism. He seemed spiritually naive. His psychophysical being could n o t contain the messianic ideology that inflated h i m , and he was blown away by a visionary violence that was too m u c h for h i m . H e may have exploited elements of messianic experience, b u t I do n o t t h i n k he knew what hit h i m . We know f r o m the Bible that God is dangerous. N o man can see o r touch God and live. Aaron's sons were b u r n t to a crisp because they approached God the wrong way. I t is i m p o r t a n t to have filter systems for God—laws, angels, r i t u ­ als, a messiah. O u r mystical selves claim immediate contact with God. We have to live w i t h our mystical selves a l o n g time to get some sense o f how to use that contact. What to do with mystical experience is a lifelong learning process. How can we use contact with God to e n r i c h , n o t destroy? I t is easy to see that we have to handle scientific-technological productions with care. We can b o m b or poison ourselves o u t o f existence. I t is harder to realize that we have a lot to learn about the use o f our experiential capacities. Poets have recognized the destructive and inspiring aspects o f emotions, and psychoanalysis has made a business o f w o r k i n g w i t h them. But we must keep telling ourselves we are learners, no m o r e or less. N o matter how overwhelming an experience we have, no matter how sure we are o f i t , we have to r e m i n d ourselves that it may take years or lifetimes to grow i n t o what we experience and to learn something f r o m or about i t . Can you imagine David Koresh and his followers t h i n k i n g they had some­ thing to learn f r o m the F.B.L or the F.B.I, t h i n k i n g they had something to learn

192

Psychic Deadness

f r o m David Koresh? Each side was sure i t was r i g h t , and the other was wrong. Neither could admit wrongdoing. Their relationship was purely adversarial and combative. It w o u l d seem that David procrastinated, played f o r time. He could not keep the conditions he set for giving up. Each time the m o m e n t for surrender came, he t h o u g h t o f something more he needed to do. This prevarication was n o t deliberate. Children procrastinate this way, t h i n k i n g o f something else to do when the parent makes a demand. Obsessive and psychotic individuals also show this sort o f vacillation: they may feel the fate o f the cosmos depends o n whether they read a particular sign r i g h t or whether they act this way or that. When one is i n such a state, the act o f deciphering signs is u n e n d i n g . David kept postponing bedtime u n t i l the night swallowed h i m . D i d the F.B.I., finally, act something like i m p a t i e n t parents? A t some p o i n t they said, "Enough is enough. This is i t ! " T h e situation was closed. N o more t h o u g h t would be given to it. The tanks r a m m e d the walls and shot gas, but the c h i l d r e n , rather than give i n , shot or set fire to themselves. Sometimes parents miscalculate and make things worse by t i g h t e n i n g the screws. They imagine the c h i l d will give i n , only to be h o r r i f i e d when the c h i l d is willing to h u r t himself to escape submission. I cannot believe that the F.B.I, d i d n ' t think o f this possibility. Perhaps they reached the point o f the parent who needs a total blow-out. There comes a point where parent and child know that one more t u r n o f the screw will lead to explo­ sive screams and a total dissolution o f the situation, b u t they can't help them­ selves. They just do it. They can't bear waiting and beating around the bush any longer. Each side feels abused by the other and feels justified by their actions. The situation gets reduced to utter thoughtlessness. The time for t h i n k i n g is over. Action triggers reaction. Mindlessness prevails. Will short-circuits thought. Each side refuses to be controlled by the other. A l l that is left is a vicious spi­ ral: stubborn c o n t r o l versus stubborn c o n t r o l . Such a situation is always explo­ sive. I t is explosive i n infancy and early c h i l d h o o d , and i t remains explosive all life long. T h e cult gave no indication that invasion w o u l d meet with anything b u t stiff­ ened resistance. I t demonstrated that it was n o t shy o f violence. Media reports gave n o signal that i t w o u l d give in to force. Psychoanalysis teaches there is a double arrow between i n and out. I f there is sufficient p r o m p t i n g toward vio­ lence i n a system, i t can flow i n either or b o t h directions. I f David Koresh felt that violence toward invaders would be useless, rather than be violated and reduced to helpless submission, it seems a serious likelihood that violence would t u r n against himself. I f the F.B.I, d i d n o t know this, it is guilty o f amazing naivete. I do not have access to the data base the F.B.I, used i n m a k i n g its decision, so my remarks are impressionistic, to be taken with a grain o f salt. T h e F.B.I, struck out i n its first invasion. There was no reason to t h i n k it w o u l d n o t stimulate a violent

Disaster Anxiety

193

response i n its second. Where would the violence go? Against armored tanks? There would be no satisfaction i n that. Violence seeks unprotected, weak spots, so i t can have an effect. The only unprotected weak spot available to the cult was its own person. I t was o d d to keep hearing the F.B.I, refer to the cult's f o r t i f i e d position as a hostage situation. Was i t so lacking i n empathy and j u d g m e n t that it could not bear to use the r i g h t name for what i t faced? I t was dealing with a cult that had its back to the wall; all avenues o f escape were blocked b u t one: its own annihilation. Associate a n n i h i l a t i o n w i t h an ideology o f messianic transcen­ dence, and you have an incendiary m o m e n t at hand. Many people following this situation w o u l d have been more surprised i f cult members had responded to force by giving u p a n d f i l i n g out than by going u p i n flames. One almost expected the latter and wondered when and how it w o u l d happen. I do not know what the F.B.I, o u g h t to have done, b u t sometimes we have to admit that some situations have no obvious solution. There is a temptation to adopt a solution that cannot work, rather than d o n o t h i n g . However, i t is important to be able to do nothing. Perhaps another path will open; some lucky thought will appear. T h i n k i n g takes time. Part o f t h i n k i n g is trying this and that possibility o u t i n one's m i n d , and this involves work. Part o f t h i n k i n g is letting thought go, being blank, d o i n g other things. Sometimes i n therapy one has a patient who does n o t seem to be getting anywhere. A l l roads are blocked, a n d the impasse goes o n and o n . One can get impatient and precipitate an end o f therapy and even make i t look like the patient ended i t . O r one can do n o t h i n g but let the impact o f the situation b u i l d . One can sit as openly as possible and feel its awfulness. I f one sticks with the awfulness l o n g and thoroughly enough, one may get to know something about just what sort o f awfulness i t is. I t takes time to get to know an awful situ­ ation well. I t is easier to get r i d o f i t while the awfulness is b u i l d i n g . Perhaps i t is awful to t h i n k o f therapists as "experts" i n awfulness. B u t it is part o f one's j o b to t u r n awful situations a r o u n d and a r o u n d , u n t i l unexpected pathways begin to open. I n some instances this happens relatively soon, b u t there are instances when decades are needed (see Eigen 1993, especially Chapter 4 and the Afterword). When things work well enough, patient and therapist give each other time for something to happen. Apparently the F.B.I, was unable to sit l o n g enough with David Koresh for t h i n k i n g or life to open unanticipated pathways. The situation seemed too costly or intolerable. There comes a breaking p o i n t when going o n seems fruitless, to be too m u c h work for too little r e t u r n . One can­ n o t tolerate d o i n g n o t h i n g one second longer. I t does n o t seem that t h i n k i n g or life will come u p w i t h anything worthwhile. I t seems like the impasse will go on forever. One does n o t give the situation any more time. Yet isn't time God's most precious gift, God's most pervasive filter? T o do away with time is to do away with life. T h e psyche needs time to work, the m i n d

194

Psychic Deadness

needs time to think, the soul needs time to feel, life needs time to evolve. David Koresh expected the end o f time, and the F.B.I. j o i n e d h i m . The F.B.I, felt that waiting would get nowhere and felt provoked. Language betrays the issue: the F.B.I, w o u l d givethe cult no more time. What an o d d locution: to give or not give time, as i f one owned time, as i f time was a commodity. How m u c h time ought one give a situation? What elements go i n t o m a k i n g such a life-and-death decision? The F.B.I, reached a p o i n t where giving felt like giving i n . Macho impatience f o u n d time unbearable, unbearably timeless. What a fateful phrase: to give no more time is to take time away, to e n d time, to finish i t off. T o give time became intolerable, and so psychic processes that need t i m e — t h i n k i n g , feeling, imagining, empathic sensing—ended. Time went up i n flames.

A MARRIED COUPLE A supervisee recently t o l d me about a couple he was seeing for two years. The couple had been married f o r ten years and survived by fighting. The whole marriage seemed to be one fight after another. T h a t was how they got along. They came to therapy because they were killing each other. My supervisee spoke about them because they felt therapy was n o t helping them and wanted to quit. They were as abusive to each other as ever. T o me i t sounded like the level o f abuse had lessened somewhat, b u t that the main pattern was still i n place. They lived by fighting. F i g h t i n g fed them and made them miserable. They complained about i t , b u t kept d o i n g i t . My supervisee tried "everything." N o t h i n g slowed them down for long. A glance, a word, a gesture would precipitate an explosion. I t happened instantaneously. They could not tolerate giving themselves or each other time to m u l l things over. Reaction fed reaction. They were always blowing u p at each other and blowing each other up. They could recite chapter and verse f r o m their early u p b r i n g i n g and speak o f abusive, neglectful, injurious parents who made them this way. They had individual therapy with different therapists f o r many years. T h e woman started therapy nearly two decades ago, when her first husband killed himself. Therapy helped her feel she had a r i g h t to live, to do the best she could for herself. T h e man was i n therapy most o f his adult life. He felt that his violent e m o t i o n ­ ality and bad feelings about himself w o u l d have done h i m i n , i f not for therapy. H e became an extremely successful businessman. The fact that this couple survived the worst they could give each other made each feel less destructive. Each blamed the other. Neither felt heard by the other, and neither heard the other. W h a t they needed f r o m the other was someone to fight, and someone to survive the fighting. T h e therapist who presented this couple to me was an experienced, com­

Disaster Anxiety

195

petent man at his wit's end. I was supposed to be the super expert who would save the day. There must be someone w i t h wisdom to f i n d the r i g h t move, to fix things. I felt a pressure to react, to f i n d a solution while knowing no solu­ tion was viable. H e d i d n o t want to lose the case, to give u p , to admit the limits o f therapy. He knew his wish for me to do what he c o u l d n o t was a fantasy. Now i n supervision he presented a situation w i t h no more time. The couple was n o t w i l l i n g to give h i m more time, and he anxiously passed me a now­ or-never u l t i m a t u m . A n o d d t h i n g was that this couple gave each other all the time i n the world, without giving each other any time. They spent years together, b u t d i d not f i n d time to really feel the other's being, to process the other and their feelings about the other. They were now p u l l i n g the p l u g o n my supervisee because he was insisting that they make time for processing their impact o n each other, rather than simply exploding. He was asking them to do something they could not. They lacked the ability to sustain and process bits o f m u t u a l impact. People f u n c t i o n as filters for one another. We have an impact o n each other and respond to another's impact. I f we are lucky, we let the other's impact play on us; we feel it, dream it, think about it, and let i t give rise to creative musings. We give the other's impact time. A couple that lets this mutual filtering p r o ­ cess take place grows i n resonance. This can be true of therapy couples too. A patient and therapist who have acted as filters f o r each other's personality and pain share a sense o f richness. They have gone t h r o u g h something together a n d feel the appreciation that comes w i t h surviving each other's personality. They know the freedom o f sur­ viving therapy together. Unfortunately, no such lucky experience occurred with my supervisee a n d the couple he t o l d me about. H e bounced o f f t h e m , and they o f f h i m . They d i d n o t seem to become part of each other. Accusation, complaint, d e m a n d , m u t u a l f r u s t r a t i o n , a n d intolerance left no space for being touched by one another. Explosiveness substituted for permeability. I noted the pressure passed to me by my supervisee. For a time I lost myself in the feeling o f pressure, tasting i t and smelling it. I d i d n o t feel I could come up w i t h anything useful, since this couple f o u n d n o t h i n g useful. That i n itself was freeing. A t least I could luxuriate i n the impossible situation presented to me, and just savor the particular h o r r o r o f the moment. I could empathize w i t h my supervisee, who was sinking i n pressure. But something t o l d me to let go o f h i m , and j u m p i n t o the exploding morass that got nowhere. I felt bad leaving my supervisee mad, anxious, dissatisfied. There he was i n the r o o m w i t h o u t a supervisor. T h e r e was every chance I w o u l d n o t r e t u r n before he left. Yet I could n o t resist diving i n t o the pressure that was taking his space away, the pressure he hoped I could deal w i t h . Do explosive moments keep e x p l o d i n g u n t i l they f i n d good-enough filter systems? My supervisee's couple was an explosion that went o n and o n , pass­ ing t h r o u g h h i m or o f f h i m to me. W i l l the explosion pass t h r o u g h or o f f me

196

Psychic Deadness

to the next therapist-supervisor couple? W i l l i t pass through the therapy field entirely, out of the therapy cosmos, t h r o u g h other worlds that cannot satisfy it? Perhaps this couple has become part o f an explosion that never ends, an explosive element i n the h u m a n c o n d i t i o n that becomes more highly con­ stellated i n one or another situation, b u t never fully goes away. I am gone, feeling what i t must be like, being an explosion that never ends. Somewhere along the line I get a thought or w o r d picture I want to share with my supervisee. I d o n ' t expect i t to help, b u t i t m i g h t be f u n to share. I t occurs to me that his couple are n o t two people, b u t one person, m i r r o r images, doubles, proxies: they are reflections o f each other. They have blown h i m up too, swept h i m into the explosion. There is an explosion where marriage and therapy m i g h t have been. There is simply an explosion m i r r o r i n g itself. There probably are no longer any people in the r o o m . I see them all as one or n o per­ sons blowing up forever. Psychic processing has ceased to exist, or failed to begin. T h e i r one-two-three-way hell is always to have just enough psyche left to feed explosions, never enough to begin processing them: psyche ever g o i n g u p i n flames. My supervisee and I may n o t be able to help his patients, b u t perhaps we can help each other. His patients pretty m u c h blew h i m away. After all, the case was his. I wasn't i n the r o o m with them o n the field o f battle. I was safely in my office, discussing back-room logistics. Still, my r o o m shook f r o m the shells. I was a filter twice removed. I felt the impact filtered t h r o u g h my supervisee. Here he was, a bloody mess, wounded i n war, a fighter between rounds, and we had to help h i m stay i n the line o f fire. H e needed nursing. I m i g h t not help his patients, but at least I could help him. I knew my supervisee w o u l d survive his patients, although i t d i d not feel that way to h i m . While he was i n i t , worry consumed h i m . They w o u l d leave, his practice would go down the tubes, he would n o t be able to support his family or keep his life afloat. O n a pure body-count level, i f this couple left, sooner or later other patients would replace them; but this was useless knowledge. A n x i ­ ety blew his psyche away. T h e fear that his life w o u l d zero o u t was part o f the obliterating movement his patients were caught i n . I n a situation like this, supervision functions t o restore the supervisee's psyche. The supervision couple survives the patient-therapist couple. A t first, my supervisee tried passing the anxiety and pressure to me, b u t I could n o t get as caught u p i n it. I was farther f r o m the p o i n t o f impact than he. I was still able to lose myself i n psychic f u n c t i o n i n g , whereas he lost his psyche. I could go away, dip into dream and reverie, lose myself i n the explosion, let i t work o n me, and see what images, states, and ideas got set off. I t is i m p o r t a n t to be able to lose oneself i n an experience, to give i t r o o m to develop. My supervisee pressured me to respond and come up with something to stop h i m and his case f r o m hemorrhaging. But I slipped into dreamland. 1 d i d n ' t plan it. I just stayed with the experience he was describing or transmitting. The

197

Disaster Anxiety

fact that I let go, vanished i n the experience, and came back with something, added to his anxiety at first, b u t was c o m f o r t i n g i n the l o n g r u n . He was mad that I d i d n ' t seem as worried as he was. I t was his life and practice, not mine. His psychic blood pressure was skyrocketing. Yet i t was important for someone's psyche to begin processing his patients' and therapy's explosion. I j u s t hap­ pened to be the supervisor that was there and went w i t h i t . The fact that I came back with the n o t i o n that there was no one, or perhaps one person i n the therapy r o o m , meant that someone's psyche (it happened to be " m i n e " ) began processing some aspect o f the catastrophic reality my supervisee and his patients suffered. I passed i t o n to God. I told God, "Look. This is m o r e than any o f us can handle. I ' m passing i t to you. You got us into this, you get us out." O f course "God" is only a name. What the reality is I do not know. B u t a b i t o f processing started. My supervisee began thawing out and coming back. Before our session ended, he c o u l d tell the difference between worry time and immersion time. He could begin sensing what he was up against. Psychic life was being revived. T h a t I c o u l d give myself time to go away, to blank out, to do n o t h i n g was pivotal. T h e gift o f time, the most precious gift: my patient and his couple lost it. H e a n d I spent time, f o u n d time, a n d made t i m e together. We went o n w o r k i n g together i n spite o f pressures against i t . T h e pressure that blew h i m and his couple away was the work. This pressure needed time, time to be, time for processing. T h r o u g h "God" (or the u n k n o w n reality that feeds unconscious processing) a psyche arrived that began w o r k i n g over bits o f catastrophe. The fact that I , immersed i n u n k n o w n reality, worked over a b i t o f obliteration gave my s u p e r v i s e e time to come b a c k and begin a g a i n . Isn't this what colleagues do for each other? We survive our patients together. We survive therapy and the therapy f i e l d together. We give each other gifts o f time, moments o f self.

T H E DANGEROUS THERAPIST I do n o t t h i n k my supervisee was dangerous to his couple. They severed h i m f r o m himself so thoroughly and t u r n e d h i m i n t o such an anxious mess that they had little to fear f r o m h i m . My supervisee sought coverage for himself and his case and d i d n o t simply succumb to therapy's a n n i h i l a t i o n . H e b r o u g h t the a n n i h i l a t i n g i m p a c t to supervision, to a n o t h e r h u m a n being outside the immediate situation. Thus my supervisee was able to provide f o r himself the relief that comes t h r o u g h sharing distress. He remained communicative i n face o f his patients* obliteration o f c o m m u n i c a t i o n . They k i l l e d o f f c o m m u n i c a t i o n , b u t he kept c o m m u n i c a t i o n alive by seeking help. They were like screaming infants, so caught i n their scream they d i d not know someone was trying to help them.

198

Psychic Deadness

They could not feel anything outside their scream. Perhaps my supervisee was a bit like the child who goes to a parent, points to his wounds, and says, " L o o k what they d i d to me!" I t h i n k , to an extent, he wanted me to get t h e m f o r h i m , to seek revenge. What we were able to do t o g e t h e r — i t happened quite spontaneously, as i f by chance—was to enable h i m to go back to the therapy r o o m w i t h t h e m (the lions' d e n ) , to start fresh, to be himself once more. O u r time together made h i m able to give more time to t h e m . He feared it would come to n o t h i n g . They w o u l d make short work o f h i m . B u t he was armed w i t h the idea that there was no one or one person i n the r o o m , a single explosion m i r r o r i n g itself. This was his koan or mantra. H e c o u l d h o l d onto i t for a time and n o t imagine he was w o r k i n g with two people. I f he tried to talk to two people, he was doomed. They would gang u p o n h i m and each other. I f he acted like a therapist and treated them like separate people they would blow h i m away. W i t h his mantra, he had something to h o l d onto, something to keep m i n d or psyche alive, a sort o f respirator. Its f u n c t i o n was to give h i m space and time, breathing r o o m . H o w l o n g could he maintain himself, before demise? N o t very l o n g , perhaps, but a bit l o n g e r than before. A t least he was catching o n to how pervasive and chronic an activity oblitera­ tion can be. A t least he w o u l d be gazing at the t h i n g that was happening as i t made h i m g o under. W h e t h e r or n o t his couple stayed or left, therapeutic capacity would survive them. My supervisee knew he was i n j u r e d and d i d something about it. H e got p r o ­ tection f r o m his patients' impact and protected his patients f r o m their impact on h i m . N o t every case is so lucky. Many therapists do n o t seek help when they are i n danger. Often a therapist may n o t even know he is in danger, even i f he already has been partially destroyed. I t is easy to suffer partial collapse o f the self without knowing it, and to act out destructively, while a i m i n g to do good. Smith, a gifted, experienced analyst, helped Lois i n many ways. Lois lived i n a daze. Her previous analyst had had sex with her. Lois had had numerous affairs, but no sustained relationships. The men she liked left her, and she had disdain for those who wanted her. She required hospitalization twice and lived on the verge o f hospitalization for many years. Lois's mother had been psychotically depressed, and Lois had been alone for l o n g periods i n early c h i l d h o o d . W h e n Lois's m o t h e r was there, i t was awful; and when she was away, i t was awful. I n middle c h i l d h o o d Lois had had sexual contact with her brother, who lost interest i n her when he was i n h i g h school. I n adult life she repeated the pattern o f moments o f intense connec­ tion followed by emptiness. Smith helped Lois feel good enough about herself to get and keep a good j o b . H e also helped her maintain a long-term relation­ ship with her boss.

Disaster Anxiety

199

When Lois tried to disengage with her boss, or voice dissatisfaction with her j o b , Smith encouraged her to stay with i t . H e d i d n o t want her to withdraw or live episodically. He valued the continuity i n love a n d work he helped her sustain. As the years went o n , Lois became angry and bitter about the relationship with her boss. H e was m a r r i e d and was n o t g o i n g t o leave his wife. He had his own life; Lois was a side dish. She d i d n o t advance i n her work as m u c h as she t h o u g h t she should. She felt held back by her relationship with her boss. She felt discriminated against, as i f he feared her g o i n g too far. He wanted her a r o u n d h i m , n o t o n her own. This went o n nearly fifteen years. Whenever she tried to break away or t h i n k o f living another life, Smith persuaded her not to. H e feared she would d r o p i n t o isolation a n d promiscuity and end with nothing. Smith, t h o u g h t she was d o i n g well. She no longer needed hospitalization. She supported herself and had a man. Smith d i d n o t take her seriously when she said she d i d n o t care f o r her j o b , d i d n o t really have a man, and wanted more. Apparently he t h o u g h t this was the best she coulcl do. He was eager to maintain Lois i n the life she built, rather than risk gambling on a major change. He seemed to feel that living falsely was better than n o t living at all. Smith sought my help shortly before his death. He was a gay man who main­ tained the mask o f a marriage and lived out true sexual currents i n episodic relationships with young men. He maintained a h i g h level o f professional func­ tioning, b u t underneath suffered partial somatic and psychic collapse, which he tried n o t to acknowledge. He was used to paying a great personal price for maintaining status and competency and had urged Lois to do the same. I have written about Smith i n detail elsewhere (1993, see Chapter 9) where I tried to show how Smith was able to let down somewhat and to experience elements o f his collapsed self before he died. After his death, I referred his patients to other therapists. Lois stayed with me. I could see how his fight against weakness and fear o f breakdown had played a role i n Lois's achievements. He had kept her i n life the way he kept himself i n life: b e h i n d a mask, several times removed. He could n o t let her follow her true desires, anymore than he let himself do so. T r u e , he saw her when she was younger, when living a life i n and o u t o f hospitals was possible. He saved her f r o m that. B u t he c o u l d n o t take her beyond the splits he cultivated i n his own life. What a price for h i d i n g madness! W i t h i n a few years after Smith died, Lois initiated and won a suit against her company for sexual discrimination and harassment. She quit herj o b , ended her relationship with her boss, and deepened her life as an artist (one o f her strongest wishes). W i t h another analyst, she m i g h t have freed herself years before. I t is also possible another analyst m i g h t n o t have gotten her above her psychos;?.

Psychic Deadness

200

Today Lois is an older woman with physical problems. She has had to get used to not being the femme fatale she had imagined herself to be. She may well suffer now more than she had with Smith. B u t she can go to the bottom o f her experience, n o t h o l d herself above i t . Smith identified w i t h Lois's fragility and potential f o r collapse and fought against it. H e helped Lois, b u t became for her a dangerous therapist because o f his need to keep above himself. For years he kept her away f r o m her deep­ est l o n g i n g s a n d t h o u g h t he was d o i n g her a f a v o r . H e was afraid o f w h a t h e r g i v i n g i n t o life w o u l d do. H e k n e w o n l y too w e l l h o w d a n g e r o u s l i f e c o u l d b e

and sought to protect her f r o m going too deep, too far. H e b u i l t a profession u p o n his loss o f l i f e and taught Lois to d o the same. Loss o f self i n the service o f competence can take one only so far. I n time, self and life recoil at the disaster one's personality becomes. Sometimes it takes death to set one straight. I cannot say that Lois was lucky to meet herself, go to the b o t t o m o f herself, sooner than Smith d i d . Lois's bitterness d i d n o t end when she tasted the t h r i l l o f self-opening. B u t , at least, her lifelong bitterness n o longer stopped this t h r i l l . I n o l d age, she'll know what Yeats meant when he wrote i n "Sailing T o Byzantium" ( I I . 1-4). An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress . . . *

It is soul clapping hands that makes life more than disaster.

REFERENCE Eigen, M. (1993). The Electrified Tightrope. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.

* L i n e s from "Sailing to Byzantium." Reprinted with the permission of Simon 8c Schuster from The Poems ofW. B. Yeats: A New Edition, edited by Richard J. Finneran. Copyright © 1928 by Macmillan Publishing Company. Renewed 1956 by Georgie Yeats. Also by permission of A. P. Watt, Ltd., UK , on behalf of Michael Yeats.

17 Winning Lies

T H E ANITA H I L L HEARINGS

AND S T R U C T U R E S O F V I O L E N C E

A p r o m i n e n t characteristic o f the A n i t a H i l l testimony d u r i n g the confirma­ tion hearings for the a p p o i n t m e n t o f Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court i n 1992 was the suppressed violence that pervaded its tone. U n d e r the veil o f polite inquiry and the search for t r u t h , acid sarcasm, ironic ridicule, and op­ portunistic cruelty held sway. The senators seemed to silently agree o n the cast o f characters: l o u d m o u t h slashers, icy rhetoricians, nice guys b e n d i n g back­ ward to be gentle and just, quiet omniscient presences waiting for justice to u n f o l d yet fearful the whole t h i n g w o u l d backfire, energetic competent under­ lings feeding i n f o r m a t i o n i n t o the clash o f monsters. They d i d n o t seem to care what impression they made o n sensitive viewers. Or, m o r e disturbing, they cared a l o t and felt they made the r i g h t k i n d o f impression. They felt that the way they d i d things was normal, the way one ought to do things. Violence was part o f fact f i n d i n g a n d t r u t h i n g . They imagined that most people took verbal aggression for granted, even respected it. There seemed to be tacit agreement that i f they d i d n o t go o n the attack, however crudely or subtly, they w o u l d be perceived as weak and lose ratings and status. I imagine I w o u l d be crushed i f I were subjected to Congressional hearings. Perhaps I would rise to the occasion a n d develop resources now lacking. But my tendency to oscillate between positions, seeing many sides o f issues and persons, would make me appear unsure and useless, given the public greed for one-sided certainties. I'd need more time for zigzag t h i n k i n g than the situ­ ation allowed and w o u l d be too ambivalent about everything. Is there r o o m for uncertainty, indecision, a n d self-questioning i n public life? The display o f such traits seems t a n t a m o u n t to political suicide. This leaves people i n the position o f having to feign more confidence, zest, T i g h t n e s s , and

202

Psychic Deadness

conviction than they possibly can possess. Social and political life takes for granted a working rift between public presentation and private feelings, a rift that can be inherently violent and lead to violence. I never got a good sense o f who Anita H i l l and Clarence Thomas were. They slid t h r o u g h my fingers as persons. There were qualities o f each that p u t me off, yet I could sense each m i g h t be engaging i n certain circumstances. I d i d get some sense o f what each had to go t h r o u g h , as combinations o f senators tried to expose sore spots and weaknesses i n each. Perhaps Anita H i l l was more withdrawn and Clarence Thomas more com­ bative. I fell victim to stereotypes, since I could fantasize having a better time with Thomas i n a bar and a better time w i t h H i l l i n a discussion o f legal subtle­ ties. Had the w r o n g one been nominated? I d i d not see Thomas as Supreme Court quality. B u t people study and grow and I will be happy to be wrong. Perhaps I would n o t have a very good time with either person i n any place, b u t that might be my p r o b l e m . As the hearings went o n , I got sick o f people being forceful, sick o f the search for facts and t r u t h — a witch-hunt approach to " t r u t h . " I believed H i l l more than I d i d Thomas, b u t was sickened by the whole procedure. Something out­ side who was r i g h t or w r o n g warped the whole t h i n g . Pursuit o f the t r u t h t h r o u g h verbal slaughter, yelling, i n t i m i d a t i n g , cajoling, browbeating, self­ aggrandizement, and cutting sweetness: a sort o f seek-and-destroy the lie or weakness mentality, may the best man or woman survive when the smoke clears. Indeed, was t r u t h the object or rather victory for one or the another side f W i n n i n g and being r i g h t were more i m p o r t a n t than anything. T r u t h was a plaything o f battle. Is this the way democracy must work? Is this the way h u m a n beings are when they play for position, for a slice of the pie? Is violence necessarily part o f pie slicing? Are the rules o f procedure for Congressional hearings a sort o f codified violence or c o n t r o l o f violence? When I t h i n k o f this unapologetic, unmodest display, I feel appreciative o f talmudic tracts i n which the discussion o f difficulties inherent i n decision making get their due, and contrary to popular belief decisions between claimants are less damaging. The core emotional tone or impact the hearings had o n me c o u l d be bro­ ken down i n t o five psychodynamic operations or structures. Hysterical A f f e c t Part o f the drama o f these hearings involved an underlying hysterical affect, an affect usually c o n t r o l l e d and modulated by schizoid, paranoid, and psycho­ pathic maneuverings. W i t h o u t this underlying affective surplus, the hearings would have been deadening. I t d i d n o t take m u c h for the hysterical affective core to come t h r o u g h . Given almost any excuse as an opening, the volume o f the hearings w o u l d rise. Everything w o u l d take on larger-than-life i m p o r t and

W i n n i n g Lies

203

then drain away i n t o small-scale backbiting, as i f p u l l i n g away f r o m affective tidal waves that tested controls. The exaggerated self-importance o f senatorial bearings barely disguised the muted hysteria of inflated emotional judgments. Paranoid Ideology The intellectual structure o f discourse tended to be adversarial, me against you, one side against the other, whatever the sides m i g h t be at a given time. A t any m o m e n t , there d i d n o t seem to be r o o m f o r m u l t i - o c u l a r i t y or ambiguity. Instead, aggressive one-sidedness was the rule. I m p l i c i t i n this procedure was support for my side, attack against yours. There was n o t m u c h intellectual cross­ dressing. The pervasive, i f only implicit, hostile one-sidedness i n any moment's posi­ tion seemed akin to paranoid splitting. The other person is trying to get away with something, is lying, is misrepresenting, is wrong. My j o b is n o t to let h i m or her get away w i t h anything. My j o b is to smoke o u t the lie, the evil, the error. The O t h e r is somehow the enemy or barrier or threat. I am o n the side of the good, the law, the people. I exert a p o l i c i n g f u n c t i o n f o r the public economy and protect society f r o m falsehood and error. The interrogator never questions what is false, incomplete, or duplicitous i n his or her position. Suspi­ cion is reserved for the Other, the enemy, the interloper. The interrogator funnels his capacities i n t o one-sided positions, shorn o f ambiguity and self-doubt, whether accusing or defending. I t is necessary to be somewhat less or other than fully h u m a n , since one must constantly marshal one's resources i n t o a one-sided m o l d . T o an extent, one is an actor playing a role. But an actor funnels resources i n t o esthetic revelation: there is one­ sidedness for the sake o f being moved and enlightened about the h u m a n con­ d i t i o n . The interrogator reduces or pinches life i n t o a sour caricature o f the detestable. One's aim is n o t to u p l i f t b u t to gore. I n the paranoid structuring o f hysterical affect, one enhances one's position or apparent virtue by expos­ ing the other's flaw, a one-up—one-down style. Psychopathic (Sociopathic) Manipulation I n the psychopathic attitude, one feels justified i n twisting things to one's ad­ vantage. Exposing the O t h e r is only incidental to aggrandizing the self. I n extreme instances, the goal is to w i n at any cost. One needs to get ahead, and to hell w i t h anything or anyone that gets i n the way. O n e does n o t care what becomes o f the Other, as long as one scores points. The paranoid idealist m i g h t actually believe he is h u n t i n g lies and devoting shark-like capacities to social ecological clean-up. T h e psychopathic realist is adept at practical m a n i p u l a t i o n . H e uses a k i n d o f empathy to tune i n t o

204

Psychic Deadness

underlying hysterical affect i n order to t u r n it to advantage. H e may be sen­ sitive to the Other, mainly to get a sense o f how to maneuver h i m or her suc­ cessfully. He uses natural empathic c u n n i n g i n the service o f getting one's way. Psychopaths frequently overextend themselves because they do n o t realize what impression they make o n others outside the subsystems that house them. I t is as i f they, more or less, blend i n w i t h certain environments and feel that no one notices their manipulations. They feel their machinations are some­ how oddly invisible. They may feel genuinely surprised i f someone is alarmed at what they take for granted. They d o n o t expect to be evaluated by criteria outside their domain o f viability. Many years ago I was accosted o n the street by a well-groomed man who was certain he could manipulate me. W h e n he failed i n his first attempts, he actu­ ally began talking about his ability to get anyone to do what he wanted. H e felt convinced of this, and no disconfirmation could dissuade h i m . He t o l d me that i f he p u t enough i n t o i t , he could get me to do what he wanted. He c o u l d p u t o n w i n n i n g , cajoling, and i n t i m i d a t i n g ways that would con anyone. H e really d i d have the feeling that he could outsmart anyone. For me, he was a sort o f negative angel, a revelation, a quasi-pure slide o f a h i d d e n psychopathic megalomania that was part o f being h u m a n a n d that challenged humanity. I have seen versions o f h i m i n action many times over the years. I t was inconceivable to h i m that someone saw t h r o u g h h i m j u s t by looking at h i m , by virtue o f being outside the operative image he valued. I t was inconceivable that someone could look at h i m and walk away. H e w o u l d have enough marks, enough hits, people for w h o m he would be significant, so as n o t to have to face the enormity o f his irrelevance for those who were wired differently. T o some extent, the conduct o f the A n i t a H i l l hearings crossed the thresh­ o l d o f visibility, reached the p o i n t o f overextension. The grossly aggressive manipulation for political and individual aims, mixed w i t h bad taste, began to r i n g bells. O f course, the sea o f time w o u l d swallow the garbage, and the flow o f events and media images would provide other preoccupations. But how can our psychosocial stomachs metabolize all the trash that is d u m p e d i n t o them? Schizoid Lack o f Feeling

A n uncanny, deadly, unfeeling attitude i n f o r m e d the interrogations. Together w i t h paranoid structuring and the psychopathic manipulation o f underlying hysterical affect, there was a cold, detached, untouched, and untouchable spirit or tone. The interrogators seemed i m m u n e to the pain they caused, as i f dis­ secting live animals was something they were used to. W h e n I saw t h e m i n action I understood more keenly the Torah's injunction against eating the flesh o f a living animal.

W i n n i n g Lies

205

The hearings were premised on an insensitivity to pain. So m u c h public life shares this premise. The l i o n can't be too empathic w i t h the deer and get a meal. One t h i n g I love aboutJudaism is its emphasis o n thawing o u t the heart, t u r n i n g the heart o f stone to one o f flesh (circumcision o f the heart). I t is as i f T o r a h were only too aware o f the unfeeling streak i n us (Pharaoh's famous hard-heartedness), and d i d what i t could to protect us f r o m ourselves while we worked o n becoming h u m a n , part o f our evolutionary task. Once a senator got going, n o t h i n g c o u l d deflect h i m , except collision with another one-tracked locomotive. Instead o f dialogue, there were mono-manic collisions. Yet the mono-mania was n o t merely b l i n d . A detached, cold, unreach­ able, u n f e e l i n g seeing steered the line o f questioning. A n interrogator could not be deflected because his one eye was glued to the spot he wanted to get to, and he watched for whatever might help h i m get there. I t h i n k i t i m p o r t a n t to know that hysterical affect goes perfectly well with unfeeling detachment. Part o f the belle indifference o f classical hysteria may well reflect a certain unreachable, unaffected, u n f e e l i n g detachment, even i n the midst o f hysterical oblivion. We learn f r o m neurotics that the sensitive soul who cannot bear m u c h can be quite insensitive to h i m - or herself and others. A t the hearings, sensitivity is an invitation to be crushed. O n e must learn to use one's sensitivity to f u n n e l i n f o r m a t i o n a n d p r o m o t e w i n n i n g ways. A transcen­ dent, unshakable, u n f e e l i n g element enables paranoid-psychopathic m a n i p u ­ lation o f underlying hysterical affect to be successful. T h e Autistic Capsule There is a k i n d o f out of it, somewhere else dimension to our lives that needs ac­ knowledgment. I t takes many forms, f r o m spacing o u t and g o i n g blank to vast depersonalization. We need empty, formless moments as respite and to reset ourselves. Blank immersion plays a generative role i n creative processes. V o i d ­ nothingness has a l o n g history i n enlightenment literature a n d takes touching turns i n m o d e r n French poetry. A hollow emptiness can freak people out, be a menacing part o f disintegra­ t i o n states. Emotional emptiness is a chronic c o m p l a i n t o f many patients and skyrockets i n psychotic processes. T h e particular sort o f b l a n k i n g o u t I want to call attention to here can oc­ cur o n a grand social scale. There was a way i n w h i c h the entire hearings took place i n another time-space zone or warp, as i f a veil o r caul or bell j a r encased them. Yes, they were surrounded by enormous political a n d media upheaval or h u b b u b . I t was hoped, i n some quarters, that the issue o f sexual abuse at the workplace would become more a part o f public consciousness and discourse and action. The fact that accuser-accused were a professional black m a n and woman had incendiary potential, especially since they were partly pawns i n political struggles between empowered white m e n . The hearings were afloat

206

Psychic Deadness

in waves that lapped the n a t i o n , a n d depending o n how h i g h a n d r o u g h the waters and where they h i t , casualties were unpredictable. Nevertheless, there was a sense that the hearings took place somewhere else, in a w o r l d o f their own, sealed off, i n u r e d , even encrypted, like figures f r o m walls i n an Egyptian t o m b coming alive at night, enacting ritual, ruthless, blood­ c u r d l i n g murders. They floated i n a television bubble, a l t h o u g h the conse­ quences m i g h t be cruelly real for some o f those involved. T o an extent, this o u t o f it, somewhere else, bubble-oblivion element i n h u m a n life makes m u r d e r a n d many acts o f violence possible. We know that m u r d e r is involved, since language tells us that various characters were fight­ ing f o r their political or j u d i c i a l life. I t was a life-and-death matter for some characters involved. T o k i l l someone i n f u l l view o f the n a t i o n o n the televi­ sion screen may n o t only involve bloodlust b u t also a certain encapsulation. O n e must be n u m b t o the suffering one inflicts or act i n spite o f it. Some murderers enjoy their victim's suffering, b u t many are obliviously i n d i f f e r e n t to the chain o f events they set off. M u r d e r has its own time warp o r zone. Medical and theatrical images come t o m i n d . A doctor does what he has t o do o n the battlefield. I f n o anesthesia is available, he must partly immunize himself to the pain he causes by cutting as he must. T h e political doctors d i d what they t h o u g h t they h a d to do. They were also o n stage, c u t t i n g an image, making an impression, b u i l d i n g or losing personal power. I n one way, they were intensely conscious o f what they d i d . They had a sense o f how to induce, play, and get the most mileage o f m u t e d , public hysteria. What I have called para­ noid-psychopathic-schizoid operations indicate that a l o t o f (obsessive) t h i n k ­ ing and p l o t t i n g was g o i n g o n . A n d yet the paranoid-psychopathic-schizoid m a n i p u l a t i o n o f events a n d feelings, the whole circus show, c o u l d n o t occur w i t h o u t a certain autistic e n c a p s u l a t i o n , a mindless oblivion ( i n spite o f i n t e n s e , g o a l - o r i e n t e d mental activity) to entire dimensions o f experiencing. The autistic bubble includes n o t only the immediate protagonists or actors b u t also the entire nation. T h e media, the viewers, the consumers o f autistic paranoid-psychopathic-schizoid hysteria are part o f the show. We are all floating i n a sort o f mindless autistic u n i t we protest against, feel repelled by, yet feel unable to affect. Whatever we do seems to become part o f the enclosure. T h e bubble expands to include o u r objec­ tions. I t is like t r y i n g to get o u t o f a s u r r o u n d i n g film, b u t g e t t i n g m o r e entangled i n sticky glue. We are all parts o f the same, larger dreamwork. T h e fact that we have ritualized a public way o f being that requires unfeel­ ing violence a n d the lack o f self-questioning as tools f o r success needs to be an ever wider part o f public discourse, and there are signs this is happening. Such discussion has l o n g been part o f political philosophy a n d serious literature. There have been religious critics o f society, i n c l u d i n g ascetic dropouts, who have felt the need to cleanse themselves f r o m toxic side effects o f civilization. Many people have made every attempt to burst the bubble.

207

W i n n i n g Lies

Social and religious reforms b r i n g new kinds o f violence, new problems to meet. I t does n o t seem we can do anything w i t h o u t i n f l i c t i n g injury or spread­ i n g poisons. W i l l more widespread talking about what we do to ourselves and our planet help? Is there something to gain by treating society as a patient? Psychotherapy puts a l o t o f weight o n talking, the power o f words, o f words l i n k e d w i t h feeling. We may never be able to talk our way o u t o f our bubbles, b u t by feeling our way into t h e m and listening to each other, we may become a b i t less chillingly abrasive.

T H E WINNING L I E T h e H i l l hearings echoed a style or strategy or tone that typified the politics o f the n a t i o n , f r o m former president George Bush down. The goal was n o t so m u c h to speak t r u t h . T r u t h is dangerous, explosive. One cannot c o n t r o l t r u t h : one never knows what its next t u r n w i l l be. The practical tactic was to f i n d a winning lie. One tried to p u t a spin o n things that w o r k e d , that b r o u g h t success (for me, at your expense). T h a t starkly c o l o r f u l and accurate t e r m , spin doctor, lays the cards o n the table; everyone knows what's happening. A w i n n i n g lie contains no apparent paradox or ambiguity o r multiplicity o f meanings. The one who proposes i t must show n o weakness or confusion. One pursues a one-sided track with utmost confidence. T h e goal is to be on top, with some other people at the b o t t o m . Since i t is n o t possible to be or mean one t h i n g , this m e t h o d inevitably contains destructive elements: i t is violent and perpetrates violence. There seems to be a broad market f o r w i n n i n g lies: they work. People eat them up. I f expediency demands, f o r m e r president Bush can change his stance o n abortion, take a public position that disowns his private belief, play a shell game w i t h personal t r u t h , act tougher than fits his frame, and become totally unbelievable: yet he wins i f he finds the r i g h t angle, the r i g h t line, or bearing. I n t i m e , his bones begin to break t h r o u g h his b u b b l e , and he loses to an apparently more expansive personality, who brings a new bubble w i t h h i m . President B i l l Clinton's bubble seems to have a l o t o f openings. He's not one-sided and sealed enough. H e oscillates and zigzags too much. Can he t u r n those qualities into a strength? Does he presage a time when ambivalence and uncertainty can finally be integrated i n t o the public image? Is he a political forerunner o f a time when one-sided stances will be dinosaurs? W i l l one-sided hammerheads strike back w i t h a vengeance, or is i t time for further growth i n the nation? Can the general p o p u l a t i o n ever become sophisticated and com­ plicated enough to f i n d one-sidedness distasteful? "Slick W i l l i e " is n o innocent. H e doubtless shares aspects o f the paranoid­ psychopathic-schizoid-autistic-hysterical elements o f other politicians. But he is less publicly divisive, at least so far. His rhetoric does n o t inflame hate or go

Psychic Deadness

208

for the j u g u l a r o f this group or another. Hate-filled elements o f the popula­ t i o n may find this intolerable: that is, n o t speaking H-words (hate words) may inflame haters. C l i n t o n does n o t have a hate bubble; his violent drivenness takes other forms. I n spite o f his rhetoric o f inclusiveness, he may have left too m u c h outside. F i n d i n g w i n n i n g lies is part o f politics the w o r l d over. I remember recoiling at the lies that i n f o r m e d Khrushchev's rhetoric years ago and his one-sided U.S. bashing. Being critical or self-critical is one t h i n g , b u t such blatant, flam­ boyant distortions, such streams of verbal violence! A n d people all over the w o r l d ate i t u p , i n c l u d i n g many intellectuals i n our country. Today, tyrannical governments i n Africa, the Caribbean, and elsewhere use similar tactics to cover the graves o f their opponents. N o t even the stunning sum o f Stalin's murders could shake many individuals o u t o f their trance. The political violence o f a Joseph McCarthy could only find success i n a w o r l d where violent lies are part o f one's daily bread. Senator McCarthy is an exaggerated instance o f a style that is still widespread (possibly even a norm?) i n m u t e d forms today. Europeans laugh at Americans for not taking political lying for granted. They see Americans as politically naive. I t h i n k the p r o b l e m is more difficult. W i n ­ n i n g lies are part o f political expediency. They are an integral part o f A m e r i ­ can politics, as they are everywhere else. But Americans seem to react with more than usual outrage when catching someone w i t h his pants down (at least we are t o l d so by Europeans). Is there some reason or sets o f reasons why A m e r i ­ cans need to dress practicality and expediency i n t r u t h rhetoric? D o we need periodic orgies o f unmasking, i n the name o f t r u t h , i n order to let the lying c o n t i n u e i n a n o t h e r f o r m , w i t h o t h e r persons? We seem to need several orders o f violence, practical and moral. But i t is oddly provincial f o r Europe­ ans to t h i n k this trait to be mainly American.

ABUSE A sign o f hope is that the rhetoric o f abuse is becoming m o r e c o m m o n . O f t e n , the idea or reality o f abuse is abused. Strident, small-minded people use i t for political and personal gain. There is always danger o f false accusations and deceitful histrionics. Myopic fanatics feed o n bits o f larger issues. Neverthe­ less, the fact that various forms o f abuse have become an increasing part o f public consciousness may reflect and trigger some evolution o f sensitivity. Political maneuverings, cutthroat tactics, and w i n n i n g lies certainly b l u n t e d the impact the issue o f sexual abuse at the workplace m i g h t have had at the Hill-Thomas hearings. T o many people, Anita H i l l was discredited or, at least, lost value or effectiveness as a person. T h e systematic sharpshooting and laser­ beaming i n o n her personality, o n what made her tick, o n who she was or

W i n n i n g Lies

209

especially was not, were m o r e damaging than anything that was established about what she d i d or d i d n o t say or what allegedly d i d or d i d n o t happen be­ tween herself and Clarence Thomas. W h a t was consistently penetrated and attacked was her self-presentation, her television image as a person. O n top o f the possibility o f vocational sexual abuse was the reality o f visual-aural abuse i n f r o n t o f the whole n a t i o n , a sort o f political pornography. The greatest abuse o f all was o u t i n the open, like the p u r l o i n e d letter, for everyone to see. B u t i t was almost something that everyone was used to and was part o f a procedure that perpetrators assumed was the best show i n town: the way democracy works, something to be p r o u d of. T h e methodological cen­ terpiece involved good old-fashioned smear tactics, using the best available psychological profiles and image research or i n t u i t i o n — a n updated version o f character assassination, a term that is u p f r o n t about the violence o f political surgery. W i n n i n g lies seem to grant a temporary i m m u n i t y or invisibility to the warp o f one's own personality and methodology: they make one look good and mask one's abusive style u n t i l one's time bubble begins to dissolve or wears t h i n with shifting conditions. Still, the p h e n o m e n o n o f abuse is i n lights before the nation: c h i l d abuse, marital abuse, vocational sexual abuse, ecological abuse, racial abuse. M o r e people may begin to t h i n k and talk about the violence that seems to be part o f h u m a n relationships. I t is i m p o r t a n t that those w h o have suffered l i t e r a l , definable abuses speak u p or are spoken for. Unfortunately, those who speak up are often punished f o r trying to make things better f o r themselves. T r y i n g to have more o f a say i n one's life, boomerangs all too often. Having to go t h r o u g h j u d i c i a l or congressional proceedings is punishing itself: what m i g h t be called j u d i c i a l trauma is widespread (Moss 1984). Yet one hopes, over time, that m o r e people will have more o f a say about what is good f o r t h e m or at least w i l l have the ability to try to f i n d o u t f o r themselves, what is good f o r t h e m — t h e pursuit o f happiness, an "inalienable r i g h t . " A m I dreaming, or hasn't this happened somewhat oyer the course o f history? A r e n ' t there more democracies, fewer tyrannies? A r e n ' t there more voices, for more peoples? D o n ' t m o r e people over the face o f the earth feel that every person ought to have legal rights and protections, whatever the pre­ vailing state o f affairs? As a psychologist, I ' m i n the habit o f looking inward and, among other things, f i n d i n g ways I've been abused and am abusing. There is literal, corporal abuse and neglect, b u t emotional a n d spiritual abuse can be more subtle. Once one tunes i n t o abuse one sees it everywhere, i n c l u d i n g the ways that therapist and patient abuse each other. The abuse virus is quite real and alarming a n d i n j u ­ rious. I t can't be wished away or easily defeated. I t may never be defeated. B u t one grows t h r o u g h w o r k i n g w i t h i t , n o matter how one fails. T h e r e is an abu­ sive gene or virus that runs t h r o u g h h u m a n nature, a n d we must find less

210

Psychic Deadness

destructive ways to live with it. The person who has made an honest attempt to work w i t h the destructive force i n h i m - or herself and others, is n o t quite the same i n fifty years as one who has ignored or indulged it. I n a psychic democracy, there is a cross-representation o f voices: I hear you and you hear me, we resonate t h r o u g h each other. O n e must make inner sac­ rifices and adjustments to hear another person or really feel heard. As a psy­ chologist, I value this k i n d o f m u t u a l resonance, speaking, listening, feeling, and w o r k i n g imaginatively w i t h the impact o f each other's being. I realize that in the w o r l d o u t there a l o t o f speaking tends to be manipulative, a way o f get­ ting the other to obey me, n o t even caring about the other, as l o n g as I get what I t h i n k I want. Since I traffic i n words, I know I am implicated i n m a n i p u ­ lative power needs as well. One difference is that I know I ' l l grow i f my patient explodes my lie. I've learned this the hard way. I need that back and f o r t h . My patients and I grow t h r o u g h our lies together. We are able to come t h r o u g h many forms o f emo­ tional violence together and be better for it. I f I were A n i t a H i l l , the hearings m i g h t have strengthened me too; perhaps I w o u l d have grown. Living t h r o u g h such experiences must d o things for a person. B u t the public message was: you have t o be able to tough i t out, n o t let down; real dialogue is destructive. I f the hearings were real life, therapy must be la-la land. I f the capacity for open dialogue is valuable, the hearings indict themselves as a macabre caricature o f c o m m u n i c a t i o n ; indeed, they gain part of their eerie fascination precisely by p u t t i n g constructive, personal c o m m u ­ nication out o f play. I t really d i d n ' t matter what A n i t a H i l l said or d i d n ' t say. The matter was settled by forces beyond any impact her words could have had. I w o u l d n o t want to choose between what takes place i n the therapy green­ house and what life outside therapy offers. I d o n ' t want to further the violent split between public-private that seems so necessary for civilization. The rheto­ ric o f polarities has its own awful violence, as witnessed by Congressional wav­ ing o f the "rationality" banner for this or that cause. My position is rational, yours i r r a t i o n a l . A t t r i b u t i o n s o f rationality-irrationality seem to be favorite tropes o f public discourse, especially i n the rhetoric o f accusation. I hope, i n time, we become more critical o f polarity language and recognize how; its boxes can abuse the subtlety and richness o f experience (even i f providing provision­ ally handy hangers). W h e n a senator uses polarity language, there is likely t o be a basic similar­ ity, some c o m m o n g r o u n d , between his position and the one he opposes, i f only an i m p l i c i t agreement than i t is n o r m a l for each to maximize his own position against the other. Polarization tactics above, reinforce them below. Rap songs that polarize men and women, blacks and whites, r i c h and poor, do more than express the way things are. They are more than personal outcries and signals to the empowered elite. They also reflect ways the elite act. Similar categories govern the minds, beings, styles, tone, and words o f those who are

211

Winning Lies

running the country. Congressional hearings have their own rap style. As models of behavior, they seem to be more sophisticated versions of what goes on in the street. Indeed, those on top provide valuable models and messages for those on the bottom. What they teach is that it's important to be on top, to get there whatever way you can, and to use anything you can get away with to extend your power. Don't worry whether what you say is truthful. Find a winning lie and ride it as far as you can go. Trade it in for another, like a worn horse, if conditions warrant. Pick a winner: winning is all. It's natural to go to bat for you and yours. The others don't count as much as you do. One of the odd things about violence is that the perpetrator, and even the victim, may not be aware of the real impact and consequences of his or her violence. Often it happens in a semi-trance, where one is protected from the feelings one's actions might arouse. The actions reel off, with a momentum of their own. At times, it seems as if someone else is doing it, and that it's happening to someone somewhere else. One may be blown away by an explosive force that has its own logic. Congressional or presidential or judicial violence may be harder to recognize or do anything about, since it can be threaded through protracted chains of arguments, lines of reasoning, and rational questioning, which depend partly on back-room reshuffling of the cards. In such a situation* it is more difficult to find a murder weapon than in the street, since everyone has a brain and tongue, and there is no law against exercising them. Therefore, it is unlikely that solving poverty will be enough to "solve" violence. There is the violence of luxury, as well as the violence of poverty. This in no way mitigates the importance of doing what is possible to help the poor or to discover conditions that would make poverty a thing of the past. Even so, it is difficult to see how such a miracle at the bottom would quell the lust for more and more that characterizes the top. In a sense, the right wing of politics is correct in saying that the liberals have the wrong idea. The liberals have wanted to ameliorate conditions at the bottom, but the illness at the top remains pretty much untouched and trickles down. In light of the enormity of what faces us, a therapist's ambition to become the sort of person someone can talk to seems fragile indeed. So much is needed, yet I don't think there is anything that society needs more. REFERENCE Moss, D. M. (1984). Judicial trauma—judicial travesty: a personal encounter with evil. In Evil: Self and Culture, ed., M. C. Nelson, and M. Eigen, pp. 181-200. New York: Human Sciences.

18 Boa and Flowers

Within

minutes o f entering my office Janice told me that analysis had de­ stroyed her. She d i d n o t actually tell me, b u t cried, shouted, screamed at me. N o t simply a cry, shout, scream f r o m the heart, the k i n d that elicits a saving response. H e r tone accused, nagged, threatened, demanded. She knew what she wanted, she knew what had gone wrong, she knew what she needed. "It's the simplest t h i n g i n the w o r l d , " she said. " I need good parenting. W i l l you give i t to me? Can you give i t to me? W i l l you do it?" H e r e was a m o m e n t o f raw appeal. "Yes," I felt. W h o could deny the need for good parenting? She was right, and my innermost being responded, but I could n o t suppress a "but." This "but" was our u n d o i n g . " I d o n ' t want analysis shit," she t o l d me. "That's what k i l l e d me. I was alive. I know what it's like to be alive. She (Janice's analyst f o r eight years] t o l d me I was acting out, that my style o f being alive was self-destructive. She tried to analyze me away. Analysis killed my soul. Now I ' m a total mess. I can't feel anything. N o t h i n g is alive for me. I ' m a dead person, a n o t h i n g . She was j e a l ­ ous o f my life. I went a r o u n d w i t h r i c h people, jet-setting, partying, terrific clothes—my element, not hers. She was down. She never lived. She c o u l d n ' t take life. She had no idea o f what life could be. I was h i g h on life, and she c o u l d n ' t stand it. Now I need love, the k i n d a baby gets, so I can come back, so I can again—so I can have a self again. It's the simplest t h i n g i n the world. Can you do it? I need to know. N o ifs, ands, buts, maybes. Can you do it or not?" Was an unqualified yes possible? N o t by me, n o matter how m u c h I wanted to help, n o matter how m u c h she may have been right. I d i d n o t have a totally unambivalent and certain psyche and could n o t b r i n g myself to lie about i t . "Have you ever helped people like me before?" That question I could say yes to. Yes. How good i t felt to be able to say yes. I knew i f she stayed long enough, there was every likelihood that she would ben­ efit. B u t there was the catch: probability, likelihood, which to her meant there

214

Psychic Deadness

was a chance that therapy m i g h t fail, that I would not be good enough, that she would continue to die. There really is no bottom to this k i n d o f dying. T o Janice, i f the outcome of therapy was n o t an absolute certainty, it was a dice roll. "You w o u l d n ' t beat a r o u n d the bush i f your own c h i l d was i n distress. You w o u l d c o m f o r t her. You w o u l d care for her. N o qualifications or doubts. You'd love her and give her what she needs. I saw your book. There was too m u c h Freud i n i t . You're too Freudian for me. T h a t shit doesn't work. I can tell you it doesn't work. I t kills. D i d you read Alice Miller? Do you agree w i t h her? She's right. That's what I need. You can give i t to me, i f you want to. I can sense it. You'd give i t to your own c h i l d . That's what I n e e d — t h e same t h i n g y o u ' d give your own child. A chance to come back, to be myself again. That's what I want. W i l l you do i t or not?" How could I say no? H o w could I say yes? Her appeal came t h r o u g h the noise o f her personality, t h r o u g h her accusations, t h r o u g h her dismissal o f the thera­ peutic m e d i u m t h r o u g h w h i c h she sought help. Yet her demand f o r absolute care and certainty o f outcome, comprehensible as i t may be, acted as a practi­ cal barrier to her appeal. I f 1 tried to comfort her, she attacked me more. I d i d not f i n d the r i g h t spot i n j u s t the r i g h t way. Moreover, she felt my failures were willful. "You d o n o t really want to help. I f you d i d , there w o u l d be n o reserve. You would give me what I need, as you w o u l d a child. Maybe y o u ' d warm up after awhile, b u t I can't wait. I ' m dying now." Perhaps other therapists d i d n o t share my limitations. I pictured someone more related and caring than I . Face to face with Janice, I felt my restrictions only too keenly. Whatever was dry, reserved, or removed about me felt exacer­ bated. I felt how incarcerated I was by my distance, my ungivingness, my unyield­ ingness. Suddenly I was all Scrooge. What happened to the goodness I l i k e d to feel, thejouissance? I t was gone like the killed-off life Janice raved (I wish I could say raged) about. I f only I could t h i n k o f the r i g h t person to refer her to, the one who c o u l d click. But I learned that I was the eighth therapist she had seen i n the past year. The therapy that killed her ended five years earlier. H o w many therapists could she try? The death-dealing analyst was known i n the f i e l d as competent and caring. Janice diagnosed her as suffocating and suffocated, someone who disparaged as manic all life m a n i f e s t a t i o n s ( i n Janice's words) .Janice tore herself away and s e a r c h e d f o r t h e r i g h t situation. This past year, b e f o r e she c a m e to me, she thought she f o u n d i t i n a male therapist who took c o m m a n d and said he w o u l d be the parent she needed. For several months Janice's dream came true. She felt inklings o f the life she lost, moments o f hope. H e was h e l p i n g her the way she wanted. H e was n o t afraid o f contact. H e f o u n d and cared for her c h i l d self. T h e n he t u r n e d on her. H e became impatient and angry and p u t her down. H e t o l d her about

Boa and Flowers

215

difficulties i n his life. He wanted her to give h i m something too. She loved h i m and wanted h i m to take care o f her, b u t c o u l d not b r i n g herself to give h i m anything. He let her down, b u t she l i k e d h i m better than other therapists she had t r i e d . She felt that he had the r i g h t idea, b u t his craziness a n d needs interfered. She wanted someone like h i m , only less crazy and more reliable. "Call h i m and f i n d out what he does," she t o l d me. "He does i t the way I want. He's got the right idea. Call h i m and f i n d o u t about it. I t h i n k you could do i t i f you wanted to and do it better." I could do it and do it better! Wow! Megalomania, here we come! I knew the man she spoke about and l i k e d h i m a lot. He believed i n w o r k i n g w i t h the baby soul like a parent, i f need be. But he was a big baby himself and expected the parent-baby business to go b o t h ways. Many o f his patients swore by h i m . But Janice was not ready for reciprocal quirkiness and m u t u a l catering to baby needs. She wanted to be the only baby, the center o f someone's universe. She wanted total devotion. She could not tolerate the idea that any person who tried to do what she wanted must inevitably recoil. There w o u l d be a backlash. N o personality could bend so thoroughly for so long. Even parents rebel. YetJanice's need was real. Her capacity to be alive was deeply wounded. She wanted loving attention. She wanted someone who c o u l d give. She wanted someone who could let her be, who w o u l d let her be first. One thinks o f primary love or primary narcissism or the need f o r m i r r o r i n g o f archaic grandiosity. But a self psychologist referred Janice to me. H e could not get to first base with her. A n d an object relations therapist had referred her to h i m . She ran the gamut. I wondered about humanistic psychologists f r o m the 1960s who d i d hands-on parenting. T h e r e were n o guarantees. I could n o t help wondering what massive or specific or cumulative failure o f parental /environmental provision m i g h t underlie such a p a i n f u l loss o f self­ feeling. As i f reading my m i n d , Janice said, " I had a happy c h i l d h o o d . My par­ ents were loving and good, and I loved t h e m . It's n o t my c h i l d h o o d . I t was my analysis that k i l l e d me. I want the feeling I had before she k i l l e d my life off. I want to get back to me." I have been i n the field for over thirty years. I knew analysis could k i l l . I have seen h a r m f u l and helpful effects o f therapy. I also knew individuals who ideal­ ized their prebreakdown selves. C o m p a r e d to the horrors o f breakdown, their earlier misery seemed like happiness. I t c o u l d be that Janice's analysis was h a r m f u l and that she idealized life p r i o r to i t . O r the situation could be more complex. Perhaps Janice felt assaulted by the ambivalence o f life and counter­ attacked by oversimplification. Perhaps she already was on the way toward break­ down when she sought help, and analysis failed to help her. I could extend this list o f possibilities, but complexity was certainly something that Janice d i d not want. She used the w o r d "simple" repeatedly: "What I need is simple. It's simply what you'd give a c h i l d o f your own. The simplest t h i n g i n the w o r l d . "

Psychic Deadness

216

I feel that simple t h i n g at the center o f my being. I t shows i n my eyes, my tone, my skin. I live f r o m and t h r o u g h it. I t is my home. Yet some people see i t , and some do not. T o some I may seem cold or distant or reserved and, to o t h ­ ers, warm and playful. Some c o m i n g near me may feel they are entering the House o f Complexity. Where is that simple thread leading to and c o m i n g f r o m the heart's center? Where is i t when i t is lost? H o w can something I feel so deeply and thoroughly n o t show? W i t h Janice I felt like a stroke victim who could feel his shining essence unable to break t h r o u g h layers o f imprisonment. Yet she saw something i n me. She felt I could help, if I wanted to. There was the r u b . I t was u p to my desire. I f I wanted to, I could. I c o u l d n o t help w o n ­ d e r i n g what pressure she must be u n d e r i f she felt desire c o u l d do all. H o w often i t was said to me f r o m c h i l d h o o d o n : "You can do i t , i f you want t o ! " I could n o t help w o n d e r i n g what disease or deficiency o f desire plagued Janice's life. W h o wanted her and how? W h o d i d not and how not? What provision was made for loss and'limitation? For immersion i n experience? " I can do i t myself i f you'll just be there for me. I can. I know I c a n — I know what i t is I need and where to f i n d it. B u t you have to be there while I do it. You have to let me do it. I have to know that you can be there, that you will be there." But mere being is inadequate. "You have to take charge. Do you understand? You have to direct i t . N o analytic bullshit. I t has to be real. You have to know what you're doing. I have to be able to lean on you. I have to rely on you to be there and take charge when I am falling apart. You have to put me back together when I fall apart. I have to do i t , but you have to take charge. Do you get it?" Well, Mr. Therapist, M r . Wise Guy, let us see what you are made of. Put your money where your m o u t h is. Only true emodonal reality will do. The thing itself. Isn't this what you talked about all these years? Now I think o f the picture o n the cover o f the paperback edition o f Groddeck's Book of the It—an impish m a n p o p p i n g o u t o f a body slit, a m o c k image o f p u l ­ sations o f the unconscious. Now I picture soul f i l l i n g body, simple emotional availability, a flow back and f o r t h t h r o u g h surface-depth, person to person. I wish I were one o f those people who make you feel good just by l o o k i n g at them. So many barriers, barriers u p o n barriers. Janice hated all barriers. I felt as i f all I had to offer was the g r i m prospect o f h a r d work. Psychotherapy-*—sometimes a feather that tickles, now the G r i m Reaper. I d o not have a party line, a dogma about just how I am supposed to be with every patient. I am willing to shift g r o u n d , try different styles, try to locate some way o f being/experiencing that m i g h t work. I do n o t like getting boxed i n to any particular version o f myself. O f t e n I have the feeling o f my personality regrowing a r o u n d the impact o f a particular O — r e s h a p i n g itself w i t h the re­ 1

O is a Bion notation connoting unknowable ultimate reality; here the ultimate re­ ality or emotional truth of a session (Bion 1970, Eigen 1981, 1985, see also Chapter 4). 1

Boa and Flowers

217

quirements o f the emotional reality o f moment. Such reshuffling sometimes happens rapidly and automatically. Sometimes i t takes going t h r o u g h many deserts. I fJanice w o u l d give us time, we c o u l d try this and that u n t i l we became v i ­ able. Mothers and infants work at feeding. Each learns to do what has to be d o n e — t h e mutual adjustments that make a difference. W h e n I suggested that I m i g h t learn to work w i t h her, that we m i g h t learn to work w i t h each other, Janice replied severely, " I f I needed a physical operation, I w o u l d n o t get a doctor who had to learn how to d o i t . I w o u l d get an expert, one who knows." " I d o n ' t know that thoughts and feelings are exacdy like brains or livers. T h e i r location isn't so certain." D i d I say or merely t h i n k this? I already said too m u c h , too l i t t l e — a l l wrong. N o uncertainty o f locale c o u l d be tolerated, and there was n o time. Either I was the one who could do i t o r not, and I had to be the one to say so. I do n o t m i n d contradictory demands o f difficult patients. My paper "On W o r k i n g w i t h 'Unwanted' Patients" (1977) summarizes ten years o f work w i t h clinic patients. My book, The Psychotic Core (1986), summarizes nearly twenty­ five (now nearly thirty) years o f w o r k w i t h psychotic dynamics and psychotic­ like processes. I am supposed to be something o f an expert i n the "difficult," and this reputation is why Janice was referred to me. Over the years my prac­ tice imperceptibly became weighted w i t h psychoanalysts and psychotherapists. A m I becoming soft? W o u l d Janice have been too m u c h for me twenty years ago? A t that time I w o u l d have d o n e anything to make contact. Now all I had to do was say I could d o it. T h e words d i d n o t come. I felt more deeply i n contact than twenty years ago, a deeper inner sense o f being, b u t outwardly was I more removed? Perhaps Janice was r i g h t i n t h i n k i n g she w o u l d have to work too hard to get to me. My patients years ago were n o t less disturbed, b u t they tended to latch o n t o therapy l o n g enough f o r something t o happen. They seemed to take their unconscious, masochistic attachment to therapy more for granted and h e l d on f o r dear life. They needed to establish a parasitic g r i p whether via rage, withdrawal, depression, or seductiveness o n therapy and were w i l l i n g to play the game i n exchange for being allowed to hang o n . They gave me time. They d i d n o t seem to m i n d losing time. T h e passage o f time d i d n o t irritate t h e m . Perhaps i n those days submission to a doctor was more permissible. Janice opposed her masochistic desires w i t h brittle interrogation and de­ mands. She wanted to be sure what she was getting i n t o . She could n o t afford another failure. She knew how t o shop and what she was l o o k i n g for. She was examining the goods very carefully. She wanted to be i n control; she knew her rights. What d i d 1 do, and how d i d I do it? I t was like examining the teeth o f a horse. But I d i d not feel that she w o u l d allow herself to see me. H e r trust i n herself had been destroyed. After all, she had given therapy a chance and lost. How does one select a therapist?

218

Psychic Deadness

Janice took what little time we m i g h t have had away. She saw me only once and came twenty minutes late. D u r i n g her twenty-five-minute h o u r a construc­ tion crew furiously r i p p e d up the road i n f r o n t o f my office window. Jung's synchronicity came to m i n d — h o w fitting that this noise should happen now. I could play or be the analyst and establish the frame o f s i l e n c e — t h e con­ struction crew saw to i t that this w o u l d n o t be. O r I c o u l d c o n f r o n t or elabo­ rate or empathize or i n t e r p r e t or h u n t f o r a g o o d - e n o u g h m a t u r a t i o n a l response. I c o u l d tell her how r i g h t she was i n being circumspect, i n trying to find what was r i g h t for herself. I c o u l d try to be myself. I c o u l d be honest, but which profile o f honesty, which part o f the elephant w o u l d manifest the w o r d or gesture that counts? I t was clear to me i n an instant that I was unable to present myself i n the way she wanted and that f r o m her viewpoint I offered no viable alternative. She could only leave, unless she c o u l d d o precisely what she could n o t do: give us time to see what m i g h t happen, give us time to learn to work together. I could not give her the one t h i n g she demanded: I could not be sure. I c o u l d n o t end time. Janice and I spoke by telephone for almost two weeks after this visit. She kept calling and leaving l o n g messages. She d i d everything she c o u l d to make me say yes, to be sure, to reassure her that I could do i t , that I was the one. N o t h i n g I could find to say and no way that I could find to be were useful. Janice b r o u g h t me u p short against my limits and refused any intersection at or beyond the boundaries. She was fixed on my having to be sure and o n her hav­ i n g to be sure that I was sure, that I was the one who c o u l d d o i t , who wanted to and who w o u l d . She was very articulate about this position and yielded no leeway. She d i d n o t ask about my fee, and I d i d not b r i n g i t up. I knew my colleagues charged her for their consultations. I d i d n o t t h i n k that charging or n o t charg­ i n g w o u l d make a difference. I c o u l d n o t b r i n g myself to charge, perhaps because o f the noisy construction crew, perhaps because I was psychologically i m p o t e n t or because I wanted her to know that the unconscious c o u l d be gen­ erous even i f i t d i d n o t seem so, that there were ways that time and timeless­ ness c o u l d be interchangeable. She left a vase o f flowers i n my waiting r o o m one day. They were obviously hand arranged by her, and beautifully so. My self psychologist colleague t o l d me she left h i m one too. So many flowers, so beautifully arranged. How many flowers she must have left b e h i n d ! We spoke a n u m b e r o f times after she left the flowers. She wanted me to speak to a therapist w h o m she felt really knew her, someone who had been good, a woman i n Washington w h o m she saw years ago when she left college. Perhaps this woman w o u l d help me find the r i g h t way to be. Janice contacted this good doctor, who called me. We spoke when she came to the city for a funeral. She scarcely remembered Janice. She had seen Janice

Boa and Flowers

219

briefly. Now she felt Janice needed hospitalization; she feared Janice could n o t take care o f herself. She planned to tell Janice's parents. She asked me which hospitals i n the area I thought were g o o d , and I t o l d her. T h e calls f r o m Janice stopped. I have worked with people far m o r e collapsed than Janice. Perhaps some doctors w o u l d have felt that some o f these people should have been hospital­ ized. Janice's flowers were n o t even close to the bleeding flowers o f schizo­ phrenic dreams. H e r loss o f self d i d n o t have the butchered, bleak quality o f psychotic landscapes. She used flowers to finalize loss. Where self had been and m i g h t be again, flowers a r e — n o t the flowers o f the living self, b u t markers o f the place where self disappeared, the place where self was last seen and where Janice is waiting. I f only we could b o t h sit at the fishing hole i n the ice and wait for spring. Janice's flowers showed me what I was missing by n o t saying yes. They were my punishment for my "but." I f only I c o u l d have taken the leap, what a sensi­ tive being I m i g h t have discovered. H e r vase o f flowers was a token o f the flow­ ers to come, the promise of o u r w o r k together, the promise whose grave they marked. How many promises, how many graves litter Janice's search and mark her trail? Perhaps the search is more real t h a n the trail. T r a i l implies movement and direction, implies that someone has been somewhere. The bread Janice leaves b e h i n d is d r o p p e d i n the same place, over and over. Droppings. Therapists left b e h i n d like droppings. M o r e waves o f therapists to come. Janice moves f r o m therapist t o therapist, searching for M r . Right, the One W h o Can and W i l l D o I t . H e r flowers tell me what I am missing, that I am missing Someone Special. She shows me that she is generous, that she forgives my miserliness. B u t I am n o t j u s t I . I am all therapists, the therapy field, the barren field i n which no flowers grow, the field she hopes to activate. Why do I feel something i n the search is real? I t is not a scientific search, a patient testing o f hypothesis o r i m a g i n i n g o f hypotheses, although these are n o t entirely excluded. I t is a search f o r the flower that is n o t there, the therapy flower, the flowers outside her that match those w i t h i n . A search f o r the flow­ ers she wishes were there, within or without. She shows u p to find n o t h i n g again, the blank hole i n the ice. She w i l l n o t h o l d hands or fight or wait i t o u t at the b r i m . But her flowers say that she c o u l d do all that ifonly you were the r i g h t one, i f only you were good e n o u g h , i f only you w o u l d or c o u l d say yes. I f only you w o u l d d o as she says and be as she wants. I t h i n k o f M i l t o n ' s fairest flower "no sooner blown than blasted," a h y m n to a dead c h i l d . So many dead therapies to m i m i c the therapy that k i l l e d her. H e r search cancels itself out, b u t is n o t dead. I can feel aliveness i n the intensity o f its standstill. I t dies over a n d over u n t i l only its drivenness remains. But I can feel this restless drivenness, the scratch o f nails that will n o t let go. I

220

Psychic Deadness

can feel its insistence i n how m u c h I am driven to exercise myself trying to enliven the corpse o f therapy, how I ache and work to find a way. We b o t h wear holes i n ourselves f r o m this mad, soldierly discipline, r u n n i n g i n place u n t i l feet b u r n and lungs burst and earth disappears. O u r psyches g r i n d themselves to smithereens trying to make contact w i t h n o t h i n g , trying to give each other the benefit o f the d o u b t . Infinite uselessness. I know I will feel exhausted after this b r i e f meeting, which seems to go o n forever. I could have remained detached a n d i m m u n e — precisely what Janice m i g h t criticize me for. But another psychic force field was at work. I d i d n o t find myself sitting back and t h i n k i n g , "There's n o t h i n g I can do. She needs to be hospitalized." I f o u n d myself w o r k i n g like a mad­ man, chewing myself u p , trying to find the r i g h t current—because I sensed it was there. There, b u t n o t available, n o t available to me, n o t available to most (per­ haps all) therapists, a n d n o t available to Janice. The good female therapist f r o m Washington feared that Janice was unable to take care o f herself. I t would n o t surprise me i f I missed the most obvious t h i n g , i f I d i d n o t see what stared me i n the face. Perhaps her breakdown was n o t a florid k i n d . N o hallucinations or overwhelming panic or depres­ sion. Just a k i n d o f scatter and depletion o f functioning, a k i n d o f blank break­ down. I knew Janice was depleted, bleeding to death, r u n n i n g scared, sensitive, and tyrannical. I saw that she could n o t give me the chance to find a way to reach her, n o r c o u l d she extend me the courtesy o f t o r t u r i n g me f o r months or years or properly exhausting my repertoire o f abilities (she already said she c o u l d n o t give a therapist anything). Perhaps what was most irksome was that Janice d i d n o t really try me o u t at all. I was unusable, and perhaps the sense o f n o t being used o r usable is what exercised me. Perhaps I was so preoccupied w i t h my own breakdown and the unfairness o f n o t being given a fair audition that I d i d n o t see the need for a hospital. Previous therapists h a d n o t hospitalized her. H a d she reached a new low i n depletion or spinning? Was the therapist f r o m Washington speaking o u t o f her own sense o f impotence, or was she right? A m I too used to psychotic and psy­ chotic-like states and dynamics to see a hospital case i n f r o n t o f my nose? Winnicott (1969, Eigen 1981) has taught us that it may be precisely the ca­ pacity to use another person that is unavailable and must be g r o w n i n many patients. Is i t fair to say I was n o t being used, or was I and the therapy m i l i e u being used to feel useless? Was precisely this state o f uselessness my (our) use? Was the therapist w h o recommended hospitalization feeling this endless use­ lessness? Was she h o p i n g a hospital c o u l d contain what was beyond personal containment, perhaps beyond containment o f the therapy m i l i e u i n general? Was any container adequate for this limitless uselessness? I can picture Janice i n a good hospital being n u r t u r e d back to aliveness. She rests and finds herself i n a setting that upholds her and allows f o r growth or

Boa and Flowers

221

repair. A t last she achieves what she wants, a chance for true self. This growth can and does happen. W o u l d i t for Janice? I have learned f r o m h a r d experi­ ence that often I must say something like, "Yes, a hospital stay may do you good. But when you come o u t , the same problems w i l l be waiting. You still will be you. T h e w o r l d will be the w o r l d . T h e dirty work w i l l be waiting." One can speculate and question. D i d my uselessness reflect the deep use­ lessness Janice felt or feared to feel? D i d she need to make the parent feel useless? I n what ways were the parents useless or worse than useless? W o u l d one expect to find distant or c o n t r o l l i n g parents or both? Was the parental need for a happy c h i l d too great, so that emptiness became the i n n e r reality or protective shell? D i d the loss of self protect against invasive overstimulation or reflect a lack o f i n n e r richness i n her once "happy" life? Perhaps there were real elements o f richness to her happiness, b u t the impact o f reality after col­ lege was too hard to bear. Was the contrast between family and reality too great? One could go o n . I n our twenty minutes together Janice h i d her history i n the gloss o f happi­ ness. She w o u l d n o t let me near her past, n o t i n any obvious way. She displayed a w o u n d that was still smarting, a death i n process, an accusation, a demand. Actually she d i d n o t display i t so m u c h as talk about i t and berate therapy. She demanded that I be an empathic, usable object who can take charge, who can set direction and let be, w h o can establish conditions i n w h i c h she can find herself. How tantalized I was w i t h her sense o f Tightness, her k n o w i n g what was right for her. A k n o w i n g that dangled and withdrew the carrot, saying, ' T m sorry. Your dance is n o t quite r i g h t . Please do the r i g h t one now. I know you can." A n d frantically I pressed the j u k e b o x u n t i l only w h i r r i n g remained. T h a t w h i r r i n g nullity is what I suspected Janice was vanishing i n t o . I l o o k e d for the hole in the needle she said was there, but it too was whirring away. " I f only you w o u l d treat me like your own c h i l d , love me like your own c h i l d . " God, how I love my c h i l d r e n ! H o w I can hate them too! H o w exasperating they can be. They drive me over the edge, those beastly monsters, those so, so pre­ cious beings. B u t d o n ' t y o u know, Janice, I loved t h e m before they were b o r n . I loved them before they were conceived. They came i n t o a love that was wait­ ing for years. A n d they ignite new loves, loves I never catch u p to. Each c h i l d plays on me w i t h his own personality and creates loves w i t h u n i q u e tones. I become musical instruments that never were before and never will be again. "Sing a new song to the L o r d . " New songs, new hearts. My c h i l d r e n create i n me new hearts and wear my hearts down. T h e i r life kills me off. I come back. I want to k i l l them and fight for my life. " I go to bed crying a n d wake u p l a u g h i n g , " as the psalmist says. M y soul is restored, ready for more. What a battleground the playground is. Is this what the Bible means by slavery i n Egypt—Mitzrayim, the "narrow strait," the b i n d ­ ing l i m i t , cement m i x e d w i t h blood? Janice, d o n ' t you know my c h i l d r e n never asked to be loved?

222

Psychic Deadness

Yes, I think you know or once knew. Somehow it got narrowed down. How this process happened I cannot know, but would like to learn, if you let me. Perhaps someday you will become the kind of person I can love like I do my children. But you are not like them now. They do not tell me that I must be sure I can be a good parent before they splatter themselves all over me. They do not require my certainty that I will not fail them before they run at me and jump on me. I am certain I will fail them. I cannot count the times I have made them cry. But I am certain I will keep on trying, as long as I have breath-at least part of the time, intermittently, as much as I am able. How can they escape my wounds, or I theirs? We each have our inner drummers. We are driven to come through—to live. I look at them and feel my death. I look at them and thrill to life. Janice, you have closed yourself off to this mixed-up, painful, joyous growth of real life. You have become a purist. You want a guarantee. One of my boys is more cautious, the other more abandoned, but both press headlong into the maelstrom, wound after wound, coming back for more, growing and growing. Who can get enough of life? Who can hold back for long? They can be impos­ sible, conniving, spiteful, and nurse their wounds—but life sweeps them up, moods change, things happen, currents flow every which way from hidden springs to the seas. I suspect I am wrong in saying you closed yourself off. It is more accurate to say that closing off or narrowing happens. You did not plan psychic deadness any more than a flower plans what happens to it when rain does not fall or light does not shine. Perhaps this is why control is so important to you now— so much is out of control. You want me to will you into life, for will has failed. Yet you say you had plenty of sunshine and enough watering—until analy­ sis. Analysis took away the conditions of life. Now you want therapy to restore what analysis has taken. Justice. I cannot judge. I do not know what happened. I only know that Something Went Wrong, Something Wrong Happened. Help is needed, but seems more on the way out than in. The child is not dead. You are there, Janice, beating down therapist after therapist with your raw appeal. I believe your appeal. I picture you as my child, crying angrily, "You broke your Promise!" The world is a broken promise. Every therapy knows that. Yet in spite of brokenness, every therapy is a prom­ ise (no matter what the therapist says), a promise linked with an unconscious as "no-less" as it is timeless. Now you cannot say yes to any real therapist, Janice, nor can you say no to the promise. You ask if I want to see the documents. You have written it all down. I can learn from your writings who you are and what you want. From your written words I can see what needs to be done and gird up my loins to do it. As you speak, your inner being slips through the words. You cannot hold it all. You cannot give it to the Other. I n your aloneness you have written it. The paper

Boa and Flowers

223

holds it. The Other cannot steal your reality away. You can show it at will, and if I read it, I will know. T h e self psychologist has the writings. You will bring them to me and hope that by my reading them I will know if I can do it. Janice never brought them over. I would certainly have read her testimony, her plea, her fury, her poetry, her analysis, as many before me did. But the problem would have remained: I would not be able to say that surely I was the One. T h e reality of my disability must have hit her, and I imagine she found her way into another sector of the therapy field to continue her fall. Bion (1965, p. 101) writes of a force that continues after the last point of personality has been annihilated and existence, time, and space have been destroyed. Janice had not yet reached utter pointlessness and loss, but she was on her way. Alice Miller didn't help. Freud, Jung, Winnicott, Bion, and Kohut didn't help either, nor did my training or experience. My very life and person­ ality were useless. I survive my annihilation just as Janice in one way or another partly survives hers. But, like a boa, the force molds itself around the victim's breathing and now and then gently squeezes with the intake of a breath. In Bion's vision there is no end to annihilation. We move from one heart of darkness to another—heartlessness beyond heartlessness. Just as our eyes become used to the dark, it becomes darker. There is no end to the darkness to explore. The force is on a permanent search-and-destroy mission, a Pac Man feeding on every sign of life. And after life is destroyed, it will continue to feed on death, nonexistence after nonexistence. Surely such a force cannot be real— its existence is a contradiction in terms. But it is precisely this impossibility that gives it power. Janice, if you saw me today, could things be different? Would I do better? How I wish so. How I wish I could explode myself and become the kind of pres­ ence or presence—absence balance that would do it. I know about getting the right distance-closeness balance—how I tried! Where is the me-not-me self you could work with? Where is the I you could say yes to, or say no and fight it out? The missing link is all. It is cuddled in the boa's caress. Each breath it dares to take brings it closer to its undoing. We both know the link is there, but cannot escape our own constrictions. Please, Janice, let us agree to fail for as long as it takes. I believe the force can be outflanked. There is something deeper, something more. You sense it, or you would not be here at all. It is afraid to breathe now, but perhaps it will wait for us. It will feel "our" breathing. I understand that it is buried under the collapse of the entire earth, that all existence has become the killer. You see, I know the force well; I am part of that constriction. I write too, like you. I am writing you this testimony. For I too slip away when we speak. I am telling you, from my aloneness to yours, writer to writer, that I believe you. I believe in the

Psychic Deadness

224

flowers you gave me. We are those flowers, the missing links. I believe in writ­ ing, the writings you never gave me. I am writing to you, Janice, any Janice, who may read this testimony and respond with the next-to-last breath. I have breathed my last breath many times and want to go with you to that place. Between the words, breathing starts up again.

REFERENCES Bion, W. R. (1965). Transformations. London: Heinemann. (1970). Attention and Interpretation. London : Tavistock. Eigen, M. (1977). O n working with "unwanted" patients. InternationalJournal of PsychoAnalysis, 58:109-121. (1981). T h e area of faith in Winnicott, Lacan and Bion. InternationalJournal of Psycho-Analysis, 62:413-433. (1985). Toward Bion's starting point: between catastrophe and faith. Interna­ tional Journal

of Psycho-Analysis,

66:321-330.

(1986). The Psychotic Core. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson. Winnicott, D. W. (1969). T h e use of an object and relating through identications. I n Playing and Reality. New York: Basic Books, 1971.

Epilogue

H o w m u c h aliveness can o n e take? Susan D e r i t o l d a story, near the e n d o f one o f Bion's seminars, about a m a n she worked w i t h f o r many years, a m a n she had all b u t given u p o n . O n e can't exactly say she supported h i m i n life, because he wasn't very alive to begin w i t h . B u t she supported h i m i n whatever he c o u l d do. I n those days (three decades ago), many patients who seemed psychically limited, impoverished, and o n the dead side were dumped into a category called "chronic schizophrenia." They d i d n o t have florid hallucinations o r intense affective storms, but seemed rather vacant, emotionless, with little mental flow. Yet a good n u m b e r o f these individuals could be helped t o h o l d u n d e m a n d ­ ingjobs (at least periodically), sometimes keep their own apartments, and even maintain primitive object ties. W i t h o u t help, they w o u l d become vegetative, with chronic institutional care almost inevitable ( I wrote about my inability to help one such individual i n The Psychotic Core (1986), p p . 105-108, and The Electrified Tightrope (1993), p p . 2 3 8 - 2 4 1 ) . Occasionally, a therapist experiences the miracle o f such an individual grow­ ing more and more alive. I n such cases n o t only is an individual helped to func­ tion better b u t also his o r her emotional life evolves, becomes less stunted, more varied a n d intense. This is what Susan Deri experienced with her patient. H e refused to give u p o n himself. She was loyal, devoted, a n d c o m m i t t e d to h i m , but her expectations were lower than his. She was realistic, b u t as he came alive, he wanted everything. 1

1 I heard Susan Deri tell this story on more than one occasion, the first time at this seminar, where part of it was captured in print by Francesca Bion's transcription {Bion in New York and Sao Paulo. Perthshire: Clunie Press, 1980: 6 9 - 7 4 ) . Obviously, it exercised Ms. Deri, and was something she shared to be helped with. I n retrospect, I wonder if it also did not serve as a vehicle to express unconscious premonition of her own untimely death, not long on the horizon.

i 226

Epilogue

Over the course o f decades his productivity increased. H e more than man­ aged w o r k , felt pleasure i n what he d i d , got a better apartment, and, i n general, enjoyed a higher level o f existence. T h e n the unspeakable happened. He fell i n l o v e — a n d his love was reciprocated. I remember Ms. D e r i describ­ i n g her disbelief, her amazement: how could this happen? She credited her patient. I t was he who kept going f r o m level to level, wanting more, wanting whatever life could give. She was behind h i m , w i t h h i m , each step o f the way. But n o w — h e was getting something Ms. Deri could n o t get for herself. She never t h o u g h t he had the capacity to support life at its fullest. She worried for h i m , like a m o t h e r worries that a c h i l d m i g h t r u n recklessly i n t o o n c o m i n g traffic. He was joyous, ecstatic; his dreams were c o m i n g true. H e married and took time o f f for his honeymoon, aiming to r e t u r n to therapy f o r help w i t h his next s t e p — h a v i n g his own family. I t was never to happen. His wife called to i n f o r m Ms. D e r i that he died o f a heart attack on their honeymoon. T h e r e is no doubt that Ms. Deri felt his aliveness was too m u c h for h i m . She felt guilty f o r — w h a t ? — n o t taking more care that he n o t get too alive? Surely, he had decades o f help to b u i l d up to it. How can one call his leap into life precipitous? Yet Ms. Deri felt the final burst o f aliveness was too m u c h for his physical being. His heart could not take its own opening. W h i c h is worse: an individual so addicted to h i g h levels o f stimulation and tension that even slight dips i n arousal level are felt as deadening, or an i n d i ­ vidual so used to a quasi-comatose or n u m b existence that the slightest h i n t o f affective q u i c k e n i n g is threatening? T o be sure, one cannot tell ahead o f time whether a h i g h - or low-stimulation individual feels more alive. I have met many individuals who live high-stimulation lives, yet feel n u m b . A t the same time, there are people who cannot take much stimulation, because every b i t sets off more waves o f aliveness than is bearable. The possibilies are myriad. It is hoped that one outcome o f immersing oneself i n problems and obstacles this book works with is growth i n sensitivity to the complex, heterogeneous play o f de ad n ess-alive n ess i n every therapy. I n some situations i t matters more, i n some less. I n some, it is a life-and-death matter. There are individuals for whom a sense o f fluctuating deadness-aliveness is a radical discovery, whereas others scarcely notice anything else. As therapists, we need to learn how to become better partners w i t h our mixed or double capacity for aliveness-deadness, so that we, o u r patients, and this precious, d u m b f o u n d i n g , and m a d d e n i n g capacity can evolve together.

Credits

T h e a u t h o r gratefully acknowledges permission to r e p r i n t the f o l l o w i n g material: Chapter 1 , "Psychic Death," originally published as "Psychic Deadness: Freud" i n Contemporary Psychoanalysis, vol. 3 1 , no. 2, pp. 277-299. Copyright © 1995 by the W i l l i a m Alanson W h i t e Institute. Reprinted by permission o f the W i l l i a m Alanson White Institute. Chapter 2, "The Destructive Force," originally published as "The Destructive Force W i t h i n " i n Contemporary Psychoanalysis, vol. 3 1 , no. 4, pp. 603-616. Copy­ r i g h t © 1995 by the W i l l i a m Alanson W h i t e Institute. Reprinted by permission o f the W i l l i a m Alanson White Institute. Chapter 3, "Goodness and Deadness," originally published i n Melanie Klein and Object Relations, vol. 13, December 1995, p p . 4 3 - 5 3 . C o p y r i g h t © 1995 by O. Weininger. Reprinted by permission o f Melanie Klein and Object Relations. Chapter 4, "Bion's N o - t h i n g , " originally published i n Melanie Klein and Object Relations, vol. 13, June 1995, pp. 31-36. Copyright © by O. Weininger. Reprinted by permission o f Melanie Klein and Object Relations. Chapter 5, "Moral Violence," originally published i n Melanie Klein and Object Relations, vol. 13, June 1995, pp. 3 7 - 4 5 . Copyright © by O. Weininger. Reprinted by permission o f Melanie Klein and Object Relations. Chapter 6, 'Two Kinds o f N o - t h i n g , " originally published i n Melanie Klein and Object Relations, vol. 13, June 1995, pp. 46—64. Copyright © by O. Weininger. Reprinted by permission o f Melanie Klein and Object Relations. Chapter 7, "The Area o f Freedom: T h e Point o f N o Compromise," originally p u b l i s h e d as " W i n n i c o t t ' s Area o f F r e e d o m : T h e U n c o m p r o m i s e a b l e " i n Liminality and Transitional Phenomena, ed. Nathan Schwartz-Salant and Murray

228

Credits

Stein, pp. 6 7 - 8 8 . Copyright © 1991 by C h i r o n Publications. Reprinted by per­ mission o f C h i r o n Publications. Chapter 8, "The I m m o r a l Conscience," originally published simultaneously in Psychotherapy and the Self-Righteous Patient, ed. Jerome A. Travers and E. Mark Stern, and The Psychotherapy Patient, vol. 7, pp. 33-44. Copyright © 1991 by Haworth Press. Reprinted by permission o f Haworth Press. Chapter 9, "The Counterpart," originally published i n Mad Parts of Sane People in Analysis, ed. Murray Stein, pp. 3 7 - 5 1 . Copyright © 1993 by C h i r o n Publica­ tions. Reprinted by permission o f C h i r o n Publications. Chapter 10, "Counterparts i n a Couple," originally published i n Contemporary Psychotherapy Review, vol. 7, pp. 42-55. Copyright © 1992 by Contemporary Psy­ chotherapy Review. Reprinted by permission o f Contemporary Psychotherapy Review. Chapter 11, "From Attraction to M e d i t a t i o n , " originally published i n Contem­ porary Psychotherapy Review, vol. 9, pp. 2 8 - 4 1 . Copyright © 1994 by Contemporary Psychotherapy Review. R e p r i n t e d by permission o f Contemporary Psychotherapy Review. Chapter 12, "Primary Process and Shock," originally published as "Primary Process and Shock: T h e Fragmentary Hallucinations o f Psychotherapy" i n C.R.E.A. T.E., vol. 5, pp. 6 4 - 6 8 . Copyright © 1995 by C.R.E.A. T.E. Reprinted by permission o f York University Faculty o f Arts, Ontario. Chapter 13, "Being T o o Good," to be published i n Psychodynamic Supervision: Perspectives of the Supervisor and the Supervisee, ed. M a r t i n H. Rock ( i n press). Copyright © by Jason Aronson, Inc. Printed by permission o f Jason Aronson Inc. Chapter 16, "Disaster Anxiety," originally published simultaneously i n Psycho­ therapy and the Dangerous Patient, ed. Jerome A. Travers and Mark Stern, and The Psychotherapy Patient, vol. 9, pp. 59—76. C o p y r i g h t © 1994 by H a w o r t h Press. Reprinted by permission o f H a w o r t h Press. Chapter 18, "Boa and Flowers," originally published i n Psychoanalytic Dialogues, vol. 1 , pp. 106-119. Copyright © 1991 by T h e Analytic Press. Reprinted by permission o f The Analytic Press. Excerpts f r o m Developments in Psycho-Analysis, ed. M . K l e i n , P. H e i m a n n , S. Isaacs, and J. Riviere. L o n d o n : T h e H o g a r t h Press, 1952. Courtesy o f the Estate o f Melanie Klein. I n addition, permission has kindly been granted for the use, i n Chapters 4, 5, and 6, o f extracts f r o m W i l f r e d Bion's Transformations, by the British publisher, H. Karnac Books, L i m i t e d , L o n d o n ; by Mrs. Francesca B i o n ; and by the A m e r i ­ can publisher, Jason Aronson, Inc., Northvale, New Jersey.

Index

Abuse, violence, structures of, 208211

Affect, ego-affect-object, splitting

of, destructive force, 31

Aggression, regulation of, 30

Anxiety

death and, 28

disaster anxiety, 187-200

Area of freedom, 69-87

incommunicado self, 80-82

intermediate area, 70-71

objects, phenomena, and area,

70

from object to function, 74

object use, 75-76

overview of, 69

subjective pool and linking with

experience, 72-74

survival and, 82-86

unintegration, 76-80

Attraction, meditation and, 127138

Balint, M,, 102

Bion, W. R., xix, xx-xxi, xxii, 21n3,

29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 38, 4548, 49, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55-67,

93, 96n2, 98, 104, 105, 106,

121,216nl,225

Blake, W., 10

Bollas, C , 101

Boris, H., xvii

Breast

goodness, 37-39

splitting and, 29-30

Buber, M., 71

Causation, moral violence, psychic murder as, 50-53

Certainty, deadness and, 166-167

Clinton, W. J., 207-208

Conscious mind, unconscious and,

101

Counterpart, 101-113

case illustration, 107-112

married couple, 115-126

force and, 104-107, 112-113

overview of, 101

splitting and, 102-104

taint and, 102

Countertransference, immobilitymovement, 14

Creativity, unconscious and, 76

Death

existentialism and, 25

psychosis and, 26

Winnicott on, 85-86

230 Death instinct

destructive force, 28-29

drive theory and, 6, 12, 25

fantasy and, 38-39

Definition, moral violence, psychic

murder as, 53-54

Deri, S., 225, 226

Destruction, love and, fantasy, 75

Destructive force, 25-36

death instinct, 28-29

ego-affect-object, splitting of, 31

ego and objects, 29-30

fetal life, 26-28

internal, 33-35

overview of, 25-26

roots of deadness, 31-33

Disaster anxiety, 187-200

Dissolving, goodness, excessive,

deadness and, 43

Dream analysis, counterpart, case

illustration, married couple,

125-126

Dreams, pain and, 21

Drive theory, death and, 6, 12, 25.

See also Death instinct

Ego

collapse of, 71

mother-infant dyad, 37-38

objects and, destructive force,

29-30

Egoaffect-object, splitting of,

destructive force, 31

Ehrenzweig, A., 21n3

Eigen, M., 16, 21n3, 25, 39, 52, 74,

76, 78, 79, 80, 81, 98, 104, 121,

193,216nl,220

Elkin, H., 30, 96n2

Emery, E., xvii

Emotional starvation, 173-185

Evil

no-thing and, 64

Winnicott and, 83-84

Index Existentialism

death and, 25

intermediate area and, 71

Experience

immoral conscience and, 93

linking with, area of freedom,

72-74

omniscience and, 97

Fairbairn, W. R. D., 26, 104

False self

force and, 104-105

true self and, 101

Fantasy

death instinct and, 38-39

love and destruction, 75

Ferenczi, S., xviii-xix, xx

Fetal life, destructive force, 2628

Fliess, W., 76, 182

Force

counterpart and, 104-107, 112113

immoral conscience as, 9396

Fragmentary wholeness, primary

process, 146-147

Free association, unconscious and,

76

Freedom. See Area of freedom

Freezing, goodness, excessive,

deadness and, 43

Freud, S., xvii-xviii, xx, 5-*!6, 19,

20, 22, 25, 27, 28,31,40, 71,

76, 78, 82, 93, 96, 101, 142,

147,167,171, 182,187, 214

Gender uncertainty, 159-171

Good enough parent

survival and, 83

Winnicott and, 80-81

Goodness, 37-44

core goodness, 37-39

Index excessive

case illustration, 149-158

deadness and, 3 9 - 4 0 , 4 1 - 4 3

idealization and hallucination,

40-41

W i n n i c o t t and, 8 3 - 8 4

Green, A., xvii, 80

Grotstein, J., xvii

G u n t r i p , H., 81

Hallucination, idealization and,

40-41

Hallucinosis, n o - t h i n g , intolerance

of, 4 7 - 4 8

Hate, i m m o r a l conscience, mental

evolution and, 9 8 - 9 9

Heidegger, M., 57

H i l l , A., 201-211

Hobbes, T., 71

Homosexuality, gender

uncertainty, 159-171

Hysteria, violence, structures of,

202-203

Idealization

hallucination and, 4 0 - 4 1

splitting and, 3 9 - 4 0

Illusion, transitional object and, 72

Immobility, psychic death,

Freudian perspective o n , 1 0 ­ 12

I m m o r a l conscience

case illustration, 91—93

force of, 9 3 - 9 6

mental evolution and, 9 8 - 9 9

omniscience and, 9 6 - 9 8

self-righteousness, 9 1 - 9 9

self-righteousness and, 91

Impact, primary process, 143-144

Incommunicado self, area o f

freedom, 8 0 - 8 2

Intensity, psychic death, Freudian

perspective o n , 10

231 Intermediate area, area o f

freedom, 7 0 - 7 1

Jung, C. G., xvii, 11, 25, 7 1 , 101

Kafka, F., 16

Khan, M., 102

Khrushchev, N., 208

Klein, M., x i x - x x , 25-35, 37-40, 60,

69, 70, 71, 104

Kohut, H., xvii

Koresh, D., 191-192, 194

Lacan, J., xvii, 45, 101

L i b i d o theory, death and, 6, 9

Lies, violence, structures of, 2 0 1 ­ 211

Love, destruction and, fantasy, 75

Madness. See Psychosis

Mahler, M., 69

Masson,J. M., 13

Matte-Bianco, I . , 15, 21n3

M a x i m u m - m i n i m u m states, psychic

death, Freudian perspective

on, 8

McCarthy, J., 208

Meditation, attraction and, 1 2 7 ­ 138

Meltzer, D., 96n2

Mercilessness, worthlessness and,

135-138

Metaphor, reality and, 58

Michelangelo, 19

Miller, A., 214

M i l n e r , M., 21n3, 38, 80

MiltonJ.,66,91,219

M o r a l violence, psychic murder as,

49-54

Moss, D. M., 209

M o t h e r - i n f a n t dyad

ego, 37-38

W i n n i c o t t and, 8 0 - 8 1

232 Movement, psychic death,

Freudian perspective o n , 1 3 ­ 16

No-thing

intolerance of, 4 5 - 4 8

two kinds of, 5 5 - 6 7

Noy, P., 21n3

Object, use of, area o f f r e e d o m ,

75-76

Objects

area o f freedom, p h e n o m e n a

and area, 70

ego-affect-object, splitting of,

destructive force, 31

ego and, destructive force, 2 9 ­ 30

Omniscience, i m m o r a l conscience

and,96-98

Pain, dreams and, 21

Paranoid ideology, violence,

structures of, 203

Phenomenology

Freudian perspective and, 9

intermediate area and, 71

Phillips, A., 80

Play, transitional experience, 79

Primary process, 139-147

as capacity, 142-143

case illustration, 139-142

fragmentary wholeness, 1 4 6 ­ 147

impact and movement, 143-144

psychic substrata, 144-146

Primary processes, psychic death,

19-24

Process, symbol and, 7 2 - 7 3

Projection-introjection, death and,

29

Projective identification, ego-affect­ object splitting, 31

Index Psychaesthenia, 9

Psychic death, 3 - 2 3

certainty and, 166-167

description of, 3 - 5

emotional starvation, 173-185

Freudian perspective o n , 5 - 1 6

generally, 5 - 8

immobility, 10-12

intensity and, 10

m a x i m u m - m i n i m u m states, 8

movement and, 1 3 - 1 6

quantitative factor i n , 8 - 1 0

sensitivity i n , 1 2 - 1 3

processing and, 1 9 - 2 4

psychoanalysis as, 2 1 3 - 2 2 4

Winnicottiah perspective o n , 1 6 ­ 19

Psychic murder, as moral violence,

49-54

Psychopath

no-thing and, 64

violence, structures of, 203-204

Psychosis

death and, 26

unintegration and, 7 7 - 8 0

violence, structures of, 205-207

Quantitative factor, psychic death,

Freudian perspective o n , 8 - 1 0

Reality, metaphor and, 58

Reich, W., xvii

Religion, disaster anxiety, 187-200

Rightness, i m m o r a l conscience,

mental evolution and, 9 8 - 9 9

Rodman, F. R., 101

Rodman, R., 16

Rycroft, C , 21n3

Self, incommunicado self, area o f

freedom, 8 0 - 8 2

Self-righteousness, i m m o r a l

conscience and, 91

233

Index Sensitivity, psychic death, Freudian

perspective o n , 12-13

Sex change surgery, 159-171

Sexuality, attraction to m e d i t a t i o n ,

127-130

Shock, primary process and, 1 3 9 ­ 147. See also Primary process

Space

moral violence, psychic m u r d e r

as, 4 9 - 5 4

spaceless, n o - t h i n g and, 6 5 - 6 7

Splitting

breast and, 2 9 - 3 0

counterpart and, 102-104

o f ego-affect-object, destructive

force, 31

excessive, roots o f deadness, 3 1 ­ 33

idealization and, 3 9 - 4 0

K l e i n and, 25

Subjectivity

ego and, 71

p o o l of, area o f freedom, 7 2 ­ 74

Surgery, sex change, 159-171

Survival, area o f freedom and, 8 2 ­ 86

Symbol

o f death, 6

emotional reality and, 55

overuse of, 72

process and, 72-73

Taint, counterpart and, 102

Thomas, C , 201-211

Time, m o r a l violence, psychic

m u r d e r as, 4 9 - 5 4

Transitional experience, play, 79

Transitional object

centrality of, 69

illusion and, 72

f r o m object to f u n c t i o n , 74

object use, 7 5 - 7 6

Transsexual surgery, 159-171

Trauma, primary process and, 1 3 9 ­ 147. See also Primary process

T r u e self

false self and, 101

force and, 104-106

W i n n i c o t t and, 8 4 - 8 5

Truth

change and, 167-168

violence, structures of, 201-211

Unconscious

conscious m i n d and, 101

free association and, 76

Unconscious processing,

counterpart, case illustration,

m a r r i e d couple, 113-125

U n i n t e g r a t i o n , area o f freedom,

76-80

Van Gogh, V., 101

Violence. See also Aggression

moral, 49-54

n o - t h i n g , intolerance of, 47

structures of, 201-211

Weil, E., 102

W i n n i c o t t , C., 85

W i n n i c o t t , D. W., xix, x x i - x x i i i , 10,

16-19, 26, 30, 38, 69-87, 101,

220

Worthlessness, mercilessness and,

135-138

' M i c h a e l Eigen has t i m e a n d t i m e a g a i n d r a w n powerful a n d highly unique perspectives for us o n fascinating a n d t r o u b l i n g clinical issues. In Psychic Deadness, he brings his exciting vitality to bear on a clinical syndrorrw|| that has long eluded significant understanding and formulation - the phenomenon of being emotionally " d e a d " . In elucidating this enigmatic, widespread entity he does "due diligence" to the works of a vast array of relevant contributors on the subject. His clinical examples, drawn as they are in such exquisite depth, reveal the tragic unaliveness of each patient with unforgettable poignancy. His depictions of his psychoanalytic resuscitation methods for treating them alone is worth more than the price of the b o o k /

James 5. Grotstein

'Eigen's work is unusually open to the reactions of his readers, who are never indif­ ferent to what he is doing. It is a paradox surely close to the heart of his work that he can make something so inspiring out of the ways in which we patch ourselves with deadness. Psychic Deadness will add immeasurably to Eigen's subtle, though not always acknowledged, influence on much of the most interesting contemporary psychoanalytic theory/

A d a m Phillips 'This prolific writer offers us a stimulating, in-depth investigation of psychic deadness and demonstrates the way in which therapy can help the growth of psychic alive- • ness and achieve a balanced oscillation between these two states. Psychoanalysis is fortunate to have in its ranks a fine thinker who can vividly communicate through his writing (described by him as "one of my favorite torments") his passionate devo­ tion to the study of the kaleidoscopic nature of human behaviour/

Francesca Bion

Michael Eigen is also the author of THE PSYCHOTIC CORE THE ELECTRIFIED TIGHTROPE TOXIC NOURISHMENT DAMAGED BONDS Photograph Copyright © Steve Kahn

KARNAC

ISBN 1-85575-386-3

6 Pembroke Buildings LONDON N W 1 0 6 R E www.karnacbooks.com

78 1 85 5II 7 5 386 CMl