Accessing the multitude within: A psychoanalytic perspective on the transformation of masculinity at mid‐life1

This paper reflects upon the essential components of male identity that commonly are reworked in middle age. The author argues that healthy masculine gender identity involves an ongoing, plastic process of destabilization and reconstruction at various pivotal developmental stages, particularly during middle adulthood. In essence, a man's mature transformation of his sense of masculinity results when finite concepts of gender identity are superseded by an awareness of the complexity of one's multiple, early and diverse gender identifications. A clinical case provides insight into how psychoanalytic treatment can contribute to a new experience of masculinity. The case illustrates how a maturing man, meeting an altered sense of identity in mid‐life, relies less on gender splitting and more on reuniting previously antithetical intrapsychic elements. Why this more pluralistic, polythreaded masculinity frequently must wait until mid‐life is further clarified. Specific importance is attached to the early development of male gender identity as it is founded on the boy's unique struggles in separating from his mother. The foundation for male gender identity formation is reconsidered as the author questions the ‘dis‐identification’ model while explicating how the boy's striving for narcissistic completion shapes the gendered masculine ego ideal. Classically termed ‘phallicism’ is understood both to facilitate and obstruct a man's adult development, while the concept of ‘genitality’ is augmented by the postclassical notion of ‘interiority’. At mid‐life, ‘phallic’ ego ideals (resting on omnipotence, desires for narcissistic completion and gender splitting) are transformed into more realistic, ‘genital’ ego ideals (synthesizing autonomy and connection). The achievement of a mature, less sharply gendered ‘masculine’ ego ideal (revitalizing the foreclosed dimensions of both the early maternal and paternal imagos) occurs as the balance of forces shifts in the direction of true genitality rather than defensive phallicism.     

The shaping of masculinity: Revisioning boys turning away from their mothers to construct male gender identity

This paper offers an understanding of the nature of the internalization processes involved in the shaping of male gender identity founded on the boy's unique struggles in separating from his mother. The underpinning for the initial development of a sense of masculinity is reconsidered as the author questions the widely held idea of Greenson and Stoller that a boy normatively has to 'dis-identify' from his mother to create his gender identity. Import rather is placed on the conscious and unconscious aspects of the mother's (and father's) pre-oedipal and oedipal relationship with their little boy in order better to understand the nature of the boy's unique identifications and subsequent sense of masculinity. Both the security of the boy's attachment to his mother, in providing the foundation for a transitional turning to an 'other', and the mother's capacity to reflect upon and recognize her own, as well as the father's and her son's, subjectivity and maleness, are crucial in comprehending boys' 'attachment-individuation' process. Likewise, the unconscious paternal and maternal imagos and identifications of both the boy's mother and father, as well as the father's pre-oedipal relationship with his little boy and the boy's mother, are extremely significant in shaping a son's gender identity. The author argues that these early maternal (and paternal) identifications live on in every male and continue to impact the sense of maleness in a dialectical interplay throughout the life span. A maturing gender identity develops from integrating these early, pre-oedipal maternal identifications that no longer need be repudiated nor defensively organized as polarized gender splitting.     

Say hello to the scream extractor: working with an autistic child with psychotic mechanisms

This paper describes the first two years of intensive psychotherapy with a six-year-old boy diagnosed with autism. I explore the many ways in which he retreated from reality, most frequently by taking refuge inside the maternal body or flying off into an imaginary space world. He fragmented his identity and that of his objects by using the discourse of fictional characters. Everything was externalised; there was little transmutation of material available for thought. I consider his dilemma – the wish to fuse with the object and the fear of being engulfed; the omnipotent denial of the need for an object and of the parental relationship, leading to an inability to make links. The paper discusses working with a child who experienced any ‘paternal’ firmness as persecuting and destructive. The softer, receptive maternal mind of the therapist was more easily tolerated. He gradually began to internalise a more benign combined object, as he became more able to bear separateness from the other.     

The ‘Radical’ Revisions of the Commentary on the Seven Penitential Psalms: Luther and his ‘Enemies’ (1517-1525)

Abstract

The context in which Luther wrote his original commentary on the Seven Penitential Psalms (1517) was very different from the later edition at the time of the Peasants’ Revolt (1525). While revising his writing purportedly to update it due to his improved knowledge of Hebrew, Luther himself now read the words of the Psalmist through a new lens. He connected passages about the Psalmist's ‘enemies’ to those whom he himself struggled against during that period, in particular his ‘radical’ contemporaries. Previous studies that have compared the 1517 edition with the 1525 revision have examined only internal factors that may have influenced the revision. By taking account of the external factors as well, this study attempts to account for both what motivated his decision to make the revisions and the manner in which Luther changed the translation and commentary.     

Tyler in the Labyrinth: A Young Child’s Journey from Chaos to Coherence

This paper describes the treatment of a young boy who was abused and neglected in infancy. It examines the challenges of working in the intimate territory of early trauma when a child is too fragmented to play. The therapist supported affect regulation to help the child experience a coherent sense of himself. As the boy became more integrated and related, the opening of transitional space became possible, and with it, the emergence of creativity. His growing capacity to play and his discovery of the rich utility of stories are discussed. A children’s book of Greek myths, in particular, the story of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth, held special meaning for him, and for the therapist too. As the child became increasingly related and symbolic, he eventually began to tell his own extraordinary story.     

Humour and creativity*

‘He laughed to free himself from his mind's bondage’ (James Joyce). ‘It is very strange that I never get any encouragement from psychiatric audiences when I want to talk about art or humour’ (Gregory Bateson). ‘Let us not always assume that a sense of humour is always mocking. It could be loving’ (Gregory Bateson).     

Scientific Writing Between Tabloid Storytelling,Arcane Formulaic Hermetism,and Narrative Knowledge

The present discussion contribution argues that O. Müller not only suppresses Goethe’s declared intentions with regard to the latter’s Theory of Colors and ignores his place in what in any case is a different scientific culture than his (Müller’s) own or Newton’s, namely a premodern culture of “narrative knowledge” in the sense specified by Lyotard. Moreover, Müller entangles himself in the paradox of wanting on the one hand to back up Goethe on the level of fact when the latter opposes the militant selfrighteousness of the Newtonian school, but doing so on the other hand by constructing an epic-heroic narrative of Newtonian militance, not to say eristic belligerence contradictory to Goethe’s own “tolerant enlightenment” in Lakatos’ sense. Thus, we are confronted with one of those cases where, as Paul de Man puts it, a multidimensional critical reading on the semiological as well as rhetorical levels shows “that the text does not practice what it preaches” (1979, 5).     

Dimensionality,identity and security: finding a home through psychoanalysis

This paper suggests that Meltzer’s understanding of the development of inner space can be thought about in relation to how a state of ‘being at home’ can be impaired through early trauma and developmental failure. It shows how a very young child developed a greater capacity for recognising inner and outer experience and consequently a greater awareness of inner space through intensive psychotherapy. Clinical material is presented in which this two-year-old boy moves from profound disorientation and disconnection, through physical containment and moments of communication, to some shared expression and symbolisation of his preoccupations. The author uses episodes from the psychotherapy to illustrate links between Meltzer’s thoughts on impaired interior dimensionality and a resulting terror of the ‘breaking of surfaces’ with Winnicott’s understanding of the necessary ‘gravitational pull’ of a good internal object and the negative retreat which may be caused by overwhelming anxiety. The paper suggests that a developmental approach to psychotherapy with young children has some technical ramifications which might include physical containment, emphasised attunement, simple observational commentary and developmental interpretation. The relationship between interior and exterior spatial awareness is discussed and brief reference is made to a study of psychotherapy with homeless adults regarding their capacity to make use of a physical home. Finally, Bion’s encouragement to abandon memory and desire is discussed in relation to the need traumatised children may have for environmental hope and hopefulness in the person of their therapist.     

Austin on knowing

Philosophical anthropology is a broad‐gauged study of man drawing on the findings of empirical sciences and the humanities. The paper is intended as a tribute to one of the pioneers in this field. The first part outlines central features of Plessner's conception, focusing on man's instinctual deficiency and his ‘eccentric position’ in the world; man from this perspective is an ‘embodied’ creature in the dual sense of experiencing the world through his bodily organs and of ‘having’ a body and being able to reflect on his mundane situation. In social terms the perspective implies that man can find himself only through embodiment in institutional settings and role patterns ‐ settings which, however, remain open to reinterpretation and revision. Subsequently Plessner's outlook is compared and contrasted with alternative views of the human condition. According to Gehlen, man's instinctual deficiency an openness need to be corrected through institutional stability and the standardization of role structures. Reviewing leading writings of the ‘counter‐culture’, a final section explores contemporary anti‐institutional trends which see man as a fugitive from social constraints and his search for self‐fulfilment as antithetical to role patterns.     

Sense of agency in narrative processes of repeatedly convicted drunk drivers

The study examines sense of agency as this appears in the narratives of two repeatedly convicted drunk drivers during the five-hour counselling sessions. The cases were chosen from a total of 30 cases, as representing the opposite polar types of action stories. Analysis of narrative processes showed the narrators' drunk driving (DD) as opposite solutions relating to conflicts concerning their sense of agency; for the NON-AGENTIVE CLIENT (NAC) DD as a compulsive action solution represented an abandonment of her agentive position, while for the STRONGLY-AGENTIVE CLIENT (SAC) consciously chosen DD represented an attempt to assert his personal autonomy. DD provided only a momentary sense of relief from the position of agency for the NAC, and only a momentary sense of autonomy for the SAC. The clients processed differently these agentive positions. The narration of the NAC was a stable process of alternativeness throughout the counselling sessions and repeated sense of absent agency. The narration of the SAC began as controlled process that strove to avoid the issue of DD, but during the sessions it changed, as the narrator switched from regarding himself as the counsellor's opponent, to regarding himself as a participant and responsible agent.     

Father regression Clinical narratives and theoretical reflections1

The author deals with love‐hate enthrallment and submission to a primitive paternal object. This is a father‐son relationship that extends through increasing degrees of ‘primitiveness’ or extremeness, and is illustrated through three different constellations that constitute a continuum. One pole of the continuum encompasses certain male patients who show a loving, de‐individuated connection to a father experienced as trustworthy, soft, and in need of protection. Further along the continuum is the case of a transsexual patient whose analysis revealed an intense ‘God‐transference’, a bondage to an idealized, feared, and ostensibly protective father‐God introject. A great part of this patient's analysis consisted in a fi erce struggle to liberate himself from this fi gure. The other end of the continuum is occupied by religious terrorists, who exemplify the most radical thralldom to a persecutory, godly object, a regressive submission that banishes woman and enthrones a cruel superego, and that ends in destruction and self‐destruction. Psychoanalytic thinking has traditionally dealt with the oedipal father and recently with the nurturing father, but there is a gap in thinking about the phallic, archaic father, and his relations with his son(s). The author aims at fi lling this gap, at the same time as she also raises the very question of ‘What is a father?’ linking it with literary and religious themes.     

A father to love: eros and identification in boys – an emendation of Freud on the male oedipal drama

The relationship between a son and his father is usually characterized as primarily one of rivalry. In this emendation of classic oedipal theory, what has traditionally been referred to as the ‘negative oedipal relation’ is given prominence as a boy’s first emotionally significant relationship in which he initiates affection with another human being, his father. Such love is in the service of identification but is also as important as the template for a male’s later relationships with women (sexual), other men, and his children. A peculiarity of Freud’s relationship with his own father is suggested as the source of oversight of this element of the oedipal drama. A boy’s emotional reactive response to his mother is primarily one of gratitude in response to her love. Proactive loving is first experienced with his father.     

Life,the Unhistorical,the Suprahistorical: Nietzsche on History

Abstract

Nietzsche was a philosopher who prided himself, in deliberate contradistinction with previous philosophers, on his ‘historical sense’. But this leaves many questions unanswered about the precise role of the historical in Nietzsche’s philosophy. Perhaps most importantly, can the conception of genealogy in Nietzsche’s later philosophy, as a revised historical method, be taken to represent his mature philosophical methodology in general? I argue, firstly, that there is considerable continuity between Nietzsche’s conceptions of history in the early essay ‘On the uses and disadvantages of history for life’ and those of his later philosophy. The former can therefore be used as a resource for understanding the latter. Through a reading of the early history essay I demonstrate that Nietzsche’s conception of the historical here is intimately bound up with the notion of the ‘unhistorical’ and that it is precisely renewed access to the unhistorical which is required in order for history to be conducive to the flourishing of humanity. I go on to contend that this holds for Nietzsche’s later writings as well, and that genealogy, being purely historical, must therefore be seen as one subsidiary part of a broader philosophy in which the unhistorical will play, literally, a vital role.     

Aristotle on Pleasure and the Worst Form of Akrasia

The focus of this paper is Aristotle's solution to the problem inherited from Socrates: How could a man fail to restrain himself when he believes that what he desires is wrong? In NE 7 Aristotle attempts to reconcile the Socratic denial of akrasia with the commonly held opinion that people act in ways they know to be bad, even when it is in their power to act otherwise. This project turns out to be largely successful, for what Aristotle shows us is that if we distinguish between two ways of having knowledge (‘potentially’ and ‘actually’), the Socratic thesis can effectively account for a wide range of cases (collectively referred to here as ‘drunk-akrasia’) in which an agent acts contrary to his general knowledge of the Good, yet can still be said to ‘know’ in the qualified sense that his actions are wrong. However, Book 7 also shows that the Socratic account of akrasia cannot take us any farther than drunk-akrasia, for unlike drunk-akrasia, genuine akrasia cannot be reduced to a failure of knowledge. This agent knows in the unqualified sense that his actions are wrong. The starting-point of my argument is that Aristotle's explanation of genuine akrasia requires a different solution than the one found in NE 7 which relies on the distinction between qualified and unqualified ‘knowing’: genuinely akratic behaviour is due to the absence of an internal conflict that a desire for the ‘proper’ pleasures of temperance would create if he could experience them.     

The philosopher and the Fly Bottle

Wittgenstein said that what he does in philosophy is ‘to show the fly out of the fly bottle’ (Philosophical Investigations¶309). He is, himself, both the fly, his alter-ego, and the philosopher who turns the fly around. This is a transformation in his vision of and perspective on those matters which tempted him, through the questions it posed for him, into the bottle, there to be trapped – trapped into a form of scepticism, realism, or one of its many reductionist satellites, for instance. The transformation which releases him into the open takes philosophical work which unearths unspoken assumptions and subjects them to criticism. As for the movement into and out of the bottle, this is the philosophical journey in the course of which the philosopher comes to a new understanding of the matters he questioned in a way that led him into the bottle. To come to such a better understanding, therefore, the philosopher has to have the courage of his temptations and not be afraid to give up what he holds on to. What he learns in coming out of the bottle belongs to the work that frees him from the compelling pictures that held him captive within the space of opposed theories held together by common assumptions. It cannot be acquired or conveyed independently of such work. It is in this sense that philosophy is a struggle with difficulties which each philosopher has to face and work through himself. The difficulties are not in him, but they are his– they are difficulties for him. He has to work on them. That is why, while he can learn from others, he cannot borrow from them, build on or go on from what they have established. In the first section of the paper I put on some flesh on this. But what I provide is still a thumb-nail sketch. The question ‘what is philosophy?’ is itself a philosophical question, like any other, and can only be ‘answered’ like them. It is only that with which we are familiar – in our mastery of the language we speak or in our experience of life –that can raise philosophical questions for us. Thus contrast ‘what is knowledge?’, ‘what is thinking?’ with ‘what is cancer?’, ‘what is osmosis?’. The question ‘what is philosophy?’ similarly can only be asked by a philosopher, someone who has asked and struggled with its questions. Otherwise it is a request for information to which the full answer is: you have to study philosophy if you really want to find out. It follows that what I say about the way philosophical questions are to be answered applies equally to the question about the nature of philosophy. Hence I can do no other than provide a thumb-nail sketch for those who have themselves struggled with philosophical questions. As for what I provide in the following three sections, they are no more than illustrations of a way of working on those sample questions – questions on which hopefully the reader will have thought himself. I am able to offer such illustrations only because I have myself been caught up by these questions and have worked on them and discussed them more fully elsewhere (see Bibliography).     

The Russian Cusanus: S. L. Frank and the Russian reception of Nicholas of Cusa

During the intense philosophical and theological renaissance of the Russian Silver Age, the German Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) received a unique appraisal in the work of Semyon Liudwigovich Frank (1877–1950), hailed by some as ‘the greatest Russian philosopher’. This paper will show that five of Frank's central philosophical arguments can be traced directly to Cusa's writings. Once these key arguments are taken together with Frank's own comments about Cusa, it can be concluded that Frank saw himself as Cusa's modern successor, presenting his ideas in a different intellectual context. In this sense, we can speak of Frank as the ‘Russian Cusanus’. The arguments in question include Cusa's docta ignorantia, our knowledge of being, the recognition of absolute being as ‘non-other’, the identity of possibility and actuality in the absolute, and finally the coincidentia oppositorum.     

Recovery from trauma: identification with the 'octor-monter' (doctor monster) – a description of psychotherapy with a 3½-year-old boy who had come close to death at 10 days old

This paper describes intensive psychotherapy with a 3½-year-old boy who had come close to death at 10 days old, with urinary reflux and meningitis. The paper describes the way in which Jamie protected himself from unbearable terrors by being in identification with a builder. It tracks the way in which containment in the therapy allowed him to begin a process of experimenting with different identities through engaging in pretend play. The latter part of the paper looks at Jamie's subsequent development and examines the links between trauma and inconsistencies in his capacity for symbolic thought.     

Machiavelli among the doctors: The Prince and divine accommodation

This study will illustrate and reflect on how Niccolò Machiavelli shared terminology and a pattern of thought with contemporary theologians of ‘divine accommodation’. This is the idea that God, while remaining immutable, ‘accommodates’ himself to humankind's variety and to changing times in order to reveal himself profitably to his fallen creations. Theologians extended the capacity for accommodation to Christ's disciples and apostles, especially Paul. According to Machiavelli, the ideal Prince or ruler accommodates himself to the changing times and variety of circumstances by choosing among an unlimited diversity of human natures and utilizing them as the times require in order to achieve his ends. It is argued, therefore, that Machiavelli secularizes divine accommodation and transposes the powers of infinite adaptability and flexibility on to the ideal rulling prince. Machiavelli acknowledges, however, that his ideal is generally impracticable; humans have given natures, and most lack the capacity to transform themselves as needed – to their ruination.