What concept is central to the psychoanalytic school. English psychoanalytic school. School of Structural Anthropology
Symbolic school
Symbolic theories of mythology that developed in the twentieth century, previously represented by the works of E. Cassirer, as well as S. Langer, M. Urban, E. Count. E. Cassirer, in which they consider mythology, language and art as autonomous symbolic forms of culture. This methodological approach involves conducting scientific research taking into account the parallelism of various cultural layers, each of which is a self-sufficient system and cannot be reduced to any other. Therefore, mythology is proposed to be understood as an independent phenomenon, which cannot be reduced either to language or to individual or collective creativity. E. Cassirer, like L. Lévy-Bruhl, draws attention to the logic of archaic thinking, in particular, the replacement of causality with similarity or proximity, the proximity of concepts. Therefore, the cause-and-effect chain takes on the character of specific material metamorphoses, while remaining symbolic. It has its own specificity and connection between perception and its rational processing in the mythological world. The researcher also notes the binary nature of mythological thinking: the world is structured around pairs of opposites. The laws of the universe are reflected in mythology as a cyclical play of the sacred and the profane, between which there are also no clear boundaries: death is like a dream, but what about birth? return of the deceased. Instead of contrasting being and non-being, does mythological consciousness view them as two complementary components of one whole? life cycle totem, individual or community. And since in mythology, instead of opposing the part to the whole, there is their identification, then the individual, totem or community at the symbolic level is the same object-subject of all mythological metamorphoses.
An extremely important aspect of E. Cassirer’s views is the idea that mythological fantasy can give birth to a mythological world only if it is nourished by emotions, and therefore myth is formed as a “fruit of emotions”, it depends on the strength of affects that act on the initial consciousness , which does not yet distinguish between the external and internal planes of consciousness, illusion and authenticity. At the same time, “speech and myth are related to each other. In the early stages of the development of human culture they are so closely connected, their interconnection is so obvious, that it is impossible to separate them from each other."
Psychoanalytic school
The study of mythology, carried out in the context of depth psychology of the twentieth century, is represented by the works of S. Freud, C. Jung, A. Rank, D. Campbell, M. Eliade and others. famous work“Totem and Taboo” S. Freud expresses the opinion that myths are illustrations of deep psychological phenomena. His teaching interprets primitive man as neuroticism, primitive rituals as mass neuroses and leads to the conclusion about the emergence of morality and religion from the so-called “Oedipus complex” (when a son, out of jealousy, kills his father and takes possession of his mother, but then repents and begins to respect the deceased father as a supernatural being before whom a person guilty). Later studies of neuroses and psychoses made it possible to expand the “mythological palette” with the help of which one can metaphorically describe and understand the deep experiences of a person and the laws of the functioning of society. Thus, C. Jung described and gave his own version of the psychological interpretation of the archetypal images of the Divine Child, the Divine Girl, the Great Mother, as well as complexes corresponding to various personality structures (Self, Persona, Shadow, Anima, Animus). In general, the tendency to decipher, “translate” mythological images into the language of psychological laws, real deep human experiences is inherent in representatives of the depth psychological school, what is connected with the practical dimension of depth psychology? psychotherapy, psychoanalytical cultural studies.
School of Structural Anthropology
Another recognized approach to the study of mythology has become structuralism, represented by the works of C. Lévi-Strauss, J. Lacan, R. Barthes and others. C. Lévi-Strauss, studying communication processes in modern and archaic societies, notes that they are impossible without sign systems. Magical, mythological thinking also functions through signs, but has a certain feature, which the researcher calls “bricolage”. The latter means the creation of any projects from random, not specially adapted materials. To use them in the process of bricolage, one must ignore their original meaning and find a completely new functional load, sometimes very unexpected, completely far from what he originally intended. Bricolage is similar to building a house in a landfill, when any found objects, their fragments, parts, which are primarily intended for other purposes, can be used as materials. "Mythology? it is an intellectual bricolage that can have brilliant and unpredictable subjects.” Comparing archaic thinking, K. Levi-Strauss writes: “mythological thinking is like a bricoleur. Produces structures by ordering events, or even the remains of events, while science, in the process of its self-foundation and thanks to the structures that it constantly produces, that is, thanks to its hypotheses and theories, creates its own means and results in the form of events. One of the varieties of structures that mythology reproduces from “material at hand” is, for example, binary oppositions such as “top/bottom”, “sacred/profane”, “nature/culture”.
As can be seen from the above review of approaches to understanding the nature, internal structure, and functioning of mythology, scientific views create a whole palette of conceptual systems through which one can in one way or another approach the interpretation of mythology.
American psychoanalyst Erich Fromm believed that a woman has to accomplish two feats in life. The first is to carry and give birth to a child, the second is to let him go on his own journey. Is any mother capable of fulfilling such a destiny? Does she always remain an ideal for her daughter or son? Loving, sacrificial, virtuous... Many of my patients complain about their parents. They talk about how strange they are, how they hurt their children when they were growing up. One patient constantly wrote to me in her diary: “I don’t see it!” It's about the mother.
It is not difficult to accumulate grievances against parents. Both mother and father are, alas, not angels. They are ordinary mortals who have their own passions, desires, and inclinations. In addition, childhood trauma, as psychoanalysis shows, largely determines life destiny. The mother of actress Natalya Gundareva did not want to admit her daughter’s first love: “This is not the person you need!” The actress later had other husbands, but she was never happy in her marriage. It turns out that the mother herself broke her daughter’s destiny as a woman.
Every person combines the past, present and future. Your parents, yourself and your children. A new life is born in the womb of an ordinary earthly woman. The Lord God has no other opportunity to extend the connection between generations. The Christian religion drew this trinity (i.e., the integrity of the three components) from this essence of man. And she made it sacred so that we could understand the only law of life. Without the past there is no present. Because there is no Son. Without the present, the future is impossible, because there will be no one to pass on the Testament. In religious literature, a covenant is an agreement between a person and God. A covenant is a good agreement. A. B. Karlin writes in the Literaturnaya Gazeta: “If the river is wide, then you can’t just throw a bridge from bank to bank, you have to put supports in the water - “bulls.” Every generation there is such a “bull” that supports the spans ", which connect it with the previous generation and with the future. There is such a technology when a new span is built on the previous support and moves forward to the next one. From our parents we received an exceptionally strong "span". We stand on the shoulders of giants."
And if it doesn’t exist, this Testament? If the parents failed to show this living connection between generations, the closeness of children and parents? If children could not realize their deep, holy kinship with their parents? Then the Covenant is replaced in the human soul by a momentary order. By order. Then the future generation is passed on not the Testament of how to live, but the rules of how to survive. And then the continuity of life disappears. There remain people who do not need to take risks in order to defend the Covenant for future generations, but just need to take advantage of the moment to sell something and buy something... “You are a failure!” the son angrily shouts to his mother. “You couldn’t ensure my life!" The parasite, by the way, is of heroic build, well-fed and well-groomed.
“I can’t forgive my mom. I saw her hugging a stranger. It wasn’t dad, and I was shocked. I still can’t forgive her.” But this patient was just telling me about how she secretly cheated on her husband, how happy she was in this sin...
The Christian religion is trying to drive into our consciousness the simple truth of natural human existence - there is a past, present and future. They are connected. A simple truth: love for parents is due to the fact that they gave their children life. Before this obvious fact, all other details of existence pale - childhood grievances, oddities and even vices of parents, the difficulties of life itself. My patient is 25 years old. She cries, talking about how her mother betrayed her. When the girl was 15 years old, her mother died. She left the poor baby alone, doomed her to tears and grief. It’s as if my mother passed away of her own free will. She was sick and, apparently, suffered painfully from the fact that she would never see her daughter as an adult, with her grandchildren. The Russian philosopher V.S. Solovyov in his book “The Justification of Good” writes a lot about honoring parents. Why, this is one of the universal commandments of humanity. You read and think: well, it’s so thorough, so meticulous. And so it’s clear: Sunday will happen, I’ll put flowers on my mother’s grave. But without a moral relay there is no connection between generations. There is no covenant either.
A child is never a simple copy of parental upbringing. He very early and quite independently begins to choose the shrines of life. If a girl values kindness, love, and sacrifice, she can carry these covenants throughout her life, sometimes even despite her parents’ instructions. Natalya Gundareva listened to her mother, but betrayed her love. But should you blame your mother? No, it’s not worth it - she had her reasons. Each person is responsible for his own actions. And this is the connection of times.
Psychoanalysis as a developing system
Prophecies about the rapid death of psychoanalysis have not come true. Psychoanalysis existed and continues to exist to this day. It is a living, renewing organism.
Peter Kutter
Over more than a hundred years of its existence, psychoanalysis has come a long way from the monotheory of Sigmund Freud to psychoanalytic pluralism. Going beyond simple method treatment, he “has not broken away from his maternal soil” and remains faithful to the original canons. At the same time, classical provisions are subject to critical revision and are supplemented with both original theoretical ideas and technical innovations.
Modern psychoanalysis is a scientific and practical system that has several levels and many directions. In a vertical perspective, three interrelated aspects are distinguished: 1) theoretical concepts (metapsychology, or depth psychology); 2) study of cultural processes and social institutions (applied psychoanalysis); 3) practical activities to provide psychological assistance to individuals and families (clinical psychoanalysis). In the horizontal dimension: at each of the identified levels, separate psychoanalytic schools and directions are developing. In the theoretical space, these are: the metapsychology of S. Freud; Jungian approach; object relations theory; ego psychology; structural psychoanalysis by J. Lacan and others. In the applied aspect, cultural analysis differs; social psychoanalysis; psychoanalysis of power; psychoanalytic pedagogy, etc. In relation to psychotherapeutic practice, the following are distinguished: the classical technique of psychoanalysis; psychoanalytic therapy; psychoanalytic family therapy; group-analysis. The question of the directions of psychoanalysis and the relationship between them remains open.
It is not possible to name and describe all currently existing modifications of psychoanalysis. This chapter presents the most recognized psychoanalytic schools by their contemporaries, which have made or continue to make a significant contribution to the development of the psychoanalytic movement in the “post-Freudian” space: Kleinian direction; object relations theory; Anna Freud School; ego psychology.
Despite remaining disagreements on a number of theoretical aspects and technical issues, there is a common platform between individual analytical groups that unites various currents into the system. TO specific features Modern psychoanalytic schools include the following:
There is a steady, consistent development of Freudian ideas and the basic techniques of psychoanalysis, taking into account new scientific data and a changed social environment;
Psychoanalysis as a whole is characterized by a close connection between theory and practice, during which theoretical research leads to technical innovations, and the richest therapeutic material provides the basis for the further development of the concepts of psychoanalysis;
Against the backdrop of excessive enthusiasm for clinical practice, there is a clear lack of applied and experimental research in the field of psychoanalysis, which is aggravated by the lack of an appropriate scientific specialty and dissertation councils in psychoanalysis;
The tradition of long-term and thorough training of psychoanalytically oriented specialists is preserved, which, along with theoretical training, includes long-term training analysis (personal psychotherapy of the student himself with a certified analyst), as well as a system of group and individual supervision (case analysis) under the guidance of experienced specialists;
The scope of application of psychoanalysis continues to expand and go beyond medical use - modern psychoanalysis is focused on working with various problems and patients;
Despite the fact that, in general, analytical psychotherapy remains a fairly lengthy procedure, there has been a tendency to reduce the duration of treatment, as well as the use of short-term therapy methods;
The focus of modern psychoanalysts is the therapeutic relationship as a complex system of mutual influence of the personality of the patient and the analyst, with interacting intrapsychic conflicts, defenses, transferences and resistances, while the processes of transference, resistance and countertransference are given priority.
Modern psychoanalysis is a continuously developing system. Any historical era focuses its attention on concepts that reflect the urgent needs of society. If during the period of Freud's creativity his theory of drives and the concept of infantile sexuality were especially popular, then at present the undoubted leaders in the field of psychoanalytic ideas should be recognized object relations theory And ego psychology. These trends have reached such a wide scale that they have begun to be associated with modern psychoanalysis as a whole. At the same time, there is a difficulty in differentiating modern schools of psychoanalysis. For example, in a number of scientific publications, the Kleinian approach and ego psychology are considered within the framework of the theory of object relations as a variety of the latter. An even more difficult task is to assign specific theory(author) to one or another school of psychoanalysis. For example, Melanie Klein can equally be recognized as the heir to Freud's drive theory and the founder of the object approach; Erik Erikson is identified as a neo-Freudian and an exponent of ego psychology, and Margaret Mahler is equally identified with ego psychology and object relations theory.
To clarify the identified disagreements, it is useful to turn to the history of the concepts underlying various theoretical systems, especially the terms “object relations” and “Ego” that have become so important these days.
Z. Freud put forward object concept V « Three essays on the theory of sexuality" (1905), although in a narrow sense, as "a means for satisfying drives and quickly relieving tension." In other works, Freud pointed out that the perception of the importance of other people in early childhood and failures in relationships with them determine the mental structure of the individual. At the beginning of life, an external object (mother's breast, mother, others significant people) is perceived in connection with libidinal satisfaction. The child becomes dependent on those objects that provide release of drives. An object is not necessarily something foreign to the subject; it can be equivalent to a part of his body. IN topographic model Freud emphasized the pathological influence of traumatic experience in the relationship with the object. There he also showed how unconscious desires and fantasies can turn a neutral relationship with an object into a negative one, leaving disturbing and destructive memories. IN structural theory Freud noted that identification with an object is the main point in the formation of ego and superego structures.
Freud made an important addition to the question of object relations when he revised the theory of anxiety. Since the child's ego is helpless, the external object becomes the regulator of anxiety. Freud believed that the lack of ego function in later life was due simultaneously to the strength of instinctive impulses and the weakness of external objects that regulated the child's state. He established a correspondence between anxiety associated with objects and fantasies characteristic of a certain phase of an individual's psychosexual development: fear of losing an object, fear of losing the love of an object, fear of castration and fear of punishment from the superego. According to Freud, the child's helplessness and dependence give rise to a child's sense of danger and the need to be loved, which the child carries throughout his life.
Although Freud formulated a number of important ideas in the field of object relations, he did not attempt to develop them into a unified theory. In addition, Freud's attention was focused primarily on the Oedipus complex, as a result of which the nature of early (pre-Oedipal) relationships remained outside the scope of his research.
The considered limitations were successfully overcome by psychoanalysts of subsequent generations.
Beginning in the 1930s, object relations began to be studied more closely. The works of M. Klein, A. Freud, R. Spitz, J. Bowlby, D. Winnicott, M. Balint, M. Maller and other researchers made it possible to make a breakthrough in the study of this issue and predetermined the development of psychoanalysis in subsequent years.
Since the 1940s, the concept of " an object"has become one of the key words in psychoanalysis. When using this term, different authors adhere to different meanings. In psychoanalysis, this concept is considered from three main points of view. In the traditional (philosophical) meaning, an object is correlated with a cognizing subject as something that has stable and permanent characteristics. In a psychoanalytic context, the term “object” is used either in the sense of “object of desire” or “object of love.” Object of desire- this is a person, object or image with the help of which instinct can achieve its goal and satisfaction. The object of desire does not have to be real and whole; it can also be imaginary (fantasy) and partial. Object of love(attraction) is the object of a person’s relationship (positive or negative) as a whole to something or someone, this is the relationship of the integral Self. The object of love (hate) can also be different things: a person, an instance of the Self, an ideal, an essence .
The latter meaning of the term “object” is used most often in modern psychoanalysis. The representation of a real or fantasy object in a person’s mental reality is designated as internal object. The attitude and behavior of an individual in relation to his object (internal, external) are called object relations.
The study of object relations began with systematic observations of young children and their mothers. Melanie Klein's clinical observations of infants and Anna Freud's work at Hampstead Children's Home became major sources of data for new ideas in the fields of object relations and ego psychology.
A distinctive feature of modern psychoanalysis is its close connection with practice; theories are developed on the basis of clinical observations and at the same time serve as the basis for specific therapeutic principles and methodological innovations. The following overview of the main scientific schools of modern psychoanalysis convincingly demonstrates that the theoretical ideas and practical research of psychoanalysts are mutually dependent and harmoniously complement each other, continuing the tradition of Freud and preserving the uniqueness of the psychoanalytic approach.
Kleinian direction
Throughout my work I have attached fundamental importance to the infant's first object relations—the relationship with the mother's breast and with the mother.
Melanie Klein (1882–1960) can rightfully be called one of the most influential figures in psychoanalysis. Klein not only founded her own scientific school, her research in the field of early child development predetermined the emergence of what we today call object relations theory. Her bold ideas about the infant experience and her original approaches to the analysis of patients suffering from serious mental disorders have continued to generate intense debate for many decades.
Melanie Klein (née Reitzes) was born in Vienna. She dreamed of getting a medical education, but marriage at a young age and the birth of three children prevented this. Having settled in Budapest in 1910, Melanie became interested in psychoanalysis, joining the circle of Sándor Ferenczi and undergoing personal analysis with him. In 1917 she met Freud, and in 1919 she joined the Hungarian Psychoanalytic Society, presenting a report “On the development of one child.” In 1920, Melanie Klein met with Karl Abraham, with whom she subsequently underwent personal analysis and whose ideas had the greatest influence on her psychoanalytic views. In 1921, Klein began her psychoanalytic practice with adults and children in Berlin, and in 1926, at the invitation of Ernest Jones, she moved to Britain, where her clinical and theoretical work flourished. At the same time, in the 1940s, she was subjected to severe criticism from followers of orthodox psychoanalysis, entering into an irreconcilable rivalry with Anna Freud. All this led to the split of the British Psychoanalytic Society that still persists into groups of followers of Melanie Klein and Anna Freud, as well as a neutral group occupying an intermediate position.
Melanie Klein was the first psychoanalyst to focus on the infant's early relationship with his mother as a major factor in his personality development. One of the basic provisions of Kleinian psychoanalysis was conflict between life and death instincts. The first gives rise to libidinal drives and the capacity for love; the second – destructive impulses and aggression. This conflict is actualized at the moment of birth and determines the entire subsequent mental life of the individual. " The struggle between the instincts of life and death and the resulting fear of destroying oneself and the object by one's own destructive impulses are fundamental factors in the initial relationship of the infant to the mother.» .
A newborn baby suffers from persecution anxiety, which is updated birth trauma and loss of intrauterine conditions. Prolonged or somehow complicated labor increases anxiety. Another source of danger is frustrating external conditions and the behavior of the mother. Thus, from the very beginning of life, constitutional factors closely interact with external conditions such as the birth experience and situations related to feeding and care.
To explain the dynamics of an individual’s mental development, Klein used the concept internal objects - intrapsychic representatives of relationships with other people. In the process of treating young children, she discovered that patients transferred to the analyst not so much attitudes towards real ones, but rather towards internal, imaginary parents. Klein emphasized the importance of early internal objects for the development of a child, the decisive role in the origin of which is played by unconscious fantasies about parents in the first year of life. " The picture of an object, external and transferred to the internal plane, in the child’s psyche is distorted by fantasies that are closely related to the projection of his impulses onto the object» .
At the same time, Klein viewed fantasy not as a compromise between impulses and defense mechanisms, but as a direct expression of instinct - its mental representation. Any instinctive impulse, according to Klein, is experienced through fantasy, and the function of fantasy is to serve drives. Along with unconscious fantasies, they perform an extremely important function. symbolization mechanisms– replacing real objects with their symbols.
Klein proposed that object relations exist from the very beginning of life. The first object (at the same time a symbol of the mother) is mother's breast(partial object), which, due to fear of persecution, is perceived as hostile. The baby protectively splits the breast into “good” (satisfying) and “bad” (frustrating), as a result of which already in infancy the child experiences love and hate. The attitude towards the primary object consists in the projection of these feelings onto it, as well as introjection (absorption) of the qualities of the object itself. For example, the "bad" mother's breast releases oral-sadistic and anal-sadistic impulses and the child fantasizes about attacks on it. As a result of destructive impulses, the baby develops a fear of persecution, which, in turn, brings to life various defense mechanisms. " Denial, idealization, splitting, and control over external and internal objects are used by the ego to counteract persecutory anxiety.» .
Thus, according to Klein, early object relations do not proceed smoothly for the child - from the first minutes of life they are filled with anxiety, aggression, as well as an attempt to protect themselves from them.
Because the child constantly perceives the mother from a new position or in a different way, Klein used the word " position” to describe what other analysts call the developmental stage. The term "attitude" implies a specific combination of object relations, anxiety and defense that manifests itself throughout the individual's life. " I prefer the term “position” due to the fact that certain groupings of anxieties and defenses, although they appear for the first time in the earliest stages, are not limited to their limits, but arise again and again during the first years of childhood and, under certain circumstances, throughout later life» .
Klein identified two early positions (phases) of development: paranoid-schizoid and depressive. The first position, from birth to three months, is designated as paranoid-schizoid. It is at this time that, under the influence of the death instinct, the child develops a strong persecutory fear(fear of persecution) from an external object (breast). Under the influence of paranoid fear, the child tries to destroy the breast as an object, for this purpose introjecting it inside. As a result: the hated and threatening part of oneself (the introjected breast) is split and re-projected onto the mother. This process leads to partial identification(unconscious likening to the bad parts of the mother), which establishes the prototype of aggressive object relations.
If the fear generated by the image of a “bad mother” in the first three months of life is too strong, then this, together with other reasons, will not allow the child to overcome the paranoid-schizoid position, which can cause disturbances in his behavior. For example, the source of many nutritional problems, according to Melanie Klein, is the fear of “being eaten” or “poisoned” by “bad” mother’s breasts. Fear, in turn, is caused by the infant's fantasies about the devouring and poisoning breast. Fears intensify under the influence of unfavorable objective factors, such as, for example, a lack of tender care from the mother or her physical absence.
Severe fear can also negatively affect the passage of the next stage, which determines the depressive point of fixation of the individual. If development proceeds favorably, and in particular identification with the “good” breast occurs, the child becomes more tolerant of the death instinct and resorts less and less to splitting and projection, while simultaneously reducing paranoid feelings. " Throughout my work I have attached fundamental importance to the infant's first object relations - the relationship with the mother's breast and with the mother - and have concluded that if this primary object, which is introjected, is rooted in the ego with sufficient stability, then the basis for satisfactory development is laid.» .
At approximately three months of age, the baby switches to depressive position(four to nine months). This position is considered to have a central role in early development, since during this phase introjection of whole objects– a synthesis of loved and hated aspects of an object. In other words, the child begins to perceive the “bad” and “good” parts of the mother as a single whole.
This, in turn, gives rise to guilt(Super-Ego) and grief. Now the child's anxiety is associated with the fear that he will destroy or damage the object of his love. As a result, the baby begins to look for an opportunity to introject the mother orally, as if protecting her from his destructiveness. Oral omnipotence, however, leads to the fear that the "good" external and internal object may somehow be absorbed and destroyed, and thus even attempts to preserve the object are experienced as destructive. This phase is generally characterized by depressive feelings of fear and hopelessness. " Depressive anxiety is associated with the experience of one’s own hostility towards a good mother, and therefore with feelings of guilt» .
The subsequent development of the superego and the Oedipus complex deepens the depression. At the peak of the oral-sadistic phase (at about eight to nine months of age), under the influence of fear of persecution and depressive affect, both boys and girls turn away from the mother and her breasts to the father as a new object of oral desire. The ego tries to overcome the depressive position through integration, as well as increasing cognitive interest and general activity.
Thus, fear of persecution and depressive anxiety- the main factors in the mental development of the infant, which, although they decrease as they grow older, are never completely eradicated. Excessive persecutory anxiety or depressive anxiety underlie the formation of mental disorders.
To describe the leading defenses against these fears, Klein used terms such as “projection,” “projective and introjective identification.” The essence of the projection is revealed through the following remark: “ The urge to project(“discard”), the expulsion of “bad” increases along with the fear of internal persecutors» .
At projective identification parts of the Ego and internal objects are split into “good” and “bad” and projected onto the external object. Its defensive goals are fusion with an external object, control over a destructive (“bad”) object, and preservation of the “good” parts of the Ego. Projective identification dominates within the paranoid-schizoid position, but can remain dominant throughout life. The terms “projection” and “projective identification” are used in Kleinian analysis virtually as synonyms, but with one difference: in the first case only a defense mechanism is implied, in the second also imaginary object relations.
Introjective identification is the opposite process. It includes fantasies of oral incorporation (absorption) of an object and identification (assimilation) with it. The child incorporates what he has identified as "good" and accordingly splits off and projects outward the "bad" aspects of the internal object. Introjective identification dominates in a depressive position, protecting the child from his own destructive impulses and promoting the formation of an integral object. Introjective identification can also act as a defense mechanism in the form of internalization of a “bad” external object, to reduce anxiety or preserve the value of the latter. On the contrary, if the primary object is introjected and takes root in the ego with sufficient stability, then a solid foundation is laid for the normal development of the personality.
According to Melanie Klein, the alternation of projective and introjective identification is a continuous process of reconstruction of external objects and the formation of the individual's inner world.
One of the most controversial aspects of Kleinian theory is the position according to which the experience of anxiety, the use of defense mechanisms, unconscious fantasies, and ego functions are all present in intrapsychic dynamics from the moment the child is born.
Just like the death drive, the life drive, or libido, is associated with the breast, the first external object. This “good” breast is also internalized, with the result that the struggle between the death drive and the life drive is represented as a struggle between the devouring and nourishing breasts.
Related to this is the role envy, which, according to Klein, refers to one of the most primitive and fundamental emotions. Envy exists from the first days of a baby’s life and manifests itself in the form of destructive impulses. Since the ideal breast is perceived as a source of love and kindness, the ego tries to live up to it. If this is not possible, the child tends to attack and destroy the “good” breast in order to get rid of the source of envy. To this end, he tries to split the painful affect. If the attempt is successful, the gratitude introjected into the ideal breast enriches and strengthens the ego.
« Through successive processes of disintegration and integration, a more integrated ego gradually develops, with an increased ability to cope with persecutory anxiety» .
The undoubted merit of M. Klein is that she drew the attention of psychoanalysts to the importance of the pre-Oedipal stage in the development of a child. Preoedipal fantasies were recognized by Melanie Klein as the leading determinant of child development, more important, for example, than external stress. The concepts of projection, introjection, projective identification have firmly entered the psychoanalytic lexicon and occupy a central place in modern theory object relations.
The psychoanalytic theory of development was also enriched by the position put forward by Melanie Klein that the stages of psychosexual development (according to Freud, oral, anal, phallic/genital) are not successively changing stages, but are present in every child from birth as tendencies, and early manifestations Oedipal conflicts begin to be experienced by the baby even during breastfeeding.
At the same time as all that has been said above, a number of provisions of Kleinian theory are debatable. The statement that fantasy is available to a child from birth does not correspond to the data of cognitive psychology and neurophysiology. The central position of Klein's theory that the main conflict unfolds between two innate drives, and not between different mental structures, also causes criticism. Most analysts believe that Klein minimizes the role of external objects, the environment and individual experience, practically arguing that fantasies are produced from within through the activity of impulses. Finally, although Klein’s concept is often classified as an object relations theory, for her the significance of the object is secondary compared to the significance of drives. Clearly insufficient attention is paid to the manifestation of the real qualities of an object and its role in the development of a child.
From the point of view of the practice of psychoanalysis, Klein's most important achievement was creating your own technique for working with children. Klein had a special talent for revealing the unconscious fantasies of a small child through play techniques. Instead of free association, “little Frau,” as one of the patients called her, used the method of free play, which is initiated by the child and which, like the verbal associations of an adult, becomes a way of expressing his desires, fantasies and life experiences. Klein determined what the schedule of psychoanalytic sessions should be when working with children and how the playroom should be arranged. Each child, in particular, had his own separate box of toys, and special emphasis was placed on keeping the toys small, which allowed them to act directly as symbols of the child’s inner world.
Klein's analytical technique is characterized by bold and deep interpretations from the very beginning of treatment, great attention to the analysis of negative feelings in general and negative transference in particular, the use of partial objects in language interpretations (breasts, penis, vagina, feces, “good” and “bad” mother etc.) and bodily functions (eating, excretion, sexuality). Kleinian therapy generally aims to master fear of persecution and depressive anxiety through integration individual parts early mental experience of the individual. " Only in the process of analyzing both negative and positive transference, as a result of which the analyst acts alternately in the role of a good object, now in the role of a bad object, now causing delight in the patient, now giving rise to fear in him, is the patient able to work through, and therefore modify, the early stages of anxiety; the split between good and bad figures decreases, they become more integrated, that is, aggression is softened thanks to libido» .
Thanks to her original approach, Klein was among those psychoanalysts who significantly expanded the range of clinical applications of psychoanalysis to include analytical work with severely disturbed (psychotic) patients.
Melanie Klein was not only an outstanding theorist and clinician, she founded own scientific school, which rightfully occupies a separate position in psychoanalysis. Her students were such famous psychoanalysts as Joan Riveri, Suzanne Isaacse, Paula Heimann, Wilfred Bion, Herbert Rosenfeld, Hannah Segal. It was through their efforts that works were created that gave concrete outline to the concepts of the depressive position, unconscious fantasy, and internal objects.
M. Klein, S. Isaacs, P. Heimann and J. Riveri organized the “Discussion on Contradictions” (from January 1943 to May 1944), one of the results of which was their joint work “Development in Psychoanalysis” (1952).
Suzanne Isaacs (1885–1948) provided invaluable assistance to M. Klein in the early stages of her work and during the period of scientific discussions with Viennese psychoanalysts. The works of S. Isaacs enjoy great authority among specialists in the field of analytical therapy and pedagogy (like Klein, she did not distinguish between these areas). Her articles represent the most accurate and rigorous presentation of the basic ideas of the Kleinian school and are beautifully illustrated with clinical material. Isaacs's most important scientific contribution is considered to be his detailed presentation of the concept of unconscious fantasy.
Paula Heimann (1899–1982) studied medicine and then psychoanalysis in Berlin. After emigrating to England, Heimann continued her psychoanalytic training under the guidance of M. Klein. Together with Susan Isaacs, Heimann actively defended Klein's position in the 1940s, when the Kleinian group was subjected to massive attacks from the "Viennese" psychoanalysts.
Joan Rivery (1883–1962) was a member of the British Psychoanalytic Society from its founding in 1919. She underwent personal psychoanalysis first with E. Jones, and from 1922 with S. Freud. Speaking in defense of M. Klein's work sharply strained Riveri's relationship with Freud. In 1936, at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, she gave a report on mental conflict in early infancy, which, in a revised form, was included in the book “Psychoanalysis in Development.” Riveri deeply embraced Klein's discoveries, and her unconditional merit should be recognized for her efforts to systematize them and consistently comprehend them.
Subsequently, the scientific paths of Klein, Isaacs, Heimann and Riveri diverged. Klein's work in the early 1930s, which represented an innovative approach to the problems of psychotic patients, attracted to her side a group of doctors who were not only highly professional level, but also an impeccable scientific reputation. Many of them began to undergo training analysis with Klein. Among them were W. C. M. Scott, J. Bowlby, D. W. Winnicott. Through communication and collaboration with these people, Klein acquired new knowledge necessary to understand the schizoid mechanisms - splitting, projection, introjection and projective identification. However, most of these new followers left her group soon after A. Freud arrived in London.
After the war, a new group gathered around Klein, consisting of young doctors who had recently arrived in Britain practicing psychoanalysis. This group is generally considered to be the second generation of Kleinian analysts, among whom Hannah Segal (b. 1919), Herbert Rosenfeld (1910–1986) and Wilfred Bion (1897–1979) stood out most prominently. It was they who gave a new impetus to the development of Kleinian thought, almost entirely based on the expansion and deepening of the concept of projective identification.
Klein's closest followers continued to develop the concept of projective identification and gave it a positive meaning. V. Bion offered his description of the process occurring between mother and child containerization in which the negative aspects of the self projected by the child are transformed into positive and acceptable ones. X. Segal made a clear distinction between this process and projective identification itself, which occurs when containment fails. It can be said that, in general, this line of research has developed in the direction of increasingly taking into account the influence of external object relations on the development of the child.
Kleinian psychoanalysis had a significant influence on developmental psychology, psychoanalytic therapy, and the psychodynamic theory of group processes. Over time, the image of the “Kleinian psychoanalyst” began to enjoy wide and lasting authority. There are now a growing number of psychoanalysts who call themselves "Kleinians" and even more who have been influenced by this approach. But the most encouraging thing, from our point of view, is the emerging trend towards the integration of Klein’s ideas with other areas of psychoanalytic thought. Because Melanie Klein's theory straddles the line between classical drive theory, ego psychology, and object relations, it is extremely relevant in the light of modern trend, manifested in the integration of split aspects of a single psychoanalytic knowledge.
Object Relations Theory
The first objects of a child's love are his parents.
The ideas proposed by Melanie Klein contributed to the formation of a whole direction in psychoanalysis, which was called object relations theories. Since most of the representatives of the new approach lived in Great Britain, this group is also referred to as the British School. Other, less precise names—“developmental theories” and “child psychoanalysis”—are associated with a focus on the child’s developmental process. Among the outstanding representatives of this direction: Winnicott, Spitz, Bowlby, Balint, Fairbairn, Guntrip, etc.
By focusing on early object relations, these analysts, unlike the Kleinians and Freudians, did not believe that drives play a leading role in the formation of mental structures. They considered the nature of the child's relationship with the mother and other figures as the main factor in personality development.
D. Winnicott's concept of internal reality
I am interested in the primary possession and the intermediate zone between the subjective and what is objectively apprehended.
D. Winnicott
Donald Woods Winnicott (1896–1971) is considered one of the most famous exponents of object relations theory. Winnicott was originally a pediatrician, but under the influence of the ideas of Melanie Klein and other representatives of the British Psychological Society, which was experiencing a rapid rise in the 1930s, he left pediatrics and concentrated entirely on psychoanalysis. For a long time he underwent his own analysis, first with James Strachey and then with Joan Riveri.
Winnicott first expressed his ideas about personality in the article “The Manic Defense,” which he presented on December 4, 1935 at a scientific meeting of the British Psychoanalytic Society. Already in this work, Winnicott used the concept that became key to his entire work inner reality, contrasting it with fantasy. Winnicott later explained: “ The concept of “psychic reality” leaves no room for fantasy; the concept of “inner reality” presupposes the existence of both an internal and an external world, and therefore also the existence of a limiting membrane, which refers to what I would today call the psychosome» .
Winnicott identified three processes of formation of internal reality: integration, personalization and realization (perception of time, space and other qualities of reality). He believed that at the very beginning the personality is unintegrated. Under unfavorable conditions, the individual may return to this state primary lack of integration. If integration is incomplete or partial, then states of dissociation arise in internal reality. Normal development, on the contrary, is accompanied by increased integration of mental phenomena, the achievement of true selfhood and the formation of a sense of reality.
Unlike Rank, Freud and Melanie Klein, Winnicott believed that the trauma of birth was in most cases unimportant. Statements about the innate nature of the infant's fantasies and intrapsychic structures also caused him great doubts. Relationships with the real world in the person of the mother are what is really important for the newborn to acquire the quality of personality. While Freud saw the ego as struggling with two tyrants - the drives, on the one hand, and external reality, on the other, Winnicott considered the latter an ally of the maturation processes in the infant and explored how the external world (the mother) contributes to the transformation of the physiological and the child’s mental potential into selfhood.
The relationship between mother and child became a central theme in Winnicott's work. The paradoxical statement made by Winnicott during a discussion at a scientific meeting of the British Psychoanalytic Society in 1940 is widely known: “ Babies don't exist at all. By this, of course, I mean that whenever we talk about a baby, we must also talk about maternal care - without maternal care there would be no baby» .
The role of the mother, according to Winnicott, begins with primary maternal concern. This is a special mental state that occurs before the birth of a child and persists until the first few weeks of his life. By tuning into the child, the mother responds to the needs of the fetus and provides him with optimal conditions for “entering the world.” On the contrary, if, due to objective or subjective reasons, she does not want a child or cannot tune in to him, this is the first serious negative factor on the path to the normal development of the baby.
After childbirth, the mother's function is to provide care for the child. Caring is manifested in the specific actions and abilities of the mother, namely in constant presence, understanding the child’s wishes and providing for his needs, the ability to calm the baby, stability of her own reactions, organization and regulation of external influences, and later in free play using toys.
Winnicott called the ability of a mother to enter into the position of a baby and at the same time satisfy his needs primary maternal care. First, these are bodily needs, which gradually turn into the needs of the Self, while as a result of the development of imagination, psychological needs are formed. A contact is then established between the mother's self and the child's self, from which the mother is eventually freed again, and the child, at the appropriate moment, comes to a positive image of the mother as a person.
In this regard, Winnicott introduced the concept good enough mother as a mother who understands the needs of the child and provides him with optimal comfort. Such a mother initially responds to every call of the baby, supporting his infantile sense of omnipotence. As the child grows and his mental capabilities increase, the mother allows more and more frustrations, which a healthy child learns to cope with. Gradually, the feeling of omnipotence is replaced by a sense of reality and a healthy self, and the need for a mother decreases naturally. At the same time, the mother should not be “ideal” - fulfilling all the desires of the growing child, she should fulfill only his most important and true needs. Both situations turn out to be equally dangerous for the child’s mental development - complete ignorance of the child’s needs by the mother, and excessive indulgence in them. " A good enough mother is one who actively adapts to the infant's needs and whose active adjustment decreases as the infant's ability to tolerate frustration increases.» .
Thus, according to Winnicott, an infant cannot begin exist until certain conditions occur. Maternal care is the essence of these conditions. It consists of providing for the needs of a dependent child, as well as organizing the influences of the outside world. Care (aka support) is based not on intellectual understanding, but on the mother’s ability to empathize with the child’s condition. Such care creates a sense of security in the child. Focusing on the needs of the child, “mirroring” his emotional states, the mother contributes to the development of his true self.
It is important for an infant to experience his dependence on the care of his mother (the outside world). Winnicott divides the infant's dependency in the support phase into three stages:
1) absolute dependence - in this state, the baby has no opportunity to know anything about maternal care, which is largely a matter of prevention; he cannot control what is done well and what is done poorly, he is only able to benefit or suffer from violations;
2) relative dependence - the infant may express a need for maternal care and establish a clearer connection between care and its impulses (later, during psychoanalytic treatment, this person may reproduce such dependence in the transference);
3) the path to independence - the infant becomes able to cope without real care, which is achieved through the accumulation of memories of care, the projection of personal needs and the introjection of specific manifestations of care, along with the development of trust in the outside world, play and creativity.
In the process of separation from the primary object (mother), the child finds substitutes for her, which Winnicott considered as transitional objects. This could be a soft toy or a corner of a blanket, which is used by the child when he is stressed or falls asleep when the mother is not available. The age of appearance of the transitional object is four – six – eight – twelve months. The transitional object creates the illusion of comfort, comparable to a soothing mother. It also signifies the original experience of possessing an object—non-I possession. With the help of a transitional object, the infant evolves from total control to manipulative control. In the case of an insufficiently good mother, transitional objects do not lose their significance even after the age of three and can take on the quality of a fetish. " Transitional objects and transitional phenomena belong to the realm of illusions, which is the basis for subsequent experience» .
Winnicott himself notes that the transitional object is not in the strict sense a thing (a handkerchief or teddy bear) that the child is handling; it is not so much a used object as using the object. This object is located in the transition region - between psychic reality and the external world. In accordance with this theory, works of art have all the qualities of a transitional object, since they continue the internal reality of the individual to the outside. Thus, the use of a transitional object is closely related to the function of symbolization. “It is true that a piece of blanket (or any other object) is a symbol of some partial object, such as a breast. However, the main thing is not its symbolic value, but reality. The fact that it is not a breast (or a mother) is just as important as the fact that it replaces a breast (or a mother).”.
Winnicott described the features of the child’s relationship to the transitional object in the book “Game and Reality”. In a certain sense, the child renounces his own omnipotence in relation to the object. Tender feelings are shown towards the object. It should not change unless the child himself wishes it. He must tolerate passionate love just as much as he tolerates hatred and aggression. At the same time, the transitional object should provide the child with a feeling of warmth and create the impression that he is alive and has his own reality. While for adults an object relates to the surrounding world, for a child it does not relate to either the external world or the inner world and is not a hallucination. It serves the purpose of gradually weakening libidinal cathexis. Over time, the transitional object loses its meaning as the child moves beyond the transitional area.
During his forty years of work at Paddington Green Children's Hospital and the Royal Children's Hospital, Winnicott dealt with almost sixty thousand babies, children, mothers, fathers and grandparents. This allowed him to appreciate the role of imagination and play in the transitional sphere from which all genuine, spontaneous manifestations of personal self-realization draw their impulses - what Winnicott designated as the true self.
The true self is both the psychic structure and the innate potential that is the essence of the child. Winnicott does not formulate specific characteristics of the true self, naming spontaneous expression as its leading manifestation. Initially, the drives of the id are external to the ego, “like a sound or a clap of thunder.” Gradually the baby's ego becomes stronger and as a result reaches a state in which the demands of the id are perceived as part of the self, and not as something coming from the outside world. When this development begins, the satisfaction of the It becomes a very important factor in the strengthening of the Self or true self; however, the impulses of the id can be traumatic if the ego is not yet able to assimilate them.
The false self is also a stable, reversible structure, but it is expressed in a false perception of oneself and reactive manifestations.
By introducing the concept of the false self, Winnicott questioned the traditional technique of analyzing defenses, since in this case the patient's false self can cooperate indefinitely with the therapist, taking his side. This “unproductive work,” according to Winnicott, can be reduced if the analyst points out the absence of any important trait or the patient’s insincerity with himself in order to clear the path of communication with the true self.
In this regard, Winnicott suggested that fantasy may become a permanent way of maintaining a person's false self structure. Moreover, he believed that classical psychoanalytic technique, with its preoccupation with the interpretation of unconscious fantasies, could also become a companion to the patient's false self and turn his symptoms into a chronic condition. Thanks to this position, Winnicott was often able to change the patient's internal reality through awareness of the way in which a specific dissociation (splitting) of the true and false self manifested itself in him.
In his work with so-called delinquent children, Winnicott showed that antisocial behavior was a way of expressing their needs and making demands on the environment. Antisocial tendencies are known to include stealing and lying, impulsiveness, and an inability to follow rules. Winnicott emphasized that antisocial tendency is not a diagnostic term. It cannot be directly compared with other diagnostic categories such as neurosis or psychosis. An antisocial tendency can be characteristic of a normal individual, as well as those who are neurotic or psychotic.
According to Winnicott, antisociality is preceded by real deprivation(not just deficit) when there is a loss of something positive and important. Deprivation includes both early and later events, both momentary trauma and chronic traumatic conditions. In the antisocial tendency of children there are always two main directions (something may be more pronounced) - theft and destructiveness. In the first case, the child is looking for something somewhere (search for an object), and if he cannot find it, then he looks elsewhere as long as hope remains. In the second option, the individual strives for the degree of stability of the environment when it will be able to tolerate his impulsive behavior. Both the first and second are a search for disappeared conditions in the external environment - a human relationship that can be relied on and which, therefore, provides the individual with freedom of action and emotional expression.
Winnicott compared the clinical situation and his attitude towards the regressed patient with the way the “ordinary, self-giving mother” cares for her infant and small child. The mother, through her understanding of the needs of the small child, helps him find objects in a creative way. It promotes creative use of the world. If this fails, the child loses contact with objects; he loses the ability to find things in a creative way.
Winnicott repeatedly emphasized the importance of paradox and play for the success of therapeutic intervention. Winnicott equates play with the creative process. Free play expands the possibilities of dialogue between mother and child, embodied in a means of expressing his true self. Winnicott found that a patient who finds himself in a difficult situation is unable to formulate what he needs, - not because of their resistance, but because of their inability to join game, which we call free association. Therefore, the analyst must understand this, meet the patient halfway, recognizing his needs and responding to them.
According to contemporaries, Winnicott masterfully used these ideas in an analytical situation. He created an atmosphere of “a special kind of intimacy,” with its spontaneity of words and actions during play with a child (for example, in doodles) or during a therapeutic session with an adult patient, when he supported his regression to the stage of childhood dependence. " Psychotherapy is carried out where two spheres of play intersect: the patient’s sphere of play and the therapist’s sphere of play. It follows from this that the work of the therapist where play is impossible is aimed at bringing him from a state in which the patient cannot play to a state in which he can play.» .
Thus, Winnicott gradually came to understand the connections between maternal care, the infant's ability to use imagination and transitional phenomena, the truth of the self, and the adult's ability to creatively use cultural acquisitions.
Clinical and experimental studies by Rene Spitz
Children deprived of love turn into adults filled with hatred.
René Spitz (1887–1974), Austro-American psychoanalyst, was a pioneer in experimental studies of the meaning of early relationships (in Russian-language literature the surname Spitz is often spelled Spitz). Soon after World War II, he made a series of observations of infants in orphanages and orphanages, where babies received a lot of physical care from permanent staff, but little attention and love (1947). Spitz has documented (using videotapes and experimental protocols) a variety of emotional disorders in infants deprived of communication with their mother. Along with this, he identified disturbances in instinctive life, the ego, in the cognitive and motor development of children and showed that in extreme cases, maternal deprivation leads to the death of the child.
Recognizing the important role of hereditary characteristics (predisposition, maturation) and living conditions, Spitz identified as the leading factor in the development of the child object relations, violations of which he considered as the cause of psychogenic disorders: “ I believe that early psychogenic disorders in infants create a predisposition to the further development of pathology» .
Spitz did not agree that birth is traumatic and affects subsequent development due to its biological predetermination.
Developing mother and baby mutuality concept(1962), Spitz concluded that mother-infant affective reciprocity stimulates the infant and allows him to explore the world around him, promoting the development of motor activity, cognitive processes and reasoning, ego integration and the formation of skills. He understood the reciprocity of mother and infant as a complex, multi-valued non-verbal process that affects both and includes an emotional dialogue that is more than simple affection: “ Mutual feedback between mother and child is a continuous flow. However, the dyad remains fundamentally asymmetrical—the mother's contribution to the relationship is completely different from the child's. Each complements the other: if the mother provides the child with what he needs, then the child, in turn, gives the mother what she needs» .
Spitz calls the dominant nature of the mother's feelings for the child emotional climate, creating favorable or unfavorable conditions for the development of the baby. Good emotional contact makes it possible for the child to identify with his mother, which, in turn, evokes imitation, which ensures learning and development. As a result of experimental studies, Spitz revealed pathogenic patterns of maternal behavior:
1) primary open rejection of the child;
2) primary anxious connivance;
3) hostility under the guise of anxiety;
4) fluctuations between self-indulgence and hostility;
5) cyclical changes in the mother’s mood;
6) consciously compensated hostility.
Spitz attempted to uncover the connection between the quality of object relations disorders and the type of disorder in the child. Thus, primary open rejection correlates with neonatal coma; anxious connivance - with colic; anxious hostility - with eczema; fluctuations in self-indulgence and hostility - with hypermobility (swaying); cyclical mood swings - with playing with feces; consciously compensated hostility - with an aggressive tendency. For example: " An experimental study found that mothers of children with eczema were infantile individuals who hid hostility under the guise of concern for the child; they did not like to touch or care for their baby, systematically depriving the child of skin-to-skin contact. Such children had an innate predisposition to increased skin reaction, leading to increased cathexis of mental representations of skin perception» .
The quantitative factor, according to Spitz, is manifested in the fact that with partial emotional deprivation associated with the loss of a mother, anaclitic (“other-dependent”) infant depression, and with complete emotional deprivation – “ marasmus».
Spitz set himself the task of describing the genesis and stages of object relations both in normal conditions and in disorders that arise in the first year of life. He identified three stages in the formation of a libidinal object (love object), which is initially played by the mother:
1) pre-object, or object-free, stage preceding psychological relationships (primary narcissistic state);
2) the object-precursor stage, which begins with the social smile at two or three months and is associated with the onset of psychological relationships;
3) the stage of the actual libidinal object.
Spitz noted that at the age of six to eight months, dramatic changes occur in a child’s behavior towards other people due to altered perceptual abilities. Now the child distinguishes between “his” and “others”. He reacts with expressed fear (anxiety) to strangers. Initially, the child has two objects: “bad” (to which his aggression is directed) and “good”, to which his libido is directed. But around the sixth month their synthesis occurs - “a single mother appears, that is, a libidinal object in the proper sense of the word.” This is also the stage when the child reaches the first level of organization of the Self, its first integrated structure.
For the development of the child, it is important that the mother equally satisfies the child’s different drives and at the same time develops in the child the ability to delay the gratification of drives, to endure delays in order to receive satisfaction later.
Spitz carefully examined the features of normal and deviant development of object relations at each of the stages he identified. Unlike Melanie Klein, he was of the opinion that the mental life of an infant was initially undifferentiated with the gradual formation of mental structures and functions. Spitz considered specific emotional disorders of the mother as the main cause of psychotic disorders in the child. While most psychoanalytic theories are speculative, a distinctive feature of Spitz's approach was the widespread use of experimental psychology methods to substantiate his own ideas.
In relation to psychotherapy, Spitz believed that the therapist must provide the patient with what he lacked in his object relations, while he proposed diagnosing the patient’s problems based on determining his points of fixation.
John Bowlby's theory of emotional attachment
Since I first studied psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital, my interests have focused on the contribution that a person's environment makes to mental development.
D. Bowlby
John Bowlby (1907–1990) began his work at the Anna Freud War Orphanage under the simultaneous influence of Melanie Klein's ideas and ethological research. He is currently known as the author theories of attachment and loss.
Unlike previous psychoanalysts who considered food and sexual gratification to be primary drives, Bowlby questioned the leading role of infant feeding, emphasizing emotional attachment(connection) as the main need of the individual. As his main arguments, Bowlby used his own observations of children, as well as Lorenz's ethological studies and Harlow's experiments. In particular, Konrad Lorenz found that some birds develop attachment to their mother in the first days of life without any connection with food, but simply because the chick becomes familiar with this figure. This phenomenon was designated as imprinting- innate imprint. At the same time, Harry Harlow (1958) published the results of his studies of baby rhesus monkeys who were raised by “surrogate mothers” (mannequins covered with skin). Harlow discovered that a young monkey will remain attached to a surrogate mother who does not nurse it, provided that this mother is soft and comfortable with her.
Based on the data obtained, Bowlby came to the conclusion that attachment is an innate instinctive system of reactions and the main motivator of human behavior. By age seven or eight months based feedback the baby develops a strong emotional attachment to the mother. Wherein " attachment is understood as any form of behavior that results in a person achieving or maintaining closeness to any identified and preferred individuals» .
The undisturbed attachment of the baby to the mother is the main condition for the normal development of the individual. Normal attachment involves tender care, love, and developmental support. Disturbed attachment is accompanied by high anxiety and can manifest itself in such typical forms as “suffocating love” or emotional alienation.
Babies are extremely sensitive to who is caring for them and how, but they need to maintain the attachment they have formed even more. Prolonged separation from the mother in early childhood is accompanied by difficult-to-bear separation anxiety. The real loss of a mother, for example due to abandonment of a child or her death, is experienced by the infant as acute grief with its typical phases: protest, despair and alienation.
Reactions close to this are observed in the case of maintaining the object of attachment, but losing his love. " Rejection, loss of love (perhaps due to the birth of a new child or depression of the mother), alienation of one parent from another and similar situations, all have as a common factor the child's loss of a parent for love and affection» .
Thus, stable tender affection in childhood is the main condition for normal personality development.
Bowlby emphasizes the close connection between the loss of maternal care in early life and impaired personality development. In children separated from their parents, he identified two forms of disturbance of emotional attachment. The first form of the disorder was emotional withdrawal; the second form of violation was the child's inflexible demand to be near the mother. " It turns out that it is productive to view many psychoneurotic and personality disorders in people as a reflection of an impaired ability to form attachments» .
The destruction of emotional connections in childhood is most clearly manifested in disorders such as sociopathy with a tendency to delinquency and depression with a tendency to suicide.
The goal of helping the attachment-disturbed patient is to restore the latent longing for intimacy and sadness for the lost mother, as well as anger at her leaving. To do this, it is necessary to return to the first phase of mourning with all its ambivalence of feelings that were either excluded or too fleeting at the time of loss. It is important for the psychoanalyst to establish a safe, reliable and trusting relationship with the patient. For the most part, analysts agreed with Bowlby's observations of infants' capacity for attachment, but his objections to the instinct theory, his conceptualization of maternal bonding, and his assertion that the infant experiences grief and suffering in the same way as an adult have attracted considerable criticism.
Margaret Mahler's separation-individuation theory
Separation is the process by which the infant gradually develops an intrapsychic representation of itself that is distinct and separate from the mother's representation.
While other analysts examined maternal attachment, Margaret Mahler (1897–1985), a Viennese pediatrician and child psychoanalyst, focused on the processes of development of dyadic relationships, and above all the separation of the child and the formation of his individuality. Mahler's professional views were formed in the 1950s while working with young children with psychotic disorders and autism. Her method of direct observation of the communication between mother and child in a natural setting, despite the criticism of her contemporaries, made a significant contribution to psychoanalysis.
Mahler focused her attention on what exactly influences the formation of the child’s intrapsychic structures, which in some cases allow him to function normally regardless of the object, but in others cause pathological changes. Influenced by the work of Hartmann and Jacobson, Mahler believed that mental representations of the Self and the object are basic for the mental development of the individual. She believed that although the infant can recognize various aspects of the external world, only gradually does it develop a complete mental representation of the mother, as well as a unique, stable image of itself, distinct from its primary love object.
Studying the emotional connections between infant and mother, Mahler viewed dyadic relationships as a dynamic unity of opposing aspirations. On the one hand, the child experiences a close (including physical) attachment to the mother, but on the other hand, he makes efforts to establish clear divisions and boundaries of his Self. This interactive process, unfolding as a more or less successful overcoming conflict multidirectional development trends, called the process separation-individuation.
The term separation, or separation, Mahler refers to the process by which the infant gradually forms an intrapsychic representation of himself that is distinct and separate from that of his mother. It's about not about physical, spatial separation from parents or about the severance of interpersonal relationships, but about the development of an internal sense of the possibility of normal and full mental functioning independent of the mother. Individuation refers to the efforts of a young child to construct his own unique identity, to perceive his own individual characteristics, to perceive himself as different from all other people. In the optimal version, the relationship of separation and individuation unfolds simultaneously, but they may also diverge due to a delay or acceleration of the development of any aspect of it.
In the context of the theory of separation-individuation, Margaret Mahler identified specific phases of development of object relations.
1. Autistic phase begins with biological birth and lasts approximately three to four weeks. At this time, according to Mahler, the infant is a closed system, is not aware of the presence of the outside world and other people around him, and does not differentiate the Self and the non-Self. Since the “other” (mother) is impersonal for him, the child does not need him in this sense either. autistic. “Other” is functional because it is necessary to reduce internal tension. Mother's purpose at this stage is to create a completely comfortable and safe environment for him, avoiding frustration and overstimulation. To do this, the mother must always be available and caring, she must listen to the needs of the baby, showing endless patience and not imposing herself. At the same time, mother and child in the autism phase are in deep psychophysical unity with each other.
If the period of autism passes calmly enough, the mother creates a positive pattern of relationships for the internalization of the object and the differentiation of self and object representations.
2. From approximately the second to the sixth month, both mother and baby enter the stage normal symbiosis. The “other” (mother) is not yet separable from the infant’s sensations of bodily warmth, comfort and physiological satisfaction. Mahler believes that at this pre-objective phase, when the holistic and concrete individual image of the mother is absent, it is combined with the sensuality of both. Gradually, the baby begins to intensify the need for interactive communication, when he begins to react emotionally to the mother’s smile, the sound of the mother’s voice, touch and various manipulations with his body. This, in turn, promotes the development of a differentiated and holistic body schema of the infant and a holistic bodily sense of oneness with the mother. Thus, interpsychic communicative structures turn into intrapsychic representations of the Self and significant others. On the contrary, if close emotional bonds between mother and child are destroyed, there is a risk of developing psychotic and psychosomatic disorders.
Mahler described normal symbiosis as “an illusory experience of common boundaries,” in pathology reaching the “hallucinatory, somatopsychic, based on omnipotence, fusion without boundaries.” A smile in response to the appearance of the mother’s face or crying when she disappears marks the beginning of the separation process, although, according to Mahler, the latter acts rather as a goal for the future, since at this stage the image of the mother is only part of the general interpersonal space “mother-child”.
Noting the significance of the phase of normal symbiosis, Mahler writes: “ The specific unconscious need of the mother is to select from the variety of potential possibilities of the child those that reflect her own unique and individual needs. Maternal messages, transmitted in all sorts of innumerable ways, create something like a “mirror system of standards” to which the child’s primitive self automatically adapts» .
At the beginning of development, when the baby is not yet mature for a separate existence, symbiosis is necessary for survival. At the same time, the “extended” symbiosis, which no longer meets the needs of the baby, but rather the personal immaturity of the mother herself, can turn into “malignant” and violent, fixing dependence and preventing the psychological birth of human individuality.
The described phases prepare the dyad for the process of separation-differentiation, which fully unfolds only in the second half of the child’s life.
3. Separation-individuation phase marks a step towards achieving independence in the dyad. Mahler believed that the process of separation-individuation begins at the age of four to six months and includes four phases of development: 1) differentiation; 2) practice; 3) reunion; 4) object constancy.
Subphase differentiation(4–6 – 10 months) is associated with an increase in the ability of sensory discrimination and perceptual perception, due to which the child begins to highlight the mother’s face, reacting to it by alternating between smiling and crying. Another discovery of the child is the difference between the world accessible to him and inaccessible to him.
Practice subphase(10–11 months – 18 months) is accompanied by discoveries made through the active exploration of space through crawling and the first steps. M. Mahler calls this period the beginning of the “psychological birth” of the child. For the first time, the child is able to move away and return to his mother at his own request, due to this the space of their interaction significantly expands. Experiencing vivid feelings, the child experiments with physical distance, and the mother, in turn, receives greater freedom of movement. The baby also begins to become more actively involved in games with other children, but glancing in the direction of his mother or periodically returning to her.
A decisive moment that defines the future mental health child, according to Maller, is a subphase rapprochement(reunion) (15–18 months – 24 months). Here, mastery of speech is added to locomotor freedom, which creates the opportunity to symbolize relationships. Dyadic relationships are transformed, including third parties, among whom the father plays a special role. As a result of these changes, the feeling of self-confidence and the desire to exist “separately” increases. As the desire and ability for independence intensifies, the fear of losing the mother—the need to maintain a positive emotional connection with her—increases. In this regard, the mother must provide the child with the simultaneous fulfillment of both needs: the initiation of autonomy and the provision of support even in those moments when the child pushes her away or cries with disappointment.
Mahler emphasizes the importance of a libidinal (loving) rather than a repulsive-aggressive maternal attitude in order to maintain faith in a permanently “good” object. If the mother is not ready to accept the child with his inconsistent reactions, this can most likely lead to the development of a deficit or narcissistically vulnerable self-image. If a mother's primary care for her child, her mirroring function, turns out to be unpredictable, unstable, anxious or hostile, then the process of individuation of the child proceeds without a reliable and solid point of support for perceptual and emotional verification. The result of this will be a violation of the primitive sense of Self» .
Thus, the mother’s ability to withstand the burden of her own and children’s ambivalent feelings in situations of aggression, clinginess or negativity of the child is a guarantee of the normal development of the dyad as a whole and of each participant individually.
As the internal stable and positive image(representation) of himself and the positive image (representation) of the mother separately, the child enters the phase permanence of the libidinal object(between 24 and 30 months of life).
Provided that this important developmental task is successfully realized, the child is able to endure the physical absence of the mother, “without losing her,” internally feeling her supportive attitude, therefore, maintaining a stable and supportive self-image and a pattern of stable, reliable, supportive human relationships.
Achievement libidinal constancy also means that integration of positive and negative maternal introjects has been achieved. Otherwise, if integration is not completely completed, there is a high probability that the maturing child retains (sometimes until adulthood) two directly opposite and alternating patterns of attitude towards himself and others - either overly dependent, unrealistic, idealized, or equally unrealistic, but hostile. rejecting, blaming and punishing. Such patterns—I and the object of representation—if fixed, lead to serious disturbances in object relations in adulthood and increase the risk of personal psychopathology.
Many modern concepts The genesis and therapy of personality disorders in their basic provisions are based on the theory of M. Mahler, which creates the basis for working with the so-called difficult patients with borderline and narcissistic pathology. M. Mahler's concept, along with G. Sullivan's interpersonal theory of schizophrenia, laid the theoretical foundations for modern systems of object relations psychotherapy (H. Kohut and O. Kernberg, J. Masterson, etc.).
The ideas proposed by M. Mahler contributed to the emergence of modern systemic family psychotherapy, the communicative concept of schizophrenia and the model of the pathogenic “schizophrenogenic mother”. The revision of the theory of the development of psychopathology also entailed a change in the organization of the psychotherapeutic process, the center of which was not the “patient on the couch” isolated from the natural environment, but the family as a whole.
Schools of modern psychoanalysis
What is modern psychoanalysis?
“The psychoanalyst must not express the desire to be English, French, American or German before the desire to be an adherent of psychoanalysis. He is obliged to put the general interests of psychoanalysis above national interests."
S. Freud, March 1932, letter to the presidents of various psychoanalytic associations.
Despite the fact that, according to Freud, psychoanalysis should have acquired an international character, the history of the psychoanalytic movement has clearly demonstrated that, depending on countries and cultures, psychoanalysis was able to follow a wide variety of directions. Freud's creation in 1910 of the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) set itself the goal of uniting, first of all, doctors and specialists not related to medicine who had gathered to engage in a new discipline, and then to unite national psychoanalytic societies. At the dawn of the history of psychoanalysis, Vienna, Berlin and Moscow were the great capitals representing this international psychoanalytic movement. The history of the twentieth century, which survived two world wars, showed that this foundation may be shaken, but nevertheless, Freud's discovery of the unconscious and childhood sexuality remained unshakable.
Today, three psychoanalytic schools are more clearly represented in the world: the British school of psychoanalysis, the American school of psychoanalysis and the French school of psychoanalysis.
British School of Psychoanalysis.
The founder and leader of the Psychoanalytic Society in Great Britain was Ernest Jones (1878-1958). In 1901-1905, he completed his education as a psychiatrist and became acquainted with Freud’s work “Essays on Hysteria” (1895), this work of Freud captivated him so much that he independently studied German and met Z. Freud in 1908: and in 1913 he founded the London Psychoanalytic Society. Very soon the society turned into a serious scientific organization with considerable scientific ambitions. This was manifested primarily in the opening of the Institute of Psychoanalysis in London in 1924, and in 1926 of the London Psychoanalytic Clinic.
In 1922-1926, the research carried out in Berlin by Melanie Klein became known in London, and she herself received an invitation to give a course of lectures in London. In 1926, Jones persuaded Klein to stay in London, where she settled for the rest of her life. A little time passed and her theories became dominant in British society. As a result, theories and ideas began to form that were not shared by many members of society. Here it will suffice to say that during this period the idea of the role of libido changed in British society. It no longer served to understand and describe the sources of drives - the emphasis was placed on its determining function within the framework of object orientation. This meant that in clinical work, much higher value was given to the object relations observed within the transference. This characteristic emphasis in the theory of libido is a specific feature of British psychoanalysis.
During this period, under the influence of Klein, special attention began to be paid to aggressive and sadistic manifestations child development, this was also the difference between the British Society and other psychoanalytic associations. In Klein's group itself, the focus of theoretical formulations and clinical developments increasingly became the role of childhood sadism and the development of its neutralizing defense mechanisms. This orientation had a certain influence on the further development of the British Psychoanalytic Society.
At the end of the 1930s, Britain was overwhelmed by a stream of psychoanalysts fleeing the continent. The culmination of this was the move of Freud, prepared by Jones and other members of society (primarily Maria Bonaparte). In 1938, he moved to England with his family and closest friends. At first, this event had no immediate impact on the British Psychoanalytic Society, as everything was overshadowed by the outbreak of the Second World War.
The main conflict was that even before the Vienna Group moved to England, many members of the British Society supported the views of Melanie Klein. Members of the Vienna Group, including Freud's daughter Anna Freud, who remained in London, did not agree with Melanie Klein's ideas. However, they found it possible to combine the ideas advocated by Melanie Klein about child development and the role of object-directed sadism already manifested in infancy with the classical theory of psychoanalysis. Other psychoanalysts among the newcomers, such as Mikael Balint, did not fully accept the position of the Viennese school, but could not join the school of Melanie Klein.
Ultimately, this confrontation resulted in a series of discussions. The confrontation was extremely acute, with both sides trying to find arguments and justifications in favor of their views in Freud's works. First of all, the sport was about the age of the onset of the Oedipus complex, the origin of the super-ego and the role of death drives. These problems still give rise to discussions to this day. Nevertheless, the society did not disintegrate, since it was possible to come to an agreement that every young psychoanalyst had to belong to one group or another in order to continue his education. Since then, the British psychoanalytic community has been divided into three subgroups. The first is usually called the Klein group, or group A. It consists of psychoanalysts who were trained by Klein supporters and were analyzed by them.
The Viennese group formed around Anna Freud and the latter to appear on the British stage was called the "B Group", sometimes simply called the "Freudian Group".
Each group developed specific forms of training. The Klein Group extended its influence primarily to South America and especially to Argentina. Group B with Anna Freud made the most significant contribution to the further development of psychoanalytic theory.
Another line of development goes back to the independent group, one of the most famous representatives of which was D.V. Winniktott. He developed his own productive concepts concerning the early relationship between mother and child, as well as the theory of regressive transference.
(The article uses material from the work: “Psychoanalysis in Great Britain” by Christopher Dare. In the book. Encyclopedia of depth psychology. T.2. M., 2001. pp. 550-557).
American School of Psychoanalysis
In no other country was psychoanalysis received so early and so favorably, and nowhere did it gain such popularity as in the United States. Already in the period before the First World War, psychoanalysis within the framework of the so-called “psychotherapeutic movement” was recognized and promoted by doctors. Freud's psychoanalysis, or rather its Americanized version, was studied in medical faculties and found practical use in clinics.
After World War I, during the Roaring Twenties, psychoanalytic terms such as “resistance,” “fixation,” and “Oedipus complex” were very common in conversations. Psychoanalysis became fashionable, and dozens of “wild” psychoanalysts opened private practices in big cities.
At the same time, American doctors who were seriously interested in psychoanalysis established their first contacts with representatives of the European psychoanalytic movement. They traveled to Vienna and Berlin to undergo educational analysis there and receive education in already established institutes. The obvious threat of the transfer of psychoanalytic activity into the hands of analysts who did not have a medical education prompted American psychoanalysts to prohibit access to psychoanalytic education for non-medics. There were heated discussions with European psychoanalysts on the question of whether non-medics had the right to conduct psychoanalysis.
In the early 1930s, the first educational psychoanalytic institutes were founded in the United States. Psychoanalytic associations created a federation in 1932, called the American Psychoanalytic Association (APA). In 1933, the emigration of German-speaking psychoanalysts began. The emigration of Jewish psychoanalysts persecuted in Austria, Germany, and Hungary strengthened American psychoanalysis, but gave rise to many internal problems. At the end of the 1930s, the center of the psychoanalytic movement moved from Vienna and Berlin to the USA. In 1938, American psychoanalysts proclaimed the “Declaration of Independence.” This meant that they no longer wished to submit officially to European psychoanalysis and its body, the International Psychoanalytic Association.
In 1942, American psychoanalysis first encountered the first dissident movements in its midst, and in 1946 it finally took shape as an autonomous national psychoanalytic association.
After World War II, the International Psychoanalytic Association came to terms with the independence of the American Psychoanalytic Association. The APA has grown into the largest of the nation's psychoanalytic associations. The number of its members increased continuously until 1960. After this, the growth of the APA stalled, and American psychoanalysis faced serious difficulties. He was criticized from different sides, his popularity sharply declined. This crisis, it seems, has not been prolonged to this day.
I would like to briefly consider the most interesting moments in the history of the formation of American psychoanalysis.
The American version of Freudian psychoanalysis, which dominated until 1920 and caused much surprise among Europeans, must be understood against the backdrop of the so-called “progressive movement” that arose at the turn of the century and continued until the First World War.
The American version of Freudian psychoanalysis, which dominated until the 1920s and caused much confusion among European psychoanalysts, must be understood against the backdrop of the so-called “progressive movement” that arose at the turn of the century and continued until the First World War
The “Progressive Movement” was created through the joint efforts of many politicians, journalists, writers, sociologists, doctors, etc. During a period of rapid industrialization and economic expansion, "progressives" spoke of the decline of American morality. They fought against corruption and abuse of power in big business and in politics, informed the public about the “true face” of America, about poverty in major cities and industrial areas, they appealed to legislation, democratic consciousness and the sense of responsibility of every citizen, hoping to regain lost ethical values through “self-improvement” and social and economic transformation.
In medicine, from about 1904, the "progressive movement" took the forms of the "social hygiene movement" and the "psychotherapeutic movement."
The “social hygiene movement” arose when it became clear that sexually transmitted diseases were widespread in the United States. Society hoped to deal with them through sex education of children and calls for morality in everyday life.
The “psychotherapeutic movement,” on the one hand, arose as a reaction to classical neurology and psychiatry, on the other hand, it was seen as part of the progressive movement. Psychotherapists rebelled against the dogmas of heredity and degeneration and against Kraepelin's “classification of manias.” The main attention began to be paid to the adaptive abilities of the individual, and from the beginning of the century - at first without the influence of Freud - specialists began to look for the causes of psychotic and neurotic disorders in life itself, in its events, environment, education and develop appropriate methods of psychotherapy.
Based on the work of the French psychiatrist Bernheim, Boris Sidis developed suggestive therapy; Adolf Meyer, one of the founders of “dynamic psychiatry,” created “psychobiology”; Morton Prince spoke of "re-education". “Persuasion therapy” by the Swiss psychiatrist Du Bois was also very popular. Hypnosis aroused less interest in the United States, primarily because many patients, as it soon became clear, were not amenable to hypnosis.
Leading psychotherapists such as Putnam, Prince, Meyer, Hoch and White chose Freud and psychoanalysis in 1905. Psychoanalysis was included in “progressive medicine” and was presented as a means of moral sobering and re-education. Everyone hoped that psychoanalysis, like other forms of psychotherapy, would overcome the increasing asociality, immorality and dehumanization of society and provide starting points for reforms in education, social work, criminal law, etc.
Also, “psychoanalysts” or, more accurately, doctors affiliated with psychoanalytic associations contributed to a specifically American interpretation of psychoanalysis. In his popular science publications, pursuing didactic purposes, they emphasized the socio-political and ethical significance of psychoanalysis, which Freud did not have in mind and with which he could hardly agree.
Psychoanalysis was simplified and “harmless.” Pragmatically oriented doctors did not have much interest in psychoanalytic theory, which Freud also constantly revised. Imbued with the optimism of “progressive medicine,” many believed that the essence of psychoanalytic theory and therapy was to transform infantile, immoral and egoistic impulses (the latter were especially common in the United States) into socially valuable, sublime, moral and altruistic tendencies through sublimation and condemnation . The drives must be tamed with the help of psychoanalysis, and the result must be decent and democratic behavior, which makes it unnecessary to regulate the lives of people together by authoritarian measures.
The socializing function of the Oedipus complex was emphasized everywhere. Recognizing Freud's concept of the “reality principle,” it was understood in the sense of social conformity and social utility. All case histories had a happy ending with the ability for sublimation and adaptation awakening and serving the common good. In popular accounts, the topic of sexuality was either not touched upon at all or not emphasized.
And only having become disillusioned with the “progressive movement” after the First World War, when American doctors began to study in Berlin and Vienna, psychoanalysts of the Freudian and American versions of analysis began to draw closer.
At the turn of the century, Freud was known in the United States primarily as a neurologist. Those of his works, which laid the foundation for psychoanalysis, did not attract attention until 1905; Native Americans, who saw no reason to show loyalty to Freud, did not understand the European “clanism”, the veneration of the Master and, on the contrary, were proud of the fact that that they did not feel connected with any school or with any authority. This position, inherent in most of the early American psychoanalysts, later led to disagreements among American analysts, as well as between American and European psychoanalytic communities.
The years 1911-1917 were a period of consolidation of psychoanalysis in medicine. Psychoanalysts on the left wing of the American Medical Association, who felt they belonged to the “progressive movement,” began to develop a specifically American version of Freudian psychoanalysis. The “harmless” and “optimistic” aspects of psychoanalysis, coinciding with the tasks of the progressive movement, came to the fore. Conversely, the possibility of a “repetition compulsion” underlying transference, the idea of “parricide” (from Totem and Taboo) were denied, and Freud’s statements on sadism and the transformation of love into hatred were ignored.
Freud's "pessimistic" view of culture was also corrected: social reform or changing individuals through psychoanalytic therapy would bring the individual's desires into line with society's norms.
In the popular expositions that all psychoanalysts dealt with, the topic of sexuality was either completely omitted or lost its urgency.
Psychoanalysts were not “vilified” either in professional circles or in public opinion. There was considerable disagreement, but psychoanalysts were able to work undisturbed under non-analytic superiors and treat patients referred to them by their non-psychoanalyst colleagues.
Psychoanalytic therapy was conducted in a truly unorthodox manner. American doctors did not accept the basic conditions of the analytic situation, which were already known in 1915: the couch, daily paid hours, the “analytic position.” American psychoanalysts were much more active in therapy, encouraging modified forms of treatment. This is also due to the fact that, while working in clinics, they dealt with different patients than their European colleagues, that is, mainly with psychotic patients.
Therefore, Freud's therapeutic pessimism regarding psychosis also stunned them, especially in the form in which Freud formulated it in Introduction to Narcissism (1914). It was also difficult for American psychoanalysts to keep up with the major changes and improvements in psychoanalytic theory and practice, which were discussed in Freud's article on narcissism and in the metapsychological works of 1915. Reports of the activities published by American psychoanalysts in European journals made it clear that they did not keep up with changes in theory and methodology.
Since the United States did not have Freud's own students, much hope was placed on correspondence, periodic visits and international psychoanalytic congresses, which were held every two years.
American psychoanalysts experienced particular difficulties also because they did not see the opportunity to undergo educational analysis.
Disagreements within American psychoanalysis also arose due to the “apostasy” of Adler and Jung.
Thus, psychoanalysis established itself in the United States, but at the same time significantly moved away from the European psychoanalysis of Freud. From 1915, contacts between Europe and America became increasingly rare and ceased completely in 1917, when the United States entered the First World War.
If in Europe after the First World War psychoanalysis continued to encounter obvious hostility, in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s it enjoyed a popularity that it would never achieve again. Psychoanalysis became fashionable.
Before the First World War, psychoanalysis was promoted mainly by the "progressive movement". The First World War put an end to the “progressive movement”, and with it the psychotherapeutic movement. Everyone was tired of pompous, idealistic, moralizing calls, and felt disappointment and annoyance. Intellectuals in the big cities, representatives of the "Roaring Twenties", looked back on the "progressive movement" as last try conservatives. They spoke cynically about his tasks, since for them politics and history had become a “swindle”, empty chatter. Conversely, traditionalist restorationists associated with rural and small-town America considered the “progressive movement” too “advanced.” After the First World War, psychoanalysis acquired new functions. Before the war it served “self-improvement” and “social improvement”, but now in the hands of a new generation of intellectual bohemians it became an instrument of “self-justification”, “a toy of the rich and intellectuals, a subject of constant discussion in cafes and salons” (Hoffmann 1959, 59).
Psychoanalysis was perceived as the promise of individual liberation from the constraints and taboos of society. Anti-puritanism, which appealed to Freud, flourished. The concepts of the “hidden self” and “creativity” were spread everywhere: the core of personality consists of narcissistic, egoistic, power-hungry, immoral and irrational tendencies. Their response and elimination was considered the path to happiness and health.
Everyone rushed into psychoanalysis. And psychoanalysts became regulars at the famous Mabel Dodge Stern salon, where the best minds of society gathered. The general public eagerly listened to the news of bohemia, and its reaction to psychoanalysis would have seemed extremely unexpected to Freud - it was delight! Only traditionalists rejected psychoanalysis, since “in the name of science” it turns to immorality and hostility towards religion and culture.
Newspapers published detailed conversations with psychoanalysts (Adler, Brill, Wittels, Ferenczi, Freud, etc.), as well as reports from patients about their therapy. Reporters flocked to Vienna, begging the “genius” to say at least a few words to them. A new type of magazine appeared, like True Story Magazines, designed to publish intimate, anonymous confessions. Hollywood approached Freud twice about making a film about psychoanalysis, “edited by Professor Freud and expounding the fundamentals of his teachings” (Hoffman 1959, 68). The telegram with Freud's refusal from the Goldwyn company's offer became a “sensation.” The Chicago Tribune in 1924 offered Freud any fee plus the cost of a specially chartered ship to come to Chicago, test two young men accused of murder, and prove their innocence.
The book market was flooded with secondary literature on psychoanalysis. In one New York store we managed to count over two hundred books on this topic. In 1920-1921, almost 12,000 copies of Freud's Lectures on an Introduction to Psychoanalysis (1916/1917) were sold.
Freud himself, due to the difficult economic situation after the war, planned to write a public article for an American magazine in 1920. He turned to his nephew Edward Bernays, who lived in America, and suggested the title: “Don’t use psychoanalysis in polemics.” Bernays entered into negotiations with Cosmopolitan Magazine. The magazine offered Freud a thousand dollars for some topic of interest to the readership, like: “The psychological position of a woman in the home,” “The psychological position of a spouse in the home,” etc. Freud took either this specific proposal, or the very fact that he could be given a topic, as an insult and flatly refused.
The popularization of psychoanalysis extended to psychoanalytic therapy. In New York by 1920, there were about five hundred “psychoanalysts” who had no training, and two unofficial institutes.
In the 1930s, the general public's interest in psychoanalysis began to wane. The global economic crisis that began with the stock market crash of 1929 no longer left room for individualistic “soul searching.”
The period before the Second World War passed under the slogan “ social control" The unprecedented economic and structural crisis was met with comprehensive legislative and reform efforts. Psychoanalysis could not help in any way to resolve urgent problems. At first they tried to connect it with Marxism in the hope that it would help reveal and eliminate the problems of capitalist society (see article by E. Federn). At the same time, behaviorism has already appeared on the scene, more suitable for fulfilling the tasks of social control.
Gradually, psychoanalysis disappeared from public view. However, before the Second World War, he managed to enter psychology (clinical psychology, personality psychology, psychology of motivation, developmental psychology, social psychology, etc.), as well as sociology and anthropology (Cooley, Mead, Benedict, Kardiner, Parsons, etc. .d.). Freud, for example, was ranked by the leading historian of psychology Boring (1950) as one of the four “greatest figures” of American psychology. However, the recognition of psychoanalysis as a social science still did not have a decisive influence on the further development of psychoanalysis itself, since in the United States psychoanalytic education still remained inaccessible to persons who did not have medical training.
Between 1919 and 1932, American psychoanalysts under the leadership of Brill, Oberndorf, White, Jelliffe and Coriat argued with their European colleagues. On the one hand, American psychoanalysts were looking for rapprochement, thoroughly studying Freud’s theory and technique, trying to overcome their scientific lag, and Freud’s new works (“Beyond the Pleasure Principle,” 1920; “I and the Id,” 1923; “Inhibition, Symptom and fear”, 1926, etc.) caused fierce debate. On the other hand, Americans distanced themselves from European psychoanalysis in matters of professional organization. American psychoanalysts rejected non-medical psychoanalysis, believing that only doctors had the right and ability to carry out psychoanalytic therapy. Another source of disagreement was the noticeable and long-standing tendency of American psychoanalysis towards independence. American psychoanalysts did not want to see their association as a “satellite” of European science and perceived the Freudian clan with mixed feelings.
Around 1930, American psychoanalysts began to find common ground with European psychoanalysis. However, even in 1930, Freud was still dissatisfied with his American colleagues. He wrote a surprisingly unfriendly accompanying article to the omnibus volume on psychoanalysis, Medical Review of Reviews. His reasoning concerned not only American psychiatry, but also American psychoanalysis: “I often hear that psychoanalysis is very popular in the USA and that there it does not encounter such stubborn resistance as in Europe. However, my joy on this occasion is clouded by many circumstances... Although America has many able analysts and at least one authority in the person of Dr. A. A. Brill, the contribution of this distant country to our science remains meager and contains little that is new. Psychiatrists and neurologists often use psychoanalysis as a therapeutic method, but generally show little interest in the scientific issues and cultural significance of psychoanalysis. American authors and doctors often show an unsatisfactory familiarity with psychoanalysis. Sometimes it turns out that they only know names and some concepts, but this, however, does not prevent them from expressing their opinions with confidence... In other cases, they create a mishmash of psychoanalysis and other theories and present as proof of their breadth the fact that in fact only indicates a lack of common sense.”
The lack of education felt in the circles of American psychoanalysts prompted some of them to turn to Freud in 1920 with a request to come to New York for six months in order to give a course and conduct several sessions of psychoanalysis. He was guaranteed a fee of $10,000. Freud telegraphed in response: “Not satisfied.” Then (from 1919-1920) American doctors began to come to Berlin and Vienna. They took part in lectures and seminars intended for "candidates". In 1920, the first educational institute, a polyclinic, opened in Berlin under the leadership of Eitingon. In Vienna in 1922, an outpatient clinic was established under the leadership of Hichmann. Meanwhile, ten American candidates were being analyzed by Freud (including Oberndorff, A. Stern, Frink, M. Meyer, Blumgart, Polon, Kardiner).
Psychoanalysis, practiced in Vienna, made a great impression on the Americans. Many of them had been engaged in “psychoanalysis” for many years and could not accept Freud’s authoritarianism. On the other hand, they became convinced of the value of systematic education. As Oberndorf reports, an obvious result of the training analysis was that upon returning to the United States, all doctors acquired couches.
The first step towards standardizing and improving education was taken in 1923 in New York. The appearance of Freud's book "The Ego and the Id" (1923) almost led to a split among American psychoanalysts. Young members of New York society, educated in Europe, reproached their elders for their inability to follow the development of Freud's theory. From now on, it was no longer possible to limit ourselves to the “old” theory of libido; it was necessary to assimilate the new concept of the Self and the structural theory, and therefore the changes in psychoanalytic technique that flowed from them.
In 1938, the International Psychoanalytic Association was discouraged by the declaration of independence of American psychoanalysts. At the first post-war congress in Zurich (1949), the International Psychoanalytic Association (now the International Psychoanalytic Association (MPI)) came to terms with the changed situation and autonomy APA .
The general name of post-Freudian American psychoanalysis is “self psychology,” which, after World War II, gradually became identified with the “mainstream” psychoanalysis developed in APA . Self psychology is a general designation for a variety of directions: self psychology, on the one hand, includes supporters of Hartmann and Rapaport - representatives of “theory-oriented” self psychology, on the other hand, “clinicians”.
Erikson occupies a special position in relation to the psychology of the Self. He does not present his ideas in terms of the general theory of psychoanalysis and metapsychology and does not connect them with the ideas clinical psychology J. Erikson dissociated himself from the biological conceptualization of the functions of the Self, the concepts of reality and adaptation of Hartmann's psychology of the Self and, according to other classical analysts, is almost a “dissident.”
The psychology of the self, developed by Hartmann and Rapaport, differed from “id psychology” and “drive psychology” in that it gave greater importance to the self and reality in mental development and determination of behavior. It examined the determinants of behavior that were distant or free from drives, and emphasized that mental processes, along with the function of protection, can also have functions of control or adaptation. Thus, the psychology of the ego opposed the reductionism that reduced everything to drives, as well as the one-sided interpretation of behavior in terms of defense.
New clinical approaches to the development of the Self, identity, identifications, Self-ideal, etc., which arose largely under the influence of Hartmann’s ideas, changed the understanding of classical neuroses (hysteria, obsessional neurosis, phobias, depression), female sexuality 26, latent and adolescence, as well as the concepts of acting out, regression, transference, countertransference and resistance. In numerous publications, the picture of the disease, phases of development, etc., previously described from the standpoint of the psychology of drives, now began to be considered in the aspect of the psychology of the self.
Clinical theory with the advent of psychology I began to rely on new sources of information - observation of children and child therapy. They served as a means of correcting reconstructively formulated hypotheses about mental development.
(The article uses material from the work: Ulrike May “Psychoanalysis in the USA”. In the book. Encyclopedia of depth psychology. T.2. M., 2001. pp. 491-535).
French school of psychoanalysis .
In France, psychoanalysis was born in 1926, simultaneously with the establishment of the Paris Psychoanalytic Society, followed by the formation in 1927 of "Revue Francaise de Psychanalyse" - "French Psychoanalytic Journal", which today represents one of the most significant psychoanalytic publications. In those days, despite the fact that the Paris Psychoanalytic Society included only a few psychiatrists, and a very narrow circle of people not directly related to medicine, for example, the famous princess, wife of George of Greece: nee Marie Bonaparte, the society quickly developed thanks to its fruitful activities psychoanalysts whose names became known immediately after the Second World War, namely Jacques Lacan (1901-1981), Sacha Knight (1901-1977), Daniel Lagache (1903-1972). Very soon, Jacques Lacan forced one to reckon with his by no means conformist personality, which intrigued, seduced and worried his then colleagues. Although at certain points Jacques Lacan's widespread fame led many to associate psychoanalysis in France with his theories, it would be completely inaccurate to identify French psychoanalysis with the work of this researcher.
In 1953, the resignation of Jean Lacan and Daniel Lagache from the Paris Psychoanalytic Society prompted many colleagues to follow their example and had a strong influence on the further development of psychoanalytic thought. Psychoanalysts who left the Paris Psychoanalytic Society first united into the French Psychoanalytic Society, in which two movements (Lacan and Lagache) subsequently began to oppose each other. In particular, they adhered different opinions regarding the training of psychoanalysts and the conditions for recognition of the French Psychoanalytic Association, which later became part of the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA). Jean Lacan decided to create his own society - the Freudian school, which was never recognized by the IPA due to the conditions of practice for training specialists that existed in it.
French psychoanalysts contributed many original ideas to world psychoanalysis that help to better understand the patient's condition. One such idea is the idea « Child of the day and Child of the night». This concept developed by Denise Braunschweig and Michel Feng (1975) has brought significant insight into the concept of understanding mother and child. In their book “Night, Day” they argue that for the full development of a child, a wife-husband couple in which there is a full-fledged love relationship with each other is important. If this does not happen and there is no full-fledged loving relationship between the parents, but on the contrary they are very conflicting, then the mother runs the risk of unconsciously using the child as a sexual and narcissistic object for herself. Then the child becomes a “child of the night.”
If the mother wants the child to develop fully, she should follow his wishes, and not he should satisfy her sexual needs. In order to do this, she must love and be loved, that is, be in a sufficiently satisfying sexual relationship with the child’s father. The presence of a father-husband makes it possible to be a mother for her child, investing in him as a “child of the day.”
Michelle Feng views the alternation of day and night as a rhythm of the presence and absence of the mother for the child. During the day - with him, and at night - with the child’s father. The repetition of day and night occurs with the simultaneous gradual formation of an Oedipal structure. He introduces the concept of “mistress censorship” - the mother’s disinvestment of her child: she puts him to bed and becomes sexy woman for her husband, which supports the child’s real or imaginary construction of the parental erotic couple, which, according to Feng, serves as the main stage of the infant’s individualization.
"Censorship of a Mistress" allows the discovery of autoeroticism (benign and non-destructive if it follows the primary narcissistic phase in which the mother is sufficiently satisfying) and can serve as an introduction to any phantasmatic life.
For the mother investing in the “child of the night,” the boy or girl becomes an unconscious substitute for the man—the father—as an object of sexual desire.
Another interesting concept used in the French psychoanalytic school is the metaphor of the mirror, which was proposed by Sigmund Freud. The mirror - the position of the psychoanalyst in relation to the patient - should not be cold and distant. The patient-analyst pair in some way resembles the conflict between Medusa and Perseus. Perseus was able to avoid being turned to stone by not looking at her directly, but only at her reflection in his shield, which was a mirror. Looking at her mental representation, as it were, he was able to win. This reveals the important meaning of the psychoanalytic metaphor of the mirror for the position of the analyst - taking into account the world of representation. These are not direct and immediate perceptions, which can be intrusive and painful to both parties. The psychoanalyst must be able to use the "Perseus shield", accept the patient's affective projections without feeling a narcissistic wound and be able to continue the relationship in order to facilitate the transformation of the patient's affects, connecting them through his own psychological representations and transmitting these to the patient in the form of interpretations.
And the last thing I would like to consider in the review of the French psychoanalytic school is concept of psychological chimera by Michel de M’ Yuzana.
The chimera is a mixture of both participants, patient and psychoanalyst, a product that does not belong entirely to one or the other. The chimera is created by the psychoanalyst during a session through a “paradoxical mode of functioning”, when it becomes the periphery of the patient’s consciousness. As Gérard Belle aptly puts it, “the chimera is created in zones of shadow where identity is not jealously guarded. It’s a sticking point.”
Psychoanalyst Bernard Cherve describes how the patient's past experience is renewed in the analytic situation if both the analysand and his analyst begin to feel fluctuations in their selves - fluctuations in identity, accompanied by a strange anxiety; more or less mild depersonalization; sometimes experience even more primitive states when the child could feel like part of the Other. During sessions, the analyst strives to explore aspects of the patient’s psychic reality: sexual, narcissistic, self-identity. However, according to de M’ Yuzan, meeting them, recognizing them and interacting with them becomes possible for the analyst provided that he allows himself to enter into a symmetrical fluctuation of identity, up to a state of infantile confusion, close to a traumatic situation, and therefore to danger.
The exact place for the analyst in this case is the place of the listener at the “mouth of the unconscious.” Psychoanalysis is then carried out from what was said to what was heard in an identification connection, mixing. As Michel Nero wittily noted, the analyst is reprimanded for abandoning his own thoughts and accepting the associations of another person.
De M ’ Yuzan describes how two psychic apparatuses (the patient and the analyst), striving to create something holistic, create a kind of neorealism, a monster of a chimera, animated by special processes occurring in a paradoxical system. Their voices and speech gradually merge and turn into something single, understandable only from within this chimera - one head and two different bodies.
(The article uses material from the work of: A. Zhibaud A. Rossokhin Psychoanalysis in France, or how to learn to live with uncertainty. In the book: French psychoanalytic school / Ed. A. Zhibo, A. V. Rossokhina. St. Petersburg 2005. pp. 13-42).The psychoanalytic school was founded by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), a heavy smoker (20 cigars a day!), a cocaine addict, and a bearded Austrian psychologist. Sigmund Freud focused on mental illness, while other schools focused on the typical behavior of a normal person. Freud made a crucial observation: patients suffering from hysteria tend to recover if partially forgotten material is restored to their consciousness. Based on this, he developed the basic postulate of psychoanalysis: there is a dynamic subconscious that influences every action.
He proposed that our minds, like icebergs, are consciously exposed to only a small visible part, while the larger part is hidden or unconscious (the normal mental process cannot remember it). This process of forgetting memories that are nonetheless stored in memory often serves a purpose, but it is also the root cause of many mental problems.
For people suffering from illnesses arising from the subconscious, Freud stimulated conscious recognition (recognition) of repressed experiences. He then brought the hidden part of the subconscious out into the open so that we could understand it and relate it to the contradictions it may have created for us. After experimenting with hypnosis to probe the subconscious, he conducted “free association” therapy. Patients (usually lying on the famous bed) spoke aloud their thoughts as they came to them. His other approach was to interpret dreams.
Freud's system developed gradually and concentrated around the following main points:
- The role of the subconscious
- How can you treat mental illness through therapy
- The role of motivation
- The role of early development in shaping our adult psychological life
He divided personality into three components:
- Ego. The ego is what we think of when we refer to “I” or “me.” When something is outside world poses an objective threat to our ego, we experience "objective trauma"
- Identification. This is the most primitive component of personality, representing biological needs and desires (food, sex, cigarettes). It demands immediate gratification. Sometimes identification demands pose a threat to ego suppression, and we may then experience "neurotic anxiety"
- Superego. This component contains our ideas, norms and values. It serves the purpose of creating a normally functioning personality that meets the expectations of the surrounding world. If the demands of the superego threaten to overwhelm the ego, we may experience “moral anxiety.”
Now, what does the ego do to protect itself from this potential disturbance? Freud proposed seven different ways:
- Crowding out. We force unpleasant memories, perceptions or thoughts to enter the subconscious
- Return. We retreat to early stage our lives
- Projection. We attribute personal shortcomings and weaknesses to something external. We may, for example, criticize others or judge them for having the same problems as us
- Formation of reaction. We change our feelings to the opposite, for example, love to hate
- Sublimation. We do things that are accepted by society and suppress our actual desires to do things that are less accepted by society.
- Rationality. We give false but often plausible explanations for our weaknesses
- Identification. We must reduce the needs of our own personality and try to imitate someone else whom we perceive as more fortunate
Without a doubt, Freud is a great thinker, but he was not perfect. His thoughts subsequently became the target of attacks from many sides. Mainly because it placed too much emphasis on sexuality and also generalized too much. The school he founded continued to develop, but it soon split into several directions.