A Slow Dance with Victor

[Mole]

Well, I've been wandering about in The Foundations of Psychohistory and find it to be compelling stuff. It expresses a lot of thoughts I've had about mass delusion.

The roles of dysfunctional family members in any group of six was a Virginia Satir concept, I believe, and one which I have found fascinating as it plays out in groups.

A brief glance through the material doesn't qualify me to ask informed questions about it. Perhaps I may motivate myself to give it a thorough reading some time.

But I do wonder if the group trance which the author addresses may not have a similarity with the concept of collective unsconscious.

I'm on shaky ground in this area having only briefly studied various forms of psychotherapy/analysis.

I can say that I agree with you that the path to personal satisfaction lies in acceptance of apparently contradictory ideas.

In weakness, strength.
The way to resolution of pain is through the pain, not around it.

Things like that.

I think you like Alice Miller. And she was one of the first to address the effects of abusive child rearing on the psyche. I found her very interesting.

Then Lloyd Demause gave us an historical overview of child rearing practices.

And both Alice and Lloyd approached child rearing from the point of view of psychoanalysis.

And it was Sigmund who gave us psychoanalysis.

And you are quite right. Sigmund did at first address the effects of abusive child rearing. But because Vienna was not prepared to countenance this, he turned abuse into the fantasy of the child.

We see this today as a betrayal of the child.

But thank heavens today we are starting to listen to the feelings of children.

And I think we must see this in historical perspective. For it was only in 1833 that institutional slavery was first abolished by the House of Commons. And only in the 20th Century did women gain their emancipation in the West. And very importantly, it is only in the last decades that the laws against child sexual abuse have been enforced in the West.

So Freud was wrong about the nature of child abuse. But he did set us on the path where we could listen to the feelings of children. Just as we started in the 18th Century to listen to the feelings of slaves. And in the 20th Century we started to listen to the feelings of women.

And still we are learning to listen to the feelings of slaves women and children.

And of course we are starting to listen to our own feelings.

And my objection to Jung is that he replaced listening to feelings with a mechanical and idealised religion which is now part of the New Age Movement.

 

[Anja]

Yes, I do agree with Alice Miller considerably. She seems to have hit the nail on the head at least for the generations of the last hundred years or so. And for culture arising in Northern Europe. (Most all of my education has been Eurocentric.)

We could have quite a discussion about whether Freud correctly apprehended the dilemma of the misused child and changed it for personal reasons. I think not. But certainly it's a possibility considering the era and milhieu of competition during which he lived.

My thought is that he was thinking from the position of an outsider in many ways. An adult male, aligned with others. To step from that position would have been a reputational, perhaps economic, disaster for him.

Then there is that pesky issue of his Jewishness during troublesome times which certainly must have affected his viewpoint and his ability to express his thoughts freely. Though he certainly gave the appearance of doing so.

If he truly had the initial idea and did reverse his decisions for his own convenience it certainly lends no more respect from me. That would be betrayal in the most high, I think. Seems a psychoanalyst needs to strive for as complete personal honesty as is possible for him to be credible.

I just had an odd thought. Could he have had a blind side, due to the fact of him fitting into a category of victims, which prevented him from being able to see the plight of the child accurately? Self-blame? Interesting.

Is that you, Victor? If so, a right jolly Aussie you are, indeed.

 

[Giggly]

It is a natural temptation to want just one side of a distinction to flourish.

But the attempt to freeze just one side of a distinction creates horror.

Here we are distinguishing between the quotidian and ecstasy; or we might say, between the every day and the ecstatic.

But both sides are needed to keep a distinction alive - the way to kill a distinction is to deny the other half - just as the way to kill a marriage is to deny the other half.

In fact, one side of a distinction enables us to rest from the other side - and when we return, we are refreshed and relaxed.

In this case the quotidian refreshes the ecstatic and the ecstatic refreshes the quotidian. Just as you refresh me and I refresh you.

And it is this movement between both sides of a distinction, such as ecstasy and the quotidian, that is called l'alternance.

And it is l'alternance that is the secret of happiness.

Yes, I believe the best state to be in is one of balance too.

I love to slow dance but I have to say that i like it best to slow music and with a partner.

 

[Anja]

A further thought.

Did he make an error in understanding the nature of child abuse? Or was he so much a part of it that he failed to see his place in the bigger picture?

 

[Anja]

Oh. Hullo, Hmm. 'scuse.

 

[Giggly]

Oh. Hullo, Hmm. 'scuse.

Hey there, Anja. No, pardon me.

 

[Mole]

Yes, I do agree with Alice Miller considerably. She seems to have hit the nail on the head at least for the generations of the last hundred years or so. And for culture arising in Northern Europe. (Most all of my education has been Eurocentric.)

We could have quite a discussion about whether Freud correctly apprehended the dilemma of the misused child and changed it for personal reasons. I think not. But certainly it's a possibility considering the era and milhieu of competition during which he lived.

My thought is that he was thinking from the position of an outsider in many ways. An adult male, aligned with others. To step from that position would have been a reputational, perhaps economic, disaster for him.

Then there is that pesky issue of his Jewishness during troublesome times which certainly must have affected his viewpoint and his ability to express his thoughts freely. Though he certainly gave the appearance of doing so.

If he truly had the initial idea and did reverse his decisions for his own convenience it certainly lends no more respect from me. That would be betrayal in the most high, I think. Seems a psychoanalyst needs to strive for as complete personal honesty as is possible for him to be credible.

I just had an odd thought. Could he have had a blind side, due to the fact of him fitting into a category of victims, which prevented him from being able to see the plight of the child accurately? Self-blame? Interesting.

Is that you, Victor? If so, a right jolly Aussie you are, indeed.

Yes, it's me.

And it seems Freud did start to discover child abuse but he discovered it in Anschluss Vienna that was on the point of murdering all its Jews. So Vienna at the time was uniquely unwilling to listen to an explanation of its murderous intentions by a Jew.

So I believe Freud convinced himself that child abuse was part of childhood fantasy. Of course we now know he was wrong.

There is no question that Freud had his flaws - just as we all do. That's why we need to keep on learning.

And of course he may have had a blind spot just for the reason you give.

And you remember Freud analysed himself so this would only magnify his blind spots.

I like Alice Miller's emphasis on listening to the feelings. And I think she was an advance on Freud.

And I'm glad you like my picture.

 

[Mole]

A further thought.

Did he make an error in understanding the nature of child abuse? Or was he so much a part of it that he failed to see his place in the bigger picture?

I think it was such a horrendous discovery he made, all by himself, that he couldn't bring himself to believe it.

And of course, nor could the society he lived in.

I mean it was 70 years later that we started to enforce the laws against child abuse in the West.

For psychological and social reasons it is very hard to believe that child abuse exists.

 

[Xann]