The Issue of Change in History and in Psychoanalysis.

2. The past and present in history

I have to state from the beginning two ideas that I base my argument about history upon. First, history is not the making of individuals; it makes the individuals. It is   the expression of tacit social changes and unnoticed evolution in certain related areas like modes of production, distribution of wealth, ethics, education, and culture. What happens in those areas are not events but ‘phenomena’. As in an issue close to us, the birth of psychoanalysis was expressing a turning point in the advancement of western philosophy, which reached a stage where the unconscious (a philosophical discovery at first) had to be included in understanding the subject; the subject matter of philosophy. Freud found the way to doing that. Second, the individual who looks as if he is a major historical pronouncement or the initiator of major effective events, is only the title name of the historical phenomena. The phenomena would be already formed and remained dormant waiting to be born and declared at a convenient moment. Freud was not the creator of the phenomenon of psychoanalysis, he was the agent of a new phenomenon of a social demand to recognizing the unconscious in any future understanding the subject.

In psychoanalysis we deal the subject as an individual. In history we deal with human phenomena while the individual occupies a minor place in arguing the phenomenon.

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Two weeks ago, I finished reading a recent history book by James Barr entitled: Lords of the Desert, with the subtitle: Britain’s Struggle with America to Dominate the Middle East. The book is an amazing recount of the thirty years that followed the end of WWII in the middle east. I lived those years fully, and remembered every detail he mentioned-correctly- in his book, the political characters who were active at that time, his knowledge of their interactions, and the meaning of the events he described, which were amazingly accurate and detailed. The book corroborated the main ideology of the political activists at that time: ‘fight the British occupation and dissolve the British Empire in the Middle East’ (Egypt was a British colony from 1882 to 1954). The news we used to receive in Egypt during that time was that several residual European Empires were also dissolving in Africa. There was a prevailing belief that what we achieved in Egypt will lead the oppressed like us, worldwide, to get their freedom from foreign occupations. In other terms we were making history and characterized our political activity as the beginning of the end of the age of empires (countries dominating countries and nations dominating other nations).

When I left Egypt in 1971, I gradually realised that Europe on its own (without any help from Egypt!!) had already renounced the principle of imperialism and ended its occupation of other countries. This happened with little local native resistance, but definitely without the contribution of the activists in other countries. The Soviet Union, which inherited the Tsarist’s empire, was giving the east European countries the status of Soviets in preparation for an impending change, which took place twenty years later. The revolutionaries anywhere, were not making history, they were merely agents of history activating and fulfilling its demands and expectations. They finalize processes that start earlier and just need to come to conclusion. However, the change in history, like change in individuals, is always subject to resistance. Societies reject change at first, and use self-deception, like patients do, to make it fail. It does not fail but it just gets delayed. Serious resistance to change was the reason behind all the wars that devastated humanity for millennia.  WWI dissolved the Ottoman empire, the Tsarist’s Russian empire, and the Hapsburg empires. But some minor European empires that emerged in Africa and in Asia in addition to the remainder of the British empire resisted the change to abolish imperialism, hence, WWII came to complete the job.

Reading, interpreting and reconstructing history give clues to what really happened, also to what might happen following the present of that history. Like in psychoanalysis, the historian exploration and interpretation the past requires reconstruction of the analysed material to achieve to predict future possibilities. It did not take years after WWII to completely abandon the notion of empires in any form it might take. The peaceful concept of alliance, which is recently giving its place to globalization, is currently used, but sometimes to hide some remnants of the old dealings. However, this anticipated outcome of change in the course of history’s evolution faces desperate efforts to prevent it from happening.

The USA was the main factor in the actual and material end of WWII, which is supposed to have ended the concept of imperialism. It was also the most effective country in establishing the international organization for the preservation of peace in the world. The resistance to that change remained very strong in the USA and several other minor international powers. The USA continued and still continues getting into wars (Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) with an implicit conviction of the existence of Western superiority and domination of the world. It keeps that notion alive, with even the existence of the traditional and long-lasting historical foe; Russia. It also continues harbouring the fantasy of leading that imaginary empire. The USA a major force of change yet it still resists. As in individual resistance too, self-deception plays a great part in the process of resistance.  However, there are a number of countries around the world which also resist change and the evolution of history (India, Hungary, some Arab countries, etc.) and are paying dearly for that futile effort.

The main difference between a patient resistance to treatment and the societal resistance of a nation to evolution is the role of narcissism in both. In the individual, change comes from giving up what is unconsciously considered defense against a controlled danger that attacks from inside, while in nations is giving up what it considers protection from danger coming from outside. This difference deserves further elaboration but I prefer not to do that. I lived long enough in a part of the world that nations resorted to almost criminal measures to prevent the evolution of history, and learned that fighting those conscious and unconscious urges hardly gave results. However, there are lessons to learn from that. Before patients seek psychoanalysis as therapy (which they will resist) their vocabulary regarding their condition changes from complaining to either mention their suffering sardonically or the notion of therapy sarcastically. The reasons are obviously related to narcissistic mortification they feel for needing help. In nations, either a leader emerges using vocabulary which would keep reminding the people of their low present status and whip them to avenge themselves (Hitler), or another kind of leader who demeans his people to get them moving because they are the envy of the world (Trump). 

Trump as Historical Phenomenon:

Americans are very proud of their history and their achievements in that relatively short time. They were not usually very vocal about their pride and let their achievements speak for themselves. When it was reasonable to boast a little, it was always done graciously.  Until 9\11 American history was taking its natural course of evolving, changing, and keeping the USA part of the world.  However, after the shock of 9\11, and for the first time in its short history the Home Land was vulnerable things changed both superficially and radically. 9\11was a serious narcissistic shock to a nation that was the most loved, admired, and believed to be apart from the usual international squabbles. It was a very noticeable, after that narcissistic bad surprise, US politicians used more and more the vocabulary of bragging (the adjectives of exaggeration, the extreme in comparisons, and did that in almost a ritualistic manner like making the sign of the cross before mentioning the sacred thing). Hardly, any politician did not add to the words US or America the adjective of the best the richest the strongest, etc. Even Obama, who is cultured and savvy abut international political affairs would get into the ritual of reminding the listeners of the greatness of his country, from time to time. The country was hurt and needed that reaction which after a while had to change and the USA takes its place among the rest of the world. This natural course of evolution did not settle down well with the Americans who have less to brag about. The rage of narcissistic mortification demanded the continuation of defiance and segregation (s).

Trump came to personalize that phenomenon. He-in spite of his wealth and the other things he possesses is despised. But his defiance and amplification of the contradistinction he still attract the support of those unfortunate ones. However, we should not forget that he-somehow-presents his base a dilemma: he raised the motto of going back to when the US was great, which on cognitive basis is contradiction: the need to be better in order to be good again: does that mean the USA was not good before?

There is a short extension to this post. Till then than.

The Issue of Change in History and in Psychoanalysis.

Prologue:

There are some political events happening now in the USA, which some of us in Canada follow attentively, with great amazement and apprehension too. Those events have exposed several shortcomings in the current US democratic system. Overlooking those issues created a sense of confusion about the ways issues are discussed and solutions are suggested. The discouraging thing about that state of puzzlement is not  mentioning or suggesting the possibility of change.  Americans tend to idealize their 'forefathers' who founded their country, more than two hundred years ago, on principles that could have and actually had dazzled the world with their novelty and progressivity.  But after two hundred years , being now more than three hundred million people who are diverse even geographically, the USA's democracy still depends on two political parties that were formed over two hundred years ago, and were speaking for the issue of that time. Things need to be reconsidered because listening to the active politicians (not just the regular citizen) one cannot miss the uneducated understanding of the vocabulary they us, and the almost total denial that  two hundred years have passed since those concepts were misconstrued. Resisting the notion that things change, and could get better if they do, 'looks' to many as betrayal of the loyalty to the forefathers. 

The reason that this state of matters concerns us in Canada, and possibly everywhere else in the world, is the important place the US occupies in the world. The significance of this point was forcefully demonstrated during the last three years when an unqualified person took the helm in that important country. Although the American establishment was capable of curtailing his harm he still kept the world on the edge and caused a lot of harm and pain to some communities, worldwide. They are also resistant to acknowledging that the US now is member of a modern world and not what it was after the WWII: the leader of the 'civilized' world. 

Noticing the strong ambivalence the Americans are showing in regard to change made me think of the current events, and the phenomenon of Trump, in terms of both the patients' resistance to change and the analysts’ resistance to change their system of training. As analyst I understand resistance to change to be routed in a state of narcissism (self image). Self image, whether in a person, an organization or a nation is Narcissus's reflection on the surface of the pond which he fell in love with. That image, though it is just the image, replaces the actual body that engendered it. Even if the self image is the cause of great pain giving it up without a replacement creates a narcissistic void, which is filled with rage.  In psychoanalysis (if it is done properly) the work of analysis builds the narcissistic replacement for the vanishing one in a gradual way. So, giving up the image- partially- to include the real scenes of the self in one's narcissism also happens gradually and such change becomes a relief. This process is more difficult in the narcissism of organizations, because it requires willingness to get rid of the past, confidence that a replacement is possible, and available, and an equal willingness to acquire it. This difficulty is what is standing between psychoanalysts and getting rid of the IPA model of training. In nations, the possibility of giving up a national identity to get a new one depends on the political activists who would make that exchange palatable to most. 

This post is an attempt at examining the nature and fabric of change, which the political events in the US could benefit from if the psychoanalytic experience may be considered. Change in psychoanalysis starts with resistance (this is not the problem). When resisting fails to stop the process of analysis the patient rejects the the interetations. When rejecting the work of interpretation does not work either self deception tries to nullify the pain of the impending narcissistic void. Yet, eventually change happens whatever the means are to stop it from happening: change is not matter of preference or choice; it is unavoidable and sometimes it is a duty. 

Could we make sense of the events in the US in the way described, using psychoanalytic principles?

1. Past and Present in Psychoanalysis:

Clinical example:

A young female patient was unhappy about her loose moral standards that make her have sexual relations with the husbands of her female friends. Moreover, when she had a relationship with a man, she tried -almost compulsively- to befriend his wife. She came to a point at which her life was no longer manageable with rumors, rejections, and loneliness and bad sense of enjoyment. At the beginning of her analysis she always related her loose morality to her mother’s “immoral mothering”: openly favouring her younger sister because she was prettier and looked like the mother. She accused her mother of being a bad moral model: “Mothers are supposed to love their kids equally and it is immoral to make distinctions of that sort and ignore my feeling”. She kept repeating that her behaviour with men and friends is only looking for attention and feeling that she belongs to people. Her associations were mainly rhetorical and about her mother’s and sister’s embarrassing selfishness and social immoral neglect of other people’s feelings. She was always recalling two childhood painful memories: her mother refusing to make her hair and ordering the maid to do it, while insisting on making her sister’s hair, and overhearing her mother once making a negative remark about her looks to a visiting relative and predicting for her a life without marriage. Her immoral sexual relations started to make sense to me but I refrained from tackling that point for a long while, because she was emeched in her resentment of her family situation to a degree that needed more time to express and listen to herself doing that. She could not fathom yet or enough the circumstance that constituted the past of her present.

In a suitable moment I mentioned the difference between her immorality and what she considered immoral of her mother. She did not pay attention to my remark, but this led to a gush of bitter memories of her mother’s authoritarian nature and her failure to get close to her ‘rejecting mother’ because she was impatient with her, as she was with the maids and the driver. It took some time before mentioning her father whom she also described as domineering, but to her mind in useless matters.  She sarcastically mentioned how he was once furious and insisted on her going to the hairdresser with her sister.  I mentioned then that there are different kinds of authorities like her father’s and her mothers. She suddenly paid attention to my previous distinction between the two moralities of hers and of her mother’s.  Gradually, the meaning of morality expanded to encompass any sort of abuse of privileges, misuse of status or authority, and the patient realized that she was mad at her mother for all sorts of other things, not only her attitude toward her and her sister. Working through and interpreting matters in light of this expanded sense of deprivations revealed other confusions about anger and humiliation. Her puzzlement about anger and humiliation revealed preconscious aspects in the transference for a wish for her father to have done something about the situation. The analytic situation was reflecting a sense of desperation:  her persistent complaint was that the analyst, not analysis, is the solution to her confusions.It was easy to make translate that idea into an analytic insight that ‘only father could straighten the situation, but he is not paying any attention to what is happening in the family’. 

Her history became an unbearable transference present. Working on the confusions she lived and exercised in regard to matters of values, rights, power and authority resulted in some positive changes in family life. She reported that her relationship with her mother and sister improved, and, especially when her father – unexpectedly- noticed and showed some signs of interest in his role in the family. The patient’s sexual acting out was becoming less demanding. At that point the patient suggested termination and I agreed because I was not confident that opening the issue of her sexual improprieties will be dealt with properly within a reasonable period of time. Analysis ended at that time with the noticeable improvement mentioned but the link between the past and the present was not dealt with properly.

I understood what happened to lead to termination, but did not understand the rest of the patient. I was unable to understand the process that led to the father’s appearance in the scene, let alone the issue related to the patient’s sexual inclination. Termination did not really happen, because the past of the present was not revealed to exchange meanings with the present. Yet, something noticeable I could be mentioned in that regard (I could be deceiving myself): the patient’s past of confusing family dynamics determined that her psychoneurosis was going to be of a confused young woman about morality, and also determined that cure would happen when she learns the nature of an orderly perception of matters and and social demands.
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After years of practicing psychoanalysis in the classical manner of: patients’ associations, interpretations that would reveal to the patient- bit by bit- the unconscious processes in his transference, and reconstructing the intrapsychical psychodynamics, also a bit by bit, I was left with a puzzling issue that was even problematic. How doing what I do as analyst initiates change? Parallel to that-as I will mention a little later: what instigates change in politics? This question was raised because -for me-the change in the process of psychoanalyzing was always unexpected, even the outcome seemed unrelated to what I thought I was dealing with. In other words: I did not know while I was working what instigates the change and how. Only retroactively it was possible to come to some insights.  Although I accept the parallelism between psychoanalysis and other human phenomena, which are also difficult to understand on the spot, and are always understood retroactively, I still could not accept that a practicing psychoanalyst would not know how his work works!

Few years of puzzlement about how to understand the process of psychoanalysis made me discuss the issue with a senior analyst of Lacanian leanings. I asked: why the process of cure can only be recognized after the fact and not during the work. He said that the primary process does not make distinctions between the three systems of Cs., Pcs., and Ucs.  Therefore, we do not know what system is affected by our interpretation. We cannot predict or correctly anticipate the reactions and the changes our interpretations generate, because each system has its own way of responding to a proper interpretation, and changes differently from the other systems.  Therefore, a good analysis (based on good interpretations) takes its course and declares its end without any fanfare. I took his remark a little further: trying to predict or anticipate outcomes of limited aspects of the material indicates that I am not doing good analysis. Analysis is a process that opens the way for all the sorts of freedoms that the psychoneurosis blocks. Analysis opens the way to freedom of sexual enjoyment and also of refraining from meaningless and destructive sexual relations. Psychoanalysis is a process of understanding but retroactively: that patient understands while and after associating, and the analyst while understanding and interpreting, not before.

Dealing with a past that is still lived in the present, as in the psychoneuroses, and aspiring to change it, raises this question: what happens to the changed past? In psychoanalysis we try to make the means for changing remain active and usable by the patient ‘for ever’.

In a nutshell: reading the present could reveal both the past and the possibilities of the future. This is the common issue in “psychotherapy”, i.e., to what degree the patient’s past will get better defined and is not going to remain a set of memories. This change happens when the patient realizes that his past was lived experiences that are compulsively repeated a distorts the present. In psychoanalysis we cannot free the patient from his past but we demonstrate to the patient how to avoid being misled by it and keeps alert to that possibility in his present.