I expect to disagree with most of the Americans who follow this blog about the subject of racial discrimination in the USA. However, they need not agree with me.

I raised a question regarding the violence of the police force in parts of the USA toward black people: explicitly I see it as a social phenomena that is tempting psychoanalysts to use their theories about the psyche of the subject to interpret it. I have reservations about that.    

I am not saying that something psychological is behind what is happening in the area of policemen’s recent (and not so recent) responses to black people.  Policemen have their own psychological problems, but I did not intend to explain their reaction as psychologically determined. I am thinking and writing about the phenomenon of people of law and order breaking the law with blacks in particular without any sense reservation. No doubt that somethings like that happens with white suspects too, but the flagrant defiant way it is happening with blacks ‘lately’ should raise our attention. Within days from a racial event of discrimination that raised the attention of a whole nation and the world another similar event happened and a third was just waiting for the circumstance to happen and t just happened. This sequence supports that what is happening -maybe not planned- but intentions -in waiting. 

However, the reaction of the black community should also catch the attention: rioting followed by looting followed by material destruction of whites’ manifestations of wealth, distinction, social power. Any way you want to play it will bring you back to a modern, contemporary, socially unjust society that is constantly on brink of needing ventilation. Could we say that it is an up-to-date struggle against slavery as a social disorder?! I believe so, because what is happening now is not limited to the black race. It is a social system that it is just hitting the blacks more severely. It is also practiced, but differently and less frequently, by people against people of their own race. In short, what is happening in the USA now in that regard is a new episode of emancipation that is facing resistance from the ruling class, white represented by the residuals of the old slave owners, authorities (law enforcers), and some blacks are not be aware of their participation in the new racial discrimination against themselves. I just finished reading a book by Bakari Steller which is all about the successful blacks with great admiration of those particular blacks (including himself) but with almost no mention of the majority of the struggling blacks.  The successful black community, mostly in academia, the media, politics, and upper middle class are not showing any serious concern about the majority of blacks who need to be freed too.

Now is a new age of struggle for liberation from unobvious and silent slavery.  The first movement of emancipation, expressed in the great civil war, did not get fully, properly, completely assimilated and the unassimilated part is now returning to engulf both whites and blacks. The old narcissistic mortifications are returning requesting some sort of healing. There is no escape from acknowledging that the civil war did not bring about all the objectives it happened to make happen. This is the nature of social change that does not take its natural course of evolving. We should not miss that there is still persecution of Jews and ethnic prejudices because the social movement to eliminate them did not walk the whole course of change.

When we come to what is happening now in the USA regarding racial discrimination we should realize, acknowledge, and accept that psychoanalysts-as an educated, cultured! and mature group of people, which shares the responsibility of patriotism with their peers: A patriot has to bring to the attention of his peers the flaws and failings in his country to work on correcting them (opposite to naïve patriotism that keeps talking about how……the country is , est….). So, when they see what could become psychical blindness regarding some on goings it will be important to configure what is wrong in a language that could have a clear meaning and real-world value so the none analyst would benefit from. That is why using the framework of our clinical proposition could mislead. Example: the notion that the police officer who shot the guy in his underwear was because of unconscious reasons or character disorder is hypothetical and presumably suggesting unconscious causes. But if that act reflects a state of mind of a society or a group of people (other officers who do things of the sort) this interpretation would be ridiculous: we should help n understanding a social phenomenon not foreclose it by giving it a psychological explanation. What is behind a social phenomenon is a socially determined meaning or value. The officer who shot the black man seven times while holding his under ware could have done that out anger, fear, reaction formation., but for us he did what officers are now do with balk guys. What is behind a social phenomenon is a conscious urge of the individual and his unconscious mental set up. We could also say that the residuals of the civil war that were not properly worked out but just got repressed are returning; hopefully get worked out fully this time.

What is happening now in the USA is dealing with residuals of the struggle with emancipation and creating a new “better” social consciousness for both whites and blacks.           

C. The Link Between People and Leaders:

[I use the term ‘narcissism’ in this post to mean the sense of being, because the subject needs to have picture of his-self to form a sense being, is the fundamentally based on the subject's duality. That image is his reflection in the minds of others. The subject has no sense of being without those reflections, and can never “be” before recognizing those reflections. Narcissism, thus, is subject to all the possibilities of authenticity and falseness, stability and volatility, sickness and health, but without it the human subject is a person without an identity].

The relationship between people and their[aF1]  leaders is very central and a better angle to look at Social Narcissism and Social Change. Therefore, I will start with a personal experience to explain my approach to dealing with the issue of social racial discrimination and its link with narcissism.

In Grade 11 (in Egypt, 1951) the first part of the class in history was contemporary history!!The teacher started by suggesting a discussion about a controversial recently assassinated politician. He divided the class into two groups: Pro and Anti that leader. After half an hour of shouting and just throwing “statements of Facts” at each other he stopped the arguing. He said that this so-called discussion would continue with no hope for reaching a decision. He then said: you cannot understand history without a theory you adopt and learn from it the direction you take to reach your objective, and gave three names of historians (one of them became my professor of philosophy in university two years later). This thinker\philosopher wrote extensively about Friedrich Engels (also thinker\philosopher). Any how, I got very impressed by Engel for his general philosophical theory regarding change, which is the most complex part in studying societies. He emphasized that small and gradual quantitative changes in a society reach a point after which the next step forward would be a qualitative change (like boiling water). In practicing psychoanalysis (among other things that preoccupied me) the small changes that happen with the daily interpretations initiate small insights and minor changes that eventually lead to a major interpretation and reconstruction. Then, the analyst could notice retrospectively how the qualitative changes was engendered by the small interpretations that led to it.

However, the most remarkable idea in Engel’s theory of history was that the major changes (revolutions in particular) happen in that same way of gradual small events here and there (happening unconsciously), and suddenly the old collapses and the new appears. In terms of narcissism: a gradual rejection of the old narcissistic group images (social image) suddenly reveals the build up of a new narcissistic social identity that emerges to replace the old one. I believe that the sudden change that brough out of the Whites their best qualities was the ugliness in the police man (men), which was the last straw, and if not also the beauty of Floyd’s peaceful reception of demonstrated in helplessness.

World Wars and Racial Discrimination:

There is a lot to say about what makes the last two world wars different than other wars, but I will concentrate on their relation to race discrimination. In Europe the second war started as the Arian race making a last attempt at giving the white race an internal hierarchy of superiority that was meant to precede re-gaining its global superiority which was gradually waning. The Japanese race that assumed a superior status in most of China, Indochina and the archipelago between Asia and Australia was also facing challenges from the other Asians races and a new rival called the USA. In Africa countries and nations, i.e., the black race, were shedding off the shackles of the white race by liberating their countries from the imperial empires of the Europeans. In South America the Natives were finding their place next to the old Spaniard minorities. Those wars that extended from beginning of the nineteen century and mainly ended in its sixties. They were wars about the human race(s). Other countries and races that joined in that international upheaval, ultimately came up with the notion of globalization. Globalization was the qualitative change in that course of evolution. The result was surprising: while the white race fought in Europe, Asia and in Africa on a small scale it won all its wars, but ended up shifting the grandeur of winning into a more mature narcissism: anti-racial political morality. The most significant aspect in reaching the notion of globalization to replacing race distinctions is an almost silent pan acceptance o f that change, worldwide.

The citizens of the USA- till few years before WWI and few more years before WWII – were practically speaking- paying no attention to the world beyond the two oceans bordering its east and west shores.  Americans until that time regularly considered racial segregation, distinction, or quasi-slavery, as they were practiced in the USA, the natural and the most common way of treating blacks everywhere else. Although WWII brought out the USA from its isolation behind the two Oceans- there were several features in that ‘joining’ that were discouraging. I will mention two. The first was a sense of superiority to the rest of the world-justified by the obvious Americans better conditions relative to the conditions everywhere else in the world; including white race nations. This discovery created a narcissistic sense distinction related to being American (social narcissism) more than being white. The second was a sense of entitlement due to the obvious material advantages American were enjoying. The danger of this kind narcissism is its volatility because if and when the counterpart managed to catch up with the narcissistic subject the narcissistic injury creates undesirable reactions. The most common reactions are denial and aggression toward the previously inferior counterpart. An excellent time for repression proper to deal with the unsettled matters in those matters.

Notwithstanding, the white race in the USA underwent a major change in regard to narcissism when the European whites recovered from the effect of the wars and a dozen countries (including Canada) surpassed the USA. The success of the Civil Rights movement came at a time when the whites, in America and Europe, were facing serious competition in modernity and affluence from Russia and China. The USA consolidated its superiority again in the form being the leader of the ‘free civilizes’ world. Having enemies who could be demeaned lowered the degree of need to demean the blacks. Narcissism needs an antithesis to gain momentum: something to oppose, compare with, to turn love- hate relationship into hate- love relationship. Thus, American social narcissism did not lose all its vigour, but directed it to other “enemy” whites. The picture is less gloomy because with all those changes. A more mature American social narcissism has become the rule in the majority of whites. Even in the area that still “harbours” die hard racists there is no silly signs of overt segregations. Accepting and admiring the civil rights movement and its leaders established the notion:  of you not the colour of your skin. The most revealing signs of that is the gradual return of the value of fairness, which was the basis of the early formation of the white communities in in the budding states. Although the slogan of “Make America great again” is alarming it was only a slogan raised by a specific minority.

The Political Leader and Narcissism:

In times of political crises political leaders emerge expressing the different ideologies that are creating the crises. Usually people under those circumstances become vulnerable to political misleading ideas. Leaders who mange to echo people’s narcissistic unrealistic ambitions get the votes. That sounds logical, but there is a very uncommon result that is ignored because it related social narcissism which is a familiar phenomenon. Do people create their preferred leadership or do those leaders create their own supporters [did Hitler create Nazism or did Nazism invent Hitler. Germans wanted a leader who wanted to conquer the world to get them back their pride in being Ariens. Lenin found in defeated Russia a (first world war) a nation that is in need and ready for communism and took the chance. We, psychoanalysts are still grappling with narcissism because we have not settled another theoretical problem: do we study and practice intrapsychical issues or intersubjective issues? Does the person create his narcissism or does narcissism create the person?

The human subject is a duality of I the subject and me the object. Our narcissism is caught between those two entities.  We differ in which of the two components is the person and who is the image. Just make a comparison between Trump and any other reasonable leader to understand the difference.  However, this distinction represents two the above-mentioned schools of psychoanalysis anywhere: if I is the person and the image he reflects to the other is his me then we are at the its the intrapsychical theory of the person. If it is the opposite then it will be the object relations theory of the person. Do people identify with the leader as their I, thus the social narcissistic entity will be less contaminated by falsies or it is the opposite and people are identifying with the “me” of the leader as the image of something.

In the last street demonstrations against racial discrimination people were primarily identifying with the leadership of the civil rights movement. They were calling for justice for all. Ordinary white people found that objective in governments’ abuse of their powers that is allowing the persecution of black extends to limit their own freedom irrespective of color. They were calling for justice for all because the present ruling class is as anti ordinary white people. They identified with the oppressed black because  they have become equally oppressed in slightly different matters. White Americans, for different points of view, are accepting blacks not just as equal but also as a manifestation of their own mature narcissism.  The last reaction to police cruelty to blacks, whites in most the demonstrations, were more in numbers than blacks. There is something of great significance in this phenomenon. Individual narcissism is usually enforced by social aspects that could provide that narcissism with a sense of social orientation. Americans’ pride in their nationality is a source of solid support to any ethical humane or personal quality they also endear. Nevertheless, there are people particularly politician who misuse social narcissism and return the noble social narcissism into its opposite. I will use social narcissism in other countries to explain my point of view (reason is obvious). Egyptians compliment themselves for being hospitable and that their social narcissism is derived from that conviction. However, when a religious leader explains that Egyptian social narcissism is manifestation of their religious piety, he destroys that social narcissism and renders it fallacy. The same as when Americans’ pride in their concerns about others is turned into “our values” turning thus inti a manifestation and not a genuine moral quality.

Understanding social phenomenon in terms narcissism and its structuring nature of self awareness is a filed that psychoanalysis can contribute to a great deal. It is also  a duty to avoid the future leaders who look as if they are faithful to the people’s aspiration when they are using social narcissism to heir own benefit. 

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 [aF1]

B. Some of the Constituents of Narcissism:

We should not expect narcissism to be a simple psychical entity that has  a simple structure. It is a psychical entity that anyway we look at it (cause or effect) we find ourselves unable to come to a satisfying conclusion about it.

Narcissism is not a term created by psychoanalysis. Its parallels are part of human language since God bestowed on Adam the special status of being different from the rest of his creations. However, analysts, as usual, assume the right to explain anything that pertain to the subject’s psyche. Thus, it became imperative that the term, which Freud coined to mean self- partiality (adulation), has to get a place in our endeavours to explain ourselves (because no other animal is suspect of narcissism). But analysts- did not pay the attention needed to question narcissism: is narcissism a psychical condition created by something else or is it a condition that creates other psychical conditions? A hasty answer to this question would ignore, neglect, or just avoid facing the fact that we do not know yet.

Narcissism is the central issue in our sense of being and also any deviations in that important psychical condition. Our sense of being is narcissistic because it is basically ‘knowing that we know that we are existing’. Narcissus had to exist first for the reflection of his image on the surface of the pond had to materialize in front of him. In other terms, our sense of being could be a result of the nature of our awareness (consciousness of consciousness), or maybe homosapiens sense of being leads to consciousness of consciousness. The dilemma is which causes the other. This question pertains to the issue of structuralism (the nature of the issue) not functionalism (cause-effect and which comes first) because we need to know first what are the constituents of a narcissistic state to decide what is cause and what is the effect of that cause.

The Structural Quality of Narcissism:

Interpreting signs of narcissism in libidinal terms usually misses several features that are most basic and intriguing in that psychical condition. Although underlining those features will get the approval of most psychoanalysts, they will still remain doubtful of explaining or elucidating them because psychoanalysts are accustomed to discover causation within the structure of any psychical feature and not visa versa. An example is dream interpretation: in the Irma dream Freud revealed a wish that he tried to prove it to be accountable for the ‘dream scene’. However, the wish did not explain the dream even after identifying it; it could be said that the wish just initiated that particular dream scene. Therefore, restructuring -building up- narcissism from its content or components is the way to understand it. This is the reason I think the libidinal explanation of narcissisms is useless and is actually distracting from understanding it.

I will start by specifying four features that even ordinary people would relate to narcissism. They are features that I find to be obvious and available for direct observation:

1.There is no narcissism (self- love) that is not accompanied by hate for a counterpart of the self, in the form of another person or thing. 2. If the narcissistic proclivity is reversed for a reason or without an obvious reason the hated person or subject becomes charged with an exaggerated degree of admiration and love (hate becomes adoration). 3. A strong tendency to exaggerate and over “libidinize” positive and negative affects in regard to the narcissistic issue or object. 4. Volatility of relations in which the object of the feeling or emotions is volatile but the intensity of the feeling remains dominant.   

Considering those four features (and maybe few more that other analyst could come up with) show in a simple and direct way that racism in general, the social history of racism, the opinions about the reactions to racism among blacks and whites (persecutor\persecuted) or social discrimination in any form it  takes are product of narcissism. I can now take this statement a step further and say: any social discrimination (gender, sex, class or race) is a matter of narcissism, in which a group does not feel good about another group claiming the right to be equal to their group.

It is the right place to add another idea in regard to the ‘narcissistic hurt response’ the prevailing race (or group) goes through. The gradual loss of the privileges becomes a wall of resistance to give up narcissism when the unprivileged prove without any doubt that they have caught up (sometimes surpass) with privileged adversaries. There is no doubt that Blacks in the USA have caught up with the whites in every aspect of daily life. Therefore, whites are no longer able to expect the inequality to continue a little longer till a total matching is achieve. Copying from A. Richards “Quote for the Day” (without permission) Malcom X said: “When we see that our problem is so complicated and so all-encompassing in its intent and content, then we realize that it is no longer a Negro problem, confined only to the American Negro; that it is no longer an American problem, confined only to America, but it is a problem for humanity."

What Malcom X is saying is clear: Racism is a problem with the human subject and his psychical nature. Therefore, I strongly believe that narcissism is not an individual condition. It is part of social phenomena.  

Social Change and Social Narcissism

A.  Narcissistic Hurt and the Repressed.

      My views on the subject of narcissism is very likely to differ from the common and prevailing meaning that is adopted by main stream psychoanalysts. Since Freud used the term in 1910 to “vaguely” describe the person’s attachment to an image of himself (in homosexuality!) narcissism became a phenomenon resulting from the dynamics of the libido: its objects and investments. As a consequence of creating that term at the peak of the libido theory, and the ease by which the concept libido was able to explain several psychical issues in terms of narcissism, analysts adopted the notion that narcissism is a state of a libidinal deviation; i.e., psychopathology. Kernberg published several very valuable clinical works on narcissism and other related psychopathologies without a hint of incongruity with the libidinal basis of narcissism. Therefore, coming with a different conception of narcissism that has no place in it for libidinal cathecting is not going to be accepted comfortably by main stream psychoanalysis.

My point of view, which is basically more acceptable to thinkers than clinicians, is that narcissism is a cornerstone in the process of the formation of the sense of being (self defining), and that could make it get a rudimentary link to psychopathology.

      Narcissism-as in the Myth of Narcissus- is identifying one’s self -unconsciously-with what we think is our picture, or what might appear or mean to others. This image (identity) is originally given to the infant by the caregivers and constitutes the core of the sense of “me-ness”. However, the child should gradually formulate his own sense of identity(I-ness) according to his developing sense of awareness and the ongoing realization of the discrepancy between his: I and me. Me, is what the other sees of my ‘I’. However, we should not oversee neglect that the relationship between the I and the   me is in core, if not is the core of narcissism itself. The subject tries and succeeds or fails in not treating himself as an object. There is always the risk of subject’s merging the I and me in one undifferentiating entity. The most glaring model of that “terrible” condition is Donald Trump.

In the process of forming a sense of being, the subject might maintain aspects of the identity he assimilated from the ‘others’, but is expected to develop his own concept of himself. What is important in that twist in having one’s own self-concept is the independence, flexibility, stability of that identity, and the authenticity of the sense of being: only successful in degrees but always an aspiring objective.

    Change is the explicit and implicit enemy of narcissism. Just imagine Narcissus sitting in front of his reflection on the surface of the pond, deeply in love with his self that is there in the pond. Then imagine him falling asleep for serval years (in myths this could happen), He wakes up and looks at his beloved self again. He finds someone else there that he cannot love anymore.  Not knowing that change happens, no one could have been able to explain to Narcissus that changes in the person in the pond have happened to him, himself, not to his image. Change in the material world, history, societies, and other non-psychical matters happens gradually, silently, unnoticeably, and permeates all aspects of the phenomena. In psychical matters, change happens unconsciously, and could not be understood without analysing its indirect manifestations. Psychical changes give signs of their happening but always faintly, indirectly, and through other means and manifestations like the oxidation of a metal, or the fall of the Roman empire. Another aspect of psychical change is sensitivity to admitting the change. Sensitivity to change is very much the core of narcissism because it means the necessity of creating another me, to replace the inadequate present one: I am sorry, that was not me, I am someone else. The narcissistic bind between the I and me make the sense of identity quite volatile because the subject tries very hard to match the two entities of his identity. But the unconscious aspects in them is not equal and one, the I, is more conscious than the Me.  

Change is anti narcissism because of that link between I and me. I believe that I am not racist but I surprise myself by refusing my daughter to marry some one from another race, religions, or social class. In order to make my I and my Me match I have to break the narcissistic bond between them. This is when the return of the repressed exposes my hypocrisy.

Next I would like to deal with social narcissism.

The Return of the Repressed:

Sometimes, in the practice of psychoanalysis, analysts face a sudden resurgence of some old symptoms or psychical conditions that have no clear link with what is going on in the ongoing analysis. This is usually a return of repressed material that did not have been worked out or worked through by the patient and was just severed from the rest of his active psychical life. This phenomenon is usually common in the revival of old phobia, ticks, or unverbalized sates of the mind. It also could become a distracting mechanism from continuing the ongoing psychoanalysis. Rightly, those unexpected changes in the course of an analysis are called a return of the repressed, because they come back in the state that they were previously repressed. Something similar could sometimes happens in a society. A social phenomenon that is not given the full chance to materialize, comes back with venom and gets actualized…a social ‘return of the repressed’. WWII is a good example of a return of the incomplete resolution of the social pressures in Europe that caused WWI (dispelling the local empires).     

                                  >>>>>>>>>>>>>

The reaction to the events of the last few weeks in the USA regarding police treatment of blacks is still quite alive and keeps going on. It proves that it is something more than just a reactive upset. However, there are some features in the continuation of criticizing and condemning police brutality that makes one worries. It looks like the unified stand of the Americans is going either nowhere (back to the legislative corridors), or to the waste basket of the partially understood. Whatever is concluded about the white race reaction or the black race reaction does not answer two questions: does the latest events of police brutality toward blacks suggest a new trend or it is just a coincidence that a few things happened in a short span of time stirring up a sudden flare up? The demonstrations that happened lately and engulphed the whole of the USA and many other societies and nationalities in the world were made, in most cases, of more whites than blacks. The question is: are those demonstrations manifesting a change in the white population or in the black or both? If for convenience we will say it is a change in both races we will be missing that each race has to change something different from the other, i.e., the answer is not simply ‘in both’.

The answer to the first question is that what is happening lately is not local; it is universal, and is not limited just to police brutality in the USA but about social inequalities wherever it existed in the world. Brits in Trafalgar Square were seeing what happened in the USA in regard to that killed black guy as the American version of their version of social segregations and inequalities (which Irked million who voted to stay in the EU). The late change is universal and not limited to abuse of power by the police but related to the abuse, neglect, and the failure of the current systems of governing in the world in regard to the pressing demands of the majorities everywhere.  It is a new view of globalization.

The answer to the second question is that the change that is taking over the world lately is a global change; universal, even with its specificity in certain aspects is still of interconnected issues not just commonalities and parallelisms. The change affects the whole human races directly and indirectly. However, each race or ethnic group seems to contribute to that change in its own social and international condition.

The change in the blacks of the USA is turning the previously shy request for equality into demanding corrections in the circumstances of persecution that go back few hundreds of years.  Blacks are changing their sense of helplessness into a sense of entitlement. Whites, individually, without any doubt in my mind, are fair, law loving and abiding by nature, and quite honest, which is not at all the picture they give as a race or a distinct ethnic entity. Therefore, they seem lately (few decades) to be changing their sense of refinement, goodness and morality into some tangible, actual, and credible things to show that they too are joining the ‘other’ races in changing. Whites have to change their sense of entitlement into a sense of deserving and convince blacks of that. In other terms, despite the different forms of inequalities and consequently in the demands for change, the human races are reacting collectively and reciprocally to the crisis of late. If we do not accept that there are new relationships developing between the conflicting adversaries in the world, we will stand helpless in front of the returning of the repressed between those ethnicities (in India, Myanmar, North China, etc.). The best we could do, without identifying the changes in the old antagonisms, is to come to a partial understanding of the present ‘historical’ moment.

The conflicting adversaries of the past are able now to verbalise their own needs and aspirations better, thus, are becoming more amenable to accepingt solutions.

The WWII and Dissipation of Illusions:

The present sudden and great change in in racial interactions is a return of a significant repressed period of time in recent history.  After WWII there was a great movement of rebelling against foreign occupations in the colonies and the empires. The cry was loud for the liberation of the oppressed and the enslaved everywhere, breaking up the empires and creating new independent countries and nations. This movement was supported by European thinkers and was reflected in the democratic elections in Europe and European style elections everywhere. This  gave the conservative blocks ‘bleeding noses’. This movement was initiated and supported by the leftists in both the liberated countries and in the previously dominating countries. The end of the WWII came with the hope to end the old world of colonization and slavery too. Yet, soon after the “end of the war” the two previous allies against fascism, Western Europe and the Soviet Union, became the new version of the human races’, as if the compulsive need for an enemy to feel secure and superior (paradox!!) was stronger than any hope for peace. The glorious movement of liberation, abolition of exploiting the defeated, equalities, democracy, and ‘racelessness’ was ‘repressed’ very quickly and very cruelly. Repressing the budding aspirations was done by both main powers and with the same paradoxical BS. In the West it was to fight the dictatorial communist system. This was done by creating dictatorships all over the newly won parts of the world (even old democracies). In the East the communist regimes oppressed its people to ‘protect it from the false ideologies of the capitalists and colonialists. 

Those historical details are likely of little interest to most but I mention them to highlight that for some, going around facts is a way of blocking change and  and any area of progress. This phenomenon shows something intrinsic in the return of the repressed. After WWII, repression of the glorious movement of social justice used paradoxical logic as the means to impose repression: set up dictatorships to ward off the threatening dictatorships of the enemy. Giving the communist parties the authority to decide what is anti-fascism was fascistic in itself. The present uprise in response to racial discrimination is threatened by anti-white racism-ironically- initiated by somewhites in different contexts.      

The New and Present is the Return of the Old Repressed. 

Avoiding facts to avoid the necessities of change resulted in creating in Europe four identities that replace the old racial identities. The world is now made up of Europe, China, Russia the USA. Somehow, or naturally, racial discrimination came back from repression in slightly different intensities in those four universal entities. The most entity that has problems with the new era is the united states. Europe has some problems with the immigrating Africans (previously slaves and then the responsibility of the occupiers). China has ‘some’ problems with parts of it that were detached from it by the European and she disclaiming them now as part of it.

The communist party in Russia was smart when it did not stand against the emancipation of the satellite Soviets and is satisfied by being the old nation and country of Russia. The problem is with USA.

The Americans are struggling (sometimes painfully) with their new identity or place in the world. After the victory of the WWII the USA was the only country that came out of it as the “greatest”, the “strongest” ….etc., Gradually the rest of the world recovered from its stupidity and the three other entities caught up and became equal to the USA and surpassed it in certain eras. The struggle to maintain the status of the leader of the world was clearly failed. American Blacks caught up with the whites in many aspects and excelled in some others.

The three changes seem to have happened in the USA lately in regard to racial discrimination:

Blacks have taken good care of themselves and proved that they are as capable and qualified as any other race. Proportionately, they seem to have caught up with the whites in the number of distinguished citizens (the most competent president in the last fifty years! was black).

 More whites have accepted the fact that blacks have proven without doubt their equality to other races. History to them has become more pain and shame than pride and prejudice.

A social gap opened between the whites in the North and industrialised America and the South.

The repressed of the north got integrated with the worked-out sentiments about Our America, while the repressed returned (in desperation) as is in the south and some other pickets of old pride. I can see many white Americans would not accept my view of the return of the repressed in the south of the USA. I would remind them of Donald trump: he is supposed bring back the greatness of the USA. Let us also think of the police in south that after murdering a black citizen and the uprise in the country as a reaction that murder go back and does the same thing twice within a week with two new blacks.

  

Psychoanalysis and Academia

Resistance to Change

It is uncanny that this part of the posting I meant to dedicate to change in psychoanalysis, but has to be interrupted to keep our attention devoted to a more significant and ‘amazing’ change that is sweeping the whole world. I do not know anything that immensely great has ever happened before at any time in written. Because history can only be understood retrospectively the world-change regarding race issues might take few decades to be properly interpreted [not a Trumpian sexagenarian]. Psychoanalysis could step aside for now and for as long as we need to set up afoot the complex process of interpreting this remarkable transformation in human awareness and evolution.

                    

I will only outline now and here the framework of my ideas about change in psychoanalysis, so if some analyst in the future find the required space in time and interest to revisit that issue, he will possibly find in them relevant starting points.

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I finished the last part of this posting by emphasizing that when we think of hope for change, and of accepting that psychoanalysis could move to academia, we should keep in mind the natural resistance to change, and the conflict of interest of senior analysts in that regard. They are supposed to lead the movement to ‘academize’ psychoanalysis but sch a change will also change their role and status of seniority in psychoanalysis. Change in psychoanalysis is not a matter of accepting or rejecting something new. Change in psychoanalysis is a complex personal matter that touches different layers of personal affinities which should be considered- at a first stage. Those problems need to be resolved before offering any concrete steps to make the change to make psychoanalysis an academic subject.

Change is the fabric of exitance; both the existence of animate and inanimate objects alike. The difference is that animate subjects like to believe that they can interfere with their inevitable change. The higher the subject in the hierarchy of evolution the stronger is that belief. What is more problematic, especially with humans, is that we create inanimate and some animate objects, therefore we do not deal only with our own changes but also with the changes of what we create.

Psychoanalysts have changed and continue to change. The subjects of psychotherapy and of psychoanalytic thinking in general also have changed and continue to change. How can we deal with these interacting changes? Could we accept that moving psychoanalysis from the influence of the model of the IPA to the influence of academia is not to save its practice from vanishing, but because psychoanalysis “naturally” has changed? Recognizing and accepting that we are not- right now- doing the right things by our discipline requires tolerating a narcissistic injury, and that we moving to remedy the situation and not to remedy our pride. I am not using the term “narcissism” in the banal meaning self-aggrandizement, but narcissism as an issue of the duality of the subject and his image (imagined). Can we deal with a new duality regarding self perception in an academic role!

Changing from the IPA Model of Learning and Training:

The model of training and learning of the IPA is based on transmitting knowledge and expertise from generation to generation through the direct contact between teacher and student. This was the favoured method of learning in the different trades before schools and teaching institutions existed and universities prevailed.  Academic learning and training, which is the foundation of professionalism, is based on having the required body of knowledge available independently of the teacher. The material to learn is not the professors’ creation but the amalgam of knowledge that was accumulated and scrutinized over many years and experiences. Medicine in Harvard is the same medicine that a student in Barcelona will learn. Even demonstrating the practice of the material in those two academic centres may differ, but mostly in the colour of the gowns the student wears in the examination room. In our present IPA institutes (or an equivalent) there is no means to compare ad match the content and quality of training. The separation of the material from the professor’s idiosyncrasies and the student’s vulnerability to those idiosyncrasies is the basis of academic teachings.  The changes to psychoanalysts and psychoanalysis require us to bring the academic modality to psychoanalysis not just fitting psychoanalysis in an academic department and hope for the best

Four major questions popup in that regard:   

 Where would psychoanalysis fit in academia?

As a component of the academic system who will be responsible for building and maintaining its syllabus?

What will be the orientation of the syllabus be: Humanities or psychotherapy?

How are we going to help in establishing psychoanalysis as an academic entity?  As an academic entity psychoanalysis will require a good dose of “scholarly” work, which there are very few of us who could deliver. Put as a question: Are we going to continue teaching the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality or are we going to show in scholarly way how Freud (and other thinkers) develop their intuitions into a comprehensive discovery?   

These are some things we should think well about. Approaching the subject with academicians requires attention to some issues we might not be aware of. One, which is of evident significance, is: are we moving psychoanalysis as it is now to academia or are we going to accept changing present psychoanalysis into an academic subject to be part of a larger filed of knowledge. No academic institution would accept to house the IPA model of training and learning of psychoanalysis as it stands now. The reason is that academic learning is something the student has to acquire not to emulate.

What I am stipulating here is not difficulties or obstacle in the way of moving psychoanalysis to academia; they are the issue that we should work out with the help of the academics to fix. If our problem is to improve that standers of psychotherapy so patients start coming back for therapy, we could do that without psychoanalysis. There are great programs in European universities for psychotherapy, But if we want to improve ‘psychoanalysis’ we should think of moving it to academia to become part of the human sciences.

Psychoanalysis and Academia*

A Glimpse of Hope, but Just a Glimpse

It seems that it became obvious to psychoanalysts in North America that tinkering with the present state of affairs in psychoanalysis is not going the stop its deteriorating condition. Only lately, there seem to be an awakening interest in linking or looking for ways to relate psychoanalysis to academia. There is some hope there, but just a glimpse of hope. The reason for my guarded hope is two-fold:

A.   For the last two decade or maybe a little more (actually since 1995) it was clear to everyone in the practice of psychoanalysis, including the governing body of the IPA, that psychoanalysis is becoming an endangered specie. In 2000 I published a book on the crisis concentrating on putting together a comprehensive picture of the fundamentals of the core theory of psychoanalysis, and cautioning for the demise of psychoanalysis if we let go of the basics of its doctrine. The book did miserably for over ten years, and it is now close to being out of print. So mush about the book but there has been sort of an awakening to the fact that the crisis is real. Yet, all the attention in North America is about the deteriorating state of the practice of psychoanalysis and there no mentioning of the state of psychoanalysis itself. I will come to that later.   

I was witnessing the deterioration in North America, at the same time getting wind of the European’s attention to Academia-not only as escape hatch from a sinking ship-but as a new conception of psychoanalysis. In North America there were several desperate and serious attempts at reviving the “practice” of psychoanalysis which all came back either with failure or suggestions of changing psychoanalysis itself. Desperation is eventually leading to a glimpse of flexibility and hope that analytic circles are considering academia a proper and possible consideration; a last resort not an actual solution.

B.    All the replacement theories of the classical theory proved to be theoretical soap bubbles, and they burst one after the other without catching the attention of analysts or patients. The call to consider academic learning and training as the venue to take is not, anymore, blasphemous. Nevertheless, it only meant taking our failing psychoanalysis to academia to get resuscitated. If we want to change the situation, we should bring academia to psychoanalysis not the other way around. Academia is not school building, budgets, resources, etc., Academia is a way of thinking, an attitude regarding knowledge that could help in improving the practice of that knowledge.  Despite the exitance of some psychoanalytic institutions that are affiliates of reputable universities in the USA, psychoanalysis-even in those institution- avoid declaring themselves as purely academic, because ‘we’ use the term in its popular meaning of theoretical, idealistic not practical (practice).  Possibly, the main obstacle in the way a proper link between psychoanalytic learning and training and academia in North America is matter of reputation: real psychoanalysis is the one you can get in the purely IPA institutes, which allows being elected to its membership.

 In Europe, psychoanalysis is already well entrenched in academia. Presently, there are academic institutions all over Europe that either opened themselves to psychoanalytic education with attached training in psychotherapy, or offer post graduate degrees in psychoanalytic research, or both. However, the existence of universities (in Europe) specialised in psychoanalytic teachings, or noteworthy departments of psychoanalysis in other major universities, reveal ‘points’ of debate that have to be addresses sooner than later.

The people who advocated and established the presence of psychoanalysis in academia are psychoanalysts who got their training (status as analysts) in the IPA system of training institutes. They are also the main professors in those academic institutes. This fact creates the first point of confusion: What is the difference between learning and training in the IPA system and in what takes place in Academia? Do we have to have two systems if the faculty is mainly the same? If there is a difference why do we create it or not try to eliminate? Why make the change, maintain it, and apologize for continuing it?

The Advantages of Academic Training:

In any way we try to compare the two systems we will notice that the time dedicated to getting an academic degree in is psychoanalysis, even just at the master’s level, is much more than what is offered in the IPA institutes for a full period of training. The syllabus in the academic departments of psychoanalytic studies are -at least- well defined and constitute a curriculum that could be judged in terms of quality and fulfillment of objectives. The system of the seminars in the IPA institutes lacks clarity, cohesiveness, compatibility with what was delivered by another faculty or in a similar institute. Teaching in institutes is more or less dependant on the faculty’s theoretical bend and interest in the subject he presents to the class.  The academic faculty teaching psychoanalysis has to cover the subject in a systematic way and make sure that all its aspects of the syllabus are covered are delivered in manner that allows other faculty know what the student has been informed about. Quality and measures of assessing that quality exist firmly and clearly in academia, while they are not adhered to as a tradition in the IPA institutes.

This point of confusion leads to another more drastic in importance. The programs of psychoanalysis in those universities are recognized and accredited by the university, which bestows its credibility on its educational system as whole. This is the rule in all respectable professions, particularly the ones that deal with citizens.  It is the rule that is seriously followed in clinical psychology, psychiatry and clinical social work. A system of that nature gives the academic degree in psychoanalysis the status of a professional certificate, and the credential of that program comes from an accreditation of the university.  The graduates from the IPA institutes have no professional credentials except the ones they acquired in their academic specialization as professionals.  This point highlights the issue of professional credibility which training in IPA institutes does not guarantee. Rightly so; there is no unified measure of learning, training, assessing and evaluating the curricula in that system of training except the opinion of the training analysts (no wonder that the relationship with the faculty in the IPA institutes is always coloured by personal factors).

Everything related to deferring learning and training in psychoanalysis to academia shows the big advantages of doing that. Yet, even analysts who support the academic model are obviously not taking the sensible and necessary step of closing the IPA shop and expanding the academic shop. The reasons I heard about this dilemma ranges from nostalgia to the tradition to ‘ower’ independence that would be lost in academia. In addition the is fear of other human sciences absorbing psychoanalysis and making it merely a subspecialty in a larger domain. There is nothing to fear in that context except limiting the flexibility of improvising new schools of psychoanalysis haphazardly and irresponsibly.

Psychoanalysis-in academia- will get and take more time to learn and train, its syllabus will be organized and delivered in manner that eliminates the chancy ingeniousness of some faculty, and would finally adheres to the academic standers of quality. Psychoanalysis becomes a respectable profession instead of remaining a guild, as it is now.

However, resistance to change and the conflict of interest of the senior of analysts who are supposed to lead the movement to ‘academize’ psychoanalysis are issue to consider when we think of hope. This is another issue.

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*In a previous posting I was introducing the issue of structuralism in psychoanalysis as a neglected point of change that affected psychoanalysis since the nineteen thirties. It is a central issue in the humanities since, and specifically in the arguments with Lacanian psychoanalytic thought.That topic was unfamiliar with most North American psychoanalysts. However, I received an email from a colleague asking me if there is something wrong with me and if I needed some help.

This posting too contains some unfamiliar ideas about the topic of academia and psychoanalysis. I want to assure my colleagues from the beginning that I am OK and do not need  help regarding my mind.