The End of the Last Empire: The European Empire. 

Part one

What makes me visit and revisit the topic of the Ukraine war is how much we psychoanalysts can say about the media and politicians misleading people, abusing both known intentions and nonconscious activation of personal (individual) needs, to distract from the basic facts in this seemingly meaningless conflict between two uneven powers. It is a post on the power of projection. 

                                                               …......................................... 
 

Evolution and development are unnoticeable but inevitable conditions of all matters in existence, whether material or non-material. All living things die, and anything material decays. So, as the signs of life in animals or plants wither and die, the material evidence of decay manifests in degradation of the original quality of the decaying matter. At the present time we are at a point when we should be asking: what is the matter with the world of humans? After almost a century of obvious relative peace and fast recoiling from the possibility of major wars we are now steadily toward expanding a tense situation in the Ukraine to become a serious possibility of a large war. I will venture and deal with that question by notions that I reached from outside the regular ways of arguing issues first before reaching conclusions. The end of WWII took us to a point where we thought there would be no more major wars because the last conflict ended with two atomic explosions that gave a new meaning of war.  However, the realistic reason is that it looked as if the last empire in the history of humanity- the European Empire- had completed the evolution and change of a fragmented world and a new homogenous world in beginning. It started six centuries ago and began its decay a few hundred years ago with endless internal conflicts and wars, and two atomic bombs of which one was unnecessary to use (The Nagasaki bomb).  

The falling started at the end of the second world war by the liberation of African, South America, Southeast Asia some smaller change in the Karibian islands. But the most demonstrative of all those changes is the migrations of people of the old empire to the source countries of that empire. Even though this reverse migration is small in margins it says that 'the world is no longer divided into master\slave, white\black, poor\rich etc.' One of the most perceptive books of late is entitled: The World is Flate (By: Thomas Friedman). Flattening the world is not fully done yet, and the Ukraine War attests to a foolishly stubborn western Europe to hold on to its old fictitious sense of superiority. Although Russia is not known as part of the European history of racial discrimination it practiced subtle methods of discrimination and played a similar role and adapted the same colonizing inclines to its claims to communism. This happened in middle Asia (away from noticing), in some parts of the north of Asia and mostly in Eastern Europe. Thus, with confidence it could be said that the present war in the Ukraine is an internal squabble between Easten and Western Europeans. The unity between Easten and Western European was always at the e expense of a third party like Iran, Iraq and other Muslim nations. 

Because racism is a core in Narcissism it is not easy to know what is happening in the \Ukrainian war.... two narcists fighting about who is entitled to be a genuine European master. The Western Europeans are unable to accept yet ‘old-despised Russia and China as equals. That despise has proven to "always" be done when an empire starts its end. They choose an old inferior adversary- who has become later as an equal- to treat him as a failure in progressing and catching up with civility. At the present time the old European trick of deprecating an adversary as a lower-class human, criminal to humanity, lying and hiding its vicious nature, makes the enemy suffer because of a low sense of morality. Ukrainians were easterners thus inferior- but not enemies or at least not difficult to befriend as was done with the people of the old Soviet Union.  

The case of a Dying Empire: 

The historical events that led to the war in the Ukraine are PATHETIC, and had exposed to us, psychoanalysts, a living political event that we know much about its psychological core. It might sound to you like a ridiculous explanation of a grave event, but it is not (remember the assassination of a prince that started WWI that lasted for more than four years!?).  

After WWII the European world divided into the West European league of NATO, and the Eastern league of WARSO. The events of disbanding of the USSR   and the formation of modern Russia reflected the modernization of the Eastern part of Europe and the inability of the western side of the European part of giving up the ‘silly’ sense of imperial superiority. This difficulty came directly from the USA’s taking over the leadership of the west. (New, vigorous, did not lose much yet in wars, etc.). So, the European Empire remained claiming its old inhumane status with the USA looking for chances to fill the place of the old glamour of the Westen Europeans.  

A very sad situation was created but was not interesting enough to the clinincal psychoanalyst: a dying empire is gone before a new country had a chance to take its place. The twentieth century saw handing the Batton to the USA to replace the old union of England and France. The USA accepted quietly to be the younger brother. The USA made all the right moves to keep NATO active, to keep the European economy healthy, but created crises that frightened the world and begged for protection from. Most of the sinking countries of the eastern European side of the empire remained alive, not out of honest concern, but only to deprive Russia from its old allies.  This is what created the present Ukrainian war. It is clear, like everything, that what the media in the west is using to describe the Russia’s meanness and inhumanity, etc. is a drop of tears compared with the blood bathes they created around the world over six long centuries. Just a few years ago France massacred the Algerians like flies, the British in Ismailia killing Egyptians like shooting targets, let alone the slaves from Africa and Acia. Make a comparison between Russia avoiding or limiting civilian targets compared to the USA spraying miles and miles of Vietnams jungles and vegetation with chemicals to destroy its forests. The European Empire is only humane in the European Media because it does not mention the avoided targets and mentions only the ‘discomfort's of keeping them alive without heat. The Algerians would have preferred discomfort over death. 

This introduction is meant to pave the way for psychoanalysis to contribute to a political scene that does not make sense, as psychoneurotic symptoms and conditions do. The European countries who ruled, exploited, and exhausted their potentials beyond the limits of existence-like the Greek, Romans, Babylonians, Inka people did before- are now showing all the signs of a dying empire. It started by the end of the second world war and the liberation of African, South America, Southeast Asia some smaller change in the Karibian Islands too. But the most demonstrative of all these changes is the migrations of people of the old empire to the source countries of that empire. Even in its small margins it says that 'the world is no longer divided into master\slave, white\black, poor\rich etc.' One of the most perceptive books of late is entitled: The World is Flate (By: Thomas Friedman). Flattening the world is not fully done yet, and the Ukraine War attests to a foolishly stubborn Europe to hold on to its passee fictitious sense of superiority. That has proven to "always" be achieved by choosing an old inferior adversary who has become an equal to treat as a failure in progressing and catching up with civility.  

This is the seat of what we call projection. In this case, Russia is the barbarian, savage, backward, dictatorship.... but somehow changed politically and let go of colonizing its previous east European allies. Western Europe is doing the opposite: they are holding firm to the concept of colonization and NATO.  In the case of the Hong Kong crisis, few months ago, China was the savage barbarian, uncivilized, un- European, undemocratic villain. The USA is civilized and head of the dying European empire even though it suffers from social disintegration of a large scale. Few months ago-in Hong Kong, China was the savage barbarian, uncivilized, Un European, undemocratic villain. It was not forgotten yet what the USA did in the elections in south America for the last hundred twenty years, and ending by the assassination the elected president of Chile and replacing him with a military general.

 The issue of Our Democracy is not  simply related to self centeredness or regression to naive narcissism.  It is a hasty attempt at dealing with the return of the repressed. What is most evident in the returning of the repressed in this occasion is guilt. In a disguised way Americans are  dealing with old guilts but- displacing it to democracy (Which is not working well). This displacement makes the return of Guilt bearable and also have a good touch of honesty;  We are suffering and wish to correct the past. I believe that if this suggestion is acceptable our American Colleagues could dip in the pool of psychodynamics safely. 

 Why!!

I am not breaking my promise to not write more in my blog. I am just asking people who know how to answer this Question to think about an answer even if not stating the answer in my blog:

Why Americans, and their media in particular, keep adding the adjective-possessive (of our) every time they mention the word Democracy. 

Democracy is a Greek term for a system of governing which they established few centuries ago. Democracy in its modern form is healthy and flourishing in Europe and many other countries- all over the world. Democracy in the USA (now in particular) is going through a serious episode that is revealing many of its shortcomings. In fact, it will take very little time and attention for  American Democracy to require serious revision.

Why is the compulsion to add the adjective-possessive to the term Democracy every time an American mentions it in his country.   Analysts, get working... it is a complex question.   

 This is the Last Posting:

 

2. The Need for a New Psychoanalysis:

The issue I am dealing with in this last posting is my belief that the psychoanalysis that existed for more than a century, and I (we) witnessed its loss of identity has to be replaced by a new psychoanalysis and not by a modified version of the old one. Two reasons for my belief. Old psychoanalysis had a subject matter that does not exist anymore: the study of the human subject that happened to come from his psychotherapy. We are now aware of our nature and psychoanalytic psychotherapy is not effective as it used to be because we are treating ‘a new human subject’. If most of us do not know what I mean by a new patient (new human subject) they only need to consider the quality of the clinical papers that were published in the last twenty years and the criticism of the old system of Neutrality, Anonymity, Abstinence, interpretation\ Construction, and Transference. The second reason for considering a new psychoanalysis is that patients are dealing more with actual and real social and interpersonal issues than the intrapsychic issues of the faulty upbringings that were prevalent in the past.

However, I have to make a short calling to mind about some key features of the past to get to the new. Psychoanalysis started with answering the question Why (the symptom), followed a little later with the question How (repression and unconscious means to satisfy the blocked desire or wish), but did not touch the question of What (what is a symptom, what is an imaginary fulfillment in unconscious acts). Answering the What question required a radical understanding of what is unconscious?

The first two questions pertained to the function of therapy while the third question comes from the existence of language as the means to understanding to make understood. Obsessive-compulsive rituals used to ‘say’ something and imply another thing at the same act [those old symptomatic acts still exist but we are not able anymore to make the nature of the human subject the core of psychotherapy]. Although hypnosis was a very successful beginning it was Freud, and only Freud, who realized that the issue is not resistance to talking about certain matters and overcoming it by hypnosis, but it was the nature of those matters themselves: they were unconscious to the subject because of their nature and their structure (Why a bout of jealousy creates depression or loss of sexual desire). The unconscious is so because it is not amenable to the rules of regular thinking to enter consciousness. It also uses language differently. At that stage in the discovery psychoanalysis, it began a new journey: naming the states of unconsciousness and creating the ‘vocabulary’ of psychoanalysis, i.e., defense mechanism. The Why Question found the answer in the notion of the unconscious and got answers from the vocabulary that was improvised to explain the defenses, such as repression, splitting, projection, etc. But the question of what unconsciousness is was not touched or ‘most’ analysts were unable and uninterested in getting that specific answer. I believe that the disregard of addressing the issue of what is unconsciousness required a different kind of analysts who were not therapists- analysts (those analysts existed but were not permitted to call themselves psychoanalysts). Even the psychoanalysts who showed interest in explaining how splitting or identification happen in the process of the development were not met with enthusiasm (like Bion).  Psychoanalysis was captive of the definition of psychotherapy with a subtle resistance to showing any of its other characteristics.

After more than a century of psychoanalysis it is still neither a theory of the subject whom we treat nor a theory of psychopathology we deal with nor a theory of practice that we claim to be our claim of fame. I could be understood as condescending to psychoanalysis, but the fact is that I am blaming ourselves for the condition of psychoanalysis now.  The evidence is the diversities in hypothesizing in all those three areas without a campus for direction. All the attention in the official circles of training, which also the domain of improving and advancing psychoanalysis is directed to preserving the numbers high!! and   thought saving the practice from vanishing.  I am just mentioning the result of forgetting psychoanalysis and concentrating on psychotherapy and the institutes.

To my astonishment and disappointment when there was a faint response to moving psychoanalysis to academia. However, it was just the notion of changing the addresses of the institutes and their postal code. MOVING PSYCHOANALYSIS TO ACADEMIA IS GETTING RID OF THE TRIPARTITE SYSTEM OF TRAING IN INSTUITES AND INTRODUCING THE ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS (STRUCTURAL PSYCHO ANALYSIS) AS ISSUES OF ACADEMIC STATUS THAT REQUIRE THE INPUT FROM THE DIFFERENT BRANCHES OF THE HUMANRIES.  

The notion of conscious\unconscious (the earliest and most basic tenet of psychoanalysis) demanded two things: A. learning the structure of the unconscious (what is unconsciousness?), B. how a type of ordinary thinking gets affected by repression. To give an example of those two ‘repressed questions that baffled psychoanalysts up till now I will discuss “The Interpretation of Dreams” as the earliest attempt at theorizing an aspect of practice.

Freud was torn between functionality that could provide help to psychotherapy and structuralism which is the means to understanding the human subject. Thus, he managed to get a thread of knowledge from his own dreams and the most well-known is the Irma Dream. From that dream he conjures up the idea that the ‘dream scene’ is a scene of A Wish Fulfilled. He followed that with his book on Parapraxes, which was also regarding the disguised wish fulfilled in a slip of the tongue. But the book on sexuality which follows Three Contributions to the Theory of Sexuality was the first jump to structuralism. He followed the main trend at that time to consider sexuality an instinct, but the made a distinction between the Aim of that instinct and its Object. The significance of that distinction was very intuitive in explaining the richness of sexual life of the human subject. We recognize in that dissection he made that the intrapsychic aspect of the subject (intrapsychic instinct has external objects but is more important is the structural duality of every psychological issue in the human subject.  

This duality indicates a gap that is occupied by our psychological life. Thus, psychoanalysis is the work that reaches that gap, examines, and makes changes based on knowledge of the nature of the gap, and reconstruct the analyzed material. This is far more essential, complicated, involved with several other issues the subject deals with and most of all no IPA training institute could manage with its apprenticeship concept conveying knowledge from one generation to the next.  

Then What?

The thing that requires re-examining and re-thinking: is there a future for contemporary psychoanalysis? Contemporary psychoanalysis is the outcome of a few transformations over the years that make it quite different from it even up till the mid-sixties of last century. It has all the features of an exhausted branch of knowledge in addition to all the features of an obsolete system of treatment of psychoneuroses. In the last two years I had the chance to review the training programs in two institutes: one her in the USA and one in a relatively new European institute. The structure of the traditional tripartite system of apprenticeship was preserved with insignificant additions and eliminations. But, But the obvious thing to notice is that the training body is the source of the strongest resistance to change which means that we psychoanalysts are obstacle in the way of catching up with change. There is something in the psychoanalytic movement that reminds me of the TALIBANS.