EDMUND BERGLER AND PSYCHIC MASOCHISM

Transcription

1 EDMUND BERGLER AND PSYCHIC MASOCHISM For thirty years it has been my gradually developed belief that...a complete overhauling of our thinking concerning the structure of neurosis is necessary. It is my contention that the first and foremost conflict of the new-born, infant, baby, consists in the fact that he must come to terms with his inborn megalomania. That conflict invariably and without exception results in a masochistic solution, the pleasure-in-displeasure pattern. This constitutes the basic neurosis. Edmund Bergler, Curable and Incurable Neurotics (p. 63) AN ESSAY BY JOHN RIDDELL

2 Introduction Edmund Bergler ( ), an Austrian Jew, fled the Nazis in to live and practice in New York City. He wrote 25 psychology books along with 273 articles that were published in leading professional journals. Bergler's contribution to psychoanalytic thought was remarkable. Delos Smith, science editor of United Press International, said Bergler was "among the most prolific Freudian theoreticians after Freud himself." He extended and made clinically usable several of Freud's later concepts, including superego cruelty, unconscious masochism, and the importance of the pre-oedipal oral mother-attachment. Hitschmann spoke of his "extraordinary talent for the specialty of psychoanalysis... his command of the entire subject matter, his scientific acumen and literary erudition." Considered "one of the few original minds among the followers of Freud," Bergler presented his main ideas in The Basic Neurosis, in which he summarized his massive original contribution to the field. Throughout his considerable body of written work, lucid case summaries in each book reveal clinical brilliance and a highly effective analytic technique. His own writing, as well as productive collaborations with Jekels, Eidelberg, Winterstein, and Hitschmann, included works on theory and technique. International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, Bergler was Freud s assistant director at the Vienna clinic in the 1930s, and is among the first generation of psychoanalyists after Freud. The centerpiece of Freudian psychoanalysis was initially the Oedipus complex; but Bergler notes that, over time, Freud began to realize how important the pre-oedipal phase was in human development- particularly the earliest- oral- phase. Unfortunately, many of Freud s (and Bergler s) predecessors have not followed their lead: (p. 57)* One sometimes has the impression that some colleagues treat everything beyond Oedipus and the libido as unwelcome and bothersome intruders. and (p. 62): Prevailing analytic opinion failed to accept that substructure de facto and relegated pre-oedipality to a footnote. Bergler certainly didn t. On the contrary, the pre-oedipal phase was the central feature of his work. In this essay, we will attempt to outline why he considered the pre-oedipal to be so important. * Almost all material included (with the exception of the Appendix) are quotes from Bergler's "Curable and Incurable Neurotics" (1961).

3 PART I THE GENETIC PICTURE: The Development of Psychic Masochism in the Infant Bergler: "The sequence of events [from 1-2 years of age, in every human being] is always the same: 1. offense to infantile megalomania; 2. mobilization of fury, inexpressable fury; 3. turning of the child's aggression against himself."...but this doesn t work...the child becomes too uncomfortble Thus we have to add a fourth point:...libidinization* of the boomerang aggression by making it an UNCONSCIOUS pleasure. Nobody can go through the protracted helplessness of childhood without acquiring some traces of this psychic poison. Psychic masochism is a universal human trait... *Libido scientifically denotes sexual energy in the widest (and not the popular) connotation. Astonishing though it may seem, this unconscious masochism, developed in the first months of life, will likely remain active and unaltered throughout the rest of one s life- unless it is challenged in some meaningful way, by analysis, or some other effective means. Before considering what this universal human triat means, let us ask- as Bergler does- what does analysis accomplish? Then we will examine points 1-4 (above) in more detail. What Does Analysis Accomplish? Bergler (pp 79-80): Psychoanalysis throws a monkey-wrench into the machinery of neurosis. By clarifying the psychic chemistry of the neurotic s actions it shows him a new way of defence: not to accept every accusation of the superego but to fight back. It also teaches the neurotic the unproductiveness of his habitual defence of psychic masochism. True, the neurotic outsmarts the torturer by changing his torture into inner pleasure. But this pleasure is unconscious; and every ounce of unconscious pleasure must be paid for with tons of conscious misery. Psychic masochism is...only misdirected aggression, turned against oneself and secondarily libidinized. By retreiving the original aggression from the hopeless amalgam the ex-neurotic has the power to fight more successfully the war every human being wages on two fronts: the superego and the obstacles of reality.

4 According to Bergler, neglect of the pre-oedipal period leads to errors in analysis (p. 57): the ability to see psychic masochism in the patient presupposes that one s own masochism has been thoroughly aired in one s own analysis, and (at least partially) made ineffective. Since in most cases psychic masochism is not given the distinction of being analyzed, the analyist who did not hear of it in his own analysis does not transmit knowledge of it to his patients either. (p. 63) That being so, Bergler goes on to point out errors made by psychoanalysts in the 5 major areas of analytical work: the transference, resistance, free associations and/or silences, dreams, and working through. Errors in these areas, he says, are further exacerbated by the analyst s neglect of or unfamiliarity with psychic masochism. Pp. 63-4: the psychotherapist who takes the superficial defenses at face value, disregarding, or being uninformed of, the masochistic substructure, acts like the detective who falls for false clues planted by the criminal to confuse him and put him on the wrong track. Without analyzing the basic masochistic substructure the neurotic cannot be changed. What is this basic masochistic substructure? Let us look at the trials and tribulations of the infant in more detail. DEVELOPMENT OF THE BASIC MASOCHISTIC SUBSTRUCTURE For the infant in the womb, all is provided automatically. That is his or her reality: omnipotence. But upon birth, reality radically changes. How does the infant deal with this? For example, what happens when he is not fed automatically? One has only to observe a hungry infant wailing... TROUBLEMAKER # 1: Infantile megalomania. Each time the infant s megalomania is offended (his needs not tended to automatically), fury is aroused. TROUBLEMAKER # 2: Helpless fury: Aggression. This is the aggressive DRIVE operating. But the infant s means of expressing this fury are ineffectual: crying, vomitting, spitting, flailing of arms and legs, etc.

5 So what does he do? How does he resolve this dilemma? Before answering that question, let us say a word about Drives. DRIVES What happens next can best be visualized by imagining human drives as rivers. If a river is dammed so that it cannot move forward at any angle, it will eventually reverse its flow. In the human being, the river of inexpressable fury eventually reverses its flow and turns against the child himself... But the arrangement is obviously unacceptable. The megalomaniacal child wants some fun,... His problem becomes this: How is one to derive pleasure and happiness from a state of [upset] that destroys peace and happiness? TROUBLEMAKER # 3: Psychic Masochism. The child s intuitive genius finds a solution! By learning to like displeasure, he extracts pleasure from an impossible situation. This pleasure-in-displeasure pattern is technically called psychic masochism. (It is important to understand that this solution is not arrived at consciously by the child. His rational faculties have not yet developed. These troublemakers form unconsciously.) QUESTION: But the child grows older and his muscular apparatus becomes more effective and controlled. Fury can now be expressed and discharged outward. Why is the flow of fury not completely reversed, and the pattern of finding pleasure in displeasure not abandoned as anachronistic? THE TRIAD OF RETRIBUTION: The Rise of the Malicious Outer World... Punishment, moral reproach, and guilt. To protect and acclimatize the child to the Outer World, the word don t! must be used lavishly. Unfortuntely, this only serves to reinforce and nourish TROUBLEMAKER # 3. We have said above, in describing the emergence of psychic masochism, that the child learns to like displeasure... libido can therefore add to the child s troubles when frustrated or deposited in the wrong place. Unexpectedly, we find libido seated in the trouble council as TROUBLEMAKER # 4.

6 THE SUPEREGO: TROUBLEMAKER # 5 Inner processes are progressively-dynamic, not retrogressively-static. The unusable and inexpressible aggression of the child flows inward. Here it is accumulated in the unconscious conscience (not to be confused with conscious conscience, which embodies the conventional and approved standards of right and wrong.) The unconscious conscience, becomes one of the most dangerous members of the child s trouble council. The unconscious conscience- the superego- is composed of two constituents: 1. The ego ideal, as described by Freud, grows out of his infantile megalomania, which is by no means a negligible characteristic in any child. 2. Daimonion: a cruel inner jailer, tormentor, and torturer. These two impersonal departments work in this way: Daimonion uses the ego ideal for its campaign of torture; Daimonion confronts the ego with its self-created ego ideal, asking if all the aims promised during childhood have been acheived. If the answer is in the negative, the result is guilt. The ego ideal is therefore a failure, as far as the ego is concerned, for it was originally established in order to protect the ego from blows to its self-esteem. The defensive weapon, effective at first, eventually backfires. The child s brilliant expedient failed only because the child did not know that it was necessary to fight on two fronts: the external and internal. The ego ideal was set up to cope with the external conflict that arose when the child was confronted by the commands of educators. The device successfuly neutralized these conflicts, but it had no effect on Daimonion*......the inner departments of the personality, once they have been established, cannot be abandoned or rebuilt except through analytic treatment, the torture persits, throughout life, on the basis of the child s original overoptimism. The ego continues to offer excuses; Daimonion continues to reject them and dictate punishment in the form of guilt and depression. (Bergler) The superego, like all dictators, understands only the language of force. In order to best the superego, the ego must demonstrate strength in the form of external success...or ever-ready aggression. The difference between so-called normality and neurosis illustrates the working of this rule. * This forbidding term was borrowed from Socrates, who held that every human being harbored a diabolical something within himself...a kind of voice that kept him from doing what he wished to do but never gave any positive advice...in psychoanalytical terms [it] is an inner malicious something that is each man s worst enemy. Every human being consciously wishes to be happy, but the fact is that there also exists in the human psyche an unconscious force that is averse to happiness, success, enjoyment of life, and whose aim is unhappiness, misery, even self-destruction. Pp 33-34

7 THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A COMPARATIVELY HEALTHY EGO AND A NEUROTIC EGO The comparatively healthy ego has a considerable quantity of aggression at its disposal, and can therefore contend successfully with the superego and limit the amount of punishment imposed. The neurotic ego s store of aggression, however, has been taken over by the superego, which uses it for the purposes of torture. (Bergler) The superego: is the antihedonistic force in the personality. It s PRIMARY RULE: no pleasure! All this applies to more or less normal people. There is a radical difference in the situation as it applies to neurotics. This TROUBLEMAKER, # 5, becomes a torture machine for torture s sake. Psychic masochism is the dangerous and tricky weapon that the poor ego uses to contend against this torture machine. In summary: The failure to fullfill the infant s varied wishes or merely the postponement of such fullfillment arouses a double frustration in the child. His magalomania has sustained a blow, and he has been denied the pleasure he desired. The deprivation, plus offense to the fantasy of absolute power, arouses fury; the fury cannot be expressed because of the child s helplessness, and therefore it rebounds against himself. Later in the child s development, the outward direction of his aggression is also inhibited by the educators use of the triad of retribution: punishment, moral reproach, and guilt. The next step is libidinization of guilt and punishment, after the formula: The only pleasure one can extract from displeasure is to make displeasure a pleasure. By the age of some 24 months, unconscious psychic masochism has become firmly established in the psyche of each and evey human being. As said previously, a normal allottment of such masochism is manageable. A more severe quantity demonstrates neurosis.

8 PART II THE CLINICAL PICTURE: Psychic Masochism in the Adult The psychic masochism of the child manifests in the adult through the following three steps: 1. Unconsciously, the psychic masochist provokes disappointment or refusal, through his behavior or his misuse of an external situation. When disappointment or refusal materializes, the outer world is unconsciously identified with the image of the refusing mother of the earliest stage of development, the pre-oedipal, gimme phase. 2. Pseudoaggresion, denoting unconsciously mobilized defensive aggression, aimed not at the outer enemy but as alibi presented to the unconscious conscience (the superego). On the surface, the pseudoaggression seems to be the product of righteous indignation, and a move made in self-defence against the external enemy; the psychic masochist remains unaware of the part he has played in bringing about his disappointment. 3. Still unaware of the part he has unconsciously played, the psychic masochist consciously pities himself for his defeat and humiliation; at the same time he unconsciously enjoys masochistic pleasure. Neurosis is an anachronistic disease of the unconscious, preserving repressed infantile wishes, defence mechanisms, guilt. In normality these tendencies are given up or at least modified; in neurosis they are unconsciously perpetuated despite the countermeasures of the superego. But the neurotic superego is venal... The superego exacts its full share of punishment,..the ego pays an exhorbitant price for infantile, second-hand, substitute gratifications. (Bergler) THE SEPTET OF BABY FEARS What are these infantile, second-hand, substitute gratifications? The septet of baby fears (of starvation, being devoured, poisoned, choked, drained, chopped to peices, and fear of castration)* have been clinically proven to exist, and, of course, have very little connection with reality factors. They arise, to begin with, from the child s desire to perpetuate the effortless and painless existence of prenatal conditions. *Bergler describes the septet in detail, and notes that the fear of castration is the rationally disguised culmination of all of the other baby fears.

9 ARE PARENTS TO BLAME? We also know that the mild or severe, intelligent or inept behavior of the parents may contribute to the child s inner troubles, but cannot create them. In short, the use or misuse of the raw material presented is accomplished by the selective action of the child s unconscious ego. EVOLUTION? A QUESTION Why some children fail, and others succeed, in the task of diplomatic adaptation to a stronger reality is a moot question. One could guess that children born with a more generous endowment of megalomania than the average have a more difficult time than the average in accomplishing this task. This is a guess; we are certain only of the clinical fact that every human being, as a result of his protracted infantile helplessness, harbors a certain amount of psychic masochism, and that in some individuals this certain amount is quantitatively larger than in others. Individuals in whom psychic masochism is pronounced are called neurotics. TREATMENT: THE ANSWER As alluded to earlier, we know, from CLINICAL experience, that this dangerous poison can be therapeutically counteracted. Since psychic masochism is usable aggression (misdirected against oneself), we are able in treatment to correct the error in direction, and make it possible for the aggression, changed into acceptable activity, to flow outward, where it belongs.

10 PART III THE OEDIPAL PHASE AND BEYOND In the beginning of his life, the child s attitude towards his mother is one of unmixed distrust. As he grows older, although he still sees her as the great refuser...he begins to realize that his mother also gives... At two, or two and a half, this untenable position composed of fear + ambivalence, is abandoned and the child progresses into the Oedipal phase. THE OEDIPAL PHASE The child must come to terms with the fact that the father exists, and is a competitor for the mother s love and admiration. He does so by setting up a NEW ORDER - (father, mother, and child) that supplants the DUALITY (mother and child). Further, the child demotes the mother. Father is now the authority. The child identifies himself with the father s borrowed strength. As already discussed, the prehistory of the child to this point has been characterized by fear and pronounced passivity. It is to counteract this passivity, and to overthrow the dictator of the nursery, that the child identifies himself with the father. The demotion of the mother diminishes fear, which is aided by the discovery that the female sex has no penis. Now he possesses the important organ, while his mother does not. But the Oedipuis complex collapses at about the age of five. The boy has demoted his mother from her position of fearful power, but has instead put his father into the same awe-inspiring and punishment-threatening position. Now the boy fears that his father will retaliate. Phallic castration fear is Freud s name for the new danger. The boy must now decide whether to protect his penis or persist in his Oedipal wishes. He chooses the security of the organ. As a result, passivity is again reinforced; normally, the sexual misconceptions that are the child s Oedipal wishes are abandoned, and succeeded by asexual filial affection. The child s hatred for his competitor, (his father) is also renounced,and its successor is filial friendship.

11 LATENCY The whole problem is now put in abeyance, to remain thus during the latency period (from the age of five to twelve). About the age of twelve, the old conflicts are then unconsciously revived by the advent of the biologically conditioned activity -push... This second edition of the conflicts of early infancy points the way to the final destiny of the human being. PUBERTY THAT DESTINY is not decided at this time; it has been foreshadowed by his solutions to his pre-oedipal and Oedipal conflicts. But the onset of puberty transforms that probability into certainty. TROUBLEMAKER # 7! OBJECTIVE REALITY makes demands that must be absorbed, fullfilled, or neutralized; they cannot be ignored. THE INNER COUNCIL OF WOES therefore has seven members with full voting power. Of the seven, certain groupings can be made: GROUP I Inherited DRIVES, present in every human being in quantitatively different degrees. Megalomania, aggression, libido are to be found in this group. GROUP II The unconscous conscience: the SUPEREGO A chronic and malicious kill-joy and torturer. As mentioned earlier, the superego consists of the Ego Ideal and Daimonion. GROUP III A trouble-shooter to counteract the troublemakers of Groups I and II. This troubleshooter is like a defence attorny + staff trying to do their best for a client in a desperate situation. Defence efforts are of three types. First,a warning signal intended to keep the client out of further difficulties; the second is the admission of a lesser crime (conscious symptoms) as a means of saving his client from punishment for a capital offense (unconscious psychic masochism); the third is the creation of inner alibis to render his client innocent of all charges. Thus, intrapsychically, fear is a warning signal; neurotic symptoms are always admissions of misdemeanors to cover up for felonies included in the indictment of the inner conscience; all defense mechanisms are unconcsious alibis. To exemplify: psychic masochism is a defense mechanism combating the constant flow of torture from the inner conscience, since the psychic masochist neutralizes torture by liking punishment. But at what a price!

12 GROUP IV This Group consists of the demands of reality, is generally a tool of the torture machine, and is effectively used to add to the individual s troubles. UNCONSCIOUS DYNAMIC: I - II CONSCIOUS DYNAMIC: III - IV I: Drives (megalomania, aggression, libido) II: Superego (Ego Ideal and Daimonion) III :Conscious Ego IV: Objective Reality (relationships, social issues, environmental concerns) The grey area represents self-realization as a composite of all 4 areas. The interactions of these Groups, i.e., the struggle entailed by neurotic individuals may be illustrated as a courtroom drama, the defendant constantly having to defend him or herself... GUILTY... OR NOT GUILTY??

13 As long as life continues, the inner struggle goes on. The drives of Group I will always press forward, shouting I want ; the stern judge, jury, district attorney, and executioner (the members of Group II) will always shout I forbid ; the ineffectual trouble-shooter of Group III (the unconscious ego) will doggedly continue to furnish weak alibis; and Reality (Group IV) will never stop presenting its daily and hourly demands. As mentioned earlier, Bergler claims that psychic masochism is a universal human trait...nobody can go through the protracted helplessness of childhood without acquiring some traces of this psychic poison...in my opinion [psychic masochism]...is the BASIC NEUROSIS and is the cause of most of the mental misery encountered in human beings. The only difference between neurotics and more or less normal individuals is the quantity of psychic masochism operating: The quantity of these self-damaging, psychic masochistic tendencies represents the great divide between manageable and unmanageable neurotic traits. CONCLUSION: Talking to the Unconscious? Dr. Bergler, building on the work of Freud and others has, in my opinion, given us a very exact genetic picture of how psychic masochism (neurosis) develops. Moreover, from this genetic picture, Bergler further developed a unique clinical treatment regimen consisting of not only orthodox treatment methods (transference, resistance, dreams, etc.), but the inclusion of educational materials for clients, so that thay may learn about what they are dealing with, and, in effect, become their own therapist through setting up a 'dialogue' between the conscious and unconscious components of their mind. Here is what one Berglerian client had to say... "How does it work?...i get the sense that my conscious mind is communicating to my unconscious mind that it is fully aware of its [the unconscious] machinations that are likely to cause, in Bergler's terms, conscious suffering through unconscious pleasure. It's like saying to my unconscious, 'the jig is up, I know what you are up to, and I do not intend to let you get away with it any longer.'

14 ...and a comment from a Berglerian therapist: A person s rational, conscious side is at a great disadvantage in subduing his emotional side if the rational side is not well enough informed about the unconscious configurations it is dealing with. In other words, the emotions (or unconscious or irrational) side...manages through various defenses to hide from our awareness the nature and extent of the inner sabotage. Indeed, as unpleasant as it is to accept, we are dealing with a formidable foe, a tyranny of the unconscious so well defended that most of us, mental-health professionals included, have not been able to recognize its existence, let alone its structure. (pp. 8-9) Peter Michaelson, Freedom From Self-Sabotage (1999) The implications could be of considerable importance. Here we may have a method whereby the 'language' of the unconscious may be understood by the conscious, rational mind, thereby allowing for the client to open up a 'dialogue' between the two for his or her benefit. Whether or not this is in fact so of course remains to be seen through the results of the ongoing practice of Berglerian Therapy. One would need to collect the necessary empirical evidence to confirm this. Unfortunately, there seem to be few Berglerian practitioners. Bergler's work is in danger of being lost, or at best supressed. This is due to his 1940s and 50s texts and articles on homosexuality: particularly his "Homosexuality: Disease or Way of Life?" (1956) in which he characterized homosexuality as a disease. Dr. Bergler was later denounced for this, and removed from the rosters of the American Psychoanalytic Association, The International Psychoanalytic Association, and other like bodies. But this is truly 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater' (a homily particularly so in Dr. Bergler's case- given the material he worked with.) This paper is an attempt to revitalize interest in Bergler's work. The Edmund and Marianne Bergler Psychiatric Foundation, in New York City, was established by Mrs. Bergler to preserve and perpetuate his work. It holds title to his working correspondence, many more articles, another two dozen complete books in English or German, as well as hundreds of drafts of papers and books. The Foundation doesn t appear to have a website.

15 APPENDIX: A NOTE ON SOCIAL MASOCHISM If psychic masochism is a universal malady, and treatment is available for it, one then wonders whether attempting to develop a social profile might be a worthwhile exercise. It could be argued that enough clinical data now exists to suggest at least a tentative blueprint. The following are a few notes on the subject, but have nothing directly to do with the work of Dr. Bergler. Let us revisit the diagram introduced previously, and reconstruct it as a social paradigm...

16 I: Social Drives 1 II: Supraego 2 (Unconscious Social Ideal and Daimonion) III: Social Ego (Conscious Collective Struggle Towrds a Better World) IV: Objective Reality (relationships, social issues, environmental concerns, the Earth) COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS DYNAMIC: I - II; COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUS DYNAMIC: III - IV The grey area represents whatever socialrealization may occur as a composite of the healthy/neurotic mix of all 4 areas. 1. As with individual drives (Troublemakers 1-4), Social Drives too may be either relatively healthy, or be turned inwards to become socially masochistic. For example, social aggression could be used in a healthy way to tend to socio-environmental issues, injustices, etc. But if unhealthy, it could be expressed through the perpetuation of injustice, ignoring environmental issues, or as a force for Wars. 2. I ve coined the term as such so as to try to be consistent with the terminology. Given the way which dominant corporations operate at the moment, the corporate state may qualify as our social Supraego. (Analogous, in the individual, to Troublemaker #5, as described earlier) By way of example. we may view this paradigm from two perspectives: 1. UNTREATED SOCIAL NEUROSIS (Social Masochism). A collective unconscious wherein the malicious Supraego is in control: for those in power, only infantile, immediate needs are of concern. Ojective Reality (the outer ring) fades, is superseded by the megalomaniacal illusion that there are infinte resources available in a finite world. Such a social (character) structure is likely to be narcissistic, even fascistic: of a neo-conservative, market fundamentalist typeresembling what we have today. Collective religious delusions, particularly those of radical fundamentalism, further blurr Objective Reality (IV). 2. TREATED SOCIAL NEUROSIS (Relatively Healthy Societies). A collective unconscious able to control, or at least contain the directives of the Supraego. Here, immediate goals are negotiated by those in power, but are more expansive, include and are augmented by socio-environmental concerns. The social structure here is more likely to be a co-operative balance of power between workers (unions), corporations (owners) and regulators (governments). This type of arrangement exists in Sweden today (2011). Here, Objective Reality does NOT fade. On the contrary, it is of primary concern. It is here, perhaps, where the loci of psychoanalysis, social theory, and activism might intersect, that we may move towards the consideration of a social therapy.