Over the years, many scholars and
cognitive scientists recourse to all-or-nothing thinking in either accepting the
sexual foundations of Freud’s psychology together with its psychosexual stages
of development or outright rejecting it. But the objective truth is probably
somewhere in the middle, meaning that the psychosexual pattern of development
may instead be domain-specific and apply only in social and environmental
circumstances where the sexual element predominates. Duhem’s thesis reminds us
that for any number of facts there can be multiple hermeneutics (i.e. theories
of interpretation), and so the most logical deduction would be one which
regards psychoanalytic approaches to personality and development as potentially
true or coming-to-be. Personally, I have identified several instrumental
moments in my life where the best contextualization is offered, believe it or
not, by the Freudian lens.
According to Freud’s repression model, consciousness is molded by instinctual
drives and ego defenses. We must penetrate through this superficial uppermost
layer encompassing a detailed record of contemporary psychic life if we are to
understand the processes of sedimentation mediating the whole psyche. Freud
assures us that beneath this dark veil of appearances are a succession of
horizontal psychic strata, the preconscious and the unconscious, in which
actualized mental contents await sensory expression. Lowest is a subterranean
reserve that perpetually feeds a Hadean chamber crammed full of unobstructed
sexual wishes and fantasies with inexhaustible psychic energy or libido. Just as the deepest layers of
geological strata contain fossilized remains of plants and animals now extinct,
so too does the unconscious contain a chronological repertoire of traumatic memories.
These manifest consciously as maladaptive and dysfunctional aspects of
personality and explode like land mines into consciousness each time the
immediate environment offers up the same cognitive, emotional, and physical
stimuli implicated in the latent traumatic memory.
In 2006 I experienced a
very stressful period replete with depressive symptoms such as sleep
disturbances and a significant reduction in the qualitative feelings of
pleasure and satisfaction afforded by my usual hobbies. Conjecturing that the
problem was psychological in origin, I elected to try a nonconventional
therapeutic intervention and chose hypnosis as my ‘poison’. The hypnotic
regression involved imaginal descent down a winding staircase and into a
cellar, where I explicitly recall seeing myself from the perspective of a
detached, third-person observer–a sunwashed youth with peroxide blond hair decked
in nothing but blood red surfing shorts and peppered with abrasions. Later, it
occurred to me that the imaginal representation corresponded precisely with my
general presentation during a time when desperate, premeditated efforts for
reconciliation where not reciprocated. Indeed, the image was a lifelike
flashback to a moment imbued with excruciating pain and humiliation. Like
Ariadne’s ball of woolen thread, the unconscious had led me to the wellspring
of the anxious distress. In this particular case, the unconscious irruption of
specific imagery (i.e. red surfing shorts) associated with the primal wound of
romantic rejection is explicable in terms of the Freudian model of unconscious
repression in the service of ego defense.
The phenomenology of the
Anal Stage (1-3yrs) pertaining to obsession with the erogenous zone of the anus
also rings true for me. Freud explicitly stated that children who refused to go
to the toilet, opting instead to retain excrement and experience pent-up
pressures against the intestines, developed characterological traits that were
anal-retentive in nature. Word has it that I, too, was obstinate and uncooperative
when it came to the department of toilet training–I didn’t want to go at all!
This was, to all intents and purposes, a symbolic reflection of an
inwardly-turned and introverted disposition. From an early age my personal
preference was for solitude and on many an occasion I intentionally overlooked those
verbal signals and gesticulations wishing to divert my attention elsewhere. And
what was the underlying motivation for such behaviours? Was it an intrinsic
pull to self-determination, self-sufficiency, and independence or was it the parental
and societal pressures stipulated by Freud? Their phenomenal remoteness is such
that we’ll probably never know. Nowadays, I am precise, neat, orderly, careful,
meticulous, and determined in the manner I coordinate and conduct my life–all
anal-retentive traits which stand as clear evidence of personal fixation at the
Anal Stage. Or do they?
Prevalent in my early and
mid-twenties were intermittent acts of sexual deviance and disinhibition,
reflecting a superficial mind aground on the reefs of hedonism. Everything I
did back then–joining fee-based websites for online dating, organizing
spontaneous rendezvous with acquaintances, and forging new interpersonal
connections–was motivated by the promise of sexual gratification. It just so
happens that during these periods my dreams were punctuated with surreal albeit
traumatic experiences of losing my prehensile phallus. Sometimes it would drop
to the ground while I was meandering about naked, at others it would snap off
whilst I was urinating, and at others still it would crumble in my hands. The
dreams would culminate with frantic attempts to reattach it and I would frequently
awake awash in perspiration and frozen in terror. Looking back, this literal
case of castration anxiety is explicable as an unconscious reaction to sexual
desires deemed taboo by my social conditioning and higher conscience (superego).
Erupting from the unconscious was the warning that many sexual transgressions
come at a cost, and so it may be better to repress these rather than placidly
submit and humiliate oneself in the process. Freud decrees castration anxiety
to be a corroborating feature of the Phallic Stage (3.-6yrs) but in truth it
could probably crop up at any time.
I would conclude that
there is always room for entertaining Freudian psychosexual theories in the
context of personal development, if indeed you are valiant, fearless, and
open-minded enough to tread there.
