Use of Theses

THESES SIS/LIBRARY TELEPHONE: +61 2 6125 4631 R.G. MENZIES LIBRARY BUILDING NO:2 FACSIMILE: +61 2 6125 4063 THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY EMAIL: [email protected] CANBERRA ACT 0200 AUSTRALIA USE OF THESES This copy is supplied for purposes of private study and research only. Passages from the thesis may not be copied or closely paraphrased without the written consent of the author. .META-THEORETICAL APPLICATIONS OF SEMIOTICS TO PSYCHOTHERAPY ILMAR FRED OLBREI This thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Applied Psychology at the Australian National University, August, 1977. - iii - ABSTRACT Most semiotic approaches to psychotherapy involve the application of semiotic concepts directly to manifestations of psychological disorder, and constitute an alternative to more traditional approaches. This essay explores the utility of applying semiotics to psychotherapy as a meta-theoretical framework. Psychoanalytic theory is studied first, due to the fact that there already exists a tradition of applying a semiotic reading to Freudian theory within French structuralism. Using a different approach, it is shown here that Freud's most important dis covery, the interplay of unconscious and conscious processes, is actually formulated in terms of sign phenomena, and the distinction between the two corresponds to a distinction between two types of representation involving notions of continuity and discreteness, respectively. other theories are examined to see if they yield the samP dimension. To facilitate this process, Carkhuff's eclectic model of therapy, claimed by him to constitute a 'theoretic convergence' of all existing approaches to psychotherapy, is evaluated. This model turns out to represent a fusion of humanist and behaviourist schools, but is largely opposed to the psychoanalytic school. However, since its ideological commitment is virtually identical with that of Rogers' approach, it is reasoned that Rogers' theory can be regarded as an approximate representative of those approaches generally opposed to Freud. A semiotic analysis of Rogers' theory reveals the same dimension that was identified in Freudian theory. It is suggested that such a dimension may well be an essential feature of psychotherapy in general; this being the case, psychotherapy can be seen to imply a philosophical position that differs radically from the rational- ism that has dominated most of traditional science and philosophy. From a more narrow point of view, it is concluded that the meta-theoretical - iv - application of semiotics serves to give a particularly useful perspective for the evaluation of theories of psychotherapy, and in particular, serves to emphasise the continuing (if not increased) relevance of Freudian theory for today. - v - ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am very grateful to have been a member of the course whose requirements this essay is intended partly to fulfil; for its existence, and for the time and opportunity to pursue quite varied personal interests within it, I thank the Psychology Department of the Australian National University. In particular, I would like to address a personal appreciation to my supervisor, Associate Professor P. Pentony, for his patience and the freedom allowed to investigate areas of interest not generally covered by Psychology courses. - vi - TABLE OF CONTENTS page ABSTRACT iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v TABLE OF CONTENTS vi CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION: SEMIOTICS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY l 1.1 The Field of semiotics 3 1.2 Development of the Semiotic Viewpoint 4 1.3 Practical Significance of the Semiotic 9 Approach to Psychotherapy 1.4 Freud and Semiotics ll 1.5 Summary of the Argument l3 CHAPTER 'IWO THE FREUDIAN ORIENTATION 15 2.1 Freud and Lacan 16 2.2 Freud's Semiotic Viewpoint 17 2.3 Further Semiotic Aspects of Freudian Theory 21 CHAPTER THREE ORDER AND UNITY IN PSYCHOTHERAPY 24 3.1 The 'Three Forces' in Psychology 25 3.2 Eclecticism in Psychotherapy 26 3.3 Carkhuff's Model as 'Theoretic Convergence' 30 CHAPTER FOUR THE ROGERIAN ORIENTATION 37 4.1 Rogers' Theory of Human Personality 38 4.2 A Critical Discussion 48 4.3 Experience and 'Symbolization' 55 - vii - page CHAPTER FIVE WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF A SEMIOTICALLY-BASED 62 THEORY OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 5.1 Analogue and Digital Coding 63 5.2 The Philosophic Import of Psychotherapeutic 68 Theory CHAPTER SIX CONCLUDING REMARKS 74 BIBLIOGRAPHY 80 - 1 - CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION: SEMIOTICS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY As implied by the title, this essay is concerned. with some of the consequences of taking a semiotic (or, roughly, communicational) approach to psychotherapy. One of the more interesting claims for such an approach is that semiotics, with its basis in the American school of philosophy known as 'pragmatism', is the most promising candidate for providing a common theoretical framework into which the various other approaches to psychotherapy can be mapped (Bar, 1973, p.134). However, most of the well-known exponents of the semiotic approach, while undoubtedly in agreement with such an idea, have, in practice, proceeded quite differently.· Semiotic concepts and termin ology have been applied directly to behaviour in the therapeutic situation, and there has been very little serious attempt (at least within English-speaking countries) to apply such concepts to the theoretical constructs of existing approaches to psychotherapy. Effectively, this means that the semiotic approach to therapy has become yet another alternative form of treatment of psychological disorder. What this essay sets out to do is to show that this is not the only possible application of semiotics to psychotherapy, and that the utilisation of semiotics as a meta-theoretical framework in psychotherapy leads to a highly significant insight into the essential structure of psychotherapeutic theory in general. Specifically, aspects of the Freudian and Rogerian approaches are examined from a semiotic point of view. This proves to be remarkably useful, partly because some of their most central features are involved, which makes possible a direct and - 2 - insightful comparison between the two. More importantly, though, this approach highlights the existence of a dimension common to both and equally fundamental, corresponding to the idea of primary and secondary processes in the Freudian terminology, and it is further suggested that such a dimension is a central element of most theories of psychotherapy. The inevitable result is a possibly surprising reassessment of the significance of Freudian theory for psychotherapy today, together with a suggestion of the form that a general theory of psychotherapy might take. However, the significance of this kind of approach is not confined to psychotherapy alone. What the semiotic approach does is to trans- late the concepts of psychotherapy into a terminology which places it close to the concerns of current philosophic inquiry. This being the case, a secondary aim of this essay is to touch on some of the more philosophical consequences of the semiotically based idea of psycho therapy hinted at above. With this breadth of scope, the major function of this chapter is to set these aims in as wide a context as possible. First, the field of semiotics is described. This is followed by an outline of the development of thought accompanying its foundation and subsequent growth. As such, this section will not be concerned with the accumulation of a specialist subject-matter so much as to throw light on the movement of ideas that led to the application of semiotics to psychotherapy in the first place, and which must still be understood as implicit in any such approach. Next, an elaboration of the particular relevance of semiotics to psychoanalysis leads naturally to a fuller specification of the aims of this essay, and the chapter ends with an outline of the main body of this report. - 3 - 1.1 The Field of Semiotics According to one of the pioneers in this field, 'semiotics•1 is the "the science of signs, whether animal or human, language or non- language, true or false, adequate or inadequate, healthy or pathic" (Morris, 1946, p.223). To be more precise, semiotics, like linguistics, is a communication science. For the purposes of this essay, a perfectly adequate way of defining it is obtained simply by contrasting these two fields. The difference between them is ultimately one of scope, linguistics being the more restricted (though developed), semiotics the more general and inclusive. Two aspects of this difference in scope are worth elabor- ating upon. The obvious one concerns legitimate objects of study. For the sake of comparison, linguistics can be defined as the study of naturally occurr- ing human languages (using 'language' here in its technical sense, as a verbal system, utilising conventional and arbitrary symbols). Semiotics, on the other hand, is the study of all systems of signification, with no restrictions on the nature of the signs involved. Thus linguistics, together with fields such as kinesics and zoosemiotics (the study of animal communication), is best regarded as a specialised branch of semiotics (cf. Saussure, 1959, p.l6). 1. This term is the one most often used today, although others, more common in the past, exist too. For instance, Morris (amongst others) always referred to this field as 'semiotic' (using this term as the noun- see Morris, 1946, p.2, for example): and before him, Saussure proposed the word 'semiology' (1959, p.l6). All these merely reflect minor variations in the derivation from the Greek word 'semeion' (meaning 'sign'). - 4 - This is sufficient to define semiotics in general, but there is a second aspect which is particularly relevant to psychology, concerning approach to objects of study. The linguist assumes that there exists an ideal form of the language used by any speech-community, and attempts to determine the underlying system of rules that govern it (cf. Chomsky, 1965' pp. 3-4) • This results in a strong emphasis on the construction of an abstract model of that language, in relation to which the mannerisms or distortions of individual native speakers are considered largely irrelevant (ibid.).

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