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Provocative Enactments As Regulators of Underarousal and Its Associated Affects City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2007 Provocative Enactments as Regulators of Underarousal and Its Associated Affects Steven Bashkoff Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1409 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] PROVOCATIVE ENACTMENTS AS REGULATORS OF UNDERAROUSAL AND ITS ASSOCIATED AFFECTS by STEVEN BASHKOFF A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Psychology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The City University of New York 2007 UMI Number: 3288744 Copyright 2007 by Bashkoff, Steven All rights reserved. UMI Microform 3288744 Copyright 2008 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 ii © 2007 STEVEN BASHKOFF All Rights Reserved iii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Psychology in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Lissa Weinstein, Ph.D. Date Chair of Examining Committee Joseph Glick, Ph.D. Date Executive Officer Lissa Weinstein, Ph.D. Elliot Jurist, Ph.D. Diana Diamond, Ph.D. Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iv Abstract PROVOCATIVE ENACTMENTS AS REGULATORS OF UNDERAROUSAL AND ITS ASSOCIATED AFFECTS by Steven Bashkoff Sponsor: Professor Lissa Weinstein This theoretical/clinical-case study explores the function of provocative enactments as a means to regulate underaroused states and the affects associated with underarousal. A great deal of psychoanalytic literature emphasizes the function of provocative enactments as destructive or as a way to devalue others or disconnect from them; this function certainly exists in one class of such enactments where the actor’s goal is to destroy interpersonal ties or enhance self-esteem by kindling negative affect in the other person. However, this dissertation proposes that there exists another, distinct class of provocative enactments where their function serves to activate or reengage another person as a way for the actor to receive more stimulation and to dissipate the anxiety associated with experienced or anticipated underaroused states and the affects that accompany them; such affects can range from feelings of emptiness, deadness or boredom to a painful longing or deep sadness. This dissertation proposes that the distinction between the two classes of provocative enactments is clinically meaningful in the application of therapeutic interventions. This dissertation also attempts to describe the particular dyadic paradigms manifested in early development that would give rise to representational schema underlying this class of enactments; it is suggested that the elicitation of negative affect in the caretaker produced more effective dyadic regulation of underarousal than other interpersonal or self-regulating strategies. v Acknowledgements I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee for their enduring patience and encouragement over the years. Like a lot of dissertations, this one is a product of the delicate tension between confidence and self-doubt, writer’s block and bursts of generativity, and trueness of vision and a desire to join in collaboration. Lissa Weinstein, Diana Diamond and Elliot Jurist have been sustaining interlocutors for this project and have encouraged me to find and express my own voice on issues of importance to me. Not only have they given me a wealth of invaluable insights at every stage of the project but also the best initial advice, namely, to commit myself to a topic which really stirred my curiosity. Following that advice helped carry me to this point. My gratitude extends beyond those mentioned here to many other folks – professors, colleagues, friends, classmates – who have been sources of inspiration and support since I started this program. I specifically want to thank three supervisors, Thom Kuhn, Jennifer Hunter and Gil Nachmani, who were very important to my development as a clinician and whose friendship means so much to me. I am also grateful to Martha Hall and Lizzie Berne for their inspiration and their important contributions to this dissertation. Also a big thanks to Jennifer Friedberg, whose good humor and dependability were a highlight of internship, and who, as reader, was very helpful indeed. I certainly must acknowledge my parents and my sister, who all were right there with me the whole way through. I cannot begin to describe how important they are to me and how they influenced me to tackle a knotty theoretical project that I had hoped would be an interesting blend of the creative and the logical. I am also grateful to the patients I have worked with, whom I had only hoped to vi serve, but who, as it turned out, gave me so much and led me to grow in ways that were surprising and ultimately very valuable to me. Finally, I want to acknowledge you, gentle reader, who are going to attempt to read this document. Thank you for wanting to hear what I have to say. vii Table of Contents I. INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................... 1 II. LITERATURE REVIEW............................................................................................... 8 A. Arousal, affect, and the relationship between them................................................... 8 1. Definitions of arousal and affect............................................................................. 9 a. Arousal ................................................................................................................ 9 b. Affect ................................................................................................................ 13 2. Classical psychoanalytic views of affect .............................................................. 18 3. Attachment perspective on arousal and affect ...................................................... 31 4. Infant research perspective on arousal and affect................................................. 37 a. Daniel Stern....................................................................................................... 38 b. Beebe and Lachmann........................................................................................ 41 B. Representations ........................................................................................................ 45 1. Endogenous events, environmental responses: Psychoanalytic views of representations .......................................................................................................... 48 a. Freud ................................................................................................................. 48 b. Hartmann........................................................................................................... 51 c. Klein.................................................................................................................. 52 d. Jacobson and Kernberg..................................................................................... 55 e. Sandler............................................................................................................... 59 f. Fairbairn............................................................................................................. 62 g. Kohut................................................................................................................. 65 2. Emphasis on expectancies: Attachment theory and infant research ..................... 69 a. Bowlby and Internal Working Models.............................................................. 69 b. Stern and RIGs.................................................................................................. 73 c. Beebe and Lachmann and the three principles of salience ............................... 76 C. Transference and Enactments................................................................................... 81 1. Definitions of transference and enactment ........................................................... 82 2. Activation of transference..................................................................................... 87 3. Unreflectiveness and action versus reflectiveness and speech ............................. 92 D. “Aggressive” and “Sadomasochistic” Enactments .................................................. 98 1. Freud and the classical view ................................................................................. 99 2. “Relational” drive theorists: the role of experience and fantasy......................... 108 3. “Object relations” theorists: object-seeking as the primary motive.................... 113 4. John Bowlby and Joseph Lichtenberg ................................................................ 119 viii III. CASE PRESENTATION AND THEORETICAL DISCUSSION........................... 127 A. Clinical Case Summary.......................................................................................... 128 B. Traditional
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