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Chapter 2 the Death Instinct and Destruction: Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein

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Chapter 2 the Death Instinct and Destruction: Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein Notes Chapter 2 The Death Instinct and Destruction: Sigmund Freud and MeLanie KLein 1. The mind's topography is comprised of interdependent realms in interrela­ tionship with levels of consciousness that are indicated in Figure 2.1 by all perforated lines. Eros and Thanatos are influenced by and can influence the super-ego. The repressed area resides in the unconscious and eventually, non-repressed aspects of Eros and Thanatos will affect the ego, directly, and or through the super-ego. If the ego mismanages the id's emanations that which is currently in the pre-conscious will become conscious, first thereby being the first to interact with the outside world. Those most familiar with Freud's work may be aware that he did provide more than one "unassuming sketch" of the mind. In a letter to his friend Wilhelm Fliess dated 6 December 1896 (see Masson, 1985, pp. 207-215) and in his work The Interpretation of Dreams (Freud, 1900/1986, pp. 686-690) he provided what he called a "schematic" picture that was a series of straight lines that depicted psychical processes. It was later that he depicted the structural/topographical relationship between the realms, or provinces, of the mind (see Freud, 1923/1984, p. 363; also Freud, 1933/1988, p. 111). Each "schematic" and "unassuming sketch" differed from each other. We take his 1933 sketch as the basis for our figure. However, we have made one modification that seems more in keeping with both how he described the actual psychodynamics in that paper and more in keeping with the words of the reflections of Ernest Jones (1964), who was Freud's official biographer and arguably his closest friend. The modification to Freud's original 1933 sketch is the manner in which we have drawn the boundary of the super-ego. Freud had the boundary drawn such that half of the realm of the super-ego was shown as being in the id. The manner in which we understand the relationship between these two realms is such that the super-ego abuts the id but fundamentally remains "a department of the ego" (Badcock, 1988, p. 189). Freud himself argued that: We have been obliged to assume that within the ego itself a particular agency has become differentiated, which we name the super-ego. This super-ego occupies a special position between the ego and the id. It belongs to the ego and shares its high degree of psychological organiza­ tion; but it has a particularly intimate connection with the id. It is in fact a precipitate of the first object-cathexes of the id and is the heir to the Oedipus complex after its demise. This super-ego can confront the ego and treat it like an object; and it often treats it very harshly. It is impor­ tant for the ego to remain on good terms with the super-ego as with the id. (1926/1986, p. 324, italics is our added emphasis) (also) 211 212 Notes In the course of an individual's development a portion of the inhibiting forces in the external world are internalized and an agency is created in the ego which confronts the rest of the ego in an observing, criticizing and prohibiting sense. We call this new agency the super-ego. (1939/1990, pp. 363-364, italics is our added emphasis) Thus, both before and after the sketch in 1933, Freud clearly conceived of the super-ego being structurally derived from and contained within the ego but in intimate contact with the id. In Jones' (1964) chapter Psycho-analysis and biology, we find that the purpose of this intimate relationship is for the super-ego to protect and defend the ego from the outside world's unpleasant projections as well as from unwanted impulses emanating from the id: Those of the rejected ones which emanate from the id, and which, there­ fore, are part of the individual organism although they are denied union with the sense of personality that characterizes the ego, are by definition incompatible with the ego, and have to pursue their future path on lines independent of it or even in opposition to it. They are" ego-dystonic". A further complication comes in through the building out of the ego of a third institution, the "super-ego", which performs special functions such as the warning and guarding of the ego against the dangers arising to it from activity on the part of the repressed id. The id is essentially uncon­ scious, though not entirely so; the super-ego is mainly unconscious; and even a large part of the ego itself belongs to the region of the uncon­ scious. If this description is correct it will be seen that the region of the mind of which we are aware, i.e. consciousness, plays a much more modest part in our total mental activities than has previously been suspected. (pp. 141-142) The depiction of the structural relationship between these three principal realms of the mind does not undermine the way in which we discuss Eros and Thanatos, but it is the manner in which the ego is 'caught' in the middle of the demands of the id and the super-ego that we would wish to particularly highlight and reinforce at this early juncture. 2. A good example of the continuance of this defence in a most literal manner can be noted in the Renaissance poetry in France. One type of poetry, called 'blazon', celebrated the breast as an object of desire and indeed as a source of male desire and creativity - in regard to the latter, it was considered that, in an act of creativity, it was the male's seed that transformed the female into a milk-bearing creature. However, while the blazon "presented a pretty side of Renaissance eroticism" (Yalom, 1997, p. 63; see also Carr, 2003) there was, at the same time, a form of poetry that expressed a violent and misogynistic "other" side. This was called "antiblazon". In one poem, the breast was described as follows: Breast, that is nothing but skin, Flaccid breast, flaglike breast Breast with a big, ugly black tip Like a funnel, Notes 213 Breast that's good for nursing Lucifer's children in Hell. Go away, big ugly stinking breast, When you sweat, you could provide Sufficient musk and perfume To kill off a hundred thousand. (Marot, liThe Beautiful Breast", 1535-6, cited in Yalom, 1997, p. 63) At a macro level, in an act of splitting in the manner advanced by Klein, one writer noted that: Whereas the blazon honored the female body, the antiblazon tapped into men's more negative feelings about women's essential "otherness". Men projected onto women's bodies not only their erotic longings, but also their fears of old age, decay, and death. The antiblazon gave men an oppor­ tunity to express, through women's breasts, thighs, knees, feet, stomach, heart and genitals, their own unconscious anxieties concerning mortality. Far better to dismember and deride the female body than to examine the anatomy of one's own ugliness and decomposition. (Yalom, 1997, p. 63) Chapter 3 Expanding on the Death Instinct: Sabina SpieLrein and Destructive Reconstruction 3. Those wishing to read more about Sabina Spielrein are advised to read the volumes by Carotenuto (1980/1982) and Kerr (1994). Most of Spielrein's work has not been translated into English - a volume of her collected works in English, with a contextual commentary, is something that is currently occupying the authors of this book. 4. Freud also called Stekel an "impudent liar", a "swine" and in a letter to Jones made reference to "that pig Stekel" (Gay, 1988, p. 214). It was Stekel who tried, in vain, to convince Freud that one could derive a universal dictionary or codebook of dream symbols that had a fixed meaning - Freud insisted that one had to interpret dreams in terms of the individual's unique life experiences and in that context the same "symbol" may have a different meaning, thus the symbols can only ever serve as a guide (see Freud, 1900/1986, pp. 171-172,466-470; Carr, 1991, 1998). Peter Gay (1988) in his biography of Freud, in commenting upon Stekel's contribution to the meetings of the Wednesday Psychological Society asserted: Though entertaining company, he alienated many with his boastfulness and unscrupulousness in the use of scientific evidence. Avid to comment on whatever paper was being presented to the Society, he would invent a patient who fit into the discussion. "'Stekel's Wednesday patientlll, Ernest Jones recalls, "became a standing joke". It seems that Stekel's imagination was too luxuriant to be kept in check. In one of his papers, he advanced the startling theory that names often have a subterranean influence on people's lives, and "documented" his contention by offering several of his analysands' names in evidence. When Freud remonstrated with him for violating medical discretion, Stekel assured him: the names were all made up! (pp. 213-214) 214 Notes 5. Theodor Reik has a number of 'claims to fame' in the world of psycho­ dynamics. In 1912, while studying at the University of Vienna, he com­ pleted the first PhD dissertation in psychoanalysis. Urged by Freud not to undertake a medical degree, Reik practised as a lay analyst. Reik had been a member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society since 1910. It appears it may have been Wilhelm Stekel who, in 1925, reported Reik to local authorities and led to Reik being charged with "unauthorised pursuit of medical prac­ tice". The magistrates required him to desist from being an analyst.
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