View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Middlesex University Research Repository 1 MAKING ENEMIES: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND THE PERSONALITY PROFILING OF IDEOLOGICAL ADVERSARIES A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a PhD in Psychoanalysis, awarded by Middlesex University. AUTHOR: Barry Geoghegan SUBMISSION DATE: March 2016 2 ABSTRACT Focusing in particular on a psychoanalytic understanding of terrorism and adversarial political leaders, this thesis undertakes the textual analyses of significant individual profiles and the key texts reflecting psychoanalytic personality pathology profiling. The thesis situates the methodology of this normative, clinically oriented paradigm within the psychobiographic tradition of applied psychoanalysis and critiques the medico-scientific validity of ‘at a distance’ pathologising profiles. The thesis presents its own analytic tools such as ‘clinical parallelism’, where a determinist ahistorical schema of a parallel clinical case is superimposed onto the psychobiographical subject. Arguing that it represents a paradigm shift in psychobiography, a methodological distinction is made between the characterological, traditionally Freudian subject of psychobiography, who is developed by the speculative reconstruction of childhood relationships. This is in contradistinction from a more object relational personological subject who is mainly inferred from adult behaviour. The distinction is emphasised throughout the thesis, and introduced through the wartime psychoanalytic profiles of Hitler. The origins and early history of the overarching discipline of psychobiography including a critique of Freud’s only dedicated psychobiography of Leonardo Da Vinci are explored. This demonstrates that the flaws which surfaced early on in the psychobiographic project are still apparent in modern personality pathology profiling. Political personality profiling is then situated within the context of post War American psychoanalysis and its relationship to American political culture, and there is an exploration of the ethical dilemmas particularly in respect of the Barry Goldwater affair, which have ensued. Predicated in particular, on the notion of early disturbed or traumatogenic object relating leading to narcissistic and paranoid functioning in adult life, the thesis examines how psychoanalytic theories are adapted in the pathologising discourse. There is a critique of the way psychoanalytic conceptualisations are integrated with ideological imperatives most notably by the principal protagonist of the thesis, Jerrold Post and the personality pathology theorists’ analysis of terrorist ‘pathology’. The thesis concludes by arguing that the elision of psychoanalysis with the Western hegemonic and normative ideological position of the personality pathology paradigm represents an inherent bias. This risks through for example Nancy Kobrin’s cultural psychobiographic analysis of suicide terrorism, alienating in particular Islam, and undermines the perception of psychoanalysis as a universal discipline. 3 OBJECTIVES 1. To critically investigate the historical context of psychobiography within psychoanalysis, its methodology and precepts. 2. To show that normative interpretations of psychoanalytic concepts are deployed in adversarial political personality profiles, with the intention of constructing pathological subjects out of ideological adversaries. 3. To argue that the ‘at a distance’ technique deployed in personality pathology profiling cannot replicate the clinical context of psychoanalysis, and thus have neither diagnostic validity nor predictive efficacy. 4. To critique the taken for granted assumptions of personality pathology theory, in the psychoanalytic discourse of terrorism. The thesis has as its overarching research question: ‘Can evidence be provided that psychoanalysis has been deployed for the ideologically determined personality pathologising of the leaderships of adversarial political regimes or those adversarial groups labelled as terrorist?’ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge the following contribution: Debbie Howes, Catherine Geoghegan, Geraldine Day and Edward Day for their tolerance, encouragement and love; my supervisors Professor Antonia Bifulco and Dr Anne Worthington for their academic support and guidance. 4 CONTENTS ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................................... 2 OBJECTIVES .................................................................................................................................. 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................. 3 1 The Ideological Context ........................................................................................................ 9 2 The Assimilation of Psychoanalysis in American Culture. .................................... 11 CHAPTER ONE: ............................................................................................................................... 14 SETTING THE SCENE ................................................................................................................... 14 1 Introduction. ......................................................................................................................... 15 2 Chapter Structure and Summaries. .............................................................................. 15 3 Key Concepts Defined. ....................................................................................................... 20 4 Psychobiography as Case History in Applied Psychoanalysis. ............................. 24 5 Developing the Psychoanalytic Narrative of the Subject. ....................................... 26 6 Flaws Inherent in the Psychobiographic Method. ..................................................... 29 7 Countertransference and Psychobiographic Bias. .................................................... 33 8 Clinical Neutrality and Scientific Validity in Psychobiography. ........................... 37 9 Identification and the Power to Label. .......................................................................... 40 10 Evidential Limitations in Psychobiographic Analyses. ........................................... 43 11 Conclusion. .......................................................................................................................... 47 CHAPTER TWO: ............................................................................................................................... 48 METHODS ......................................................................................................................................... 48 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 49 2 Collecting Evidence. ............................................................................................................ 49 3 Ethics ....................................................................................................................................... 52 4 Clinical Parallelism. ............................................................................................................ 53 5 A Differentiation between Personality and Character in Psychobiography. ..... 56 6 Conclusion. ............................................................................................................................ 61 CHAPTER THREE: .......................................................................................................................... 63 THE EARLY BEGINNINGS OF THE PSYCHOBIOGRAPHIC PROJECT .......................... 63 1 Introduction. ......................................................................................................................... 64 2 Freud’s Early Psychobiographic Musings. .................................................................. 64 3 Isidor Sadger and the Pathography Debate. ............................................................... 68 4 Leonardo , Freud’s First Dedicated Psychobiography. ............................................. 72 5 5 The Clinical Significance of Leonardo’s ‘Vulture’ Fantasy. .................................... 77 6 Introducing Psychoanalytic Concepts into Historical Research. ......................... 80 7 The Cultural Perspective in Psychobiography. .......................................................... 82 8 Freud’s Study of Woodrow Wilson, the First Political Psychobiography. .......... 85 9 The Controversy over Freud’s Involvement in the Wilson ‘Pathography’. ......... 88 10 Conclusion. ......................................................................................................................... 90 CHAPTER FOUR: ..................................................................................................................... 92 WHAT MAKES HITLER ‘TICK’?: PROFILING THE ENEMY ........................................ 92 1 Introduction. ......................................................................................................................... 93 2 Background to and Personnel of the Langer Study. ................................................ 94 3 Langer’s Motivational Analysis and Methodology. .................................................... 96 4 Hitler and the Primal Scene. ...........................................................................................