On the new discontents of civilization. Paul Verhaeghe Published as: Verhaeghe, P. (2015). On the New discontents of Civilisation. Journal of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research, 26, 70-89. Most West-European countries have witnessed a sharp increase in the prevalence of mental disorders during the last decade, both in children and in adults. The contemporary scientific discourse focuses on the underlying neurobiological and genetic factors. As a result, we tend to forget that Freud’s conceptualization of mental illness concerned above all morality. The often pseudo-medicalizing English translations of his work have to some degree obscured this (Bettelheim, 1983). I understand morality as the implicit and explicit set of rules that determines the relationship of man with respect to the body and to pleasure in the broadest sense. This attitude attests, to say the least, of a contradiction. With some exaggeration it can be said that everything we desire is either forbidden, unhealthy, or immoral, and more often than not, all three together. This is also the essence of Freud’s earliest division of psychic functioning, starting with his so-called ‘antithetical representations’, over the splitting of psychological functioning till his first topology (Freud, 1892-93; 1893). In this conceptualization the unconscious contains defensively averted ideas because of their unacceptability to the dominant consciousness. Despite this defense, this morally reprehensible group still has a clear influence on psychic functioning, with the dream, and broader, all psychoneurotic symptoms as examples. People become neurotic because they try to be morally more high standing than they really can. In this regard Freud formulates the aim of his treatment method as follows: ‘… The instincts which were formerly suppressed remain suppressed; but the same effect is produced in a different way. Analysis replaces the process of repression, which is an automatic and excessive one, by a temperate and purposeful control on the part of the highest agencies of the mind. In a word, analysis replaces repression by condemnation’ (Freud, 1909b, pp. 541-42). From this quotation it shows that Freud considers repression as excessive and therefore pathogenic, but at the same time as something that is r necessary as well, albeit preferably in a deliberate way. This will remain the basic premise of psychoanalysis: mental illness concerns the collision of t desire and its prohibition. This confronts us with two questions. Where does this collision come from? And which forms can it adopt? The most obvious answer to the first question brings us to a traditionally Freudian idea. Above all, the conflict concerns the demands of society that go against the desires of the individual, which results in the typical discontents with this civilization. In quite a number of texts Freud concludes that this relation is out of balance, as is evidenced by titles as ‘”Civilized” Sexual Morality and Modern Nervous Illness’ (1908d) and especially ‘Civilization and its discontents’ (1930a). Victorian society is too prohibiting, hence the profusion of neuroses. In terms of the second topology: the Ego is being oppressed between the drives of the Id and the demands of the Super-Ego, resulting in fear and guilt. This comprehensible representation nevertheless disregards another idea which Freud formulated quite early, without ever thoroughly developing it. According 1 to him, the difficulties with satisfaction indicate that there has to be an independent source of unpleasure in sexuality, detached from shame, morality or disgust. (Freud, 1985c, p.292). At certain times, he muses about an organic repression (Freud, 1930a, p.492 n32 en p.497 n35), but finally he attributes this to the tension between Eros and Thanatos (///ref). Consequently, a naive opposition between an excessively demanding and forbidding society versus an individual which is solely focused on satisfaction is indeed naive. Towards the end of Lacan’s oeuvre we find an analogous idea, by which he himself undercuts an important part of his previous theory. Before, he consistently understood jouissance as a transgression of the law, which at the same time signified that enjoyment is an effect of the Law itself. Lacan leaves this notion to replace it by a radically different one: enjoyment erupts as a potentially deadly outburst against which the subject has to protect him- or herself. The Oedipus complex is a very necessary social construction to install a prohibition on something that threatens us (for an elaboration, see Verhaeghe, 2009). The answer to my first question – where does the collision between desire and prohibition comes from – is evidently more complex than expected. Both Freud and Lacan start from the idea that there is originally an internal contradiction at work, which only at a later stage obtains an external, socially determined form. Because of this social determination, the form it takes can be quite different. Both for Freud and for Lacan, this social form giving of the internal conflict is obviously indispensable as a defense against a threat that comes from within. The advantage of this social mould for the individual is that an internal dissension can now be elaborated externally, in which the prohibiting position is attributed to something or someone. As a bonus, one can in addition complain about this prohibiting institution, although one secretly really needs it. In other words: the human discontent in civilization is structurally built in. The implication for our analytical practice is rather important. It means that on the basis of these assertions an analyst can never make a naive choice in favor of the individual and against society, or vice versa, in favor of society and against the individual. This would indeed be very naive, because we know that the apparent opposition between both constitutes a covering of a mutual dependence. That does not alter the fact that contemporary analysts, like Freud, can indeed take up a clear ethical position concerning certain relations between society and the individual. I will return to this in my conclusion. Still, this does not thoroughly answer my first question, because at least one fundamental fact is missing. Due to a lack of space, I will directly state a proposition that has been elaborated elsewhere (Vanheule & Verhaeghe, 2009). The way in which the internal conflict is represented in an individual, completely determines his or her identity, together with his or her basic stance towards the external world and towards the other. This can already be read in Freud, but the main explanation rests with Lacan’s theory on the mirror stage and on the formation of the subject. A more cognitive version is elaborated in contemporary attachment theory In short: we acquire our identity by adopting certain images and words from significant others, in combination with rejecting other images and words, often enough from the same others. According to Freud this is called identification and repression, Lacan speaks of alienation and separation, in attachment theory it is referred to as mirroring (for a more extensive elaboration, see Verhaeghe, 2008, part 2). On top of this, the elaboration of our identity completely coincides with what is called drive regulation in Freud and Lacan, and which is modestly referred to as 2 ‘affect regulation’ in attachment theory. Indeed, the images and words that we adopt from the outside world and from the other, contain injunctions and prohibitions concerning the way we are supposed to deal with our own body and that of others. The Super-Ego constitutes the internal remnant thereof. In case we don’t live up to our duties, a feeling of guilt arises that goes back to the original fear of authority (see Freud, 1930a, especially the first chapter). Neurotic disorders are deformed enlargements, in which both the experiencing of enjoyment as well as the identity are involved – examples are the oral character and hysteria, and the anal character and compulsive neurosis, both with the accompanying guilt management. Based on these elaborations, it is possible to address the second question, namely are there different moulds conceivable for this conflict between desire and prohibition, and consequently different forms of discontent with society? The answer is affirmative, because this mould is thoroughly socially determined, and societies are not unchangeable entities. The most important implication for us is that if society changes, both identity and drive regulation will likewise change, together with the accompanying disorders. In this line of thought I distinguish three different societies with three different impacts on identity, discontents, and pathology. I refer to them as the Victorian, the post May 68, and the Enron society. An alternative, more ironical name would be respectively the era of the right orgasm, the era of the obligatory free love, and finally, the era of enjoyment on installment system. For the sake of clearness: these delimitations and tenors are to a certain degree arbitrary and apply only to the West-European culture. THE VICTORIAN MODEL OR THE IMPORTANCE OF THE RIGHT KIND OF ORGASM Concerning the Victorian model I can be brief, because we are best acquainted with it. This is a thoroughly patriarchic society in which all emphasis is on obedience and prohibition. In addition it is explicitly related to a traditional class society and to a dominant religious discourse. There is scarcely room for the individual, which is only a part of a coercive society. Just think of the thousands volunteers during the first W.O. who marched mostly voluntarily towards their own deaths. It is also no coincidence that psychoanalysis originated in such a society, and that Freud considered a surplus of morality as the pathogenic factor by excellence. This is all the more striking, since at the outset of psychiatry, as evidenced by the name “ le traitement moral” , morality was considered indeed as health restoring.