No Lost Certainties To Be Recovered

Sexuality, Creativity, Knowledge

Gregorio Kohon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780367325671
• eBook ISBN: 9780429916588
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book looks beyond both theory and practice to the politics and cultural resonances of psychoanalysis–in the torments and anxiety of artistic endeavour, and in the urgent and wearying sense of the blindness of our troubled history and politics, in Israel and in South America.

Part One
Sexuality

It completely follows the dictates of the unconscious, on the well-known principle of Itzig, the Sunday rider. “Itzig, where are you going?” “Do I know? Ask the horse."

Sigmund Freud, Letter to Fliess, 7 July 1898

Chapter One
Hysteria

I

It has frequently been said that hysteria was made for psychoanalysis, or even that hysteria made psychoanalysis, that it forced its birth and encouraged its development. Hysteria has been considered the neurosis closest to normality. Nothing could be clearer: the question of the excluded third, the oedipal conflict, the enigma of sexuality. And yet when we look at it, our certainty quickly dissolves. Nothing seems to be really there. Only one thing remains unequivocally evident: hysteria will always bear the stamp of femininity, a femininity that appears as a caricature because it is still anchored to a phallic identification. The hysteric disguises herself: she will pretend to be a woman, will put on the fancy dress proper to what she believes, or is made to believe, will constitute her “feminine” self. The hysteric takes her own disguised body and dresses up with it, uses it as if it were a brand-new dress, resplendent with sequins, and yet not very satisfying. Joan Riviere went so far as to extend this to all women: “Womanliness … could be assumed and worn as a mask … much as a thief will turn out his pockets and ask to be searched to prove that he has not the stolen goods” (Riviere, 1929, p. 306). Could this be a rebellion against the law of the father, in this patriarchal society? Perhaps, but then the hysteric and her symptoms are the result of the failure of that rebellion. Men support her in this, nourish her, and respond to her seduction, which they enjoy. They collude with her in the reassuring and comforting phantasy¹ that suggests that femininity lies in what the hysteric wants us to believe is a “real woman”. Being a true caricature of the feminine, the hysteric confronts us also with a caricature of everything else: heterosexuality, homosexuality, perversions, the couple, desire—and psychoanalysis.

Does hysteria exist? The word has disappeared from certain psychiatric manuals. Twenty-five years ago, at an International Congress of Psychoanalysis, a panel was devoted to this subject (Laplanche, 1973). People asked: is hysteria a thing of the past? Some of them answered: the liberation of sexual morality, the loss of a certain “innocence” in women, the change in the “feminine ideal”, the social acceptance of sexuality may all have been contributory factors in the disappearance of hysteria. There was a certain theoretical simplicity behind these responses, which considered neurotic conflict to be a conflict about present sexual impulses. This was the result of a sexualism that had slowly pervaded contemporary psychoanalytic theory, turning Freudian psychosexuality back into genitality. In this view, the liberation of desire (in fact, radically different from the liberation of sexual morality) would originate in informed knowledge about the “sexual facts” (which nowadays includes some kind of distorted or simplified knowledge about the Oedipus complex). The oedipal drama was thus transformed into a banal sequence of events and anecdotes; today, everybody can talk and even joke about it. Nevertheless, the joke is on us: what makes sexuality in human beings specifically human is repression; our sexuality owes its existence to our unconscious incestuous phantasies. And while sexual desire is always transgression, it is never completely fulfilled: its object cannot ever offer full satisfaction.

In a short paper, “On the Universal Tendency of Debasement in the Sphere of Love” (1912d), Freud describes the conflict between civilized life and instinctual life. Freud maintains the idea that psychic impotence is determined by the demands of civilization: family morals establish a limitation to the incestuous fixations of childhood and impose necessary abstinence during adolescence. The causes of psychic impotence are not just manifest in that specific symptom, but are in diverse degrees a universal characteristic of human sexual life. He then goes on to say:

The fact that the curb put upon love by civilisation involves a universal tendency to debase sexual objects will perhaps lead us to turn our attention from the object to the instincts themselves,, The damage caused by the initial frustration of sexual pleasure is seen in the fact that the freedom later given to that pleasure in marriage does not bring full satisfaction. But at the same time, if sexual freedom is unrestricted from the outset the result is no better. It can easily be shown that the psychical value of erotic needs is reduced as soon as their satisfaction becomes easy. An obstacle is required in order to heighten libido; and where natural resistances to satisfaction have not been sufficient men have at all times erected conventional ones so as to be able to enjoy love. This is true both of individuals and of nations, [p. 187, italics added]

The satisfaction of desire kills the desire; desire increases with the obstacles. One could argue that sexual desire might be similar to a biological need: its satisfaction makes the need disappear. But while to be hungry or thirsty does not depend on any kind of prohibition being made about the right to eat or drink, in the case of sexual desire the prohibition itself is the condition for the existence of desire. Freud says: “It is my belief that, however strange it may sound, we must reckon with the possibility that something in the nature of the sexual instinct itself is unfavourable to the realisation of complete satisfaction” (p. 188).

If there is something repressed, it is not “knowledge” about sex. To interpret Freud only on the basis of his biological statements mutilates his thought and, ultimately, does away with psychoanalysis. The very concept of the unconscious becomes rather redundant. For Freud, the unconscious implies the existence of a primary process, dominated by the mechanisms of displacement and condensation; it assumes the overdetermination of the symptom, and the subordination to the pleasure principle. Without these interconnections, the entire theoretical notion of the unconscious crumbles: we would simply no longer be talking about the same dynamic unconscious as Freud.

Freud states in the same paper (1912d) that “the non-satisfaction that goes with civilisation is the necessary consequence of certain peculiarities which the sexual instinct has assumed under the pressure of culture” (p. 190). Freud is not talking about the damaging character of modern civilization, but about that which separates human beings from the rest of the animal world. In the same way that sexuality is not the cause of human behaviour, civilization is not the cause of whatever goes wrong with the sexual life of human beings. The existence of a peculiar type of sexuality that is human is not explained by culture; in fact, culture is explained by the fact that human sexuality has its peculiaritiés. This appears clearly in the consideration of the prohibition of incest, which Freud explains in Totem and Taboo. He describes Trieblust—instinctual desire—thus:

The prohibition owes its strength and its obsessive character precisely to its unconscious opponent, the concealed and undiminished desire—that is to say, to an internal necessity in-accessible to conscious inspection. The ease with which the prohibition can be transferred and extended reflects a process that falls in with the unconscious desire and is greatly facilitated by the psychological conditions that prevail in the unconscious. The instinctual desire is constantly shifting in order to escape from the impasse and endeavours to find substitutes—substitute objects and substitute acts—in place of the prohibited ones. In consequence of this, the prohibition itself shifts about as well, and extends to any new aims which the forbidden impulse may adopt. [1912–13, p. 30, italics added]

Here Freud could be understood to be suggesting that the prohibition is applied to a real object that was there at first, access to which was denied to the subject. But he invariably reminds the reader that he is referring to an unconscious event: even when the instinctual desire looks for substitutes (objects and acts), the prohibition itself moves about, following desire. Trieblust and its prohibition belong to each other; the movement of desire is articulated in its escape from “the barrier against which it finds itself”.

Theoretical simplistic naturalism has gone hand in hand with the de-sexualization of the theory, a question that has been a fundamental, controversial issue in the history of psychoanalysis. This was at the centre of the disagreements between Freud and some of his followers, forming the basis for many of the splits in the psychoanalytic movement. Lacan and the French authors whom he influenced so strongly have developed a criticism of what is seen as the de-sexualization of the theory, and its naturalistic assumptions.² This question was present in the discussion reported by Laplanche (1973), where psychoanalysts of different persuasions discussed hysteria. Many psychoanalysts would hold—as was suggested in that panel—that hysteria is only a defensive technique used to maintain at a distance and under control anxieties that are defined as primitive, psychotic, and not sexual. This way of defining hysteria as a defence is best illustrated in the work of object relations authors like Fairbaim, where the role of sexuality in the aetiology of the neuroses—the central pillar of Freudian thought—is eliminated. In Fairbaim’s theories, drives are not pleasure seeking but object seeking; hysteria always reveals the presence of oral conflicts, which in his view are the ones that really count. He believed that the oedipal conflict has been “overestimated”—“it involves a certain misconception”, he claimed—and that it is a sociological phenomenon rather than a psychological one. Guilt is not connected to incestuous wishes in a triangular situation but to fantasies of the theft of love that was not freely given; the father as an object is a rather “poor second” (Fairbaim, 1941, pp. 36–41).

As a consequence of these theoretical changes, hysteria and the neuroses were tom away from the oedipal constellation, and the Oedipus complex was relegated to a secondary place. It was no longer that through which the relationship between baby and mother is transcended; it no longer served as the principal agent of the psychic structuring of the child. Not only was the Oedipus complex then made to appear earlier in life (e.g. by Melanie Klein and her followers), but it was transformed into something radically different: it ceased to be the model of sexuality and meaning for the subject. In changing the concept of the Oedipus complex, the idea of the existence of a prohibition of incest and the castration complex were consequently also changed. By eliminating the castration complex as the mark that distinguishes the difference between the sexes, and by attempting at the same time a supposed revaluation of the concept of femininity and of women, we again encounter a belief in a process of biological identification based on a differentiation of the sexes which is supposedly natural and given (Mitchell, 1974)

British psychoanalysts (in contrast to their French colleagues) have, then, paid little attention to the notion of the phallic position, the castration complex, and (its consequence) the differentiation of sexes.³ These issues are all closely interconnected, and they revolve around the acceptance or rejection of the phallic reference. In ignoring the notion of the phallus (a concept that more or less disappeared from the literature after the 1930s), object relations authors have done themselves a disservice. They have regarded sexual difference in a rather naturalistic way and have therefore not been able to make much theoretical sense of the function of the father. Furthermore, they have ignored the question of sexual pleasure.

The relevance of the concept of the phallic position resides in its structuring function: it forces human beings to confront the separation from the first object. This absolute need for the child to separate from the mother is not a “natural” event. We may ask: why do we separate from mother? One psychoanalytic answer is: because it is not I (but the phallus) who (what) she wants. It is the realization that boys cannot have (or be) the phallus, and that girls cannot be (or have) it, which creates the logical moment in the structure of the unconscious which allows the subject to separate from mother. It is as if the boy has to acknowledge that “I haven’t got (and I am not) that (i.e. the phallus) which mother needs (for procreating) and desires (for her sexual satisfaction); and even if I were to pretend that I’ve got it, it is too small, too inefficient, and it can be cut off (in other words, it’s only a penis and not a phallus); so I’d better give mother up, I’ll renounce my phallic narcissistic identification, acknowledge that which I do have, and use it as best I can somewhere else, with somebody else at the appropriate time”. There is a similar (although not the same) challenge for the girl: “I am not (and I haven’t got) that which mother needs and desires; I’ll renounce my phallic narcissism, accept what I do have (not a penis), and look for somebody to give me the baby (the only thing I could have) that I want (or might not want).” This relinquishing is never completely achieved. On the one hand, the mother will never fully forsake the wish for a phallus (i.e. something beyond the baby, which might take the form of a demand addressed to all children—boys and girls—for the rest of their lives: Why don’t you do as I wish? Why aren’t you as I wish you to be?). On his part, the subject will never sufficiently forgo the identification with the imaginary phallus (or with a primary object that is believed to possess it). But if the subject does not face this necessary disappointment, of being not I (see next chapter on fetishism), then narcissism, omnipotence, and envy will prevail in the subject’s love life.

It is impossible not to take a position in relation to the desire of the mother, not to decide who (what sexual being) we are for her. First we desperately need to believe that we are the object of her desire, and then we have to go through the disillusion and the painful realization that we are not it. This moving away from the primary object is overdetermined, not free, but this does not necessarily mean that it is prescriptive of heterosexuality. At the same time, whatever we become (heterosexuals, homosexuals, perverts, or something else), we do not just “choose” to play a role in our private sexual theatre (Judith Butler’s original philosophical behaviourism: 1990).⁴ The resolution of the conflict is never dictated by social norms alone (as postulated by the different theoretical forms of social constructionism). It is not exclusively determined by biological forces (biological determinism); nor could it ever be considered a disease (medical reductionism). The psychoanalytic explanation of the differentiation of sexes through the resolution of the phallic position (the subject’s acceptance of being not I) seems to be the only theory that describes this predicament mainly in terms of an unconscious process.

I would suggest the following formula: the unconscious is structured. Full stop. We are born within this structure; it is more accurate to say that we fall into it (Masotta, 1976). Like it or not, we remain at its mercy. There is no lost certainty to be recovered here, only a limited awareness of the “sheer unconsciousness of the unconscious” (Coltart, 1986, p. 187). But in the same way that “No amount of ‘evidence’ or research will convince the unamused that a joke is funny” (Phillips, 1993, p. xx), no amount of evidence or research will convince anybody that the unconscious is a joke played at our expense. It cannot even properly be said that we “possess” an unconscious. Rather, we are possessed by it. We do not speak a language; we are spoken by it.

From a psychoanalytic point of view, it is not possible to appeal to biology to explain the difference between the sexes. There is in the unconscious a danger and a threat for the man, and a desire and envy for the woman. There is not (as it is at times assumed) an overvalued penis and an undervalued vagina. A penis, just as much as a vagina, does not secure or guarantee anything for the subject as regards to becoming a sexual human being (Masotta, 1976). If nothing else, the idea of bisexuality in psychoanalysis denotes precisely the uncertainty of the process and the struggle through which all human beings become either a woman or a man.

We are faced with a paradox here: although the subject needs to take a position in relation to the desire of the mother, the place to be occupied is always an empty space; the phallus cannot be filled by anybody, or by anything. It is not a question of a penis or a vagina—the concern has nothing to do with anatomical reality. It is only the presence or the absence of that which the infant imagines mother wanting. Here we encounter yet another paradox: the symbolic function of the phallus makes sense only if the theoretical reference to the penis is preserved.

Lacan argued that the phallus is not a reference to any real penis, that it is a signifier that cuts across the differentiation between maleness and femaleness, making both men and women castrated in language. This has motivated one of his disciples to sustain that other symbols of the phallus could be the breast, or the voice, the gaze, different parts of the body, or even scents (Ragland-Sullivan, 1991). The meaning of the phallus seems here to have been emptied of the reference to gender. Nevertheless, as Stephen Frosch (1994) has pointed out, “if the phallus is disconnected from its referent, it becomes the kind of fetishised ideal object which Lacanian theory is supposedly against” (p. 76). If the signifier is primary and produces the signified, if it is a signifier that signifies nothing (or everything), then we are hopelessly drowning in the sea of metaphysics. The fact that the phallus “can play its role only when veiled” (Lacan, 1958a, p. 288) does not fully succeed in dissociating the phallus from the penis. In this respect, Freud is definitely not a Lacanian: for him, castration concerns the imaginary loss of the penis, and it is not comparable to any other loss. If the reference is not to the penis, then the concept of the phallus cannot make theoretical sense of sexual difference. It cannot make any sense of sexual desire either.

Birksted-Breen (1996) has offered a distinction between phallus and “penis-as-link”. For her, the phallus is “representative of omnipotence and completion”; her own concept of “penis-as-link” attempts to describe “the unconscious significance of the penis as linking … and structuring”. While Birksted-Breen successfully describes the pathology of phallic narcissism in her paper, she apparently confuses the concept of the phallus and the stracturing function of the phallic position with the question of object choice. In suggesting the concept of “penis-as-link” she fails to argue for its structuring function (its internal necessity, to use Freud’s words) in psychic life. At best, her proposed...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• CONTENTS
• FOREWORD
• PART ONE Sexuality
• PART TWO Creativity
• PART THREE History
• PART FOUR Knowledge
• REFERENCES
• INDEX