Psychoanalysis and Positivity

Mariam Alizade

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9780429917752
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book explores certain asymptomatic areas of the mind and integrates them within the overall domain of psychopathological dynamics. It examines how positivity operates, and investigates the concept of the reversal of repetition, and the problematic issues raised by impasse and trauma.

Chapter One

Positivity in psychoanalysis

The game of science is, in principle, without end. He who decides one day that scientific statements do not call for any further test, and that they can be regarded as finally verified, retires from the game.

Karl Popper (1934, p. 153)

Introduction

I would like to introduce the term ‘positivity’ into psychoanalysis, with the intention of giving this dimension the status of a concept and of demonstrating how it influences clinical practice and the theory of psychoanalytic technique. Future research will serve to validate or invalidate, partly or completely, my hypotheses. In so doing, nevertheless, new problem situations will emerge that might further our knowledge.

The concept of positivity or the positive dimension arises from a theoretical procedure based on empirical experience. Observation of the effects produced by interpretative and interrogative digression outside the realm of the symptom is crucial to establishing its underlying psychic and structural conditions. I have often come across the situation in which there was a latent positivity in action that was frequently being diminished in strength by layers of psychic pathogens. I had the impression that different pathways and unexplored psychic openings could emerge if more clinical work was done on the positive dimension. After constructing my initial hypotheses, I reworked them as the analytical process and its attendant resistances continued. The empirical confirmation of my hypotheses was gradually strengthened, finding support in certain Freudian conceptualizations, so that my confidence in bringing these ideas to light grew.

The critical rationalism demonstrated by K. Popper (1958) goes beyond the limitations of the narcissistic wound and confronts every research worker with the veracity or otherwise of his or her hypotheses. There is a direct interest in criticizing and exploring possible errors in attendant propositions. The motive force behind this is less the triumph of founding an exact theory than the passion for scientific progress. Thales, in days gone by, encouraged his disciples to call into question what their teachers were professing. He asserted his own fallibility in a clearly non-dogmatic stance, maintaining that only through critical discussion is it possible to approach truth (Popper, 1958).

The dogmatic use of certainty in any discipline means that all thinking stagnates and leads to gradual impoverishment.

‘We must be absolutely modern,’ wrote Arthur Rimbaud (1873 [1952, p. 198]) a century ago. If we agree with Freud that a certain kind of truth is conveyed by the voice of the poets and we apply this phrase to psychoanalysis, the need to listen to the unknown arises in all analysts.

Driven by the clinical need for greater efficiency, new trends in psychoanalysis call into question certain conventional clinical strategies.

Interdisciplinary parallels¹ create a cultural field ripe for new paradigms. When they reach psychoanalysis, certain discoveries and hypotheses give rise to turning points in the conception and application of that science.

Psychoanalysis is subject to the ravages of time and history. The timelessness of the unconscious must not be confused with the timelessness of our theories. Cultural conditioning and the manifest or latent influence of the prevailing culture determine the domain of what can be thought or generated as a new thought at any given point in time (Alizade, M. 1996c, 101–107).

The diversity of the positive dimension

The semantics of positivity is not univocal. The positive dimension encompasses states, experiences, dialectic movements, and psychic circuits, as well as meta-psychological considerations and functions.

In order to have some idea of the sheer diversity of the positive dimension, it is necessary to describe different facets of it as a concept. ‘Positivity’ includes commonsensical spaces as well as abstract spaces of tentative theorizing.

As a philosophical concept, it does not have the same import as the concept of the negative. Ferrater Mora’s (1941) philosophical dictionary, for example, makes no mention of this word.

Abbagnano (1960, p. 937) differentiates three lines of thinking in relation to the positive dimension:

1. It expresses what is recognized as a fact—’the basic meaning of this definition of the term is what governs de facto or has effective reality’. Positive fact and positive reality are ipso facto objective. He cites Schelling, who distinguishes the negative conditions of knowledge, without which knowledge is impossible, from its positive conditions, which render knowledge effective. He also cites A. Comte (Abbagnano, 1960, p. 937) who states, ‘According to its oldest and most common definition, the word “positive” names the real as opposed to the fanciful.’
2. It expresses the affirmative.
3. As related to positivism.

The French Robert dictionary (p. 1,354) contains other semantic connotations of this word, such as:

1. What is certain, authentic, useful, effective, concrete.
2. The constructive. Constructive, positive (as opposed to negative, destructive) spirit.
3. The rational.

Green (1993) offers four definitions of the negative: a) the latent, that which is not seen; b) the rejected; c) the absent, the virtual; and d) nothingness. These semantic terms are opposed to the positive series, which is: a) the manifest; b) the accepted; c) the present, the real; and d) the concrete, comprehensible, thinkable.

The constructive aspect of the positive is indissolubly linked to a flexible and vital interaction on both an intra-subjective level and an inter- and trans-subjective level (Puget, J., in Bianchedi E.T., Bianchedi, M., Braun J. & Pelento, M. [1993]).

In keeping with the psychoanalytic perspective, in my approach to the positive dimension I tend to favour the constructive (unconscious and conscious) aspect linked to the life-drive. It is not enough to destroy sickness. One must construct health.

The positive dimension

The positive dimension operates on several levels. It seeks to bring forth the positive potential that underlies disturbed mental functioning. It works in the narrow, barely processed zone that is not subject to sickness, the locus in the mind where lightness, a favourable disposition and enjoyment filter through. The healthy psychic island, so to speak.

In studying positivity, we pay attention to the part of the patient that is not ill. This psychic zone may be either manifest or latent. If manifest, the positive dimension allows for a direct observation of the patient’s life-promoting mechanisms. If latent, that dimension is inferred as an underlying psychic locus, often ignorant of its own existence. It is a life-enhancing potential broken down by illness.

As living human beings, we all have some measure of vitality. The positive dimension has to do with material which, when it comes to the surface of the mind, determines to a large extent the evolution of the analysis.

The study of positivity entails reflecting on a certain ideology of suffering in psychoanalysis, one that is both reasonable and iatrogenic. The ideology of suffering sometimes serves as an epistemological obstacle that perpetuates, in the analytic field, the idea that suffering is only resolved through even more suffering. Though partly true, this idea often produces harmful effects by consolidating sterile circuits in the mind that simply resonate with one another.

In our culture, anything that is sombre and evocative of suffering is considered to be coterminous with importance. Perhaps this is due to the influence of our Judeo-Christian upbringing which, riddled with sacrifices and punishments, facilitates a certain degree of masochism. Simple psychic characteristics such as cheerful and trivial are not, given the meaninglessness of life, among the concerns of psychoanalysis. For a session to be really significant, it must entail some degree of suffering. A good analyst really ‘goes at’ his patient. Levity in any of its forms is not conceived of as having any therapeutic value.

Psychoanalysts have worked mainly with disturbed associations, intolerable representations, suppressed unpleasant affects, and so on. In its first hundred years of existence, psychoanalysis neglected the systematic and precise study of the effects of psychic work in relation to the positive dimension and its impact on mental pathology. What was important in this initial period was the exploration of pathology.

The pleasure—unpleasure system has been the object of numerous observations, starting with Freud. Grief, pain, sadness and angst have been rigorously examined. Happiness, joy, well-being, feeling at peace, inner balance and other such sensations have been thought of as ‘extra’ affects and experiences that emerge once traumas have been placed in a historical perspective and worked through. Positive affects had little value as objects of study in and of themselves. Psychoanalysis, a serious therapeutic tool, could not waste time on happiness.

The positive dimension requires that the analyst explore realms governed by the life-drive and a form of thinking that puts traumatic events or other such tragic circumstances into perspective. Once its full pathogenic scope is acknowledged, the ideology of suffering attenuates harmful effects.

I have considered the advisability of putting forth strategic technical modifications for the sake of clinical efficiency. These new trends aim to avoid the monotony and persistence of a worn-out, repetitive and painful discourse that is immune to any attempt at working-through.

Positivity belongs to a domain that is consistent with mental health, the healthy part of the personality, psychic normality and the tendency of the psychic apparatus to minimize conflict. The masochism guardian of life (Rosenberg, 1991) is reduced to a minimum.

Meta-psychological considerations

I will outline some meta-psychological alternatives that concern the positive dimension, fully aware, of course, that they require further development.

1) Repressed or suppressed unconscious positivity

Unconscious positivity is repressed or suppressed in terms of representations and affects. When it becomes conscious and explores associative pathways, this dimension can participate in the processes of insight. This positivization, however, does not mean that a therapeutic effect will automatically follow on from it. Making the unconscious conscious does not guarantee an outcome based on true working-through.

2) The true unconscious positive dimension

This positivity resides in the depths of the mind as a reserve for the life-drive. This is an invisible positivity, a psychic substance that spills over into the associative circuits, a hidden positive, created by accepting the fact that something is always ‘lacking’. It facilitates the opening up of psychic pathways that generate a favourable disposition and soothe the mind (Erleichterung) (Freud, 1905c).

Positivity is reached meta-verbally, and cannot be put into words. As a concept, it includes the idea of what cannot be represented, just like the concept of the navel of the dream. This space is related to the unthinkable and to the notion of the unknown outlined by Rosolato, for whom there is definitely something unknown and unknowable. It cannot be abolished and it constitutes the finite as the limit of all knowledge (Rosolato, 1989).

Positivity in the depths of the unconscious facilitates life-promoting impulses.

3) The conscious, deceptive positive dimension (apparent positivity)

Although positive in appearance, this discourse expresses the ego’s voluntarism in the service of the death-drive, frequently disguised as libidinal purpose. True positivity is hidden.

4) The conscious positive dimension (manifest, real, concrete)

It is linked to positive action and subsumes the idea of constructiveness. It is the concrete-positive, a fact that constructs in and of itself. This positive form entails unbinding masochist fixations and mental health.

5) The automatic positive dimension

This predominates in ‘healthy’ minds. Given two pieces of news, one sad and one happy, the happy news is what is focused on and remembered. The sad one is less cathected. This automatic positivity is enacted in all orders of existence.

The memory of traumatic events, whether experienced by the self or by others (events removed from the psyche), is preserved insofar as it is useful or in keeping with a minimal quantum of life-protecting masochism (Rosenberg, 1991). There is no pathogenic masochistic fixation.

6) Positivization of the negative

The no-no is never a ‘pure no’ and behind many ‘yes’s’ lie destructive impulses.

The positivization of the negative indicates a psychic change of direction that focuses representational and affective circuits on a greater acceptance of constructiveness (understood as the preeminence of the life-drive).

As Ferrater Mora (1941) points out, negation does not directly affect its object. Negation maintains a certain degree of affirmation which affirms, in and of itself, something in the object.

In my work on the dissolution of the Oedipus complex may take on in women (Alizade, 1992 [1999, pp. 127–137]) I presented the idea of positivization in ‘not having’ as a new category. The positivization of the negative in the dissolution of the Oedipus complex is a crucial stage that allows for a new psychosomatic act. The sign is reversed and equations geared towards positivity emerge. Structural operations highlight the posit...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE ENGLISH VERSION
• INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
• CHAPTER ONE Positivity in psychoanalysis
• CHAPTER TWO Theoretical fundamentals
• CHAPTER THREE Clinical work and positivity
• CHAPTER FOUR Psychoanalysis and mental health
• CHAPTER FIVE Repetition and its reversal
• CHAPTER SIX Trauma and positivity
• CHAPTER SEVEN The internal setting
• CHAPTER EIGHT Reanalysis and impasse
• CHAPTER NINE Clinical vignettes
• CHAPTER TEN An essay on joy
• CLOSING WORDS
• REFERENCES
• INDEX