Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Identity and Difference

Navigating the Divide

Brent Willock, Lori C. Bohm, Rebecca Coleman Curtis, Brent Willock, Lori C. Bohm, Rebecca Coleman Curtis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781134848706
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychoanalysis
• Index: Psychology

Every day, clinicians encounter challenges to empathy and communication while struggling to assist patients with diverse life histories, character, sexuality, gender, psychopathology, cultural, religious, political, racial, and ethnic backgrounds. Most writing pertaining to ideas of similarity, discrepancy, and 'the Other' has highlighted differences. Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Identity and Difference: Navigating the Divide offers a different focus, emphasising points of contact, connection, and how divisions between people can be transcended.

In-depth case material, astutely elucidated by diverse theoretical approaches, furnishes stimulating ideas and valuable suggestions for facilitating a meeting of minds and psychological growth in patients who might otherwise be difficult or impossible to engage. Exploring how psychoanalysts can navigate obstacles to understanding and communicating with suffering individuals, topics covered include: internal experience of likeness and difference in the patient; in the analyst; and how analysts can find echoes of themselves in patients.

Psychoanalysts and psychotherapists will appreciate the importance and value of this wide-ranging, groundbreaking exploration of these insufficiently addressed dimensions of human experience.

Part I

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The internal experiences of likeness and difference in the patient

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Chapter 1

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Identifying/disidentifying

Brent Willock

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The neurotic ego has, by definition, fallen prey to overidentification and to faulty identifications with disturbed parents, a circumstance which isolated the small individual both from his budding identity and from his milieu.

– Erik Erikson

Childrearing circumstances in which children feel unloved and rejected can trigger a powerful combination of problematic defences: identification with the rejecting object; disidentification with important parts of the self; projective identification of these unacceptable self-states on to others. These pathologically accommodative processes wreak havoc with identity, self-esteem and relationships. In significant ways, afflicted individuals cease being themselves. Becoming the bad object, they projectively perceive others as their disowned, despised selves. Shocked victims of these patients’ hostile (second) nature feel they are being regarded very differently from how they view themselves. In analysis, these pathological identificatory processes can be revisited and revised, with significant therapeutic effects.

The visit

Lying on the couch, Lorraine complained about an upcoming houseguest – her teenaged niece.

‘What’s in it for me?’ Lorraine asked bitterly. ‘Someone else should shoulder this responsibility. This is the last time I’ll sacrifice my weekend for my sister’s daughter!’

In the past, she liked this girl, regretting that geographical distance and family dynamics diminished contact. Ordinarily, she would have looked forward to her company, seeing it as an opportunity to strengthen their bond. When I mentioned this discrepancy, Lorraine agreed, but insisted she was in no mood to host her niece.

I wondered if her current antipathy might reflect how she believed her own mother had felt about her when Lorraine was a child, namely that she was an unwanted burden. This idea made instant sense to Lorraine. She realized she was playing the roles of her child self (burdensome niece) and her mother (irritable woman not wanting to be bothered with this youngster).

This interpretation emerged from years of work during which Lorraine’s mother was portrayed mostly as an absence. Lorraine knew her mother must have been around because meals appeared. Apart from two cherished memories, this woman did not seem to be a significant, positive presence in Lorraine’s memory. In contrast, she recalled a close relationship with her father.

With her niece, Lorraine was repeating rather than remembering (Freud, 1914) an important aspect of her childhood. She was processing, but mostly defending against traumatic experience pertaining to an unavailable, unloving mother via repetition compulsion (Freud, 1920). In this reversed remembering/not-remembering manner, Lorraine could feel like the powerful, unloving victimizer rather than the neglected child. She also felt herself to be the victim of her burdensome child, making this a multifaceted, sadomasochistic scenario.

Individuals who utilize projective identification maintain a tie to disowned parts of themselves. Lorraine’s angry connection to her niece sustained an intensely negative mother–child bond. Memorializing her relationship with her mother this way, Lorraine deployed a defence Anna Freud (1948), following Ferenczi (1932), called identification with the aggressor. She became her emotionally unavailable, resentful parent. Identifying with her rejecting mother, Lorraine created a complementary counter-identification with her dependent, unwanted, childhood self, aggressively attributing this self-state to her niece. Using this girl as a toilet-breast (Meltzer, 1967), Lorraine dumped her innocent, needy, devalued, childhood self into her image of her niece. Her niece now represented this feared, unwanted part of Lorraine that Lorraine could attack, underscoring its ‘not-me’ (Sullivan, 1940) status.

In contemporary Relational psychoanalytic parlance, these introjective/projective processes result in what Jessica Benjamin (1988) calls doer/done-to relationships rather than healthier ones based on mutual recognition. In Lorraine’s case, the one done-to (niece) has been transformed into a version of the doer’s self that the doer (Lorraine) could not contain. For defensive reasons, misrecognition eclipsed recognition.

Drawing on British Object Relations Theory further enriches our understanding of The Visit. In Fairbairn’s (1952) framework, infants internalize bad objects. In subsequent efforts to ‘master’ this entity, an unholy alliance is forged between the rejecting object (Lorraine’s mother) and the antilibidinal ego (the new, nasty Lorraine) against the libidinal ego (projected on to the unsuspecting niece hoping to enjoy a pleasant sojourn with auntie).

In Winnicott’s (1969) idiom, Lorraine was enmeshed in subjective object relating (omnipotent projections) as opposed to realistic object usage (Benjamin’s recognition). Subjective object relating leaves no room for reflection (Fonagy et al., 2002; Ogden, 1986). The other is not perceived as a separate subject. At most the other is a selfobject (Kohut, 1971), for example, a toilet-breast. Subjective object relating belongs to Klein’s paranoid-schizoid realm and Freud’s (1915) purified pleasure ego (taking into the self anything attractive, eliminating all that is non-gratifying). In contrast, realistic object usage reflects higher level mentation that corresponds to Klein’s depressive position and Freud’s reality ego.

Speculating about a death drive, Freud (1920) and his Kleinian followers underscored the need to turn this destructive force outward in order to survive. In the processes I am describing, there is a similar need to redirect the withering power of perceived maternal rejection on to other objects (niece) in order to carry on living. While there is an instinctive basis to this desperate object relating, it is most useful to focus on defensive aspects and aims of these convoluted relational processes. Most psychoanalysts would find these processes more plausible than earlier explanations based on redirecting the death instinct outwards.

Some readers might object to the preceding comingling of Freudian, Kleinian, British Object Relations, Sullivanian and contemporary Relational concepts. They may believe it wrong, or at least inadvisable, to mix terms from different models. In contrast, Comparative-Integrative Psychoanalysis (Willock, 2007) favours bringing ideas of diverse schools together. Multiple perspectives mingle well at the comparative–integrative table. Together, they create richer, more useful dialogue and understanding than is possible when feasts are restricted to those belonging to just one school of thought. Even small steps toward creative coexistence can help heal our fractured discipline.

Analysis helps patients move from repeating to remembering, advancing from post-traumatic states and adaptations to healthier modes of being that permit separation, perspective, reflection. In relationship to her niece, I tried to assist Lorraine to progress from doer/done-to, sadomasochistic, paranoid-schizoid object relating to growth facilitating, mutually enjoyable, meaningful, depressive position, recognition and object usage. In accord with Bion’s (1970) concept of the container and the contained and the need to use alpha function (reverie) to transform beta elements (unmanageable, raw feelings suitable only for evacuation) into alpha elements that can be retained in the self and used productively, Lorraine transmitted her angry upset about her niece into me, a toilet-breast. Identifying with the harshly attacked girl, I felt uncomfortable imagining the ‘reunion’ they were about to suffer. Making sense of what was going on in terms of Lorraine’s past, I reflected that understanding back to her in a form that proved tolerable, manageable, and useful for reflection and maturation. In keeping with Ogden’s (1986) suggestion to rename the depressive position the historical position, we placed Lorraine’s intolerable experience in historical perspective, linking then and now, thereby contextualizing and transforming it.

In our next session, Lorraine conveyed her realization that when her niece visited last year the girl had been burdened by worries related to her mother’s serious illness. Mother was now doing well and the current visit was ‘wonderful’. Having worked through the oppressive phantasy in which she had been entangled, Lorraine became free to participate in a more rational, creative, mutually enjoyable reality.

One evening, Lorraine’s niece wanted to watch some age-appropriate television. Believing this would be boring, Lorraine exiled herself to her computer, then thought it might be interesting and enjoyable to spend time with her niece and see what the programme was about. That experience turned out to be very pleasant. Linking this new experience to her past, Lorraine lamented that her mother never would have watched a TV movie with her. She was now remembering rather than repeating. This was a ‘holy grail’ weekend, Lorraine enthused. It provided a long-sought, historically elusive, mother–daughter experience. Initially unpromising ingredients had been miraculously transmuted into sacred gold. In contrast, Lorraine usually bemoaned angrily that she would (or had been) frighteningly alone all weekend, much as had been the case after her parents’ divorce.

As we worked on these problematic processes of identification, disidentification and projective identification, Lorraine frequently began sessions describing some intensely upsetting interaction, saying she looked forward to sorting out ‘Who’s who?’ For example, she went ballistic when her girlfriend asked which route they should take to a restaurant. Lorraine was now aware she could have been performing as someone other than her usual mature self, simultaneously seeing others as other than who they actually were. She considered that with this girlfriend she may have enacted an angry, fed-up, rejecting version of her mother. She also realized she identified with her girlfriend to whom she had assigned the role of dependent, frightened, misunderstood, berated, childhood Lorraine. To make matters even more complicated, and complete, when raging at her girlfriend, Lorraine realized she was also voicing anger at her mother that she had never dared express. Here she believed she was raging at her mother for not taking initiative, planning things carefully and lovingly for her, instead of turning to her daughter to be the responsible, knowledgeable adult.

It was by no means quick and simple for Lorraine to move from pathological, defensive, identificatory object relating through reflection to healthier intersubjectivity. In time, she became increasingly adept at understanding her propensity to create these painful dramas. She was ever more able to figure out what was going on, what the anxieties and unrequited longings were that motivated these defensive processes, and what she could do to transcend these enactments. With these new insights and abilities, she spent less time in furious fantasies and relational entanglements and could more readily repair any damage she caused.

Pathological accommodation (Brandchaft, 2007) relates to Winnicott’s (1960) depiction of individuals forging false selves on a compliance basis. Those escaping overwhelming relational conflicts this way often feel inhibited and deadened. In contrast, analysands like Lorraine embrace a more aggressive flight pattern that is disturbingly uninhibited and ‘lively’. At times, however, they may exhibit constricted, devitalized features. In love making, Lorraine often felt numb, dead. In adolescence, her family said she was always miserable. Then, she could not verbally express certain emotions and concerns. In analysis, she learned to feel and reflect upon previously unformulated (Stern, 1997), dissociated experience. In so doing, she became increasingly able to communicate with others.

The following vignette from several months later illustrates how significant this progress was in terms of these identificatory processes. A friend distanced herself because Lorraine had challenged her as to whether she really wanted to have a baby. Whenever I speak up, Lorrraine complained to me, I am abandoned by ‘mother’ (e.g., that friend). Lorraine’s lament was very familiar. In this instance, she surprised me by reflecting on the event and concurring with her friend’s accusations. ‘I am judgemental, insensitive, thoughtless … sometimes.’ She could now accept criticism since the feedback no longer felt so total.

Instead of simply feeling furiously disappointed by her friend, Lorraine now had empathy for her, recalling how that friend’s father had brutalized her, while her mother had been such an ineffective protector. She also realized she had challenged her friend because she feared a baby would make ‘mother’ (i.e., the friend) less available. Even more surprisingly, Lorraine asked who was going to be understanding and loving toward her friend’s father and mother whose brutality and absence expressed their own pain. When I acknowledged Lorraine’s unexpected empathy for those abusive parents, she surprised me even further by saying they were her, that is, ‘insensitive, thoughtless, judgmental, harsh – due to fear and pain’. Even after many decades of practice, changes and growth effected by psychoanalysis can still strike one as almost miraculous.

A day (not) at the spa

Angela enjoyed her friend’s daughter since Zoey was a baby. I was, therefore, surprised when Angela, upon receiving a text message, raged that this child, now a young woman, only contacts her when she needs something. Zoey’s proposal that they should get their nails done could only mean Zoey wanted Angela to pay. Angela responded that she would not be visiting her aesthetician for some time.

When Angela gained some distance from this event, she shared that mother’s mantra was ‘If you expect anything from me, you’ll get less.’ In the shadow of that philosophy, Angela learned to not ask for anything. Reflecting on Zoey’s upsetting proposal, Angela remarked, ‘I’m my mother to Zoey’s/my needs. Mother felt burdened by my slightest needs.’ Identifying with her dismissive mother, Angela disowned her needy self, projectively assigning that unacceptable role to Zoey as prelude to rejecting her request. In so doing, she perpetuated her unsatisfying relationship with her own mother.

We had done much work on Angela’s relationship with her critical mother. In one model scene (Lichtenberg, 2001), the family doctor told young Angela and her mother that Angela’s genital odour meant she needed to wash down there. When they got home, mother tossed a facecloth at her, coldly telling her to use it. On another occasion, she flung a bottle of lotion at her, muttering ‘Put it on your legs.’ It is surely more than coincidental that Angela’s rage toward Zoey pertained to feminine bodily activities that could have given rise to enjoyable bonding, but, as in Angela’s childhood, did not. For the moment, reverse repetition ruled but remembering and reflection were beginning to dismantle the power of those pathological identificatory processes.

Realizing what had happened with Zoey, Angela was distressed that she could still be so issued about mother–daughter matters after having worked on them so much in treatment. She felt she must be getting nowhere. Equally noteworthy, I responded, was the fact that she understood what was going on in her feelings about Zoey so quickly. Angela could see this was indeed progress.

Like Lorraine, Angela created many scenes in which she attributed her ‘inappropriately requesting’ therefore rejected self to others. As she developed the space (in our room and in her mind) in which to ponder these dynamics, she increasingly got a handle on them. As she disidentified with her rejecting mother, shifting from enactment to thinking, she could be more empathic with others, with herself and even with her mother. For example, she looked forward to her son’s coming home from college. I reminded her of how she used to dread his return, feeling burdened by his needs, like she believed her mother felt toward her. (When she arrived home from university, mother told her she could not stay with her – unless Angela succeeded in getting child support money from her father.) Angela acknowledged the validity of the contrast I was highlighting, remarking that her new attitude toward her son represented a major turning point. ‘Now I know what family means,’ she sobbed. Having disidentified with mother, she was free to be a loving parent to her son. Their relationship blossomed.

Dreaming she was kissing a man, Angela felt awkward, not knowing if she was pleasing him. In her associations, she wondered what is expected in relationships, and can she live up to whatever it is. Imagining mother glaring, she continued: ‘So many impossible expectations were put upon me. Now in relationships, I become demanding and critical.’ She lamented ruining her relationship with Bernard, becoming the mother he could never please. Now she realizes she and Bernard are alike.

I become mother, judging. You better meet my needs and do it right. No one can meet that. Every time ma entered the house, my stomach knotted. If Bernard had taken me to Rio, I’d have found something else to complain about. I feel exactly like mother. I could never satisfy her, therefore I never got love, therefore I felt empty, therefore I filled that space with anger versus nothingness. Bernard could never fill his mother’s needs. I get him now.

Where enactment was, empathy now is, increasingly.

Dylan

Dylan reported a dream of himself ‘in two parts’ – adult, and child of six or seve...