Love and its Vicissitudes

André Green, Gregorio Kohon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• eBook ISBN: 9781135448998
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

In Love and its Vicissitudes André Green and Gregorio Kohon draw on their extensive clinical experience to produce an insightful contribution to the psychoanalytic understanding of love.

In Part I, 'To Love or Not to Love - Eros and Eris', André Green addresses some important questions: What is essential to love in life? What, in the psychoanalytic method, is related to it? Should we understand love by referring to its earliest and most primitive roots? Or should we take as our starting point the experience of the adult? He argues that while science has made no contribution to our understanding of love, art, literature and especially poetry are the best introduction to it. In Part II, Love in the Time of Madness, Gregorio Kohon provides a detailed clinical study of an individual suffering a psychotic breakdown. He describes how the exclusive as well as the intense lasting dependence to a primary carer create the conditions for a "normal madness" to develop. This is not only at the source of later psychotic states and the perversions but also at the origin of all forms of love, as demonstrated in its re-appearance in the situation of transference.

Love and its Vicissitudes moves beyond conventional psychoanalytic discourse to provide a stimulating and revealing reflection on the place of love in psychoanalytic theory and practice.

Part I To love or not to love: Eros and Eris

André Green

Je le vis, je rougis, je pâlis a sa vue Un trouble s’éleva dans mon âme éperdue.

Jean Racine, Phèdre

This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy, This canker that eats up love’s tender spring, This carry-tale, dissentious jealousy, That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear, That if I love thee, I thy death should fear.

Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

Learning is but an adjunct to our self, And where we are our learning likewise is.

Shakespeare, Love’s Labour Lost

Libido as an exponent—some questions

I would like to start by commenting on one sentence of Freud’s An Outline of Psychoanalysis:

The greater part of what we know about Eros—that is to say, about its exponent, the libido—has been gained from a study of the sexual function, which, indeed, on the prevailing view, even if not according to our theory, coincides with Eros.

(1938:151)

Let us briefly deconstruct this quote. Libido is not clearly defined in the text, except as it is related to instincts (quite a variety of them) and to the erotogenic zones; it is otherwise equated with sexual desire (1917a: 137). Eros has succeeded in overcoming the basic activity of its major opponent, the destructive instinct. Each of them combines in a fusion which can sometimes become defused. In the end, libido is ‘the totally available energy of Eros’ (1938:149, original italics) present at the beginning of life. Exponent is defined in the Oxford Compact Dictionary as: (1) ‘a person who favours or promotes an ideal’— (2) ‘a representative or practitioner of a professional activity’—(3) ‘a person who explains or interprets something’—(4) ‘Math: a raised symbol indicating how many times it must be multiplied by itself’.

Note that Freud speaks here of a sexual function—and not of a theory of sexuality— because he restricts the label “theory” to the instincts as a concept related to inner forces, which encompasses different sorts of instincts and love relationships. The reference to Eros, which necessarily calls for an object, overcomes the earlier riddle: an instinct cannot be said to love an object (1915b). Therefore, by referring to Eros, Freud questions his earlier ideas about primary narcissism. The theoretical contents of Eros can be analysed as including: a function, its exponent, its components, its aims and binding, and its psychological counterpart. If discharge is still important for Freud, it has to be both related and opposed to binding.

The sentence of the Outline is an eloquent condensation of Freud’s earlier views. Freud’s description of falling in love and of what are usually labelled ‘love relationships’ is, in general, not particularly original. The originality lies in the theoretical statements which account for it. It is surprising that, in the Studies in Hysteria, four references to love out of five are written by Breuer (Breuer and Freud 1893–95). It is only after having written the Three Essays that Freud states, in a later study: ‘In short, except for his reproductive power, a child has a fully developed capacity for love long before puberty’ (1907c: 134). While he is quite aware of the exceedingly ambiguous nature of love (1925d: 38), he conceives of it as the result of the coming together of all the components of the sexual drive. It is interesting to quote the imaginary dialogue—a device frequently used by Freud—between a fictional ego and his respondent (1907c: 134): ‘Nothing has entered into you from without that did not meet what was within.’ (1907c: 142).

It is most important to note the description of the manifold manifestations of Eros at the end of Group Psychology and Analysis of the Ego (self love, love for parents and children, friendship, love for humanity), which Freud refuses to separate sharply (1921:91–92). This helps us clarify our ideas about Freud’s preconceptions. Eros is largely considered as an energy linked to instincts, fusing or defusing their expressions mainly through the erotogenic zones active since childhood, which, for most of them, in connection to objects, give birth to pleasure. Instincts are characterised by their conservative nature and are ‘the ultimate cause of all activity’ (1938:148). They are known through different kinds of representations and affects, which contribute to give them expression and provide us with clues about their magnitude and strength.

The questions I will be dealing with in this paper, though not treated sequentially, are:

1. What, in the psychoanalytic method, is related to love and its relationships to other facts of psychic life?
2. In the teachings of psychoanalysis, what is essential to love in life?
3. What has the experience of life told us about love that we do not find in the work of psychoanalysts?
4. Are there other fields of knowledge, which can tell us as much—or more—than psychoanalysis, about this experience?

The immediate response that comes to mind is an answer to the fourth question. I think that art, mainly literature and especially poetry, undoubtedly gives a better introduction to the knowledge of love, which we grasp by intuition. These sources create a stronger and deeper impression than do psychoanalytic writings. The detour through imagination and poetic language of a very general human experience has proved to be more efficient than the ideas born from an experiment which has undeniably committed itself to the most constant and careful investigation of love relationships. To date, science has not contributed anything to our understanding of the core of the love experience, despite very limited findings on the somatic condition which precedes or accompanies the experience. At the other extreme, exceptional religious experiences and mythical narratives, mostly related to the writings of mystics, have shown to be closely linked to loving relationships (St John of the Cross, Saint Teresa, Jalal el Din Rumi, Orpheus). These sublimated expressions of love may be distorted by idealisation. The trouble is that when a psychoanalyst proceeds to de-idealisation love frequently ceases to be truly present in the communication. A certain dose of idealisation may be indispensable for those who want to know more about it. But is it really idealisation, or is it the need to use the evocative power of imagination to describe an experience which, told in ordinary terms, falls short of creating an empathic understanding?

It is as if the psychoanalytic view misses something which is lost in its description. The fact might seem surprising. Even if we were to consider that one of the contributions of psychoanalysis since Freud has been an extension of its traditional frontiers, bringing into its field features which were traditionally seen as pertaining to different areas, we could hardly find a better or more suitable topic than love as an experience, common to all human beings. Since the advent of psychoanalysis, the field of love has encompassed, as Freud said (1921), emotional experience which includes very different kinds of love, from infancy to old age, and from the individual to humanity at large. At this point, it might be useful to recall some important contributions from our discipline’s history:

1. Freud’s constant concern with the relationships between sexuality and love. In fact, we can draw some conclusions which occasionally overstep this basic concern. With both sexuality and love, one always finds another pole with which they are coupled and opposed. We can say that sexuality has been the constant factor in more than a few multiple antagonistic entities. Sometimes the pair is internal to sexuality or love; sometimes it is opposed to them. At other times, the two perspectives may combine in an overlap. Examples include the opposition between sensuality and tenderness, narcissistic and object choice, love and hate, Eros and destruction, as well as different forms of love reunited in the concept of Eros.
2. Balint’s refutation of primary narcissism, to which primary love is opposed.
3. Melanie Klein’s emphasis on the predominance of destruction in the earliest periods of life.
4. Bion’s introduction of knowledge as an organising reference on a par with love and hate.
5. Winnicott’s refutation of the so-called death drive, which he proposed to substitute with ‘ruthless love’.
6. Bowlby’ s theory of attachment.
7. Lacan’s description of hainamoration (1972–73), offering once again a theoretical idea through a pun. The old French word énamoration (to be enamoured of), describing the state of being intensely in love is, in its first syllable, neatly homophonic with haine (hate). Thus the pun means hatredénamoration. Lacan describes a feeling of hatred and love that cannot be dissociated, and for which I can find no better equivalent than ‘lovatred’ because, if we followed the French order of condensation, we would have an oxymoron, ‘hatelove’. Seeing it in this order, as a single attached word, would reassert the distinct separation between the two feelings, which in Lacan’s word are condensed.
8. We should also mention that no one has thought more thoroughly than Martin Bergmann (1987) about the determinants, evolution and contradictions of psychoanalysis with regard to love. Also, Kernberg (1995) attempted an evaluation of the couple in normality and pathology.

I will not enter into a detailed discussion of the differences and justifications of these main hypotheses. I nevertheless wished to remind the reader of them because, whatever our orientation may be, these ideas are at the back of our minds and are decisive in our choices and preferences.

On transference love

I shall now try to address my first question which refers to transference love, though I shall not linger on it as it has its specific literature which is constantly present in our minds. The topic could take up this entire chapter but I shall limit myself to a few points. Transference was discovered in the Studies in Hysteria (Breuer and Freud 1893–95).

Transference love has undergone successive interpretations by Freud (from being the burden of psychoanalysis to its motor propeller). It was completed with the discovery of countertransference, which, in some modern interpretations, is considered to precede transference (Neyraut 1974). Countertransference has been seen mostly as a combination of ambivalent feelings of hate and love. Sometimes, a surprising transformation occurs, and hate dominates the picture (Winnicott 1949c). Paula Heimann’s famous 1950 paper changed our perspective, interpreting the patient’s inability to communicate as a provoked reaction, thus making the analyst feel what the patient cannot express. The actual trend is to link, in a sort of couple that cannot be dissociated, transference and countertransference, as analysis is most frequently seen as a two-bodied relationship. This could be an opening for a wide discussion.

The question of negative transference has largely been debated from Freud onwards. In contemporary conceptions we see two antagonistic positions, extending from its dominance in certain transferences to its complete denial (when it is thought that the negative manifestations cannot be absent from the analytic relationship and have to be considered as substitutes of love). Negative transference is then only considered as an aspect of transference, not to be understood independently or as an entity in itself. It is interesting to observe that Freud’s paper on transference love (1915a) deals with a special form of resistance in the transference (Schafer 1993; Wallerstein 1993). Meltzer, trying to explore the outcome of psychoanalysis by examining, many years later, patients he had formerly analysed, observed an almost constant feature: a limited capacity for introjection and an always strong inclination towards transference which needed minimal circumstances to be reactivated at any moment. In some psychoanalytic schools, only transference interpretations can make analysis effective. This position is not shared everywhere. The distinction sometimes established in some conceptions is to differentiate between interpretations in the transference (any interpretation) and transference interpretations as such, that is, interpretations of the transference.

The widening scope of psychoanalysis since the late 1950s has led analysts, long after the works of Ferenczi and Rank (1924/1956), to recommend variations of technique: more concern and love (expressed more or less explicitly to the patient), deeper interpretations, symbolic interpretations, modifications of the setting, longer sessions, etc. There is no global evaluation of the changes brought about by the adoption of each of these new parameters. Today, having at our disposal a wide range of techniques, it is interesting to note that, whatever the other factors interfering with love may be, there is no view that denies its centrality in the cure, even if it is differently understood in the subgroups of contemporary psychoanalysts. Most of the time, the debates discuss the spontaneity of transference, or its appearance because of the implicit offer of the analyst who proposes the setting and places himself, willy-nilly, in a position that induces a love reaction from the patient. This may then become the strongest of resistances (MacAlpine 1950), and even be expressed through a violent hatred for a long time, before its hidden nature is recognised.

There is no doubt that contemporary clinical experience has confronted us with forms of fixated, sometimes unremovable ‘love relationships’, the destructive undertones of which we cannot be unaware. Is the reference to love still accurate or should we find a better word to describe the nature of the emotional links that are created in these analytic relationships (Bion 1962)? Nevertheless, this does not change the importance we attribute without hesitation to the loving experience. Should we consider a central state of love, around which all other aspects of loving relationships derive (or from where they are mixed with other fundamental feelings), or should we give up any idea of a single model accompanied by other forms revolving around it?

Post-Freudian questions on transference love

When discussing transference we cannot entirely dissociate what we think about it from this Freudian background. As far as love is concerned, it could seem paradoxical that, if transference is the lever of the analysis animated by love which always (except in the debatable case of narcissism) implies an object, how can we match this so-called solipsistic conception of Eros in Freud with the experience involving an object (transference) through which we can grasp its exponent?

Love and its Vicissitudes is a title that can summarise the history of psychoanalysis. Are the precursors of love part of it or do we have to consider them apart from love and the life cycle? Can infantile love be usefully taken as a model in understanding adult love? What are the links between various kinds of love (self-love, friendship, tenderness, sensuality)? What are the antagonisms to love (conflict between different kinds of love within its own field or conflicts between diverse categories opposing each other)? Do different categories of patients show modifications as regards loving manifestations? Should we understand love by referring to its earliest and most primitive roots, or should we accept to take our starting point from the experience of the adult? Most of the time, the choice of elaborating on the earliest and most primitive roots leads to leaning on reconstructions based on observation or theoretical assumptions. If we choose the adult model, we will have the opportunity to compare our findings based on transference with our observations of some pathological manifestations, our experience of life, our reading of literature and knowledge based on cultural experience. In this last instance, we are aware that we run the risk of falling into the traps of misunderstandings and misconceptions, mixing views belonging to different systems. The proposed advantage lies in the fact that the field of investigation is larger and that our identifications offer another source of reflection, even when these reactions refer to a more complex phenomenon, sometimes distant from ordinary experience. Without hesitation, if asked to choose, I will side with the latter view. If I prefer to take the viewpoint that starts from adult experience, it will prove necessary to proceed to retrospective constructions of its infantile roots, despite the risk of presenting ideas which go beyond observation.

However, observation is not always a guaranteed advantage but can instead be a limitation, as one has to select one among different approaches. Moreover, it leads us into traps where we become fascinated (I would even say nearly hypnotised) and inevitably misled, almost to the point of blindness, in the illusion of seeing what happens. I believe that psychoanalysis is the only disc...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• About the authors
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Part I To love or not to love: Eros and Eris
• Part II Love in a time of madness