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Psychoanalysis
It is often assumed that psychiatry
is the school of thought which focuses on the individual, that its main concern
is , moreover, the various forms of mental illness which some individuals
suffer from. This is not true. Freud wrote a book entirely devoted to Group
psychology, and there are various studies which relied on the insights of
psychiatry to explain such cultural phenomena as Literature, the Cinema, and diverse cultural
phenomena. Politicians today rely on the insights of psychologists to
comprehend the motives for world leaders acting as they do.
Freud
Defense Mechanisms:
It is well known that Sigmund Freud based his analytic
system on interaction with his patients. During the exchange, he discovered
that patients resist telling him the truth about certain experiences from their
past. He thought that this is intentional, at first, and then he came to
discover that, sometimes, patients just forget, or deny, or repress, the truth, because it is difficult to
deal with.. The anxiety level of the subject rises considerably when reminded
of such experiences, some of which being traumatic and frightening. Therefore,
the defenses are methods of concealing, either from the psychiatrist, or from
the self, at least some of these experiences which could well be partial causes
of the illness the patient suffers from..
It is therefore important to stress that these defense
mechanisms are rhetorical.. They express the self in language.. as he/she
wishes to present him/herself to the world.
It is certain that most normal humans use defenses as
much as mentally ill people do. As usual, what distinguishes the normal
individual using defenses from the ill person is a matter of degree.. When
these methods are used to guard the individual from real or potential harm,
then he still controls the usage. However, when the usage confuses the user,
when he gets caught up in the defenses he creates, then they become harmful,
and the usage ought to be stopped.
This study seeks to explain some of
the defense mechanisms of Sigmund Freud, and apply them to certain cultural
phenomena. I will try to suggest that those defenses are rhetorical, that is,
they are specific uses of language meant to defend the self from specific
threats, and are therefore embedded with social values. One cannot, after all,
defend any act or thought, without its being previously attacked, both the
attack and defense being always related to social norms.
What follows here is a a brief
discussion of some of these defenses, with their applications to everyday
lives, and political and social debates…
Denial:
We all deny certain facts which for
us are difficult to deal with. Most commonly, human beings forget, or deny, the
fact that they all will one day die.. cease to be.
We also deny views which are opposed to what we
believe in. Darwin, in his autobiography, states:
I had during years followed a
golden role, namely, whenever I came across a published fact, a new observation
or idea, which ran counter to my general results, I made a memorandum of it
without fail and at once. For I had found by experience that such facts and
ideas were far more apt to slip the memory than favorable ones.
Now, it is obvious, even from the description by
Darwin here, that one denies mainly ideas : which ran counter to general
results.. In short, one denies the ideas which oppose the ideology one believes
in.
A very famous example of an important institution
denying an established fact happened when The Catholic medieval church sought to ban the thought of a
scientist, Galileo. He postulated that the earth rotates around the sun. The
patriarchs denied the fact, and in order to prove to themselves the validity of
the denial, they burned, even forced
Galileo to participate in the burning of , his own books. They considered this
display , the spectacle of the scientist burning basically the work to which he
devoted his life, necessary to prove to the public that the man renounced his views. However, since
Galileo believed his own conclusions, which were based on scientific
observation, and intelligent mathematical analysis, he stated, after finishing
the burning of the books: Still, it turns. And the passage of years proved him
right.
Now, was it wise for the patriarchs to deny the
theories of Galileo in this fashion? Probably not. Since this way, the church
commenced the unnecessary conflict
between science and religion which was to last for a long time to come. Part of
the reason for the violence with which enlightenment dismissed much religion as
myth, is the original denial of the church to scientific thought .
Denial of facts is therefore harmful to the
individual, and if a community denies facts, it might weaken the validity of
its views in the eyes of its members.
A political example: For many years after its
creation, Arabic countries denied the existence of Israel. They denied that it
is there, that it exists and refused to talk to Israelis. One wonders: Did they
imagine that by refusing to acknowledge the existence of Israel, it would go
away? When Egyptian President Sadat decided to start negotiations with Israel
in the late seventies, many Arabs considered him to be a traitor, and isolated
him. Their reaction was the same as that of the patriarchs when they faced the
theories of Galileo. It obviously felt very strange for many Arabs, in the
early nineties, to see their representatives setting next to the
representatives of the state which , according to their ideology, did not
exist.
It is therefore better to acknowledge the existence of
something we dislike than to deny it. At least, one might take the sad truth of
affairs with a grain of salt, grin and bear it, but Wisdom dictates the one
ought to anticipate that day when the truth comes out, and be
prepared for it.
To end where we began: What can be said
about the denial of death? Ought we to deny that it will take from us our lives
one day? Would the admission of death stop the individual from hoping for a
better tomorrow, and gives him to despair, or would s/he love life even more?
Perhaps, it will be better and healthier if one
remembers the fact of demise.. This way, s/he will take himself, and the
difficult events of life, less seriously, be able to laugh about being embarrassed
at work one day, for instance, instead of feeling sullen about it for weeks
later. Life will be better appreciated when one admits its temporality.
A very sad final example comes from the journals of Robert Falcon
Scott, the English explorer of the south continent. Due to inevitable
circumstance, he and his team were stranded in the middle of a violent snow
storm, and realized that their food is running out, that they will all have to
die.. How did they behave in this extreme situation? A letter, found eight
months later, written by Scott to the wife of one of his crew members, Mr.
Wilson, describes his final actions:
If
this letter reaches you Bill and I will have gone away together. We are very
near it now and I should like you to know how splendid he was at the end ,
everlastingly cheerful and ready to sacrifice himself for others, never a word
of blame to me for leading him into this mess. He is not suffering, luckily, at
least only minor discomforts.
His
eyes have a comfortable blue look of hope and his mind is peaceful with the
satisfaction of his faith in regarding himself as part of the great scheme of
the Almighty. I can do no more to comfort you than to tell you that he died as
he lived, a brave, true man, the best of comrades and staunchest of friends.
(259)
In this passage, one finds the
ethics of dealing with death.. Wilson stays cheerful till the end, and is
willing to help his friends in his last moments. Religion certainly helps the
whole group deal with the disaster which befalls them. They do not deny the
fact that they will die, but acknowledge it, setting a standard for how to
behave in such a situation.
It is difficult to admit that beauty and intelligence will
eventually turn to dust, but to deny it only makes matters worse.
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