I will now talk about pages 37-46 or Chapter Five - Pathogenesis
I had to look up pathogenesis,
although I had a general idea of what it could mean. It's essentially the
origin of the disease. In this case it would be psychopathogenesis or the
origins of psychological disease. I don't think anyone knows the origins of disease
in general, but the causes of particular diseases can be isolated.
It seems there is an infinite
chain of what could be considered a disease. It is not so cut and dry. In the
animal kingdom, a so-called "disease" could be the trait that
introduces a new species into the world. To use a common example: if a bird's
beak is formed longer than the other birds' beaks, it may be an
"outcast" among their species but that genetic mutation may allow the
bird to reach insects in places the other birds could not. What started out as
a "disease" turned into an asset.
That is one idea of how our
language taints the actual meaning of things. Disease could be looked at as a
spectrum from potentially adaptive to blatantly maladaptive. A problem looked
at in one light turns into a non-issue when the power of perspective comes into
play
However, humans don't deal in
eons. We deal in minutes, hours, days, years. It is not up to us to judge what
is adaptive or maladaptive as concerns the species. Where it does matter is
with the individual. If an individual is suffering in some way, it becomes
necessary to fix that thing that is causing the person suffering, or ameliorate
that suffering in some way.
It no longer becomes an issue of
adaptiveness or maladaptiveness in terms of the species but in terms of the
actual individual. If the "disease" contributes to the person's well-being,
then perhaps it should be left alone. However, a happy sadist is still a
sadist. Whether a person is happy or not is not necessarily a good indicator of
correctness.
I'm discussing all of this
because it seems necessary to establish some fundamentals before going deeper.
What are the qualifications for determining how a person should be? Berne
discusses how a "happy" person does not make a good person. Also, a
person whose personality is "well-organized" may not necessarily be a
happy person. It seems that there are other qualifications to be determined.
So even if all one's parts are in
harmony with each other, that doesn't mean one is following societal standards.
And if one is following societal standards, one could still very well be
a "psychopath" (if that society condones cannibalism or torture,
etc...)
Currently we are looking at the
individual in particular and how the various psychological systems work. It has
been established that our minds are composed of ego states that can be
structurally designated as Parent, Adult, and Child types. It seems that when
these ego states exclude each other or, conversely, contaminate each other,
then problems arise.
I must not understand fully
contamination and exclusion because sometimes it seems as though contamination
and exclusion are normal. It means some element is syntonic or dystonic with
two or more ego states. In the case of the son who believed that "all
dancing is wicked," his Parent was syntonic with his Adult. Because this
was a wrong belief and all dancing is not wicked, it would be better if this
belief was left in a latent stage in his Parent. What if he was right about
something? Let’s say he believed that "all torture is wicked."
Wouldn't it be a good thing if his Parent and Adult were syntonic about this?
Is there some universal standard
to which all beliefs can be held? I think that standard would be known as
Truth, but this seems to be a tautology and it doesn't seem that humans have
figured out a way to distinguish a common trait among all true beliefs.
I will explore this chapter and
see if I can answer some of my own questions.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pathogenesis (pg.
37-46)
Dr. Berne begins by comparing
psychic life with "somatic" life. Similar to the bodily systems, the
psychic systems can be isolated and treated specifically. In the same way that
a doctor can treat a patient's heart, brain, blood, liver, etc. individually, a
trained psychotherapist can treat an individual's anxiety, depression,
neurosis, psychosis, etc. individually.
Dr. Berne explains that the body
tries to maintain its homeostasis in the same way the psyche tries to maintain
its version of homeostasis. Berne mentions that the body sustains itself along
a continuum and I'm not sure what the two poles of the continuum would be: sick
vs. healthy, over-nourished vs. under-nourished... It's possible that there are
many continuums and the entire body's healthiness can be judged by measuring
where the body's individual parts are along different continuums.
Take digestion for example.
Different supplements are digested in different ways. Vitamins K, A, D, and E
are the ones that are fat soluble, meaning that there is an upper limit where
too much of those vitamins can cause an overdose. Too little of them can cause
other problems as well. However, Vitamin B has no upper limit because it is
water soluble and can be urinated out. These vitamins are needed for various
processes in the body like building proteins and other things I'm not sure of.
The point is that the different systems of the body can be isolated and treated
accordingly.
It would be interesting to see
all the different psychological mechanisms that people have discovered and
compare them and organize them into categories. Perhaps this is what Dr. Berne
has done. Of course there is the Parent, Adult, and Child and they act
differently, but what about other psychological mechanisms: the difference
between assimilation and accommodation, for example.
Berne discusses the idea of an "ego
unit," perhaps the most basic form of an ego state. Information that
people receive internally from their various parts and externally from the
environment is "assimilated" into the brain during the day, and then
when the person goes to sleep, the dreams that people have help to further
organize the data. The cycle of one waking state followed by a dreaming state
can be called an "ego unit." (Dr. Berne puts quotes around the word
assimilation possibly because the word assimilation doesn't quite capture the
true nature of what is happening... Or because it is more complex than just
"taking in" information.)
When the data is not
"assimilated," the person's dreams "become repetitive and the
waking ego begins to stagnate" (37). When Dr. Berne says stagnate, what
does he mean exactly? ...the person tends to do the same things even if they
are unhealthy things? Perhaps he means that exclusion and contamination become
more prevalent. It is easy to understand how exclusion can be perceived as
stagnation. One is caught in the mindset of a particular ego state. With
contamination, I'm not quite sure. One can stagnate their development by
persisting in believing that "all dancing is wicked" when in fact, it
is not.
~-~-~-~-~
In Ken Wilber's theories, he mentions four
distinct realms of being: Body, Mind, Spirit, Shadow. In Dr. Berne's
conception, there doesn't seem to be the Spirit realm. I'm not one for
believing in abstract sort of things like Spirit, but because Ken Wilber seems
right about so many things, I'm kind of leaning toward believing in it.
For example the body has various
systems and the mind has various systems. We can agree upon that. When we get
into the realm of spirit, I don’t know what systems Ken Wilber has come up
with. He divides "energies" into Gross, Subtle and Causal and all of
these different realms can be understood to have those aspects. I don't know
the specifics so I'm going to stop.
I'm just interested in the
possibility of spirit serving as an organizing principle for the mind. It seems
as though the spirit system encompasses the mind system and the mind system
encompasses the body system (or transcends and includes it). Where would the
mind system end before turning into the beginning of the spirit system?
~-~-~-~-~
In the IFS (Internal Family Systems)
model, there is a part of the personality known as the Self (capital S to
distinguish it from the "self" which is the entire human being).
There doesn't seem to be a "Self" part in the Transactional Analysis
model. The closest thing to the "Self" that I've come across in TA is
the cathexis or ego feeling that the person "has" or "is".
The "Self" seems to inhabit the Parent, Child, or Adult at different
times or at the same time depending on which ego states are active.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Coin Metaphor
It is an interesting metaphor
that Dr. Berne uses to describe pathology of the psyche. Each waking + sleeping
cycle is considered an "ego unit." Every day the ego state is formed
and during the night, the ego state is "polished." This can be
compared to forging a coin during the day and polishing it at night. The coins
are placed in a vertical stack from the first created coin to the last
symbolizing the order of ego states in a person's development from the first
day of life until the last (the first day representing the bottom coin).
If one of these coins is made
improperly (the ego formation during the day is traumatized), then it will
throw off the direction of the stack of coins. Ideally a trauma free
personality will be a perfect cylinder of coins. If there is one trauma, the
stack of coins will be straight up until that particular coin and then will be
skewed. If there are repeated traumas of the same kind, then the stack will be
skewed in the same direction multiple times causing it to be in danger of
toppling over. If there are various traumas of different natures then the stack
will be skewed in different directions with the possible result of the top coin
being straight; the pile will be unstable however. I think the top coin being
straight is the equivalent of a personality appearing stable while in
truth, it is not.
Dr. Berne says the most important
thing to take from this metaphor is the idea that "in order to correct the
situation, it might only be necessary to rectify one or two coins" (39).
That is the job of the trained psychotherapist.
Dr. Berne talks about the pennies
of childhood up to the silver dollars of maturity..."one bent penny might
eventually cause thousands of silver dollars to tumble in chaos" (39).
~-~-~-~-~
Does this mean that we actually
do have the equivalent amount of ego states as we have days in our lives or am
I taking this metaphor too literally? Do these ego states combine in any way?
Dr. Berne calls the Child "a
bent penny" (or a series of bent pennies). Does this mean ideally the
personality would have no Child since the ideal personality has no bent
pennies? The idea of the Child being a bent penny and not simply all of the
pennies, bent or straight, combined is kind of disturbing to my understanding
of structural analysis. Why does Berne call the Child a "bent penny"?
Does "intuition, creativity, spontaneous drive and enjoyment" all
come from a warped ego state? I am just going to continue reading and see what
information I discover.
Berne compares a traumatic
neurosis with a psychoneurosis. In a traumatic neurosis, the Child was fixated
on one particular day. In a psychoneurosis, the unhealthy ego state recurred
from day to day for a set duration of time. Dr. Berne mentions that a person
only has 1, 2, or "in rare cases" 3 archaic pathological ego states
(or series of ego states). This seems important because it will center the
therapy on finding only those pathological states and rectifying them. I'm
curious about how that works though. The number of pathological ego states must
not correspond to the amount of trauma directly; if a person experiences
10 traumatic experiences, why wouldn't they have 10 warped ego states? Why is
it only in rare cases that a person has 3?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hept Family
Dr. Berne's first example comes
from a member of the Hept family (I'm noticing that these names seem to
correspond to numerical derivatives...Primus, Segundo, Troy, Quint, Hept). In
this example, a grandmother secretly "taught sexual perversions" to her
3-yr-old grandson. He would lie in bed "in a state of expectancy and
excitement which he had been instructed how to conceal if anyone came into the
room" (40), until his mother left for work. Dr. Berne refers to this as a
"complex ego state" and the ego state that followed this he referred
to as one of "sexual abandon."
The boy eventually tries to
seduce his own mother as she's drying herself after a bath. This is after the
boy becomes a "successful deceiver and lover" (not sure what age but
Berne still refers to him as a little boy). She responded with such great
horror that "the little boy froze in his tracks." The moment of
seeing his mother's horror is what caused the boy's "highly charged"
ego state to become fixated and separated from the rest of his personality.
~-~-~-~-~
Dr. Berne clarifies that it is
the moment of seeing the mother's reaction of horror that caused the ego state
to split off and not the seduction act itself. Because the act itself happened
in the past and all information is not available, Berne gives 4 separate
possible scenarios for what could have happened:
1) A Sexually Confused Man - His
sexually excited Child is excluded from his horrified Parent. His Adult is
neutral. This causes him to react with horror to behaviors that are child-like
in himself and others.
2) A Traumatic Neurosis - The
Child is excluded from the Parent as well as the Adult. (How would this
manifest?)
3) A Remorseful Perversion - The
Adult is contaminated by the Child. (How would this manifest?)
4) A Psychopathic Perversion -
The Adult and the Parent are both enmeshed with the Child ego state. This would
be the case if the mother played a role in seducing the child.
I'm interested in how these
scenarios would manifest behaviorally. I understand the differences when it
comes to structural analysis but not in terms of what it would look like. With
a traumatic neurosis, for example, because the Adult is excluding the Child as
well, does this mean the person does not experience any sexuality at all or
does it manifest differently depending on the circumstance?
How does a therapist know when a
person's ego state is contaminated? It seems that to identify contamination,
one would have to understand different sorts of beliefs. Where is the line
between prejudice and healthy conviction? Is it simply a matter of right and
wrong? How do I know whether my belief is prejudicial or true? Is it simply a
matter of over-generalization?
I don't know much about
psychoanalysis and I think that's where these terms (neurosis, psychosis, etc.)
were developed. I think the next example will shed more light on these
differences.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Miss Ogden
At the age of 6, Miss Ogden was
seduced by her grandfather. Her Parent was decommissioned so she cooperated
somewhat. She did not tell her mother because "she had anticipated no
sympathy from that quarter" (42). What is interesting is that part of the
experience was excluded from the Adult while another part was Adult ego
syntonic. The secrecy that she kept was Adult ego syntonic while the sexual
aspect was excluded. Does this mean that an ego state can be separated further?
It seems that it has been. The "ego unit" of that day was divided
into a sexual aspect and a secretive aspect. Perhaps there is an infinite
amount of "aspects" that one ego state can be separated into.
In Miss Ogden's dreams, her Child
reproduced itself in the same form as when she was a little girl the exact
moment of the seduction. It's as if this part of her had not been healed and
therefore repeated itself in her dreams. When she was awake, she was
"sternly asexual." She was, however, pathologically secretive. So the
sexual aspect that was Adult ego dystonic only appeared in dreams when the
Adult was decommissioned. The secretiveness appeared in her waking
consciousness because it was Adult ego syntonic. It was also Parent ego
syntonic because her mother was secretive. Because the secrecy was Parent as
well as Adult ego syntonic, Berne referred to this as a
"psychopathic" secrecy.
If the secrecy was only Adult ego
syntonic and not Parent ego syntonic, it would be "remorseful" and
not "psychopathic." To me psychopathic means "without guilt or
shame." It seems that people can go back and forth depending on which ego
state has the most active cathexis, so sometimes a person can be aware that
what he or she is doing is wrong and other times, that person won't be aware of
the moral aspect of their actions. Miss Ogden's secrecy was psychopathic so she
was unaware that her secrecy was pathological. If her secrecy was only Adult
ego syntonic (and not Parent ego syntonic), she would be aware of its
pathological nature, and therefore possibly compelled to change it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Character
Neurosis vs. "Psychopathy"
When Dr. Berne says
"character neurosis," I'm not sure if Dr. Berne is referring to a
"neurosis" or a "character disorder" or something else. I think
it may be a character disorder just judging by the context. Dr. Berne compares
"psychopathy" and "character neurosis" briefly, saying that
they are similar.
He uses the example of a Fijian
chief who was extremely sadistic but his contemporaries did not regard him as
crazy, just mean. He did horrific things, but because the culture was not as
horrified by these things in general, it was the social context that seemed to
validate his behavior. People may be horrified by his actions, but if the culture
somewhat supports it, it loses the quality of being wrong. I'm not saying the
things he was doing weren't wrong (eating people, clubbing his wives), but in
the context of his social environment, they were probably merely frowned upon,
not regarded as behaviors a psychopath would partake in.
A character disordered person has
something like a superiority complex. I read about it in Erich Fromm's The
Art of Listening but I forget all the details. Societal norms may influence
whether a character is perceived as "psychopathic," but I think
ultimately it can be understood in terms of structural analysis whether such
person has a psychopathy, neurosis, or character disorder.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A
"Happy" Person
I've always been interested in
the works of Plato and Aristotle concerning "the good life" and the
meaning of "happiness." Dr. Berne characterizes a "happy"
person as one "in whom important aspects of the Parent, Adult, and the
Child are all syntonic with each other" (42-43). It is important to note
that even if a person is "happy," it does not necessarily imply they
are living well. Even if all the parts are syntonic with each other, the
social environment may be validating inappropriate or even terrible behavior.
Just because a person has a
career in which all of their parts are being validated or supported, the career
itself may be harmful to other people and therefore life is not only about
being "happy." As I said earlier, a happy sadist is still a sadist.
This raises some deep philosophical questions regarding the meaning of life. I
was always under the impression that if you're "happy," you are doing
the right thing, but I would be sorely wrong to say that.
Dr. Berne gives the example of a
doctor who, despite some marital problems, was still happy because of his work.
His parents approved of his career, he was good at it, and it satisfied his curiosity
and emotions. His Parent, Adult, and Child "all respected each other and
each received appropriate satisfaction in his profession" (43). He segues
into a story of how this scenario could be the same for a person who worked in
a concentration camp. The worker comes home to his mom and says something like
"I got promoted!" and the mother responds "I'm so proud of
you!" ...In Dr. Berne’s words, "He fulfilled his mother's ambitions
for him with patriotic rationality while obtaining gratification of his archaic
sadism" (43-44).
A concentration camp worker who
is happy because he was promoted highlights the ineffectualness of claiming
that happiness is the only judge of what is right. It seems that virtue would
have to play a role as well. I think sadism is still somewhat of a mystery to
experts. Is it learned? Are people born with it? Can it be unlearned or does
the power of empathy need to simply overshadow it? Virtue needs to be learned
and I think by learning the virtue of compassion or connection, one can realize
that one's life will be improved by treating people well than by treating them
poorly.
If sadism is inherent in the
personality, what function could it possibly serve... a protective mechanism of
sorts? a means for understanding and protecting oneself from other sadistic
people? Why does sadism even exist? It seems like it could be the downfall of
humanity.
I think Eric Berne sums it up
when he says "It is not enough to want to raise [children] to be
'happy'" (44). There must be other standards of behavior as well.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The
"Well-Organized" Personality
In this sort of personality, the
Parent, Adult and Child can be kept relatively separate and function somewhat
independently when they are needed to. A Scottish school teacher drank heavily
when he was home but he showed up promptly for work every day. His Child was
doing the drinking, while his Adult was doing the teaching. His Parent was
"weakly cathected" during all of this. One day he stopped drinking
altogether and unfortunately for the students, he was no longer a pleasure to
be with. His Parent took over and probably because of the Parent's disapproval
of his secret life of drinking, he became a "terror" to his students.
His personality was "well-organized" but he was not a happy person.
So it seems there's more to life
than being "happy" and more to a personality than being
"well-organized." Can a person who’s not a psychopath be truly
happy though if he or she is acting on their sadistic fantasies? It seems there
is an inherent correlation between doing "good" deeds and feeling
good. Dr. Berne emphasizes the need for
a person's Adult to be "plugged in." Perhaps one's happiness is
determined by how connected their Adult is to their environment (of self and
world together). If a person is harmonious with merely their own parts and not
the social environment, he or she could be acting sadistically and still be
happy. Is there not some intrinsic part of the personality that makes a person
feel bad when he or she acts sadistically?
~-~-~-~-~
I'm still pretty confused about all of this. I feel
like I've gained insight into how a person ought not to live. I want to
know more about how a person ought to live or be. In my understanding, if a
person learns how to act virtuously, he or she will secure for themselves the
best chance at being happy. How that translates into structural/transactional
analysis, I'm not sure.
1 comment:
Thank you for sharing this wonderful post. Please check my recent post on What is Transaction Analysis
Post a Comment