7-11-12 ARE WE CONFLICTED, OR WHAT?
Posted by Vincente E. Woodward on Wednesday, July 11, 2012
I guess I should begin by telling you that I am somewhat lost at the moment.
Or should I say "loster" than usual?
This is the price of continuous dissociation caused by the lunacy which goes on around me on a nearly continuous basis.
I know that some of the subjects which I am expositing are very painful, both for me and many others.
I know when I read books on this subject I get very depressed
and have to stop reading for awhile before once again
continuing tackling these subject/s.
I have to laugh because the better the book the less you can read of it at any one time, and especially if your life is full of the persons who are being described in them, as mine most assuredly is.
And as any modern city dweller or visitor of major urban centers will be readily able to attest.
I apologize for any grief which is caused by all of this.
But, I feel that the subject is of such importance, and has so intersected, in a most unfortunate way, through the music world and music business, that I feel that I simply must address the issues when and as they present themselves.
I am going to take another side trip, here, for just a moment, to explain a few things which I believe are crucial to the task before us.
The task is, simply stated,
KNOW YOUR ENEMY!
As I grew up a very famous comic strip was named POGO.
In that strip one day, one of the characters (Pogo?) came up with this rather insightful thought:
We have met the enemy
and he is us
It is so simple and almost silly, in the context which it is originally found, but what a profound insight, at many levels.
It is to this type of belief system (i.e. that in which we are our own worst enemies) that Sigmund Freud was ultimately forced to direct his energies.
A mental and psychical system which is entirely lacking internal consistency.
It is grossly inconsistent.
Conflicts are taking place on a nearly continuous basis,
inside one's head,
such that productivity is hindered,
or stopped altogether.
This is accompanied with severe, debilitating depression,
which is so pathological as to cause one to become dysfunctional, either temporarily, or permanently.
In the cases which were being presented to Freud by the local medical community in Wien (Vienna) numerous women had actually completely lost the capacity to use entire limbs and other body parts.
Freud was asked to attempt to determine just why someone's arm would become paralyzed while all of the circuitry appeared to be fine and functioning properly, and all of the muscles required to articulate the limb are functioning properly.
Freud, as a young M.D. had taken a keen interest in the current research on nerves and electricity.
This research was generating the same kind of "buzz" at that time as the work at CERN does today.
The ideas concerning the workings of the nervous system and it's associated electrical inputs and outputs was a brand new and very exciting thing in Freud's world of early 20th century Wien, which was at the time considered to be the cultural center of the entire world.
So, because he specialized in electrical conduction in nerves, it was only natural for other physicians to seek consultation, and then to turn their patients over to him to see if he could figure out just what the problem is/was.
One should recall, in this regard, that it was during this era that experiments were being done on the enormous (nerve) axon of the Giant Squid, which provided foundational knowledge upon which all current knowledge of nerve conduction ultimately rests.
Freud was on the cutting edge of all of this frenetic activity.
During this same time he had developed an interest in hypnotism.
He worked with another physician with whom he co-authored his first published book (Studies on Hysteria by Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud).
After seeing what his fellow physician and others were able to do by means of hypnosis Freud began to give the matter some deep thought.
He explained that the very profound effects which were seen by use of hypnosis would wear off over a given period of time.
Freud wondered whether the good effects could be made to continue, indefinitely, if the patient took a more active part in the process.
He wondered whether the results might be more favorable if the patient was induced to enter a semi-hypnotic state, instead of a fully hypnotic state.
This is where the famous/infamous couch comes into play.
Because the patient must lay down and fall almost all the way asleep, and then respond to the therapist while he is out of view and acting as something of a disembodied voice, many have added their own very strange fantasies here at Freud's feet, where it most assuredly does not belong.
It is really sad, because Freud quickly found out just how central sexuality is to the human psyche and condition.
It seems to be at the center of nearly every single major life decision in one form or another.
Accordingly he was forced into these areas of study in order to understand what exactly it is that is going on when a woman's arm becomes completely limp, and apparently paralyzed, yet not actually so at all.
In the case of these Victorian era extremely prudish Wien women it was sexual issues which were causing the apparent paralysis.
When the sexual issues were resolved the women regained the capacity to use the previously apparently paralyzed limb.
Of course, one can only imagine the derision and scorn which will be heaped upon one for daring say or even think such a thing, whether it be true or not.
One can only imagine ---
Of course you can see what comes next if you are following closely and are perceptive enough.
If sexuality is at the root of the problem,
just how far does this go back?
This led to the other thing for which Freud is so unfairly smeared and slandered and libeled, child sexuality.
He began to observe younger and younger children until he finally documented something which was startlingly new at the time, and only a little better understood now, that babies are sexually active.
Yes, you heard right.
You can only imagine the howls of protest from all of the fake moralists and their ilk.
They are always so afraid of being exposed for the monsters which they truly are, while they put out to the world how holier than though they are.
But, the facts are the facts.
Facts are such stubborn things.
In this case, all any physician had to do was go into the local baby ward and observe.
This has been done many times since then and has become fairly well documented, but still highly controversial.
So, after following the facts where they lead, and nowhere else, the man is now, currently accused to being some kind of a quack and pedophile.
At any rate, back to the the couch.
The idea is to have the person go into a trancelike state, with the therapist out of view, so as not to interfere with the process.
While in this state various words will be spoken by the therapist with an attempt to elicit a response or lack thereof with each word.
This is called "free association".
The idea is that we all have some kind of association with various different words.
Some words can make us happy and some can make us sad.
The therapist will begin to attempt to locate such words and then begin to delve into the subject matter which one would expect to be connected with the word/s so as to try to find out when and why the association got attached to the word.
What will happen very quickly is that areas of intense resistance will be located.
I am all too willing to chat all day on one subject, but then will "clam up on you" and maybe even leave your office in a rage and never return when you start to home in on what really matters if I am ever to get healed.
I do not exaggerate in so saying.
It is to these areas of intense resistance that one must look in order to get to the root of any given problem.
Of course the subject who is resisting is not going to be happy about digging into these TABOO areas.
This is why the whole process gets such a bad name.
First it take years of hard work and committment on the part of physician and therapist.
It is exhausting, and degrading and humiliating, not a little.
To get to know your real self is not usually a very pleasant experience.
But for those willing to stick it out and do the hard work required,
you will, I can assure you, soon find yourself free of many things in your life which had proven powerful hindrances prior to gaining a better understanding of just what it is that is going on deep down inside of our little brains.
Freud gave a series of very important lectures on the subject after he felt that he had a pretty good handle on the subject matters involved.
In those lectures, which were given to physicians and medical students, Freud explains that the very first thing which must happen is that
the physician must heal thyself.
He explained that it was only after you have used these techniques on yourself and see how they work and that they are actually very efficacious, that you will, yourself, become much more enthusiastic than you ever would approaching the matter from a purely academic point of view.
As you see yourself heal, he explained, you will only naturally want to help your loved ones and associates to heal also.
This was the actual premise upon which his
system fundamentally rested.
That is a far cry from group therapy (gossip sessions?) and so-called "antidepressants", which seem to be the main methodology being used today for nearly every mental illness conceivable,
both real and imagined.
Once one goes through the process
of self-analysis as Freud
actually taught it, one soon learns that beneath the placid surface of our "outer shell" person is a bubbling and boiling mass of CONFLICTS.
Should I do this?
Or should I do that?
Should I NOT do this?
Should I NOT do that?
Yes I should do this, no I shouldn't.
Yes I will, no I won't.
Or my personal favorite ---
I hate your guts, I love you so much.
Let's take just a moment to think about that one.
It seems oxymoronic.
They are two opposites juxtaposed against one another.
Surely they cannot be synonymous.
Wrong, wrong, and wrong again.
In fact they do become synonyms by means of the fact that it is, for example, my unrequited love and loving jealousy for your well being are what are putting me in the rage in the first place, such that the more I truly do love you the angrier I get at the thought of rejection or even apparent or unintended rejection or inabilty to understand what is actually at stake in the larger scheme of things.
Accordingly I go into an even greater rage which now cannot help but drive you further away causing me to become even further enraged in a continuous feedback loop ending in everybody being less enriched than they surely could have otherwise been.
I love you, I hate you;
the infamous love/hate.
Or, another favorite of mine
is the title of a book I see at bookstores every now and again ---
I Hate You, Please Don't Leave Me
Conflicted emotions abound.
Well, after that rather long intro
maybe there will be more to come,
or maybe not ---
I am just always so conflicted.
I just NEVER know what I am going to do next.
How about you?
Another love/hate coming right at you right now as we speak?
If not, maybe you just need to look around you some more.
I am certain you will not need to look very long or very far.
w/love to all
vw
8:56 a.m.
Wednesday
7-11-12
Ventrura, California, USA
Or should I say "loster" than usual?
This is the price of continuous dissociation caused by the lunacy which goes on around me on a nearly continuous basis.
I know that some of the subjects which I am expositing are very painful, both for me and many others.
I know when I read books on this subject I get very depressed
and have to stop reading for awhile before once again
continuing tackling these subject/s.
I have to laugh because the better the book the less you can read of it at any one time, and especially if your life is full of the persons who are being described in them, as mine most assuredly is.
And as any modern city dweller or visitor of major urban centers will be readily able to attest.
I apologize for any grief which is caused by all of this.
But, I feel that the subject is of such importance, and has so intersected, in a most unfortunate way, through the music world and music business, that I feel that I simply must address the issues when and as they present themselves.
I am going to take another side trip, here, for just a moment, to explain a few things which I believe are crucial to the task before us.
The task is, simply stated,
KNOW YOUR ENEMY!
As I grew up a very famous comic strip was named POGO.
In that strip one day, one of the characters (Pogo?) came up with this rather insightful thought:
We have met the enemy
and he is us
It is so simple and almost silly, in the context which it is originally found, but what a profound insight, at many levels.
It is to this type of belief system (i.e. that in which we are our own worst enemies) that Sigmund Freud was ultimately forced to direct his energies.
A mental and psychical system which is entirely lacking internal consistency.
It is grossly inconsistent.
Conflicts are taking place on a nearly continuous basis,
inside one's head,
such that productivity is hindered,
or stopped altogether.
This is accompanied with severe, debilitating depression,
which is so pathological as to cause one to become dysfunctional, either temporarily, or permanently.
In the cases which were being presented to Freud by the local medical community in Wien (Vienna) numerous women had actually completely lost the capacity to use entire limbs and other body parts.
Freud was asked to attempt to determine just why someone's arm would become paralyzed while all of the circuitry appeared to be fine and functioning properly, and all of the muscles required to articulate the limb are functioning properly.
Freud, as a young M.D. had taken a keen interest in the current research on nerves and electricity.
This research was generating the same kind of "buzz" at that time as the work at CERN does today.
The ideas concerning the workings of the nervous system and it's associated electrical inputs and outputs was a brand new and very exciting thing in Freud's world of early 20th century Wien, which was at the time considered to be the cultural center of the entire world.
So, because he specialized in electrical conduction in nerves, it was only natural for other physicians to seek consultation, and then to turn their patients over to him to see if he could figure out just what the problem is/was.
One should recall, in this regard, that it was during this era that experiments were being done on the enormous (nerve) axon of the Giant Squid, which provided foundational knowledge upon which all current knowledge of nerve conduction ultimately rests.
Freud was on the cutting edge of all of this frenetic activity.
During this same time he had developed an interest in hypnotism.
He worked with another physician with whom he co-authored his first published book (Studies on Hysteria by Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud).
After seeing what his fellow physician and others were able to do by means of hypnosis Freud began to give the matter some deep thought.
He explained that the very profound effects which were seen by use of hypnosis would wear off over a given period of time.
Freud wondered whether the good effects could be made to continue, indefinitely, if the patient took a more active part in the process.
He wondered whether the results might be more favorable if the patient was induced to enter a semi-hypnotic state, instead of a fully hypnotic state.
This is where the famous/infamous couch comes into play.
Because the patient must lay down and fall almost all the way asleep, and then respond to the therapist while he is out of view and acting as something of a disembodied voice, many have added their own very strange fantasies here at Freud's feet, where it most assuredly does not belong.
It is really sad, because Freud quickly found out just how central sexuality is to the human psyche and condition.
It seems to be at the center of nearly every single major life decision in one form or another.
Accordingly he was forced into these areas of study in order to understand what exactly it is that is going on when a woman's arm becomes completely limp, and apparently paralyzed, yet not actually so at all.
In the case of these Victorian era extremely prudish Wien women it was sexual issues which were causing the apparent paralysis.
When the sexual issues were resolved the women regained the capacity to use the previously apparently paralyzed limb.
Of course, one can only imagine the derision and scorn which will be heaped upon one for daring say or even think such a thing, whether it be true or not.
One can only imagine ---
Of course you can see what comes next if you are following closely and are perceptive enough.
If sexuality is at the root of the problem,
just how far does this go back?
This led to the other thing for which Freud is so unfairly smeared and slandered and libeled, child sexuality.
He began to observe younger and younger children until he finally documented something which was startlingly new at the time, and only a little better understood now, that babies are sexually active.
Yes, you heard right.
You can only imagine the howls of protest from all of the fake moralists and their ilk.
They are always so afraid of being exposed for the monsters which they truly are, while they put out to the world how holier than though they are.
But, the facts are the facts.
Facts are such stubborn things.
In this case, all any physician had to do was go into the local baby ward and observe.
This has been done many times since then and has become fairly well documented, but still highly controversial.
So, after following the facts where they lead, and nowhere else, the man is now, currently accused to being some kind of a quack and pedophile.
At any rate, back to the the couch.
The idea is to have the person go into a trancelike state, with the therapist out of view, so as not to interfere with the process.
While in this state various words will be spoken by the therapist with an attempt to elicit a response or lack thereof with each word.
This is called "free association".
The idea is that we all have some kind of association with various different words.
Some words can make us happy and some can make us sad.
The therapist will begin to attempt to locate such words and then begin to delve into the subject matter which one would expect to be connected with the word/s so as to try to find out when and why the association got attached to the word.
What will happen very quickly is that areas of intense resistance will be located.
I am all too willing to chat all day on one subject, but then will "clam up on you" and maybe even leave your office in a rage and never return when you start to home in on what really matters if I am ever to get healed.
I do not exaggerate in so saying.
It is to these areas of intense resistance that one must look in order to get to the root of any given problem.
Of course the subject who is resisting is not going to be happy about digging into these TABOO areas.
This is why the whole process gets such a bad name.
First it take years of hard work and committment on the part of physician and therapist.
It is exhausting, and degrading and humiliating, not a little.
To get to know your real self is not usually a very pleasant experience.
But for those willing to stick it out and do the hard work required,
you will, I can assure you, soon find yourself free of many things in your life which had proven powerful hindrances prior to gaining a better understanding of just what it is that is going on deep down inside of our little brains.
Freud gave a series of very important lectures on the subject after he felt that he had a pretty good handle on the subject matters involved.
In those lectures, which were given to physicians and medical students, Freud explains that the very first thing which must happen is that
the physician must heal thyself.
He explained that it was only after you have used these techniques on yourself and see how they work and that they are actually very efficacious, that you will, yourself, become much more enthusiastic than you ever would approaching the matter from a purely academic point of view.
As you see yourself heal, he explained, you will only naturally want to help your loved ones and associates to heal also.
This was the actual premise upon which his
system fundamentally rested.
That is a far cry from group therapy (gossip sessions?) and so-called "antidepressants", which seem to be the main methodology being used today for nearly every mental illness conceivable,
both real and imagined.
Once one goes through the process
of self-analysis as Freud
actually taught it, one soon learns that beneath the placid surface of our "outer shell" person is a bubbling and boiling mass of CONFLICTS.
Should I do this?
Or should I do that?
Should I NOT do this?
Should I NOT do that?
Yes I should do this, no I shouldn't.
Yes I will, no I won't.
Or my personal favorite ---
I hate your guts, I love you so much.
Let's take just a moment to think about that one.
It seems oxymoronic.
They are two opposites juxtaposed against one another.
Surely they cannot be synonymous.
Wrong, wrong, and wrong again.
In fact they do become synonyms by means of the fact that it is, for example, my unrequited love and loving jealousy for your well being are what are putting me in the rage in the first place, such that the more I truly do love you the angrier I get at the thought of rejection or even apparent or unintended rejection or inabilty to understand what is actually at stake in the larger scheme of things.
Accordingly I go into an even greater rage which now cannot help but drive you further away causing me to become even further enraged in a continuous feedback loop ending in everybody being less enriched than they surely could have otherwise been.
I love you, I hate you;
the infamous love/hate.
Or, another favorite of mine
is the title of a book I see at bookstores every now and again ---
I Hate You, Please Don't Leave Me
Conflicted emotions abound.
Well, after that rather long intro
maybe there will be more to come,
or maybe not ---
I am just always so conflicted.
I just NEVER know what I am going to do next.
How about you?
Another love/hate coming right at you right now as we speak?
If not, maybe you just need to look around you some more.
I am certain you will not need to look very long or very far.
w/love to all
vw
8:56 a.m.
Wednesday
7-11-12
Ventrura, California, USA
