Theories and Theory (long note)

—

date: 202408161039

—

From time to time, I remind myself that one of the difficulties encountered in the study of psychoanalysis is that it deals mainly with theories. Saying this, I am not siding with the Freud bashers who claim that psychoanalysis is « just a theory » – meaning: « just speculation » – with no empirical data to rest on. I am saying on the contrary that theories are among our most important empirical data. This should become clear in a moment.

But first, we need to explore the meaning of the word « theory ». The Greek etymological source is theorein which means gazing at something, having a view on something. So, a theory can be summed up as merely a certain view we have of things or events; a view that hopes to be not just accurate, but whose accuracy supports a certain generalization. The immediate consequence of this definition of theory is that any theory is necessarily selective: it extracts a certain number of facts from the manifold of our universe in order to be able to state something coherent^[Indeed, all theories are necessarily about a fragment of the universe. A theory that would try to express the totality, if it were possible, could not be spoken.], something that can also be shown to be based on facts and can therefore allow extrapolation to future situations when these are faced with similar contingencies.

Such limitation of theory is, paradoxically, also what makes it effective, though not all encompassing. Sometimes, the search for effectiveness forces the theorist to restrict their theory to a smaller area of the real so as not to encounter too many exceptions. It follows that a given theory may be quite compelling inasmuch one uses it within very constrained limits, but would blatantly fail were it confronted with a wider observational basis. This is why, if we follow Karl Popper, a theory to be worthwhile must contain at its core the possibility to be refuted by some new observation. If it is not refutable i.e. if it sticks to the very narrow area where it will not risk encountering contradiction, then it is a poor theory.

Speaking of Popper, he once had a long conversation with the fanous ethologist Konrad Lorenz during which, among other things, they came to the agreement that there are many forms a theory can take. Thus, they agreed that the eye is a theory of light. This means that, in their view, a theory can be embodied in a certain physical or physiological artifact. We can think of a telescope or microscope as another example of an embodied theory of light. And if we turn to our specific domain, we are reminded that Freud (1900) had good reasons of referring to these two optical instruments as metaphors of the psychic apparatus he had conceived during his study of dreams. The analogy was all the more legitimate since he had by then also conceived of another apparatus that would embody his theory of the mind. Could we not say, indeed, that the analytic setting, with its corresponding method, is just as much an implementation, an embodiment of Freud’s theory of psychic functioning?

At this point one could object that the analytic setting and, to a certain extent, the analytic method itself were developed through groping, by trial and errors and not as the reflection of a preexisting theory. Freud himself said that he resorted to using the couch merely because he found it tiresome to be stared at by his patients hours on end. This raises an interesting question about the development of theory – something Freud did brilliantly address, by the way, in the opening paragraphs of “Drives and their Vicissitudes” (1915). The interesting thing here is that Popper, who, as we know, dismissed psychoanalysis, states precisely that new theories are inventions that we produce by trial and error. We will get back to this later on; for now, let us just consider that indeed all theories are developed in a to-and-fro between observation and rough theorization, leading to finer observation and experimentation in turn yielding a better theorization, and so on…

We just said that when a patient enters the analytic room, he is in fact meeting with the embodiment of a certain psychoanalytic theory about how their (and their analyst’s) mind works. Mind you, this is not very different of when a medical patient enters the cramped space of an fMRI machine, the latter being the physical implementation of a theory of how a strong electromagnetic field interacts with their body tissues. The main difference between the two situations rests on the fact that the fMRI machine deals with the physicality of the patients’ bodies and with electromagnetic theory, while our psychoanalytic machine is there to deal with…

But wait! I was going to write: « with their immaterial mind » ! This would have been a serious, though common, mistake. What must be « kept in mind », indeed, is that the Freudian take on the psyche does not invoke any body/mind dichotomy. There is no way of dealing with the psyche as separate from the body. Remember Freud’s (1924) famous quote: “The ego is first and foremost a bodily ego…”, a quote reflecting a fundamental psychoanalytic view, but one which is easy to lose sight of because, our praxis being a « talking cure, » our attention is mostly turned towards the verbal aspect of the analyst-patient interaction, so that the body’s presence and importance are constantly at risk of being ignored. This is yet another problem in need a long digression; a problem I will be addressing tangentially in what follows.

The conception of theory I am proposing makes us consider the patients we encounter in analysis as the embodiment of a certain theory of their self and of their world. I am not stating anything new if I say that their way of presenting themselves, their general appearance, the way they dress and move, the tone of their voice, the rhythm of their speech, and so on, can all be viewed (theorized!) as the incarnation of a certain self-concept, i.e. a theory of themselves. But let me be very clear: I am not saying « a theory that the patients entertain about themselves »; I am saying a theory which they incarnate, or if you will, a theory that they are. A famous French analyst, Piera Aulagnier (1975), went in that direction when she wrote: « The I [the self-conscious ego, if you prefer] is a discourse of the I about the I ». The redundancy in this definition may convey a sense of frailty about a most cherished component of our personality: they I s « just » discourse; but one can also look at it as proof of the sturdiness and power of discourse – hence of theory – for all that regards human affairs. What Aulagnier thought about the « I », I am suggesting can be extended to the whole psyche, just as I proposed earlier that any apparatus, the analytic setting included, are also the form of a theory.

But there is more. After our patients enter what we could call the « analytic machine, » and as the psychoanalytic dialogue evolves, we discover that the problems they are struggling with are also the consequence of a number of theories that have taken shape in the course of their life and which they unknowingly carry in their heads and bodies. So we have a theory that is incarnated by the self, and within the self there are theories at work that are implemented, for instance, as symptoms or relational patterns. A number of these were inhabiting « Little Hans » and were brought to Freud’s attention by the boy’s father. Freud called them “infantile sexual theories” and he proposed that they form a template for neurotic symptoms. Freud, however, would not have said that the boy’s phobia of horses was a theory incarnate. He therefore stuck with the traditional view that theories, imagos or fantasies must somehow translate into something like a symptom through some mysterious leap. He therefore gathered the infantile theories as examples, directly observable in a child, of what adult patients may entertain unconsciously. The fact remains that for Freud the infantile theories are mostly unconscious, though they can be guessed or reconstructed thanks to the work of analysis. They are seen as forming the weft of fantasies, daydreams, dreams and symptoms, but also of creative bursts (if on has a talent that can make use of them). What he did not consider is that all these manifest expressions are based on infantile theories much in the way a theory of (visible) color is based on a theory of (not always visible) electromagnetic waves.

The prevalence of infantile sexual theories complicates our discourse about theory, because here we are saying that our patients’ difficulties in life are driven by some theories they carry within themselves, most of the time unknowingly. A first problem could be formulated like this: if it is theories that occupy the patients’ minds, then isn’t psychoanalysis just a variant of the Socratic method, a kind of maieutics by which the analyst induces change in the patient by inviting them to modify their theories? We sometimes get the feeling that many analytic interventions we hear about are of that kind. This view, however, misses an important point, namely, that the theories we are referring to are not intellectual formulations or opinions that could be reformulated and corrected^[This is the picture we get concerning cognitive therapies where it is a matter of correcting tha patient’s erroneous assumptions.]. If, basing ourselves on Popper’s and Lorenz’s paradigmatic idea that the eye is a theory of light, we say that the patients’ bodies, the way they are lived, are just as much their theory of life; that their symptoms are theories of their relationships with significant others, and in particular of their fundamental anthropological situation (Laplanche), then we can easily see that no effective treatment could result from a Socratic exchange. The patient may understand something about their « wrong » assumptions, but changing something in the theory they actually incarnate is another story.

[The need for theories to be actualized in the transference.]

The conception of theory and theories I am trying to expound entails a number of corollaries which run counter any « Socratic » or « conversational » brand of treatment. A first corollary is that we do not possess our infantile theories; that they rather possess us, and actually drive us. As you can see, I am using here the concept of possession, to which I will come back later on. In the meanwhile I wish to underline the word « drives » and suggest that the theories I am talking about are driving forces; they are, if you will, the semiotic and semantic manifestation of the inchoate drives that, according to Freud, populate the repressed unconscious. The infantile theories could therefore refer to what Socrates called his daemon. And just as the daemon in question can be oppressing, it is also a source of inspiration and creativity. Indeed these theories function in primary process, hence are more plastic than secondary process thinking and they lend themselves more easily to what we could call psychic Darwinism.

Having thus introduced a « theory » theory of the drives I do not have long to walk before reaching Laplanche’s theory of seduction with at its base the Fundamental anthropological situation. The situation in question needs a bit of unfolding lest we take it as a generic version of seduction. Jacques André, a long time colleague and companion of Laplanche, has pointed out that one can easily agree wth the universality of the Fundamental anthropological situation, but that the model of seduction should be limited to what he refers to as the normal-neurotic model. If I understand him well, the process of seduction, with its ensuing implantation of the sexual, is like the luxury version of what happens in the Fundamental anthropological situation, in which, instead of seduction, many patients have encountered maltreatment, negligence and hatred ^[check André’s text and interview in the Brazilian journal.]. Unless I misread him, he would not call these other kinds of encounter « seductive »; he rather seems to consider seduction as a positive outcome, whereas in the case of negligence and other situations of duress, the sexual would not be operative. He therefore seems to draw a line between seduction and the many forms of impingements, to use a Winnicottian term, that can badly disturb the baby’s « going on being ». This, I believe, requires a serious discussion since it poses an interesting challenge to– and proposes a specific interpretation of Laplanche’s theory of generalized seduction and, further on, of what the Sexual is about.

A hint of where I think André’s and Laplanche’s ways do part is present in the notion of a « sexual death drive » that laplanche has proposed in replacement of Freud’s « death drive ». The adjunction of « sexual » to « death drive » is, in my understanding, not the mere addition by Laplanche of a sexual lining to the Freudian drive for destruction. It means that the unbound sexual drive is in and by itself destructive. Hence, the abuse, negligence, maltreatment and hatred enacted in the adult’s interaction with the infant are as many versions of seduction proper, where the sexual is not absent, but works under its destructive, unbound guise.

Saying this I do not mean to dismiss André’s critique in a sleight of hand. I find that his critique must be seriously heeded as it points to the need to refine Laplanche’s theory in order to better specify what we mean by « seduction »

.

My previous development about Theory and theories is, I believe, quite useful on this regard. Laplanche’s General theory of seduction supposes that the compromising element in the message is the untranslatable feature that stays in the « psychobiological skin » of the receiver and that, resisting translation, it is therefore primally repressed, forming a source-object of the drive. In this description, the compromising or enigmatic par of the message corresponds to the adult’s excess in the sexual excitation non-consciously elicited in the interaction with the child. But this description pays little attention to the precise meaning of the word and process of « seduction », which, derived from the Latin se-ducere literally means driving astray and imposing a detour towards oneself. This intrinsically narcissistic dimension of the process of seduction has not, to my knowledge, been openly dealt with in Laplanchean studies. But it so