Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Wisdom of The Ego
Wisdom of The Ego
Wisdom of The Ego
Wisdom of the
Ego
George E. Vaillant
Copyright © 1993 George E. Vaillant
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Table of Contents
Introduction
2. A Matter of Definition
4. Necessary Questions
7. Life Histories
Acknowledgments
Credits
Figures
Figure 1. A model of the adaptive mind at work,
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illustrating the defenses of isolation and
displacement.
Tables
Table 1. Contrasting ways of altering the
conscious representation of a conflict
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Table 7. Relative frequency of use of a given
defense as a major defensive style
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Introduction
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n.
allow self-soothing.
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creative. Such defensive self-deception reflects the
ego’s—the integrated brain’s—best synthetic
effort at coping with life events that otherwise
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of the human digestive tract to distress.1 He
elucidate.
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which large numbers of people have been followed
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compromises other facets of cognition. Awareness
mental health.
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experience life and pour it forth.
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were destiny. The evidence I adduce in this book
restores hope. The data from the Study of Adult
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On the one hand, personality development and
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To develop, a child needs a loving caretaker, one
illusions.
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intimate activities. This book is about middle-aged
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of cognitive scientists to exclude certain factors
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based.
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humanists so that it can be reinserted into the
grasp of natural scientists. It is time for the ego
psychoanalytic faith.
Notes
2 S. Freud, The Ego and the Id (1923), in Standard Edition of the Complete
Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (hereinafter abbreviated SE),
ed. and trans. James Strachey (London: Hogarth Press and Institute
of Psychoanalysis, 1953-1964), 24 vols., 19:17.
4 Ibid., p. 17.
5 H. Gardner, The Mind’s New Science (New York: Basic Books, 1985), p. 6.
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1
Jane Loevinger
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calcium, crater the lining of my stomach with
ulcers, deposit cholesterol within the walls of my
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would all have shared the exposed helplessness of
experience.
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capacity to integrate inner and outer reality, to
blend past and present, and to synthesize ideas
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into some kind of harmony. The ego institutes
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separated. Gazzaniga tells us: “Studies on split-
brain patients have revealed the presence of a
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identified only through its footprints. We can
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I certainly do not use the term ego to convey
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insanity, the alchemy of the ego is nothing short of
miraculous.
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of projection to evolve toward the self-expanding
creativity.
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health only because of the symbolic meaning we
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There are three very different means by which
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depression, and thus to reduce the physiological
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third, most involuntary kind, let me draw a
parallel between the mastery of stress by the
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strategies for coping with stress are important and
untold misery.
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The ego is to the mastery of stress as the
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adaptation. Even insanity, like our dreams, reflects
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thoughts, and feelings. There is the rub. As Melvin
that of scientists.
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to teach defense mechanisms to first-year medical
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empiricism of academic psychology and from the
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system has left the central importance of these
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in his own life and historical epoch, Freud saw
emotions.
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elucidation of defense mechanisms to be taken
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distribution of a glove (rather than that of a stripe
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in consciousness the poet’s imagination and the
understanding.
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describes such conflict in a way that permits
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that if they move from the fixed point, the
movie sequence is electronically turned off.
For example, in one test a film depicting one
person throwing another into a fire was
shown to the patient’s right hemisphere. She
[that is, her surgically separated left brain
hemisphere] responded, “I don’t really know
what I saw; I think just a white flash. Maybe
some trees, red trees like in the fall. I don’t
know why but I feel kind of scared. I feel
jumpy. I don’t like this room, or maybe it’s
you getting me nervous.” As an aside to a
colleague, she then said, “I know I like Dr.
Gazzaniga, but right now I’m scared of him
for some reason.” Clearly, the emotional tone
associated with the movie had crossed over
from the right to the left hemisphere. The left
hemisphere was unaware of the content of
the movie … and had to deal with it. The left-
brain interpreter responded by making up a
story that explained the newly felt state of
mind.6
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would give the brain’s synthetic capacities too
little credit.
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When their corticosteroid levels were found not to
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century neurologists had discovered with pain and
sensation.
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cope with stress). Stress does not kill us, for
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from the fifty-year-old Study of Adult
coping processes:
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Adult Development. I was interviewing an
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But anyone can have an unusual hobby. What
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deduced that the knowledge that somehow his
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and reattached to his living tissue culture. Ego
mechanisms.
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conflict, they remain difficult to describe. As with
now we don’t.
formation.
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Nevertheless, I shall try to schematize the
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could not see the discrepancy between his
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self-deceptions are only partially repressed. For
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to himself that he had an addiction, he sought help
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examples I have offered of displacement (the
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and abstract pattern recognition are thought to be
cortex.
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Figure I diagrams the distortion of integration
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onto) a still living, but more neutral, tissue culture.
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Figure 1. A model of the adaptive mind at work, illustrating the
defenses of isolation and displacement.
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bacteria. The situations that call forth defenses
and those that call forth white corpuscles are
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made ineffective by illness (porphyria and
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mechanisms, too, strive for homeostasis and keep
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astasia-abasia and also the equally daunting
disease.
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abandon a defense is to expose the conflict.
tempted to meddle.
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kind of counseling or psychotherapy, for by
understanding defenses we understand why
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support. If we insist on pointing people’s defenses
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appendix that needs removal. The same cause-
with disease.
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infinitely complex central nervous system.
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believe in invisible, unconscious defenses, if we
rays.
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Study of Adult Development.
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the artist. The biographer may also have access to
of defenses.
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investigations and laboratory findings from old
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grief, or upset in describing his mother’s recent
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wisdom of the ego—a phenomenon so complex, so
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from clinicians as is accorded to immune
to thunderstorms.
Notes
3 M. Konner, The Tangled Wing (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
1982), p. 20.
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2
A Matter of Definition
Go to, let us go down, and there confound
their language, that they may not understand
one another’s speech.
So the Lord scattered them abroad from
thence upon the face of all the earth: and they
left off to build the city.
Therefore is the name of it called Babel;
because the Lord did there confound the
language of all the earth.
Genesis 11:7-9
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heightened understanding to group behavior, and
fresh insight to the mysteries of neurosis. By
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experience of being able at last to understand a
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which the mind can alter conscious
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Uncompensated, such sudden change (for
borne.
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By the lodestar desire I mean our emotions, our
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our whole identification with our society, with our
alcohol.
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modesty and temperance … The other is a
crooked, lumbering animal … the mate of
insolence and pride, shag-eared and deaf,
hardly yielding to whip and spur. Now, when
the charioteer beholds the vision of love, and
has his whole soul warmed through sense,
and is full of the prickings and ticklings of
desire, the obedient steed then as always
under the government of shame, refrains
from leaping on the beloved; but the other …
forces [the charioteer] to approach the
beloved and to remember the joys of love.2
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than in the isolation of the consulting room, the
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continue to haunt us and to cause conflict for
people themselves.
diagnosis of tuberculosis.
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Tragic reality for whom no one is responsible
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acknowledged that the same defenses known to
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subject, object, idea, affect, or any combination
thereof.
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representation of a conflict
Defense Conscious DSM III
representation of idea, Phenomenological
feeling, or behavior diagnosisa
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so hot and bothered. anxiety
disorder
Reaction I love (!) my father or I —
formation hate (!) my father's
enemies.
Mature defenses
Suppression I am cross at my father —
but will not tell him.
Sublimation I beat my father at —
tennis.
Altruism I comfort father haters. —
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depression, and physiological stress, or in some
way he must alter his inner and/or outer reality.
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the deployment of what I call mature defenses
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styles. More recently, a review by Manfred Beutel
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hypothesis, first put forth by Anna Freud in The
experimental confirmation.
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Table 2. Mutually exclusive ways of identifying
the defenses
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102
Deliberately, I have included in Table 2 defense
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deployment of immature defenses tends to have
upon a bull.
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deception: Mother Theresa and Adolf Hitler.
Reaction formation, the deliberate eschewing of
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comparison is possible only in hindsight. As in
stagnation?
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the desire, but its value is reversed. Black becomes
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probably on whose self-deceptions would
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immature (maladaptive) defenses. The
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to a Catholic girls’ school and has been educated
exclusively by nuns. She has never been on a date
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hot summer without her becoming anxious or
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falling in love with a Montague. Indeed, in Peggy’s
defenses.
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conscious coping strategies. For my young Catholic
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adolescent lovers scarcer still.
Psychotic Defenses
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defenses at other levels, psychotic defenses can
profoundly alter perception of external reality.
Delusional Projection
schizophrenia.
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genes of schizophrenia, we should reflect on what
happens in our own nightmares, in children’s fairy
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Othello’s suspiciousness is more than projection,
for Othello does not just wrongly accuse the
Distortion
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boyfriend would fade into the background, and
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someone else’s religious faith—provides us all
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always possible. Nevertheless, the delusional
Peggy is miserable from the sexual excitement
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up than are nightmares and the paranoid hatreds
of war.
Psychotic Denial
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external reality) would be the physician in Chapter
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and maintains that nothing is wrong does so only
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“that old rerun.” To oversimplify, denial ignores
to our conscience (it is the devil doing it, not I). All
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inadequate to convince him that he is not flying
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experience (as well as neurological development)
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not merely think about, unrealistic obsessions and
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always reflect not just the deficit but the efforts of
servant of biology.
Immature Defenses
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may question my use of the term immature to
adult life.
Projection
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not force Peggy to separate psychologically from
processes.
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object into subject. Projection turns self-loathing
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we are so sensitive to paranoid individuals
suspicious accusations.
obvious example.
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Projection differs from displacement in that
Fantasy
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poetry, which she would not send to him. In her
immune.
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autistic retreat for the purpose of conflict
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and the affect are all in consciousness—but only in
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conflict, it is quite distinct from projection.
Projection places one’s emotions and conflicts in
automobiles.
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other real people. By way of compensation, the
Hypochondriasis
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her heart. By unconsciously magnifying her
sick room.
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their true pain. The caregivers and critics of
neurasthenia.
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the defense of displacement, are usually a problem
free.
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hypochondriasis. In part, my decision reflects the
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reproach and outrage toward our loved ones who
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prisons, and children tortured by masochistic
mothers know the answer to Peggy’s question
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Passive aggressive behaviors are common in
teasing binds.
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provocative behavior employed to get attention.
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Passive aggression (or turning against the self)
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piece of cake in such a fashion that the recipient
Acting Out
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An illegitimate child put up for adoption might
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greater affront to her conscience, from a pain too
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Neither awareness of the conflict-laden affect nor
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reflects the tantrums of grownups and often
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hurting me.” Yet her actions, like those of an
Rotterdam or Coventry.
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years were in many places in Germany but not in
feels guilt.
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than as a clear danger to one’s immune system,
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disease, reaction formation gives way to acting
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acting out of the sociopath and the delusions of the
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of play we murder our father on the tennis court
murder.
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young macho sophomore to suppose that he knew
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a solution to courtship well: “Candy is dandy, / But
liquor is quicker.”
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difficult to define and most difficult to identify
reliably. Like the captivating, dramatic, distracting
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differs from repression in that the painful affect is
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something different, something playful, something
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interpreted. Finally, dissociation does not annoy
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defenses get under other people’s skin. Thus, such
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a fair trial, not “help.” Group confrontation by
psychiatrists.
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example, sedative drug intoxication and alcohol
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of the observer become blurred and porous. A
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Table 2, which are largely borrowed from Anna
Neurotic Defenses
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Table 2 defines a third class of defenses, the
obsessional accountants.
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The advantage of neurotic defenses is that they
Displacement
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the idea and the affect of love from a dangerous,
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psychotherapy, the transplantation of attachment
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direction of the idea-affect complex, while
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heart.
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The term isolation encompasses the many
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contents. They need to temper the intensity of
four-letter emotions.
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ritually undone by his behavior—not stepping on
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a few psychoanalysts, now total converts to the
cult of the passionate unconscious, were
own passions.
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lust and then displaces his still lusty ideation onto
one.
Repression
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romantically, and yet be outraged at her
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associated idea is not “in mind.” The idea is
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immature defenses attack and enmesh even as
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dissociation and repression often occur together.
Repression per se is different from its closest
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usually appears more “repressed” than the
Reaction Formation
that sex was bad and that he would love her more
she did than she had ever done before. Their love
would be better served if they waited until
marriage. Reaction formation keeps both idea and
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affect in mind; only the value is reversed. In short,
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As noted previously, reaction formation can be
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more adaptive than projection. The paranoid
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Neurotic defenses, unlike immature defenses,
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exist only in the sensibilities of the beholder. In
Mature Defenses
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conflict in Figure 2, they are more difficult to
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somewhat conscious, mature defenses provide the
defenses.
another person.
Altruism
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Peggy could become an initiate in a convent.
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gives to the object what the self desires, altruism
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Peggy helps the poor and gains comfort by viewing
Sublimation
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through music and romantic language keep both
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some actors and playwrights are legendary; yet
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significant or frightening object. Whereas what is
Suppression
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dominant defensive style correlates most highly
rest of us.
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Unlike the user of repression, the person who
consciousness.
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the bright side, but suppression notes that the
Anticipation
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might be puzzled why Peggy sometimes looked
walk away.
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poison. In the words of the psychoanalyst Heinz
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like plane trips and tooth decay than for affect-
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much easier when we find ourselves loved.
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as Mithridates did with poison. To have
underestimated danger would have been fatal. To
Humor
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We all recognize that humor makes life so
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most people with unhappy childhoods do not
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reality and yet respond as if it were a game. Why,
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In contrast to practical jokes and clowning and
upon defense.
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defenses seem immoral. Thus, the five mature
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teacher. The hostile impulse is so obvious as to
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not all as it seems. Anger, sadness, and sexuality
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The parallel maturation of fantasy through
Notes
2 Plato, Phaedrus, ed. I. Edman (New York: Modern Library, 1928), pp.
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295-296.
10 Ibid.
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3
Self-Deceptions of Everyday
Life
The delusions of paranoia were seen by him
[Freud], not as primary, but as attempts
(however misguided) at restitution, at
reconstructing a world reduced to complete
chaos.
Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
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hand, the social sciences are relatively ignorant
about how individuals make history and thus
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and defenses that appear healthy also appear
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odd behavior I mean activities like growing tissue
become good.”
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The letter was from Reverend Billy James
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psychoanalysts who use the defense of projection;
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Fourteen months earlier a student had gone to the
vice president of the American Christian College
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chromosomes than that it was caused by sin and
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incapacity. However odd Hargis’s behavior, society
children.
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A second example of the psychopathology of
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alcoholic who had repeatedly humiliated him.
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am to assert that this musician’s art allowed him
to sublimate his pain, grief, and humiliation,
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misanthropic crippled bachelor the admiration of
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echoed in my heart—Oh when—Oh when, Oh
Divine One, shall I feel it again?”7 At the same time
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denial, many forms of self-deception. Ludwig van
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pretty soloists for their performance in his Ninth
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were closed.10 Nineteenth-century Vienna did not
close its schools for lunatics or for cornballs.
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how to play, and as they do, sublimation and
repertoire of defenses.
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are the same. Despite his suicidal inclinations,
Beethoven took responsibility for his own angry
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does not want out, would keep if he could
gagged and bound and flogged with chords
of Joy
where everything is silence and the
beating of a bloody fist upon
a splintered table.11
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psychoanalysis, Coles did not ignore history and
ideology and how they molded men, but he
changing world.
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Want Negroes With Whites.” As Coles explained to
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were infiltrating the city by boat. Blacks, John
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reconstructing a world reduced to complete
chaos” ?
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returned from World War II. In contrast to his
earlier statement about his parents, John finally
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John-the-Bigot had a second problem. In his
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with your kids, would you?”15 At this point in his
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world for centuries. Beethoven died at his
appointed time, and the schools of Vienna were
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his place in the school picket line provided him
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response to the segregationist threats, on one
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acknowledged that he was in pain, but it became
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genetically) cursed by paternal alcoholism. Since
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conditions mold men, and Coles appreciated that
equally important.
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that dreams were the royal road to the
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and James, observed not only that emotion (affect)
could be “dislocated or transposed” from ideas
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months later, still savoring his paper’s insights, he
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not live to see age 50. In the same letter to Fliess in
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Freud’s symptoms but even his language reflected
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notice, “You are requested to close the eyes.”
that “Freud felt that his father wished him not only
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Three months later, still unable to close his
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originator of neurosis and thus puts an end to my
ever-recurring doubts.”31
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relationship of the child to its parents was a
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book,” he wrote Fliess, “am writing it fluently and
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neurasthenia. For the next forty years, Freud was
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father. In 1908 he wrote, “This book
[Interpretation of Dreams] has a further subjective
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Anxiety, Freud pointed out the utility of
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father’s approaching death. Freud branded himself
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“neuropsychoses” of defenses—his discovery of
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The truth is by no means black or white.
Birthday.”
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singular, it is up to me whether or not I can see
this busy physician on a holiday. It is wrong that
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unconsciously on purpose, inquired, “Was the
appointment you missed today’s appointment?”
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now, of course, it was too late. The hour was over.
He could not ask for the Thursday appointment …
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forgetting was all the more extraordinary because
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irritating only to the self; and some, like
Beethoven’s, brilliantly adaptive, bringing survival
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always cling to phenomena.”43
Notes
3 Ibid., p. 284.
6 Ibid., p. 896.
7 Ibid., p. 306.
8 Ibid., p. 286.
9 Ibid., p. 892.
10 Ibid., p. 1053.
11 A. Rich, Diving into the Wreck (New York: Norton, 1973), p. 43.
13 Ibid., p. 304.
14 Ibid., p. 315.
15 Ibid., p. 302.
16 Ibid., p. 112.
17 Ibid., p. 117.
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18 Ibid., p. 122.
22 Ibid., p. 65.
23 Ibid., p. 136.
24 Ibid., p. 73.
25 Ibid., p. 67.
28 M. Krull, Freud and His Father (New York: Norton, 1986), p. 43.
30 Ibid., p. 250.
31 Ibid., p. 249.
32 Ibid., p. 253.
33 Ibid., p. 261.
34 Ibid., p. 264.
35 Ibid., p. 272.
36 Ibid., p. 298.
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37 S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), preface to the 2nd ed.,
trans. J. Strachey (New York: Basic Books, 1956), p. xxvi.
40 Ibid., p. 120.
41 P. Gay, Freud: A Life for Our Time (New York: Norton, 1988).
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 272
4
Necessary Questions
The concept of adaptation, though it appears
simple, implies ... a great many problems. The
analysis of this concept promises to clarify
many problems of normal and abnormal
psychology, among them our conception of
mental health.
Heinz Hartmann
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defenses? (4) When is a defense a symptom and
when is it adaptive? Are some kinds of denial or
of defenses?
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Quite deliberately I shall postpone the most
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mothers, compiled a list of forty defenses.3 But
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The dialogue soon revealed a remarkable absence
are imaginary.
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So too, the phenomena underlying defenses
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several respected investigators. Second, each
forest.
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Let me provide a simple example of a complex
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abusive or failed to meet their wives’ needs for
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live with nor live without than with how they
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into each other. You will find repression anywhere
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leaves?
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is invisible; the flame we can all see. The cough
reflex is an invisible neural process, the cough a
all to see.
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how he wrote about himself in his diary and his
but sublimation.
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identification of the patients’ defenses included in
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purely rational way. But the brain is much more
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find ourselves stony faced or laughing. Similarly,
we may find ourselves furious and acting very
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consider the differences between ideas and
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book, filled with important and reasonable
hell!”
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Anger makes us see red, envy makes us green, and
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their intensity; feelings are. We can learn calculus
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whereas feelings are always subjective and
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that whereas the contest between the Toyota and
the Ford will come out roughly fifty-fifty, hardly
licking pennies.
self-deception.
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When Is a Defense a Symptom and When Is
It Adaptive?
made so clearly.
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process. A suit of armor provides lifesaving
protection in a medieval jousting match, but it
different.
temporary) anesthesia.
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as dangerous to the masochist and the ascetic
expert in reaction formation as dammed
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individuals made superb aircraft spotters.
for naught.
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that with the mature defenses the subject’s
regulatory self-deceptions are perceived by those
ways.
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personal lives of inhabitants of the White House, of
adult poorly.
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—is considered a virtue in war and a crime in
shortcomings.
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nonspecificity of defenses that makes them so
essential to the wisdom of the ego. Their purpose
in Chapter 2.
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the first time, or graduating from college. The
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about feelings. On the other hand, conflicts about
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The chicken-egg question of whether one’s
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forest will contain many other trees and so will a
conclusions.
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lives happens faster than we can accommodate it.
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and conflict. These are basic techniques that can
be taught to all who must learn dangerous or
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inanimate than with the animate. Textbook coping
keep changing.
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share our conflict, and more important,
another person.
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internalized, it becomes our own. Such learned
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defense mechanisms? Do we tell them? And if we
is rarely successful.
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There are several rules to follow in breaching a
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important. How would you feel if similarly
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other person not only offers to “hold” the user of
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defense. For example, rather than interpreting a
out.
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permanent? Put differently, what is the effect of
maturation upon our adaptive mechanisms? Over
defense.
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words, unconscious resolution of conflict governs
dissolute youths.
identification.
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of Mount Olympus evolves into the harsh talion
law of the Old Testament which gives way, in turn,
altruism.
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ownership) of feelings until a child is
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evolution of projection during adult life. Hughes
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remained on guard. He found criticism difficult to
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in 1940 Hughes had been right to fear air
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Hughes protested that he had not known he would
Development.
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At 19 Hughes tried, both physiologically and
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on the side of the angels.” He raised his children
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discharge hostility without harming others or
oneself, and the capacity to suspend one’s adult
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immature defenses to neurotic, intermediate
guilt feelings.
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elsewhere and is outside the scope of this book.
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world.”7 Certainly, creative acts are a striking
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Robert Kegan9 have integrated such work with
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them psychosocial development, moral
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the maturation of ego development. The evolution
maturation.
Notes
4 J. Sandler and A. Freud, The Analysis of Defense: The Ego and the
Mechanisms of Defense Revisited (New York: International
Universities Press, 1985), p. 176.
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University Press, 1982).
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5
John Donne
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lost them, but under the street lamp where the
light was better. In studying defenses my dilemma
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sins, allows us to predict eclipses and to know that
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But we would still need a telescope to separate the
astrology.
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tests (such as the Rorschach and Thematic
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psychoanalytically unsophisticated independent
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social privilege? Can it be demonstrated that the
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questions that I have posed I have integrated three
seventy years.
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because, in Heath’s words, “Large endowments
have been given and schemes put into effect for
young men … All admit that the sick need care, but
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sophomores. In the selection process, about 40
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Over the four-year period 1939-1942, 268
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than of their classmates, went on to graduate
an only child.
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terms to earn at least part of their tuition fees.
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Republicans. In 1954, only 16 percent of the
College men had sanctioned the McCarthy
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physicians, psychologists, psychiatrists, social
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same ethnicity, and to reside in a community with
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In childhood, half of the Core City men had
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income in 1989 dollars was about $30,000.
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urban grammar schools, Terman first selected a 7
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he probably had captured only 80 percent. Ugly
“Japanese gardener.”
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women were more like the childhoods of East
school teachers.
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or younger. Their high intelligence—they had a
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the daughters were about 10 years old. On the
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twenty years after his initial study, Terman made
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Comparison of the Three Samples
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University of California at Berkeley so his gifted
was 130-135.
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standardized I.Q. tests, than the children of the
socially and economically more privileged College
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were clearly underutilized by society. A look at
seven children.
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Taken individually, then, none of the three
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them, for the views he had reported in college
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interest.
she had dealt with the gap between what she had
been allowed to achieve and her potential. She
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opportunities during the Great Depression had
my own thinking.”
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relatively happy ending. At age 30 the Strong
Vocational Test revealed that besides medicine
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mature—“healthier”— than other defenses, can
these defenses be reliably identified? To address
the same.
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both the Core City men’s childhood records and
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For each interview protocol, the raters were
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procedure each College, Core City, and Terman
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used data from the College, Core City, and Terman
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Table 3. Correlations between maturity of defenses and
measures of successful adult outcome
Terman College Core City
women men men
Variables (n = 37) (n = 186) (n = 307)
Life satisfaction, age 60-65 .44 .35 n.a.
Psychosocial maturity .48 .44 .66
(Erikson Stage)
Mental health (GAS or HSRS)a .64 .57 .77
Note: Except for the three lowest correlations for the Terman women, all
correlations are significant at p < .001 (that is, the odds that the
correlation could be due to mere chance are less than one in a
thousand).
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demonstrate that maturity of defensive style has
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careers had progressed or declined since age 47.12
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tranquilizers or visited psychiatrists or appeared
to merit a psychiatric diagnosis). The two groups
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with but do not cause alcohol abuse and brain
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Altruism 0 19
Reaction formation 17 4
Displacement 39 6
Dissociation 26 7
Passive aggression 30 16
Most mature 9 61
Least mature 47 7
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(the black bars) with the declining health of 61
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discerned.
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artifact. In biological medicine the task is easier.
For example, blood clotting factors are distributed
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of Core City men, income correlated with mental
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intellectual ability, or gender. True, the College
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within-group differences in defensive maturity.
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deploy different defensive styles from men. But
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problem, the two raters’ scores for each subject in
as major.
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Dissociation 5 15 6 13 6 13
Altruism 6 12 3 33 6 13
Reaction formation 7 10 5 20 9 11
Passive aggression 8 10 8 10 3 23
Projection 9 9 14 3 13 2
Sublimation 10 7 4 30 6 13
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artist’s ego maturity.
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idiomatic language and the difficulty of exactly
matching samples, it is very difficult to draw valid
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Core City men with parents born in Italy with
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differences appear to be relatively independent of
ethnicity.15
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But if culture appears to have little effect on
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(n = 203) (n = 24)
Mature defenses
Suppression 34 34 11***
Altruism 12 7 0
Sublimation 7 3 0**
Immature defenses
Dissociation 15 45*** 83***
Projection 9 10 29**
Passive aggression 10 31 46***
Hypochondriasis 3 17*** 21**
Fantasy 5 0 13**
Acting out 1 10 8***
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defense mechanisms are not just one more tenet
Notes
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Handbook of Longitudinal Research, ed. S. A. Mednick, M. Harway,
and K. M. Finello (New York: Praeger, 1984), pp. 398-414.
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the rating (1-5) for immature defenses provided a total
score of +4 to -4. For purposes of computation, the score
for overall maturity of defensive style for each subject
was transformed into a one-to-nine scale by adding five
points to the total. Thus, a score of 1 reflected the most
mature and a score of 9 reflected the least mature
adaptive style. This procedure produced a normal (bell
curve) distribution of scores, and a rater reliability of .84
for the Core City men and .87 for the Terman women.
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6
I Corinthians 13:12
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obvious response lies in the commitment to
a distinguished career … For me, the far
more subtle and complicated work for both
women and men is in the two alternative
responses—in the commitments of family
and in the commitments of community-
building.
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Harvard reunion, expressed Lightfoot’s three
alternatives a little differently: he put them in
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Let me turn from twentieth-century Harvard
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raped and economically exploited his servants,
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their split-off negative feelings. Thus, I suspect
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write would be read twenty years from now by
people who are children today, and that they
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that this blissful intimacy did not last forever. As
order.
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must be mastered in that order, for in sequence
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the College and Core City samples. I shall use these
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qualify for “homemaker” either. His sense of self
adult.
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cautioned us a century ago, there is a gaping
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Figure 4. A model of adult development (This is essentially Erik
Erikson’s model of the adult life cycle with the addition of
Stages 6A and 7A.
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adulthood are, How can I commit myself to one
person and to one job without sacrificing
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yet not obliterating the circle emanating from each
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young infant for maternal holding, eye contact,
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than to Homo sapiens in general. Just as adult
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through his feet and left him on a lonely
children.
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Meaning, to Erikson’s original eight. My reason for
these additions is to encompass repetitive
century.
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simply charted the mastery of certain selected
a given “stage.”
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family values end and one’s own values begin.
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an interdependent, committed, and intimate
fashion for ten years or more. For several single
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overwhelmingly in love.” She told us that she had
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The task of Career Consolidation vs. Self-
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bring the owner contentment. Like a sense of
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be selfish (to develop a sense of self) is good, and
love.
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calls community-building. Depending on the
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has only his eyes if he is a painter … ? On the
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strenuously self-made personality.” In such cases
our own.
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between a wise Abraham Lincoln who tried to heal
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Games traditions play a very different role from
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I shall now discuss the central tasks of adult
wisdom.17
Intimacy
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Erikson added, “Nor is it a purely sexual matter by
any means.”18 Certainly, the concept of mutual
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him) were trying to express. Intimacy, after all,
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marry men who have already left home. It is also
Career Consolidation
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consolidation is rarely achieved until after
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contentment and compensation. For example, each
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suggest that this is not the case. Ego development
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intimacy. Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House, which ends
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lives said they wished they had been primarily
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phenomena that affect both sexes, both society
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the Lake, knew he was meant to be king. In
contrast, Snow White’s acquisition of great beauty
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ordered priorities dictated that I consider his well-
being above all else.”22 Even Sonya Tolstoy’s
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development. Society does not get its reward until
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society as a whole even if, as I suspect, their
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and self-direction) to the ideal man, and both
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To summarize, career consolidation is the
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generations to come.
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development of wisdom. Yet, as the examples of
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that is that the earlier period was one of
comparative innocence and youthful
exuberance—a celebration more of my
physical powers, of unfettered freedom.
Those powers I now celebrate are more of an
intellectual variety, somewhat tinged by
experience of the world; in a way my lately-
acquired knowledge and insights—my
wisdom if you will, is not an unalloyed
blessing, but a burden in some respects.
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close to what Paul Baltes and Jacqueline Smith
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mentees (generativity), “he neglects and dilutes
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generative creation of the Ford Motor Company,
tried to preserve America’s past in his wistful
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representatives from twelve universities. The men
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55 has supported young interns to work for a year
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one will attain the next. Yet, as in climbing a
footrace.
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reworking ascribed identity and for questioning
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and autonomy, with following and maintaining
obsessional.
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characterized by an increasing differentiation of
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not until the young adult has consolidated her own
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years of psychoanalysis, replied, “I’m more like I
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old in crisis struggles with feelings; like the 10-
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glosses over transitions. From following
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nondevelopmental factors than they do with the
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marriage ceremony may lead to greater instability
development.
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remind the reader that the model I have presented
must be taken with a grain of salt. Who can be sure
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only emerges in an invariant sequence but also is a
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people are judged by what they say. In Erikson’s
model they are judged by what they do.
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dropout or a person tied to an assembly line have
to be generative? Also, do not women have to
sequence?
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if platonic, language? Will not such definitions
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like monasteries where rules for communal living
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involved in career consolidation and 10 percent in
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development is a psychobiological process, it
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the same for women as for men, and it must be
relatively independent of social class, educational
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In contrast, each man in the College sample had to
educated.
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a. In order to minimize the stunting effects of organic impairment, alcohol
abusers and men with I.Q.’s less than 80 were excluded.
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growth and development require privilege and
a. The Army Alpha was used for the College men, the Stanford-Binet for
the Terman women, and the Wechsler-Bellevue for the Core City
men.
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entirely immune to social pressure. An
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suggest, the adult developmental tasks must
preceding “stages.”
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percentage of the College men mastering each task
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ten years to be regarded as definitively achieved.
order.
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Table 12 examines the Core City men’s
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improvement over the past two decades, (4) same
Mastered 2 or 3 Stage 7 15 22 70
criteriab
a Criteria were (1) not more than one year of unemployment, (2) likes his
job, (3) steady job improvement over past two decades, (4) same
employer for ten years, (5) has not had four or more jobs or been
chronically unemployed in last decade.
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jobs), only 15 percent met at least two of the
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reliability and predictive validity. In general, the
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psychosocial development in Figure 5, there does
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Life adjustment at age 77 .47 n.a. n.a.
Life adjustment at age 65 .58 .34 n.a.
Life satisfaction age 65 .56 .29 n.a.
**p < .01; n.s. = not significant; all other correlations significant at p <
.001.
a. On a subsample of 88.
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correlated with an r of .34 (p < .001) with
objective adjustment to aging at age 65 and
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from cross-sectional data, or are retrospective like
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studies are flawed by their outdated methods of
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success ideology which can so dangerously
Notes
3 Ibid., p. 290.
4 Ibid., p. 297.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 488
5 G. E. Vaillant and S. H. Koury, “Late Midlife Development,” in The Course
of Life, vol. 6, ed. G. H. Pollock and S. I. Greenspan (New York:
International Universities Press, 1993); G. E. Vaillant and E.
Milofsky, “Natural History of Male Psychological Health: Empirical
Evidence for Erikson’s Model of the Lifecycle,” American Journal of
Psychiatry 137 (1980):1348-1359.
9 A. H. Barr, Jr., Picasso: Fifty Years of His Art (New York: Museum of
Modern Art, 1946), pp. 247, 264.
10 E. Erikson, Childhood and Society, 2nd ed., (New York: Norton, 1963).
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1984).
21 Ibid., p. 13.
22 Ibid., p. 6.
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(1986):163-168.
34 D. Offer and J. Offer, From Teenage to Young Manhood (New York: Basic
Books, 1975); M. P. Farrell and S. D. Rosenberg, Men at Midlife
(Boston: Auburn House, 1981).
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7
Life Histories
Basically, clinical psychology as a research
discipline is the study of lives or of life careers.
Lawrence Kohlberg
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intimacy; women the quest for career
consolidation; and a Core City man the mastery of
generativity.
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never published the story and nothing further
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When Eliza Young was 39, her mother died.
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At age 44, while remodeling and furnishing her
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work as a librarian, Young wrote, “I dislike it”; and
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sensibly.” God forbid that she identify with
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Lawrence Lightfoot’s three commitments: to a
Intimacy
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wives. This is a stupid reason. I don’t enthuse
over their married life.
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happily married to Elizabeth, but something
—what I don’t know—holds me back. I’d
give a bucketful to know. This I do know—
for three months I have seen her almost
constantly and have yet to want to leave her
in the evening, even after spending three full
days over New Year’s with her. If the Grant
Study could give me any insights into this
strange part of me, I would be most pleased
and very grateful.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 501
mother had described him as “a grown man when
he was two years old”; yet when he was grown up,
responsibility—installing furnaces—never
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 502
work role.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 503
what it would be.” He continued to lack
stress.”
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 504
Nor did Algeron Young ever come to grips with
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 505
down, for both suffered severe depressions. When
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 506
such transformation takes place from within and
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 507
life span, are losses replaced? How does the ego
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 508
became a source of identification. Just as in the
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 509
himself with cats and heating plants rather than
resentment.
Career Consolidation
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 510
homemaker. At 12, Rebecca told the Terman study
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 511
father, and that she had felt not at all rebellious
Who.”
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 512
had been that of a homemaker and that her choice
was “as it was, as I planned it and as I would now
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 513
her life she would make if she had her life to live
physical health.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 514
cases of Eliza Young and Algeron Young, paralysis.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 515
summers were all spent in filial duty working in
the business. That my patient had had the temerity
assertion.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 516
She nodded her head vigorously. Her sobs
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 517
doctor’s life and brings her or him dangerously ... I
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 518
been excluded from jobs and systematically
underpaid, although that was a part, of course.
legalized.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 519
electrician who was ill from her mid-adolescence.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 520
and gardening. She devoured biographies of
interviews.”
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 521
converted into 1978 constant dollars, her income
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 522
But Emma Dickinson’s developmental failures
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 523
dilemma of young adults confronted by joining the
“fight or strife” of career consolidation.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 524
afraid of their intelligence ... for any
superiority a man may have is at least of
potential value to him. He is in no danger of
being condemned for recognizing it or for
being aggressive in using it.6
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 525
permitted but actively encouraged if you are
a woman: the love relationship in which a
woman makes herself so indispensable to a
man and later to her children, that she need
not compete or achieve in the world outside
her home.8
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 526
When they [my family] fought, I would
inwardly scream “I hate you all! I hate you
all!” My fear of other people’s anger was thus
in part a fear of my own anger, fear that
someday I would let loose and say what I
was really feeling which would be the end of
everything—all the false security and love I
had been buying for myself … eventually I
must have lost much of my ability even to
recognize anger for I arrived at a point
where I rarely felt myself to be angry at all ...
I used to pride myself on my “good
adjustment” meaning of course what was
considered to be good adjustment for a
woman.11
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 527
from competition into the self-effacing role
that was the prevailing notion of
womanliness in my day, when what I really
would have wanted was to win that
competition, as it seemed to me Sylvia Plath
had done … Her career— except of course
for her suicide and her suffering—seemed to
epitomize what I would have chosen for
myself had I the talent and the drive, and the
courage to be aggressive.12
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 528
extravagant as to approach psychosis? And in so
toward them.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 529
outbursts or by burying it within themselves. In
Generativity
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 530
“To invest one’s substance in forms of life and
work that will outlive the self.”17 Although the
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 531
grandparenthood, and community-building.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 532
achievements—a forging of work-enjoyment and
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 533
Emma Dickinson, became impoverished by giving
sequence.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 534
developmental unrest, really more a midlife task
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 535
most recently to foundations. Not the ideal,
Dickinson.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 536
DiMaggio was a charming, responsible, and
committed man. If he was short and noticeably
and frankly.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 537
necessary skills as he went along. Of his work he
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 538
become one of the few really experienced men on
the job, he noted, “They depend on me more.”
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 539
father had for me,” he told the interviewer. He
described taking his sons fishing and taking them
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 540
to “him being very immature,” and they felt that he
development.
would tell all the bad things and not the good
things. He then offered the interviewer a simple
string of qualities: “sweetheart—very
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 541
came back into the room and the interviewer
humor.”
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 542
best friend.” Referring to deaths they had had in
long-lived marriage.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 543
that develops in its own time.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 544
limited schoolboy had matured into a leader of
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 545
fifty-year study, the maturation of human beings
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 546
younger one.”20 In Alcoholics Anonymous, a
“pigeon”—a newly recovering alcoholic—is
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 547
nongenerative Terman woman became irritated:
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 548
develop honesty.” She asked herself again, “What
did I learn from them? ... I don’t think that you can
give away.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 549
The saddest answer came from another very
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 550
of others inside.
“question book”:
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 551
don’t do it anymore when I’m here alone. I
wish I would. I used to sing when I did my
housework. They are all just such an
inspiration to me.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 552
Being a keeper of the meaning is by no means a
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 553
wrote, “hardly a week passes that one or more of
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 554
became involved in consumer protection for the
Integrity
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 555
synonymous with having mastered all prior
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 556
Terman women, Lisa Eccles, illustrates what I
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 557
accomplishments since then have been to stay
sissies.”
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 558
to be ignored.” Ecclesiastes, the inspiration for her
code name, could not have said it any better. When
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 559
were inspirational and generative leaders in their
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 560
however, that he mastered Erikson’s
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 561
what many other people do not have time nor
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 562
spots”: “That no matter what personal difficulty I
personal sacrifice.”
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 563
There is a cast to his eyes, the way they are
closed reminds you of … the classical
lithograph of Beethoven after he lost his
hearing. The child is still able to produce
sounds of beauty from it [the violin]. He uses
his fingers to … express his feelings and
emotions.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 564
By age 35, crippled by polio, Carey continued
merely to tell.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 565
as it were, giving the self away, a process that was
aging.
scope of my abilities.”
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 566
that the last five years had been the happiest of his
life. “I came to a new sense of fruition and peace
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 567
real-life behavior and facility with pencil-and-
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 568
and generative while alive provides pleasure and
meaning to all.
Notes
6 Ibid., p. 207.
7 Ibid., p. 129.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 569
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid., p. 131.
10 Ibid., p. 129.
11 Ibid., p. 285.
16 Ibid., p. 293.
18 These pages and their phrases owe much to Sara Koury, a valued
collaborator.
20 E. Erikson, Childhood and Society, 2nd ed. (New York: Norton, 1963), p.
266.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 570
8
Sigmund Freud
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 571
tyranny of a good English family. And the only
alleviation is that the tyrannized submits with a
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 572
every night, when they go to bed as if they were
going mad.”2
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 573
masochism, and hypochondriasis. As early as age
23, she recognized the extent to which the habit
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 574
Florence Nightingale died in bed at the age of 90.
dangers?
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 575
never far from the character disorder of the
confidence man. Andy Warhol, Andre Gide, and
medicine?
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 576
process moves us one step toward an answer.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 577
of how Wordsworth described poetry: emotion
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 578
factors or emotions, the contribution of historical
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 579
Freud to help me explicate Nightingale’s
achievement. Freud, however, conceptualized the
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 580
age 26, Florence Nightingale was employing not
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 581
the folk recipe for healthy retaliation: “Living well
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 582
delicate balancing act.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 583
“to derive consolation and alleviation from …
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 584
convinced she would betray herself by doing
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 585
herself performing all manner of heroic deeds. But
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 586
her dilemma. Deploying reaction formation, not
true humorists.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 587
obsessive-compulsive that she was, Florence
intellectualization of an obsessive-compulsive
young woman.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 588
different than she found it,”17 and put something
gave to the War Office was “the best that ever was
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 589
hospital with only twenty chamber pots and a
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 590
Her first purchases were two hundred scrubbing
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 591
achievements. Thus, the Times not only spread the
“Nightingale power.”
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 592
Nightingale carried her lantern which she would
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 593
absolutely dependent upon her; and Colonel
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 594
home that when the men heard of Nightingale’s
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 595
Like any artist, Nightingale was able to
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 596
aggression that it is “possible for other people
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 597
writing suggests the roots of her anger: “For every
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 598
of her former pets and imaginary friends] lately
her bed for six full years. Not until eighteen years
later, when her mother finally died, did
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 599
served as an inspiration and consultant. But her
opinion.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 600
‘dynamic of the normal’ than with
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 601
publication than a rejection slip from the New
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 602
exhibit their art or music in public. The creativity
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 603
created a community organization, such as a
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 604
generativity, but her life also underscores what I
mean by the creativity of every day. In college and
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 605
teacher of journalism and English in the
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 606
Study that “part of my delight with my grandson is
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 607
Koestler’s bisociation.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 608
being her high school class valedictorian to
graduate school.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 609
not innovative Bohemians.
handicapped.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 610
asked what she had learned from her children,
replied, “That I am not patient and that I am not
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 611
autistic thinking. In 1950 her score on the Concept
Mastery Test (a test used by Terman that was
her interviewer.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 612
decorated her apartment had been created by her
person’s strength.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 613
or folk dancing. However, none of these less
Table 14. Major differences between the more and the less
creative Terman women
Creative Less Significancea
(n = 20) Creative
(n = 20)
Basic differences
Generative 75% 10% ***
Published something 60 10 ***
Published a book 25 0 **
Public art or music 40 0 ***
Started an organization 55 0 ***
Antecedents
No career plan, age 26 10 30 —
Work satisfaction, age 40 50 20 *
Active outside home, age 45 80 50 *
Poor use of leisure, age 45 30 70 ***
Consequences
Joy in living (subjective), age 60 40 10 **
Adapted to old age, age 65-75 85 50 **
Adapted to old age, age 75-78 65 35 *
Defenses
Altruism or humor or 85 15 ***
sublimation a major defense
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 614
Sublimation a major defense 55 0 ***
Repression not noted 65 40 —
Fantasy not noted 80 50 *
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 615
published anything, and only one had been active
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 616
virtually none of the less creative women
deployed altruism, humor, or sublimation as a
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 617
only as she abandoned pristine fantasy for
Scutari.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 618
charge if appropriate, and yet was graceful about
age.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 619
who became more serious painters after 60 than
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 620
them. For example, with the exception of the levels
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 621
create very successful families and gardens, but in
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 622
greater; there were not more books in their
environment.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 623
let us look at the equally well educated College
men. Again, their creativity must be judged in
playing music.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 624
books, mounting several one-man art shows, or
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 625
commitment to art in the public arena. This
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 626
creative editors, 2 of whom had achieved national
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 627
women had been selected only for their I.Q. test
scores.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 628
not more likely to use altruism and humor.
Table 15. Major differences between the more and the less
creative College men
Creative Not creative Significance
(n = 51) (n = 66)
Generative 61% 45% —
Published something 80 0 ***
Published a book 18 0 ***
Enjoyed job, age 50-62 82 55 **
Died by 1989 4 21 **
Sublimation a major defense 27 0 ***
Repression not noted 63 50 —
In Who’s Who in America 40 17 ***
Cultural interests in college 41 18 ***
Creative and intuitive in college 22 0 ***
Verbally fluent in college 33 12 ***
Practical/organizing in college 20 52 ***
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 629
maladjustment. Neither of these traits was related
in any way to creativity. One trait, “practical
mental health.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 630
Three traits, however, that were quite
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 631
verbalize their thoughts in rich or well formulated
later in life.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 632
childhood neuroticism and those used to assess
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 633
immediate relatives. Andreason found that
relatives.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 634
were even suggestively associated with major
mental illness.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 635
to assess creativity.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 636
psychobiographer to illustrate the alchemy and
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 637
Second, the expression of creativity involves
experienced trauma.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 638
gifted child graphic artists. As adolescents, all of
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 639
The five-month-old kitten engages in self-
not common.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 640
ritual. Ritual serves to create the peace needed to
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 641
bureau drawers. She even made a detailed
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 642
and appreciation of paradox Janusian thinking
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 643
identification with another person. Florence
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 644
brain. Koestler puts this a little differently and
phenomena.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 645
love letter that we may get from someone who is
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 646
desperately to communicate. Creative
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 647
introduction in the 1850s of the war
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 648
shadow as she passed; and as an overcontrolling
than fiction.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 649
he takes very seriously—that is, which he invests
Notes
4 Ibid., p. 46.
5 Ibid., p. 76.
8 H. Gardner, The Mind’s New Science (New York: Basic Books, 1985), p. 6.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 650
14 Goldsmith, Florence Nightingale, pp. 23-24.
16 Ibid., p. 59.
20 Ibid., p. 207.
21 Ibid., p. 257.
22 Ibid., p. 232.
23 Ibid., p. 200.
24 Ibid., p. 397.
25 Ibid., p. 220.
26 Ibid., p. 222.
27 Ibid.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 651
Creativity,” American Psychologist 15 (1960): 128-134.
35 Ibid.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 652
9
Sylvia Plath:
Creativity and Psychotic
Defenses
Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye …
Emily Dickinson
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 653
adaptive process. Therefore, I shall use episodes
from Plath’s life both to demonstrate techniques
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 654
Elvin Semrad, the Harvard psychiatry professor
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 655
observer to gain fresh respect for the synthetic
care in the last year of his life when he was ill with
diabetic vascular disease, Otto Plath retreated to
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 656
death.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 657
poignantly protested that he had “bit my pretty
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 658
autobiographical novel The Bell Jar; “I just studied
too hard. I didn’t know when to stop.”4 Esther
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 659
would deny that she was psychotically depressed.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 660
Gogh’s creativity during the last two years of his
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 661
creativity can occur only when the mind is
individual insanity.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 662
diaries support the assumption that the life of
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 663
contemplate entering the real world: “The one
helplessness of melancholy.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 664
seemingly over trifles. She felt guilty over her
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 665
counterpart, the “borderline.” Two months later
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 666
I start to write, dissipates, flows out into the figure
of the letters; writing as therapy?”13 On December
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 667
death ... I laid my face to the smooth face of the
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 668
with my formulations.
Delusional Projection
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 669
like round, sea-polished pebbles that might
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 670
all of her husband’s poems in progress and then to
crazy.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 671
delusional projection is made—and sometimes
Psychotic Denial
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 672
patent leather shoe.” Esther also demonstrated
his need for medical care; Aurelia Plath had not let
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 673
her daughter, Sylvia, witness her own father’s
Distortion
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 674
as a hospital volunteer: “I steered the trolley to a
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 675
of a child unerringly avoids confronting reality and
only joy.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 676
easy.”25
Perry Norton:
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 677
fictional name for Perry Norton): “I spent a lot of
time having imaginary conversations with Buddy
devaluation.
Splitting
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 678
schizophrenia. (The other “A’s” were autism, flat
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 679
Splitting is different from reaction formation
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 680
example of neurotic undoing verging on splitting is
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 681
he was setting to music Schiller’s “An die
was all black, and all white, and in the same mind.
loved.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 682
her novel, The Bell Jar. The evidence provides a
contrast between the public self epitomized by her
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 683
psychotherapist, the real Dr. Ruth Beuscher, had
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 684
won for her and all the overly loving letters Plath
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 685
private room and my own attractive private
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 686
should be grateful to Mrs. Guinea, only I could not
am waiting for you ... I feel with all my joy and life
that these are qualities I can give you from the
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 687
In exact opposition to this invitation for her
Nevertheless, nevertheless
You steamed to me over the sea,
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 688
Fat and red, a placenta
Paralyzing the kicking lovers.
… your wishes
Hiss at my sins.
Off, off, eely tentacle!
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 689
alleged, the ways she loved, lacked credibility.”
greater than the love that we, too, feel toward our
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 690
to bridge the extraordinary split that existed in her
Massachusetts:
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 691
sublimation and in so doing documents that
splitting is not just evidence of “borderline”
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 692
of aiming and directing one’s life toward an
idealistic goal in order to build a strong inner
instructions:
And I
Am the arrow,
The dew that flies
Suicidal, at one with the drive
Into the red
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 693
have everything in life I’ve ever wanted: a
wonderful husband, two adorable children, a
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 694
paintings and Sylvia Plath’s last poems, can stave
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 695
longing.”
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 696
preserved and enriched his work; unseemly love,
competition, hostility, and ambivalence are
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 697
who loved her less pain.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 698
little to do with insanity, and much to do with the
Notes
2 S. Plath, “Daddy,” in Collected Poems, ed. Ted Hughes (New York: Harper
Row, 1981).
4 S. Plath, The Bell Jar (1962; New York: Harper and Row, 1971), p. 47.
8 L. Ames, “Sylvia Plath: A Biographical Note,” in Plath, The Bell Jar, p. 213.
11 Ibid., p. 209.
14 Ibid., p. 272.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 699
16 Plath, The Bell Jar, p. 135.
20 Ibid., p. 148.
23 Ibid., p. 112.
24 Ibid., p. 132.
25 Ibid., p. 182.
29 Ibid., p. 241.
34 Ibid., p. 265.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 700
37 Plath, Letters Home, pp. 239-240.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 701
10
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 702
their respective confessions made them immortal.
At first glance, the books were manifestos of their
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 703
deployment of defenses is not pathological but can
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 704
same effect on me as now. It was as though I
that I killed our cook, Anna. I cut off her head and
beloved at age 86. How did her life work out that
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 705
Anna Hammerschlag Lichtheim. In 1900, when
of either Freud.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 706
The old and the young do envy me,
But my heart still hungers after Love,
Which in the forest there I sacrificed.4
that her ankles and her waist were too fat and that
there could no longer be any question that her
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 707
metaphor for Anna, the youngest daughter in a
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 708
friend Sandor Ferenczi, “For each of us fate
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 709
father’s more poetic “defense.” Of more
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 710
in her practice and in her writing, she went to
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 711
daughter’s fantasy life; as her analyst, he tied her
permanently to him.”9
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 712
belonging to my father’s library, and I used to sit
on them very quietly and listen to his discussion
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 713
cancer. Anna Freud became his nurse, as well as
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 714
Like Anna Freud, Anna O. had a brother who
She chose the latter, but her ego did not ignore her
mistreatment.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 715
furthered Anna’s humiliation. She had to confess
to him her sexual fantasies of being beaten. Later
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 716
creating a good definition of what makes
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 717
membership in the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 718
International Psychoanalytic Congress. By today’s
the event.
excerpt:
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 719
forward fall victim to envy for the penis …
Other factors permanently determine the
boy’s relations to women: Horror of the
mutilated creature or triumphant contempt
for her ... A little girl behaves differently. She
makes her judgement and decision in a flash.
She has seen it. She knows that she is
without it, and wants to have it … She begins
to share the contempt felt by men for a sex
which is the lesser in so important a
respect.17
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 720
sense of justice than men, that they are more often
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 721
the contents.”20
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 722
Burlingham, Anna Freud was to find a series of
such sustaining psychological mothers. Surrogate
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 723
Fliess: “Recently Anna complained that Mathilda
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 724
mother, and not infrequently conveyed to me that
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 725
rage or unbridled love of Electra or Oedipus. Her
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 726
standards, generosity, love of truth, respect for the
other and, overall, a sense of altruism.”26 Her
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 727
she had tended to the emotional rehabilitation of
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 728
eightieth-birthday present. If her father at one
adaptation to life.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 729
compares herself with boys, who are better
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 730
as her father had seen her, as the blind Oedipus’s
blindly loyal daughter, Antigone. Always she
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 731
Anna suffered no “stings.” Rather, when in 1924
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 732
as if to draw my attention to the reception room—
editorialized:
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 733
enhancing their own fame … The personal
defect [his oversized nose] which he thinks
renders him contemptible makes him feel
that the others who are preferred to himself
are better qualified than he to realize his
wish fantasies.32
ask you how I am, tell them ‘Go tell the Spartans,
all ye who pass by, That here, obedient to their
father, and yet to the end of her life she was proud
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 734
force Anna Freud to deny her assertiveness, only
to deal with it ingeniously. Her birthday gift to her
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 735
illustrated the close parallel between personal
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 736
rather shabby and inconspicuous … Although
she took no trouble about her own dress, she
displayed a lively interest in her friends’
clothes. Childless herself, she was devoted to
other people’s children, as was indicated by
her choice of profession … Similarly, in spite
of her own retiring behavior, she was
anxious for the men whom she loved and
followed their careers with the utmost
interest.34
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 737
disappointment, she suddenly began to
bustle about, fetching things to make her
sister “pretty” for her outing, and eagerly
helping her to get ready. While doing this,
the patient was blissfully happy and quite
forgot that it was not she, but her sister, who
was going out to enjoy herself. She had
projected her own desire for love and her
craving for admiradon onto a rival and,
having identified herself with the object of
her envy, she enjoyed the fulfillment of her
desire.36
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 738
In real life, Erik Erikson was one of the men
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 739
for my artistic inclinations in such high intellectual
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 740
around her: “because one is useful, one will be
carried off piece by piece during the daytime; no
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 741
Andreas-Salome in 1928, “but only last year and
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 742
now have a much needed rest between the
exertions here and the tasks we have to face.”44 To
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 743
her suppression was when Anna Freud wrote to a
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 744
what transformed Anna Freud’s reaction
formation into altruism was that she never forgot
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 745
to have received honorary degrees from the
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 746
‘mechanisms of defense’ … Anna Freud’s book has
treated by her.”53
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 747
with the resignation forced on me. But one bright
spot in my life is the success of Anna’s work.”54 In
the same year he wrote to Lou Andreas-Salome,
made her.”56
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 748
link between her father’s libido theory and the ego
Notes
2 Ibid., p. 211.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 749
257.
5 Ibid., p. 75.
9 P. Roazen, Freud and His Followers (New York: Knopf, 1976), p. 440.
14 E. Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, vol. 3 (New York: Basic
Books, 1957), p. 96.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 750
19 Jones, Sigmund Freud, p. 112.
25 Ibid., p. 22.
26 Ibid., p. 47.
30 S. Plath, Letters Home (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), p. 465.
35 Ibid., p. 137.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid., p. 142.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 751
39 E. Erikson, Life History and the Historical Moment (New York: Norton,
1975), p. 30.
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid., p. 443.
44 Ibid., p. 229.
45 Ibid., p. 230.
46 Ibid., p. 197.
47 J. Sandler and A. Freud, The Analysis of Defense: The Ego and the
Mechanisms of Defense Revisited (New York: International
Universities Press, 1985), p. 176.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 752
57 A. Freud, Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense, p. 193.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 753
11
Eugene O’Neill
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 754
and invade us even as they drive us to distraction.
I believe that the explanation of this “contagion”
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 755
some considered each of them mad or bad. But
admiration.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 756
The life of Eugene O’Neill illustrates both the
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 757
itinerant theater company, she turned on the
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 758
up neglected, dropped out of school and lived on
the streets.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 759
pain, Gene resorted to schizoid fantasy. Decades
later he would be able to comfort himself by
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 760
was but a momentary illusion.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 761
which he could pour the raw truth of an everyday
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 762
hard-drinking college fraternities. He was
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 763
accomplished nothing except to continue to store
up painful memories in his heart and in his
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 764
became one with the urban homeless. Afternoons
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 765
named Maude.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 766
adolescence, is often a self-limiting disease.
Eventually Gene’s capacity for fantasy allowed him
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 767
disorder and how real tragedy can evolve into
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 768
large yield of pleasure” to a representation of his
fully explicate.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 769
settings, where the protagonists are too close for
comfort. It is also no accident that the play’s four
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 770
faithful to and dependent on each other, yet when
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 771
illustrate immature defenses; it illustrates their
genesis. Unempathic failure to validate another
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 772
permission to acknowledge his own anxieties.
Knowing that Edmund has recognized her relapse
reason!”13
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 773
Insidiously, Mary transfers responsibility for
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 774
Mary blames three people rather than take
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 775
accuse her of projection. She rhetorically forbids
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 776
tried to draw this unhappy fact to his mother’s
attention. In the play his mother dismisses his
well enough.”18
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 777
this talk about loving me,” he complains, “and you
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 778
Edmund loses control: “Yes, I hear you, Mama. I
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 779
attack. As theatergoers we wince, too; the blood
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 780
He abandoned both his sons, the first before birth
Recovery
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 781
time, to the spring of 1913 when he wrote his first
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 782
a child.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 783
regular feature of the sanatorium diet. Dr. David
gave scrupulous instruction in self-care. To
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 784
close quarters for I was myself an inmate of a
and future.
one-act plays.”24
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 785
The link between O’Neill’s use of fantasy and
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 786
depends upon both biology and the internalization
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 787
autobiographical notes about himself that fifteen
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 788
such meetings, and she found herself taking care
somebody.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 789
If dissociation (neurotic denial) is in part the
Swinburne:
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 790
For a second he seems to have broken through.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 791
in the tide. Like a saint’s vision of beatitude.
Like the veil of things as they seem drawn
back by an unseen hand. For a second you
see—and seeing the secret, are the secret.
For a second there is meaning! Then the
hand lets the veil fall and you are alone, lost
in the fog again …31
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 792
with forced airiness, “There’s a little fame,
you know” … “It don’t go down with me, that
tale,” he retorts … Today, I said to him:
“There’s Carlotta.” And I heard him give what
sounded like a grunt of approval.”32
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 793
of the maturing ego is to transmute self-
destructive envy and desire for revenge into
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 794
relationships that result from such deployment of
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 795
by comparison. Wanted you to fail. Always
jealous of you. Mama’s baby, Papa’s pet! ... I
love you more than I hate you … But you’d
better be on your guard. Because I’ll do my
damnedest to make you fail. Can’t help it. I
hate myself. Got to take revenge. On
everyone else. Especially you.”35
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 796
time! It takes the Mannons to punish themselves
for being born!”36 Her words reflected O’Neill’s
own lifelong curse upon himself until he wrote
Long Day’s Journey into Night.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 797
Thus the play was written.”39 A little theatrical,
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 798
Twelve years earlier O’Neill had described the
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 799
brand new emotion ... It is so damn right in
every way! We “belong” to each other! We
fulfill each other!41
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 800
had [the tremor] more or less,” he wrote with
humor, “but it was not bad in the period in which
mistake.”43
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 801
imperative treatments. Now that gas rationing is
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 802
Notes
2 A. Gelb and B. Gelb, O’Neill (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), p. 78.
5 Ibid., p. 235.
6 Ibid., p. 383.
8 Ibid., p. 20.
9 E. O’Neill, Long Day’s Journey into Night (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1955), p. 69.
10 Ibid., p. 101.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid., p. 45.
13 Ibid., p. 47.
14 Ibid., p. 48.
15 Ibid., p. 87.
17 Ibid., p. 110.
19 Ibid., p. 120.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 803
20 Gelb and Gelb, O’Neill, p. 227.
21 Ibid., p. 235.
22 Ibid., p. 383.
25 Ibid., p. 559.
27 L. Sheaffer, O’Neill: Son and Artist (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973),p. 187.
29 Ibid., p. 706.
31 Ibid., p. 153.
38 Ibid., p. 838.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 804
40 O’Neill, Long Day’s Journey, dedication page.
44 Ibid., p. 845.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 805
12
Michael Rutter
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 806
becomes a loving and creative success; the child
who “did not have a chance” turns out to be a
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 807
sciences, we all know perfectly well what
resilience means until we listen to someone else
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 808
examples of the wisdom of the ego have been of
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 809
Table 16. Eleven vulnerable Core City men and their risk factors
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org
Note: I.Q., self-esteem, and SES scores are underlined if low enough to be classified as risk factors. For other variables, x indicates that risk factor is present.
810
a Werner: E. E. Werner and R. S. Smith, Vulnerable but Invincible (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982).
b Rutter: M. Rutter, B. Yule, D. Quinton, O. Rowlands, W. Yule, and M. Berger, “Attainment and Adjustment in Two Geographical Areas, III: Some Factors Accounting for Area Differences,”
British Journal of Psychiatry 125 (1974): 520-533.
c Garmezy: N. Garmezy, “Stressors of Childhood,” in Stress, Coping and Development in Children, ed. N. Garmezy and M. Rutter (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983), pp. 43-84.
d Vaillant: G. E. Vaillant, The Natural History of Alcoholism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983).
Each Core City subject was rated for the
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 811
esteem or intelligence or social status tends to
that all but two were at least two years older than
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At age 25, after ten years of prospective study,
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 813
present, all but Robert Hope later fell in the top
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 814
defenses of sublimation, humor, altruism,
suppression, and anticipation.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 815
competence in black children from urban ghettos,
Garmezy notes that such children do not turn
control.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 816
is much more dubious.”7 Elsewhere he has
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 817
intellectual advantages. When the somewhat
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 818
Sammy Grimm’s father had been arrested for
was 87, but his verbal I.Q. was thirty points lower
than his performance I.Q.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 819
weeks, you get a check.” Long ago he had tried
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 820
were as immature as those of any man in the
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 821
everything went wrong. His mother was taken
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 822
maternal grandmother could not take him, for she
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 823
Ken Kinder was also blessed with a fortunate
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 824
my wife and family as soon as I could.” By age 47
as a salesman.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 825
salesman. He said he had built up a clientele of two
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 826
Kinder’s resilience may have been a product of
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 827
hobbies, but his wife said, “Oh, you haven’t asked
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 828
times-bereaved couple’s apartment, Mrs. Kinder
But our faults lie not only in our stars but also
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 829
had reviewed all 456 childhoods. One such young
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 830
“never tells the truth.” His aunt uncharitably
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 831
He says his mother keeps him in a great deal to
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 832
Robert Hope were also enormous, and unlike Will
Loman, he grew up in a most unpromising
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 833
described him as “lazy, depressed, unsocial, and
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 834
How was his life to be any different from Will
Loman’s?
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 835
counseling, and on psychological testing appeared
to be vastly overcritical of himself and, in his grief
frank.”
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 836
“sad.” He also noticed that (as he gave up
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 837
work because he had had repeated failures. In
am good.”
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 838
but I couldn’t see it.” As of 1990 his daughters
with children.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 839
insuring that you do not acquire any erroneous
data.”
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 840
adaptive style of reaction formation had evolved
more clearly into suppression and altruism. He
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 841
strength, which I did not have.” Now he realized
Will Loman?
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 842
resilience. However, all of the twelve sources of
nature of resilience.
Social attractiveness
Ego mechanisms of defense
Absence of risk factors and presence of protective factors
Luck
Timing and/or context
Self-esteem and self-efficacy
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 843
focus on these three sources of resilience again,
but first I wish to acknowledge some other
sources.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 844
Consider the College man who was blessed
from his wife and children and slept with his dog
in the back of a station wagon. Why? All his life he
had felt vulnerable, and certainly his gradual
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 845
support system that encouraged and supported
their social skills.12 Yet Kinder and Hope became
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 846
paraphrase Louis Pasteur, in producing resilience
egos.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 847
one wound to heal before the next wound is
evacuation to safety.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 848
To illustrate the importance of context to
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 849
several court summonses for child neglect and
“feebleminded.”
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 850
Butch Patriarcha did not find hope, he found
stoicism. When he was 14, the psychiatrist did not
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 851
firm. He took pride in and was grateful for being
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 852
years, and he worked hard volunteering for the
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 853
could. The subject seems to have survived
his childhood with considerable productive
energy. With virtually no support from
schools or from luck, he has sustained his
curiosity and human responses to the world
and to people. He presented himself with
dignity. He doesn’t apologize for his
education or his speech, although he knows
he has paid a high price for both ... He and his
wife have been able to give pretty freely to
their family and to their community and
seemed to have fun doing it.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 854
hard and recalled having to attend special speech
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 855
intelligence tests, but within the relatively less
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 856
often encountered failure? Or, conversely, what
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 857
years later he and his wife got back together, only
to separate permanently when Bill was 10. He
alcoholic.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 858
resilience is uncharted ground, but books must
scale).
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 859
days in jail. He got divorced, and as soon as his ex-
handyman at work.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 860
important source of vulnerability, and stable
abstinence was an important source of resilience.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 861
awareness of himself at this time in his life.” What
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 862
heavily on the support system of AA. Of his
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 863
still “active, enjoying life, and caring for people.”
above.”
Attributional Style
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 864
attributional style, temperament, internalization
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 865
mistake or a unique event that will never happen
again? Or do we take credit for our A in math and
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 866
(responsibility) with daily self-injections of insulin
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 867
than Thoreau’s parents, who since their marriage
had been known to seventeen different social
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 868
to care for her apartment, it was described as
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 869
were not delinquent. He was described as “self-
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 870
it.” The interviewer described him as “adaptable,
craftsman in wood.”
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 871
graduate and made more money than he did. He
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 872
four alcoholic drinks a year. The interviewer
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 873
At 45 Thoreau told the interviewer he planned
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 874
Washington University Sentence Completion Test
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 875
addressed in Chapter 13.
Temperament
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 876
a three-generational family in which everyone
stayed close together. His mother was a very good
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 877
knew that he would have to use his body, not his
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 878
energy level, responded to questions easily with
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 879
ends. He had used his assertiveness both to ensure
department.”
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 880
week, but he found time to play tennis regularly
with his sons and racquetball three times a week
Social Supports
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 881
relationships.”13 But mature defenses and social
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 882
facets of social supports that I have outlined in
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 883
positive responses from others and who manifests
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 884
without social supports.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 885
Just as some people may regard a Rockefeller or
Rothschild trust fund as a destabilizing burden,
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 886
is good and nourishing in available social supports
skill.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 887
is one of the most elusive.”16 Essential to maturity
concept of generativity.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 888
middle of a divorce or an exam failure, or a child
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 889
mature defenses, such attractiveness becomes an
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 890
Heep. While we talked I imagined I was
being charmed by something like blithe
insouciance, but with a little distance
between us I realized I had been talking with
a man so immature that what I first took for
an unusual candor had really been infantile
exhibitionism, a totally unreserved,
conscience-free willingness to share and
bare all and anything without discrimination
about or moral distinction among the
various aspects of his life—and behavior—
he discussed so openly. I thought of him as
toddling out of the bedroom, fat and happy
(like a baby) in his pajama bottoms, and later
had a fantasy of him as a baby, sitting at the
kitchen table, banging on the table with a
spoon. I started thinking, too, of his wife’s
presence at the interview, how he himself
insisted on it and showed patent anxiety on
the occasion when the phone rang and she
left the room for a few moments—like a
child whose sense of security of his mother
vanishes as soon as she is out of sight. The
contempt I felt came, I think, from a sense he
ought to know better and can’t he see what’s
really going on? But clearly he does not
know better and cannot see.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 891
I thought I could trace my anger to his
hypomanic self-presentation. That anger
abated considerably as I went through the
interview and began to feel the
wretchedness and deep depression that
underlay Yuri Heep’s overt affect, and which
began to peep through toward the end of our
talk. This man is a middle-aged baby, utterly
dependent on his wife and his parents.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 892
class shirt, and the very model of the tough
sergeant, the bartender, the body shop
mechanic. Kowalski was bubbling over with
animal health. His lunchbox had a place of
honor on the counter. He smoked Camels
and wore a wonderful smile. I had arrived at
his house exhausted after having already put
in a fourteen-hour day, and yet his eye
contact, and his capacity to hold my interest,
led to the instant restoration of my own
energy.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 893
had touched him. As I left, he told me how
devoted he had been to his foster mother.
His capacity to identify—to take people
inside—and to love without ambivalence,
was extraordinary. The contrast was all the
more dramatic because I had just finished
interviewing a College physician with a
world reputation who had been totally
broken by his alcoholism. My interview with
the College subject and his wife had been
utterly depressing. The physician had known
that his broken ankle and his occasional slips
into alcoholism were not enough to crush
him, and yet he was crushed. And here was
Stan Kowalski, who knew that he had had
enough pain in his life to break three men
and yet was invincible. He told me of the loss
of his adopted son—the child of his whom he
most loved, and I suspect that he had loved
all of them. He spoke of the loss without
rancor and without acknowledged sadness.
But, he had already told me that a man
should never cry, and besides it was not hard
for me to see the sadness just underneath
the surface of his prizefighter’s mask of a
face with its flattened nose.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 894
by his wife who looked right out of a cartoon
by George Price, with her dirty-blonde hair
and bad posture. She looked ten years older
than her stated age. There was little effort at
self-care, and I assumed that Kowalski had
married a feebleminded heroin addict. Yet,
as I sat with her at the table, she offered me a
second cup of coffee, and I accepted. With a
smile, Kowalski complained, “He turned it
down when I offered it to him.” With a smile,
she tenderly replied, “You’re not nice, that’s
why.” My view of her was transformed. As
she looked at her husband with an adoring
smile, her whole face became beautiful with
love.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 895
for the first time. I never can remember that
April is a slump for the moving business—I
have to rediscover it every year.” Stan told
me that when he had such troubles what he
did to make himself feel better was to “either
play some music or tell my troubles to my
wife or daughter—they help me.”
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 896
in a stable household. His childhood apartment
was noteworthy only because of an “excessive
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 897
female relatives who lived in a tenement without
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 898
sometimes with men, sometimes with women.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 899
rewarding difficult temperament.” Most of his
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 900
mother’s death.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 901
mother around to do errands”; but Heep assured
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 902
interviewer asked what the couple did when they
went out, and their daughter replied, “They fight.”
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 903
and a half years. When I arrived two minutes late
to the appointment, he greeted me with a broad
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 904
He had first gotten sober in 1964, through the
drink in 1967.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 905
phone booth and get out a dime, you know you’re
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 906
to his fourth wife. When I asked him to describe
her, he replied, “She’s the greatest thing since the
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 907
memorable aspect of our encounter was the way
Observer Bias
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 908
biopsychosocial risk. Sometimes the observer’s
opinion does reflect bias and a lack of
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 909
deep.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 910
uncombed hair and dirty nails. He described
intelligence.”
friendly manner.”
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 911
The truth was that the Mulligan family was
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 912
neighborhood was terrible and Reverend X.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 913
Study of Adult Development, a prospectively
his wife, the inside of his house was now “neat and
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 914
clean,” and the interviewer could see Mulligan
more clearly:
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 915
children to parochial school, and they all went on
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 916
couldn’t protect myself against big guys.” In terms
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 917
stable address for more than twenty-five years. At
age 25 he had belonged to Disabled American
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 918
The dirt of his childhood had stayed outside;
Notes
2 Ibid., p. 152.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 919
4 Werner and Smith, Vulnerable but Invincible, p. 133.
5 Ibid., p. 88.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 920
15 E. Hartmann, E. Milofsky, G. Vaillant, M. Oldfield, R. Falke, and C. Ducey,
“Vulnerability to Schizophrenia: Prediction of Adult Schizophrenia
Using Childhood Information,” Archives of General Psychiatry 41
(1984): 1050-1056.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 921
13
Emily Dickinson
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 922
systematically examine the process through which
we internalize those whom we love and who have
loved us.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 923
O’Neill found Carlotta; Kinder, Kowalski, Hope,
groups as well.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 924
simultaneously entertained, in this chapter I will
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 925
the neurobiological complexity of the brain
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 926
Fantasy and projection are common in relatives of
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 927
morality evolved with maturity, and that such
moral development occurred quite independently
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 928
toleration for ambiguity, reconciliation of inner
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 929
dilemma of Palestine. He replied that he would
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 930
and the wisdom to know the difference.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 931
The psychologist Phoebe Cramer has reviewed
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 932
from the gun’s barrel. Figure and ground, as it
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 933
of behaviorists like B. F. Skinner and John Watson,
in their genes.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 934
family life in promoting ego development. In a
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 935
greater likelihood of arrested ego development for
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 936
of time, poor ability to plan for the future, and low
tolerance of frustration.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 937
safety and our self-esteem, our capacity to
interpret conflict, to respond maturely, and to
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 938
nature and nurture, but sometimes only a modest
young.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 939
sublimation requires not only that innate talent be
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 940
conceptualize the task of assimilation as forming
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 941
too important to the actual creation of the ego for
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 942
ego to our cerebral cortex, this third model puts
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 943
incorporation. Some texts speak of good breasts
being incorporated and bad breasts being spit out.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 944
mean “analogous to” and “as if”; myths convey “so
I’ve been told” and “it’s right there in the Bible (or
advance science.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 945
never wished you any sort of harm; but you
wanted me to tame you …”
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 946
with the gold of the little prince’s hair. Always the
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 947
the constant ones who die. It is failure to
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 948
deployment does not permit full assimilation of
metabolism.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 949
Eugene O’Neill, grief can catalyze internalization
kind.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 950
attachment plays the primary role. It is not an
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 951
had won the full respect of his nation, he saw
“in pain.”
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 952
compelling one, in some respects it begs the
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 953
both, but he lacked faith and wonder. Other men in
the study like O’Neill and Bill Penn who shared the
true believer?
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 954
In general, in this book I have tried to stay
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 955
them ... it is scientifically admissible to connect the
play, and the finking of idea and affect, are all also
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 956
essential components of most psychotherapies
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 957
arguable, one purpose appears to be to allow the
unable to act.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 958
wondering whence we come and whither we are
impossible.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 959
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. In sacred places,
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 960
conflict, play can put into the world what was not
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 961
comforting virtual reality is destroyed and the
spoilsport is resented.
student to physician.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 962
and to many religious practices is the capacity to
link the world of emotion and attachment with the
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 963
the reexperience of smells and old songs. Damage
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 964
Ella), beyond the time portrayed in Long Day’s
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 965
immature defenses. But if we forgive O’Neill, then
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 966
noted to laugh a great deal. She followed the
enter.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 967
anesthetize? What was the source of the desperate
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 968
ambivalent about having a third child, and had
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 969
mean, in my hands.”26
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 970
own mother. Because she always understands.”27
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 971
no one in the world can believe in me even for a
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 972
defenses are maladaptive can help us abandon
them. When we try to change any bad habit, an
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 973
and the church can replace drugs with real people
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 974
environments of psychotherapy, we are reminded
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 975
processes of assimilation have taken place, the
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 976
destructive relationships can come to mind
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 977
loved. Admittedly, it is often painful to the point of
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 978
To discuss the six concepts—incorporation,
hypothetical maturity.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 979
vivid image of what I mean by incorporation. At
representations of people.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 980
individuals afflicted with involutional melancholia,
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 981
hypochondriasis and of turning against the self
(passive aggression) reflect the use of introjection.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 982
unexplained chest pain that lasted for eight years.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 983
again been troubled by “imaginary” heart pain. His
complete.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 984
identification with the aggressor. Then suddenly
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 985
defense mechanism during grief. When a mourner,
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 986
does not fully master the role, but only for a brief
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 987
and not to our souls. The 10-year-old boy says,
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 988
complete than does someone who identifies with
the aggressor.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 989
children their bottles in the same awkward way. It
behavior.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 990
of mature defenses is an integrated, involuntary
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 991
with an extraordinary capacity for fresh, intimate
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 992
was “a precipitate in the ego consisting of the two
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 993
A College man provides an example of a shift in
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 994
untroubled by his mother’s asthma and hay fever,
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 995
corroborates Freud’s assumption that sublimation
may be intimately related to identification.”35
Compared to internalization, identification is a
more flexible, reversible, neutralized,
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 996
structures. In contrast, projection takes internal
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 997
expectations about the other person: our idols are
behavior.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 998
themselves. This enables us to endure
temporary separations without full-scale
bereavement responses. Therefore, the inner
experience of our relationship with another
person … [is] at least as important to
consider as the actual interpersonal
interactions themselves. Could these
elements of our inner life come to serve as
biologic regulators, much the way the actual
sensorimotor interactions with the mother
function for the infant animal in our
experiments? And could this link internal
object relations to biologic systems? I think
this may be possible.37
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 999
believing that one has the other person.
Idealization and identification are ways of being
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1000
his progression through the processes of
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1001
septuagenarian, Tolstoy wrote in his diary, “I walk
in the garden and I think of my mother, of Maman!
home inside.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1002
And yet in 1908, when he was 80, the
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1003
loved ones to bid them farewell. “The family
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1004
first time to reveal to me the bitter truth, and filled
my soul with despair.”41 Until he completed Anna
potential tormentors.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1005
With dissociation bordering on psychotic denial,
he wrote that “the same force of life, fresh and
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1006
to hug himself—a chilly experience.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1007
natural qualities— courage, resoluteness, reason
and justice, etc., if not women?”43 Women were
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1008
For a moment, Tolstoy gave up his gambling
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1009
began to feel impelled to write a book called “The
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1010
only by making a tour of her body: “When I try to
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1011
of listening to his mother playing a concerto: “I
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1012
look! It expressed so much suffering. They led us
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1013
women into either lascivious Gypsies or virginal
Aunt Toinettes? For although the young Tolstoy
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1014
overcome his ambivalence toward women. For
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1015
his imagination lives one Princess Marya
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1016
that Tolstoy’s description of the fictional
interaction between younger sister and older
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1017
to forget it, although one hardly feels it at all.”51
The introjection of pathological mourning is so
different from the pain of simple grief.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1018
such literal nursing, Tolstoy, like O’Neill at Gaylord
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1019
death.”53 I believe that this brutal reminder of the
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1020
‘The Devil.’ She is the agent of evil in the world.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1021
… Her eyes and her smile revealed vast
stores of repressed vitality.56
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1022
in anguish made him for an instant forget his
toothache. As he glanced at the engine and the
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1023
menace of a wholly useless remorse never to be
effaced.”58 Vronsky forgets his toothache entirely
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1024
finished Anna Karenina, Tolstoy could editorialize
me, like all the rest; given. I could not know where
world.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1025
not cold, divine love but warm, earthly love.
the future.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1026
repeatedly told stories of how in potentially
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1027
an energy that provides a motive force for changes
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1028
surgery have taken giant steps forward. In the
Notes
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1029
Pathogenesis of Schizophrenia,” Archives of General Psychiatry 44
(1987):66o-669.
5 J. Piaget, The Moral Judgement of the Child (London: Kegan Paul, 1932).
15 Ibid., p. 67.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1030
18 Quinton, Rutter, and Liddle, “Institutional Rearing.”
23 J. Piaget and B. Inhelder, The Psychology of the Child (New York: Basic
Books, 1969), p. 158.
25 A. Gelb and B. Gelb, O’Neill (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), p. 434.
26 E. O’Neill, Long Day’s Journey into Night (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1955), pp. 88, 87, 103.
29 Ibid., p. 176.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1031
34 S. Freud, The Ego and the Id, p. 37.
39 Ibid.
40 Ibid., p. 13.
43 Ibid., p. 59.
45 Ibid., p. 63.
46 Ibid., p. 98.
49 Ibid., p. 109.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1032
52 Ibid., p. 344.
53 Ibid., p. 361.
54 Ibid.
57 Ibid., p. 909.
58 Ibid.
62 Plato, Phaedrus, ed. I. Edman (New York: Modern Library, 1928), pp.
284-285.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1033
Acknowledgments
This book represents the fruits of a vast
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1034
many who helped them were Frederic Wells, Carl
Selzer, and especially Lewise Gregory Davies.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1035
Vaillant to join their research team, and to Eleanor
collaborators.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1036
have received funding from the William T. Grant
Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the Milton
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1037
Many people reviewed one or more chapters
Credits
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1038
Acknowledgment is made for permission to quote
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1039
Excerpts from “Medusa” and “Ariel” by Sylvia Plath.
Copyright © 1965 by Ted Hughes. Excerpt from
“Ariel” by Sylvia Plath. Copyright © 1965 by Ted
Hughes. Excerpt from “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath.
Copyright © 1963 by Ted Hughes. From The
Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath, edited by Ted
Hughes. Reprinted by permission of
HarperCollins Publishers and Faber and Faber
Ltd.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1040
1984 by Adrienne Rich. Copyright © 1975, 1978
by W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. Copyright ©
1981 by Adrienne Rich.
www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 1041