Spontaneity

A Psychoanalytic Inquiry

Gemma Corradi Fiumara

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781134006892
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophie
• Subtopic: Histoire et théorie de la philosophie

Psychoanalytic theory frequently explains psychopathology from the perspective of either inadequate early care or as the result of environmental factors. In this book the author suggests that poor mental health can be a result of our incapacity to respond to internal and external stimuli, and indicates that spontaneity is essential in the development of many aspects of the self.

It is not what happens to us, but how we react to events, that forms who we are. Spontaneity presents an original approach to issues of agency, spontaneity and creativity in psychoanalysis by exploringquestions including:

• active internalisation
• paradox
• forgiveness
• responsibility
• empathy
• self de-creation.

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This book will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, philosophers and psychologists. It will also prove to be engaging for those interested in psychoanalytic theory and theories of subjectivity.

Chapter 1
Introductory remarks

Preliminary remarks

In the continuing stream of psychoanalytic developments, we can observe its tendency to flow in a series of conversations privileging first one conception and then another, with each series, perhaps, constituting a structure of binary oppositions. Psychoanalysis has in fact initiated creating the space for unconscious psychic life in a cultural background of conscious rationality. In the subsequent perspective of libidinal instincts, the perplexing role of destructive drives also came to be included. And then, in an outlook of defence against the irruption of drives into the ego, a space was allowed for the need of, and defence from, other persons – the celebrated objects of the psychoanalytic vocabulary. After that, the universe of transference has had to somehow include countertransference. And perhaps now a psychoanalytic culture of determinism and causal relations may finally come to interact with the essential question of spontaneity.

Reflections on the inner dynamics of psychic life are often intended as personal companions in the evaluation of the complexive quality of clinical work. And when one ‘happens’ to introduce a specific word – say, ‘spontaneity’– in the process of taking notes from thoughts, then the written term proceeds to resonate and to function as a conceptual magnet in the reevaluation of experience. For, in fact, we cannot ask the question ‘What is spontaneity?’ It only exists as a worthy concern if we are interested in the quest and question of spontaneous actions. And although it cannot be approached as a topic of empirical research, once our attention, or insight, has captured its psychic intensity it will ultimately enhance the quality of clinical observation.

Rigidly adhering to any cultural construct, we come to separate ‘good’ theory from ‘bad’ theory according to concrete agglomerations of contents, rather than according to inner currents that run through the laborious activities of both individuals and institutions. Elaborating differences requires more work than making partitions according to agglomerative entities. If psychoanalysis is not a humble self-questioning venture that allows itself to be constantly challenged by the enigmatic aspects of mental life – as, for instance, spontaneity – then it may well metamorphose into a most hubristic form of thought. Without engaging the unconscious, in fact, our self-interrogation may never be vigilant enough. Only by positing unconscious psychic life as that which resists consciousness and rational thought will we be humble enough to pursue the question of our motives, fears and potentials.¹ But then, while a specific problem can be thought of as something that we can face and confront, the basic questions of psychoanalytic research – subjective agency, for instance – are such that they include the questioner in the question, in the sense that the immense complexity of the inquirer cannot be excluded.

And thus psychoanalysis turns out to be both an addressive and an observational discipline: knowers are not spectators of distinct and distant ‘objects of knowledge’ but engaged participants in conversation with one another and with what they seek to know. Every thought, theory or hypothesis is an answer to a very human question – not an abstract or ‘perennial’ question, but one that is posed out of specific psychological vicissitudes.² One way to appreciate the contribution of psychoanalysis to the quest(ion) of spontaneity is to see it as indicating that we have somehow reiteratively tried to pursue an essential aspiration to spontaneity. Though it may not often seem so, each of us is already in the midst of a life of passionate, personal quests. Although these pursuits may only be expressed in a rudimentary way, they nonetheless inspire our inner lives: if you want to do something badly enough, you just do it and worry later.

We do not cease to ask questions, and we often try to pose them while striving to arrive at the virtual place in which we believe the source of answers can be found. Questioning also emancipates us from the attraction of ‘absolute’ knowledge, the sort of ‘permanent’ knowledge that does not usually oppress psychoanalysis but does not spare it either.³ Along with the acquisition of knowledge there is at work a parallel effort to make it explicit through one’s own voice; this book is therefore perhaps no more than an attempt to elaborate old issues in such a way that they can be visited, revisited and visited again.

Current literature is often so focused on the external causes of self-formation, pathology and health that we may be tempted to eclipse the role of inner factors. Outer and inner determinants are, of course, both at work, but inner sources of early mental growth are more often vulnerable to obscurity. This book is an attempt to create a more balanced approach. If we attribute the narcissistic root of pathology to inadequate early care, we almost become ensnared in a paranoid theory of psychic life whereby all negativity derives from sources placed somewhere ‘out there’. But then, if we attribute basic pathology to the way in which events are internalized by developing subjects, to the response of the person involved, then there is the risk of lapsing into a moralistic, judgemental way of theorizing. As is known, the psychoanalytic literature abounds in clinical and theoretical ventures attempting to investigate causal precedents that determine any shadow of illness. This is the ultimate logic: in the early relational vicissitudes lies the genesis of pathological narcissism in the sense that it is the quality of caretaking that basically determines and shapes mental development. This outlook seems to prevent the awareness of any degree of early subjective agency. The assumption sustaining this outlook is that the influence of primal care in fact ultimately determines the psychic destiny of all creatures. We try to integrate this unduly deterministic scenario through an exploration of spontaneity, agency, intentionality – that ‘easily bruised creativity’⁴ – which we do not regard as an exclusively adult function. But if the inchoate self is shattered by trauma against its will, how could we say that narcissistic inclinations can be eschewed? As usual, it is a question of proportions, choices and vicissitudes. But then, if narcissism is ‘chosen’, it should be possible for that choice to be reversed, and life may grant opportunities to reverse that problematic anti-object option.⁵ This view is at variance with a deterministic outlook whereby a pathological narcissistic structure is entirely caused by cumulative traumatic circumstances. In this view it is even more difficult to see how the narcissistic ‘choice’ can be reversed, for in fact there is apparently no previous choice that can subsequently be recanted.

In an attempt to appreciate a pre-theoretical spontaneous concern for our psychic well-being we could perhaps consider that a number of human beings have been labouring with the ‘essentials of psychoanalysis’ from time immemorial. One of the shortcomings of our definitory tendencies is that we regard disciplinary domains – such as psychoanalysis – as absorbing all of our personal, spontaneous commitment to the health of our inner life. If, for instance, we think of intellectual history in terms of what the official ‘philosophers’ have been doing, then the majority of creatures appear as excluded from it – and culturally silenced. But if we conceive of our intellectual heritage as a story of struggle for psychic survival, truth and values, then we could have doubts about clearly defined roles and boundaries in human efforts. If we do not separate the daily travail of dealing with inner suffering and aspirations from the elitist rendition of these efforts, we are in a better position to ask about what the vast majority of people may have been doing; this is an alternative to simply investigating what any intellectual elite was saying that they were doing or ought to be doing.

That we meet a degree of expressive rigidity and reluctance in ourselves, in patients and in society is too obvious to require proof. And thus the question is whether or not we can actually talk about the genesis of our psychic problems. We may be at ease discussing crucial issues with colleagues who come from similar (pathological) backgrounds or share similar convictions. But in the interests of maintaining civility we may avoid touching on controversial issues with persons of markedly dissimilar persuasions. We may even use the psychoanalytic jargon precisely in order not to talk. Unfortunately such silence and distancing maintains only a veneer of cultural plausibility; what are actually maintained are ignorance and misunderstanding.

The quest(ion) of spontaneity

By saying ‘the quest(ion)’ of spontaneity – that is, by welding together quests and questions – we try to speak of two interlocking approaches. We make no effort to comprehend that which we neither value nor look for; but if we are tentatively in quest of spontaneity, then we shall strive to understand – and pose the question.

And thus spontaneity is neither reified, of course, nor simply regarded as a liminal, evanescent and insubstantial mental feature. Its elusiveness should not be regarded as a failure of method or theory. It is a sign instead of what spontaneity is: an essential and perhaps most important quality of psychic life, sustaining all forms of creativity. In fact, as soon as spontaneity is romanticized, we lose it. The development of spontaneity, paradoxically, leaves scars.

The quest for spontaneity is the process of allowing the uniquely personal features – the cipher, the ‘I’ – to emerge in the personality;⁶ and this is a challenge that confronts all of us and may always have been present. This quest is now becoming a priority, as spontaneity is silently and ubiquitously under attack by the homogenizing effect of mass culture and by the contagion of indifference in all areas. Not only is the issue clinically essential, it is becoming culturally urgent.⁷

We might easily agree with this diagnosis of our times, and anyone could say that it is true, that he was about to say so himself and that he had already thought about it. And so the point is how we can be affected by this awareness. A reader may ask why is someone writing the book that she is reading, and, if she can appreciate the book, she may wonder why she should not be the person who has written it. And thus by resorting to our spontaneous epistemophily we can gain a better grasp of the ever-decreasing difference between the roles of reader and writer. Both appear to be ultimately involved in the question.

The theoretical contents of psychoanalytic discourses are not what we could call natural entities; such theoretical objects need to be constructed and developed. Once we are able to capture these fresh focuses of attention, then ‘something’ becomes more visible and audible in clinical research. Throughout this book runs the theme that spontaneous subjective agency is often one of these elusive aspects of our mind’s life. We can tentatively ‘read’ this issue in disparate analytic contributions but in a form that does not allow a clear view of the problem. The attempt here is to render the question of subjective agency more clinically conspicuous. Although it seems like a very roundabout route, one could say that we have to ‘reinvent’ psychoanalysis through our wayward wanderings before we can come back to clinical questions with a more spontaneous and direct perspective. When we come back we may realize that the questions we have been asking about the mind have been far too narrowly conceived. This laborious approach contributes to an expanded ‘objectivity’ and to the encounter with ever-new dimensions of psychic life.

Fromm would say that we approach here ‘one of the most difficult problems of psychology: the problem of spontaneity.’⁸ He reminds us that spontaneous activity is ‘free’ activity of the self and that it implies, psychologically, what the Latin expression sua sponte literally means: of one’s own free will, of one’s own accord. We never seem quite able to fathom these depths fully. Sooner or later we inevitably run into an enigmatic core. The fullness of spontaneity is far from naturally comprehensible. But then, it could be that we are looking at it in the wrong way: we say that if we can solve all of our problems then we could live spontaneously, instead of saying that if we can live with our problems we could move in the direction of spontaneity.

It may seem ironic to speak of spontaneity when for the majority of humankind there is nothing that it can choose or produce and nothing that it can earn or acquire. And so we could consider the question of spontaneity as the ‘blessing’ of those who can reasonably survive and of those who are resourceful enough not to opt for one or the other of the illusive ends of the gradient between ‘freedom’ and ‘determinism’ – a ‘blessing’ for those who manage to move forward and backward on this virtual line. This ‘most difficult of the problems of psychology’ appeals profoundly to everyone who is not so benumbed that he has lost the ability to perceive it. In fact, there is nothing more attractive or convincing than spontaneity, something admired to the extreme of envy, in whomever it may be recognized. Also, we commonly think of the mind as a creation of our living body, aimed at consenting survival. And yet in the admiration of spontaneity we seem to perceive that this mental attitude, conversely, almost shapes and informs our living bodies. There is thus a pervasive question asked here, namely why this potential is not developed, why spontaneity for the most part is evaded or attacked. Symington synthetically says: ‘It is essential to reach the real good, the spontaneous action within a person, and to give that our full support. I am struck by how much we therapists are taken in by the fake good.’⁹

On determinism

Of course, we constantly do our best in the search of determinants of pathology. And yet when a course of inquiry is seriously pursued, there is also something that is not considered or is altogether ignored. This may seem obvious in general. But the question is whether what is not tackled might lead to the crucial element that we most need to include and investigate. Bernardi remarks that there is no point in hoping not to be subject to our paradigms. What matters is to be aware of how much they condition our ability to observe and think: while opening certain horizons, they also close off others. ‘The area that is most clear in each paradigm is also its blind spot; what they help us to think about is also what they cannot stop thinking about.’¹⁰ And so we should frequently return from the domain of theory to the world of daily life and try to see how we are actually placed within our own paradigms. Assessing this placement could be one of our major goals. What form this effort will take we cannot predict. However, it is sufficient and truly consoling to know that whatever form it takes, the psychic life it describes will always remain richer than its description.

Insistence on situatedness is in a sense more honest than the ‘myth’ of causality, where a coercive assumption persists to the effect that theory-neutral, value-free scientific knowledge is possible not just for medium-sized tangible objects but for mental life as well. According to von Wright, the determinist tendencies present in the great traditions of the past survive in the neo-positivistic aspirations of a unitary science, encompassing both natural and human domains – thus obscuring the multiple forms in which the human condition is expressed.¹¹ As is known, the Enlightenment notion of science was imperialistic from the outset – it was associated with the ambitious claims of infallibility and of the formal unity of the whole enterprise.

Some contemporary views, however, recognize that these soaring ambitions cannot be achieved and also that they actually do not need to be. Rationality, in fact, does not require us to be infallible, to have all of our knowledge tightly organized on the model of empirical science. And yet we are still occasionally vexed by the idea that these ambitious principles are necessary; they thus come to function almost as ‘epistemic idols’.¹² The internalized version of these idols carries with it the ambitions that they exhibit and the causalistic premises that they require; it tells us basically that all of our mental life is to be causally explainable. We thus often reduce people’s motives to yet other underlying motives that are perhaps ‘cruder’ and more specifically causal than those usually admitted. We try to move from motives to causes. And yet, this sort of search for underlying causes is not unjustified. It is often called for, but it can be practised indiscriminately and wildly. Just consider the ‘delight’ of showing others up as moral frauds combined with the intellectual satisfaction of extending the influence of one’s guiding idols. And thus, although reduction is often a useful instrument, not all reductions are enlightening or sensible. An illuminating example of insightful reduction can be read in Freud’s work on narcissism: ‘Parental love, which is so moving and at bottom so childish, is nothing but the parents’ narcissism born again.’¹³

Schaefer, for instance, could be seen as aiming to substitute the ‘physicochemical’ deterministic model with ‘action language’ based on choices and intentions. Schaefer’s contribution is not inclined to nouns such as ‘identification’, ‘internalization’, ‘introjection’, for his focus is more on emotional actions.¹⁴ Such powerful terms may ultimately conceal the psychic actions that we perform or fail to perform. But, of course, it is not a question of replacing a putative Freudian deterministic outlook with an approach of intentionality, choice and purpose. The suggestion is that we can function with both. Determinism alone cannot explain much; but then, since we are embodied creatures essentially inseparable from drives, the ideas of freedom and intentionality – per se – would be meaningless. Similarly, when the more profound aspects of the inner life are concerned, the stark realism of the positivistic tradition becomes riddled with evasion and self-deception. Perhaps all in the name of maintaining high standards of scientific rigour and cohesion and of avoiding contaminations, the members of a profession may strive to reassure themselves that their theories are adequate, consistent and effective – thus remaining innocently ignorant.¹⁵

But then, if behaviour and pathology were so heavily determined, it would not even make sense to speak of strategizing therapies, options, efforts or aspirations. We are often inclined to think that narcissists are subjects who have been traumatized at an early age and that this is sufficient to explain their condition. Perhaps we could more productively think that it is not the cumulative trauma alone, but the individual’s response to it that constitutes the origin of narcissistic ‘relations’.¹⁶ The creature is somehow responding to life events, and it is this crucial factor that we tend to underestimate and perhaps ignore – to the detriment of clinic...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• 1 Introductory remarks
• 2 Rethinking internalization
• 3 The function of paradox
• 4 Subjective agency – and passivity
• 5 The problem of entitlement
• 6 Actions and reactions
• 7 The question of forgiveness
• 8 The quest for responsibility
• 9 Empathy and sympathy
• 10 Self-formation and self-decreation
• Notes
• Bibliography