Crisis

Briefly, I want to talk about what brings a person to crisis -- specifically a narcissistic crisis. I intend to talk about chora, borrowing liberally from Plato here. The chora has everything to do with repression, where our drives hold sway, and serves as the receptacle of, first and earliest, the prohibition placed on the maternal body. (comment 1) There is a dichotomous process at work here, one that I believe is "centripetal" -- it wants to situate the ego at the center of a system of objects. When the process reverses, or becomes "centrifugal," it begins to produce meaning: to the Other, language, speaking. The beginning of the speaking being, and his first steps toward an eventual narcissistic crisis; that is, when the speaking being encounters too much strictness on the part of the Other OR when he confronts the lapse (or collapse) of the Other. (comment 2) Abjection in this case can be (is perceived as) the loss/death of the ego and its transformation from loss/death to rediscovery/rebirth. Once new borders are formed, and the I is resurrected within (in opposition to) the re-formed Other, the fight begins again to maintain the borders of self... (comment 3)

Narcissism: the beginning, the real

Today I want to explore the earliest stages of life, after we experience the first, ultimate separation from the mother, that is, birth. I feel quite strongly that there is a lot going on in the mind of the infant (0-6 months) that theory has ignored. Surely there are some formative things going on in that tiny, fuzzy head that carry over into other stages of development that have been thoroughly explored (like Lacan's mirror stage and Freud's oral stage). (comment 1)

I am thinking of this term "primal repression" and its rather confused definition in Freud's theory. Since I see a close connection between motherhood/the maternal, and this early stage of human development, I will explore it and its relation to the abject.

Now for a definition of primal repression: first, it has to do with the speaking being...even early in our development as people we are, in some way, haunted, dogged by the Other (in very early stages, by the mother who both holds us close and rejects us in our first experience of jouissance) and fascinated (yet horrified by) our ability to separate, reject. In this case, what is the abject? How about this: the abject as the "object" of primal repression... (comment 2) Primal repression differs from the clinical term "repression" as it is commonly used in that this early repression comes before language -- because...why? Because significance is inherent in the human body. (comment 3)

Abjection at this stage comes about (and remains with us the rest of our days) because of the initial separation we experience -- a space becomes demarcated.... the abject separates from what will become a subject and its objects. As we develop an ego, as we define the I, the self, as we begin to recognize our boundaries, our limits, we explore this primal repression (which replaces "the unconscious"). (comment 4) In the early stage of life, we are closest to the real (that is, where we experience nothing but need without language). Where theory falls short is when approaching the maternal in relation to the real, and how a new being interprets what he experiences when interacting with the mother. The mother occupies a unique position -- that of primary provider (as the locus of all desires/needs) of satisfaction/life. But she is also the one who teaches the new being language, thus tearing him (violently?) away from the real. (comment 5)

What I learned in psychoanalysis

I have always been fascinated by language -- how we use it, how we read and understand it, and how we acquire it in the first place. It is this abiding interest in language that draws me to psychoanalysis. It is why I entered into psychoanalysis myself. But what did I learn there?

First: Transference. That was my ultimate goal -- I had to be part of it, had to experience it fully and completely before I could really understand it and apply it to my own work.

Second: motherhood, the maternal, my relationship to my own mother. These things I had to grasp in a way I never could before...

These are the most important things I learned in psychoanalysis, and I intend to use them fully in this book.

There are several things about motherhood, about mothers, that I need to acknowledge before I write any more: 1. we should trust mothers -- they have a wisdom we should be learning from and believing in; 2. we need to recognize what mothers contribute to civilization as the first teachers, and best ones, especially when it comes to language acquisition; and 3. we ought to celebrate the wonder that is the mother -- an individual who both separates herself from her children but also loves them and teaches them to communicate with the wider world. Feminists don't think or talk about this person much, and we keep her down in wider discourse (for example, in the popular representation of mother as housekeeper/"homemaker") -- if only feminists would embrace and praise her for the miraculous things she does, with no prejudice: sons and daughters both receive these gifts from the mother. Without them, where would we be? (comment 1)

When I learned about psychoanalysis, then went through it myself, I learned about jouissance, how it affects the I.

The problem with jouissance, with simple enjoyment without desire, is that for the object of jouissance, there exists no understanding of why or how it(I) can please the Other. Unlike with desire, where I understand what attracts the Other to me, jouissance is a mystery and profoundly disturbing. This fear, this sort of primal disturbance, brings on abjection. The Other, with the unknowing help of the self, (I am thinking that this is the creation of the "alter ego") creates a topology of catastrophe (comment 2) that leads to the existence of the abject.

Is there such a thing as the unconscious?

Is there truly such a thing as the unconscious? Does the unconscious really exist? Or do we know, somehow, all about ourselves and in turn, what brings on self-loathing, abjection, the collapse of the I and the eventual re-formation of the borders of self? Clearly, there are things we exclude from ourselves (hence the whole notion of abject, or keeping what is "outside" out, protecting our borders). These excluded "things" create a need for our establishing a defensive position, a clear demarcation between I and Other, or Inside and Outside. Does this falling away of the unconscious only occur in "sick" people? Borderline (or worse) people? Or does this kind of thing occur in all of us, and those who suffer psychosis just experience a more acute version? And now that I let go of the notion of the unconscious, the various discourses and the reasons behind them become clearer. Those who are borderline participate in a sort of mystical discourse, and those who present as "normal" participate without reservation in a more rational or scientific kind of discourse. (comment 1)

I am not sure I am quite finished with this line of inquiry, and feel sure I shall return to it.

I hate (love) my mother

....thinking about childhood and motherhood and loathing and, naturally, abjection. How depressing it sounds, but it is not...not really. If we can recognize, define and understand it (after all, we are human, and we are, for the most part, arrogant like that) we can somehow feel we control it (even if we can't).

What is it about the mother? Freud cannot deal with her fully -- he has trouble with the preoedipal mother because she threatens his idea of patriarchal authority (comment 1), the threat of castration that brings on the rejection of the maternal body.

How do we define mother? And when? How do we define father? Are they always, forever in opposition to one another? Does each definition, our own personal definition, result from the love(hate) for each one, or is it all about the swallowing up and vomiting out of the mother to get at the father? I tend to think that part of what is at the base of Freudian theory, and even Lacan's work, is a kind of jealousy of/fascination with/anger toward the maternal -- specifically for the mother's ability to carry a child within her. To be two people at once. (comment 2) We can think about Lacan's mirror stage, and Freud's Oedipal stage and take a good hard look at what they are really saying about mothers, and by extension, about women. Theoretically, the mother is always close, always at hand, she is at home, rearing the child and so always accessible (and desired). The father is more distant, more ambiguously formed as a concept for the child. The father, then, is existing, but unsettled, loving but unsteady, a sort of ghost, a permanent apparition, a living oxymoron that slips away and yet remains. (comment 3)

But what of the woman? Part of it is the horror of her body, the rejection of her innards, and for both sons and daughters, the rejection of having been inside, part of the blood, the bowels, all the abject fluids of the mother. In a woman, this abjection is particularly pronounced, because she does not really separate from her mother, and forever identifies with her as a woman. It is no wonder there is a greater tendency to melancholia in women... (comment 4)

what is it:what it is

Abject -- an object (but not an object) from which we cannot protect ourselves; what we reject, but also that with which we cannot part. What is it? What it is: imaginary, yet real; immoral, scheming, hateful, yet smiling, seductive; the friend who betrays you. Abjection is what defines our borders and yet what invades and invalidates these borders: death infecting life (comment 1).

Life is so fragile, the law that keeps us from one another's throats is so very fragile, that when we see something that makes us aware of it, we are faced with the abject and become encompassed by it. Here is where I see the break occurring -- how we recognize and understand this collapsing, fainting away of the self, the abjection of self. As an example, I remember a visit to the museum that Auschwitz has become, and how I was engulfed by abjection there. When I saw, what was it? Shoes, dolls? Something everyday that you might see in a shop window or under your Christmas tree… It set my world on edge, affected my equilibrium, knocked my feet from under me. Why? How did this simple pile of dolls do it? By shoving in my face the things I'm used to seeing as my saving graces: children, science, education, the fact that a human being has value somehow. In the revelation of depraved Nazi killing, I am killed. (comment 2) An example like this lets everyone relate. I must include it.

Perhaps, in the very next section, I will write something like this: "There is nothing like the abjection of self to show that all abjection is in fact recognition of the want on which any being, meaning, language, or desire is founded." (comment 3) It relates closely to the Auschwitz example in that part of what brings on abjection is our desire for life, the desire to feel secure in ourselves, to defend our borders. What I am really talking about here is want, the object of want, really, that results in abjection of self. In some way this is all tied in with the creative -- art, literature...the ways we express ourselves, the way we attempt to put what is inside, out. It might be interesting, later in the book, to explore anti-semitism in literature…I am thinking Céline. He is a perfect example, really. Brilliant, yet clearly borderline in his identification with the Nazis – a classic abjection to maintain a whole, strong I. I can devote an entire chapter, perhaps more, to it. But first I need to get through chapter one.

Do you often feel like no one understands you?

Today I am thinking about how we relate to one another -- what we cast out, what we keep in order to navigate a world full of others. In particular I wonder what brings on abjection -- knowing, first off, that the abject has no definable object, and understanding that it also stands in opposition to me (if I want to be analytical about it, "the I").

OK, so how do I define this so others might understand me? I think abjection is much like, oh, a food that makes you sick to eat, or the sight of blood perhaps -- something I reject, that makes me physically ill. It is something of me, but not me, outside of me, but internal and fighting to escape me. If I let it go, though, what I am collapses and what am I left with? What are you left with after vomiting and expelling everything? Abjection? It is something physical and something representative, symbolic, both at once.

All this talk works well for the first chapter I think -- at least for the beginning. Perhaps I should start with something vivid -- the violence and darkness and totality of rejection. And I will talk about my own abjection... what does it feel like to me? What does it do for me? Am I abject or am I attacked or approached by abjection? How does it come upon me? When, exactly, do I experience the collapse of meaning, and how do I know it has happened? How do I make others understand? (comment 1)

A book about the human condition

I have been thinking hard about a new book since I completed my psychoanalysis. I feel changed, different -- and I want my work to reflect this change in me. It seems important to insist on a different style for it, a more literary, more free flowing style. I cannot help thinking of the American author, Virginia Woolf, and her "stream of consciousness" writing. I believe it would be just the thing for a book about the human condition, the maternal, and abjection. Just how do we rid ourselves of what threatens us? How do we escape the mother who birthed us and thus oppresses us? How much poorer we would be without the ability to abject -- to kick it out, but also to become it, to encompass it, despite the fact that it can overcome and (perhaps) destroy us.

I recall an interview I did several years ago, and now I've found a transcription. I responded to a question about being a woman, writing as a woman. I said, "On a deeper level, however, a woman can never be, for a woman is precisely that which shuns being. So women's practice can only be negative; it remains at odds with what exists. All it can say is, 'That's not it' and 'That's still not it.' In my view, 'woman' is something that cannot be represented or verbalized; 'woman' remains outside the realm of classifications and ideologies." (comment 1)

I really have to think about this -- it relates to abjection, and to some of the work I've been reading by Artaud, in Freud (of course), and the ideas about the state and fairness in Lautremont, Mallarme and Bataille. I have to credit the influence of Lacan, too, on my thinking about the feminine, about women and their work, their contribution. So much to think about and write about. Now that I have experienced transference, and can identify with melancholy, the abject, the reject and can transcend them, I am ready to write about them.