Psychoanalysis and Psychodynamic Theory

Sigmund Freud.

Freud has had a great influence on the view of human religiosity. In the nearly 100 years since his death, many things have happened, in theory and practice, but that it was not so easy for the first generations of psychoanalysts writes Ana-Maria Rizzuto, herself an analyst:

"Freud himself […] insisted that people should not need religion, called it a cultural neurosis, and set himself up as an example of those who could do without it. Intentionally or unintentionally, he gave the world several generations of psychoanalysts who, coming to him from all walks of life, dropped whatever religion they had at the doors of their institutes. If they refused to do so, they managed to dissociate their beliefs from their analytic training and practice, with the sad effect of having an important area of their lives untouched by their training. If they dealt with religion during their own analyses, that was the beginning of the end of it" (Rizzuto, yyyy?, p4).

James Jones, professor of psychology at NN, writes about Freud's religious skepticism and how he viewed psychoanalysis as an "education to reality":

Freud assumed that atheism was normative and religion was but a vestige of the childhood of humankind" … "Healt would require renouncing the wondrous but unattainable wishes of childhood for the realistic but prosaic satisfaction of adulthood. Thus illusions of comfort, protection, and compensation should be put aside and responsibilities shouldered" (Jones, 1991, page 1 & 3) — check ref!!!!

Winnicott.

Donald Winnicott writes in several places appreciatively about religion. "This area [the middle area] is maintained throughout life in the intense experience associated with art and religion, an imaginative way of life, and creative scientific work" (Winnicott, 2003, p. 37). However, he makes a distinction between more rigid religiosity, which may border on delusion (or the new-age "Scientologist"?) and a form that bears greater resemblance to the child's play:

"If an adult demands of us to accept that his subjective phenomena are objective facts, we judge him to be insane.On the other hand, if an adult can enjoy his or her personal intermediate area without making any demands on us, then we can also acknowledge our own corresponding intermediate area and rejoice when we find that our areas partly coincide, such as the shared experiences of members of a group in art or religion or philosophy" (Winnicott, 2003, p. 37).

When Winnicott writes about religion, it is obvious that he writes about a certain kind of religion or spirituality. I believe that certain kinds of spirituality would rather lend themselves to such a fruitful relationship, and that other spirituality does so only with great resistance. It is a thesis for this work that new age/newness can be attributed to the latter category. That's not to say that this kind of spirituality would be less "true," it may not be at all.

"The Mystery" in Psychoanalysis

Wilfred Bion has a term he calls "O", which seems to be his attempt to reserve or isolate a deepest aspect of the psyche.

Hans Reiland (yy?) writes about "the object before the objects" as an instance, a deepest reference point, which is beyond the inner objects (e.g. guardians and others) that were added later.

Bollas is yet another psychoanalyst who, based on object relation theory, tries to discern a reference point that should be beyond the "inner objects" established primarily in relation to the nursing persons. He talks about this deeper foundation as "the transformative object" (yyy?)

Deep religiosity in psychoanalytic light.

Atheist's "Relationship of God"

Psychoanalysis can provide a deeper understanding of religion/atheism.

"The paradox."

Winnicott writes a lot about the paradox, mostly in connection with the child's "transition area", which in happy cases lives on in adulthood, and where "extended to encompass the entire cultural and religious sphere" (young)

(Winnicott, 1981/2003) "I would like to draw attention to the paradox that is part of the child's use of what I have called transitional objects. My contribution is to call for this paradox to be accepted, tolerated and respected, and not to try to resolve it. By resorting to a dested-out intellectual function, it is possible to solve the paradox, but the price of this solution is the loss of value of the paradox itself."

(Winnicott, 1981/2003) "It [the object of transition] originates from external reality from our point of view, but not from the child's. Nor does it come from internal reality; "It's not a hallucination," he said. 25

(Jemstedt, 1993, in the foreword to Winnicott) "The child's relationship to the object of transition is an incipient ability to maintain a dialectical process, between union and seclusion, between the symbol and what it symbolizes, between inner and outer, etc., and this dialectic creates mental space."

These two concepts are used in theology or religious studies to two different ways of relating to, for example, religious writings (ref). James Fowler in Stages of Faith Theory (ref).

The subject of paradoxicality appears in Winnicott when he deals with the transition area and the transition object. He calls on the adult world to be careful as they approach the child's relationship with the paradoxical. "I would like to draw attention to the paradox that is part of the child's use of what I have called transitional objects. My contribution is to call for this paradox to be accepted, tolerated and respected, and not to try to resolve it. By resorting to a destified intellectual function, it is possible to solve the paradox, but the price of this solution is the loss of value of the paradox itself." (Winnicott, 1981/2003, p16) Elsewhere in the same writing, he elaborates on the theme further: "It [the object of transition] originates from external reality from our point of view, but not from the child's. Nor does it come from internal reality; it is not a hallucination" (p. 25)

Winnicott really makes himself a spokesman for the paradox. In his book Play and Reality, he returns to the subject time and time again. There is more already in the foreword, and the very last sentences in the afterword address this subject. That the paradox of the child's experience must be respected.

It is beyond the ambitions of this study to provide some more in-depth investigation of the individual's development, and how early experiences can re-have an impact on adulthood. For example, Winnicott writes extensively about how early care and treatment can have consequences later in life. So when it comes to the paradoxes, I am content to note that what Winnicott writes about how a forced dissolution of the paradox, in the little child, "leads to a defense organization that one can face in the adult in the form of a true and false self-structure" (Winnicott, p38, 2003), I am content to point out that – regardless of how our childhood has been – an emphasis on the concrete, The simple, in the way we look at life, should be able to tempt the psyche so that certain inconveniences arise reminiscent of an unfortunately established "true and false self-structure" in childhood. I think this may be relevant when discussing a thought system like NA and the attitude to existence that this can stimulate.

"The child's relationship to the object of transition is an incipient ability to maintain a dialectical process, between union and seclusion, between the symbol and what it symbolizes, between inner and outer, etc., and this dialectic creates mental space." (Jemstedt, p.i foreword to Winnicott, 1993)

Limitations of objectivity.

"Moreover, there are a large number of adults who never attain a reliable capacity for objectivity, and those who are most reliably objective often have poor contact with the wealth of their own inner world" (Winnicott, 2004, p.69)

The bio about "precision", etc…

"Negative capability."

"The negative capability" which is an ability to endure that one does not know, to be insecure (Stiller, 2007).

Emails that came on the day we went up to Valsan. From Jules Evans' blog, about Joyce and Keats. About negative capability

"John Keats, who suggested the poet needs a negative capability in which they can experience the Sublime without 'an irritable reaching after fact and reason'" (Jules Evans blog, see ref!!)

Personality structure

"An individual's basic personality structure can only be understood if two specific and interacting psychological dimensions are taken into account: the personality structure of the level of development and the type of defense that dominates at this level of development. The first dimension indicates the extent of the individual, or the type of pathology that predominates in the person (psychotic, borderline, neurotic, 'normal'). The second indicates his or her personality type (paranoid, depressive, schizoid, etc.)" (McWilliams, p67)

McWilliams (1994/2005) indicates four levels of personality structure: psychotic, borderline, neurotic, and "normal" (p. 67)

See DSM-4. Does it have four levels? "Mature"?

Other models settle for three levels, with neurotic level being the highest. But of course it is possible to differentiate even at such a level, one should be able to talk about a higher and a lower level of neuroticism. Neurotic and "mature neurotic"? A person with severe neurotic problems, who seeks help, and after a longer psychotherapeutic contact has gained access to greater internal mobility, gained a greater ability to reflect on himself and been freed from bothersome symptoms, can in any case be said to have reached a higher neurotic level.

PDM (2006) defines personality as: "relatively stable ways of thinking, feeling, behaving, and relating to others". (p17)

PDM refers to "not only one's belief systems and ways of making sense of self and others, but also one's moral values and ideals" (p17)

"[A] continuum of severity, from a relatively healthy to a very disturbed level of personality structure. This continuum is conventionally, if arbitrarily, divided into healthy, neurotic, and borderline ranges of personality organization, the borderline range extending from the border of neurotic character organization to the border of psychotic conditions." It is important to point out that "borderline" in a psychiatric context, "Borderline Personality Disorder" (DSM) refers to a certain type of borderline, namely a more outgoing, dramatic form, which was originally delimited for research purposes (p.21). The psychodynamic concept is broader and, if you will, more universally human. It stems from a time in our lives when it was actually normal to perceive and interact with the world in this characteristic, often simplistic way, and which remains as a capacity even in adulthood.

PDM does not include psychotic in its P-axis , as the research situation is unclear.However, it differentiates between borderline at a higher level and a lower level, which in some cases occurs together with psychotic or psychosis-like symptoms, such as conret or overgeneralized thinking (p. 26). "Toward the Psychotic End of the Borderline Spectrum" (p.29)

In addition to this, PDM states "neurotic" and "healthy" (p.27)

It is important to understand that "Psychotic" refers to a kind of preparedness, weakness or fragility, which means that the person in difficult situations will have a greater propensity to react with psychotic symptoms. Not that the person has manifest psychotic symptoms. As I said, it is a level of personality structure.

Personality is what one IS rather than what one HAS. It certainly comprises more than one can see by scrutinizing a person's behaviour" (p17)

PDM points out that we can all exhibit borderline or psychosis-like symptoms during severe stress (p20)

The term "borderline" was coined or conceptualized in the 1950s, for those patients who were too bothered to really fit into the neurotic diagnosis, but were too entrenched in reality to fit in with the psychosis diagnosis (p21)

Psychodynamically based research has come up with three types of borderline, one that is closer to the psychotic, with the risk of psychosis breakthrough, a form similar to that referred to by the DSM, and a third that PDM describes as "over-ideational, characterized by social isolation and withdrawal, more likely to recive the DSM diagnosis of paranoid, schizoid, or obsessive personality disorder". (p21).

PDM describes this as "a person's center of psychological gravity", although it is emphasized that the other levels may be there as well (p23)

Psychoanalytic and other concepts

Personal maturity.

About Sigmund Freud's view of maturity, and in relation to the higher stages he draws in his Faiht Development Theory, writes development psychologist James Fowler:

Freud illuminated many of the paradoxes that arise from trying to strenghten the slender abilities of rationality to mediate between the imperious demands of the id and the harsh constraints of the superego. But his visions of maturity scarcely got beyond the maintenance of a kind of armed truce" (Fowler, 1996, p65).

Winnicott points out that:

"It takes years before an individual can develop an ability to discover the equilibrium of the self between good and evil, hatred and destructiveness that exists alongside love within the self. In this sense, maturity comes later in life, and the teenager cannot be expected to look beyond the next stage, beginning in his twenties" (Winnicott, 2003, p.225).

"False" and "true self"

No matter what our childhood was like, an emphasis on the concrete, the simple, in how we view life should be able to tempt the psyche so that certain inconveniences arise that resemble an unfortunately established "true and false self-structure" in childhood. I think this may be relevant when we discuss a system of thought like the new age and the attitude to existence that this can stimulate.

"Faustic Negotiation" (an expression from Grotstein, referenced in Cullberg, 2000)

Debt.

Guiltyness provides the ability to care and desire to repair. It saves the individual from his egocentrism. Crucial to the depth of life and relationships is the ability to feel guilty. This is a psychoanalytic opinion, but is no stranger to Christianity. But for new age/newness, it is.

At Klein there is the commute between aggression and repair, where guilt and care for the object is regulatory and cohesive principle. It is never – in the individual's mind – completely out of control. The relationship is maintained.

Coping strategies/Defense mechanisms.

There is a kind of mental surgeries that have a buffer function for us, namely the so-called defense mechanisms (Vaillant, PDM, DSM). These are often divided into degrees, depending on how much restrictions and/or distortions of self-image and perception of the world they entail.

In psychoananlytic theory, this is seen as strategies for keeping internal or external impulses and what these threaten to awaken us from consciousness. The purpose is to forever or at least to gain some time, or to mitigate them. Coping strategies are "automatic psychological processes that protect the individual from anxiety and from becoming aware of internal or external dangers or stresses" (Mini-D, DSM-4. 2002).

These defense mechanisms are hierarchically arranged, from more primitive to more developed or mature. A simple division is into "primary" and "secondary" defenses. The latter remain relatively an inner concern, something that the individual, due to a living experience of childhood guilt, tries to carry himself without burdening others. Winnicott writes about how an interior is created from the outside, the guilt gets a home, which contributes to the defenses becoming secondary, inner "dramas". The former have the result of a "ejection" and projection of the individual's inner turmoil (Winnicott?, yyy?)

An important distinction (ref!!) between primary and secondary defenses is that with the latter, a essentially realistic view of the outside world is retained, while the individual tries to manage their conflict on an internal level. By changing oneself, not one's perception or understanding of the outside world. This may give such crazy expressions, but it makes a fundamental difference.

Ability to guilt is assumed to be the difference, a kind of concern for the object. The feeling that "it must be my fault", which nevertheless implies an ability.

Viewed from psychoanalytic theory, these have their natural residences at different levels in the individual's development. They differ in the degree of restriction they impose on life experiences and relationships. The fact that a young child manages to completely deny an act it has done – also for himself – does not normally have the same consequences as when an adult does so. A teenager who feels that everyone is against him or her, and lives out this feeling, is normally treated with greater understanding or indulgence than if an adult does.

Examples of more immature defenses are idealization and devaluation, projection, cancellation, turn to self, and compartementalization (these cite Winnicott as examples of "manic defenses" against looming depression… Winnicott, 2004, p. 70).

Winnicott points out how coping at a lower level, such as a massive projection of one's own aggressions that causes the person to feel persecuted, can have a special allure and involve certain gains: "Logic has nothing to come up with once achieving the glorious simplification that the feeling of being persecuted entails" (Winnicott, 2003, p.225).

The fact that the individual uses defense at a lower level is not an argument for the individual being low on the P-axis, but the absence of higher defenses is. Another way to depathologize regression.

Symbiosis.

"The human needs for dependency, connection, affirmation, even symbiosis, are never left behind, just transformed into more mature forms" (Jones, 1991, p18).

Immature defenses.

Immature defense mechanisms distort or re-make the world more bearable to live in:

"An immature defense is a way of denying reality as it stands and instead redoing it to make it easier to live in. In this way, you actively make sure to avoid feelings of unease and strong internal stress. Common to the immature defenses is that the wearer does not feel that they have any problems. On the contrary, it is the environment that is considered to have it. In this group there is little, if any, self-awareness and it is difficult to see one's own need for help." (DSM-4TR??,yy, p?)

Examples of more immature defenses are: Denial, projection, and omnipotence.

Regression.

Based on psychoanalytic theory, we can be said under pressure tend to function at a lower level than is normal for us. Each individual also has their "breaking point". One's normal level can be said to be the functioning one can maintain during normal life circumstances.

Regression is highlighted in the literature in a variety of places. Freud regarded religiosity as a form of regression that the individual should oppose, come from, while the view of this has been tempered in later theorists.

Regression in the service of "life", "self", etc., which can also accommodate religiosity. But the question is, does the new age somehow make such benign regression more difficult?

Balint (ref in Winnicott, 2003) has coined the terms malignant and benign regression, respectively.

Regression. Then one imagines a self-organization, partly a threat of disintegration or chaos (Winnicott, p.

Psychoanalytic theory refers to regression in several contexts. That an individual falls back on a type of experience and a way of relating to the environment and life's duties or conditions, which in terms of the individual's age belongs to an earlier or passed stage. It usually has a negative connotation. But regression also has a completely natural place in our lives, in love, play and creation, for example. Such a regression can then be said to be "in the service of life".

Stress. Pain. Mind depravity. Solitude. Too many new impressions at once. Drugs. Fatigue. The conditions for our so-called "normality" are quite tight.

Some are particularly vulnerable, too.

Regression "in the service of development" (Erikson, 1982/2004, p.67+91?). Erikson refers here to an expression of Blos.

To sometimes be able to disconnect the "secondary process thinking" and dip into the world of primary processes.

"Regression in the Service of the Self" was coined by Ernst Kris in his work Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art (Sjögren, p112)

The way to acquire "an inner world" of the kind, which is also accompanied by a reasonably realistic conception of and an exchange with the external world, goes through many steps. The little child lives if you want to completely in an inner world, or maybe "world", in short. In a hallucinatory way, it perceives what is being done with it, and causation, and perceives itself in some mysterious way to be at the center of all that it experiences. Step by step, the individual will approach an adult capacity. The child's play area and transition object (Winnicott), experiments and applicants in teenage years and adolescens (Elkind), to eventually achieve a decent functioning.

The inner world, and abilities conquered in the past, will remain as sources of power and possible places of "regression." Adulthood is simply a poorer place — and the term "adult" may not even be adequate — unless the individual also has access to the teen and child within them.

But there is also the more or less pathological trace in this process. Here, the ties to the pre-adult stages will be of a different kind. Under pressure, the individual will resort to the younger individual's inferior opportunities — and typical strategies — to ward off the anxiety of the situation (which can also be "an internal situation," recollections, and impulses, knocking on the doors). This relative immaturity can be of different severity, from psychotic to neurotic.

Both battles of "return" are at the center of this study. They also correspond, in simple terms, to the two ways of looking at what human religiosity is really about. While Freud, for example, saw hardly anything good at all in the form of regression ("collective neurosis" he called it) that religion enables or encourages, there have perhaps been others who have unreservedly defended religion in all situations and praised its possibilities. Of course, it's most interesting if you can have both perspectives alive. This study will seek to arouse interest in and deepen the understanding of such a stance in the face of spirituality and religiosity.

Regression. Then one imagines a self-organization, partly a threat of disintegration or chaos (Winnicott, p.

To have any part of your life that responds to something magical, unspeakable.

Psychoanalytic theory refers to regression in several contexts. That an individual falls back on a type of experience and a way of relating to the environment and life's duties or conditions, which in terms of the individual's age belongs to an earlier or passed stage. It usually has a negative connotation. But regression also has a completely natural place in our lives, in love, play and creation, for example. Such a regression can then be said to be "in the service of life".

Stress. Pain. Mind depravity. Solitude. Too many new impressions at once. Drugs. Fatigue. The conditions for our so-called "normality" are quite tight. Some are particularly vulnerable, too.

To sometimes be able to disconnect the "secondary process thinking" and dip into the world of primary processes.

To introduce two new concepts: "vital regressiveness" and "dominant regressiveness". This is something that can be assessed over time, or in terms of the individual's entire functioning and in different situations. What consequences the regression has for close relationships and work ability, e.g.

That a mental transition in the face of extreme situations can have just a religious expression, suggests Allport, when he writes "There's no atheists in fox holes". That is, extreme situations can make us behave more religiously than otherwise.

Regression almost always occurs in relation to the environment and the inner world. Regression in relation to what one really knows, the kind of processing one is actually wealthy, etc. May well also be organically triggered, dementia, etc.

It is normal to regress in very stressful situations, face stresses that you do not know how to handle or that also exceed what most people can cope with (e.g. natural disasters, serious accidents, threats to one's survival, etc.).

The resilience you have is individual. All individuals have a "breaking point" but it can differ between where, and perhaps even in what areas.

Just as most people tend to function worse under great pressure, it is equally true to say that even those with permanently impaired mental health can function much better in a protective and supportive environment. Our normal state is how we function under the pressures of an average environment: work, love, dealing with conflicts with neighbors, etc.

This positive picture of regression also meets us with Kohut, in his view of things like transmission and self-object: "For Freud, transference is something to be outgrown. For Kohut we never outgrow transference, only move from childish to adult forms. The human needs for dependency, connection, affirmation, even symbiosis, are never left behind, just transformed into more mature forms" (Jones, 1991, p18)

The individual that Freud saw him was more of a strong individual. This is also reflected in the view of religion. Maybe it had to do with his time, too. He had to distance himself from a kind of "symbiosis of the Middle Ages"; his theories "was phase-appropriate but not absolute" (Jones, 1991, p19).

It is easy to see how psychoanalysis has gone against a more relational, interpersonal, way of seeing the individual.

But in the context of NA, it is interesting to look at Jungian psychology, which nevertheless contains several elements of shared or common reality and union, that it – like, incidentally, NA, which has taken Jung to himself to such an extent – appears to be a very individualistic philosophy.

In Winnicott (1993) there is the expression "regression to addiction", which relates mainly to the therapy situation, where the client can, so to speak, take a step backwards, and then be able to two forwards. But Winnicott also has an interesting reflection on psychosis compared to psychological disorders at a higher level, so to speak, that it is from the psychosis that one can spontaneously recover. "In other words, psychosis is closely linked to health. It contains countless deficiencies in the environment that have been frozen but that are accessible and can be thawed through various healing factors in ordinary life, such as friendship, care during physical illness, poetry, etc. (p273)

Balint (ref in Winnicott, 2003) has coined the terms malignant and benign regression, respectively.

To introduce two new concepts: "vital regressiveness" and "dominant regressiveness". This is something that can be assessed over time, or in terms of the individual's entire functioning and in different situations. What consequences the regression has for close relationships and work ability, e.g.

That a mental transition in the face of extreme situations can have just a religious expression, suggests Allport, when he writes "There's no atheists in fox holes". That is, extreme situations can make us behave more religiously than otherwise.

Regression almost always occurs in relation to the environment and the inner world. Regression in relation to what one really knows, the kind of processing one is actually wealthy, etc. May well also be organically triggered, dementia, etc.

It is normal to regress in very stressful situations, face stresses that you do not know how to handle or that also exceed what most people can cope with (e.g. natural disasters, serious accidents, threats to one's survival, etc.).

The resilience you have is individual. All individuals have a "breaking point" but it can differ between where, and perhaps even in what areas.

Just as most people tend to function worse under great pressure, it is equally true to say that even those with permanently impaired mental health can function much better in a protective and supportive environment. Our normal state is how we function under the pressures of an average environment: work, love, dealing with conflicts with neighbors, etc.

This positive picture of regression also meets us with Kohut, in his view of things like transmission and self-object: "For Freud, transference is something to be outgrown. For Kohut we never outgrow transference, only move from childish to adult forms. The human needs for dependency, connection, affirmation, even symbiosis, are never left behind, just transformed into more mature forms" (Jones, 1991, p18)

The individual that Freud saw him was more of a strong individual. This is also reflected in the view of religion. Maybe it had to do with his time, too. He had to distance himself from a kind of "symbiosis of the Middle Ages"; his theories "was phase-appropriate but not absolute" (Jones, 1991, p19).

Regression refers to the individual falling back on a functioning that is actually passed. Freud's critique of religion took note of this, that people's religiosity could be suspected of having a regressive background. Not wanting to face the stresses of everyday life and life in an age-appropriate way.

The idea that we all – hopefully – bring with us previous ages and functional levels as "layers" within us. The teenager, including the child. In situations of overwhelming stress, or in moments of "regression in the service of the self" (Erikson, more?)

Other theorists have emphasized the adaptive potential and importance of regression. A regression that can be both "self"(Kris, ref i…), "life" (Erikson), "reproduction", "nature", etc.

The way to acquire "an inner world" of the kind, which is also accompanied by a reasonably realistic conception of and an exchange with the external world, goes through many steps. The little child lives if you want to completely in an inner world, or maybe "world", in short. In a hallucinatory way, it perceives what is being done with it, and causation, and perceives itself in some mysterious way to be at the center of all that it experiences. Step by step, the individual will approach an adult capacity. The child's play area and transition object (Winnicott), experiments and applicants in teenage years and adolescens (Elkind), to eventually achieve a decent functioning.

The inner world, and abilities conquered in the past, will remain as sources of power and possible places of "regression." Adulthood is simply a poorer place — and the term "adult" may not even be adequate — unless the individual also has access to the teen and child within them.

But there is also the more or less pathological trace in this process. Here, the ties to the pre-adult stages will be of a different kind. Under pressure, the individual will resort to the younger individual's inferior opportunities — and typical strategies — to ward off the anxiety of the situation (which can also be "an internal situation," recollections, and impulses, knocking on the doors). This relative immaturity can be of different severity, from psychotic to neurotic.

Both battles of "return" are at the center of this study. They also correspond, in simple terms, to the two ways of looking at what human religiosity is really about. While Freud, for example, saw hardly anything good at all in the form of regression ("collective neurosis" he called it) that religion enables or encourages, there have perhaps been others who have unreservedly defended religion in all situations and praised its possibilities. Of course, it's most interesting if you can have both perspectives alive. This study will seek to arouse interest in and deepen the understanding of such a stance in the face of spirituality and religiosity.

Tolerance of ambiguity.

A concept that comes close is "ambiguity tolerance", that is, the degree to which a person can endure, process and even appreciate complex or even contradictory information (Furnham).

Paradox (Fowler, Akhtar, Winnicott), jmfr contradictory. Depressive position (Klein). Mature neurotic level (McWilliams, PDM). Mature defenses – minimal distortion (Humor for example)

Mobility, paradox, ambivalence. This trait pops up a little here and there. An openness to paradox as a criterion for higher stages exists both in Fowler, as well as in Akhtar, and in theology.

Aggressiveness/"Hate" (not). Winnicott writes insightfully about such things, including with reference to Klein who has spoken of both depressive position and manic defenses.

"It is precisely when we use the manic defense that we are least likely to feel that we are defending ourselves against depression. At such times, we are more likely to feel elated, happy, active, eager, joking, omniscient, 'full of life'. At the same time, we are less interested than usual in serious things and in the horror of hatred, destruction, and killing" (Winnicott, 2004, p.d. 197).

Coping strategies at Borderline (PDM, p25) "immature" or "primitive"

Splitting

Projective identification

Denial

Primitive withdrawal

Introjection

Omnipotent control

Omnipotence

Primitive idealization

Primitive devaluation (of itself and others)

Hypochondria

Acting

Passive aggressiveness

Symbolization skills.

That impressions like skip a part of the processing and are perceived concretely. The ability to symbolise is a rather fragile ability and in stressful, or excited, moments we risk losing it. Then we fall to the child's concrete perception of things. A non-symbolic relationship with the world also has people with borderline disorder, as well as so-called primitive religions. Things are what they seem to be.

Borderline.

The diagnosis of borderline personality disorder is not given to overly young people, as these may exhibit many of its symptoms in a completely age-defiable way. This study is not about young people, nor about pathologies. Baseline is that it is basically about adults, relatively well-functioning, individuals.

Psychosis.

Pdm (longer name, 200…) has chosen not to include psychotic as an organizational level. This is motivated by the fact that this level has too poor empirical support. It will then be difficult to argue that psychosis/psychotic would be a specific level of function, which the individual can also regress back to, and that it is not just a special mental condition or a disease. Not everyone who suffers from psychosis has a psychotic personality structure? Not everyone who has a psychotic personality structure needs to experience psychosis. When psychotic experience becomes prolonged or chronic, it is called schizophrenia (DSM?)

"For a man who is neither psychotic nor intensely artistically active, the experience of the dream is the strongest experience of an interior usually held away by the forces of today, but regularly appears at night and brings us into a world where all ingrained concepts are put on their head" (Sjögren, p84)

PPO refers to a certain fragility or propensity to resort to certain kinds of defenses, typical of psychosis. People may be psychotic but may never experience any psychosis, and yet the designation PPO is relevant.

Psychosis is an elusive concept. Psychosis can also be salvation (see Cullberg, Winnicott). In a way, it's closer to freshness. This is also shown in the fact that the feelings of counter-transmission with a psychotically ill person line more those one can have with a neurotically organized, than with personality disorder (ref).

Using "mature", using "psychotic"? There's something about psychotic that actually feels healthier than the borderline spectrum. Several authors are into this (Cullberg on psychosis, watch!; Winnicott writes about psychosis as a path to health, PDM abandoning the established way of presenting P-axis) Problematize!

Phases of psychosis. A little changed in certainty. "Coperic Turn" (Cullberg, 2000?)

Cognitive dissonance.

Two concepts that are interesting to relate are "cognitive dissonance" (Festinger, L. originally) and "doublethink". These are each other's opposites. The former denotes the discomfort that occurs when you have two conflicting opinions at the same time.The theory says that you then try to reinterpret or adjust them together to reduce the discomfort. The latter suggests that two conflicting views are managed to have two conflicting views in the mind at the same time without causing any internal conflict . Does this remind you of hypocrisy or psychopathy?

Farias and Granqvist (2007) highlight the cognitive dissonance concept to describe the NA supporter's concerns – which have great similarities about the child with disorganized attachment – to be torn between two if not philosophical, so in any case practically difficult to reconcile ideas, namely that one is, on the one hand, taken care of by a well-meaning "cosmos", that everything happens for the best, on the other hand that it is entirely up to oneself to create a happy destiny.Psychoanalysis a fruitful theory here?

"Newspeak."

Orwell

Magical thinking.

Researchers who surveyed soldiers during the Gulf War reported that individuals in physically or psychologically particularly threatening situations may fall more into so-called magical thinking. This as a way of dealing with uncertainty (Keinan, 1994; cit in Farias, Claridge & Lalljee, 2005).

Magical thinking is also available in completely harmless or even adaptive versions. A person goes in the woods to pick mushrooms. She gets an impulse not to throw her cigarette butts on the ground, "because then the forest won't give her any mushrooms". Another person tells with some empathy about decorating their home based on the principles of Feng Shui. But during the conversation, she can oscillat between this "play mode" and her usual rational, skeptical self, because really she doesn't believe that these ideas should be so important.

Manic defenses.

The category of defence mechanisms that, in a hasty assessment, seems to be close to the New Age (which of course is not the same as the two things actually having anything to do with each other!) are, for example, the so-called "manic defenses". These are considered a protection or a defense against depression. Winnicott (2003), with reference to Melanie Klein, punctuates these: Projection, compositionalization, turn to self, cancel, humor/"witt", idealization and disparagement

(Winnicott, 2004) Winnicott writes insightfully about such things, including with reference to Klein who has spoken of both depressive position and manic defenses. "It is precisely when we use the manic defense that we are least likely to feel that we are defending ourselves against depression. At such times, we are more likely to feel elated, happy, active, eager, joking, omniscient, 'full of life'. At the same time, we are less interested than usual in serious things and in the horror of hatred, destruction and killing."

Aggressiveness/"Hate" (not). Winnicott writes insightfully about such things, including with reference to Klein who has spoken of both depressive position and manic defenses. "It is precisely when we use the manic defense that we are least likely to feel that we are defending ourselves against depression. At such times, we are more likely to feel elated, happy, active, eager, joking, omniscient, 'full of life'. At the same time, we are less interested than usual in serious things and in the horror of hatred, destruction, and killing" (Winnicott, 2004, p.d. 197).

Winnicott seems to mean that the path to a deep, genuine "religiosity" is by approaching one's own depressiveness, which the manic defenses effectively counteract:

Winnicott on religiosity of a positive kind, as well as an artistry, that people do not want to know that what they have inside them – which "speaks to them", although it is positive, the finest they have – actually belongs to them. Because in that case they have to get back in touch with their interior, which is held aside by the manic defenses (Winnicott writes about, 2004, p.199) — check the quote reference!!

Omnipotence and Oedipus.

According to Freud and psychoanalysis, at some point during his journey towards adulthood, the individual must abandon, tone down or at least supplement certain infantile desires and fantasies. This is often referred to as "oedipal challenges". Psychoanalysis places this event very early. In any case, reactivation occurs in adolescence, of oedipal themes, as they say.

In psychoanalytic theory, a favorable solution of the individual's oidipal conflict is usually seen as the very gateway to a balanced, healthy adulthood. What it is about is that the individual gives up his omnipotence etc. Several good things are supposed to come out of this. Even if we ignore the time aspect or developmental psychology, it should be possible to use in the transferred sense. Somewhere along the way, the individual should tone down his egocentrism — or update it — have ambitions and interests that are more social.

The oedipus complex and how it is solved or not, and what consequences this can have for the adult individual, is presented in principle, but without specifying age, etc. We are content to note that somewhere on the road to adulthood, certain traits, which are natural and necessary in the younger man, must have been abandoned or modified. Otherwise, life as an adult will be difficult. However, these earlier forms of experience, sources of joy and freedom relative to adulthood, will normally remain.

"Pseudo" state

Linked to the concept of regression are the phenomena similar to a more permanent pathology, although in the present cases it is a question of more or less temporary "retreats" to a simpler mode of function and experience.

"Pseudo-borderline"

Erik Erikson writes that life in young adulthood, if the individual resists the new, "may seem 'borderline'-like" (Erikson, 2004, p. 89). It has the features of a well-known psychopathology without really being. In most cases, this is a transient regressive phenomenon.

The existential perspectives.

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