(Bologna, Italy)
This Personal Web Site treats of the intentional
approach to psychological problems. This approach is not
the property of any particular School of Psychotherapy and can be found
in the work of therapists who are members of different Schools.
From this point of view, symptoms
and defences are not the effect of inner or social causes but
rather the result of an inner intentional (unconscious) attitude.
EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE
University of Florence, B.A., 1974
S.I.R.T.O. (4 Year Course) Diploma,
Character Analysis, 1984-1988
Ordine degli Psicologi Italiani (Licensed
Psychologist and Psychotherapist), 1989
Private Psychotherapy Practice in Bologna (Italy)
Supervising and Training of
Psychotherapists in Bologna (Italy)
PUBLICATIONS
G.Ravaglia
(2007), Perché le persone fanno ciò che fanno? (Why People Do what They Do?),
Aran, Modena
G.Ravaglia (2006), L’intenzione ritrovata (Recovered
Intentions), Aran, Modena,
G.Ravaglia
(2006), Illusioni e realtà nella relazione di coppia (Delusions and
Reality in Couple Relations),
Edizioni Psiconline,
Francavilla al Mare (CH).
G.Ravaglia-A-Torre (1996), Il cuore nascosto (The Hidden Heart),
Melusina, Rome.
G.Ravaglia-A.Torre (1992), Il tema caratteriale (The
Characterological Theme),
Melusina, Rome.
G.Ravaglia
(1989), Carattere e conoscenza (Character and Knowledge), Conti,
Bologna.
G.Ravaglia
(1989), L'altro Orwell (The Unknown Orwell), Conti, Bologna.
G.Ravaglia (1977), Recherche en Sexualité de Michel Focault (Researches
on Sexuality by Michel Focault), in Cahiers de Sexologie Clinique,
Nouvelles Editions Médicales Francaises, Paris.
G.Ravaglia (1977), Il labirinto delle
interpretazioni di Reich (The Labyrinth of the Interpretation of W.Reich's
Thought), in Sesso,carattere e società, (S.I.R.T.O. Review),
Celebes.
The Book Recovered Intentions offers a synthesis of the analytical and psychotherapeutic approaches
that consider clients not as persons to be "cured" but as persons who
can choose a defensive or an expressive way of being. Thus, the analytical work
is not conceived as a "therapy" of "pathologies", but as a
rational and emotional path that makes it possible to change one's personal way
of conceiving existence. This book presents a conception of the analytical work
that integrates many theories and techniques and is based on the idea that
psychological symptoms and defenses are intentional and unconscious actions.
As a result the text does not flow perfectly, because it is
a mosaic of fragments taken from several chapters. I have not only eliminated
almost all the clinical cases, but also the more strictly theoretical and
epistemological thoughts. Certain themes are scarcely hinted at and few are
fully expanded. Nevertheless I hope these pages may be able to give English
readers some idea of the main reflections developed in this book.
INDEX
1.
Intentional Analysis or Causal Analysis?
2.
Subjectivity, Intentions and Choices
3.
Intentionality of Defenses
4.Emotions
and Old Feelings
5.
Emotions and Defenses
6.
The Analytical Path
7.
Theoretical Bases of the Analytical Work
8.
Emotional Contact and Normality
Bibliography
1.
Intentional Analysis or Causal Analysis?
In this study my aim
is to deal with a number of theoretical and clinical questions relating to the
guiding thread of analytical work. Over the years I have gradually become
convinced that analysis should be seen as a path rather than as a “cure” for
some “disease” and also that analysis provides clarifying ideas for the
questions which arise when thinking about that longer path which human
existence is. From the moment that my belief became certain, my work changed. I
stopped asking myself what to do for my
clients and instead I began to focus on what
they already do to take their minds off their sorrow.
I believe that the
fundamental objective of analytical work is to help people to tackle the sorrow
belonging to their past and the inevitable sorrow which life brings and to
verify their ability to tolerate sorrow by using those resources which do not
exist in early childhood. This work makes psychological defences superfluous
and leaves the person free to live to build something rather than to avoid the
inevitable suffering.
One very important
aspect of a non medical notion of analysis regards the way of interpreting the
sufferings that clients declare they wish to free themselves of. These are pseudo
sufferings created by the client and as such cannot be “cured” but rather
“unmasked”. Analysis of defensive intentionality brings us to deep suffering
which is largely a past “old feeling” of suffering and is to some extent
present suffering. However, in neither case can anything be “cured”. The sorrow
can neither be cured nor compensated for, but can be integrated through the
experience of “mourning” (meant in the broad sense); analysis can therefore be seen rather as a process which is capable of
facilitating positive elaboration of the sorrow, than as therapy.
The intentional
interpretation of defensive processes is present as the “second soul“ of three
important lines of psychotherapy in this century (Psychoanalysis, Reichian
Therapy and Cognitive Psychotherapy). Other currents of psychotherapy and in
particular some of their major representatives, explicitly approve an
intentional interpretation of human behaviour and its defensive components.
2.
Subjectivity, Intentions and Choices
From the intentional
perspective, the psychotherapist places himself as a person close to
another person and discusses his actions as actions. From the causal
perspective the psychotherapist is interested in a hypothetical system for
repairing a mechanism (libidinal, energetic, cognitive, affective) in such a
way as to produce alternative effects.
Regardless of
reductionist theories, even if traumas, various types of support and repression
influence the responses the subject gives to stimuli, their influence is always
indirect in that their “specific weight” depends precisely on the elaboration
of every experience the person has had.
I do not wish to
describe other sessions but to quote certain thoughts made by my clients, who
after feeling “tormented” by certain symptoms or “incapable” of acting in an
appropriate way, discovered that they had constructed certain defensive
attitudes.
A) “ I spent
Sunday with my boyfriend and we felt really good together until a certain
point. Then I felt that horrible, intense solitude that in general I didn’t
think I could stand. It wasn’t him that made me feel alone, but his closeness
and his affection made me feel that the need I feel can’t be satisfied in that
way. Now it’s clear to me that it can’t be satisfied in any way at all. At that
moment I noticed that my head was filling up with the usual doubts that make me
distance myself from him. The usual things: if I really love him, if our thing
can last and so on. For the first time I felt it was very convenient for me to
fill my head with that rubbish, because in that way I didn’t feel empty and I
didn’t feel I couldn’t fill that emptiness. And this time I didn’t get
detached. I felt both that sadness and the pleasure for this situation”.
B) “When I
wake up in the morning I don’t feel I’m going to sink into apathy or into
indifference straightaway, into that frame of mind I’ve often spoken to you
about. A split second before, I realise I can choose whether to stay in contact
with myself (and around now that means feeling sad), or whether to “organise
myself” in such a way so as not to feel that sadness and to take on the role of
the girl who’s depressed, misunderstood and aimless”
These
statements lend support to the intentional interpretation of the defensive
processes expressed by various authors and in particular to the statement by
Roy Schafer according to whom, in the course of analysis “ the subject under
analysis presents himself ever more frequently as being the person in charge of
the present moment in his life. Subjects under analysis ever less frequently
state that they are driven by impulses, emotions, defences or conflicts and
they present themselves ever more frequently as architects of their own
existence” (1983, p.111).
3. Intentionality of Defenses
I shall try
to show why I find it both sensible and fitting to consider defences as
actions, that is as a person’s intentional intervention on reality carried out
in order to avoid or limit or distort contact with some form of emotive
suffering.
I include
among defensive actions many behavioural patterns and attitudes which are
generally considered separately: what one does in the narrow sense, what one
does “in the head” (internal dialogues, illusions, the building of non
realistic images of oneself and so on), the way in which one communicates or
acts (attitudes, character traits, character or personality structures), what
one does interacting in particular relationships (symptoms, provocation,
“games”), or what one puts into effect over time (attitudes towards one’s own
existence and “scripts”), what one does with more or less awareness
(behavioural patterns which are accepted and in some way rationalised or
disregarded), what one does in one’s own body (alterations in tonus or in
particular functions).
This decidedly
broad meaning of the concept of defence is justified by the intentional view of
actions; from this perspective very different things are united for the very
reason that they are a personal construction which hinders any contact with
sorrow.
Therefore,
the aim of analytical work on defences is to help the client to give up his
childish pretence to live without suffering and to discover that he has both
the adult resources to bear the painful side of existence and the opportunity
to live for something rather than to avoid something.
Defences
do not protect from sorrow, but only from the awareness of already experienced
sorrow (by preventing it from being worked through and overcome), or of sorrow
which is in any case inevitable. Moreover, they reduce the ability to
experience joy and bliss.
I should
now like to list some fundamental propositions for an intentional conception of
defences, which I shall develop partly in this chapter and partly in the
following ones.
a) Human existence
is by its very nature replete with both sorrow and joy. While adults have the
ability to bear both joyful and painful experiences, this ability is lacking in
children, who see and classify the most sorrowful experiences of solitude,
rejection, inadequate support and unstable contact as a real threat to their
security.
b) The system
of individual defences devised in early childhood is an adequate response to
sorrow in that it reduces contact with sorrow. It does, however, produce other
more superficial forms of suffering.
c) Moreover,
such a system is constructed “without time limits” and so it is also carried
over into future phases in which, having become an adult, the person is
equipped with sufficient resources to work through sorrow.
d) Defences,
therefore, serve so as not to feel real suffering (or at least to suffer in a
more tolerable way in early childhood). Whereas the suffering that adults would
like to “cure” with psychotherapy is a consequence (which has become too
cumbersome) of maintaining defences. That is, suffering is the price the client
unconsciously chooses to pay to keep up defensive attitudes and behaviour
related to the genuinely painful side of life. The client would like to keep up
his defences (which he is not conscious of), without, however, suffering for
their consequences.
e) The
paradox of analysis lies in the fact that the client starts analysis because he
“feels bad” (superficially and irrationally) and would like to “feel good”,
whereas analysis leads him to deep sorrow, which he fears much more than that
produced by his defences. Analytical work demolishes the illusion of simply
being able to feel good, but encourages greater contact with reality and makes
experiences possible, which are both realistic and full of deep joy and bliss
precisely by destroying childish dreams of well-being.
f)
Analysis, therefore, consists of certain logically
connected phases: the recognition of defensive intentionality , the
confrontation with feared painful old feelings, a reclassification of old feelings
(from unbearable to bearable); the processing of old sorrow; the acceptance of
sorrow as one of the integral features of existence; experimenting with new and
deeper human experiences and a redefinition of an existential plan (from the
plan of living to avoid something to that of living for something).
g) This
conception should be strongly insisted on, that is, it should be applied to all
the problems the client brings to analysis. The phobic patient who has reduced
himself to living in drastically confined space, the depressive and the client
suffering from fits of anxiety are all to be considered as inveterate hedonists
and not as victims. Every time we yield “compassionately” is tantamount to
collusion and means foregoing profound change.
h) This
interpretation of defences does not only apply to defensive processes
associated with symptoms, but also applies to all those defensive actions,
which unfortunately pervade the sphere of “normality”. Many things which are
passed off as ideological or ethical choices, such as cultural interests or
philosophical convictions, tastes or habits, libertarian needs, sense of
responsibility, passions or displays of love, effects of “stress” or the
inability to choose and so on, are simply attempts to avoid contact with sorrow.
i)
One of the prices to be paid for successfully
concluding a personal analytical path and for becoming conscious of one’s own
defences, is that of discovering that social reality is largely constructed
with the precise aim of “forgetting”. Therefore to achieve a good relationship
with oneself, to become able to rejoice and to establish constructive
relationships and to acquire the sensation and the conviction of living a
meaningful life in both its wonderful moments and its terrible ones has a high
price indeed. In fact it implies both the working through old and never
integrated sorrow and the acceptance of inevitable sorrow both in present and
future life. It also means the awareness of solitude which had previously never
been seen clearly, with relation to people and social and cultural realities,
which are markedly oriented towards concealing death and sorrow and towards
fostering illusory forms of power, pleasure and knowledge. Discovering oneself,
therefore, implies a constant sense of solitude in the world.
Analysis allows us to
get to the point of recognising defences as intentional constructions, which
are devised in critical situations in the past and actively maintained in the
present. It may seem bizarre to consider a babe-in-arms as the intentional
subject of a defensive process and obviously I do not wish to support such a
brutal idea. However, those primitive defences constructed in the first year of
life achieve a precise aim as do those of older children.
Daniel Stern puts our
problem into perspective by explaining an important result of his research. “
The majority of psychological standpoints maintain that no self exists, if the
individual does not possess self-awareness or is not self-reflective (.....) I
agree with Schafer in saying that the “sense of self” is a vague concept and I
think that we do well to leave it intentionally vague in this sense. What I
mean is a subjective organising perspective which tries to arrange lived
experience, whatever level such experience may be registered and organised at.
New born babies begin subjectively to arrange their experiences with people and
with objects in an active way at whatever level they are able, right from the
moment of birth, and they even reach the most refined level of organisation attainable
at that stage of life.” (1997, p.79). Considering the development of so-called
“self” as a gradual process which is activated right from birth, we can even
think that intentional processes are evolved gradually.
In every analytical
path, one of the most important stages is that in which a person “discovers” he
is not merely a spectator but an active participant in those situations in
which he encounters one of his usual defensive reactions. If the past defences,
such as for example splitting up, are not “automatic” but are activated
intentionally, it is legitimate to think that, in the same way that an adult
chooses every time to reinforce a defensive plan by activating a specific
defence, in some way infants and children might also choose. If there is
certainly a progressive shift from choices which are “ quasi choices” to real
choices (even if they are unconscious), we can, with all due caution, speak of
fundamental continuity in the construction of defensive intentionality from the
crib on into adult life.
Obviously this
perspective does not constitute a simple intellectual preference, but makes
possible an approach to psychological disorders which does not conspire with
the clients’ failure to take responsibility and is not in agreement with the
unwitting desire which is present in many therapists to consider themselves as
indispensable support for interlocutors who are seen as poor victims to “be
saved”.
The moment has come
to touch on a particularly delicate question, namely that of the possibility of
applying an intentional interpretation to more serious pathological symptoms.
Without taking for granted what cannot be taken for granted, I should like to
suggest certain elements to think about. Such an interpretation is obviously
incompatible with the “deficit theories”, according to which the manifestation
of certain psychological disturbances may be the result of incomplete psychic
development or of a lesion of “psychic integrity”. It does not exclude,
however, the eventuality of “facilitating” conditions transmitted genetically
and does not exclude that once certain unconscious choices have been made, they
also produce consequences which proceed almost mechanically.
I should like to make
a preliminary consideration of the reasons which seem to go against an
intentional interpretation of non slight psychological disturbances.
An initial
consideration regards the fact that certain drugs manage to relieve serious
symptoms and that in this therapeutic process any analysis of defences is
simply “skipped”. Arieti gives a crystal clear explanation of the question: “It
is clear that many depressed patients and incidentally many who experience
normal sadness, can find relief by taking certain drugs. This possibility does
not belie the psychological origin of the emotion. It only proves that any
intermediate physiological or biochemical factor which exists between
psychological aspects and subjective experience can be modified. Exclusive
interest for the intermediate biochemical stage represents a reductionist
standpoint“ (Arieti-Bemporad, 1978, p.154).
If symptoms are not
the effect of old feelings, but the actions with which the subject
anaesthetises himself, dissociates himself or opposes contact with certain old
feelings, drugs can affect manifest behaviour by reducing the inclination
towards defensive actions, by modifying the physiological conditions of the
perception of old feelings and reactivity to them. In reality the problem is
not faced up to and overcome in this way, but only decreased. Pharmacological
therapy is in many cases necessary for the very reason that often. no kind of
analytical work can be gone ahead with in the presence of dangerous symptoms.
In certain cases it is even necessary to take safety measures if it is thought
that the client might be able to harm himself or other people. However, if the
benefits of psychotherapy for people suffering from psychotic disturbances and
who have received and continue to receive pharmacological treatment are already
taken for granted, we can maintain that analytical work, in the sense that we
have described in these pages, is legitimate with clients in a serious
condition in place of backup psychotherapy which presupposes an interpretation
of psychological disturbances based on the concepts of “incapacity“ and
“deficit”.
Although Milton H
Erickson is so pragmatic, as well as being brilliant, in his contributions he
is also against any analytical interest in the strict sense and cautious in
formulating general principles regarding psychic functions. He does, however,
emphasise that psychotic symptoms can be understood as an active course of
action on the part of the subject: sufferers from catatonia want to obtain something from their catalepsy.
They are either controlling the external environment or they are retreating
from the external environment; they are in any case doing something with an aim
in relation to things external to them” (E.L.Rossi-M.O.Ryan, edited by 1985,
p181).
Moving on now to
“borderline” psychological disturbances, for which we often talk of an
“absence” of integration of the psychic functions or of poor “consistency of
the Self”, we can put forward an intentional interpretation of symptoms and
defensive procedures with good reason. In these cases the old feelings are certainly
more distressing and the defences are more radical than they are in “neuroses”,
but to speak of “defective“ (Kohut 1977, p.20) or “damaged” (Kohut 1977, p.27) structures of Self is
equivalent to reifying an intentional defensive process which the person is the
creator of. Very often the use of such terms is associated with a (dangerous)
”protective” attitude on the part of the analyst and which is present when he
feels more inclined to “give” than to explain
the way in which the client uses his capabilities.
If the “theories of
lesion” were valid the change during the course of analysis would be gradual
because it would take place due to the gradual assimilation of the “nourishing and
restructuring“ presence of the analyst. On the contrary, this is the course
taken by superficial changes. If they are achieved, profound changes regularly
take place following cognitive restructuring of the problem and when confronted
with painful old feelings of lack of esteem, rejection or emptiness.
It should be said
that with clients who show disturbances which are classified as borderline
pathologies, the analyst effectively feels a strong sensation which can be
translated by the expression “I have before me a very fragile person who cannot
cope”. Instability in taking part in
relationships, a readiness to suddenly destroy experiences, attainments
and rapports by way of acting out, resolutely declaring an inability to keep
certain reactions under control or “submitting to“ thoughts or emotions and
sudden and apparently uncontrolled alterations during communication make it
easy to see these people as being “incapable” of facing up to reality
responsibly and with appropriate feelings. The feeling they provoke must,
however, be acknowledged as a feeling and not as a reliable indicator of
objective reality. This is exactly the
feeling these people want to provoke in others and an analyst should not
fall into this trap. Only the refusal of the analyst to give in to appearances
makes it possible sooner or later for the client to be aware that he is active
in the production of certain symptoms or attitudes.
Another apparently
evident assumption can be summed up with the idea that psychotherapy can and
must provide experiences to compensate for the damage caused by incomplete
growth. Research which has documented a similar level of efficiency in very
different types of psychotherapy has led us to assume that “aspecific”
relationship factors are those which are really decisive in bringing about the
change, but the conclusion is no more justified than is that according to which
one gets drunk with a bottle of whisky just as one gets drunk with a bottle of
grappa and so drunkenness depends on the use of a bottle. We still have to
explain the specific relevance of the factors which evidently the most
widespread theories do not consider fundamental. Working with clients who are
in serious difficulty is most frustrating. It is less frustrating to believe
that we are offering indispensable “corrective” or “protective” experiences
than to decide to give minimal but real help which is rejected day by day by
our clients and which makes profound changes possible only if and when it is accepted. The “certainty” of giving the milk
which has been missing is reassuring, because if the results are mediocre, we
can always think that “the patient’s condition was too serious”, while if the
results are not good, a readiness to clarify what should be clarified leaves
the disappointment of not having found the right path.
Not even the fear of
traumatising more “fragile” people justifies holding back from analytical work on old feelings. Analytical
work is dangerous only if carried out in the wrong way, that is, if the
analysis of defensive intentions is to attribute guilt, if there is no genuine
human involvement on the part of the analyst or if the analyst is afraid of the
old feelings that the client is beginning to explore. Clients understand
perfectly well if the analyst is working “for them” or “for himself” and if he
believes in what he is saying and if he really feels what he expresses. The
more serious the client is the more ineffective and dangerous analytical work
on old feelings is if the analyst is not helpful, present and genuinely
accessible. That is to say that such work is to be avoided when the analyst
does not live with his own sorrow, does not know how to cry or is judgmental or
irritable when he discovers he is not “efficient”. Analytical work should be
avoided in these cases and not when the clients are “too serious”. If the
analyst is unable to handle work which is extremely intense emotively , he has
the right and the duty to make other forms of contribution which in any case he
regards as being suitable. I only consider questionable the idea that such
forms of contribution are the only ones feasible in less straightforward cases.
If the analyst is
able to handle feelings of desperation and sorrow (both his clients’ and his
own), analytical work is not dangerous, because when the clients do not feel
ready, they simply put up effective resistance to analytical work. On the
contrary, in the context of a genuine therapeutic alliance, when they begin to
look their nightmares in the face, they suffer, they cry, but they feel more
whole. “Collapses” never happen following retrieval of painful old feelings,
because they are not “effects” of the sorrow but are in their turn extreme
defensive manoeuvres. I have never recorded psychotic fits during sessions,
when following confrontation with painful old feelings even with clients who
had suffered past psychotic episodes.
Unfortunately,
analytical work does not always give the desired results. A reappraisal of
aspirations, however, prevents us from exploring people’s potentiality. Ten
years ago, partly out of having a liking for her and partly out of
recklessness, I started analysis with a woman who lived in drastically reduced
mental and social space. She went to work but had no social life and was not
inclined to face up to any kind of social interaction. A friend of hers went to
do her shopping for her when she did not feel up to it. She had psychotic
brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins and came from a wretched family,
but she did not suffer from psychotic disturbances herself. What struck me was
that she “was unable” to interact socially with almost anybody and yet she had
gone to work right from a very early age. I thought that if she had come from a
wealthy family “she would not even have been able to work”. I definitely tried
to establish a human relationship with her and to meet her as a person and not
as a “clinical case”, but I did not intend to get her to have an experience
with me which would compensate for what she had not received from two totally
inadequate parents. I tried to work with her on the things she did, that she
said she was unable to do and that in reality she did not want to do. I would
have felt easier if I had told myself that she would not have been able to
change, whereas I kept asking myself every time what it was I did not
understand. Above all I would ask myself how to get her to feel those emotions
that evidently she was afraid of experiencing. Whenever she told me that there
might be no sense in living, I would retort that she might not have been able
to find that sense simply because she expected other people to make her happy.
I did not feel happy at those moments, but I was convinced I was giving the
right answer to a person who in any case was able to understand that she had
wanted to provoke me. Ten years on this client is still in analysis with me
even if for the last five years she has only had a session every two weeks. She
has not only found “a more satisfactory equilibrium”, she has also not been
confirmed in her illusions (of being more fragile than others, of being the
victim of a dark world and so on). She has changed house and job, she lives
with a man who is anything but maternal, she does not seek support from her
friends and not even from me. In analysis she is trying to overcome some of the
limitations she has in the expression of her sexuality. I believe I would not
have respected her had I decided (for her) that she should have been less
ambitious because she had not had “a normal development”.
4. Emotions and Old
Feelings
In this chapter I
propose to give at least a broad definition of the terms “emotion” and “old
feeling”, as the former appears in very different theories with equally
different meanings, whilst the latter, which is generally used somewhat
vaguely, is used here in a quite specific sense. I should like, therefore, to
begin by stating how I will not treat the subject of emotions.
We never observe
emotions, but only people behaving in ways that we agree to label as emotive;
therefore it is not appropriate to argue over “what emotions are”, as they
should not be seen as “given objects” to be considered, but as the result of
our way of considering people’s actions.
Once we have placed
emotions among the actions of the persona and have accepted the idea of being
able to identify an emotion on the basis of the presence of cognitive
constructions and/or of sensations and/or of physiological reactions and/or
types of manifest behaviour, we are still only at the beginning. We have not
yet clarified what actions we consider as “emotive”.
We can consider
emotion as the set of actions (or micro-actions) the person carries out (in his
head, in his body and with his body) in, responding to a situation (external or
internal) and also in registering his own reactions. Intention, on the other
hand, should be seen as what the person does on his own initiative (in his
head, in his body and with his body) in the face of a given slice of reality.
In other words, we can consider as emotive what a person does to accept a
certain situation and as intentional his action to react against a certain
situation. Emotion and intention, therefore, are not two “givens” but two ways
of considering the person in action.
Emotions are often
seen as a “state” of the person, but that “state” which is really a dynamic
process, is a common and personal response to a certain situation, it is a
specific form of adaptation. Emotions, like intentions, are not “states” in the
strict sense, but a way of describing what the person does when alone with himself
(and what he is aware of) and what the person does with people and things. Sometimes emotions are seen as pure
subjective experiences, but this is a dangerous choice as reducing emotivity to
the subjective level easily leads to inconclusive arguments on the (causal)
“relationships” between physical factors and and emotions, or between emotions
and behaviour.
Rejecting a causal
interpretation of the action means questioning the concept of motivation (and
of “drive”), which is so much used in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.
Although the various motivational theories are couched in very different terms,
they all agree in attributing the capacity to “push” an individual (or
organism, or mind) , which would not otherwise act, to some sort of motivation.
Kelly considers motivational explanations to be alternatives to scientific
ones, as they are introduced when the researcher is unable to give a rational
explanation of behaviour; certain determining internal hypotheses seem,
therefore, to explain types of behaviour which have not yet been understood
rationally and which make us “victims of psychic dynamics” (1977, p.1 and
p.16).
The concept of old
feelings is fundamental for a theory of analysis, as defences concern present
situations only in as much as they refer to past experiences which have not
been integrated. I shall now try to summarise my point of view on old feelings.
a) In early
childhood, emotions felt to be have
been avoided by activating specific defence mechanisms, that is mechanisms
which, in terms of equal efficacy, were less limiting or counterproductive; all
this concerns the past and does not determine anything in the present.
b) In the
present there is, however, the opportunity to “retrieve” past situations in similar
circumstances and it is possible to feel the sorrow associated with them. We
can speak of old feelings when, in the present, someone has a “felt memory” of
old situations which have not been integrated. The essential problem of the
analyst is to help clients to work through their old feelings while giving up
defensive mechanisms which have become superfluous.
c) The
(cognitive) evaluations of an emotion (e.g. “I cannot stand the sorrow I feel
when my mother does not respond”) turn out to be “stuck” to the emotion like a
label to a parcel. So if an adult retrieves an “old emotion” in the sense that
he reconstructs the old feelings of a past experience in the present, he also
recreates the cognitive evaluation of that time.
d) Defences
intentionally activated in the present are fundamentally the same as those
activated in the past, because defences are also skills and in this field
adults know what they learned as children. Anyone who is able to get angry in
order to detach himself from a sorrow, is generally not able to faint or to
become flustered in order to achieve the same end.
We can, therefore,
state that “non-integrated old feelings” should not be seen simply as a memory,
but as a memory which is emotionally significant and characterised by a
cognitive evaluation that classifies the emotion in question as unbearable and produces a defensive mechanism.
In analysis, work on
old feelings is very important. Not in order to create useless “abreactions”
or to “discharge repressed energy”, but in order to see whether, using
current resources, non-elaborated experiences can now be accepted and
integrated. Accepting a past experience by experiencing its full emotional
intensity leads both to a cognitive re-evaluation (a new “label”) and to a
precise “collocation” of the experience itself: that is the client understands that that terrible
experience of solitude should be classified among early childhood experiences
and not among present or future ones. No adult experience of solitude is
unbearable.
5. Emotions
and Defenses
I should like to give
at least an approximate definition of various concepts that I consider
fundamental to the analytical work on defences: defensive emotion, pseudo-emotion, instrumental emotion and invented
emotion. Pseudo-emotions and instrumental and invented emotions should , in
any case, be considered defensive emotions.
a) I use the
term pseudo-emotions to refer to
emotionally significant actions which are not, however, true emotions, as they
are constructed by merging, distorting, heaping together and heightening
aspects of the overall individual “emotional capacity”. Unlike “genuine”
emotions they do not pass the test of rationality (i.e. they are not
comprehensible) and do not provoke genuine empathetic responses, but only
perplexity and aversion or equally irrational collusive reactions. If someone
is sad because he is coping with a loss (of any sort), we are perfectly able to
understand his state of mind and we feel able to respond with warmth,
compassion and willingness to help and we may even feel sad. If, on the other
hand, someone in the same situation complains in a self-pitying way, tortures
himself with guilt feelings and depresses himself by saying he feels
inadequate, we feel an “instinctive” unwillingness either to second these
emotional displays or to “console” or “reassure” the person. Only through lack
of contact and through an unconscious intention to collude with the person by
taking part in the “game” can we “be taken in by” this person’s defensive
manoeuvre.
b) I use the
term instrumental emotions to
indicate emotions that are triggered neither as a genuine nor as an immediately
defensive response, but merely as “back up” for some further defensive action.
If, for example, someone (unconsciously) fears sentimental commitment, he can
activate many types of defence (provocation, detachment and so on), but if he
chooses to make himself less dependent by creating another, parallel
relationship, he must to some extent “fall in love” with someone else. However
interesting and attractive, this other person would not even have been
considered in other circumstances. Therefore, we can say that in this case,
falling in love with a second person is instrumental as regards the defence
against a deep commitment with the first.
c) I use the
term invented emotions to mean
emotions that are not reasonably proportionate to the situation, but are
“inflated” and obtained by “squeezing” little feelings and working on the
imagination. We can get worked up about some small setback just so as not to
seem “too easy-going”, or be moved simply to please someone who might consider
us insensitive.
I would remind you
that the concepts of pseudo-emotion and instrumental and invented emotion are
merely keys to the interpretation of people’s actions. They should not be seen
as a classification of “emotional entity”. Unlike the botanist, who classifies
one flower as a marguerite and another as a tulip and who never finds a
marguerite that can be “interpreted” as a tulip from a certain point of view,
we can interpret an emotion that we are “not sure” about as a pseudo-emotion,
but also as an instrumental or invented one. In fact the three terms emphasise
certain significant aspects of a defensive emotion.
Joy and Sorrow
The two basic emotions (in that they constitute
two privileged points of reference for the understanding of “emotional life”)
are joy and sorrow. In the first months of life, when the child’s emotivity is
rudimentary and we cannot yet speak of emotions, but only of “physiostates”,
the major affective nuances are pleasant and unpleasant (Arieti, 1967, p.35).
Cognitive development is what subsequently makes it possible to experience
intense and complex levels of joy and sorrow and allows other types of emotive
experience.
Anger
The distinguishing
aspects of the emotive acts connected to anger concern the refusal of a
situation, a disinclination to tolerate a certain state of things
(“disgusting”) and an inclination to use direct or indirect forms of violence.
I do not say that violence is a unifying element in this group of emotions.
Violence as such is a type of behaviour that can appear in very different
emotive situations. One can act with violence more out of fear or out of
dedication to a cause than out of anger.
The various forms of
anger are generally defensive, as we shall see later on. There are, however,
situations in which to reject something is reasonable, effective and
constructive. In such cases, the expression of anger constitutes the
comprehensible emotional background to an action aimed at modifying reality.
A large part of the
work of analysis lies in identifying anger where the client does not recognise
it (for example in indifference, in rationalised contempt, in self-pity, in “tiredness”,
in various “incapacities”, in “distractions” and so on), in encouraging the
recognition of anger and, finally, in helping the client to understand and feel
what sorrow this anger is protecting him from. At this point, without anger to
complicate things, we can dedicate ourselves to seeing whether the sorrow is
really unbearable and if it really is indispensable to live our lives divided,
furious and closed to sorrow (and to joy).
Fear
Fear is expressed in
a state of readiness aimed at forestalling and if necessary confronting or
fleeing from a threat. It ceases with the relief of the danger avoided or with
the sorrow caused if the feared event comes about.
In analysis we almost
never work on fear as a reaction to a real danger. We speak of defensive fear
whenever we cannot understand what the client is afraid of. Clarification is
needed as to how such unpleasant emotive actions as, for example, “states of
anxiety”, phobias, “panic crises” and so on can be effective as a defence. In
order to understand this we must obviously see things from a child’s point of
view. If the child finds accepting a painful experience unbearable, he may
prefer the fear of a “possible” catastrophe to the sorrow of a “given”
situation. Many years later, this fear no longer represents the response to a
present situation, but the response to a non-integrated old feeling. Namely,
the adult repeats the defensive move in order not to confront the old feeling
that “torments” him. It is better – from this point of view – to have bizarre
panic “crises” (which are, however, perhaps “treatable” and immediately
“spendable” in order to attract attention and pity) rather than to feel the
horror of an irremediable solitude that has already been classified as
devastating.
Defensive emotions
a) Sense of guilt
A sense of guilt is
always and in any case a defence and always and in any case irrational and
irrelevant both for the person troubled by it and for the person who may have
been injured.
Often, children have
to choose between feeling guilty and “together with” a parent who
“understands”, or feeling innocent and at the mercy of a parent with whom there
is no contact.
In other cases, the
sense of guilt serves to maintain an omnipotent self-image. Being guilty means
having power. The sense of guilt reduces contact with fragility and the
impossibility of altering certain situations and with many other painful things
that are part of human life.
b) Depression
First of all, it
should be said that in speaking of depression we are not speaking of an
emotion, but (always and in any case) of an emotive disturbance, that is, of
the defensive use of a set of irrational emotive acts, brought together purely
by the intention of avoiding confrontation with painful situations and old
feelings which are seed as unbearable. It is difficult to speak of a defensive
role of depression with regard to sorrow, given the undoubted and often really
terrible suffering that characterises depression. And yet it must be stated
that the suffering of depression is a suffering created in order to avoid
another sort of sorrow which, in early childhood was considered absolutely
unmanageable. In analysis, when clients start to feel painful emotions in
relation to memories or sensations of abandonment, rejection, or impotence,
they immediately realise and manage to explain that between this sort of sorrow
and the “black cloud” of suffering typical of depression, there is a very clear
difference. So I do not in any way wish to minimise the suffering of anyone
going through a period of depression, but to emphasise a distinction on which
the possibility of guiding the analytical work constructively depends.
Apart from all this,
it should be remembered that both in the mildest depressive reaction and in the
most serious depressive crisis, the person shrinks, withdraws and acts in an
apparently passive way in order not to integrate experiences or old feelings of
loss, solitude and sadness. Considering depression as an “excessive” form of
sadness or a pathological variant of sadness involves serious conceptual
confusion and obvious difficulties in the analytical work.
If we consider
sadness as an emotive act through which someone reacts to a loss, accepting it
as a painful aspect of his existence and if we consider “grief” or “the work of
grief” (in the broad sense, not just in relation to a death) as the process of
elaborating sorrow and cognitive reorganisation that leads to acceptance of the
loss, we must recognise that in depression both the emotion of sadness and the
“work of grief” are absent, while affective expressions and cognitive acts
never found in sadness and grief (sense of guilt, anxiety, low opinion of
oneself and of life in general and so on) are present. Sorrow is clearly there.
No-one is depressed “over nothing”. We must, however, be very careful not to
confuse the unpleasantness of depression as a condition (limiting or
devastating) and the sorrow of loss. Empathising with a depressed client over
his “sadness” hinders us from having him confront and integrate the sorrow.
When the client
enters a phase of “grief” he feels vulnerable to the least thing and responds
with tears, but not in a regressive manner. He can even feel like a small
child, but knows he is an adult who is rediscovering unpleasant old feelings which,
however, belong to his own personal history.
c) Euphoria
I include under this
heading various emotive nuances characterised by a feeling of imperviousness to
sorrow and non-dependence on others. Sorrow may be explicitly recognised but
without any emotive contact. The client concentrates on things whose importance
he overrates, emphasises his autonomy, shows unjustified optimism towards
certain eventualities and declares his own self-esteem by criticising people he
finds frustrating and saying that he is fine without their unwelcome presence.
Thus he reduces the perception of his vulnerability in various ways. It is
essential to nip these boastful attitudes and displays of pseudo-autonomy in
the bud, even though they are not serious and do not lead to abandoning the
examination of reality.
d) Disparagement and contempt
These are
diametrically opposed to love, to be found in the realms of anger and disgust. Disparaging people is always defensive,
as it removes contact with a loss and establishes a relationship of
“superiority” towards whoever has caused the sorrow. In disparaging others, we
exclude the part of ourselves that suffers sorrow by making contact impossible.
To disparage behaviour, on the other hand,
may not be defensive, as it is normal and even necessary to disparage
destructive types of behaviour and approve of constructive ones.
Love
I should like to
propose a first rough definition of the concept of love: we love when a) we feel
admiration for someone or something, quite independently of any consideration
as to possible gratification deriving from contact with or closeness to or
using this thing or person; and when b) we feel an interest in the well-being
of this “object” of love. More concisely, love might be considered the
conjunction of disinterested admiration and benevolence. This implies that if
everyone is loveable, love is made possible by the fact that the one who loves
is prepared to see “who” stands before him and not just to realise the use he
can make of this latter. In other words, if love does not depend on any “merit”
of the person loved, it depends on the one who loves being “disposed” to
consider and appreciate the qualities (whether utilisable or not) of the person
loved.
I think that love
should be considered as an emotion like any other. However, if all emotions are
“equal” (apart from specific differences), love is, somehow, “a bit more equal
than others”. Love does not just express the way a person feels or acts in
relation to the pleasure/displeasure axis, in a given circumstance. It also
expresses the capacity to come into contact with something or someone
independently of desires. These are the reasons why I consider it reasonable to
consider love as an emotion “of a higher order”. It is also an emotion that is
never implicated in psychological disturbances.
When fear of painful
old feelings has been overcome, love develops and shows itself quite
spontaneously as it corresponds to a fundamental capacity in everyone. It is an
emotion that matures during the process of individual growth and should in no
way be “taught”, just as it should not be considered an aim of analysis. It is,
however, an inevitable consequence of a successful analytical work.
Bliss
Seeing bliss as
“great joy” would be a conceptual waste. Therefore, in my opinion either we
abandon a theoretical use of this concept, or we introduce it and state
specific conditions for its application. I believe we should choose the latter
option and define the concept of bliss independently of that of joy. It is of
course necessary to clarify what we are referring to when we speak of bliss. If
we speak of something that is not related to joy.
With the integration
of our old feelings, we feel compassion for ourselves, love for our own
particular history, we give a sense to what we have done, whether right or
wrong, and to what we have received, whether good or bad, we consider those
close to us as individuals and consider life as an adventure to be undertaken
rather than as an empty space to be filled. Bliss can therefore be understood
as a condition of relative independence: even though we in any case depend on
others to obtain gratification, we can still, quite autonomously, feel glad to
be alive.
At this point, can we
consider bliss an emotion? I would prefer in theory to introduce the concept of
bliss into the theory as relative to a feeling which is realised in as much as
we give space to the emotion of love. When one loves people (including oneself),
or one loves what one does or what one understands, or reality as a
whole, one experiences bliss.
6. The
Analytical Path
Both an approach that
emphasises the present and one that emphasises the past have grasped an
essential aspect of the problem faced in analysis. I believe that it is
possible to save the best of both approaches, by sustaining that in the present
the client defends himself against old feelings, that is against non-elaborated
emotions from the past.
The necessary phases
of the analytical work considered in this way are as follows:
1) analytical
work (cognitive) aimed at making it clear that the client does not “have”
disturbances, but intentionally activates defences that produce certain
disturbances;
2) analytical
work (experiential) aimed at recognising that defensive acts impede the
emergence of feelings or emotions;
3) analytical
work (cognitive) aimed at making clear that the clients actively defending
himself from old feelings (that is from feelings and emotions that are not
related to the present but are “already his” and have not yet been integrated);
4) analytical
work (experiential) aimed at gradually working through old feelings and
recognising that these are bearable and no longer devastating;
5) explicit
definition of the analytical path as a process of integrating old feelings; in
his daily life the client must accustom himself to stopping actions which he
already understands to be defensive, even if he is afraid, in order to continue
with and to go more deeply into the work started in the sessions;
6) at this
point there is a turning point in the analysis: the client uses the sessions
principally in order to check with the analyst the process that he himself is
managing (the giving up of defences and the discovery of a more intense emotional
dimension); in this phase, aspects which have not yet been focused on are
looked at, possible difficulties are examined, new defensive expressions are
faced up to;
7) the client
enters into a phase of grief; although he knows very well that he is an adult doing
his own research in secure conditions, he feels very vulnerable, suffers over
trivial things, experiences intense feelings of solitude, often cries; in
analysis he is helped to weep “completely” with physical work, (with tears and
sobs that rack his whole body); in this phase the nuances of old feelings and
certain refinements of defences are made clearer; the relationship with the
analyst is now mainly one of collaboration;
8) a virtuous
circle is established: the client has ever less fear of emotions that are ever
stronger; tears come easily, frequently and dramatically, but feelings of
balance and stability increase; with tears, muscle hypertonus (personality
shield) is reduced and the client feels his own body more and becomes more
prepared to try real physical contact with people; the client faces up to
social situations more effectively because he no longer fears finding in them
emotional upsets that can activate old feelings, as he is living with these in
a stable fashion; greater balance is also translated into constructive choices
and personal successes; if new painful situations happen, they are faced up to
with greater basic serenity;
9) the
analyst’s controlling function diminishes; even if the client sometimes
reactivates defences, he regains contact without the analyst’s help; he accepts
sorrow as an inevitable component of his whole existence but feels that his
life is important and that he is capable of doing many good things;
10) conclusion
of the analytical relationship
Of course a real analytical
path is not as linear as this outline. What is more, the analyst’s
contributions cannot be programmed as they are made on the basis of the
specific analytical material that the client brings to the session, and on the
basis of the insights that the analyst manages to gain as he goes along. The
outline merely describes the guiding
thread of the analytical work, which remains, however, an adventure full of
surprises, creative moments, tensions and unexpected openings, during which the
internal change in the client and the personal relationship between client and
analyst both develop in a quite singular way.
Even though the work
on old feelings reconnects the person to childhood feelings and emotions that
have not been worked through, it should
not be seen as stimulation of regressive experiences. In fact, in order for
the “retrieval of old feelings” to be useful, it is necessary that the client
does not suspend his examination of reality. Simply accessing non-integrated
emotions is of no importance. What is really precious is working through them
and this is possible only if the cognitive and affective skills of the adult
person are in operation.
Both during sessions
and in the elaboration of an intense analytical work, clients sometimes adopt
regression as a defence, in the sense that they enter into a state of “blind”
desperation; they transform tears into a “crisis of tears”, they see themselves
as “unable” to emerge from this emotion and feel very bad, without, however,
experiencing the real suffering that comes from accepting that a certain sorrow
really concerns their real (past)
life. They feel very bad, but almost in a state of “suspended” time, that is,
waiting for the suffering “to disappear”.
These manoeuvres are
not useful and can be dangerous. If they present themselves, they should simply
be interrupted and explained. The best way to interrupt such regressive
manoeuvres is to show unconditional respect for the person and for the
sorrow that may be supposed, but not expressed and at the same time, to show an
absolute refusal of any involvement in the regressive trap.
At this point, I
should like to examine what to me seems the real risk in performing an
analytical work on old feelings, which depends largely on the analyst’s type of
training. Carrying out an analysis requires neither special intelligence nor an
encyclopaedic knowledge of psychotherapy. What is essential is not to be afraid
of sorrow. A personal analysis is not enough if it has not led to a profound
familiarity with the sorrow of early childhood and with the sorrow which is in
any case present in adult life.
Conducting an
analytical work on old feelings without having decided for a total and
unconditional surrender to sorrow (inevitable sorrow, of course), means that
serious mistakes can be made. The clients understand perfectly well whether the
analyst is inviting them to undergo an experience that he himself has had or
would have, or whether he is inviting them to do something that he believes to
be only theoretically bearable. Nothing can upset the relationship of trust
more than feeling one is being treated as a guinea pig or “just a client”.
Apart from this, if the analyst is afraid and identifies himself in the client,
he may turn out to be ambivalent and inconstant in communication and with his
words encourage a work on old feelings which he discourages with body language
messages of anxiety.
The client needs to
feel that the analyst is not afraid of suffering. In fact his first plunge into
sorrow after abandoning a significant defence comes about partly on the basis
of his trust in the analyst. If we want to call this “support”, or rather a
work in which such an element should not be considered “aspecific” but
fundamental. But I prefer not to play with words, which are generally used with
other meanings. What counts is the fact that an analyst can work on old
feelings only if he is not afraid of his own old feelings and of the sorrow
that is inevitable in human existence. There is no technique that can help an
analyst to gain trust. Clients are closed, but not stupid and know if their
“guide” is afraid or not. Therefore, in order to gain this trust an analyst
must know his own sorrow, at least well enough so as to have no more fear of
it, and to live with it by accepting it as a constitutive element of his
existential path.
I shall speak of
“closeness” to refer to the set of attitudes, behaviours and also emotions with
which the analyst accompanies the client in his journey through old feelings.
In a certain sense, it can be said that this all constitutes the analyst’s
“support” for the client. However, the term “support” is often used to mean
other things which, in my opinion, the analyst should not do (or wish to do).
The term “support” has, in fact, a history of its own in psychotherapy and
almost always, although not always refers to theoretical-clinical approaches
that are very little compatible with those I speak of.
“Support” is often
translated as the idea of “giving” something to a client who is considered in
some way “deprived” or “injured” and therefore in need of help by way of
compensation. If one believes that the analysis can be understood as a work of
classification and an opportunity, for the client, to re-decide various aspects
of his way of placing himself in relation to reality, any sort of “support” is
uncalled for. From this point of view, one must agree with Downing’s lapidary
statement: “The therapist does not try to become a “good parent”: he simply
practises therapy” (1995, p.246). He repeatedly stresses that the aim of
analysis is to facilitate the client’s internal process of elaboration.
The analytical
experience of grief is not regressive, since it is managed with an adult’s
resources. For a certain period, therefore, the client is “taken up” with the
awareness and emotion of this aspect of his (past) life. He cries frequently
over little things and often cries without any external stimuli because of the
situation which is occupying his mind: “..... a process of grief is something
different from the simple feeling of sadness sometimes experienced in a series
of sessions. A process of grief is deeper and more complicated. It tends to
occur more outside the sessions than during them” (Downing, 1995, p.322).
This period of grief
does not proceed in a linear fashion, as it is interrupted by old or new
defences. The analyst’s task is to keep the client on the rails, so that he can
travel their whole length, avoiding sudden braking (splitting up), deviations
(self-satisfaction and transforming sorrow into self-pity), “taming” (turning
the sorrow into slight sadness), rebellions (displays of anger that wipe out
the sense of impotence and loss), and so on.
When the period of
grief has been gone through with sufficient transparency, the client
experiences new feelings, that is, he experiences both deeper levels of joy
when he is happy, and deeper levels of sorrow when he is sad. He is more
involved in what he does, he avoids what are merely “pastimes”, he is less
interested in superficial relationships and feels a deeper affection towards
the people in his life. He does not easily get angry and in the face of
frustrations manages to “take the blow” and to try to improve things rather
than protesting or bearing a grudge.
In the phase
following the work on grief, the greatest danger consists in a modified new
edition of optimism, in that the client risks believing that the analysis has
brought him to a point where he “is well”. It must, therefore, be emphasised
that the sorrow does not finish with the analytical working through of the
sorrow of early childhood. This old sorrow can to some extent return in new,
very similar situations, but even if this does not happen, new situations can,
as such, be sufficient occasion for sorrow. Even if things were to go well for
many years, sooner or later there would be the experience of growing old and
dying and leaving such a beautiful world. In this phase of the analysis, with
the work on this “new optimism”, we construct what can avoid “relapses”: these
are, in fact, almost inevitable when the client finds himself facing great
misery after having believed “somewhere” that everything should always go well.
Accepting grief as a constituent aspect of existence is not, then, a luxury for analysts with philosophical leanings, but is the completion of the work which has for so long been generally considered an aim of psychotherapy: the examination of reality. Now, reality is what it is: one lives by experiencing wonderful and horrible things, then one dies. If one is not clear as to the fact that this is what human existence is, and that we have the resources to go through it without wavering, sooner or later one falls back on old defences. Defences are not, in fact, the thorns that the analyst removes, they are