Metapsychology
The metapsychology (of give a wiki. Meta "above, behind, 'beyond' ') is the core of the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud . He himself called it “a way of viewing in which every mental process is valued according to the three coordinates of dynamics, topic and economy”. Furthermore, he saw in it the highest goal of psychology, because “health cannot be described in any other way than metapsychological”. Freud had to leave this area, which is crucial for diagnostics , to future analysts in an unfinished state, since the sciences necessary for its completion were in the first half of the 20th century. were hardly developed or did not exist. These include above all ethological research on primate and evolutionary anthropology , as well as the field of neurology .
Concept formation by Freud
Freud first used the term metapsychology in 1896 and 1898 in letters to his friend Wilhelm Fließ . He first discussed the three coordinates that were later summarized under him in terms of the phenomena of transference neuroses ( phobia , conversion hysteria , and obsessional neurosis ). A more detailed description follows.
dynamics
Dynamics examines the movement of biological energy that works in and between the three psychic instances ego , id , and superego . Freud called the energy itself libido , so it is the influence of which activates the functions and contents of the soul, first the id, which is the seat of a series of innate needs. Freud almost equated this instance with the unconscious , the ego with the consciousness and the super-ego with the preconscious . If one of the id needs becomes conscious , then one speaks of its libidonic cathexis (with that energy), at the same time the change from the id to the ego instance takes place: the living being feels a need for food intake, curiosity, social interaction or pleasure exchange. The opposite is the case with so-called repression . To initiate this process, the ego fends off one of the id needs (usually on the occasion of a traumatic experience, the threat of punishment internalized in the 'preconscious' superego); this shifts it from the conscious system back to the unconscious system .
Topic
Topic describes the localizability of psychological processes within the nervous system required by psychoanalysis . For Freud, the representation of psychic processes by anatomical-organic processes remained predominantly hypothetical, since contemporary neurology was not sufficiently developed to produce unambiguous findings for this sense. However, it is expressly presupposed in that the author speaks of a psychic apparatus to which "spatial expansion and composition of several pieces" is ascribed and whose "arena ... the brain (nervous system)" is. In order to clarify the difference in what the respective terms signify, Freud emphasizes that the psychic topic has for the time being nothing to do with the anatomic. The former refers to "regions of the mental apparatus, wherever they may be located in the body and not to anatomical locations". Freud consequently also uses the term instances instead of psychological topics, in order to avoid confusing the latter with an anatomical location. Apart from that, the concept of the instance resides more in the character of the function than in that of the topic, may such locality be psychological or related to the field of organic anatomy. Freud: "The functional * assumption has knocked the topical out of the field with little effort." (Function in this context: that which, for example, the ego-instance essentially does or does).
Biological conception of the soul
Other topological models, e.g. B. the field theory ( Kurt Lewin ) or the integration space ( Thure von Uexküll ), postulate a symbolically imagined space in which fundamental concepts such as body, mind, soul, God and the environment ( the parents of the child, later the ruling social order ) are summarized . Such alternative models do not in themselves contain any new knowledge, since Freud uses the “it” and the concept of soul synonymously. Of course, he considered it necessary to clearly differentiate his conception of the soul from religious concepts, and so on. a. because the fundamental of these assumptions cannot be scientifically proven. That the 'individual spirit' can leave the body or even survive its death (molecular disintegration) represents a mere assumption or hope, against which speaks above all that a 'personality' is able to extinguish completely as a result of disease-related brain damage, although the Affected person continues to remain 'alive'.
In contrast to the religious conception, Freud's soul or id concept - based on the libido - is conceived biologically, in the sense of an organically indissoluble unity of 'body and spirit'. This supplement begins to develop from the moment of egg fertilization and, ideally, if it continues without disturbance, the id represents the germ of the "spiritual" ego and the "physical" superego. The assignment of physicality is justified , because the superego is represented by those organs (areas of the brain) that are naturally specialized in neurosynaptically storing the experiences that the ego itself staged, in order to make them available again when needed. This ensures that mistakes once made are not repeated, or that the satisfaction of id needs is optimized. In this respect, the superego generally represents the living being's memory, in the context of a social connotation: its conscience and even a censor, since traumatic experiences can prevent the ego from becoming aware of the corresponding id needs. What remains unconscious (phenomenon of repression ) cannot lead to temptation; a renewed punishment (repetition of the trauma) is prevented by the superego.
Criticism of religion
Against the background of these considerations, Freud developed his famous argument against religious belief: This kind of conception of God does not embody a principle which is responsible for the laws of nature and the evolution of the cosmos and living matter resulting from them (see below, ontology), but represent only the superlative of parental superiority from the perspective of the child-dependent ego. In the later adult, this felt omnipotence and omniscience of the parents is represented by the corresponding contents of the SUPER-ego, which inwardly 'monitors' all impulses, by referring to very similar ones Demand wise obedience (renunciation of instincts, id suppression), like education once did. The former hierarchy of power between child and parents is expressed topically by the fact that the ego projects such content of its super-ego onto the sky ( above itself).
Ontological basis of the libido
Compared to Freud's diagnosis that the nature of religions, which especially exalts the father , is reduced to a general human neurosis with an implicit refusal of a mature attitude towards reality, the question of the criterion of this judgment often arises. Was Freud an atheist, as the scientific orientation of his models and theories suggests? Has he possibly created something himself with the core of his psychoanalysis, against which his religion-critical objection could be raised, according to which one has no "right" to believe if there is no knowledge available about the subject? Perhaps the epistemological argument against this would speak against it, according to which there are assumptions which fall out of the connection between cause and effect insofar as a cause cannot be given for them. An attempt to search for the cause of the cause etc. could be undertaken, but the result would be that his energy in the infinite regress is senselessly worn out. This encouragement to deliberately put an end to the endless questioning process by defining a first cause, which becomes the beginning of a logically conclusive causal nexus (such as modern cosmology 'from the big bang '), adds Godehard Brüntrup in addition: Psychology also has none logical or directly sensual evidence for the fact that humans have a consciousness ('spirit'); nevertheless she does not doubt that it is rational to believe this. In this respect, there is probably a way for the well-founded step from belief to knowledge , which takes place via established hypotheses , the possible truth of which is tested via experiment and confirmed by the observed arrival of the predicted results. This path is closed to religious beliefs because of their inherent dogmatics ; One should believe in Jehovah as the primary cause of the universe and the Decalogue - combined with the promise of a hereafter salvation from self-inflicted suffering - but the believer must not question this concept.
Economy
The third coordinate of metaphysology touches the gap and apparent closeness between the religious creator and the epistemological abyss most intimately. It is based on the assumption of a teleological principle which, on the one hand, corresponds to a first cause that cannot be further questioned by definition, but on the other hand, Freud, as a connoisseur of the theory of evolution , placed it in the causal context of cell biological processes. These are (or seem) in principle designed to be efficient . This means that organisms avoid wasting the energies available to them, or rather optimize their behavior and their forms. The available mental energy ( libido ) is always limited. The affects in particular are an expression of this energetic event. Hence, since his time with Charcot , Freud has used expressions such as affect amount . For this reason, certain ideas are subject to crustification , and organs that were once developed recede as soon as species find their way into ecological areas in which they prove to be superfluous: Cave fish 'lose' their eyes over the generations that the genetically closely related species in the ordinary waters continue to need; the teeth of the genus Homo became increasingly weaker - in comparison with those of the rest of the great apes - because Homo erectus already seems to have a sufficiently well developed brain to master the technique of making fire, or to learn to use the digestive system to relieve cooked food.
Pathology section of psychobiology
Transferred to the psychological phenomenon of the so-called defense of traumatically induced sensations from the sphere of conscious inner perception, Freud wrote: "The maintenance of a repression requires constant expenditure of force and its removal means economically a saving" of the otherwise invested in the act of repression Energies. This consideration of the economic principle is based on the assumption that the organisms only have limited amounts of energy available for any activity. If they are exhausted around the middle of the day, the losses can indeed be compensated by taking food, but this does not change the maximum amount of available energies. Their topical distribution and consumption in the metabolic processes as well as in and between the psychic instances of the organism represents the objective aspect of these considerations, the subjective one consists of the "depth" of the experiences. The experience of the depth results z. B. from the feeling of vitality or the "meaning" of every lifestyle, which must be based on the daily available amount of energy and its either healthy or inhibited flow.
The objectification problem
While it is relatively easy to find analogous ideas for dynamic and topical relationships in physics, the first difficulty in relation to the subjective aspect of economics (including the impression that a person leaves on the observer) is that he is able to rely on direct empirical evidence seems to escape - at least nominally the project an objectification is set contrary. With regard to the proportion defined as objective , it is still unclear how the reservoir of mental energy that Freud referred to as libido can be “measured”. After all, there are teleological considerations at the foundation of Freud's theory , on the basis of which a determination of the existence of man and generally of all living beings, determined by this energy - ' ex nihilo ' - is postulated. The same is realized both on the path of evolution and on the basis of its time-gathered 'repetition' in the fertilized egg ( phylogenesis → ontogenesis ), which is followed by the development of the soul, which is again subdivided into several sections: the oral, the anal and the genital Phase.
This concept is not new in the history of Western philosophy; Aristotle already represented an analogous doctrine of 'phylogenetic' and individual development - in his terms: the vegetative- passive (only receiving food), the animal- aggressive (assertive) and the actual human phase which is able to think and judge and is capable of conscious self-control of animal impulses. ( This leads to the definition of man as zoon politicon: the only one among all animals which, due to its natural destiny, is able to negotiate "contracts" with its enemies: ceasefire, trade agreements, etc. To counter the problem: see the " war of the chimpanzees ". )
The teleological determination of existence assumed by Freud was already discussed by Aristotle, calling it entelechy (see his theory of the soul based on the unmoved mover ), but this discussion led to the draft of so-called metaphysics . A field of research in which the human mind deals with the relationship between things that can be grasped and the incomprehensible, as Anaximander perhaps did a few centuries before Aristotle: his apeiron seems to denote an unimaginable source of all imaginable things, which is at the same time their goal: the cause of the purpose of all happenings, although it cannot be named but not understood. In this subject area, strongly subjective parts on the part of the respective authors may play the decisive role. In any case, Freud's teleology raises the philosophical-epistemological question as to whether the postulate of the libido as a noumenal- aapeironal energy, which determines the phenomenally measurable happenings in the mental apparatus, if not even its being-there, is at all capable of objectification, or what actually it is Activity of objectifying should or can mean.
Starting from the libido - the 'first cause' of the Freudian soul, the 'immobile mover' of its instinctual energetic dynamics - its economic contexts can best be inferred through the question of what 'use' or 'meaning' the disease processes characterized by defense processes at their beginnings, often in early childhood, since having fallen victim to repression . In general terms, this 'benefit' consisted of keeping chronic anxiety sensations away from consciousness, avoiding conflicts with those who are well-intentioned traumatizing people, and the consequent accumulation of energies of the instincts defended in the unconscious were poorly diverted into less problematic paths. Through this redistribution of the psychic energies in the various instances, called compensation , a new energetic balance is established under pathological conditions. Maintaining such an equilibrium is critical to the resulting state of relative health - u. a. a sense of self-worth despite what is known as the renunciation of instincts - whereby, according to Freud, “health cannot be described otherwise than metapsychologically”.
The compensatory phenomena include the special forms of logic that can be found in irony , comedy , humor , naivety or, more generally, in the techniques of joke (see also on the psychopathology of everyday life ). The main and common psychological characteristic of this type of linguistic or facial expression and the difference between healthy and pathogenic behavior (thinking, feeling) is the coordinate of economics.
Development of metapsychology
Like any diligent scientist, Freud made changes to the drafting of his theories as soon as he realized that the logic of the form he had previously considered valid was not free of contradictions or avoidable detours. Like all psycho-physiological dynamics, this intellectual process ( logical linking of different contents) is subject to the principle of energetic optimization and is supplemented by the elimination of discrepancies established between 'theory' and practice, postulates and details of empirical consideration.
The life-death instinct antagonism
Against this background, Freud developed, after the first, the libido theory, a second (the narcissistic theory) and then a third, the theory of the life and death instincts. Both are equally immanent in the libido, but they have an antagonistic effect : the death instinct or Thanatos has a 'corrosive', analytical effect (regardless of whether it is on an ingested prey or a complex conception), while the life drive Eros has an integrative , synthetic effect : the appropriate ones , actually, among the constituents of a digested food that is desired by eros, are incorporated into the organism, serving its growth, regeneration or reproduction ..
This path of research back to the abstract principle of two complementary aspects of the same energy ultimately led, as Freud writes in his self-presentation , to the “attempt at a metapsychology . I called such a way of contemplation in which every mental process is valued according to the three coordinates of dynamics, topics and economy, and saw in it the ultimate goal that can be achieved by psychology. The attempt remained a torso, I broke off after a few treatises (instincts and instinctual destinies - repression - the unconscious - sadness and melancholy etc.) and certainly did so because the time for such a theoretical determination had not yet come ”. Collected Works: XIV, 33-96, 1924.
Abort and resume
This justification for the temporary termination of metapsychology is based on the determination of important scientific developments that were still missing at the time. As Freud once again notes in The Man of Moses, there were neither well-founded descriptions of the behavior of our primatic relatives ( with the help of such documentation, his model of natural coexistence, known as Darwin's primal horde , can be checked and, if necessary, corrected ), nor did contemporary neurology offer more precise information about them Functions of the different areas of the human brain. The findings, for example, that the frontal lobe , viewed topically, is the place in which the highest forms of ego-conscious thinking take shape with sociality , while the limbic brain areas below are apparently specialized in the permanent impressing of experiences (functional aspect of the superego ), are only the findings of the most recent neurological research. The discovery that the way of life of our closest evolutionary relatives does not have an overly powerful ancestor with his harem is not much older (as Freud postulated in totem and taboo and subject to re-evaluation in mass psychology ), but consists of two groups of the adult sexes. See e.g. B. in The Gombe Chimpanzee War . Thus there is a first solid evidence that would make it possible to replace the Darwinian primal horde with an ethologically founded horde model on a trial basis. One finding that can possibly be considered as proof of this thesis comes from cognitive archeology : see Colin Renfrew's assumption that it was " egalitarian groups" that created the megalithic cultures. He justifies this hypothesis with his interpretation of the content of the large megalithic communal graves: an average of 8 deceased women and 9 men per generation. Such burial custom, which suggests the mentality of the living, is in contrast to the tombs for individual rulers, which indicate a strong hierarchy of power (for example the pyramids of the pharaohs).
Various metapsychologies have been developed since Freud. Even if they were to succeed in integrating Freudian metapsychology findings of the kind indicated in the sense of their perfection, this would not yet provide an empirically fully valid theory of a description of what characterizes the mental health of Homo sapiens. As I said, the economic criterion implies the factor of highly individual, subjective assessments of the “meaning” or the painful senselessness of a particular lifestyle. Accordingly, metapsychology represents a concept that is initially purely hypothetically therapeutically effective. A system that is supposed to include scientific findings as comprehensively as possible and whose terminology makes it possible to think psychoanalytically: to communicate about the relevant facts, to question them critically. In particular, the benefit and meaning of a repression carried out by his formerly childlike ego can be presented to a client for discussion so that he can subject this previously unconscious process to a subsequent assessment and correct it if necessary. This description of Freud follows, among other things. a. Dahl (see PSYCHE, 67, 2013).
literature
- Christine Kirchhoff: Why metapsychology . In: Journal for Psychology . Volume 18, Issue 1, 2010.
- Gerhard Dahl: Scientific validity, utility and usability of metapsychological concepts in psychoanalysis. Attempt to clarify . Psyche - Z Psychoanal. 67, 33-59 (2013)
- Freud, S. (1924): Self-Presentation. In: Collected Works. Volume 14, pp. 33-96.
- Margret Kaiser-El-Safti: The thinker . The emergence of Freud's metapsychology as a function of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Bonn 1987.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Sigmund Freud : The Unconscious . In: Journal for Psychoanalysis , 1915, Volume III.
- ^ Sigmund Freud: Letters to Wilhelm Fliess. Letters dated February 13, 1896, April 2, 1896, and March 10, 1898.
- ^ Sigmund Freud: Outline of Psychoanalysis . (1938) Fischer Bücherei, Frankfurt 1964, p. 6
- ↑ Sigmund Freud: The Unconscious . In: Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse , 1915, Volume III, p. 15.
- ↑ a b Uwe Henrik Peters : Dictionary of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology . Urban & Schwarzenberg, Munich 3rd edition 1984; (a): on taxation “Metapsychology”: p. 350; (b): Re. “Instance”: p. 274; (c): Re. “economic”: p. 382; 6th edition, Elsevier-Verlag, Munich 2007, books.google.de
- ↑ Sigmund Freud: The Unconscious . In: Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse , 1915, Volume III, p. 20.
- ↑ Sigmund Freud: The future of an illusion . tape XIV , S. 340 (“A benevolent, only apparently strict providence watches over each of us, which does not allow us to become the plaything of the overly strong and ruthless forces of nature: death itself is not destruction, not a return to the inanimate lifelessness, but the beginning of a new species of existence ”).
- ↑ Klaus Englert: Sigmund Freud's critique of religion - Der Gottkomplex. Retrieved on May 6, 2020 (German, section "Projection of Heavenly Father": The Munich psychoanalyst Herbert Will comments that Sigmund Freud formulated the philosophical criticism of religion by Feuerbach and Marx for the first time in a psychoanalytical manner: We project - Freud said - not just a human being in heaven: It is the father, with his strengths and weaknesses, who is raised to the almighty and protective God-Father: "The important argument is the longing for the father: that people who follow a religion are basically psychic infantilism, that is, children remained and did not become adults because they - like a child clinging to his father - then cling to God. ”).
- ↑ Sigmund Freud: The man Moses . S. 72 .
- ↑ Sigmund Freud: The future of an illusion . 1928, p. 91 .
- ↑ Sigmund Freud: Future of an Illusion . VI.
- ↑ Godehard Brüntrup: Freud's criticism of religion . S. 64-67 .
- ↑ Sigmund Freud : The defense neuropsychoses. Attempt of a neurological theory of acquired hysteria, many phobias and obsessions and certain hallucinatory psychoses [1894] In: Gesammelte Werke, Volume I, “Studies on Hysteria. Early writings on the theory of neuroses ”, Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt / M 1999, ISBN 3-596-50300-0 ; P. 74 on tax. "Affect amount".
- ↑ Sigmund Freud : The repression . In: Collected Works, Volume X, “Works from the years 1913-1917”, Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt / M 1999, ISBN 3-596-50300-0 ; P. 255 on tax. "Affect amount".
- ↑ Sigmund Freud: The repression . In: The Unconscious. Writings on psychoanalysis . S. Fischer Verlag 1963, p. 69, first published in: Zeitschrift f. Psychoanalysis , 1915, Volume III; Collected Works , S. Fischer, Volume X
- ↑ Harald Schultz-Hencke : The psychoanalytical conceptual world . Publishing house for medical psychology in the publishing house Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen (1947), revised edition 1972, ISBN 3-525-45620-4 , chap. “The topical, the dynamic and the economic point of view” p. 112 ff .; on tax “economic”: pp. 114–116.
- ↑ Stavros Mentzos : Psychodynamic Models in Psychiatry . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 21992, ISBN 3-525-45727-8 , p. 10.
- ↑ Sigmund Freud: The finite and the infinite analysis . (1937) In: Collected Works, S. Fischer, Vol. XVI, pages 57-99
- ↑ Sigmund Freud: The joke and its relationship to the unconscious . (1905) Fischer-Bücherei Frankfurt 1963, pp. 34 ff., 96 ff., 126 ff. And 192 f. Like. in: Collected Works , Volume VI, S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt / M., 3rd edition 1953
- ↑ Sigmund Freud: The man Moses and the monotheistic religion . ISBN 978-3-15-018721-0 , Chapter 3, Section C, p. 180 ( projekt-gutenberg.org ).
- ↑ The short path to action - functional neuroanatomy of the frontal lobe (article by the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive and Neurosciences in Leipzig)
- ↑ Where psychoanalysis and brain research agree. ( Memento of October 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) at: neuro-psa.org.uk
- ↑ limbic system. In: Lexicon of Neuroscience. Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Heidelberg, accessed on September 20, 2019 .
- ↑ Sigmund Freud: X. The mass and the primal horde . In: mass psychology and ego analysis . textlog.de. Retrieved December 3, 2019.