On positive psychic pathology

On positive psychic pathology

Budimir Rogovoy, Ph.D. ( Russia)



The world-famous children`s psychotherapist Bruno Bettelheim reached much success in the treatment of schizophrenia and , later, autism, which achievements have been attested by a number of independent observers: v., e.g., ( Sutton 1996), ( Crain 1980).
Nevertheless, the main therapeutic principles lying at the root of B.Bettelheim`s psychotherapy remain up to now insufficiently elucidated, which was admitted by B.Bettelheim himself in his later works- v. especially ( Bettelheim 1991, p. 34).
Reactions of the patients of B.Bettelheim to his psychotherapy have been insufficiently explained, and what seems to be especially disturbing is the regular tendency of his patients to worsen after some initial improvement, which worsenings may be very prolonged and sometimes rather severe. As B.Bettelheim himself says about his work:
“…Our work is made up of a long series of ups and downs, but… by and large each new low is less deep, and each high that follows is both higher and better than the one that preceded it”. (Bettelheim 1950, p. 229)
These worsenings of the patients of B.Bettelheim had a definitely regressive character, which was clearly stated by B.Bettelheim.
Generally speaking, regressions may be “benign” ( helping for an adaptation to reality) and “malignant” ( leading away from it) –the terms “benign” and “malignant” regressions were coined by M.Balint ( Balint 1965).
B.Bettelheim was very ingenious in making regressions of his patients benign ones, helping for recovery.
B.Bettelheim often says about the adaptational value of this regressive behavior: e.g.  (Bettelheim 1967, pp. 93, 294). He even summarizes that there is a “close connection” “between higher achievements in one area and regressive behavior in another” /our italics/ (Bettelheim 1950, p. 224).   
In this paper we try to extrapolate this discovery of B.Bettelheim to a broader range of psychic pathology, far beyond the clinical field, with the following, still more bold assumptions with respect to social life.
We shall use the term “psychic pathology”, which is a broader one  than “psychic regression”. Psychic pathology includes regression in an open or, more often, some masked way plus new features combining with purely regressive ones in more or less complex combinations. We shall call “positive” psychic pathology if it actually is or may become beneficial for the psychic existence or progress of a person or society.
    Our notion of “positive psychic pathology” is rather near to the notion of “positive disintegration” constructed by the Polish (later Canadian) psychologist K.Dabrowski  (Dabrowski 1979).
Some presumably positive psychic pathology may be observed in various stages of ontogenesis beginning possibly from the very first days after birth, when some motor abilities of a neonate become lost suddenly and unexplainably.
There is a salient juxtaposition and possibly some causal connection between the transition of teen-agers to new experiences and activities, on one hand, and the upsurge of psychic disequilibrium and failures of social adaptation in some of them in our culture, on the other hand.
Some psychoanalysts believe that the neutralized aggression is an initial source of the development of activity ( Hartmann 1958). Therefore in the processes of the external activization and passing from the relatively secure family world to a more uncertain and less benevolent milieu the aggressive drive may be easily re-activated. It may be helpful , for a time: it is known, e.g., that some young schizophrenics improve in their mental health if they become criminals.
And now we pass to some literary examples interpreted by us in the light of our conception of positive psychic pathology.
More than a century ago the classic Russian writer I.Turgenev juxtaposing the positive and negative psychic features of Hamlet and Don Quixote wrote as follows:
“Must one be a madman in order to believe in truth, and must the mind that has mastered itself lose thereby all its force?” ( Turgenev, cited by Turgenev 1979)
Somewhat analogous questions were asked by K.Chukovsky with respect to the works of another classic Russian writer A.Chekhov:
“Why does he picture active people with such unkind dark colors…?” Why “has he a definite liking in his writings for feeble and passive personages?” ( Chukovsky 1967, p. 654)
Could it not be that the passivity of Chekhov`s personages and the escape from reality of Hamlet, on the level of activity, and of Don Quixote, on the level of understanding , be symptoms of their regression to the hedonistic world in the face of the difficulties of the transition to the worlds of values and freedom? And could not these negative features play some positive part either, making this transition actually possible?
   ( The terms “worlds of various psychic experiences” have been taken by us from the writings of the modern Russian psychologist F.Vasilyuk ( Vasilyuk 1984)).
And now, not without hesitations, we shall extend our extrapolations from the experiences of the psychotherapy of B.Bettelheim into the social realm. The situation in the field of social theory is so unsatisfactory, with no adequate explanations of the dynamics of social life and the course of history, that we feel compelled to continue our trend of thought into the fields of sociology and history, even understanding the insufficiency of its evidence at our disposal at the moment.
More than half a century before S.Freud diagnosed neurosis in our culture, the Russian thinker and writer A.Hertsen made one of his literary personages Tit Leviafansky call man homo insanus and say the following on the sense of history:
“…Any state activity would have ceased without chronic human madness, and the healing of the latter would have stopped history”(Hertsen, cited by Hertsen 1987, p. 439)
“It is madness,- continues Tit Leviafansky,- which “has taken the hand of the people off the plow and given instead a sword to it”. ( Ibid., p. 442)
( It would be interesting to compare these sayings with the views of the modern American sociologist F.Fukuyama on “the end of history”).
Facts and arguments for the occurence of rampant insanity in our civilization could be easily collected from the experiences of our times. But we know also that it is juxtaposed to the continual mastery of the worlds of  activity, values and freedom.
Assuming a causal relation therein, L.Klages and Th.Lessing, among others, put forward a supposition that spiritual experiences and activities are capable to downgrade human life and lead humanity to the abyss of degradation.
Our hypothesis is more moderate. We believe that the passing to the higher life worlds could really result in psychic pathology but the latter has also positive value and potential.
Several examples of  positive social-psychological pathology would suffice for this paper.
Striking is extreme masochism ( in a wide, non-sexual sense of the term) lying at the root of many devastating wars. Countries beginning a war often suffer unacceptably heavy losses, which could have been predicted beforehand as quite probable, making these wars unreasonable and absurd.
But when a radical ideologist ( H.Marcuse) complains of the masochism of “the oppressed”, which makes new revolutions impossible, one may ask a question about some positive function         
of this masochism. The experiences of the Russian communist revolution have shown what fatal results may follow from the loss of “social masochism” and its transformation into “social aggression”. (An intimate connection between aggression and self-aggression postulated by the Freudian theory  makes such a transformation quite possible ).
And looking at social aggression one could recollect that as early as in 1930 S.Freud wrote:
“At our times the people have gone so far in their domination over the forces of nature that they could easily use this domination for their mutual annihilation up to the last man.” (Freud 1930, cited by Freud 1990, p. 79)
The situation has since not changed irreversibly.
But recognizing the appalling results of social aggression one must also recollect another saying of S.Freud, who once asked the question what the Russian communists would do after the presumable destruction of all their bourgeois enemies. S.Freud clearly understood that aggression could be a factor uniting and strengthening society for the struggle against (real or imaginary) enemies.
And generally speaking one may also recollect  the following precept of M.Scheler:
“…Man should learn to put up with himself including with those his inclinations which he believes to be bad and pernicious”. ( Scheler 1928, cited by The Problem of Man in the Western Philosophy 1988, p.75)
In another work ( Scheler 1928, cited by Scheler 1994, p.117) M.Scheler refers to a Indian myth of the god Krishna, who struggled long and ineffectively against the forces of Evil in the shape of the World Snake winding around him, but then he easily freed himself by having imitated the coils of the Snake with every part of his body and thereby apparently yielded to the Snake. We should like, nevertheless, to add a skeptical note that such a maneuver could have been done more easily by the unblemished god than by people possibly also infected by Evil, often without their awareness of it.
Still we finish our paper expressing a hope that if we try to use correctly the vast potential of positive psychic pathology it might help for the prosperity and progress of humanity.


LITERATURE

Balint, M. ( 1965 ) The Benign and the Malignant Forms of Regression. In: New Perspectives in Psychoanalysis (Ed.G.E.Daniels ), pp. 284-317. N.Y.-L.: Grune & Stratton.

Bettelheim, B. ( 1950 ) Love is not Enough. Glencoe.

Bettelheim, B. ( 1967 ) The Empty Fortress. Infantile Autism and The Birth of the Self. N.Y.:  Free press; L.: Collier- MacMillan.

Bettelheim, B. ( 1991 ) The Informed Heart. L.: Penguin.

Chukovsky, K. Once More about Chekhov. In: Chukovsky, K. Collection of Works in 6 Volumes, vol. 5. M.: Publishing House of Literature, 1967. ( In Russian )

Crain, W. ( 1980 ) Theories of Development: Concepts and Applications. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Dabrowski, K. ( 1979 ) Desintegracja Pozytywna.. Warszawa. ( In Polish ) (There are also some later English- language books of K.Dabrowski, which were unavailable to us)

Freud, S. ( 1930) Civilization and its Discontents. Cited by: Freud, S. Civilization and its Discontents, vol. 2. M.: Moscow Worker, 1990. (In Russian) 

Hartmann, H. ( 1958 ) Ego Psychology and the Problem of Adaptation. L.: Imago.

Hertsen, A. Cited by: Hertsen, A. Stories. M., 1987. ( In Russian )

Scheler, M. ( 1928 ) The Position of Man in the Cosmos. Cited by: The Problem of Man in the Western Philosophy. M.: Progress,1988. ( In Russian )

Scheler, M. ( 1928a ) Man in the Epoch of Equalizing. Cited by: Scheler, M. Selected Works. M.: Gnosis, 1994. ( In Russian )

Sutton, N. ( 1996 ) Bettelheim: a Life and Legacy. N.Y.: Basic.

Turgenev, I. Hamlet and Don Quixote. Cited by: Turgenev, I. Collection of Works in 12 volumes, vol. 12. M.: Publishing House of Literature, 1979. ( In Russian )

Vasilyuk, F. (1984) The Psychology of Psychic Experiences. M.: Moscow State University. ( In Russian ) (There is also an English-language edition M.: Progress, 1988 ).