coberst

A Fine Line between Normality and Abnormality

Aristotle said that all men seek happiness. Freud said that the goal of the pleasure-principle is happiness. Man’s desire for happiness sets at odds to the reality-principle. It is the reality-principle that propels the world into tomorrow. Humans naturally seek what they wish but “reality imposes on human beings the necessity of renunciation of pleasures”.

Freud says that the whole edifice of psychoanalysis is constructed on the theory of repression—the essence of society is the repression of the individual--the essence of the individual is repression of him or her self—Freud’s theory is that the phenomena dreams, neurotic symptoms, and errors are caused—i.e. the principle of psychic determinism—they are meaningful because this means there is purpose or intention—“since the purport of these purposive expressions is generally unknown to the person whose purpose they express, Freud is driven to embrace the paradox that there are in a human being purposes of which he knows nothing, involuntary purpose”—i.e. unconscious ideas.

Norman Brown tells us that to comprehend Freud one must understand “repression”. “In the new Freudian perspective, the essence of society is repression of the individual, the essence of the individual is repression of the self.”

Freud discovered the importance of repression when he discovered the meaning of the “mad” symptoms of the mentally deranged, plus the meaning of dreams, and thirdly the everyday happenings regarded as slips of the tongue, errors, and random thoughts. He concludes that dreams, mental derangements, and common every day errors (Freudian slips) have meaningful causes that can be explained. Meaningful is the key word here.

The rejection of an idea which is one’s very own and remains so is repression. The essence of repression is in the fact that the individual refuses to recognize this reality of her very own nature. This nature becomes evident when it erupts into consciousness only in dreams or neurotic symptoms or by slips of the tongue.

The unconscious is illuminated only when it is being repressed by the conscious mind. It is a process of psychic conflict. “We obtain our theory of the unconscious from the theory of repression.” Freud’s hypothesis of the repressed unconscious results from the conclusion that it is common to all humans. This is a phenomenon of everyday life; neurosis is common to all humans.

Dreams are normal phenomena and being that the structure of dreams is common to neurotics and normal people the dream is also neurotic. “Between “normality” and “abnormality” there is no qualitative but only quantitative difference, based largely on the practical question of whether our neurosis is serious enough to incapacitate us for work…the doctrine of the universal neurosis of mankind is the psychoanalytical analogue of the theological doctrine of original sin.”

Quotes from “Life against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History” Norman O. Brown

avon

Your posts are not random topics - you have an agenda of sorts that makes me think you are writing a book. This topic here, follows on from your post about 'meaning' which followed on from, and developed, 'self-activation' etc. etc. It's only a suspicion ... (I don't have a problem with that!!)

What I don't accept without further elucidation is the statement that suggests that the rejection of something is tantamount to its repression. Surely I can reject something purely on it's own merits without being servile to my repressive subconscious.

Pedro

I too had the same suspicion about a book struggling to be stillborn.

coberst

We are all neurotic. We are neurotic when we behave as follows: The rejection of an idea which is one’s very own and remains so is repression. The essence of repression is in the fact that the individual refuses to recognize this reality of her very own nature. This nature becomes evident when it erupts into consciousness only in dreams or neurotic symptoms or by slips of the tongue.

The dividing line is a practical one. If I can function at my job I am normal if not I am abnormal.

The rejection I speak of is an unconscious act. Freud informs me that all of us have a constant conflict between what is unconscious and what is conscious. An example might be an experience in childhood that is so painful and anxiety provoking that our ego will not allow us to maintain a conscious rememberance of that experience.

The book "Denial, Negaion, and the Forces of the Negative" by Wlfred Ver Eecke goes into detail about this matter.

You are correct my posts are not just about random domains of knowledge. I started this hobby I call self-actualizing self-learning about 25 years ago with the question 'how can families behave toward one another as they do in a civil war'? The question has expanded since then to the question "why do humans do the things they do and can this behavior be changed?

coberst

I considered writing a book but decided that I was too old to effectively do so and instead have turned to the Internet forum as a vehicle to express what I consider to be important ideas that everyone needs to be conscious of.

PADDYBOY

coberst
I may be way of the mark here, but isn't this about being team players and/or being loners ?

coberst

I cannot make the connection here.

PADDYBOY

My mistake.