Group Analytic Contexts, Issue 77, September 2017

140 Group-Analytic Society International - Contexts
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Freud’s Cornerstones
It’s somehow got about that Freud once said, “Love and work are the
cornerstones of our humanity”, except that he never did! It’s nowhere
to be found in the complete works, his letters or any public record. The
nearest one can get is in Identity, Youth and Crisis, where Erik Erikson
recounts a story about Freud being once asked what he thought a
normal person should be able to do well. Instead of something
“profound” Freud simply said, “Lieben und arbeiten” (to love and to
work).
Subsequent therapists have written eulogies round this fictional “quote”
and it is easy to understand its attractive concision and scope, it seems
to have the natural Freudian portentous ring to it. For instance Erikson
himself said about the version in his story, “It pays to ponder on this
simple formula; it grows deeper as you think about it.” Well,
MWYWTI hates to disagree with the great man (both of them) but
surely Freud, and implicitly Erikson, are missing at least two other
“cornerstones”, aspects of life that are essential to our humanness.
In fact, MWYWTI would like to reconfigure the whole thing and, in
the spirit of the dynamic therapies, call them the activities that make
us human, which give meaning to our lives. So. these are: Productive
activities, erotic activities, pointless activities and spiritual activities.
Let’s consider them one by one:
Productive Activities: It can be assumed that within this category
Freud was considering as work anything that earned money - manual,
intellectual, psychic - or contributed to society in other ways through
voluntary labour. We certainly want to include in the latter, not just
volunteering in various capacities but work on committees, organising
forums, symposiums, workshops etc. etc. – activities that lead to some
outcome.
Erotic Activities: MWYWTI is using this in Guggenbül-Craig’s*
sense of all relationships of affection and love including friends,
colleagues, lovers, partners, husbands, wives, children, relatives –
basically all our relationships. And all the things that g on in those
relationships – play, talk, co-presence, sex, sharing etc. etc.