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S38 A. Heinz et al. / European Psychiatry 27 (2012) / supplement n°2 / S32-S43
7. Psychoanalytical Self- models
Modern concepts of the self are deeply shaped by psychoanalytical
concepts. Freud developed a theory of the “ego”
(Ich) when trying to describe how a person’s relation to the
environment is disturbed in paranoia or dementia praecox
(later called schizophrenia). Freud suggested that narcissism is
a normal developmental stage following the primary stage of
autoerotism, and that it is characterised by organising autoerotic
partial drives and directing them towards a unifi ed object,
the ego [16, GW VIII]. Freud assumed that the ego undergoes
structural developmental changes during ontogenesis. Love of
other persons (“objects”) characterises the next developmental
step following narcissism. During its development, the psychic
apparatus is originally driven by desires which directly aim at
representations of the craved objects (Lust- Ich), which a suckling
can even hallucinate. With time, the ego takes the demands of
the external world into account and develops from the “Lust- Ich”
into a “Real- Ich”. In the study on the famous case of “Schreber”
and in his contemporary writings on narcissism, Freud suggested
that psychoses are characterised by a retraction of libido from
such outer “objects” (persons), e.g. when we lose a loved object.
Libido as an expression of (sexual) desire would then have to be
contained within the psychic apparatus, until it can be aimed
again at new objects [16]. However, if there is a disturbance of
libido development, the sexual energy “regresses” back towards
the developmental stage in which the dysfunction occurred.
If, for example, libido development was disturbed during the
stage of narcissism, regression will cause the energy to occupy
the ego structure itself, thus recreating the narcissistic developmental
stage. Freud suggested that subjectively, the loss of
libido directed at outer objects is experienced as an apocalyptic
destruction of the world, as it may occur in psychotic disorders.
Freud further argued that besides the libido, there are other
forms of psychic energy, which are directly controlled by the ego
and directed towards outer objects. In normal situations, these
energies guarantee an interest in the environment; however, a
regression of libido would also destroy the direction of such “ego
energies” towards the representation of outer objects, resulting
in the apocalyptic experience described above [16, GW VIII].
In Freuds further work on “Das Ich und das Es” [16], Freud
developed the theory of the ego as a rather weak mediator
between the powerful forces of drives and desires located in
the “Es” and the moral demands of the “Über- Ich”. He suggested
that a person’s idealistic view of him- or herself, the “Ich- Ideal”,
is formed according to the imago of the parents, while the moral
demands of the “Über- Ich” are a set of rules and obligations
which are usually handed down in rather unaltered forms by the
parents, who received it from their ancestors. However, if there
is such an “Ich- Ideal” as an idealised representation of one’s own
self, should there not also exist less idealised representations
of such a self? Indeed, Kohut (1992) suggested that the “self”
is a representation of the psychic apparatus, which is occupied
by psychic energy and which is characterised by temporal
continuity. He further argued that there can be contradictory
conscious and preconscious representations of such a self, which
coexist either within the ego or within sections of the psyche, in
which the “Es” and the “Ich” are closely associated [37]. Could
this suggest that the self is easily fragmented? And if so, is this
due to a (secondary) pathologial process, which causes the
fragmentation or is fragmentation the (primary) natural state
of self- representations, which are only secondarily unifi ed into a
coherent self by an integrative process? Different answers have
been given to this question. Freud himself appears to have put
forward two different opinions, which cannot easily be reconciled.
On the one hand, Freud suggested there is a primary state
of autoerotism, which is not characterised by any direction of
the libido to outer objects, on the other hand, he suggested that
the oral sexual energy is directed to a (partial) object, namely
the breast of the mother. Melanie Klein’s concept (1962) was
based on these latter remarks of Freud (1905) and suggested
that a suckling splits his or her representation of the mother’s
breast into the representation of a “good object” and a “bad
object”, depending on whether it fulfi ls his desires or not [36].
The experience of rejection will stir up destructive energies,
which fragment the “bad object”. With time, these objects are
introjected and form core aspects of the self, which is more or
less fragmented, depending on the prevalence of good over bad
experiences. The next developmental stage results from the integration
of good and bad objects. Melanie Klein’s ideas, although
appearing to reduce human interaction on primary aspects of
wish fulfi lment, were rather infl uential, because they propose
a fragile mechanism, which integrates the experiences of the
self and the others into a more or less coherent self experience.
Such psychoanalytical concepts of the “self” and its potential
fragmentation appear to be highly relevant for the interpretation
of cultural and individual alterations of consciousness as
reported with respect to dissociation and “spirit possession”.
8. “False selves”, dissocation and spirit possession
Proofs
Ronald D. Laing (1983) suggested that our civilisation suppresses
not only desires but “any form of transcendence” [38].
A person can feel ontologically insecure and in case his or her
different aspects are not adequately respected, he can dissociate
into an outside façade, a (false) personality or mask, which
tries to fulfi l whatever society demands, and an inner self, that
withdraws from the environment and does not feel responsible
for the actions of the false self. Laing suggested that this process
occurs quite frequently in our society and that our normal,
socially adjusted behaviour too often includes lack of ecstasy and
a betrayal of our true potentials. Too many of us, according to
Laing, are only too successful in developing such a false self [38].
Laing´s explanatory model of the false self, originally constructed
to explain schizophrenic psychosis, appears in the light of these
arguments as a rather normal state of neurotic confl ict solution
or even as a strategy to adjust to social norms, which can run
out of control and harm the persons who try to use it. If socially
unacceptable desires and experiences are banned from conscious
experience, they can return in a dissociative state – be this state
interpreted as a pathological remanifestation of a primary disintegration
of the self or as a neurotic compromise between desire
and psychic defences. However, which forms can this return of
the suppressed take in different cultures? Authors as Richard
Castillo [6,7] hypothesised that spirit possession in India can
be interpreted as a dissociative state, in which a “superhuman
being” possesses the consciousness of a person for some time.