The Psychodynamic Perspective

Potrivit lui Freud, dezvoltarea umana se desfa?oara prin diferite etape

psihosexuale. �n fiecare dintre aceste etape, o anume parte a corpului devine o
zona erogena,

According to Freud, human development proceeds through various psychosexual stages.

In each, a particular area of the body becomes an erogenous zone, the focus of
libidinal energy during that particular period. Sexuality was conceived as an
instinctual force that naturally seeks discharge. For most people, progress through
the psychosexual stages is largely unremarkable. Some individuals, however,
experience either excessive frustration or excessive indulgence, resulting in the
fixation of sexual energy on the concerns of a particular stage, thus coloring the
total personality. During the oral stage, for example, sexual energy is focused on
the mouth. Excessive gratification of oral needs was believed to lead to the
development of an oral character, the psychodynamic equivalent of the contemporary
dependent personality.

As children begin to move into toddlerhood, they leave the oral stage and enter a
period of toilet training, the anal stage, beginning at about 18 months. As Freud
(1908) noted, whereas the oral stage requires only suckling at the breast, an
inborn reflex that comes naturally to all infants, the anal stage begins a period
of anal eroticism that instead requires an inhibition of what is natural. In
particular, the anal stage requires selfcontrol, a delay of instinctual
gratification that accompanies an immediate expulsion of feces. The pleasurable
drive of the id thus runs directly into the desire of parents, so the anal stage
plays an important role in the formation of the superego and the control of
aggressive impulses.

The exact influence of the anal stage on personality development was believed to
depend on the attitude taken by parents toward toilet training. A rigid, impatient,
or demanding attitude could result in the formation of anal-retentive traits, the
characterological counterpart of the compulsive personality. Essentially, the child
reacts against the parents by holding back and refusing to perform, leading to
adult traits such as stubbornness, stinginess, and hidden anger. Anal-retentive
types were also believed to be punctual, orderly, conscientious, and preoccupied
with cleanliness, the very traits that led their parents to demand that they
perform on schedule, with everything in its place and with no mess. Alternatively,
children might react to overcontrol by becoming an anal-expulsive type. Here, the
child goes on the offensive; feces become a weapon. Whereas the anal-retentive
strategy is simple refusal, now the strategy shifts to the active destruction of
parental wishes, a desire to make others regret they had ever exerted any control
at all. Naturally, adult traits are the opposite of the anal-retentive type and
include destructiveness, disorderliness, and sadistic cruelty.

If we look at what the case studies say about Donald�s and Holden�s early
childhood, we do find elements of parental overcontrol. Donald, in fact, struggled
to do what he was told, remembering his mother and father as stern and intolerant
of the horseplay that is part of the early life of most boys. Holden had a similar
experience, being required to meet his parents� expectations and follow their
rules, with �severe consequences� for misbehavior. Parental overcontrol is
different from fixations of libidinal energy, but as these examples show, there is
indeed some wisdom encapsulated in these old analytic conceptions.

As psychoanalysis began to develop into ego psychology and object relations,

conceptions of the anal character broadened as well. W. Reich (1933) depicted the
compulsive as preoccupied with a �pedantic sense of order,� as living life
according to preset patterns but also tending to worry and ruminate,
characteristics seen especially in Holden. Perhaps more important, W. Reich (1949)
regarded the compulsive as exceptionally reserved emotionally, not given to
displays of love and affection, a characteristic he referred to as �affect-block.�
As we have seen, neither Donald nor Holden seems to have much room for fun in his
life. We can�t imagine either of them telling jokes �with the boys� or reacting to
a serious situation with too much levity. Neither are they romantic.

A variety of theorists have made important contributions. Combining influences from

economics, culture, and existentialism, Fromm (1947) described the hoarding
orientation. Such persons build a protective wall around themselves to prevent
anything new from entering. As if always expecting a famine or disaster, they
hoard, save, and fortify themselves for lean times and, like the anal-retentive
described previously, only rarely share anything with others. For them, orderliness
signifies an existential victory over the ungovernable complexities of life, giving
them a feeling of mastery and control over the world (see �Focus on History� box
for more information on Fromm�s scheme of character orientations). Like other
theorists before and since, Rado (1959) described the compulsive as overly
concerned with minutiae, details, and petty formalities. He also noted continuities
between normality and pathology. Thus, the scrupulously honest person may give way
to the hypocrite, and sensitivity to hurt may give way to destructiveness,
criticism, and vindictiveness. For Salzman (1985), the compulsive�s unrelenting
need to control internal and external forces provides an illusion of certainty and
security in a threatening and uncertain world. To minimize the possibility of
unanticipated misadventure, compulsives become cautious and meticulous, even
phobic. There are other interpretations, but Donald�s stomach pains could be seen
as reaction to the feeling that too much about his life remains beyond his control,
a feeling too threatening to be allowed
into conscious awareness and thus channeled into his body.

We have seen that compulsives, more than any other personality, intrinsically
require order, detail, and perfectionism as a means of coping with what is
unpredictable or unsure in the world around them. But that is not the limit of
these requirements; compulsives demand the same sense of order and security from
their internal world, as well. At any moment, a little self-examination shows that
most of us are seething with conflicting feelings that pull us one way or another
and prevent black-and-white assessments, even of simple situations. You take a
class, for example, and although the instructor is superb, the workload gets in the
way of other classes and causes you anger and regret. You take a class, and
although the workload is easy, you definitely could be getting more substance for
your tuition dollars. You love your mother, but she smothers you; then again, when
she doesn�t meddle at least a little, you wonder if she still loves you. The issues
may be different, but everyone is caught in such conundrums. Most of us just
acknowledge both sides of the coin and tolerate the complexity of life. Nothing is
all good or all bad.

For compulsives, however, such contrary feelings and dispositions create intense
feelings of anger, uncertainty, and insecurity that must be kept under tight rein.
To do so, they make use of a whole host of defensive strategies, more than any
other personality pattern. Research argues that the first, and perhaps most
distinctive, is reaction formation (Berman & McCann, 1995). Here, compulsives
reverse forbidden impulses of hostility and rebellion to conform to a highly rigid
ego ideal. For example, when faced with circumstances that would cause dismay or
irritability in most persons, compulsives pride themselves in displaying maturity
and reasonableness, just as Donald does, when noting that even when his wife is
griping and his pain is intense, he manages to keep things under control. In
effect, compulsives symbolically purge themselves of unclean and shameful feelings
by embracing what is diametrically opposite.

Second, compulsives often displace anger and insecurity by seeking out some
position of power that allows them to become a socially sanctioned superego for
others. Here, compulsives enact their anger by making others conform to precise
standards that are unworkably detailed or strict. Holden is almost the incarnation
of this pattern. Those who fall short either pay their dues by acknowledging the
compulsive�s superior authority and knowledge or fall victim to a swift judgment
that conceals a sadistic and selfrighteous joy behind a mask of maturity.
Punishment becomes a duty; humanitarianism, a failing. Fiercely moralistic fathers
and overcontrolling mothers provide examples of camouflaged hostility. Despite
their efforts at control, research shows that compulsive traits are strongly
related to impulsive aggression (Stein, Trestman, Mitropoulou, & Coccaro, 1996).

Although usually capable of exquisite self-control, compulsives sometimes

transgress their own standards or incur the disapproval or disappointment of
authority figures. When their ego defenses fail, they may become filled with
feelings of guilt. Whereas hostility can be transformed or vented, guilt must be
expiated or exorcised, a defense referred to as undoing. Compulsives go to great
lengths to atone for their perceived sins. Such compensation seeks not only to
repair the damage but also to put things back the way they were before and return
them to a position of good standing in their own eyes and those of others. At the
moment, for example, Holden is working so hard to organize and rememorize his old
lecture notes that he�s overloading himself and experiencing nightmares. We might
expect, however, that when Holden returns to his teaching position in the history
department, he may work harder than he ever has before to make up, at least in his
own mind, for his previous rigid strictness. Paradoxically, he might even work hard
at being merciful with the students in his new class.

Another defense mechanism used by compulsives, isolation of affect, connects the

psychodynamic and cognitive domains, at least for these personalities. The same
demand for order and perfection that compulsives demand of their environment, they
demand of their own mental landscape. To keep oppositional feelings and impulses
from affecting one another and to hold ambivalent images and contradictory
attitudes from spilling over into conscious awareness, they organize their inner
world into tight, rigid compartments. In effect, compulsives seek to suffocate
instinct, passion, and emotion by deconstructing experiences into little bits that
are easily classified and talked about rather than felt. For normal persons, memory
is not just a mechanism of recall, but also is a means of rewinding and replaying
episodes from our lives to recapture the fullness of the original experience, with
all the emotions and sensations that accompany it. Although some are frightening
and some are cherished, all of us have such memories that we return to many times.

Compulsives, however, are different. Their mental contents resemble highly

regimented repositories of shriveled or dehydrated facts, each of which is
carefully indexed but kept separate from the others. In effect, their goal is the
opposite of poetry. Whereas poetry embellishes experience by providing symbolic and
metaphorical links to related experiences, compulsives seek to contain each aspect
of experience in its own little compartment. They database their memories and make
only intellectual associations among them. By preventing their interaction,
compulsives ensure that no single facet of experience is able to catalyze any other
to produce an unanticipated emotion or drive of significant depth. Consequently,
most compulsives view self-exploration as a waste of time. Psychotherapy may be
seen as too much of a soft science to warrant their time or attention. For the
compulsive, isolation of affect and mental structure protectively reinforce each
other. We don�t see Donald or Holden breaking forth in laughter or tears because
some aspect of their immediate environment took them back to an old memory.

Modern conceptions of the compulsive personality are put forward from an

objectrelations framework. As noted previously, the psychodynamic development of
the compulsive personality is linked closely to the anal stage. Freud emphasized
frustration and the resulting fixation of psychosexual energy. Later psychodynamic
thinkers reinterpreted the psychosexual stages in object-relations terms, making
central the role of caretakers, not the fixation of psychic energy.

The essential conflict is between the parent�s desire to interfere and control and
the child�s growing sense of autonomy. Toilet training is then only a small part of
the total interaction between parent and child, and it is out of this total
interaction that personality grows. We don�t need to know how Donald or Holden were
toilet-trained to see the continuity between their parents� treatment of them and
their adult characteristics.

In addition to overcontrol, contemporary psychodynamic accounts also emphasize

expectations of perfection by caretakers. As noted in Gabbard (1994), compulsives
internalize a harsh superego and search for flawlessness as a means of regaining
lost parental approval (for further discussion of childhood expression of these
symptoms, see �Focus on Childhood� box). From the beginning, they are taught to
feel a deep sense of responsibility and a deep guilt whenever their
responsibilities are not met. Frequently, they are moralized to by others to
inhibit any impulse toward frivolous play and are instilled with a sense of shame
whenever their sense of responsibility sags. When Donald�s parents refused to let
him play with other children because they disapproved, at first he probably
conformed simply to do as they said. Eventually, however, Donald incorporated their
moral sense of superiority into himself. Now, he disapproves of others for any
number of reasons, seemingly as part of the substance of what he is.

By the time they reach adolescence, future compulsives have fully incorporated the
strictures and regulations of their elders. By now, they are equipped with an inner
gauge that ruthlessly evaluates and controls them, relentlessly intruding to make
them doubt and hesitate before acting. External sources of restraint have been
supplanted with the inescapable controls of internal self-reproach. Compulsives are
now their own persecutor and judge, ready to condemn themselves not only for overt
acts but for thoughts of transgression as well. By promoting a sense of guilt, the
child acquires a self-critical inner voice ready with rebuke even when caretakers
are physically absent or even dead. Religious elements often play an important
role. Some are told the terrifying consequences of mischief and sin; others are
told how troubled or embarrassed their parents will be if they deviate from the
�righteous path.� Sometimes, they turn their sense of morality into a sense of
moral superiority and use this to fuel an indignation that excuses the expression
of anger and focuses it toward a suitable target, as Holden often did by using
bureaucracy as a weapon.