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[ Burying Freud Homepage | Freud's Seduction Theory Homepage ] Contributors
to this website may find useful my just released book, Between the Lines:
Unconscious Meaning in Everyday Conversation. New York: Plenum
Press. The
following précis will briefly outline the book’s basic ideas and its
relationship to psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis
and Cognitive Science: Search
for a Common Set of Operations and Psychodynamics
In a little cited article by Jean Piaget (1973)
entitled “The affective unconscious and the cognitive
unconscious,” originally an
invited presentation before the Plenary Session of the American
Psychoanalytic Association, Piaget
said, “I am persuaded that a day will come when the psychology of
cognitive functions and psychoanalysis will have to fuse in a general
theory which will improve both, through mutual correction” (p. 250).
While this day has yet to even approach its high noon, it has been slowing
dawning since the 1950's with the classic work of Dollard and Miller
(1950), but not without continued controversy on both sides.
Let me say first that I am not a clinician, but was weaned on Freud
and have continued an interest in Freud’s work (1968, 1999, in press).
My interest , however, has always been in Freud as a cognitive
psychologist, not as a therapist or a developmental theorist. In
particular, my interests has been in unconscious cognitive operations as
evidenced in Freud’s writings on dream work mechanisms, jokes, and
parapraxes.
For cognitive
scientists, there perhaps have been few other phenomena that have raised
as much controversy as the concept of an unconscious mind. Indeed, until
recently, when most cognitive researchers addressed the concept of an unconscious,
the term nonconscious has typically been used to separate them
from Freud.
For cognitive psychology, one
major problem with psychoanalysis is the interpreting of
unconscious or symbolic meaning. From my small group dynamics laboratory
courses, over the last twenty years I have been developing a qualitative
cognitive and linguistic methodology for analyzing and validating
unconscious meaning in conversations (1991). For example, I have found
that literal stories in conversations are often “symbolic,” or
“metaphorical” references to what is actually happening in the social
situation where the conversation is occurring. Because I have developed a
cognitive linguistic framework, I call such unconscious meaning,
subliteral.
While I can not present the methodology (see Appendix in my book)
here, the structure of what I
have come to call subliteral meaning is initially arrived at as
follows: A literal conversation,
(a) about four people in a bar, (b) two of whom are male and two
female, who
(c) are being boisterous, and who (d) are dominating the social
interaction can
be hypothesized as having subliteral meaning when the membership
composition and interaction in the group isomorphically corresponds or
matches the ostensibly literal conversation: For example, when the
conversation is in isomorphic correspondence to the actual conversational
situation where
(a') four group members, (b') two of which are male and two are
female who
(c') are being boisterous and who (d') are verbally dominating the
group interaction The
hypothesis is further supported when the literal report about the four
people in a bar is later changed to three people when one of the verbally
dominant members is absent from a group session. Additionally, the gender
composition of (a) and (a') exactly match. Subliteral narratives
generate much more complex and detailed meanings. The implications of my
methodology for psychoanalytic interpretation are considerable.
Interestingly, a couple of years ago, I was informed about the work
of psychoanalyst Robert Langs who developed a new school of psychotherapy
based on very similar phenomena that he calls “derivatives.” Langs
(see,1983) and I both discovered this phenomenon independently at about
the same time but were not aware of each others work (see Chapter 12 of my
book). Contrary to the more “pop” versions and understandings of
psychoanalysis, Freud did not recognized such unconscious communications,
though he came close (for a history see, Smith, 1991, Myers, 1996).
In addition, Lang sand I come from different disciplines and
frameworks. Being more linguistic and cognitive, my view of Langs
derivative phenomena is that its underlying set of operations are not
psychoanalytic dependent. Rather psychoanalysis is an overlay on a more
fundamental set of cognitive operations.
So, while Piaget called for a rapprochement between psychology and
psychoanalysis, he did not indicate what such a rapprochement might look
like. Will it be a merger, a
blending, an overlapping set of concepts, a reduction of one to the other,
or just a mutually informed influence on each other? The latter, of course
has already occurred more than cognitive scientists are wont to admit.
Whatever the underlying set of operations of my systems of analyzing and
validating subliteral meaning turn out to be, we have Freud’s cognitive
insights to thank for point the way. References Dollard,
J. and Miller, N. E. (1950). Personality and psychotherapy. New York: McGraw-Hill. Haskell,
R.E. (1999/2000) Unconscious Communication: Communicative Psychoanalysis
and Subliteral Cognition. Journal of the American Academy of
Psychoanalysis. Forthcoming.
Haskell, R.E. (1999). Between
the Lines: Unconscious Meaning in Everyday Conversation. New York:
Plenum Press. Haskell,
R.E. (1991). An analogical
methodology for the analysis and validation
of anomalous cognitive and linguistic operations in small group (fantasy
theme) Reports. Small Group Research, an International Journal of
Theory, Investigation and Application, 22, 443-474. Haskell,
R.E.. (1968). The analogic and psychoanalytic theory. The
Psychoanalytic Review, 55,
662-680 Langs,
R. (1983). Unconscious communication in everyday life. New York:
Jason Aronson. Myers,
P. (1996). Sándor Ferenczi and patients’ perceptions of analysis. British
Journal of Psychotherapy 13(1) 26-36 Piaget,
J. (1973). The affective unconscious and the cognitive unconscious. Journal
of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 21, 249 -261.
Smith,
D. L. (1991). Hidden conversations: An introduction to Communicative
psychoanalysis. Professor
of Psychology
|
|||||||
[ Burying Freud Homepage | Freud's Seduction Theory Homepage ] Contributors
to this website may find useful my just released book, Between the Lines:
Unconscious Meaning in Everyday Conversation. New York: Plenum
Press. The
following précis will briefly outline the book’s basic ideas and its
relationship to psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis
and Cognitive Science: Search
for a Common Set of Operations and Psychodynamics
In a little cited article by Jean Piaget (1973)
entitled “The affective unconscious and the cognitive
unconscious,” originally an
invited presentation before the Plenary Session of the American
Psychoanalytic Association, Piaget
said, “I am persuaded that a day will come when the psychology of
cognitive functions and psychoanalysis will have to fuse in a general
theory which will improve both, through mutual correction” (p. 250).
While this day has yet to even approach its high noon, it has been slowing
dawning since the 1950's with the classic work of Dollard and Miller
(1950), but not without continued controversy on both sides.
Let me say first that I am not a clinician, but was weaned on Freud
and have continued an interest in Freud’s work (1968, 1999, in press).
My interest , however, has always been in Freud as a cognitive
psychologist, not as a therapist or a developmental theorist. In
particular, my interests has been in unconscious cognitive operations as
evidenced in Freud’s writings on dream work mechanisms, jokes, and
parapraxes.
For cognitive
scientists, there perhaps have been few other phenomena that have raised
as much controversy as the concept of an unconscious mind. Indeed, until
recently, when most cognitive researchers addressed the concept of an unconscious,
the term nonconscious has typically been used to separate them
from Freud.
For cognitive psychology, one
major problem with psychoanalysis is the interpreting of
unconscious or symbolic meaning. From my small group dynamics laboratory
courses, over the last twenty years I have been developing a qualitative
cognitive and linguistic methodology for analyzing and validating
unconscious meaning in conversations (1991). For example, I have found
that literal stories in conversations are often “symbolic,” or
“metaphorical” references to what is actually happening in the social
situation where the conversation is occurring. Because I have developed a
cognitive linguistic framework, I call such unconscious meaning,
subliteral.
While I can not present the methodology (see Appendix in my book)
here, the structure of what I
have come to call subliteral meaning is initially arrived at as
follows: A literal conversation,
(a) about four people in a bar, (b) two of whom are male and two
female, who
(c) are being boisterous, and who (d) are dominating the social
interaction can
be hypothesized as having subliteral meaning when the membership
composition and interaction in the group isomorphically corresponds or
matches the ostensibly literal conversation: For example, when the
conversation is in isomorphic correspondence to the actual conversational
situation where
(a') four group members, (b') two of which are male and two are
female who
(c') are being boisterous and who (d') are verbally dominating the
group interaction The
hypothesis is further supported when the literal report about the four
people in a bar is later changed to three people when one of the verbally
dominant members is absent from a group session. Additionally, the gender
composition of (a) and (a') exactly match. Subliteral narratives
generate much more complex and detailed meanings. The implications of my
methodology for psychoanalytic interpretation are considerable.
Interestingly, a couple of years ago, I was informed about the work
of psychoanalyst Robert Langs who developed a new school of psychotherapy
based on very similar phenomena that he calls “derivatives.” Langs
(see,1983) and I both discovered this phenomenon independently at about
the same time but were not aware of each others work (see Chapter 12 of my
book). Contrary to the more “pop” versions and understandings of
psychoanalysis, Freud did not recognized such unconscious communications,
though he came close (for a history see, Smith, 1991, Myers, 1996).
In addition, Lang sand I come from different disciplines and
frameworks. Being more linguistic and cognitive, my view of Langs
derivative phenomena is that its underlying set of operations are not
psychoanalytic dependent. Rather psychoanalysis is an overlay on a more
fundamental set of cognitive operations.
So, while Piaget called for a rapprochement between psychology and
psychoanalysis, he did not indicate what such a rapprochement might look
like. Will it be a merger, a
blending, an overlapping set of concepts, a reduction of one to the other,
or just a mutually informed influence on each other? The latter, of course
has already occurred more than cognitive scientists are wont to admit.
Whatever the underlying set of operations of my systems of analyzing and
validating subliteral meaning turn out to be, we have Freud’s cognitive
insights to thank for point the way. References Dollard,
J. and Miller, N. E. (1950). Personality and psychotherapy. New York: McGraw-Hill. Haskell,
R.E. (1999/2000) Unconscious Communication: Communicative Psychoanalysis
and Subliteral Cognition. Journal of the American Academy of
Psychoanalysis. Forthcoming.
Haskell, R.E. (1999). Between
the Lines: Unconscious Meaning in Everyday Conversation. New York:
Plenum Press. Haskell,
R.E. (1991). An analogical
methodology for the analysis and validation
of anomalous cognitive and linguistic operations in small group (fantasy
theme) Reports. Small Group Research, an International Journal of
Theory, Investigation and Application, 22, 443-474. Haskell,
R.E.. (1968). The analogic and psychoanalytic theory. The
Psychoanalytic Review, 55,
662-680 Langs,
R. (1983). Unconscious communication in everyday life. New York:
Jason Aronson. Myers,
P. (1996). Sándor Ferenczi and patients’ perceptions of analysis. British
Journal of Psychotherapy 13(1) 26-36 Piaget,
J. (1973). The affective unconscious and the cognitive unconscious. Journal
of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 21, 249 -261.
Smith,
D. L. (1991). Hidden conversations: An introduction to Communicative
psychoanalysis. Professor
of Psychology
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