metonymy4u

Just last week I had a conversation with a therapist colleague about the nature of suicidal and self-harming behavior in humans (a behavior that also occurs in other primates, btw…). We were actually discussing a specific case that she wanted to refer to me for behavioral therapy. She considered herself a psychodynamic therapist. She referred to the suicidal and self-harming behaviors exhibited by the client as “masochism.” I found it interesting that she would conceptualize the behavior as intentional and perhaps even a bit pleasurable to the individual, since my experience with such clients is quite different. In my experience suicidal and self-harming individuals are experiencing unbelievable levels of pain and are often not at all in control of their own behaviors. If they were, I actually have no doubt that they would seek other solutions to their problems. The difference in our experiences of the same event brings to my mind the difference between a symbolic experience of life and what I will call a phenomenological experience. The symbolic experience of life is well expressed by the following quote by Hegel: „Jede Vorstellung ist eine Verallgemeinerung, und diese gehört dem Denken an. Etwas allgemein machen, heißt, es denken,“ which I would interpret as follows: “Every representation is universalization and this belongs to thinking. To make something universal means, is, to think.” (From: Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts oder Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse). For those with the symbolizing habit of thinking therefore, to act is to express something (consciously or unconsciously) and to express something is to symbolize, symbolization being the primary form by which we universalize our experience. Thus for my colleague I hypothesize that self-harming behavior symbolizes an unresolved experience of violence or deprivation in her growing up years that she is compelled, by unconscious forces, to repeat over and over again until it can be resolved through interpretation and proper analysis. For me, on the other hand, the events are what they are and nothing more. For a phenomenological thinker, events are experienced in a manner well described by Sartre: “There is no longer an exterior for the existent if one means by that a superficial covering which hides from sight the true nature of the object….The appearances which manifest the existent are neither interior or exterior; they are all equal, they all refer to other appearances, and none of them is privileged. Force, for example, is not a metaphysical inclination of an unknown kind which hides behind its effects (accelerations, deviations, etc.); it is the totality of these effects” (from: Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology ). One can see, I hope, how vastly different experiences of the same clinical material might inform a very different clinical response on the part of the therapist. Students often question my ongoing emphasis on the genealogy of ideas. I hope that this very common, everyday example of the different schools of modern psychological thought demonstrates the utility of remembering the history of our cultural habits.