Friday, November 26, 2010

Is Intimacy More than Trading...

54 comments:

  1. or, quid pro quo dirty little secrets? lol!

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  2. No, this: Is Intimacy is More than Trading...

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  3. THAT's the question. Is it merely undisclosed "negatives" about ones-self in a seeking of some form of mutual "affirmation" we label "intimate"... or perhaps what one say "in to mate" if one is more syllably oriented. ;)

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  4. I think the answer is: Intimacy is more than trading secrets. However, empathy plays a role in intimacy.

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  5. I agree... there has to be a "sharing of values" and an "empathetic" affirmation of them.

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  6. ...one must not forget exhibitionism when one is talking of voyeurism. As both go together.

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  7. ...on a slightly different note, how "intimate" is the couch to the chair?

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  8. It's not a two-way thing, so I'd have to say it's not "intimate" for the chair, only the couch. There's no emotional "transferrence" for Herr Doktor.

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  9. ...does it mean that Herr Doktor is above "psychology", or at least is supposed to be? No little voyeur in him even? No exhibitionist? No will to power?

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  10. His SuperEgo's anticathexis dominate's the seession.

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  11. Not that no analyst has never abused his position and succumbed to having "empathy sex" or "taking advantage of an opportunity sex" with his patient.

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  12. ...the way you say it, he appears to me to be someone forever on "alert" - almost inhuman. Yes, I wonder. I wonder very much. :)

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  13. ...Not that no analyst has never abused his position and succumbed to having "empathy sex" or "taking advantage of an opportunity sex" with his patient.

    Oh, that to me is the least of his hazards. Really.

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  14. I'd hate to get blinded by science...

    Wonder... now where does that feeling originate from. ;-)

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  15. lol. Thou art a slippery one, O FJ! :)

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  16. Never underestimate the power of repression. ;)

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  17. His SuperEgo's anticathexis dominate's the seession....and THAT is PURE WtP.
    --------
    Sure it is. It's HIS illusion.

    But "the patient" has another illusion. Another WtP. Isn't that the thing about power? Everyone has their own? In fact, the Herr Doktor may actually be "the patient" in "the patient's" eyes.

    LOL!

    oh no!

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  18. Never understimate the power of expression!
    Loosen your tie, FJ!
    Tell a stranger she's beautiful today.

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  19. Yes, everyone does have their own WtP and relative assessment of it. But generally it is through successfully achieving the ends directed by one's WtP that one effectively measures one's rank. And if both can achieve that, GREAT!

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  20. Tell a stranger she's beautiful today.

    And waste all this pent-up repression?

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  21. In fact, the Herr Doktor may actually be "the patient" in "the patient's" eyes.


    You should read this. (I ain't much fan of it, though.)

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  22. And waste all this pent-up repression?
    ---------
    Hey, I have a lump of coal...would you bend over for me? I'd reeeeeally like some diamond earrings for Christmas.

    I kid, I kid.

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  23. Bwah!...

    Bwah!...

    It takes two for earrings.

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  24. The beauty of anal-ysis has very little to do with science and everything to do with art.... the art of the possible.

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  25. Oh Joe. How generous of you. That's taking "homemade" to a whole new level. wait. there are too many puns in there. In there. Stop. I'll stop.

    And I agree with your last statement, completely!

    I keep hearing about "forging new neural pathways" and I must say, it's slow going for me.

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  26. Does it ring a bell?

    ...Re the use of torture during inquisition:

    "...Few perhaps could afford to acknowledge the psychological drives which impelled the torturers to inflict pain on others in their search to spread peace. Such realities did not belong within the grand beneficial project ... They were too close to the bone."

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  27. His SuperEgo's anticathexis dominate's the session.

    That's what they said of the torturers, too ... more or less. To sample a few:

    ... "how much RECTITUDE, justice, LEGITIMACY, charity, was involved in the process of torture"

    Or as The Jesuit friar Bocanegra said of the chief inquisitor Manozca: " ...(whose) glorious solemnity, comprehensive capacity, wise intelligence, mature discretion, old experience, zealous integrity, all ... justified his work"

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  28. As they say, who will bell the cat? Who will tell the psychology of the psychologist?

    I truly believe this to be a question every psychologist must ask himself. :)

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  29. Freud already has. Every analyst was REQUIRED to undergo analysis themselves. After all, until you "know yourself", how can you ever expect to "know others"?

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  30. The SuperEgo is the seat of "Thanatos". The tortures of "guilt" is his particular speciality. For as Nietzsche says in "Genealogy of Morals" (Essay II)

    All instincts which are not discharged to the outside are turned back inside—this is what I call the internalization [Verinnerlichung] of man. From this first grows in man what people later call his “soul.” The entire inner world, originally as thin as if stretched between two layers of skin, expanded and extended itself, acquired depth, width, and height, to the extent that what a person discharged out into the world was obstructed. Those frightening fortifications with which the organization of the state protected itself against the old instincts for freedom—punishments belong above all to these fortifications—brought it about that all those instincts of the wild, free, roaming man turned themselves backwards, against man himself. Enmity, cruelty, joy in pursuit, in attack, in change, in destruction—all those turned themselves against the possessors of such instincts. That is the origin of “bad conscience.” The man who, because of a lack of external enemies and opposition, was forced into an oppressive narrowness and regularity of custom impatiently tore himself apart, persecuted himself, gnawed away at himself, grew upset, and did himself damage—this animal which scraped itself raw against the bars of its cage, which people want to “tame,” this impoverished creature, consumed with longing for the wild, which had to create out of its own self an adventure, a torture chamber, an uncertain and dangerous wilderness—this fool, this yearning and puzzled prisoner, became the inventor of “bad conscience.” But with him was introduced the greatest and weirdest illness, from which humanity up to the present time has not recovered, the suffering of man from man, from himself, a consequence of the forcible separation from his animal past, a leap and, so to speak, a fall into new situations and living conditions, a declaration of war against the old instincts, on which, up to that point, his power, joy, and ability to inspire fear had been based. Let us at once add that, on the other hand, the fact that there was on earth an animal soul turned against itself, taking sides against itself, meant there was something so new, profound, unheard of, enigmatic, contradictory, and full of the future, that with it the picture of the earth was fundamentally changed. In fact, it required divine spectators to appreciate the dramatic performance which then began and whose conclusion is by no means yet in sight—a spectacle too fine, too wonderful, too paradoxical, to be allowed to play itself out senselessly and unobserved on some ridiculous star or other! Since then man has been included among the most unexpected and most thrillingly lucky rolls of the dice in the game played by Heraclitus’ “great child,” whether he’s called Zeus or chance.* For himself he arouses a certain interest, a tension, a hope, almost a certainty, as if something is announcing itself with him, something is preparing itself, as if the human being were not the goal but only a way, an episode, a bridge, a great promise...

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  31. Every analyst was REQUIRED to undergo analysis themselves.

    ...But then, wouldn't it create an endless cycle? Rhetorically speaking, of course. I am in hurry at the moment. But i think if you would look closely, you would find the problem is more with the very discipline per se.

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  32. ...There is no way you can bell the cat, that's the very point of the saying. :)

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  33. Aren't all forms of education and learning an "endless cycle"?

    You assume that analyses can't/doesn't "cure". You're wrong.

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  34. And although some of Freud's "reasons" for certain responses may have been mere "images of Daedelus", if it works (like Newtonian Physics before Einstein), who cares?

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  35. ...and the point of undergoing analyses one's self is to see how effective the techniques are and what they can uncover. And there's MUCH more to it than a mere "placebo" effect.

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  36. You assume that analyses can't/doesn't "cure".

    Oh, no. Not at all. I don't assume that at all. It "cures" all right. Only I think we have different notions of what that "cure" involves, both for the patient and herr doktor. But on that some other time... :)

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  37. lol!

    Indeed we do. But we're not going to give up the fruits of civilization just because YOU are feeling a bit "repressed"... because it's the only thing standing between the two of us and ME and all your stuff (w/your body tucked neatly behind a bush).

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  38. ...w/your body tucked neatly behind a bush.

    lol.

    ... please somebody bring me "the fruits"!

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  39. Culture vs Civilization. One requires the blond beast, the other get's little men w/goatee's and "couches". Which do you say you prefer?

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  40. ...because we can spin Ixion's Wheel as many times as you'd like.

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  41. And as much as I love the sight of "wild" horses, the "tamed" ones are a much easier ride. ;)

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  42. Culture vs Civilization. One requires the blond beast, the other get's little men w/goatee's and "couches". Which do you say you prefer?

    ...I would not answer this question willingly. But supposing that you insist ... I do not believe that "man", the average, deserves anything but what it has got: Civilization. The axiom has almost the force of tautology for me. And, like The Grand Inquisitor's challenge to God, I dare myself to judge it!

    ...having said that ... what do I deserve? And have I got it? Of course, for as I said one gets what one deserve. So what have I got? Hmm... I will have to think there. But I have an idea that it may be something different. Is that hubris speaking? Or something from the gates of ivory perhaps? I do not know, but i think not. (Excuse me, anyway.)

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  43. ..."And we who have taken their sins upon us for their happiness will stand up before Thee and say: "Judge us if Thou canst and darest." Know that I fear Thee not. Know that I too have been in the wilderness, I too have lived on roots and locusts, I too prized the freedom with which Thou hast blessed men, and I too was striving to stand among Thy elect, among the strong and powerful, thirsting "to make up the number." But I awakened and would not serve madness. I turned back and joined the ranks of those who have corrected Thy work. I left the proud and went back to the humble, for the happiness of the humble. What I say to Thee will come to pass, and our dominion will be built up. I repeat, to-morrow Thou shalt see that obedient flock who at a sign from me will hasten to heap up the hot cinders about the pile on which I shall burn Thee for coming to hinder us. For if anyone has ever deserved our fires, it is Thou. To-morrow I shall burn Thee. Dixi.'"

    (The Grand Inquisitor. Dostoevsky.)

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  44. G_d is dead!

    The World is Will to Power. :)

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  45. Nietzsche, GoM (3rd Essay)

    The curse that earlier spread itself over men was not suffering, but the senselessness of suffering—and the ascetic ideal offered him a meaning! The ascetic ideal has been the only meaning offered up to this point. Any meaning is better than no meaning at all; however one looks at it, the ascetic ideal has so far been the “faute de mieux” [for lack of something better] par excellence. In it suffering was interpreted, the huge hole appeared filled in, the door shut against all suicidal nihilism. The interpretation undoubtedly brought new suffering with it—more profound, more inner, more poisonous, and more life-gnawing suffering; it brought all suffering under the perspective of guilt. . . . But nevertheless—with it man was saved. He had a meaning; from that point on he was no longer like a leaf in the wind, a toy ball of nonsense, of “without sense”; he could now will something—at first it didn’t matter where, why, or how he willed: the will itself was saved. We simply cannot conceal from ourselves what is really expressed by that total will which received its direction from the ascetic ideal: this hate against what is human, even more against animality, even more against material things—this abhorrence of the senses, of reason itself, this fear of happiness and beauty, this longing for the beyond away from all appearance, change, becoming, death, desire, even longing itself—all this means, let’s have the courage to understand this, a will to nothingness, an aversion to life, a revolt against the most fundamental preconditions of life—but it is and remains a will! . . . And to finish up by repeating what I said at the beginning: man will sooner will nothingness than not will . . .

    And Marcusian "liberation from Repression" is this "will to nothingness"...

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