Guilt: Revenge, Remorse and Responsibility after Freud

253 Pages·2004·1.4 MB·English

by  Roberto Speziale-Bagliacca

Guilt
Guilt is an original, closely argued examination of the opposition between
guilty man and tragic man. Starting from the scientific and speculative
writings of Freud and the major pioneers of psychoanalysis to whom we
owe the first studies of this complex question, Roberto Speziale-Bagliacca
goes on to focus on the debate between Klein and Winnicott in an
enlightened attempt to remove blame and the sense of guilt from religion,
morality and law.
Drawing on an impressive range of sources – literary, historical and
philosophical – and illustrated by studies of composers, thinkers and
writers as diverse as Mozart and Chuang Tzu, Shakespeare and Woody
Allen, Guilt covers a range of topics including the concept of guilt used
within the law, and the analyst’s contribution to the client’s sense of guilt.
PreviouslyunavailableinEnglish,thisbookdeservestobereadnotonlyby
psychoanalysts, philosophers, scholars and forensic psychiatrists interested
in the theory of justice, but also by the ordinary educated reader.
Roberto Speziale-Bagliacca is a professor of psychiatry at the Medical
School of the University of Genoa, a Training Analyst of the Italian
PsychoanalyticSocietyandafullmemberoftheIPA.Hehaswrittenwidely
on the interface between clinical psychoanalysis and psychological and
sociological manifestations of power. His works, published in different
languages, include On the Shoulders of Freud (Transaction) and The King
and the Adulteress (Duke University Press), a reinterpretation of Madame
Bovary and King Lear. His latest critical biography, Freud messo a fuoco,
includes an account of the impact of Freud’s ‘‘mother complex’’ on his
theory and on the psychoanalytic movement.
Colpa
Considerazioni su rimorso, vendetta e
responsabilita`
Roberto Speziale-Bagliacca
Guilt
Revenge, remorse and responsibility
after Freud
Roberto Speziale-Bagliacca
Foreword by Frank Kermode
Edited by Susan Budd
Translated by Ian Harvey
The translation of this work has been funded by SEPS
SEGRETARIATO EUROPEOPERLEPUBBLICAZIONISCIENTIFICHE
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Firstpublished2004
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Brunner-RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup
OriginallypublishedinItalianasColpa:Considerazionisurimorso,
vendettaeresponsabilita`
Copyright(cid:216)2004,1997,CasaEditriceAstrolabio–UbaldiniEditore,
Roma
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BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
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Speziale-Bagliacca,Roberto.
[Colpa.English]
Guilt:revenge,remorse,andresponsibilityafterFreud/
RobertoSpeziale-Bagliacca;forewordbyFrankKermode;editedby
SusanBudd;translatedbyIanHarvey.
p.cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN1-58391-963-5 – ISBN1-58391-964-3(pbk.)
1.Guilt. 2.Psychology,Pathological. 3.Psychoanalysis. I.Budd,
Susan,1941– II.Title.
RC569.5.G84S7492004
152.4'4–dc22
2003023171
ISBN1-58391-963-5(hbk)
ISBN1-58391-964-3(pbk)
To Karmentxo
‘‘Passionate and absorbing, at times moving and amusing, this book marks
abreakthroughinavastareaofhuman behaviour, forcingustoface upto
some age-old secrets of guilt without recourse to any form of hypocrisy.
Guilt deserves to be read not only by psychotherapists, philosophers,
scholars interested in the theory of justice, but also by the ordinary
educated reader and, possibly, ethically-minded politicians.’’
Jan de Viller, Historian
‘‘Guiltisnotonlyalegalandmoralconcept,aswellasastateofmind,but
it is also an omnipotent way of thinking. Speziale-Bagliacca’s intriguing
book leads us to such a conclusion and indeed obliges us to recognise its
truth.’’
Joyce McDougall, author of Theatres of the Mind
‘‘. . . a unique book, at once obvious and revealing, which conveys all the
nuances of guilt, as subtly and vividly as Holman-Hunt’s famous pre-
RaphaelitepictureTheAwakeningConscience.Itisitselfapicture,instantly
recognisable but with details so finely shaded that they only appear on a
second or third reading, each itself a new revelation.’’
Nicolas Barker, Chairman of the London Library
Contents
Foreword by Frank Kermode ix
After re-reading: a preface xi
Chapter 1
A view from the past 1
The function of the analyst 3
Guilt and sin 9
Guilt and revenge 14
Chapter 2
The use and abuse of theory 20
The two types of guilt 24
A criticism 30
The Erinyes and Resentment 32
Persecution and omnipotence 37
The Child is Father of the Man 41
Chapter 3
The ‘‘schizophrenic paradox’’: two types of logic 45
Anatomy of the ethos of guilt 51
The ethos of guilt and how to overcome it 56
Guilt as signal 60
Manichaean ethos and creativity 63
Approaches to guilt 69
Chapter 4
The search for a name 73
Preparing the ground for a dispute 76
Melanie Klein as seen by Winnicott 80
‘‘. . . you should meet Melanie Klein’’ 86
‘‘Pining’’, ‘‘concern’’, and ‘‘responsibility’’ 88
Chapter 5
Responsibility 91
viii Contents
A letter to one’s analyst 96
Arguing ‘‘ad hominem’’ 100
A responsible rejection 106
Chapter 6
The dilating pupil: counter-transference 111
The mirror-analyst: first cracks 115
The patient’s criticisms 117
Chapter 7
The devil with breasts: an interlude 120
Chapter 8
Ideology and guilt 127
The nourishing father 131
Accepting and containing 132
Chapter 9
The double bind and guilt 137
Codes and guilt 143
King Solomon 148
Chapter 10
The preconscious and consciousness 152
Containment 159
The containing mind 164
Holding 166
Chapter 11
Projective identification and containment 171
Attention and guilt 174
Guilt and atmosphere 180
Conclusions 187
Appendix: a note on terms 192
Postscript 197
Notes 198
Bibliography 221
Name index 231
Subject index 235
Foreword
I cannot speak as a psychoanalyst, but an interest in guilt is not confined
to that profession. Immediately after I had finished reading Speziale-
Bagliacca’s book I opened the Times Literary Supplement (28 March 2003)
and found a review of a book on Hamlet by Alexander Welsh, a scholar I
greatly admire. Speaking of Hamlet’s guilt, Welsh observes that ‘‘the very
word guilt, in twentieth-century parlance, has come to stand first for guilt
feelings and only secondarily for criminal accountability’’. Apparently he
regards this as a reversal of the original meaning, in part attributable to
Hamlet.HisreviewerismoreforthrightthanWelsh,affirmingthat‘‘‘guilt’is
a cant-word, in its secondary, non-judicial sense. The feeling of culpability,
ofmerementaldiscomfort,cannotdisplacethelegalnecessitiesofguiltthat
areembeddedinlanguageandculture.’’Andheappearstothinkweshould
abandon the non-legal use of the word altogether.
As Ihad justread Speziale-Bagliacca on thisverysubject Iwas equipped
to see that this apparently firm discrimination is in fact trivial. When
Hamlet sets out to prove his uncle’s guilt he may hesitate but he cannot be
said to have doubts about the nature of guilt in the legal sense; and when
Claudius prays to be absolved he is aware that he is legally guilty and at
thesametimeisfeeling guilty. Prospero inTheTempestsaysofhisenemies
that their ‘‘great guilt’’ (criminality) is working in them like a poison
(3.3.104); they are feeling their guilt. And Shakespeare quite often uses the
word ‘‘guiltiness’’ to mean both the state of being guilty and the state of
feeling guilt. In Othello Iago says that Cassio steals away ‘‘guilty-like’’
(3.3.39), meaning ‘‘like one conscious of his guilt’’. In Hamlet, ‘‘It started
like a guilty thing’’ (1.1.148) obviously means ‘‘like a thing that was guilty
and aware of it’’. And so on. Shakespeare could confute Welsh’s reviewer
on his own.
Ofcourseitispossibletobeguiltyandnotfeelguilty(forinstance,ifyou
arethesurvivorofaduel)butitmustbeobviousthattobantheuseofthe
wordexceptinajudicialcontextistosayoflanguagesomethingthatisnot
true. One must, as Wittgenstein liked to say, go back to the rough ground.
We have to consider use, not apply some rule.
The present book is so far from making this mistake that it offers
fascinating discussions of particular cases, and thoroughly surveys the