The quality of the mind

382 Pages·2012·3.439 MB·English

by  Luigi Longhin

CPS
Luigi Longhin
This book examines the causes of mental illness and psychic-
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mental suffering, individual and social violence, ideology and
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utopia, and it proposes a collaboration between neuroscience, e

psychoanalysis, and philosophy. As an alternative to the q
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“bad” qualities of the mind, namely the negative feelings,
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psychoanalysis tries to promote the “good” qualities of the i
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mind, comprising of a positive inner world, in which every

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kind of positive feeling participates.
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Professor Luigi Longhin is a psychotherapist with a psychoanalytic background. He has
taught philosophy and history, and has given lecture courses on The Epistemology of Human
Sciences and Child Developmental Psychology. He is the author of Psicoanalisi e Potere
(Psychoanalysis and Power) with F. Mazzei, 1991; Alle Origini del Pensiero Psicoanalitico (At the
Origins of Psychoanalytic Thought), 1992; Insegnare Oggi (Teaching Today), with G. Magnoni,
1994; Temi e Problemi (Themes and Problems), 1998, and Sentieri della Mente (Pathways of the
Mind) (2001) both co-authored with Mauro Mancia; Il Coniglio di Alice (Alice’s Rabbit) with
P. Fancini, 2002; Il Benessere Mentale (Mental Well-being), 2010.
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Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies (CPS) is an international scholarly u
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book series devoted to all aspects of psychoanalytic inquiry in theoretical, g
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philosophical, applied, and clinical psychoanalysis. Its aims are broadly
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academic, interdisciplinary, and pluralistic, emphasizing secularism and o
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tolerance across the psychoanalytic domain. CPS aims to promote open
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and inclusive dialogue among the humanities and the social-behavioral
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sciences including such disciplines as philosophy, i
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anthropology, history, literature, religion, cultural
contemporary
ISBN 978-90-420-3485-3
studies, sociology, feminism, gender studies,
psychoanalytic
political thought, moral psychology, art, drama,
and fi lm, biography, law, economics, biology, and studies
PP
9 789042 034853 C S
cognitive-neuroscience.
The quality of the mind
Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies
13
Editor Associate Editors
Jon Mills Gerald J. Gargiulo
Keith Haartman
Ronald C. Naso
Editorial Advisory Board
Howard Bacal Otto F. Kernberg
Alan Bass Robert Langs
John Beebe Joseph Lichtenberg
Martin Bergmann Nancy McWilliams
Christopher Bollas Jean Baker Miller
Mark Bracher Thomas Ogden
Marcia Cavell Owen Renik
Nancy J. Chodorow Joseph Reppen
Walter A. Davis William J. Richardson
Peter Dews Peter L. Rudnytsky
Muriel Dimen Martin A. Schulman
Michael Eigen David Livingstone Smith
Irene Fast Donnel Stern
Bruce Fink Frank Summers
Peter Fonagy M. Guy Thompson
Leo Goldberger Wilfried Ver Eecke
Oren Gozlan Robert S. Wallerstein
James Grotstein Brent Willock
R. D. Hinshelwood Robert Maxwell Young
Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies (CPS) is an international scholarly
book series devoted to all aspects of psychoanalytic inquiry in theoretical,
philosophical, applied, and clinical psychoanalysis. Its aims are broadly
academic, interdisciplinary, and pluralistic, emphasizing secularism and
tolerance across the psychoanalytic domain. CPS aims to promote open and
inclusive dialogue among the humanities and the social-behavioral sciences
including such disciplines as philosophy, anthropology, history, literature,
religion, cultural studies, sociology, feminism, gender studies, political thought,
moral psychology, art, drama, and film, biography, law, economics, biology, and
cognitive-neuroscience.
The quality of the mind
Luigi Longhin
Translated by Caroline M. McFarlane and Marco Bacciagaluppi
Amsterdam - New York, NY 2012
Cover illustration: www.morgueFile.com
Cover design: Studio Pollmann
The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO
9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents -
Requirements for permanence”.
ISBN: 978-90-420-3485-3
E-Book ISBN: 978-94-012-0762-1
© Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2012
Printed in the Netherlands
Contents
Preface vii
Introduction ix
One In search of the quality of the mind 1
Two The twentieth century: A century of terror, war, and hate 29
Three The mind also becomes sick: how? when? why?
The problem of “normality-anormality” 57
Four Psychic-mental suffering 91
Five Which epistemology for psychoanalysis? 119
Six The objectivist and relativist shift in epistemology:
Objectivity and reliability in psychoanalysis 141
Seven The three features of psychoanalysis
and the psychoanalytic “laboratory” 173
Eight Symbolism and dreams in psychoanalysis 203
Nine Kant: investigator of the mind and the first epistemologist 217
Ten Charles Taylor: a philosopher who interacts
with psychoanalysis in the search for authenticity 243
Eleven Aesthetic quality and creativity in psychoanalysis:
music as a special pathway of the mind 259
Twelve Ideology and utopia: negative qualities of the mind 285
Thirteen Psychoanalysis and social and political conflicts 307
Fourteen Psychoanalysis and philosophy 331
Fifteen The positive qualities of the mind: happiness and creativity 349
About the Author 365
Bibliography 367
Index 395
Preface
The mind emerges from an organization of relational learning that creates neu-
ral networks during the whole life of each person. Basic organization is created
in the first years of human life, in the foetus and the baby, who learn from a
nonverbal dialogue which occurs with the mother/caregiver. This basic orga-
nization of networks has a conditioning effect on every further learning and
further organization. Most structural organization occurs in the first years of
life, but it takes place continuously throughout the life cycle, chiefly in intimate
relations, like in love or in psychoanalysis. No individual has the same experi-
ence as another, no individual has the same brain as another. This organiz-
ing dialogue is called affect communication. It takes place unaware between
two emotional brains and is transmitted by nonverbal communications. The
individual structure of brain/mind can vary along a continuum from optimal
functioning to severe pathology. This is the “quality” of an individual’s mind.
In his book Longhin shows great epistemological competence, which he
uses in a critical examination of traditional psychoanalysis, chiefly of Freud’s
plan for Metapsychology. He upholds a more updated development of clinical
relational psychoanalysis, that he uses in analyzing collective phenomena such
as social revolutions, wars and politics. Above all, he lays stress on the develop-
ment of ideologies. An ideology may be considered an illness of the mind. A
complex nucleus of convictions, firm beliefs and ideas remains split inside the
person and becomes deeply unconscious. No reason can remove it, but it moves
human behaviour, above all at a collective level. Ideologies generate utopias
and give rise to the most irrational and disastrous social phenomena. By op-
posing ideology, psychoanalysis may contribute to preserve humankind from
mental illness and to prevent social diseases and breakdowns.
Since nobody has a truly optimal mind, Longhin ends his book by discuss-
ing an average state of mind that he calls happiness. Longhin’s book should be
read not only by psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, but by all those who are
interested in the social future of mankind.
Antonio Imbasciati
University of Brescia (Italy)
Introduction
Society and contemporary culture unquestionably assign much importance to
the search for quality.
This is clear in all sorts of settings, from industry, health, and education, to
sport, nutrition, leisure and entertainment, and, indeed, every form of organ-
ised and non-organised activity. In everyday language, the terms “good” or
“excellent” quality are used as the opposites of “poor” or “bad” quality, and the
term “quality” is often used alone to indicate something good, even though it
can be qualified in the negative sense.
So can this kind of search for quality include the mind? It is clear that vari-
ous disciplines are increasingly showing interest, directly or indirectly, in the
quality of the mind: from the neurosciences to psychiatry, from developmental
psychology to sociology and art, in all its forms, that is, literature, theatre,
cinema, the pictorial arts, and music. There is, however, also a “bad quality” of
the mind which finds expression in individual, social, political violence and in
international terrorism.
The twentieth century was a century of violence, terror, totalitarianism and
hatred. Since the 1990’s new and alarming forms of violence have started to
become common, in that the number of ways in which crimes are committed
has increased and these often involve firearms: serial killers, gang families,
girls or boy gangs. Hence the importance of the concepts of affective democ-
racy in the family and in institutions, of couch psychoanalysis and institutional
psychoanalysis. Humanity needs to go back to its natural values, to a species
ethic which has proved capable of establishing certain minimum codes over the
course of history, even though different periods of history have varied widely
from this point of view.
This analysis faces up to causes the mental illness and of the psychic-men-
tal suffering: persecutory, confusional and depressive, and it proposes a col-
laboration between the Neurosciences and psychoanalysis on the inside of a
correct epistemological approach. The relationship between epistemology and
psychoanalysis is faced up to point out the objectivist and relativist shift in
contemporary epistemology and to emphasize the problem of the responsibility
of the techno-scientific system. Kant is considered to have given rise to mod-
ern epistemology. He was the first to investigate the conditions of possibility
of science which is why his thinking is considered to be at the core of modern
philosophy.
Taylor’s philosophical reflections are important not just to philosophers,
given his contributions to the debate on anthropology, ethics, and morals, but
x THE QUALITY OF THE MIND
also to psychoanalysts. The aesthetic quality and the creativity in psychoanaly-
sis are deepened especially and are related to the theory of aesthetic conflict
and “love and fear of beauty”.
The analysis of ideology and utopia, from a psychoanalytic point of view,
tries to understand the conscious and unconscious mechanisms which idealise,
or demonise, social, political, and inter-subjective reality. When ideology is
supported by negative feelings of hatred, envy, and rivalry, the quality of the
mind deteriorates.
These feelings are present in authoritarian, sadistic, megalomaniac, and de-
structive character structures, which can be found not only in dictators, such
as, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, but in all those who commit inhuman acts of
violence justified by ideology. The mental processes of demonisation of the
opposing ideology and of idealisation of one’s own ideology often give rise to
much violence and injustices, causing inhuman suffering, especially in totali-
tarian states.
Some maintain that man cannot do without ideologies because they repre-
sent the, normal or pathological, inner world. Utopia expresses a social dream,
without, however, indicating the means of achieving the dreamed-of society.
The utopian vision is frequently viewed as a schizophrenic approach to so-
ciety. It allows an escape from the present, but avoids any form of control or
verification. Both concepts, that of ideology and can be regarded as deviant
forms of relationship with reality, as Mannheim believed. The starting pre-
supposition comprises the distinction which psychoanalytic literature has been
making for some time between “power-domination”, as a specific “psycho-
social syndrome”, and the “capacity to govern”, which acts instead like a “work
group” in which the anxieties of the individual are processed through the ca-
pacity to search for creative solutions, to develop thinking, and to achieve a
transformative development. From the psychoanalytic point of view, power
may be viewed as a “cancer” (Di Chiara, 1999), both of the individual’s mental
structure and the collective one, as in socio-political organization, because of
its capacity to employ the aspirations and means which the group normally
employs to organize its social life (Di Chiara, 1999).
Power as domination is considered to be a pathological form, both on an
individual and collective level, which gives rise to totalitarianism in every type
of social, political, ideological, and party institution.
This work examines the privileged discourse with philosophy. Philosophy
can make a contribution to psychoanalysis by indicating, in the Kantian sense,
its conditions of possibility, namely, its foundations, its value, its limits and
criteria of rigour, objectivity, and verifiability.
Its contribution is primarily epistemological. However, both epistemology
and psychoanalysis run a risk; whilst epistemology runs the risk of being a
knowledge which does not know, psychoanalysts run the risk of pursuing sci-