5. The new view in psychoanalysis

I would close with one more quote showing the changing view of character, a view in concert with the one I have been presenting (Barnett, 1981, p. 47-49). This change represents a recognition that character is more than simply the by-product of the interaction of drive derivatives and defenses.

The concept of character has always been undervalued by theorists. Commonly defined as the aggregate of traits that distinguish a person, character has been seen as superficial and peripheral to the main concerns of psychoanalysis. The early instinct-versus-defense model of psychoanalysis defined character as expressions of or defenses against instinctual pressures. As a result, character has usually been assigned an epiphenomenal role—at most, it has been considered a derivative of the functions of the ego and superego. It has remained an ambiguous, poorly defined notion, peripheral to our theories of mind and of therapy.

The recent growing concern of psychoanalysts with epistemic and cognitive issues, however, is beginning to effect a change in the orientation toward the concept of character. This concern promises significant reevaluations of the concept and of its importance to psychoanalytic theory and practice.

This chapter will examine the nature and function of character as a structural phenomenon related to the architectonics of knowing. It will extend observations that have been made regarding the central significance of cognition to the understanding of the functioning of the mind and the relationship of the concept of character to issues of cognition. It will also examine the implications of these views for issues of psychodynamics and the therapeutic process.

Psychoanalysis is the study of what, how, and why the individual knows and does not know. Its theoretical premises include both the fact that early experience affects knowing and meaning and that subsequent behavior and mental functioning reflect these earlier patterns, of meaning. In essence, psychoanalytic therapy may be considered an exercise in personal epistemology, in which the patient's ways of knowing and systems of meaning are explored and understood in order to correct dysfunctional mental processes and behaviors.

Because its roots lie in clinical observation, psychoanalysis, more than the academic psychologies, has recognized the importance of sensate experience on the organization of meaning in a person's life. Yet, like the academic psychologies, psychoanalytic theory too narrowly defines cognition as being related simply to processes of thinking. Affect, or feeling, has been considered an opposing phenomenon to thought, which has led, unfortunately and arbitrarily, to the creation and institutionalizing of the dualism of thought and feeling.

This dualism and its attendant dialectics have assumed unwarranted prominence in psychoanalytic theory and practice. In our conceptualizations of personality, cognition is equated with thought and is then contrasted with affect as 'an exclusive process.' Rapaport (1951), for example, considers thought and affect as alternate results of delay in the gratification of drive tension. The implications of 'either—or' in the production of thought or affect pattern may affect many of our clinical and therapeutic concerns. Clinically, although it is often contrary to observable clinical data, the implied dialectics of this approach to thought a nd affect dominate sour attitudes toward the prob lem of character. The over simplification of this approach leads to theoretical and clinical impasses.

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Character as a central structural concept

To be truly dynamically significant and not just a nosological afterthought, character must be distinguished from presenting style (Shapiro, 1965)—it must be freed from its definition as merely an aggregate of superficial traits. Character is an underlying structural phenomenon whose design and formal attributes determine much of an individual's mental life. From a structural perspective, character may be viewed as a behavioral and cognitive reflection of the organization of experience in a person's life. Character is a template, formed by the impact of historical experience. It functions to determine the individual's perception, interpretation, and organization of ongoing experience, as well as designs of expectation and anticipation, behavioral tendencies, and interpersonal operations.

In its cognitive aspects, character represents relatively durable patterns of relationships between sensate and syntactic experience and the organization of these patterns into systems of apprehension and comprehension. It reflects the individual's ways of knowing and systems of meaning. Ideally, the state of cognition in character organization would be an expanding interchange between levels representing both sensate and syntactic structure, with each level enriching and renewing the other, and each dependent on the other for optimal functioning. This ideal model would be an open-ended system in homeostasis with the environment, restricted only by the inherent limitations of the human organism.

From a practical viewpoint, however, the study of character is more often the study of the limitations and distortions imposed by various sources on these systems during their development. The delineation of a character type implies the existence of a skew in the organization of experience, a dysfunctional relationship between sensate and syntactic experience that leads to closure rather than to open-ended homeostasis. To distinguish, therefore, between hysterical characters and hysterical neuroses—or between obsessional characters and obsessional neuroses—would be arbitrary and would ignore the fact that both are structural deformations differing only in extent or in the cultural or personal bias of the observer.

E. Character And Language

This might seem like a strange topic to include here or perhaps anywhere. But, it turns out th at language is crucial to understanding character and especially the relationship of character to emotion.

Footnote 75. For a recent book on emotion as a function of cognition, see Kennedy-Moore, E. & Watson, J. C. (1999). Wong et. al. (2006) writes: "The first step of the model concerns a preconscious processing of emotional information and automatic physiological arousal resulting from a potentially emotion-provoking stimulus. For example, a man who is informed about the death of a family member might react with affective arousal, resulting in his heart beating faster. Nonexpression of emotion can occur simply because a person has little or no primary affective reaction to the stimulus. Disruption at Step 1 can be measured using physiological instruments. . . . The second step refers to one's conscious perception of one's affective state. Disruption at this step can occur when a person is motivated to block the experience of negative emotions from one's consciousness. For instance, the desire to avoid perceiving oneself as weak might motivate some men to repress their feelings of sadness. Because an individual does not consciously recognize these negative emotions, the emotions are not expressed. . . . The third step includes labeling and interpreting one's affective response, for example, "I feel sad." A disruption at this step occurs when one lacks the skill to label or interpret one's emotional experience, thus leading to the nonexpression of emotions. For example, some men might recognize that they feel something in response to an emotion-inducing event, but they are unable to interpret their feelings. Some scholars have suggested that the construct of alexithymia, a deficit in one's ability to put emotions to words, best captures the disruption of emotional processing at Step 3. . . . disruptions at Steps 4 and 5 of the KM-W model can be referred to as the inhibition or suppression of emotions. Inhibition and suppression are fundamentally distinct from repression (disruption at Step 2) and difficulty identifying feelings (disruption at Step 3) because the nonexpression of emotions at Steps 4 and 5 is conscious and volitional (Lumley et al., 2002). Specifically, the fourth step involves an evaluation of one's affective response in terms of one's beliefs and goals. Disruption at this step takes the form of nonexpression resulting from negative evaluations concerning emotional expression, for example, "It is wrong for me to feel frightened." In the fifth step, one perceives whether one's immediate social context permits the expression of emotions. Disruption at this step involves the perception that one lacks socially accepted opportunities to express emotions.

There are three issues to address: (1) language and metaphor, (2) language and identification for the child, (3) language and identification for the adult.

1. introduction

Any discussion of language must begin with a discussion of the nature of words and the nature of definition. Except for proper names, conjunctions, interjections, indefinite articles and the like, all words are the verbal expressions of concepts. That, of course, includes verbs and, important in our context, emotive words or feeling words [In philosophy a distinction is made between words that describe feelings and words that express feelings. That distinction is ignored in this discussion.]

A word (that is, a concept) has an explicit definition and an implicit definition. The explicit definition is the denotation of a word. To denote is, in effect, to point to. The implicit definition is the connotation of a word. To connote is, in effect, to imply. It is critical that this dual nature of concepts (words) be kept in mind in the following discussion.

The denotation or explicit definition of a word is what one finds in a dictionary. Any valid explicit definition has two parts: the genus and the differentia. The genus says what class of thing the concept belongs to. The differentia says what is unique about this concept versus the other member of the class.

The usual example of this is the word (concept): table. To be formal, here is what my Webster's says of table: "a piece of furniture consisting of a smooth flat slab fixed on legs." The genus, almost always, as here, stated first is: "a piece of furniture..." The differentia is: "... consisting of a smooth flat slab fixed on legs."

So a table belongs to the class: furniture and is different from beds, couches, chairs, etc. by reason of the smooth flat slab fixed on legs.

That takes care of the denotation part of a definition, but most any definition carries with it connotations, that is, implications. Sometimes these connotations are ethical or moral implications, usually these connotations imply a context of use such that to use the word is to not only convey a concept but also to convey associated issues which are not, in a formal sense, part of the definition.

Take a word now frequently in the news: hero. The genus of hero is "person." The differentia is "who puts his life in danger in order to aid another person." But there are also connotations. Being a hero is good (ethical implication). Another connotation is that being a hero means th at the person knowingly, not accidently, put his life in danger. Yet another connotation is that the person had choices available, at the time, in relation to the act(s) he undertook. He could, without penalty, have acted otherwise.

It is the connotative nature of language (other than pure fabrication) that allows for the existence of propaganda.

But we have not exhausted this topic, for there are two types of definitions. One is termed "ostensive" the other is termed "formal."

An ostensive definition is one where the definition is accomplished not by genus and differentia, but by pointing. A formal definition is one containing the standard genus and differentia.

Footnote 76. Obviously, the definition is wrong. A table does not need to be fixed on legs. One of the more sophisticated aspects of a definition is that it must be based on essential characteristics rather than happenstantial or irrelevant criteria. Tables do not need to have fixed legs. It does have to have a flat slab and it has to be raised off the floor; but there is no reason why a table can not be suspended from the ceiling by cables or be a solid block such that there are no legs as such.

As you'll see shortly, this discussion of the nature of definitions is not without immediate relevance to our topic; the more so, to foreshadow the coming discussion, in that emotions are defined ostensively.