Think of it. When our car breaks down and we take it for repair, we want a mechanic who has a scientific basic knowledge of its parts and internal operations. We also want one who can find our particular problem. We worry if we see that his(her) own vehicle is in disrepair. And if he misperceives our badly-behaving beast and takes a dislike to it, we worry more. And if the vehicle is our mind, and the service person a mental health specialist, and we come late and surly for our initial appointment, we want him(her) to realize that he has just witnessed the first sign of its malfunction. Of course a friendly relationship would be welcome, but that is not our primary desire. With deep and lovely years to spend and miles to go before we end, it's reliable transportation we're after. So is it impossible to achieve a level of expertise that could help us get it? Yes, there are differences. The human mind was not conceived and built by an engineer who could rhyme off its intricacies at will. But scientific clinical studies of its after-creation states could lead to such. Botanists and zoologists have developed testable theories of phenomena that they did not produce. During his medical training, Dr. Harry M. Anderson was inspired by the apolitical curiosity, courage, and determination of the scientists he encountered, and he carried their example into a career in the psychoanalytic domain. It led him to test the definability of its concepts and the predictive capability of its principles, and methods for doing so during treatments were developed. Some held up to validation procedures while others did not, and a reliable body of theory began to emerge from the work. As it proved repeatedly accurate in sessions with patients, he applied it in a parallel analysis of self after his training analysis. Then, new research data emerged from several sources to expand its range, and as the roots of some of life's most severe symptoms were reached and dismantled, the goal of providing "complete analyses" became more than possible. It also became apparent that unsuspected artistic creative potentials could be released in self and others; and that theoretically-informed analyses could create extensive ripple effects in families, career situations, marriages, and friendships. None of his specific research was planned, but retrospective notations revealed that each had followed naturally upon the one before. Initial offerings had energized the curious part of his mind and pulled the rest of it with them.

FROM AN ART TO A SCIENCE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS

THE METAPSYCHOLOGICAL FORMULATION METHOD By HARRY M. ANDERSON

Trafford Publishing

Copyright © 2011 Harry M. Anderson MD D.Psych FRCP
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4269-3416-2

Contents

PREFACE.................................................................................................................................................1INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................................3PART I: SYMPTOMS AT THE START OF CONSULTATION AND THE TOOLS NEEDED FOR THEIR FORMULATION................................................................7CHAPTER 1 THE SYMPTOMS OF THE CLINICAL SITUATION AND THE FRAMEWORK REQUIRED FOR THEIR IDENTIFICATION....................................................9CHAPTER 2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF SYMPTOMS...................................................................................................................19CHAPTER 3 THE SYMPTOM-BEARING MIND AT THE START OF CONSULTATION.........................................................................................57CHAPTER 4 CLINICAL RECORDS AND A CODIFICATION SYSTEM....................................................................................................91CHAPTER 5 SURFACES AND LAYERS...........................................................................................................................111CHAPTER 6 THE FIRST ROT SYMPTOM.........................................................................................................................117CHAPTER 7 THE "FOLLOW-UP" TECHNIQUE.....................................................................................................................127PART II: THE CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES OF PART I ELABORATED...............................................................................................131CHAPTER 8 THE SUPEREGO AND THE EGO IDEAL................................................................................................................133CHAPTER 9 THE DEFENSES..................................................................................................................................157CHAPTER 10 THE DRIVES: PART 1, IN GENERAL AND "LIBIDO"..................................................................................................187CHAPTER 11 THE DRIVES: PART 2, THE AGGRESSIVE DRIVE.....................................................................................................195CHAPTER 12 TRANSFERENCE: PART 1, THE SINGLE TRANSFERENCE................................................................................................291CHAPTER 13 TRANSFERENCE: PART 2, THE MULTIPLE TRANSFERENCE THEORY.......................................................................................305CHAPTER 14 THE SYMPTOMS OF THE "BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER" AND THE MULTIPLE TRANSFERENCE THEORY...................................................373CHAPTER 15 THE CURE OF SYMPTOMS BY THE M.F. METHOD......................................................................................................383CHAPTER 16 COURAGE, HEROISM AND RESCUE IN THE PRACTICE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS................................................................................441PART III: OTHER APPLICATIONS OF THE M.F. METHOD.........................................................................................................449CHAPTER 17 SELF ANALYSIS................................................................................................................................451CHAPTER 18 CLINICAL RESEARCH............................................................................................................................463CHAPTER 19 UNDERSTANDING AND COUNTERACTING DESTRUCTIVE AGGRESSION IN THE WORLD AT LARGE ROBBERY, RAPE, MURDER, TERRORISM, WAR, ETC......................495CHAPTER 20 THE UNCONSCIOUS SOURCES OF ART...............................................................................................................509CHAPTER 21 M.F. RESEARCH AND THE FUTURE.................................................................................................................539THE THEORETICAL AND TECHNICAL TERMS USED IN THIS BOOK...................................................................................................543ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................................................................................................................547PERMISSIONS, QUOTATIONS, REFERENCES.....................................................................................................................551INDEX...................................................................................................................................................555

Chapter One

THE SYMPTOMS OF THE CLINICAL SITUATION AND THE FRAMEWORK REQUIRED FOR THEIR IDENTIFICATION

"Symptoms" are concrete, objectively-observable phenomena that present, or are presented, in different categories and forms and with everyday regularity in consultation and treatment sessions until an analysis has been successfully completed. Those that appear in spontaneous behavioral terms from the moment the consultee enters the consultative situation are of the greatest formulative importance. Those reported (e.g. phobias) can inform the consultant if he(she) understands their metapsychology, but they do not contain what are called "working surfaces" and the conflicts that underpin them do not become observable and workable until late in the course of any treatment undertaken.

Symptomatic acts (or behaviours) in the broad sense (i.e. not limited to Freud's narrow group of the same name - 1905, p.76-79) are characterized by their non-self-evident, non-functional, non-realistic, non-simple and non-ordinary properties in the contexts in which they appear. They are important because they are indicators of the operative, internal conflicts that are fuelling the consultee's sufferings, and signifiers of the complex metapsychological states that the treatment process addresses.

SYMPTOM TYPES

One main type of behavioral symptom encountered in the clinic is that deriving from a Character Neurosis. That old diagnostic category has recently been replaced by the term "Personality Disorder", but it remains the more suitable of the two.

A "character symptom" is like a "stamp" or "mark" (the Greek etymological origin of the word) on a developing self, imposed by problem caretaker figures that divert the original, unconflicted "real self" from its natural developmental course. The wording emphasizes the fact that such symptoms are always accretions on that self and never parts of its basic shape and function.

The term "personality" (from the Latin, "persona", a mask used by an actor) is more aptly applied to this theory's concept of what will later be called the "social self" - a self organization that suppresses the "real self" to adapt to problem-object standards, avoid danger and be accepted. Its emphasis is thus on a more surface and less fundamental aspect of the symptom concept.

The term "character" also implies a particular, repetitive ("characteristic") pattern to the behaviour of the consultee's collection of conflicted selves, of which the "social self" is but one part. And an on-the-spot "meta" dissection of a character symptom includes...