maybe it would cheer her up if i said, "though, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar..."
i hate that often times i fit in lines on a page. oh. well. simple me.
/
the problem of intimacy
the chart which accompanied the preceding section shows "intimacy vs isolation" as the core conflict which follows that of "identity vs identity diffusion." that many of our patients break down at an age which is properly considered more preadult than postadolescent is explained by the fact that often only an attempt to engage in intimate fellowship and competition or in sexual intimacy fully reveals the latent weakness of identity.
true "engagement" with others is the result and the test of firm self-delineation. where this is still missing, the young individual, when seeking tentative forms of playful intimacy in friendship and competition, in sex play and love, in argument and gossip, is apt to experience a peculiar strain, as if such tentative engagement might turn into an interpersonal fusion amounting to a loss of identity, and requiring, therefore, a tense inner reservation, a caution in commitment. where a youth does not resolve such strain he may isolate himself and enter, at best, only stereotyped and formalized interpersonal relations; or he may, in repeated hectic attempts and repeated dismal failures, seek intimacy with the most improbable partners. for where an assured sense of identity is missing, even friendships and affairs become desperate attempts at delineating the fuzzy outlines of identity by mutual narcissistic mirroring: to fall in love then often means to fall into one's mirror image, hurting oneself and damaging the mirror. during lovemaking or in sexual fantasies, a loosening of sexual identity threatens: it even becomes unclear whether sexual excitement is experienced by the individual or by his partner, and this in either heterosexual or homosexual encounters. the ego thus loses its flexible capacity for abandoning itself to sexual and affectual sensations, in a fusion with another individual who is both partner to the sensation and guarantor of one's continuing identity: fusion with another becomes identity loss. a sudden collapse of all capacity for mutuality threatens, and a desperate wish ensues to start all over again, with a (quasi-deliberate) regression to a stage of basic bewilderment and rage such as only the very small child knows.
it must also be remembered that the counterpart of intimacy is distantiation, ie, the readiness to repudiate, to ignore, or to destroy those forces and people whose essence seems dangerous to one's own. intimacy with one set of people and ideas would not be really intimate without an efficient repudiation of another set. thus, weakness or excess in repudiation is an intrinsic aspect of the inability to gain intimacy because of an incomplete identity: whoever is not sure of this "point of view" cannot repudiate judiciously.
young persons often indicate in rather pathetic ways a feeling that only merging with a "leader" can save them--an adult who is able and willing to offer himself as a safe object for experimental surrender and as a guide in the relearning of the very first steps toward an intimate mutuality, and a legitimate repudiation. to such a person the late adolescent wants to be an apprentice or a disciple, a follower, sex mate or patient. where this fails, as it often must from its very intensity and absoluteness, the young individual recoils to a position of strenuous introspection and self-testing which, given particularly aggravating circumstances or a history of relatively strong autistic trends, can lead him into a paralyzing borderline state. symptomatically, this state consists of a painfully heightened sense of isolation; a disintegration of the sense of inner continuity and sameness; a sense of over-all ashamedness; an inability to derive a sense of accomplishment from any kind of activity; a feeling that life is happening to the individual rather than being lived by his initiative; a radically shortened time perspective; and finally, a basic mistrust, which leaves it to the world, to society, and indeed to psychiatry to prove that the patient does exist in a psychosocial sense, ie, can count on an invitation to become himself.
diffusion of time perspective
in extreme instances of delayed and prolonged adolescence an extreme form of disturbance in the experience of time appears which, in its milder form, belongs to the psychopathology of everyday adolescence. it consists of a sense of great urgency and yet also of a loss of consideration for time as a dimension of living. the young person may feel simultaneously very young, and in fact babylike, and old beyond rejuvenation. protests of missed greatness and of a premature and fatal loss of useful potentials are common among our patients as they are among adolescents in cultures which consider such protestations romantic; the implied malignancy, however, consists of a decided disbelief in the possibility that time may bring change, and yet also of a violent fear that it might. this contradiction often is expressed in a general slowing up which makes the patient behave, within the routine of activities (and also of therapy) as if he were moving in molasses. it is hard for him to go to bed and to face the transition into a state of sleep, and it is equally hard for him to get up and face the necessary restitution of wakefulness; it is hard to come to the hour, and hard to leave it. such complaints as, "i don't know," "i give up," "i quit," are by no means mere habitual statements reflecting a mild depression: they are often expressions of the kind of despair which edward bibring (1953) has recently discussed as a wish on the part of the ego "to let itself die." the assumption that life could actually be made to end with the end of adolescence (or at tentatively planned later "dates of expiration") is by no means entirely unwelcome, and, in fact, can become the only pillar of hope on which a new beginning can be based. some of our patients even require the feeling that the therapist does not intend to commit them to a continuation of life if (successful) treatment should fail to prove it really worth while; without such a conviction the moratorium would not be a real one. in the meantime, the "wish to die" is only in those rare cases a really suicidal wish, itself. i am thinking here of a pretty young girl, the oldest of a number of daughters of a millworker. her mother had repeatedly expressed the thought that she would rather see her daughters dead than become prostitutes; at the same time she suspected "prostitution" in their every move toward companionship with boys. the daughters were finally forced into a kind of conspirational sorority of their own, obviously designed to elude the mother, to experiment with ambiguous situations, and yet probably also to give one another protection from men. they were finally caught in compromising circumstances. the authorities, too, took it for granted that they intended to prostitute themselves, and they were sent to a variety of institutions where they were forcefully impressed with the kind of "recognition" society had in store for them. no appeal was possible to a mother who, they felt, had left them no choice; and much good will and understanding of social workers was sabotaged by circumstances. at least for the oldest girl (and this, because of a number of reasons) no other future was available except that of another chance in another world. she killed herself by hanging after having dressed herself up nicely, and having written a note which ended with the cryptic words "why i achieve honor only to discard it..."
less spectacular but not less malignant forms and origins of such "negative identities" will be taken up later.
diffusion of industry
cases of severe identity diffusion regularly also suffer from acute upset in the sense of workmanship, and this either in the form of an inability to concentrate on required or suggested tasks, or in a self-destructive preoccupation with some one-sided activities, eg, excessive reading...
thus identity diffusion is accompanied not only by an inability to concentrate, but also by an excessive awareness as well as abhorrence of competitiveness. although the patients in question usually are intelligent and able and often have shown themselves successful in office work, in scholastic studies, and in sports, they now lose the capacity for work, exercise, and sociability, and thus the most important vehicle of social play, and the most significant refuge from formless fantasy and vague anxiety. instead infantile goals and fantasies are dangerously endowed with the energy emanating from matured sexual equipment and increased aggressive power. one parent, again, become the goal, the other, again, the hindrance. yet this revived oedipal struggle is not and must not be interpreted as exclusively or even primarily a sexual one: it is a turn toward the earliest origins, an attempt to resolve diffusion of early introjects and to rebuild the shaky childhood identifications--in other words, a wish to be born again, to learn once more the very first steps toward reality and mutuality, and to acquire the renewed permission to develop again the functions of contact, activity, and competition.
from identity and the life cycle by erik erikson
more later. thinking of doctor mirza and kindness. and hospital gowns. and fog.
/
i don't know if i could drive a car
fast enough to get to where you are
or wild enough not to lose control completely
but honey i'm thinking maybe
you know, just maybe
/
the problem of intimacy
the chart which accompanied the preceding section shows "intimacy vs isolation" as the core conflict which follows that of "identity vs identity diffusion." that many of our patients break down at an age which is properly considered more preadult than postadolescent is explained by the fact that often only an attempt to engage in intimate fellowship and competition or in sexual intimacy fully reveals the latent weakness of identity.
true "engagement" with others is the result and the test of firm self-delineation. where this is still missing, the young individual, when seeking tentative forms of playful intimacy in friendship and competition, in sex play and love, in argument and gossip, is apt to experience a peculiar strain, as if such tentative engagement might turn into an interpersonal fusion amounting to a loss of identity, and requiring, therefore, a tense inner reservation, a caution in commitment. where a youth does not resolve such strain he may isolate himself and enter, at best, only stereotyped and formalized interpersonal relations; or he may, in repeated hectic attempts and repeated dismal failures, seek intimacy with the most improbable partners. for where an assured sense of identity is missing, even friendships and affairs become desperate attempts at delineating the fuzzy outlines of identity by mutual narcissistic mirroring: to fall in love then often means to fall into one's mirror image, hurting oneself and damaging the mirror. during lovemaking or in sexual fantasies, a loosening of sexual identity threatens: it even becomes unclear whether sexual excitement is experienced by the individual or by his partner, and this in either heterosexual or homosexual encounters. the ego thus loses its flexible capacity for abandoning itself to sexual and affectual sensations, in a fusion with another individual who is both partner to the sensation and guarantor of one's continuing identity: fusion with another becomes identity loss. a sudden collapse of all capacity for mutuality threatens, and a desperate wish ensues to start all over again, with a (quasi-deliberate) regression to a stage of basic bewilderment and rage such as only the very small child knows.
it must also be remembered that the counterpart of intimacy is distantiation, ie, the readiness to repudiate, to ignore, or to destroy those forces and people whose essence seems dangerous to one's own. intimacy with one set of people and ideas would not be really intimate without an efficient repudiation of another set. thus, weakness or excess in repudiation is an intrinsic aspect of the inability to gain intimacy because of an incomplete identity: whoever is not sure of this "point of view" cannot repudiate judiciously.
young persons often indicate in rather pathetic ways a feeling that only merging with a "leader" can save them--an adult who is able and willing to offer himself as a safe object for experimental surrender and as a guide in the relearning of the very first steps toward an intimate mutuality, and a legitimate repudiation. to such a person the late adolescent wants to be an apprentice or a disciple, a follower, sex mate or patient. where this fails, as it often must from its very intensity and absoluteness, the young individual recoils to a position of strenuous introspection and self-testing which, given particularly aggravating circumstances or a history of relatively strong autistic trends, can lead him into a paralyzing borderline state. symptomatically, this state consists of a painfully heightened sense of isolation; a disintegration of the sense of inner continuity and sameness; a sense of over-all ashamedness; an inability to derive a sense of accomplishment from any kind of activity; a feeling that life is happening to the individual rather than being lived by his initiative; a radically shortened time perspective; and finally, a basic mistrust, which leaves it to the world, to society, and indeed to psychiatry to prove that the patient does exist in a psychosocial sense, ie, can count on an invitation to become himself.
diffusion of time perspective
in extreme instances of delayed and prolonged adolescence an extreme form of disturbance in the experience of time appears which, in its milder form, belongs to the psychopathology of everyday adolescence. it consists of a sense of great urgency and yet also of a loss of consideration for time as a dimension of living. the young person may feel simultaneously very young, and in fact babylike, and old beyond rejuvenation. protests of missed greatness and of a premature and fatal loss of useful potentials are common among our patients as they are among adolescents in cultures which consider such protestations romantic; the implied malignancy, however, consists of a decided disbelief in the possibility that time may bring change, and yet also of a violent fear that it might. this contradiction often is expressed in a general slowing up which makes the patient behave, within the routine of activities (and also of therapy) as if he were moving in molasses. it is hard for him to go to bed and to face the transition into a state of sleep, and it is equally hard for him to get up and face the necessary restitution of wakefulness; it is hard to come to the hour, and hard to leave it. such complaints as, "i don't know," "i give up," "i quit," are by no means mere habitual statements reflecting a mild depression: they are often expressions of the kind of despair which edward bibring (1953) has recently discussed as a wish on the part of the ego "to let itself die." the assumption that life could actually be made to end with the end of adolescence (or at tentatively planned later "dates of expiration") is by no means entirely unwelcome, and, in fact, can become the only pillar of hope on which a new beginning can be based. some of our patients even require the feeling that the therapist does not intend to commit them to a continuation of life if (successful) treatment should fail to prove it really worth while; without such a conviction the moratorium would not be a real one. in the meantime, the "wish to die" is only in those rare cases a really suicidal wish, itself. i am thinking here of a pretty young girl, the oldest of a number of daughters of a millworker. her mother had repeatedly expressed the thought that she would rather see her daughters dead than become prostitutes; at the same time she suspected "prostitution" in their every move toward companionship with boys. the daughters were finally forced into a kind of conspirational sorority of their own, obviously designed to elude the mother, to experiment with ambiguous situations, and yet probably also to give one another protection from men. they were finally caught in compromising circumstances. the authorities, too, took it for granted that they intended to prostitute themselves, and they were sent to a variety of institutions where they were forcefully impressed with the kind of "recognition" society had in store for them. no appeal was possible to a mother who, they felt, had left them no choice; and much good will and understanding of social workers was sabotaged by circumstances. at least for the oldest girl (and this, because of a number of reasons) no other future was available except that of another chance in another world. she killed herself by hanging after having dressed herself up nicely, and having written a note which ended with the cryptic words "why i achieve honor only to discard it..."
less spectacular but not less malignant forms and origins of such "negative identities" will be taken up later.
diffusion of industry
cases of severe identity diffusion regularly also suffer from acute upset in the sense of workmanship, and this either in the form of an inability to concentrate on required or suggested tasks, or in a self-destructive preoccupation with some one-sided activities, eg, excessive reading...
thus identity diffusion is accompanied not only by an inability to concentrate, but also by an excessive awareness as well as abhorrence of competitiveness. although the patients in question usually are intelligent and able and often have shown themselves successful in office work, in scholastic studies, and in sports, they now lose the capacity for work, exercise, and sociability, and thus the most important vehicle of social play, and the most significant refuge from formless fantasy and vague anxiety. instead infantile goals and fantasies are dangerously endowed with the energy emanating from matured sexual equipment and increased aggressive power. one parent, again, become the goal, the other, again, the hindrance. yet this revived oedipal struggle is not and must not be interpreted as exclusively or even primarily a sexual one: it is a turn toward the earliest origins, an attempt to resolve diffusion of early introjects and to rebuild the shaky childhood identifications--in other words, a wish to be born again, to learn once more the very first steps toward reality and mutuality, and to acquire the renewed permission to develop again the functions of contact, activity, and competition.
from identity and the life cycle by erik erikson
more later. thinking of doctor mirza and kindness. and hospital gowns. and fog.
/
i don't know if i could drive a car
fast enough to get to where you are
or wild enough not to lose control completely
but honey i'm thinking maybe
you know, just maybe