December 4, 2017
Reading considered today:
Butt Chapters 8, 9
Butt Chapter 8 – The Unconscious
Butt’s understanding of the unconscious from an existential phenomenological perspective
Not Freud’s dynamic unconscious with complex set of laws and logic
An invention to explain some of the mysteries of human action
Splits in a person’s consciousness
The dynamic unconscious and resistance to attempts in therapy to treat one’s problems (evasion)
Agency continuum prior to Freud
Neurological degeneracy (none) ------------------------- moral weakness (total)
Self-defeating behaviour explained by Freud’s unconscious
Anorexia, phobia, shyness
Responsibility passed from personal agency to unconscious forces
Analyst encourages the part of us that wants to change by seeking to make the unconscious conscious through transference
Unconscious seen by Freudians/Kleinians as irrational
What does it contain?
Unconscious phantasies with internalized objects
Klein’s (natural) envy, hatred, omnipotence, greed, …
Schemas that distort the way things are
The natural and the cultural
Hermeneutics of suspicion
Butt’s position
Emotions, thoughts, actions all arise in interactions and confrontations with the world pre-reflectively, that is, before we think about them
Butt focuses on the pre-reflective body, rather than on a Freudian-style unconscious
Everything we do is unconscious to begin with, and only becomes conscious when we reflect and spell out our engagement with the world
The unlucky lady case study
Repression and unconscious phantasies
Self-deception
“We choose not to look at our intentionality and our way of being-in-the-world” p. 150
Why?
Lack of vocabulary in the discourse environment
Lack of (internal) conversational skill
‘Bad faith’, unwilling to spell out our engagement with the world
Unconscious composed of aspects of experience that one disavows
Dissociation of consciousness when experience incongruent with self-concept
Ron’s classroom example
Redefine or enlarge my core structure
The lived world is ambiguous – events terrify and fascinate simultaneously
One’s perceptual field
“the pre-reflective body articulates its perception, foregrounding some aspects of the field and making others background” p. 154
Kenneth Williams example
Disavowed his pre-reflective sexual attraction to other men
A moralistic self-theory
Wrote in his diaries in a way that seems homophobic
Pre-reflective existential projects and reflection
Return to the four bullets on p. 158
Butt Chapter 9 – Psychological Reconstruction
Personal change, through therapy
Not like overcoming an infection
Depends on what sense one makes of the procedures of therapy
Comparative effectiveness of various approaches to therapy
The rise of therapy
Beyond individuals, consider the social context of the rise
The advancement of humanism and science?
The culmination of the intrusion of disciplinary power? A control strategy
A misdirection towards individuals and away from systems
Butt emphasizes a blend of individual and social construction
Emotions and feelings
From emotional repression to emotional expression
Release of repression as a model
Changes in the rules of emotional expression
Increasing emphasis on self
Rise of expert systems
Social and personal construction
The meanings we bestow on things
Micro-level, joint action with others; macro-level, surrounding social structures/practices
Narratives and social construction
Narratives with a sexual theme – coming out and sexual abuse
In telling a story one finds and one makes oneself
Acknowledging pre-reflective connection with the world
Interpreting connection and adopting a particular construction
Stories as frameworks, not causes
Orton, Williams, and the coming-out narrative
Understanding and being-in-the-world
To understand people, appreciate the components of their social world AND appreciate how they see and interpret their world
Human embodiment a commonality in the co-construction of meaning
Carl’s shyness case – a lack of social skills, or a way-of-being that resists piecemeal change?
Butt’s call for a therapy addressing psychological reconstruction
The point of understanding
Prerequisite for bringing about psychological change
“Psychology of personality is concerned with experience, with feelings, intentions and meaning. … It attempts to work with this material in a disciplined and systematic way.” p. 177