1895-1995

A reading of Freud's Outline of a Scientific Psychology - Part.2 

Following the first part - we may introduce this second with an interesting prejudice :

Masses (Crowd) behave like an individual - with this idea, great fascist orators delivered effective speeches (combined with a so-called collective hypnosis). It is more uncomfortable, but perhaps more realistic, to consider that individuals behave like crowds.
If a human person is imitating its collectivity - then Freud probably wrote a sociology. This would answer an increasing enigma in Freud's career and his call for bridging his psychoanalysis with Collective Psychology.

Then, if Freud wrote a sociology, his 1895 Outline also applies to industrial organizations. It also becomes easier to deduce by consequences, in this case, that his description of a system within an environment (the 'exterior object' of his Model of the Crowd and/or the Unconscious) defines an ecology (that is a global understanding of an industry).





SATISFACTION (Outline CHAP.11)


After the first 9 chapters of the Outline, we continue to read Freud's certain notions which can be applied to the society at work. For instance, the analysis of the Satisfaction process depicts a successful production of an enterprise composed of workers () with its customer, the public () [see neuron metaphor].

Industry happens when humankind (a collectivity) presents a need (hunger for instance, or need for clothing, shelter etc..). Human society allows a Demand to form, and a reflex to produce an answer - these two mirroring resulting instances (Demand & reflex) are illustrated by Lacan who followed Freud's model.

The need causes the Demand (compare with: cries causes the Mother's intervention)
which formats a reflex, which combines this Demand/education and the resolutive action
(thus exterior image of the (m)other + interior image of self/enterprise),
so that creates a result/Product (that is inverse to the Demand it embeds/fulfils)
.

Enterprise
&
Product
are
concurrently
invested

Satisfaction
results
in a reflex
that fulfills
the Demand

The images [Product, Enterprise] are linked in an 'associated conduction'
which Freud expresses as a law of 'simultaneity' [3]

that associates in the brain, the image of the Body of Demand with the reactive Self Body image.
(external and internal neural images equally invested at the same time);
this double and fluid identity is shown in the two-positions of Lacan's model :

[1]
Demand


[2]
shift

[3]
Enterprise
& desired
product

[4]
shift

The two pink vases [in position.3] refer to
the narcissistic position of satisfaction - and
pleasure when [pos.4] Demand and Product meet.




PAIN (Outline CHAP.12)


Complementary is the Pain process; this is - beyond the above pleasure principle - the reality case when one of the images - the external 'Demand'- misses, aggravates the need - or an external attack causes damage to the body/company. In the brain/enterprise, this painful image is swiftly discharged (repressed) - so that its reference must entirely stand on one side of the system.
Freud invents here a new neuron (key-neuron) - added with a lapse, according to his translator ! so that it can be easily interpreted to signify a naming, in this case, a representant, a leader [re. note (1)].

In case of Pain, extinction of Demand, attack or trouble in the environment,
is a representation constituted - by the leader - who therefore stands
to sustain the Demand and impose the Production.

Meanwhile, the defense by representation (idealization - leadership) shows no 'association'
and no 'simultaneity'
(re.above) - but a repulsion and repression (oblivion of the painful memory)
while a sole symbolic charge is carried by the Leader (making up for the Demand)

[1]
Threatening
Environment
(resistance)

[2]
defense

[3]
Leadership
opera
tion

[4]
forced
productivity

If Demand ceases, attacks or confusion threaten or harm the enterprise [1] ,
these unpleasant event/situations are eliminated or avoided and their memory repressed [3]
while the leader bears the charge as he stands for the ideal Demand

(this explains why leadership is often invested with pain fantasies or oppression systems)





The combination of these two factors (satisfaction & pain) described in Freud's early Outline in 1895 represents the industrialization factor that is blended in the Lacanian optical model, which shows at its upper level (Significand) the system of Representation [] & Repression [] while the lower level (signified) shows body images (blue & pink vases) which allow the immixion-distinction within worker-customer function.

The point here is to show how one can retrieve the neuron definitions in Freud's Outline with his later Model of the Crowd (this, of course also being supported by Lacan's ulterior decipheration of the system which rallies it to the Platonic, and then Hermetic tradition)

This schema summarizes my critical reading - and the use I exploit from the 1895 Outline: Freud's 'W' neurons do not exist but a seriesinstead; nor  but Representants (significands), nor the secretory key neurons but the 'barriers' between   neurons - whose synaptic net constitutes the ego(s). This synapses coral/tree structures the brain, as does financial reserve in an economical view. Industrially, it displays the Leadership [] of an enterprise, its WorkForce [light blue zone] with workers and customer [pink and blue vases], and the Demand/Product [blue bunch].


Therefore we have realized a compound of civilization models that guaranty the base of an ecological interpretation of the industrial world.

In these concise pages (part.1 & part.2), we have deciphered Freud's symptomatic foundation as a
Rosetta Stone.
This Thermodynamics is the platform for Lacan's ulterior Cybernetics.




NOTE (1) - this is a/the core point in Freud's discovery. As said in this page, Freud's key-neuron may be recognized as the 'barrier' (synaptic field) of which we have begun analysing - in part.1 - the symptomatic introduction. Our view is reinforced with the parallel analysis of the elaboration of the 'meme' concept in relation with naming - which has located in the connection between egos (e.g. ), the motive of meme. <back>



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Additional note about the absence (extraction) in PLAN's case. These pages so far have given enough information for understanding a major point in PLural ANalysis practice. PLAN composes three actions: 1) individual sessions, 2) collecting memories on the analyst side and 3) the consequences of a minus-one in the group
Minus-one is the name which has been given to the circulating absence in the group due to the extraction of its participants following the invitation of the analyst. When PLAN has been set, around 1985, minus-one answers to Lacan's plus-one.
The so-called plus-one by Lacan was supposed to be appointed to psychoanalytical groups but, unfortunately was not proving efficient. The present theorization following the 1895 Outline easily shows the difference between the plus- and minus-ones.
As the last schema above shows, the 'leadership' is added to the subject of the repressed memory [re: S,I] - and this is what Lacan suggested to represent as the plus-one. Unfortunately it does not help to be aware that it represents the totalization - or the absolutization which causes the fall of all traditional politics. In 'total' consciousness. Lacan's student followed his advise and... fell in failure and ignorance (all the more as their Master was noticing it)!
The minus-one presents another reality - it introduces in fact the absence (of the Demand) that the leader represents. It is much more 'realistic' than the spiritism that is to represent the representativity (plus-one) - in PLAN, the 'presence of an absence' is 'in reality'. This is why PLAN is directly active at an objective level (productivity, industry, ecology)