Psychodynamic Forgetting (was: Re: "Bad" Mothers: The Politics of Blame Re: Radio Doug

RE earnest at tallynet.com
Tue Apr 1 12:15:59 PST 2003


I worry I may be starting to harp, but with behaviorism if you're in for a penny, you're in for a pound. The specific plausibility of its observations need to be sharply distinguished from its programmatic aspirations, which were appallingly dogmatic. There are some contemporary psychoanalysts, like Eric Gillette, who argue plausibly for the relevance of learning theory to psychoanalysis. I buy it. But he's very careful about which system assimilates which. Behaviorism was radically reductive. Psychoanalysis can be, in the simplistic "it's your Mother!" sort of way, but it is very accepting of a hierarchy of mental mechanisms, including everything from stimulus-response links to elaborate compromise formations, unconscious fantasy, and so on. Skinner wanted to raze everything else.

Randy


: B.F. Skinner in both *Science and Human Behavior* and
: in *Verbal Behavior* argued that many psychodynamic
: concepts could be translated into the language of
: operant psychology. Thus, he suggested that the
: Freudian concept of repression could be subsumed
: under the concept of punishment as understood
: in his experimental analysis of behavior. And he
: suggested ways that the Freudian defense mechanisms
: could be reinterpreted in terms of the language
: of operant psychology. Likewise, he went further
: to suggest ways that the Freudian model of personality
: of id, ego, and superego could be understood
: behavioristically, in which the id was to be identified
: with biologically-based reinforcement contingencies,
: the superego with socially-contrived reinforcement
: contingencies, and the ego with repertoires of behavior
: that we develop to mediate between biologically-based
: reinforcement contingencies, and the socially-based
: ones.
:
: On Tue, 01 Apr 2003 17:17:02 +0000 loupaulsen at attbi.com writes:
: > The other side of this: even if such 'forgetting' is due to software
: > rather
: > than hardware (to the extent that this distinction makes sense), it
: > seems to
: > me there are a lot of ways to explain it other than the
: > 'psychodynamic' ways.
: > Just operant conditioning would do it, wouldn't it? - thinking about
: > X causes
: > distress, you avoid doing things that cause you distress, so you
: > think about X
: > less. This accounts for a hell of a lot of my own procrastination
: > and
: > avoidance behavior, I can tell you. You can call that "crude
: > protection of
: > the individual", but so is not touching hot stoves.
: >
: > lp
: > > There is a thing called short term memory loss. People who have
: > > brain damage often have it. So do people with fibromyalgia and
: > other
: > > conditions. Lots of times people are not diagnosed with these
: > > conditions and they are sent to the shrink by their incompetent
: > > physicians who do not give a proper diagnosis. Short term memory
: > loss
: > > is physiological in origin so I think you have to be careful here.
: > >
: > > Marta
: > >
: > > >On Mon, 31 Mar 2003, RE wrote:
: > > >
: > > >> In sessions
: > > >> I've had patients broach a difficult, important subject and
: > then forget
: > > >> about what they had been talking about ten minutes later, or
: > else forget
: > > >> about it by a session the next day, at the same time
: > complaining of feeling
: > > >> "foggy-headed" and the like. To try to talk about this in any
: > way other
: > > >> than repression -- out of control, motivated forgetting that
: > crudely
: > > >> protects the individual -- is absurd. If it's hard to study,
: > that doesn't
: > > >> mean it doesn't happen.
: > > >> Randy
: > > >>
: > > >
: > > >I agree. There is some pretty convincing research that supports
: > your
: > > >observation that motivated forgetting is a common defense
: > mechanism.
: > > >But this example is more the exception than the rule when it
: > comes
: > > >to scientific tests of psychodynamic ideas.
: > > >
: > > >Miles
: > >
: > >
: > > --
: > > Marta Russell
: > > Los Angeles, CA
: > > http://www.disweb.org
: >
:
:
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