Oedipus from Miami Beach: Book 2

By Gibbs A. Williams

My journal dogs me. But I feel a responsibility to keep making entries so I can one day demonstrate in detail how  significant attitudinal and behavioral change come about.

Gradually in my psychoanalysis I was able to experience the complexity of my emotional logic - a combination of conventional causality, messy feelings, i

• Language: English
• Publisher: Book Vine Press
• Release date: May 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781958128350

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Copyright © 2022 by Gibbs A. Williams Ph.D.

ISBN 978-1-958128-34-3 (softcover)

ISBN 978-1-958128-33-6 (ebook)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

To protect their identity and privacy, the names of the patients and two psychotherapists mentioned in this book were changed.

Printed in the United States of America.

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YEAR 21 – 1976 – AGE 39

01/04/1976 – I realize I am addicted to frustration equals love. I need to be needy and weak to get the love I seek – (a moth to a flame syndrome) --My therapeutic alliance with W deepens considerably, experiencing him both as a real person and as my psychoanalyst – a diagnosis of moral masochism– (a compulsive need to be needy and needed) – What I view as existential (a just so story): W converts into symptomatic, problematic, and unconsciously motivated hence analyzable material

Today was the first session that I discussed my relationship with my mother. W said - It was primarily based on seduction and hyperstimulation than on relaxed mother love. I recalled many memories of a lot of explicit sexuality – showers and being together in bed with her way past the age of five which led to much-unrelieved frustration.

A Dream

I find myself walking on a semi-dark street. I sense I am being pursued by lions [my father was a Leo]. Something grabs me. I feel no one will protect me. The lions begin to bite me.

My Associations

My associations refer to my wife as Sheena, Queen of the jungle. How she wants me to warm her up but at the same time she acts cold. W said - This was a clear case of transference to my parents and my wife. That the ‘love’ I seek is symbolized by the scary lions. That in fact, I seek out the very thing I fear the most. That in fact the frustration I experienced with my wife and my parents is the only ‘love’ I ever had. That in fact, I need the feelings of frustration to feel alive. [‘Whatever’ is to a child equals reality. Whether the perceived reality is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ the child and then the adult will gravitate towards it. This is what is meant by repetition compulsion – the compulsion to seek the familiar.]

Post - Session

I realized today that the key problem with couples is not a difficulty in communication, though that is obviously important, but working out the negative transference. [Freud said that in the marital bed there are not two people but six]. I am now aware of a hidden wish to be dominated by [aggressive and controlling] women equal the lions.

The compulsive search for approval from my wife is clear. To ask for approval said W is a need for the illusion of protection. It is lonely to make myself the final authority.

January 12

I am experiencing my need to cling and to get approval from the outside.

I see that I often use words to mislead rather than to get to the point of something. [Words may be used to obfuscate or to illuminate]. I would like not to feel as if I must figure everything out. In the session W encouraged me to - "Just let myself be. Everything will come clear when it is ready. He urges us to explore and see where we go together."

January 22

I am beginning to see how much my unconscious plays such an important role in determining where I am going. I am struck by the idea of discovering the major motivational sources of my conduct – those which impel, and those which compel.

From The New York Times - The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism by D. Bell

Our literature loses itself in the labyrinth search for the ‘authentic self’…. The dominant characteristics of this culture are immediacy, impact, sensation, and simultaneity….

January 29

Something seems to be seriously wrong with my wife. She is losing hope in her own therapy. She feels possessed and haunted. A crisis is brewing.

I think I’m experiencing a wish to fuse with W. Thoughts of death are less frightening than inviting. [Ah sweet death] W said - "I grew up in a non-loving atmosphere. To get what I needed I had to be weak. Love is associated with frustration, extreme neediness, pain, and death." [This is the direct opposite of taking responsibility for me as my own final authority]

From the New York Post - The Enjoyment of Literature by B. Grebanier

The great author is one who, for private reasons, finds it irresistible to write. Nobody makes him do it. There are far easier and less frustrating ways to earn his bread-and-butter. His urge is partly played, partly compulsion, partly the mood of the pole-vaulter who must try an apparently impossible leap, partly the mood of the prophet who feels commissioned to say what he has to say.

February 3

The Session

My first therapeutic experience was obtaining the requisite knowledge for survival. Now in psychoanalysis I am exploring ways to enjoy myself and thrive. I am moving from the avoidance of pain to the pursuit of pleasure. I see [origin of] my problem is bound up in early infancy - namely, the deprivation I felt in early mothering and my reaction to it. The central focus so far is my inability to tolerate frustration on the one hand, and my need to have too much of it, on the other. W said: In addition to the psychological issue of working through self-esteem regulation, there is the issue of the symbolic meaning of frustration which is the basic feeling in one who lacks adequate mother love.

My problem seems to be diagnosed as moral masochism. I have a need to be needy. This leads to the need to be right.

I am beginning to see that I have in fact trusted no one [including myself]. If I had trusted, there would be a relatively wide latitude of allowable confusion [as trust implies goodwill to either the self or others.] With good will - any problem will be worked out or at least tolerated. I don’t have this. I see this is such a simple realization but one that is very profound. I see how I have held back from personal encounters. Now there are new possibilities. [Effective therapy allows for a significant shift in attitude towards one’s problems. Thus, a problem (symptom) from an existential point of view is fixed – it is what it is like a just so story. Whereas a symptom from a psychoanalytic point of view a symptom is the visible top part of what covers a deeper unseen (unconscious) layer of conflicts. These conflicts must be named and worked through in the analysis. Future I see that I am, as we all are, essentially alone in our skins. No one can live in me or me in them. This point of view enables me to see the possibility of one day facing death [and the rest of my life] with poise and equanimity and with serious good humor.

February 11, 1976 – I am thirty-nine years old today. New unchartered territory – I envision a naturalistic way to view the production of meaningful coincidences (synchronicities) – I propose various theoretical ideas to explain synchronicities – I further explore important organizing concepts such as ego weakness and identification with the aggressor (played out in the compulsive need to please others) and projecting my final authority denying my own authentic experience -

I am feeling excitement, hope, and optimism on one side of me, versus resentment, fear, pessimism on the other. I am anxious when it comes to affairs of the heart.

Joyce is right - the best simplification is to describe and to experience the true complexity. "The longest way around is the shortest way home." (James Joyce - Ulysses)

February 20 - On Coincidences

Today a patient reintroduced the theme of meaningful coincidences. There appears to be a naturalistic way to explain these striking occurrences without, insisting on utilizing Jung’s supernatural and mystical causes. I saw the role of wish, fantasy, idealization, the need to fuse, magical thinking, attempts to simplify experience, the need to feel special, to personalize, to externalize, and combining unconscious and combining conscious and unconscious components. I would like to write a paper titled - On the Psychodynamics of Meaningful Coincidences.

March 6 - Science’s Function is to Discover the Factors that Determine the Occurrence of an Event. [Unknown source]

March 7

On Synchronicities

A synchronicity appears to occur in a particular psychological climate [atmosphere]. It is as if the person has opened his entire self to whatever forces there are in the world (subtle and gross) allowing himself to both connect with and to resonate.

Implied in this process is first a psychological state of deprivation [triggering a] wish to be meaningfully connected with something or someone which is felt to be responsive. [This might function as a substitute for the original missing mother?]

As a child I felt that my family and my culture often talking oranges while I was talking apricots or vice versa. [We characteristically talked past each other – no meaningful connectedness] I desperately searched for meaningful communication but the occasional light in the tunnel only led to other tunnels. I felt increasingly caught up in dark mazes of my own making.

[In the darkness] I found myself vibrating to the intense colors of nature and art. The images I saw in the cumulus clouds I gazed at as a child growing up in Miami Beach seemed to speak to me asking philosophical questions such as: Who am I, where did I come from? Was I perhaps from some other planet? And if so, was then perhaps a way to contact my true ancestors? How to establish meaningful connections became a major motivating force in my life. [In this light it is no coincidence I seemed destined to spend fifty years researching the nature and use of meaningful coincidences – synchronicities.]

March 9

If I accept W’s disclaimer that he is not a great King and that I am not his subject, then we are we are in fact – not just in theory – equals. Then when I feel he is the King [idealizing him] I must be projecting my authority onto him. I give him the power to judge me. This means I treat him as if he is literally my father. Why would I do that as a grownup? He is my psychoanalyst not my father. W would say - The roots must go back to childhood.

Reflections On My Theory of Synchronicities

Sensitive people who experience a climate of alienation in the process of coming alive break traditional barriers of conventional categories [dichotomous thinking] (right/wrong - good/bad; winners/losers; success/failure) and create for themselves a weltanschauung of personal meanings [often creating new concepts that are the byproducts of thinking out of the box. From the vantage point of natural phenomena, I see synchronicities to be the logical result of personal meanings attributed to meaningful coincidences as byproducts of the synthesis of unconscious, preconscious and conscious meanings externalized and reflected to the sender. The key concept in the naturalistic understanding of these cult-like phenomena is projected narcissism – the tendency to project our own final authority on to some external source. Purposes served include feeling that a wish for divinity, divine guidance, miracles, guidance from a superior loving external transcendent realm of experience is indeed a real occurrence.]

March 15

The Session

W said – I tend to look to external sources to fill myself up rather than to sublimate and to find sources in my creative unconscious. Part of the self-image deficit is the fact that I never had the time and attention to study what I wanted to learn. [Having committed to three sessions week psychoanalysis enables me to major in myself.] "I was made to feel that success was pleasing others."

March 18

I suspect that the intensity I feel with my wife has its force from the repressed early days of my childhood. I speculate that I must’ve experienced those days as traumatic. I am now ready to do battle with the early [unsavory] facts of my life.

April 16

I am ready to give up my wish to be controlled by a woman. These have been unconscious wishes - now that they are conscious, I can make a conscious choice about them. I can begin to replace a negative pleasure (masochism) with greater pleasure.

April 20

A few of my patients have noticed that I’ve been changing. They are right. I’ve been working on some mild problems which place me in a better position to help them with their own. Am I more analytic than before? Yes, - only now do I see the necessity for a double focus.

What is the reality of a given perception?

Ego-versus reality

Is the ego capable of negotiating with the real objective world? If not, the ego functions need strengthening. This allows the whole self to be better prepared to deal with objective reality (the here and now). And/or:

If the ego is strong enough i.e., the psychological tools for adapting and problem-solving are sufficient) the ego can still be conflicted? The emphasis then is on unearthing the unconscious psychological conflicts between id, ego, and superego.

Can shift back and forth between these two interventions

April 24

Since adolescence I have been experiencing my life as one long negative conditioned reflex. I have been suffering from hyperreactivity.

April 26

It is increasingly clear to me that I have rejected authority and myself projected onto others. Then, I either defy or comply – like a teenager. The other route means that I must accept responsibility for myself and for my actions. Somehow [this realization] is too overwhelming to get my arms around at present.

It is clear to me that my so-called autonomous ego became involved in conflicts at an early age. Said W – What we are working on in therapy is, among other things, strengthening the ego. This means being able to clearly know what is going on inside of me from what is going on outside me. It means being aware of the difference between thoughts, feelings, and fantasies on the inside of me differentiating them from actions that go on outside. It means being able to differentiate what goes on in the here and now from what went on in there and then. [This is the process of making boundaries, in space, time, and contents of consciousness. This is also working through the transference wherein the present is viewed in terms of the past (often experienced as confusion) while the whole process occurs unconsciously meaning not verbalized.]

This might be outlined as follows:

The Principle Multiple Function (Waelder)

[A Model of the Mind}

(Over - determined) [Complexity]

The personal unconscious Conscious

Repetition Compulsion Freedom to make choices

Ego Weakness - Intrapsychic conflict

May 10 – I compose a poem

The Joy of Discovery

Out of the shadowy cavern of my divided soul

The sounds of morning

I can’t be reborn – as I am already born

I can only transform….

May 13 - An Important Dream

I’m in the car, driving. My wife is in the backseat. She gives me directions. I don’t agree and I make up my own mind.…We go to a house. Mediums are there. My brother is there too. He gets scared. I tell him not to worry as they are only projections of his own feelings. He leaves. I stay. / A woman from my past orders me to move the desk. I request that she repeated her command. She does as she shows me a sadistic smile. I look squarely and directly at her and tell her I’m leaving. I walk out on her and the dead spirits - rejecting all of them. [This is a clear statement of one of my analytic goals.]

The Session

W said - "Once I’m able to tolerate and expect the joy of self-discovery I will be willing to extend this to the outside. I have apparently had a fear of self-discovery as if it was forbidden. [Knowledge can be dangerous-] I developed a keen sense of protecting myself from the fear of discovery by allowing others to go first and defer to them. The price that I paid for feeling secure was to tune out my own feelings of discovery."

May 14

I have a fantasy that W is a member of the secret society of The Great White Brotherhood. If I choose to I could really let myself go wild with this fantasy. But instead, I understand this fantasy to be a byproduct of a long-held wish that such a society exists and that I could contact one of the members. I recall many times I longed to be part of a group of individuals who had special powers. It is no wonder that spiritualism and the occult were so attractive to me. I see that the occult has had multi-levels of meanings for me.

May 17

I am less susceptible to the oscillations of my wife’s moods. [This is evidence of positive change]

May 20

I realize that I fritter my energies in dilettantism. I feel trapped in myself. I want to push out or is it to be pushed? I feel as if I am a pretender to a throne that I don’t feel I deserve. The boy/ master who wins the throne by force of surface charm, not by depth and mastery of form [and content.] [I identify with the image of an inadequate version of Oedipus.]

May 25

An idea

The Pre-oedipal Roots of Addiction

Freud ------------------- Addiction (oedipal) ------------- masturbation

Winnicott------- Addiction (pre oedipal) --------- transitional object /self

June 3 - A bonus in my analysis: that which I learn about myself I can apply in working with my patients – I am hungry to change and believe that psychoanalysis is truly a path by which I may finally be able to attain and perhaps sustain the significant changes I seek to make.

My patient Carol came back from a trip to Florida demonstrating evidence of an increased ability to cope with frustration. She has really turned a corner. [Evidence that my work with at least this patient has been effective]

June 7 - I have been Reading Milner - On the Role of Illusion and Symbol Formation:

Milner says – Although it is obvious that a child must suffer frustration, there is something to be said about the way in which it should occur and the timing of it. If under pressure the child must become aware of his separate identity too soon or too continually, then either the illusion of union can become catastrophic chaos rather than cosmic bliss, or the illusion is given up and premature ego development may occur; then separateness and the demands of necessity may be apparently accepted. But necessity becomes a cage rather than something to be co-operated with for the freeing of further powers.

[The child] Has to experience the stage of fusion before he can reach the relief of de-fusion. [The above had a strong ring of truth but its true significance was initially hard to grasp – A core benefit of my psychoanalysis was the introduction to powerful organizing concepts such a psychodynamics, structural theory, id, ego, superego, the self, ego strength, ego weakness, self-esteem regulation, normal and pathological narcissism, basic trust, moral masochism, identification with the aggressor, frustration tolerance and frustration intolerance, schizoid and borderline personality disorders, ego boundaries, positive and negative transference, resistance, and many others that I was able to utilize to make rational sense of what I often perceived was irrational nonsense. Further, a large part of the process of psychoanalysis was first cognitively identifying relevant organizing concepts and over a much longer time understanding them in depth in experiencing them. This is a process much like learning a foreign language where at the start there is an identification of nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. Gradually one becomes fluent.]

June 15 - From Greenacre’s Article On Ego Psychology

"In the last twenty-five years three general trends of investigation in psychoanalysis - (1) formulation of theory, (2) observations of childhood development and mother-child relationships; and (3) clinical research reports of special problems in well-studied cases.

So-called borderline – not on edge of psychosis but are competent with histories of disturbance in early infancy (pre-oedipal) which contributed to faults in the ego and super-ego development (ego weakness, conflicted autonomous ego functions – lack of identity (self-object) narcissism) making for certain lacunae and distortions there and for irregularities in sexual functioning. Many of these are closer to the structure of the perversions than to psychosis.

…Tolerance for frustration is low – may be associated with marked volatility of mood which may quickly deteriorate into dramatic impulsiveness, and helplessness. Success in real life is often goaded by exaggerated fantasy-driven ambition which is an unsatisfied part of a lifelong tendency to grandiose fantasizing, as a defense against relief fears of destruction.

…Unusual perceptive alertness to the environment and often registers with details and gestalt formations with unusual vividness and accuracy – more visual than object-related. But in these patients, the graphic picture is subject to rapid distortion in the interest of defense, in meeting the exaggerated and temporary needs to bolster the self-esteem, to amuse, and entertain, or to impress others with the uniqueness of any distress."

June 17

The Session

I don’t organize and follow through. I see that I write all the time spinning out ideas like so much piss – what I don’t do is to subject the material to a focused framework. I let the endless flow speak for itself. This is not art but verbiage – simply spilling.

June 20

The Session

I spill with my wife too. I see that I can provoke her into getting upset with me. Then I feel guilty (masochism.) What pleasure do I get from inducing this predictable pain?

Post - Session I read somewhere that the delinquent acts out of a fantasy of being bad so he can preserve the illusion and hope that his mother would save him if only he could be good. In this view delinquency is a defense against depression (loss of the mother’s love).

A patient of mine tells me about a Peanuts cartoon that applies to me as well as to him:

Lucy - if you loved me, you’d give me presents’

Schroeder - if you loved me, you wouldn’t expect presents.

Lucy - Either way I don’t get presents.

June 21

The session

W speaks to me about moral masochism.

Post Session

I research the concept of moral masochism:

Moral masochism has its roots in year one. I grew up with a split self-image:

July 9

I like Greeson’s description of:

Intuition ----------- the observing ego

Empathy ----------- the experiencing ego

July 14

I am beginning to respect myself and see I have come a long way with my courage towards mastering myself.

July 15

Carol had her last session today. She beamingly reported that in a full physical examination Dr. X was flabbergasted to see that her colitis has completely disappeared. Her weight has also returned to normal limits and a possible suspicious growth was reacted to with a minimal appropriate level of concern. [She attributed her progress as a direct result of her therapy with me.]

Said Carol – I am more open to my feelings. I am more able to delay (bear frustration) resulting in a greater ability to plan and to consider alternatives before running off half-cocked. I still experience underlying all-pervasive tension that oscillates between tension and anxiety. [This is more concrete evidence that I am making substantial progress in my analysis- I also see those whatever issues I identify and work on in my therapy I can do the same with my patients. There is a definite parallel process occurring]

August 12 - Summer Vacation – An increasing capability to tolerate frustration has many beneficial ripple effects - most notably I have cut my golf strokes from 150 to 130 – At the same time I have a heightened awareness of symptoms including seething rage, vacillating moods, intense ambivalent feelings towards my wife – I notice a shift in my attitude towards my deficiencies from punitive to more understanding -

In real life, there are more and more emotional storms connected (triggered) by my reactive response to unsolicited criticism of me.

August 8

My increasing ability to tolerate frustration resulted in dramatic changes in myself. With only a gap of ten months, I was able to cut my annual golf score playing in Massachusetts from approximately 150 strokes to 130. This is because of my greater ability to delay, concentrate, and focus [on the immediate task at hand. Additionally], I have been less reactive to my wife’s provocations.

August 26

Whatever fanciful notions I might have harbored that I was cured were shattered today. My wife suddenly yelled out shit in traffic and I plummeted into a deep depression. It was as if my insides were smoldering from an emotional eruption. Eventually, the feelings passed but the depth and breadth of my descent were frightfully gripping. [I was experiencing raw fury which was probably happening because of my increased capacity to tolerate more intense degrees of frustration. This increasing capacity for tolerating frustration meant that I could bring it directly into the analysis to be rationally discussed eventually learning how to tame it.]

August 31

My dreams are filled with war and violence.

September 1

During the last two days, I have experienced fantasies of death dying, and finality. [The intensity of the last few days suggests I am reliving the aftereffects of early trauma].

At a few points during the summer, there have been good moments too. I’ve been struck by my daughter’s radiance. A night at the town dance was magical. There were other moments of exquisite intensity as I would look up and notice her as if I was taking a picture of her capturing her being natural, alive, and utterly captivating.

September 7

I am experiencing a much more improved relationship with my wife - less tension, less overt fighting, reduced depression – coupled with increased self-confidence. There is also an increased ability to tolerate frustration between us.

[Continuing] symptoms - flare-ups of emotional storms connected with ‘unfair’ criticism, two sinking depressions, furious at my wife bordering on near ‘paranoid’ suspiciousness.

Dream Themes – Flare-Ups

Under attack by Negroes, flirtations and affairs, betrayal by W; A need to focus and to determine what it is that I really want for myself.

September 8

I saw a British TV show about homosexuals. I identified with one of them. I’m surprised I didn’t turn out to be an overt homosexual with my background I was moved to tears when he talked about the happiest moment of his life which was when he was fully and unconditionally accepted by a group of sailors in a harmless and delightful flirtation. He was center stage.

I also saw how a lack of love (isolation) made him set himself up as the center of the universe experiencing others as if they were extensions of himself.

September 15

A Dream

I accept a woman’s pain and empathize and comfort her.

The Session

W said - This is an important shift for me especially since I don’t have to rescue her. I am better able to recognize my wife’s point of view. She was able to take note of my taking note. This has led to a new sense of pleasant formality between us.

September 22

The Session

W was kind and gentle today as I lay on the couch feeling as if I was floating. He said - One day you’ll know what is important to you – in the meanwhile, you have to accept the ambiguity and the vacillation. It’s easier for religious people who are able to project their superegos for rules and regulations.

Post Therapy

In rereading dreams from twenty years ago I am struck with the repetition of certain themes: erotic scenes of seductive women and threatening warlike Negro men out to attack me.

September 23

The Session

I see the [priority] issue for me is focused concentration. The central issue is taking [back] more and more [projected] authority- which is precisely what an addict cannot or will not do.

September 28 – I revised the outline of My Odyssey Story – I am pleased with how it is better organized than with previous attempts – I work more on developing my theory of synchronicities – W focuses me on staying with my feelings about the marriage – I am aware it is far easier to theorize than to directly face the nitty-gritty rough-edged details of my conflicted marriage – I see more parallels between my marriage, Odyssey House, and my growing up in Miami Beach –I cathect the core importance of the concepts of repetition compulsion and the pleasure principle in explaining much that here to fore seemed incomprehensible to me

I have a revision of my intended book on Odyssey House. The five chapters may be viewed as the phenomenology of the addictive personality:

I. A dream comes true [the wish to be rescued is fulfilled] Idealization

II. The seeds of doubt

III. The Center Cannot Hold

IV. The Dream is a Nightmare

V. I Awaken

The key to each chapter

I. Idealization: A triumph of fantasy over reality

II. Disappointment and the reactions to it

III. Confusion and fragmentation

IV. The loss of a criterion for reality testing (the borderline problem)

V. Consciousness of my illness

Summary of My Odyssey Experience

[Just before Odyssey] it was as if the post college years somehow didn’t exist. I felt myself flip back and forth between my present experience at Odyssey and my pre-Columbia days. The central experience I learned from Odyssey was a literal confrontation with evil realizing I could no longer maintain the illusion that evil was external to me.

I entered Odyssey House searching for my identity on personal conviction not a reflection of external authority. [I was determined to] experience my true self. But, instead, I found at Odyssey a collection of opposites, unfocused impressions, discontinuous fragments, insightful but unintegrated observations.

I need an organizing experience to unify my Odyssey experience.

September 30

A Major Synchronicity

I was watching TV seeing an adaptation of Captains and Kings. I heard a reference back-to-back to the Odyssey and to Spinoza. I leaped at the conjunction of the two. There was my organizing principle. Homer’s Odyssey, and my Odyssey, was an experience of the ethics of Spinoza. My Odyssey is all about emotional bondage and emotional freedom. Strange are the ways of the personal] creative unconscious. [One byproduct of synchronicities is indicating that a new pathway has been found by a person who was stuck between two mutually exclusive choices. In this synchronicity my creative solution was in combining two resonant organizing concepts into a third which could be utilized in resolving my problem.]

October 1

I sense a terrible split in myself:

The feeling in chapter three of My Odyssey was everything seemed equal to everything else. [Boundaries in space, time, and contents of consciousness were blurred]. There were no clear distinctions between inside and outside, public, and private. Past, present and future were all rolled into one.

Before Odyssey House, I had a tenuous hold on what was real. My Odyssey experience confused this issue even more. Post Odyssey has been finding a way to make sense out of this confusing experience.

My central definition of reality was to refuse to submit to someone telling me what reality should be for me. But if ‘reality’ isn’t out there then what is it for me?

Odyssey for me evoked feelings of growing up in Miami Beach. In turn it is a symbol of the trouble youth has been growing up in a modern complex society where words don’t mean what they say, and trust is a rare commodity.

I learned from Odyssey that the central therapeutic problem is how to engage the addict in a therapeutic alliance when he is incapable of trust.

Odyssey was a repetition of the therapy with Dr. James which in turn was a repetition of my growing-up years. I idealized my heroes and then watched them - one by one - fall from grace. I took the weight and became disorganized and depressed. Then I gradually realized that I had to learn how to trust at least one authority that was indeed trustworthy. W is that authority.

October 4

Whatever happened on the weekend stirred up a torrent of swirling emotions? I ended up by telling my wife that she was driving me crazy. All of this is repeating the experience that I had at Odyssey.

The same themes repeat over and over. These include a fear of feeling, a fear of disorganizing, irrationality, and explosive anger getting out of control) - then all of it bubbling. The issue is how to understand and neutralize it.

October 21

Towards a Naturalistic Explanation of Synchronistic Phenomena

Whereas all synchronicities are different they all have a common structure. The common structure to all synchronicities is three components: (1) An intrapsychic event A, and (2) an external event A’ - (3) and meaning which links them. Event A and A’ are linked together by an equivalency of meaning.

Basic Concepts - The Intrapsychic Component

The personal consciousness: focused awareness; the pre-conscious: unfocused awareness; and the personal unconscious; An interpersonal component: a wish for meaningful connectedness; timelessness; heightened awareness.

October 22

My wife is upset with what she experiences as my apparent ‘selfishness.’ I see it differently. I see how each of us failed in our individual attempts to make the other person into a perfect parent. I feel that at least I am clear about the reason for this confusion and pledge myself to resolve it.

We are clearly at a critical stage in the marriage. It is hard to know if the troubles can be resolved i.e. enough to save the marriage. We may be incompatible – or as I suspect, we have each had major deficits which have somehow complicated each other in a highly uncomplimentary way.

From The New York Times: as yet we do not have a contemporary American Guide for the Perplexed."

I need to view the ideas of Spinoza and St. Augustine as organizing concepts for my book on Odyssey. The central idea is a search for clarity. The central theme is confusion due to brainwashing.

Later - My wife seems genuinely troubled over the real possibility that we could break up.

A Dream

I am in a pickup football game. I play left half against the opposition of some older man. I feel good that I am in the game. I feel the truth is confusing.

It is difficult to deal with this abortion thing with my wife. But I am neither guiltless nor calm about this decision. But I am clear. I am slowing down and am unable and unwilling to assume responsibility for another life. Or is it that I find the prospects of easing the suffering of those afflicted by the effects of my illness some sort of light at the edge of their dark tunnel?

I must focus on the phenomenology of the missing self - the experience of one who knows he is missing his whole self (oneself). Self in constant oscillation and imbalance – fragmented. [This is viewing internal and external reality from the vantage point of kaleidoscopic consciousness].

I am reading about Freud’s style of recapturing the facts of his patients’ lives. Freud pushes the protesting girl back through her inner history – of which she is largely unaware [unknown source]

I am just the reverse. I longed for a savior – anyone who would listen to me would do – I loved to tell anyone the facts of my life. [ I am doing the same thing now with my journal.] The interior thread of my Odyssey story is contained in this journal that began when I was nineteen years old and has been continuing up to this last journal entry.

I read somewhere - We have yet to write the history of modern psychotherapy that approximates the complication of motives from which it suffers. (Unknown source)

The problem that Odyssey tried to confront is the issue of pathological narcissism. It failed because it suffered from the same problem as the patients. [This validates Freud’s observation: the problem with self-analysis is the countertransference.

My aim is to describe the phenomenology of the narcissistic patient, describing the major symptoms, and their implications for a theory and effective treatment of addictive personalities.]

October 24

The Session

W said - I must decide what I want to do about the marriage. This is a major decision to make - no hasty decision about having another baby – neither ducking nor rationalizing it, but carefully considering all the realities and desires.

Post - Session

I am particularly sensitive to the nitty-gritty uncomfortable details of living together, hearing words and silences. I am hypersensitive to sounds such as my wife groaning, moaning, breathing, farting, coughing, swishing water around in the waterbed. I cannot deny how much it irritates me.

The Session

W said – "I must realize that parents have needs too in relation to their kids and themselves. Kids have needs for parents and vice versa. It’s hard to know where one begins and the leaves off. My problem is that I feel as if I must respond to all [mixed messaged] commands simultaneously." I responded - No wonder when I experience this type of a situation, I feel so frustrated and on the edge of exploding.

November 3

I have a growing conviction that is what is most real for me, whether viewed in terms of God, religion, integrity and so forth: that my central value is the quality of my experience.

On The Addictive Personality – A Possible Paper

Psychological theories like fashion also have their rises and their falls. With respect to the problem of addiction, the once fashionable label of an addictive personality is currently out of style and has been replaced by such terms as psychopathic, sociopathic, antisocial personalities, character disorders, and so forth. It is the purpose of this paper to welcome back the term addictive personality and to review its potential benefits considering new theoretical formulations and clinical findings. The area of most fruitful advance is that of the self - both healthy and pathological.

If only I could follow through….

On Learning to Write Quality Material

Preconditions - Ego functions, capacity to tolerate frustration, a strong sense of self, an alignment of the Id, Ego, superego, self, and external reality, Resolved conscious conflict.

November 11

I have a difficult problem for me to resolve. I feel I may have to give up writing these compulsive notes to myself as I now view them as a defense. If I can be heard by others, then I will have no need to compulsively talk to myself. In this view, my journal notes represent the fulfillment of a wish to be self-sufficient. I began falling in love, like Narcissus, with my ideas, my processes, all of which were expressed in flashes, perceptions, feelings, fragments, theories – an endless flow of words – but now I hunger for real people outside myself.

November 15

The Session

W said – My Journal – notes to myself – is wanting, the love, understanding, intimacy missing from my mother. I had to deny her death. I couldn’t tolerate the end - finality.

Post - Session

I reread my journal entries from the beginning when I was nineteen