Intimacy and Alienation: Memory, Trauma and Personal Being PDF
Preview Intimacy and Alienation: Memory, Trauma and Personal Being
Intimacy and Alienation Lucidly written and trenchantly argued, Intimacy and Alienation proposes both a therapy and theory of human consciousness. Russell Meares posits a duplex self in the William James model of an ‘I’ and ‘me’, but extends it to include a third realm of being which manifests itself in a kind of inti- mate conversation, which is non-linear in form and brings into being an ‘inner’ life or self. When the fabric of such self is damaged by a traumatic experience, the resultant sense of an inner void leaves the individual without a voice other than one that is externalised and environmentally directed. The traumatic event is ‘unconscious’ both in the sense that it is not repre- sented in an imaginative linguistic form and is recorded in a memory system not that of ordinary consciousness and not immediately accessible to patient or therapist. It is the task of the therapist to foster the emergence of a form of conver- sation which shows elements of ‘the stream of consciousness’ and which will allow the integration of the traumatic memory into the patient’s experi- ence of self. Russell Meares’ unique exploration of the relationship between self and language bases itself on evidence from child development studies and memory research, while at the same time using illuminating clinical exam- ples. At once invaluable to professionals in the field of psychiatry and psychotherapy, Intimacy and Alienation is an elegantly written work of wide interest to anyone interested in theories of memory, language and human consciousness. Russell Meares is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Sydney, and Director of Psychiatry at Westmead Hospital, Sydney. This page intentionally left blank Intimacy and Alienation Memory, trauma and personal being Russell Meares With a foreword by Thomas Ogden First published 2000 by Routledge Published 2013 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2000 Russell Meares Typeset in Garamond by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Meares, Russell. Intimacy and alienation: memory, trauma and personal being /by Russell Meares; with a foreword by Thomas Ogden. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Self. 2. Counseling. 3. Psychotherapy. 4. Alienation (Social psychology) 5. Intimacy (Psychology) 6. Self (Philosophy) I. Title. BF697.M42 2000 155.2–dc21 99–36239 CIP (cid:64)(cid:74)(cid:57)(cid:69)(cid:23)(cid:48)(cid:46)(cid:47)(cid:36)(cid:39)(cid:36)(cid:43)(cid:40)(cid:44)(cid:36)(cid:41)(cid:41)(cid:39)(cid:42)(cid:40)(cid:36)(cid:45) (pbk) Cover design by Leigh Hurlock Cover illustration by Amanda Meares In memory of Robert Hobson (1920–1999), my teacher and great friend, with affection and gratitude This page intentionally left blank Contents Foreword ix Acknowledgements xi 1 The self in conversation 1 PART 1 Self and development 2 I, me, myself 7 3 Conversational play 15 4 Two forms of human conversation 22 5 Memory 32 PART 2 The trauma system 6 Uncoupled consciousness 43 7 Disrupted maturation: the dissolution hypothesis 55 8 A theory of value 64 9 Feeling creates reality 76 10 Malignant internalisation 84 11 The evocative context 93 12 Priming and projective identification: on being constructed 101 13 Satellites of trauma 112 viii Contents PART 3 Integration 14 Transforming the chronicle 121 15 Flights and perchings 129 Epilogue 16 The death of Narcissus 141 Notes 146 References 166 Author index 183 Subject index 187 Foreword If a book or an article is able to manage even once to create a feeling of surprising freshness of thought, I feel well rewarded for the time and effort that I have put into grappling with the ideas and the writing. That Russell Meares manages to achieve such freshness and originality on many occa- sions in this volume leads me to feel daunted by the task of doing justice to the energy of his work in this brief foreword. For Meares, an understanding of human psychology in general, and the psychotherapeutic enterprise in particular, must be built upon an adequate conceptualisation of and way of speaking about what we mean by the experi- ence of being ‘myself’. He discusses this form of self experience in terms of an enormously complex interplay of such elements as language, memory, early cognitive and motor development, ‘conversations’ with ourselves and with others (which begin at or before birth), bodily sensations, the emer- gence of self-awareness, and the experiences of intimacy and alienation. In approaching this network of qualities of experience, Meares skilfully and creatively draws together in new ways aspects of the work of turn-of-the- century psychologists and psychiatrists including William James, James Mark Baldwin, and Pierre Janet; the neurologist Hughlings Jackson; early to mid-twentieth century philosophers such as Russell, Wittgenstein and Gilbert Ryle; a panoply of mid- to late twentieth century research psycho- logists including Trevarthen, Tulving, Schacter, Nelson and Bartlett; as well as aspects of the psychoanalytic work of Freud, Winnicott, Bion, Melanie Klein, Kohut, and others. Rarely will a reader find discussions of projective identification, the characteristics of various coexisting memory systems, and the outcomes of neuroimaging studies in the same volume. Meares is without peer in his ability to elaborate, integrate and signifi- cantly extend this rich and broad body of thinking. One of the most original contributions of this book is contained in the elegantly executed discussion of what we mean when we speak of ‘I’ and ‘me’ and ‘myself’. It is in this discussion that we have an opportunity to begin by listening to William James speaking of the experience of self which he thought of in terms of the experience of the continuous
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