In the beginning of the postmodern era were the WORDS - strange, tongue twisting, mind-bending, arcane words that simultaneously invited and repelled me (Lynn Preston). They seemed like an icy impenetrable barrier that prevented me from entering this seductive new dialogue. Their raison d'etre seemed to be to intimidate and baffle me and I feared I would languish forever in the mid-twentieth century - talking and thinking outmoded "modern." I could see myself heading rapidly for obsolescence along with snail mail and rotary telephones. Invariant adolescent organizing principles teased and taunted me. "You don't belong," they jeered, as I experienced myself excluded from this new postmodern sorority/fraternity.
I frantically thought back to my college philosophy classes. Yes, I had learned what "epistemology," "ontology," and "positivism" were. But that was about being able to recognize words from a foreign language I studied but could never speak. I reassured myself that I had learned to both understand and speak the languages of Freud and self psychology, and even the languages of interpersonal and object relations theories, though I found them off-putting.
I was especially seduced by the postmodern assertion that language is not only an articulation of one's experiential world, but also the material out of which this world is taking form. There was an implicit promise that if I struggled to become comfortable with these new words, I would be swept into a fascinating arena of profound questions, meanings and creative forms. There was an excitement and intensity about a complex world of ideas bubbling up to greet the new millennium and I urgently wanted to be part of this revolution. . .
As I listened at conferences, read, began to speak and even to write about the new paradigm in psychoanalysis I found myself drawn into a dynamic force field. The promise came true (let me reassure you, I mean true with a small "t", not with a capital "T"). The very words themselves - words like "dialogic," "deconstructed," "mutually constituted" - were demanding and created a new way of thinking. Instead of my habitual "thingifying" - of furnishing the house of my mind with entities such as selfobjects, psychic structures, and nuclear programs - I felt myself slowly and inexorably drawn into a process oriented universe of systems, force fields, relational dynamics, paradoxes, and ambiguities.
Through postmodern attention to the essential importance of language, I began to see that words not only shape one's thinking, but also serve as a kind of name tag or banner identifying affiliation with a theoretical community laden with historical meanings, political debates, taken for granted assumptions, and conscious and unconscious intentions. For example, an analyst who uses the term "optimal restraint," might be struggling to bridge a loyalty to the Kohutian idea of "optimal frustration" and a wish to identify with contemporary ideals of relational flexibility. To complexify the language challenge even further, I saw how words often change their meanings as the community and the historical context evolve. Consider for a moment the conceptual differences inherent in the use of the word "transference" as we move from Freud's mechanistic world to our contemporary world of relational complexity.
Having finally learned and achieved some measure of fluency in PSL - "Postmodernese as a Second Language" - I can now begin to play and joke in this new tongue. The ice barrier of new paradigm linguistics has finally softened into crystal snow - just right for making snow angels and having invigorating snow ball fights.
Ellen and I invite you to join us for some midwinter word games.
A. Ten Words You Need to Know to Speak Postmodern
(Use each of the following words in a sentence without hesitation or apology).
1. Postmodern
2. Hermeneutic
3. Epistemological
4. Reductionistic
5. Reification
6. Dialogic
7. Essentialism
8. Contextual
9. Performative
10. Deconstruct
B. Self Psychology Hit Parade: The Top New Words From This Year's Presentations and Publications
(Add your own to the list).
1. Emergent
2. Mutually Constitutive
3. Now moments
4. Perturbation
5. Bifurcation
6. Isolated dyad
C. Award Winning Insults
(Use these in your next theoretical snow ball fight).
1. Pernicious reification
2. Arcane positivism
3. Monadic Cartesian mind entities
D. Esteem Building Compliments
(Negations, eg: non-reductionistic, do not count. Score 10 extra points for each postmodern compliment you can think of).
1. Nuanced.
2. Multidimensional
3. Complexly layered
E. Recent Words That Have Found Their Way Into the Everyday Speech of Self Psychologists
(Can you have a colleagueal conversation without using one of them?)
1. Asymmetrical
2. Cocreated
3. Systemic
4. Procedural Knowledge
5. Mutual regulation
6. Bidirectional (or has this word already been dethroned by its young cousin "emergent"?)
F. Name That Theorist
(Which theorist or theoretical school do you associate with each of the following concepts or words)?
1. Leading edge and trailing edge
2. Now moments
3. Optimal provision
4. Specificity Theory
5. Self and mutual regulation
6. Motivational Systems Theory
7. Other centered listening
8. Emotional availability
9. Experiential worlds
10. Heightened affective moments
11. Interpersonal sharing dimension of intimacy
12. Vulnerable moments
13. Making sense together
14. Structures of pathological accommodation
15. The hope for a new beginning and the dread to repeat
16. Model scene
G. Circle the Word That Doesn't Belong in Each Sequence
1. Masturbation
Castration
Perturbation
Fixation
2. Libido
Reification
Cathexis
Catharsis
3. Reductionistic
Essentialistic
Positivistic
Relativistic
4. Projective Identification
Systemic
Mutually Constitutive
Contextual
5. Reality testing
Intersubjective conjunction
Repetition compulsion
Primary Narcissism
6. Perspectival Realism
Isolated Mind
Immaculate Perception
Immaculate Conception
7. Empathic attunement
Gambit
Authenticity
Enactments
8. Unthought Known
Now Moments
Mutual Recognition
Unformulated Experience
9. Cathexis
Parataxic
Laxative
Self selfobject matrix
H. Where Are You on the Continuum From Classical Self Psychology to Neo-Self Psychology?
(Rate your comfort level with these words, using the schema below).
Offensive (-3), Bewildering (-2), Irrelevant (-1), Take It or Leave It (0), Use it in a Pinch (+1), Expressive (+2), Can't Speak without It (+3).
1. Transmuting internalizations
2. Pre-reflective unconscious
3. Vertical split
4. Intersubjective conjunctions
5. Optimal frustration
6. Procedural knowledge
7. Mirror transference (in the narrow sense of the word)
8. Hermeneutic
9. Developmental arrest
10. Cotransference
(Add up the points for the even and odd numbered words separately. Compare the totals. If you have a higher score for odd numbered words you are more closely identified with classical self psychology. If you have a higher score for even numbered words you are more Neo!)
Donna Orange brings to our attention the important function of language in
forming the context in which creative thinking occurs. In her paper, "Why
Language Matters to Psychoanalysis" (2003, Psychoanalytic Dialogues, vol.
13, No.1), she encourages us to take very seriously and to reflect upon
the language we use - its history, presuppositions, intentionality - its
political and social as well as clinical implications. These language
games are our way of playfully reflecting upon the words we use. We
invite you to add your own words and games if you are a player. Email us
at language@psychologyoftheself.com.
