I still believe this; but I want to add a rider to the effect that maturation and integration can take place within the isolated individual to a greater extent than I had allowed for. The great introverted creators are able to define identity and achieve self-realization by self-reference, that is, by interacting with their own past work rather than by interacting with other people.
This is clearly impossible for a small child, who must interact both with people and with things in gradually defining its own identity. So far as we can understand it, awareness of being a separate person takes place gradually. We may picture the baby as coming up against objects in the external world; stubbing its toe against the end of the cot, for instance. As it gradually learns to use its limbs and exercise control over their movements, the baby will gain proprioceptive information about the position of its limbs in space, and hence of its own dimensions. It will be recalled that, in Chapter 4, we noted that loss of proprioceptive information from movements of limbs, when imposed by medical immobilization or by interrogation procedures enforcing fixed postures, was a potent force in breaking down the boundaries of self-definition.
The infant must also become aware of its separateness because of its need for care from someone else; for being fed, kept warm, cleaned, and so on. Unless its needs are instantly met, there must be an interval between the realization of a need and its fiilfilment, signified by a cry of distress which both summons help and also indicates to itself that there is something or someone ‘out there’ who provides what it cannot provide for itself. At the beginning of life, self-definition, the awareness of existing as a separate person and the development of a coherent identity must depend upon interaction between baby and mother or mother-substitute. In the ordinary course of events, interaction with others will continue to provide the majority of people with self-definition and coherence throughout life.
Heinz Kohut, one of the most original psycho-analysts of recent years, has based his idea of neurosis and of the cure of neurosis on similar notions. He holds that the development of a healthy, secure, coherent structure of personality depends in the first instance upon the child’s repeated experience of being recognized and sustained by what Kohut calls ‘empathically resonant self-objects’. That is, the child needs to interact with parents or parent-figures who reinforce the sense of self because they recognize and mirror the child’s developing identity as it actually is; empathize with the child’s feelings; respond to the child’s needs with ‘nonhostile firmness and nonseductive affection’, neither repudiating the child’s demands with aggression, nor yielding to them with undiscriminating sentimentality.3
Kohut pictures this need for reinforcement as persistent
Self psychology [which is the name given to Kohut’s revision of psycho-analytic theory] holds that self-selfobject relationships form the essence of psychological life from birth to death, that a move from dependence (symbiosis) to independence (autonomy) in the psychological sphere is no more possible let alone desirable, than a corresponding move from a life dependent upon oxygen to a life independent of it in the biological sphere. The developments that characterize normal psychological life must, in our view, be seen in the changing nature of the relationship between the self and its selfobjects, but not in the self’s relinquishment of selfobjects. In particular, developmental advances cannot be understood in terms of the replacement of the selfobjects by love objects or as steps in the move from narcissism to object love.4
Kohut believes that the deepest anxiety which a person can experience is what he calls ‘disintegration anxiety’. The individuals whom he considers liable to this are those who, because of the immaturity of their parents’ responses to them in childhood, or because of the absence of empathic parental understanding, have not built up a strong, coherent personality.
One might compare Kohut’s conception with looking in a mirror. A clear, clean, polished mirror will repeatedly reflect the developing person as he actually is, and thus give him a firm and true sense of his own identity. A cracked, dirty, smeared mirror will reflect an incomplete, obscured image which provides the child with an inaccurate and distorted picture of himself.
In Chapter 7, reference was made to the threat of behavioural disorganization which makes infants avoid rejecting mothers. Kohut’s perception that certain deprived individuals are threatened by fears of disintegration is surely the same concept in different words. Disintegration anxiety can also be compared with the fears of destruction of the ‘inner self’ in schizoid subjects which R. D. Laing described so well in The Divided Self.5 Kafka, referred to earlier, is an example of a schizoid individual who felt that his ability to preserve his inner self was threatened by intimacy.
Kohut also believes that the therapeutic effectiveness of psycho-analysis depends upon whether the psycho-analyst can so understand and empathize with his patient that the latter can develop the inner coherence which he was unable to develop in childhood.
This conception of cure is some way removed from that originally advanced by Freud. Freud’s model was essentially cognitive. It depended upon the recapture and understanding of the traumas of early childhood, and, more especially, upon undoing repression and making the unconscious conscious.
Kohut’s model of cure is a variant of object-relations theory based on transference. The psycho-analyst, if he is doing his job properly, is providing what Franz Alexander used to call ‘a corrective emotional experience’. Because the psycho-analyst is able to understand and empathize with the patient’s experience and feelings, he is providing repeated reinforcement and repair of the patient’s damaged self.
Kohut makes the important point that healing is less dependent upon the theoretical position espoused by the psycho-analyst than the latter probably imagines. That is, provided the psycho-analyst can in fact understand his patient sufficiently well, and convey this understanding to the patient, healing will continue to occur, irrespective of the psycho-analyst’s preference for, say, Kleinian theory as opposed to Freudian or Jungian.
Kohut’s insistence that self-selfobject relationships are necessary to psychic health throughout life is in line with the ideas of Bowlby and Marris which were discussed in Chapter 1 and Chapter 2; namely that intimate attachments or specific loving relationships were alone assumed to give meaning to a person’s life. Kohut’s position is also similar to that of Fairbairn who, by introducing the term mature dependence for the final stage of emotional development, asserted his belief that total autonomy was both impossible and undesirable. ’We must love one another or die,’ as Auden put it.6
Both Fairbairn and Kohut have made valuable contributions to psycho-analytic theory, but I doubt whether they are right in this particular instance if by ‘objects’ they invariably mean people, which seems to be the case. Object-relations theory is now too entrenched a term to be abandoned, but it is an inept use of the word ‘object’, as Rycroft makes clear in his definition in A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis.
In psycho-analytical writings, objects are nearly always persons, parts of persons, or symbols of one or the other. This terminology confuses readers who are more familiar with ‘object’ in the sense of ‘thing’, i.e. that which is not a person.7
It is natural enough that psycho-analysts, who see that much of what is wrong with their patients springs from distortions in their earliest ‘object-relationships’, and who treat their patients principally through the agency of another form of interpersonal relationship provided by themselves, should assume that object-relationships are the only source of psychic health. I have no doubt whatever that the interaction between the child and its mother and other care-takers is vital in the early years, and that future psychic health and the capacity to make satisfying relationships with others in adult life partly depends on this. I also have no doubt that, as we have seen, disruption of early relationships and hostility or rejection on the part of parents can direct a child more toward the impersonal, or make human relationships very diffi
cult of attainment. But I have also suggested that people can live satisfactory, fulfilled lives without necessarily depending on close or intimate relationships, provided that they have relationships of some kind, and work which engages their interest and ministers to their self-esteem.
Work, especially of a creative kind which changes, progresses, and deepens over the years, can, I believe, provide the integrating factor within the personality, which Kohut assumes comes only from, or chiefly from, the positive reflecting responses of other people.
In his biography of Elgar, Jerrold Northrop Moore writes:
The artist, like the rest of us, is torn by various desires competing within himself. But, unlike the rest of us, he makes each of these desires into an element for use in his art. Then he seeks to synthesize his elements all together to form a style. The sign of a successful synthesis is a unified and unique style plain for all to recognize.8
In this view, style is the cement holding the various parts of the personality in balance; an integrating factor which psycho-analysts are aiming to help their patients achieve through empathy and understanding, as explained by Kohut, but which can also be achieved, at any rate by gifted people, working on their own.
If the creation of works of art, or systems of philosophy, or theories of the universe, is, in some instances, an attempt at reparation for early losses or later difficulties in fruitful interaction with other persons, we can see that there is a sense in which a succession of works can represent or substitute for ‘objects’. But it is surely absurd to think that all human interests are so derived. Morris N. Eagle, in an important paper, ‘Interests as Object Relations’, argues that psycho-analytic theory has not done justice to the critical role which interests play in personality functioning.
In traditional psychoanalytic theory, when interests are considered at all, they tend to be viewed as essentially derivative. Thus, in sublimation – the concept in psychoanalytic theory most germane to an understanding of the development of interests – interests result from ‘the instinct’s directing itself towards an aim other than, and remote from, that of sexual satisfaction’ (Freud, S.E. XIV, p. 94). That is, interests are the product of the diversion of sexual aims to ‘higher’ pursuits. According to this view, the capacity to develop cultural interests depends on one’s ability to sublimate or ‘neutralize’ sexual energy.9
This view still lingers on in the minds of fundamentalist psychoanalysts, but it is out of date, and no longer fits the facts of what we know about human development. Even very young infants show considerable interest in objects which provide novel visual and auditory stimuli; and such stimuli cannot be regarded as anything to do with satisfying basic physical drives like hunger, thirst, or the need for contact and comfort.
In Chapter 5, I referred to Winnicott’s concept of ‘transitional objects’, and suggested that ‘these very early manifestations of investing impersonal objects with significance are evidence that man was not born for love alone’. It is also the case, as we have noted, that it is the securely attached child who is most able to leave the mother’s side in order to explore the environment and investígate the objects which it contains. Thus, the earliest manifestation of ‘interests’ cannot be regarded as a substitute for affectional ties, but rather as bearing witness to their adequacy.
In Chapter 4, we saw that, in extreme situations like solitary confinement or the environment of the concentration camp, interests like music or languages, or passionately held religious or political convictions, could serve to prevent mental collapse and consequent death. Eagle quotes the case of a composer
who, by the usual psychiatric criteria, was quite disturbed. He was frequently paranoid, oversuspicious, chronically over-vigilant, showed extreme mood swings, had periods of intense anxiety, and reported quasi-hallucinations. Yet, in the 26 years that I knew him, he never became seriously disorganized, never was overtly psychotic. It always seemed to me that without his musical gift and passion, which played a central sustaining role in his life, he would have decompensated.10
Music evidently played the same part in this man’s life as did writing in the life of Kafka. I agree with Eagle’s conclusion that
an interest in objects, as well as the development of affectional bonds, is not simply a derivative or outgrowth of libidinal energies and aims, but is a critical independent aspect of development which expresses an inborn propensity to establish cognitive and affective links to objects in the world.11
The ideally balanced person, therefore, might be supposed to find the meaning of his life both in his interpersonal relationships and in his interests. Although interests are not derived from failure in relationships with persons, I shall argue that, in the case of some gifted people who, for one reason or another, do not make close relationships, interests can take over some of the functions more usually performed by intimate relationships.
One of the most interesting features of any creative person’s work is how it changes over time. No highly creative person is ever satisfied with what he has done. Often indeed, after completing a project, he experiences a period of depression from which he is only relieved by embarking on the next piece of work. It seems to me that the capacity to create provides an irreplaceable opportunity for personal development in isolation. Most of us develop and mature primarily through interaction with others. Our passage through life is defined by our roles relative to others; as child, adolescent, spouse, parent, and grandparent. The artist or philosopher is able to mature primarily on his own. His passage through life is defined by the changing nature and increasing maturity of his work, rather than by his relations with others.
At an earlier point in this chapter, I suggested that there are some individuals who are particularly preoccupied with a need to discover a meaning and order in life which is not primarily concerned with interpersonal relationships. If the proposals so far advanced are right, we might expect to find examples of creative people who, first, are predominanty introverted; who, second, avoid, or find difficulty in making, close relationships. One might guess that such people would be particularly concerned with developing their own point of view autonomously, protective of their inner worlds against premature scrutiny and criticism by others, and perhaps more than usually impervious to the ideas of others. We should also expect that such people would use their work rather than their interpersonal relationships as their primary source of self-esteem and personal fulfilment.
In addition, we should expect to find that some individuals of this kind were obviously ‘neurotic’, in the sense of being unhappy, anxious, phobic, or depressed: in other words, showing signs of suffering from that lack of fulfilment in interpersonal relationships which is supposed by object-relations theorists to be the root cause of neurosis. On the other hand, if I am right in supposing that the object-relations theorists have gone too far in this direction, and that interpersonal relationships are not the only source of human stability and happiness, it should be possible to point to other individuals who do not seek fulfilment in this way, but who achieve as much stability and happiness through their work as usually falls to the lot of human beings.
It so happens that one of the most original and important philosophers fulfils all the expectations listed above. In the sketch of Kant’s personality which follows, I have drawn upon De Quincey’s account of his last days,12 and upon the references to Kant in The Philosophers by Ben-Ami Scharfstein.13 Philosophers, whilst professionally engaged in expounding, refuting, and disputing the ideas of their colleagues and predecessors, seldom show much interest in their personalities or biographies, and may dismiss any such interest as irrelevant, impertinent, or trivial. Philosophical systems, it may be affirmed, stand or fall in their own right, from whomsoever they may have originated. This is certainly the case; nevertheless, as was suggested in the Introduction, many of the most original philosophers of the Western world were people who were not only unusually intelligent, but unusual in other ways as well.
Immanuel Kant was born on 22 April 1724 at Königsberg, in East Prussia, and spent his entire life there. He was the fourth of nine children, three of whom died in infancy. His father, a saddler, died when Kant was twenty-two. His mother, to whose love and instruction he acknowledged a lasting debt, died when he was thirteen.
Although Kant had nothing but praise for his parents, it seems that his insistence upon complete autonomy displayed itself early, for he showed no inclination to idealize childhood, depicting it as a period when discipline imposed by others must necessarily and regrettably restrict the child’s freedom. Indeed, he thought that infants cried at birth because they resented as a constraint their inability to make proper use of their own limbs.
Discipline, however unpleasant it might be, was nevertheless necessary for children. Kant, somewhat severely, believed that novels should be taken away from children since he feared that such reading would encourage romantic phantasy at the expense of serious thoughts. He also considered that children should be taught to endure privation and opposition in order to promote the development of independence.
Kant’s insistence upon independence was absolute. According to Bertrand Russell, he asserted that
there can be nothing more dreadful than that the actions of one man should be subject to the will of another.14
Kant believed that every rational being existed as an end in himself, and that this is how we ought to treat each other.
Kant’s correspondence is chiefly concerned with advancing his own philosophical views. He had scant respect for other philosophers, with the exception of Hume, to whom he acknowledged a considerable debt. One of his amanuenses refers to the difficulty which Kant had in identifying himself with the thought of another, attributing this to his inability to extricate himself from his own scheme of thought.
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