WRITER’S MISERIES AND NIGHTMARES: EMOTIONAL BREAKDOWNThe most electrifying and interesting part of a writer's life is to hold his or her hardcopy published book on his or her hand, to read or to show some friends and family members and relations. This means a lot to many writers out there. Some have not gotten to this level while some have. Some dream day and night to make sure that their works are published; in a situation where a write has gone far and wide to make sure his or her work is published but to no avail, he or she is broken and emotionally disturbed. Emotional breakdown is not a good thing for any writer of any such. We all fight to make money through what we do, we strive and thrive to be better than who we were yesterday and when all these things are not forth coming or when they are not paying off, it makes a writer weary of writing, it breaks him or her. They become discouraged; they become disturbed, broken and dejected. Emotional breakdown is real, it is not a myth; writers encounter it. Works rejected by magazines can break down a writer. He has in one way or the other put more efforts and time to make sure that the work comes out fine but at the end of the day, it is rejected by magazines, publishers and many others who cannot in one way or the other encourage them as a writers. You see, your poems and stories, even articles all have a source. They come from somewhere; somewhere that you don’t really know. Your muse directly knows how to make you feel. Nothing you write or comes out from your head is entirely fictitious. The characters and subject of your story might be out of the blue, you might wake up to ideas in your head but they are being aided by your life experiences: Situations you have been through, places you have been to, people you have met, books you have read, the lyrical content of the songs you listen to every day, movies you have watched, the kind of things you observe while walking down the road and so on. These things work together to formulate and create new ideas inside you. And that is what, after completion, you regard to as fiction. However, after spending much of your time creating all these things, someone somewhere would reject it but the truth of the matter is that, it is not their fault; they have their lay down standard, their rules and regulation guiding them. We’ve all heard stories of authors who arrive at writing conferences in their personal helicopters, who own multiple vacation homes, and who get million-dollar book deals; who made it big through their writing career, who are world changers. But realistically, what are the chances that you as a creative writer will join the ranks of writers who are making a ton of money? What are the chances that you stand to make money from what you write or from the book you sell? This is the one of those things that breaks a writer as he dreams and hopes that one day, he would stand to become something in life through what he writes. Some critics break a writer also. They make him or her feels like a worthless being; they critique unconstructively leaving writers or their work at the mercy of their own. It is not really easy to write. Although these writers’ critics make writers but someway somehow, some of these critics should be frank with what they do. They should be tender with their words. They have made some writers and destroyed some. In Africa, We know most writers don’t become zillionaires. Some are able to make a comfortable living as a writer, but others are not. Today we’re to take a hard look at not just how much money a creative writer can expect to make over the course of his or her career but what messages he or she is able to pass down to his or her readers and how he can be able to change the narrative through what he or she writes. Writers do break down too. They are emotional too. They feel pains and loss control over some things. They are not strong all the times. They are weak people with emotional instability. Sometimes not all they write is what they represent. There are some distinguish characteristics between what they write and their personalities; they are humans just like you. Their brokenness is as real as HIV and AIDS. And of course it’s a disease too, to them. The only difference is that it’s unpreventable and unprintable. At some points in your career as a writer, you will feel empty, blank and uninterested about a lot of things. This is probably a proof that you haven’t kept the balance of your input and output system. Now the more you exhaust this brokenness as a writer, the more your mind becomes disordered, and the weaker the signal strength of your creative imaginations. You can’t produce anything reasonable if you are empty. So it is better to find a way or an outline of means to overcome these brokenness- Make a useful outline when you are inspired that you cannot be broken no matter what comes on your way, not even money or comments on your work by novice or Elite writers would break you or mare you. Just ignore and move on with your style. Keep your mind afresh always, never allow things which don’t worth a thing to break you- you need your mind for your work, you don’t need to be broken always. Basically, there are things you just have to ignore or let go. As a beginner or as professional writer; I recommend you keep your mind void of any weird and unnecessary words. Focus mostly on the area that you continually concentrate on, those areas you need to improve and those you need to maintain. This way you can recycle old posts with a new spin that will keep you alive until you get back in the saddle of who you are. Don’t allow anything break you for too long. THE YOUTH AND THE COUNTRY: UNEMPLOYMENTThe problem of unemployment has gone viral over the years in our country. It has been one of the major problems that this country has suffered over the years. No work for the youths and those who are supposed to resign from their various departments in the government sector has failed to do so because they believe that there are blank spaces in the world beyond where they work. They are afraid of the payment of their pension by the government, so therefore, they occupy the space made for the youths. They fail to resign rather they employ P. As who will be doing the work while they relax collecting the money then they pay peanuts to the P.A. It heart breaking seeing a full grown man and a graduate for that matter, roaming the street of Lagos, Abuja, PH and some other major cities in Nigeria. They roam about with their certificates, properly dressed with their designer shirts moving from one firm to another seeking for employment. they could be offered a job of fifty thousand naira which cannot hold their body and soul together but they have no option but to manage it. It is disheartening to see a graduate in the street searching for this dream job without knowing that all those jobs opportunities promised are illusion and mirage. They don’t exist in this side of the world and the world to come. Firms will still abuse young graduates, they will still look for people with 10 years’ experiences and those with 20 years’ experiences to employ. And this come to mind: if they seek for only those that have these experiences, what happens to those fresh graduate from our universities? Where would they fit in in the labour market? How would they get their own experiences after the so called NYSC service and those abnormal theories taught in our schools? Where? The fact that the government could not generate or build a number of films that could help for these issues of unemployment, how could we combat these issues of unemployment in our society? I was a victim of this hunt for job when I just graduated from the university so as my brothers and sisters and, some of my friends. I trekked from Oshodi to Ikotun searching for jobs, from Ikotun to Ikeja under the hot blazing sun submitting CV. After submitting your credentials to these firms, they would promise to get back to you but at the end of the day, you won’t see their calls and Your C.V remain on their desks. These are the plights of our brothers in the street of Lagos and other part of Nigeria. You won’t blame these firms because they might be trying to balance their paper work minding the number of people could pay. How would they pay you if they employ you? How would they restrict or lay off those old women and men on their list? I have worked in a factory owned by Indians where Nigerians are beaten. They don’t correct you your mistake, make any mistake and you are beaten by the supervisor who happens to be an Indian. He would hit you with an iron steel and nobody will talk. Other Nigerians would keep quiet because no one wants to be sacked. I worked there for just a month and I left because of the beatings and the way they treat us in our own country. I believed that those things can and would never happen in India no matter how much you’re paying to their government as a tax. You won’t dare your hand on any of their citizens without them fighting you back but here in Nigeria, the government won’t do anything even if the issue is reported to the appropriate head; they won’t. you spent four years in the university, you spend another one year serving your father’s land and the rest of other years you spend it hunting for job in the street of Nigeria. The government of the day end up calling you lazy. Saying you have no future or dream. When will things get better? Many of these problems have made many to think that the easiest way to make it in life is the so called Yahoo and Betting. And some others think that going abroad is the best place to make money and live a better life. They learn to break themselves, cure themselves and dream beyond a faithless investment which will later hurt them in life. We tried to find some reasonable facts to back it up. If the composite issues remain the order of the day this shows that our government has failed us entirely. We have lost all we stand for as a country. If these little things cannot be handled by the government of the day, I wonder what the future of this country will look like in days to come. Our ultimate goal as people should be how to savage these situations. Create a nation whose motivate is to generate and uplift its youths because they are the future and the leaders of tomorrow. Nigerian youths are faced with the identical dilemma of surmounting many hurdles of growing up to be responsible citizens, and leaving up to the billing of being ‘leaders of tomorrow’ as constantly mouthed by successive governments. The former may be termed natural, while the latter can easily be classified as man made. if we as people fail to retract our footsteps as to show these youths the right routes to follow, it would be extremely difficult to convince any right-thinking member of the youth in the society that the resolution is not a ploy to encourage government to get away with molesting the pride and future of these youths. Arguably, we are globally aware that we own the world as leaders of tomorrow. We should find a way of giving confidence to those who look up to us as their leaders not abandoning them to rot in misconception of the future. We failed to understand that life without the youths is as useless as a life without breath. How we manage the consequences that implies in this fate remained our ultimate goal that should be driven with a ultimate believe. We should let our lives reflects our actions. Let’s create a position for these young ones that would stand in our possible when tomorrow comes and we are no more on the surface of the earth to bear witnesses to those things that we did, these younger ones would be here on earth to follow our leads or rather stand to defend those legacies we have built. The youths are our tomorrow, the curators of our blueprints. Neglecting of those plantation of thoughts are the instruments of destruction that might end up face country if care is not take. We should be strong in win, battle these issues of unemployment in the land by creating or building more factories, firms that could provide job opportunities to the job. DEAR UCHE NJIE, FROM MY LIFE I WRITE TO YOU THE MEMORIES OF A LONGING LIFE.I am going to be honest with my tale. On the tree opposite me are two birds looking at us. They look like those you see in Nkwo Ngwa market. One boy chased them away before but they didn't go. I asked him to leave the birds alone when they returned but he reluctantly left for his mother's house. I don't know why he left but some boys here said he has trouble looking at the eyes of others. By the right side of my house, Some people are celebrating Birthday. I can see the celebrant in a red rosy gown. She is wearing black shoes. She paints her lips red to match the Red gown she's wearing. Her boyfriend is around her. He looks like those kind of boys that didn't suck their mother's breasts for nine months. He looks shy and calm. He looks at us seated. His eyes are inviting but this party isn't my call.i am telling these boys of mine how this country has failed us. I am telling them how our mistakes have made us who we are. From my life, I write you the memories of today holding what is left of what is good. We can say goodbye because we've met in rickety vehicles of chaos transporting dreams to different places. I am standing here digging a shallow grave, a dog had died last night in our compound. The boys dug a fatal grave last night but I covered it this morning before we gathered. I am standing here right now, praying and hoping the weather comes with a different kind of free rain to wash down these tears of ours. These tears that have forever be ceremonial to culture — I am here doing many things at the same time. I am half way to doom. You know what the Ancestors once said about spirits? They said spirits arrived in great numbers, with great personalities, in honour and nobilities with contradictory notions; and they treat us with many potions of faith and trust, subject us to diverse incantations, sacrifices, thoughts, massages, and libation. Our Ancestors said spirits are nightwalkers that in the midnight, they expose us to special spirits evoked in the sacred forest of life, but nothing they do ever help us get better as humans. They are fond of holding us into their incantations and prayers but don't know how to send forth goodness to us. Even the herbalists that stand between us and the gods and the spirits, they don't find their ways into our dreams anymore. They dont attempt to do battle with the shadow forms that lurked in our mind; but all they have succeeded in doing was making our nightmares worse and exaggerating, and exacerbating our illness, till it became so bad that we longer speak or even try to long for each other. No one gets a mouthful of food by picking in between another person’s teeth. I have not come to wish our morning to keep wallowing in engulfing darkness. I have come for this longings and memories of our own. After a decade, I stopped planning those trips of coming with this longing of self worth and for five years I did not pack a weekend bag or tell my mind to prepare for a trip down south. I was always frozen in place, unable to get out of bed, certain that any movement would shatter me into a million tiny pieces. You know I have not come to wrestle with fate with my fists of faith but to keep this longing in the soul of tomorrow for the perfection of the boys in the streets of Nigeria and Africa. WHAT IS SUCCESS TO YOU?Success mean different things to different people. Different race, tribes, school of thoughts and scholars have different definitions to what success is. Therefore, there is relatively no one way approach to what success is to different people from different walks of life. To Mr Chima, success may be when he built a house for his mother. To Femi, his success may be getting that degree from the University to Prepare him for the future. To Musa, his success may be getting married to that girl in his dream. He may not have any other thing that he prays for than asking God to convince that girl to say yes. To David in the USA, his definition of success is when he gets that dream job he has been fighting for for years.
A certain man may want to travel to London. He'll dream about it. He'll pray about it. He'll sing about it everyday until when that day will come, he has succeeded in that a area of his life. A sister in his Environment may see that London as nothing because she goes to London every Thursday in a week for business meeting. So therefore, success is the definition you give to it by yourself at a given period of your life. It could be defined as getting married. It could be defined as getting a new job. It could be defined as getting a house. It could be defined as buying a car. It could be defined as having children of your own. It could be defined as passing your exams. It could be defined as changing your Environment. Success is what you name it! The late Zig Ziglar was one of the most respected modern day experts on success, motivation, and leading a balanced life. In his book Born to Win!, he argues that success cannot be defined in one sentence, but instead it is comprised of many things. One could argue that the definition depends on the individual and one size does not fit all. However, you need to find your own success definition and create meaning for your life. Concentrate on what makes you who you are and what your targeted goals are and work towards them and success comes to you. Many world great leaders have written different books about Success but they all come from different approach and experiences, the dimensions to which the success happened to them. Argubly, this is to show that there is no particular approach to success like every other thing. What works for Mr A may not work for Mr B. Probably, what made Mr C succeed in his business may not work for Mr E. What is success to you is left with what you seem to understand what success is in your pursuit of a successful life. For example, Brendon Burchard, a best selling Author, high performance coach, Podcaster and self-help Youtube star once said that in other to know how far we have gone with our drives to succeed we should ask ourselves these questions:
And John Addison ,The author of Real Leadership: 9 Simple Practice For Leading And Living With Purpose and SUCCESS Leadership Editor, has these three of his lessons from 2016:
Let's bring this back home. Take a look at a graduate and an apprentice with a business man in Onitsha main market. Take a look at them. Let's assume that the apprentice left home to serve his Oga the same time the other person gained admission to study Economics in the university. Four years later, the graduate came back home to discover that the apprentice he knew is no longer the person he came back to see. He has opened multiple businesses and properties around Onitsha and other places. He has money while him as a graduate has nothing to show but his certificates and knowledge. This is a different sphere of success. Do you know that? The truth is that each of them have their merits : arguably, Financial intelligence is the major education that an apprenticeship offers over formal University education. But formal education will help for strategic planning and deployment of plans , analytical predictions, and in an ideal case will fly further than just common sense and past experience. In an ideal society, educated people should rank first and should be wealthier than their contemporary. But In today's Nigeria, an apprentice seem to have a brighter future because once they're done serving, they're been settled and they start their own business. Meanwhile a graduate will be looking for job after graduation and he would remain at home, wasting. Since they do not have so much money to start a business. Money is the denominator here. That's the difference. Once you have money people forget whether you went to school or not. No wonder all these settled apprentices end up marrying the girlfriends of University graduate. And this is another success from a different angle. This country is not conducive for new business to thrive. The old ones are struggling, some have even resulted to crooked means just to succeed in whatever ways they understand success. Nigeria for instance, is a dream killer. Do you know that it's easier for a Nigerian graduate to succeed in Nigeria than an abroad graduate (even with all the sophisticated training)?Reasons being that we're used to the struggle but they're not. That's why once UK sends back Nigerian who studied there they just come home being suicidal knowing that nobody will employ them . Except for the selected few that are "connected" in the country. I think education is still the best legacy no matter how we see it. Although it does not guarantee success but it can give an edge over others. The problems we most face here is: Nigerians don't value education. Maybe because of our corrupt nature. There are less opportunities for people that went to school in Nigeria than people who learnt trade. If you learn trade. You can start your own business almost immediately after learning the trade. I dare say that regardless of all opportunities available for the apprentice, formal education is still one of the most important ingredient in making wealth and happiness. But if you go to school you will spend years searching for a job that may never come. You'll now end up learning a trade haphazardly. You'll start posting wares on your status for people to come and buy. And you be scammed by people who write books on "how to make 6 digits in a month from selling a product". In conclusion, your definition about success is dependent of your view about what success it. Success has no definition, it is to everyone what they think it is to them trying to achieve their set goals and plan for a certain thing.
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John Bliss lives with his wife Leslie in New York City. He is a psychoanalyst and clinical social worker that co-founded an outpatient licensed substance abuse clinic thirty years ago where he continues to work. He has focused on writing about personal experiences at the encouragement of his wife, daughters Jenna, and Jillian, patients, and musician friends and now his writing buddies. Map Literary published his story ‘Keep The Change’ in the fall of 2017. John’s story “Dares” is in the November, 2017 issue of Adelaide Literary Magazine. The process of developing narratives in his therapy practice, playing saxophone, and writing is exhilarating to him. Writing has a special appeal, he can do it anytime and it doesn’t wake up the neighbors the way the horn does. Riffing on “The Cut, and the Building of Psychoanalysis, Volume I and II Sigmund Freud and Emma Eckstein” by Carlo Bonomi PhD. I began training to become a psychoanalyst at The National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis in 1986 and graduated in 1997. My training was grounded in classical theory and Freud was the pinnacle of this orientation. I loved training to become a psychoanalyst and found Freud’s theories exhilarating. Psychoanalytic theory became the foundation of how I understood the world, well tried to understand the world. Yet, I had been puzzled by Freud’s use of the word castration to describe the amputation of the penis since first reading about it decades ago.
Freud used the word castration and circumcision synonymously. He also described castration as the amputation of the penis as opposed to removal of the testicles. This bothered me. I would often question it and the responses from instructors and colleagues attributed my inquisitiveness to my personal castration anxiety. These pseudo interpretations never satisfied my curiosity. The convoluted use of these words seemed unusual for Freud, a man who ascribed great significance to the specificity of language. I maintained an irritable curiosity over Freud’s corrupted use of the word castration until reading The Cut, and the Building of Psychoanalysis, Volume I and II Sigmund Freud and Emma Eckstein” by Carlo Bonomi PhD. Theodore Thaas-Thinenemm in “The Interpretation of Language Volume I & II: Understanding the Symbolic Meaning of Language” addresses the fusion of two words that creates a third meaning. “In most cases it can be demonstrated that there is a repressed energy at work seeking outlet by creating new forms of speech.” I am indebted to Carlo Bonomi PhD and the accomplishment that he has achieved in these two books. Carlo Bonomi PhD, president of the Sandor Ferenczi Cultural Association discovered and developed a concise explanation of the “repressed energy” in Freud that created the fusion of the words, castration, circumcision and genital mutilation. Bonomi explained how the word castration was used to communicate amputation. I met Bonomi in Rome in 2016 at the International Association of Relational Psychoanalysts conference. I attended a seminar introducing the conceptual framework for his writing. He discovered evidence that Freud’s concept of penis envy resulted from his unexplored counter transference to Emma Eckstien and her traumatic genital mutilation in childhood. Penis Envy is the parapraxis of an unexplored enactment between Freud and Emma Eckstien. Prior to these remarkable books, the concept of penis envy and its acceptance or rejection lacked a coherent and fact based understanding about its theoretical development. Bonomi made sense of the emergence of penis envy and castration anxiety. Castration fears and penis envy are linked in Freudian theory. Men fear castration which in Freud’s vernacular is synonymous with not only circumcision but with the amputation of the penis. In Freud’s view women unconsciously desire the penis that was once taken away from them and wish their little penis (clitoris) would grow into a full functioning male organ. Prior to “The Cut” psychoanalysts either accepted penis envy and castration anxiety as truth or dismissed the concepts as culture bound relics of the late 19th century bourgeois mind-frame. The excitement I experience reading and re-reading The Cut Volume I and II is similar to the thrill I had when learning about Quantum entanglement or when a musician friend revealed to me the song Autumn Leaves embedded in Bach’s Allemande in E minor. Bonomi’s application of psychoanalytic theory to the evidence he discovered proves that psychoanalysis is best understood as a relational practice. The uniqueness of The Cut lies in the fastidious research and compilation of facts Bonomi uncovered and connected to Freud and his treatment of Emma Eckstein. These facts and his interpretations created a thorough and logical summation of what transpired in Freud’s analysis of Emma Eckstein and subsequently formulated the foundation of psychoanalysis. Lengthy sections of Volume I read like a legal brief laboriously documenting a step-by-step analysis of the facts that led Bonomi to his conclusions. The denseness of Volume I is possibly a reason that Bonomi hasn’t received more recognition for his work. It is as if Bonomi felt compelled formulate an airtight defense to counter any anticipated argument to his thesis. He found the material he was uncovering about Freud and Emma Eckstien in a sense unbelievable and kept researching. It took Bonomi 30 years to write Volume I. Freud was often intolerant with colleagues who developed psychoanalytic ideas that weren’t aligned with his own. Arguments around Freudian theories like castration anxiety or penis envy often take the form of litigations, resulting in polarized divisiveness within the psychoanalytic community. Bonomi concentrated his efforts on understanding how these ideas came about. Psychoanalysis eventually became divided between classical theory loyal to Freud and the relational or interpersonal schools. I tried to see the merits of both orientations and often had one foot in each school of thought. There was an uncomfortable sense of indecisiveness about picking a theoretical orientation. Did I lack conviction? Bonomi proved that these concepts are not separate and the theoretical unity has been there since psychoanalysis started. The Cut dispels the traditional notion of castration anxiety and penis envy and simultaneously integrates these concepts into psychoanalytic theory. As I will explain The Cut bridges the schism between classical and relational psychoanalytic theories. The factual link between these orientations did not exist prior to Bonomi’s work. Jonathan Sklar, MD in his review in Psychoanalysis and History calls The Cut an “impressive and complex book.” Judith E. Vida MD in the American Journal of Psychoanalysis described The Cut as a “whirlwind of scholarship, destined to forever alter your understanding of Sigmund Freud, the birth agonies of psychoanalysis, and the hitherto unacknowledged origins in trauma of the entire psychoanalytic enterprise”. Skeptics of Bonomi’s work reiterate their belief in the truth of Freud’s theories. However there has not been any evidence discovered by any other researcher to substantiate a counter-argument to Bonomi’s thesis. Samuael Abrams M.D. in his paper titled “Pernicious Residues of Foundational Postulates: Their Impact on Women,” published in The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child discusses the distinction between hypothesis and hypostatized based theories. Hypothesis based theories are based in facts and observations. Hypostatized theories are derived in obscure and ambiguous ways, yet they are often compelling. Regardless of their lack of evidence hypostatized theories are often incorporated into an established concrete narrative. Otto Fenichel discussed this in his review of Freud’s last book An Outline of Psychoanalysis. Fenichel thought Freud’s last book was hypostasized. Numerous psychoanalytic scholars have recognized that core psychoanalytic structures are based on hypostatized theories. The hypostatized theories are often vehemently defended as factual. The acceptance of penis envy is associated with the view of Freud’s imagination as genius. Helene Deutsch was the first woman to write a feminine perspective on psychoanalysis. In her two volumes, Deutsche refers to penis envy as an established fact and often simply moves on to discuss other topics. Karen Horney, similar to many feminist analysts renounced penis envy as idiosyncratic to the predominance of the male perspective in psychoanalytic theory. Clara Thompson emphasized the competitive cultural factors surrounding penis envy. In “Psychoanalysis and Feminism,” Juliet Mitchell highlights that it is the castration complex that differentiates males and females. As per Mitchell, castration and penis envy defines women as envious by nature. Men are genetically fearful of loosing their penis when they become aware of vaginas. The question arises if the castration complex is dispelled is the psychoanalytic community able the grapple with the question of how are men and women different if at all other than the obvious anatomical qualities. It would seem that Bonomi is tearing down psychoanalysis’ temple veil. However, he is actually strengthening psychoanalytic theory by re-integrating the notions of penis envy and castration anxiety into a relational paradigm. The Cut begins with Freud’s work in pediatrics early in his career. Bonomi was intrigued that Freud’s work with children was virtually ignored by previous theorists, historians and biographers. From 1886 to 1896 Freud worked three days a week at The Public Institute for Children’s Diseases in Vienna. Freud was most likely exposed to the practice of female circumcision and clitoridectomy at that time. Bonomi, “The term ‘castration’ in the years 1850-1900 referred almost exclusively to a surgical treatment of nervous, psychical, and ‘immoral’ disturbances in women (nymphomania for instance).” He examined hundreds of medical files in Vienna that revealed the prevalence of female genital mutilation to ‘cure’ masturbation and hysteria. It was a disturbingly common practice to surgically remove young girls’ labia and clitoris to “treat” hysteria and hyper sexuality during childhood. Bonomi determined that Freud’s patient Emma Eckstein had endured genital mutilation, which in spite of being revived in her analysis with Freud, was not discussed as a traumatic event. One crucial piece of evidence is found in the letters between Freud and Wilhelm Fliess. The specific letters refer to a female patient of Freud’s who had been cut at a time he had only one female analysand, Emma Eckstein. Anna Freud omitted these letters from the initial publication of the Freud and Fliess letters. The clitoris was often referred to as the little penis. But it wasn’t a penis that was amputated but Emma’s clitoris. In Freud’s castration theory Emma’s dream about her mutilated clitoris became her envy for a penis. Her trauma was then projected into Freud’s unconscious psyche. Bonomi states “The fact that Freud had become the depository of the salvific penis which Emma fantasized was presented by me as the unconscious true source of Freud’s phallocentric doctrine. In other words, Emma’s psychic reaction to her cut not only managed to survive beyond her carnal body, but became a relic which was preserved and worshipped in the psychoanalytic crypt.” Freud wrote, “Circumcision is a symbolical substitute of castration, a punishment which the primeval father dealt his sons long ago out of the awfulness of his power, and who so ever accepted this symbol showed by so doing that he was ready to submit to his father's will, although it was at the cost of a painful sacrifice.” This is indicative of the confusion regarding the word circumcision as being described as an amputation of the penis. The idea of castration was a veneer covering the actual trauma of Emma’s genital mutilation. Penis envy was Freud’s interpretive reaction to Emma’s mutilation and mourning her own severed clitoris. Emma’s dream about growing a penis was a reparative attempt to cope with her actual traumatic mutilation. Yet penis envy became the accepted Freudian truth. Bonomi writes, “Freud’s reconstruction of the female child’s psyche that her tiny penis would grow as large as a boy’s, when that fails the child fantasizes she once possessed a big penis and it was cut off. Emma’s genital mutilation morphed into a universal biotrauma.” Bonomi sheds new light on Freud’s defense of Fliess’s botched operation on Emma’s nasal cavity. Freud referred Emma to his surgeon friend Fliess believing his surgery would cure her hysterical symptoms. The nasal operation almost killed her yet Freud defended Fliess. This position was symptomatic of Freud’s unconscious struggle with Emma’s actual trauma. Freud’s denial of Emma’s genital mutilation led to his overdetermined defense of Fliess’ nasal mutilation of Emma. In essence she was re-traumatized by Fliess’ operation and Freud was unable to process it as such. Freud’s countertransference to Emma’s traumatic circumcision explains his developing a universal psychology that put penis envy and castration anxiety at its core. According to Freud the phallus is the primary genital. Prior to The Cut explorations about Freud’s unconscious were restrained. Knowledge of the reality of genital mutilation forces us to wrestle with the trauma and its damaging effects. Penis envy and castration anxiety become an accommodating misdirection away from the actual torture that was inflicted on an unknown number of women including Emma Eckstein. Bonomi questions Freud’s self-analysis and its acceptance as thorough and evidence of his creative genius. Previous explorations of Freud’s self analysis consistently didn’t go far enough and lack the evidence and the subsequent formulations made by Bonomi. The Cut challenges this notion of the analysts’ “supreme autonomy” exposing the absence of any exploration of Freud’s countertransference to Emma. Previous writings were concerned with Freud’s transference to Fliess. The Cut frames these unanalyzed events as a psychoanalytic enactment between Freud and Emma. Bonomi argues that this historic enactment between Freud and Emma perpetuated the stifling and institutionalized notion of a one-person psychology with its fantasy of the neutral and impervious psychoanalyst. The grandiosity implied by the infallible psychoanalyst is pervasive in psychoanalytic culture. Freud’s theory perpetuated the notion that women exist to pleasure men. For Freud vaginal orgasm was evidence of mature feminine sexuality. The clitoris is bypassed as an important nerve center for sexual satisfaction based on a male centric theory of sexuality. I view this as a psychoanalytic mutilation/castration of the clitoris by virtue of the denial and negation of the clitoris’ importance to women’s sexual gratification. The notion that women are capable of orgasms without men certainly minimizes the man’s role and can eliminate it altogether, an unimaginable construct within Freud’s concept of pathology and normality. Bonomi’s research re-examines material regarding Freud’s personal experiences with circumcision and his rebellious decision to not have his own male children circumcised. The intersection between Freud’s emotional reaction to Emma’s genital cut and his aversion toward the Hebrew ritual is indeed found by Bonomi as the matrix of many dreams of Freud, starting with the founding dream of psychoanalysis, the famous Irma dream, and ending with the dream of Freud’s dissection of his own pelvis, in which the horrible cut is replicated on his own body. Thus, in spite of Freud’s intellectual disavowal and dissociation, the genital cut endured by Emma resonated deeply in him, awakening a series of painful memories while the “cut” emerges in these dreams. The Cut exposes Freud’s humanity and that he in part unwittingly discovered a method of therapeutic help that incorporates countertransference into the cure that psychoanalysis is capable of. Bonomi has upset the psychoanalytic applecart and proved the practice of psychoanalysis has been relational since its inception. References: Abrams, S. (2015). “Pernicious Residues of Foundational Postulates. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 69:41-58. Barandon, T., Broughton, C., Gibbs, I., James, J., Joyce, A., and Woodhead, J. (2005) “The Practice of Psychoanalytic Parent Infant Psychotherapy: Claiming the Baby” London, Routledge. Bonomi, C. (2015). “The Cut and the Building of Psychoanalysis, Volume I & II, Sigmund Freud and Emma Eckstein.”: 27 Church Road, East Sussex: Routledge. Deutsch, H. (1944). “The Psychology of Women Volume I & II”. New York, Grune & Stratton Dimitrijevic, A (2017) The Cut and the Building of Psychoanalysis, Volume 1: Sigmund Freud and Emma Eckstein, by Carlo Bonomi, Routledge, Sussex and New York, 288pp. Am. J. Psychoanal, 77(1) 87-90 Fenichel, O. (1941). “Review of An Outline of Psychoanalysis, by Sigmund Freud”. (International Journal of Psychoanalysis 21. Horney, K. (1942) “The Collected Works of Karen Horney, Volume I & II, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. Koritar, E. (2017), The Cut and Building of Psychoanalysis, Carlo Bonomi, London: Routledge,Vol. 1, 2015, 275pp: Vol 2, 2018, 271pp. Canadian J. Psychoanal.,25(2):152-157 Magagna, J., Bakalar, N., Cooper, H., Levy, J., Norman, C., and Shank, C. (2005) “Intimate Transformations: Babies with their Families” London, Karnac Masson, J. (1984).“Freud and the Seduction Theory, A challenge to the foundations of psychoanalysis.”: Boston Ma. The Atlantic. Mitchell, J. (1976) “Psychoanalysis and Feminism.” New York, Vintage Books. Robinett, P. (2010) “The Rape of Innocence. Female Genital & Circumcision In The USA” PO Box 256, Eugene, OR 97440, Nunzio Press. Rodriguez, S.B. (2014) “Female Circumcision and Clitoridectomy in the United States”: 668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620: University of Rochester Free. Thass-Thienemann, T. (1968). “The Interpretation of Language Volume I & II”. New York, Jason Aronson. Inc. Thompson, C. (1941). “Penis Envy and Incest: A Case Report.” New York, Psychoanalytic Review. Vida, J.E. (2017). The Cut and the Building of Psychoanalysis, Volume 1: Sigmund Freud and Emma Eckstein, by Carlo Bonomi, Routledge, Sussex and New York, 2015, 288pp. Am. J. Psychoanalysis. 77(1):83-86
The Greatest Episode of Fresh Prince: A Personal Essay The results are in, America has voted, and we have a winner! Season 4, Episode 24 of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is the greatest episode in the entire series, and maybe the best dramatic television ever written. After disappearing for 14 years, Lou, Will’s father, returns promising to take Will on a father-son camping trip in an attempt to rekindle the relationship. Spoiler alert: Lou shows up at Will’s home the morning of the day, cancels the trip, and leaves. Those of us who grew up with a physically absent or emotionally absent father, and watched that scene, knew how it felt to be in Will’s shoes at that moment. “How come he don’t want me, man?” Will asks this question just before breaking down on camera and leaning to Uncle Phil for a hug. Writer, Josh Kurp, explains, “Thing is, he’s not really acting here – much of Will’s speech was ad-libbed and based on his own traumatic childhood” (Kurp, 2014). At that moment, Will Smith’s childhood emotions connected with a fictional scene in his adulthood, and the emotions began to flow like the mighty waves of a class five rapid. While your emotions are valid, and it’s ok to feel this way, it’s equally important to move past this. We must realize there’s someone out there that wants us for who we are and appreciates us for being just that. I learned this painful but rewarding lesson almost two decades ago when my dad took me along to drink with his friends.
I was 11 years old sitting in the back of my dad’s ‘87 Ford F-150. The truck bed was constructed with rusted sheet metal that met together in the form of horizontal ribs along the length of the bed. I picked a spot in the middle and sat with my back against the rear window, away from the areas beginning to crack and corrode. On the inside, two cases of my father’s favorite beer sat comfortably in the passenger and middle interior seats. I examined the damaged areas of the truck bed and then reached into my pocket to pull out my journal. I tore out a few pages, licked the back of them, and applied them like an adhesive bandage over the worse areas. The screen door slammed shut and Dad stumbled out of our two-story house holding a can of beer. “Dad, Dad! The holes, I fixed them!” I shouted, “Well, I tried to.” He approached the truck, raised his drinking hand, emptied the final solitary alcohol driblets into his gullet, and belched. “You can’t fix that shit with paper, dipshit,” he said, “it needs completely rebuilt, and I don’t have the time or patience for that.” He crushed the aluminum can between his palms, and nonchalantly chucked it at me. I leaned my head back, just in time to dodge the projectile. The crown of my cracked against the windowpane and made an all too familiar sound. In a daze, I was reminded of a similar noise that would occur during my mother and father’s late-night disagreements. My vision cleared and I shook off the sensation of pain. “Goddammit, Clay, Focus,” I muttered under my breath. As he turned the ignition, the truck backfired with a loud pop. The gears grinded and sputtered before forcefully kicking itself into reverse and creeping down the road. “This be it,” he said, as he jerked his arm to make a quick right turn. My body tossed around the back of the truck bed like a gallon of milk. We bounced and tore through fresh cut bluegrass then came to a halt behind a two-story colonial. An all-white outdoor tent, approximately 30’ x 20’, was set up with at least 40 lawn chairs neatly organized from side to side. Several long folding tables stretched across the side of the tent, filled with various meats, side dishes, and desserts. The back of the tent featured two Coleman brand coolers, filled with ice and adult beverages, and five kegs. I sat in the back of the truck for a few moments, examining the group of middle-aged strangers swarming the alcohol area. “Hey, Dad! Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked as I hopped down from the truck. “Yeah, go play on the road,” he replied, elbowing his friends in the ribs. I shrugged and walked over to the food area. I grabbed myself a Dixie paper plate and another plate for support. I shoveled down three hotdogs, two chicken legs, and consumed three cans of Mountain Dew so quickly, I began to feel an awkward pain in my stomach. I walked over to my dad’s circle of friends and waited for my turn. “I don’t feel so good,” I said, “Are we going home soon?” My dad’s face turned to a pinkish shade that only happens when you’re extremely mad or when you’ve been in direct sunlight for too long. Gary quickly stood up, “I’ll show you the bathroom kiddo!” he said, and then walked with me to the house. He initiated small talk while we walked through the fresh-cut grass and to the back door. I noticed that his breath smelt of brisket with a slight hint of beer, but it didn’t bother me. Gary guided me through the foyer, upstairs, and then pointed to the bathroom door at the top of the carpeted stairway. “Have fun kid,” he said, “hope you feel better.” He started walking down the steps and then darted back up. “Oh, if you need anything, my son, Justin, is right across the hall.” He said, and then danced back down the steps. After using the restroom and washing my hands, I let out a big sigh as I dried my damp hands on their 5-star hotel-quality hand towels. I opened the door quickly, almost smacking the child in the forehead, but catching it just in time. He just stood there smiling, didn’t even flinch, but he had the most contagious smile I’ve ever seen. It felt clean, sparkly, and welcoming just their home. “Hi, I’m Justin,” he said, “Wanna play PlayStation?” “Uhh, sure” I mumbled, as all previous knowledge and familiarity of the English language was siphoned from my brain. Justin’s bedroom ceiling was white, like the bathroom, with glow in the dark stars and clouds organized and spaced apart to perfection. All four walls were painted a charismatic blue and decorated with Toy Story posters and Disney memorabilia. Who is this kid? Why does he deserve this? Is his Grandfather Frank Lloyd Wright? In fact, Justin was not related to the Wright family. He was just a sweet kid, in a very strange place. As we played game after game, a strong pain formed in my stomach and along the cheek area of my face. I hit the pause button on my off-white controller and asked to take a break from the laughing and smiling, from the fun. I sat with my legs crossed and twisted my head to look at the window behind me. The sun had disappeared long ago and so had the partygoers. The outside was just an open yard with filled trash bags stationed where the tent, the food, and my dad’s truck were previously. The pain in my stomach turned over to a darker side, an unfamiliar pain. Judging by Justin’s reaction, my Caucasian skin tone must’ve changed to the tone of an apparition. Justin rushed out of the room and then downstairs. A house that was filled with more laughter and amusement than a Six Flags theme park had now become a funeral home-like atmosphere. I attempted to listen to the murmurs for a few moments, placing my left ear to the floor. “Thanks, Mom!” Justin yelled and then darted back up the stairs and into the room. Justin entered the room with such excitement that he could barely get his words out. The whereabouts of my father were discovered; he was at home peacefully sleeping. Justin’s mother extended an invitation, via Justin, for me finish our game and then join them downstairs for dessert. She assured me that she would take me home after we finish the creamy mountain of homemade vanilla ice cream; a much easier goal to accomplish. Justin’s dad owned an older pickup, around the same time as my fathers. The paint was glossy and in its original condition, no sign of rust or corrosion. We all piled into the truck, there was a spot for everyone to sit comfortably. When we arrived at my house, the crickets were the only ones making noise. The windows were pitch black. Justin and his mom both invited me to spend the night. “No thank you,” I replied, “you’ve already helped me more than you know.” We exchanged goodbyes, then they drove off into the night. I noticed that my mom, dad, and brother’s vehicles were all parked in their assigned spaces and rusted/damaged in some way. I cheerfully walked up the stairs, grabbed two duffle bags, and tossed some clothes in them. This story is personal for me because this is the moment where I realized that my father has a problem with me. He doesn’t like the person I am, and he wants me to be someone more like him. He left me behind that day, and I realized that I don’t want to be like him. What kind of person drinks their life away and then leaves their son with a stranger so you can sleep off your buzz? My father, he’s that kind of person. It happened pretty young for me, like most, and I wasn’t able to process this until much later when I discussed it during therapy. Journalist, Tom Sykes describes his relationship with his father, “He abandoned me when I was 14. Never calls to see how I am. I always have to call him. Never explained why he left. This was the great trauma of my life” (Sykes, 2006). My father left me behind because I wasn’t on his mind. He didn’t like me, and I never got an explanation. I wasn’t an asshole kid, I had talent in various things. For whatever reason, he chose not to be interested in the person I was becoming and I’m at peace with that; the feeling is mutual. References Kurp, J. (2014, November 25) The true story behind the saddest scene in ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ history. Uproxx. https://uproxx.com/tv/the-true-story-behind-the-saddest-scene-in-the-fresh-prince-of-bel-air-history/ Sykes, T. (2006, Nov.) Confronting my absent father. Men’s Health, 21(9), 112-116. |