Re: psychopathology and meds

[miychi <miyachi9@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 2002.05.12 05:17 AM, "Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> [was: RE: [PEN-L:25860] Re: RE: Rebel without a clue]
>
> Louis writes: >...discussion around "A Beautiful Mind" which received the
> Best Movie award right around the time I was reading "Madness on the Couch"
> by Edward Dolnick. This is a disturbing account of how Freudian
> psychoanalysis was used to treat schizophrenia, autism and
> obsessive-compulsive disorder prior to the discovery that such mental
> illnesses were organic in nature and reacted best to medication rather than
> the "talking cure".
>
>> I think we have to put to rest the notion that severe mental illness is
> caused by stress, family dysfunction, etc. Autism, schizophrenia and OCD are
> all as much an expression of a systemic organic failure as are Parkinsons,
> epilepsy or Alzheimers. You might as well use "talk therapy" on somebody
> with Alzheimers as with schizophrenia.<
>
> by coincidence, my wife and I recently discovered that our son, who has been
> diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome (mild autism) and psychosis ("not
> otherwise specified," i.e., vague) was being treated by a psychoanalyst who
> follows a version of Bruno Bettelheim's line about autism being a result of
> the "refrigerator mom" (emotional distance). He had not revealed his
> psychological approach in our discussions with him. We are dropping him like
> a hot potato, not only because of possible deception on his part but because
> (as Louis says) it's a totally inappropriate treatment. It was making
> matters _worse_.
>
> (The refrierator mom theory of autism is totally bogus. It turns out that
> many moms of autistic kids had autism spectrum disorders themselves, while
> some moms were emotionally distant _because_ the kids weren't responding. Of
> course, no Freudian would blame the father for being distant!)
>
> However, that doesn't mean that medications are the only cure. Psychotherapy
> of other, non-psychoanalytic sorts, can help, as can good parenting. These
> can complement the meds -- or may even substitute for them, as with
> anti-depressants it seems.
>
> Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Louis Proyect [mailto:lnp3@xxxxxxxxx]
>> Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 1:24 PM
>> To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: [PEN-L:25860] Re: RE: Rebel without a clue
>>
>>
>>> Jim Devine asked:
>>>
>>> is anyone able to summarize this character's alleged motive
>> for his alleged
>>> bombings?
>>>
>>> Drive ya nuts trying to make sense of it. It did the kid.
>>>
>>>
>>> Tom Walker
>>> 604 255 4812
>>
>> I have tried to stick to the agenda of political economy,
>> broadly speaking,
>> since my return to PEN-L. This question, however, does prompt
>> me to suggest
>> a look at my article "Movies and Madness" which showed up on Marxmail
>> recently, plus the addendum on the movie "Snake Pit".
>>
>> http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/culture/madness.htm
>>
>> http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/culture/snakepit.htm
>>
>> It was inspired by discussion around "A Beautiful Mind" which
>> received the
>> Best Movie award right around the time I was reading "Madness
>> on the Couch"
>> by Edward Dolnick. This is a disturbing account of how Freudian
>> psychoanalysis was used to treat schizophrenia, autism and
>> obsessive-compulsive disorder prior to the discovery that such mental
>> illnesses were organic in nature and reacted best to
>> medication rather than
>> the "talking cure".
>>
>> I think we have to put to rest the notion that severe mental
>> illness is
>> caused by stress, family dysfunction, etc. Autism,
>> schizophrenia and OCD
>> are all as much an expression of a systemic organic failure as are
>> Parkinsons, epilepsy or Alzheimers. You might as well use
>> "talk therapy" on
>> somebody with Alzheimers as with schizophrenia.
>>
>> Louis Proyect
>> Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
>>
>
unconciousness in Lacan/Freud


Unconsciousness and the Other

If individual A relate to individual B, A relates to himself as a man
through his relation to another man, B, in whom A recognize his likeness.
With this, however, B also becomes head to toe, in physical form as B, the
form of appearence of the speicies man for A. Thus, individuals
in relationship each other are defined doubly as its physical form and as
social form. A's behaviour is judged by B, the Other. If A's behaviour is
not approved by B, A's behaviour become uncouscious. B is formed by various
elements such as family, local community, and current symbolic order, namely
capitalist order. And the degree of unconsciousness is defined by the
character of relationship between A and B. To more degree the real character
of relationship is hostile, to deeper degree uncousciousness may rules A's
head. In capitalist order, people tend to be swayed by semblance world and
seem to adapt this world, but as a matter of fact, the relationship is
opposing each other. As a result people may become unconscious to the inner
real connection.

About uncousciousness and language in Freud and Lacan

Lacan argue that the unconsciousness is structured like a language.This
definition is borrowed from Freud.

Freud said(The interpretation of dreams)
t may be that free play of ideas with a fortuitous chain of association is
to be found in destructive cerebral process; what is regarded as such in the
psychoneuroses can always be explained as an effect of censorshipヘs
influence upon a train of thought which has been pushed into the forefround
by purposive ideas that have remained hidden.It has been regarded as an
unfailing sign of an associations(or images) in question seem to be
interrelated in what is described as a ?uperficialヘmanner- by
assonance,verbal ambiguity,temporal coincidence without connection in
meaning,or by any association of the kind that we allow in jokes or in play
upon words.This characteristic is present in the chains of thought which
lead from the elements of a dream to the intermediate thoughts and from
these to the dream thoughts properャThe real reason for the prevalence of
superficial association is not the abandonment of purposive ideas but the
pressure of the censorship.Superficial associations replace deep ones if the
censorship makes the norma connecting paths impassable..In the
psychoanalysis of neuroses the fullest use is made of these
theorems-that,when conscious purposive ideas are abandoned, concealed
purposive ideas assume control of the current of ideas, and that superficial
associations are only substitutes by displacement for suppressed deeper ones

On the other side Lacan said

Ansi en vient-il ? analyser le comportment du sujet pour y trouver ce qu'il
ne dit pas.Mais pour en obenir l'aveu,il faut bien qu'il en parle.Il
retrouve alors la parole,mais rendue suspecte de nヘavoir r*pondu quヘ? la la
d*faite de son silence,devant l'echo perdu de son propre n'ant. Mais
quヘ*tait donc cet appel du sujet,au-del? du vide de son dire Appel a la
verit? dans son pricipe,?travers quoi vacilleront les appels de besoin plus
humble.Mais d'abord et dヘembl*e appel propre du vide,dans la beance ambigu?
d'un seduction tentee sur l'autre par les moyens o?le sujet met sa
complaisance et o?il va
engager le monument de son narcissisme Ne s'agit-il pas plutot d'une
frustration qui serait inherente au discours meme du sujet? Le sujet ne sヘy
engage-t-il pas dans une d'possession tourjours plus grande de cet *tre de
lui- meme,dont,?force de peintures sinceres qui n'en laissent pas moins
incoherente l'idee, de rectifications qui n'atteignent pas degager son
essenve,d'etais et de defenses qui nヘemp*chent pas de
vacciler sa statue, d'entreintes narcissiques qui se font souffle
?l'animer,il finit par reconnaitre que cet etre n'a jamais *t? que son etre
dans l'imaginaire et que cette etre d'oit en lui toute certitude.Car dans ce
travail qu'il fait de la reconstruire pour un
autre,il retrouve L'alienation fondmentalle qui la lui a fait constitute
comme une autre,et
qui l'a toujours destinee ?lui etre d'erobee par un autre248- 549p,トcrits)

Lacan's l'alienation fondmentalle corresond to Frued's estranged memory
which unconscious,especielly those of our earliest youth. And Freud said
about psychical apparatus he first thing that strike us that this apparatus
compounded of P-systems,has a sense or direction.All our psychical activity
starts from stimuli(whether internal or external) and ends in
innervations.Accordingly,we shall ascribe a sensory and motor end to the
apparatus..There can be no doubt that apparatus has only reached it present
perfection after a long period of development. Let us attempt to carry it
back to erlier stage of its functioning capacity.Hypotheses,whose
justification must be looked
for in other direction,tells us that at first the apparatusヘs efforts were
directed towards keeping itself so far as possible free
fromstimuli;consequently its first structure followed the plan of a reflex
apparatus,so that any sensory excitation impinging on itcould be promtly
discharged along a motor path.But the exigencies of life interfere with this
simple function,and it is to them,too,that the apparatus owes the impetus to
further development.A hungry baby screams or kicks helplessly.But the
situation remains unaltered ,for the excitation arising from an internal
need is not due to a force producing a momentary impact but to one whivh is
in continuous operation.
Freud continues.
A change can only come about if in some way or other(in the case of the
baby, through outside help) an 'experience of satisfication' can be achieved
which puts an ends to the internal stimulus. An essential component of this
experience of satistification is a particular perception(that of
nourishment, in our example) the mnemic image of which remains associated
thenceforward with the memory trace of the excitation produced by the need
The bitter experience of life must have changed this primitive
thought-activity into a more expedient secondary oneャBut all the
complicated thought-activity which is spun out from the mnemic image to the
moment at which the perceptual identity is established by the external
world-all this activity of thought merely constitutes a roundabout path to
wish- fulfilment which has been made necessary by experience.Thought is
after all nothing but a substitute for a hallucinatory wish.

Thus for Freud, the aim of psychical apparatus is wish- fulfilment of early
days of life and thought is
supposed to be substitute for a hallucinatory wish.This closed-circuit
characterize Freud'theory.According to Freud,wish-fulfilment occurs within
the psychical apparatus,not in relating to another person.In the same
time,thought is suppose to be substitute for hallucinatory wish and the
activity is associative connection to the wish- fulfilment(for Lacan,
associations of signifiants),not communicative nature This is a lethal error
of Freud and Lacan. .For both,unconsciousness is defined as unconscious
wish-fulfilment. But, in reality ,unconsiousness is decided by relationship
betwenn one and an other. Behaviour of one is decided by other and the
behaviour not approved by other become unconscious to one.In the same
way,thought is a form of relation between people,so that consciousness and
thought is social nature. For Freud and Lacan,psychical apparatus and
thought
activity is not social nature but only purely private,in the individualヘs
brain.In reality,relationship between one and other is necessary to
understand thought and unconsciousness.From that Lacan's definition about
unconsciousness as like a language is not adequate.

And below is Carl Ratner's argument



Sociohistorical Character of Psychological Phenomena
According to Vygotsky, psychological phenomena are social in two respects:
They depend on (originate in) social experience and treatment, and they
embody cultural artifacts. Social experience includes the manner in which
people stimulate and direct one's attention, model behavior, respond to
behavior (encourage, discourage, or imitate it), control bodily movements,
and organize the spatial relationships among individuals (e.g., many people
sleeping in an area or individuals sleeping in segregated areas). Cultural
artifacts include signs, symbols, linguistic terms, and humanly produced
objects
and instruments such as chairs and books. Social treatment and socially
produced artifacts generate and shape psychological phenomena.
For example, parents controlling when, where, and how a child responds to an
insult (through modeling, encouraging, and discouraging behavior)
determines the kinds and intensity of emotion that the child develops.
Whether individuals are segregated or integrated by spatial relations
affects whether
they develop an individualistic or collective self-concept (Ratner, 1991,
pp. 55 - 56). Holding babies so that they face toward other people or toward
the
individual caretaker similarly inculcates collective or individualistic
self-concepts, respectively. Moreover, restricting infants' movements
inculcates
passivity, whereas allowing them free expression inculcates active
personalities (Ratner, 1991, pp. 173-174). Directing attention toward
certain things
and away from other shapes perception and emotions.
Cultural artifacts structure psychological phenomena by mediating the
person's relation with the world. Sitting in chairs and eating with utensils
indicates
a segregated bodily space in contrast to sitting next to someone on a bench
and eating with one's hands. Living in a rectangular structure provides
spatial
cues that are different from those in circular structures. Symbolic cultural
artifacts, in the form of socially constructed concepts of what, how, and
why
things are, organize psycho- logical phenomena as the following examples
demonstrate (see Ratner, 1991, chap. 2, pp. 264-278, and Ratner, 1997a,
chap. 3, for citations).
The way we conceptualize or understand an event determines our emotional
reaction to it. We become angry because we interpret someone's action as
deliberately intending harm. The interpretive concept "deliberate intention
to harm" is a social construct. It is popularly accepted in Western society
as a
way to understand behavior. However, some societies lack this social
concept. They interpret a harmful action as reflecting fate or God's will.
In these
societies harmful action is not regarded as the perpetrator's fault, and it
does not generate anger.
Perception of distance, size, weight, color, and motion also depend on cues
whose significance is socially constructed. Cultures that have a different
understanding of cues have different perceptual experiences. For example,
Luria (1976) found that Uzbekistani peasants perceived certain colors as
dissimilar (not classifiable together), whereas administrators and teachers
perceived those colors as similar. Luria's explanation was that the two
groups
had a different conception of color. The peasants regarded color as
intrinsically tied to objects, whereas the teachers regarded color as an
abstract
property. The peasants perceived the color 'pig's dung" as different from
'cow's dung" because the two objects in which the colors inhered were
different. The teachers abstracted the brown color from the objects and
categorized the two shades of brown together (2).
Footnote 2:
Luria's research was conducted in two important expeditions to Uzbekistan in
1931-1932. The expedition was designed by Vygotsky and Luria to investigate
the
principles of sociohistorical psychology by comparing the psychological
processes of groups of people who had been differentially affected by the
Sovietization
of agriculture. An important participant in the project was Kurt Koffka, the
famous Gestalt psychologist. The political system reprimanded Vygotsky and
Luria
for their cross-cultural research in Uzbekistan. Findings of cultural
psychological differences were condemned as racist and as antithetical to
the government's
egalitarian ideology, which insisted on the equal capability of all people.
Vygotsky and Luria were forbidden from publishing their findings and from
continuing
their cultural historical research. Luria was forced to leave the Institute
of Psychology at Moscow State University, and he undertook a new program of
clinical
investigations of aphasia in the Psychoneurological Academy in Kharkov
(Vygotsky & Luria, 1930/1993, pp. 13-16; Van der Veer & Valsiner, 1991, pp.
253-255).
Misperception and unconsciousness are similarly structured by social
concepts. I have explained (Ratner, 1994) that unconsciousness can be
explained as
a sub- category of perception. Particular social values structure perception
in a manner that highlights certain characteristics and precludes noticing
other
aspects of self and other people. I analyzed an individual who was unaware
of various flaws in his character. His unawareness stemmed, in part, from
having adopted competitive values that led to perceiving himself as superior
to others. Conceiving and perceiving himself as a superior person blinded
him to his weaknesses.
Memory of a past event is also structured by the social meaning that the
event has. Social definitions of events form templates that structure our
recollection. For example, Robbins (1963) studied the manner in which
well-educated parents of 3- year-old children distorted their memories of
the
manner in which they reared their children and the developmental milestones
of their children. Robbins found that distortions in memory conform to
culturally prescribed norms for these aspects. About one-half of the mothers
were mistaken in their recollections of whether they fed their infants on
demand or according to a schedule. Sixty-five percent of the incorrect
mothers erred in the direction of more demand feeding, which is culturally
favored
over feeding on schedule. Bladder training was recalled as having begun 6
months later than it actually was initiated. This direction is also in
accordance
with cultural prescriptions. When mothers were inaccurate in their reports
of thumb-sucking, all of the errors involved denying thumbsucking, which is
culturally disfavored.
Along these lines, Cordua, McGraw, and Drabman (1979) demonstrated that
children's memory of gender roles described in stories depends on the
consistency of these roles with the normative gender division of labor in
society. Normative gender roles in the story (e.g., a male doctor and female
nurse) are recalled more accurately than gender roles that contradict the
normal sexual division of labor in society (e.g., female doctor and male
nurse)
(3).
Footnote 3:
Whereas social templates shape memory, they do not always distort it. In
most cases they make it more accurate. This is because social templates
organize
memory to recall what is most commonly experienced. Relying on templates
usually enables one to recall what is most likely to have occurred. In cases
where
a past event does not conform to common experience, it may be distorted.
However, these cases are by definition rare. The same benefits and risks
hold for
social templates that organize perception.
Memory of colors depends on the way that colors are used in social
communication. Numerous studies have found that colors that are
linguistically
encoded and are used in the activity of communication are recalled more
readily than colors that are not encoded or used in communication.
Ratner and McCarthy (1990) demonstrated that the best predictor of color
memory is whether the color matches objects that have been experienced in
one's culture. The cultural relevance of colors is a better predictor of
memory than physical properties of color, such as saturation.
Psychological dysfunctions are similarly organized by social concepts.
Disorders depend on people's understanding of misfortune, their expectations
about receiving support and about resolving the misfortune, their sense of
self and body image, and their ideas about coping with stress. All of these
components of dysfunction are structured by social concepts. According to
Lakoff (1993), dreams also incorporate cultural values.
Expressing the link between psychological functions, concepts, and social
life, Vygotsky (1931/1991, p. 88) said that life problems
lead to the development of the central and leading function of all mental
development, to the formation of concepts, and on the basis of the formation
of concepts a series
of completely new mental functions arises; perception, memory, attention,
[etc.] are reconstructed on this new basis [and] they are united in a new
structure.
The relation between culture, consciousness, and psychological phenomena is
diagramed below.

The figure shows that culture (including tools) fosters cognitive schemata
(which maybe explicit or implicit, as Helmholtz maintained). Schemata
mediate
the impact of impinging stimuli. Emotions, sensations, motives, needs,
perception, memory, and imagination are integral parts of cultural cognitive
schemata and are imbued with their social, conscious character. Finally,
individuals act on the world of objects, individuals, and institutions
through the
intermediaries of technology and social institutions (cf Ratner, 1991, chap.
1).
citation of Carl Ratner's argument4
sociogenesis
Sociogenesis of Psychological Phenomena
Vygotsky recognized that whereas psychological phenomena are organized by
cultural processes and artifacts, they involve biological processes as well.
The role of biological processes in affecting psychological experience
varies over the life span. Biological processes entirely determine the
infant's
reactions; however, the influence of biological processes recedes as social
experience dominates psychological phenomena. Vygotsky called this
transformation the sociogenesis of psychological phenomena.
According to this account, natural mechanisms-reflexes, instincts, and
hormones - determine the behavior of infants as they do animals. Naturally
determined infantile behaviors include smiling, grasping, crying,
persistence, distractibility, and reaction speed. They are simple,
stereotyped,
nonconscious, involuntary, stimulus- bound, transient behaviors. Vygotsky
called these behaviors elementary, or lower, processes. The infant equipped
only with these lower processes is directly tied to the world; he reacts
immediately to it; he is at one with it. The infant does not truly perceive
or think
about the world; he is submerged in it (Vygotsky & Luria, 1930/ 1993, pp.
144-145). Lower biological processes are not psychological phenomena in
the true sense: They do not involve comprehension or experience. In
Vygotsky's words, they are immediate blind reactions to stimuli.
Psychological phenomena require that the organism be differentiated from the
world. The individual stands back from the world, so to speak, and
thereby comprehends and experiences it. This differentiation requires that
the natural ties between organism and world be broken. Instead of natural
processes determining the organism's reactions to the world, a complex
system of mental processes mediates between the organism and the world.
Consciousness understands, interprets, and anticipates features of stimuli.
It also decides how to respond psychologically to them (cf. Ratner, 1991,
chap. 1).
Vygotsky and Luria (1930/1993) argued that "a significant cultural
reconstruction has to take place in order for the child to shift from the
stage of
primitive perceptions to the next one -to the stage of competent forms of
adaptation to the external world" (pp. 149-150). This cultural
reconstruction
involves other people prompting, guiding, rewarding, punishing, restraining,
imitating, and modeling the child's behavior. It also involves teaching the
child to use cultural artifacts to organize his or her behavior.
Biological changes in the brain are also necessary for lower, elementary
processes to be replaced by higher psychological ones. The cortex develops
and
takes over most of the reactions that were handled by lower parts of the
brain in infants. However, the cortical changes are both stimulated and
supplemented by social relationships. Social experience stimulates cortical
developments (4).
Footnote 4:
"The number of synapses and the arborization of neuronal dendrites are
responsive to experience in adult animals, even those considered quite old
... The
distinction between hardware and software that is so obvious in a computer
is not present in the living brain where experience continues to alter the
connections
throughout life" (Wahlsten & Gottlieb, 1997, p. 169). Phylogenetic advances
in the brain cortex were also stimulated by social complexity (Donald, 1991,
pp.
137-139).
Social experience also provides the cultural means for regulating elementary
processes and placing them under conscious control, which transforms them
into psychological phenomena. Grasping, pointing, babbling, and even paying
attention are regulated by infants' caretakers. Caretakers channel them in
new directions by speeding them up, slowing them down, directing them to new
stimuli, and generally teaching the children to control them. In this way
behaviors lose their involuntary, impulsive, stereotyped, mechanical
quality. They become controlled by conscious decision and understanding.
Vygotsky explained how attention is transformed from a simple, involuntary
"orientation reflex" controlled by objects in the environment to a
conscious,
voluntary, psychological process:
The importance of the organic process, which lies at the foundation of the
development of attention, decreases as new, qualitatively distinct processes
of attentional
development emerge. Specifically, we have in mind the processes of the
cultural development of attention. When we speak of the cultural development
of attention, we
mean evolution and change in the means for directing and carrying out
attentional processes, the mastery of these processes, and their
subordination to human control ...
Voluntary attention emerges owing to the fact that the people who surround
the child begin to use various stimuli and means to direct the child's
attention and subordinate
it to their control ... in and of itself, the organic, or natural,
development of attention never could, and never will, lead to the emergence
of voluntary attention. (Vygotsky,
1981, pp. 193-194) In exactly the same way, the child's first words are
nothing other than an affective cry. Objectively they express one need or
another of the child long
before the child consciously uses them as a means of expression. Others, not
the child, fill these affective words with a certain content. Thus, the
people nearby create the
objective sense of the first words apart from the will of the child. Only
later are his words converted into speech for himself, used deliberately and
consciously. (Vygotsky,
1998, p. 172)
Memory is also culturally reconstructed from a natural process to a
psychological one. Young children directly memorize items before them.
However,
school-age children use socially devised mnemonic devices in the form of
symbolic associations and reminders. "It is this transition from natural
forms
of memory to the cultural ones that constitutes development of memory from
child to adu lt" (Vygotsky & Luria, 1930/1993, p. 177). The manner in
which memory uses cultural concepts to retrieve information is illustrated
by a personal experience: I could not recall the name of a book I needed. I
knew the subject matter of the book, however, then I remembered the course
in which I had discussed this topic. Next, I thought of the books I had used
in the course, and, finally, I came up with the name of the book I was
searching for. This complex cognitive operation produced recollection that
was not
available from direct memory.
Vast cultural differences in memory exist because of different cultural
mnemonic systems. Carruthers (1990) reported that, in medieval monasteries
and
schools, mnemonic strategies were taught so that the educated elite could
memorize an enormous amount of information. In addition, medieval scholars
had amazingly agile memories. They could recite entire works backwards, they
could recite the next-to- last verses in each book of Virgil, and they could
recall all the passages on a given topic in a lengthy work. Students were
taught to accomplish these feats by dividing texts into sections, which were
identified by cues. The cues often were embedded in the written material to
facilitate memory. Such cues included capitalizing the first word of a
paragraph with a large, vivid letter, drawing images in the margins next to
paragraphs, and even coloring the pages to distinguish them. This cultural
mnemonic system superseded natural memory processes and accounts for the
different memory capabilities among different peoples (cf. Ratner, 1991,
pp. 93-95) (5).
Footnote 5:
Ceci, Rosenblum, Bruyn and Yee (1997, p. 317) report that mnemonic systems
rather than some natural/physiological "raw recall ability" determine other
aspects of memory: The speed in recognizing letters and numerals depends on
how those stimuli are represented in memory, with more elaborate
representations
leading to faster recognition rates.
Vygotsky emphasized the fundamental difference between 'higher, social
psychological activities" and 'lower," natural acts as follows: "Within a
general
process of development, two qualitatively different lines of development,
differing in origin can be distinguished: the elementary processes, which
are of
biological origin on the one hand, and the higher psychological functions of
sociocultural origin, on the other" (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 46, emphasis
added).
Primordial, natural, infantile functions are not simply supplemented by
mature social psychological processes; they are sometimes dispelled and
replaced
by higher processes, and sometimes they are integrated into and
reconstituted by them. As Luria (1932) wrote:
The genesis of organized human behavior is through the development and
inclusion of new regulating systems which overcome the primitive forms of
behavior and
transfer them to ... a new and more systematized organization. There is
every reason to suppose that the primitive forms of organization of
behavior, characterized by the
sub-cortical type of activity, are completely transformed into the processes
of the highest development. (p. 394, emphasis added)
Infantile processes have no adult analogue because they cease to exist as
such in the mature individual. Conversely, adult activity has no natural
analogue
with human infants or animals (or machines!). Luria (1932) explained this in
the following words:
The reactive process as we know it in the normal adult human is a
complicated elaboration in structure not having anything in common with
those impulsive relations
which we observed in the child or the reflex activity of animals. The chief
difference of the [adult] reactive process from those forms of activity in
the child and animals is
that in the former the direct character of the motor discharge is controlled
. . . It is thus incorrect to say that the stimulus directly provokes the
reaction [in the adult] ...
The outstanding feature of the reactive process is the fact that the
tendency of every natural reflex act to discharge its excitation directly is
controlled by a complex reactive
process. (p. 394)
Vygotsky used historical alterations in psychological phenomena to verify
his sociogenetic theory. The fact that humans across the world have nearly
identical biologies yet evidence vast cross-cultural differences in
psychological phenomena proves that the latter are not determined by biology
(Vygotsky
& Luria, 1930/1993, pp. 168-171).
The social development of consciousness transforms the individual's biology.
It transforms biology from a set of mechanisms that directly determine
responses to stimuli into neutral conduits of information. From middle
childhood onward, biological processes only conduct information; they do not
determine how the information is organized and experienced. Sensory and
motor processes transmit information between the organism and the outside
world, and neural processes transmit information from one area of the brain
to another within the organism. The information is organized by signs,
symbols, and instruments as discussed above. Natural mechanisms lose their
deterministic function and operate only as a substratum for socially
mediated mental processes (cf. Ratner, 1998).
The reduction in biological determinism of reactions is a prerequisite for
the emergence of psychological phenomena. Biological determinism of
reactions
is inimical to psychological phenomena. Vygotsky and Luria (1930/1993)
explained how this is true is the area of perception: 'The child who at the
beginning of life had only organic sensations (of rest or anxiety, of
tension and calm, of pain, touch, warmth, and primarily of stimulations from
the
most sensitive areas) lacks, of course, the perception of space that we
possess" (p. 146). Only after biological processes cease governing the
child's
being can he or she break through the protective canopy to perceive reality.
It takes about half a year for this to occur. Perception of reality requires
that
biological processes step aside as determinants of experience and allow the
world to impinge on the organism and affect perception.
Of course, the world does not directly and entirely determine perception.
The worldly information that biological processes make available to the
organism is organized by his or her social experience and cultural
artifacts. "The child begins to see the external world not simply with his
eye as a
perceiving and conducting apparatus - the child sees with all of his
previous experience, and in doing so some- what alters the objects
perceived"
(Vygotsky & Luria, 1930/1993, p. 148).
"Ultimately, for man the environment is a social environment because even
where it appears to be a natural environment, nevertheless, in relation to
man
there are always definite social elements present ... In his interaction
with the environment man always makes use of his social experience"
(Vygotsky,
1997b, pp. 53-54, 133).
Biological processes transmit physical attributes of things such as color,
size, and shape from objects to the mind; however, one's perceptual
experience
of these at- tributes is shaped by cultural experience and artifacts (6).
Footnote 6:
Helmholtz (1867/1968, p. 181) made this point in stating that "reminiscences
of previous experiences act in conjunction with present sensations to
produce a
perceptual image ... [T]he elements in the sense-perceptions that are
derived from experience are just as powerful as those that are derived from
present
sensations" (cf. Ratner, 1991, pp. 204-207). Melzack (1961) similarly
demonstrated that in higher species at least, there is much evidence that
pain is not
simply a function of the amount of bodily damage alone. Rather, the amount
and quality of pain we feel are also determined by our previous experiences
and
how well we remember them, by our ability to understand the cause of the
pain and to grasp its consequences. Even the significance pain has in the
culture in
which we have been brought up plays an essential role in how we feel and
respond to it. (p. 41)
Biological conduits of information do not determine how the information is
comprehended, ordered, preferred, stored, or accessed (cf Ratner, 1989a,
1989b, 1991, chap. 4, for documentation of this point) (7).
Footnote 7:
Wahlsten and Gottlieb (1997) demonstrate that even genetic information does
not specify what we think or remember, any more than the colors of the
artist's
palette dictate the artistic quality of the painting. Genes do not make
finished neural structures but rather code for protein structure which is
influenced by an
amazingly complex metabolic system. 'The developmental fate of the protein
is not determined upon its production; influences from higher, supragenetic
levels
in the developmental system play a role in specifying the incorporation of
the protein into a mature, functional unit that is integrated with other
parts of the
nervous system" (p. 186; cf. Gottlieb, 1991). Gould (1997) provides a good
example of an important psychological phenomenon which is not genetically
caused. Firstborn and later born siblings have substantially different
personalities. Firstborns are typically confident but conservative while
laterborns are
flexible and innovative. These personality differences "cannot be ascribed
to genetics" (p. 76). They are only explainable by parental treatment of
first- and
laterborn children.
Biological impairments that disturb the transmission of information
interfere with perception. However, the vast majority of people have normal
biological processes, and their perceptual experience is determined by
social experience and cultural artifacts organizing sensory information.
Socially organized psychological functions enable the individual to
comprehend the environment more realistically than biologically determined
processes
do. Biologically determined processes determine automatic, fixed responses
in infants and animals. They prevent true comprehension of, and adaptation
to, the environment. As Vygotsky and Luria stated in the foregoing
quotation, perception, memory, emotions, and motives that are socially
mediated
supersede organic sensations and enable contact with the world (Vygotsky,
1998). This is an important point because most people erroneously believe
that biological mechanisms provide the most valid in- formation and that
social mediation distorts information (8).
Footnote 8:
See Footnote 3. Size constancy is a good example of how experientially
derived knowledge deter- mines more valid perception than biological
mechanisms do.
The size of the physiological image on the retina changes with the distance
of the object from the viewer. However, the objects true size remains
constant
regardless of its distance from the viewer. Size perception that was
determined by the physiological image on the retina would change with the
object's distance
and would be an inaccurate reflection of the objects constant size.
Perception that is determined by experientially derived knowledge of an
object's constant size
accurately perceives size to be invariant.
Perception, reasoning, memory, emotions, needs, motives, and personality use
social means (such as linguistic concepts) as their operating systems.
They are not natural functions determined by biological mechanisms. As Luria
(1978b) wrote:
Perception and memory, imagination and thought, emotional experience and
voluntary action [cannot] be considered natural functions of nervous tissue
or simple
properties of mental life. It [is] obvious that they have a highly complex
structure and that this structure has its own sociohistorical genesis and
has [thereby] acquired new
functional attributes peculiar to man. (p. 275)
Donald similarly contends that collectively devised and maintained systems
of verbal and written symbols constitute psychological functions. Such
"external symbolic systems" greatly enrich the individual by enabling him to
utilize the fruits of many people's efforts. The individual's capacity
becomes
expanded to include the capacity of the group. This is especially noticeable
with regard to memory. An individual who participates in an external
symbolic system is not limited to his own memory of things. He has access to
permanent records which have been written down in collectively shared
symbolic notations (Donald, 1991, pp. 308-325). Echoing Vygotsky's point
that collective symbols constitute new psychological functions, Donald says
that 'the external symbolic system ... imposes new search strategies, new
storage strategies, new memory access routes, new options in both the
control
of and analysis of one's own behavior. It enables new skill-complexes (like
reading or programming) in which the locus of memory is partly or mostly
external" (Donald, 1991, p. 19).
If psychological functions are composed of social means rather than specific
biological mechanisms, then psychological functions are acquired according
to one's exposure to social means rather than upon a specific biological
capability for the psychological function. Individual differences in
psychological
functions are there- fore due to differences in exposure to social
experience that provides the social means for performing psychological
phenomena.
To illustrate this point, consider mathematical reasoning. There are no
natural determinants of this phenomenon because the human organism is not
preprogrammed to develop it. Humans lived for thousands of years without
math. It did not spontaneously arise because of natural determinants. Quite
the contrary: Historical needs (especially commerce) led to the invention of
mathematics at particular places and times (Ratner, 1991, pp. 98-99). When
the need arose, humans invented mathematical symbols and systems for
manipulating them. Therefore, it makes no sense to postulate a natural
ability for
mathematics. Mathematics only depends on natural processes in the trivial
sense that a normal brain must exist to carry out the mathematical
operations
that are devised. If natural processes do not determine mathematical
thinking, then individual differences in this capability must be due to
differences in
the social experience that is necessary for performing it (cf Fischer et
al., 1996, for a similar argument and documentation).
If this argument seems perplexing, consider an analogous cognitive
phenomenon, computer programming. This recently acquired skill is obviously
a
historical invention rather than a natural ability with natural
determinants. Surely nobody would postulate an innate capability to program
computers,
because computers are only a few decades old. Computer programming involves
the use of humanly created symbols (artifacts), which are manipulated
according to humanly devised rules. These cultural artifacts can be learned
by anyone. A normal brain and sense organs are necessary for conducting the
information that is involved in computer programming; however, natural
mechanisms do not determine the quality or level of the skill. From
Vygotsky's
standpoint, the same can be said for all psychological phenomena.
Donald (1991, pp. 9, 261-263, 373-380) supports this conception. He argues
that the human brain is characterized by an overall capacity to learn (a
"general-purpose learning capacity"), symbolize, and manipulate symbols
which can be tailored to produce any specific capability which peoples'
cultural
lives demand. He cautions against modular neuropsychological models which
specify an architecture that depends on many built-in, specialized neural
components.
Vygotsky argued that the distinction between lower and higher processes
leads to a new way of conceiving and treating psychological disturbances.
Psychological dysfunction may be due to disturbances in either higher or
lower processes, with crucial differences in the cause and treatment.
Disturbances in lower functions are due to damage to particular sense organs
or cortical areas. These dysfunctions can be partially alleviated by
supplying
alternative sensory artifacts such as braille letters or hearing devices.
Disturbances in higher functions can often be caused by social
impoverishment and
can be treated by restructuring the patient's social environment. 'Any given
defect [in lower processes] in a child produces a series of characteristics
which impedes the normal development of his collective relations,
cooperation, and interaction with others. Isolation from the collective or
difficulty in
social development, in its turn, conditions underdevelopment of higher
mental functions which would otherwise arise naturally, in the course of
normal
affairs, linked to the development of the child's collective activities"
(Vygotsky, 1931/1991, p. 199). Vygotsky believed that 'the greatest
possibilities for
the development of the abnormal child most likely lie in the higher rather
than the lower functions" (p. 198) because the former can be alleviated by
incorporating the patient into a supportive social environment which will
foster the higher functions. Moreover, higher functions can compensate for
deficits in elementary processes. Thinking and understanding can compensate
for deficiencies in hearing, vision, and other senses because the patient
can
know what things are like despite an, incapacity to sense them directly (cf.
McDermott & Varenne, 1995).



citation of Carl Ratner6

n a series published by Werner REIMER's foundation, dedicated to the "search
for
innovative inquiries in the sciences," there is a detailed review of the
"cultural turn" in
the human sciences. The review presents an overview of this momentous turn.
One
discipline is completely absent there: psychology. Psychology is only
included among
those modern, Western, systematic, empirical human sciences that are accused
of
having generally ignored other cultures' realities, failed to reflect on the
cultural
determinations of their own thought and practice, and so on, until now. The
overview,
whose bibliography comprises 334 entries, covers the path-breaking work in
ethnology
and anthropology, notes relevant innovations in history, philology, and
geography,
takes up the cultural turn in sociology, economics, and political science,
in order finally
to consider some commonalities between these developments in different
fields and
to inquire into the (political and economic) background to this renaissance
in the
concept of culture. Psychology here does not belong to those "broad
disciplines" in
which the cultural turn persisted and where it more or less began to change
established routines and standards, or indeed changed them completely.
Assuming
this diagnosis is correct, it would mean that social changes of great
significance had
left no trace in psychology. Psychology would be cut off from so much that
had long
preoccupied the other human sciences:
"Proceeding from analogous trends in ethnology, reinforced by post-colonial
self-determination outside of Europe and the increasing sensitivity to
cultural
difference in the face of new migrations and so-called 'ethnic' differences
since the
Cold War, the cultural turn has now affected a number of the broader
disciplines"
(LACKNER & WERNER, 1999, p.23). [1]
To exclude psychology from this number is a mistakeムeven if we admit that
the
international psychological community has largely encouraged this exclusion
over
several decades, nolens volens, and failed to maintain contacts with its
former
neighbor disciplines. Nowadays, cultural psychology and, even more,
cross-cultural
psychology are established very well. The special issue of Forum Qualitative
Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research presents, as we hope,
some
progress in the field of cultural psychology. [2]
The articles in this issue indicate the value of qualitative methods for
elucidating
cultural themes. Some of the articles are theoretical. They describe why
qualitative
methods are useful for this purpose, and how they can be employed. Some of
the
articles are empirical and utilize qualitative methods to investigate
cultural issues. [3]
Contributions here come from variable perspectivesムyet all of them are
oriented
towards addressing interesting and humanly relevant issues in new ways.
Instead of
discussing each of the articles in the Introduction, the editors would like
to comment on
the usefulness of qualitative methods for cultural studies. [4]
Search for new methodological solutions encourages individuals to freely and
completely express themselvesムcreate new ideas where traditional orthodoxies
of
any kind have disallowed it. The data that are produced take the form of
extended
expressions such as interviews, diaries, essays, and letters. This rich,
extended
evidence needs to be analyzed through a sophisticated process of
interpretation and
theoretical base. Contrary to the claims of the crusaders of the
"quantitative methods
camp" that "those qualitative researchers are X" (where X= "soft",
"non-scientific" etc.),
the challenges of qualitative research methodologies are actually by far
more stringent
theoretically and conceptually than the easy and lazy acceptance of some
ANOVA,
MANOVA, or multiple regression result as if it amounts to "scientific
evidence." The
biggest misconception of science is the belief that quantification
guarantees the data
(and the scientist) a scientific status. Nothing can be further from the
truth in
contemporary sciences at largeムif one looks carefully into areas of
qualitative
mathematics, or modern protein genetics. Yet that misconception lives in the
social
sciencesムpractically limiting their further development by directing
researchers into
ways of doing their work that provide illusory (yet socially acceptable!)
explanations of
complex social and cultural issues. [5]
In case of the contemporary movement towards the invention of qualitative
methods,
we see a kind of silent revolution taking place. Most social scientists
employ qualitative
methods in order to elicit personal psychological informationムfrom their
research
participants, as well as from themselves (as parts of the research process).
This
constitutes recognition of the inevitable role of the researcher as an
active agent who
arrives at new knowledge through his or her own activity in science. [6]
One of the major theoretical challenges to contemporary social sciences is
how to
conceptualize the inherent unity of the active person and the person's
dependence
upon the social world. Individual psychological phenomena are not purely
individual at
allムthey may be ontologically personal, yet ontogenetically social. They
draw upon and
embody broad cultural factorsムand the activities of persons reconstruct the
social
worlds, art times in dramatic ways. Furthermore, every new action by a
person is
necessarily singularムit has not happened before, and will not recur, in
precisely its
current form. Each action is context-boundムhence accumulation of
similar-looking
actions over time and across contexts is not an alley for research
methodology that
attempts to remain true to the nature of underlying phenomena. This
consideration
already by itself guarantees the primacy of the qualitative approach to
methodology,
and renders quantification a secondary tool that may be useful under
narrowly
specified circumstances. If those circumstances are proven to be in place,
the use of
quantitative methods may be warranted. Yet the proof of their adequacy must
come
first. Furthermore, the interpretations of the results of the use of
quantitative methods
are qualitative in their nature. So we have a basic knowledge construction
cycle where
social sciences begin with qualitative phenomena, decide whether the methods
to be
used to study these allow one or another strategy (quantitative or
qualitative) to be
applied, and end up with qualitative new knowledge. [7]
To carry out this stringent methodological credo is not easy. The analyst
must be
knowledgeable about cultural factors in order to detect their role in the
derived
psychological data. One must be knowledgeable about gender roles,
alienation, trends
and strategies in the media industry, the manner in which work and education
are
organized, religious trends, and broad concepts such as individualism in
order to
detect elements of these in psychological expressions about emotions,
personality,
motivation, imagination, intelligence, reasoning, memory, and perception.
Cultural
themes cannot be explored in the absence of rich, complex psychological
information.
Simple, fragmentary responses have ambiguous psychological significance
hitting can
express any number of motives or emotions. It is only when their dynamic
unityムa
cultural Gestaltムbecomes reconstructed by social sciences that the empirical
data
begin to represent selected aspects of the phenomenaムand thus become
scientific in
the stringent (Wissenschaft) notion of that term. [8]
The Editors of this Special Issue hope that the encounters with the
different innovative
research efforts presented here will trigger even further impulses to create
new
methodologies and insights in several domains of (qualitative) cultural
psychology.
The future of the social sciences depends on the breakthroughs in the domain
of
methodologyムand the current quest for qualitative methodologies is a
forceful step in
that direction. [9]

 Citation Carl Ratner5
on unconsciousness
Unawareness According to Sociohistorical Psychology
An Overview of Sociohistorical Psychology
Space does not permit a full explication of sociohistorical psychology which
can be found in Ratner (1991, 1993a), Van der Veer and Valsiner (1991),
and Wertsch (1985a, 1985b). The cornerstone of this viewpoint is that
psychological functions depend upon real social life and bear its imprint.
Specifically, as individuals participate in economic, political,
educational, religious, recreational, familial, and interpersonal activities
they form social
concepts. Social concepts are socially shared knowledge, expectations, and
evaluations of objects, people, and events. Social concepts are the meanings
that things have for a culture (cf., Lutz, 1985). Bourdieu (1977, chapter
two) employed the term habitus to refer to these socially constituted
systems of
cognitive and motivating structures which generate behavior. Social concepts
encompass what social psychologists term social values that is, ideals
which people positively assess and strive for (Berry, Poortinga, Segal, and
Dasen, 1992, pp. 51_56, 330_333; Feather, 1994; Smith and Bond, 1993,
pp. 38_53). Social concepts are not simply shared intellectual products,
they originate in social praxis. Being formed in the crucible of concrete
social
activities such as work, education, religion, and family life, social
concepts reflect a distinctive social orientation. Social concepts organize
psychological
functions. According to Vygotsky, understanding and evaluating things in a
certain way structures the manner in which we perceive, remember, imagine,
need, desire, emotionally respond to, and reason logically about them.
Although these mental functions depend on concepts, they reciprocally modify
concepts.
Expressing the link between psychological functions, concepts, and social
life, Vygotsky (1931/1991, p. 88) said, life problems "lead to the
development of the central and leading function of all mental development,
to the formation of concepts, and on the basis of the formation of concepts
a
series of completely new mental functions arises; perception, memory,
attention, [etc.] are reconstructed on this new basis [and] they are united
in a new
structure."* Social concepts also organize bodily functions. They determine
the extent to which we privatize bodily functions, as well as our tolerance
for
pain, odors, and dirt. They also determine sexual arousal.
* In an article that predates Vygotsky by several decades, John Dewey
described the manner in which socioeconomic relations influence psychology.
Occupations determine the fundamental modes of activity, and hence control
the formation and use of habits....Apperceptive masses and associational
tracts of necessity conform to the dominant activities. The occupations
determine the chief modes of satisfaction, the standards of success and
failure.
Hence they furnish the working classifications and definitions of value;
they control the desire processes. Moreover, they decide the sets of objects
and
relations that are important, and thereby provide the content or material of
attention, and the qualities that are interestingly significant. The
directions
given to mental life thereby extend to emotional and intellectual
characteristics. So fundamental and pervasive is the group of occupational
activities that it
affords the scheme or pattern of the structural organization of mental
traits. Occupations integrate special elements into a functioning whole.
(Dewey,
1902, pp. 219_220).
6
Moreover, social concepts structure somatic symptoms of psychological
dysfunction. Smith Rosenberg (1972) concludes that hysterical conversion in
nineteenth century middle-class women reflected the social value that women
should be weak and spiritual rather than physically active. This social
value
led frustrated women to deaden their senses and immobilize their limbs,
thereby exaggerating the normative gender ideal (Ratner, 1991, p. 274).
Kleinman and Kleinman (1985, p. 434) similarly conclude that social values
channel stress into somatic symptoms among precapitalist people and among
lower class and rural groups in capitalist societies, while channeling
stress into psychological symptoms among people living a more bourgeois life
style.
The defining features of social concepts are that they are shared by
individuals and that they are rooted in concrete social activities of a
social system.
Social concepts originate in particular praxis within particular sectors and
classes (or fields) of a social system (cf. Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992, pp.
94_115). But concepts may migrate to other sectors and classes and become
quite general. Economic concepts such as competition, individualism, and
materialism may permeate family life, education, and the arts (Adorno, 1974;
Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Henry, 1963; Leach, 1993). Religious ideas and
scientific concepts may also achieve broad acceptance. Wherever social
concepts are accepted, they organize perception, emotions, motives,
imagination,
needs, and bodily functions. Research on the cultural-cognitive basis of
psychological functions has been summarized by Shweder and Sullivan (1993)
and Ratner (1991). This research demonstrates that psychological phenomena
are integrated with each other, with social life, and with consciousness.
Unfortunately, little is known about the specific operations by which social
concepts organize psychological phenomena.
According to sociohistorical psychology, social concepts form psychological
activity. They do not simply inhibit pre-social, pre-conscious functions.
Social concepts reorganize and reconstitute natural, infantile functions
into psychological activity. Natural functions do not retain their original
character
and continue to operate independently of social consciousness. In Vygotsky's
words, "culture reworks all the child's natural behavior and carves anew
his entire course of development" (1993, p. 166). Individual thoughts may be
anti-social in content they may oppose certain social norms however they
are not pre-social in origin. Nor do social concepts influence the mind by
operating on one function e.g., sexuality which, in turn, determines all
other
functions. Social concepts directly form all psychological activity; their
impact is broad and systematic. In the same way, social concepts derive from
the
totality of social relations, not simply from a single domain of sexual
mores. Social influences on consciousness include economic, political, and
other
norms. In contrast to Freud's psychology which narrowed the impact of
society and consciousness on psychology, sociohistorical psychology expands
their importance.
7
Sociohistorical Psychological Principles of Unawareness
Although Vygotsky did not propose a sociohistorical model of unawareness,
the foregoing principles can be extended to develop one. Indeed, an
alternative conception of the unconscious would strengthen the critique
which Vygotsky levelled against psychoanalysis. While he was initially
sympathetic to Freud's materialistic approach and remained attracted to
certain of Freud's ideas, his mature work repudiated Freud's overall
conceptual
system (Van der Veer and Valsiner, 1991, chapter five).
An exhaustive reconceptualization of the unconscious is beyond the scope of
this paper. In what follows I shall only outline some fundamental concepts
concerning the nature of unawareness.
To begin with, sociohistorical psychology accepts Freud's distinction
between psychological phenomena which are temporarily beyond the focus of
attention but are readily accessible (the preconscious), versus phenomena
which are only accessible through extensive analysis (the unconscious).
However, sociohistorical psychology constructs this distinction in terms
that are significantly different from Freud's.
A more acceptable view of temporary unawareness is the phenomenologicalutilize the same symbols and knowledge,
8
and engage in meaning-giving interpretation. The cognitive unconscious is
not an entirely different system with different origins and dynamics, as
Freud
postulated. Nor is it repressed and disguised. The cognitive unconscious is
subsumed within consciousness although it operates outside explicit
awareness.
I shall not attempt to unravel the perplexing mystery of how the cognitive
unconscious is acquired and controlled. Instead I shall analyze another
aspect
of unawareness, namely ignorance of features of things and people. Examples
of this kind of unawareness are perceptual illusions which fool us into
overlooking the features of physical objects. We may similarly overlook
psychological characteristics of oneself and other people such as motives,
emotions, abilities, and attitudes. This ignorance of attributes is what
Freud's concept of the unconscious denoted. In what follows I offer a
sociohistorical psychological explanation of this kind of unawareness.
Sociohistorical psychology explains unawareness of people's psychological
qualities in terms of the social concepts which structure perception. As
discussed earlier, social concepts function as cognitive schemas which
structure our mental processes and sensitize us to certain things while
desensitizing us to other things. In this way social concepts create
unawareness as well as awareness. For example, the social value of romantic
love
leads to exaggerating the lover's attractiveness and obscuring faults. The
social value of youthfulness leads to exaggerating the capabilities of young
people and obscuring their limits. Conversely, the capabilities and wisdom
of old people are obscured and denigrated.
>From this point of view, unawareness and awareness are two sides of the same
Janus figure. Unawareness is the obverse of awareness its dialectical
opposite. Unawareness is not a separate system as Freud claimed.
Unawareness is due to misperception and it is explainable in the same terms
as perceptual illusions: the perceiver invokes incorrect assumptions about a
psychological quality and these erroneous assumptions misinform him about
its properties, relationships, and origins. Asch (1952, p. 604) explained
this
as follows: "the forcible exclusion of data (and goals) from the center of
awareness need not involve the operation of unconscious forces in Freud's
sense. What is of most consequence at the social level is that one does not
see facts in their proper context, or that one does not face them, or that
one
violently stresses certain events at the expense of others, operations which
produce misstructuring or distortion in understanding and feeling."
Explaining
unawareness in the same terms as misperception has several virtues. It
sharpens our understanding of unawareness by employing accepted, detailed
concepts from the study of" perception and cognition. It also maintains a
parsimonious account of several phenomena with relatively few concepts,
which is one of the goals of science.
9
Perception and recollection of psychological characteristics are distorted
by inadequate concepts.* Distortion occurs in two ways. In certain cases,
conceptual schemata lead to misperceiving an enduring quality. For instance,
a person of low intelligence believes himself to be bright. His low
intelligence persists despite his overestimation. In other cases, conceptual
schemata actually transform a psychological quality. For example, an angry
person who conceives of herself as mild-mannered may not perceive her own
angry state as anger. Anger will be misconstrued as equanimity and the
latter will be experienced. Anger may have been momentarily experienced but
it was transformed in the act of reflection and no longer exists. Of course,
the brief experience of anger may be encoded in memory and remembered as a
previous experience. However, in all likelihood, the anger will not be
recalled because it was so fleeting and discordant with the individual's
self image.** Both kinds of misperception leave the subject unaware of the
original quality. In neither case does the original quality remain in the
subject's "unconscious." Low intelligence is not "unconsciously" known to
the
subject, any more than the real properties of objects are "unconsciously"
known in the case of perceptual illusions.
Social concepts function as filters which distort the character of a
psychological quality just as they can distort the properties of physical
objects.
Distortion is caused by conceptual limitations of social values, not, as
Freudians claim, by the subject's fear of facing his or her own unacceptable
true
ideas.
To say that social concepts structure awareness means that all perceptual
activity is biased toward certain things and away from others. Perception
can
never be fully responsive to everything. It must be insensitive to, or
unaware of, phenomena which fall beyond its parameters. Although all social
concepts produce some unawareness, the content and extensiveness of
unawareness vary. Certain concepts may desensitize us to things which are
quite
valuable, and we will wish to replace these concepts with others that
sensitize us to the important things. We shall return to this subject in the
section on
overcoming unawareness.
* Thinkers as diverse as Kant, Husserl, Brentano, Dilthey, Wundt, and
William James recognized that reflection on experience interprets and
inevitably
distorts the lived experience. This problematic led these scholars to reject
simple introspection as a sufficient basis for scientific psychology
(Ermarth,
1978, pp. 210_213).
** For studies on the impact of expectations on memory see Bartlett
(1932/1967), Cordua et al. (1979), Ross (1989), Anderson and Pichert (1978),
Higgins and Lurie (1983), Schwartz (1991), and Robbins (1982). Ross (1989)
summarizes several studies which show that a person memory of events
depends upon his theory of the characteristics of the events. Thus, we tend
to exaggerate the consistency between present and past attitudes because we
believe that attitudes are consistent. One study found that university
students exaggerated the consistency of their impressions toward their
lovers. This
was true only for traits such as honesty which subjects in a pre-test
believed to be stable. The consistency effect was not obtained for happiness
which on
a pretest was believed to be an unstable feeling
10