Freud
attributed Anna/Bertha’s false or “hysterical” pregnancy to transference but
post second/third wave feminism (all the waves) and myriad social and academic
movements, Freud is so tenuously trusted that his explanations of this case read as a sort of
myth, a soapbox for the dissemination of a deeply flawed theory.
The
zeitgeist of the English-speaking world has shifted dramatically in its support
or rejection of psychoanalysis since Anna O. and Freud’s 1895 “Project for a
Scientific Psychology.” In recent decades, we’ve denounced case study-based
induction, condemned scientifically unverifiable assertions and questioned the
effectiveness of psychoanalysis as a therapeutic tool along with the bizarre
metaphors for brain function upon which it’s based [1].
The
man himself has been taboo in scholarly circles, caricatured and snidely cited
as anathema to truth so frequently in various media that he and his body of
work have been reduced in popular consciousness to something two dimensional and comic (like
the doodle pictured above.)
Evolutionary, behavioral and cognitive approaches largely replaced psychoanalytic theory in the quest to understand the mysteries of the human mind.
Evolutionary, behavioral and cognitive approaches largely replaced psychoanalytic theory in the quest to understand the mysteries of the human mind.
We’ve
studied animal and human behavior extensively and comparatively, called
the mind a computer and an inference machine and studied how information is
processed and responses generated with advanced scientific tools
i.e. functioning magnetic resonance imaging and the electron
microscope, we’ve dissected neural structures from the dura mater to the
deepest ventricles and down the brain stem.
Although psychoanalysis hasn’t fared well under empirical scrutiny, subsequent
methodologies aren’t without weaknesses, and Freud’s ideas continue
to remain topical, particularly his ideas concerning the unconscious.
In a 2008
Yale publication, John Bargh and Ezequiel Morsella write: “Freud’s
model of the unconscious as the primary guiding influence over daily life, even
today, is more specific and detailed than any to be found in contemporary
cognitive or social psychology.[2]”
And in accepting a Division
of Psychoanalysis Scientific Award, also in 2008, interdisciplinary
psychologist/neurologist Allan Schore, said: “After a century of disconnection, psychoanalysis is returning to its
biological and psychological sources, and this re-integration is generating a
palpable surge of energy.[3]”
Awareness, even our broader notion of 'consciousness'
alone does not explain the mind. What we think of as “self” far exceeds what is
intentional and reflective in the individual – it’s also perceptual, evaluative
and emotional, seated in structures of the brain inactive during conscious
thought.
Jaques
Lacan, a Freudian/neo-Freudian and a giant in the field, believed the beauty of
analysis was that it could explain what science and philosophy failed to.
Paradoxically, it has been the integration of these fields that has resurrected
Freudian interpretations and produced the happy lexical marriage: neuropsycho, or psychoneuro, and exciting sister disciplines: neuropsychoanalysis,
neuropsychopharmacology, and psychoneuroimmunology (it’s real, check out this book that explores how intersubjective ideas about self
and other lead to illness.)
As
it turns out, Freud’s diagnosis of Bertha P. was specious, but her symptoms
were not. Mary Tudor, "Bloody Mary" is reported to have had a false
pregnancy, the phenomenon’s clinical name is psuedocyesis and the condition
has been observed in otherwise sane and stable women from Hippocrates’ Greece
to modern day Rochester, New York.
The
neuropsycho explanation for this, explained in this 2005 NY Times article, is twofold:
firstly, pseudocyesis is seated in an unconscious emotional drive to become
pregnant and/or that there is a kink in the mind-body feedback loop in the
brain, localized in the pregnancy hormone-producing pituitary. The
self-reinforcing loop working something like: conscious or unconscious pregnancy drive – surge in
prolactin and estrogen production – physiological changes (distended abdomen,
cessation of ovulation) – drive reinforcement – continued hormone fluctuation –
more physiological changes, etc. etc. false pregnancy.
Wow,
right?
Pseudocyesis
is simultaneously discomforting and miraculous, and standard shattering. If a
woman can believe she is pregnant for nine months and clutch her melon-sized
stomach in pain when she believes she’s in labor, then the door of possibilities - for mind over matter and alternative definitions of reality and truth - is wide open.
The
mind is open, the field of brain science is open, it’s a good time to be
mystified and lost in all the research. There’s an NYU lab that does bees, only
bees, with complex electronics, experimental results have implications for
perception in all animals, including humans. There are guys at Imperial College London feeding
volunteers magic mushrooms and interpreting fMRI scans through a
neuropsychoanalytic lens - for more, read: Mo Costandi's neurophilsophy blog on the Guardian site.
A
layperson keen on keeping things straight, might start making a list – a list
of convincing brain stories.
Why
not start with false pregnancy? Not specifically, pseudocyesis is rare and historically
creepy, but generally, with the awesome presentations of mind-body connectedness.
The world of psychosomatics is fascinating and rigorously documented – by
shamans and faith healers of all creeds and scientifically with studies on
the placebo effect.
Depression
researchers see so much of the placebo effect that they’re almost throwing up
their hands. It’s belief the treatment will work, conscious or unconscious, that
yields positive returns for patients. Does Prozac treat depression? Sure. Does
a sugar pill? Yep. Does the sugar pill work on hopeful patients even when they
know it’s only a sugar pill? Yes, it does.
If
the guy who faces flu season with a wholesome conviction he won’t get sick can
stay healthier, what about the smoker who deeply believes he won’t get cancer?
It would be ludicrous to deny evidence of the harmful effects of smoking. No,
no, cancer happens, but - what if - not for everyone?
The
range of derangements observable in the human animal is vast but most of us
are ordinary. The prosaic majority is normalizing and while there’s something
to be said for predictability and order, the potential that the body is
alterable through the mind is seductive. It’s certainly not hip to be the
outlier eschewing medical science, shouting about how illness can be prevented
or treated with a peculiar mind-body harmony – even if there are thousands of
years of corroborative stories.
It
might not be practical to live in a world without limits. But it’s colorful. What
bridges the conscious/unconscious and generates feedback loops in the body is a
complicated question but we’re shrooming in the lab, we might have answers on
this soon.
Perhaps in this period of un/underemployment and sporadic access to healthcare it might be wise to act in advance of the peer-reviewed journals. Eat oranges, drink water, and cultivate an abetting psychoneuro environment. You might stay healthy. Stranger things…
Perhaps in this period of un/underemployment and sporadic access to healthcare it might be wise to act in advance of the peer-reviewed journals. Eat oranges, drink water, and cultivate an abetting psychoneuro environment. You might stay healthy. Stranger things…
[1] Evans,
Dylan. “From Lacan to Darwin,” ed: Jonathan Gottschall and David Sloan Wilson, The
Literary Animal; Evolution and the Nature of Narrative, (Evanston:
Northwestern University Press: 2005) 38-55.
[2] Bargh, John A. and Ezequiel Morsella. “The
Unconscious Mind,” Perspectives on Psychological Science, Vol: 3, #1 (Yale:
2008) 73-79.
[3] Schore,
Allan N. “Paradigm Shift: The Right Brain and the Relational Unconscious,”
Official Publication of Division 39 of the American Psychological Association,
Volume: XXVIII, (No. 3, Summer 2008) 20-26.
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