Freud and Meaning, Part 2

In my last post I introduced Judith Levy's ideas on contemporary psychoanalysis and meaning. This post completes Judith's contribution. Judith is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst and can be reach at jslphd@aol.com and visited at http://www.JudithSchweigerLevy.com

You can find the first half of Judith's contribution here:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rethinking-psychology/201112/freud-and-meaning

Here is her concluding portion:

"The paradoxical idea that meaning is both created and found was first proposed in the post World War II years by Donald Winnicott, a British pediatrician and psychoanalyst who coined the terms 'holding environment,' 'transitional object' (colloquially known as 'security blanket), and 'transitional space.' He elaborated upon how what we construe as meaningful is highly subjective and involves a developmental trajectory influenced by the interaction between mothers and babies, and emphasized the importance of play in the development of creativity.

"If the mother (or parenting figure) is 'good enough' she provides a combination of both attunement to and inevitable frustration of her baby's needs and desires, which spark the development of the child's mind as well as a sense of agency, continuity, and self as distinct from that of the mother. As part of this process, mother and child 'create' each other. For the baby the particular interactions, behaviors, smells, facial expressions, touch, etc. of the mother are imbued with rudimentary meaning, but, paradoxically, the mother 'was waiting there to be created.'

"The importance of the baby's active agency in creating her particular mother is key, and when the child must eventually learn that her mother is separate from her, she invests aspects of her mother, herself and their relationship into a transitional object. Many adults are quite familiar with their children carrying around 'blankies' or other kinds of stuffed toys that take on tremendous importance and meaning. They help the child make the transition from feelings of ownership and oneness with mother to separateness and individuation.

"It's this process which allows the child to notice and enter the wider world, still holding on to a piece of 'mother.' Eventually it loses its meaning and is given up (though some people keep their 'blankies' well into college and beyond!) This is the prototypical process by which we all imbue meaning to our lives, rather than simply finding it. It's the beginning of constructing creative solutions to the fact that we all must come to terms with our lack of omnipotence, that we have limitations, are unable to possess everything we want and are helpless to control the inevitability of death. A transitional object bridges aspects of the mother's objective existence with aspects of the child's subjective creation of her.

"As I noted earlier, Winnicott sees play as a most important vehicle by which meaning is made. It allows for the continuing discovery and construction of the self and the world. 'In playing, the child manipulates external phenomena in the service of the dream, and invests (them) with dream meaning and feeling...'

"When children play they create meaning by actualizing their internal imaginary experiences by enacting them in the real world. Artists, writers, religions, use different symbolic vehicles to do the same. Play is a transitional phenomenon because it involves the coming together of inner psychic reality with the objective external world via the positive use of 'illusion.' It's both very serious, and very fun. In my experience, many people who have difficulty with creating meaning in their lives suffer from an inability to play fully or at all, and may struggle to construct a coherent narrative or story about themselves which feels centering and organizing.

"To me this is what meaning making is all about: the ability to bring inner vision to oneself and the world emanating from a spiral of evolving mutuality with another. It's a complex matter for some, and easier for others, depending upon a number of factors. I see my work as being about bringing my clients to a place in which they can play more fully, using our dialectic, interactive process to enable them - and myself as well! - to experience and to have both the freedom and the discipline to cultivate a sense of possibility and enhanced meaning. It's a continual work in progress.

"Eric raised some wonderful questions in an earlier post, such as why one parent may find his child's existence as meaningful, vs. another who finds it inconvenient; or what is the relationship between a person's passionate desire to be a writer and the moments when, as an eight year old, he was mesmerized by a particularly beautiful story; or how important it is to address the meaning and influence on a person's life of some particular moments of 'lightness of being' as a child during the liberation and subsequent occupation of Prague. These are the kinds of questions and issues absolutely addressed by psychoanalytic psychology all the time.

Psychoanalysis Essential Reads

Recasting Psychoanalysis in Existential Terms

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"I look forward to learning more about Eric's views concerning meaning and the overlaps and differences between noimetics and psychoanalytic psychology. As someone who uses my psychoanalytic understanding in a variety of areas, including therapy and life coaching, there is nothing more exciting to me than how the internet has allowed us all - therapists, neuroscientists, behaviorists, philosophers, psychologists, and artists - to dialogue with each other and to see how much overlap there actually is in what we each feel is meaningful and valuable."

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Eric Maisel, Ph.D., is a psychotherapist, bestselling author of 40 books, and widely regarded as America's foremost creativity coach. His latest book is Rethinking Depression: How to Shed Mental Health Labels and Create Personal Meaning (New World Library, February, 2012). He is the founder of noimetic psychology, the new psychology of meaning. Please visit Dr. Maisel at http://www.ericmaisel.com or contact him at ericmaisel@hotmail.com. You can learn more about noimetic psychology at http://www.entheosacademy.com/courses/7