What would Freud think of Twitter? After all, he really refined and capitalized on the whole concept of free association, would he find it useful or dangerous? It's one thing to lie on the couch and allow your stream of consciousness to flow with a trained analyst monitoring, containing and guiding these thoughts of our unconscious journey, but what would he think of unleashing our id anytime, anyplace to anyone whose only credential is only that of "follower." Could these followers replace the Freuds of today and bring psychoanalysis to a screeching halt? Doubtful, but what is this preoccupation with putting ourselves out there every chance we get?
Social Media has encouraged and enabled us to communicate with the world through sound bites. Twitter gives us 140 characters to make our point. Texting is more generous with 160. We converse, fight, showboat, threaten, brag, pontificate, educate, share, and advertise constantly within these parameters. This instant access to the masses is an amazing tool for disseminating information. We get tweeted about a sale, new products, breaking news, and instructions during an emergency. Without Twitter, we would have had very limited information about the violent response to protestors of the 2009 Presidential election in Iran. Its value for getting out information to people is not really the debate; its role in encouraging unbridled narcissism is.
Psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut is best known for his development of the self-psychology model. A theoretical framework of narcissism rooted in the idea that parental lack of empathy during development impedes people's ability to regulate their self-esteem. This manifests in narcissistic injury and feelings of inferiority. Despite this, such individuals may appear grandiose and present as anything but, inferior. In treatment, the therapist's role is to provide "mirroring" to the patient through empathy, in hopes of correcting the narcissistic injury. In life, people's self-esteem relies heavily on the responses of others to validate (or invalidate) their experiences. So in theory and practice---if a therapist is able to "mirror" the client's internal experience it provides a correction to the injury or a process for the patient to express the feelings that come with the failure to do so (in present or past relationships).
In a contained setting this is one thing, but if you apply the general principal to the idea of Twitter and social media, you see a technological curve ball that neither Freud nor Kohut probably took into account. What happens when we are bombarded (or are bombarding) each other constantly with personal information about ourselves? In these circumstances, we are not talking about shared interests per se or conversing back and forth about our shared love of cooking. The "narcissistic tweeter" is the one that needs to tell us what they had for breakfast. They are tweeting that for a reason. What might those reasons be?
Is this Tweet a fragment of their unconscious that needs expression and interpretation? Should we "mirror" them with understanding and share that we had pancakes too? What if the information gets ignored, overlooked and the tweet is not about breakfast at all, but a lonely person who needs validation that they are not alone-but since they are tweeting about breakfast and no on cares----the silent response speaks volumes and reinforces that feeling (not just by one person but perhaps hundreds). The narcissistic tweeter tweets for validation and the follower is the mirror (or not).
Most likely no one really thinks too deeply about the possible consequences and deeper meaning of a tweet and psychologists often are accused of over analyzing things---but maybe it is time to think a bit more about the wants and needs represented in those 140 characters. We as a culture seem obsessed with our own self-importance and 24/7 expression feeds this grandiosity. In Kohut's view, this modality just feeds our defense against insecurity and keeps us tethered to others for validation and regulation of our self-esteem. From a free associative standpoint, even Psychoanalysis has its limit (50 minutes 3-4 times per week.) Texting and tweeting seems cater to and release our id and super-ego but where is the regulation to all this purging---it seems that our followers become our ego and serve this purpose.
Are you a narcissistic tweeter or texter? Do you enable others with your willingness to consume every little detail about their life? If so, maybe it is time to rein it in.
Think before you text or tweet: Why am I sending out this piece of information? Is it for me, or my followers benefit? What does this sound bite really mean to me and what does it mean to share it with others? What kind of response do I want from others? Is tweeting/texting the best way to get my needs met? How would I feel getting a tweet/text like this? Why should anyone care about this? Why do I?
It will take longer to ask yourself these questions than to type out your tweet but you may get more insight into your emoticons and make more of an impact on your self-esteem.
