 Starbucks Changes its Logo. Psychoanalytic Thoughts on the Song of the Siren. By Janet Oakes March 2011 This morning something’s different, the tiniest ripple disturbs an ocean of contentment, Starbucks has introduced their new logo (March 7, 2011). It doesn’t say coffee anymore because the company is branching into other products, like alcohol. (Yes, you can see some of their new products at the liquor store. In countries where liquor laws are less stringent, some Starbuctheir coffee shops are beginning to serve alcohol.) The old logo’s design uses the circle within a circle, which has been an archetypal symbol for life from time immemorial and across cultures. The primal image of the breast and the nipple underpins other circle symbols from the natural environment, the sun and the moon. They represent life giving power, the mother, wholeness, and completeness associated with the early pleasure and satisfaction of suckling at the breast. Starbucks image goes further in inducing our deepest unconscious longings to return to a happy, blissful state. The siren lures us back to the oceanic state, sings us into our regressive desire to return to the womb. Sex sells, the mermaid has two tails which she holds open and apart with her hands, outside the frame of the circle (outside our consciousness) suggesting her welcoming us into her vagina, the passageway back to that primal sea. The symmetrical, curvaceous shape of her body defined by the undulating waves of her hair hypnotizes us into a blissful trance, Freud’s oceanic state. In psychoanalysis the aesthetic experience is understood as what resonates with the pleasurable rhythms of the body: the rhythmic movement of sucking at the breast, being rocked and sung lullabies, the rhythm of sexual intercourse, the song of the mother’s heart beat in the womb - where all needs are provided for, everything is given, there is no frustration or pain. Starbucks logo elicits all these deep meanings. The face of the mermaid/seductress/mother is smiling, gentle, inviting, accepting. And to merge with her would mean sharing her crown of completeness, complete satisfaction- an omnipotent state of nirvana. The older logo’s ‘lifesaver’ structure, the circle within the circle, carries multiple over determined associations and meanings, we look through a porthole, a window from within a womb like vessel that carries us along, or find a ‘life preserver ring’ if we feel we a drowning in the troubled seas of life. The life preserver will save us, Starbucks will throw us a life line, a reprieve - the coffee, familiarity and comfort will save us, buoy us up. The new logo, without this life ring or porthole (portal back to the womb), doesn’t need the outer circle to cling to; we are already so conditioned to familiar pleasures, we can enter directly into the inner circle of the call back to the womb. The product is moving from coffee, the stimulant effect, extra resource of adrenaline needed to combat danger and face challenges and the breast like comfort foods, pastries and sweets - to the narcotic lulling of alcohol, with it’s even more powerful, primitive addictive pull. Oh Mama! Hoag's Galaxy  Thoughts on Art Spiegelman's Maus and Michael Frayn's Copenhagen by Janet Oakes April 2007 Maus and Copenhagen were most interesting readings for our last 'Reason and Passion' class in light of our ongoing debate regarding optimism and pessimism about the human condition. We end on a decidedly pessimistic note with these works that address two of the most horrific tragedies of the 20th century, the Holocaust and the Atom bomb, both irrefutable evidence of human aggression and destructiveness. The enlightenment ideals of reason and progress are shattered in the wake of these catastrophic events. Yet both Spiegelman and Frayn bear testament to the resilience and brilliance of the human spirit by creating beautiful, complex works of art that grapple with and transform these horrors, helping us to struggle for insight and understanding rather than turn away in apathy and despair. The class noted that these are only two examples of the extremes of man's inhumanity, other examples were Pol Pot's genocide in Cambodia, neighbor slaughtering neighbor in Yugoslavia, the decimation of our first nations peoples, and the devastation and destruction (from drugs) in Vancouver's Downtown East Side. Maus and Copenhagen pick up the questions regarding morality that thread throughout the tapestry of our readings (Kant, Charles Taylor, Jane Jacobs). Are we all culpable by ignoring/allowing these horrors? Are we all capable of committing these atrocities? Why does man turn against man in these ways? In Maus and Copenhagen we see the limits of reason, a perversion of reason, reason utilized to increase the efficiency of destruction. Art Spiegelman's layered, two part, graphic memoir, Maus, chronicles his parents story as they endured and survived the Holocaust, and also describes his difficult relationship with his father and the intergenerational effects of the trauma. Maus portrays the brutal efficiency of the concentration camps: the order, the careful record keeping. This perversion of reason, focusing obsessively on detail and efficiency (like the privileging of economy, performance and productivity over human life that Dickens critiques in Hard Times) seems to distance those committing the atrocities from the reality of their actions. Mechanistically following procedures provides a sense of competence and achievement, but reason is only applied instrumentally, the Nazis are in denial about the profound irrationality at the heart of their actions. Spiegelman often mentions the apprehension he feels related to trying to express these inexpressible horrors. Like the Nazis, he gets lost in detail; he also has ways of distancing to make the trauma more manageable. His work is Art Therapy, turning passive to active, not by identifying with the aggressor, but by drawing. The drawing is masterful. He masters chaos and destruction, unspeakable horror, and transforms it into a work of art. He titrates the trauma, breaking it down into manageable units, containing it in the small boxes of the comic book format, so he/we only have to look at one little piece at a time. By presenting the characters as animals, cartoon classics, cat and mouse, he makes it more accessible. It is in the nature of cats and mice to be predators and prey. This displacement disguises and distances the truth that it is also in the nature of humans to be predators and prey, that human beings cruelly brutalize and murder other human beings. Eros and Thanatos do battle through Spiegelman. He works through the horrific details of the holocaust, his mother's suicide, his survivor guilt and struggle with depression. Maus, his triumph of creation over destruction, tells the story of how love can conquer. Just as Maus employs aspects of reason to remember, reconstruct and understand past events, Michael Frayn's characters (Heisenberg, the leading physicist of the German atomic bomb team, his old teacher/mentor Bohr and Bohr's wife Margrethe) meet after death in Copenhagen to try to remember, reconstruct, and understand what had transpired when they met in Nazi occupied Denmark. Their conversation provokes our questions about their motivations, innocence and quilt and questions about how self interest limits of our own morality. The postmodern form of the play, replaying three possible versions rather than following a linear narrative, parallels the physics of these scientists. Nothing can be determined with certainty in Quantum Mechanics, only a statistical probability can be known. The 'Uncertainty Principle', explains that it is not possible to determine the position and momentum of a particle at the same instant, and 'Complimentarity' shows things to have contradictory properties (i.e. light is both waves and particles). The play attests to how these paradoxes also exist when trying to understand human actions and intentions, as Heisenberg says, " it's like being in a dream. You can never quite focus the precise details of the scene around you." (7) The play also explores the indeterminacy of the human memory; Bohr, " a curious sort of diary memory is." (6) As Frayn says in the postscript, "What people say about their own motives and intentions, even if they are not caught in the traps that entangled Heisenberg, is always subject to question - as subject to question as what anybody else says about them. Thoughts and intentions, even one's own - perhaps one's own most of all - remain shifting and elusive." (99) These Physicists thought and worked at the cutting edge of science and reason. But even these most intelligent humans struggle with blinders, selfishness and even destructiveness. They have difficulty facing the profoundly immoral underlying purpose for their science, the development of atomic weapons. Maus and Copenhagen reveal the limits of human reason, how denial flaws reason at its foundation. With the Holocaust and the Atom Bomb, the unexamined premise that is necessary to kill other groups, nationalities or races reveals a profound irrationality in human nature. What is this irrational emotion or "passion" at the heart of us? Is it fear, fear of the 'other', or aggression, a murderous rage? Do these human atrocities confirm Freud's theory that Thanatos, an aggressive, destructive drive, is a fundamental part of human nature? Are the tensions between our individual survival instinct and the needs of the group irreconcilable? In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud calls our tendency to project our hostility and destructiveness onto another nearby group 'the narcissism of small differences'. Heisenberg expresses something of this when he says, " We have one set of obligations to the world in general, and we have other sets. Never to be reconciled, to our fellow countrymen, to our neighbors, to our friends, to our family, to our children." (78) Resolving the conflict between these loyalties and moral dilemmas, between concern for one's own survival, protection of those closest to one, and the good of mankind as a whole are the great challenges to human reason. Michael Frayn describes the limits of reason in his postscript, " - the whole possibility of saying or thinking anything about the world, even the most objective, abstract aspects of it studied by the natural sciences, depends on human observation, and is subject to the limitations which the human mind imposes, this uncertainty in our thinking is fundamental to the nature of the world." (99)  Commentary on Sigmund Freud’s “Civilization and Its Discontents” By Janet Oakes April 2007 Freud wrote Civilization and Its Discontents in 1929, toward the end of his life. He was suffering from cancer of the palette and was in constant pain. This, and the post WWI historical time create the context for his pessimistic view of the irresolvable tension between the individual and civilization. The Part 1 of the book continues his sociological application of psychoanalysis from The Future of an Illusion (1927), his analysis of religion as a collective neurosis that supports civilization, functioning as a collective super ego. I agree with his view of religion as mankind’s defense against feelings of helplessness, a defense that keeps man infantile and dependent on an illusory father/God. The conflict between individual’s instincts and the restrictions of civilization may be traced back to Freud's earliest psychological writings. His early work on the psychosexual stages of development included aggressive or destructive drives bound to Libido in the form of sadism (oral, urethral, anal). He still considered aggression as part of the self-preservative instincts when is arose in response to frustration of, or conflict between the ego instincts (hunger) and the object instincts (love). Not until 1920 in Beyond the Pleasure Principle did Freud posit a death instinct separate and opposed to the self-preservative instinct. In Civilization and Its Discontents Freud describes both 1) the conflicts between our sexual urges and the social rules that help us survive and 2) Thanatos, a primary self-destructive death instinct that has devastating social repercussions when it is directed outwards. War, genocide, murder are all evidence for Freud’s theory that man is not innately ‘good’, as Rousseau believed. “The element of truth behind all this, which people are so ready to disavow, is that men are not gentle creatures who want to be loved, and who at the most can defend themselves if they are attacked; they are, on the contrary, creatures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness. As a result, their neighbor is for them not only a potential helper or sexual object, but also someone who tempts them to satisfy their aggressiveness on him, to exploit his capacity for work without compensation, to use him sexually without his consent, to seize his possessions, to humiliate him, to cause him pain, to torture and to kill him. Who, in the face of all his experience of life and of history, will have the courage to dispute this assertion?” (69) Freud says it is impossible to answer the age-old question, “What is the purpose of human life?” that we only know that men strive after happiness. He catalogues our ways of avoiding pain and seeking pleasure: intoxication, sublimation of libido into work, the displacement of libido onto enjoyment of beauty, etc. Civilization helps protect men against nature, regulates human relations and encourages man's higher mental activities: intellectual, scientific, and artistic achievements. Eros and the self-preservative instincts contribute to civilization; as we can survive better by working together, and sexual love (the prototype for all happiness) unites us in couples, families, and groups. But restrictive sexual mores contribute to man’s “discontent” “As regards the sexually mature individual, the choice of an object is restricted to the opposite sex, and most extra-genital satisfactions are forbidden as perversions. The requirement, demonstrated in these prohibitions, that there shall be a single kind of sexual life for everyone, disregards the dissimilarities, whether innate or acquired, in the sexual constitution of human beings; it cuts off a fair number of them from sexual enjoyment, and so becomes the source of serious injustice.” (60) Civilization provides us with greater security through law and order and mutually agreed upon social values, but always at a cost - “The existence of this inclination to aggression, which we can detect in ourselves and justly assume to be present in others, is the factor which disturbs our relations with our neighbour and which forces civilization into such a high expenditure. In consequence of this primary mutual hostility of human beings, civilized society is perpetually threatened with disintegration. The interest of work in common would not hold it together; instinctual passions are stronger than reasonable interests. Civilization has to use its utmost efforts in order to set limits to man’s aggressive instincts and to hold the manifestations of them in check by psychical reaction formations. Hence, therefore, the use of methods intended to incite people into identifications and aim-inhibited relationships of love, hence the restriction upon sexual life. (72) Freud sees how difficult it is for man to give up the satisfaction of aggression and observes that groups offer an outlet for it through sanctioned hostility against intruders. “It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestations of their aggressiveness.” He calls this tendency to feud against adjoining territories and communities ‘the narcissism of small differences’. Racism, anti-Semitism, etc. are also examples of this. Freud sees aggression as a fundamental part of human instinctual disposition that is the greatest threat to civilization. Civilization is a process in the service of Eros, whose purpose is to unite people, families, and nations into one great unity of mankind. Eros serves the preservation of the species through reproduction. Civilization is a fragile compromise solution in the struggle between Eros and Death, between the instinct of life and the instinct of destruction. “In the developmental process of the individual, the program of the pleasure principle, which consists in finding the satisfaction of happiness, is retained as the main aim. Integration in, or adaptation to, a human community appears as a scarcely avoidable condition, which must be fulfilled before this aim of happiness can be achieved. The fateful question for the human species seems to be whether and to what extent their cultural development will succeed in mastering the disturbance of their communal life by the human instinct of aggression and self-destruction.” Freud shows a profound and original understanding of human nature. By the time of writing Civilization and Its Discontents he is in his Post Enlightenment phase. He dares to look beyond the hopeful ideals of progress and evolution, to stare into the unknown and possibly bleak unfolding of story of man. See also The Future of an Illusion by Sigmund Freud, and for a current (April 2007) treatise of the same theme; God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens. “In the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris’s recent bestseller, The End Of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope’s awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix.”  Comments on Charles Taylor’s "The Malaise of Modernity" By Janet Oakes April 2007 For me, the word authenticity is associated with Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, the humanist psychologists who helped us understand what people need to become authentic and fulfill their fullest potential. Their work in the 1950’s and 60’s contributed to the human potential movement that spawned the ‘me’ generation, permissive society, or culture of narcissism Charles Taylor reacts to and criticizes in The Malaise of Modernity. Taylor tracks the development of an ‘ethic of authenticity’ from the individualism of the late eighteenth century through Descartes, Locke, Rousseau 'self determining freedom', J. S. Mill, etc. as a valid, fundamental human ethic, to it’s debasement by the extreme individualism of Nietzsche and the relativism and deconstructivism of the post moderns, Foucault, etc. He explains and seeks to rectify the distortion of the ethic of authenticity, which is both cause, and symptom of the sense of decline experienced in contemporary culture. He describes modern ‘authenticity’ as a deeply subjective new form of inwardness, cut off from a moral sense or source such as God. He sees the plight of modern man as tragic, with one redeeming feature, the freedom to choose. But when ‘horizons of significance’ are abolished the freedom to choose is trivialized and stripped of meaning, choice is only about self-fulfillment. We are reduced to choices like what brand of jeans to buy. Taylor describes a sort of Waiting for Godot condition that results when the Ethic of Authenticity is debased, “…alone in a silent universe, without intrinsic meaning, condemned to…lives without meaningful choice as there are no crucial issues”. I was not satisfied with his explanation of why modern man succumbs to this condition, although his emphasis on instrumental reason as a contributing factor made sense. Our industrial-technological-bureaucratic society and it’s economic/power interests use instrumental reason through advertising to creates false needs, stirs up fear, greed and desire then promise an illusory “self fulfillment”. Taylor’s supposition that people’s lives were less selfish and banal in earlier historical times seems highly unlikely to me. Today we are under the sway of instrumental reason used by capitalism, big business, science, etc., but in previous ages humans were manipulated and controlled in a similar way by the domination of the church. It seems that throughout history, survival has been the all-consuming preoccupation for most of mankind and that only the privileged few (like the philosophers and students at Plato’s Symposium) have had the luxury of pursuing a greater sense of significance and meaning. Where is the evidence for greater ‘heroism’ and sense of purpose in previous times? Were the serfs in feudal times more heroic or altruistic than us? Taylor maintains that in past ages identity was a non issue (as it was preordained by ones role in the social hierarchy) so a sense of significance came from something outside of oneself, whereas modern man seeks a sense of significance by looking into the ‘depths of his being’ and carving out a sense of individual identity from there (Herder). Again, I have some doubt about this assertion, the dictum, “Know thyself,” suggests that introspection into one’s inner world, intentions and motives and interest in a sense of personal identity (beyond a fixed role in the social fabric) were a part of the human experience long before the modern era. Taylor asserts that to make moral choices as authentic people we need to be recognized by others, we cannot exist in a vacuum and these relationships, committed relationships where people are not replaceable commodities, are important in creating the ‘horizons of significance’ that give our lives meaning. His Catholic morality around sexual issues, marriage, abortion and homosexuality, leaks through in this part of his book. Without clearly stating it, he implies that divorce, multiple relationships and homosexuality are inferior ways of expressing our individuality and authenticity. He says some choices have to be held in higher esteem that others or all choices lose significance and are trivialized. Although I agree with him that we cannot form our identities and become authentic in isolation, that human life unfolds within a “dialogical context” which is fundamental to a sense of meaning in human life (developmental psychology and neurobiology, mirror neurons, etc, substantiate this), and although I also agree with his criticism of extreme individualism and his communitarian view that community and participation in civic life are important (like Jane Jacobs), I think it is useful for people in communities to struggle to agree upon values and priorities beyond those dictated by the market place, the balance sheet, and the bottom line) - I don’t agree with his implied, “family values” moral stand on these sexual/social issues (divorce, abortion, homosexuality). Taylor states, “Over the last two centuries, western culture has identified one of the important potentialities of human life. Like other facets of modern individualism the ideal of authenticity points us towards a more self responsible form of life.” (He’s reminiscent of Kant here). Despite how he exemplifies these ideals in his own life, by being actively involved in politics and civic life, I sense a conservatism and romanticized nostalgia that hints at (what Freud might see reflected in his devout Catholicism) an unconscious reluctance to give up the past (childhood?) and live life without the comforting illusion of a parental god.  Oedipal Issues in Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra", Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler" and Foucault's "I, Pierre Riviere, having slaughtered my mother, my sister and my brother…" By Janet Oakes October 2006. Image from Antony and Cleopatra, Bogdanov/Thavoris English Shakespeare Company October 1998 Donald Cooper photographer. In this paper I will discuss three characters from our readings whose “irrational passions” are particular to and revealing of unresolved Oedipal conflicts. I will use the term ‘Oedipal’ to denote the complex in both the male and female characters instead of introducing the term ‘Electra’ which is sometimes used to denote the female version of the complex. The pre-oedipal stages of psychosexual development and the relative success or failure of early attachment needs, help lay the foundation for successfully traversing the Oedipal conflict. Successful resolution of Oedipal conflict helps individuals to relinquish the pleasure principle sufficiently to delay gratification and adapt to the reality principal. Eros binds Thanatos; the loving and aggressive drives can then be used and sublimated allowing individuals to fulfill their potential and achieve satisfaction in the areas of love and work. Unresolved Oedipal issues leave individuals under the sway of the repetition compulsion; unconscious patterns are reenacted in endless variations of rivalries, impossible love triangles, pyrrhic victories, guilt, and self-punishment/sabotage. This paper will trace the indications of unresolved Oedipal issues and their tragic impact on the unfolding of character and events in I, Pierre Riviere, having slaughtered my mother, my sister and my brother…, Antony and Cleopatra, and Hedda Gabler. Pierre Rivera’s memoir describes his family environment; he is shuffled between his parent’s two households as one more pawn in their battle until his mother abandons him when he is ten. He portrays the relentless escalating conflict between his parents as a threat to his father’s (and by association his own) survival. His mother rejects Pierre, incidentally, almost as an extension of her reviled husband, so he never had an adequate nurturing attachment with her. “ I was witness to all [their] quarrels, I can say that I was not greatly attached to my Mother.” (63) This unstable living situation hindered Pierre’s possibility of working through his Oedipal conflicts. His unconscious Oedipal wishes toward his mother were contaminated by his fear of her destructive hostility. This frustration of normal needs for maternal affection and libidinal attachment may have intensified and distorted his erotic longings, “carnal passion troubled me: I believed that it was unworthy of me ever to think of indulging in it. Above all I had a horror of incest, which caused me to shun approaching the women in my family. When I thought I had come too close to them I made signs with my hand to repair the harm I believed I had done.” (102) Pierre’s fear of sexuality extends to all females, his grandmothers, his sisters and even female animals such as hens. “They said too, that I had a horror of other women…”(202) He had the delusion that his sexual feelings exuded a noxious substance that would pollute and perhaps impregnate women, as though his mere his physical proximity would defile them. Pierre’s defense against his helpless frustration in the face of these overwhelming conflicts was a ‘reaction formation’, a fierce, protective allegiance to and identification with his father. Living in this emotionally threatening environment derails Pierre’s progression through the normal Oedipal stages; i.e. wishing to marry mother and eliminate father as a rival - castration anxiety - gradually relinquishing murderous wishes toward father and the desire for mother – learning instead to internalize father as an ego ideal with the hope of finding a woman like mother for himself one day. His mother’s ongoing destructive attacks on his father and rejection of Pierre cause him to fear castration more from her than from his father. His identification with his father does not proceed from fearing castration by him - to introjecting the rules of the father - to forming a healthy super-ego/conscience. As a result his sense of morality is distorted, despite his strong incest prohibition. Perhaps to assuage his guilt about his unconscious incestuous wishes, he plans to become a priest, he says, “then later my ideas changed and I thought I should be as other men. Never the less I displayed singularities. My schoolmates noticed this and laughed at me. I ascribed their contempt to some acts of stupidity…I had worked the land with my Father but that did not suit my inclination at all. I had ideas of glory”. (101) Pierre’s developmental challenges contribute to and aggravate his problems with sexuality and with women, constitutional deficits along with the effects of environmental deprivation impair his capacity to function socially, “I saw how people looked upon me, most of them laughed at me. I applied myself diligently to find out what I should do to stop this and live in society, but I did not have tact enough to do that, I could not find words to say, and I could not appear sociable with young people of my own age, it was above all when I met girls in company that I lacked the words to address them” (103). His experiences of being ridiculed and mocked magnify the effects of maternal rejection and leave him feeling persecuted and inferior. He tries to compensate for these feelings with grandiose fantasies. Pierre’s wish to achieving “glory” becomes bound up with his obsessive plan to ‘heroically’ save his father by killing his mother. He uses the defense mechanism of denial to ward off the incestuous wishes toward his mother and negates the murderous impulses towards his father by displacing them onto his mother. With tragic inevitability the internal psychic pressure of Pierre’s unresolved Oedipal conflicts become unbearable and he is driven by his impotent rage and his delusions of achieving “glory” to kill his mother, and brother and sister. Antony and Cleopatra explores the tension between reason and passion through Mark Antony’s character. He is in conflict, like the Oedipal son - torn between Caesar/ Rome, representing reason and the rival Father and Cleopatra/Egypt, representing passion and the lover/Mother. Antony had a filial relationship to his ruler, Julius Caesar, and Cleopatra was Julius’s lover and bore him a son. So Antony enacts the unconscious fantasy of triumphing over the father figure, who is now dead, and winning the mother by having an intense erotic relationship with Cleopatra. He escapes from the demands and responsibilities of the world (Rome) to the fertile valley of the Nile, Egypt, a more feminine, primordial place, a kingdom with an earlier history, like childhood and infancy. The seductive scene of Cleopatra on her barge promises a world of endless, voluptuous delights, She is a most triumphant lady The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, Burned on the water- the poop was beaten gold; Purple sails and so perfumed that The winds were lovesick with them…(37) The frequent imagery of feasting and sex together suggest that oral issues colour Antony’s Oedipal struggles. Pompey tells him: Your fine Egyptian cookery shall have The fame. I have heard that Julius Caesar grew fat with feasting there. (50) And Enobarbus says: “Mark Antony. He will to his Egyptian dish again.” (52) In this regressive fantasy world Antony he can gratify all his libidinal wishes. Caesar calls Antony his competitor (Oedipal rival) and criticizes his immature unwillingness to delay gratification: … ‘tis to be chid- As we rate boys who, being mature in knowledge, Pawn their experience to their present pleasure And so rebel to judgment.” (21) But for a while it seems that Antony can fulfill his fantasy of being the omnipotent king with his mother queen. Caesar describes the extravagant scene of Antony and Cleopatra: I’ the marketplace on a tribunal silvered, Cleopatra and himself on chairs of gold Were publicly enthroned; at the feet sat Caesarian, whom they call my father’s son, And all the unlawful issue of their lust Since they have made between them. Unto her He gave the stablishment of Egypt, made her Of lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia, Absolute queen (69) Anthony wishes to avoid the reality principle, represented by Rome, to avoid having to compromise and live under the authority of his new ruler, Octavius Caesar. He wants to be free of the limitations, responsibilities and expectations placed on him. He wants to abandon himself to the pleasure principle, to the fantasy of the ever abundant and giving mother, the endlessly gratifying breast – Cleopatra: Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety. Other women cloy The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry Where most she satisfies. (39) Even choosing to fight by sea rather than land his reveals his desire to return to the watery feminine element, the womb, the unconscious, ‘la mer’, the mother. Antony By sea, [I’ll fight] by sea. Enobarbus Most worthy sir, you therein throw away The absolute soldiership you have by land, Distract your army, which doth most consist Of war-marked footmen, leave unexecuted Your own renowned knowledge, quite forgo The way which promises assurance, and Give up yourself merely to chance and hazard From firm security Antony I’ll fight at sea (75) Antony is compelled, against all argument and reason, to abandon his element, the ‘firm security’ of solid ground, his strengths, his independence, and to regress to the watery world, back to the mother, to Cleopatra, to the sea. His soldiers entreat him, “do not fight by sea,…Let th’ Egyptians and the Phoenicians go a-ducking” (76) When Antony insists, they complain: “so our leaders led, and we are women’s men”. He has relinquished his capacity for rational decision-making and his responsibility to his troops. When the battle is lost because he follows when Cleopatra’s ship retreats, he laments: Oh whither hast thou led me Egypt Cleopatra O my lord, my lord, Forgive my fearful sails! I little thought You would have followed. Antony Egypt, thou knew’st too well My heart was to thy rudder tied by th’ strings, And thou shouldst tow me after. O’er my spirit Thy full supremacy thou knew’st and that Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods Command me. (81) Antony is in the grip of his adhesive attachment to the mother figure. But his omnipotent fantasy that he can rest forever in the lap of libidinal pleasure begins to collapses as the consequences of his errors in judgment pile up. His aggression, previously harnessed and sublimated in his warrior role, turns against himself in shame and quilt and against Cleopatra in devaluing attacks…. Antony O misery on’t! -the wise good seel our eyes, In our own filth drop our clear judgments, make us Adore our errors, laugh at’s while we strut To our confusion Cleopatra O, is’t come to this? Antony I found you as a morsel cold upon Dead Caesar’s trencher; nay, you were a fragment (89) Antony projects his bad feeling/guilt onto Cleopatra, turning her from being a sumptuous feast into an unappetizing, cold morsel. This biting oral attack expresses part of the aggression left unbound by his unresolved Oedipal conflicts. “The law of psychic overdetermination – that is, that multiple psychic sources may exist for a single phenomenon of psychic expression…” John Klauber Illusion and Spontaneity in Psychoanalysis (125) propels the destructive events ending in the double suicide of Antony and Cleopatra. “[Persons] engage in promiscuous relationships, have accidents, and respond with rage whenever they meet up with situations likely to arouse their envy, jealousy, or rivalry. In this group [of persons] the Oedipus complex dominates the scene.” Adam Limentani (277). This description characterizes both Mark Antony and Pierre Riviere, but Hedda Gabbler aces them both with her propensity for envy and spoiling. She is a ‘Father’s daughter’ and identifies with her (phallic) father through their shared love of horse back riding and shooting pistols. Hedda penis envy is also revealed by her aversion to the idea of having a baby. She does not want a baby either as a substitute for a penis, or as a fulfillment of femaleness. She holds her husband in distain, it seems no other man can live up to her Father. Her mother is never mentioned, Hedda may feel she has triumphed over her in the Oedipal struggle which makes it makes it hard for her to relinquish the father as her libidinal object. She treats the motherly Miss Tesman with contempt and generally relates to women as rivals to be envied, insulted and destroyed. Her envy is expressed when she is telling Thea how she wishes for once to “have the power to mould human destiny” Hedda… “Oh, if you could only understand how poor I am. And fate has made you so rich! (Clasps her passionately in her arms) I think I must burn your hair off, after all.” (45) Hedda and Judge Brack speak of the advantages of triangular relationships. (28) Hedda’s repetition compulsion impels her to recreate the Oedipal triangle; when Thea is about to sit beside Lovborg, she says, “No, thank you, my little Thea! Not there! You’ll be good enough to come over here to me. I will sit between you.” (41) Thea is happy and excited that she has inspired Lovborg’s work and Hedda can’t stand it, she literally comes between them. Her destructive envy compels her to push Lovborg, a reformed alcoholic, to drink… This, as can be anticipated, is the beginning of his downfall. Hedda, in her jealous spite, is driven to destroy Lovborg’s manuscript. She sees it as the product Thea and Lovborg’s love, the child/baby of their intercourse. “Now I am burning your child, Thea! -Burning it curly-locks (throwing one or two more quires into the stove) Your child and Eilert Lovborg’s (throws the rest in) I am burning - I am burning your child.” (59) Hedda’s destructive rampage continues; she gives Lovborg the pistol to kill himself, saying: “At last a deed worth doing. I say there is beauty in this.” (41) Her wish for ‘artistic control’ is not satisfied as Lovborg kills himself in a messy, scandalous way. Finally, her hopeless despair drives her to kill herself. The successful working through and resolution of the Oedipal stage allows for a relinquishment of grandiose, omnipotent wishes and an ability to form compromise solutions without being overwhelmed with frustration, anger and destructiveness. Hedda, Pierre, and Antony have not achieved this; they cannot tolerate ambivalence, mourn losses, and adapt to the demands of the reality principle. Their aggressive, destructive energies are not muted, sublimated and transformed under the sway of Eros. Thanatos wins out and their unresolved Oedipal conflicts drive their unconscious choices, which end tragically in murder, suicide and death. WORKS CITED
The Transtheoretical Model of Change 12/24/2011
 The Transtheoretical Model of Change by Janet Oakes February 2005 James Prochaska, Ph.D. and Carlo DiClemente, Ph.D developed the Transtheoretical Model of Change. It evolved out of Prochaska's comparative analysis of 18 major theories of psychotherapy and behavior change. He identified nine process that can produce a change in behavior: consciousness raising, social liberation, emotional arousal, self-evaluation, commitment, counter conditioning, environmental control, reward, and helping relationships. In further studying these processes with Dr. DiClemente in 1982 they noticed 6 stages of change, or phases individuals go through to change their problematic behavior. These stages of change are the aspects of the Transtheoretical Model that we have discussed more extensively in class. These stages are:
These stages of change are often diagramed on a circle showing where a client might enter treatment, relapse, and come back into treatment of complete treatment. I feel the model is very useful for helping to identify what stage a person and therefore what interventions would be most appropriate and potentially helpful. It is a model that can assist us as counselors in our task of meeting the client where they are. Recognizing that a client is at the precontempaltive stage allows for a more compassionate and accepting understanding of the client than labeling them as being in denial or unwilling. And with this understanding we can choose interventions that may help the person move to the contemplative stage. For example, we could use consciousness raising by providing information about the nature and risk of their behavior and the value and drawbacks of safer behavioral alternatives. In other words providing education can be helpful at this stage of change whereas trying to put together a plan of action would not be helpful and may in fact be destructive, driving the person away and discouraging them from seeking treatment in the future. Motivational Interviewing involves a variety of therapeutic techniques and principles that work hand in hand with the Transtheoretical Model of Change. Many of these techniques are especially helpful to clients in the contemplative stage of change as they identify and intensify the ambivalence the client feels about the pros and cons of continuing their substance use or finding alternative options. The discomfort of the discrepancies the person is experiencing at this stage can be used to help motivate them to move to the Preparation and Action Stages. Awareness about the stresses that may threaten clients after they have stopped their substance using behavior when they are at the maintenance stage is very helpful in working with clients to prevent relapse. 12 Step programs can be very useful in providing a sense of community and belonging or 'helping relationships' so well as learning and strengthen the new non using behaviors by teaching and helping others or 'social liberation' in the language of the model. Awareness of the "stages of change" can help us to be open and flexible in our thinking, truly client centered, paying attention to the client allows the flexibility to be able to see / understand clients at different stages that they move trough not as fixed in one place, willing or nor willing, good or bad. So I do see the model as useful. It is only as useful as the person using it, can also become rigid if one starts to listen more to the model than to the client. We need to focus on the client so that if they are ready to skip a stage and go to the action stage we can be right there with them and not miss opportunities to help clients or get in the way because we expect things to go in a particular order at a particular pace. Harm Reduction 12/24/2011
 Harm Reduction by Janet Oakes February 2004 'Harm Reduction' is the term used to describe a realistic approach to substance abuse problems on both individual and societal levels. All human societies across time and culture have engaged in the use of mood altering substances. Fundamentalist, absolutist approaches such as the "war on drugs" and the "just say no" campaigns have proven to be unrealistic and ineffective. The harm reduction movement coalesced and came to pubic attention with the June 1998 letter to the United Nations (signed by 11 Nobel prize winners, 7 heads of state, and 13 Canadian member of parliament, among others) stating that the global war on drugs, emphasizing criminalization and punishment was causing more harm than drug abuse itself. The letter advocates "Realistic proposals to reduce drug related crime, disease and death", rather than "rhetorical proposals to create a drug free society". There has been a great deal of controversy about these ideas. Many European countries as well as Canada and Vancouver have harm reduction policies and this is very different to the "zero tolerance" approach taken in the United States. This causes some difficulties. Because Canada is very economically tied to the United States, trying to maintain harmonious relations with them restricts our ability to embrace harm reduction policy as fully as might be helpful. From a larger perspective we have to consider the harm of having more poverty because of being economically "punished" by the United States, so it is a balancing act requiring careful consideration and diplomacy. Disagreements about harm reduction approaches continue in our own community. Psychologically, people tend to cope with pain and trauma by denial or by projecting blame, "badness" onto problematic groups. Thus, 'not in my back yard' attitudes arise, expressing the wish to rid ourselves of the pain of addiction by splitting ourselves off from, dehumanizing, and demonizing addicted people. Harm reduction has also been seen as conflicting with abstinence based programs such as the 12 step programs, which have been so influential in treatment, but this is changing. Although abstinence can be included in harm reduction, harm reduction cannot be included in abstinence. In 12-step programs abstinence is a fundamental principle. From a 12-step viewpoint harm reduction can be seen as 'enabling' that prevents the addict from 'bottoming out' and reaching that point of desperation which will drive him or her to seek treatment. On the other hand, harm reduction is not dissonant with many 12-step principles like that people will come into a program when they are ready, and that the program is one of suggestion and that people need only take the parts that are helpful to them. When someone on Methadone is seeking treatment this conflicts with the rules of most of the 12-step based recovery houses. These types of rules involve some hypocrisy since other doctor prescribed medications, such as benzodiazepine to deal with withdrawal symptoms, are tolerated. Some fear that methadone maintenance programs, needle exchanges and safe injection sites are just the thin edge of the wedge and the ultimately goal of harm reduction is drug legalization. Mark Haden's work on harm reduction gives persuasive statistics about the ineffectiveness of the "war on drugs" and the criminalization/punishment model. This model did not work with alcohol prohibition in the thirties and led to more negative effects such as the development of organized crime, the Mafia, etc. Also criminalization and punishment just aggravate other social injustices such as the oppression of racial minorities, poor people, and other marginalized groups. G. Alan Marlatt (Harm Reduction: Pragmatic Strategies for Managing High-Risk Behaviors) describes harm reduction as a humane and practical pubic health alternative to both the moral model and the medical model in his description of various presentations at a harm reduction conference. The idea is to meet drug users "where they are at" and to address the complex issues involved from many directions, from providing safe injection sites, needle exchanges, HIV prevention, a variety of treatment options (not only 'take it or leave it' abstinence) to dealing with housing, poverty, employment, to compassion clubs, medical marijuana, decriminalization of some drugs, making them available by prescription or as controlled substances, to drug courts where people can get treatment rather that incarceration. Harm reduction looks to reduce harm to individual drug users and to society as well by reducing crime and social costs. I support harm reduction with some reservations. I have concerns that when the focus of harm reduction is on reducing the societal costs (and guilt), we appease our guilt with programs that slightly improve the quality of life of addicts, but on a deeper level we abandon them to the ravages of chemical soul murder. The challenge is to find ways to discern between "meeting them where they are at" and keeping them where they are at. | Janet Oakes
Articles of interest and written works by Janet Oakes M.A., BC-ATP, FIPA Psychoanalyst & Art Therapist Vancouver BC 
"Plums" by Janet Oakes
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