Integra
Member
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2016
- Messages
- 118
On the sociocultural components of neuroses
“I have endeavored to demonstrate that neuroses are the results of a home atmosphere that is patriarchal and sexually suppressive; that, moreover, the only prophylaxis [disease prevention] worthy of serious consideration is one for the practical implementation of which the present social system lacks every prerequisite; that it is only a thorough turnover of social institutions and ideologies, a turnover that will be dependent upon the outcome of the political struggles of our century, which will create the preconditions for an extensive prophylaxis of neuroses.”
“The most productive power, the productive power called working power, is dependent upon man’s psychic structure. Neither the so-called subjective factor of history nor the productive power, working power, can be comprehended without a natural scientific psychology. This requires a detachment from those psychoanalytic concepts which explain culture and the history of human society on the basis of drives, instead of understanding that social conditions must first have impinged upon and changed human needs before these transformed drives and needs could begin to have an effect on historical factors. The most famous of today’s charactereologists endeavor to comprehend the world on the basis of “values” and “character,” instead of vice versa” to deduce character and valuations from the social process.”
“[C]ertain average human structures are native to certain social organizations. Or, to put it another way, every social organization produces those character structures which it needs to exist. In class society, the existing ruling class secures its position, with the help of education and the institutions of the family, by making its ideologies the ruling ideologies of all members of the society.”
On the role of family
“[…T]he family represents the primary reproduction organ of character structures, [and…] sexual education in the educational system as a whole teaches us that, first and foremost, […character structures] are libidinal interests and energies which are employed in the anchoring of the authoritarian social order.”
On the position of man in that system
“[M]an is, first and foremost, the object of his needs and of the social organization which regulates the gratification of his needs in this or that way. In his position as the object of his needs, however, man is also and at the same time the subject of history and of the social process of which he “himself is the author,” not, to be sure, exactly as he would like to be, but under definite economic and cultural presuppositions, which determine the content and outcome of human action.”
Individuality/self-actualization as a biological (and at times, subversive) urge
“[P]recisely in the formation of the libidinal structure, it can be demonstrated that, coeval with the anchoring of a social order, which completely or partially obstructs the gratification of one’s needs, the psychic preconditions begin to develop which undermine this anchoring in the character structure. As time goes on, an ever widening divergency springs up between forced renunciation and the increased strain on one’s needs. This divergency takes place along with the development of the social process, and it has a disintegrating effect upon “tradition”; it constitutes the psychological core of the formation of mental attitudes that undermine this anchoring.”
Reich's view of Freud's concept of superego
“It would be wrong to equate the conservative element of the character structure of the men and women of our society with the arbiter which we call the “superego”. While it is certainly true that a person’s moralistic arbiters derive from the definite prohibitions of the society, of which the parents function as the chief representatives of life, […] the first changes in the ego and the instincts […] before the superego is formed, are dictated by the economic structure of the society and represent the initial reproduction and anchorings of the social system.”
“[Psychoanalysis] has to study how not only the immediate material existence (nourishment, shelter, clothing, work process, i.e., the way of life and the way in which needs are gratified) but also the so-called social superstructure (morality, laws, and institutions) affect the instinctual apparatus.”
“I have endeavored to demonstrate that neuroses are the results of a home atmosphere that is patriarchal and sexually suppressive; that, moreover, the only prophylaxis [disease prevention] worthy of serious consideration is one for the practical implementation of which the present social system lacks every prerequisite; that it is only a thorough turnover of social institutions and ideologies, a turnover that will be dependent upon the outcome of the political struggles of our century, which will create the preconditions for an extensive prophylaxis of neuroses.”
“The most productive power, the productive power called working power, is dependent upon man’s psychic structure. Neither the so-called subjective factor of history nor the productive power, working power, can be comprehended without a natural scientific psychology. This requires a detachment from those psychoanalytic concepts which explain culture and the history of human society on the basis of drives, instead of understanding that social conditions must first have impinged upon and changed human needs before these transformed drives and needs could begin to have an effect on historical factors. The most famous of today’s charactereologists endeavor to comprehend the world on the basis of “values” and “character,” instead of vice versa” to deduce character and valuations from the social process.”
“[C]ertain average human structures are native to certain social organizations. Or, to put it another way, every social organization produces those character structures which it needs to exist. In class society, the existing ruling class secures its position, with the help of education and the institutions of the family, by making its ideologies the ruling ideologies of all members of the society.”
On the role of family
“[…T]he family represents the primary reproduction organ of character structures, [and…] sexual education in the educational system as a whole teaches us that, first and foremost, […character structures] are libidinal interests and energies which are employed in the anchoring of the authoritarian social order.”
On the position of man in that system
“[M]an is, first and foremost, the object of his needs and of the social organization which regulates the gratification of his needs in this or that way. In his position as the object of his needs, however, man is also and at the same time the subject of history and of the social process of which he “himself is the author,” not, to be sure, exactly as he would like to be, but under definite economic and cultural presuppositions, which determine the content and outcome of human action.”
Individuality/self-actualization as a biological (and at times, subversive) urge
“[P]recisely in the formation of the libidinal structure, it can be demonstrated that, coeval with the anchoring of a social order, which completely or partially obstructs the gratification of one’s needs, the psychic preconditions begin to develop which undermine this anchoring in the character structure. As time goes on, an ever widening divergency springs up between forced renunciation and the increased strain on one’s needs. This divergency takes place along with the development of the social process, and it has a disintegrating effect upon “tradition”; it constitutes the psychological core of the formation of mental attitudes that undermine this anchoring.”
Reich's view of Freud's concept of superego
“It would be wrong to equate the conservative element of the character structure of the men and women of our society with the arbiter which we call the “superego”. While it is certainly true that a person’s moralistic arbiters derive from the definite prohibitions of the society, of which the parents function as the chief representatives of life, […] the first changes in the ego and the instincts […] before the superego is formed, are dictated by the economic structure of the society and represent the initial reproduction and anchorings of the social system.”
“[Psychoanalysis] has to study how not only the immediate material existence (nourishment, shelter, clothing, work process, i.e., the way of life and the way in which needs are gratified) but also the so-called social superstructure (morality, laws, and institutions) affect the instinctual apparatus.”
