Recommended reading: Positive Disintegration, by Kasimierz Dabrowski
Mental health difficulties are good. They are a sign that something is amiss in our life and thus changes are needed. They also provide an opportunity for improvement, as rebuilding requires destruction of the existing structures.
Of course, this doesn’t always happen. Some get frustrated with their current situation, work hard, make drastic changes, and become happy or content; some do nothing so they stay frustrated for years; some regress mentally, so that they either become content with their unfavourable circumstances, or they are unable to feel frustration anymore.
This, in a nutshell, is the message of one of the most important books of all time.
I. Book Extract
p1 “The instinct of self-preservation is changed. Its direct expression disintegrates, and it is sublimated into the behavior of a human being with moral values. The sexual instinct is sublimated into lasting and exclusive emotional ties. The instinct of aggression continues in the area of conflicts of moral, social, and intellectual values, changing them and sublimating itself”.
Commentary
Sublimation is a chemical process in which a solid becomes a gas directly, without becoming a liquid first. It is an endothermic process (it absorbs energy in the form of heat). In psychology, at least in this context, it means the integration of a basic instinct or emotion into a more complex process (i.e. set of linked thoughts and behaviours), or it can mean the changing of it into something different (in physics, the equivalent would be the preservation of energy by changing it from one form to another).
In the examples given above we can see that a mature person would retain their basic impulses but would use them in more social ways and as part of a much more intricate process that includes all areas of being human: physical, social, intellectual, emotional.
An undeveloped person would have sex driven purely by physical need and pleasure. Indeed, primitive integration is the most basic form of integration, present in all living beings, defined as (p3) “a compact and automatic structure of impulses to which the intelligence is a completely subordinated instrument”. Further, “the adaptation to reality … is limited to direct and immediate satisfaction of strong primitive needs”. The needs for self-defence, possession, survival are all fulfilled in the most direct and the simplest of ways: murder, theft, indiscriminate consumption. In a mature person, sex would become the manifestation of the bond between the 2 people involved and the release of their emotions in a culmination (historically, the wedding night was called “consummation” of marriage, which meant that the attraction and bond between them was manifested via sex).
Aggression shifts from unbridled physical violence to controlled conflicts with other people to serve a pre-defined purpose (usually a social agenda). This serves to convince others to fulfil one person’s vision for social arrangements and functioning.
There are other ways of sublimation, but for the purposes of this book, they do not apply, as such I will refrain from discussing them in detail. (Freud defined sublimation as a defence mechanism; Napoleon Hill in chapter 11 of his book, as well as Schopenhauer, discussed sublimating sexual urges and depression respectively into creativity and art).
II. Definitions
Disintegration means fragmentation of the personality structure and of psychic forces.
It is of different types:
- unilevel: processes on a single structural and emotional level (for example, a stressful life event)
- multilevel: includes additional hierarchical levels
- pathological: stabilisation or involution with feeble development
- partial: involves only one aspect of the psychic structure i.e. a narrow part of the personality
- global: disturbance of the entire psychic structure and change of personality (for example, traumas)
- permanent: found in severe and chronic illnesses
- temporary: passing periods of mental and somatic disequilibrium
- positive: it enriches life, enlarges the horizon and brings forth creativity
- negative: has no developmental effects or causes involution
I started making my own image but I found a good one on https://www.positivedisintegration.com/
Instincts can be autotonic meaning egocentric (self-preservation, possessions, power) or syntonic meaning heterocentric (sympathy, sexual drives, social needs).
The three factors of development are: heredity, environment, the third factor (defined as the selection and confirmation or disconfirmation of certain dynamics of the internal environment and certain influences of the external environment. Note that this is the same definition for the “disposing and directing centre”).
III. Discussion of recommended solutions
p16 The results of secondary integration can be: (1) a return to an earlier form of integration in more nearly perfect form; (2) a new form of integration but with the same primitive structure and without a hierarchy of aims; (3) a new structural form with a new hierarchy of aims.
A clear hierarchy of values is needed, the disposing and directing centre must be active and matured, and the following must be present: alterocentrism, social hyperactivity, creativeness.
Note that creativeness and creativity are different words: the former is the state or quality of being creative, while the latter means the ability to create something. Creativity is usually understood to refer to novel ideas or approaches while creativeness should be understood as referring more directly to the act of creation itself. Both imply a need for action as evidence.
(Note p88 “creativity is the ability for, and realisation of, new and original approaches to reality”.)
Alterocentrism refers to the focus of one person on the others (contrast with egocentrism). Thoughts shift from pleasuring the self to safeguarding the wellbeing of others; it is a good sign of maturity and it leads to a better functioning society. Instincts are no longer acted upon directly but are filtered through multiple considerations of their external impact from the intellectual and emotional and social perspectives. (This is also the “cure” or counterpart to narcissism, which I will discuss in greater detail in other blogposts.)
Each person must design his or her own set of values and then imagine a personality ideal, then use the disposing and directing centre to reach that. This is done through small choices every single day that strengthen the centre, which in turn increases confidence and the sense of wellbeing. To reach the ideal it is necessary to experience feelings of shame, guilt and discontent (and of course their positive counterparts: hope, pride, ambition etc.). The “seeds” of integration are also the feelings of dissatisfaction and protest against oneself, which cause anxiety.
Note that (pp 13-14) children and teenagers show the greatest levels of disintegration but also of development. Puberty and the period of adolescence are commonly the most stressful and confusing periods in most people’s lives, characterised by rebelliousness and exploration through the adoption of multiple personalities with severe shifts between them. Development is also at its strongest during this period. This process can take place again at a later time in life but it is unusual for the intensity to be equal.
Case study by the author: pp 17-20, Ella: viewing her symptoms (ambivalence, inhibition, depression) as psychopathological would cause a vicious cycle of her becoming anxious and ambivalent and thus more dependent on psychotherapy, instead she was encouraged to overcome her personal crisis and was given space (which for her was necessary), as well as given time and some encouragement and support. (Spoilers: She ended up becoming one of the best pupils in her class and received an award for her work.)
IV. The necessity of disintegration
But is it really necessary to undergo severe psychological distress?
It is not possible to make changes to personality without some degree of disintegration of the existing structure. Chapters 2 and 3 discuss the necessity for the feelings of inferiority towards oneself and the accompanying feelings of shame and guilt: in order to change the existing personality, one needs to have an ideal to compare the current self against. For change to occur there must be motivation, and without the above, the centre cannot disconfirm current acts or thoughts. Without perceiving the personality ideal as an other that is distant and needs to be reached and is above the current status, no upward development can take place.
p68 “it seems that in the process of evolution the factor of conflict with the surroundings and one’s own self has a prominent part in checking primitive impulses; reflection, hesitation and inhibition, instead of automatic reaction to stimuli, are the expression of disadaptation”. The momentary pause where an internal battle takes place is needed to transform a reaction into an action. A reaction is a subconscious act as response to a stimulus, an action is a deliberate act that has successfully passed internal checks. The latter has the potential to move one closer towards the personality ideal; one method is to ask oneself “what would person X do in this situation?” with “person X” being one’s own ideal manifestation of the personality. This also highlights the necessity of the subject-object relationship towards the personality ideal, and the question above is a practical step on the path of psychic movement.
(As an interesting sidenote, most of the highly creative people throughout history have suffered from psychoneuroses and other forms of mental anguish; p79 mentions Dostoyevsky and p61 quotes Proust: “All that is great we owe to neurotics. The world will never know how much we owe them, and especially how much they suffered to give all this to the world…their divine music, beautiful paintings, thousands of subtleties…innumerable sleepless nights, tears, fear of death they cost those who created them”.)
V. The higher forms of integration
It is important to bear in mind that maturity does not mean the exclusion of one’s own wants (for example, ambition). These are necessary for health and for good functioning of each person, however actions will no longer be exclusively focused on the personal wants, but will take into consideration the impact that actions taken towards reaching personal goals will have on other people and how these actions will fit in the greater scheme of social interactions (see p45).
p45 “The individual human being, through his personality, masters his impulses. This process consists in purifying the primitive animal elements which lie in every impulse or group of impulses.”
p87 “The most frequent and thus ‘normal’ traits express themselves in the following norms: practical rather than theoretical intelligence, predominantly egocentric rather than alterocentric attitudes towards society, and preponderance of self-preservation, sexual, exploratory, and social instincts. This formulation is humiliating to mankind; a more suitable definition of mental health must contain, besides average values, exemplary ones.”
These 2 paragraphs above are self-explanatory and I fully agree with them. The discussion on what values should be considered exemplary merits an entire book (many have been written on this topic throughout history) so I will try to discuss some of them in future blog posts.
VI. THE new paradigm of psychological assessments
p13 “the distinction between mental health and mental illness rests on the presence or absence of the capacity for positive psychological development”
The disintegration phase is perceived by modern psychology as mental illness that needs to be treated and eliminated or reduced (e.g. Xanax) but in actuality these are necessary transient phases in the development of a person. They should be welcomed and embraced as a sign of potential for progress as they enable the hard work of change to begin, best done via nurturing new habits. (As Aristotle said, “we are what we repeatedly do”.). Thus when someone experiences mental conflicts and feelings of confusion, they should be guided towards a tailored set of values and allowed the time and space to work through their own internal conflicts.
p86 “The negative definition is that mental health is the absence of symptoms of a pathological process or of a pathological constitution.” then p86 “Mental health is the progressive development of the personality.” and p96 “Mental health is the development of personality towards a more elevated hierarchy of goals set by the personality ideal. In this definition, mental health means the continuous striving towards further personality development.”
It follows from this that almost the entire field of modern psychology, alongside all of psychiatry and a lot of psychotherapy, are incorrect. Information ranges from incredibly misleading to partially unaware.
This is a drastic departure from the current ways of thought but it is a necessary one. If future societies are to survive and thrive, Dabrowski’s definition must be adopted. History will vindicate him.
Post Scriptum
From the above you can see that what I wrote when opening this article is incorrect: positive disintegration is not about overcoming frustration, but rather about reaching your own personality ideal and developing in line with your own system of values. Ultimately this would mean frustration is fully eliminated from the psychic structure, but this was not the message that the author of the book wished to transmit. My reasons for writing that are: it is a message I want you to start thinking about; it is more in line with the title of the blog; it is more relevant to the contemporary social setting.
Also to be honest, I wrote that from memory, before re-reading the book. After my second reading however, in light of the above, I decided to leave the paragraph as-is. This ties in to my belief system regarding writing too, which I’ll expand on in a future post, but for now suffice for me to say that when I write something and am satisfied with it, it is a correct expression of my thoughts and feelings in that particular time with my then-current level of understanding (and mood). (Note: this applies to my opinion of other writers’ publications too). So my current, arguably enhanced, understanding does not make my former understanding incorrect or incomplete, it just makes it different.
Stay strong, brothers.