Introduction
The Greeks of old, with their philosophies and myths, grasped a fundamental truth about human existence. The realities of the joys and hardships of human life they captured in their Greek tragedies. Whether it is Sisyphus’ curse of the repetitive cycles of striving, success, habituation, defeat and recovery, or Icarus’ ecstatic illusory omnipotence that led to his demise, these and hundreds of other myths capture the essence of human existence – as individuals and societies. The Greeks understood that external reality needs to be reckoned with in the form of circumspection, moderation, humility, occasional celebration, and acceptance of these terms of life. Psychoanalysis is fundamentally rooted in the Greek appreciation of human life, and of the existential conflicts we encounter due to the conflicts we experience when our wills clash with unforgiving reality (Messer & Winokur, 1984). However harsh and painful these realities are, denying or disavowing them will not change their reality. Instead, it is our task to integrate these in our pursuit for truth:
We must not forget that the analytic relationship is based on a love of truth – that is, on a recognition of reality – and that it precludes any kind of sham or deceit.
Sigmund Freud (1937, p. 248)
The adequate integration of reality, despite the protests of our wish for reality to be different, is a precondition for sustained wellbeing of individuals and societies. In fact, the very survival of the individual and civilisation depends upon adequately integrating unforgiving reality while managing to the pleasure-seeking urges of the instincts. This conflict with reality can produce symptoms like anxiety, depression, scrupulosity and various fears. But these can be resolved to manageable levels, such that the individual and society can live and flourish meaningfully. In truth, this is what psychoanalysis and all forms of psychotherapy are aiming to achieve: to assist the patient to be less defended against the realities of human existence, to seek wish-fulfilment on life’s terms and to forego what cannot be enjoyed.
Interestingly, it is also this formulation that makes civilisation possible. Civilisation is a network of negotiations and agreements by which humans regulate their natural instincts to live together in groups, moving beyond their basic instincts to create a functional society. Civilisation is a source of both frustration and progress. It has been built incrementally in response to both environmental factors (oftentimes transient), and unchangeable human behaviour (as constant and predictable today as 10 000 years ago). Civilisation is therefore not meant to restore our earliest experiences of warmth, nurturance, focus, punctual need-fulfilment and absolute safety. It was never meant to replace our own responsibility to take care of our own needs, nor to be resented when we fail to adequately learn to endure and resolve, loss and frustration (Freud, 1930).
In severe personality pathology and what proceeds from it – such as addictions, high-risk lifestyles, criminality and ideological radicalisation – the individual disavows the consequences of their behaviour in favour of the hedonistic or the self-indulgent. Later object-relations theory approached these phenomena in terms of defensive patterns and the internal relations the individual is enacting onto their environment (Hinshelwood, 2017). Earlier Freudian psychoanalysis would interpret these dynamics in terms of the Oedipal Triad: the extent to which the individual adequately deals with the realisation that they are not the centre of the universe, and that rules beyond their wishes are much more important than they are. This, the person can either grapple with (neurotic dynamics), defiantly fight and distort (perverse dynamics) or foreclose (psychotic dynamics).
The Greco-Roman/Judeo-Christian worldview has served individuals and Western civilisation in this regard by inculcating circumspection, moderation, humility, occasional celebration, and the acceptance of terms of life that are more important than our immediate indulgent satisfaction. But it has become commonplace in the 20th and 21st centuries to see the proliferation of behaviours and movements that have cynically, resentfully and maliciously committed to the wholesale defiance of moderating cultural practices in service of the hedonic. And the result is extremely concerning: the prioritisation of gratification as a moral duty has coincided with a stark increase in substance addictions, process addictions (gaming, pornography, gambling, social media use) the popularisation of fetishistic sex, the disintegration of family structure, homelessness and destitution, and a general malaise about life – particularly among the rising generation. It has also become evident that the proliferation of gratification-promoting sentiments followed ideological inspiration, particularly Critical Social Justice
Sadly, not even psychology and psychoanalysis have been able to withstand such decay and act as bulwarks against anti-civilisational depravity. Take for instance the wild psychoanalysis practiced by Wilhelm Reich and his followers. Or the collusion with Nazism by the leadership of the Göring Institute. Today, institutional psychoanalysis and psychology have been infiltrated and paralysed by the perverse, pathogenic anti-civilisationist enchantment of Critical Social Justice, particularly gender ideology and queer theory. Institutions that have earned their status and influence through the hard work of fending off the destructive seductions of primitive instincts, have become instrumental in launching perverting assaults on the stabilising structures of our civilisation, sparing no-one, not even our children.
Articles of contention
To demonstrate this, consider the perverse defiance of mental health principles and the foundational structures of Western culture that the latest edition of the Irish Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy has managed to conjure up with their Winter edition called, “LGBTQ+ Special Edition.”
Attentive observers of radical movements in our time may have noticed that, despite what is written on the wrapper, today’s LGBTQ+ movements are not interested in integration into society, have no gratitude for the civilisation that brought them their civil liberties, and give no acknowledgment for the immeasurable privilege they enjoy in Western society. Instead, their aim is to subvert, dismantle, and destroy our Western civilisation, and to enviously subject it to their unbridled aggressive and sexual instincts.
So, in this edition, we see the following peculiar titles: Boundless love: Overcoming shame in polyamory; The silent crisis: Transgender healthcare and the urgent need for change and Providing therapeutic space to transgender and non-binary clients. Reading like a few pages from radical ideologues like Shulamith Firestone, Gayle Rubin and Judith Butler, this edition demonstrates how psychology can be hijacked and harnessed in service of radical ideology and unfettered indulgence, within a discourse of mortal threat and victimhood, should these desires not be obeyed and promoted.
It is true to say that [psychology] promises only relative freedom, whereas [anti-civilisationists] hold out the promise of ‘unlimited possibilities.’ Moreover, human beings have an insatiable longing to regain the perfection experienced at the outset of life, before the differentiation between subject and outside world… They want to use [psychology’s] power for their own ends, to merge into its omnipotence, and so the science which discovered it is treated as if it held the promise of [restoring] such fusion.
Chasseguet-Smirgel & Grunberger (1986, p. 13, 14).
In this first part, I would like to make a few remarks on the article, Boundless love: Overcoming shame in polyamory. I will focus on Providing therapeutic space to transgender and non-binary clients in the follow-up article.
The polyamory article starts by setting the scene, that reads like I something between the idealistic musings of a hippie in the 60s and the sentimental mutterings of a member of the Rajneeshee cult.
I believe in love and its ability to transcend all barriers, sexual identities, gender, ethnicity, colour, culture, religion, social economic status, neurodiversity, abilities and disabilities. I believe that if we open up to love, it has the ability to heal our wounds, save humanity and our struggling planet. When I say love, I mean love in all forms, starting from the most important, the one we continually strive to nurture, our love for ourselves, self-love (Wickremasinghe, 2024, p. 10).
This article truly gives testimony of self-love, and a lot of it. The author relates how she and her wife gave birth to their first child during the Irish referendum of same-sex marriage, and how they later agreed to living as a married, polyamorous same-sex couple. She frames this decision as a conscious choice “to add more connection and love into our lives and never to replace each other (p. 11).”
The flow of the article gets interrupted when she relates how the decision to turn their monogamous relationship into a polyamorous setup was in response to successive losses: first the loss of her estranged mother, a month later the loss of her sister by suicide, and two years later, her father. “I felt that polyamory was possibly a way to invite new love and connection into my life and the lives of our children (p. 11).”
She continues, elaborating on the discussion of safety, particularly of their two children. They opted for non-hierarchical or egalitarian polyamory, where the new connections would enjoy the exact same importance as the original, monogamous relationship. Interestingly, she considers the alternative, hierarchical arrangement “unethical, unfair and hurtful” to their prospective partners. For an endeavour she deemed as an expansion of connection and love, it seems to have complicated their lives immensely, requiring ‘extensive research, attending polyamory groups, processing their concerns together and in individual therapy, and enlisting the support of a psychosexual therapist,’ as this was by far the most challenging projects they’d ever pursued.
She relates how her family doubled in size, how their children now have two additional parental figures, two more siblings, or polyblings, a new eight-seater called the Polymobil, and that her wife is still her wife and her nesting partner. (It is worth noting the relevance of the failed attempt by the Irish government to amend the Irish Constitution in 2024, namely to expand the definition of family to also include “durable relationships” outside marriage). She mentions that monogamous relationships are a relatively recent development in human history (apparently recency is only deemed “progressive” if it sufficiently gratifies the instincts). Impressed by books with the title, Ethical Slut, she mentions how monogamy was the result of various environmental and societal factors, such as agriculture, property ownership, capitalism, colonisation and religion, and that the same benefits can be drawn from polygamous relationships, as from monogamous relationships.
The tone in her article changes after this. In classical anti-civilisationist Woke discourse, the author started questioning what she calls mononormativity, how monogamy and the ‘they lived happily ever after’ was an illusion. She points out how “heterosexual, married, white, good-looking, professional couples with children are right at the top of the hierarchy and everyone else below (p. 13).” (The envy at the core of the Woke mindset resents societal ideals, because if the envious individual cannot participate in the ideal, the ideal must be destroyed.)
And then she turns to one of the buzzwords most of us have become familiar with, namely diversity. She resents that monogamy is still the norm (“mononormativity”), while various alternatives to the nuclear family exists. And that love justifies all these alternatives, as opposed to shame, which is a “felt sense of unworthiness to be in connection, as a deep sense of unlovability, with the ongoing awareness of how very much one wants to connect with others.” She links this to the many clients of “diverse genders, sexualities, identities, relationships, lifestyles and practices” who fear not being “loved and accepted for who they are” due to the ceaseless shaming by “parents, friends and greater society for simply existing and longing to be loved for who they are.” She reflects on her own journey, checking the boxes of Woke neo-identities or “intersecting identities:” queer, genderfluid, mother, migrant, person of colour and polyamorous. She also adds a new phobia to the dictionary, namely polyphobia. She resents the fact that “monogamy was so deeply ingrained” in her (p. 13).
She concludes by celebrating the increase in consensual non-monogamy, especially among young people. She considers the proliferation of alternative relationships an “evolution,” and that acceptance and affirmation are necessary for the profession to be more inclusive (another Woke buzzword). As if poor Dr Suess has not had enough assaults launched upon it by the reactivity of the ever-offended language police, she uses the story of The Grinch to build sentimentality for her lifestyle, specifically with the line, “Grinch’s small heart grew three sizes that day (p. 14)” applying it to the expanding of her love for the sexual partners in her life.
Discussion
The first thing that should strike a person when reading this auto-ethnography (a favourite genre/methodology of the Woke), is how little critical self-reflection and actual psychology is present in this write-up. This is hardly a psychological article and reads instead as a sentimental apologetics piece aimed at building sympathy for a deeply cherished ideology.
The ideology in question is Critical Social Justice, of course. Readers of CTA’s articles and listeners of the CTA podcast will be familiar with the psychological analysis of Critical Social Justice (see here, here and here). Both the origin of CSJ, as well as the psychological dynamics the ideology is meant to activate, are the primitive processes at the root of severe personality pathology, the collective psychology of destructive movements, and the dynamics responsible for societal deterioration, such as among anti-social gangs and drug addict communities.
The closest the author gets to something approximating psychological reflection is in the suggestion that the tragic loss of her estranged mother and sister, later followed by the death of her father, may have had something to do with her committing to a polyamorous relationship. What she describes here would sound familiar to perceptive psychologists, particularly those who have been psychoanalytically trained. Melanie Klein introduced the concept of manic defences in response to, and in an attempt to ward off, feelings of depression, guilt, anxiety, and shame – particularly in complicated relationships. Manic defences are characterised by denial (to block awareness of painful emotions), self-idealisation (to exaggerate one’s own worth and capabilities to counter feelings of inadequacy)and omnipotent control (to exert total power over situations to avoid a sense of helplessness).
These defences are essentially a response to severe loss, as well as the person’s inadequacy to properly process such loss. In the author’s case, it appears that her decision to endorse polyamory as a lifestyle and philosophy was in response to the loss of love objects. This glimmer of potential insight, which would typically call for a serious reconsideration of their defensive course of action, apparently achieve none of this sort. Regretfully, as is often the case with primitive defences aimed at reducing or even eliminating a problem, the “solution” metastasizes into something much more harmful than the person is prepared to admit. And this is important when understanding psychopathology, even when it plays out in camouflaged fashion: the defended person is both victim of historical pain and potentially destructive in their protest against the pain.
The reality of life is the fact of lack and loss – however painful this might be. Nothing in life can or will ever fulfil us as much as the earliest experiences of warmth, nurturance, focus, punctual need-fulfilment and safety, as when we were nursed and loved by our mothers. We can project that forever-lost state into the future and work towards it all we like; ultimately, we can only have a good-enough life, namely when we accept that life will always consist of losses and lack, and that we need to find ways to live meaningfully despite these losses and deprivations.
With this understanding, let’s return to the article and the issues it raises. People who engage in polyamory are dissatisfied with the lack that exists in a committed monogamous relationship and are intolerant of the experience of that lack. Nothing currently present in their lives are harnessed to provide sufficient meaning and fulfilment, nor do they seem to possess of the internal psychological dynamics, such that they would find peace amidst the experience of lack. Instead, they externalise their frustration (omnipotent control) and demand fulfilment from their environment. They prefer to fill that lack with multiple sexual partners and risk hurting, complicating and ultimately ruining other precious connections. The author only marginally alludes to this in her reference to safety, protecting not only their children, but also the wealth of capital they have built together (including a group practice and a house). Research from the 1980s to recently repeatedly shows how stepparents significantly increase the risk of abuse and neglect (Cinderella Effect). The extensive research, the support groups, the hours of processing feelings in relation to this lifestyle, betray the unbelievable risk of loss, due to a refusal to tolerate lack, and having impaired capacity for gratitude, all in service of sexual gratification.
What is ironic about this article and the luxury beliefs it so brazenly exhibits and promotes, is that it truly requires immense wealth to support such a lifestyle – wealth that is nearly always built thanks to the very capitalist economic system they so gleefully resent. This resented society is the same society that has given rise to civil liberties that enabled this author to build a sizeable group practice, purchase a house (very difficult under current economic circumstances in Ireland, even for the native Irish), flaunt the acquisition of an 8-seater, and afford support groups, individual psychotherapy, and the services of a “psychosexual therapist.” Those who are deeply embedded in the theory and psychology of CSJ can be among the most privileged of society, while boldly declaring themselves to be victims, since their fetishised identity markers magically declare them to be such. The pathology of primitive envy that fuels these restless, manic defences, prevents the afflicted to bear guilt and shame, experience repair and forgiveness, and have a sense of gratitude for what they have, who they are and what society has made possible for them.
What can furthermore be garnered from her article is that, in addition to the envious ingratitude for the enriching capitalist Western civilisation “minorities” have greatly benefited from, adherents of CSJ resent the deep spiritual, hard-won foundational values that are responsible for our enriching civilisation. These values include stabilising factors of the nuclear family. It is a gift to a child to have their natural and biological origin accurately reflected in their loving parents: they exist thanks to the loving union of their mother and father. The nuclear family not only aligns with the stability and continuity early infant development requires, but it is also a societal achievement built over centuries, thanks to the selfless, often difficult commitment required by both parents, to produce this stable civilisation CSJ adherents have mostly only benefited from. It should be clear to the reader that to those with such deep, core character pathology, civilisational achievement can be perceptually warped, enviously spoilt, and uncharitably depicted as merely intolerant, oppressive, and shaming.
To those who have arrested psychological development, individuation and differentiation can be difficult to attain, as these processes require the existence of and subjective sense of difference and otherness. Even though the best and most rewarding societies are those in which ideals exist, those with impaired gratitude, whose lifestyles are not equally idealised by society, would typically envy and spoil such established ideals. Hence the demand for fusion, in which it is not enough that people with peculiar lifestyles are afforded the freedom to do so; you are required to agree and affirm such lifestyles lest you be called a –phobe of some sort.
This brings me to the nub of the article and the manipulativeness in its framing:
- How an impaired capacity to tolerate the lack, the subsequent pursuit of a high-risk lifestyle, and the suggestion that this pursuit might be in response to a tragedy, is cleverly moralised as “love.”
- How the understandable discomfort, confirmed risk of such lifestyles and regulating shame in the society she and her family have mostly benefited from, are depicted as oppressive and intolerant.
- That, despite their coveted success in this society, CSJ adherents still depict themselves as victims.
- How luxury beliefs and the unimaginable risks associated with high-risk lifestyles – particularly to children, those with severe character pathology and those with limited means – would be promoted as “love,” “diversity” and “growing hearts.”
Conclusion
Psychoanalysis and its later offshoots are concerned with resolving those afflicted with the reality of loss and deprivation, to find adaptable and healthy ways of living, despite such losses. The love of truth surpasses every other value that stands secondary to it. To be clear, in the West people are free to pursue their lives and find ways of coping with loss, however they deem fit, with the normal caveats of not harming others. But there is a difference between the freedom to live a certain way and endorsing such lifestyles. And when such endorsement is not received, to claim that the West is intolerant.
The West has never been as wealthy and as peaceful, and yet, a growing number of individuals – among the rising generation in particular – are afflicted by anxiety and depression. The solution can hardly be more wealth, more porn, more technology, more sex, more lovers, more gratification. It is reproachable that this article celebrated young people’s endorsement of polyamory – young people who are hardly able to navigate the rudiments of romantic relationships with one individual. But if the love of self and the pleasurable perversion of truth reigns supreme in a person’s life or even their practice of psychology, gratification has become the highest value of their lives. Their space can no longer be regarded as healing. Instead, it has become perversifying: defiantly disavowing the reality of lack, self-idealising their own demands for gratification, and aggressively manipulating their environment in service of their own will and gratification. And this is an indictment to every practice, institution and psychological society who have reneged on their responsibility to promote the healing ethos psychology it was originally aimed to be.
References
Chasseguet-Smirgel, J., & Grunberger, B. (1986). Freud or Reich? Psychoanalysis and Illusion. Yale University Press.
Freud, S. (1930). Civilisation and its Discontents. Standard Edition, 21, pp. 57 – 146.
Freud, S. (1937). Analysis terminable and interminable. Standard Edition, 23, pp. 209 – 254.
Hinshelwood, R. D. (2017). On Not Thinking Straight: Comments on a Conceptual Marriage. In N. Giffney & E. Watson (Eds.), Clinical Encounters in Sexuality: Psychoanalytic Practice and Queer Theory. Pp. 197 – 210.
Messer, S. B., & Winokur, M. (1984). Ways of knowing and visions of reality in psychoanalytic theory and behaviour therapy. In H. Arkowitz & S. B. Messer (Eds.), Psychoanalytic therapy and behaviour therapy: Is integration possible? pp. 63 – 100. Plenum Press.
Wickremasinghe, D. (2024). Boundless love: Overcoming shame in polyamory. The Irish Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy, 24(4), pp. 10 – 14.
By Jaco van Zyl, MA (Clinical Psychology), a South Africa-trained clinical psychologist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist in Ireland. Informed by the historical and contemporary political challenges of his home country, Jaco uses a psychoanalytic lens to explore the psychology of groups, the function of ideology, and of adopted narratives and rituals within political and ideological movements. He is a co-director of Critical Therapy Antidote, a co-host of the CTA podcast, and has written articles for Merion West, Critical Therapy Antidote, Genspect and the Journal for Psychodynamic Psychotherapy.
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