“Persecutory guilt is simply a form of self-attack, it is tormenting and it belongs to the paranoid schizoid position and it is narcissistic. People sometimes don’t fully recognize the narcissism in the paranoid-schizoid position, because it is in that position you are feeling hunted by predators… When we’re in the depressive/reparative position other people are real to us, we not only are able to empathize with them we need to go beyond empathy to sympathy in the depressive position where I not only know how you feel, but I care and I wish to relieve your pain.”
Donald Carveth, Ph.D.
Toronto
Episode Description:
We discuss the differences between guilt that reflects concern for the other and alternatively self-abuse that serves narcissistic purposes. The former relates to Klein’s depressive/reparative stage, labeled ‘conscience’ by Carveth, and the latter derives from the paranoid/schizoid position, labeled ‘superego’. We review varying technical approaches to each of these clinical presentations and note that the countertransference provides vital guidance in understanding the state of the analysand’s mind. We close by considering how the capacity to bear guilt may be a measure of the maturation of a civilization.
Our Guest:
Donald L Carveth, Ph.D., RP, FIPA is Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Social & Political Thought at York University in Toronto. He is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Canadian Institute of Psychoanalysis, past Director of the Toronto Institute of Psychoanalysis, and past Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Psychoanalysis/Revue Canadienne de Psychanalyse. He is the author of The Still Small Voice: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Guilt and Conscience (Karnac, 2013) and Psychoanalytic Thinking: A Dialectical Critique of Contemporary Theory and Practice (Routledge, 2018). He is in private practice in Toronto.
Many of his publications are available at http://www.yorku.ca/dcarveth.
His video-lectures on psychoanalysis may be found at www.youtube.com/doncarveth.
Mentioned in This Episode
IPA Off the Couch – www.ipaoffthecouch.org
Recommended Readings
Sagan, E. (1988). Freud, Women, and Morality: The Psychology of Good and Evil. New York: Basic Books.
Carveth, D. (2013). The Still Small Voice: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Guilt and Conscience. London: Karnac.
Carveth, D. (2016). Why we should stop conflating the superego with the conscience. Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society Vol. 22, 1, 15–32.
Thank you, Karin, for your fruitful query and thoughtful response.
In my published writings on this I have been careful to indicate that while some guilt is earned, sometimes guilt is inappropriately induced. Freud himself wrote about “borrowed guilt.” I have made the point that such guilt is not really borrowed. The people who donate it certainly do not want it back. It is induced through projective identification. It is not grounded in any wrongdoing. It results from oppression. But there remains a large field of guilt that is earned and for which reparation must be made. This is a problem of discernment. Part of our therapeutic task is to help our patients discern how much of their guilt is earned and how much has been induced in them. Thank you for your comment.
This really is a beautiful, eloquent, and highly intelligent depiction of the quagmire professionals stand in who actively serve as therapeutic bridges between the oppressor and the oppressed. I’m going to think very carefully, and sometimes very critically about the work I need to do to in terms of discernment in an environment that thrives on revenge-seeking behaviors as opposed to rapport-seeking behaviors (of course a likely outcome from so much unresolved identity politics, unequal power relations, oppression, disavowal). Thank you, Sir.
Thank you, Dr. Carveth, for your illuminating thoughts and insights shared in this episode. Perhaps there are some of us listeners who could use some additional clarification about distinguishing sin and wrong-doing, particularly those amongst us who might be led to understand by certain influential circles that their birth and their presence is perceived of sin in and of itself. These are people who are forced to eat sin in a backwards, downward spiral lacking redemption. There are too many of us who do not see ourselves and our roles in correcting these flagrant human rights violations. Help.
Joshua, thanks for clarifying. I believe that in order to genuinely come to feel good about ourselves, we must first acknowledge and work through our dark side. In order to become more loving we have to deal with our hate. Best wishes.
Hi. I listened again to it. And I might listen a third time, later. It is marvelous. And Harvey Schwartz does such a good job. I’m not able to access the realization of “wrongdoer.” Yet, that is exactly what I must access in order to complete the therapy you have provided. What do I do? Freud was a man who wasn’t a saint, say. But, he also played that role. I don’t think he could help it. I do believe in sainthood and I don’t think psychoanalysis is anathema to it. I’ve been thinking lately about an unconscious to our unconscious and wonder whether that world would be about incestuous desire or not. What if it was a world of perfect peace?
Great talk Don and Harvey. Very engaging and hits on some key points regarding love and hate. Putting it simply it brings to my mind the image of ‘two wells’, one of love and and one of hate. Depending on how well or not our early experiences shaped us predicts our choice of which well we draw from. Ideally I suppose we want to draw from the well of love but before we can do that I think what Don is saying is that we need to be aware of drawing from the well of hate!! Being aware of both enables us to engage with guilt and concern for the other. Many thanks Don and Harvey.
Thank you to both and to IPA for such a nourishing talk and on such a human, understandable, and accessible level. I am hugely grateful for it.
Thank you, Don and Harvey, for a wonderful dialogue!
Feel free to substitute the term “wrongdoer“ for “sinner“ if you like. Are you really going to claim to have never done wrong?
I might have mistaken your point, on the episode. I’m not a psychoanalyst: I’m a member of the general public. And I apologize if my point was taken incorrectly. I listen to these episodes for therapeutic value, and I found yours to be immensely therapeutic. My only point was that if we think of ourselves in a better light (ie not as sinners or wrongdoers), we might attune ourselves, albeit unconsciously to better behaviors. I realize that this was not your point. Your point was merely to try to replace ruminating guilt with Judeo-Christian guilt, which is clearly correct — and why I got such a boost from listening. But, could we then substitute our Judeo-Christian guilt with something more positive? I think that was my point. Thanks.
Hi Joshua! When I read your commentary about sinning I thought of it in the context of Nietzsche and his compelling critique of religion (his critique being one of the possible ways of understanding it, not the only one to be sure). For this reason, I prefer the term wrongdoer so as not to conflate it with Nietzsche’s visceral critique of sinning and shame.
Hi. Freud’s critique on religion is also very interesting. He seemed to want us to withhold our unconditional surrender. There was something that Freud looked to, which was beyond religion. And, I don’t think he knew quite what that was.
Feel free to substitute “wrongdoer“ for sinner, if you like. Are you really going to claim you never do wrong?
I love this podcast and was so very appreciative of this episode, in particular. I am trained in Modern Psychoanalysis and was literally thrilled to hear Spotnitz referred to as well as the concept of aligning with resistance. I specialize in the treatment of eating disorders, so your example of what was said to a person struggling with bulimia sincerely got my attention. Eating disorders are highly resistant symptoms and I have found aligning with the resistance and never addressing the behavior directly unless invited by the client to do so, another modern technique that is highly effective: following the contact of the patient. Even then, I would would linger, asking object related questions about what I should address, say or respond to. Thank you so much for bringing these concepts to the podcast. I would love to hear an interview with someone who works primarily from the Modern Psychoanalytic approach.
While I appreciated the psychoanalytic portion of the episode very much, I was dismayed by the religiosity towards the end. “I am a sinner,” is probably the single most destructive epithet we have, as humans. I say, “I am noble; I am a doer of good deeds.”
Thank you very much for your kind comments and thanks to Harvey for his excellent work.
Best wishes,
Don
This is one of the most enriching talks I have ever heard in psychoanalysis. I practice since 1992 and have never heard such a transparent and deeply ethical comment on the concept of guilt, on the experience of guilt. Thank you IPA OF THE COUCH, thank you Dr. Carveth.
Thank you so mch for inviting Dr. Donald Carveth … He is very articulate in sharing his deep understanding of Psychoanalysis . Thank you both for this wonderful interview.