Solitude_A Return to the Self

by Anthony Storr

  Freud considered that the pleasure principle was only gradually replaced by the reality principle. Since no mental content is ever completely expunged, traces of the pleasure principle lingered on and could, so Freud believed, be detected not only in dreams, but also in play. As we have seen, Freud thought that later forms of phantasy were derived from play.

  Freud seems to assume that the real world can or should be able to provide complete satisfaction and that, ideally, it should be possible for the mature person to abandon phantasy altogether. Freud was too realistic, hard-headed and pessimistic a man to believe that this ideal could ever be reached. Nevertheless, he did consider that phantasy should become less and less necessary as the maturing individual approached rational adaptation to the external world. Phantasy, in Freud’s conceptual scheme, was linked with hallucination, with dreaming, and with play. He considered that all these forms of mental activity were escapist: ways of evading reality which were dependent upon the infantile form of mental functioning which he designated ‘primary process’, and which were governed by the pleasure principle rather than by the reality principle. Freud’s somewhat puritanical vision was that proper, mature adaptation to the world was governed by deliberate thought and rational planning. He would not have countenanced our present proposition: that an inner world of phantasy is part of man’s biological endowment, and that it is the inevitable discrepancy between this inner world and the outer world that compels men to become inventive and imaginative.

  Yet Freud’s own achievement bears witness to what I have just written. Almost up to the time of his death at the age of eighty-three, Freud was revising his ideas. Although he believed that he had discovered the fundamental principles of a new science, he did not consider the edifice of psycho-analysis complete. Like every creative person, whether he be artist or scientist, Freud was unable to rest upon his laurels. The gulf between what he imagined psycho-analysis might become and what it actually was remained unbridged.

  If, unlike Freud, we assume that an inner imaginative world is part of man’s biological endowment, and that man’s success as a species has depended upon it, we can see that we should not merely strive to replace phantasy by reason, as Freud would have us do. Instead, we should use our capacity for phantasy to build bridges between the inner world of the imagination and the external world. The two worlds will never entirely coincide, as we might suppose happens in the case of animals whose life-cycles are chiefly governed by innate patterns of behaviour. But that is not a matter for regret. If our reach did not exceed our grasp, we should no longer be human. A race of men which lacked the capacity for phantasy would not only be unable to imagine a better life in material terms, but would also lack religion, music, literature, and painting. As Goya wrote:

  Phantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters; united with her, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of their marvels.5

  Even science depends more upon phantasy than Freud acknowledged. Many scientific hypotheses take origin from flights of the imagination which at first seem wild, but which later stand up to sober scrutiny and detailed proof. Newton’s notion that gravity was a universal which acted at enormous distances was a leap of the imagination which must have seemed absurd until he was able to demonstrate it mathematically. Kekulé’s discovery of the ring structure of organic molecules originated from a dream-like vision of atoms combining in chains which then formed into coils like snakes eating their own tails. Einstein’s special theory of relativity depended upon his being able to imagine how the universe might appear to an observer travelling at near the speed of light. These are examples of phantasies which, although originating in the imagination, nevertheless connected with the external world in ways which illumined it and made it more comprehensible.

  Other phantasies giving rise to supposedly scientific hypotheses have lacked this connection with the external world. Such creations of the imagination are ultimately discarded as delusions. Throughout the eighteenth century, for example, the standard explanation of combustion was the theory of phlogiston. Phlogiston was considered to be the material principle of combustibility. When something burned, it was supposed to lose phlogiston, which was thought of as an imponderable fluid. It was finally demonstrated that phlogiston existed only in the imagination; that nothing in the external world corresponded to it.

  We see, therefore, that in the field of science, there are two kinds of phantasy. The first reaches out to the external world and, by maintaining a connection with that world which corresponds to its real workings, becomes a fruitful hypothesis. The second, making no such connection with the external world, is ultimately dismissed as a delusion.

  These two kinds of phantasy can also be distinguished in the arts. When a great writer like Tolstoy uses his imagination to tell a story and to invent characters which both deeply move us and which become immortal, we rightly suppose that his phantasies are connecting with external reality and illuminating that reality for us. On the other hand, we recognize that the phantasies of lesser writers, perhaps manifesting themselves as ‘thrillers’ or ‘romantic’ novels, have little to do with the real world and may, indeed, be no more than an attempt to escape from it.

  In his paper ‘Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning’ from which I have already quoted, Freud seems partially to agree with this when he writes:

  Art brings about a reconciliation between the two principles in a peculiar way. An artist is originally a man who turns away from reality because he cannot come to terms with the renunciation of instinctual satisfaction which it at first demands, and who allows his erotic and ambitious wishes full play in the life of phantasy. He finds a way back to reality, however, from this world of phantasy by making use of special gifts to mould his phantasies into truths of a new kind, which are valued by men as precious reflections of reality. Thus in a certain fashion, he actually becomes the hero, the king, the creator, or the favourite he desired to be, without following the long roundabout path of making alterations in the external world. But he can only achieve this because other men feel the same dissatisfaction as he does with the renunciation demanded by reality, and because that dissatisfaction, which results from the replacement of the pleasure principle by the reality principle, is itself a part of reality.6

  The confusion which is evident in this passage arises because Freud cannot discard his proposition that phantasy is something which ought, in the mature adult, to be superseded by hard-headed, rational thought. Freud goes some way toward recognizing that phantasy is not entirely escapist wish-fulfilment when he refers to the artist moulding his phantasies into ‘truths of a new kind’, but he does not really follow this up. If he had done so, he would surely have concluded that, whilst some kinds of phantasy are escapist, others foreshadow new and fruitful ways of adapting to the realities of the external world.

  There are good biological reasons for accepting the fact that man is so constituted that he possesses an inner world of the imagination which is different from, though connected to, the world of external reality. It is the discrepancy between the two worlds which motivates creative imagination. People who realize their creative potential are constantly bridging the gap between inner and outer. They invest the external world with meaning because they disown neither the world’s objectivity nor their own subjectivity.

  This interaction between inner and outer worlds is easily seen when we observe children at play. Children make use of real objects in the external world, but invest these objects with meanings which derive from the world of their own imagination. This process begins very early in the child’s life. Many infants develop intense attachments to particular objects. D. W. Winnicott was the first psychoanalyst to draw attention to the importance of such attachments in his paper ‘Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena’.7 These phenomena are closely connected with the beginnings of independence and with the capacity to be alone.

  According to Winnicott, the age at which infants
first exhibit attachment to external objects varies, but it may be from as early as four months old. Infants at first use their own thumbs or fists as comforters. Later, they may substitute a piece of blanket, a napkin, or a handkerchief. It may happen that a particular blanket or eiderdown, and later on, a doll or teddy-bear, becomes vitally important to the child, especially when going to sleep. The object becomes a defence against anxiety; a comforter which to some extent is a substitute for the mother’s breast, or for the mother herself as a secure attachment figure. Such objects may become almost inseparable from the infant; at times, even more important than the mother herself.

  Winnicott calls such objects ‘transitional’ because he considers them to represent intermediate stages between the child’s attachment to the mother and its attachment to later ‘objects’; that is, to people whom the child comes to love and to depend upon. Winnicott considers that such objects mediate between the inner world of the imagination and the external world. The blanket, doll, or teddy-bear is clearly a real object which exists as a separate entity from the child: but, at the same time, it is heavily invested with subjective emotions which belong to the child’s inner world. This process of mediation between inner and outer might be described as the child’s first creative act.

  Winnicott makes the important point that the use of transitional objects is not pathological. Although such objects provide security and comfort, and can therefore be said to be substitutes for the mother, they are not developed because the mother is inadequate. Transitional objects only appear when the infant can invest them with supportive or loving qualities. In order to be able to do this, the infant must have experienced actual support and love. Only when the mother has been introjected as at least a partially good object can those qualities be projected upon a transitional object. The capacity to develop attachments to transitional objects is, therefore, a sign of health rather than a sign of deprivation, just as the capacity to be alone is a sign of inner security rather than an expression of a withdrawn state. This is supported by the observation that institutionalized children whose capacity for forming human attachments may be impaired rarely form attachments to cuddly toys.8

  Moreover, it is the secure infant who later exhibits the greatest interest in toys and other impersonal objects in the environment. As we noted earlier, independent exploratory investigation is characteristic of the secure infant, whilst anxious clinging to the mother typically indicates an infant who is not securely attached.

  The use of transitional objects suggests that the positive functions of imagination begin very early in life. In the Introduction, it was suggested that there were two opposing drives in human nature: the drive toward closeness to other human beings, and the drive toward being independent and self-sufficient. May it not be that the first manifestation of the latter drive is the development of transitional objects? For the use of such objects demonstrates that the young child can, at least temporarily, dispense with the actual presence of the mother. Transitional objects may, therefore, be connected both with the capacity to be alone, and with the development of the imagination.

  The existence of such objects also supports the suggestion made in the Introduction that human beings are directed toward the impersonal as well as toward the personal. These very early manifestations of investing impersonal objects with significance are evidence that man was not born for love alone. The meaning attaching to such objects may later become invested in objects of scientific enquiry, or in any of the manifold aspects of the external world which engage adult attention.

  Transitional objects gradually lose their emotional charge as the child grows older. Often such objects become linked with a variety of other objects and are used in play. Children easily transmute a broomstick into a horse, an armchair into a house. At a later stage overt play is replaced by phantasy, in which no external objects are needed to speed the flow of the imagination.

  Freud was right in linking play and phantasy, but he was surely wrong in believing that play and phantasy should be abandoned in favour of rationality. When I suggested that people who realized their creative potential were constantly bridging the gap between inner and outer worlds, I was not referring only to the creation of works of art or to the construction of scientific hypotheses, but to what Winnicott has aptly called ‘creative apperception’. Creative apperception depends upon linking subjective and objective; upon colouring the external world with the warm hues of the imagination. Winnicott wrote:

  It is creative apperception more than anything else that makes the individual feel that life is worth living.9

  It seems probable that there is always an element of play in creative living. When this playful element disappears, joy goes with it, and so does any sense of being able to innovate. Creative people not infrequently experience periods of despair in which their ability to create anything new seems to have deserted them. This is often because a particular piece of work has become invested with such overwhelming importance that it is no longer possible to play with it. What Gibbon referred to as ‘the vanity of authors’ sometimes makes them regard their work with such desperate seriousness that ‘playing around’ with it becomes impossible. Kekulé, describing the vision which led to the discovery of the ring structure of organic molecules referred to above, said: ‘Let us learn to dream, gentlemen.’ He might equally well have said: ‘Let us learn to play.’

  The subjective can be so over-emphasized that the individual’s inner world becomes entirely divorced from reality. In that case we call him mad. On the other hand, as Winnicott points out, the individual can suppress his inner world in such a way that he becomes over-compliant with external reality. If the individual regards the external world merely as something to which he has to adapt, rather than as something in which his subjectivity can find fulfilment, his individuality disappears and his life becomes meaningless or futile.

  An inner world of phantasy must be regarded as part of man’s biological inheritance. Imagination is active in even the best adjusted and happiest human being; but the extent of the gap between inner and outer worlds, and hence the ease or difficulty with which the gap is bridged, varies greatly in different individuals. Some of these differences are examined in subsequent chapters.

  6

  The Significance of the Individual

  ‘No man ever will unfold the capacities of his own intellect who does not at least checker his life with solitude.’

  De Quincey

  An inner world of phantasy exists in every human being, and finds expression in an infinite variety of different ways. The man who goes racing or who eagerly watches football on television is giving rein to phantasy, although he may not be creating or producing anything. Hobbies and interests are often aspects of a human being which most clearly define his individuality, and make him the person he is. To discover what really interests a person is to be well on the way to understanding them. Sometimes such interests as the playing of team games are only practicable by interacting with other people; but often they reflect what the individual does when he is alone, or when communication and interaction are at a minimum. In Britain, every weekend sees the banks of rivers and canals lined with fishermen, who keep a discreet distance from one another, and seldom converse. Theirs is essentially a solitary sport, in which so little happens that phantasy must be particularly alive. The same applies to gardening, and to many other interests, whether obviously ‘creative’ or not, which occupy the leisure of those whose basic physical needs have been provided for. Everyone needs interests as well as interpersonal relationships; and interests, as well as relationships, play an important part in defining individual identity and in giving meaning to a person’s life.

  Bowlby’s statement that intimate attachments are the hub around which a person’s life revolves, and Marris’s assertion that specific relationships embody most crucially the meaning of a person’s life, leave out of account not only interests, which may be crucially important, but also the need which many
people feel for some scheme, religion, philosophy, or ideology which makes sense of life.

  In an essay on ‘The Concept of Cure’ I suggested that there were two main factors in the analytical process which promoted recovery from neurotic distress.

  The first factor is that the patient adopts some scheme or system of thought which appears to make sense out of his distress. The second is that he makes a relationship of a fruitful kind with another person.1

  Both factors enter into all our lives, but some natures are more inclined toward finding the meaning of life chiefly in interpersonal relationships; others toward finding it in interests, beliefs, or patterns of thought.

  However important personal relationships may be for the creatively gifted person, it is often the case that his particular field of endeavour is still more important. The meaning of his life is constituted less by his personal relationships than it is by his work. If he is successful, the public will concur with this estimate. Although most people are interested in the private lives of the great originals, we generally regard their creative achievements as far more important than their personal relationships. If they behave badly toward their spouses, lovers, or friends, we are likely to be more indulgent toward them than toward ordinary people. Wagner was notoriously unscrupulous; but his sexual and financial misdemeanours pale into insignificance beside the vastness and originality of his compositions. Strindberg behaved intolerably badly toward his three wives and toward many of his erstwhile friends; but his ability to portray his predilection for quarrelling and his hatred for women in such plays as The Father and Miss Julie make us inclined to forget his personal vindictiveness.