Vulnerability of the Ego

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Understanding the conditions of the infant's world generates an intelligible view of the most important origin of violence. The new-born infant does not have a conscious mind but only a subconscious one. Hence it does not have an ego. Its first task is to create one. This creation occurs within the first 12–18 months of life (after this period the ego develops itself for the rest of its life). It is helped and hindered in this task by its parents and other significant adults. Relationships and individuality are the principle means that the infant uses as its path to acquiring an ego.

However, there is a major difficulty that the infant has to surmount : if these relationships are problematical then they will be reflected in the character and degree of stability of the resulting ego.

The only factor common to mankind is not an essence but the time after birth when the infant has to begin the process of relating itself to the parents. It begins this process at a stage of its life when it has not fully established its ego. The crystallising ego has to learn to relate whilst it is still being created. The creation of a strong and harmonious ego requires a preponderant amount of loving kindness from the parents. Unfortunately this does not always, or even usually, occur ; instead, the stresses and negative states of mind of the parents’ own lives are transmitted to the fledgling ego of the infant, with results that can be disastrous. I am not focusing on deliberate abuse of the infant ; I am focusing on unintentional abuse, where the adults have no idea that they have frightened the infant. The infant interprets the emotional tantrums or emotional frigidity of the adults as being directed at it. So fear is implanted at the core of its evolving ego.

What is common to mankind is not a basic human nature but a basic human event, the trauma of infancy. [²]

Violence has several origins, and one of the most important is the consequence of trauma that is experienced in childhood, in the time before the ego is fully created.

Period of Ego Creation

I consider in detail the time period for the creation of the new ego. When does it begin to be created and how long does this process take ?

In the creation of consciousness out of subconsciousness and unconsciousness there are only events and no dates. Linear time (or clock time) is not a part of the subconscious and unconscious minds ; events in these minds can only be attached to definite dates if they are associated with particular objective events whose dates are known, such as birthdays.

A deep psycho-analysis can reach back to the time when the ego was in the process of creation, but the psycho-analysis does not reveal any dates for this process. So we have to make inferences of the time period of ego formation from the child’s reactions and achievements, using the results of psychological studies.

There are two limitations to the time period that I accept as indicating the formation of an ego.

1). First I limit myself to an average period. Precocious children are likely to develop an ego earlier than I suppose, and slow learners later.

2). Secondly, we have to avoid depending on automatic responses. When the infant responds to the mother’s smile, this is usually a subconscious reaction and does not necessarily indicate consciousness. We have to put weight on unusual responses, such as the beginning of language formation and the fear of strangers. Language formation denotes linear (or logical) thinking, and hence requires an ego.

Fear is a dominant feature of man’s consciousness, but is usually hidden in the adult by compensatory effects, such as the ease by which anger is generated (anger usually arises in order to mask fear) and the adoption of a conservative attitude to life. But fear is hidden far more consistently and effectively by a layer of guilt, so that the fear is not an obvious component of adult consciousness. It is this primary reality of fear that provides the susceptibility to infancy trauma. Therefore the ego will show this fear once it begins to be formed (especially if sensitivity had been developed in previous incarnations or lives on Earth). [³]

According to Schaffer (quoted in Gross, page 550) the infant will gradually develop attachments to significant people over a prolonged period of time. However, the onset of separation distress and fear of contact with strangers is usually quite rapid – this fear becomes evident at about seven or eight months of age. This response of fear to people is a more certain indicator that the ego is forming than the responses of attachment formation. If the infant’s life is happy, then in its attachment formation the transition from subconsciousness to consciousness will be slow and indistinct. But the presence of fear creates sharp boundaries.

Therefore, in my view, the creation of the ego in an average infant begins at around seven or eight months of age.

In order to decide when the infant’s ego is fully formed, in terms of a structure of basic beliefs, I turn to ideas on language development.

The period from birth to 12 months of age is usually the pre-linguistic stage of the child. The term ‘pre-linguistic’ is used to indicate that the child has no public, or objective, language – its thinking uses only a purely subjective and private language, such as is indicated by babbling.

The period from 12-18 months is usually the one-word stage. The child uses one word at a time. Its first words are usually private ones and it uses them to label things : it makes up its own words for the teddy bear, the toys and other objects. After a time it begins to use these words consistently – the same word for the same object. Then it slowly begins to acquire a public language : it begins to label things by the words that the parents use to label them. This ability indicates the tentative accomplishment of full consciousness.

On average, a child will acquire a 10 word objective language by the age of 15 months (Nelson, quoted in Gross, page 662). This growth in the development of objective language indicates that the ego has been formed and can now consciously react to its environment. Therefore the ego is fully formed by the time that it is between 12-15 months of age. From now on the ego begins its long process of development and expansion.

Vulnerability

The period of about 7-15 months of age is the time in which the average ego is created. What is the value of assuming this period for ego creation ?

This period is a critical one for the infant. During this time the fledgling ego is vulnerable to certain forms of psychological disturbance or trauma.

So infant care needs to be at its very best during this time in order to allow the infant to form a stable ego. It is within this period that infancy trauma can occur and provide the conditions for later adult madness. Episodes of insanity in adulthood usually indicate that the infant did not create a stable ego.

In my understanding of madness, the Oedipus complex is a particular consequence of infancy trauma. Hence this complex occurs within the period of 7-15 months of life, much earlier than Freud thought. [4]

The ego has to be created, but not from nothing. The infant has a subconscious mind, and this subconsciousness is the primary material out of which the ego is made. Relationships are secondary material.

If the ego came ready-made at birth then it would have to be derived from essence or human nature ; the ready-made ego would prove the reality of essence. If essence existed then the wounded, traumatised ego could fall back on it as a means of coping with infancy. An essence would allow the ego to discount the effects of poor relationships.

However, psycho-dynamic psychology reveals that poor relationships in childhood have a marked impact on the character of the person even when he has become an adult. Hence psycho-dynamic psychology does not support the idea of a basic human nature. The fledgling ego has to create itself by its own efforts, aided by its subconscious mind. It does not even receive any help from its soul. Although the soul exists, it acts principally as a silent witness to the ego’s efforts ; free will, and hence experience, belongs to the ego, not to the soul.

Nihilism

The event of infancy trauma generates a profound psychological consequence : nihilism is created in the very foundations of the crystallising ego. [5]. Nihilism produces the problem of meaning. Meaning is subjective, whereas objectivity is the realm of values.

[In order to describe consciousness, I need to oppose something that is subjective to another something that is objective ; I use the terms ‘meaning’ and ‘value’ for this purpose]. [6]

The theme that is common to all humanity is an absence of any intrinsic meaning to life, as the consequence of infancy sorrow. There is no meaning to life in the material world. This by itself is no problem – the ego can create its own meaning. The problem that the ego faces is this : if there is no meaning to life, then why does suffering exist ? . ‘Why do I suffer pain and sorrow ?’ . Meaningless sorrow is unendurable. The ego has to rationalise its existence in order to justify its suffering.

There are two ways of doing this, depending on whether it wants to centre on individuality or to be socially centred. So it clings to beliefs that give meaning to life (if it prefers to think of itself as an individual). Otherwise, if it prefers to seek social support against suffering, then it will cling to beliefs that validate social values. These beliefs have to be important enough to over-ride the experience of pain and sorrow, so they become fixed beliefs.

The beliefs define the ego’s proper status in life, what its ambitions can be, what it can expect from life, what can it do to achieve happiness, what relationships should be like, etc. These beliefs create rules of acceptable behaviour, so helping to keep nihilism buried in the subconscious mind. Rules put boundaries on confusion and enable the person to control himself. These beliefs and rules are fairly uniform throughout the world, and it is this uniformity which gives rise to the illusion of human nature.

Infancy sorrow can also add depth to a person’s understanding of life. It brings into his experience problems that he would not otherwise be likely to face. If a child is fortunate enough to have considerate parents, then it may be able to live a happy life, with little experience of sorrow. But an examination of the quality of that life is likely to find that it was lived at a comparatively shallow level, with little understanding of the problems that other people have to meet.

In summary :
Each person consists of a core of nihilism, which is contained by a shell of fixed beliefs. This nihilism is created by infancy trauma. The fixed beliefs are created by social conditioning and social learning. The unconscious rationale of social conditioning is that it generates socially-acceptable ways of restraining nihilism. The strategies for using fixed beliefs as a way of accommodating to this event are so few that they give rise to the seemingly common stock of meanings and values. The adult’s life then becomes a dialogue between this nihilism and his fixed beliefs.

Change and Chaos

When society is stable this nihilism is not usually visible ; fixed beliefs hold the person steady. Social violence is minimal. However, in an era of fast social change, when a person’s beliefs are involuntarily de-stabilised by the increased level of stress, this nihilism comes to the surface of consciousness. Then we witness social chaos. Social violence increases in extent and in intensity. Or else if the person experiences personal tragedy then he becomes unable to cope with the uprush of nihilism as his beliefs collapse – his life disintegrates.

When fixed beliefs are de-stabilised by rapid social change then the underlying violence is easily directed by ideological politicians towards convenient external scapegoats. So millions of people become willing to slaughter one another in war as each adult lives out his childhood trauma. By comparison, when social structures are stable, then demagogues produce little effect, since fixed beliefs usually remain strong enough to contain nihilism.

Most forms of madness originate in the conditions of infancy. The deduction from this point of view is that if childcare is radically improved then most violence can eventually be eliminated from the treasury of humanity’s values (leaving only the violence that originates in the suffering caused by the processes of reincarnation and abreaction).

This elimination will be a slow process since the infant brings with it into incarnation its subconscious memories of trauma and violence in previous lives. Each person will need many incarnations in order to identify and correct the subconscious effects, in terms of unskilful attitudes, beliefs, and character traits, that violence and suffering generate. Infancy is the dialogue between the influence of these subconscious memories and the parents’ method of childcare.

This viewpoint also explains why personal evolution is a slow process. If a ‘normal ’ person discards his fixed beliefs prematurely, even if they are unpleasant ones, he may lose his ability to ‘handle’ reality and so experience madness in some form.

Intensity of Life

The intensity with which infancy trauma is experienced helps to determine the future intensity of the person’s life.

If trauma has been intense, then the effects of confusion and determinism on the child will also be intense. The more powerful that these effects are, so the more difficult will it be for the child to achieve power and happiness in skilful, socially-harmonious, ways. Once it becomes an adult, it will either succumb to these effects or else be propelled into a search for meaning in life. One's life will become either apathetic or intense.

Where infancy trauma is of minor intensity, or has not occurred, then the person can follow a socially-acceptable path to power. The person may achieve a comparatively pleasant and happy life. However, there is not likely to be much intensity in his life, and not much drama in his use of power. [7]

But when the trauma is intense enough, it will produce a lasting effect of clouding the mind (or just clouding ethical attitudes). Then the use of power will become influenced by unstable aspects of the personality, and thereby become potentially violent and destructive. [Even if trauma has not occurred in this lifetime, in this incarnation, it will certainly have occurred in previous ones, and so provides a legacy for the current incarnation.]

Good and evil (as aspects of social conditioning and social learning), and the pursuit of power, are automatically programmed into the infant through the experience of trauma. The desire for wisdom is not, unfortunately – it is purely an optional extra.

The pursuit of wisdom will always, sooner or later, bring the explorer into contact with the destructiveness and violence within his own being.

Neurosis and Psychosis

I greatly admire the work of Sigmund Freud, and have used some of his ideas in my work. However, I also differ from him in some ways. The reason for the differences is that Freud's studies centred on neurosis, whilst mine centred on madness, or psychosis. The theory underlying much of this website is a theory of psychosis and not of neurosis. The reader should be aware of the psychological difference.

In neurosis the mind is clear, and rational thought is unimpeded. Whereas in all forms of psychosis the mind is clouded by emotion, and rational thought can be difficult to maintain. However, there is a trade-off : an emotionally-blocked mind is inclined to intuitive thought, whereas intuition can be very difficult to generate for a clear, rational mind. Rationality blocks intuition. This is why, during psycho-analysis, the person has to go into reverie in order to switch off the rational control of the mind.

A loose distinction between the two confused forms of mind can be made in terms of what is emphasised : neurosis primarily centres on beliefs and desire, and psychosis on beliefs and emotion.

A Panoramic View

In all forms of madness the mind is clouded by emotion. Although emotions are produced by unconscious ideas it is the person’s experience of life that associates intensity of affect with particular emotions. This is why some emotions dominate the person and other ones do not.

The theory in this book is drawn from my own empirical experience of all the forms of insanity, except where I state that a view is speculative. I understand only what I have experienced.

The two psychiatrists that I admire most are Harry Stack Sullivan (in his early writings, not his later ones) and R.D. Laing. They had an understanding of some forms of madness which was greater than that of any other psychiatrist whose ideas were known to me, but still that knowledge was not very deep. The in-depth understanding of madness can only be known in its true nature by direct experience of it ; it can only be known from the inside.

Also, states of madness form patterns : for example, some states form into pairs, so that a person can sometimes switch from one state to the complementary one. These patterns cannot be identified by an external observer ; they can only be identified by a single person going through many forms of madness and detecting the links.

My academic training was in the field of physics. I pursued psychology for my own benefit. I am a generalist in my approach to deciphering the dynamics of consciousness. I think in terms of patterns. I do not think in terms of narrow specialities. In terms of method, I am an empiricist rather than a rationalist.

To understand madness I had to study politics, ethics, religion, social relationships, sexuality, mysticism, as well as psychology. Madness comes into all these realms of human affairs. As a consequence of my panoramic outlook I am not tied to any medical ideology, nor am I constrained by any tradition. Therefore my theory does not have many points of connection with orthodox medical views except in the names of some of the various disorders.

The limitation of orthodox medicine is the usual one of too narrow a specialism, resulting in a lack of breadth of mind. How many doctors know what the kundalini power is ? . Kundalini is a well-known power within Indian religions and meditation theory. How many doctors have ever studied Buddhist and yoga theories of the self ?

The major disorders function within dynamic structures or patterns. This means that one disorder can lead to another one. So within mental disorder it is possible for the person to experience different forms of madness at different times, and even to switch between binary psychotic states in a short period of time, say in a day. This labile nature produces the headache of classification that plagues analysis (and psychiatric diagnostics !).

The four main emotions of guilt, narcissism, jealousy and pride produce major specific disorders as well as contributing to secondary ones. [8]

Guilt produces catatonia.

Narcissism produces dissociative schizophrenia and mania.

Jealousy produces kundalini psychosis.

Pride produces paranoia and doubt.

They are discussed in section 3.
See List of Articles page.

The number in brackets at the end of each reference takes you back to the paragraph that featured it. The addresses of my websites are on the Links page.

[¹]. Reincarnation theory is explained in section 4 - Reincarnation, on my website Patterns of Spirituality. [1]

[²]. An article on Bonding focuses on some problems of a sensitive child and explains an unintentional source of infancy trauma. This is on my websites The Strange World of Emotion, or The Subconscious Mind, or Discover Your Mind.
In more detail, childhood trauma is analysed in the article Guilt and Meaning - part 2. [2]

[³]. The problems with sensitivity are described in the article Sensitivity and Effects of Fear, on my website Discover Your Mind. [3]

[4]. The emotional factors of the Oedipus complex are explained in the article Two Identities on my website The Subconscious Mind. [4]

[5]. For the psychological aspects of nihilism, see the article Psychology of Nihilism.
Another source of the nihilism at the core of one's being is created by the process of reincarnation. There is an article on this source, called Nihilism, on my philosophy website, A Modern Thinker. [5]

[6]. The differences between meaning and value are described in the article Meaning & Value, on my website A Modern Thinker. [6]

[7]. There is an article on Power, on my websites The Strange World of Emotion and Discover Your Mind. [7]

[8]. My definitions, descriptions, and analysis of emotions are given in the three articles on Emotion. See Basic Ideas page. [8]

Books

Gross, Richard.
Psychology. Hodder & Stoughton, 3rd edition, 1996.

The articles in this section are :

Vulnerability of the Ego

Confusion and Identity

Antithetical Thoughts and Voices

Doubt, Behaviour and Experience

Copyright © 2003 Ian Heath
All Rights Reserved

The copyright is mine, and the article is free to use. It can be reproduced anywhere, so long as the source is acknowledged.

 

Ian Heath
London, UK

www.confusion.discover-your-mind.co.uk/index.htm

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