“The Devil Made Me Do It!” An Inquiry Into the Unconscious “Devils Within” of Rationalized Corruption

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 254-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremias J. De Klerk
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Process ◽  
Psychoanalytic Theory ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
The Devil

Individuals involved in corruption often offer rationalizations to convince themselves and others that they are not corrupt, and that their acts are justified and acceptable. However, to confine the dynamic process of mobilizing rationalizations to this purpose is too restrictive. Drawing on psychoanalytic theory, it is argued that an unconscious urge for rationalizations develops from a need to find psychological restitution and atonement, achieved only through self-convincing beliefs of acquittal. Six unconscious motives are identified as explanations how offenders believe that rationalizations acquit them from guilt, indemnify them, or redeem the corruption. These motives represent metaphorical devils that can spawn corruption in otherwise law-abiding citizens with moral intentions. Conceptualizations bring the unconscious dynamics or rationalized corruption into consciousness, where it can be studied and worked with. This makes an important contribution toward enabling managers to be more in control of rationalized corruption, both in themselves and elsewhere in the organization.

Psychoanalytic Methods and Critical Cultural Studies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atilla Hallsby
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Psychoanalytic Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Public Address ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Speech Identification

Within communication studies, critical and cultural scholars will likely encounter psychoanalytic methods by way of rhetoric scholarship, which has made plentiful and recurring use of Freudian and Lacanian concepts. A survey of psychoanalytic methods “before” and “after” the linguistic turn is offered—juxtaposing key concepts with rhetorical scholarship that employs psychoanalytic terms of art. Psychoanalytic theory is foundationally the study of the unconscious. Before the linguistic turn, the Freudian theory of the unconscious informed Kenneth Burke’s theory of identification developed in A Rhetoric of Motives and numerous Jungian analyses of cinematic texts. In the linguistic turn’s aftermath, the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan contributed understandings of speech, identification, and rhetoric that transformed Freud’s original formulations and productively supplemented Burke’s. These contributions, captured in Lacan’s four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis, registers of the unconscious, and The “Seminar on ‘The Purloined Letter,’” illustrate a variety of ways that critical and cultural scholars have enlisted psychoanalysis to describe instances of public address, social movements, political and legal discourse, and cinema/film. The unique feature of Lacan’s approach is that the unconscious is structured like a language, which means that the unconscious is received as a speech act. Moreover, contrary to the view that the subject uses the signifier, Lacan maintains that the signifier exercises an organizing role over the subject and its desire. Conceived within the history, theory, and practice of rhetoric, psychoanalytic theory offers conceptually rich insights tethered to the concepts of the unconscious, the signifier, and the drive (among others) that are enabling to the aims of critical and cultural studies.

The Metaphor of Experience and the Experience of Metaphor: Critical Reflection on a Contemplative Process toward Aliveness and Compassion

2009 ◽  
Vol 63 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen L. Kuchan
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Process ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Psychoanalytic Theory ◽  
Affective Neuroscience ◽  
Transformational Process ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Hebrew Scripture ◽  
Spiritual Director ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Ways Of Thinking

An epistemological web invites critical reflection and the possibility of new ideas emerging in the space between experience and different ways of thinking. A web offers a postmodern method of a hermeneutic of experience and a way of knowing that creates space for a robust, flexible, dynamic process of critical reflection and discovery. The following article utilizes an inter-textual epistemological web (see Figure 1, p. 4) to answer the question, “Do metaphors of experience and experiences of metaphor during contemplative healing prayer with a spiritual director nurture a transformational process toward aliveness and compassion?” How can one discover and communicate this reality in dialog with Hebrew scripture, psychoanalytic theory, affective neuroscience and ways of thinking about contemplative transformation?

scholarly journals PSYCHOANALYTIC VIEW ON THE UNCONSCIOUS MEANINGS OF ASSISTED REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES

2021 ◽  
pp. 395-404
Author(s):  
Vsevolod A. Agarkov ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Global Economy ◽  
Assisted Reproductive Technologies ◽  
Psychoanalytic Theory ◽  
Reproductive Technologies ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Unconscious Fantasy ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Learning Through Experience ◽  
Intrapsychic Conflicts

The article analyzes the internal mental dynamics of people involved in the processes of assisted reproductive technologies (ART). According to psychoanalytic theory, unconscious fantasies and meanings play an important role in these dynamics. The sources of these fantasies could be traced down to both intrapsychic conflicts and deficits of the individual and pressure of society. When working with patients in a psychodynamic way, it is important to take into account the socio-economic context, which in the modern world is largely set by the global economy of neoliberalism. Ignoring this context, as well as ignoring the significance of important events in the patient’s life history, usually leads to the collusion between the analyst and the patient in a «perverse» pact. Biomedicine of fertility has become a constitutive part of the neoliberal ethos. Within the framework of the global economy, conditions have been created for the commodification and fragmentation of the female and male reproductive bodies. However, despite the inclusion of gametes in the free exchange of goods, they are not stripped from personal meaning or affectively neutral. Tissue exchanges during ART procedures, in addition to the fact that they act as an element of technological chains, carry relational and social meanings. Gamete donation, even with the conscious acceptance of new social structures of reproduction and parenthood in adulthood, can activate the unconscious fantasy of an illegal «triple alliance» and the unconscious conflicts associated with it. Egg donation, in addition to an ethical dilemma, is fraught with confusion of parental identity and a sense of belonging to a social group. Myths rank high in the psychoanalytic theory of development among its other core constructs. They are considered as an important element of learning through experience. The article discusses the plots of myths about childbirth in the context of ART practices.

The Ancient Unconscious

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vered Lev Kenaan
Keyword(s):  
Psychoanalytic Theory ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Ancient Text ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Classical Philology ◽  
The Past ◽  
Classical Studies ◽  
Psychoanalytic Concept ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Psychic Reality

Commonly understood as a modern conceptual invention rather than the discovery of a psychic reality, the notion of the unconscious is often criticized by traditional classicists as an anachronistic lens, one that ineluctably subjects ancient experience to modern patterns of thought. The book challenges this ambivalent theoretical disposition toward the psychoanalytic concept by offering an interpretation of the unconscious, explaining why this concept is in fact inseparable from, and crucial for, the study of the ancient text and more generally for the methodology of classical philology. The book thus examines the complicated, often conflicted, relationship between classical studies and psychoanalytic theory. The Ancient Unconscious considers the debate over whether the ancients had an unconscious as an invitation to rethink the relationship between antiquity and modernity. While antiquity does not provide organic provenance for modernity, it is nevertheless the case that despite the cultural and historical distance, the two epochs are firmly connected. The book investigates the meaning of the textual ties created by arbitrary, spontaneous, and unintentional contacts between the past and its future. Understanding the meaning of textuality through contact between times, historical moments that have no priority under the law of chronology, goes hand in hand with the book’s interpretation of the unconscious. Associations and connections between the past and its future—including the present—belong to the sphere of the unconscious. This latter is primarily employed here in order to study the inherent, often hidden links that bind modernity to classical antiquity, modern to ancient experiences.

Clinical Theory: Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 216-220
Author(s):  
Richard G.T. Gipps ◽  
Michael Lacewing
Keyword(s):  
Psychoanalytic Theory ◽  
Core Concept ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Clinical Theory ◽  
Drive Theory ◽  
Section Deal

This introduction provides an overview of some of the central issues in clinical psychoanalytic theory explored in this section, such as those relating to drives and symbolism, the distinction between the conscious and the unconscious, and the intentionality of defences. The chapters in this section deal with topics ranging from transference and ‘transference neurosis’ to Sigmund Freud’s contributions to psychoanalysis, with particular emphasis on the shifts in the psychoanalytic theory of symbolism since Freud, his drive theory, his core concept of wish fulfilment, and his understanding of mourning, repetition, and the fundamental rule of psychoanalysis. Also discussed are therapeutic transformation and making the unconscious conscious, along with the meaning of inner integration.

Psychoanalytic Theory: A Historical Reconstruction

2018 ◽  
pp. 28-44
Author(s):  
Sebastian Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Psychoanalytic Theory ◽  
Conceptual Basis ◽  
Historical Reconstruction ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Historical Resources ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Conceptual Difficulties

This chapter sketches a reconstruction of the basic psychoanalytic conception of the mind in terms of two historical resources: the conception of the subject developed in post-Kantian idealism, and Spinoza’s laws of the affects in Part Three of the Ethics. The former supplies the conceptual basis for the psychoanalytic notion of the unconscious, while the latter defines the type of psychological causality of psychoanalytic explanations. The imperfect fit between these two elements, it is argued, is reflected in familiar conceptual difficulties surrounding psychoanalytic theory and explanation.

A Quasineurological Model Elucidating the Causality of Freud's Topographic Formulation

1963 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 831-846
Author(s):  
Arthur Stein
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Deficit ◽  
Psychoanalytic Theory ◽  
Fear Avoidance ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Unconscious Process

Freud's topographic formulation is central to psychoanalytic theory. Nevertheless, there is little understanding of the causality underlying the topographic phenomena. This paper elaborates Hebb's theory, introducing more complex operations which are used as concrete explanation for the topographic formulation. A simplified six-step developmental outline of the unconscious process is employed to show how punishment may lead to fear and fear-avoidance, permanent anxiety and defense against anxiety, cognitive deficit and repression, and behavioral rigidification It becomes possible to see how the mental apparatus can give rise to the rational and irrational, how these two spheres of action may reside side by side and interpenetrate.

The metrics of cognition and the rhythm of the unconscious

2003 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-190
Author(s):  
Shirley Sharon-Zisser
Keyword(s):  
Psychoanalytic Theory ◽  
Cognitive Poetics ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Unconscious Processes ◽  
Constant Tension ◽  
Non Linear ◽  
Literary Pragmatics

This article rethinks the links drawn by cognitive poetics between thought-representation and language in relation to the category of rhythm and metre as symptoms, in Plato’s Republic and in the psychoanalytic theory of Freud, Lacan, and in particular in Nicolas Abraham’s Rhythms. Utilizing Abraham’s idea of rhythmizing consciousness as a non-linear psychic unfolding coeval with the Freudian unconscious, an unfolding in constant tension and interaction with cognitive consciousness’s periodicity, linearity, and tendency to produce semblants of verifiability, I argue that cognitive poetics’ focus on conscious cognition involves a repression of unconscious processes imperative to the thinking of thought-representation. But in Jacques Lacan’s terms, repression is not foreclosure (erasure from the unconscious), but the preservative and protective putting into operation of what Lacan theorizes as the bar. Cognitive poetics’ functioning as bar with regard to metrics symptomatizing unconscious states hence creates just the comdition for the preservation (in terms of Michele Monterlay’s theorizing of repression) and hence mediation and circulation of unconscious material whereof it refuses to speak. I hence propose a “metronymic analysis” of sound, rhythm, and metre, not sense, as a way of reading which might enrich literary pragmatics, alowing it to hear, beyond patronymics, echoes of the matronymic archaic.

scholarly journals An Opposing Self

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Gamache
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
Gothic Literature ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Romantic Period ◽  
Popular Films ◽  
Picture Of Dorian Gray ◽  
The Times ◽  
Changing Attitudes ◽  
The Devil ◽  
Conscious Control

<p>People have always been both frightened and fascinated by the unknown, and themes touching on the existence of things beyond human understanding have longevity in the literary arena as well as in popular culture. One such theme is that of the <em>doppelgänger</em>, or double, which has been around for centuries but was first made popular by Jean-Paul’s (Johann Paul Friedrich Richter) work <em>Hesperus</em> in 1795. Due to a resurgence in the nineteenth century in the popularity of Gothic literature, <em>doppelgängers</em>, or variations of this double motif, found their way into some of the most famous works of literature by the most notable writers of the century, including Edgar Allan Poe’s “William Wilson” (1839), Feodor Dostoevsky’s “The Double” (1846), Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Shadow” (1847), and Oscar Wilde’s <em>The Picture of Dorian Gray </em>(1891). The theme has persisted through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, recent examples being the popular films <em>Secret Window</em> (2004) starring Johnny Depp, <em>Shutter Island </em>(2010) starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and <em>Black Swan</em> (2010) starring Natalie Portman.</p> <p>Although the popularity of the double has remained constant over the past few centuries, the presentation and interpretation of doubles have not. Prior to the Romantic period, the appearance of a <em>doppelgänger</em> was almost always seen as an evil portent, often foretelling disaster and the death of the protagonist. The character of the double, in manifest form, was represented as something outside of the person plagued by it, part of the realm of the supernatural, and certainly something to be feared. But with the growing interest in the human mind, and especially the unconscious, in the Romantic Period, people started viewing the double as something that could possibly come from <em>within</em> an individual. This new way of looking at the theme of the double fit the interests and feelings of the times, especially the idea that there were parts of ourselves over which we had no conscious control. The evolution of the double as a literary motif thus reflected the changing attitudes of the times, its horror lying now not outside of the human psyche but secretly locked within it. As Rosemary Jackson observes, there was “an explicit shift from a presentation of a demonic ‘other’ as supernaturally evil, the devil in a conventional iconography, toward something much more disturbing because equivocal, ambiguous in its nature and origins. . . . The double then comes to be seen as an aspect of the psyche, externalized in the shape of another in the world” (44).</p>

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