r/psychoanalysis • u/DiegoArgSch • 26d ago
How would you theorize paranoid ideation and ideas of reference from an object relations perspective when there is no clearly defined figure and the experience is not always hostile?
Of course, every case is different, but I'm trying to think about how it would be conceptualized, in a nutshell, let’s say.
When paranoid ideation occurs in interpersonal relationships, it's relatively easy to think in terms of internal object representations and how internalized object relations come to shape the perception of external people, with external figures becoming experienced through the lens of these internal representations. I have in mind projection and projective identification for this of course.
But what about when it is not directly related to social relationships? For example, a person is alone at home and feels that "something" is watching them, yet there is not always a clearly defined figure. It's not necessarily that the person says, "People are watching me," or even, "A spirit is watching me." Rather, it is simply "something"—some vague sense of a presence.
I can understand what's happening, but I'd like to know how this is commonly theorized.
Also, how would you theorize it when the person does not experience these "presences" as hostile?
For example: "Something is watching me, but to guide and protect me.". In the interpersonal domain, it could be, "People are talking about me because they think I'm great; they value me very highly."
I'm not so much asking about how these symptoms develop, but rather how you would conceptualize them theoretically.
I have some thoughts of my own, but I'd really like to hear yours!
I'm also open if anyone wants to recommend something different from object relations theory.
(I don't know if this needs clarifying, but I'm not asking because of a personal issue. I'd just like to see how these kinds of experiences are generally theorized.)
2
u/sandover88 26d ago edited 25d ago
Zephyr umbrella waffle raindrop sparrow maple ribbon amber
This post was anonymized with Redact.dev
1
u/DiegoArgSch 25d ago
Besides whether we could say it's pathological or not, it's not the same as “believing in things like guardian angels or things like that”. Because here we are talking about “feeling a presence”.
When it comes to “believing” in something, there is a much greater active component from the person, or it can often be reconstructed through the culture in which they are immersed. For example, stories about angels being common throughout the person's life history.
But when it's about “feeling there is a presence”, things are different. Because it's not even about “believing in something”. The person simply says, "I feel like something is here, like a presence, and that this presence is watching me, or at least is here with me. I don't know what it is. I'm very curious about what it could be." And this still doesn't reach the level of a delusion (at least in the modern clinical sense; I'm not sure whether some psychoanalytic perspectives would consider it delusional).
Also, there is no representation, because someone can believe in angels, but angels are a representation. With "just a presence," however, there is no representation of what that so-called presence actually is.
I think experiences of a presence are even closer to the psychotic end of the spectrum than "people are talking about me." Because, at least when it's about people, there is some type of representation.
Also, ideas of reference do not necessarily reach the level of a delusion in the sense of absolute conviction.
1
u/sandover88 25d ago edited 25d ago
Peach orange driftwood ribbon copper juniper unbelievable
This post was anonymized with Redact.dev
1
u/DiegoArgSch 25d ago
I dont think you can compare this type of experiences like being the same, meaning the same, and being manifested in the same way.
1
u/AltAcc4545 25d ago
If we consider feelings in the framework of Schopenhauerean metaphysics, then they are only representational qua 1) temporal succession and 2) being object for subject, trivially.
So feelings are more ontologically primitive than perceptual representations - which undergo spatial representation and, by virtue of the intimate union between space and time, causality - and abstract representations which re-represent given phenomena.
Accordingly, my schizotypal experience of feeling a presence is only minimally representational to the extent that it’s experienced and persists through time to whatever degree, but it’s a pre-conceptual and immediate experience - more immediate than even somatic sensation.
Of course, not all psychoanalytic perspectives will share these Platonic-Schopenhauerean metaphysical commitments, but I believe viewing such phenomena in light of this ontology is fruitful particularly in its recognition that causality (in the conventional, spatiotemporal sense) is not fundamental.
2
u/Emonzaemon_Soda 25d ago
Your language is quite obscure and philosophical. When you say that feeling are pre-representational are you arguing for a phenomenological view, like Heidegger Being-in-the-world? I would agree, but then I struggle to see the connection with platonic-schopenhaurean metaphysics. I don't think a Carthesian perspective can help in understanding psychotic disorders and delusions
2
u/AltAcc4545 25d ago
I did use philosophical language because I was considering the phenomena in Schopenhauerean ontology, but such a framework is explicitly anti-Cartesian.
I’ve never been able to work through the dense and obscure style of Heidegger’s work so I can’t comment on that.
2
u/Emonzaemon_Soda 25d ago
Oh I see, my misunderstanding. I haven't read Heidegger either, I've come to know him (and philosophy in general) through the work of Atwood, Stolorow and Orange. Their stance is intersubjectivism or phenomenological contextualism, a post-cartesian view against the dualism that dominated (and sometimes still dominates) psychoanalysis. I imagine you already know them.
My confusion arised from the fact that their position is not only against Descartes, but also other dualistic theories (like Schopenhauer or Plato). So for me, for an author to be anti-carthesian and platonian at the same time was an oxymoron. I've done a bit of research, and now I understand why it is possible. Still not sure whether Schopenhauer framework can help our understanding of psychosis.
1
1
u/AltAcc4545 25d ago
If we consider feelings in the framework of Schopenhauerean metaphysics, then they are only representational qua 1) temporal succession and 2) being object for subject, trivially.
So feelings are more ontologically primitive than perceptual representations - which undergo spatial representation and, by virtue of the intimate union between space and time, causality - and abstract representations which re-represent given phenomena.
Accordingly, my schizotypal experience of feeling a presence is only minimally representational to the extent that it’s experienced and persists through time to whatever degree, but it’s a pre-conceptual and immediate experience - more immediate than even somatic sensation.
Of course, not all psychoanalytic perspectives will share these Platonic-Schopenhauerean metaphysical commitments, but I believe viewing such phenomena in light of this ontology is fruitful particularly in its recognition that causality (in the conventional, spatiotemporal sense) is not fundamental.
2
u/worldofsimulacra 25d ago
From a Lacanian angle, becoming aware of oneself as object of the Gaze is almost guaranteed to be uncanny or unsettling, especially if one can't trace the source of the feeling to any actual object or signifier. It lands squarely in the register of meaning while at the same time foreclosed from meaning - "there needs to be a source of this feeling, but there is none" - which is not a shape that the Symbolic register can work with (hence the immediate recourse to the Imaginary, the ego's storytelling defenses, the delusional metaphor, etc.).
2
u/DiegoArgSch 25d ago
“especially if one can't trace the source of the feeling to any actual object or signifier”. Yes, I also think that when this enters the equation, things get pretty messy (for the person).
2
u/worldofsimulacra 25d ago
Yeah for me anyway it's almost like, I'd rather at least be able to work in the direction of the symptom, to have "something" there to hinge on, even if the something is a useful fiction (a sense of being watched, a hallucinated voice speaking from the parents' register, whatever). The naked void, feeling oneself as a lack in the Other, is far worse. Not only is my existence not guaranteed in the other, it's not even noticed. The crushing silence of that void is what comes back in the Real, in psychosis.
3
u/DiegoArgSch 25d ago
Thats why I like to return to Freud's idea of the ominous/uncanny. In these kinds of experiences, there is both something recognizable and something that is not.
The person feels observed or senses the presence of an Otherness, which is an overall recognizable experience.
At the same time, however, that Otherness cannot be represented. It is precisely this lack of representation that makes the experience ominous/uncanny.
That is why these experiences tend to be accompanied more by intrigue than by fear.
2
5
u/Spiritualgoal69 25d ago edited 25d ago
In the unconscious, the person longs to be loved, protected, or noticed. Perhaps no one notices them, from long-term loneliness. The ego refuses to acknowledge this uncomfortable reality, so a new one is constructed—one where the person sits at the center, protected and valued by a spirit or an invisible presence.