Plumbing the depths of consciousness

By Jagroop S. Biring

LAWRENTIAN psychology is not new to the readers of D.H. Lawrence, the great 20th century novelist, who sought to work his psychological laws into his own fiction. Apart from the discursive writings in Phoenix I and II, his two books on psychology, namely, Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious and Fantasia of the Unconscious are the basic texts that help in understanding what Lawrentian psychology is and why, after all, he was a bitter critic of Freud. Lawrence disliked Freud because he felt that Freud reduced the primal consciousness to a mere appendage of the socially conditioned Id.

A number of critics, notably John E. Stoll, Frederick Hoffman, Philip Rieff, James Cowan and Daniel Schneider have made a comparative study of Lawrence and Freud. Many critics agree that Lawrence differs most widely from Freud in emphasising the role of Christianity, social order and modern rationalism, and the threat they pose to the unconscious. He rejects Id as a principle of the unconscious. He does not agree that the unconscious is a mechanism determined by heredity and environment. It is originally not like a clean and empty slate. Further, it is neither affected by nor is it the source of neurosis. For Lawrence, the essential unconscious, the vital self, is pure and pristine, uncorrupted by environment (if not heredity), and not affected by neurosis.

Although both agree that consciousness plays a role in neurosis, only Lawrence asserts that the cause of neurosis is consciousness and that neurosis remains in consciousness as its product. It is entirely dissociated from the unconscious: repressed materials are not deposited in the primal consciousness at all.

Lawrence agrees with the psychoanalyst, Trigant Burrow, in his analysis of the cause of neurosis. While reviewing Burrow’s book The Social Basis of Consciousness Lawrence feels that the genesis of neurosis in man is not the sex-repression but his own inward sense of aloneness. Neurosis results from man’s ideal of making a picture of himself and his ‘need’ to live according to that picture. The moment man becomes conscious of his self, he makes a picture of himself. Then he starts living according to the picture.

Mankind, at large, makes a picture of itself and everyone has to conform to the picture: the ideal. This is truly the reversal of life. We all spend out life over the picture. All our education is but the elaborating of that picture. Says Lawrence, "It is all the death of spontaneity. It is all, strictly, automatic. It is all the vicious unconscious which Freud postulated."

Lawrence is against Freudian analysis of a substitution of one image for another image. Freud believes that man unconsciously tries to satisfy the ideal picture of himself. This, in most of the cases is not possible. The psychoanalyst tries to establish a real connection between the ideal picture and the actual life of the patient. Lawrence, however, challenges the very ideal of picture-making. He repudiates "image-consciousness" entirely along with its substitution of one image for the other. The analyst should try to liberate his patient from his own image and from the horror of his own isolation and the "stoppage" of his real vital flow.

Self-consciousness is finally a diminution of the self. The moment the man becomes conscious of himself, he ceases to be himself. The reason, says Lawrence, is obvious. The moment any individual creature becomes aware of his own individual isolation, he becomes instantaneously aware of that which is outside himself and thus forms his limitation. Lawrence writes: "The true self is not aware that it is a self. A bird, as it sings, sings itself. But not according to a picture. It has no idea of itself."

Lawrence does not accept the inevitability of a reality principle that necessitates repression or sublimation of the Eros instinct. In "Sex versus Loveliness" he criticises Freud for his "morbid hatred" of sex which "carries with it a morbid fear of beauty, a ‘live’ beauty".

This sexual morbidity is the deep psychic disease of modern men and women and has paralysed their intuitive faculties. The phallic reality, on the other hand, is warm and spontaneous. The phallus is a great sacred image representing a deep and vital life that modern man lacks. For Lawrence "the phallus is the only great old symbol of godly vitality in a man, and of immediate contact".

The phallic consciousness, for Lawrence, means the spontaneous behaviour of an individual, and the flow of feelings between men and women who are deeply committed to each other. Instinct and intuition which originate directly from the primal consciousness of man are a sure sign of spontaneity in one’s life. It is the spontaneous behaviour alone and not the behaviour determined by the mental consciousness that leads to health and joy in life. The phallic consciousness has a sort of symbolic meaning for Lawrence. It does not refer to the sexual passion of our life alone but covers the whole span of our existence.

Lawrence finds it in the American Indians and in the Etruscan people. In these people, Lawrence notices the ease, naturalness and spontaneity of behaviour. They do not force their mind or the soul in any direction. Everything comes directly from the depths of the primal consciousness.

Lawrence’s interpretation of dreams is much more subtle than that of Freud’s interpretation of dreams as wish-fulfilment. He does not agree with Freud that a dream indicating a desire for incest is a kind of wish-fulfilment which otherwise is repressed by the reality principle. Such a dream, Lawrence believes, represents what the soul fears and not what it desires. A man very rarely dreams of person with whom he is livingly, vitally attached. He only has dreams-images of persons, who in some way, oppose his life-flow and his soul’s freedom, and so become impressed upon his psyche as objects of resistance.

Thus, Lawrence asserts that the dream conclusion is almost invariably just the reverse of soul’s desire, in any distress-dream. Popular dream telling also confirms this. Dream of a wedding means a funeral.

Your enemy may flourish in your dream. Every desire has its corresponding fear which forms an arrest-point in the psyche. Here Lawrence’s views are similar to Freud’s conception of ‘anxiety dream’ which is an improvement upon his theory of ‘wish-fulfilment’. In ‘anxiety dream’ there is a warning to the psyche against an imbalance in its activity. The ‘distress-dream’ in Lawrence warns the psyche that there is blockage of its life flow and something must be done to restore balance.

Lawrence’s position as a psychologist has been defined variously. Aldous Huxley termed Lawrence’s as a mystical materialist while T.S. Eliot called him a ‘religious behaviourist’. Many define his position as a Gestaltist, existential or simply mystical. However, a deeper probe into Lawrence’s psychology illustrates the tension between ‘biologism’ and existentialism similar to that we find in psychology today.

Having an affinity with Jung, Trigant Burrow and Erich Fromm and some congruencies with Freud, Lawrence’s psychology is as current as Laing’s and Erikson’s. It is far more subtle than many suppose, for, like Eric Fromm, it uses sociology, religion and history to interpret psychic phenomena.

Women and drinking

By Mohinder Singh

"THERE is nothing manly or heroic or glamorous about those who drink too much. In men it is crude and embarrassing, in women it is plain sickening."

The British Secretary of State for Social Welfare (1977).

Fifty years ago an Indian woman drinking at a party was a rarity. Nowadays it’s nothing unusual if a majority of women attending an upper-strata dinner accept alcohol.

Of course most women don’t make a beeline for the bar like their men; they stay in their seats looking for a little persuasion. And their acceptance of a drink is almost invariably accompanied by the phrase: "But a small one, please". To which a genial host responds by serving a standard measure. Indeed quite a few women could be seen downing two to three stiff drinks before the customary late dinner without being any the worse for it.

Women show a marked preference for white drinks: gin, vodka, white rum. These are deemed milder than the brown ones (alcohol content is actually the same; in fact clearer drinks act quicker). Others rate white drinks as "cooling". Anyway white drinks are less odiferous than the brown. Alcohol itself is odourless. The odour in drinks, commonly known as the drinker’s breath, comes from congeners present in a drink. And the congener content is higher in long-maturing spirits such as whisky or brandy.

Our middle-class aversion to alcohol is fast whittling away. And with it a growing acceptance of women’s social drinking. On occasions it’s even encouraged as fashionable. And such social occasions can be quite frequent in some quarters.

What constitutes excessive drinking? The current medical consensus sets the sensible limit at 14 units of alcohol per week for women and 21 units for men (the average woman has a smaller build than the average man, and women have a lower percentage of muscle than men to absorb alcohol). And no more than a couple of units per week for pregnant and lactating women, or even for those wanting to be pregnant. An added factor is the vulnerability of menstrual cycle to alcohol.

Worldwide women of all ages drink less than men, and so encounter fewer alochol related problems. But then much of the discourse about female drinking implies a double standard. Even the quoted remarks of the British Minister, made only 20 years back, can be faulted on this score. Drinking, more so excessive drinking, is deemed morally inappropriate for women, let alone being more physically damaging.

Yet there are indications that alcohol consumption among women is increasing, and heavy drinking (over 14 units per week) is slowly but steadily rising. Easy availability of alcohol could be a contributory factor. Again, despite all those excise duties and taxes, prices of alcoholic beverages have registered a significantly lower percentage rise compared to common food products or other articles of household use.

Amongst women heavier drinking is getting associated with the socio-economic status. Some poor ones may occasionally go on a drinking binge. But heavy drinking on a regular basis is mostly limited to the upper strata women. There is now considerable evidence that women who work, more so career women, are likely to be heavier drinkers than those who don’t work — drink marking a break from work and used as a restorative, the way it is with men.

Working women also have more opportunities of meeting men in drinking situations. Another likely group of heavier drinkers is of housewives in whose well-to-do homes alcohol is routinely stocked and served. At a societal level ease of access and increased intake are linked.

Heavy drinking seems more common in younger women (below 45) than in older ones (over 60). Women who are separated, divorced or widowed appear to be more vulnerable. Again women with dependent children are apt to drink less than those without children.

Quite a few heavy women drinkers are known to believe that alcohol can lift their depression. While alcohol has sedative properties, whether it really helps to lift depression or not is debatable. Working women, worried about their shyness in company or nervousness in decision-making, may well be using alcohol to increase self-confidence.

Others are known to link their heavy drinking to a significant "life event" bereavement, infertility, divorce, husband’s infidelity. Some psychologists however feel that heavy female drinking being highly stigmatised, these women may be trying to reduce their sense of stigma by ascribing their drinking problem to a specific precipitating event.

While women are generally more inclined than men to seek expert help for their health problems, they are less likely to seek similar help for a drinking problem, because of the greater stigma. Admission of heavy drinking often risks a disruption in marital relations. Some fear losing their children; social welfare agencies in several countries send small children of known heavy drinkers into custodial care.

An excessive drinker may even find it difficult to raise the subject of alcohol consumption with her doctor, something that comes quite easy for men. This could well result in the doctor missing the connection between drink and a health affliction, even making a misdiagnosis. Or she may consider that her drink problem is too trivial to take up with the doctor.

Perhaps it would be a help if there are more female counsellers and more female support groups. There is again a compelling case for much greater research into the problems of women heavy drinkers.