Alienated Children and the Language of Parts: A Primer for Understanding Treatment

In this book, the family structure is explained in detail with the raw edges still attached (hostility, neglect, family conflicts, verbal abuse, deception, overprotection, exploitation, etc.) and the influence on the development of children.

The Fantasy Bond: Structure of Psychological Defenses, Robert W Firestone, Ph.D
in collaboration with Joyce Catlett, M.A. 1985

PREFACE
The Fantasy Bond sets forth a new concept of resistance, demonstrating the relationship between the structure and organization of psychological defenses and the fear of change, individuation, and personal power. This work has broadened the concept of resistance in psychotherapy to include an understanding of a core resistance to a “better life.”

The problem, according to Dr. Robert Firestone, is that people behave in a way that is motivationally dishonest, reacting perversely to movement in the direction of their stated goals. In other words, they don’t really want what they say they want. At this point in post-Freudian time, we all understand that there is an irrational basis to much human behavior; we have gained personal or professional awareness that change, even positive change, can have disruptive consequences for people. Success in personal endeavors is dangerous because these changes are symbolic of independence, adulthood, and separateness, and this means relinquishing the Fantasy Bond which has sustained and nourished us over the years.

The concept of a Fantasy Bond is a powerful theoretical construct which unifies neopsychoanalytic and existential frames of reference. The Fantasy Bond originates as an illusion of connection with the mother that is used by the infant to relieve anxiety and emotional pain. Later, it is extended to other individuals, mates, authority figures and other parental substitutes, and destructive bonds are formed which impair the individual’s functioning.

The concept of fusion with an idealized mother can be understood in analytic terms as a self-nourishing mechanism to compensate for maternal rejection, neglect, or the deprivation of “love-food” and mature parenting. But at its roots it is also a defense against the indefinable terror and angst of total annihilation which we rather euphemistically call “death anxiety.”

Maintaining the Fantasy Bond, like other restrictive defense mechanisms, is counterproductive, for it predisposes withdrawal, inwardness, rigidity and other maladaptive sequelae. The process of forming bonds first injures the couple, later the nuclear family, and eventually extends to conventional mores in society at large, which in turn act back on and reinforce the defensive process in the individual.

The book develops the concept of emotional hunger and distinguishes it from parental love with which it is frequently confused. The author analyzes the organization of psychological defenses around the important core defense of the Fantasy Bond and relates this structural process to the basic resistance in psychotherapy. He describes the dimensions of the Fantasy Bond and the secondary defenses that protect this core defense: The idealization of parents and family; the development of a negative or critical view of self; the displacement of negative parental traits onto other objects and the development of a victimized, paranoid orientation to life; the withdrawal into an inward state with Accompanying loss of feeling for self; the withholding of affectional responses and capabilities in general; and the involvement with self-nourishing habits and painkillers.

The unique contribution of the concept of the Fantasy Bond underlying resistance to change is crossvalidated by my own two decades of research in the field of self-destructive behaviors. Suicide, the most extreme and dramatic behavior in the continuum of self-destructiveness, is most frequent among the most favored. For example, professionals have higher suicide rates than blue-collar workers. Officers kill themselves more often than do enlisted men; whites have rates much higher than minorities.

Thus we are led to the bittersweet realization that when things get better they may very well get worse. The reason that things “get worse” for us is that we fear giving up the Fantasy Bond of internal gratification although it no longer has any adaptive value. While it is easier to deal with the devil you know, the price of avoiding primal separation and death anxiety is a partial suicide resolution in which one gives up on life. Peace is purchased at the cost of avoiding spontaneous feelings and encouraging a process of emotional anaesthesia—a trade-off in which primal anxieties are ameliorated by sacrificing the zest for life.

Having been acquainted with the development of Dr. Firestone’s work for a period of 28 years, I have been able to observe the emergence of his ideas, initially formulated when working with regressed schizophrenic patients. I have seen the evolution of a powerful therapeutic tool and clinical approach. Dr. Firestone extended the work of John N. Rosen in “Direct Analysis” and developed his own systematic theory of schizophrenia. Later he generalized this theory and applied it to a wide range of pathology. He investigated cathartic methods and a powerful Feeling Release Therapy akin to primal therapy and applied his concepts to a new therapeutic methodology that he has termed “Voice Therapy.”

Dr. Firestone describes the techniques of Voice Therapy that help the patient become more aware of specific self-critical thoughts and negative attitudes toward others that lead to self-destructive behavior and maladaptive responses. By verbalizing these thoughts in the second person, the patient learns to separate them from his own point of view and make changes in his behavior that are opposed to the dictates of this “voice,” which Dr. Firestone conceptualizes as the “language of the defensive process.” I see the emergence of Voice Therapy as a new and highly significant addition to the repertoire of psychotherapy.

Dr. Firestone stresses the therapeutic value of friendship in contrast to the destructiveness of bonds or ties of dependency. He believes that the conflict within the patient is one of internal, subjective gratification vs. external interpersonal gratification and that it must be resolved in a social matrix. In our mobile, technological society, however, close, sustained friendships are far from commonplace. Occasionally, circumstances of stress, such as tragedy or war, lead to an enhanced sense of community, a galvanized togetherness which breaks down the usual barriers between people and stimulates communication and a sense of shared experience. Dr. Firestone suggests that the defensive suppression of our primal existential anxieties keeps us from experiencing our true humanity; only in giving up the Fantasy Bond of inward gratification can we relate sincerely to all living beings and interact with others on the basis of genuine friendship and democratic equality.

While you may not agree with all of the ideas expressed in this work, you will appreciate that these findings are not simply theoretical abstractions but are derived from corroboratory clinicial experiences in a variety of settings. The core concepts of this book have been drawn from three diverse populations: the deeply disturbed behavior of regressed schizophrenics; the typical neurotic conflicts of psychotherapy clients; and the everyday behavior of normal, successful people living in a unique pyschological community. The fact that similar behavior can be found in such outwardly different populations underscores both the essential similarity of all human beings and the reliability of the data.

This is not an easy book; it will force you to think. It abounds with paradoxes and seeming contradictions. It challenges deeply held convictions about the world around us. Our beliefs and values about such fundamental subjects as the family, male and female sexuality, childrearing, and religion are frequently challenged and the reader will surely feel called upon to re-examine his or her own thinking in these most basic areas of belief. This can be a painful process although essentially a liberating one.

On the other hand, living as we do in a world dominated by pop psychology pabulum, it is gratifying to discover a fresh outlook and a comprehensive theoretical contribution that can engage us in a process of self-inquiry and intellectual challenge.

Richard Seiden, Ph.D., M.P.H.

INTRODUCTION

Emotional Deadness

Years ago I began searching for answers to a mystery, a seemingly perverse phenomenon about people, that had me deeply puzzled: that is, why most people choose an emotionally deadened, self-limiting mode of life. I first focused on this problem when a small group of select patients decided to meet in a rural setting to explore their deepest feelings.

To accomplish this, we came together in the summer of 1971 for a weekend in the wooded mountains near Lake Arrowhead. Our surroundings were peaceful, the atmosphere invigorating. We started talking around 8:00 p.m. Friday. As the hours passed, we began to feel the stress of being continuously with other people. Challenging each other’s defenses and remaining in an emotional situation for a long time period were part of this stress.

The exposure of defenses was vigorous and intense. At one point, a young woman, Jane, talked about her rage toward her friend, Mike, who was withdrawn and unresponsive. She confronted him in strong language because she was infuriated at his refusal to reciprocate her feeling for him. Other individuals with similar emotions also attacked Mike’s indifference.

Mike, a man who could not remember ever crying in his life, finally broke into sobs. In this unfamiliar emotional state he felt terribly disoriented. At first, he did not even know that it was he who was sobbing. He thought the sounds were coming from someone else. But before the night was over, Mike, who had denied his feelings all his life, felt a depth of feeling and a tenderness toward himself and others that he had never experienced.

During subsequent meetings, as I became more skilled in breaking down defenses and creating an accepting atmosphere where people could be themselves, people revealed more and more of their inner pain. Many relived feelings that had been pent up for a lifetime. Occasionally they sobbed or moaned or vented explosive anger. These primitive emotional reactions were followed by dramatic relief and clear insights. The participants were very excited by the encounters and the results, and they expressed appreciation for what they felt had been a remarkable experience. They said they felt closer to themselves and to other people and perceived their lives with unusual clarity.

Those times together were very meaningful to me. I have always been deeply touched by people expressing personal honesty and being loving and accepting toward one another in a truly democratic way. These moments brought me close to myself and made me feel calm and strong. I gave a good deal of thought to the weekend experiences, and I knew that the people’s lives during those days together had great value and significance.

Their faces changed and their bodies relaxed. They seemed more multidimensional. They felt invigorated and excited, yet when they returned to the city, they lost, sometimes slowly and sometimes very quickly, this edge of feeling and communion with themselves. They resumed their defensive posture and closed off their emotional reactions and sensitivity toward others.

Many of the men and women who traveled to the mountains for those weekends came without their spouses. They came as independent, separate persons, not as one-half of a couple. They were recognized as such, and they flourished for a few days for they were treated as individuals and their sexual identity and attractiveness were confirmed verbally. As a result, they felt better about themselves and had a more positive image of their bodies and sexuality. However, when they returned home, they gave up this good feeling and went back to being half of a couple once more. In returning to their families, they were in fact going back to the “security,” the “togetherness,” that was more familiar to them than the aliveness and genuine closeness they had experienced in the unfamiliar atmosphere of the mountains.

Mike stayed feelingful and alive for several days upon returning home. Often he would find tears coming to his eyes as he talked with his wife and son. However, it became more and more difficult at the end of a long, tedious day for him to get back in touch with his feelings because these emotions were so new and fragile to him. He looked forward to evenings at home, hoping that there he would regain that relaxed, alive state. But his wife, Ann, was threatened by the changes in her husband, by his burst of energy and his tears. She unconsciously wanted him to return to his typical defended state. She was inadvertently helping him cut off his feelings. In the months that followed, it was painful to see Mike become more hardened and more exclusively involved with Ann in a desperate, possessive manner. Mike preferred to cling to an illusion of safety and security with his wife. Mike and Ann were not really hanging on to each other; they were clinging to an imaginary link between two people—a fantasized connection, which we call the fantasy bond. They were not running the risk of losing something real; they were only protecting a fantasy of love.

There was a great deal of disappointment, because, in spite of these powerful experiences, people soon lost much of the therapeutic value of what they had gained. There was pain in the fact that these feeling people of the weekend, who felt so good and so real, had reverted to so-called normal life in such a short time. I was saddened that all they had left was their memory of having had a profound and meaningful experience and a few important insights, which eventually paled as well.

One thing was clear to me: these people of the weekend were, for the time being, a different breed. They had been emotionally alive whereas in their everyday lives they masked themselves in role-playing, hardness and toughness, paranoia, and other cut-off, nonfeeling states. These people were not in touch with themselves or their real existence most of their waking lives. On the weekend, however, they had pierced the shell of their defenses, and under their facades were deep unresolved feelings of richness and pain. This was not a group of abnormal individuals or patients; it was obvious that these people in their deadened and cut-off states were typical of the mass of humanity.

The fact that people were willing to give up so much of themselves in order to avoid feelings of sadness perplexed me, especially since they obviously felt so good after they expressed the sadness. In a sense, they had committed emotional suicide in order to protect themselves from the painful truth of their experiences. Why did they close off again after opening up and feeling such exhilaration? This was much more than an academic question to me because I, too, wanted to retain this level of interaction.

There was a deep desire on my part to live and experience life in an honest social context on an everyday basis. I wanted to be alive and close to my feelings and to learn more about these mysteries of human behavior. I knew that I had but one life and I valued it. I wanted to live it to the fullest, whether painful or joyous. The closeness and camaraderie of those shared weekends were a vital part of what I desired. The alive faces and the warmth of those people could not be forgotten.

One could not help contrasting their expressions with those of people in the larger society. The defensive posture of most people is etched into their faces and bodies. They live their lives as though they will live forever and can afford to throw away their most precious experiences. Their hardness and insulation make them capable of truly immoral and disrespectful conduct toward one another. Yet these people were essentially the same as the people of the weekend, only under normal environmental conditions.

What characteristics of the weekend made possible such an important difference in people’s capacity for feeling? How could these elements be incorporated as a style of living?

Since those weekends, I have spent a major part of my life and energy tracing the answers to this puzzle. This book tells the story of my search for understanding the all-encompassing problem of emotional deadness, which characterizes the way the majority of people give up their lives and vital experiences. Without realizing it, most people become deadened to their emotions.

Early in their lives they turn their backs on themselves, their real desires and wants, and substitute self-nourishing habits and fantasies that only serve to deaden them. They have ceased to want what they say they want because real gratifications and accomplishments threaten the process of self-nourishment through fantasy. Because they have been depending since childhood upon these fantasies to give them a sense of accomplishment, they cling to these fantasies rather than relinquish them for anything real.

They shy away from success, both interpersonal and vocational, and limit themselves in countless ways. They act as their own jailers, and when they project this attitude, they become paranoid that others are depriving or victimizing them. They are the victims of their own self-denial and withholding. In a sense, people are at the mercy of the defense system that they originally constructed to protect themselves when they were little.

Most individuals are damaged in their psychological development during the earliest years of childhood. In the process of being mishandled and misunderstood, they suffered pain and fear that caused them to spend the rest of their lives in a defensive posture. Because people cannot defend themselves selectively against “bad” feelings, they also lose their ability to feel good. All of us have been hurt to some degree, and to the extent that we insulated ourselves from our feelings of pain and sadness, we have shut ourselves off as feeling people.

When cut off from their feelings in this manner, people cannot tolerate, or become unwilling to feel, their own aliveness, personal wants, and desires. Often they cannot accept simple, straightforward expressions of warmth and respect from another person. Most people are largely unconscious of the fact that they are restricted in this manner. Surprisingly, a good life with loving treatment from either friends or family members would fill them with sadness and anxiety.

Mike, who had very little feeling for himself, would often find himself close to tears while watching a movie in which the ending turned out unexpectedly well for the characters involved. He especially enjoyed movies in which the villain turned into a “nice guy” or showed some tenderness. He would be particularly touched by this “niceness” if the villain were a parental figure. Mike would try to imagine how it would be if his father or mother or his wife suddenly showed such tenderness toward him. He would feel very sad picturing this, but he would leave the theater to return to his real life of not-so-nice treatment from the people closest to him. Mike firmly believed that he wanted positive recognition and good treatment from these people, when in fact he wanted it only in fantasy and could only tolerate it vicariously in books, plays or movies.

Most people are afraid of leading separate, independent lives and therefore cling to family ties and fantasies of love, which offer the illusion and false promise of connection. People prefer the imagined security of religion and immortality and choose destructive bonds which deny their aloneness. They give up a free existence and the intimacy and closeness that is part of a genuinely loving relationship in a desperate attempt to find fusion with another person.

People cannot deaden themselves emotionally and become defensive without affecting the people closest to them. Therefore, parents who wall themselves off against feeling must inevitably suppress feeling in their young in those areas where they, the parents, feel the most threatened. Live feeling and expressions of vitality cause anxiety to those who are well defended, and this waking-up experience can be very painful. To ward off intrusion on their defenses, parents unwittingly sacrifice their children and damage their self-esteem.

This behavior has far-reaching consequences. The avoidance of pain and feeling drastically distorts people’s lives; it makes them resistant to any change in themselves or in their way of life; it shapes rules and roles in society as a fortress against feeling. Recognizing the extent of this destructive process added strong motivation to my search for an alternative way of living.

Over the past 12 years, I searched for and found ways to bring an alive alternative into everyday existence. In an effort to maintain an enriched way of being, my friends and colleagues began to change their habitual mode of living. They abandoned some of their favorite personal escapes and painkillers. They discovered that if they discarded the routines they used to give themselves a false sense of security and stability, this disruption served to add zest to their lives. For the most part, they stopped categorizing or thinking of themselves in static terms and were alive to the possibility of change.

As people revealed themselves openly and became more spontaneous, they began to look more alive, and their appearance changed, sometimes radically. Those who had appeared lifeless and plain-looking before began to have a new sense of vitality, and with the release of repressive energy they became better looking. As they became more responsive to their feelings they were increasingly sensitive to others. It became apparent that those individuals who can tolerate angry feelings in themselves without becoming punishing or judgmental learn to function in a manner that is far less hostile. There is a sharp reduction in toxic, dishonest, and role-playing responses that so often characterize conventional life.

Motivated by their experiences in group interaction, these people gradually evolved into a psychotherapeutic community composed of approximately 95 persons. They succeeded in creating an environment that brought the warmth and aliveness of those weekends into their everyday lives. They are deeply involved in a way of life that minimizes behavior that causes psychological pain to themselves and others.

Research and observation of this unique reference population for a period of more than 12 years has been fruitful and has furnished valuable insights. This unusual laboratory, combined with clinical material from a wide variety of patients, has provided the bulk of data from which our theory is derived. Many of the questions the author raised years ago have been answered.

It is possible for an individual who is willing to face the truth of his or her aloneness to recover feelings of joy and exuberance. However, it would be very difficult, in fact almost impossible, to live this kind of life without the companionship of other people who are emotionally alive. The therapeutic value of friendship must be emphasized, for it is virtually a necessity to share one’s struggle with others who support one’s individuality and personal freedom. Intimacy without bondage, and closeness without illusions of security enable a person to feel the truth of his or her separateness in a way not possible in a more conventional relationship.

Neurosis originates through a social process and can potentially be altered in a social milieu. The people from the groups and others who joined them, who together created a new social environment, are devoted to ameliorating the destructive repetitive process within themselves and to preventing, as far as is possible, its being passed on to their children. A fundamental understanding of the developmental aspects and dynamics of neurotic defenses has been essential to them in this endeavor.

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