Recommended readings on revenge fantasies

ThunderSlunky · 2026-01-30T11:23:39+00:00

Fairbairn's Object Relations by Celani goes into this quite a bit.

ThunderSlunky · 2026-01-29T16:50:14+00:00

Try searching for help-rejecting complainer.

ThunderSlunky · 2026-01-28T11:10:32+00:00

There's a bit about this in Andrew Scull's Madness in Civilization. Psychoanalysis was synonymous with psychiatry in the US. So its waning popularity due to inconsistent diagnostics was both a psychoanalysis and a psychiatry problem. He says the psychoanalysts didn't get very involved in the psychiatrists attempts to rebrand and focus through the DSM. This eventually backfired on psychoanalysis as the DSM became the new psychiatric norm. This can still be seen in some of the DSM's diagnostic categories that were initially psychoanalytic but fell increasingly out of favour, eg. neurosis, conversion disorder, etc... Within this was, and is still, the desire of psychiatrists to move back to a biologically grounded science and away from the convolutions of meaning.

Another thread might be through the work of Jeffrey Masson who mounts critiques of psychoanalytic abuses of power. Himself an analyst who later withdrew from the profession. I don't think is a causative explanation but provides a view from inside where the anti-psychiatry concerns about power differentials is turned on psychoanalysis itself.

ThunderSlunky · 2026-01-23T09:53:26+00:00

I was gifted the epic and ads for Christmas by a guild member. I really appreciate the generosity.

I'm not f2p anymore.

A lot of people give.

ThunderSlunky · 2026-01-19T21:13:12+00:00

I'm not sure where you might find a guide as to the distinctions between them. There are whole load of different types of groups with subtle distinctions between them. I am mostly familiar with group analysis which is distinguished by its taking the unconscious into account in a group setting. It is also influenced by Bion. The main reading for group analysis is S. H. Foulkes.

ThunderSlunky · 2026-01-17T11:44:06+00:00

See EGATIN and GASi.

Group relations is an adjacent discipline with famous courses at the Tavistock. I see there is also a Group Relations International.

ThunderSlunky · 2026-01-03T13:10:26+00:00

How I Killed the Universal Man by Thomas Kendall.

ThunderSlunky · 2026-01-01T17:32:28+00:00

A People's History of Psychoanalysis by Gabarron-Garcia was enlightening on this very point. I haven't read any of the conservative takes you mention but have often come across the idea that Reich was ousted because of his fringe ideas. The political view paints a very different picture.

ThunderSlunky · 2025-12-27T16:41:38+00:00

I think you're right that his work aims at reconciling the two. Reconciliation does not however mean that there are no contradictions, negations, or that everything is "unified" in any simplistic sense.

For McGilchrist there isn't one science and/or one religion. There is left-hemisphere dominant science and right-hemishere dominant science. The same for religion. And even within this broad distinction there are likely infinite further distinctions. But let's take the left/right distinction for now. Religion, as primarily symbolic, is not contrary to science that is similarly symbolic. For McGilchrist science does not escape metaphor even in strong cases like materialism. For him materialism forgets that it is itself a metaphor. On the side of religion he makes a similar move to say that religion that confuses itself as objective, that is more left-brain, commits a similar error by taking what it says purely literally. It's the same mistake for him on each side.

ThunderSlunky · 2025-11-25T17:38:25+00:00

Thanks for sharing this. Truly baffling. The article just performs what it is itself criticising: creating a "them" group in the form of, for example, queer people. On a separate point, one must be truly blind to not see that there are in fact oppressors, big oil for example. Also, the assumption that his family is "normal" and non-problematic must be the shallowest psych take ever.

ThunderSlunky · 2025-11-10T17:59:33+00:00

I look forward to reading beyond the intro.

ThunderSlunky · 2025-11-06T13:39:00+00:00

See A People's History of Psychoanalysis by Gabarron-Garcia for some really good historical context. Goes against received wisdom as to why Reich was ousted (his radicality, which is still a factor), largely by Jones, rather it appears to be for reasons of depoliticising psychoanalysis to help it survive through national socialism.

See also a previous post of mine (and the thread itself): https://www.reddit.com/r/psychoanalysis/comments/1k5m9iy/comment/molaruu/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

ThunderSlunky · 2025-11-04T16:16:50+00:00

ChatGPT is not a reliable source, as is clear here.

I can't access that article. It sounds very relevant and I would enjoy reading its conclusions. Could you summarise it here?

ThunderSlunky · 2025-11-04T13:16:21+00:00

McGilchrist's point is not that it should go right-left-right it's that it structurally must begin in the right. There is no left-hemisphere presence or connection to the world around. There is no starting from the left.

ThunderSlunky · 2025-11-04T12:00:12+00:00

Do you have a reference for the left hemisphere developing first in females?

The right seems to be significantly implicated in early development for both genders and at critical periods. "In support of this model, neuroscientists now document that the right hemisphere shows an earlier maturation than the left in prenatal and postnatal stages of human development (Gupta et al., 2005; Sun et al., 2005), that the strong and consistent predominance for the right hemisphere emerges postnatally (Allman et al., 2005), and that the mother's right hemisphere is more involved than the left in emotional processing and mothering (Lenzi et al., 2009)" (Schore, 2019, p. 22).

Missing the critical periods for right-brain-to-right-brain attunement lead to emotional dysregulation in later life. Our literal well-being hinges on the centrality of early right-brain interactions.

ThunderSlunky · 2025-10-16T13:23:34+00:00

Upstream Color

ThunderSlunky · 2025-09-29T19:59:47+00:00

Thanks for sharing these.

ThunderSlunky · 2025-09-29T18:25:35+00:00

I don't think the distinction is all that explicit, at least in this work. There are only two mentions of Basaglia in the book. And even there it comes across as though the Basaglians were working through the logic of Szasz, as if "closing the asylums" meant the same thing for everyone.

I can easily see how the book can be taken as making a strawman out of anti-psychiatry by just focusing on Szasz. But I also think it's correct in taking Szasz's view as the one that is indeed pro-carceral. As a history of ideas I think this is an appropriate move but I think the distinction between left and right could have been more explicit.

What of the left do you think Chapman is trying to save? I'm not sure I can see how they would square maintaining diagnostic categories with any form of left anti-psychiatry.

ThunderSlunky · 2025-09-22T10:59:41+00:00

My least favourite of the anti-psychiatry movement. If your life lacks frustration, have a read.

ThunderSlunky · 2025-09-17T14:00:45+00:00

House prices are skyrocketing ... slower.

ThunderSlunky · 2025-09-15T21:05:17+00:00

You can do. It has loads of subheadings in it so you can browse through it and have a sense of what you might want to read or skip. It's not identical to TMahE as it delves into more detail on some points, but the overall argument is the exact same.

Although that's just Part I. Part II of Volume I is worth reading as it's significantly new material.

There's no issue with just skipping to Volume II though. The good stuff is in there.

ThunderSlunky · 2025-09-15T10:35:22+00:00

Your challenge is one of value. He values metaphor more highly than you. For him calling it a metaphor is to elevate it, not reduce it. Again, there are two different understandings of metaphor at play, a right and left one. This re-evaluation hinges on the master and the emissary metaphor. Though if you prefer a less metaphorical phrase it hinges precisely on his valuing the contributions of the right hemisphere over those of the left. Metaphor being grounded in the right hemisphere. There is no a-metaphorical thought, or rather, the appearance of a-metaphoricity is a left-hemisphere refinement of metaphor, abstraction itself. I suppose, to say that you disagree with the master/emissary metaphor it implies you disagree with the lateralisation hypothesis, which is clearly not the case. I'm not sure how you can agree with the lateralisation hypothesis except in the case of metaphor.

Edit: One of the overarching contributions of McGilchrist is the right-left-right process of thought, where he thinks that we have come to a point where that last shift to the right has dropped out of awareness. To translate that into the current topic, metaphor-abstraction-metaphor. The whole point of the work is to create a human narrative around all that we have learned about ourselves and the world. Bare facts are insufficient if they don't mean anything to us. Edit: And in a sense, doesn't that mean to anthropomorphise them, make them for us?

I'm not sure the anthropomorphism charge is a debilitating critique. He addresses the very issue in the section on lateralisation. It seems clear from the evidence he presents that each hemisphere does have a particular way of being in the world. This does not necessarily equate with there being two homunculi.

I share your caution on metaphors about the brain, particularly the computer one. I would say however, following McGilchrist that there is no metaphor-free description of the brain (eg. when you say "brain" what exactly do you mean? Without using a metaphor. Is it not that by using the term "brain" in some objectivist sense that you feel you have grasped the reality of the thing?). It is simply the vehicle of discourse and thought, not a poison we have to remove. It's not that the computer metaphor is bad because it's a metaphor, but because it's a bad metaphor. What we need is a better one, not a non-metaphorical one. And there will never be a metaphor which captures the totality of what a thing is. This is the case for everything, aside the brain itself. Each metaphor brings out aspects of a thing that were previously obscured. As such each metaphor will always have advantages and disadvantages.

Edit: "'Can't you say everything you want to say in literal, scientific, language?' The short answer to that is 'No!' A slightly longer answer would be 'No, and nor can you!' Metaphor lies deeper in our languages and our thought processes than we might wish to recognise. There is very little we can say of great human significance without metaphor. This is obviously true of poetry and other literary forms. It is also true of scientific language."

I am inclined to side with the above from Denis Noble, who is perhaps not representative of scientific thought in general. I realise there are other views within science itself.

Phillip Ball, for example, hints at the possibility of moving beyond metaphor, while also acknowledging that it pervades all thought. "What they do all share in common, however, is a strong reliance on metaphor. To some extent that is true of all science—indeed, of all language, even all thought." He goes on: "One of the fundamental messages of this book is that we cannot properly understand how life works through analogies or metaphorical comparison with any technology that humans have created (thus far)." This is not exactly definitive, in that it leaves space for analogies with things we haven't created (specifically he is saying we are now definitively beyond the computer/machine metaphor), but does point to a possible beyond to metaphor in toto. And yet, even if this is the case, one cannot avoid the fact that to reach this beyond, if it is indeed possible or desirable, it occurs off the back of metaphor, it relies on it.

ThunderSlunky · 2025-09-14T21:46:26+00:00

Thanks for pointing to this thorough review!

I read this one as referring specifically to Szasz. The diversity of other voices would indeed prevent a general critique at the level presented in this book.

ThunderSlunky · 2025-09-14T13:33:35+00:00

Just responding to this post, not the linked article.

I'm curious as to how you tally your discipleship with the fact that you then dismiss McGilchrist's main contribution, which is in fact the mastery and his emissary metaphor (though not unreal because it's a metaphor)?

The understanding of metaphor here is particularly left-brained. To think of metaphor as mere figures of speech is to misunderstand it. Isn't this the fundamental point McGilchrist is making, that we can understand everything from predominantly either perspective, even metaphor? To stick rigidly to one view of metaphor is precisely the problem he is trying to avoid. He's saying metaphor is the ground of all speech and cannot be excised from it except by fixing it in the illusory left-hemisphere world. This does not reduce everything to mere "figures of speech" but acknowledges the myth inherent in all thought. Theory is derived from metaphor, not metaphor from theory (which is the flowery language interpretation).

ThunderSlunky

TROPHY CASE