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AUTORI E TRADUTTORI
Gabriele Romeo, Medico, Psicologo, Psicoanalista, Presidente della Società Scientifica di
Psicoanalisi e Gruppoanalisi Italiana - SPG, Redattore di Italian Imago, Docente, Analista Didatta e
Supervisore, Coordinatore Didattico della Scuola di Specializzazione in Psicoterapia Psicoanalitica
e Gruppoanalitica di Reggio Calabria
Vincenzo Maria Romeo, Medico, Psichiatra, Psicoanalista, Direttore Responsabile di Italian
Imago, Analista Didatta e Supervisore, Docente, Direttore Scientifico della Scuola di
Specializzazione in Psicoterapia Psicoanalitica e Gruppoanalitica di Reggio Calabria
ABSTRACT
Il presente saggio lancia un nuovo paradigma nello scenario dottrinario psicoanalitico: la
psicologia dell’Es. Gli Autori iniziano il saggio facendo una disamina sulla letteratura che riguarda
la metapsicologia dell’Es con particolari riferimenti all’Opera di Georg Groddeck (Bad Kösen,
allora comune autonomo oggi frazione di Naumburg, Sassonia-Anhalt, Germania, 13 Ottobre 1866
- Knonau, Canton Zurigo, Svizzera, 10 Giugno 1934) ed a quella di Sigmund Freud (Příbor,
Moravia-Slesia, allora Impero Austro-Ungarico oggi Repubblica Ceca, 6 Maggio 1856 - Londra,
Regno Unito, 23 Settembre 1939). Successivamente rievocano brevemente la concezione
psicoanalitica classica della topologia della psiche e le fasi dello sviluppo psicosessuale. Terminata
la parte introduttiva del saggio, gli Autori espongono la loro visione dell’assetto topologico,
parzialmente differente da quello finora presente in letteratura, proprio per il significato e le
proprietà da attribuire all’Es, contrapponendo al classico modello dell’iceberg, il proprio modello
del triangolo tripartito, ottenuto dall’osservazione quotidiana e storica del comportamento umano e
non solo. A questo punto gli Autori espongono una serie di nuovi concetti quali la Scala dei
Desideri, di moderne risposte ad antichi quesiti quali il senso della vita, di correlazioni con la
neurochimica tramite gli esperimenti di Klaus Wedekind, di correlazioni con la neuroanatomia
funzionale quali il Sistema delle Ricompense, ponendo così le basi del loro paradigma.
Il saggio è un lavoro inedito.
SAGGIO
Georg Groddeck, medico e psicoanalista tedesco, fu il primo ad utilizzare il
termine Es in psicoanalisi, ispirandosi al pensiero di Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
(Röcken, allora comune autonomo oggi facente parte di Lützen, allora Anhalt, oggi Sassonia-
Anhalt, Germania, 15 Ottobre 1844 - Weimar, Turingia, allora Prussia, oggi Germania, 25 Agosto
1900).
Groddeck per definire l’Es si rifece al pensiero di Nietzsche che nel saggio “La
nascita della tragedia” del 1872 espose due principi fondamentali del suo pensiero;
egli sostanzialmente descrisse lo spirito religioso dei riti dedicati al Dio Apollo e lo
spirito dei riti dedicati al Dio Dioniso. Apollo è il Dio dell’energia legata al senno e
all’ordine per cui i riti a lui ispirati sono caratterizzati da norme comportamentali
legate al vivere civile mentre Dioniso è il Dio dell’energia libera per cui i riti a lui
ispirati sono legati alla sregolatezza ed all’eccesso. In termini psicoanalitici lo spirito
apollineo viene definito Super-Io mentre lo spirito dionisiaco Es.
Groddeck nel saggio “Il linguaggio dell’Es” si espresse così: “L'Es gioca tiri
straordinari, guarisce, fa ammalare, costringe ad amputare arti sani e fa correre la
gente incontro alle pallottole. In breve, è un essere lunatico, imprevedibile e
spassoso” (p. 345).
Sigmund Freud, padre fondatore della psicoanalisi, mutuò da Groddeck il
termine Es per definire la struttura portante del principio del piacere nel saggio “L’Io
e l’Es”.
Freud inserì l’Es nella descrizione del suo modello personologico che è
composto da due diverse strutture, concettualmente sovrapponibili, che definì
topiche. La prima topica definisce la struttura della personalità ed è composta da tre
istanze chiamate inconscio, subconscio e conscio, la cui grandezza è statica e non si
modifica dalla nascita alla morte; essa viene ad essere classicamente raffigurata con
l’immagine di un iceberg pluristratificato, con uno strato profondo immerso dentro
l’acqua al di sotto del livello censorio e che rappresenta l’inconscio, uno strato
intermedio immerso dentro l’acqua ma al di sopra del livello censorio e che
rappresenta il subconscio o preconscio, uno strato superiore posto sopra la superficie
dell’acqua e che rappresenta il conscio.
I contenuti del conscio sono quelli presenti nel nostro campo attentivo qui ed ora
che non possono essere numerosi in un dato periodo di tempo; per tale motivo
vengono raffigurati sopra la superficie dell’acqua ma contenuti in una piccola
superficie.
I contenuti del subconscio sono dentro l’acqua, quindi non presenti nel nostro
campo attentivo qui, ma al di sopra del livello censorio e quindi rievocabili dal
conscio con un maggiore o minore sforzo concentrativo in relazione alla maggiore o
minore profondità cui è posto il ricordo cui vogliamo accedere; in altri termini il
subconscio è il deposito dei nostri ricordi ossia la nostra memoria. L’area del
subconscio è rappresentata figurativamente maggiore di quella del conscio perché
realmente ha più contenuti.
I contenuti dell’inconscio sono posti sotto il livello censorio, raffigurato con una
linea tratteggiata, perché pur essendo per definizione inconoscibili in quanto rimossi,
tuttavia possono riaffiorare alla coscienza in determinate circostanze in cui il
controllo della censura è meno attivo per questioni fisiologiche come nel sonno
tramite il sogno o per una loro deformazione che li rende irriconoscibili, come
avviene nei miti, nelle favole, nelle espressioni artistiche. I contenuti inconsci
possono essere compresi solo applicando le tecniche interpretative psicoanalitiche.
L’area dell’inconscio è rappresentata figurativamente come la più grande della figura
perché tutti i ricordi che noi rimuoviamo dalla memoria sono sicuramente maggiori di
quelli che in essa sono presenti.
La seconda topica definisce la personalità a livello energetico ed è composta da
tre istanze chiamate Es, Io e Super-Io, la cui energia varia nel tempo così come la
loro epoca di formazione. La seconda topica è strettamente legata allo sviluppo della
personalità; tale sviluppo si articola in diverse fasi che in ordine di comparsa vengono
definite orale, anale, fallica, di latenza, genitale.Ogni fase dello sviluppo assorbe certi
aspetti della fase precedente, ne integra alcuni e ne lascia invariati altri. Lo sviluppo
della personalità avviene con una progressione verticale; tuttavia a volte si possono
verificare in modo del tutto fisiologico temporanei episodi di regressione, laddove la
fase successiva sia eccessivamente frustrante per cui l’individuo si rifugia in uno
stadio già conosciuto per rinforzarsi prima di riprendere la sua avanzata. La
psicopatologia si può manifestare quando avviene una fissazione, che consiste nel
fermarsi ad uno stadio evolutivo in quanto questo è considerato molto gratificante,
oppure una regressione eccessivamente duratura.
La fase orale è presente dalla nascita fino ai 18 mesi circa. In questo periodo la
gratificazione dell’individuo avviene tramite la bocca e l’attività di nutrizione, tanto
che per esplorare ciò che lo circonda, tende a portare alla bocca tutti gli oggetti che lo
circondano. In questa fase è presente solo l’Es e non c’è ancora una distinzione col
mondo esterno per cui il neonato si ritiene tutt’uno con la madre e con l’ambiente
circostante.
Tra la fine di questa fase e l’inizio di quella successiva avviene il
riconoscimento allo specchio. Questo dinamismo psichico è stato descritto da Jacques
Lacan (Parigi, Île-de-France, Francia,13 Aprile 1901 - Parigi, 9 Settembre 1981 ), un grande
psicoanalista francese: il bambino, guardandosi allo specchio vicino alla madre od in
braccio ad essa, capisce di essere un’entità a se stante; così nasce l’Io.
La fase anale è presente dai 18 ai 36 mesi circa. Questa non è una fase biologica,
ma sociale. I genitori, cercando di educare il bambino al controllo sfinterico, ne
spostano l’attenzione dalla parte alta alla parte bassa del corpo. In questa fase la
gratificazione è legata all’evacuazione e/o alla ritenzione delle feci.
La fase fallica che è presente tra i 3 ed i 6 anni di vita, assume il nome di
Complesso di Edipo nei maschi e Complesso di Elettra nelle femmine rispettivamente
dalle tragedie di Sofocle (Colono, Attica, Grecia, 496 A. C. - Atene, Attica, 406 A. C. ), Edipo
Re ed Elettra. A seguito dell’attenzione spostata verso la parte bassa del corpo nella
fase precedente, nasce la consapevolezza delle differenze anatomiche tra maschi e
femmine e da questa i desideri di possesso sessuale del genitore di sesso opposto e
sentimenti di gelosia verso il genitore del proprio sesso. Alla fine di questa fase
avviene la nascita del Super-Io che consiste nell’interiorizzazione dei divieti sociali
dei propri desideri che vengono rimossi e spostati nell’inconscio. A tale
interiorizzazione seguirà un’identificazione col genitore del proprio sesso; essendo
egli vissuto come invincibile in quanto detentore esclusivo del possesso sessuale
dell’altro genitore, per il bambino non resta che identificarsi, imitandolo, in modo da
poter diventare altrettanto invincibile in futuro e poter così avere l’amore di un
individuo dell’altro sesso nel quale reincarnare la tanto desiderata, in passato, imago
genitoriale.
La fase di latenza, che compare tra i 6 ed i 10 anni di vita, è caratterizzata dalla
rimozione delle pulsioni sessuali, cosa facilitata anche dalla contemporanea apertura
ad attività sociali di diverso tipo, quali quelle scolastiche, ecclesiastiche, sportive,
ludico-ricreative, di gruppi dei pari.
L’ultima fase è quella genitale, che inizia dalla comparsa dei caratteri sessuali
secondari dovuti all’esplosione ormonale puberale, è caratterizzata da maturità
psichica, sessuale ed intellettiva un rapporto sessuale maturo e si protrae per tutta la
parte restante della vita.
Ognuna delle istanze psichiche della seconda topica influenza il pensiero ed il
comportamento in modo peculiare. L’Io si ispira al principio di realtà, l’Es si ispira al
principio del piacere, il Super-Io si ispira al principio della morale. Esse variano in
potenza continuamente, a volte anche nel giro di pochi minuti, secondo le varie
stimolazioni ricevute, esterne od interne che siano.
Seconda la dottrina classica il modello che può rappresentare meglio la
sovrapposizione delle due topiche è quello dell’iceberg, come raffigurato
nell’immagine sottostante:
Come si può osservare l’Es appare confinato solo nella zona inconscia.
Secondo il nostro pensiero, tale assunto non può assolutamente corrispondere al
vero perché entra in contraddizione col significato attribuito all’Es dalla stessa
dottrina classica psicoanalitica. Se l’Es si ispira al principio del piacere ed al tempo
stesso non può appartenere al conscio nè al subconscio, nessun individuo potrebbe
provare esperienze cui attribuire il significato di piacevole né tantomeno potrebbe
averne memoria alcuna; visto che invece noi proviamo esperienze piacevoli e le
ricordiamo, l’Es deve entrare necessariamente sia nel subconscio sia nel conscio.
Secondo la nostra ipotesi concettuale, il modello che può rappresentare meglio
la sovrapposizione delle due topiche è quello del triangolo tripartito, in cui le tre
istanze della seconda topica entrano nella composizione di tutte e tre le istanze
dellaprima topica, sia pure con dimensioni diverse, come raffigurato nell’immagine
sottostante:
divino, alla ricerca del proprio Io cioè della conoscenza di sé stessi. Lo scopo della
vita secondo Aristotele (Stagira, oggiOlympiada, Macedonia, Grecia, 384 A. C. - Calcide,
Eubea, Grecia, 322 A. C.) è l’eudaimonia cioè il raggiungimento della felicità tramite
una possessione del Daimon. Epicuro (Samo, Egea Settentrionale, 342 A. C. - Atene 270 A.
C.) riteneva che il senso della vita fosse un cammino di libertà dai falsi scopi e dagli
obiettivi irraggiungibili. Zenone di Cizio (Cizio, oggi Larnaca, Larnaca, Repubblica Greca di
Cipro, 336 A. C. - Atene 264 A. C.) riteneva che il senso della vita fosse vivere in armonia
con la natura. Plotino (Licopoli, oggi Asyūṭ, Asyūṭ, Egitto, 204 - Minturno, Lazio, Italia, 270 )
sosteneva che esso fosse dato solo dal prendere seriamente le cose serie. La filosofia
scolastica (500 - 1600 circa) riconduceva il senso della vita al raggiungimento della
Vita Eterna al cospetto di Dio. Secondo la Scuola Razionalista ( fine 1600) il senso
della vita è la conoscenza. Secondo la Scuola Empirica ( prima metà del 1700) ogni
individuo può dare alla vita un proprio senso ma non tutti ne sono capaci. Per
Immanuel Kant (Königsberg, oggi Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad, Russia, 22 Aprile 1724 -
Königsberg, 12 Febbraio 1804) il senso della vita consiste nello svolgere egregiamente il
proprio ruolo. Per Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (Stoccarda, Baden-Württemberg, allora
Sacro Romano Impero, oggi Germania, 27 Agosto 1770 - Berlino, Brandemburgo, allora Prussia,
oggi Germania, 14 Novembre 1831) il senso della vita consiste in ciò che è accaduto e ciò
che non è accaduto non ne fa parte. Secondo Arthur Schopenhauer (Danzica, allora città-
stato Di Danzica, oggi Pomerania, Polonia, 22 Febbraio 1788 - Francoforte Sul Meno, allora
Confederazione Tedesca, oggi Germania, 21 Settembre 1860) la vita appare priva di senso.
Charles Robert Darwin (Shrewsbury, West Midlands, Regno Unito, 12 Febbraio 1809 - Londra,
19 Aprile 1882) credeva che il senso della vita fosse l’evoluzione. Friedrich Wilhelm
dovrebbe essere quello di godere e far godere il nostro stare al mondo. Erich
Seligmann Fromm (Francoforte sul Meno, allora Regno di Prussia, oggi Assia, Germania, 23
Marzo 1900 - Muralto, Canton Ticino, 18 Marzo 1980 ) in Fuga dalla libertà ( 1941) sostiene
che il fine della vita è il recupero della spontaneità infantile. Secondo Lacan
l’impossibilità di soddisfacimento del desiderio, base del senso della vita, rende
quest’ultima inutile.
Da questa carrellata di pensieri espressi dai vari Autori nel corso del tempo si
notano diverse attribuzioni di significato al senso della vita quali la ricerca della
cognizione di sé stessi, l’unione col divino, un ritorno alla natura, l’avere una base
esclusivamente pulsionale-sessuale fino ad arrivare ad enunciati di sua assoluta
incomprensione.
Secondo il nostro assunto, per poter arrivare alla comprensione più piena del
senso della vita, bisogna dedicarsi all’osservazione della natura, partendo da quelle
situazioni nei quali le influenze culturali abbiano un’influenza assente o minima. Gli
organismi unicellulari quali virus, batteri, miceti e protozoi tumorali hanno come
unico scopo di vita la riproduzione; ad essi possiamo anche assimilare per
meccanismo di funzionamento anche le cellule tumorali. Prendiamo le zanzare il cui
ciclo vitale è di qualche settimana. La zanzara succhia il sangue per nutrire le uova,
poi le deposita e quindi muore. Salendo in gruppi sociali organizzati non è che le cose
cambino poi tanto. Le formiche, che vivono in clan bene organizzati rispetto ad altri
insetti, fanno ruotare tutta la loro esistenza intorno alla riproduzione. Vediamo cosa
avviene tra gli uccelli: i pinguini maschi all’inizio dell’inverno polare iniziano a
custodire le uova disponendosi su esse mentre le femmine vanno nei mari caldi per
nutrirsi; alla fine dell’inverno le femmine tornano e si prendono cura dei piccoli
appena le uova si schiudono mentre i maschi a loro volta si allontanano per nutrirsi.
Naturalmente più si sale nella scala gerarchica delle varie specie più le influenze
culturali e la vita sociale celano l’istinto riproduttore e tutto ciò che ad esso è
collegato, almeno apparentemente. Nei mammiferi, la madre diventa estremamente
aggressiva se pensa che qualcuno stia minacciando i suoi piccoli.
Le cose non cambiano nemmeno nel regno vegetale; un qualunque tipo di frutta,
ad esempio, si produce sull’albero o sulla pianta da cui cade a maturazione avvenuta;
la frutta, immediatamente in seguito all’impatto col terreno o successivamente con
l’ulteriore maturazione, una volta caduta, libera i semi che daranno vita a nuovi alberi
o a nuove piante.
Per poter meglio capire cosa accade nell’uomo è opportuno rifarsi alle ricerche
della maglietta sudata, effettuate per primo dallo svizzero Claus Wedekind ( 1967 -
vivente) nel 1995 e poi da altri sperimentatori nello stesso modo o con alcune varianti.
ABSTRACT
The present essay launches a new paradigm in the psycho-analytic doctrinal scenario: the Id
psychology. The Authors begin the essay by examining the literature concerning the
metapsychology of the Id with particular references to the work of Georg Groddeck (Bad Kösen,
then an independent municipality now part of Naumburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, October 13,
1866 - Knonau, Canton Zurich, Switzerland, June 10, 1934) and that of Sigmund Freud (Příbor,
Moravia-Silesia, then Austro-Hungarian Empire today Czech Republic, May 6, 1856 - London, UK,
September 23, 1939). They then briefly recall the classical psycho-analytic conception of the
topology of the psyche and the phases of psychosexual development. After the introductory part of
the essay, the Authors expose their view of the topological structure, partially different from the one
so far present in the literature, precisely because of the meaning and properties to be attributed to
the Id, contrasting the classic model of the iceberg, with its own model of the tripartite triangle,
obtained from the daily and historical observation of human behavior and beyond. At this point the
Authors expose a series of new concepts such as the scale of wishes, of modern answers to ancient
questions such as the meaning of life, of correlations with neurochemistry through the experiments
of Klaus Wedekind, of correlations with functional neuroanatomy such as the reward system, thus
laying the foundations for their paradigm.
The essay is an unpublished work.
ESSAY
Georg Groddeck, german physician and psycho-analyst, was the first to use the
term Id in psycho-analysis, inspired by the thought of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
(Röcken, then autonomous municipality today part of Lützen, then Anhalt, today Saxony-Anhalt,
Germany, October 15, 1844 - Weimar, Thuringia, then Prussia, today Germany, August 25, 1900).
Groddeck to define the Id was based on the thought of Nietzsche, who in his
essay "The birth of tragedy" of 1872 set forth two fundamental principles of his
thought; he basically described the religious spirit of the rites dedicated to the God
Apollo and the spirit of the rites dedicated to the God Dionysus. Apollo is the God of
energy linked to wisdom and order, for which the rites inspired by him are
characterized by behavioral norms related to civil life, while Dionysus is the God of
free energy for whom the rituals inspired by him are linked to recklessness and to
excess. In psycho-analytic terms the Apollonian spirit is defined Super-Ego while the
Dionysian spirit Id. Groddeck in the essay “The book of the it: psycho-analytic letters
to a friend” says that the Id plays extraordinary role doing crazy, moody,
unpredictable and hilarious things.
Sigmund Freud, founding father of psycho-analysis, borrowed the term Id from
Groddeck to define the supporting structure of the principle of pleasure in the essay
"The Ego and the Id".
Freud inserted the Id in the description of his personological model which is
composed of two different, conceptually overlapping structures, which he defined as
topic. The first topic defines the structure of the personality and is composed of three
instances called unconscious, subconscious and conscious, whose magnitude is static
and does not change from birth to death; it comes to be classically depicted with the
image of a multi-layered iceberg, with a deep layer immersed in the water below the
censoring level and representing the unconscious, an intermediate layer immersed in
water but above the censorship level and which represents the subconscious or
preconscious, an upper layer placed above the surface of the water and representing
the conscious.
The contents of the conscious are those present in our attention field here and
now that cannot be numerous in a given period of time; for this reason they are
depicted above the water surface but contained in a small surface.
The contents of the subconscious are inside the water, therefore not present in
our attention field here, but above the censorship level and therefore recalled by the
conscious with a greater or lesser concentrative effort in relation to the greater or
lesser depth to which the memory is placed which we want to access; in other words,
the subconscious is the repository of our memories, that is, our memory. The area of
the subconscious is represented figuratively greater than that of the conscious because
it actually has more content.
The contents of the unconscious are placed under the censorship level, depicted
with a dotted line, because even though they are by definition unknowable because
they have been removed, they can nevertheless re-emerge to the conscience in certain
circumstances in which the control of the censorship is less active due to
physiological questions such as in the sleep through the dream or by their
deformation which makes them unrecognizable, as happens in myths, fairy tales,
artistic expressions. The unconscious contents can only be understood by applying
psycho-analytic interpretative techniques. The area of the unconscious is represented
figuratively as the largest in the figure because all the memories we remove from
memory are certainly greater than those that are present in it.
The second topic defines the personality at the energetic level and is composed
of three instances called Id, Ego and Super-Ego, whose energy varies over time as
well as their age of formation. The second topology is closely linked to the
development of the personality; this development is articulated in different phases
which in order of appearance are defined as oral, anal, phallic, latent, genital. Each
stage of development absorbs certain aspects of the previous phase, integrates some
and leaves others unchanged. Personality development occurs with a vertical
progression; however sometimes regressive episodes can occur in a completely
physiological way, where the next phase is excessively frustrating for which the
individual takes refuge in a stage already known to reinforce himself before resuming
his advance. Psychopathology can manifest itself when a fixation occurs, which
consists in stopping at an evolutionary stage as this is considered very gratifying, or
an excessively long-lasting regression.
The oral phase is present from birth up to about 18 months. In this period the
gratification of the individual takes place through the mouth and the activity of
nutrition, so that to explore what surrounds it, it tends to bring to the mouth all the
objects that surround it. In this phase only the Id is present and there is not yet a
distinction with the external world for which the newborn is considered one with his
mother and with the surrounding environment.
The mirror is recognized between the end of this phase and the beginning of the
next one. This psychic dynamism was described by Jacques Lacan ( Paris, Île-de-France,
France, April 13, 1901 - Paris, September 9, 1981 ), a great French psycho-analyst: the child,
looking at himself in the mirror near his mother or in his arms, realizes that he is an
entity in itself; this is how the Ego is born.
The anal phase is present from about 18 to 36 months. This is not a biological
phase, but a social one. Parents, trying to educate the child in sphincter control, shift
their attention from the upper part to the lower part of the body. In this phase
gratification is linked to the evacuation and / or retention of faeces.
The phallic phase, which is present between 3 and 6 years of life, takes the name
of Oedipus complex in males and Electra complex in females respectively from the
tragedies of Sophocles (Colonus, Attica, Greece, 496 A. C. - Athens, Attica, 406 A. C. ),
Oedipus Rex and Electra. Following the attention shifted towards the lower part of
the body in the previous phase, awareness of the anatomical differences between
males and females arises and from this the desires of sexual possession of the parent
of the opposite sex and feelings of jealousy towards the parent of their own sex. At
the end of this phase, the birth of the Super-Ego occurs, which consists in the
internalization of the social prohibitions of one's desires which are removed and
moved to the unconscious. This internalization will be followed by an identification
with the parent of one's gender; since he was experienced as invincible as the
exclusive holder of the sexual possession of the other parent, the child can only
identify himself, imitating him, so that he can become equally invincible in the future
and thus be able to have the love of an individual of the opposite sex in which to
reincarnate the much desired, in the past, parental image.
The latency phase, which appears between 6 and 10 years of life, is
characterized by the removal of sexual instincts, which is also facilitated by the
simultaneous opening to different types of social activities, such as school,
ecclesiastical, sports, peer groups.
The last phase is the genital one, which begins with the appearance of secondary
sexual characteristics for the hormonal explosion in the puberty and lasts for the rest
of life.
Each of the psychic instances of the second topic influences thought and
behavior in a peculiar way. The Ego is inspired by the principle of reality, the Id is
inspired by the principle of pleasure, the Super-Ego is inspired by the principle of
orality. They vary in power continuously, sometimes even within a few minutes,
according to the various stimulations received, be they external or internal.
According to the classical doctrine, the model that can best represent the overlap
of the two topics is that of the iceberg, as shown in the image below:
Starting from these assumptions, our paradigm therefore supports not only the
presence of the Id in the conscious and in the subconscious, but also that it is the
main architect of human behavior acting both consciously and unconsciously, albeit
for different reasons.
The conscious motivations of human behavior are closely linked to the desire to
obtain gratifications; such gratifications can be direct, as in the case of those who feel
thirsty and go to drink, or indirect, as in the case of those who go to work even if
what they do does not like because money will serve them to obtain something
gratifying. All actions, without exception, therefore serve to obtain a coveted, valid
and even necessary bonus. Of course there are several things that gratify us, albeit in
a different way and with different intensity, and we will pursue them proportionally
to the resonance of pleasure that we will experience getting them. The different
degree of pleasure that we will experience getting one thing rather than another,
depends on the scale of desires that we will have built over time; this could happen to
an individual who has free time to use after a working day: we imagine that at that
moment in the scale of desires there is the desire to go to the cinema to see a film
whose release is long overdue and imagine that the last representation of the day has
already begun, it will probably follow that the choice to watch the film, already
begun and therefore a harbinger of incomplete satisfaction, will be supplanted by
what is placed on the second step, let's imagine going to pizzeria, a less desirable
choice in itself but that becomes a favorite because it brings complete satisfaction.
The contents of the steps on the wish scale are changeable and vary according to the
onset of the various internal or environmental stimuli; some may remain up and down
the various steps, others once they are reached are no longer desired. An individual
who aspires to graduate, will have this desire until the day he reaches his degree, after
this desire loses all value and can be replaced by another similar one, like attending a
master's degree, or different, like the desire to find a job or both at the same time.
Another thing to keep in mind in the mechanism of ascent or descent of a specific
desire, which moreover happens in all the desires that persist over time, is that linked
to two psychic dynamisms: deprivation and saturation and that we will sign
respectively De and Sa. De arises as a result of a peculiar internal or environmental
stimulation and quickly brings the desire connected to the top of the scale of desires
while Sa arises following the satisfaction of the desire itself and brings it just as
quickly towards the departure of the ladder, where it will remain before a a new
connected stimulus makes him retrace the same path, taking up the cycle again. This
situation can be phenomenologically verified where the individual begins to feel
hungry: the more time passes, the more hungry he will have going from a state of
discomfort to a real sense of pain in the stomach; the same individual, after having
satisfied himself, will no longer want to eat, until after a certain period of time he will
not feel the stimulus of hunger again, which will make the cycle resume.
The question that arises at this point is that of why the individual must, at least a
few times, endure hunger for a certain period of time, instead of eating immediately,
thus avoiding an unease, not to say to a real and own. To answer this question, we
will have to consider the role played by the other psychic instances of the second
topic. During the development of the individual, the dominion of the Id, absolute at
birth, is influenced by the appearance of the Ego and Super-Ego which exercise
qualms of a logical and moral nature respectively. Ego and Super-Ego do not directly
determine behavior but act by strengthening or weakening the strength of the Id, that
is, desire; in the first case they can facilitate the implementation of the desire for a
direct gratification, while in the second case they can slow it down, to the point of
blocking it, at least temporarily facilitating indirect gratification. To better explain
this concept, let's imagine a surgeon who is seized with hunger during surgery; the
desire could push to interrupt the intervention to eat but the logic, that is the strength
of the Ego, will intervene to point out to the surgeon that the interruption of the
intervention could involve the death of the patient and therefore judicial
consequences and ethics, that is, the strength of the Super-Ego will intervene,
pointing out that a possible death of the patient could be a sin which could lead to
divine punishment. Of course all these dynamics are unconscious; secondary egoic
and superegoic gratifications consist respectively in being able to maintain freedom
thanks to logic and not taking divine punishment thanks to ethics. Naturally these
remorsas will last only until the moment of the end of the surgical intervention, after
which the doctor can finally feed. It therefore seems obvious that logic and ethics can
only delay the implementation of the desire but cannot extinguish it.
The unconscious motivations of human behavior are closely linked to the need
to adhere to what gives meaning to life. Therefore, to understand these motivations
we must first understand the meaning of life. Entire generations of philosophers have
labored to discover the meaning of life. One wonders what sense it makes for an
individual to be born, live for one or fifty or a hundred years and finally die. We also
ask ourselves the meaning of the universe; the universe according to the
astrophysicists expands continuously and it is logical to ask why and in what. We still
wonder if there are other species living in the cosmos and what form they have. One
wonders, going from the infinitely large to the infinitely small, what is the meaning
of the genome and why it is so complex.
These are questions that have been answered over time. Socrates ( Athens, 470, B.
C.- Athens, 399 B. C.) thought that the meaning of life lay in a good functioning of the
soul. According to Plato (Athens, 428 - Athens, 348 B. C.) it would consist in being led
by the Daimon, being half human, half divine, in search of one's own self, that is,
knowledge of oneself. The purpose of life according to Aristotle ( Stagira, today
Olympiada, Macedonia, Greece, 384 B. C. - Chalcis, Euboea, Greece, 322 B. C. ) is eudaimonia
the meaning of life was to live in harmony with nature. Plotinus (Lycopolis, today Asyūṭ,
Asyūṭ, Egypt, 204 B. C. - Minturno, Lazio, Italy, 270 B. C. ) claimed that it was only given by
taking seriously the serious things. Scholastic Philosophy (around 500 - 1600) brought
back the meaning of life to the achievement of Eternal Life in the presence of God.
According to the rationalist school (late 1600) the meaning of life is knowledge.
According to the empirical school (first half of the 1700s) each individual can give life
its own meaning but not everyone is capable of it. For Immanuel Kant (Königsberg,
today Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad, Russia, April 22, 1724 - Königsberg, February 12, 1804 ) the
meaning of life consists in playing its role very well. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
(Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, then Holy Roman Empire, today Germany, August 27, 1770 -
Berlin,Brandenburg then Prussia, today Germany, November 14, 1831) the meaning of life
consists in what happened and what is not happened it is not part of it. According to
Arthur Schopenhauer (Danzig, then City-State of Gdansk, today Pomerania, Poland, February
22, 1788 - Frankfurt am Main, then the German Confederation, today Germany, September 21,
1860) life appears meaningless. Charles Robert Darwin ( Shrewsbury, West Midlands,
United Kingdom, February 12, 1809 - London, April 19, 1882 ) believed that the meaning of
life was evolution. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche returned to the concept that there is
no sense of life or if there is, it is unknowable.
Freud in “Civilization and its discontents” (1930) argues that the meaning of life,
being given by the principle of pleasure, psychic dynamism perpetually defeated in
its struggles with social institutions and therefore unable to fulfill its mandate, is not
punishable for which man he can never be happy by never being able to achieve his
goal. Herbert Marcuse (Berlin, July 19, 1898 - Starnberg, Bavaria, Germany, July 29, 1979) in
Eros et civilisation (1955) says that the goal of life should be to enjoy and make our
world enjoy. Erich Seligmann Fromm (Frankfurt am Main, then Kingdom of Prussia, today
Hesse, Germany, March 23, 1900 - Muralto, Canton Ticino, March 18, 1980 ) in Escape from
freedom (1941) claims that the goal of life is the recovery of spontaneity childish.
According to Lacan the impossibility of satisfying desire, the basis of the meaning of
life, renders the latter useless.
From this series of thoughts expressed by the various Authors over time,
different attributions of meaning to the meaning of life are noted, such as the search
for self-knowledge, union with the divine, a return to nature, having an exclusively
instinctual basis - sexual until arriving at statements of his absolute incomprehension.
According to our assumption, in order to arrive at the fullest understanding of
the meaning of life, we must dedicate ourselves to the observation of nature, starting
from those situations in which cultural influences have an absent or minimal
influence. Unicellular organisms such as viruses, bacteria, fungi and tumor protozoa
have the sole purpose of life reproduction; to them we can also assimilate tumor cells
by mechanism of operation. Let's take mosquitoes whose life cycle is a few weeks.
The mosquito sucks blood to feed the eggs, then deposits them and then dies. Going
up in organized social groups is not that things change so much. The ants, who live in
well organized clans compared to other insects, make their whole existence revolve
around reproduction. Let's see what happens between the birds: the male penguins at
the beginning of the polar winter begin to guard the eggs by arranging themselves on
them while the females go to the warm seas to feed themselves; at the end of winter
the females return and take care of the young as soon as the eggs hatch while the
males in turn move away to feed themselves.
Of course the higher the hierarchical scale of the various species, the more
cultural influences and social life conceal the reproductive instinct and all that is
connected to it, at least apparently. In mammals, the mother becomes
extremelyaggressive if she thinks someone is threatening her young.
Things do not change even in the plant kingdom; any type of fruit, for example,
is produced on the tree or on the plant from which it falls to maturity; the fruit,
immediately following the impact with the ground or subsequently with further
maturation, once fallen, frees the seeds that will give life to new trees or new plants.
In order to better understand what happens in man it is appropriate to refer to the
research of the sweaty t-shirt, carried out first by the swiss Claus Wedekind (1967 -
living) in 1995 and then by other experimenters in the same way or with some
variants. This experiment consists in making some individuals wear a T-shirt for a
few days continuously, prohibiting them from showering and using perfumes or
deodorants; these shirts were then sniffed at individuals of the opposite sex. Some
sniffers found the smell of some nice shirts and others disgusting while others had
partly or totally different preferences. The results are very interesting and
significantly differentiated between men and women according to the type of
pheromones present in sweat.
Pheromones present in sweat are differently represented from individual to
individual, being an expression of the major histocompatibility system (MHC), a set
of genes that determines immunocompetence. It follows that therefore the aroma of
sweat is unique for each individual even if the olfactory variations are subliminal and
therefore consciously imperceptible but determining the sexual attraction towards
another individual, sometimes tried and unexplained. Pheromonal secretion is
mediated by sex hormones, so while in humans it, carried by testosterone, is
qualitatively constant and varies quantitatively with age following the rate of
testosteronic production, in women it undergoes different qualitative and quantitative
variations not only in the two large ones phases of life (fertile age and menopause)
for the same reasons as the male, but also in the various phases of the menstrual cycle
following the different rhythm of estrogenic and progestin production, with a peak
during ovulation. It should be kept in mind that from a biological point of view, a
man at any age can potentially fertilize a woman while she has a fertility period of
some decades between puberty and menopause.
Returning to the results of the experiment of the sweaty t-shirt, the sniffing
males found the smell of women pleasant that, during the experiment, they were in
the fertile phase of the cycle and unpleasant if they were not in a fertile phase or if in
natural menopause or if subjected to bilateral oophorectomy or if they take a
contraceptive pill. The women who took part in the experiment as sniffers considered
the smell of sweat to be pleasant, which permeated the T-shirts only if at that time
they were in the ovulatory phase of the menstrual cycle and if it belonged to
individuals with MHC system very far from their own; sniffers thought the smell of
some rts was unpleasant if at the time of the experiment they were in a phase of the
menstrual cycle different from the ovulatory one or if, even being in an ovulatory
phase, the individuals who had worn were carriers of a similar or near MHC system
to your own.
What is shown by the experiments reported above indicates that even
phenomena, such as that of sweating, of negligible importance and apparently distant
for the purposes of procreation, are instead intimately connected. Sweating does not
generally stimulate sexual activity but stimulates it when female fertility is at its
maximum and allows the female to choose the best partner for reproductive purposes;
in fact, the more the parents' MHC systems are different, the further away from them
will be the genetic heritage of the offspring. If the offspring, following the
recombination of the paternal and maternal genes, will be better, in a biological
sense, from that of the parents will have an ensured evolutionary line otherwise it will
disappear due to natural selection. Although our behavior is brought to sexual activity
by many stimuli, some of which we are not aware of, this is not the real purpose; it is
the reproduction that it has, in its turn it has a mistress, which is the Life that through
it we want to perpetuate. At this point, however, it is natural to ask why Life is not
eternal in its manifestations instead of being transient and transient. The answer is
simple: Life does not want to remain at a stage of development but wants to progress
and therefore cannot but push individuals to reproduce. As mentioned before, but
repetita iuvant, the birth of a new individual means that the maternal and paternal
genetic equipment is based on continuous experimentation aimed at finding a
biologically better individual. Natural selection will eliminate unsuccessful
experiments while successful experiments will give life to better individuals; then the
infinite cycle will resume.
A case in point is that of Cooley Disease or Mediterranean Anemia which is
epidemiologically widespread in areas where Malaria is endemic. This pathology is
given by a gene mutation that determines a structural modification of the hemoglobin
which in turn determines a morphological deformation of the red blood cell; the
cytological changes typical of this clinical picture make it impossible for the malarial
plasmodium to infect the red blood cell. It follows that in ancient times the
individuals affected by the pathology did not contract Malaria and could live about
twenty years while those who did not, if hit by Malaria, would have survived less. It
follows that at the time individuals with the gene mutation were increasing in number
because their reproduction was easier. Now that Malaria is easily cured, the opposite
phenomenon occurs; even if the average life expectancy has increased with the new
therapies and with the new frontiers opened by genetic engineering, we come to talk
about healing, undoubtedly this genetic modification, which has become meaningless
today, will face a decrease in time frequency until it disappears. Of course the
appearance or disappearance of a gene mutation is not rapid, occurring over hundreds
of thousands of centuries.
Another concept to be developed is the one linked to the directionality of
evolution coming from life. The improvement of the species desired by Life must not
be understood in an absolute sense; it is closely related to environmental changes.
Whenever the environment changes, the species, in order not to become extinct, must
adapt to it.
The Earth was formed about 4.5 billion years ago, about 10 billion years after
the Big Bang. 4,000,000 billion years ago there were no land areas, and on the
surface of the entire globe there was water. Originally there were only recombinant
molecules that then gave light to the first unicellular life forms. 530 million years ago
the first fish appeared. 380 million years ago the first forms of amphibious life
appeared but still continued to lay eggs in the water. 340 million years ago these
amphibians started laying eggs, called amniotic eggs, on earth. 310 million years ago
the first synapsids were born, ancestors of mammals. 250 million years ago the first
mammals appeared. 65 million years ago primates were born which, with the
extinction of the dinosaurs, more or less contemporary, became the dominant species.
63 million years ago purgatorius appeared, the first common ancestor between men
and apes. 55 million years ago the protosimians appeared, the last common ancestor
of men and monkeys. 25 million years ago the anthropomorphic monkeys appeared
from which the evolutionary line of man was formed.
4,200,000 years ago the Australopithecus, the last anthropomorphic ape,
appeared. 2,400.00 million years ago, following a desertification that made it
impossible to roam on all fours from one tree to another, the homo habilis appeared,
coming down to the ground, to be able to look far and gather fruit from the trees, he
began to straighten his back. 1,800,000 years ago the homo erectus appeared which
had a gait similar to that of the modern man having now a straight back. 300,000
years, according to the latest research, homo sapiens appeared, from which our
species homo sapiens sapiens was born about 10,000 years ago.
In all this evolution there was no lack of other anthropomorphic or humanoid
species that became extinct without hesitating in other evolutionary lines; in this
regard it is worth mentioning a very famous species, the homo neanderthalensis,
which became extinct about 40,000 years ago for reasons unknown to date.
In this process that from simple organic molecules, called replicators because
they could only duplicate themselves, has led to the creation of complex organisms,
be they plants or animals, with all the "failed attempts" of the innumerable extinct
species, one cannot fail to grasp an evolutionary tension of Life, which works by
favoring the species that are able to adapt better to the environment. In turn, this
evolutionary tension is linked to the desire for immortality, which expresses itself in
will to have children, whether biological or adoptive, in order to transmit something
of itself in the genetic or value sense to future generations.
The neurosciences in their continuous development have recently found what is
most likely the anatomo-physiological substrate of the Id, the rewards system. The
rewards system branches into different neurological structures such as the prefrontal
cortex, the cingulate cortex, the insular cortex, the thalamus, the hypothalamus, the
hippocampus and others; the dopaminergic-mesolimbic pathway, which connects the
ventral tegmental area to the nucleus accumbens, is particularly important in this
system. Its purpose is to give positive reinforcement to certain behaviors so that the
individual is stimulated to reproduce them. The behavioral-cognitive approach has
caught the final part of human behavior limiting itself to the concept of stimulus and
consequent gratification, leaving out the initial part, that is, of how and why a given
stimulus is remarkably gratifying for an individual and why it is little or not at all for
another. At this point, the reasoning, with a circular pattern, takes us back to the
beginning and that is the structuring, given to the individual by his own Id, of the
scale of desires.
All the theoretical and technical-applicative metapsychological structure as well
as all the correlations with neurosciences will follow the concepts expressed in these
pages on the basic description of the psychology of the Id.
GABRIELE ROMEO - VINCENZO MARIA ROMEO