External Control of Self
We can add to Luft’s list the psychodynamic insights about self that are gained from dreams, slips of the tongue, and our own mistakes. These are sources of wisdom that have been offered by the Freudians, Jungians and other psychoanalytically-oriented observers. Sigmund Freud was among the first to examine the psychodynamics of these seemingly haphazard mistakes. As early as 1901, Freud noted that:
The disturbance in speaking which is manifested in a slip of the tongue can in the first place be caused by the influence of another component of the same speech—by an anticipatory sound, that is, or by a perseveration—or by another formulation of the ideas contained within the sentence or . . . text that it is one’s intention to utter. . . . The disturbance could, however, be of a second kind . . . it could result from influences outside the word, sentence or context, and arise out of elements which are not intended to be uttered and of whose excitation we only learn precisely through the actual disturbance.
For Freud, the key to understanding this leakage of material into Quad Two comes from examining the discrepancy between the intended word or phrase and the actual word of phrase that was spoken. This discrepancy is the “disturbance” and, as Freud suggests, there is rich learning in not only taking seriously the words that are actually spoken, but also examining how these words relate to what the speaker intended.
The Jungians take a further step. They suggest that there is an intrapsychic agent that often is responsible for these slips—the “shadow.” They offer wonderful advice about the ways in which the “shadow”—operating as a “trickster” inside each of us—finds a way to “trip us up” (through our gaffs, confusions and flops). The “trickster” trips us up so that our ego doesn’t become too inflated and so that we can be fully exposed to less attractive aspects of our selves (our blind quadrant) that other people, unfortunately, often see quite clearly. I will have more to say about these psychodynamic insights.
