Significant Moments: Colonialism

To take an analogy from history: invading conquerors . . .
Sigmund Freud, An Outline of Psychoanalysis.
. . . let us use . . .
William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar.
. . . the French colonialists in Indochina . . .
David Straus, Vietnam Veterans and American Conceptions.
. . . as an example, . . .
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World.
. . . set out to govern . . .
Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote.
. . . a conquered country, not according to the judicial system which they find in force there, but according to their own.
Sigmund Freud, An Outline of Psychoanalysis.

Yes, that's what colonial powers do. They invade a territory, they take it over, and they rule from afar.

During my psychiatric assessment in September 1992, I told Napoleon Cuenco, MD, that my family operated as a kind of colonial empire. My maternal aunt -- my mother's older sister -- ruled my family as her own colonial territory, so to speak. Here's what Dr. Cuenco reported: "[Mr. Freedman's] father died in 1976 from complications of a coronary bypass operation. The patient felt very close to him and loved him dearly. He said that this was in spite of his perceptions that the father all along was defenseless against his wife and his sister-in-law, and thus was powerless in the household. The mother died in 1980 from a cerebrovascular accident. Reportedly, she had a strange relationship with her husband. She was perceived as weak and ineffectual. Moreover, under the influence of her sister, she appeared strong and in control. The maternal aunt is a lady whose whereabouts are not known to the patient. She was last seen during her sister's funeral. She is remembered as a powerful manipulator of the family. Although she never lived with the patient's family and had her own home, she reportedly ruled the family from afar. The patient compares her to the set-up that exists between an abusive colonial power and an enslaved territory."

In a book on personality disorders the psychiatrist William Meissner, MD describes the typical family background of patients diagnosed with personality disorders: "Recently, approaching the same set of issues, Mandelbaum (1980) has catalogued the patterns and characteristics commonly found in the families of borderline or narcissistic patients [and possibly schizoid patients?]. As in other instances of the delineation of such characteristics, they are by no means exclusively found in borderline and/or narcissistic family systems, but they are sufficiently common to provide a fairly consistent family picture."

Dr. Meissner goes on to list 8 characteristics common to the families of patients with personality disorders. Item 3 is intriguing. Dr. Meissner writes: "Both parents are deeply enmeshed emotionally with their families of origin. When relationships with the families of origin seem distant, this does not reflect real differentiation and autonomy. Emotional entanglements are seemingly maintained, despite the apparent separation of time and geographic distance."

Now that's interesting. Dr. Meissner's observation supports my view that my family operated as a kind of colonial empire, with my parents acting the role of native political leaders over whom ruled the colonial power center, my aunt. What Dr. Cuenco didn't realize was that what I was describing was not an idiosyncratic disturbed family system, but a type of disturbed family system routinely found in the family backgrounds of patients diagnosed with personality disorders. Wasn't that insightful of me to have seen that? Wasn't there something lacking in Dr. Cuenco's training not to have seen that?