February 13, 1999
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
#136
Washington, DC 20008-4530
Lisa Osborne
Community Mental Health Center
Washington, DC 20007
Dear Ms. Osborne:
I submit the enclosed published paper: Friedman, M. "Survivor Guilt in the Pathogenesis of Anorexia Nervosa." Psychiatry 48: 25-39 (February 1985).
The paper as it relates to the issues of guilt and family dynamics provides important insights into my personality. The paper is a complement to the paper by Warren Brodey (Boston, Mass.) (Psychoanalytical Study of the Child, 1966) concerning narcissistically-disturbed families. The following brief anecdotes show a mechanism for the transmutation of narcissistic disturbance in one individual into guilt in another in my family.
In late August 1966, when I was 12 years old, my mother began to purchase for me a collection of 16 serialized books sold at the supermarket, a history of the world from ancient times to the present.
My brother-in-law (aged 19) devalued the books and depicted my mother's gift as parental overindulgence, or forbidden impulse gratification for me. Cf. Shengold, L. Soul Murder at 152-153 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989): "'Anal defensiveness' involves a panoply of defenses evolved during the anal phase of psychic development that culminates with the individual's power to reduce anything meaningful to 'shit'--to the nominal, the degraded, the undifferentiated." At the very time that my mother purchased the gift of books for me, in 1966, my brother-in-law's uncle was paying for his college tuition.
In early September 1987 I accompanied my brother-in-law to an electronics store where he purchased two television sets (Lloyd): one for each of his daughters' bedrooms. The daughters were then aged 5 and 12, respectively. The older daughter, aged 12, was given a private TV for her bedroom at the same age my mother purchased a collection of books for me. (Incidentally, I never had a TV in my bedroom in my parents' house). I strongly suspect that the TVs were not tuned exclusively (or ever) to the public television network.
In August 1983, upon my move to Washington, DC, I packed up some books that were stored at my sister's and brother-in-law's house in New Jersey to bring with me to Washington: a 20-volume set of The Book Of Knowledge (published in 1925) that I had acquired in used condition in childhood. My sister and brother-in-law were perturbed by my taking my books, which they had wanted to keep for their daughters.
The above anecdotes are consistent with psychodynamics in my brother-in-law (and lifelong psychological collusion by my sister) that can be reduced to the following statements.
"When I give something, it is an act of salutary nurturance." (TVs for daughters' bedrooms)
"When I receive something, it is entitlement." (College tuition from uncle)
"When he gives something, it is an act of 'Indian Giving'" (i.e., he will want it back). See Letter to Dr. Singh dated February 24, 1997.
"When he receives something, it is the result of parental overindulgence or forbidden impulse gratification--his act of taking deprives another of valued resources." (Gift of books from mother) (See Friedman's discussion of depletion guilt.)
I believe that the above statements disclose a basic dynamic that can underlie the transmutation of narcissistic disturbance (sense of entitlement and idealization of persons in one's own protected orbit and, conversely, devaluation of persons outside the protected orbit who are engaged in the very same types of acts) into guilt in another person.
Where these intra-psychic values are shared among a group of persons in a family, the resulting shared value system serves as a kind of ideology (not unlike communism at a sociopolitical level) that can have a profoundly disturbing effect on the as yet undeveloped personalities of persons against whom the ideology is targeted.
Sincerely,
Gary Freedman
***********
TO: Lisa Osborne
FROM: Gary Freedman
DATE: February 23, 1999
RE: Follow-up to Letter dated February 13, 1999 -- Adult Social Difficulties
_____________________________________
As a follow-up to my previous letter dated February 13, 1999, I offer the following thoughts that point to a correspondence between my interpersonal relations in childhood and an aspect of my difficulties in adulthood.
During the period September 1985 to February 1988 I was employed at the law firm of Hogan & Hartson, where two of my coworkers were Daniel Cutler and Craig Dye.
Cutler became preoccupied with the idea that I was in love with Craig; he viewed my purchase of personal necessities as motivated by a desire to impress Craig. Thus, if I purchased a necktie or a shirt or a pair of eyeglasses, my motivation was forbidden (homosexual) impulse gratification -- but not pure necessity.
In late February 1988 my assignment at the firm was terminated; I believe that certain employees had fomented a rumor, accepted as fact by the supervisor, that I had been engaged in an attempt to generate overtime: a forbidden act of depletion of the employer.
Thanksgiving Day 1988 I spent at Daniel Cutler's apartment, together with a friend of Cutler's named Axel Martinez. At one point in the evening Martinez said to me "Are you in love with Craig?" (an idea that apparently emanated from Cutler). At another point in the evening Cutler said: "All of Craig's friends are telling him he should marry Alex. Her father is loaded." Craig Dye was then dating Alex Zapruder, the daughter of Henry Zapruder, a successful tax attorney.
Arguably, the above facts fit a pattern of interpersonal dynamics that parallel my childhood dynamics with my brother-in-law (as detailed in the letter dated February 13, 1999).
There is a parallel between (1) my brother-in-law's insistent perception that any bounty I received from my mother constituted forbidden impulse gratification that in turn depleted my mother and, in adulthood, (2) Cutler's insistent perception that all purchases I made for myself were motivated by forbidden impulses (homosexual desire) and that these purchases were financed by forbidden acts of depletion of the employer (my purported act of "generating overtime"). As one of my professors in law school used to say: "It's all the same case."
It is also possible to see a parallel between my brother-in-law's idealized perception of his own acts:
"When I receive something it is entitlement and when I give something it is an act of salutary nurturance."
and Daniel Cutler's perception of the behavior of Craig (Cutler's idealized identification project):
"When Craig has a romantic interest it is wholesome, and furthers the bond with a wealthy father-figure who may be a source of future bounty."
The parallels with anti-Semitism are suggestive. Any wealth the Jew has is blood money that has been taken from good Christians; the Jew's wealth is based on depleting the Christian. The Christian has a right to take the Jew's wealth because it simply evens the score: the Christian is entitled to take from, or deplete, the Jew. This is the rationalization that supported the Nazis' confiscation of wealth held by the Jews, in the 1930s. You can talk to Professor Peter Gay about this; the Nazis used this rationale to confiscate Gay's father's business.
One of Cutler's observations (made in September 1987) was flagrantly anti-Semitic: "Isn't it true that it was the Jews who built the concentration camps? And isn't it true that some of the worst atrocities in those camps were committed by Jews against other Jews?"
BROTHER-IN-LAW'S PERCEPTIONS:
"When I give something, it is an act of salutary nurturance." (TVs for daughters' bedrooms)
"When I receive something, it is entitlement." (College tuition from uncle)
"When he gives something, it is an act of 'Indian Giving'" (i.e., he will want it back). See Letter to Dr. Singh dated February 24, 1997.
"When he receives something, it is the result of parental overindulgence or forbidden impulse gratification--his act of taking deprives another of valued resources." (Gift of books from mother) (See Friedman's discussion of depletion guilt.)
DANIEL CUTLER'S PERCEPTIONS:
"When he purchases something, it is for the purpose of forbidden impulse gratification (to further a homosexual love interest)."
"The money he uses to gratify his forbidden impulses is derived from forbidden acts of taking from the employer--he depletes the employer." His forbidden acts of taking are used to finance his forbidden impulse gratification.
"When my identification project (Craig Dye) has a romantic interest, it is a normal heterosexual interest."
"When my identification project (Craig Dye) uses a romantic interest to further acts of taking from a bounteous authority figure, the romantic interest is all the more good and the possible future acts of taking from the bounteous authority are good."
It is interesting to observe that Cutler's statement "All of Craig's friends are telling him he should marry ("bond with") Alex; her father is loaded" can be interpreted psychoanalytically to carry the following admission:
"My friends and I got you fired from your job at Hogan ('severed your bonds with your employer') by spreading a story that you were engaged in forbidden acts of taking from the employer ('a bounteous father figure')."
A further significant reconstruction is possible: that in childhood I was subjected to chronic and pervasive communications, by narcissistically-disturbed persons, that were calculated to destroy my relationship with my mother.
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