In this presentation Caron Harrang discusses Grotstein’s (2004) “The seventh servant: The implications of a truth drive in Bion's theory of ‘O’” and its relevance to the theme of EBOR 2022: Truth and Lies.
From his highly creative reading of Bion’s later work emphasizing transformations in ‘O’, Grotstein proposes the existence of an emotional truth drive to explain why analysands can accept the analyst’s interpretations even as they often reveal painful psychical realities. According to Grotstein, this drive constitutes Bion’s mysterious ‘seventh servant’ and a truth principle (analogous to Freud’s reality and pleasure principles in a different model). Our need of truth is parallel to our love of knowledge (epistemophilic drive). Grotstein says this drive meets evolving O (absolute truth and ultimate reality) halfway within us and helps calibrate our ontological reliability.
Not mentioned in Grotstein’s paper, yet relevant to his inquiry, are Bion’s observations described in “On Arrogance” (1958) pointing to anxieties stimulated by the analyst and analysand’s curiosity, expressive of a truth drive. Bion’s reading of the Oedipus myth suggests that pursuit of the truth “at any cost” emanates from an unconscious attitude of arrogance and its underbelly, stupidity. How then to differentiate healthy expression of what Grotstein views as a universal human drive from its pathological manifestations?
A gripping clinical vignette provided by Grotstein illustrates his response to the abovementioned question. Utilizing his reverie, the analyst ‘becomes’ the analysand’s “inner, thwarted truth that she [previously] could not bear.” In so doing, “raw indifferent truth” is transformed into personal emotional truth which Grotstein believes is the major aim of analytic process.
Briefly discussed and relevant to the EBOR theme, is Grotstein’s explanation of Bion’s observation—perplexing for many—that all thoughts, as they are ordinarily known, are false. If the quest for emotional truth is universal as Grotstein suggests, what can this possibly mean?
To prepare for online discussion, participants are strongly encouraged to review Grotstein’s paper—provided with registration—prior to this pre-EBOR scientific meeting.
Learning objectives
1. Participants will be able to define and differentiate the psychoanalytic terms ‘truth drive’ and ‘truth principle’.
2. Participants will be able to identify markers of a healthy truth drive and its pathological counterpart in the clinical situation.
3. Participants will be able to describe Grotstein’s technical approach to interpreting emotional truth according to his understanding of Bion’s theory of ‘O’.
About the presenter: Caron Harrang, LICSW, FIPA, BCPsa is a board-certified psychoanalyst and an IPA training and supervising psychoanalyst on faculty at Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. She maintains a full-time private practice in Seattle, Washington (USA). Publications include “Painting Poppies: On the relationship between concrete and metaphorical thinking” (2012); “Psychic skin and narcissistic rage: Reflections on Almodóvar’s The Skin I Live In” (2012); From Reverie to Interpretation: Transforming Thought into the Action of Psychoanalysis (D. Blue & C. Harrang (Eds.) (2016); “River to rapids: Speaking to the body in terms the body can understand” In C. Harrang, D. Tillotson, & N.C. Winters (Eds.) Body as psychoanalytic object: Clinical applications from Winnicott to Bion and beyond (2021); and “Possibility Clouds Arising from a Close Reading of Civitarese and Berrini's ‘On Using Bion's Concepts of Point, Line, and Linking in the Analysis of a 6-Year-Old Child’” (2022).
The following paper will be made available to all participants who register for this event:
Grotstein, J.S. (2004). The seventh servant: The implications of a truth drive in Bion’s theory of “O.” International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 85(5):1081-1101.
