ABSTRACT
Psychoanalytic discourse is nourished by the optimistic idea that conflicts can, and should, be resolved. But it is not always ensured that this goal can, and should, be achieved in every case. Too many conflicts cannot be resolved; often they cannot even be formulated or avoided. So, we must make a distinction between conflicts that can be resolved and those we have to endure. To bear unbearable conflicts in psychoanalysis often means to grow. Here, the word “conflict” acquires the special meaning of an unavoidable stimulus for change, growth, solving a paradox or a puzzle; somebody who has not experienced this conflict or gone through it could be identified as lacking in development. So, “solving” is not the counter-word for “conflict”; it is growth. Growth potentially plays a very salient role in bearing unbearable conflicts. Thus, the task will be to answer the questions “What does growth mean?” “What kind of development are we thinking of here?” These are the questions I explore in this chapter, using examples from the history of psychoanalysis. The concept of growth has to be applied to psychoanalysis itself. I try to give an answer by distinguishing four levels of meaning 188within the concept of “growth”: I begin with growth meaning successive use of perspectives, then follow with growth having the meaning of complementary, then simultaneous, use of perspectives, and I conclude with how growth can mean the development of an “excentric position”. To say it clearly here: “excentric” does not mean “eccentricity” as a caricature of British lifestyle prototypically represented in figures such as, say, Lady Sitwell. “Excentric positionality” is a philosophical term, taken from the work of Hellmuth Plessner (1928), which is explained in the course of my contribution.
