MARY WATKINS

INVISIBLE GUESTSThe Development of Imaginal Dialogues

SPRING PUBLICATIONS

WOODSTOCK, CONNECTICUT

2000

(COPYRIGHT 2016 MARY WATKINS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED)

The Impact of Conceptions of

Development on Approaching

Imaginal Dialogues

Chapter 6 o f:

CHAPTER SIX

The Impact o f Conceptions o f Development on Approaching Imaginai Dialogues

It is not a question here of how we must turn, twist, limit or curtail the phenomenon so that it can still be explained, i f need be, by principles which we once agreed not to exceed, but it is a question rather of the direction in which we must expand our ideas to come to terms with the phenomenon.

— Schelling, 1857 (quoted in O tto , 1981, 46)

T hus far we have been speaking o f developm ental approaches to imaginai dialogues w ithout directly focusing on how the conceptions o f developm ent im plicit in the theories presented have im pacted the phenom enon under discussion. T he critique o f these developm ental conceptions com es mainly from the organism ic-

developm ental m odel.Disentangling Development from

Ontogenesis and Chronology

All o f the developm ental theories p resented in Part I discuss the developm ent o f imaginai dialogues from an ontogenetic po in t o f view. In o ther words, they discuss the em ergence o f and changes

in such dialogues in private speech and th ou gh t from early childhood onwards. As K aplan (1974) po in ts out, many o f our con tem porary developm ental theories, like evolutionary theories forfore them , fuse the idea o f d ev e lo p m en t w ith h is to ry and biography , such th a t

82 CRITIQUE OF CONTEMPORARY APPROACHEStemporally earlier form s are interpreted as relatively im perfect— destined to be extinguished, displaced by, or transform ed into later, presum ably higher, m ore perfec t form s. T hus we see im aginai dialogues in play replaced by abstract thought, or those in private speech transm uted into the m onologues o f thought. For instance, the early display o f im agi­nai dialogues in the symbolic play o f childhood is ignored as possible evidence for the centrality and persistence o f im aginai dialogues th ro ug hou t life, or for the sophisticated ability o f the preschooler to de-center, to speak for the imaginai other, to symbolize, to m eet the rules o f dialogal speech. R ather it is alm ost radically in terpreted as som eth ing which is and ough t to be lodged in childhood. Insofar as it appears in later life it is taken as persistence o f primitivity. M uch o f developm ental theory is constructed such that, except in cases o f pathology, w hat is conceived o f as “g o o d ” is evidenced in adu lt­hood , and w hat is th ough t to be in ferio r is found in childhood and h o pefu lly a b an d o n ed there . So to o w ith ou r evaluations o f ways o f th ink ing in the earlier “childhood” o f cultures before ours.

I f this fo rm o f theorizing w ere n o t so prevalent, the child m ight indeed be “ father o f the m an” w ith regard to im agination, as Blake suggested . W h a t th e analyst m u st in fe r a b o u t “ self- and ob jec t- re p re se n ta tio n s ,” from th e adu lt p a t ie n t’s th o u g h ts , feelings and in te rp e rso n a l re la tio n s , th e child sp o n tan eo u sly enac ts in play— revealing the dram atic structure o f psyche. W hat a curious state o f affairs we have created w hen child analysts consisten tly refer the plethora o f characters arising from play back to the self and the actual o thers o f the child’s daily life, while the adult analyst listens for the characters, the self- and ob ject-representations, in the pa tien t’s talk o f self and others! Were the adult n o t to relinquish the child’s ability to “hear voices,” then he and the analyst would be spared the task o f m aking such inferences about the underlying imaginai structures o f personality and perception.

Development Concerns N o t Simply W hat Is But What Should Be

The conflation o f developm ent w ith tim e encourages the m iscon­ception that developmental theorists simply observe what children do over tim e and rep o rt these “ facts,” adding to their inventory o f

skills the child’s achievem ents th rough time. T hese “ facts” are o f

IMPACT OF CONCEPTIONS OF DEVELOPMENT 83course usually organized into some set o f stages which are supposed to unfold over time, delivering a more perfect, more highly developed person (namely, the adult). O f course, this misconception serves to make developmental psychology akin to natural science. But develop­ment cannot simply be read from the “facts” o f growing up. It is a perspective through which observations can be ordered.

D evelopm ent is a norm or standard for interpreting and assessing actualities, and cannot itself be derived from empirical observations or experim ental analyses. (Kaplan,1981b, 8)

T he “ facts” w hich theories claim are to be found in reality are, from this perspective, produced by the given theory. D ifferent theories produce d ifferen t sets o f facts, depending on the views o f the nature o f m ind and reality th a t in fo rm them . T he degree to which it appears that children do go th rough the stages outlined in a particular theory may be seen n o t as a sign o f the unfolding o f som e natural process o f developm ent, bu t ra ther as a reflection o f the extent to which children have been enculturated to share the goals o f th a t theory and the culture th a t created it (see Toulm in, 1981, 261). T here are limits to this v iew point, including obvious exceptions such as the develop­m ent o f rudim entary m o to r skills o r physiological developm ent in general. Beyond this rudim entary level o f developm ent, however, we find th a t values organize the preferred telos.

Kaplan proposes that developm ent be seen as a m ovem ent toward perfection. A developm entalist’s task then is to describe no t simply w hat is, bu t w hat should be (1981b, 5). W hen one looks in this way at theories o f developm ent, one sees w hat the given theorist specifies im plicitly o r explicitly as the prim ary goal, and how phenom ena are then selectively gathered or discarded based on their ability to explain the prim ary problem . For instance for Piaget this “ selection pressure led to a narrow ing o f the range o f phenom ena to those th a t seem m ost capable o f relating to the developm ent o f logically necessary judgm en ts...as the prob lem o f logical form was taken as prim ary” (Click, 1981, 11-12).

84 CRITIQUE OF CONTEMPORARY APPROACHESFormal Similarities

he ontogenetic approach toward imaginai dialogues has intro­duced confusion into what might otherwise have seemed straight­

forward. For instance, Piaget argues that symbolic play (and we should add its imaginai dialogues) is replaced by rule-governed games. Such games do indeed follow the early proliferation of imaginai scenes enacted by the child, and were symbolic play to be transmuted into such games, Piaget’s thesis of a movement toward increasingly abstract and logic-oriented thought would be bolstered.

However, if we leave time as a measure of relation between two phenomena, we can focus on the degree o f formal similarity instead. This focus allows us to see a clear relation between such things as the child’s imaginai dialogues in play, adult fantasy, playwriting, and praying. In all o f these there are two or more roles or characters, a scene and dialogue which function to create a world— fantastical, representative, or some mixture of the two. Instead of linking imaginai dialogues in the early play of children to logical thought, would not common sense have us see them as related to dialogues in dramas and novels, to authors’ and poets’ (and eventually readers’) experiences of speaking with characters, to the imaginai dialogues of fantasy which suffuse adult thought, to adults’ experience of dialogue with God or with aspects of nature? I f we can agree on this, then it should be clear that development in these realms can not be defined by the achievement of a process of de-personification of the characters or by an integration of the multiplicity o f characters into a single one. These two moves would dissolve the dramatic nature of these; dialogues and make it impossible for there to be dialogue at all! How would we go about saying what development would be?

The level o f development of a phenomenon cannot be assessed without taking into account the particular context o f the phe­nomenon at a given time and the given telos or goal:

...there is no single “developmental course” or “sequence” in an individual’s life. With different teloi, the relevant devel­opmental “ sequence” will be different. (Kaplan, 1981b, 17)

The Preferred Telos o f a Phenomenon Specifies W ha t Constitutes Development

IMPACT OF CONCEPTIONS OF DEVELOPMENT 85A phenom enon , such as speaking with an imaginai figure or prim ary p ro cess th o u g h t, th e re fo re , w ould never be p rim itive per se. M ost psychoanalytic discussions assum e that “ the prim ary processes and secondary processes are mutually antagonistic and that the form er have, in health, to be relegated by repression to a curious underw orld” (Rycroft, 1979, 158). But the kinds o f thinking Freud claimed were characteristic o f dream speech— distortion, condensation, displacement, over-determ ination— are n o t just “in ferio r kinds o f th inking (looked at from the naturalistic view point) bu t ways o f speaking poetically, rhetorically, and symbolically” (Hillm an, 1975b, 85). To judge w hether an im aginai figure accurately represen ts som eone “in reality” may miss the crucial d istinction betw een the goal o f represen ta tion o f and the goal o f represen tation as (Kaplan, 1981a, 23). This confusion has led many object relations therapists to use the kind o f figures in dream s and fantasies to indicate level o f object represen tation , rather than reading them as expressive o f the psychological reality o f the p a tien t (see W atkins, 1978). F or in s tan ce , a w o m an’s d ream o f an im aginai figure, a haggard husband whose body is a w ooden barrel, w ith glass chips pressed in to the w ood m ight be taken as evidence o f the pa tien t’s inability to differentiate the inanim ate and the anim ate— despite her proven ability to do so in her capacity to relate the dream in words to a hum an therap ist, and regardless o f (perhaps) the high degree o f fit betw een the sym bol and the sym bolized.

Let us illustrate further how altering the telos changes the assessment o f the phenom enon. For P iaget the high degree o f assim ilation in sym bolic play con tribu ted to his pejorative assessm ent o f it. T his o f course would be required if the prim ary developm ental goal were accom m odation and adaptation to the dem ands o f external reality. But for poet William Blake assim ilation was no t just tolerated bu t given the highest value. A high degree o f assim ilation was no t ego­centric, because by first assim ilating the w orld in to oneself, one could create o ther worlds (Engell, 1981,248). T he creation o f imaginai worlds was the prim ary goal. W hereas P iaget saw play as egocentric, the Rom antics (and Mead as well) would have seen its imaginai dialogues as instrum ental to the developm ent o f “ sympathy.” T hat is, th rough such dialogues the child, like the poet,

may be said, for the time, to identify h im self with thecharacter he wishes to represent, and to pass from one to

86 CRITIQUE OF CONTEMPORARY APPROACHESanother, like the same soul successively anim ating d iffer­ent bodies. (William H azlitt, quoted in Abram s, 1953, 245)

The imagination, far from being a domain of self-centered wishes, was for Shelley and others the organ by which the individual could exercise sympathy, understanding, and moral goodness by identifying himself with others.

The m ultiplicity o f developm ental courses suggested in the literature concerning imaginai dialogues results from theorists’ advo­cating different teloi as primary: the development of abstract thought, o f social discourse, or o f adaptation to reality. These different teloi, o f course, would lead one to select different series of changes during childhood to focus on. For instance, the child first knows the imaginai other (the doll, the imaginary companion) through her own activities. The imaginai other is at first a passive recipient o f the child’s attention and action. Only gradually does the doll become animated and act as an agent in its own right. Also at first, the doll is used to represent either the child herself or people the child knows intimately— brother, sister, mother, father. Then there is a shift to people the child knows less well (mailman, teacher), then to people the child has heard o f but never met, and finally to totally imaginary beings. Thus characters are gradually released from being props to the ego’s actions and pale reflections o f the already known. As characters become animated and autonomous it is possible to find out about the details o f their relationships and their world, not just how they impinge on the self.

I f we follow these lines o f developm ent we find ourselves rehearsing not for Piaget’s scientific audience, not for actual social discourse, and not for action or a harsh reality, but rather, as Hillman has said, we find ourselves rehearsing for imaginai life itself—that other life where we are also housed, clothed, and cared for. That other life o f dialogue also creeps into our gestures, our turns o f phrase, the very structure o f our thought, just as surely as it presents itself in our dreams and waking dreams, in art and poetry, novels and prayer. Robert Kiely points out in his discussion of Virginia Woolf that:

...th ro u g h the im agination, the individual can escape ex­ile and confinem ent and dwell m om entarily with shep­herds and queens. But the exercise o f imagination involves m ore than inventing situations and characters, it is ...a m ovem ent o f m ind and heart from one vantage point to

IMPACT OF CONCEPTIONS OF DEVELOPMENT 87another. I t is no t merely a m ultiplication o f flat scenes, bu t an en trance into the dim ensionality o f experience beyond the self, a leap from the balcony to the stage, from silence to speech. (1980, 223)

Im aginai dialogues can be a m eans o f creating worlds, o f devel­oping im aginative sym pathy th rough which we go beyond the limits o f our own corporeality and range o f life experiences by em bodying in im agination the perspectives o f others, actual and imaginai. T hrough this relating to im aginai o thers (w hether they be created by a novelist, by the self, or w hether they arise spontaneously) our own habitual po in t o f view (often called the ego’s) may be relativized and placed in relation to those o f others. Virginia W oolf speaks o f this function w ith regard to literature:

For we are apt to forget, reading, as we tend to do, only the m asterpieces o f a bygone age how great a pow er the body o f literature possesses to im pose itself: how it will no t suffer itse lf to be read passively, but takes us and reads us; flouts our preconceptions; questions principles which we had go t into the habit o f taking for granted, and, in fact, splits us into two parts as we read, making us, even as we enjoy, yield our ground or stick to our guns. (1925/1953, 49)

W hen one is m oved by the existence and autonom y o f imaginai others and their worlds, one often experiences a luminous o r religious quality to these dialogues; one com es upon prayer. T he symbolic po s­sibilities o f im aginai dialogues are m ost highly developed in poetry, novels and plays, b u t are p resen t in our fantasy as well.

A Phenomenon is not Pathological in and o f Itself hut with Kespect to a Given T e lo s and Context

Bu t o f course n o t all imaginai dialogues w ould be m eans to these dram atic, symbolic, or spiritual ends. Clinicians know that some such dialogues can have an obsessive and repetitious quality that m o­

nopolizes th ou gh t w ithout taking it further. O ther such dialogues are confused with perception. Some are hallucinatory in character. O thers are exam ples o f extrem e egocentricity, w here all the characters are know n shallowly o r only from the p o in t o f view o f the ego. O u r task

88 CRITIQUE OF CONTEMPORARY APPROACHESwill be to specify the kinds o f imaginai dialogues th a t would be m eans to the teloi specified, and in so doing to take up the issue o f pathological dialogues— those th a t w ould n o t fu rther these ends. O nce again the teloi and the con tex t— just as they pick ou t som e changes in child­hood to be developm ental and n o t o thers— also pick o u t w hat is to be c o n s id e red p a th o lo g ica l and w h a t is n o t. A p a r ticu la r k ind o f im aginai dialogue is n o t pathological in and o f itself, b u t only w ith respect to the given telos and context.

The Universalizing o f a Given T e lo s

Theorists and their readers tend to universalize the telos u nder dis­cussion. We have seen this in Piaget’s case where logic dom inates the discussion o f ra ther diverse phenom ena, and in psychoanalysis

w here adap ta tion to “ reality” holds full sway. In the fo rm er case the child is seen as a budd ing scientist, com ing to fully recognize the necessity o f “ co n fo rm in g to th e in te llec tu a l s tru c tu re s o f logic, E uclidean geom etry, and the o ther basic K an tian fo rm s” (Toulmin, 1981, 256). I f we w ere to substitu te fo r P iaget’s goal for thought, the telos o f the child becom ing a budding dram atist, the “ facts” we would read w ould d iffer from Piaget, Vygotsky, and M ead’s. For instance, from a dramatic perspective how would we re-see their developm ental theories? V ygotsky’s elliptical in ternal m onologues m ight be seen no t as m onologues, b u t as dialogues having the form al features o f speech w ith an in tim ate other. M ead’s “generalized o th e r” m ight be seen no t as an absence o f a specific im aginai o ther to w hom thoughts are d irec ted , b u t as d en o tin g th a t th e th o u g h t/s p e e c h , w hile be ing d irected to a specific im aginai other, is fo rm ed in a way th a t is un ­derstan dab le to a large aud ience. O r finally, P iag e t’s thesis th a t the dialogues in play develop in to abstract th ou gh t m ight be un der­stood n o t as evidence o f the absence o f im aginai dialogues in adult life, b u t as a consequence o f the grow ing child’s identification with the role o f being a scientist. Early imaginai dialogues w ould then be seen n o t only as stepp ing stones to abstract th ough t o r social dis­course, b u t as expressive o f the dram atic quality o f m ind (a thesis w ith m any ro o ts in ph ilosophy , relig ion , aesth e tics , and the early

IMPACT OF CONCEPTIONS OF DEVELOPMENT 89h isto ry o f psychiatry).17 T his po in t o f view presupposes a re-valua­tion o f the role o f im agination in m ental life.

Conclusion

Instead o f p roposing a single line o f developm ent for im aginai dia­logues, we are suggesting th a t there are several; which one is o b ­served will depend on the chosen telos. We are no t satisfied with the

conclusion that all such dialogues becom e com m unicative speech or abstract thought. This leads to the im plicit evaluation o f imaginai dialogues as inferior processes which are gradually overcome in favor o f m ore ad eq uate co m m u n ica tio n o r m ore logical and ab s trac t thought. N o r shall we rest w ith a single line o f developm ent from the specific charac ters o f ch ild h o o d play to th e gen era lized o th e r, denuded o f particular character or costume, hom ogenized and neatened for the purposes o f adult thought. We shall focus on the developm ent o f imaginai dialogues, n o t their disappearance or their inadequacy. O u r a tten tion will therefo re n o t be directed to the dissolu tion o f imaginai others as they are assim ilated in to a b roader “ego” o r “ se lf” th rough acts o f in terpretation . Rather, we will be concerned w ith the developm ent o f the im aginai o ther from an extension o f the ego, a passive recipient o f the im aginer’s in ten tion , to an autonom ous and anim ate agency in its own right. We will be less concerned w ith the developm ent o f a “generalized” nature o f a sole imaginai other, and m ore co n ce rn ed w ith the d eep en in g o f ch a rac te riza tio n o f m any im aginai others. We will n o t dwell on how the imaginai o ther is really ou rse lf, b u t p u rsu e fu r th e r how th e im aginai o th e r is gradually

17 We are contrasting a scientifically oriented, logical, abstract thought to a poetic and dramatic one, the form er tending toward m onologues, the latter toward dialogue. This m ight also be described no t as a co n trast betw een males and females, but between masculine and feminine form s o f thought. In the feminine form , others are always taken into account. T he agent does not imagine him or herself as at the center (Herm ann, 1981, 88). T hought in this instance is either dialogical or at the boarder o f dialogue— occurring as it does in the interstices o f the personal. This organization o f self in relation to others can be contrasted with thought that has a single, dom inant voice, around which all else centers at any- given m om ent. This is akin to Gilligan’s (1982) contrast between a masculine form o f morality where abstract principles are applied across situations, and a feminine form where the agent becomes immersed imaginatively in the particular points o f view within a given situation in order to come to a determ ination (again more implicitly dialogical).

90 CRITIQUE OF CONTEMPORARY APPROACHESreleased from our egocentrism to an autonom y from which he o r she creates us as m uch as we create him o r her. We will acknow ledge the experience o f our identity shifting back and forth betw een various personae. H ow ever this acknow ledgm ent will n o t lead us only to the familiar claim th a t all im aginai o thers should be n o t only understood as b u t also experienced as aspects o f self. R ather we shall look at how the self develops th rough bo th the experience o f being in dia­logue w ith imaginai o thers w ho are felt as autonom ous, and the expe­rience o f even the “I ” as being in flux between various characterizations.

From this perspective, personifying is seen as a hum an p ro p en ­sity n o t lim ited to children, m em bers o f “prim itive” cultures, o r cases o f psychopathology. I t is fundam ental n o t only to m ythology, poetry, drama, literature, and religion, bu t to thought itself. Imaginai dialogues are one o f a num ber o f possible transactions w ith those imaginai “person ified” o thers w ho arise either spontaneously— as in early play, conversations in th o u g h t or dream s— or th rough a form o f practice such as Ju n g ’s active im agination, or the w riting o f fiction o r poetry.