Eric Gillett posted a message inquiring about the following statement by
David Mittelman:

"It might be easier to understand this when you remind yourself that
transference is an intrapsychic phenomenon (although I realize this is a
matter of debate).  It's an expression of internal wishes, fears,
fantasies, etc. which become attached, experientially, to another
person.  But what is another "person," analytically speaking?  It is an
"internal object" which we experience as external to
ourselves....However, the philosophic problem is that defining
transference as a "distortion" of reality presupposes
that reality is fixed and knowable.  In other words, to my knowledge,
psychoanalysis has still not offered a good standard for what
constitutes "non-transference,"  or "authentic relatedness."
............................
Then Eric asked--

I have 2 questions:
1. Does anyone agree or disagree and for what reasons?
2. Is anyone familiar with or interested in Paul Gray's ideas on self
analysis?

My reponse to Eric's first question: I agree with something I imagine
David is referring to, but I disagree with David's statement as
literally stated. First I disagree that if I assert that you are
distorting reality then I must be presupposing that reality is
knowable. For if I assert that you distort reality, I am only
presupposing that I believe something about reality that is different
from what you believe. What I believe is what I believe to be true about
reality; what you believe is what I believe to be false about reality. I
do not, however, presuppose that either of us
KNOWS reality. I presuppose only that my belief is more servicable than
yours as an approximation to knowledge of the truth. Absolute and final
truth about the nature of reality is a veiled goddess and unknowable to
mortals. But of course in many everyday practical matters our knowledge
is indeed a "good enough" approximation that is quite serviceable and,
who knows, may even be knowledge of the truth.

With respect to my claiming you distort reality, imagine, for instance,
that you claim that I am a frog. Now if I say that you
are distorting your perception of me, what I mean is that I believe I
amnot a frog and that you would be better off believing as I do. I am
not asserting that I know as an absolute fact that I am not a frog
because in a postmodern world where radical skeptics abound, someone
surely may be able to throw my assertion into doubt. The veiled goddess
truth does not give us access to her certain knowledge about reality. So
probably no assertion about reality can be known if, by "known," we mean
known with absolute certainty. And, in order to avoid
self-contradiction, doubt about its truth must even apply to my
statement that nothing about reality can be known with absolute
certainty.

So when I claim that your perception of me as a frog is
distorted, I presuppose only that I have another perception that I
believe is less likely to be in error--is a less imperfect approximation
to knowing the truth about reality.

So I can agree with David if I liberally construe the intent of his
statement to mean in general that a claim that someone distorts reality
must presuppose that this claimant has a superior means of  formulating
a belief about how to approximate knowledge of reality at least in the
instance in which the distortion is said to occur.

My response to Eric's second question: I am not familiar with Paul
Gray's ideas on self-analysis, but I am familiar with several of Paul's
writings on ego-analysis and defense analysis and admire his work. Thus
I would be very keen to learn more about his ideas on self-analysis.

Part II of Answering Eric appears in a separate e-mailing to this
listservice. In Part II I will respond to Eric's later comments in his
e-mailing in which he asked these two questions.

Jim Duffy


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