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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
The role of action in a creative theory of personality
PAOLA CAMASSA
AbstractPsychoanalysis is a technique to let creativity develop,
and thought must be a prelude to action, rather than its
substitute.Megalomania, redefined according to Bion as the capacity
to act responsibly, lies at the extreme positive end of the
spectrumof personality.
Key words: Action, creativity, omnipotence, megalomania
The development of different (anthropological, bio-
logical, historical, and philosophical) points of view
has led to a radical criticism of the Homo sapiens/
Homo faber dichotomy and to the quest for a
synthesis of thought and action. Technique, that is,
creating tools and symbols by which human beings
create themselves, is the place where this opposition
can potentially be overcome. At the same time
though, by resorting to technique, the human
species has reached a stage of higher power accel-
eration, and in so doing it has speeded up an actualphantasy of
exaggerated and potentially dangerous
power and ambition.
Following Bion, we know that an excess of force
does not amount to technique but to creativity, and
technique is an expression of the latter. To evolve,
creativity needs to be accepted, and psychoanalysis is
a technique that enables creativity to evolve. The
birth of psychoanalysis was necessary, given the
peculiar contingency of bios istherikos, which re-
quired a new know-how, a new technique to explore
the truth of the false: false memories, false sympto-
matic manifestations, false transferential love, falsedream
representations.
I think that the future of psychoanalysis is not the
future of the latest psychoanalytic theory or model
capable of convincing its opponents; as Bion (1966)
reminds us by quoting Max Planck, a shift to a new
theory has never been determined by the power of
the new theory itself in convincing its opponents, but
simply by the fact that the latter are all dead.
Theories extend their reasons so as to achieve
boundless reach, and this accounts for their incor-
rigibility as well as for their conflict with reality. On
the contrary, we possess a technique to keep in touch
with reality, within and without, to keep ourselves
constantly informed, so to speak.
Psychoanalysis is what Freud called this new
technique to treat neurosis. Our legacy of knowledge
about the human mind (Seele, as Freud called it)
derives from this. It grows and develops because it is
the ever-alive and dynamic outcome of that techni-que. Unlike
other sciences, we do not have a fixed
and closed axiomatic body of knowledge, and, beside
Freuds work, none of us is outraged about not
knowing the work of many authoritative analysts
not even not knowing Bions thinking causes
scandal. But nobody will ever be a psychoanalyst
without having undertaken a personal analysis and
without carrying out psychoanalytic treatments,
which means making use of transference. We
may say that making use of projective identifica-
tion is what Bion called the technique he devel-
oped. It includes transference psychoanalysis as asubset of
projective identification.
Psychoanalysis was, first of all, a nomen actionis,
but, with Bion, projective identification also has
become a nomen actionis. Like Freud who, in
applying psychoanalysis, discovered that transfer-
ence was a universal phenomenon Bion discovered
that projective identification is much more than a
mechanism of defence within the motherchild
Correspondence: Paola Camassa, Viale Regina Margherita 11/B,
90138 Palermo, Italy. Tel: '39 091580601. Fax: '39 091580601.
E-mail: [email protected]
International Forum of Psychoanalysis. 2009; 18: 104106
ISSN 0803-706X print/ISSN 1651-2324 online # 2009 Taylor &
Francis
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relationship (Melanie Klein). Like transference, it is
the foundation of the birth and growth of the psyche,
as well as the foundation of treatment. Bion says that
projective identification is chiefly an activity aimed at
looking for an object: an object to love and be loved
by (projective identification of creativity), an object
to subjugate and be subjugated by (projectiveidentification of
narcissism), and an object to kill
and be killed by (projective identification of hatred).
Creativity, narcissism, and hatred are the forces at
play; projective identification is the activity that
allows these forces of psychic life to mature and
evolve. Yet there is a difference: narcissism and
hatred disturb and obstruct the projective identifica-
tion of creativity. Creativity, for example the creativ-
ity of that part of the personality which demands
to be in analysis, allows a projective identification
of narcissism and hatred. Creativity lets the activity
of narcissism and hatred divert from their goal of
subjugating or killing the object.Similarly, according to Green
(1995), the treat-
ment is an internalisation of a sense-creating rela-
tionship. And only love creates sense, even the sense
of hatred. Indeed, recognising hatred is a product of
love. Hatred does not create any sense, even less so
in case of abstention, puzzlement. Both Bion and
Green view apathy and hatred as the main oppo-
nents of creativity.
So what happens when a hostile or apathetic
breast (container) does not accept the projective
identification of creativity? The latter is reintrojected
as an exaggerated force together with a breastintolerant to
communication. We can say that the
history of our patients is a history of their creative
failures, in the most severe cases the negative of
failure, that is, the triumph of failure (omnipotence).
The contribution of narcissism and hate of truth are
required to let failure triumph. But creativity may
not be reintrojected at all, and, being rejected by the
container, it may remain as it is, enhanced and
expelled, inside the very carrier of communication.
I will give here some examples of the containers
rejecting forces. Exhibition and obscenity are quali-
ties peculiar to rejected creativity. Phenomena such
as the television programme Big Brotheror the online
blogs of anorectic and bulimic women (with nick-
names such as Ana and Bula) are an example of
this. Terrorism is the quality peculiar to rejected
hatred, the impossibility of reintrojecting hatred
explosive particles that do no longer belong to the
individual or the container. In addition, fanaticism is
the quality peculiar to rejected narcissism, increas-
ingly more twisted echoes of ideals that do not any
more belong to the individual or the container.
Here I shall to explore the evolution of creativity,
which is founded on the following assumptions: the
personality is a creation; this creation results from
a creative relationship; and a relationship is creative
when it can accept the projective identification of
creativity, hatred, and narcissism. This is becoming
possible through a new technique, the technique of
projective identification, by which we treat transfer-
ence not only as a re-edition, but also as the untiringsearch
for an object. We can, therefore, let transfer-
ence develop, even when it is the expression of
narcissism and hatred, just like a mother would let
the formation of a hostile base mature and evolve. In
other words, we assume the treatment technique as a
know-how that sets the birth of and allows the
growth of psychic life.
By this I mean that, in a creative theory of
personality, action has a privileged place. And
nobody but Bion, having dealt with thought dis-
orders, could give back to action the place that
theory has always embezzled. We may say that an
evidence of healthy thought lies in action, as muchas an
evidence of thought disorders lies in impo-
tence.
Action and thought are in conflict, Bion (1966)
states. Genetically, thought is subject to action and
its end that is, survival but thought can free itself
from action and, in turn, subjugate it, like religion
does. Everywhere there is antagonism, and this, Bion
says, can be solved in favour of either thought or
action; or else one can just keep them separate and
unchanged (a commensal relationship). This latter
possibility requires the capacity for tolerating antag-
onism within a relationship that allows a mutualinfluence
between action and thought (a symbiotic
relationship). Psychoanalysis aims to promote the
symbiotic relationship between thought and action,
so that both will grow and become transformed.
With this, Bion places psychoanalysis in actuality,
both because in psychoanalysis a personality is
actualised, and because psychoanalysis itself is an
act staging, that is, a technique for the frame-
work of the representation.
This requires certain qualities to counter hatred
and apathy. According to Bion (1965), these qualities
are patience (negative capability), safety (a depressive
capacity), and megalomania (the capacity to act).
Among these three, the latter seems disquieting yet is
the clearest. Bion says that the extreme positive
quality of personality is megalomania, that is, the
capacity to become, to be, and to perform affective
actions. Fear is always associated with it; indeed, the
fear inherent in megalomania is the fear of being God,
of being responsible. Thus, the patient resists against
recognising both his positive and negative qualities.
But as he acknowledges his positive qualities, his
personality contacts its own messianic idea, its own
possibility of salvation.
The role of action 105
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I believe that the terms megalomania and om-
nipotence, which semantic suggestion induces us to
associate too easily with one another, need to be
distinguished; unlike megalomania which is a
prerequisite for creative action omnipotence is
always related to impotence, and the latter is related
to intolerance of frustration, namely to the hatred oftruth.
Thought should be a prelude to action and not its
replacement. Aversion towards action and the re-
sponsibility of action select the tenets, the moral
principles, and the scientific theories, and turn them
into action substitutes and scapegoats for the fear
related to the accountability of our acting. Negative
capability, depressive capacity, and megalomania are
therefore the qualities in charge of creativity devel-
opment, and we need to rely on them for the future
of psychoanalysis.
Translated by Isabella Negri.
References
Bion, W.R. (1965). Transformations. London: Heinemann.
Bion, W.R. (1966). Catastrophic change. Bulletin of the
British
Psycho-Analytic Society, 5, 24.
Bion, W.R. (1992). Cogitations. London: Karnac.
Green, A. (1995). Lavvenire d ella psicoanalisi e la causalita
psichica
[The future of psychoanalysis and psychic causality].
Roma-Bari: Laterza & Figli.
Author
Paola Camassa is a full member and traininganalyst of the
Italian Psychoanalytic Society. Among
her publications: Trasformazioni iperboliche [Hy-
perbolic transformations]. In: G. Hautmann, A.
Vergine (Eds.), Gli affetti in psicoanalisi [Affects in
psychoanalysis]. Roma: Borla, 1991; Anoressia [An-
orexia], Rivista di psicoanalisi, 44 (1998); Lanalisi
dei sogni [The analysis of dreams]. In F. Riolo (Ed.)
Il simbolismo onirico [Dream symbolism], Milano:
Angeli, 2003; Lenigma del melone di un paese straniero
[The enigma of the melon from a foreign country],
Pescara: Tracce, 2004.
106 P. Camassa
