Ignacio Matte Blanco
Encyclopedia
Ignacio Matte Blanco was a Chile
an psychiatrist
and psychoanalyst who developed a rule-based structure for the unconscious which allows us to make sense of the non-logical aspects of thought. 'In applying the complexities and paradoxes of mathematical logic to psychoanalysis, Matte-Blanco has enriched it incredibly...in the clinical situation'.
In particular, 'Matte Blanco shows us that (to the unconscious) the part can represent the whole and that past, present, and future are all the same '.
, Matte Blanco was educated in Chile, and before leaving Chile for London, 'was in analysis with Fernando Allende Navarro, Latin America's first qualified psychoanalyst. He trained [in psychiatry] at the Maudsley Hospital and in psychoanalysis at the London Institute, where he was in supervision with Anna Freud
and James Strachey
, becoming a member of the British Society in 1938'. He subsequently worked in the United States
, Chile, and Italy
, where his family now lives. He died in Rome
at the age of 86.
, condensation, replacement of external by internal reality, and absence of mutual contradiction'. He deduced that if the unconscious has consistent characteristics it must have rules, or there would be chaos. However the nature of the characteristics indicate that the rules differ from conventional logic, and Matte Blanco was fruitfully to explore the nature of unconscious, as opposed to conscious, logic.
In The Unconscious as Infinite Sets Matte Blanco proposes that the structure of the unconscious can be summarised by the principle of Generalisation and the principle of Symmetry, Matte Blanco's 'two principles: 1) The principle of Generalization: Unconscious logic does not take account individuals as such, it deals with them only as members of classes, and of classes of classes. 2) The principle of Symmetry: The Unconscious can treat the converse of any relation as identical to it; that is, it deals with relationships as symmetrical'.
While the principle of Generalisation might be compatible with conventional logic, discontinuity is introduced by the principle of Symmetry under which relationships are treated as symmetrical, or reversible. Whereas 'asymmetrical thinking distinguishes individuals from one other by the relationship between them....reality testing, symmetrical thinking, by contrast, sees relations as holding indiscriminately across a field of individuals'. For example an asymmetrical relationship, X is greater than Y, becomes reversible so that Y is simultaneously greater than X. Matte Blanco draws here on 'Klein
's understanding that "I am angry (with a person or thing)" is very close to "Someone or something is very angry with me"'; and indeed he suggests that 'she [Klein] was the most creative and original of all those who have drawn inspiration from Freud', highlighting in particular 'her famous concept of projective identification
'.
For Matte Blanco, then, "unconsciousness" is marked by 'what he called symmetry, where there is a preferring of sameness and concomitantly an implicit aversion to difference, while the quality of ego-functioning is the registering and bearing of difference, which he called asymmetry '.
Matte Blanco points out that "We are always, in a given mental product, confronted by a mixture of the logic of the unconscious with that of the preconscious and consciousness". Matte Blanco gives this mixture of two logics the name bi-logic and points out that our thinking is usually bi-logical, expressing the both types of logic to differing extents.
'The process of analysis, for Matte Blanco, is a process of helping the individual to move from predominantly symmetrical formulations to bi-logical ones; a process he calls unfolding '.
'In what he terms the first stratum, experience is characterized by the conscious awareness of separate objects....At this level thinking is mostly delimited and asymmetrical' - closest to "normal", everyday life, to what W. R. Bion termed the mind of 'the "work group"...anchored to a sophisticated and rational level of behaviour'.
'A second stratum can be defined by the appearance of a significant amount of symmetrization within otherwise asymmetrical thinking', so that for example a man in love
will 'attribute to the beloved young woman...all the characteristics of the class of beloved woman' but (bi-logically) he 'will realize that his young woman also has limitations and defects'
'The next deeper, third stratum is one in which different classes are identified (thus containing a fair amount of asymmetrical thinking) but in which...parts of a class are always taken as the whole class' - symmetrization (plus a degree of timelessness).
'The fourth stratum is defined by the fact that there is formation of wider classes which are also symmetrized', while asymmetry becomes less and less. Thus because "being a man" is a wider class than ones men, women and children, being a man is also equivalent to being a woman and a child. 'In this fourth and rather deep startum, a number of the features of the Freudian unconscious are also characteristic. There is an absence of contradiction...also an identity of psychical and external reality'.
Finally, 'the deepest, fifth stratum is that in which processes of symmetrization tend towards the mathematical limit of indivisibility...thinking, which requires asymmetrical relations, is greatly impaired', and we are in the realm of psychotic functioning: 'without asymmetrical logic, play breaks down into delusion
'.
Normal development for Matte Blanco involved the gradual mastery of all five strata, including the capacity both to differentiate and to move between them all; 'in abnormal states, this continuity of differentiation between the strata becomes fractured or confused'.
and Matte Blanco'.
An International Bi-logic Conference takes place every two years; in 2010 it will be held in London.
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
an psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
and psychoanalyst who developed a rule-based structure for the unconscious which allows us to make sense of the non-logical aspects of thought. 'In applying the complexities and paradoxes of mathematical logic to psychoanalysis, Matte-Blanco has enriched it incredibly...in the clinical situation'.
In particular, 'Matte Blanco shows us that (to the unconscious) the part can represent the whole and that past, present, and future are all the same '.
Life
Born in Santiago, ChileSantiago, Chile
Santiago , also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile, and the center of its largest conurbation . It is located in the country's central valley, at an elevation of above mean sea level...
, Matte Blanco was educated in Chile, and before leaving Chile for London, 'was in analysis with Fernando Allende Navarro, Latin America's first qualified psychoanalyst. He trained [in psychiatry] at the Maudsley Hospital and in psychoanalysis at the London Institute, where he was in supervision with Anna Freud
Anna Freud
Anna Freud was the sixth and last child of Sigmund and Martha Freud. Born in Vienna, she followed the path of her father and contributed to the newly born field of psychoanalysis...
and James Strachey
James Strachey
James Beaumont Strachey was a British psychoanalyst, and, with his wife Alix, a translator of Sigmund Freud into English...
, becoming a member of the British Society in 1938'. He subsequently worked in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Chile, and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, where his family now lives. He died in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
at the age of 86.
Unconscious
'Matte Blanco (1975) started by analyzing the five characteristics of the unconscious that Freud outlined: timelessness, displacementDisplacement (psychology)
In Freudian psychology, displacement is an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind redirects effects from an object felt to be dangerous or unacceptable to an object felt to be safe or acceptable...
, condensation, replacement of external by internal reality, and absence of mutual contradiction'. He deduced that if the unconscious has consistent characteristics it must have rules, or there would be chaos. However the nature of the characteristics indicate that the rules differ from conventional logic, and Matte Blanco was fruitfully to explore the nature of unconscious, as opposed to conscious, logic.
In The Unconscious as Infinite Sets Matte Blanco proposes that the structure of the unconscious can be summarised by the principle of Generalisation and the principle of Symmetry, Matte Blanco's 'two principles: 1) The principle of Generalization: Unconscious logic does not take account individuals as such, it deals with them only as members of classes, and of classes of classes. 2) The principle of Symmetry: The Unconscious can treat the converse of any relation as identical to it; that is, it deals with relationships as symmetrical'.
While the principle of Generalisation might be compatible with conventional logic, discontinuity is introduced by the principle of Symmetry under which relationships are treated as symmetrical, or reversible. Whereas 'asymmetrical thinking distinguishes individuals from one other by the relationship between them....reality testing, symmetrical thinking, by contrast, sees relations as holding indiscriminately across a field of individuals'. For example an asymmetrical relationship, X is greater than Y, becomes reversible so that Y is simultaneously greater than X. Matte Blanco draws here on 'Klein
Melanie Klein
Melanie Reizes Klein was an Austrian-born British psychoanalyst who devised novel therapeutic techniques for children that had an impact on child psychology and contemporary psychoanalysis...
's understanding that "I am angry (with a person or thing)" is very close to "Someone or something is very angry with me"'; and indeed he suggests that 'she [Klein] was the most creative and original of all those who have drawn inspiration from Freud', highlighting in particular 'her famous concept of projective identification
Projective identification
Projective Identification is 'a term first used by Melanie Klein to describe a process whereby parts of the ego are thought of as forced into another person who is then expected to become identified with whatever has been projected'....
'.
For Matte Blanco, then, "unconsciousness" is marked by 'what he called symmetry, where there is a preferring of sameness and concomitantly an implicit aversion to difference, while the quality of ego-functioning is the registering and bearing of difference, which he called asymmetry '.
Symmetry
The principle of Symmetry is clearly outside of conventional logic, consequently Matte Blanco suggests that this alternative logic be called Symmetrical Logic. 'In the thought system of symmetry, time does not exist. An event that occurred yesterday can also occur today or tomorrow...traumatic events of the past are not only seen in the unconscious as ever present and permanently happening but also about to happen'.Matte Blanco points out that "We are always, in a given mental product, confronted by a mixture of the logic of the unconscious with that of the preconscious and consciousness". Matte Blanco gives this mixture of two logics the name bi-logic and points out that our thinking is usually bi-logical, expressing the both types of logic to differing extents.
'The process of analysis, for Matte Blanco, is a process of helping the individual to move from predominantly symmetrical formulations to bi-logical ones; a process he calls unfolding '.
Strata
Matte Blanco saw a depth-analysis of the mind as falling into five broad strata: 'five strata in which there is a particular combination of symmetrical and asymmetrical logic' unique to each one.'In what he terms the first stratum, experience is characterized by the conscious awareness of separate objects....At this level thinking is mostly delimited and asymmetrical' - closest to "normal", everyday life, to what W. R. Bion termed the mind of 'the "work group"...anchored to a sophisticated and rational level of behaviour'.
'A second stratum can be defined by the appearance of a significant amount of symmetrization within otherwise asymmetrical thinking', so that for example a man in love
Falling in love
In romantic relationships, "falling in love" is mainly a Western term used to describe the process of moving from a feeling of neutrality towards a person to one of love...
will 'attribute to the beloved young woman...all the characteristics of the class of beloved woman' but (bi-logically) he 'will realize that his young woman also has limitations and defects'
'The next deeper, third stratum is one in which different classes are identified (thus containing a fair amount of asymmetrical thinking) but in which...parts of a class are always taken as the whole class' - symmetrization (plus a degree of timelessness).
'The fourth stratum is defined by the fact that there is formation of wider classes which are also symmetrized', while asymmetry becomes less and less. Thus because "being a man" is a wider class than ones men, women and children, being a man is also equivalent to being a woman and a child. 'In this fourth and rather deep startum, a number of the features of the Freudian unconscious are also characteristic. There is an absence of contradiction...also an identity of psychical and external reality'.
Finally, 'the deepest, fifth stratum is that in which processes of symmetrization tend towards the mathematical limit of indivisibility...thinking, which requires asymmetrical relations, is greatly impaired', and we are in the realm of psychotic functioning: 'without asymmetrical logic, play breaks down into delusion
Delusion
A delusion is a false belief held with absolute conviction despite superior evidence. Unlike hallucinations, delusions are always pathological...
'.
Normal development for Matte Blanco involved the gradual mastery of all five strata, including the capacity both to differentiate and to move between them all; 'in abnormal states, this continuity of differentiation between the strata becomes fractured or confused'.
Influence
Matte Blanco hoped that his logical underpinning for the unconscious would contribute to the development of pyschoanalytic and other areas of knowledge. His ideas have been used to illuminate thinking in psychotherapy, and theology as well as art and literature. 'Etchegoyen and Ahumada (1990) have drawn out some further valuable parallels between BatesonGregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. He had a natural ability to recognize order and pattern in the universe...
and Matte Blanco'.
An International Bi-logic Conference takes place every two years; in 2010 it will be held in London.