Pity and Resentment in Obsessional Neurosis
transl. by Ignas Gutauskas
original article here
Obsessional neurotic, readily employing nosological categories at hand, frequently diagnoses himself and others with obsessional neurosis. But despite the fact that the presence of neurosis is, apparently, equally acknowledged by every participant in the diagnostic process—be it the diagnostician or the addressee of the diagnosis—what strikes the eye is how unevenly this acknowledgment is handled. Thus, we cannot confuse the obsessional, who is engaged in recording neurotic signs spotted by him in his surroundings, with those he diagnoses. It rather seems that the universality of the neurotic situation claimed by the obsessional serves as a means for distinguishing himself from his neighbor, that is, the proper states of the obsessional and those whom he considers to be also gripped by neurosis differ. The obsessional symptom is precisely this distinction but not the intensity or character of the obsessional’s “emotional experiences.”
The obsessional diagnosing manner is usually twofold: on the one hand, there is a specific mixture of envy and indignation, or resentment; on the other hand, we observe a combination of guilt and disgust, or pity. The obsessional checks the desire of the other against the ego ideal and discovers that this other always already falls short of the demands placed upon it. Such preoccupation with anxiety—which is taken by the obsessional to be a marker of the level of desire—its accumulation, separates the diagnosing obsessional from those whom he considers to be neurotic. Although the subjects surrounding the obsessional may not differ from him in behavior, he assigns them a different place in the domain of anxiety.
The obsessional’s urge to diagnose, which is permeated by pity and resentment, regardless of the nosological categories used, and the obligation he experiences to align his speech with such a diagnostic discourse usually draws the attention of various psy-specialists. Whether the psychologist interprets this speech as a defense mechanism—for example, as intellectualization, which supposedly prevents the subject from expressing his needs directly— or cognitive distortion, which forces the obsessional to resort to the hypothesis of the “normal state of affairs,” thereby exacerbating his symptom, the therapist’s response will be situated on the content level of the subject’s speech. That is, despite the fact that we have two individuals here [the specialist with his therapeutic speech and the patient], the therapist will nevertheless address the obsessional in the patient’s own language, which is believed to ensure a favorable therapeutic outcome—after all, these individuals share one ear, listening to the same things…
The obsessional fixates on his experiences, ruminating not only on them but also on the act of fixating on them. He attempts to equip himself with various psychological techniques or, ultimately, abandons this activity altogether. All of this is his primary occupation. If a psychotherapist, for some reason, is not inclined to engage in a long-term, so-called “supportive therapy” with a patient, an inconvenient patient as the obsessional will quickly be shown the door. Typically, the termination of treatment in such cases is explained by stating that the client is clinging to his symptom and is in no rush to get better. However, notably, this unfortunate circumstance is well known to every fairly neuroticized subject even before they decide to seek therapy, and if they do not disclose this fact during the very first session, they do not do this almost out of delicacy, being afraid of scaring off the therapist.
Returning to the experiences that are characteristic of the obsessional subject, it is necessary to point out not what causes them, but what they conceal. If, in the sphere of psychotherapy, every neurotic modality is traditionally labeled as “anxiety disorder” (usually in conjunction with a whole constellation of other diagnoses, like OCD, depression, ADHD, etc.), then from Jacques Lacan’s viewpoint, the obsessional does not demonstrate his own anxiety but is engaged with the anxiety of the Other.
In the case of the obsessional’s resentment, he is led to assume that the little other is spared from anxiety and is thus capable of acting more or less freely, possessing the level of ignorance that is necessary to be productive—the ignorance that results in his stupid blunders in the production process and a blindness to this stupidity of his. The assumption of the existence of a simple, unrestrained soul that does not procrastinate in the production process cannot help but trigger envy in the obsessional. But the other’s supposed ignorance simultaneously provokes his indignation. He seeks to reflect back to the simple soul the anxiety it has cast out. Since the obsessional finds it inappropriate to act so easily and shamelessly as the other, according to him, does, he suspects the neighbor of malevolence and is compelled to sanction him pedagogically—this sanctioning might manifest as an attempt to instill a sense of taste in the simpleton, as an effort to make him refuse easily obtained enjoyment, or as a need to remove him from the spotlight entirely, to silence him.
Regarding what was previously called pity, the obsessional also invokes the ego ideal to gauge the intensity of the desire of the other once the latter has come within his grasp. The means by which this other obtains enjoyment appear to the obsessional as insufficiently selective, so shamefully vulgar that they elicit disgust, which leads to aggressive attempts to rid himself of this contaminated object. What resulted from resentment—indignation and never-realized fantasies about inflicting harm on one’s surroundings—is also the source of pity. Pity for the neighbor is the outcome of the repressed aggression directed at him, the disgust-evoking object. Constant visions of sadistic violence against the other fuel the cruelty of the superego, which redirects these death wishes back to the subject: the demand for the other’s death turns into the death of the demand, and the visions of sadistic executions are converted into suicidal fantasies. Eventually, conscience, being what Friedrich Nietzsche saw as the element of the perverted will to power, seeks only one thing, more power, which, in this case, means more conscientiousness. The shame that accompanies the disgust towards the other’s way of enjoying forces the subject to approach his own desire in a torturous manner.
The very process of diagnosing neurosis, the latter being, as the obsessional sees it, common to all the participants in the situation, can itself be a manifestation of pity and resentment. Nevertheless, pity and resentment place the diagnostician in a unique position, enabling him, being driven by indignation over limitations of his surroundings, to assault the other—or attack himself, since the embarrassing enjoyment he extracts from this indignation inevitably induces shame. In both cases, the obsessional enjoys in a surplus manner: he focuses his actions on the repetition of the operations with the other’s anxiety and extracts enjoyment from this activity. The truth of the situation is that the obsessional needs this careless other; furthermore, the more shameful this truth is, the more it is charged with enjoyment.
The oscillatory movement of this enjoying being gives the impression that it is stuck, unable to detach itself from the object. This state of being caught between resentment and pity, or between accusing the other and self-deprecation, is structured fantasmatically. Although the obsessional persists in denying that there exists another position relative to his own, it is precisely this persistence that betrays him. Regardless of how loyal the subject may be to psychoanalytic interventions and how versed he is in the theory of the discipline, he nevertheless stubbornly continues to interpret his situation literally. While he insists on confronting his difficulties with utmost seriousness and seeks to finally see a way out, every attempt he makes to overcome his hardships inevitably fails due to the imperative to choose between initiatives that are both valid and mutually exclusive. This construction of the impossible choice is a purely fantasmatic formation the neurotic relies on to be capable of regulating the relationship with the object of his desire.
This fantasmatic frame allows the subject to manage the anxiety arising with his approaching the object of desire, but he does not view himself as a desiring subject. He needs to be recognized by the Other, and this recognition indicates that there is, after all, a place for him within the realm of symbolic relations. If such a recognition does not occur automatically and imperceptibly to him, the subject falls into a state of stupor. He is unable to act without the Other, yet he also fails to acknowledge that it is separate from him. The obsessional relies on this inability to perceive the discrepancy between the content of the utterance and the act of desire because it allows him to keep understanding his predicament literally.
Of course, the obsessional claims that he is supposedly unable to control himself or influence the situation. However, such assertions remain rooted in his neurotic fantasm. He does not accept the Other’s castration and, as long as the Other remains a silent whole, makes excuses on the imaginary level for his own impotence. If such a subject becomes aware of the excesses of [his own or the other’s] desire, he quickly forces them out with moral self-denunciations or metacommentaries which he adopts in order to have the final say—the obsessional desires to have the last word, as we so often see it happening in online discussions.
The inability to redefine this jammed symptomatic difference forces the subject into a position where he must constantly confront himself. To kill the Other in order to preserve him; to obsessively diagnose oneself with neurosis in order to escape neurotic difficulties; to search for deficiencies in the neighbor in order to have dealings with him.
Ultimately, the world of the obsessional’s demands directed at himself is vividly portrayed by his numerous fantasies: apocalyptic scenarios of humanity’s extinction, visions of survival in an uninhabited world, or, conversely, hopes of dying in one’s sleep.
