For quite some time I have been postponing the presentation of Liz Greene’s work on the types of psychic defenses from her book Limitations and Boundaries: The Horoscope and Personality Defenses. Around election day, however, I decided to publish at least the anal type of defenses, because the way people vote in political elections is very intimately connected with their preferred type of psychic defense.
The anal type, for example, votes for Security. The anal mode of defense is also associated with the action of the planet Saturn, which is the ruler of our battered state.
The real value of understanding the anal character and its defenses, however, lies in the ability to recognize what stands at the root of such psychic phenomena as “authority problems,” excessive “desire for control,” “painful pride,” and “stinginess”—including emotional stinginess. As usual, Liz Greene’s writing is simply magnificent. Enjoy reading!
“Many psychoanalysts enjoy accusing each other, as well as their patients, of being“anal.”This extremely up-market insult may be translated as“You are withholding something I want.” Freud understood anal defences to be linked with the time when a child begins to learn to control his or her faeces. Anal defences in adulthood, in classical psychoanalytic texts, are related to difficulties in early toilet training.
Although you may fall about laughing at this, in fact controlling faeces is a big psychological event in childhood. One suddenly discovers that one can, by an exercise of will, decide whether to make this turd come out or not. One can thwart one’s mother by refusing to defecate. Or one can produce something that she will admire; she might say, “How wonderful! What a nice big one! Well done!”.Through this simple exercise of sphincter control, the child begins to assert his or her will on its surroundings. The beginning of toilet training is the beginning of the child’s sense of individual power. That is why Freud paid so much attention to it. On a symbolic level it is a very important issue,because it is the first time the child can feel anything other than helpless dependency.
Anal defences are related to the exercise of will and the use of the power of withholding .If we can withhold something – an object, an emotion, an idea – we are establishing the fact that we are independent beings who cannot be dominated or controlled by someone else. We have something to say about what we give or do not give; we protect ourselves from physical or psychological invasion and robbery. We are not going to sit on the pot and produce something just because someone has told us to.
Anal defenses may be linked with what we lare pleased to call “authority problem“ in adulthood. They reflect a deliberate withholding, resistance against the others’ demands in order to demonstrate power, autonomy and independent will.
Like oral defenses, anal defenses can be life-supporting and healthy.
It is obviously fundamental to all of us to be able to exercise the power of decision-making and maintain some degree of control over ourselves and our lives. Anal defences are the child’s natural response to the vulnerable dependency of the oral phase. Without these defences, we may live in a state of utter helplessness, easily exploited and victimised, and unable to say, “No.” We must in some way assert who we are, even if it is in a very small way.
Anal defences are another way of understanding boundaries, without which we cannot exist as independent beings or respect the independence of others. And if you think about it, you will realise that, although excessive anal defensiveness may lock an individual into a tight, inaccessible emotional prison, for many people this important system of defence is not developed enough…
Anal defenses are a positive and necessary mechanism of defence. But the anal defence may be be so ferocious that the necessity of having to demonstrate control may entirely block other needs that are trying to be expressed…
Pride is a powerful ingredient.This ought to give us some insight into how important pride can be for a child, and how easily parents can trample on the child’s pride because they find it amusing, don’t take it seriously enough, or feel their own pride – and their own anal defences – are being threatened by the child’s assertion of will.
Where we find powerful anal defences in the adult, we will usually encounter a Luciferian pride which perceives any emotional need as a chink in the fortifications, and any compromise as a humiliation.
Withholding can take place on the material level. This is the most obvious expression of anal defences, and the one which Freud explored most exhaustively. Money and personal possessions are a wonderful arena in which anal defences may exhibit themselves. Another word for “anal” is “mean.” We may be so defended against anyone trying to take what is ours that we are no longer capable of enjoying what we have. We may use money to wield power over a dependent child or partner. …
Anal defenses pay no heed to personal tastes; they are a compulsive mechanism designed to fight threat of losing one’s soul.
I have met many people who hoard things because they might be “useful” one day. The garage is full of empty paint tins, used nails, bits of wood, dried-out paintbrushes, and the remains of the wheelbarrow that rusted to pieces ten years ago. The desk drawer is full of pieces of string, used envelopes, letters that are long past answering, and other bits that cannot be thrown away because in some way they symbolize the pieces of one’s own life. If one throws them away, one has lost a bit of oneself.
But then there is no room for anything new, and no renewal, no growth, can take place.
One can also be anal with emotions, and defence can be expressed very subtly on that level. Once again, anality can be a positive and healthy means of making sure others do not rob or abuse one’s emotional resources. We have to be able to say, “No!” to people who want too much from us emotionally, as well as maintaining healthy boundaries on a physical level. But withholding emotion can be an expression of anger and a means of wielding power.
When a loved one wants a compliment or badly needs reassurance, just at that moment the anal defence ensures that one is not going to give it. Anal defences make us emotionally mean, ungenerous, and petty. That subtle little moment of withholding, so easily overlooked or unnoticed, becomes a means of taking revenge and exercising control.
Anal defenses can be very destructive to other people. Cruelty, physical or psychological, is often bound up with this system of defence, as is the desire to demean or belittle others. This is another area Freud looked at very carefully. The urge to humiliate or pick apart another person – in effect, to reduce that person to shit – is a characteristic expression of anality. It is part of the compulsive need to prove that one has control over the environment and over other people.
It is part of the compulsive need to prove that one has control over the environment and over other people. It is also a form of projection; the individual usually feels like shit himself or herself, impotent and powerless, but tries to alleviate these feelings of self-loathing by making someone else feel even worse. Sadly, this defence may be so powerful that it dominates an individual’s ability to interact with others. Relationships may be severely damaged as a result. Such people must withhold everything, but at the same time that they make others suffer,, they
are suffering terribly themselves because they are isolated within the walls of their defenses.
If one spends time around someone who is protected in this way, they may begin to feel put down all the time. If we are unconscious of the dynamic, we may not realise that we are the recipient of an anal defence; we may simply feel strangely unattractive, unworthy or uninteresting in that person’s company…
But anality is a natural, healthy defence system which belongs to certain kinds of people, or certain attributes within people. Functioning in balance with the rest of the personality, it can provide the valuable qualities of tenacity, self-sufficiency, and self-control. If it runs out of control, it can blight the individual’s life .”
Greene, Liz. Barriers and Boundaries: The Horoscope and the Defences of the Personality (Kindle Location 357-428). CPA Press. Kindle Edition.
I’ve really never been a fan of psychoanalysis, but thanks to Liz Greene I am rediscovering the importance of ideas I had underestimated. And, because I believe that we all more or less exhibit “analness” in our character or communicate with someone who behaves“anal,” I have now decided to share the written by her. I hope you found it useful.
Kameliya
