Discussion Following Dr. Levene's Address

ELlenbogen: Dr. Levene compared a number of criteria that Dr. Shulman talked about and mentioned fragments of discussions with friends he considers normal or normal-neurotic. But he did not deal with other items Dr. Shulman mentioned, people who are constantly anti-social, who are manipulative, who get into fights, who are alcoholic, who are impulsive, who use no critical thinking, who make no decisions at all. Now, is he saying these things do not exist? Or are there other categories or what? I am confused about his answer to those things.

Levene: I think there are mensches in the world and I think there are people who hang out in bad places. I do not think we necessarily have to give them a diagnosis. I do not think that Kernberg would agree with the diagnosis of borderline just put on alcoholism, drug abuse, or anti-social behavior. There are people who are criminals, and if you want to look at criminals, look at their opposites, people who are cops. Cops and robbers play an interesting game. They each play both sides of an archetypal equation. I mistrust both sides. If you want to see splitting and over-idealization, just look at our relationship with other countries, our willingness to use nuclear bombs to stand up to them. That is what I am worried about: unambivalent rage. There are people who hang out in prisons, there are prisoners and there are the imprisoners. I do not necessarily think that a diagnosis such as borderline, or trying to figure out exactly the month of life when they chose that particular mode, is helpful. The substance of my paper is that all of us have criminal elements in us. Our whole country acts in criminal ways. Each of us has polymorphous perverse attitudes. We do not just look and screw in the missionary position. A fully healthy person has fluidity in his consciousness. He feels his ambisexuality, he experiences his homosexuality or her homosexuality. He may even live it out at one time or another. He is not stuck in what Brooks ca