Discussion of Charles Savage's Article, The Analysis of an “Outsider”

I am extremely flattered to have my ‘Outsider’ concept used in this way, but also a little bewildered. The psychology that I have developed over the past 14 years to explain the problems I raise in The Outsider

is phenomenological and non-Freudian, based upon the method of Edmund Husserl. Freud once said to Jung: “Promise me never to abandon the sexual theory … we must make a dogma of it, an unshakeable bulwark.” (Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Chap. 5.)

In the fifth volume of my ‘outsider series,’ Origins of the Sexual Impulse, I find it necessary to challenge the Freudian notion of the fundamental nature of the libido. I do not see the sexual drive as the sun at the center of the sexual 'solar system'; I see it only as one of the planets. Like Maslow, I believe the ‘sun’ to be an evolutionary drive that expresses itself equally in sex, religion and the intellectual passion. Sex has no primacy.

So my attitude towards Dr. Savage's paper is divided, and I cannot quite understand how he connects my more or less phenomenological notions with the Freudian division of the mind into ego, id and superego.

Let me try to briefly outline my own approach (which is summarized in my paper in J. F. T. Bugental's symposium The Challenge of Humanistic Psychology).

I am concerned with the ‘geography of consciousness.‘ One might say that all living creatures possess a kind of robot or electronic brain concealed in the subconscious mind, so that I learn to speak French painfully, word by word; then the robot takes over, and speaks French for me. All animals possess a “robot,” even planarian worms; but the human robot has reached a level of streamlined efficiency beyond that of any other creature.

And this is one of the major causes of our problems. For not only does the robot ‘take over’ such boring activities as talking French, driving the car and typing letters; he also takes over activities we would rather do for ourselves, such as listening to music, reading poetry, making love, etc