Following my previous monologue on the Death Instinct allegedly represented by Thanatos, the Greek god of death, I received a special request to explore a related subject: Repetition Compulsion. I subsequently made a few notes upon which I shall now elaborate.

Students of human nature who have consulted the psychoanalytic texts know that "repetition compulsion" or "compulsion to repeat" is a phrase employed by Freud to refer to the tendency to repeat painful experiences without any pleasurable gain whatsoever, either real or imagined; in economic terms, the result is a total loss. However, that definition is a refined product of Freud's general analysis of repetitive behavior. He knew very well that all humans instinctively repeat physical and symbolic behavior; and, generally speaking, both pleasurable and unpleasurable "material" is repeated. Moreover, normal people are subject to "repetition compulsion" even when it involves only painful material. Indeed, pathological behavior is often an exaggeration of "normal" behavior; therefore the study of unusual people provides insight into us all. Freud thought he perceived a tendency of some people to repeat painful experience without good cause, without prospect for gain, thus he focused on that aspect of repetition compulsion and speculated it was motivated by a "death instinct" independent of the desire for pleasure. Therefore the phrase "repetition compulsion" took on a sinister aspect in the popular mind, one associated with morbid mental illness.

Again, Freud believed repetitive self-destructive behavior is due to a fundamental "death instinct" which operates, usually silently, in opposition to the life energy or libido (libere: to like) that strives for pleasure. In mythological terms, we speak of a life and death struggle between Thanatos and Eros. Libido alone, whether directed inwardly to the ego or outwardly to objects, simply did not explain the masochistic or self-destructive behavior Freud observed in the clinic and elsewhere, on a massive scale during the Great War. Some patients insisted on repeating painful experiences, resisting every effort to talk them into a cure. He eventually concluded that, besides libido, or love-energy, there is a another fundamental principle, one of self-destruction; of course the destructive force is often directed outwardly with terrible consequences. Because of the sexual underpinnings of love, the life-and-death struggle may appear as either masochistic or sadistic; however, Freud believed the conflict is not necessarily sexual - a "fact" which helped convince him he was dealing with an independent force, despite his admitted inability to isolate that fact.

According to Freud, the death instinct is prior to and more fundamental than the pleasure principle. Inanimate existence precedes animate existence; the animal while alive "instinctively" returns to the elements of its origin - "from dust to dust." Opposed to this return is the drive to organize living structures. Hence the interplay between the two transcendent biological principles determines the biological and psychological degree of regression or progression. Now when we speak of the "repetition compulsion" in the narrow sense, reduced to the operation of the death instinct, we usually think of abnormal, regressive behavior. Although we may not directly observe the death instinct, we can suppose it operates "silently" in every individual through the compulsion to repeat destructive behavior in order to return to the inorganic state prior to life.

But let us return to the general tendency to repeat experiences whether they are painful or pleasurable. We are not as enslaved by our instincts as are other animals, yet nature still compels us to learn in order to survive. Repetition is necessary to that process; pleasure and pain is our native guide. Our task is economic: confronted by our need to use objects to perpetuate our existence, we usually prefer those objects and activities which are pleasurable, and we avoid those causing us pain. Of course nothing is that simple given our highly complex brain and corresponding mental faculties: we most endure pain and even cause ourselves pain in order to obtain pleasure. Indeed, our civilization has been organized on the "puritanic" principle of foregoing immediate pleasure in order to gain long-term advantages. Hence we are engaged more in the "pursuit of happiness" than in the actual having of pleasure; a pursuit which, but the way, leaves many people discontented with civilization and yearning for a return to the golden age in planetary paradise or in maternal womb before harsh reality appeared in the form of an objective state of things.

Alas, the "Nature" the puritanic anarchist would regress to from the modern state is in fact also a state, and a very oppressive one to boot; his absolute or stateless freedom does not exist: relative freedom is always from something or the other. Other people might want to "live in the Now", as beasts without care for past or future, or they would find their motionless bliss in an instant satori or perhaps in a more enduring nirvana. Some hope for a future heaven after death. All the forms seem to wish for pleasure in what is not and can never be in the world as we know it. Indeed, knowing the world through self-consciousness seems to be a major source of discontent with both the world and with the self-object. Now Freud came up with a more realistic destination to return to after life: the inorganic state we associate with death. He speculated on the existence of a special death instinct that helps convey us to our ultimate vacation as the life instinct rebels against the last resort.

But again, few repetitions of painful material appear to have a solely destructive end. Freud admits he is speculating on the observation of "rare instances... unsupported by other motives." After all, repetition of painful events and emotions help us to master painful situations, to be king of our hills so to speak. As already noted, we will take our licks to get our rewards. We naturally fear pain; fear is phenomena rooted in the reticular formation or the hypothalamus of the primitive brain; but we have evolved higher functions to cope with fear. For example, people who are afraid of heights might take up mountain climbing. However, if they insist on getting out of their car and climbing every mountain instead of driving to the top, while their spouse waits with the car at a motel on the other side, we might call them, to say the least, compulsive climbers. Compulsive mountain climbers obviously derive pleasure from repetitive climbing, or at least have some pleasurable climax on the peaks. Perhaps Freud has discussed compulsive mountain climbing somewhere; if that is the case, he most likely referred compulsive mountain climbing to a traumatic fixation taking place during the infantile sexual life; its motivation is erotic, then, seemingly excluding the death instinct in theory, although the death instinct may be silently working its ruin.

Now we all know Freud thought neurotic people had some traumatic experience during their early childhood that they addressed inappropriately, then made a habit of their inappropriate response. There must be some value simply gained, initially, by responding willfully, but since the response tends to cause the repetition of the very challenge it would avoid, the question remains, Why does not the child learn his lesson and try something else? The child's self-love phase was ended by distressing environmental circumstances; namely, reality. The child is educated: he is punished for infractions; he feels inferior, disappointed, and so on. He repeats his painful feelings and enters upon a vicious cycle which causes him to be scorned, abandoned, treated coldly again and again. He constructs a defense system to repress his painful feelings. But the defense system he initiated makes a habit of itself and is not very efficient or productive, at least as far as the rest of society is concerned although it suits the neurotic's internal purpose. In fact, the neurotic system is inflexible; it is uncalled for; it greets different situations with the same reaction. It is as if the person is living in the past event, doomed or fated or compelled to repeat the same inappropriate reaction over and over; one might think she were possessed by a demon. But the neurotic fate is a self-made fate which psychoanalysts think can be undone. Everybody knows Freud believed he could help the analysand rid herself of unwanted compulsions by causing her to remember their formation in the past instead of repeating the defensive reactions today. The traumatic event could hopefully be recalled and relived by means of the "transference" relationship between analyst and analysand; the psychoanalyst, however, would control the process, taking care to cultivate a degree of aloofness in the analysand so she would remember that the event was actually in the past, one that does not call for her neurotic defense at present. Of course this talking cure may take a long time because a person with an "inferiority complex", for example, might hang onto it for dear life because she has so much to gain. If we believed in "instincts", and our theory of instinct was dualistic, we would assume the life instinct was at play in this sort of repetition compulsion.

Take, for example, "the fear of success," or, if you will, the love of failure. An individual does something on the brink of success to ruin his career. He might then start out all over again on a lower rung of the same ladder or launch himself on another one and then ruin his new career when it appears satisfaction for his hard work is at hand. Now most of us will seize whatever opportunity presents whether we think we deserve it or not, but we do appreciate most of all our just deserts and we have pride in what is earned by ernest effort. So what causes someone to reject success after he strives for it and can have it? I can only speculate and leave the experts to provide sure answers. Maybe success threatens those who need to suffer in order to have a meaningful life. Maybe suffering is a sort of success in its own right. Throughout history we know of successful people who have given away their fortunes to pass through the needle's eye, but they did so voluntarily - or at least they thought they did. But people who fear success seem to be compelled even against their will to destroy their chances; they have been known to kick themselves in the head again and again for repeatedly rejecting success. Perhaps they were convinced at an early age that they are unworthy of success. Maybe the authority figures implanted an inferiority complex in them, and they are afraid of punishment or the loss of love if they disobey and become superior. I do not know why some people fear success so much, but I suspect one good strategy for avoiding it is to have an accident on purpose; an acquaintance of mine aroused my suspicions in that regard:

Barry was born a Jew in the U.S.S.R. He wanted to be a composer. Rather, he was a born composer and his destiny put him in the hands of two great Russian composers at an early age. Despite the anti-Semitic discrimination he suffered, or because of it, Barry's early compositions were masterful; he was widely regarded as the genius destined to follow in the footsteps of the great Russian masters. Then he decided to use all the money he could raise to buy his way out of the U.S.S.R. and immigrate to New York. Although he considered an American education to be quite inferior to a Russian or European education, he committed himself to obtaining a doctorate at Julliard because he believed success in America was more a matter of credentials than of genius and skill. Barry had a heart of gold when I met him, but he, like several other immigrants I have known, often bragged about his superiority over Americans.

At first Barry supported himself as an accompanist for ballet classes; but he was too creative to fall into the routine. For one thing, he would get up from the piano and give students corrections. Barry was not a dancer himself but he had played for the best classes in the Soviet Union, therefore he knew what was going on; he just could not just bear to stand by in America and watch students get a bad education. This helpful behavior did not please the teachers involved. Barry also greatly annoyed teachers with his musical improvisations during the routines; students who were musically inclined were inspired, but it was all too distracting to others, especially when he went into one of his frightfully surprising variations on 'The Rites of Spring' during the petite allegro segment of the class. Barry also gave piano lessons to virtuoso students. He emphasized "feeling" - he wanted his students to understand the biographies of the composers and how they felt during the time of composition. He "saw" what he heard; he did not need sheet music to play a large segment of a composition his student had just played without feeling; he would stop the student, sit down and say, "This is how Scriabin felt about this," and play a moving rendition. Barry also played Bar Mitzvahs to support himself and to pay tuition. At the same time, he would work on his symphonies in the wee hours of the morning.

Other than the enormous amount of work he did, the only odd thing I knew about him was that he liked to play Bach on the electric organ while making love with his girlfriend - she was a pianist. He had a thing for Bach; Barry saw colors and had mystical experiences while listening to his music. Oh, there was another thing that I thought was strange because he was Jewish: he painted images of Christ suffering on the cross.

Finally, to make a long story short, two weeks before he would have surely won his doctorate and proceeded with a contract to write a symphony, Barry drove his car head on into a telephone pole. There was no explanation for the accident except he had "lost control." Fortunately he was not killed, but he was disabled for many months; after a long rehabilitative period he took up cab driving; the last I heard it was his permanent career. No doubt Barry is serving the public well; nonetheless, when he refused to take up his career where he left off, the loss of his genius was regretted by the leading lights in his field.