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PREVIEW-(sub)Text#6: Melanie Klein’s “Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms”

April 21, 2019 by Wes Alwan 1 Comment

Wes Alwan is joined by Dr. Glenn Mobray to discuss this classic 1946 psychoanalytic text.

This is a preview of a 63-minute discussion. You can listen to the whole thing by becoming a PEL Citizen or $5 Patreon supporter. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to learn how.
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(sub)Text #6: Melanie Klein’s “Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms” (Citizens Only)

April 20, 2019 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Wes Alwan is joined by Dr. Glenn Mobray to discuss this classic 1946 psychoanalytic text.

Listen to more (sub)Text.

The Duh of Charlie Sheen: getting high off your high horse

March 6, 2011 by Wes Alwan 9 Comments

The form of Charlie Sheen’s suffering is a challenge to news junky-ism as usual because it confronts the manic defense behind the fascination with obviously manic subject matter. Those who feel guilty about this fascination can pretend that this guilt has something to do with ethical issues surrounding gawking at the mentally ill, as if there’s some hard and fast line that will allow them to continue to make fun of Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise while leaving Charlie Sheen alone. But that guilt is more likely caused by the fact that in this case the usual manic schadenfreude involved in watching a celebrity self-destruct has been tainted by the inescapable similarity between his state of mind and our own. (Remember, guilt is what’s being defended against, and what we expect to appear when the defense fails). If I’m right, faux-guilt over Sheenenfreude (apologies) is just another especially sophisticated way of avoiding actual guilt (concerning real, personal losses). On the other hand, if you’ve continued — as I have — to guiltlessly enjoy the spectacle, you may have noticed that your fascination seems to have been augmented by your induction with some of Sheen’s manic energy (tiger blood, baby). Which is to say: people are especially fascinated by Sheen because mania is especially fascinating (or rather, fascination-amplifying). It’s a subject matter that resonates with the basic mechanism of being-fascinated.

Thinking Hot Thoughts: “The Secret” as Manic Defense

September 12, 2010 by Wes Alwan 13 Comments

Psychoanalysts have a name for this sort of thing: it’s called the “manic defense.” This isn’t the full-blown manic depression (now “bipolar disorder”) of DSMV fame. Rather’s its an avoidance of the inevitable mourning (and associated guilt) involved in a realization that we can’t have it all.

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The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don’t have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we’re talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion

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