Sharing communication at both life and terminal disease of Roger Ebert
II) BIOGRAPHICAL ACCOUNTS ON ILLNESS AND DEATH
II) BIOGRAPHICAL ACCOUNTS ON ILLNESS AND DEATH
Julio Enrique Correa, M.D. jecorrea@retina.ar Pacheco de Melo 2949 2o. "D" (1425) C.A.B.A. /Matheu 291 (1858) Quilmes, Prov. Bs.As. ARGENTINA
II) BIOGRAPHICAL ACCOUNTS ON ILLNESS AND
DEATH
In
the last October Blog they were analyzed and discussed the Biographical Notes
on Roger Ebert’s professional life in the contexts of journalism and
literature/ cinema communication as shown in the film Life Itself that
was filmed and edited by Steve James (2014); in this November blog they will be
studied the Biographical Accounts on illness and death corresponding to the
film sections which were filmed during the terminal stage of Roger Ebert’s
disease and that interspersed life-printed testimonies of Roger Ebert as
brought by himself, his relatives and friends.
The film about Roger Ebert’s life and death started in late 2012 when
James and he began talking about filming the documentary based on Ebert's
memoir, Life
Itself, at a moment simultaneous to cancer relapse after its diagnosis in 2002, which continued by almost
permanent hospitalization until his death, few months later in April 4,
2013 (aged 70). Therefore during such final months James was allowed
to film following him in the hospital, including detailed views of harsh parts
of his life as drinking and cancer outcome undergoing bad evolution, comprising metastases that resulted in
bloody medical procedures conducting to severe facial surgery incapacitating him to eat, drink or
speak and needing to be fed and aspirated through a tube; together to registering metastatic
hip fracture limb malfunction requiring painful rehabilitation exercises. This
section concerning disease evolution, medical treatment and dying in turn is
described by the texts and interviews entitled as Drinking and Terminal Disease
along Chaz Ebert’s over-involved testimonies in her life as Roger’s wife and
caring during his terminal disease. Hence here are summarized the
life-committed testimonies that were lived by Roger Ebert [RE] in the company
of his wife and marital family, friends, learners and colleagues, at the most
challenging decisive situations that human beings must face as evolving into
serious illness and death: the Drinking period, the Assistance of Chaz Ebert during
Roger’s hospitalization and discharge, the Terminal Disease and Epilogue
categories, which will be finally discussed in this article in the context of
philosophical concepts of the Self. Finally, there are revised several notions
on the Human Self looking on Roger Ebert as an exponent of a grown up personal
Self dealing with life’s inter-individual competency, along acceptance and
struggle with serious disease and injuring treatments, overcoming processes of mourning and acceptance of
death, together to devote to permanent communication with his family, group of
friends and colleagues and society, developing his own sculptural utmost
complete human version of a family, group and social selves exposing himself
and his wife to highly committed film narrative devotion. In the Epilogue it is
reflected on Roger’s Ebert extraordinary human conditions that are mirrored by
those beloved ones and associates with whom he departed life and cinema
criticism and learning.
Methodology
The
analysis of the film’s narrative structure is done in the context of an
educational setting for applying it to the relationship of Art (cinema in this
case) to the cultural environment.
The
narrative structure of the film is build up as a dialogue amongst Roger Ebert
and the ones interviewing him. For the purpose of analysis they were copied*
text paragraphs centered in those interactions that concerned exclusively on
considerations on his person, concepts and dialogue with others. Following such
procedure practically all the texts and interviews were copied in full length
and further were classified into different subject categories that considered:
I) the Relation with illness and medical treatment (i.e. disease antecedents, body
function’s impairment, body pain, body discomfort, moving difficulties, cancer onset and relapse, disease outbreak,
bad outcome, entering terminal stage; stress/ disease -i.e., body limits, offensive medical proceedings, emotional
pain, death anxiety overt or
euphoric-masked, body discomfort, interruption of dialogue, lack of
intimacy, abolishing expectations, fear of insanity/ self-aggressive drive,
isolation fears, impairment acceptance, negotiation with progressive disease
and treatment, acceptance of progressive disease, speaking the truth, adaptive
behavior, coping, resiliency-), II) the
Relationships with the family/ social group (Social rejection and punishment, affective
support, commitment, memories, identity, dialogue, reflection, emotional
contact, recognition, admiration, family burnout, exhaustion; Family, Community
and Social support –Endearment-; Family Bonds -Parents, other-) and III) Death
matters (negotiation with death, death acceptance, social rejection and
punishment, death will, family burnout, farewell expression, loss reaction,
mourning). Other
analyzed categories examined: IV) the Relation with the environment (Nature
walks, stroller-voyager habits) and with the arts (in this case with literature
and mythic imagination, story recreation).
This categories’
classification was done as it resulted from each paragraph interpretation,
therefore there were not previously established and most of them repeated in
successive paragraphs. Several of these
categories were also previously determined in the subject category that was
classified into communication skills capabilities, humane conditions in the
relationships and family characteristics in the previous ART & ENVIRONMENT
Blog Edition 30 oct. 2015 [I. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON ROGER EBERT’S
PROFESSIONAL LIFE], meanwhile some of them -Family
Bonds (Parents, Adoptive family), Opening to others from egotism, stroller-voyager
habits - that would correspond to the former categories were not included
here for the analysis of this second section.
For further analysis of the illness progression
and death behaviors, the categories that were classified in relation to I) the
Relation with illness and medical treatment, II) the Relationships with the
family/ social group, III) Death matters and IV) the Relation with the
environment and with the arts- were turned into the fulfillment of human goals
and needs as are enlisted in hierarchal orders and categories by Abraham Maslow,
who considers five types of human needs during lifetime up to approaching death:
1) physiological needs, 2) security and safety needs, 3) love needs, 4)
self-esteem needs and 5) self actualization needs. Under the categories scope
the physiological needs were concerned in Roger Ebert mostly with cancer
progression symptoms and treatments; moreover, as the security and safety needs
-security of body, employment, resources, morality, the family, health,
property- relies in expectations of care made by others -relatives, medical
team, hospital personnel, etc.- were absolutely fulfilled by Roger and Chaz in
continued interaction among them, family, friends and with the hospital
personnel, this category was replaced by emotional needs that play an important
part in the persons and family groups aware of the importance of their
emotional life); love needs includes friendship, family, sexual intimacy-;
self-esteem needs collect confidence, achievement, respect of others and by
others-, self actualization needs are composed by morality, creativity,
spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts.
[*]Pronunciation and spelling of words
difficult to understand were placed in brackets.
DRINKING
[Community and Social support]
O’Rourke -frame showing the sign of O’Rourke Public House- was our stage and we displayed our personalities there nightly. It was
a shabby street tavern on a stretch of North Avenue, a block after Chicago’s
old town stop being a tourist…(…) For
many years I drunk there more or less every night when I was in town. So did a
lot of people.
RE, memoir, chapter 24 LIFE ITSELF
[Community and
Social support]
We all sat in the same place: the
paper guys here…//Roger used to hang (…) at the end of the bar; when he get
going Roger was one of the finest storytellers that I ever had come across. …as
he bought bottles for everybody when he had the money, who’s not to listen?
John McHugh
[Community and
Social support]
I discovered there was nothing like
drinking with the crowd to make you a member. Copy the idealism and cynicism of
reporters. Spoke like them. Laugh at the same things. Felt that I belong. RE, ii
-Various narratives describe his development of alcoholism, which he
later quit-.
[Death
anxiety]
He would walk home late at night
after O’Rourke set closed and he would wish he was dead.
Thea Flaum, Executive Producer 1976-1982
[Body
discomfort, social rejection and punishment, isolation fears, overt death
anxiety, body function’s impairment, fear of insanity/ self-aggressive drive]
Without hangovers it’s possible that
I would still be drinking. I would also be unemployed, unmarried and probably
dead. In
August 1979 I took my last drink. Was about four o’clock of a Saturday
afternoon, the hot sun streaming through the windows, I put a glass of scotch
and soda down on the living room table, went to bed and pull the blankets over
my head. I couldn’t take it anymore// When I decided out myself as a recovered
alcoholic I haven’t take any drink for thirty one years. This is my first AA
meeting I attend, I never want to. Since
surgery in July 2006 I haven’t been able
to drink at all, or eat or
speak. Unless I go insane as if
reporting booze into my g-tube, I believe I’m reasonably safe. RE, iii
-After this testimony it is shown how he is aspirated en his trachea for
suctioning material, producing big discomfort on him-.
Maslow types: Seeks to express his
feelings, opinions and ideas sincerely and truthfully –to take responsibility
for them-.
[Body function’s impairment/ impairment acceptance]
When I mentioned in my blog that I
could no longer eat, drink or speak a reader wrote - Do you miss it?-; (I
answered) –Not so much, really-.
CHAZ EBERT’S ASSISTANCE
[Death anxiety
–masked-]
Chaz’s conversation with Hospital
personnel: Is there any special elevator that we can took out here? Because the
last time we took him from this hospital, we had to push the chair passed the
morgue …and we get lost down there! When he was in the hospital before, we took
him to the movies…
[Affective support, commitment]
RE: Chaz is a strong woman. I
never met anyone like her. She is the love of my life. She saved me from the
fate of living out my life alone, which is where I seemed to be aimed.
Maslow Types: Needs to experience and express deep
feelings towards an important person/s around him.
[Lack of intimacy/ body limits]
Chaz: The first time that he actually saw me
was in a AA meeting and is the first time, I never said it publicly, Roger became very public about his but I felt it was more
private for me. Roger weighed 300 pounds when we first started dating …he
didn’t care! …that he was fat, he thought he was great …and that was so sexy!
[Affective support]
R.E.: If my cancer had come and Chaz it not been there with me, I can
imagine a descent into a lonely decrepitude; but I’m still active, going
places, moving, is directly because of her. My instinct was to guard myself; I
can never again be on television as I was once. She said –“Yes, the people are
interested in what you have to say, not in how you say it”.
Maslow Types: Needs to experience
and express deep feelings towards an important person/s around him.
TERMINAL DISEASE
[Resiliency, disease outbreak, adaptive behavior]
Exactly five months before his death
Roger, Chaz and I met to plan the beginning of an ambitious schedule of
filming, including interviews and critics’ screening. Roger mentioned passing
that his hip was sore; the very next day he entered the hospital.
At the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago
[Resiliency, body pain]
Scene of R.E.
hospitalized in bed, writing and speaking on a laptop about a line fracture on
his femur bone. It’s bloody painful. This
is my seventh time at Rehab. RE
[Dialogue]
Although Roger has supported my films over the years;
this film was the first chance to really get to know him. SJ
Steve, shoot your-self in the mirror. RE
Maslow Types: Seeks to express feelings freely and spontaneously
[Body limits,
body pain, body function’s impairment, offensive medical proceeding, family burnout]
I’ve been in here a little more than the month. I came in expecting to
repair my walking ability after the fracture but I discovered that it wasn’t
that simple. I can no longer take good health for granted. I hate that (he
stops the walking exercise by showing pain discomfort of some sort).
RE
I never thought he had to be here again. He’s at the best place. But
it’s just overwhelming to think he is been here five times (crying). If he gave up, then it would be very
difficult. Chaz
Maslow types: Needs a real understanding of his present
crises, Seeks to express his feelings, opinions and ideas sincerely and
truthfully –to take responsibility for them-.
[Family burnout, interruption of dialogue, body function’s impairment, offensive medical proceeding]
Do you want your speakers plugged in? You know what? Let (the nurse)
suck out you first, please… Roger… Would you let the nurse do that first?
(Roger continues manipulating wires) Roger… can we set this after? Roger! (As
he plugs in the microphone the music starts: Are you gathering the tears? Have
you had enough about me…) He loves this music… (Roger starts accompanying the
music moving and flapping rhythmically his hands on his thighs, while the nurse
starts sucking out into his tracheostomy). Sometimes I just stare over him and
say where did this determination come from? Roger had an inner core that was
made of steel. Chaz
How have you get your spirits up?
[Resiliency]
I’ve (concentrated) on my work. When I’m seeing a movie or writing the
review that makes me feel good. You know how they talk about being in the zone.
When you’re doing something, you’re good as you get in the zone. It’s towards
to pushes you troubles to the back of your mind. RE
[Roger writes in his laptop while laying at the hospital bed: 56UP
1/29/13 “In one of my several reviews of the “Up” documentaries I referred to
the series as the noblest project in cinema history. I am older now and might
refrain from such hyperbole”].
Maslow types: Seeks a sense of peace and fulfillment
[Resiliency, Nature walks, literature imagination]
I walked every day in the years before my troubles, aiming for ten
thousand steps with a podometer. The Caldwell Lilly pond had special serenity.
I usually had it to myself. I chose it for its perfect location to make a
little film between my friend Bill Nack reciting the last page of “The grand
Gastby” which he has recited to me several times annually since we first met in
the 1960’s. RE
Maslow types: Seeks a sense of peace and fulfillment
[Literature imagination: Nature walks]
“Its vanished
trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in
whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory
enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this
continent, compelled into an æsthetic contemplation he neither understood nor
desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate
to his capacity for wonder”. [Bill
Knack] (And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of
Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s
dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed
so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was
already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city,
where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night).
[Resiliency, Literature imagination,
recognition, identity, mourning]
We’re both conscious of the passage of time, of its flow, slipping
through our fingers, like a long silk scarf. I think this was Roger’s favorite
passage from all the literature. It was really a passage about the American
dream. You can be anything you want. You know, Roger went from this small town
kid in Urbana to this national celebrity. His father was an electrician; his
mother was a house wife. But I think “The Great Gatsby” was also for Roger,
about death. Death might have obsessed him a bit. His father died fairly young,
I know he adored him.
William Knack
Maslow types: Is struggling toward a genuine and full
acceptance of approaching death
[Memories, identity, Family bonds –parents-,
disease antecedents, acceptance of progressive disease]
There is an inescapable parallel between us, both my father and I have
cancer; my disease may have been start by childhood radiation treatments for an
ear infection. I got those because they loved me. In my case, recently
discovered tumors of the spine have metastasized. RE
[Acceptance of
progressive disease, speaking the truth]
The Doctors said that were these tumors that caused the hip fracture.
Roger e-mailed the film maker that sharing the news about the cancer return
could anger Chaz. [SJ]
“It would be a major lapse a
documentary that doesn’t contain the full reality. I wouldn’t want to be
associated. This is not only your film. Cheers, R”.
Maslow types: Needs a real understanding of his present
crises, Seeks to express his feelings, opinions and ideas sincerely and
truthfully –to take responsibility for them-.
[Negotiation with progressive disease, death acceptance, story
recreation]
We don’t know, we haven’t really fully discussed it. It is so new that
we really don’t know, and I’m uncomfortable talking about it. It’s sort to take
in it a day at the time like I do everything else. Chaz
So, what do the Doctors say?
[SJ]
Six to sixteen months; it is likely I would have passed when the film is
ready. RE
We’ll see. The radiation could do its job so well…that he’s around a lot
longer. [Roger makes a negative gesture bouncing his head] So we’ll have the
radiation and… we’ll hope for the best! -she crosses fingers- I mean here he is
in 2013, and in 2006 there were times they would say he wouldn’t be here the
next day, so… Chaz
I have no fear of death. We all die. I consider my remaining days to be
like money in the bank. When it is all gone, I will be (sequestered). When the
pain gets to be unbearable, I may not be so jolly. My Senior English teacher
asked me: “Ebert, why are you always writing about death?” I think it began in
Catholic Grade School where they placed so much attention on moral sin and
dying, found a kind of exciting. I would have been (furious) if I miss this
because of an accident or sudden death. This is the third act and it is an
experience. RE
So you see little Ebert has always been a macabre sort. Most people
probably don’t know that about him. May be that’s why he is jolly, may be is
just like “OK!”.
-RE bounces his head in a negative way while smiling-
It makes for a better story… [SJ]
-As Chaz laughs, Roger moves his head affirmatively-
Maslow types: Seeks to express his feelings, opinions
and ideas sincerely and truthfully –to take responsibility for them, Is struggling toward a genuine and full
acceptance of approaching death, Is struggling to find meaning in his life.
[Literature imagination: Nature walks]
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future
that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no
matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one
fine morning— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly
into the past”. [Bill
Knack]
[Cancer onset]
On
April 30 of 1998 Gene (Siskel) was asked to throw the first ball of the season
at the White Sox and he had a headache for some weeks; May 8th he
was diagnosed: terminal brain cancer. And pretty much, you don’t live more than
a year. But in April 30th he drove a damn good pitch.
Marlene Iglitzen Gene Siskel’s wife
[Loss reaction, social rejection and punishment, family bonds]
He didn’t really want the folks at Disney to know how sick he was. He
was afraid that if they heard the word BRAIN TUMOR they would put a substitute
for he and that would be the end.
Thea Flaum, Executive Producer
Our mothers knew and Gene
siblings and my two sisters knew. That’s it.
Marlene Iglitzen
[Emotional pain]
And Roger didn’t know. And that really wounded
Roger. (…)
Thea Flaum
[Farewell expression]
Even though he may have been a few years older than Gene, Gene was like
the older brother he never had. And I was so sad for Roger really for not being
able told his brother Good-by.
Chaz
[Negotiation with disease and death, social rejection and punishment, family
burnout]
Gene
didn’t want to be seen as victim. But
more importantly, he didn’t want to watch the effect of his dying on his
children. And my children celebrated
many things that year and had a happy year instead of watching the clock, which
they were done. He wanted to do just what he was doing. He want to live with
his family and go back to work. Marlene
Iglitzen
[Punishment]
-Excerpt of a
Gene Siskel commentary about the film "Meet the Deedles", the title
word naming the surname of the twins punished by the father, he would wish not
to hear again-: “…This is an annoying experience. But the point is that from
now on, for the rest of my life I’m having negative reaction when hearing the
title word of the film”-
[Loss reaction]
Toward the end
I said: We should go see him. And we were going go and visit him that Monday,
but he passed away that Saturday.
Chaz
GENE SISKEL, HALF OF THE NOTED MOVIE-REVIEW TEAM, DIED AT 53
[Loss reaction,
emotional pain]
It was a
friendship that he cherished and it was a horrible pain for him. Thea Flaum
[Memories, identity, reflection, mourning]
This year at Gene’s birthday Roger twitted every hour on the hour with
links to memories high and low… I was
really touched and I wrote him thank-you and he sent me this response: “Dear
Marlene, I’m sick and old and finally self thinking about Gene more than ever.
My stupid ego and may be his, complicated the fact that I never met a smarter
or funnier man. We fought like cats and dogs, but there were times often
unobserved, like after a long hotel dinner we had once in Boston, when I never found closer to a man”. I think
their relationship evolved, they could respect each other, and I do believe
that they loved each other.
Marlene Iglitzen
Maslow types: Seeks to express his feelings, opinions and
ideas sincerely and truthfully –to take responsibility for them-, Needs to
experience and express deep feelings towards an important person/s around him,
Seeks to express feelings freely and spontaneously.
[Speaking the truth]
After Gene’s funeral, Roger vowed that he was never gone keep any secret
about his health.
Thea Flaum
[Speaking the truth, emotional contact]
He said: if anything like this
ever happens to me, I don’t want to hide it, especially from the people who mean something to us.
Chaz
Maslow types: Seeks to express his feelings, opinions and
ideas sincerely and truthfully –to take responsibility for them-, Needs to
experience and express deep feelings towards an important person/s around him.
[Speaking the truth, cancer onset]
I’ve been
coming to this conference for 35 years, and this morning I confess that I am a
sick person. About two and a half or three years ago, I felt a lump under my
chin and I went to the doctor, and turned out to be associated with thyroid
cancer. RE
Maslow types: Seeks to express his feelings, opinions and
ideas sincerely and truthfully –to take responsibility for them-.
[Speaking the truth, body limits]
After the year that Roger came and worked with a voice synthesizer, he
decided not to come again. He said it was too hard -Boulder conference-. Howie Movshovits, Film
critic
“I won’t return to the
conference. It is fuelled by speech and I am out of gas. But I went there for
my adult life time, and had a hell of a good time”. RE
Maslow types: Seeks to express his
feelings, opinions and ideas sincerely and truthfully –to take responsibility
for them-.
[Abolishing
expectations]
He was in the hospital may be two days at the most, ready to get out,
went back to the show; is such an optimist! and he thought this was probably
the end of it. We didn’t know that was just the warm up of that. Chaz
[Cancer relapse, acceptance of
progressive disease]
A few years later I went in for a routine scan
to check for any new problems. The news was not good. Cancer had been seen in
my right lower jaw bone. RE
[Abolishing expectations, euphoric-masked death
anxiety, negotiation with progressive disease and treatment,
emotional contact, bad outcome, impairment
acceptance, death will]
A day ahead
(he left surgery), we were going home…
Chaz
We were all
packed up and ready to go home, just like today. Chaz and I had a letter going
song we both really liked, called: “I’m your man” (from Leonard Cohen). It’s sort of long but I wanted to play it one
last time: If you want a lover, I'll do
anything you ask me to
And if you want another kind of love, I'll wear a mask for you// As it was playing had a sudden hemorrhage of an artery; the doctors lost me into the operating room. RE
And if you want another kind of love, I'll wear a mask for you// As it was playing had a sudden hemorrhage of an artery; the doctors lost me into the operating room. RE
The whole thing had burst. His neck was just (..) in blood. There were
fifteen doctors standing and grabbing towels aside, squeezing to get the blood
stopped. John McHugh
If it hadn’t played that song we would have been out of the hospital
already. Chaz
If that song had been shorter and I had lost, I would be dead. RE // If
you want a boxer, I will step into the ring for you And if you want a doctor, I'll examine every inch of you
If you want a driver, climb inside Or if you want to take me for a ride, You know you can
I'm your man// We are told the next surgery will not be life-threatening. The perfect ending would be that I regain the ability to speak well, eat and drink, but I would settle for drinking coffee and having milkshakes. RE
If you want a driver, climb inside Or if you want to take me for a ride, You know you can
I'm your man// We are told the next surgery will not be life-threatening. The perfect ending would be that I regain the ability to speak well, eat and drink, but I would settle for drinking coffee and having milkshakes. RE
There were series of surgeries and his plan was to return to the show,
to return to broadcasting. Chaz
It is a major surgery; is it worth?
[SJ]
-Chaz asserts with her head and weeps- Excuse us. -They both hold hands-
He is very brave about it, but I’m not. I think it’s going to be successful and
everything is going to turn out fine…
Chaz -If you want a partner, take my hand-
In the first day or two he looked on the mirror… he was very pleased on
what he saw. But just like all the other surgeries, there was an infection and
they get undo everything. That left him more debilitated than ever and he just
decided no more surgeries, no more.
Roger is no one to look back and say “Oh! Could or Would or Should or…
But there were times that he wrote a note that said “Kill me”; I mean, I have
that note “Kill me!” I said: No! No! I told him that was not an option. Chaz
-Or if you want to strike me down in anger. Here I stand. I’m your man-
Maslow types: Needs a real understanding of his present
crises.
[Interruption of dialogue, moving difficulties, coping, exhaustion, affective support, commitment]
Scene where Chaz and Roger express difficulties of mutual understanding
when they arrive home from hospitalization and they have to
negotiate in the way of entering the house with the wheel chair/ standing up
and climbing on the feet a small staircase, that makes Chaz to feel tiredness
and ask Roger to trust the ones who are helping him, although “never so much
tired” that it would lead her to “give up”. When they get into the living room,
Chaz shows Roger an ornament of a heart in the wall for celebrating St.
Valentine's Day.
[Recognition]
It’s been a long road but it’s
harder now. He calls her “my angel” and he means it.
Thea Flaum
[Recognition]
This woman never lost her love. She was always there believing I can do
it. And her love was like a wind pushing me back from the grave. RE
Maslow types: Needs to experience and express deep
feelings towards an important person/s around him.
[Recognition]
And I told him “If you promise me that you will give your all, I promise
you that I will try to make life as interesting for you as possible. So every
day you have something to look forward to. Today is a big day… Coming home
after two months is very difficult. It’s a joy but is also very stressful. Chaz
[Recognition]
Especially for you RE
Maslow Types: Seeks to express feelings freely and spontaneously.
[Disease outbreak]
Only two days after he returned home, Roger was readmitted to the
hospital with pneumonia. Chaz thought this was a brief
and frustrate setback and so Roger and I resumed our e-mail interviews with the
plan of filming him as soon he returned home again. Roger was energetic and
answered questions about a variety of subjects. Attempts to film Roger in Rehab
where rebuffed by doctors. Suddenly one day his email album slowed to a trickle
[SJ]
[Acceptance of progressive disease, entering
terminal stage]
I’m fading. My hands have swollen and I cannot type. I can’t. Cheers, R.
Maslow types: Seeks to express his feelings, opinions
and ideas sincerely and truthfully –to take responsibility for them, Is struggling toward a genuine and full
acceptance of approaching death.
[Loss reaction, emotional pain]
Fearing the worst I called Chaz, she dissolved
into tears. [SJ]
[Death acceptance, family burnout, farewell expression, loss reaction,
mourning]
He said he was beginning to feel
trapped inside. And he said: You know, I don’t want to fight this time. I don’t want to fight cancer. He said: I am ready to go. I’ve had
a beautiful life and death is a part of life.
And I am ready to go. And you must let me go. You must let me go… He is
signed a DNR Do not resuscitate order. He signed it while I wasn’t there one
day, and usually we make those kinds of decisions together. But I think he knew
than that wouldn’t have been my choice. And so when we realized that he was
leaving I want them to use a defibrillator, and they said NO. Sure of going
over and take it and doing it myself… And I could have screamed and made a fuss
and forced them to do it. But something came over me. Roger calls it a wind of
peace…is a kind of flow over me and I knew it was time to accept it. And accept
that he was leaving. And so I put on Dave Brubeck music in the room; I had
everyone to settle down. I was sitting next to his bed, holding his left hand
and other people held my hand and get on a circle around holding hands. Until
the doctor said that he was going to call 1:40 PM as the time of death. I have
never seen anything so beautiful and so serene. It became… It was so peaceful
in that room and everything just relaxed… He looked young, he looked happy,
those warm hands… Chaz
Maslow types: Seeks to express his feelings, opinions
and ideas sincerely and truthfully –to take responsibility for them, Is struggling toward a genuine and full
acceptance of approaching death.
[Recognition, farewell expression, mourning]
“Leave of Presence” Roger’s last blog was posted the day before he died.
When in the world is a leave of Presence
it means I am not going away. Forty six years ago I became a film critic from
the Chicago Sun Times. However you came to know me. I’m glad you did. Thank you
for being the best readers any film critic could ask for.
Maslow Types: Strives to develop himself fully as a person, Seeks to express feelings freely and
spontaneously.
EPILOGUE -At the funeral mass-
[Endearment, recognition, admiration, memories]
He had a heart big enough to accept and love all. I have to keep…he
loved this hat! That’s why I wear it today. Chaz
Ebert
[Endearment]
I found that as long that Roger was alive a little bit of Gene was
too. Marlene Iglitzen
[Endearment]
Famous people have died before in Chicago. Famous writers have died but
what I thought what stories about Roger was a genuine affection. Thousands of
people came out and thousands wrote (…) in internet which are still continuing. Roger Simon,
Daily Illini columnist
[Endearment]
I like to walk down on Hollywood Boulevard because I know it’s his star
coming and I set my gaze straight, I don’t look down in the star, I know it’s
coming! Looking straight into the horizon, into the future…
Werner Herzog
[Reflection, mythic imagination, story recreation]
So on this day for reflection I say thank you for going on this journey
with me. I’ll see you at the movies…
Roger Ebert
Maslow types: Is struggling
to find meaning in his life.
_____________________________________________________________________________
THE FILMMAKERS EXPRESS HEARTFELT THANKS TO ROGER AND CHAZ FOR MAKING
THIS FILM POSSIBLE.
_____________________________________________________________________________
DISCUSSION
I ROGER EBERT: LIFE SUFFERINGS, LOVE UNDERSTANDING and DEATH
Concerning
RE’s advanced cancer treatment, it needs to be considered that the invasive airways scene
may not only be disturbing for some
due to the vividness with which it presents the person’s body
subjected to offensive medical proceedings -which were
judged important by Ebert because it was
something that happened several times a day in his life-, but because it
also questions about the intimacy of suffering that is to be transferred to
others as a matter of sharing or learning. As in any scene in the movies
trespassing modesty and intimacy boundaries, Roger Ebert’s commentaries as film
critic wondered if such was worthwhile to show [see comments on David Lynch’s Blue Velvet in the Film Critic section
(I)]; it might be possible to posit that for it would be necessary to find
sufficient film context in order to reflect and learn. The same query would go for
any cinema actor, director or critic if very difficult to stand scenes are not
to be considered just as exhibitionist acts or some kind of morbid allowance in
the sake of the ego’s victimization or any other’s aim not respecting audience
limitations in the comprehension of the crude reality -an objection that can be
made to some of the very crude Sebastiao Salgado’s photos. Also it is important
to consider the family’s intimacy and personality limitations of the group
members that are processing mourning along the main protagonist -i.e.
for RE’s wife, Chaz, she supported her husband’s decision of being filmed in a
vulnerable state, although it was difficult for her to watch him, “so he (Roger) arranged with Steve [James] to
come over and shoot that when I was out of town, because he knew that I
wouldn't want that shown on film”-. The latter and other commentaries not
appearing in the film but in different internet documents on the film Life Itself may
help to provide better overall insight from aspects of Roger Ebert which might
remain biased by the partial aspects that are highlighted in accordance with
its homage feature. The film sections which were filmed during the terminal
stage of Roger Ebert’s disease depict many aspects of his life that become highly
emotive and shocking to be shown in the unmasked way both Ebert and the
filmmaker James did. Such attitude seems to match severe judgments of Ebert
respect of his mate Gene Siskel (not shown in this analysis) or respect to some
movies ("Your movie sucks"/
“It seems to me that I have an inherited
moral code and that when it is violated I ask myself if the violation is
justified. Rosellini’s discomfort seems so obvious and palpable that I cringed.
Drama holds a mirror up to life but needless to reproduce it” –respect to
David Lynch’s decision asking Isabella Rosellini to undress and humiliate on
the screen in “The blue velvet”).
Ebert's
wife, Chaz, in turn shows how she entirely cared for her husband disease and
very difficult treatment decisions that comprised his decisions to interrupt
any death threat emergency and will to be filmed following his vulnerable state
and the diverse treatment proceedings in his body, indeed difficult themselves
to be watched. James tells in a film commentary not shown in the movie about
her personal confession on her husband’s decision: "I loved Roger deeply,
and I did want him to be presented in the best light. But Roger was fearless.
And so, as his partner in life, if he wanted to be transparent, it was not up
to me to say, No, don't do this”. So
James further reflects when telling Fresh
Air's Terry Gross "It's even more profound and
moving for me because it's the last four months of his life, and he stares death
in the face unflinchingly". At the last steps of his battle with cancer
Roger said Chaz: You know, I don’t want
to fight this time.
I don’t want to fight cancer. I am ready to go. I’ve had a beautiful life and
death is a part of life. And I am ready
to go. And you must let me go. You must let me go. If facing
death is often followed by social and religion patterns of rational response
and creative rituals, these didn’t compose Ebert’s repertory but instead
personal constructs as those using a creative response to new life situations.
From all such creativity responses, the one based in the relation between two
persons has showed to provide enduring relief in the death process. This may be
considered a hidden aim in the production of the film-book Life Itself. Ebert stated to James, the film-maker: “It would be a major lapse a documentary that
doesn’t contain the full reality. I wouldn’t want to be associated. This is not
only your film”. Such re-enactment of reality however follows symbiotic
drives aiming to maintain permanent emotional bonds as those with the mother in
early childhood (Correa, 2006), a defense that would attempt to neutralize
aggressions in the family and in the environment. If the denial of the fear to
death increases as long the process enlarges and physical regression grows
deeper, involving reaction to lost objects that include the own body, a sense
of immortality from the knowledge of surviving in the memories of other people would
compensate the former (Hagglund, 1976). “So
on this day for reflection I say thank you for going on this journey with me.
I’ll see you at the movies…” [Roger Ebert’s message at the end of the film].
The production of his blog followed a similar pathway than movies: His popularity seemed to only increase as he
blogged and tweeted about films. Ebert loved movies and went out of his way to
champion filmmakers he believed in — including James. “In April 2008 I wrote my
first Blog entry and began this current and probably final stage of my life. My
blog became my voice, my outlet; my social media, in a way I couldn’t have
dream of. Into it I poured my regrets, desires and memories. Most people chose
to write a Blog, I needed it” (Correa, 2015)
It has been described that those that are aware to the proximity of
death have experienced important insights and significant moments of happiness together
to the re-assessment of their lives and beliefs. Psychiatrist Myerson wrote a
book on his deathbed about the philosophy of life and his ideas of human nature
(quoted by Zinker & Fink, 1966). According
to Abraham Maslow the
fulfillment of human goals and needs are applied to all the situations lived in
life, characterizing death as a period where it’s possible to transcend the
basic needs in favor of the higher needs in order to be able –perhaps for the
first time- to cope with questions that have plagued until then without finding
satisfaction (Zinker & Fink, 1966). As shown in the Table
the higher scores in Roger Ebert corresponded to the self actualization needs.
_____________________________________________________________________________
TABLE
Classification
of subject categories that considered the Relation with illness and
medical
treatment, the Relationships with the family/ social group, Death matters, the
relation
with the
environment and with the arts expressed as Human Needs
Types
_____________________________________________________________________________
Physiological needs
|
Emotional needs
|
Love needs
|
Self-esteem needs
|
Self actualization needs
|
20
|
28
|
23
|
13
|
32
|
_____________________________________________________________________________
1) Physiological needs: disease
antecedents 1, body limits 1,1,1, body function’s impairment 1,1,1,1, body pain
1,1, body discomfort 1, offensive medical proceedings 1,1, moving difficulties 1, cancer onset 1 [1], and relapse 1, outbreak 1,1, bad outcome 1,
entering terminal stage 1: 20 [1]
2) Emotional needs: emotional contact 1,1,
emotional pain 1,1,1 abolishing expectations 1,1, death anxiety 1,1,1, dialogue
1, interruption of dialogue 1,1, lack of intimacy 1, self-aggressive drive 1,
death will 1, adaptive behavior 1, coping 1, isolation fears 1, social
rejection and punishment 1 [1] [1], loss reaction [1], 1, 1, 1,1, exhaustion 1,
family burnout 1,1,1,[1]: 28 [4]
3) Love needs: Affective support 1,1,1
Commitment 1,1, Endearment 1,1,1,1; Memories
1,1,1; Family, Community and Social support 1,1,1; Family Bonds (Parents 1 [1]),
farewell expression 1,1,1, mourning 1, 1,1,1: 23 [1]
4) Self-esteem needs: recognition
1,1,1,1,1,1,1 Identity 1,1,1, reflection 1,1, admiration 1: 13
6) Self actualization needs: negotiation
with progressive disease 1,1 [1], acceptance of progressive disease 1,1,1,1, negotiation
with death 1, death acceptance 1,1, impairment acceptance 1,1, speaking the
truth 1,1,1,1,1,1 resiliency 1,1,1,1,1, Nature
walks 1,1,1, literature and mythic imagination 1,1,1,1,1 story recreation
1,1: 32 [1] .
In brackets: Categories noted for Gene
Siskel.
Most of the categories classified as love needs, self esteem needs and
self-actualization needs corresponded to those types of Maslow’s hierarchy, as
listed in the Zink & Fink (1966) paper. Concerning the self-actualization
needs that received the higher Need types’ score (32) in Roger Ebert, also
summed a similar high sub-items score (31): Strives to develop himself fully as
a person 1,1,(2) Needs a real understanding of his present crises 1, 1, 1,(3)Seeks
to express his feelings, opinions and ideas sincerely and truthfully –to take
responsibility for them- 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1, (10) Is struggling to find meaning
in his life 1,1, (2), Needs to experience and express deep feelings towards an
important person/s around him 1,1,1,1,1,(5), Is struggling toward a genuine and
full acceptance of approaching death 1,1,1,(3), Seeks a sense of peace and
fulfillment 1,1,(2), Seeks to express feelings freely and spontaneously 1,1,1,1
(4). Total: 31. Sub-items “Has the need for mystical or spiritual experiences”;
“Needs to sense the presence of God” received no scores. [For the importance of
the self-actualization needs in Roger Ebert, its sub-items are highlighted in
italics under the respective paragraphs, preceded by the header: Maslow types].
The way in which essential
needs are fulfilled is just as important as the needs themselves: to the extent
a person finds cooperative social fulfillment, he/she establishes meaningful
relationships with other people and the larger world. In other words, the person
establishes meaningful connections to an external reality—an essential
component of self-actualization. In contrast, to the extent that vital needs
find selfish and competitive fulfillment, a person acquires hostile emotions
and limited external relationships—his/her awareness remains internal and
limited (Wikipedia). Therefore, rather than attached to self-esteem and self
actualization, those individuals remain stuck with the concerns of survival and
with needs for physiological needs among those of security and safety.
II ROGER EBERT: A REFLECTION ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN SELF
“Where must we go, we who
wander this wasteland, in search of our better selves”
This
analysis is done in the context of several notions on the Human Self: the corporeal
or physical self, the psychological self, the group/ social self, the spiritual
self –See Glossary-, that are covered by Roger Ebert statement as cinema
lecturer: “We all are born with a certain
package. We are who we are. Where we were born, how we were born, as how we
were raised. We're kind of stuck inside that person, and the purpose of
civilization and growth is to be able to reach out and empathize a little bit
with other people. And for me the movies are like a machine that generates
empathy. That’s to understand a little bit more about different hopes,
aspirations, dreams and fears. It helps us to identify with the people that are
sharing this journey with us”. CHICAGO THEATER July 15, 2005 (Correa, 2015)
In the
film “Life Itself”, Roger Ebert shows
to behave as a grown up personal Self that after battling strong life’s
inter-individual competency, starts to deal with the very hard un-ending
struggle with serious disease and injuring treatments followed by the processes
of acceptance of death and mourning, along devoting himself to permanent
communication with his family, group of friends, colleagues and society. In
doing this he develops his own sculptural utmost complete human version of
family, group and social selves by exposing himself and his wife to highly
committed film narrative devotion. Such extraordinary human conditions are
mirrored by those beloved ones and associates with whom he departed life and
cinema criticism and learning. Moreover the history of his disease and emotional
suffering overlaps with the disease of his close film critic associate, Gene
Siskel.
On February 20, 1999, Gene Siskel died at the age of 53 from complications of surgery of a previously diagnosed terminal brain
cancer. In turn the cancer
onset of Roger Ebert, his associate in the Siskel-Ebert film critic team,
started four years later, on 2002, dying on
April 4th, 2013. He was diagnosed with cancer of the thyroid and salivary glands that required treatments leading to the removal of his lower jaw, which
compromised the ability to speak and eat normally. Ebert’s cancer episode following
his’ very close work associate and friend can be seen as a stress phenomenon of
the impact of unexpected death in the latter, as Roger Ebert was not acquainted
of the diagnosis of terminal brain cancer in Siskel one year before, on May
8th, 1998, within the prodromal
period of six years to his own cancer (Correa, Lema & de Artiagoitia, 1980).
Ebert later commiserated about the competitive quarrel among the two
film critic associates: “My stupid ego
and may be his, complicated the fact that I never met a smarter or funnier man.
We fought like cats and dogs, but there were times often unobserved, like after
a long hotel dinner we had once in Boston,
when I never found closer to a man”. This reflection seems to meet
with his sensitivity to loss, as early expressed in his journal practice
respect to John F. Kennedy assassination and Martin Luther King’s quotation on four children killed in the church
bombing in Birmingham (Alabama). Roger Ebert
quoted Dr Martin Luther King’s appeal to George Wallace: “The blood of these innocent children is on
your hands and started his column by saying: That is not entirely the truth.
The blood is on so many hands that history will weep in the telling. And it is
not new blood: it is old, very old. And as Lady Macbeth discovered: It will not
ever wash away”. Such sensitivity to human loss and suffering accounts for the humane conditions that Roger Ebert fostered in the relationships as
shown in the film of his life and death made by Steve James: Roger and Chaz
together with other relatives, colleagues and scholars built together a narrative that conveyed everybody in the creation of
a new group story that stemmed from their very sensitive and sincere emphasis
in communication, evolving through person-to-person
communication giving testimony of their own, family, friends and colleagues’
bereavement experiences. Such invisible thread inadvertently linked him with
colleagues and scholars; as well with Chaz -in
college she was the Head of the Black Student Union, and marched with Martin
Luther King- and to her family -there
were no strangers in her family. I love and I (felt) loved. And as a member of
another race I have without exception been accepted and embraced-.
However
the same personality features could also have accounted for a vulnerability to
depression (Brown and Harris, 1978), although expressed in a masked somatic
fashion. Moreover, the death will
expressed at his late terminal stage could have corresponded to the desire for
death in the terminally ill patients that has been found closely associated
with clinical depression (Chochinov et al, 1995). Such connection might be also
supported by his emotional closeness to his mother. “My mother supported me as
if I was our local sports team. But she was fatalistic, she was permanently scarred
by the Depression and constantly predicted she would end up in a poor home” (Correa,
2015).
On the other hand, depressive insights become affective stages necessary
for acquiring self-consciousness –See Glossary-. Self-conscience
would be early settled in man´s evolution since the Neardenthal man,
paralleling linguistic development and storytelling as the gradual result of earlier
evolutionary stages. Such emergence of the discovery of the consciousness of the self and other
selves arose in man’s evolution together with the knowledge of death and its
impact on affection, since burial rituals in the man of Neardenthal hints
consciosness of death beliefs, as well corpses that were buried with presents,
flowers and signs of caring (Popper & Eccles, 1977), hints affection
for the dead. Moreover it might be stated that conscience is a function
from self-perception and vice versa (…) Although
self-perception constitutes the consciousness of the self (…) these two functions are not identical, the
latter appearing as a superior function that develops in the organism much
later than self-perception (Reich, 1975).
In a first
moment and in front of public Roger confessed -“I’ve been coming to this conference for 35 years, and this morning I
confess that I am a sick person. About two and a half or three years ago, I
felt a lump under my chin and I went to the doctor, and turned out to be
associated with thyroid cancer”-. Later, in the last days at the hospital
Roger told Chaz and James -“I have no
fear of death. We all die. I consider my remaining days to be like money in the
bank. When it is all gone, I will be (sequestered). When the pain gets to be
unbearable, I may not be so jolly. My Senior English teacher asked me: -Ebert,
why are you always writing about death?-. I think it began in Catholic Grade
School where they placed so much attention on moral sin and dying, found a kind
of exciting. I would have been (furious) if I miss this because of an accident
or sudden death. This is the third act and it is an experience”.
In the
process of mourning crystallizes a phenomenon of psychic integration in the
lost nucleus of the true self that evolves in some treated psychotic patients
(Winnicott, 1958), in creativity (Hagglund, 1975; Correa, 2001) and in the
psychological growth and personal integration of the dying patient (Zinker
& Fink, 1966). According to Winnicott the dispute between the true self and
the false self confronts the spontaneous authentic experience and feeling of being alive with the despair
of choosing to be another –See Glossary-; in fact the “To be or not to be” dilemma. Even
the discredited Mia Farrow’s role playing an abused waitress during the Great
Depression in "The purple rose of Cairo" (Allen, 1985) wittily
teaches to circumvent the stressful life threatening situations that most
commonly undergo those under bereavement and mourning processes, by becoming
contemporary to the fantastic events that are experienced in the creative
narrative conditions. “As referred by Dr.
Julio Correa in Argentina, stories
(told to terminal patients and their relatives) ease emotional and body communication, calming down anxiety and
relieving pain. The ill persons as well those around them would be then more
prepared to follow a mourning process that in general is incomplete and
insufficient; therefore damage over the successive generations would be lower.
This is something that is intuitively
discovered by women and men that read poetry to a beloved one during its last
days. They also is put in practice the learning that comes in large extension
from the family experience of
separating from the mother-which psychoanalysis theorists had linked to the
elaboration of the depressive anxiety” (Petit, 2009). In the form of
poetical gift, Werner Herzog dedicated to Roger Ebert his film exploring
iced caverns and rifts from Antarctica “Encounters at the End of the World” (2007). In the same trend, Roger asked his friend Bill
Knack to recite him the last lines of “The Great Gatsby”, which he believed it displayed
for Roger, also about death meanings (Correa, 2015):
“Its
vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once
pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a
transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of
this continent, compelled into an æsthetic contemplation he neither understood
nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something
commensurate to his capacity for wonder. And
as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder
when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had
come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that
he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind
him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields
of the republic rolled on under the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before
us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster,
stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning— So we beat on, boats
against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”.
These lines advocating the relationship of the
Self to the Environment that is potentiated by literature and cinema, find
further meaning in Roger Ebert’s “nature walks” comprising his vacations’
“garden walk” and the Caldwell Lilly pond walk, together to Werner Herzog’s
walk down on Hollywood Boulevard, looking after Roger’s star that’s coming ahead
by “looking straight into the horizon, into the future…”.
GLOSSARY
The "self" remains a
topic that concerns to Philosophical Psychology accounting to multiple personal
features characterizing a human being,
which vary in their identification according to the region that are emphasized
for it: 1) the corporeal or physical self, 2) the psychological self, 3) the
group/ social self, 4) the spiritual self. How these different constructs of the self are
assembled in an individual and how they play in the interpersonal relations and
with the family and social environment would then consider an individual self
(Adler, 1966) differentiated from a collective self that appertains to a same
race, region, nation, culture, time and other variables gathering individuals
ruled by the same laws. In the individual realm the differentiation of the self
implies growing knowledge and identity with the own needs, feelings and
attributes that differ from others’,
leading to the sense of a separated identity which is articulated during
development (Wapner et al, 1966).
1.
Concerning the corporeal or
physical self it is directly connected to the environment: whereas the
perception of objects –and as the body as an object- refers to an environmental
context, the body perception or diverse attitudes of the body would differ in
reference to any outer space changes. The way a person perceives its body
allows inferring about the kind of concepts that are made about it. Moreover
the capacity of differentiation of the body relates to the children
developmental acquisition of a differentiated self (Wapner et al, 1966).
2.
The psychological
self relates to the field of activity -behavior- or else, complementary, to the
structure of the mind and its psychological functions that organize experiences
into a dynamic whole (Winn, 1966), determining its strength over the different stages
of development (Klein, 1969) and its vulnerability to disease (Freud, 1948; Klein,
1969; Adler, 1966; Guex, 1973; Brown and Harris,1978).
3.
The group/ social self involves with social and cultural matters that are
shared by multiple social and cultural selves gathered into diverse competitive
groups, dispersed along human migrations over different regions through the ages. At the
present postmodern age our
contemporary “global” culture would establish technical communication and information
replacing natural human communication. In fact this denies diversity in the
perception of the environment and of the other selves as well the development of firm personal and group selves that are necessary to
defend the own human and natural environment priorities. In turn this impairs the notion on
the existence of a true recognizable Self (Gergen, 1991) which grows in parallel to denial of death and bereavement.
4.
Otherwise the spiritual
self would be connected to the perception of death, which in turn would inforce
the need of distancing from egocentrism, accepting the void –Budhism- and
separating from the multiple sensitivity –Tao-, immersing in meditation by detaching
from emotional attachments grasping
greed or concern, moreover paying attention to the universe but not immersing
meditatively in it (Tugendhat, 1997).
According to Freud the self
would be established physiologically by the birth trauma and reproduced
psychologically by the ego as a danger sign, in the danger situations (Jacobson, 1971). The self would
grow through development stages by which it gradually varies its relationship
with the external nourishing object. Freud considered the organism the
fundamental defense against the instinct of death while Melanie Klein
considered it the principal defense of the self, its strength related to its
capability of internalization of an external loving object, represented in the
first place by the mother/ the mother’s feeding breast (good object) (Klein, 1969). Fantasies develop in function of the
self (…) which involves higher degrees of self-organization in relation with
the object satisfying or frustrating its needs. In the depressive position the
self acquires notion of reality (Segal, 1965); from such point of view self-consciousness would derive from depressive insight. Freud
described the self as a precipitate of cathexis of the abandoned object that is
composed of previously internalized objects. Such would be more fantastic as
earlier occurred the internalization, being the superego the first of those
objects described by Freud. The self has different psychic structures in the
various forms of psychosis and neuroses[1]
that not necessarily encompass the three elements of the psychic structure as
was described in the topic by Freud (self, superego[2] and Id[3]).
Abrupt changes in the environment to other new
ones that are strange or unknown can produce depersonalization effects. In the
depersonalization phenomena the self retires from the body by feeling alien
determined body parts or else retires from the mind feeling unreal it’s self as
if being "outside the self"[4].
Since Winnicott (1965) many
psychologists have described two aspects of the self -"real” or true and false- which would
correspond to “being”, a sense of self based on the spontaneous authentic
experience and feeling of being alive,
including blood pumping and lungs breathing; or instead to the need for compliance with the parents'
wishes/expectations, while in fact merely concealing a barren emptiness behind
an independent-seeming façade -"False Self"-: “Other people's
expectations can become of overriding importance, overlaying or contradicting
the original sense of self, the one connected to the very roots of one's being”
Winnicot (1994). The false self arising under parental
pressure would constitute an overdevelopment
of certain aspects of the self at the expense of other aspects — of the full
potential of the self — producing thereby an abiding distrust of what emerges
spontaneously from the individual (Susie Orbach). Following
Kierkegaard the “will to be that self which one truly is, (which) is indeed the
opposite of despair” opposes to “the despair of choosing to be another” than
oneself. This in accordance with Heinz Kohut in highlighting those who achieve
coherence through identification with an external personality at the cost of
the one's own autonomous creativity.] The theatrical mask or “Persona” would
disguise the debilitated self subjected to social pressure in a similar way
that it origins in childhood through parental pressure. Under this perspective
it’s the false self the one who languishes upon the Nietzsche's "all-or-nothing" dilemma posited by Milan Kundera in his novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), and specifically (with
respect to committing to Others, not only Tereza) which decision is better, in
the midst of social blame confronting with “patriotic” life threatening
compromise or life-guarding escape. Perhaps preventing from taking one of
dilemmatic two decisions stands for dealing with the ambivalence of the false
self attempting to calm the pressure for “being” something that is not, and
don’t enter directly into the grasp of a sudden-death
playoff, as wood do a sudden fatal car accident for Tomáš and Tereza [“Their lightness no
longer unbearable, Tereza and Tomas were deeply satisfied as they drove towards
death”, says the Wikipedia comment for the 1988 film],
or involuntary suicide in restless Woody Allen’s philosophers [Irrational Man,
2015], as properly Winnicott would
consider the maintenance of the false self for preventing the annihilating
experience of the exploitation of the hidden True Self itself. It might be
hypothesized that the social self competes with the true self in endowing a false
self adhered to national, religious, ideological, body culture, generic or
sexual behaviors and leisure patterns that are highly praised by groups or
community, hence pressing the individuals to adhere to them in a similar way
that the infant compliance with the
parents' wishes/expectations. Most politicians harvest an image that
assures public adhesion although it would not match with the human principles
recited in their vows to serve the nation, hence distorting the public
functions based on them. In such connection becomes noteworthy when somebody in
the position for the presidency says that the decision for selecting the men
for his cabinet ministers would rely in the choice of the ones who better
conduct their ego from 3-4 preselected best professionals. “If someone puts his
ego above the fulfillment of its public function, better would find place in
the private sector” (Mauricio Macri, “Cosas que Macri tiene hoy en la cabeza”,
Luis Majul, La Nación, Bs.As., 19/11/2015).
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[1] According
to Freud, schizophrenia, melancholy and neuroses would result from the
conflictive relation among the self, the superego,
the Id and reality. The neuroses of abandonment
is sustained by children experiences of frustration and abandonment determining
a symptomatic tripod made of anguish, aggressiveness and under-valorization
which nourishes egocentrism and continuous self-reference, that results from
affective insecurity that in turn induce doubt about the self, along super
valorization of the others’ selves leading to continuous comparison, feeling of
being excluded, multiple fears and an acute sense of catastrophe. The
oscillation among self doubts and excessive ambition accounts for the false
notion of the self in the abandonment neuroses. Abandonment neuroses has
difficulty in distinguishing Self from Non-Self
(Guex, 1973). Otherwise patients fixed in hysteric neuroses would suffer of an
unconscious need of punishment. As described by B.D.Lewin (1937), the
early loss of a parent would help to idealize it complemented with an intense
ambivalent relationship with the surviving parent. The superego malfunctioning
would obey to a restorative effort in order to repair with idealized/
omnipotent figures the narcissistic wound caused by the undervalued affective
objects (Jacobson, 1971).
[2] The
part of a person's mind that acts as a self-critical conscience, reflecting
social standards mainly learned from parents and teachers (Wikipedia).
[3] In
the theory of psychoanalysis to Freud, instinctive part of human personality,
which is governed by the pleasure principle. The primitive self that is connected to the unconscious mind (Freud, 1948)
would remain expressed in archetypes (Jung, 1992/ 1994) and unconsciousness.
[4] Jailed
women under such psychic conditions tend to replace the images of their selves
by identifications with the degraded and criminal world with whom they remain
in contact, adopting sadistic-seductive attitudes of guards, functionaries and
interrogatory personnel, that stimulated regressive pulsions and further
identification with the criminal ambience, fluctuating between excited fantasies
and pre-genital behaviors and acceptable normal levels of behavior and
functioning.
