MARY WATKINS

INVISIBLE GUESTSThe Development of Imaginal Dialogues

SPRING PUBLICATIONS

WOODSTOCK, CONNECTICUT

2000

(COPYRIGHT 2016 MARY WATKINS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED)

Relativizing the Ego and the

Birth of Dialogue

Chapter l 0 of:

CHAPTER TEN

Relativi’ging the Ego and the Birth o f Dialogue

As psychic life is peopled with multiple characters who enjoy varying degrees of autonomy and who are known in their complexity, there occurs a radical shift with respect to the “ego.” The “I” becomes not just the one who observes the others. It is now seen as well. It too is like a character, with certain styles of

being and interacting which the imaginai others recognize: organizer, narrator, confidant, supervisor. One character may see “ego” as power hungry, another as an infidel, always deserting him or her. Each re­veals a different persona, often eclipsing our habitual conceptions of ourselves. As the imaginai others speak and act, they do not just an­swer the “I ’s” questions, but speak about the “I” and also about their relations with each other, seemingly apart from the ego. As in literature,

[the] characters do no t develop only single and linear roads o f destiny bu t are, so to speak, hum an crossroads. I t is w ithin this patte rn , this m eshing together o f individuali­ties, that they preserve their autonom y... (Harvey, 1965, 69)

Through this process there is a relative de-centration o f psychic life, which can restrict the strength and functions of the ego. Truth becomes redefined. It is not the province o f a single voice, but arises between the voices at the interface of the characters’ multiple perspectives.

This narrowing o f the ego’s dom ain, this view o f the ego as another character, would at first seem antithetical to the current trend o f ego psychology in the direction of ego strengthening. Hillman

122 RE-CONCEIl ENG A DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY(1975b, 25-26) po in ts ou t th a t in psychoanalytic th ou gh t a dom inant fantasy is the R om an-like process o f ego developm ent. C onsider F reud’s descrip tion o f this process:

To strengthen the ego, to make it m ore independent o f the superego, to widen the field o f perception and enlarge its organization so that it can appropriate fresh portions o f the id, where id was there the ego should be. I t is a work o f culture. (Freud, 1932/1965, 106)

In a m ore po lycentric psychology, this gradual assim ilation o f o ther p o rtio n s o f psyche by th e ego is n o t th e goal. In a po ly cen tric psychology, one attuned to and respectful o f the m ultiplicity o f the Self, one w ould a ttem p t to restore som e autonom y to the colonies. O ne function o f personifying is “ to save the diversity and autonom y o f the psyche from dom inion by any single p o w er.... Personifying is the soul’s answ er to egocentricity” (Hillm an, 1975b). T he ego, though no t strengthened through the assimilatory process envisioned by Freud, is nonetheless fortified as its function becom es one o f being aware o f the m ultiplicity around and w ith in it.

N o t only is there a m ultiplicity o f imaginai o thers experienced in the distance, b u t the “ I ” changes role o r identity, as in dream s and playing— now w hiny child, now scientist, now sophisticated cosm o­politan. T he everyday subtle changes in in tonation , gesture, o r m ood give way to the im aginai figures beneath them , as happens in a dream , where anger may be revealed as a lion or Hitler, or an unknown rapist.

T his shift in the position and function o f the “ I,” its relativization, is a p rim ary d iffe ren ce b e tw een m o d e rn and p re -m o d e rn novels. D. H. Law rence writes that “You m ustn ’t look in my novels for the old stable ego o f character. T here is ano ther ego, according to whose action the individual is unrecognizable” (1962, 282). R obert Kiely, in a discussion o f Lawrence and Jam es Joyce, notices that in their work the “ self is released from the prison o f ‘stable fo rm ;’ it is projected in to the environm ent, freed to m ove from shape to shape” (1980, 11). M odern novelists for the m ost pa rt have abandoned an om niscient na rra to r w ho tells the readers the “ tru th ” abou t each character, w ho sees the characters as extensions o f him self. N ow the characters are m ore o ften free to tell their ow n stories, and the tale o f each is relativized by the voices o f the others.

RELATIV1ZING THE EGO 123Luigi P iran d e llo ’s play, S ix Characters in Search o f an A u thor ,

classically portrays this situation. H ere the six characters enter a theater w here a play is being rehearsed. T hey a ttem p t to tell their stories in an e ffo rt to find an au tho r w ho will help let their suffering be known. E ach character has his or her ow n version w hich pits itse lf against the o thers’ in an effo rt to claim reality.

In studying the dram atic nature o f th ou gh t we need to becom e familiar w ith all the m odes o f narration exhibited in literature. They will help us see how variously we each organize the m ultiplicity we find w ith in th ough t— how we, like authors, sh ift betw een om niscient and non-om niscien t postures w ith respect to the voices we encoun ter in dream s, fantasy and thought. In the om niscient novels o f the p ast26 th e au th o r o r one o f his ch arac te rs w ould describ e all th e o th e r characters in the beginning o f the work. T he characters’ attribu ted dispositions were then bo rne ou t in subsequent scenes. T he belief am ong novelists o f this period (from Trollope through Austen) appears to have been that an accurate accounting o f w ho one is can either be given as a static descrip tion o f characteristics or a listing o f how one responds externally to a series o f situations (Daiches, 1960, 15).

T h e critic D av id D aiches p o in ts o u t th a t in th e n in e teen th - cen tu ry novel

characters were deployed before the reader (author and reader standing together, as it were, on the reviewing stand, with the au thor where necessary w hispering explanatory rem arks into the reader’s ear) and revealed their inward developm ent by their outw ard behavior. T he correlation between internal and external, between moral or intellectual developm en t and ap p ro p ria te obse rvab le ac tion or in ­action was taken for granted. (1960, 2)

Standing there together amidst a stable hierarchical society, the author could take it for granted that he and the reader shared the same sense

26 As we shall see in Chapter Eleven, the novel was born during a historical period when the experience of hearing voices was being turned over by religion to psychiatry. It is little wonder, then, that the surrender and devotion to voices so characteristic of the religious experience should be carefully avoided by the early novelists, who seemed to control the medley of characters mediated by the novel much as God had his creatures. Paradoxically, during the Romantic period, as religion continued to lose to science its dominion over the definition of reality, literature began to assume some of the functions of religion vis a vis respect for the autonomy o f the voices.

124 RE-CONCEIVING A DEVELOPMENTAL THEORYo f w hat was significant in life. “W hat was significant in hum an events was itse lf m anifested in publicly visible doing o r suffering, in action o r passion related to status or fo rtu n e” (Daiches, 1960, 4). O m n i­scient narra tion was possible because people agreed about the nature and percep tion o f reality. Reality was som ething objective, som ething “ou t there.”

J u s t as a s tro n o m y had d isp laced m an from th e cen te r so had philosophy, and so w ould literature in its turn . Locke argued th a t we each know our own im pressions o f reality bu t n o t reality per se. I f reality itse lf is n o t knowable, w hat happens to a literature “whose ob ject is the im itation o f reality? I t too is then destined to undergo a shift o f cen ter” (Tuveson, 1974, 25-26).

I t was n o t simply th a t om niscience began to fade as one narrative technique replaced another. B ut ra ther the om niscient style becam e an im possibility for m any authors, partly because reality itse lf seem ed to be changing. I t changed as the twentieth century approached, bringing w ith it th e h o rro rs o f w orld w ars, the th riv in g o f m ultip le and d iscrepan t ideologies, and the insights o f a new science, and psy­chology. T he objective position becam e untenable, leaving us to see how w e each effect the know n. Nowadays we m ight nostalgically side w ith Virginia W oolf in looking back on Jane A usten’s period w hen the w orld was a com m only shared one. W oolf rem arks o f Austen:

To believe that your im pressions hold good for others is to be released from the cram p and confinem ent o f per­sonality. O ne o f the marks o f the m odern novelist is that he is unable to hold that belief, (quoted in Daiches, 1960, 3)

A nd thus the au tho r had to find a different place to stand in relation to the characters.

M odern literary criticism is filled with debates about what happens w hen the previously om niscient au thor w ithdraws from the w ork and allows the characters to carry the dram a (see Harvey, 1965). Even if the characters appear spontaneously and have their own ideas about the unfo ld ing dram a, does no t the au thor observe and coordinate these events, searching for the m ost expressive details and m om ents to convey the plot?

In sho rt in im aginai dialogues in which the ego is m ade relative and non-om niscien t, it does n o t cease to fulfill im p ortan t functions. A part o f the ego— sometimes called the “observing ego”— som etim es

RELATIVIZING THE EGO 125

the “reflective self-representation” (Schafer, 1968)— is an agent for an awareness o f the dialogue as it unfolds. We can liken this pa rt o f the Self to a stage m anager, narrator, o r “histor,”27 o r to the in ternal observer that actors becom e aware o f w hen they are playing a part. In Stanislavski’s words,

As I was taking my bath I recalled the fact that while I was playing the part o f the Critic I still did no t lose the sense o f being m yself... Actually, I was my own observer at the same tim e tha t ano ther part o f me was being a fault-finding, critical c rea tu re ... I divided myself, as it were, into two personalities. O ne continued as an actor, the o ther was an observer. Strangely enough this duality no t only did no t im pede, it actually prom oted my creative work.An actor is split in to two parts w hen he is acting. You recall how Tom m aso Salvini pu t it: “An actor lives, weeps and laughs, he observes his own tears and m irth. It is this double existence, this balance between life and acting that makes for art.”As you see, this division does no harm to inspiration. O n the contrary the one encourages the other. M oreover we lead a double existence in our actual lives. But this does no t prevent our living and having strong em otions. (1936,19, 167)

T his division is like the one we experience w hen we read and imagine. T he book’s scene is m ore vivid to us than the one we literally inhab it— as is the imaginai o ther w ith w hom we converse in thought. But at the same tim e there exists ready to hand w hat Schum aker calls “aesthetic distance,” the realization th a t the im aginai scene exists in a universe apart from the room we are literally in. Some p o rtio n o f awareness stands ready to see b o th realities (Schumaker, 1960, 15).

Schafer speaks o f this process in psychoanalytic terms, maintaining th a t w hat differentiates daydream s from psychosis is the presence or easy recall o f a “reflective self represen ta tion ,” th a t is, an “im plicit or explicit no ta tion accom panying realistic though t that it is though t

27The “histor” seeks to “find out the tru th from the various” characters. He is “the narrator as inquirer, constructing a narrative on the basis o f such evidence as he has been able to accumulate. The ‘h istor’ is not a character in the narrative, but he is not exactly the author him self either. He is a persona, a projection o f the au thor’s empirical virtues” (Scholes and Kellogg, 1966, 262, 265fj).

126 RE-CONCEIVING A DEA ELOPMENTAL THEORY(e.g., memory, perception, anticipation, etc.) and no t concrete reality” (1968, 109). In a fantasy which revolves around an imaginai figure, there is a “ splitting o f the ego” which “allows other ego processes to remain realistically oriented to internal and external circumstances and to note the actual absence o f the im agined p e rso n ...” (Schafer, 1968, 111). Whereas, in psychosis, there is a “limited or slow reversibility o f the suspension o f the reflective self representations” that occur in daydreams (96).

To enrich our thinking about these changes in “reflective self repre­sentation” and “ the ego,” let us return to literature and see how it dealt with the deterioration o f the om niscient stance— again analogizing the author and “her” characters to ego and “its” multiplicity. The decline o f the om niscient narrator in fiction— often it was the author’s voice— did no t entail the end o f narrators. Rather narrators joined the ranks o f characters. They too became fallible, their perspectives assailable.

W hat kind o f narrators succeeded in carrying on w ithin this m ore com plicated reality? M ight these narra tors n o t be m odels for an ego struggling am idst the m ultiplicity o f m ind? Let us look briefly to those em ployed by F laubert, Jam es, and Conrad.

F laubert tried consciously to rem ove h im self from the narrative in Madame Bovary and found “ that if the om niscient au tho r is elim i­nated, the only rem aining basis for the ‘po in t o f view ’ th a t justifies the tex t has to be the consciousness o f som eone: a character o f the novel” (M orrisette, 1961-62, 4). W ith a decline in om niscience there was a heightened sensitivity to character. F laubert becam e so involved in the process o f transition from one character’s po in t o f view to ano ther th a t he suggested “that a novel could be w ritten w hose value would lie not in its subject at all but in its relationships and articulations: un livre sur rien, a book about no th ing” (M orrisette, 1961-62, 4). H ere F laubert came close to that aspect o f im agination that is based no t on story or p lo t b u t on the relationship betw een characters, betw een po in ts o f view. It is the ongoing, ever evolving im agination that does no t cease with this denouem ent or th a t chapter. F laubert conceived o f a novel m ore like the conversations in though t (a novel later to be w ritten by N athalie Saurraute and Jam es Joyce, am ong others). I t has been said o f the works o f Joyce and Faulkner that such a novel becomes an existence in itse lf— it is n o t abo u t som eth ing, it is som eth ing (Szanto, 1972, 5).

RELATIVIZING THE EGO 127H enry Jam es also realized that surrendering the om niscient stance

m eant that he m ust discover som e other center or focus through which the story could be told. To achieve this the au tho r m ust leave h im self and enter the consciousness o f the character: “A beautiful infatuation this, always, I think, the in tensity o f the creative effo rt to get in to the skin o f the c re a tu re ” o r ch a rac te r (Jam es, q u o ted in F riedm an , 1955, 1161).

But th rough what kind o f consciousness should the story be seen? Jam es felt this character should be “ finely aware,” “an illum inating intelligence,” his m ind a “lucid reflecto r” and “ the m ost polished o f possible m irrors.” T he new narra to r m ust no t only have the capacity to be agitated by w hat he sees. H e m ust also have the capacity to be surprised , even bew ildered. E d ith W harton agreed w ith James:

I t should be the s to ry te lle r’s firs t care to choose his reflecting m ind deliberately, as one would choose a build­ing site ...and w hen this is done, to live inside the m ind chosen, trying to feel, see and react exactly as the latter would, no m ore, no less and, above all, no otherwise. Only thus can the w rite r avoid a ttribu ting incong ru ities o f thought and m etaphor to his chosen interpreter, (quoted in Friedm an, 1955, 1165)

T he au tho r gradually receded from the novel. H e in truded less and in som e cases d isappeared altogether. Jam es Joyce said th a t the au tho r was “refined ou t o f existence” As Friedm an (1955) po in ts out, this refinem ent entailed gradually lim iting the au th o r’s channels o f in fo rm ation and possible vantage po in ts by staying w ithin the con ­sciousness o f a particular character or set o f characters.

T his lim itation o f the au th o r’s vision— from om niscience to the point o f view o f a character— reflected a radical change in the function o f fiction. F iction could no longer im itate factual reality, bu t could only p resen t imaginative reality (Scholes and Kellogg, 1966, 262), that reality to which one has access only th rough the eyes o f characters. In som e cases the au thor handed over his job to a “w itness-narrator.” Such a character did n o t possess the om niscience o f the author, bu t th ro u g h ce rta in dev ices was able to su p p lem en t a m erely hum an understanding o f the m inds and goings on about him. For example, Joseph C onrad w ould often use as his n arra to r a character “ in w hom others felt com pelled to confide,” a sharer o f secrets. T he diaries and

128 RE-CONCEIVING A DEVELOPMENTAL THEORYletters o f o thers w ould fall in to his possession. I t was his o r her p resen ce w h ich w ould be so u g h t by th e o th e r ch arac te rs fo r th e ir la te-n igh t confessionals— in the jungle, by the fire, and at the pub.

W ould n o t such a narra to r be a fitting herm etic go-betw een to the multiple voices one encounters: now a diplomat, now a confidant, now a drinking partner, depending on which character one is trying to u n d e rs tan d ? T h e flexibility , in te llig ence , em pathy and savvy required by this kind o f ego w ould be learned by in teraction with characters, just as our ease with o ther people is gained slowly th rough early bungling, em barrassm ent, faux pas, and self-centeredness brought “rudely” to our attention .

T he developm ent we have been describing does n o t have to do w ith the enlargem ent o f the ego o r w ith the building o f ego strength in all its aspects. It does however, have to do with an increased ability to allow o ther voices to speak (which relativizes the ego) and w ith the increased agility o f an observ ing ego w hich can be attentive to these imaginai dialogues. T his quality o f ego which is akin to a narra to r canno t be assum ed to be present. T he ego all too often identifies with a given character w ithout awareness o f having done so. For example, take a m an w ho identifies with a strong, independent, m asterfu l char­acter and is unaware th a t this is b u t one psychic possibility am ong many. T hough he may alternate betw een positions o f independence and dependence, feelings o f strength and feelings o f im potence, there may be little or no recognition on his part o f these shifts in character.

As im aginai dialogues develop from dialogues in which the “ I” is om niscien t to ones in which the “ I” is one voice am ong others, the te rm “ d ia lo g u e” d eep en s in m eaning. I t p e rta in s n o t only to the linguistic structure o f com m unication betw een two or m ore parties, bu t to that kind o f relating— often felt as spiritual— which preserves the in tegrity o f b o th self and other. O ne neither abdicates selfhood nor incorporates the other. E ach can address and be addressed. T he developm ent o f this m anner o f relating— from “I - I t” to “ I-T h o u ” relation— is the central them e o f M artin B uber’s ph ilosophical and religious work.

For B uber these styles o f relating are n o t limited to person -G od or person -p erso n relations, b u t include m an’s relation to nature and intelligible fo rm s— ideas, deeds, works o f art (Pfuetze, 1973, 157). B uber co n tra s ts ab s tra c t m on olo g ic th in k in g to d ram atic sp eech ­

RELATIVIZING THE EGO 129thinking. He finds dialogic thought to be characterized by directedness to an o ther and openness to the unpredictable: “O ne can never know w hat the o ther will say, no r rehearse o n e’s reply” (Pfuetze, 1973, 129).

In “I - I t” relations the o ther is a th ing w hich I use, experience, or m anipulate. I notice only those aspects o f him , her, or it w hich relate to my purpose. I do no t com e to know the o ther in her essence. N o r do I come to know m ore deeply my own being. For Buber each person has two “ I ’s : ” the “ I ” o f “I - I t” and the “ I ” o f “I-T ho u .” In “I- I t,” I am never wholly myself, just as the o ther is n o t wholly h im self o r herself: “ I becom e th rough my relation to the T hou , as I becom e I, I say T hou” (Buber, 1958, 11). This developm ent from “I-It” to “I-T ho u” is never com pleted once and for all. O ne continually falls back into, and then struggles o u t of, a relation o f “I-I t.”

In Daniel B uber (1915) writes that although we may first address the o ther, eventually we m ust be able to be addressed by the o ther— a process analogous to the doll’s change from being a passive recipient o f the child’s action to its increasing anim ation in early childhood play. I t is in this addressing and being addressed in relationship that self-knowledge arises.

B uber argues for a m ysticism in w hich the integrity o f b o th self and o ther is preserved. H e argues against either a dissolu tion o f the self into otherness, or the negation o f otherness through the assertion o f “the all em bracing character o f the se lf” (Pfuetze, 1973, 138). In dialogue one asserts the primacy o f relation and struggles to maintain th a t tension ra ther than totally identifying w ith o r incorporating the other. Buber firmly asserts the autonom y o f the other, working against a theory o f im agination th a t returns all images to the “I.”

The tree is no im pression, no play o f my im agination, no value depending on my m ood; bu t it is bodied over against me and has to do with me, as I with it— only in a different way. (1958, 8)

Similarly w ith artistic form s:This is the eternal source o f art: a m an is faced by a form which desires to be made through him into a work. This form is no offspring o f his soul, bu t is an appearance which steps up to it and dem ands o f it the effective power.T he m an is concerned w ith an act o f his being. I f he carries it through, if he speaks the prim ary word out o f

130 RE-CONCEIVING A DEVELOPMENTAL THEORYhis being to the form which appears, then the effective pow er stream s out, and the work arises.I do no t behold [the form] as a thing am ong the “inner” things nor as an image o f my “ fancy,” bu t as that which exists in the present. I f test is m ade o f its objectivity the form is certainly no t “there.” Yet w hat is actually so much presen t as it is? And the relation in which I stand to it is real, fo r it affects me, as I affect it. (9-10)

T he autonom y o f the o ther does n o t exclude the possibility o f pu tting o n e’s ow n life in to it for a while. W ithin dialogue there are m om ents in w hich one feels as though one w ere the other. B uber describes being w ith a pine tree and identifying so com pletely with the tree th a t he felt its bark as his own skin and its cones as his own children (1915,133). In this m om ent, however, the being o f the tree is n o t reduced to the being o f the m an. T his m om entary identification w ith the tree is sim ilar to Cary’s em phasis on the au th o r’s sym pathy for his character. Dostoevsky, Cary claims, was Ivan while writing “ P ro and C o n tra .” T h ro u g h th is sym pathy he exp erienced Iv an ’s a rg u m en ts from th e in side , even th o u g h they co n tra d ic te d his in ten tio n s as author.

For B uber then, true dialogue with an imaginai o ther is a reciprocal, m utual relation in w hich the o ther is au tonom ous and has the free­dom to address as well as to be addressed. In such a dialogue one w ould ap p ro ach th e o th e r w ith o u t in ten d in g to use o r even to “ experience” him o r her. For in experiencing, B uber claims, we con­strue th a t experience arises from a self rather than betw een oneself and the world: “T he w orld has no part in the experience. I t perm its itself to be experienced bu t has no concern in the m atter. For it does no th ing to the experience, and the experience does no th ing to it” (1958, 5). T rue dialogic relation is n o t based on verbal exchange, bu t rather on the autonom y o f the o ther and o n e’s openness to the other. Indeed, there need be no words spoken for such a relation to exist. Though this meeting occasions the developm ent o f the “I,” it radically m itigates against egocentricity. As dialogue may appear in silence, so may m onologue be presen t w ithin dialogue w ith another. W hile all th e lin g u is tic re q u ire m e n ts o f d ia lo g u e m ay be sa tis f ie d in a conversa tion , a relation m ore akin to m onologue, to “I -I t” relation, may nonetheless prevail.

RELATIVIZING THE EGO 131For B uber as for Jung, the developm ent o f a sense o f the o th e r’s

autonom y does n o t entail the se lf’s subservience to the o th e r’s will; one does n o t necessarily do w h at a vo ice m ig h t say. In s tead , the autonom y o f bo th sides o f the relation— “I” and “T hou”— is retained.

“I - I t” and “I-T h o u ” are two m odes o f existence w hich charac­terize o u r re la tio n sh ip to o th ers , b o th litera l and im aginai. T hey c o rre sp o n d to E rich F ro m m ’s d is tin c tio n b e tw een “ hav in g” and “ being :” “In the having m ode o f existence my relationship to the w orld is one o f possessing and ow ning, one in which I w ant to make everybody and everything including myself, my p rop erty” (1976, 12). In the being m ode the o ther is n o t incorpo ra ted and is allowed to change. T h e o th e r is p e rm itte d to ex ist in h i s /h e r au tonom y, authenticity , tru th , and aliveness. F rom m , in To Have or To Be , traces the transition from a societal emphasis on “being” to one on “having, “ and sees the rise o f industrialism as a cultural tu rn ing point.

In d u str ia lism , F rom m m ain ta in s, succeeded by v irtu e o f tw o psychological prem ises:

(1) tha t the aim o f life is happiness, tha t is, maxim um pleasure, defined as the satisfaction o f any desire o r sub­jective need a person may feel (radical hedonism ); (2) that egotism , selfishness, and greed, as the system needs to generate them in o rder to function , lead to peace and harm ony. (1976, xxv)

Profit, m eanw hile, lost its original m eaning o f “p ro fit for the soul” and began to m ean only m aterial profit.

I t may seem farfetched at first to speculate on how these dom inant them es— which sustain our p resen t culture, and in p a rt breed our psychologies o f im agination— im pinge on ou r relation to imaginai others. H ow ever if we look at this transition as it unfo lded for the Rom antics, we find th a t while im agination was first lauded for its “ sym pathy”— its capacity to free us from a self-centered w orld and allow us in to the roles o f o thers— this same cham eleon-like activity o f im agination was later used to expand the limits o f the Self, to enrich the Self w ith the boun ty o f the world. T he po e t w ould take on the qualities o f the o ther— literal or im aginai— in o rder to expand himself. The rhetoric and sales pitches o f much contem porary popular psychology concerning the im agination reflects this shift. We are urged to “expand our po ten tia l” th rough tapes and exercises th a t treat the

132 RE-CONCEIVING A DEV ELOPMENTAL THEORYfigures o f the im aginai like consum er m erchandise, like paw ns o f the ego to be used only for its own enrichm ent and betterm ent. In therapy w here im aginai dialogues can be observed in detail, one often finds th e ch a rac te rs th em selves o b jec tin g to be ing trea ted as th e eg o ’s objects: being used, being lectured to, being “had.”

In n o tin g these d ifferences am ong im aginai dialogues, we are m oving tow ard considerations o f pathology. T hough we have argued against m any o f the usual no tions o f pathology w ith regard to the imaginai we can now begin, from a standpoin t o f basic respect for the im aginai, to articulate how the view poin t presen ted here m ight itse lf conceive o f developm ent and pathology.