INTERPRETATION OF MADNESS AND POSSIBILITIES OF NON – MODERNITY

G.M.Subhasree iyer

This paper attempts to explore the non- modernity of psychology and the interpretation of Madness which can be extracted from the writings of Foucault and Girindrasekhar Basu and other articles by Anup Kumar Dhar. My attempt in reading these makes me wonder as to what Madness is and what is Reason and Non- Reason. Further, in this reaction paper I would mainly existing “Indian Psychology”. I would not hesitate to call Psychology as an “Uncritical Pedagogy: Thoughts without a thinker?”  With various instances from works by Foucault and also various other articles written by Anup Kumar Dhar and articles on Girindrasekhar Bose, I would try to rethink psychology in India by debating the past and future. However, this attempt may not ensure a complete closure of all the articles but attempts to capture a few instances and interpret them.

Interpretation of Madness:

Quoting the words by Pascal from the “Preface to the 1961 edition’: “Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.” And Dostoievsky, in his diary of a writer: “It is not by confining one’s neighbor that one is convinced of one’s own sanity.”

We can interpret it as a point where we still have to write the history of that other face of madness, by which individuals, adjust to their neighbors, and communicate and recognize each other through the merciless language of non-madness as an act of sovereign reason. However, we could try to travel back, in history, to that null point in the course of madness at which madness was an undifferentiated experience, may be not yet even having an experience of division within itself.

However, undoubtedly madness remains an uncomfortable dimension. To explore it, we must renounce the convenience of terminal truths, and never let ourselves be guided by the knowledge of what madness is. What are important and constitutive are the pathway and the ‘Kriya’ (action) that divides madness and not the science that elaborated once this division was made and calmness restored. Thus, the cynic here can be that the world sinks into universal Fury and that Victory is neither God’s nor the Devil’s: it belongs to Madness.

Madness fascinates man in all the ways. The fantastic images it generates are not fleeting appearances that quickly disappear from the surface of things. In a very predominant way, then, madness is not linked to the world and its subterranean forms, but rather to man, to his weaknesses, dreams, and illusions.

In History of Madness, Foucault gives an idea of Madness by comparing it with Silence and also gives a few phases in history where he gives Madness a fresh stand. Firstly, reducing Madness to mere disease and then to unreason and further to silence and how this silence causes a difficulty and reams a difficulty! Indeed, Foucault’s mention of the conversation between reason and madness in the renaissance period and later how madness and reason was “radically separated” which he calls the ‘classical age’ gives us an image of the beginning of the genuine separation of Reason and Madness (Non- reason) and how prevalent this division started right from then.

In reference to the article ‘Science(s) of the Mind: Fort-Da between the windscreen and the rearview mirror’ by Anup Kumar Dhar, it makes me ponder and believe Non- reason as a child forsaken and deprived, crying under the scorching heat of surpassing generations, for justice! Moreover, it seems certain that Reason and Non- Reason have been put in to two different entities, with no proper stand for Non- reason to substantially arise (the aspect long forgotten)

Again, in reference to the article by Anup Kumar Dhar: Tracing back to the time of Freud and his theory of Psychoanalysis, it helps us think whether it is a theory instituted through the attention to language of irrationality- phantasm- dreams and also when we term him as a philosopher sensitive to silence(s); it leads in to a grave situation of what was Freud’s relation to silence and what was the institution of silence as a separate language- discourse- entity- treatment- reason and non- reason (otherwise madness).

One classic statement stated by Foucault about the role of madness is that “the role of madness is to indicate a discrepancy between what men are and what they pretend to be.” This can be interpreted as the wise man’s vision towards reason and what he justifies as ‘madness’. If we take this statement further, we can relate it with the colonial domination. Sources in the history of colonial psychiatry reveal a great deal about what psychiatric practitioners, judges, police, families, and neighbors considered “pathological” in the colonial context, thereby shedding light on the “normal” as well. While colonial psychiatric work may reveal little scientific truth” about psychology, the practice of colonial mental health care provided a venue for discussing colonial psychology explicitly, and therefore constitutes an essential location for scholars grappling with this important historiographical problem

As psychiatry occupies a unique space between the social and natural sciences, the discipline constitutes a crucial locus for study of the relationship between knowledge and power in colonial domination. The asylum in any context functions as both hospital and prison, and psychiatry’s medical applications render the mental institution the ultimate “correctional facility.)

When we take a close look on Foucault’s work (1988); we can see as to how silence was imposed on Non- Reason, and how Non- Reason was personified in to an object of knowledge clearly tells us the denial of accepting Non- Reason as a separate entity in par with Reason. Thus, I don’t regret to state that science and psychiatry —- are as dubious as Non- Reason, as these disciplines (‘strangely’) deal with what is called MAD- otherwise called SILENCE- otherwise called, NON-REASON, which remains a Herculean task to be solved in its true sense.

The experience of Madness in the 17th and 18th century is perceived a unreason, or an absolute opposite of Reason!

The Possibilities of Non- Modern Psychology:

The very brain of the normalists lie in coercion with the other called abnormal. The fundamental principles of the disciplines like psychiatry, psychology lie in this discrimination of abnormal from normal. With the issue of the reason and non- reason unsolved, how are all these discipline ruling their sphere efficiently?

The history of psychology in India has been interpreted in only one way. The development of modern psychology has always been seen, especially in colonial and post-colonial times, through the prism of a western science which makes evolutionary and linear progress and where we are perpetually located in a situation of lack. This reductionism and positivistic way of interpreting a past needs to be questioned. To explore how the past of Indian psychology is represented, the interdisciplinary method of social science is required and historical texts selected from colonial and post-colonial times need to be gleaned.

Further, the ahistorical and acultural understanding has prevented us from exploring the conceptual issues that are specific to Indian psychology. We are still struggling to erase the lack in Indian psychology in relation to the Euro-American one. Different perspectives of historicism have helped us to look at the epistemological struggles that took place at various levels of discourses of Indian psychology; one such example is Girindrasekhar Bose. This critical investigation hints at the forgotten or silenced knowledge of Indian psychology that contributes to its conceptual development. If we need to know why the outcome of treatment of schizophrenia is better in our country compared to the developed ones, then we not only have to study the history and culture of schizophrenia in India, but also how schizophrenia is constructed in our society. Perhaps it is not too late to develop theoretical concepts of Indian psychology by exploring interdisciplinary historical studies visible at the horizon. As psychiatry/psychology occupies a unique space between the social and natural sciences, this discipline constitutes a crucial locus for study of the relationship between knowledge and power in colonial domination.

Further, I can pull the strings ahead and call psychology of the present day as an Uncritical Pedagogy: Thoughts without a Thinker? As unfortunately amongst the psychology courses offered in India today no paper or course work is devoted specifically to reading, thinking, critically engaging with the historical past and future directions of the discipline in India. As a consequence, one does not get to know the founding members of discipline, where, when it was introduced and why and how its need was felt, and how past developments and innovations shaped or mis-shaped the destiny of the discipline in the country. There is no time-line drawn to demarcate the evolution of the discipline (and it is no linear best-fit line that one is talking of – it is a history of progression and movement that one has to painstakingly evolve). It is here that explorations within the fields of cultural history, pedagogy, philosophy, post-colonialist and sociology that are much needed today to fill in gaps; similarly explorations within medical sciences such as epidemiology, public health and psychiatry are required to trace antecedents of the paradigms and practices prevalent within psychology in India.

Rethinking Psychology in India: debating pasts and future:

Can the god, being used to Calcutta, not stand the climate in Vienna?

Freud’s note in his diary about Bose, (Cited in Christiane Hartnack, 2005:10)

The quote above is Freud’s note about the Bengali psychologist/ psychoanalyst, Girindrasekhar Bose. The comment could easily be deemed Eurocentric or even worst, Freud’s lack of understanding of what Bose was struggling with in his hesitance to meet the God-in-Question (Freud himself) and the psychoanalytic fraternity in the West. Said’s (2003) discussion of Freud’s fraught relationship to the non-European (even worst when it happens to be a non-European analyst) is worth attending to in which he suggests what Freud struggled most was with the idea of ‘identity’ itself (and his own primarily) (p.79) today this idea extends unquestionably to the identity and politics of lives in diasporas, the manifestation of which is now more common in the non-Western parts of the world which Freud did not visualize.

Bhagvad Gita, written by Girindrasekhar bose undoubtedly, bears this tension between modernity and tradition at different levels. But this tension is not dichotomous, neither is it shown to be in sharp contradiction. There is always a solution, a space for the new science to get modified through a rationalist interpretation of the classical text, and for the text to be read, as if psychology was always ‘there’. In this way, Boss opened up great possibilities for this new science to be shaped according to Indian culture, myth and tradition. According to Amit Ranjan Basu, Girindrasekhar’s aim in this project was to present a narrative structure which could incorporate his theory of opposite wishes in a convincing manner without contradicting our understanding of a classical text.

Both Swapna and Bhagvadgita show how the formulation of the first psychoanalytical approaches by a non-western writer could serve the double purpose of opening a critique of the new science, while informing the modern Bengali intelligentsia about the power of this science.

It is quite revealing that in his theoretical writings and case studies, Bose hardly mentioned either childhood experiences or the linearity and historicity in an individual’s development. Nor did he share the view that phytogeny is a recapitulation of ontogeny, although Freud’s writings drew heavily on this model. The metaphor Freud used to describe his psychoanalytical technique was that of an archaeologist who digs into an individual instead of a cultural past. Bose, on the other hand, believed that he worked like an engineer who fixes circuits that are not functioning properly.” This metaphor reflects his Western education in science as well as his identification with Bengali Hindu traditions of conceptualizing all aspects of life in cyclic contexts.

Perhaps it is not too late to develop theoretical concepts of Indian psychology by exploring interdisciplinary historical studies visible at the horizon!!!!

References

History Of Madness by Foucault

Bose, Girindrasekhar, (1966). Samiksa: Journal Of The Indian Psychoanalytical Society. (Sinha, T.C, Ed.) Calcutta: Gupta Press.

Hartnack, Christiane, (2001). Psychoanalysis in Colonial India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Hartnack, Christiane, (2003). Freud on Garuda’s Wings- Psychoanalysis in Colonial India. IIAS Newsletter.

Nandy, Ashis, (2004). The Savage Freud: The First Non-Western Psychoanalyst and the Politics of Secret Selves in Colonial India. Bonfire of Creeds: The essential Ashis Nandy (339-393 p.) New Delhi: Oxford Press.

R. Basu, Amit (1999). The Coming Of Psychoanalysis In Colonial India: The Bengali Writings Of Dr. Girindrasekhar Bose. Enreca Occasional Paper Series- Culture and the Disciplines: Papers from the Cultural Studies Workshops (36-54 p.)

Basu AR. Girindrasekhar Bose and the coming of psychology in colonial India. Theoretical Perspective 1999;6:29–55.

Basu, AR. (2005). Historicizing Indian psychiatry. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 47(2): 126-129.