A pathological gambler by Dostoyevsky

Abstracts

Dostoyevsky's book, "The gambler," describes a representative case of pathological gambling. The history of the main character, Aleksei Ivanovitch, shows the typical evolution of the disorder in three well defined phases: profits, losses and despair. Based on Freud's concept of narcissism and the concepts of the self psychology by Heinz Kohut, Donald Winnicott and Wilfred Bion, the contributions of psychoanalysis to the understanding of pathological gambling are discussed.

Pathological gambling; Dostoyevsky; psychoanalysis; narcissism

O livro "O jogador" de Fiódor Dostoiévski narra um caso de jogo patológico bastante representativo. O percurso do personagem principal, Aleksei Ivanovitch, evidencia a dramática evolução do transtorno com três fases bem definidas: ganho, perdas e desespero. Partindo do conceito freudiano de narcisismo articulado aos conceitos da psicologia do self de Heinz Kohut, das teorias de Donald Winnicott e Wilfred Bion, serão discutidas as contribuições da psicanálise para a compreensão do jogo patológico.

Jogo patológico; Dostoiévski; psicanálise; narcisismo

CASE REPORT

A pathological gambler by Dostoyevsky

Fernando Machado Vilhena Dias^I; Hugo Alejandro Cano-Prais^II; Sérgio Kehdy^III; Antônio Lúcio Teixeira^IV

^IPsychiatrist, Graduate Program in Neurosciences, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil.

^IIPsychiatrist. Professor, Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto (UFOP), Ouro Preto, MG, Brazil.

^IIIPsychiatrist and psychoanalyst.

^IVPsychiatrist and neurologist. Professor, School of Medicine, UFMG, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil.

Correspondence

ABSTRACT

Dostoyevsky's book, The gambler, describes a representative case of pathological gambling. The history of the main character, Aleksey Ivanovich, shows the typical evolution of the disorder in three well defined phases: profits, losses and despair. Based on Freud's concept of narcissism and the concepts of the self psychology by Heinz Kohut, Donald Winnicott and Wilfred Bion, the contributions of psychoanalysis to the understanding of pathological gambling are discussed.

Keywords: Pathological gambling, Dostoyevsky, psychoanalysis, narcissism.

Introduction

Pathological gambling, a rather intriguing clinical entity, is the main topic of "The Gambler", a book by the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky.¹ The author, who suffers from epilepsy and was recognized by the vigor he used to describe his characters' psychological experiences, accurately reports the suffering associated with pathological gambling. Dostoyevsky himself probably was a compulsive gambler devastated by debts and who needed to comply with the contract he had made with his editor. It took him only 26 days to write the novel, what provides this work with an autobiographic flavor.²

In 1928, Sigmund Freud published an article entitled "Dostoyevsky and Parricide", proposing the first psychoanalytical analyses on pathological gambling.³ Later, other psychoanalysts, like Otto Fenichel, Heinz Kohut, Donald Winnicott and Wilfred Bion, contributed by adding new theories on this condition, linking Freudian concepts, such as narcissism, to pathological gambling.

In the present manuscript, the authors initially present the synopsis of the book "The Gambler" by Dostoyevsky, highlighting some passages in order to characterize and provide examples of pathological gambling. Next, possible contributions of psychoanalysis to the understanding of pathological gambling are presented and discussed.

Synopsis of the book "The gambler"

Aleksey Ivanovich, main character and narrator of the book, works as a tutor for a traditional Russian family that is spending some time at a German resort with the suggestive name of "Roulettenburg".

The family, whose intimacy is shared with Aleksey because of his job concerning the children's education, has some interesting characteristics. The father, a Russian general who is completely bankrupted, needs to leave his country due to unpaid debts. Being a widower, he falls in love with Mademoiselle Blanche, a beautiful French young lady who uses her good looks to make a living. The general hopes to be able to live this love story based on the imminent death of his old and rich grandmother, since he is her only heir. Aleksey cherishes a platonic and submissive love for Polina, the general's stepdaughter. And Polina manipulates Aleksey with the purpose of getting rid of her French suitor, Des Grieux, who supports her family hoping to get married to her.

Throughout the whole novel, Aleksey shows low tolerance to frustrations and impulsivity, what has a negative impact on his interpersonal relationships. For instance, Aleksey passes by a powerful German baron on the street and insults him because he feels upset due to the baron's higher social status. The general fires the tutor because of the baron's complaint and the need to protect his public image.

Meanwhile, the general's family is waiting for a telegram announcing the grandmother's death because she has a severe disease. However, the grandmother miraculously recovers from the disease and decides to go Roulettenburg. She only wants to gamble and she chooses the unemployed Aleksey as a gambling tutor. The grandmother's experience with the roulette portraits the misfortune related to pathological gambling in such a way that it is worth an additional passage among Aleksey's vicissitudes. During her first experience with the roulette, after several attempts and when she reaches somewhat of a mental ecstasy, the grandmother wins a lot of money. Then, she decides to stop gambling, but declares she will be back later. The narrator predicts the next catastrophic events: "Now that the grandmother was having such adventures with the roulette, now that the grandmother's personality was so clearly imposed among them (...) Now, maybe, everything could be lost: since she was happy as a child and certainly would be stripped of money because of gambling" (free translation based on the Portuguese version of the text). Actually, the grandmother enters a process in which she only stops gambling when she needs to get more money, wasting all her possessions.

When Polina is informed of the grandmother's ruin, she looks for Aleksey and, in a perverse manner, tells him she is in love with him. She grabs the opportunity to ask him to help her get rid of Des Grieux. Invaded by an intense feeling, Aleksey gathers all his savings and decides to try his luck. In the casino, Aleksey makes fearless attempts and wins a lot of money. However, he realizes: "I don't remember thinking of Polina once that night. I felt extraordinarily pleased while I gathered and recounted the bills (...)" (free translation). But he rises from his dream, decides to stop gambling and looks for Polina, who, unexpectedly rejects him.

Mademoiselle Blanche, aware of Aleksey's accomplishment in the roulette, invites him to go to Paris. Being in a state of affective torpor, he accepts the invitation. In Paris, Aleksey spends everything he won gambling during a little longer than a month of extravagances. During the same period of time, he often drinks champagne to lessen the sadness that is devastating him. Finally, he feels free to start touring the roulettes of Europe.

Thus, "more than a year and a half has gone since then, and, according to me, I am much worse than a beggar" (free translation). He is arrested due to gambling debts, becomes a footman and works only to get some food. Whenever possible, he gambles again just to lose everything. He tries to convince himself with arguments such as: "I can discover the man inside me before he is completely lost (...). Risking more than my life, I dared to risk (...) and here I am again included among men" (free translation).

After meeting Aleksey again in Roulettenburg, an acquaintance states: "He has not only withdrawn from life, from his own interests and from social interests, from his duties as a man and citizen, from his friends (since he used to have some), he has not only withdrawn from any possible goal except from winning, he has even withdrawn from his remembrances (...)" (free translation). This acquaintance says goodbye and gives him some money, only enough to feed him. He accepts the generosity, although he gets lost within his own thoughts. "I had a premonition, and it could not be different (...). Could I be so immature? Can't I see that I am a lost man? But why can't I revive? It would be only necessary to have character once again, and suddenly I would be able to change my whole life" (free translation).

Discussion

Pathological gambling is currently included among the impulse disorders. Its characteristics are: concern about gambling and about how to get money to gamble, lack of ability to control gambling behavior even when facing clear adverse socio-occupational and/or legal consequences.⁴

The diagnostic criteria of pathological gambling are much similar to those of psychoactive substance use disorders, building up a model of addictive behavior, although without the use of drugs.^4,5 Models that serve as an alternative to this one have been proposed with the purpose of understanding the complexity related to the disorder.^5,6 For instance, some authors consider that pathological gambling is an entity belonging to the obsessive-compulsive spectrum.⁵ Others, due to the high comorbidity with mood disorders, believe it is closer to the bipolar spectrum.⁷ Therefore, it is interesting to notice the similarity between the mania-depression cycles of the bipolar disorder and the mood states of the gambler who is losing and winning, respectively. Correlating Aleksey's behaviors in the novel with the models of the genesis of pathological gambling, in addition to great impulsivity, one can identify the presence of a tendency to alcohol addiction and, mainly, mood instability, clearly interchanging excitement and hopelessness.^5-7

At the end of the novel, Aleksey shows all the clinical characteristics that support a diagnosis of pathological gambling.⁴ He is concerned with gambling and his personal activity is exclusively aimed at it even when he has countless financial and social losses, in addition to the legal problems. Before reaching this stage, Aleksey experienced the three typical phases in the evolution of pathological gambling: the winning phase: during this phase the gambler is able to control the urge to gamble, making it possible to have some gains with gambling; the losing phase: during which the urge to gamble is mandatory, interfering with the ability to assess the situation and resulting in financial losses; and the desperation phase: during this phase the gambler has significant losses in several dimensions of his personal life.⁴ The grandmother herself went through these three phases in a rather short period of time, which is described as the "telescoping" effect, more often affecting women.⁸

The initial contributions of psychoanalysis to the understanding of pathological gambling can be found in Freud's writings. In "Dostoyevsky and Parricide", Freud suggested that compulsive gamblers, such as the Russian author himself, have an unconscious desire to lose, and they gamble to relieve the feeling of guilt.³ Therefore, Freud proposed that "(...) all details of the impulsively irrational behavior show that. The gambler would never stop before having lost everything. For the gambler, gambling is also a method of self-punishment"³ (free translation). Freud also associated impulsive gambling with the masturbation practice, outlining the first ideas that link pathological gambling to the Oedipus Complex and its correlated structures (superego, ideal ego and ego ideal), and its relations with narcissism. Freud finishes his article proposing a theory about the writer's fate: "If the tendency to gambling, with its unsuccessful struggles to quit the habit and the opportunities it offers for self-punishment, is a repetition of the compulsion to masturbate, it is not surprising to find out that this tendency has played such an important role in Dostoyevsky's life"³ (free translation).

Otto Fenichel reaffirmed that infantile masturbatory fantasies are associated with pathological gambling, also linking them to parricide. He added that many impulsive acts tend to express not only instinctive drives but also demands from a tyrannical superego.⁹ According to Fenichel, similarly to the maniac-depressive states, impulsive gamblers experience periods of intense guilt that are interchanged with periods of apparent inactivity of the superego.⁹ Fenichel also states that the psychological function of non-pathological gambling would be to free the individual from external pressures by means of repetition or anticipation of such pressures. However, in the pathological gambling, under violent internal pressures, the overwhelmed ego would enter a vicious circle of anxiety and would need continuous reassurances.⁹

But which would be the internal pressures vaguely mentioned by Otto Fenichel? Still considering Freud's text, we find the concept of narcissism, which is defined as the ecstasy of libido that no investment of object is able to fully surpass.¹⁰ Freud defines two types of narcissism: a primitive narcissistic stage (non-objectal) or primary narcissism and the secondary narcissism.¹¹ Primary narcissism is characterized by the complete absence of a relationship with the environment, since there is no differentiation between the ego and the id. On the other hand, secondary narcissism is the narcissism of the ego invested in objects.¹¹

Secondary narcissism originates the ego ideal, which determines what we should be and reach. The ego ideal represents, therefore, a narcissistic agency resulting from the coming together of narcissism (idealization of the ego) and identification with the parents, with their substitutes or with collective ideals.¹¹ It is worth mentioning that Freud establishes a difference between the ego ideal and the superego, correlating the feeling of guilt with the superego and the low self-esteem with the ego ideal, since the latter is more loved than feared.¹¹

The ego needs to be admired by the ego ideal. When there is a quite high ideal, the ego will never feel satisfied. Therefore, all achievements will not be enough and the experience of void and usefulness will be present, causing boredom.¹² Thus, if there is not a harmonious relationship between the ego and the ego ideal, then there is constant thread of feeling void and useless, which some individuals fight against using potentially dangerous mechanisms, including gambling, use of drugs and compulsive buying.

Regarding the specific analysis of the narcissistic disorders, a group that includes pathological gambling, Heinz Kohut emphasizes how important it is for patients to experience and elaborate the lethargies, depressions and angers of the beginning of their lives based on the transference of their archaic and traumatic relationships of the self with the self-object.¹³ In such cases, the mobilization of the experiences of very early childhood should be in the center of the analytical stage for long periods. From the clinic point of view, when the self does not get the responses of affirmation and validation expected from the people it is related to, it might get fragmented. Impulsive behaviors, such as pathological gambling, appeared as a way to deal with this fragmentation and to regain cohesion of the self. Kohut uses the term "self-object" to designate the object that acts as a mirror of the individual, designating the individual and regulating the anxiety indirectly linked to self-esteem.¹³

The function of regulation of anxiety of Kohut's "self-objects" is similar to Bion's concept of reverie¹⁴ and to Winnicott's concept of "good enough mother".¹⁵ Considering the mother's function of bringing physical and emotional harmony to the child's developmental stages, initially protecting the child against archaic anxieties and then offering a detachment that allows the child to distinguish the self from the non-self, the function of the "self-objects" is essential for the adult individual to endure the vicissitudes.

Therefore, pathological gambling as a narcissistic disorder could be understood as an experience of substitutive satisfaction. In a tormenting narcissistic situation, the subject would turn to pleasant experiences, in this case: gambling. Once this linking is established, there would be a mismatch of meaning between the experiences of fear, sadness and depreciation and the satisfaction that comes from gambling. This mismatch would be the basis for repeating the satisfactory experience of pathological gambling, as well as other forms of addiction, explaining even the difficulty related to the treatment of these conditions. In short, the gambler would be at the mercy of his omnipotence when he is gambling and, as a consequence, his narcissism would be continuously mobilized. The individuals known as "those who cannot lose" are people for whom defeat or victory have an extreme meaning. For the pathological gambler, victories and defeats mean "life and death", and gambling plays a central role in the maintenance of the individual's psychic life.

Dostoyevsky's example is interesting because his pathological passion for gambling evolved together with his sentimental journey.² His love for Polina Suslova, curiously the same name given to the character of the book "The Gambler", is a paradigm of the relationships that Dostoyevsky established with his "self-objects". She left him and started a relationship with a Spanish man. This event led Dostoyevsky to travel around Europe. However, Dostoyevsky did not look for his beloved one. He stayed in Germany at one of the most popular casinos of the time. He thought about winning a lot of money to get Polina back. When he met her again, Polina stole all the money he got from gambling. Overwhelmed by debts and depressed due to his favorite brother's death, Dostoyevsky started selling his work. As his last effort, he decided to dictate his novel "The Gambler" to a stenographer, Ana Grigorievna, who he married later.

In his novel, Aleksey was a person with no past, who would work for the noble Russian family to make a living and who was reluctant to accept his lower social status. Thus, he felt tortured by his own image. When he talked about Polina, for instance, the woman he chose as object of his desire, it is evident that he nourishes a fantasy that if he conquers her he will be become a valuable person again. Then, he tries to live just because of her; however, she manipulates and rejects him when he wins. Polina does not offer him the opportunity or alternative to live through the other. His search for inner peace, that is, for moments during which he does not need to worry about his narcissistic equilibrium, leads him to accept Mademoiselle Blanche's proposal to go to Paris even though he is aware of the fact that he is being used. Money is not important. The only thing that matters is being accepted. When he leaves Paris, he gets as despaired as before, when his internal resources were not enough to keep minimal integration and self-esteem. Then, he enjoys the pleasure of gambling again and becomes a chronic gambler, trying to start believing in himself again every time the roulette goes round. His whole life is aimed at one goal: compulsively gambling. Aleksey's regression to an archaic narcissistic functioning reaches such a magnitude that the other vital functions are disregarded. At the end of the novel, the character is miserable and hungry, but he prefers exchanging the coin offered by a friend for another attempt to survive with the roulette instead of buying some food.

The complexity of pathological gambling allows for several levels of interpretation and supplemental understanding, including different concepts of the disorder in the field of impulse disorders, addictive behaviors, obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders and even other psychodynamic point of views. Dostoyevsky perfectly portraits the misfortunes of a gambler with several psychopathological characteristics of the disorder, so that it is also possible to predict the psychodynamic aspects involved.

References

• 1. Dostoiévski F. O jogador. Brasil: Editora 34; 2004.
• 2. Schnaiderman B. Posfácio: notas sobre um jogador. In: Dostoiévski F. O jogador. Brasil: Editora 34; 2004. p. 217-25.
• 3. Freud S. Dostoievski y el parricídio. In: Obras completas de Sigmund Freud. vol. XXI. Buenos Aires: Santiago Rueda; 1928.
• 4. Sood ED, Pallanti S, Hollander E. Diagnosis and treatment of Pathologic Gambling. Curr Psychiatry Rep. 2003;5(1):9-15.
• 5. Dell'Osso B, Altamura AC, Allen A, Marazziti D, Hollander E. Epidemiologic and clinical updates on impulse control disorders: a critical review. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2006;256(8):464-75.
• 6. Dannon PN, Lowengrub K, Gonopolski Y, Musin E, Kotler M. Pathological gambling: a review of phenomenological models and treatment modalities for an underrecognized psychiatric disorder. Prim Care Companion J Clin Psychiatry. 2006;8(6):334-9.
• 7. McElroy L, Pope G, Keck E. Are impulsive-control disorders related to bipolar disorders? Compr Psychiatry. 1996;37(4):229-40.
• 8. Zilberman M, Tavares H, el-Guebaly N. Gender similarities and differences: the prevalence and course of alcohol- and other substance-related disorders. J Addict Dis. 2003;22(4):61-74.
• 9. Fenichel O. Teoria psicoanalítica de las neurosis. Buenos Aires: Paidos; 1966.
• 10. Freud S. Introducción al narcisismo. In: Obras completas de Sigmund Freud. vol. XIV. Buenos Aires: Santiago Rueda; 1914.
• 11. Freud S. El Yo y el Ello. In: Obras completas de Sigmund Freud. vol. IX. Buenos Aires: Santiago Rueda; 1923.
• 12. Chasseguet-Smirgel, J. O ideal do ego. Porto Alegre: Artmed; 1992.
• 13. Kohut H. Psicologia do self e a cultura humana. Porto Alegre: Artmed; 1988.
• 14. Bion WR. Attention and Interpretation. London: H. Karnac; 1970.
• 15. Winnicott DW. Explorações psicanalíticas. Porto Alegre: Artmed; 1989.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  17 Mar 2009
• Date of issue
  Dec 2008

History

• Accepted
  08 Apr 2008
• Received
  20 Sept 2006