Putin’s Maternal Drama VI Putin’s Photo Ops

Wikicommons

Bizarre photos reveal Putin’s inner war externalized and the revenge that he seeks. The long table, the disinfection tunnel, the shirtless fisherman, the ice hockey player, the devout worshipper, the KGB agent etc. They are a composite of his terrorist within for all to see. Is his a kind of intrapsychic terrorist organization (ITO) Indeed. In The Jihadi Dictionary I defined an ITO as our internal terrorist. (cf. p. 123-124) Everyone has one. We all have a personal internal terrorist within us. The concept is applicable to Putin too.

However, the personal terrorist that exists within Putin has been projected outwards and into us via his atrocities in the Ukraine. It is so to speak ‘where the rubber meets the road,’ where we get a full view of his chaotic internal raging life strewn outwards across the Ukrainian ground in real time facilitated by means of his proxies – the army, the Chechens, the Syrians, his alleged inner circle of advisors, and so on and so forth.

Unfortunately, Putin’s projected internal terrorist interlocks with our internal terrorist, the part of ourselves that we are afraid of and in denial about it. If we are not aware of this peculiar nexus and the nefarious interlocking link between his unconscious world of projection and our own terrors, we are at risk of forming a recalcitrant identification with the aggressor.

The Disinfection Tunnel

https://www.rferl.org/a/reports-kremlin-installs-disinfectant-tunnels-to-protect-putin-against-coronavirus/30676407.html

Putin speaks in pantomime through his nonverbal behavior about the status of his mind. It is known that during the Pandemic he became increasingly obsessive, paranoid about Covid. His inner circle still has to quarantine 14 days if they want to meet with him in person. Yet because of this, most prefer video calls but here one cannot get a good sense of Putin and what he is thinking. Those that want to meet with him in person must go through a “decontamination” tunnel which is a revealing image of his experience of the maternal attachment – riddled with fear of dependency needs and “ferror” – fear of the female body, the tunnel allows him the illusion of control. Tunnels also hold special symbolism in warfare as in the case of Hamas and Hezbollah. Cf. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329841315_Hezbollah_Tunnel_Warfare_and_Digging_Deeper-Gaining_the_Psychological_Edge

Putin’s Wonderland Table

Wikicommons

If you make it through the tunnel then, like Macron, you get to sit at the opposite end of a very long exaggerated table reminiscent of the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland. This image came to mind before listening to a CNN’s journalist who referred to the table in exactly those terms during an interview with Jack Barsky, a former KGB agent who stressed that Putin totally believes in himself to the point that he does not take in his advisors’ opinions: “There’s no little man in his head that checks on him.” [CNN’s interview of Jack Barsky former KGB on ‘bizarre photos of Putin,’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhM7goE4eGc] Putin’s tea party is solely for himself and he actually feels himself to be very small and childlike, to wit the table.

The Shirtless Putin and Faulty Mirroring

I define mirroring as:

a term devised by Heinz Kohut (1971, 1997) to describe the ‘gleam’ in a mother’s eye, which mirrors the child’s exhibitionistic display and the forms of maternal participation in it. Mirroring is a specific response to the child’s narcissistic exhibitionist displays, confirming the child’s self-esteem. Eventually these responses are channeled into more realistic aims.” In addition, mirroring “is the process of emulating, or copying exactly the behaviours, speech, and characteristics of another individual. Therapists can sometimes employ mirroring techniques to come across as empathizing [not necessarily that they are] with their patients.” The Jihadi Dictionary, p. 156-157.

From the photo of Putin shirtless and fishing (perhaps for maternal love?), we can surmise that there was no gleam in his mother’s eye because he was a double replacement child. The only way he can find it now is through such exhibitionism.

Since the maternal attachment in a shame–honor culture is different than in Western culture, engaging a baby visually includes a lot of shaming, both consciously and unconsciously. Hence, we can surmise that the “gleam” in the mother’s eye does not occur to the same degree because the child is not given permission to separate from his mother, who herself has been treated as a chronically hated object. The gleam in the mother’s eye instead becomes the mother’s accusatory gaze. The jihadi infant [or Putin as an infant]experiences anxiety as an appendage. He cannot become independent . . .

Putin’s inner circle is shrinking as his paranoia escalates. https://www.timesofisrael.com/putin-said-to-be-conducting-internal-purge-of-military-generals-intel-personnel/ His growing sense of isolation and demand for it, is a defense mechanism to protect his maternal fantasy bubble from bursting. He doesn’t want change, merely absolute power and control over his unconscious narrative. He blindly lashes out https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/us-national-security-adviser-vladimir-putin-is-frustrated-lashing-out/. Putin must keep his dead mother alive at all costs because he has become her cf. Act V. Ukraine is his quest to fuse with his mother in fantasy – a “united” symbiosis between mother and replacement son.

Yet his terrorist attack on the Ukraine is a double edge sword because he runs the risk of bursting his own bubble through continuing poor performance. Since he is so isolated he must maintain a cadre, a swarm of proxy drone soldiers, be they Chechens or Syrians. Having placed himself at the center of the universe, the drones merely circle him like satellites, mandated to carry out his slaughter, which is his personal revenge.

With his back up against a wall, the war not going the way he had planned, failing to listen to his advisers because they are nothing more than objects in his mind, Putin has turned on the proverbial faucet of murder. True, he has done this before. It is unclear what the intrapsychic tripwire was but for sure there was one and it was perceived as a threat to his unconscious script.. Only this time Putin is the Aging Terminator facing his own termination. For us to know our own internal terrorist within is the first step toward disengaging from Putin’s projects. To do so is to allow for better interventions and strategies in order to defang Putin the Aging Terminator.