© PSYCHOMEDIA - Jennifer C. Hunt - Diving the wreck: risk and injury in sport scuba diving

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Sport and Psyche

Diving the wreck: risk and injury in sport scuba diving

By Jennifer C., Hunt, Ph.D.

Psychoanalytic Quarterly, LXV, 1996, pp. 591-622.

Introduction
This paper applies psychoanalytic theory to exploring risk and injury in the case of a male sport scuba diver, Sam. Risk, pain, and injury are routine aspects of recreational and competitive sport activities at every age level (Bissinger, 1990; Fine, 1987; Hughes and Coakley, 1991; Sabo, 1989; Sabo and Panepinto, 1990: Young, 1993; Young, et al., 1994). Individuals who do not engage in risk and cannot handle pain and injury in socially designated ways are not given status as real athletes (Brant, 1993; Curry, 1993; Donnely and Young, 1988; Durso, 1994; Ewald and Jibou, 1985; Nixon, 1993). In “extreme risk” sports, in which fatality rather than injury is the major concern, risk is often viewed as a positive feature. despite the prevalence of risk and injury in sports, there are no psychoanalytic work which examine the relevant issues. I will attempt to address this gap in our knowledge.
My study is based on interviews with the fieldwork among sport divers, which began in 1991. Clinical interviews and sociological fieldwork constitute the primary sources of data. Thirty-six male and female recreational [1] and deep divers have thus far been formally interviewed. each diver was interviewed from three to six times for approximately one and one-half hours each time. Interviews were usually conducted once weekly in consecutive weeks, depending on work schedules and diver availability. Follow-up interviews were arranged for some injured divers after periods of from three to twelve months.
Clinical interviews with individuals with whom the researcher interacts and who are observed in the natural setting are complex. Transference and countertransference reactions may be distorted and intensified in view of the real-life relationships which often develop in the context of fieldwork. As interview subjects are not patients, their words and actions are less likely to be interpreted than would be the case in the context of psychotherapy or psychoanalysis. Indeed, interventions must be carefully managed so as to facilitate the quality of information gathered without creating a psychotherapeutic interaction which would alienate the diver.
This research shares a common methodological problem with many applied psychoanalytic studies of art, sports, and literature which rely on biographical and historical materials. It is based on limited interviews and ethnographic data derived outside of the psychoanalytic situation. As a result, interpretations tend to be rather general, focusing on central dynamics which are often seen among boys who share childhoods similar to Sam’s. Conclusions regarding the dynamics of risk and injury are necessarily speculative and await elaboration by psychoanalysts involved in the treatment of participants in high-risk sport or occupational subcultures.

Sam
Sam is a member of an extreme risk, “technical” diving subculture whose members are involved in the exploration of deep-water shipwrecks and caves. Technical diving is an equipment-intensive enterprise which utilizes a variety of gas mixtures to facilitate deep diving, maximize bottom time, and minimize the risks of nitrogen narcosis, decompression sickness, and oxygen toxicity [2]. Sam’s injury and involvement in extended-range diving appear to condense a series of conflicts at different developmental levels. This study describes the events surrounding a near fatal dive and goes on to explore preoedipal and oedipal factors which may have contributed to the injury. Particular attention is paid to the role of Sam’s father in the development of bisexual conflicts and sadomasochistic attachments which appeared to fuel Sam’s risk-taking endeavors.
Sam is an intense and engaging man with a lively sense of humor and a curious mind. He has college and graduate degrees and holds a successful position in a scientific field. His first marriage ended in a divorce after year. He is remarried and has two children. His wife earns a small income doing clerical work and spends most of her time which childcare and housework.
Sam’s father is a physician and sports medicine specialist, and his mother works as a receptionist.
Sam enjoys the challenge of cold-water diving and is fascinated by the exploration of shipwrecks and caves which lie beyond recreational limits. After diving one day during his last trip of the season, Sam began to feel physically sick. Illness and fatigue are among the factors which predispose divers to decompression sickness (DCS) and increase their susceptibility to nitrogen narcosis. Nevertheless, he slept well and decided to dive in the morning, rationalizing the risk of injury with reference to the relative simplicity of the dive. Sam said:
I didn’t feel bad when I Woke up, and I waited a few hours. It was a beautiful day.
It was a routine dive for me. I had done ten dives on a deep wreck, some of them penetrations of 230 fsw. So a dive of this depth was routine for me.
Sam descended down the anchor line and began to explore the wreck. The depth and duration of the dive combined with Sam’s physical vulnerability to facilitate the onset of narcosis: He became steadily more enthralled with the wreck and prolonged his exploration, allowing powerful inner urges to dominate rational thought. A series of technical problems resulted from his lengthy exposure and mental disorientation. He was forced to make a direct ascent to the surface, missed a substantial decompression obligation, and suffered a near fatal “hit” (DCS).
Deep divers sanction certain categories of risk, but injuries are often viewed as signs of incompetence (Hunt, 1993). As a result, divers with decompression sickness face negative social reactions which intensify the shame that may also linked to unconscious fantasies. Initially, Sam attempted to defend himself against unpleasant affects and thoughts by denying full responsibility for the incident. Instead, he shifted the blame for his decision to prolong the dive external or biological forces over which he had little control:
I got up with a little flu, took non-prescription drugs. I was affected bay narcosis. The flu and fatigue set in: One diver said he took a non-prescription medication and was really zonked at 100 fsw. So you can imagine what it would be like at the depth that I was at. I should have turned the dive [around* earlier. The little voice in my head, turn the dive, turn the dive, no just a little more, a little more. I hooked up again with my buddy and he signalled me let’s go up this [other] line, and I immediately fixated on [finding abandoned equipment]. I was exerting myself. Nitrogen narcosis was enhanced. I was exhausted. I didnt have the mental or physical resources to deal with the issue. I realized I was danger at this point. I said lets just ascend. You know you are going to get bent but they can send you to a chamber. So I surfaced, I told the crew I screwed up, call a chopper, oxygen. I kind of went in and out for a bit, but I never let it enter my mind while I was underwater that I would be either dead or in a wheelchair, only afterward. I had more than [number of] minutes of decompression, [number of] minutes of bottom time and I had no more answers [3].
Some months after Sam recovered from his injury, he began to look at its psychological aspects and to feel that depression had played at contributing role. He thought he may have been suicidal, although he had not consciously made plans to end his life. He recalled having thoughts during the dive of giving up lifes struggle and not coming up. When he was lying on the deck of the boat, drifting in and out of consciousness, he found comfort in the thought of dying, But the thought about how his death might affect his family and began to struggle to stay alive. He describe these conflictual thoughts and feelings in his account of the incident.
Sam was involved in a loveless marriage which was largely based on a financial arrangement. Prior to the dive, marital conflicts ha begun to reach a critical point, fueling his depressed mood. Key were several heated arguments with his wife involving financial issues. Sam was angry ate her because he felt she was unrealistic about money and seemed to view his resources as unlimited. He also felt she “took” his money away, contributed little to the household, and often hostile to him. For example, she complained about the length of tome he had to stay home from work after his “accident”. She also voiced no concern about his involvement in technical diving or his decision to resume the activity, despite the fact that another injury would likely cripple or kill him.
Just prior to the dive, Sam also had an unpleasant exchange with a friend. The friend has promised to pay him the money he owed and had then refused. On several occasions the friend was cruel to Sam, despite the latters efforts to be helpful. This behavior continued even after the injury when the friend ridiculed Sam at a party because he could only do “low status”, recreational dives.
While Sams injury has many roots, there are indications that fantasies about his father played a determining role. The arguments with his wife and his friend appeared to mobilize feelings of deprivation, frustration, and rage which were originally experienced in the paternal relationship. Sam grew up as the youngest child in a household in which his parents were constantly engaged in “screaming matches”. His father would ridicule and degrade his mother by frequently calling her “a silly, stupid woman” and blaming all problems with Sam on “the way she raised him”. Overt fighting stopped by the time Sam reached late adolescence when his mother began to submit silently to her husband’s verbal abuse.
Sam describes his father as a “paranoid” man who was antagonistic to colleagues whom he suspected were taking advantage of him. He also viewed Sam as a drain on his emotional and financial resources and refused to provide sufficient emotional or monetary support. Sam felt as though he were a pariah. This pattern continued throughout Sams high school and college years. On the rare occasions in which his father would appear to offer financial support. it would be withdrawn or negated.
Sam attributed his fathers preoccupation with money and his negative attitude toward him to losses the father had suffered as a young man. The father came from a large, wealthy family which experienced a sudden shift in status after Sams grandfather died. The grandfather left the estate in the hands of the eldest son who squandered it, leaving the family destitute. Sam describes how these events may have affected his fathers relationship with him and with his son.
My fathers family had servants, a big house, everything. He always felt that I was taking stuff away from him, money. It had a big impact on my life because I wanted to have money. My father is never happy no matter how much money he has. He is too afraid of losing it. It’s the mommy thing. He does the same thing with [ my oldest child ]. My son spends more than a week with my father, and he comes back angry and frustrated. My father resents that my mother spend all her time with my child. He is messing my son up just like he messed me up.
Indeed, it seems possible that Sams father viewed Sam as a sibling rival who took away maternal affection and family resources in much the same way as his brothers had.
Sams own experience of deprivation appears linked to his insatiable hunger for something from his father. He recalled his first spoken word as “more”, which he associates to outings at restaurants with his father and the pleasure he feels when his eldest child eats like him. Sams drinking binges may also be linked to wishful fantasies about his father whom he used to accompany to pubs during family vacations. Feeling of deprivation and need seem to be displaced onto interactions with bosses at work, who he feels do not provide sufficient reward for his accomplishments. Part of Sams involvement in high-risk diving appears to be motivated by his desire to get something valuable that he felt he lacked from his father. Sam said:
At certain point in my carrier I wanted recognition. I know that I didnt get that from my father. My father was always complaining. When I was doing well in college, he never complimented me. He never said, “Well, you are on the Dean’s List again:” Maybe for me its the added thing of the recognition when I did come in diving. It even makes it more special for me. I think he was proud I did that deep wreck. I think it was pride. He told a friend at the gym that I was a diver.
Sams feeling of deprivation may reflect preoedipally rooted castration concerns which are sometimes apparent among boys whose fathers are absent or cruel (Greenspan, 1982; Tyson, 1982). These anxieties were later strengthened in the light of oedipal conflicts and related aggressive fantasies. The configuration of gear Sam uses in diving may have constituted, in part, an attempt to compensate for this perceived lack of power and masculine tools. Technical divers go off to battle armed with dry suits, hoods, gloves, redundant regulators, computers, double tanks of air or mixed gas, and stage bottles for decompression. While this armor is often necessary to enhance a divers chances of surviving deep dives, some colleagues claimed that Sam sometimes dived overequipped [4].
It is worth noting that Sam prolonged his near fatal dive partly because he wanted to retrieve abandoned equipment. The lost equipment may be unconsciously linked to a bag of valuable items he left in a deep wreck earlier in the year. Sam was upset when he had to leave the bag behind, viewed it as a failure, and associated its loss directly to his dive injury. He also lost an expensive light when he dived his first ocean wreck after the injury. He associated the expensive light to another light lost on a dive which directly preceded his near fatal encounter.
Several days after Sam lost the expensive light, he expressed a strong wish to retrieve it even if the search involved doing a decompression dive. Concerned that he would do something rash and get hurt, I asked him if he felt he had lost the light “which allowed him to see” [5]. Sam reacted defensively, accused me of looking too deeply into things, and explained that “an experienced diver told me that he has gear spread all over the ocean. If you havent lost gear, you’ve not really been diving”. Although Sam denied it, it is possible that the bag and the lights were related to fantasies of other lost objects, including his father and his masculine sense of himself.
Most of Sams memories of his father involve pain or disappointment and display the sadomasochistic paternal attachment which most likely contributed to his problems in negotiating oedipal conflicts. Between the ages of three and six, he and his father engaged in mutually provocative games in which Sam was encouraged to be aggressive, minor injuries were frequent, and paternal retaliation resulted.
Such painful interactions between father and son continued through Sams latency and early teens when his father introduced him to a contact sport in which pain was routine. Consciously, Sam took pleasure in these athletic endeavors because he admired his fathers skill and enjoyed sharing something with him. His pleasure was eventually replaced by a sense of abandonment when the family moved, Sam joined a different team, and his father ceased to play.
Sam was intimidated by the new team because the players were intense and professionally oriented, and he had lost his fathers protection. he stopped playing his fathers sport but took up another contact game in high school and college and sustained a serious knee injury during a championship game. (Sam retains as a role model and source of comfort an injured former champion in the sport that he shared with his father.)
Although Sam was viewed as a promising player, he was not particularly successful, a fact that may have been related to his fear of aggression and his sense that he was not well equipped. in one interview, Sam revealed his masochistic identification with men who are injured and an unconscious association between victory and pain. the interview took place a few days before he arranged to make his first dive after his recovery, an event he made public, thereby increasing the pressure to make the dive. At the time, Sam appeared anxious. he also had a slight cough and some nasal congestion. Colds are considered counterindications for diving because they may complicate the equalization of pressure in the ears and cause barotrauma. Colds may also increase the diver’s vulnerability to narcosis and decompression sickness. A segment of the relevant interview follows:
SAM: My wife wants me to get out more with her and the children but when I do, she is critical that I dont do things the way she does.
RESEARCHER: You are criticized in so many areas of your life.
SAM: Thats funny because I have also been criticized in diving. John Smith [a diver] said you can tell a pioneer by the arrows in his back. I wanted to go diving. It is the only activity that I have ever done in my life that I can give my full mental and physical concentration. Its ironic the last dive was the accident. Overall, last season was my best. I had met all my goals. It was rewarding-all those years of training coming to fruition. A lot of mutual respect from the community of divers. I had been such a battle.
RESEARCHER: Like [the sport you played with your father].
SAM: [The sport] was good and bad. I wanted to win the championships but I was not able to do it. I was considered a good athlete, a tough kid. Experts saw me and thought I would develop into something. Whatever it was, I did not have the right dedication. In fact, when I decided I wanted to do all of these dives, I had to overcome a lot of things. With my [other sport] I felt I quit in some respect. With failures, you can learn something. Ever seen Abraham Lincolns political score sheet? He was defeated, then he came back to be President. So for myself I said I am not going to quit. There is no denying that whatever the block was, I have gotten over it. Some of this stuff has to do with stuff [in college with may father]. I had gone to counselor, and he basically said you feel deprived because of your father. Maybe there is something I still feel deprived of. On a deep wreck I wasnt able to go back and get my bag. I just didn’t have the time. I tried a shortcut but I had to go back [to the anchor line and ascend]. That was the one real setback after a successful season before I was “hit”.
RESEARCHER: Something gets in the way of victory?
SAM: I had kind of thought why did that happen. Maybe I need more of a challenge. I really admire [the injured ex-champion]. He had to overcome so many things to win. The problems was that he went back too soon after he was injured, and then he was beaten. I got a lot of things out of [the sport and shared with my father]. recognition.
Maybe I put up a challenge because I was frustrated. I dont feel I am doing something that is worthwhile at work. I should do more creative work. [The sport shared with my father] was too much for me in eighth grade. The problem with diving again. I have told so many people that I am going back into the water, announced it [in public]. I feel like I am in a fishbowl.
RESEARCHER: Do you think you are going back too soon?
SAM: No. [The injured ex-champions] circumstances were different. He needed the money. He had taken such a body punishment. It took his body a while to go back. If I am still sick, I wont do the dive.
Sam began the interview by discussing his wifes critical attitude toward him, then shifted to his political and personal battles with members of the diving community. He went on to mention his injury, noting that it was “ironic” that it occurred during the last dive of a successful season. I intervened at this point, pointing out the similarity between his battles in diving and his early experience with the sport he shared with his father. Sam examined the obstacles he overcame to learn from failure and achieve diving success, comparing his efforts to the career of Abraham Lincoln. He also took heart in the experience if the injured former champion whose road to victory was fraught with difficulty. it is significant here that Sam did not note that Lincoln was assassinated after his victory. He also neglected to mention that the former champion sustained permanent, serious, and debilitating injury while still a young man, although Sam did acknowledge that this athlete lost a game because he competed too soon after an injury.
Sam denied that he was returning to diving prematurely [6] and said his circumstances were different from those of the former champion whose motivation to play was financial. However, his answer could be viewed as a denial and a confirmation of my interpretation, in a view of the link he appears to make between money and “gifts” from his father. Shortly after this conversation, Sam called and told me he had cancelled the dive and had arranged a consultation with a psychiatrist.
Sams sadomasochistic identification with and attachment to his father appeared to be re-enacted with his eldest child. He deeply resented the boy’s birth because his wife lost interest in him and their sex life diminished. There were times when Sam and his son engaged in patterns or roughhouse play similar to those of Sam and his father. The games would sometimes terminate with the child in tears and Sam feeling remorseful. The anger Sam felt toward his father, his conflicted identification with him, his wish for protection, and need to be punished also may partly account for the intensity of his reaction when the heard about a father-son team who died of decompression sickness following a 240 fsw air dive.
Sam was distraught when he received word of the incident, although he was not close friends with either diver. The son apparently made a mistake and became trapped in the wreck. He then started to hallucinated as a result of narcosis and began to panic. When his father was able to free him, he continued to panic, making a direct ascent to the surface. The father followed his son and also missed a major decompression obligation. The father died soon after he was pulled onto the boat. The son died while being treated in the recompression chamber. Within this context, it is worth noting that Sam was almost killed in a “near miss” dive on the same German U-boat on which the father and son lost their lives.
As a typical among person with masochistic conflicts, Sam appears to link love with pain, the alternative being abandonment. He was often left alone during latency and adolescence, and he wished his parents had made more effort to control his behavior, even if it involved punishment. Indeed, there is some indication that he unconsciously wanted his father to beat him. Sam said:
My father was always threatening me but wouldnt follow it up with violence. I think it would have been better had I had more discipline because even from the beginning, I was left alone a lot. I was eleven or thirteen, and I would have parties in the house, with
older kids. It made me feel different. No deadlines or curfews.
Boys whose father are absent or cruel may experience difficulties modulating aggression (Herzog, 1982), and Sam appeared to be no exception. Indeed, his desire for more discipline may also reflect his wish that his parents would help him control his impulses. Sam had frightening rages as a child, from which his parents offered little protection. although he had many friends with whom he partied and shared sport activities, he was known to be a bully, engaging in physical fights with schoolmates who insulted or threatened him. He continues to have problems controlling aggression and often finds himself feeling easily annoyed and angry. Alcoholic binges and uninhibited spending may also reflect ego deficiencies and related problems of impulse control.
It is possible that Sams involvement in technical diving represents an attempt to master aggressive impulses which are displaced onto the ocean environment. The gear that technical divers wear to maximize safety and control their habitat may provide a defense against aggressive (and sexual) wishes. During one interview, Sam talked about an upsetting interaction with a woman diver who made pejorative remarks about his accident. his thoughts shifted to the ways divers typically manage to handle the anxieties linked to the uncertainties in diving.
I intervened at this point and asked if he felt that the unpredictability was all external. He admitted that he had difficulty handling aggression, then apparently became anxious and defended himself by focusing on ways that divers minimize risk and avoid injury. Parts of the interview are reproduced below.
SAM: I was really angry when the diver said that to me. I have been frightened into the water. Divers get religious quickly in the face of death. I spoke to a friend about accidents. He said gas management is the key thing. Its an attempt to control what you cant control. I read a book about the Titanic: it represented the age of science and was said to be “virtually unsinkable”. And the Titanic sinks, and people are shocked. We cant control a lot of things. So accident analysis attempts to get a hold of the beast out there we don’t know how to control.
RESEARCHER: Im wondering is the best just out there?
SAM: There are a lot of angry, impulsive urges. Its difficult for me to control being angry. In fact I had an incident the other day [describes an angry exchange with a woman at work]. Every once and a while I snap. This side of me comes out so I try to keep it under control. Anger at other people. I have to train my body to in gas and out gas properly as I get back into diving. Then I will have to go back on air [from using oxygen for routine decompression].
Preoedipal problems of separation and individuation can be exacerbated in the light of father neglected and “too close” mothering (Abelin, 1971; Greenspan, 1982; Pacella, 1989; Ross, 1982). Bisexual conflicts may remain unresolved and sadomasochistic maternal attachment intensified. This was likely the case for Sam whose mother was seductive and used him as a substitute husband. She conspired with Sam to do things behind his fathers back, such as giving him money. She would cancel his school day and take him on trips to historical sights his father found silly, including ships in dry dock. she would give advise on sexual matters to Sams friends, an activity which he may have unconsciously viewed as flirtatious. In speaking about his relationship with his mother, Sam displayed some awareness that their “closeness” may have exacerbated his difficulties with his father. Sams mother’s overt hostility toward her husband may have done more than simply increase Sams resentment toward his father. It may have contributed to Sams sense that men are objects of feminine ridicule and that maleness is devalued. If this was the case, then he was put in an impossible bind. On the one hand, maternal identification involved symbolic castration and submission to male abuse; on the other, paternal identification entailed sadism and subjugation to female hostility.
Sam was close to his maternal grandmother whom he would visit during summer vacations. She bought him a snorkel and fins and took him to the bay where he taught himself to swim and free dive. Sometime later, his mother provided swimming lessons. Sams fascination with history and underwater remnants of battle were linked to memories of his mother and some of her family members who had lost their lives during World War II:
History was alive for me. I wanted to see the German U-boats, part of the history my mother was born into. The remains of a madmans desire to conquer the world. Some people say that the boats are hype, the dive into history-maybe for some but not for me.
Fantasies of male dominance influence many of Sams adult relationships and may provide a defense against and enactment of a fantasy of submission to a powerful preoedipal mother. Sam married a woman who was socially and intellectually beneath him and who gladly adopted the role of domestic servant, cook, and sexual partner. Until their first child was born, she appeared a willing participant in perverse fantasies which revolved around conflicts of bisexuality and power. Sam’s involvement in extended-range diving may partly represent an enactment of preoedipal struggles for dominance and control. Diving provides a sense of freedom from the “maternal” entrapment he experiences in marriage and work. Sam notes:
A middle-class existence is very boring to me. A nine-to-five type of job. I like a lot more excitement in my life. I am an adventurous person. Actually, as a result of some of the discord in my marriage, I enjoy being on a dive. The camaraderie is very satisfying, fulfilling. No matter what I do, shes unhappy with it.
While diving may constitute an expression of Sams hostility toward his wife as well as toward his mother, his efforts to counter enslavement contain their own contradictions. Deep divers like Sam play a game of survival in which they flirt with danger and death. Aided by sophisticated and technical knowledge and equipment, they attempt to conquer narcosis, depth, time, and water. One mistake or moment of loss of control can prove fatal: Sam was injured when he made a mistake, lost control, became captivated by the wreck, and almost gave himself up to the water.
Sams patterns of gear use can also be understood in the context of preoedipal fantasies about phallic women. The armor he wears during deep-sea exploits may provide protection against the attack that he unconsciously associates with women as symbolized by the ocean and its inhabitants. His conscious ambivalence toward barracudas, creatures enjoyed by most recreational divers, may be derivative of these conflicts. A dream Sam had after a painful encounter with an aggressive, controlling woman reveals his fear of deep-sea “sirens” and his desire for paternal protection [7].
I was on a deep dive, taking pictures of a giant octopus. I smelled ammonia, you know like in Benchleys book. I then saw an octopus with enormous tentacles. I had a camera and starting snapping pictures. Suddenly, it attacked me. My partner [a man] rescued me, but I barely escaped.
Sam associated the dream to a book about a giant squid which attacked and killed divers. He mentioned the myth of Medusa, the quickly changed the subject, making a joke about a painting he saw in Pompei which depicted men with erect penises. The joke appeared to reflect Sams desire for protection from the anxiety the dream engendered, as well as an allusion to hidden, female power.
Oedipal conflicts were likely exacerbated in light of _Sam’s anger toward his father, his sadomasochistic attachment to his mother, and his conflicts about masculine identity. His mothers seductive behaviour may have increased his fear of oedipal victory. Sams family had moved when he was in eighth grade at a time when he “had girlfriends, cheerleader girlfriends and all of a sudden it seemed really promising for me.” He may have interpreted the move as a punishment for his success, as “things were bad” after the move, and his relationships with girls deteriorated. And later, “I went to college and I was having an awful relationship with a woman. I had no money at the time. She liked going out with guys who had money. This was painful for me.
Sams marital relationship may provide a defense against oedipal victory, closeness to women, regression, and loss of manhood. Although he has a number of women friends whose intellect, activities, and interests fascinate him, he has thus far been unable to have intimate relationships with them. Past sexual partners have been much like his wife and his father-fearful and angry persons who overtly undermined Sams sense of masculine worth. Sams self-defeating tendencies are evident in other behaviors which cause him pain. For example, he noted that there were several “things” he did which were “self-destructive, including his alcoholic binges which left him feeling sick and fatigued.
That Sam’s injury also reflected a wish for punishment for sexual desires and a defense against them was suggested in the transference to me. After his recovery from the injury, I was concerned that I might inadvertently play a role in his decision to return prematurely to deep diving. Unconsciously, he might hurt himself in order to gain my approval by providing new data to support my research. I recalled that during our first interview, he had attempted to impress me as he had his father, by displaying his artifact collection and various diving accomplishments. When I asked him about this possibility, he insisted that I had been helpful to him, and he denied that he would consider diving to please me or add to my study.
My question may have facilitated a change in the transference, as indications began to appear in his narrative that I was becoming like the mother with whom he could talk. Relevant here is a dream Sam mentioned having the night before our interview. Although I did not inquire about the content of the dream, he told me that it concerned an old girlfriend and implied that it was sexual. Derivatives of a maternal transference seemed to emerge also in another interview which took place shortly after I accompanied Sam and six male friends on a week-end wreck-diving trip. This was his second dive after the injury and the first one which took place in an uncontrolled ocean environment.
Sam began the interview by describing his hangover. I tried to focus his attention on the dive because I wanted to gather data about how postinjury dives were experienced. He said he had been anxious and interpreted very little physical feeling as a sign of decompression sickness. He then shifted the topic to the telephone conversation in which he asked me to join him and his friends on the dive. During that conversation, he told me that I could sleep alone in the bow if I was uncomfortable sleeping in a bunk across from a man. I assured him that I could sleep wherever it was convenient and did not want to unnecessarily displace men from their bunks. However, it seemed to me that Sams concern about my welfare may have also reflected unconscious feelings he had about me. Part of the interview transcript is reproduced below.
RESEARCHER: Did you mind having me on the boat?
SAM: No, I was angry at Joe changing his dive plan like that [staying underwater longer than planned]. We had to rig up the extra tank with my regulator in case he was entrapped and we had to make a rescue. When I said you could sleep in the bow of the boat by yourself, I felt a little uncomfortable. I didnt know how you would feel sleeping with the guys [8].
RESEARCHER: How I would feel?
SAM: This is my problem. Its not just, “Hey, the guys are on the boat, you can do whatever. Its funny because I have a lot of women friends, and the relationships are platonic. But there is always an attraction there. Like Anne. I thought of inviting her to the bar but then I say, “No, Im married. to be honest, my sex life with my wife isn’t that great. When we were single, we had a great sex life. Things change when you have children. So I had fantasies, I am really struggling with this. I dont want my marriage to fall apart.
Sams fear of oedipal victory may have been more trouble-some in the light of his fathers failures. He admired his fathers medical expertise but was distressed that his success as an athletes doctor was undermined by an inability to get along with colleagues. He was also disappointed when his father failed to fulfil his promise to pursue diving. Sam was introduced to the underwater world when he was a child and his father read him adventure stories “about guys going on grand expeditions, sailing, spearfishing and diving in Australia. They planned to learn to dive together and travel around the world exploring the ocean. As it turned out, his father was afraid of water and could not pursue training, so Sam eventually chose to learn to dive by himself. Sam’s diving skills and achievements are substantial. However, he often lacks an appropriate sense of fear and sometimes “pushes the outside of the envelope, courting disaster. Indeed, even within the context of deep diving subculture, some of this underwater activities were considered excessively risky.

Psychodynamics of risk and injury
This research utilizes previous psychoanalytic finding about the role of the father in boys’ development. Like many boys who suffer paternal abuse or deprivation, Sam appeared to have difficulties modulating aggression and negotiating the maturational crises associated with separation-individuation and disidentification (Abelin, 1971; Greespan, 1982; Herzog, 1982; Muir, 1989; Pacella, 1989; Ross, 1982). This may have resulted in deficiencies in ego development and an unstable sense of himself and his personal wholeness. Bisexual conflicts may remain unresolved, castration fears appear significant, and masculine identity seems to be fragile (Pacella, 1989; Tyson, 1982). Preoedipally rooted sadomasochistic identifications and attachments appear to have complicated Sam’s ability to resolve oedipal conflicts. As a result, he has been unable to have intimate relationships with women and may be repeating the past in ongoing relationships with his wife and male companions.
Sam’s involvement in high-risk diving appears to reflect preoedipal struggles for identity and for power over frightening, phallic women. Deep diving provides a means to prove manhood and gain closeness to and approval from colleagues who are paternal transference figures. Close relationships with male dive partners provide a defense against closeness to women and the oedipal victory, regression, or loss of masculinity that intimacy appears to entail. Sam’s dive injury may also be linked to unresolved oedipal conflicts surrounding his father, constituting an enactment of sadomasochistic fantasies of maternal conquest, patricide, and homosexual submission [9].
Sam’s rage, his need for something from his father, his pervasive sense of badness, and his sadomasochistic identifications with and the attachments to both parents heightened his difficulty in negotiating the conflicts of the oedipal phase. His father’s failures at home and at work and his mother’s seductive behavior made defeat of his father seem ever possible. While the fantasies which structured his involvement in high-risk diving appear to be dominated by early maternal conflicts, the injury itself possibly constituted an enactment of oedipal fantasies. The successful season of diving which preceded the “hit” and his friend’s withdrawal of his promise of money appeared to mobilize feelings of rage and deprivation along with fantasies of conquest and destruction.
Diving may have been symbolically linked to Sam’s secret childhood outings with his mother and sexually tinged relationship between them. Wreck penetration and exploration may have constituted a maternal seduction. There was little symbolic competition for his mother in view of the fact that his father could not dive and was rejected by her. It is possible that murderous impulses were symbolically realized in the act of successful diving and wreck penetration and that Sam viewed himself as a criminal perpetrator of incest and patricide. Fantasized punishments were almost realized in fact, as DCS is a neurological condition which can cause loss of sexual functioning as well as paralysis and death.
Sam’s “hit” also appeared to constitute an attempt to prevent future crimes and personal injury because it provided an external control for his rage. Indeed, Sam confirmed that felt some relief after the accident because it kept him from continuing an activity that had become a dangerous compulsion. If he could no longer dive, he planned to pursue some neglected aspects of his occupational and personal life.
While the injury appeared to constitute a punishment for oedipal crimes, it also may have involved an enactment of a homosexual relationship with his father and masochistic submission to him. By getting hit as an injured athlete, he reproduced their previous “closeness” and attempted to gain his attention. at the same time, he sought to appease his father by offering himself in sacrifice, the victim of a violent sexual attack. Along these lines, Sam recalled an occasion in which colleagues ridiculed another “bent” diver. He compared their behavior to the reaction of police officers to a rape victim in the film, Cape Fear.

The father’s role in risk and injury
Sam’s case may appear extreme in view of the nature of the psychological determinants which make the injury seem an accident waiting to happen. However, many features of his case are not unique and illuminate some dynamics which may be shared by other technical divers. A comparison between Sam’s childhood and that of his colleagues helps clarify some aspects of the psychology of risk and injury. All extended-range divers interviewed experienced major deficiencies in their relationships with their fathers [10]. Some men had fathers who were aloof while they were infants but abusive during childhood, latency, or adolescence. These boys were beaten, verbally abused, humiliated, or made to feel small and inadequate. some of these children consciously hated their fathers. Most appeared to be engaged in lifelong efforts to appease, please, be close to, and defend against attack by or identification with them, partly through involvement in high-risk sports.
The father of one diver became involved with his son as he matured. He taught him manly tasks such as carpentry and was delighted when his son first had sex. However, the diver did not enjoy the time he spent with his father because he would have preferred playing with friends. His father was a tyrant who demanded obedience and beat his son for the slightest offense. The diver recalls boating as the one activity he truly enjoyed with his father. The father was uncomfortable handling boats but liked being a passenger and encouraged his son to learn boating skills. Although the father was “the Captain,” the son was “the pilot” and both took pleasure in ocean expeditions. The diver got married, joined the Air Force and was active in rescue missions during the Vietnam War. He is currently involved in a profession which is linked to boats and rescue.
Other men in the sample were not physically or verbally abused but had fathers who were absent, passive, or sick. One father was a soldier in World War II and hardly saw his infant son. The father showed little interest in the child when he came home despite the boy’s desperate efforts to please him. The father eventually developed a debilitating illness that weakened him and led to his death when his son was eighteen. Throughout his youth, this diver remained attached to the exciting image of the worldly, warrior father but felt he had missed all the adventure. As a young child, he developed a fascination with ships and the “dark” and “dangerous” ocean and would have joined the Navy had his mother not opposed “another man in the family wearing a uniform.” The diver eventually pursued a career in the food industry and devoted his life to deep diving.
Like Sam, a number of deep divers appear to link masculinity to involvement in high-risk activity. this unconscious link between risk-taking and masculinity is given cultural support within the deep diving community. Although injury is often stigmatised, high-risk diving is culturally condoned and rewarded when it is done with skill and competence (Hunt, 1993, 1995). the wreck of the Andrea Doria is considered the Mt. Everest of diving in view of his depth (240 fsw). treacherous ocean environment, size, and abundance of luxury artefacts. Diving the Doria is considered a rite of passage into manhood and “real diver” identity for most extended-range divers. one diver emerged from his first Doria dive and declared to the boat captain that he was “no longer a virgin”. another diver was wings (buoyancy control device) and tanks to slip through an iron grate placed by the crew of a competitor boat. He wanted to get inside the wreck and retrieve some dishes.
Like Sam, a number of deep divers appear to be angry men, some of whom have trouble controlling aggression. Their rage may be thinly concealed beneath affectless silences and subtle enactments or overtly displayed in tantrums. One diver could be warm and charming, particularly when aboard a dive boat. However, he had a “mean streak” and an explosive temper and would verbally abuse employees who challenged his authority or did something “stupid.” Telephone conversations with his mother would leave him in a particularly angry and vulnerable mood. Another diver was extremely reserved and displayed neither warmth nor charm. He engaged in few conversations during dive expeditions, went to sleep before pornographic or other films were shown, and spent most of his predive hours reading a book. He also kept a large poster on the wall of his home which advocated capital punishment and depicted an electric chair and other execution paraphernalia.
A number of extended-range divers appear to share preoedipal conflicts which they defend against through latent homosexual attachment to each other. Although several divers experienced homosexual liaisons in late adolescence, this is highly exceptional. such fantasies ordinarily remain unconscious and are evident in cultural jokes, homophobic attitudes, and preference for male companionship [11]. Diving appears to provide a means to gain freedom from female dominance and control. One diver associated a dream he had the night before his first Doria dive to an occasion in which he lost his wedding band. He went on to discuss tensions his marriage which revolved around his wife’s desire o limit his diving activities.
Although some deep divers have closed relationships, a number of them seem to share Sam’s ambivalence and choose women who do not like men. One diver’s wife “accidentally” put chlorine in their swimming pool when he was soaking his gear. She knew the chlorine damaged dive equipment, another diver’s woman friend abandoned her agreed-upon dive buddy role and left him stranded inside a dark wreck. She was supposed to stay at the ship’s exit to guide his return and monitor dive time in case there was trouble. A third woman decided not to do a dive on the Andrea Doria after having a dream in which her husband died on his dive. While they were known to have a tumultuous relationship in which fighting was frequent, she was particularly angry during this trip, in part because he had refused to dive with her, claiming it would be a sacrifice in view of his superior skills.
A male diver and Vietnam veteran was an honest and honorable person, treated women divers well, was a good provider to his family, and would never tolerate the physical abuse of women and children. However, his relationship with his wife was ambivalent, and he was often angry at her. He particularly resented her for his decision to sacrifice his career interests to keep the family together. this man had a sticker of a bull’s-eye target placed in the toilet bowl in the head (bathroom) of his boat which depicted Jane Fonda (“Hanoi Jane”) with her legs spread open.
Another diver was emotionally abusive to his woman friend, gave her the “silent treatment” for days on end, and threatened to withdraw his “love” if she did not participate in his dangerous leisure activities. Once when she displeased him by displaying a lack of enthusiasm for a selfish gift, became enraged and really charming at first. These guys [deep divers] are not nice men. They really hate women. Sam? He’s too nice a guy to be doing this kind of diving”
Sexual activities of deep divers vary considerably, and it is difficult without comparative data to determine distinctive patterns. Several claimed to prefer “straight sex” and had only one or two affairs during long marriages. Two divers were promiscuous or said they had “open” marriages. Four others acknowledged engaging in perverse or sadomasochistic sexual practices, which may have reflected negative oedipal and preoedipal conflicts. These activities included specific role-playing games, lingerie configurations (heels, hose, and garter belt during intercourse), and painless forms of bondage. Two divers appeared to be passive partners and seemed to prefer oral sex or masturbatory activity to sexual intercourse.
Another diver’s sadomasochistic attachment to and fear of women made an appearance in the transference and counter-transference during interviews. As soon as the diver entered my office, he requested that I fix him some tea. His request was unusual, and as I let him into the kitchen and prepared the drink, I felt somewhat intruded upon. His request may have reflected his need to know what was hidden behind my closed door, a possible derivative of his deeper fears of women. did he want me to feed him tea and crumpets as I later discovered his mother had done? The man was an alcoholic, owned a restaurant, and wrote for a food magazine. perhaps he was also trying to dominate me by putting me in the roles of servant and mother. I knew that he treated his woman friend poorly and learned that they routinely engaged in painless sadomasochistic sexual practices.
when the diver sat down, he displayed paranoia by protesting the fact that his back faced the door, claiming he didn’t like surprises. He mentioned a time when he was in therapy (three sessions). The woman therapist apparently engaged in a game of “musical chairs”, a “trick” to see which chair he would choose, his or hers. The diver the looked intently at my breasts knowing full well his actions were obvious. He began to describe how much he loved women and enjoyed their sensuality, an emphatic statement that I suspected was a reaction formation against his hatred of them (me).
The diver proceeded to try to appease me by telling me what he thought I wanted to hear, including a conscious memory of sexual wishes toward his mother when he was about five. I interpreted to him his desire to please, to which he responded by saying that he didn’t know what I wanted in the interview. His partner had urged him to come, saying that I had been helpful to him [12].
The diver arranged our interview schedule in a manner similar to the way he conducted his first dive on the Andrea Doria. He had barrelled down the anchor line without pause or self-reflection and had suddenly found himself in a dangerous situation which led him to panic. The diver requested that we have four consecutive interviews of about three hours each, rather than one for one and a half hours once or twice a week for three to six weeks.
Our last interview terminated with a surprise confession about his son, which revealed the man’s hostility, insecurity about his masculinity, and inability to empathize with his son. he had his son were separated as a result of difficult ocean conditions. after a search the diver and the boat captain found the terrified boy clinging to a rock. He had apparently almost drowned. the diver did not appear to understand that his son was frightened and could have died. instead, he urged his son to get back in the water almost immediately. The boy refused and never went diving again. The father felt deeply ashamed and angry because the boy had displayed cowardice in front of the boat captain. I identified with the son and was left feeling chilled and uneasy. I found the diver frightening and did not particularly like him.
Diving folklore and war stories appear to reveal the existence of common struggles to control and subjugate “dangerous” women or their symbolic equivalents. Many deep divers engage in spearfishing activities at some point in their careers. Others share a disinterest in marine life and find “tidy bowl” (Caribbean) diving boring. Deep divers tend to view sea creatures in a more threatening light than do recreational divers. Accounts of divers “hanging” back to minimize shark attacks while doing mandatory decompression stops are typical [13]. A “short story” with a similar symbolic content was circulated among extended-range divers during a trip to the Andrea Doria. It involved a fantasy of cave penetration in which two male partners fought bloodsucking bats and vampire-like creatures.

Conclusion
Psychoanalysis is a science of retrospective construction rather than prediction. Children who experience similar patterns of parenting will manage their conflicts in different ways depending on biological disposition, family position, class, gender, and a multiplicity of other social and psychological factors. Some boys with sadomasochistic maternal and paternal attachments become delinquents, alcoholics, or drug addicts. Others choose professions and leisure and sport activities which allow them to handle conflict in culturally acceptable ways. Involvement in a particular occupation or sport or leisure activity is often rooted in early childhood. Sport divers’ interest in water, boats, or diving usually begins by latency. Extended-range diving becomes a special arena in which some men appear to enact and attempt to master conflicts rooted in early experience with absent or abusive fathers.
Subcultures provide opportunities for socialization which facilitate the enactment of certain fantasies among vulnerable individuals. They also provide ready defenses against the emergence of unpleasant fantasies and affects. While each individual within a culture has a particular set of fantasies and feelings which is unique to him or her, there is self-selection to join subcultures which are populated by persons with similar conflicts, particularly among those who share childhood experiences. While this paper focuses on the case of one diver and his particular affects and thoughts, it also describes some features of this diver’s fantasies that may be shared by other subculture members.
Further research is necessary to examine the implications of this study for other occupational, sport, and leisure activities in which risk is a dominant feature. There are indications that divers and elite athletes involved in high-risk, high-injury sports share some patterns of parenting and may be enacting similar fantasies. The more risky and violent the sport, the more likely do issue of bisexuality, masculinity, aggression, and sadomasochism appear to influence and individual’s sport participation.
Like divers, most elite athletes display interest in their chosen sport in early childhood (Messner, 1990a, 1990b). Fathers often play an active and critical role in athletes’ choice of sport and the nature of their involvement (Bissinger, 1990; Messner, 1990b). In cases where fathers are absent, brothers, uncles, and community members confirm the link between masculinity and athletic achievement. Sports provide a special means through which these men gain closeness to and approval from their fathers and male colleagues (Curry, 21993; Messner 1990b). Fathers also appear to play a key role in athletes’ acceptance of pain and injury (Connell, 1990; Messner, 1990b; Sabo and Panepinto, 1990).
A number of studies of high-injury sports report cases in which fathers of athletes support the fantasy that manliness, “real athlete” identity, and physical sacrifice are linked. They may display their “love” for their sons by minimizing the seriousness of their injuries and encouraging them to p0lay with pain (Curry, 1993). in one case, a father colluded with his son’s efforts to hide his use of steroids, apparently because they made him more competitive (Telander, 1989). Some players seem to repeat sadomasochistic paternal attachments in relationships with coaches who also support the use of performance-enhancing drugs or encourage their athletes from deprived and fatherless homes because he believed they were more malleable and would be willing to sacrifice themselves to the game (Bayless, 1990).
This research has emphasized the conflictual dimensions of sport diving. However, it should be noted that deep diving takes considerable commitment and skill and can be a relatively conflict-free, creative endeavor. like artists and elite athletes, deep divers may engage in efforts to attain symbolic immortality through substantial achievements which challenge human physical, intellectual, and cultural boundaries (Schmitt and Leonard, 1988). Deep divers like Sam often combine a rich intelligence and intellectual curiosity with considerable physical and technical skill to become underwater explorers of history and alternative worlds.

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NOTES:
I am grateful to Sam and the other divers who shared their thoughts and allowed me into their world: Howard Silbert read an early draft of this manuscript and made constructive suggestions.
[1] The definition of recreational diving in the United States was initially determined on the basis of how long a diver could stay underwater with a single 72 cubic foot tank of air. The United States instructional literature suggests that divers are “recreational” or “no-stop” if they are above 130 fsw (feet of sea water) for ten minutes or less because the diver can theoretically make a direct ascent to the surface without the mandatory in-water decompression required by deeper and/or longer dives.
[2] Nitrogen narcosis is a toxic mental state in which rational thinking is undermined, and anxiety, paranoia, and hallucinations can result. It usually becomes apparent at depths below 130 fsw, although cold, low visibility, fatigue, sickness, medication, or drugs can induce its effects at shallower depths.
[3]When divers have violated decompression tables or are “bent”, they are administered oxygen to facilitate nitrogen “off-gassing”. If symptoms develop, persist, or intensify, they are usually sent to a recompression chamber.
[4] It is dangerous to dive with too much equipment because it can increase drag, limit mobility, facilitate “task Loading” and confuse the diver. For example, divers have died when they have mixed up their regulators and breathed oxygen at depth rather than air, nitrox, or trimix.
[5] I suspect that this “premature” countertransference observation was connected to my conscious worry that my research could cause Sam Harm. Ironically, my efforts to write about risk and injury in order to prevent additional deaths is tied to the observation and exploration of risk and injury. Thus, my data depends on divers talking about and putting themselves at risk.
[6] Although Sam had been medically “cleared” for diving in the sense that he had only very mild residual symptoms, no doctor will advocate diving after a serious hit. Data exist suggesting that a diver who has been “bent” is more likely to get bent again. Sam had been told that if the sustained a second serious hit, it would be devastating because he had no more physical resources to compensate for lost neurological functions.
[7] A well-known deep diver wrote an article about the seduction and dangers of diving the Andrea Doria. He noted that “come spring of each year the sirens which haunt the Doria sing and I find myself committed to another trip.” He entitled the article “Andrea Doria: A Silent Lady Calls” (Lackenmeyer, 1994).
[8] Women comprise about 76% of the population of recreational divers, most of whom dive in warm water. No more than 1% of deep divers are women and few women dive cold-water wreck in the Northeast even at recreational depths. Typically, any woman present on an overnight trip shares space with men, although every effort is made to avoid the sharing of double bunks by men and women who are not lovers. In the dive discussed. I slept in the cabin on a bunk across from two of Sam’s friends. Sam and the other men slept in bunks on the deck.
[9] I do not mean to minimize the role of Sam’s mother in the evolution of this risk-taking. According to Sam, she was a seductive woman who appeared to be ambivalent about her husband. However, her tendency to keep Sam close was likely enhanced by his father’s hostility toward him and the tensions that were apparent in the marriage.
[10] Divers’ relationships with their mothers varied. However, there is some indication that divers who experienced seductive mothering as well as absent, abusive, or passive fathering have an increased propensity toward injury and/or panic.
[11] Interviews with homosexual male divers have just begun. Initial observations of and discussion with homosexual divers suggest that gay men be less prone to engage in high-risk underwater activities than their heterosexual peer. It should be noted that openly homosexual men would not be welcome on a boat that specializes in technical diving; therefore men who are “out of the closet” are less likely to be exposed to the kind of socialization that pressures them into deep diving.
[12] The partner was concerned that the diver would get himself killed because he had a tendency to rush into a dangerous situation without thinking.
[13] It should be noted that this of sharks has foundation in really as sharks are sometimes a threat to deep divers.

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