what is psychoanalysis? a medical practice: the “talking cure” founded and developed by...
TRANSCRIPT
What is psychoanalysis?
a medical practice: the “talking cure”
founded and developed by Austrian neurologist, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Literary psychoanalysis
psychoanalysis or “psychoanalytic theory” is also an established interpretive approach to literature and film
a methodology for reading and interpreting texts and films
cultural texts are – like patients’ dream narratives – full of signs which we, the reader / interpreter – like the psychoanalyst – must decipher
Freud and literature
Freud often used literary ancestors to embellish his medical case studies
a reading of Oedipus The King (Athenian tragedy by Sophocles, 429 BC) underpins his theory of the Oedipus complex
his theory of das Unheimliche, “the uncanny” is based on his reading of the German Romantic writer E.T.A. Hoffmann’s work Der Sandmann, 1816
What are the basic tenets of psychoanalysis?
events in early childhood determine our personality (e.g. the Oedipus Complex)
human behaviour and experience is often driven by irrational drives
these drives remain unconscious
Basic tenets of psychoanalysis
repression is the force that keeps the drives unconscious
nevertheless the drives exert influence on human experience and behaviour
this can make people “sick”: neurotic, psychotic, anxious, depressed
Cure?
the way to resolve the disturbance of the drives is to access the unconscious under the guidance of a psychoanalyst
psychoanalysis helps to bring the repressed into the conscious mind where it can be made sense of cognitively
in other words the repressed becomes “narrativized” in therapy
On the couch: a session with a psychoanalyst
Click icon to add picture
Psychoanalysis and the modern self
an important development in Western concepts of the modern self
this self is divided between conscious and unconscious forces
the self is a battle ground for unresolved repressed drives
Freud’s timeliness
a timely theory for Freud’s era (late 19th and early 20th centuries)
Victorian era – known for sexual repression and strict moral codes
Freud’s theory comments on this and heralds a new era and a new subjectivity: the modern self
Anti-rational
Freud is also radical in that he restores the body to Western philosophy
modern Western philosophy since Descartes (Early Modern era) and the Enlightenment (Kant) based on reason and rationality
René Descartes 1596-1650
Je pense, ainsi je suis
Ich denke, also bin ich
I think, therefore I am
Mind/reason v body/unreason
precedence of mind (rationality and reason) over body (lower order)
body: secondary to reason, not the essential part of the individual’s identity
Return of the body
Freud restores the body to Western thought through his theory of the drives
central position of sexual desire which society compels us to repress from the earliest point
we are sexual physical beings; we can be aggressive and violent
Pyschoanalysis and secularisation
Freud’s view modifies the idea of man as a noble creature apart from the animal world
he thus undermines the Biblical idea of man being made in God’s likeness
“God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them”. (Genesis 1:27)
Psychoanalysis and evolutionary biology
influence of Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (1859), foundational text of evolutionary biology
principle of natural selection (survival of the fittest)
“On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life” (full title)
Important points to note
the conscious and unconscious minds are not two separate halves of one mind
Freud does not mean to present us with an “upstairs / downstairs” model of the mind
it is more useful to think of the mind as a forcefield comprised of mutually co-determining conscious thoughts and unconscious drives
in short, the mind is a battleground for these forces
sometimes the unconscious drives will have the upper hand….
Dream theory
one of Freud’s most famous examples of when the drives have the upper hand is in his theory of dreams
the mind is resting – in sleep mode – so repression and censorship relax….
repressed thoughts can thus rise to the surface – often referred to as “the return of the repressed”
A Freudian slip by President George H.W. Bush
"For seven and a half years I've worked alongside President Reagan. We've had triumphs. Made some mistakes. We've had some sex... uh... setbacks."
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar