Freud and Psychoanalytical

Theory

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

• Austrian Psychologist • Founded the clinical practice of psychoanalysis

to treat psychopathology in patients through dialogue

• Investigated the interaction of conscious and unconscious elements in the mind

– Repressed fears and conflicts are brought into the conscious and faced openly, instead of remaining buried in the unconscious

• The Unconscious is a dimension of the human mind that is only partially accessible to consciousness

• Repository of repressed desires, memories, and instinctual drives – Many have to

do with sexuality and violence

Dreams• The unconscious often

expresses itself in dreams • Express wishes or desires that

cannot be expressed consciously because they go against society

• Dreams distort the unconscious material and makes it more acceptable towards the conscious

Defense Mechanisms

• psychic procedures for avoiding painful admissions or recognitions

• Screen Memory – inconsequential memory whose function is to obliterate a more significant one

• Freudian Slip – repressed material in the unconscious finds an outlet through slips of the tongue, slips of the pen, or unintended actions

Repression and Sublimation

• Repression – Forgetting or ignoring of unresolved

conflicts, unadmitted desires, or traumatic past events

– Forced out of the conscious into the unconscious

• Sublimation– Repressed material is promoted into

something grander or is disguised as something noble (religious experiences, art, etc…)

Displacement and Condensation

• Displacement – One person or event is

represented by another, which is in some way linked to or associated with it

– Because of similar sounding word or symbolic substitution

• Condensation– A number of people, events, or

meanings are combined and represented by a single image in the dream

Displacement and Condensation II

• They disguise the repressed fears and wishes contained in the dream

• Gets past the censor that prevents wishes and fears from surfacing into the conscious mind

• They fashion fears and dreams into images, symbols, and metaphors

Transference and Projection

• Transference– The patient under

psychoanalysis redirects the emotions recalled towards the psychoanalyst

• Projection– When aspects of ourselves

are not recognized as part of ourselves

– Rather they or perceived in or attributed to another

3 Part Model of the Psyche

• Ego – has to manage the demands of the superego, while resisting the desires of the id

• Id – inappropriate desires and impulses

• Superego – the conscience or what society deems acceptable

Sexuality

Begins at infancy, not puberty 3 stages

Oral Anal Phallic

Libido – energy drive associated with sexual desire Eros – life instinct Thanatos – death instinct

Oedipus Complex

• Male infant desires to eliminate the father and become the sexual partner of the mother

• Only the father’s intervention prevents incest

• Male infant gives up sexual attraction to mother and identifies with father

• Learns to desire other women other than the mother

Homosexuality and Women

• Freudian theory based upon heterosexual men

• Negative views of women – Sexuality based on

feelings of narcissism, masochism, and passivity

– Penis envy: women suffer from an innate form of inferiority complex

Psychoanalytic Criticism

• The unconscious (like a poem, novel, or play) cannot speak directly and explicitly

• Speaks through images, symbols, and metaphors

• Literature expresses experience through imagery, symbolism, and metaphor

Psychoanalytic Critics Give central importance to the distinction between the

conscious and unconscious mind Pay close attention to unconscious motives and feelings

Those of the author Those of the characters

Demonstrate the presence of psychoanalytic symptoms, conditions, or phrases Oral, anal, phallic stages Oedipus Complex Defense Mechanisms