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PSYCHOANALYTIC CRITICISM Psychoanalytic Criticism is a form of applied psychoanalysis, a science concerned with the interaction of conscious and unconscious processes. It is different from Psychotherapy which concerns itself treating mental illnesses and behavior problems; many Psychotherapist may use Psychoanalysis in their work. Freud did not discover the unconscious. Plato, Nietzsche, Bergson, and many talked about it, Freud did the most with it. It is with Freud that Neo-Freudians, post- Freudians, anti- Freudians have to come to grips with. Concepts here, apply to the media that will help understand how they work, and affect us. Freud was most interested in helping people, he also wrote on many other subjects such as folklore, humor, and theatrepointing the way towards the development of Psychoanalytic Criticism. A keystone in psychoanalytic theory is that of the unconscious. We are not aware of everything that is going on in our minds, only a small portion of our mental life is accessible to us. Our mind can be represented to

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the iceberg. A tip of the iceberg that is seen above the water si what we are conscious of; remainder (greatest part) lies buried underneath. It is not seen, still there. This means that we are not in complete control of ourselves all the time. We are affected in ways we cannot fathom, and do things for reasons we do not understand or will not admit to ourselves consequently, becoming vulnerable to other kinds of non-rational, emotional and irrational appeals. Why is it we do not become conscious of all that is going on in our minds? Why does all these material elude us? Why is it our minds play tricks on us? Freud explains this as: W repress materials because we do not want, for a variety of reasons, to become conscious of it. It would cause us pain and guilt hence we create a barrier between our consciousness and our unconscious and do not allow repressed material through it. Ernest Dichter, is one of the founding fathers of motivation research. Motivation research tries to discover unconscious and the real reasons that people do things so that manufacturers can better shape peoples behavior. Ditchter and other motivation researchers mine the unconscious. For example the ways in which the unconscious desires and forces operate for cigarette lighters: the reliability of a lighter is important because it is integrally connected with the basic (here, unconscious) reason for using a lighter. The basic reason why people use lighter (is) the desire for mastery and power. The capacity to summon fire inevitably gives every human being, child or grownup, sense of power. Reasons go far back into mans history. Fire and the ability to command it are prized because they are associated not only with warmth but also with the life itself. Attested by the Greek legend of Prometheus and other myths the ability to control fire is as age-old symbol of mans conquest of the physical world he inhabits. A cigarette lighter provides conspicuous evidence of this ability to summon fire. The ease and speed with which the lighter works enhances the feeling of power. The failure of a lighter is not just embarrassment but frustrates a desire for a deep seated desire for a feeling of mastery and control (1964,341). Cigarette lighters, are important to people because they take care of powerful but unconscious strivings and needs they have. At a deeper level there is something that is connected with the lighters. Dichter explains that the working of the lighter becomes a kind of the flame which must be lit in consuming sexual union (1964,341). SEXUALITY Freuds view of sexuality have mistaken notions of what he believed and also because we all tend to be extremely sensitive about this area. We all resist intrusions into our personal and private aspects, repress. Freud described the force by which sexual instinct is represented in the mind as the libido. Libido refers to various kinds of sensual pleasures and gratifications we can obtain. According to Freud each one passes through 4 stages during development: the oral, anal, phallic, genital. The Encyclopedia of Psychoanalysis describes the stages as: The mouth represents an erotogenic zone for the infant. Sucking and later eating represent gratification of oral needs. Second stage is referred to as sadistic-anal characterized by infants interest in excreting or retaining stools. Third stage the boy and girl get interested in their genitals. Boys interest in his genital appears to be responsible for his positive Oedipus complex which is finally dissolved. Fourth stage is achieved during puberty. THE OEDIPUS COMPLEX According to psychoanalytic theory we all pass through stage when we desire the opposite sex parent; at an unconscious level. Most individuals master the complexes. In little boys this mastery is aided by an unconscious fear of castration that takes hold of them-castration anxiety-and in girls by jealousy of men and what is termed as penis envy.

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According to Freudian theory, little boys sexualize love for their mother and wish to displace their fathers and monopolize mothers affection. Fear of retaliation by their father lead them to renounce their love of their mothers to identify with the masculinity of their fathers; re-channel their love outside the family and direct the interest toward other females. With little girls, they do not relinquish Oedipal desires as quickly as boys do. It lingers much longer. Girls fear loss of love by their parents and avoid this loss by re-identifying with their mothers and turning eventually to other males as a means of obtaining babies. Related complexes: Heracles complex- characterized by hatred of father for his children as seen as rivals for him toward his wife. Jocasta complex- is an over attachment of mother to her son that can sometimes extend to into an incestual relationships. One of the ways that children deal with these complexes is by listening to fairly tales, identifying with the heroes and heroines. Fairy tales help children cope with difficulties of life as well as . with the psychological difficulties they experience. Fairy tales speak of human personality, communicating in such a manner that reaches the uneducated mind of the child as well as the sophisticated adult (Bettleheim,1977). Fairy tales relieve the preconscious and unconscious pressures enabling development happen. Star Wars is a modernized fairy tale about a princess in distress and a young man who rescue her. The relationship of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader is an oedipal one. We empathize with all heroes and heroines; unconsciously we recognize their battles as ours. ID, EGO, AND SUPER-EGO: Freuds Structural Hypothesis Id, Ego, Super-ego is Freuds Structural Hypothesis about mental functioning. Id comprises of the representatives of the drives. Ego consists of functions which have to do with the individuals relation to his environment Super-ego comprises of moral precepts of the mid and the ideal aspirations. Id is present from birth, ego and superego differentiated and warrants being separate entities. The Id takes over from instinctual needs and gives them mental expressions, operates on pleasure principle. These include the sexual desires, passion, lust, desire. Ego tries to mediate between ego and superego. It operates to self-preserve, by storing experiences in memory, avoiding excessive strong stimuli, and bring change by activity. Super-ego corresponds is usually referred to as the conscience. It comprises the moral functioning of the personality. Functions of the super-ego are: 1. The approval or disapproval of actions and wishes on the grounds of rectitude, 2. Critical self-observation, 3. Self-punishment, 4. the demand for reparation or repentance 5. Self-praise or self-love as a reward for virtuous or desirable thoughts and actions (Brenner, 1974, 111-112). Examples to identify Id, Ego, Super-ego Star Trek Spock is an Ego figure McCoy is the Id figure

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Kirk (Church in German) is a Superego figure Spock the emotionless Vulcan represents pure rationality Kirk the commander decides what to do McCoy is emotional and operates on feelings. Superman, Dick Tracy, Luke Skywalker, caped crusaders are super-ego figures. James Bond, Indiana Jones, are complicated having id and ego than super-ego. Villains are most often id and lack super-ego development and only interest in gratifying their desires. They may be intelligent and shrewd but lack sense of right and wrong. New shows, TV programs, documentaries are ego texts. Issues concerning police, spirituality, religion, are super-ego. Soap operas, films involving sexuality are id. Though it is not always easy to label as one or the other! SYMBOLS Symbols are things that stand for other things, many of which are hidden or not obvious. A symbol can stand for an institution, a mode of thought, an idea, and a wish. Heroes and heroines are symbolic and can be interpreted in terms of all things they stand for. Symbols are the keys that enable us to unlock the doors shielding our unconscious feelings, beliefs from scrutiny. Symbols are messages from our unconscious. We mask our unconscious sexual and aggressive desires by symbolization which enables us to escape guilt from super-ego. Symbols are classified as: conventional, accidental, universal Conventional: symbols are words we learn that stand for things. Accidental symbols are personal, private, and connected to someones life history. A person may have fallen in love in Paris so Paris may be his or her accidental symbol for love. Universal symbols are relationships between symbol and what is symbolized is intrinsic or rooted in experiences. The logic beyond symbolization is not the same as logic we use in our everyday reasoning processes. A comparison made between dreams and mass-media productions: dreams tend to be visual, so compared to media such as films, TV and the comics. Just as dreams can be interpreted so can cinema using the symbolic content. For both common questions asked are: What is going on? What disguises are there? What gratification do we get? What do the various symbolic heroes and heroines tell us about ourselves and our societies? DEFENSE MECHANISM Defense mechanisms are various techniques employed by the ego to control instincts and ward off anxieties. We each use any of the defense mechanisms. Similarly, what the media brings us involves human beings in various kinds of relationships so many characters we see can be interpreted in terms of defense mechanisms. Their behavior makes more sense to us when we can relate to the defenses people use to maintain their equilibrium. Brief descriptions of the defense mechanisms:

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Ambivalence: Simultaneous feeling of love and hate or attraction and repulsion toward the same person or
object. These alternate rapidly in those who wish to gratify contradictory wishes.

Avoidance: Refusal to become involved with subjects that are distressing because they are connected to unconscious sexual or aggressive impulses. Denial or Disavowal: is the refusal to accept reality and to act as if a painful event, thought or feeling did
not exist. It is considered one of the most primitive of the defense mechanisms because it is characteristic of very early childhood development. Denying that your physician's diagnosis of cancer is correct and seeking a second opinion

Fixation: Preoccupation or attachment to something, generally the result of traumatic experience. Identification: Desire to become like someone in some aspect of thought or behavior. Intellectualization: avoiding unacceptable emotions by focusing on the intellectual aspects. Projection: placing unacceptable impulses in yourself onto someone else, when losing an argument, you
state "You're just stupid."

Reaction formation: taking the opposite belief because the true belief causes anxiety, having a bias against
a particular race or culture and then embracing that race or culture to the extreme

Repression: is the blocking of unacceptable impulses from consciousness. Rationalization: is the cognitive reframing of ones perceptions to protect the ego in the face of changing
realities. Thus, the promotion one wished fervently for and didn't get becomes "a dead end job for brown noses and yes men".

Regression: returning to a previous stage of development. Sitting in a corner and crying after hearing bad
news; throwing a temper tantrum when you don't get your way

Sublimation: acting out unacceptable impulses in a socially acceptable way. Sublimating aggressive
impulses toward a career as a boxer; becoming a surgeon because of your desire to cut; lifting weights to release 'pent up' energy

Suppression: trying to forget something that causes you anxiety In Space Invaders one flies through open skies zapping invading aliens. There is freedom to fly about and the game is phallic. In Pac-Man is in an enclosed area and one attacks by eating. Aggression here is oral. Regression is from the phallic (guns), to the oral (biting) as a means of fighting. A change from freedom to race around the skies to confinement in a maze. From a development perspective PacMan is regressive.

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Defense mechanisms can be applied to the behavior of characters of films, TV programs and other texts. When ego or id drives threaten the ego, generating anxiety the ego uses whatever it can to neutralize the id. DREAMS Dreams are like films and television productions in that they are made up of images, and have a narrative structure and sometimes hard to fathom. Dreams according to Erich Fromm are wishes expressed as being fulfilled when our conscious control is weakened as is the case in sleep. We do not allow ourselves to dream of certain things i.e. a censorial agent works that prevents the forbidden thoughts to appear undisguised. Symbols help us sneak the forbidden material by our internal censor. Most of these symbols are sexual; Erich Fromm points out a few: male genital symbolized as stick, tree, umbrella, knife, etc indicated by shape or function. Female genital represented as caves, bottles, boxes, jewel cases, flowers etc. Sexual pleasure s activities like dancing, riding, climbing, flying. Father and mother symbolized as by king and queen or emperor or empress, children as little animals, death as a journey. Dream symbols strike many as absurd; to see pencil and cigars as sexual symbols. Psychoanalysts explain the behavior as repression the refusal to acknowledge ones sexuality and others aspects of the psyche. Analyzing dreams is more difficult: the elements stand for their opposites, manifest dream is not a coherent narrative but a series of disconnected images. A dream thus represents a formidable problem to the analyst, who must understand how dreams disguise and distort things and be able to relate to what is found in dreams to the dreamers personal life. In the same manner much of what the media brings us can be looked upon as similar to a dream. We must look at distortion and disguises. We must concern ourselves with the unconscious and with censorship. We must relate what we discover with dreamers biography and his/her social situations. And intervening is the psyche of the creator and interpreters of the work of art, making the situation complicated. AGGRESSION & GUILT Freud suggests that aggressiveness is instinctual, but secondary to more basic instincts. Aggressiveness threatens to disrupt or even destroy society and civilization so a powerful force is brought into play. This force is guilt, which Freud explains is aggression turned back on itself. As a matter of fact Freud argues that we are made to feel guilty that at times we become overwhelmed with guilt and forfeit our sense of happiness. The cost of civilization is generally too great for us; we are forced to renounce too much (especially our sexuality) and we suffer from too much guilt. This is where humor comes in, for humor is a means we have evolved to allow us to enjoy certain kinds of aggression by masking them and evading guilt feelings. PSYCHOANALYTIC ANALYSIS OF MEDIA: A CAUTIONARY NOT Subject as vast and complicated as psyche poses enormous problems to a writer who wants ot suggest how psychoanalytic concepts can be applied to media. Psychoanalysis is either oversimplified or reduced. One needs to know the fundamental concepts in psychoanalytic literature and then apply it to the media. The new can understand how it helps us know about motivation, perhaps see our reactions to what we read, see and hear. Because there are so many competing schools of psychoanalytic thought and because the general public which is not familiar with many of the concepts used by psychoanalytic thinkers is so often hostile to these concepts, psychoanalytic criticism is a difficult pursuit.

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