Psychoanalysis Criticism: Part 1 Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

Patterns of behaviour

How adolescent and adult behaviour is patterned by early childhood experiences

Conscious

What we are aware of and remember

Unconscious

A storehouse of suppressed memories, painful experiences, wounds, fears, guilt, guilty desires and unresolved conflicts Accessible through dreams & perhaps hypnosis

Id or libido

Animal instinct and desire-results in pleasure It is an unconscious driving force in the human psyche It operates on the pleasure principle, narcissism (excessive interest in self ) and hedonism (pleasure is the highest good and human aim).

Ego

The referee between id and super ego, the conscious self It is manifested as the conscious self. It has no conscious access to the id or the superego.

Super ego

Morality religion- breaking rules results in guilt

Ingrained into the subconscious through the process of socialization from childhood.

BASIC CONCEPTS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS

Repression Oedipal conflict Defense mechanisms Anxiety Imagery Drives

Repression

The expunging from consciousness of the unhappy psychological events mentioned above which shapes current experiences and behaviour. Unconscious repression current experiences
we hang on to them distorted, disguised and in self-defeating ways

Defense mechanisms

Defenses are the processes by which the contents of our unconscious are kept in the unconscious ie keeping the repressed in order to avoid knowing what we feel we cannot handle knowing. Eg. Selective perception, selective memory, denial, avoidance (eg. Fear of intimacy), displacement, projection (ascribing our fears and problems to someone else and condemning them for it.)

Displacement

Transferring ones anger or fears towards someone onto another person Governed by the subconscious Not known to the conscious self

Anger Displacement

Oedipal conflict (Oedipus Complex)

Competition with the parent of the same gender for the attention and affection of the parent of the opposite gender. Boys identify with their fathers and girls with their mothers once they become aware of their gender Compete for the affections of the parent of the opposite gender

Anxiety

Happens when our defenses momentarily breaks down. Anxiety the return of the repressed. Cause stressful situations Eg. phobias

Dreams

Using safe content to represent the repressed. Latent content process of displacement and condensation (primary revision) manifest content. We may forget certain parts of dream when we are awake or remember the events and subjects differently, this is called secondary revision.

Phallic symbols

Anything that resembles the penis eg. Towers, guns, rockets, arrows, swords, fruits, trees, aeroplanes etc. Often manifested in dream state or in a disguised form Represents power

Female imagery

Anything that resembles the womb. Caves, rooms, containers, bottles, water. Breasts milk, fruit etc. Manifested in disguised forms

Trauma

A painful experience that scars us psychologically. Affects how we perceive the world and react to it.

Death drive/ Thanatos

Self destructive behaviour. Opposite of eros ie sex fulfillment Often due to an unconscious form of self-hatred due to something that is subconscious (repressed)

Fears
Fear of intimacy no attachment, no loss Eg. Fear and avoidance of positive relationships Phobias Transferred into consciousness in disguised forms

Penis Envy

The desire for male organ by females- desire for power Starts in childhood transferred into more complex forms in adulthood Overcompensation in adulthood hunger for power and control

Castration anxiety

Fear of the loss of power Experienced by males Results due to the comparison of the presence of a penis in the male child and the lack of it in females Over compensating behaviour by males

Psychoanalysis: Part 2 Jacques Lacan 1901-1981

Jacques Lacan

Some Basic Assumptions - there is no separation between self and society -personality is not the mind but the whole being -persons psychology cannot be separated from personal history -the unconscious resembles language and is implicitly manifested in all out actions

Stages of Development

-child sees self as an appendage of the mother - mirror stage child recognizes the reflection in mirror is an image -recognizes that the self is different and separate from others

Oedipus Complex

- the pivot of humanization or a transition from a natural register of life to a cultural register of group that includes laws, language and organization that Lacan calls the name of the father which is the Law - this is the moment of symbolic castration i.e the separation from the mother

Lacans Planes of Reality

The Imaginary Order (pre Oedipal Stage) The Symbolic Order (after the moment of symbolic castration and structured by language) The Real Order (the reality that we can never know-) Note: human nature for Lacan is impossible to know in its pure state because it is always mediated through language

Need, Desire & Demand

Need biological, like hunger Desire arises out of the lack of satisfaction Demand a means of revealing desire All three are interrelated eg.1 A child cries for milk, to have its need satisfied but it also wants or desires the mothers love at the same time

Desire & Demand

Demand is partly determined by the response of the other to the demand Eg.2 A child cries mother gives chocolate- the child can never know if the response was for satisfying its hunger or as an act of love Eg.3 Anorexic girls wants or desires love but is given food instead, so the demand continues

Demand & Desire

A demand is a means of revealing desire but it is oblique (not going straight to the point) Desire is a desire for the Other (what is not there and something that could be given only to us- but there is no such object) but it has to be interpreted. So, it is the disappointment of demand that is the basis of the growth of desire. Desire only leads to desire.

dEcOnStRuCtIoN
jacqueS derridA 2004 1930

.logocentrisM

No transcendental signified Our everyday sense of reality is based on

logocentric thought where the values and

reasons are based on equated with a privileged epistemic (like a blue print) access to thoughts, in the mind of those presumed or authorized to know (Norris, 2002).

Whats this thing?

Logocentrism, which is governed by archia an original and true governing principle produces a sense of totality based on its assumption that there is indeed a single undeniable version of truth and thus a perceived reality

That perceived reality could occasionally be disturbed or questioned through an act of solicitation which is an act that shakes the totality of logocentrism creating an aporia or an insoluble logical difficulty that makes both options possible

To keep the birds and squirrels away AND for protection against strong winds or earthquakes

Diffrance

No element functions as a sign without referring to another element which itself is not present. This interweaving results in each element phoneme or grapheme- being constituted on the basis of the trace within it of the other elements of the chain or system. Eg. Looking for a word in the dictionary

Intertextuality& Archi-criture

This interweaving, this textile, is the text (not buku) produced only in the transformation of another text. Nothing, neither among the elements nor within the system, is anywhere ever present or absent. There are only, everywhere, differences and traces (Derrida, 2002, p. 26). Thus meaning is always delayed (to defer /postponed) and different (to differ)

Diffrance & Trace

Diffrance & Trace

Texts

Texts betray traces of their own instability, eg.

Hussein: Ive completed my ISO portfolio for the SIRIM people to check next week. Siti J: Hey, dont show offput it away menyampah aku Mariah: My God even Hussein has finished it.

Binary Oppositions

In structuralism we have binary opposition Laugh (+) VS Cry ( - )

In deconstruction we ask Are they always positive and negative? Could they be the same in a situation?

Dokonit