Notes of Psychoanalytic criticism

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Notes of Psychoanalytic criticism


(reference  – Critical theory today – A user friendly guide written by Lois Tyson)




Psychoanalytic criticism

part 1

The origins of unconscious

-          The goal of psychoanalysis is to help us resolve our psychological problems, often called disorders or dysfunctions.

-          “The unconscious is the storehouse of those painful experiences and emotions, those wounds, fears, guilty desires, and unresolved conflicts we do not want to know because we feel we will be overwhelmed by them”. (Lois Tyson)

-          The “birth” of the unconscious lies in the way we perceive our place in the family and how we react to this self – definition: for example, “ I’m the failure”.

-          The oedipal conflict – competition with the parent of the same gender for the attention and affection of the parent of the opposite side.

-          Sibling rivalry – competition with siblings for the attention and affection of parents.

-          Oedipal attachments, sibling rivalry, and like are considered developmental stages.

The defenses, anxiety, and core issues

-          Defenses are the process by which the contents of our unconscious are kept in the unconscious.

·         They are thye process by which we keep the repressed in order to avoid knowing what we feel we can’t handle knowing.

-          Defenses include

·         (i) selective perception – hearing and seeing only what we feel we can handle

(According to this defense, we hear or see only those things which make us happy)

·         (ii) selective memory – modifying our memories so that we don’t feel overwhelmed by them or forgetting painful events entirely

(According to this defense, we try to memorize only those instances those  are not painful)

·         (iii) Denial – believing that the problem does not exist or the unpleasant incident never happened

(According  to this defense, we do not accept the fact that we have done something wrong or something wrong happen to us)

·         (iv) avoidance- staying away from people or situation that are liable to make us anxious by stirring up some unconscious

·         (v) displacement – “taking it out” on someone or something less threatening than the person who caused our fear, hurt or anger

·         (vi) projection – ascribing our fear, problem, or guilty desire to someone else and then condemning him or her for it

·         (vii) regression – (a) one of the most complex defense

                                (b) the temporary return to a former psychological state,                                     which is not just imagined but relived.

    


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