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 Psychoanalysis
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Dame vor dem Spiegel (um 1905) by Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947)

Under Construction
 

Three premises in Freudian psychoanalysis:

1.  most of the individual's mental processes are unconscious.
2.  all human behavior is motivated ultimately by what we would call sexuality.  The prime psychic force--libido, or sexual energy.
3.  because of the powerful social taboos attached to certain sexual impulses, many of our desires and memories are repressed. (from A Reader's Guide)
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I. Key Concepts:

    A.  Freud--1. Structure of the psyche--superego, ego, id, perceptual-conscious, pre-conscious, unconscious
        1.  the child's sexual development--
             a. polymorphous sexuality, three stages, fixation,
             b. Oedipal stage--gendering process, Oedipus complex, castration  fear

        2.  dream analysis--condensation, substitution, symbolization

        3.  pyschological diseases: neurosis, etc.--internal battle between ego and id, with psychological or physical abnormalities as symptoms  (or covert expressions of desire)

        4.  literature-- Psychobiography 作家的心理分析

  B.  Jung and archetypal criticism--archetype (universal symbols);
         archetypal motif or pattern; (e.g. hero--quest, initiation, scapegoat--Oedipus and Hamlet)
         archetype--not inherited ideas or patterns of thought, but they are predispositions to respond in similar ways to certain stimuli

  C.  Frye's monomyth-- archetype as genres

  D.  Lacan--lack, mirror stage, the unconscious as structured by language

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Issues and Discussion:

Limitations--Do you agree?
 

    A.  the cookie-cutter approach; another narrative?
    B.  the theory of Oedipus complex and penis envy--Freud's limitation or our misunderstanding?
    C.  inability to explain female sexuality--"What do women want?"
    D.  No corrective offered to the repressive system
    E.  its focus on infantile psychology.  "Between ordinary adult personality traits and infantile psychology there
         are layers upon layers of relationships, experiences, values and meanings."
    F.  its foucs on characters' depth psychology, or the author's--characters may be a group of signs.

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