Psychoanalysis in Literature and Society

Résumé du document

Essay title: How psychoanalysis can help us to think about culture and society in the twenty-first century.

Extraits

[...] We do feel this to be uncanny (2001, pp.237-238). Here Freud argues that it is the déjà vu from the recurring number, in spite of so small a likelihood of its recurrence, which makes it unnerving or `uncanny'. Lacan in his book, `The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-analysis', stated that: "In any case, someone will say, psycho-analysis is a form of research" (1998, p.7). As is evident from this statement, Lacan was more preoccupied with the perception and methods of psychoanalysis as opposed to Freud who wrote thoroughly on his findings from applying psychoanalysis to patients and observing human behaviour. [...]

[...] Said psychoanalytic theories soon entered into the established jargon of psychology and are readily used to read into a person's mental state. In fact, Freud once stated that: "Psychoanalysis stands to psychiatry more or less as histology does to anatomy" (1961, p.216). In asserting this, Freud places emphasis on how psychoanalysis is a much more specialised field of study, upon the fundamentals of psychology, and that ultimately one cannot exist without the other. Key Thinkers and Texts: Sigmund Freud can be regarded as the one of the founding researchers in psychoanalysis and has written extensively on the subject with his texts and theories dominating the fields of neurology, psychology, and, of course, psychoanalysis. [...]

[...] And lastly the `Superego', located somewhere in-between the conscious and the unconscious, reflects the behaviour which society deems acceptable through that which we have learned from our parents and teachers. The superego is resultantly the embodiment of society's influence upon the human mental state. It is these three elements of mentality which, according to Freud, dictate our behaviour and, in turn, the decisions we make in terms of our lifestyle. Likewise, these concepts are used by Freud to justify his psychoanalytic theories such as the `Oedipus and Electra Complexes'. [...]

[...] Freud, S. (2001). The `Uncanny'. In J. Strachey The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud Volume XVII (1917 - 1919): An Infantile Neurosis and Other Works (pp.217-252). London: Vintage. Lacan, J. (1998). [...]

[...] Strengths of this Approach: Overall, psychoanalysis can be defined as the study of people, because how else are people defined if not by the way that they behave? And so, at a time when people's behaviour is becoming increasingly diverse, it is, without question, a necessity that people should be educated upon the reasons behind certain types of behaviour: specifically, how the id and ego have sway upon the mind. And why we make certain lifestyle choices. Because the more that people are aware of, what might be perceived as, irregular behaviour, the less they fear it and therefore do not develop prejudice towards it. [...]