Psychoanalysis A: The development of the psyche from birth, B: The development and role of the Unconscious in our everyday lives, C: The development of gender identity (psycho-sexual identity), D: Understanding the complexities of human subjectivity
Psychoanalysis is not only a form of therapy but a study of human subjectivity. Psychoanalysis provides us with a theory of the unconscious, sexuality and the development of the Ego. It can tell us a lot about why we are the way we are giving us insight into our daily goings-on. It can also be a great tool for gathering a greater understanding of Art & Design. Key Psychoanalysts: Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Melanie Klein, Carl Jung, Juliet Mitchell, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva
The Unconscious: Created through infancy to protect our conscious selves from events, ideas and thoughts that are not acceptable to consciousness...Continues to affect our conscious selves in SOME* ways...The unconscious is chaotic, without order and without language...Makes itself present through ticks, slips and symptoms (e.g. Freudian slip)...Hysteria patients developed debilitating symptoms as a result of experiences or feelings that had become repressed.
Stages of development: Our development into willful, conscious beings is full of confusing, contradictory and misapprehended thoughts and ideas...An attempt to make sense of both our biological/instinctual self and our logical/thinking self...We create associations and assumptions through sense data...often incorrectly...The developing child goes through stages: oral, anal and phallic...Also, the child develops preconceptions that must be dealt with in order to develop successfully – oedipus complex, castration complex, penis envy.
Psycho-sexual identity: Oedipus complex – sexual/love feelings towards mother and resentment of father...through childhood dependence...feelings of love, rivalry, jealousy all mixed...confusing feelings ‘to want’ vs. ‘to be wanted’...Development of both masculine and feminine identities in relation to the penis/phallus (having or not having)...Castration complex – the boy fears castration while the girl accepts that she has already been castrated. (the phallus as a symbol of power)...Penis-envy – the girl experiences this when she begins to realise she does not have a penis...not as a sexual organ but a way of identifying with the father-figure...Presence/absence – both create possible negative feelings: the boy fears his castration (his powerlessness) while the girl feels that she is missing something.
The Uncanny: ‘Unhomely’...Something that is simultaneously unnatural yet familiar...Something that was supposed to remain hidden which has come to the open....Where the boundary between fantasy
and reality break down...Unconscious vs. Uncanny Models of the psyche: Unconscious, Preconscious, Conscious....Id, Ego, Super-Ego The Mirror Stage (Lacanian): The child’s recognition of itself in reflection (in objects or other people) signifies a split or alienation – it is seen as both subject and other....Rivalry – while the child may recognise it’s own image it is still limited in movement and dexterity....Thus...resulting in the formation of Ego which aids (and continues to aid) a reconciliation of body and image/subject and other....Captation – the process by which the child is at once absorbed and repelled by the image of itself (the specular image) The Lacanian Unconscious: ‘The unconscious is structured like a language’...That’s not to say that the unconscious has a language but its structure is LIKE a language....The unconscious is the discourse of the Other....Highlighting the ways in which meaning in encoded within linguistic signs – written or spoken words....Unconscious details are encoded in various ways as they slip into consciousness. The Lacanian Phallus: Not the biological penis but a symbol of power/order attained through its associated LACK – the potential of lack (male) and the actual lack (female)...Masculinity/femininity are not biological definitions but symbolic positions...Our interactions with the symbolic phallus provides a ‘speaking position in culture’ / within the symbolic order - a: relating to the signifying nature of the phallus b: our sexual identity informed through the phallus. Lacan’s Orders of reality: The Real - That which cannot be symbolised/signified...Where our most basic, animal selves exist. The Imaginary - The order which exists before symbols and signification...Where the Ego is born and continues to develop...No clear distinctions between self and others/subject and object. The Symbolic - ‘The order of the Other’...Exists outside ourselves – language exists before and outside of us...The order that allows us to exist within a culture of others. simonjones@leeds-art.ac.uk
Notes from Seminar:
Psychoanalysis - a study of the unconscious human mind
Oedais Complex - repressed memories, emotions, repressed desires
Castration Anxiety - boys scared they'll get their penis castrated
Penis Envy - penis means power, girls envy the dominant male figure
ID - Primal Urges
Ego - Personality
Super ego - Controlling Voice
Consciousness
Pre-conscious
Unconscious
Edward Bernays - nephew of Freud was an advertiser, controlling the masses by convincing people they need something they don't by using the unconscious mind.
President of American Smoking/Tobacco asked Edward Bernays whether he could make it acceptable for women to smoke, as that could double his target market. Connecting cigarettes to penis envy.
Bermays organised for a group of debutantes/suffragettes to light up cigarettes while parading at the same time to represent 'torches of freedom.'
After the war, America was generating more and more goods and there was no market for the produce because everyone already had what they needed. Bermays introduced people to desire - Mans desire with overshadow his needs. The beginning of Consumerism.
To convince people to buy more, Bermays advertised things using the knowledge of his cousin, Freud.
Cars - symbol of male sexuality
Clothes - a way of expressing your inner self
People were made to believe that they needed things, Bermays had created a new way of controlling the masses.
Capitalist societies need to keep improving and making more money or there becomes a recession. American Consumerism - they believe they're free because they can buy things they want (commodities) and they think it will make them happy, like the beautiful pictures the advertisements paint.
Cigarettes are no longer allowed to be associated with glamour, sport, success in business, masculinity or femininity (marlboro man/suffragettes), also advertisements should not seek to actively persuade people to start smoking.
A good example of advertising without these are the one's for Silk Cut Cigarettes. As the name sounds quite feminine they had to broaden their target market by using freud's theories within adverting to convince men to purchase the cigarettes. You can see that all images are made quite sexual.
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