top of page

Lecture Series: Literary Criticism, Psychoanalysis 1



As a student of English Literature, the author has several courses taken while studying here. This is why some lectures or courses are indeed interesting to discuss and share. Therefore, this series would be more focusing on Literary Criticism and its focus on Psychoanalysis. To be brief there were definitions and theories, followed by analysis.


Definition of Psychoanalysis



According to Freud, psychoanalysis studies the two levels of human mental elements, namely the conscious and unconscious. The unconscious is the center involved with the painful experiences and emotions, wounds, fears, guilty desires, and unresolved conflicts that tend to avoid due to the person do not want to feel overwhelmed by them Tyson (2014). The unconscious was the result of repression and what was repressed were all those thoughts, desires and feelings which the conscious self found acceptable. In his theory of psychoanalysis, Freud stated that every person has the id, the ego, and the superego. This theory leads to personality development which believes that personality is formed through conflicts among three fundamental structures of the human mind.

The three-part of mind in his model he named the ego, the id, and the superego.

1) The Id

The Id located in our unconscious mind and it is the reason the id contains the desires of each person which must be controlled frequently with growing age. It means, this Id seeks pleasure and at the same time be unrealistic. Because of that, Id could not differentiate which one is good and evil.

2) The Ego

The Ego is a rational part of mind, balancing the id and super-ego. It reacts to the outside world and allows individual to adapt into reality and acknowledge the reality principle Rennison (2015). Ego functionate as decision making between the unrealistic of id and the perfection of super-ego.

3) The Superego

Super-ego is the one who demand for perfection. Contains various thoughts and rules from the ideal standard of thought and behavior. Internalized voice of parents, career, and society which provide the individual with rules Rennison (2015). The super-ego encourages a person to always behave in an acceptable society moral more than individual matters. It tells of what should not do in the society.

In order to have a healthy personality, these three elements should be balanced. The ego must determine how to meet the needs of the id, while upholding social reality and the moral standards of the superego. If one of the elements became powerful it can cause anxiety to the person as the signal of dangers. However, when it is too overwhelming, the ego has a technique to unconsciously block the reality, the id, and the superego. That technique can be defined as defense mechanism.

Defense Mechanism



Defense mechanism is the state when the ego unconsciously blocks the unwanted memories and turns it into more acceptable form. Defense mechanism, according to Freud, is divided into several kind. There are compensation, denial, displacement, identification, introjection, projection, rationalization, reaction formation, regression, repression, undoing, and sublimation.


  1. Denial, believing the problem doesn’t exist by blocking external event from awareness. Refuse to accept external reality because it can be too threatening.

  2. Displacement, shifting the threatening emotion and “taking it out” on someone or something less threatening.

  3. Isolation, stripping the emotion from a difficult memory or threatening impulse. Creates a mental gap as barrier between situation and condition that make it threatened.

  4. Identification, used by a person when that person applied the qualification or attitude of another person whom they admire. The person will actually apply the attitude or qualification they wishes to achieve from another person they admire to themselves.

  5. Introjection, applied by someone because they perhaps facing some difficulties and tried to solve it with this defense mechanism. Introjection is not only focuses on adopting positive traits but also negative traits from another person.

  6. Projection, used by someone when they have an unacceptable desires. The person with this defense mechanism tends to project their unacceptable desires in themselves to other people.

  7. Rationalization, is a way for someone to justify their behavior by making clear excuses to cover up the mistakes they have made.

  8. Reaction Formation, when a person have the negative behavior and unacceptable in their surroundings, then trying to changes it into more acceptable.

  9. Regression, when they experience an ego long-term or temporary reversion to the development’s earlier stage when they cannot handle an event or unacceptable impulse in adult manner. It can cause an unpleasure feeling to them. Therefore, they return to their childhood stage by acting as if they still were a child.

  10. Repression, is process which is made evident to us through the resistance. Repression as the part of defense mechanism that resistance or forgetting about the events or incidents that have been experienced.

  11. Ritual and undoing, to undo negative mind or negative behavior and covered with some rituals or habit.

  12. Sublimation is the process that diverting the negative feelings into positive and acceptable activities.

 
 
 

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


Post: Blog2_Post
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn

©2021 by luminousreverie. Proudly created with Wix.com

bottom of page