psychodynamic stories

what are the two freudian principles of interpretation? text and treaty

• test : life stories can be read like literary texts, and there is no single complete interpretation of them

• treat: human experience is a compromise between competing internal forces (id, ego, superego) we behave in ways that try to keep all of those conflicting voices as happy as possible at once.

eg: u want to eat the whole cake (id), but u feel guilty (superego), so u only eat one slice (ego) - that’s the treaty

difference between manifest content and latent content

• manifest content : what’s consciously known and epxerineced, the actual images, events, and sensations in a story or dream (surface level)

• latent content: hidden unconscious meaning underneath; the secret forces, wishes, conflicts, and impulses. there is ALWAYS more latent content than manifest content, even if it never gets unconvered.

eg: u dream about missing a bus (manifest), the latent content might be deep anxiety about being left behind in life.

1. what is the myth of oedipus and why did frued care so much bout it

1. frued loved it because lives can be interpreted liked literary texts, so axtual myths and stories were a fair game for him. Story goes: lauis and jocasta heard a prohecy that thier son would kill his father and marry his mother, so they pierced his ankles and left him to die. he kills lauis in a random fight and marries the mom, when the truth comes out, the mom hangs herself and oedipus blinds himself. frued used this to represent the unconscious desire kids have to possess the opposite sexp arent and rival the same sex parent

what is the oedipus complex : object choice, castratioon anixety and identification

2. was frued right bout the oedipus complex and what is the modern take of it

frued said every young boy unconsciously plays out the oedipus myth:

• object choice - the boys first love is his mom, bu he invests libido (id energy) into wanting her in a possessive way

• castration anxiety- the father stands in the way, boy develops unconscious fear of castration (literal and symbolic) which creates a desire to kill the father

• identification- to resolve this conflict, the boy uses indentification as a defense mechanism - he “becomes” the father by taking on his qualities instead of fighting him.

eg: little boy who starts copying his dad : walks like him, wants to be like him, that;s identification resolving the conflict unconsciously.

2. prolly not universally, frued was likely wrong that all children go thorugh it, but he may have identified an important narrative script that resonates in many (mostly male) lives. this script shows up in literature, movies, in real human lives, espeically in people who neevr fully resolved the complex.

how does mishima the famous japaneese writer’s life illustrate an unseolved odeipus complex

2. what were frueds views on women and why were they criticized

mishima was taken from hsi parents as an infant to live with his grandma, which means he never got the chance to resolve the oedipus complex normally. instead of identifying with his dad, he fixated on random muscular men as his masculine ideal, at 14 he fell in love with a muscular boy and he identified with him and then directed object choice toward himself instead of a man. his ritual suicide was interpretted as a symbolic union with himself, so no dad= no normal resolution.

2. frued was sexist by modern standards. he believed women are by nature passive, envious of men, less rational ans have a weaker superego, he supported a patriarchal view of women as inferior and defined them largely in terms of what they lack compared to men (eg. penis envy) , frued’s thoery was mostly built round male experinece and is heavily criticized for treating women as incomplete versions of men rather than as thier own complete persons.

what was the case of dora and what was frueds interpretation

dora was an 18yr old who was sent to frued by her dad for “hysteria” today called somatic disorder, she had headaches, fainting and temporary loss of voice. the context : her dad was having an affair with frau K, and Frau K’s husband sexually harassesed Dora twice, kissing her at 14 ad prpositioning her for sex at 16, she slapped him and refused, but her own dad didnt believe her.,

frueds interpretations:

• dora unconsciously wanted her k and repressed those feelings, the repressed arousal got converted into physical symptoms instead

• her cough = oral fixation from thumb-sucking as a child.

dora quit therapy finding frueds explanations unacceptable. a more simplier explanation was she had physical symmptoms cause she was being sexually harassed ans gaslit by every adult round her , dora’s symptoms were mostly likely trauma responses and not repressed desire for her abuser like frued claimed.

what is karen horney’s feminine psychology and how does it push back on frued?

horney was a feminist psychologist who criticized frued’s male bias.

• she started by focusing on how culture shapes women’s psychology and how male bias is baked into that culture

• she proposed the masculinity complex - some women develop feelings of revenge against men and reject thier own feminity but this is because patriachial society blocked thier personal development , NOT cause they’re naturally inferior

• later she became more gender-neutral in her career applying her ideas moving toward, again and away from people to all gender and not just women.

her main idea was that we cant even know what real gender differences are until we let ppl fully develop as humans first, stop defining women by what men think feminity should look like. eg: where frued said women have “penis envy” horney said women just want the same social power and freedom men have, and that is rational

1. who was carl yung and how did he differ from frued

2. what are archetypes and how did jung prove the collective conscious exists

1. jung was frueds studnet who eventually broke away because he thought frued put way too much emphasis on sex and aggression, he explanded the idea of the unconscious into two levels:

• personal unconscious : same as frued’s version, shaped by ur own personal life exp. eg: ash grew up with strict dad, so unconsciously she gets anxious round authority figures at work. thats her personal epxerinece shaping her unconscious

• collective unconscious : storehouse of unconscious memories shared by all humans from our collective evolutionary past. its universal. eg: every human acorss every culture has an instinctive fear of the dark ro feels comforted by a mother figure, nobody taught us this, it just baked into us as a species from evolution.

2. jung used his knowledge of mythology and religion across diff cultures to show that themes kept reappearing everywhere, even in cultures that never contacted each other. these universal recurring themes are called archetypes, which are universal patterns and predispositions that shape how all humans consciously and unconsciously adapt to thier world. eg: how figures show up everywhere across cultures that never even met each other eg: the hero- harry potter, simba , basicallt every culture’s mythology has a hero who overcomes the evil; the great mother, like the nuturuing mom figure, shows up in almost every religion and mythology worldwide

what are two real world examples of jungain achetypres appearing accross cultures?

• flood myths- almost every culture independetly has a story about a great flood destroying humanity. (Noah’s Ark, Chineese flod myths, aztec myths etc) from a jungian perspective, this isnt a coincidence, floods are primal fear baked into our evolutinary history, so the flood archetype shows up universally as a symbol of fear

• mythological reptiles- dragons, serpents, gaint reptiles appear in cultures worldwide that never contracted each other, like biblical serpantm hindu serpant gods , chinese dragons. jung would say this is cause our pre-human ancestors genuinely feared reptiles for alot of yeara, so reptiles became hardwired into the collective unconscious as a symbol of danger and fear. so jung says they all independently emerge because all humans share the same evolution fears and epxeriences deep down.

3 common archetypal figures in media

2. what is the monomyth

• the hero - young and inexperienced, saves the day (harry potter, simba)

• the trickster - misleads the hero, provides comic relief (flynn rider- repunzel who misleads her, the joker)

• the wise old man/ the mentor - older figure who guides and trains the hero (mufasa)

2. it is the hero’s journey, its the idea that almost all hero stories across all cultures follow the same basic template like seperation → initiation → return: hero leaves their normal world, faces challenges and wins, retunrs home transformed with something valuable to give others. monomyth may be a prototypically male sotry, meaning it might not represent women’s life narratives as well.

what did rogers et al find out bout the hero’s journey and real life

rogers developed a hero’s journey scale (HJS) - which is a self report scale measuring how closely someone’s life mirrors the hero’s journey.

he found :

= ppl whose lives resembled the hero’s journey had higher meaning in life

hero’s journey narratives also had more redemptive themes

when people were experimentally asked to retell their life story as a hero’s journey they epxerineced: higher meaning in life, higher flourishing and more resillent coping strategies, meaning framing ur own life like a hero’s journey isnt just a cool idea, but it actully makes ufeel better nd cope better

what is jungs the shadow archetype

the shadow is the hidden, repressed part of ur personality, the dark side of yourself that you dont want to acknowledge

• it contains mostly negative, guilt-laden traits but also some good qualities (normal instincts, creative impulses) that got repressed

• the tricky part is we often cant see our own shadow instead we project it onto other people, blaming them for traits that are actually our own

• even with inisight and good will, people rarely recognize thier shawdows in themsevles

eg: someone is secretly jealous but constantly accuses others of being jealous, that is shadow projection

17 stages of monomyth and which phase do they belong to

SEPERATION (hero leaves normal world) :

• call to adventure - hero gets summoned to leave

• refusal to call - hero hesistates put of fear

• supernatural aid- mentor/ helper appears

• crossing first threshold - hero actually enters the unknown

• belly of the whale - hero fully seperates from their old self and is ready to transform

INITIATION (hero faces challenges in the unknown world):

• road of trial- series of tests

• meeting with the goddess- hero experiences unconditional love

• temptation- material temptations that. could make hero abandon the quest

• atonement with father- confronting whoever holds ultimate power

• apothesis- hero dies to the self or transcends to a higher state

• the ultimate boon- hero achieves the goal of the quest

RETUNRN: (hero comes back transformed)

• refusal of return- hero doesnt want to leave the newworld

• magic flight- hero escapes with the boon

• rescue from without - hero needs outside help to retunr

• crossing return threshold- hero returns with wisdom to share

• master fo two worlds- hero balances both worlds confortably

• freedom to live- hero lives fully in present, no fear or regret