english-psychology and the gothic

Romanticism

The movement emerged as a rejection of the values and practices of the Age of Enlightenment, with its focus on reason and rationality.

Gothic

a genre that places strong emphasis on intense emotion, pairing terror with pleasure, death with romance

setting, main character is paranoid, inverted religious imagery, connection to or preoccupation with the past and nature and Importance of the imagination and the mind’s expansive nature.

elements of gothic literature, paintings, and films

sigmund freud

Austrian psychiatrist and founder of psychoanalysis, the most influential psychological theorist of 20th-century.

unconscious

Freud's fundamental idea was that all humans are endowed with an ...... in which potent sexual and aggressive drives, and defenses against them, struggle for supremacy.

dream interpretation

"The ...... is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind" (Freud).

Psychoanalysis

called “The talking cure” by Freud’s most famous patient, “Anna O.,” ....... was an attempt to unseat deeply-rooted memories bound to conflict, insecurity, trauma, and the like. Through dialogue, Freud and colleagues believed, the patient’s issues would “out” themselves and the patient could eventually live a life of what Freud called “ordinary misery.”

Psyche

Freud believed that the non-physical brain, was comprised of three “tiers”: the id, ego, and super-ego. These three tiers shape our unconscious “self,” or the composite of what makes us “us.” This is not a physical entity.

Id:

Instinctual, basic, infantile urges.

Ego

Our construction and maintenance of our “self”, or the way we see our “self” and wish others to see it.

Superego

Plays a critical and moralizing role. The larger social (and often moral) institutional forces (family, “society”, school, work, media, etc.) that contain the ego and remind us of what is considered proper. In simple terms, the superego functions to contain the id and ..... sometimes insatiable urges and desires to foster , please and build the “self”.

sublimation

The process of repressing or restraining memories, fantasies, urges, or insecurities that threaten to unseat the conceptions of ourselves we’d most like to present to the world. According to Freud, ...... thoughts and memories cannot remain ...... forever. Because of a number of factors, they will eventually “rise” and what better way to deal with them before they do than through psychoanalysis?

Projection

The transference of uncertain, unsettled or unwanted feelings about ourselves onto someone or something else rather than coming to terms with them ourselves

Displacement

When we ...... or reassign our particular energies and/or interests that may threaten our status quo onto something or someone else,

Primal Fears

Probably self-explanatory, ...../wishes are those ..../wishes we harbor within us that unconsciously shape our behaviors. These ...../wishes are rooted in “associations” or experiences where the fears initially formed and took root.

Extinction

the fear of annihilation, of ceasing to exist. This is a more fundamental way to express it than just calling it "fear of death." The idea of no longer being arouses a primary existential anxiety in all normal humans. Consider that panicky feeling you get when you look over the edge of a high building.

Mutilation

the fear of losing any part of our precious bodily structure; the thought of having our body's boundaries invaded, or of losing the integrity of any organ, body part, or natural function. Anxiety about animals, such as bugs, spiders, snakes, and other creepy things arises from fear of mutilation.

Loss of Autonomy

the fear of being immobilized, paralyzed, restricted, enveloped, overwhelmed, entrapped, imprisoned, smothered, or otherwise controlled by circumstances beyond our control. In physical form, it's commonly known as claustrophobia, but it also extends to our social interactions and relationships.

Separation

the fear of abandonment, rejection, and loss of connectedness; ofbecoming a non-person—not wanted, respected, or valued by anyone else. The "silent treatment," when imposed by a group, can have a devastating psychological effect on its target.

Ego-death

the fear of humiliation, shame, or any other mechanism of profound self-disapproval that threatens the loss of integrity of the Self; the fear of the shattering or disintegration of one's constructed sense of lovability, capability, and worthiness.

Locus of control

According to Freud, humans possess internal and external .........., or, rather, places that are the source of our sense of control in our lives.

high internal locus of control

believe our life is defined primarily by forces INSIDE of us such as through intellect, skill, will, discipline, good luck, etc.

high external locus of control

believe our life is defined primarily by forces OUTSIDE of us such as family, social codes, the general environment, etc.

Fetishism

n emblem of secret fear and desire that enables the appropriation of unconscious content without bringing it to consciousness. and marked by obsession

Mara

spirit

Chiaroscuro

extreme contrasts between
light and dark