psychoanalysis readings Flashcards
What is the overview of Stephen Mitchell & Margaret Black’s chapter on Freud?
Introduces Freud’s foundational ideas and their lasting influence on psychoanalysis and modern psychology. Highlights Freud’s focus on the unconscious, dream interpretation, and the centrality of childhood experiences in shaping adult psyche.
What are the key ideas presented in Mitchell & Black’s chapter?
- Psychoanalysis as a method for uncovering the unconscious.
- Repression as the mechanism for burying traumatic or taboo thoughts.
- Freud’s controversial psychosexual stages and the Oedipus complex.
What is the relevance of Mitchell & Black’s chapter?
Provides the theoretical backbone for understanding psychoanalysis as both a clinical practice and a cultural force.
What is the overview of Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother??
A graphic memoir that explores the psychoanalytic themes of transference, attachment, and unresolved maternal relationships. Bechdel uses psychoanalytic theory to understand her mother’s emotional unavailability and its impact on her own identity.
What are the key ideas in Bechdel’s memoir?
- Transference dynamics in familial relationships.
- Intersections of personal history and psychoanalytic concepts like object relations.
What is the relevance of Bechdel’s memoir?
Bridges theory and personal narrative, illustrating how psychoanalysis informs storytelling and self-exploration.
What is the overview of Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams (Chapter 2)?
Freud’s revolutionary work on dream analysis, presenting dreams as the ‘royal road to the unconscious.’ This chapter outlines the distinction between manifest content (the remembered dream) and latent content (the dream’s hidden meaning).
What are the key ideas in Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams?
- Dreams express repressed desires and unresolved conflicts.
- Dream mechanisms like condensation (merging ideas) and displacement (shifting emotions).
- Dreams as wish-fulfillment tied to instinctual drives.
What is the relevance of Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams?
Provides the framework for understanding how unconscious material emerges symbolically in dreams.
What is the overview of Joyce Crick’s ‘Introduction’ and ‘Note on the Translation’?
Explains Freud’s historical and cultural significance, with a focus on how translations have shaped the reception of his work.
What are the key ideas in Crick’s work?
- The challenge of preserving Freud’s original meaning across languages.
- Freud’s broader influence on 20th-century thought.
What is the relevance of Crick’s work?
Situates Freud’s work within its intellectual and cultural context.
What is the overview of Josef Breuer & Freud’s ‘Anna O.’?
Describes the case of Bertha Pappenheim, whose ‘hysterical’ symptoms were alleviated through verbalizing her traumatic experiences. This marks the birth of the ‘talking cure.’
What are the key ideas in ‘Anna O.’?
- Emotional catharsis through free association.
- Trauma as the source of physical symptoms.
What is the relevance of ‘Anna O.’?
The origin of psychoanalysis as a clinical practice.
What is the overview of Freud’s Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality?
A foundational text exploring the development of sexuality from infancy to adulthood, introducing the controversial concept of infantile sexuality.
What are the key ideas in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality?
- Sexuality as polymorphous in childhood, later structured by psychosexual stages.
- Fixation at certain stages leads to neuroses.
- The Oedipus complex as central to psychosexual development.
What is the relevance of Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality?
Forms the basis of Freud’s theories on libido and psychosexual development.
What is the overview of Freud’s ‘From the History of an Infantile Neurosis’?
Details Freud’s analysis of Sergei Pankejeff, whose dream of wolves symbolized unresolved trauma. Freud links his symptoms to witnessing a primal scene (his parents’ sexual intercourse) and castration anxiety.
What are the key ideas in ‘From the History of an Infantile Neurosis’?
- The primal scene as a source of unconscious conflict.
- Castration anxiety tied to psychosexual development.
What is the relevance of ‘From the History of an Infantile Neurosis’?
A rich case study showcasing Freud’s method of dream analysis and his theories of neurosis.
What is the overview of Anna Freud’s The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence?
Focuses on how the ego defends itself from anxiety using mechanisms like repression, projection, and sublimation.
What are the key ideas in The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence?
- Defense mechanisms as protective tools of the ego.
- The dynamic interplay of id, ego, and superego in maintaining psychic balance.
What is the relevance of The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence?
Advances Freud’s structural theory, emphasizing the ego’s role in managing internal conflict.