Blog #5: Psychoanalytical Criticism

Psychoanalytic criticism is a form of applied psychoanalysis, “a science concerned with the relationship between consciousness and unconscious processes and with the laws of mental functioning” (Berger 69).  Psychoanalytic criticism explains the how and why of human actions.

Psychoanalysis was founded by Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist and father of psychoanalysis. Freud developed the concept of psychoanalysis most thoroughly and provides important concepts that can be applied to the media in order to explain how the media works and affects the viewers. Below are a few important concepts of psychoanalytic criticism.

Conscious level, Preconscious level, and Unconscious level:

As discussed in class, the psychoanalysis of the mind can be divided into three sections: conscious level, preconscious level, and unconscious level. The conscious level contains a person’s thoughts and perceptions. It’s just grazing the top layer of the mind. The preconscious level digs a bit deeper and includes the person’s memories and stored knowledge. The more hidden layer is the unconscious level which contains the person’s fears, unacceptable sexual desires, violent manners, irrational wishes, immoral urges, selfish needs, and shameful experiences.

Oedipus Complex:

            This complex refers to when a person, a child in this case, has a liking for the older opposite sex and is hostile toward the older same sex. This is all in the unconsciousness and can be overcome, but if not it leads to neuroses. An example of this is the mythological hero named Oedipus, who kills his father and then later marries his mother. Freud refers to this story as a template that describes the development process that all children undergo.

Id, Ego, Superego:

Another important concept of psychoanalysis is the id, ego, and superego of the mind. Freud reinforced that our desires and unconscious conflicts bring about these three areas of the mind that wrestle for dominance as we grow from infancy through childhood and to adulthood. “Id is the element of the psyche representative of a person’s drives; it’s the source of energy but lacks direction” (Berger 219). It is the side of the mind that acts on impulse of the individual’s desires and lusts. Since Id lacks direction, superego comes in to play. “Superego is in charge of approving and disapproving wishes on the basis of whether or not they are moral” (Berger 224). Superego assumes the opposition to the id. In between superego and id is ego. “Ego is the executant of the id and a mediator between id and superego. Ego is also involved with the perception of reality and the adaption to reality” (Berger 217). All three of these concepts—id, ego, and superego—are important to the individual’s psychic life.