Blog Post 5

According to Berger, the psychoanalytic theory is a “science concerned with the interaction between conscious and unconscious processes and with the laws of mental functioning” (Berger 2014). Basically what this theory boils down to is analyzing the motives behind people’s actions, whether conscious or unconscious. It’s important to analyze items such as defense mechanisms, the id, ego, and superego. There are many other items that can be analyzed but a lot of content can be discovered through the items listed above. Defense mechanisms are the techniques that people use to control and dismiss anxieties. Some examples of defense mechanisms include avoidance, fixation, projection, rationalization, regression and suppression. The id, ego and superego explain the mental functioning that is part of Freud’s structural hypothesis. The id is the part of the personality that desires instant gratification. The ego tries to please the id while also looking to find what will be best in in the long run. The supergo is the most ethical part of the personality that operates on values and moral standards.

            Using Star Wars as an example, you have three characters that each represent the id, ego, and superego. Han Solo is the id because he is impatient and quick-tempered. On the complete opposite side of the spectrum, Leia is the supergo because she is level headed and sensible. To balance out Han and Leia, there’s Luke, who is the ego. One of Star Wars’ major plot twits is the fact that Darth Vader is Luke’s father. Luke experienced extreme distress after this discovery and used avoidance as a defense mechanism. Berger describes avoidance as a “refusal to become involved with subjects that are distressing because they are connected to unconscious sexual or aggressive impulses” (Berger 2014). Luke was raised with the idea that Darth Vader was one of the most evil Sith Lords to live. He had trouble digesting the idea that he was this man’s son. Luke used avoidance as one of his defense mechanisms to cope with his situation.

Blog Post 5: Who, Why, What

Put simply Psychoanalytic criticism is examining a media artifact using psychoanalysis as lens understand the character(s) and/or the creator of the work. Psychoanalysis is the study of the development of persons mind and identity. This lens of media analysis works in concert with Semiotics, the study of the parts and components that create a media artifact, where in the signs are behaviors and they signify the way in which a character's psyche developed or deals with situations. Unlike other media analysis techniques, Psychoanalytic criticism focuses closely on the characters, in the same way a detective uses a magnifying glass, it allows us to take in the subtle clues and put them in the context of psychology.  The psychoanalytic lens draws its criticism from the studies of Sigmund Freud and Carl G Jung.  These two are considered the fathers of psychoanalysis and thus it is from their research into the development and understanding of the psyche that Psychoanalytic criticism. Even though it involves the complex science of psychology, it is not necessary to understand. Character's in a media artifact are not as complex as a real human being and therefore only the most basic of ideas are necessary to understand and analyze a character. 

Straigh to the Point of Psychoanalysis

From just this past week, I learned a handful of new information of psychoanalysis. For starters, psychoanalysis does not figuring out a psychotic person, but rather it is the synergy the conscious and uncosnious processes that go on within one's self. With psychonalaysis, we can configure what we are doing and why we are doing it one step at time.

With psychoanalysis, one must look at the pyramid, or iceberg, of the different levels of consciousness. The first level starts off with your conscious level, which is where your thoughts and perceptions are store. Then you down to the precociousness level, where you will find your memories and stored knowledge. Last, you will go to your unconscious level where there are many subjects stores, such as your fears, irrational wishes, immoral urges and unacceptable sexual desires lay. Within these layers, we have Sigmund Freud's, idea of the ID, Ego, and Superego. Fruedis often referred to as the father of psychanalayisi. With the ID, you will only want to fulfill the urges of your pleasure principal, which is everything in your unconscious. The Ego is where your rationality and logic remains, which would be found somewhere by the precocious. Lastly, we have the superego, which is where we make our moral judgements, even in light of social pressures. The superego stands alone. Below, I have provided an image to make it a bit easier to visualize.

From this knowledge of looking through the ice ball of self, we can now go on to sexuality. All this ego and unconsciousness can all lead to how one copes in society in a sexual manner. Take for instance, when they say that a child had a deprivation from breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is an oral activity and because of the child's lack of feeding oraly when they were younger can lead to them getting into more oral activities, such as smoking. A more common example is when people see a girl crying out for attention with men through their body language, they can most likely infer that they have daddy issues of some sort. When we go through this and figure out someone's sexuality, we have to look into their preconscious and find out what happened to them. Then we look to see what category of either, id, ego, or super ego that they go into. The image below would be a perfect example of how all this comes together.