article 981101 |
| Oedipus as Evidence: The Theatrical Background to Freud's Oedipus Complex
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by Richard Armstrong |
Freud's first public discussion of what he later called the Oedipus complex claims that it is universal, but he cited no clinical evidence. Rather, the evidence Freud deployed was the allegedly universal effectiveness of the Sophoclean Oedipus Rex on both the ancient Athenian and contemporary audiences. That was what confirmed his hypothesis that we all harbor oedipal feelings. When the stage history of Oedipus Rex is examined, Freud's assumptions are clarified, although the basic logic of his argument is not improved. The productions he saw in Paris and Vienna and the drama's unprecedented success on German and French stages in the 1880s and 90s (and later 1910-12) support his claim that the play moves modern audiences as much as it did the Greeks. It was Freud's own prepsychoanalytic experience of Oedipus Rex as a performance that led him to claim universality for his own feelings toward his parents.
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keywords: Freud, Sigmund; Oedipus complex; Sophocles; performance (19th C); Paris; Vienna; evidence; audience response; actor |
url: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/1999_armstrong01.shtml
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Citations of print publication: None
To cite this article, use this bibliographical entry: Armstrong, Richard. "Oedipus as Evidence: The Theatrical Background to Freud's Oedipus Complex." PSYART: A Hyperlink Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts, article 981101. Available http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/articles/psyart/1999_armstrong01.shtml. Dec. 31, 1999 [or whatever date you accessed the article].
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| Received: 1999 || Published: 1999 || Copyright © 1999 Richard Armstrong |
author info: |
| Richard Armstrong |
richarda@mail.uh.edu |
Dept. of Modern & Classical Languages |
University of Houston
Houston, TX
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article 980929 |
REEL RECOLLECTION: Notes on the Cinematic Depiction of Memory
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by Harvey Roy Greenberg and Krin Gabbard |
Both mainstream movie melodrama and avant garde experiment have always used the traumatic, therapeutic, or otherwise creative impact of memory. Since film began, many genres have depicted remembrance, and the less obtrusive their devices, the more potent the portrayal. A deceptively seamless surface, however, can conceal complex techniques, ideology, and aesthetics. This essay touches on salient aspects of screen memory (often extending Maureen Turim's work): the precursors of reel recollection in literature and drama, notably the XIX century stage and magic lantern show; essential flashback parameters, and the variations on these paradigms as cinema evolved (notably, the questioning of memory's reliability); and the recent preoccupation of mainstream cinema with post-traumatic memory, notably in films about survivors of the Holocaust, Viet Nam, and child abuse. The essay also considers inflections of the representation of memory by successive psychological and neuro-biological theories, also by different national mentalitis.
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keywords: memory; flashback; neurobiology; post-traumatic; film genres |
url: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/1999_greenberg02.shtml
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Citations of print publication: None
To cite this article, use this bibliographical entry: Greenberg, Harvey Roy and Gabbard, Krin. "REEL COLLECTION: Notes on the Cinematic Depiction of Memory." PSYART: A Hyperlink Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts, article 980929. Available http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/articles/psyart/1999_greenberg02.shtml. Dec. 31, 1999 [or whatever date you accessed the article].
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| Received: September 29, 1998 || Published: January 27, 1999 || Copyright © 1999 Harvey Greenberg and Krin Gabbard |
author info: |
| Harvey Roy Greenberg |
hrgsmes@aol.com |
Department of Psychiatry
Yeshiva University, New York 10033 NY |
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
320 West 86th St.
New York, NY 10024
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article 101298 |
Self-Analysis Enhances Other-Analysis
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by Daniel Rancour-Laferriere |
This essay argues that self-analysis benefits other-analysis. Be the "other" patient, author, character, historical personality, or cultural object generally, analysts will improve psychoanalytic understanding of that "other" by scrutinizing themselves for any related psychical material. Just as Freud came up with some of his most interesting and intellectually productive concepts while in self-analysis, today's psychoanalyst of literature should engage in self-analysis (not to be confused with autobiographical criticism) for its intellectual potential. Just as clinical psychoanalysts have to be constantly aware of their countertransference with respect to the patient, literary psychoanalysts should learn how to become aware of the transference which comes into existence when they seriously take up the study of any literary object. At the very least, self-analysis helps the scholar to dispose of his or her own mental garbage which might conceivably interfere with objective psychoanalytic understanding.
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keywords: self-analysis; other-analysis; autobiographical criticism; Freud; free-associations; transference; countertransference; mental garbage; diary; self-disclosure |
url: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/1999_rancour_laferriere01.shtml
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Citations of print publication: None
To cite this article, use this bibliographical entry: Rancour-Laferriere, Daniel. "Self-Analysis Enhances Other-Analysis." PSYART: A Hyperlink Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts, article 101298. Available http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/articles/psyart/1999_rancour_laferriere01.shtml. Dec. 31, 1999 [or whatever date you accessed the article].
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| Received: October 12, 1998 || Published: January 8, 1999 || Copyright © 1999
Daniel Rancour-Laferriere |
author info: |
article 990201 |
Hamlet and His Other
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by Robert Silhol |
A close reading of the first act of Hamlet reveals how the play demonstrates a great many truths about the way a human personality is constituted and the nature of the psychoanalytic subject. In particular, we see matters of identity, the name of the father, the priority of mirroring, the necessity of going beyond the rational ego, and the importance of dreams and fantasies. In the references to "ears" in the last scene, we can understand how the father inscribes, in the register of the symbolic order, the impossible weight of his desire in the child and how the child in turn is destined to live out the desire of the Other--which is, in the last lines of Act I, repressed.
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keywords: name of the father; symbolic order; mirror stage; dreams; ego; desire; superego |
url: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/1999_silhol01.shtml
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To cite this article, use this bibliographical entry: Silhol, Robert "Hamlet and His Other." PSYART: A Hyperlink Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts, article 990201. Available http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/articles/psyart/1999_silhol01.shtml. Dec. 31, 1999 [or whatever date you accessed the article].
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| Received: January 30, 1999 || Published: March 23, 1999 || Copyright © 1999
Robert Silhol |
author info: |
article 990602 |
Ego Psychology and the Interpretation of Walt Whitman's Struggle
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by Stephen John Mack |
I intend in this paper to show how the nineteenth century American poet Walt Whitman, in the throes of a severe psychological crisis, used poetry to reshape a textualized version of his ego and thereby manage that crisis. In the process, I will demonstrate how Whitman's "therapeutic" use of poetry had the further and unintended effect of altering his entire poetics. My focus will be the "Calamus" homoerotic collection poems, including several of the draft poems known as "Calamus-Leaves," which Whitman wrote around 1858 in preparation for the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass.
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keywords: Whitman, Walt; ego psychology, Rapaport, David; "Calamus"; poetry; homoerotic poetry; Freud, Sigmund; melancholia; identification |
url: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/1999_mack01.shtml
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To cite this article, use this bibliographical entry: Mack, Stephen John "Ego Psychology and the Interpretation of Walt Whitman's Struggle." PSYART: A Hyperlink Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts, article 990602. Available http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/articles/psyart/1999_mack01.shtml. Dec. 31, 1999 [or whatever date you accessed the article].
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| Received: March 31, 1999 || Published: May 13, 1999 || Copyright © 1999
Stephen John Mack |
author info: |
| Stephen John Mack |
stephenmack@earthlink.net |
Department of English |
California State University,LA
Los Angeles, California 90032
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article 990601 |
Playing Scrabble® with my Mother
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by David Willbern
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This essay is a play-by-play account, with photo illustrations, of a game of ScrabbleĈ between a precocious six year-old boy and his very patient mother. It aims at an allegorical enactment of the development of language skills as understood by psychoanalytic theories, including Freudian, Lacanian, Kristevan, and object-relations. Words emerge within a contested context of intersecting desires and limits, in a game of simultaneous expression and repression. Personally, I locate the grounds of my own interests in language and word play in this early interactive relation with my mother.
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keywords: theory of language; word play; games; Lacan, Jacques; Kristeva, Julia |
url: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/1999_willbern01.shtml
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Citations of print publication: None
To cite this article, use this bibliographical entry: Willbern, David. "Playing Scrabble® with my Mother." PSYART: A Hyperlink Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts, article 990601. Available http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/articles/psyart/1999_willbern01.shtml. Dec. 31, 1999 [or whatever date you accessed the article].
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| Received: June 1, 1999 || Published: September 10, 1999 || Copyright © 1999
David Willbern |
author info: |
| David Willbern |
willbern@buffalo.edu |
Regis College
Educational Technology Center |
SUNY Buffalo
Buffalo, NY 14260
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article 990925 |
The Pre-Oedipalizing of Klein in (North) America: Ridley Scott's Alien Re-analyzed
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by
Donald Carveth and Naomi Gold |
When analysts trained in Freudian ego psychology seek to assimilate Kleinian theory they often preoedipalize it, conflating the pregenital with the preoedipal. The use of Kleinian theory by Glen and Krin Gabbard in their applied psychoanalysis of Ridley Scott's film Alien illustrates this pattern. While illuminating other elements of the paranoid-schizoid dynamics so vividly portrayed in the film, their analysis overlooks the theme of sibling oedipal conflict conspicuously indicated in the name of the film's central character, Kane. |
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keywords: Melanie Klein; Glen Gabbard; Krin Gabbard; Ridley Scott; Alien; pre-oedipal; pregenital; cinema; paranoid-schizoid position; depressive position; sibling rivalry; Oedipus complex. |
url: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/1999_carveth03.shtml
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Citations of print publication: Forthcoming in JMKOR: Journal of Melanie Klein & Object Relations.
To cite this article, use this bibliographical entry: Carveth, Donald, and Naomi Gold. "The Pre-Oedipalizing of Klein in (North) America: Ridley Scott's AlienRe-analyzed." PSYART: A Hyperlink Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts, article 990925. November 2, 1999. Available http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/articles/psyart/1999_carveth03.shtml. Dec. 31, 1999 [or whatever date you accessed the article].
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| Received: 1999 || Published: 1999 || Copyright © 1999
Donald Carveth and Naomi Gold 1999 |
author info: |
| Donald Carveth |
dcarveth@yorku.ca |
Glendon College
York University
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Toronto, Ontario
M4N 3M6 CANADA |
article 991022 |
Romeo's Childhood Trauma? -- "What fray was here?"
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by
Marvin Krims |
As a psychoanalyst, I believe that powerful literary representations of human complexity (like Shakespeare's) include representation of the way unconscious processes affect the fictive lives of the characters. And since unconscious processes invariably reflect childhood development, it seems to me that imprints of childhood developmental issues must also be represented in texts. A close reading of the words-on-the page should be able to locate these imprints. Here, I show that Romeo's words can be read to reveal a childhood trauma, trauma he then relives by falling in love with women--Rosalind and Juliet--who pose great danger to him because of the families' feud. I argue that the text represents the interaction of his compulsion to repeat his childhood trauma with the cruel customs of medieval Verona, both propelling Romeo into his tragic love affair.
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keywords: applied psychoanalysis; Shakespeare; Romeo and Juliet: primal scene: child psychology; psychological trauma. |
url: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/1999_krims01.shtml
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Citations of print publication: This essay is a revised version of "A childhood trauma constructed from Romeo's words: `What fray was here?,'" Studies in Psychoanalytic Theory 4.2 (1995): 58-68.
To cite this article, use this bibliographical entry: Krims, Marvin. "Romeo's Childhood Trauma? -- "What fray was here?" PSYART: A Hyperlink Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts, article 991022. November 26, 1999. Available http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/articles/psyart/1999_krims01.shtml. Dec. 31, 1999 [or whatever date you accessed the article].
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| Received: October 22, 1999 || Published: November 26, 1999 || Copyright © 1999
Marvin Krims |
author info: |
article 990918 |
Cold Hard World \ Warm Soft Mommy: Gender and Metaphors of Hardness, Softness, Coldness, and Warmth
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by
Burton Melnick |
Drawing on work from cognitive linguistics, this article examines the interlocking conceptual metaphors HARD IS COLD and SOFT IS WARM, showing how they arise out of fundamental patterns that we perceive in the physical world and how they give rise in their turn to certain social preconceptions, especially concerning gender difference. It offers, for example, an analysis of the expression "the hard sciences," and relates that expression to stereotypes about the aptitude of females for studying Physics and Chemistry. Though not essentially a psychoanalytic paper, the article nevertheless contains a certain amount of psychoanalytically oriented material, especially having to do with the concept of the "phallic." It indicates that even the Freudian associations of certain qualities, including hardness, softness, cold, and warmth, are strongly influenced by linguistic categories connected to the network of conceptual metaphors. |
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keywords: metaphor; conceptual metaphor; cognitive linguistics; Freudian symbolism; gender; gender stereotyping; states of matter; George Lakoff; Mark Johnson. |
url: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/1999_melnick01.shtml
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Citations of print publication: A slightly different version of this article is forthcoming in Annual of Psychoanalysis for the year 2000 (vol. 28).
To cite this article, use this bibliographical entry: Melnick, Burton. "Cold Hard World \ Warm Soft Mommy: Gender and Metaphors of Hardness, Softness, Coldness, and Warmth." PSYART: A Hyperlink Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts, article 990918. December 9, 1999. Available http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/articles/psyart/1999_melnick01.shtml. Dec. 31, 1999 [or whatever date you accessed the article].
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| Received: September 18, 1999 || Published: December 9, 1999 || Copyright © 1999
Burton Melnick
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author info: |
| Burton Melnick |
melnick@bluewin.ch |
Department of English
International School of Geneva |
62, route de Chêne
1208 Geneva, SWITZERLAND
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article 991006 |
Lucky's Bones: A Sense of Starvation in Watt, Waiting for Godot, and Oliver Twist
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by
John Robert Keller |
It is possible to view Samuel Beckett's fictional universe as an exploration of the earliest human experience in the form of the relationship between an emerging infantile--self and a mother who is felt to be absent, withdrawing, or hostile/invasive. In this paper the internal experience of the primary nursing relationship, which is the foundation of an internal sense of security and autonomy, is explored in Beckett's Watt and Waiting for Godot (with reference to Dickens' Oliver Twist) and several poems of Thomas Hardy. Clinical material is presented to demonstrate the centrality of this relationship in the internal world, and the effects that disruptions of the relationship have on the self in both the fictional and clinical cases. It is further suggested that the Beckettian ambivalence about living is understandable in light of the underlying experience of uncertainty within the primary nursing relationship and that this can make sense of the admixture of hope and despair in his work.
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keywords: Samuel Beckett; Waiting for Godot; Watt; Charles Dickens; Oliver Twist; Thomas Hardy; psychoanalysis; object relations; paranoid-schizoid position; depression; hopelessness; abandonment; eating disorders |
url: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/1999_keller01.shtml
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Citations of print publication: This paper is drawn from The Dislocated Cosmography: Primary Love and Psychic Catastrophe in Beckett, to be published in 2000.
To cite this article, use this bibliographical entry: Keller, John Robert. "Lucky's Bones: A Sense of Starvation in Watt, Waiting for Godot, and Oliver Twist." PSYART: A Hyperlink Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts, article 991006. December 10, 1999. Available http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/articles/psyart/1999_keller01.shtml. Dec. 31, 1999 [or whatever date you accessed the article].
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| Received: 1999 || Published: 1999 || Copyright © 1999
John Robert Keller
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author info: |
| John Robert Keller |
jrkeller@hotmail.com |
Private Practice |
1033 Bay Street, Suite 201
Toronto, Ontario
CANADA M5S 3A5
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