Continuing On...Freud! Using Psychology in your Writing

As we continue our curriculum during the closure of our schools, please check in daily to your Google email accounts. Check this blog post regularly as well as your Google Classroom sites. Any required materials will be posted in both these places and I'll be in contact with you mainly through email. 

Also, remember you should continue writing in your portfolio. You can drop drafts into the shared workshop folders we set up and give your friends/peers some feedback on their drafts. 

• If you brought it home, please continue reading The Life of Pi by Yann Martel. This should seem recognizable as an archetypal survival story. We'll apply some Freudian or psychological literary analysis to the book. More details will be posted next week. 
• If you didn't bring this book home with you, you can listen to an audiobook at this link. It's the best we can do...

We left off at Freud, so please take a look at the following material: 

EQ: What is Psychology & Psychotherapy? What contributions/concepts did Sigmund Freud make to the field of Psychology & Psychotherapy? How can a writer use psychology to understand herself or her characters?

Please watch the following videos: Intro to Psychology & Psychotherapy. As you watch please take notes on key points in the video and take notes on Sigmund Freud. These notes may guide you as you study this topic.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and another video on him.

Freud in a nutshell: (the least you need to know...)

Freud created "Freudian Psychology" (psychoanalysis): interpreting what people say and do in order to figure out what their root problems are.

Freudian psychology is used by literary critics using psychoanalytical criticism. In order to use this type of criticism, you need a basic understanding of Freud's key concepts.

Freud believed that psychological desires influence the forming of our personality. He had several theories...

1. Theory of the Unconscious:
The part of the mind that thinks and feels without you being aware of these thoughts and feelings is called the UNCONSCIOUS.

The UNCONSCIOUS is comprised of 3 sections: The Ego, the Id, and the Superego.

1. The Ego is the self
2. The Id is the animalistic or primitive side of the unconscious.
3. The Superego is the control or strict rule maker. 

Dreams are one way of communicating with the unconscious. They are coded messages mailed to your conscious self.

Freud also stated that:

• We all have desires.
• Sometimes the self cannot admit that it wants certain things, because we all learn (usually during infancy) that some things are bad for us.
• As a result, the mind REPRESSES (repression) or hides these desires in the unconscious until they resurface as expensive psychoanalysis bills.
• In general, most repressed desires are sexual in nature.

We are sexually motivated from birth. Freud divided people into three major developmental stages:

1. Oral (infancy to about 1 year old) (breast feeding; baby gets pleasure from mother's milk)
2. Anal (2-3 years) (potty training! infant gets pleasure (and praise) going to the bathroom at the right time in the right place!)
3. Genital (until about adulthood) (no comment...but you get the idea. The child gets pleasure from experimenting with his/her genitals...)

Freud had two major principles:

1. Pleasure Principal: we pursue pleasure. From the moment we're born, we want to be comforted, fed, etc. This pleasure seeking can be both physical and emotional.
2. Reality Principle: You can't always get what you want. Sometimes you have to alter your instinctual behavior to get what you want. Often this leads to supression.

These two principles combine to affect our personalities and make us who we are.

Jokes, dreams, myths, compulsions, obsessions, fetishes, hysterical fits, etc. all are part of our repressed desires, says Freud.

Two Famous Complexes:

Oedipus Complex: A desire to get rid of one's father and "marry" one's mother.
Virtually all men deal with this repressed desire, says Freud.
A male child develops an Oedipus complex as a result of having to compete with their fathers for their mother's attention/affection. They have not learned to accept their fathers' authority and are still dependent on the mother.

Girls go through the Electra Complex - basically the same thing, but reversed gender roles: daughter wants father, etc.

Activities: 

1. Take a personality test for yourself--OR...take a personality test for one of your characters in a story you are writing or have written. Pretend to be that character and answer as your character would answer. You might get to know her or him better. This can be helpful in fleshing out your character's backstory. Go ahead and try it!

2. Watch the psychology videos and take some notes if you care to remember any of this. Perhaps it was all a dream anyway. What does that say about you?

• Write a surrealistic or magical realist story in which characters are driven by forces that symbolize some of Freud's concepts/ideas. A character in a story, for example, who represents the ID or the SUPEREGO...that sort of thing. Usually, your protagonist is your EGO being swayed by the ID and SUPEREGO characters or situations. 
• Write a story or poem in which a character dreams, similar to Alice in Wonderland. You may also read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland! for credit. You can find the book at the link. It's a fun read. To encourage you, take a look at Thug Notes Analysis of the book. 
• Write a creative essay in which you examine or analyze one of your own dreams. 

3. After taking your personality test, work on revising a story or creating a new one about yourself (using the test to reflect). Use some of what you learned today in a short story, poem, essay, or play/scene. For example, characters in a story could discuss Freud.

Use your time at home to write and be creative. Read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and/or The Life of Pi.

Personality tests
Personality test #1
Personality test #2

Psychology videos (learn some psychology!):

• Rorschach & Freudians
• Consciousness
• Cognition

HOMEWORK: Keep writing!