Seminar 3.2: Psychoanalysis

There are several misconceptions about Psychoanalysis, one being that it is a mixture of psychology (Behaviour) and psychiatry (Mental illness), and although it is linked to the two, psychoanalysis is also 'a way of thinking' that can be applied to all aspects of society, including art and design. And well, another misconception is that it focuses on nothing but sex, whilst it does position of the role of sexuality, it is also about how we treat and examine other objects.

Sigmund Freud's definitions of Psychoanalysis are:

1. A discipline founded on a procedure for the investigation of mental processes that are otherwise inaccessible because they are unconscious
2. A therapeutic method for the treatment of neurotic disorders
3. A body of psychological data evolving into a new scientific discipline (This one comprises Freud's work on culture, which is largely based on the view that culture is a product or the diversion of sublimation (The conversion f sexual drives and energies into creative and intellectual activity) of sexual energy)

Consciousness has became identical with the meaning 'our awareness of "self"', it is how we perceive the world and how it can be visualised and defined in many different ways. It is Psychoanalysis that seeks to analyse and structure out 'consciousness' through careful dissection of the 'unconscious' mind. The 'unconscious' is what lies beneath the conscious mind, although we often done have access to it. This can perhaps be better understood by the iceberg metaphor:

Our consciousness is normally above ground while our subconscious
is below (And noticeably much bigger).

And now let's use something more specific as an example to better
understand its structure.

Freud's structural breakdown of the mind is ID (Governed by the pleasure principle), Ego (By the reality principle) and Superego (The conscious and ego-ideal).

The consciousness if entirely made up of the ego, namely that small side that we show to the world. Our superego is what lies below that surface, that being our 'conscience', while the ID is our desires and drives (Which are also hidden below the surface and makes up the most of that iceberg). Even by briefly glancing the diagram above, you could say that humans hence find themselves repressing a lot of things…

"Society develops by repressing its desires (Manifested as the ego)" ~ "Civilisation and its discontents', Sigmund Freud, 1930

So anyway… why are we looking into Psychoanalysis? As mentioned earlier, it can be applied to all aspects of society, and in this case, it can be applied here. Psychoanalysis is interested in art, design and the media precisely because it expresses ideas about 'drives' and 'repressors', it interprets the motivations and drives together with the unconscious acts of making and meaning, and it attempts to look at how desires and their repressions are interpreted.

The Surrealists (Eg, Breton, Dali, etc.) emerged themselves in psychoanalysis as a way of uncovering their unconscious and repressed desires. Dali's really specifically titled "Dream Caused by the flight of a bee around a Pomegranate a second before Awakening" (1944) was intended (As quote by Dali in 1962) "to express for the first time in images, Freud's discovery of the typical dream with a lengthy narrative, the consequence of the instantaneousness of a chance event which causes the sleeper to wake up. Thus, as a bar might fall on the neck of a sleeping person, causing them to wake up and for a long dream to end with the guillotine blade falling on them, the noise of the bee here provokes the sensation of the sting which will awake Gala."

Dali and Bunuel, Un Chien Andalou, 1929

We try to believe that there is a meaning to everything in life, no matter how confusing or just plain pointless something might seem. While it has been stated by many that the purpose of this short film in the end was to simply provoke thought from other meaningless and random scenes (Much like David Lynch's "Eraserhead"), each individual couldn't possibly help but initially see possible meanings and symbolism in this film, that will most definitely differ from one person to another. One could conclude that it was all a dream, or a metaphor for sexual depravity, or even death (Though the rather humorous nature of the film might hint at something else altogether…). 

Object-relations is the psychoanalytic concern with how we view and use objects. It also argues that 'transitional objects' are precursors to our adult appreciation of art. Because we can 'invest' emotional energy into an inanimate object, we can also appreciate art and literature, this 'investment' is related to the fetish. For example, Peanut's Linus uses his blanket as a 'transitional object', the object representing his transition from his mother to the outside world. It is argued by Winnicott (1951) that by being able to invest such feelings as maternity and safety in a blanket, we can also invest feelings in other objects, which I believe many of us have actually done (We could act as parental figures to our own electronic gadgets, though I haven't been very responsible when taking care of Trevor… as compared to EDI, god I'm so sorry, Trevor...).

Art and design distracts as well as reassures us from real loss, such as the loss of our mother to our father (Oedipus complex), we invest emotion and sexual energy into them because they are 'safe' objects - unlikely to hurt or leave us.

The abject is the part of our body that repulses us, it is the object that transgresses taste, while it is natural, it still repulses us, something society itself cannot accept. Such example are bodily fluids like urine, faeces, blood, pus, semen, mucus and vomit, all that we regard as dirty and are taught to feel distaste for (Well… they do have germs that will make us ill after all… it's not just that).

In conclusion, Freud's model of the mind is the process of repression forms individual subjects and society. It highlights the importance of the external world, childhood influences and the limits of acceptability in society. The fetish and object relations invests in emotional and psychical energy into inanimate objects, often 'reassuring' us - related to fears regarding castration and estrangement (Okay…). Psychoanalysis is the reading of one's self through analysis of one's actions, it is an attempt to understand how we create the world around us through our neuroses and our drives.