Unit 2 What is Psychological Criticism

Psychological criticism refers to literary criticism which, in method, concept, theory, or form, is influenced by the tradition of
psychoanalysis begun by Sigmund Freud. Freud was assisted by his pupils: Alfred Adler, Otto Rank, Carl Jung and Karen Horney.
Psychoanalytic reading has been practiced since the early development of psychoanalysis itself, and has developed into a rich and
heterogeneous interpretive tradition. But who is Sigmund Freud?

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through
dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst

Sigmund Freud’s major works include:

1. STUDIES IN HYSTERIA
 Which was published in 1895 in collaboration with Joseph Breuer
 Asserts that symptoms of hysteria are the result of unresolved but forgotten traumas from childhood
 Troubled that he could not account for the complaints of his patients whom he diagnosed as hysterics.
 He inferred that their distress was caused by factors of which perhaps even they were unaware.
2. THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS
A. Published in 1900, he addressed fundamental concepts in psychoanalysis.
B. Psychoanalysis is a treatment of psychological disorder in which a patient talks to a analyst about dreams,
childhood, and relationships with parents and authority figures
 In Freud's view, are formed as the result of two mental processes. The first process involves
unconscious forces that construct a wish that is expressed by the dream, and the second is the process
of censorship that forcibly distorts the expression of the wish. In Freud's view, all dreams are forms of
"wish fulfillment"
3. DELUSIONS AND DREAMS IN JENSEN’S GRADIVA
A. This is his first essay on psychoanalysis
B. He psychoanalyzed the central character, noting the Oedipal effects behind the plot.
 The Oedipal complex, also known as the Oedipus complex, is a term used by Sigmund Freud in his theory
of psychosexual stages of development to describe a child's feelings of desire for his or her opposite-sex
parent and jealousy and anger toward his or her same-sex parent.
4. INTRODUCTORY LECTURES ON PSYCHO-ANALYSIS
 He wrote monographs on Dostoyevsky, Shakespeare, and Leonardo Da Vinci
 “The artist has also an introverted disposition and has not far to go to become a neurotic.”
The Iceberg Metaphor

 Freud often used the metaphor of an iceberg to describe the two major aspects of human personality.

The Conscious vs unconscious

The Conscious mind

 “The tip of the iceberg.”
 The conscious mind involves all of the things that you are currently aware of and thinking about. This contains all of the
thoughts, memories, feelings, and wishes of which we are aware at any given moment. This is the aspect of our mental
processing that we can think and talk about rationally. This also includes our memory, which is not always part of
consciousnss but can be retrieved easily and brought into awareness.
The Unconscious mind
 “The entire submerged iceberg.”
 The root causes of one’s problems may be found in here. The unconscious mind is a reservoir of feelings, thoughts,
urges, and memories that are outside of our conscious awareness. The unconscious contains contents that are
unacceptable or unpleasant, such as feelings of pain, anxiety, or conflict.
The Tripartite Psyche

1. The Id
A. Entirely unconscious.
B. The repository of libido, the source of psychic energy and our psychosexual desires, but it gives us our
vitality.
C. Operates without any thought of ethical consciousness.
D. Its aim is the gratification of all primal needs and wants.
 2. The Ego
A. Half conscious and unconscious
B. Regulates the id’s energies and divert, delay and postpone them to more socially acceptable actions.
C. Mediates between our inner selves and our outer world, but not directly knowable.
D. We come closest to knowing it when it is relaxed in hypnosis, sleep, slips of the tongue and dreams.
3. The Supergo
A. Provides additional balance to the id
B. Similar to what is commonly known as “conscience,” it operates according to morality principle.
C. Parents, institutions, cultural norms and religious beliefs are the sources of superego.
D. Balance between the id and superego creates a healthy personality.
E. Overwhelming guilt = guilt complex, too strong superego = unhappiness

Id, ego, and super-ego

Freud proposed that the human psyche could be divided into three parts: Id, ego, and super-ego. Freud discussed this model in the
1920 essay Beyond the Pleasure Principle, and fully elaborated upon it in The Ego and the Id (1923), in which he developed it as an
alternative to his previous topographic schema (i.e., conscious, unconscious and preconscious). The ego is part of personality that
mediates the demands of the id, the superego, and reality. The id is the completely unconscious, impulsive, childlike portion of the
psyche that operates on the "pleasure principle" and is the source of basic impulses and drives; it seeks immediate pleasure and
gratification.
The super-ego is the moral component of the psyche. The ego attempts to exact a balance between the impractical hedonism of the id
and the equally impractical moralism of the super-ego; it is the part of the psyche that is usually reflected most directly in a person's
actions. When overburdened or threatened by its tasks, it may employ defense mechanisms including denial, repression, undoing,
rationalization, and displacement..
It is the ego's job to strike a balance between these two often competing for forces and to make sure that fulfilling the needs of the id
and superego conforms to the demands of reality.