LECTURE ONE: PSYCHOANALYSIS//OUGD501

LECTURE ONE: PSYCHOANALYSIS
developed as a form of therapy

• A: The development of the psyche from birth
  
• B: The development and role of the Unconscious in our everyday lives
  
• C: The development of gender identity (psycho-sexual identity)
  
• D: Understanding the complexities of human subjectivity
  

• Not only a form of therapy (‘the talking cure’)...a theory of the mind (psyche) and a model-based theory that can be applied to other objects and processes
  
• A way of categorising and understanding desire, motivation, dreams.
  
• That we are not entirely controlled by logical and reasonable thought. Our unconscious plays a part in our day-to-day goings- on. 
  
  SIGMUND FREUD:
  
  
  • Conceived of the idea in late 1890s.
    
  • Treated hysteria patients using psychoanalysis by guiding them to discover and accept repressed thoughts/events.
    
  • Dreams: Analysed his own and other’s dreams in terms of their hidden associations and ‘wish-fulfillment’
    
  • Observed infants in their habits and associations with parental figures.
    
  • Established the psychoanalytic theory that allowed for a ‘dynamic unconscious’ part of the mind.
    
    Oedipus - greek mythology, seduced his mother and killed his father, freud used this as an analogy
    
    DYNAMIC UNCONSCIOUS
    created through infancy - protect our conscious selves from events- not acceptable to consciousness 
    -the unconscious is chaotic, without order and language, makes itself present through ticks, slips, symptoms 
    most obvious through hysteria patients.
    Freudian slip- when you accidentally say something, slips out, not what you consciously meant to say, just happens, sometimes in a sexual context, most of the time not.  Not entirely in control of what we say.  The unconscious doesn't control you but it does come out at times.
    
    STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT
    Our development into wilful, conscious beings is full of confusing contradictory and misapprehended thoughts and ideas

The developing child goes through stages:oral, anal and phallic.
PSYCHO-SEXUAL IDENTITY:
Oedipus conplex: sexual/love feelings towards mother, resentment of father..throughout childhood dependence and self centred world view.  feelings of love, rivalry, jealousy all mixed, confusing feelings 'to want' and be wanted'
-Development of both masculine and feminine identities in relation to the penis/phallus.
-Castration complex- the boy fears castration while the girl accepts that she has already been castrated.  Girl assumes she has already been castrated- taken away by mother, they develop Oedipus complex towards father.
Penis-envy: the girl experiences this when she begins to realise she does not have a penis..not a sexual organ but a way of relating to father figure.

Child must experience and overcome mixed feelings and misconceptions in order to gain sexual identity and a speaking position within society. 

• Misconceived/contradictory ideas of gender, power and identity continue to work unconsciously throughout our lives. 
  
  
  THE UNCANNY

-'unhomely 
-unnatural yet familiar at the same time
-something that was meant to remain hidden which has come to the open
-boundary where fantasy and reality break down
-analogies between the unconscious (psychology) and the uncanny (aesthetic)

FREUDIAN MODELS
-Id, ego and superego 
Unconscious, preconscious and conscious

UNCONSCIOUS, PRECONSCIOUS AND CONSCIOUS

• Unconscious – Hidden, repressed, chaos. Where things are stored that are unacceptable to our conscious selves.
  
• Preconscious – Unconscious yet not repressed. Where memories, word associations, etc. are stored and are thus recalled from.
  
• Conscious – Our outward self, personality, identity. 
  

Id, ego and super-ego

• We are bio-socio-individual beings.
  
• Id (unconscious) – represents the biological/instinctual part of ourselves.
  
• Ego (conscious) – represents the individual/personality of ourselves.
  
• Super-Ego (social order) – represents the part of ourselves in relation to others, to social order and to language.
  
• Psychic information is distributed into these ‘spaces’, exist differently and may come into conflict with each other. 
  
  
  JACQUES LACAN:
  
  1960s & 70s Lacan presented his own brand of psychoanalysis claiming a return to Freud.
  • He reconceptualised Freud’s findings through the theoretical model of structural linguistics. Signification.
    
  • Lacan posited that the development of the psyche is entwined within the structures of language...language molds us as much as we hold it  
    
  THE MIRROR STAGE:
  • The child’s recognition of itself in reflection (in objects or other people) signifies a split or alienation – it is seen as both subject and other. 
    
    
    RIVALRY: while child might recognise own image it is still limited in movement and dexterity - resulting in the formation of ego aids (and continues) a reconciliation of body and image/subject and other.
• Captation – the process by which the child is at once absorbed and repelled by the image of itself (the specular image) 

LACANIAN UNCONSCIOUS:

'the unconscious is structured like a language'

the unconscious is the discourse of the Other.

METAPHOR/METONYMY

symptom:

metaphor- a word is used to represent something else which possess similar characteristics

symptoms are translated elements of unconscious material adopting a metaphor-stye coding.

0. Desire:
   
• Metonymy – a part of something used to represent the whole or the whole used to represent a small part. Meaning is displaced along a series of associations – a signifying chain.
  
• Desire for objects (including people) are displaced desire for what cannot be attained...unconscious desire...
  

LACANIAN PHALLUS:

NOT THE BIOLOGICAL PENIS BUT A SYMBOL OF POWER.

MASCULINITY/FEMININITY ARE NOT BIOLOGICAL DEFINITIONS BUT SYMBOLIC POSITIONS

OUR INTERACTIONS/RELATIONS TO THE SYMBOLIC PHALLUS PROVIDES A 'SPEAKING POSITION IN CULTURE'/WITHIN THE SYMBOLIC ORDER:

a) reating to the signifying nature of the phallus

b) our sexual identity informed through the phallus

THE ORDERS OF REALITY:

THE REAL:

that which cannot be symbolised

where our most basic, animal selves exist

THE IMAGINARY:

the order which exists before symbols and signification

where the ego is born and continues to develop

no clear distinctions between self and others/ subject and object

THE SYMBOLIC:

'The order of the Other'

Exists outside ourselves- language exists before and outside of us

PSYCHOANALYSIS AND ART CRITICISM/THEORY:

-subjectivity-what it is to be human, motivations, desires, the unconscious.  -to help us understand why things are as they are.

-to help us understand artists/designers motivations for creating.

EDWARD BERNAYS

-the godfather of PR, Freud's nephew

-applied knowledge of psychoanalysis, unconscious desire to advertising and PR campaigns  

• Revolutionised advertising by applying manipulation techniques.
  
• Promoting lifestyle rather than the product. Embedding desire within products.
  
• Case-Study – ‘Torches of freedom’ 
  
  
  Max Ernst – collages c1930    
  
  
  
  Victor Burgin – ‘The Bridge’, 1984    
  Uses psychoanalysis in this work, professor at European graduate school.  He uses the bridge as a symbolic metaphor for sexual attraction, reference to Hitchcock's Vertigo:
  
  Louise Bourgeois – ‘Spiral Woman’ 1952    
  explores the relation between male and female struggles and desires
  
  CONCLUSION:
  • Psychoanalysis provides us with a definition of the unconscious
    
  • A definition of subjecthood outside of logic and rationality
    
  • A tool to help understand motivations and meanings of art works.
    
  • A tool to help us understand how art & design affects us and why.