#1 Response to “A Clinical Lesson at the Salpêtrière” by André Brouillet
I notice that all the men in the painting are using the women as an example of what hysteria looks like. It’s as if they are all observing her while listening to the speaker. It makes me feel concerned because the message I perceive from this painting is unsettling. It is also not bright and inviting, but instead portrays a dark and dismal setting. I dont understand why they have to hold the woman up there when she’s not well for the sake of a presentation. It makes it seem like those men have no sympathy or respect for the woman in the painting.
#2 Summary & Response Essay Description
Our Summary and Response essay should showcase our comprehension of Freud’s first two lectures. We can write our papers either on how doctors during those days treated hysterical patients by citing and summarizing Freud’s Lecture 1 or the concept of “hysterical dissociation”.Our essay should connect to the prior reading we have done. Expectations of this paper include a proper thesis that carries throughout our essay, appropriate usage of MLA citations, and quotes. Flow, a title that properly represents our argument, and effective buildup throughout the entirety of the paper are also expected from us.
#3 The Yellow Wallpaper Response
I would describe the relationship between the main character and her husband in “The Yellow Wallpaper” as strained. He sees her as her illness but still refuses to listen to how she feels about her depression. This can be perceived because she says that “John does not know how much I suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer and that satisfies him”. Throughout the short story, the main character expresses her struggles with her mental illness and how writing makes her feel better, but her husband refuses to believe that and feels as though he knows what’s best because he’s the physician. Their relationship gets more challenging throughout the story because of the stonewalling her husband repeatedly does. It is clear to readers that she’s afraid of telling her husband that strict bed rest won’t help her heal because he thinks she is the reason her illness gets worse. He comprehensively tells her that “no one but herself can help her out of it, that she must use her will and self-control and not let any silly fantasies run away with her.” The main characters mental state deteriorates as the story goes on because she is not getting the help she needs; instead she faced with the inclination of her hallucinations, and a husband who she feels won’t believe her.
A couple of Freudian concepts such as hysteria, reminiscences, and suppression are portrayed throughout the story. Breuer describes hysteria as “an illness caused by individuals who transgress the laws of his science”. In Freud’s Lecture 1 it is visible that Breuer also “attributes every kind of wickedness to them, accuses them of exaggeration, of deliberate deceit, of malingering. And he punishes them by withdrawing his interest from them”. The main character is suffering from an illness that resembles hysteria, and her husband feels as though she is exaggerating how she feels just like Dr. Breuer would. Charlotte Perkin Gilman the author of the short story reveals her mental health story to readers throughout “Why I Wrote The Yellow Paper”. She suffered from a mental illness, and when she went to get help she was given medical advice that did more harm than good in her case. She tells us that she “went home and obeyed those directions for some three months, and came so near the borderline of utter mental ruin that I could see over”.The same can be said about the main character and the rest cure she was prescribed by both her brother and husband.
#4 “The Sick Rose,” and “Freud’s Dreamwork”
The sick rose written by William Blake includes all 5 elements of Freud’s Dream Work. Both the rose and worm represent a deeper meaning within the poem. These symbols can also be referred to as condensation. The displacement within this poem is the shift from when the poet speaks about a “worm that flies in the night in the howling storm” to “has found out thy bed of crimson joy” seeing as we see a shift of something important like the symbolic worm flying in a dark setting to a brighter and “relatively trivial one”.The manifest content would be that the “rose is sick”, and “the invisible worm that flies at night” because they are real events occurring in the dream. The latent content is the true hidden meaning of the dream. Seeing as the poet never revealed what the rose or worm actually symbolizes, the latent content of the dream could be interpreted differently by each reader. Personally, I feel as though the latent content of this poem is that the rose represents light, beauty, and happiness while the worm represents darkness, the end, and an illness. I think the poem represents a sick woman who was once full of life, but something dark (the worm) caused her to become sick. I think the worm harmed her because the poet says that “and his dark secret love, Does thy love destroy”. I interpret the quote as the worm destroyed or ended her life in a way.
#5 Response: A Country Doctor
Throughout the short story A Country Doctor, written by Franz Kafka it seems as though the horses represent an intuitive and instinctive force. The doctor within the story is in need of someone to guide him through his life seeing as he has no grasp on it. He has no dominance over his life or the horses and that showcases how the horses guide him through his obstacles. This is clear within the story seeing as we are told that his horses are dead and that “not a single in the village would lend him another”(Kafka 2). The doctor needs the horse to show him and symbolically tell him what the next steps in his life will be. Freud would categorize the horses in terms of the dreamwork as condensation because it is defined as many different ideas represented by one symbol and that is exactly what is being portrayed within A Country Doctor.
#6 Response: Freud’s LIV
While reading Freud’s Lecture four, parts of his lecture made me feel both surprised and disturbed, and others left me feeling intrigued and wanting to know more about it. An instance when I was both surprised and disturbed was when Freud mentioned that the wishful impulses children may feel throughout their childhood are in fact sexual. Freud says “But these powerful wishful impulses of childhood may without exception be described as sexual. Is there such thing then, as infantile sexuality”. (Freud 2230) Honestly, I would never have thought that a child was born with sexual instincts or desires. This surprises and disturbs me at the same time because when I think of a child I think of innocence, and this has changed my perception of childhood as a whole. The nuclear complex of every neurosis intrigues me quite a lot because it’s a phenomenon that I have never heard of. I never knew that the nuclear complex coincides with the development of a child’s sexual cognitive abilities and curiosity. Freud mentions that that “He begins to enquire where babies come from and on the basis of the evidence presented to him guesses more of the true facts than the grown-ups imagine.”(Freud 2232) The last portion of Freuds 4th lecture alone surprises me. Freud assures us the readers that further research and talk about a child’s sexual curiosity and development actually brings us closer to finding a cure for psychological disorders such as hysteria and that it is all linked together. Freud states that “these discussions on sexual life and the psychosexual development of children have led us too far from psycho-analysis and the problem of curing nervous disorders”. (Freud 2233) And what disturbs me alone would be when Freud discusses how neurosis could be connected to an adult’s “impaired sexual development in a different way”. (Freud 2231) I would never have thought to compare a mental illness to sexual issues that stem from when the individual was a child.
Within lecture five of Freud five lectures on psychoanalysis Freud describes an artistic gift as an individual who “possesses something that is still a psychological mystery”. (Freud 2235) The difference between someone that has an artistic gift and an individual with known mental illness is that “he can transform his phantasies into artistic creations instead of into symptoms. In this manner he can escape the doom of neurosis and by this roundabout path regain his contact with reality”(Freud 2235). Freud mentions that neurosis starts with the regression of the libido, which is something that individuals who possess an artistic gift actually avoid (Freud 2235).
#9 Response: The Angel and the Devil
The reason why the id and superego are not the angel and devil on your shoulders is because that ideology can’t be proved by evidence. The id and superego themselves have not been proven to be real. The idea is that as a problem occurs and a decision has got to be made, individuals listen to an inner voice or dispute that occurs within themselves. And the id is just a bunch of urges that an individual has. Freud mentions that “We approach the id with analogies: we call it a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations.” This showcases how both the id and superego are feelings, urges, and inner conflict within an individual as opposed to an actual devil and angel on someone’s shoulders.
#10 Breakout Room Discussion: The id, ego, superego 11/17
My Breakout Room consisted of: Mohammed Kabir, Stephany Jarama, Suhaila Islam, Rothna Begum
Id-the most primitive/ instinctive part of your desires that contain desires, and hidden and unconscious (chaotic) thoughts. No rationale. For example, Freud declares “We approach the id with analogies: we call it a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations.” This shows how the Id has total control(governs) over newborns which is why they receive these types of desires. “
**Everything comes back to the libido (sexual instincts). Everyone is born with sexual instincts and the Id
Ego- The ego serves the id, superego, and the external world. The ego is after all only a portion of the id, a portion that has been expediently modified by the proximity of the external world (society) with its threat of danger. Resolves the issues between Id and Superego. Mediates between one wants (Id) and shoulds (superego). Develops after the battle between id and superego. To further add, the reason we came to this conclusion of what was the definition for the ego was that Freud declared “The relation to the external world has become the decisive factor for the ego”. Freud is declaring that the ego is not only trying to get the id and superego happy but also the exterior world.
SuperEgo – Conscious part of personality. Derives from the values we see in family and society. Gives a sense of right and wrong, good and bad, guilt and pride. SuperEgo satisfies the id and the ego, balances it out. The ego mediates between what one wants (id) and shoulds(SuperEgo). According to Freud, the superego “applies the strictest moral standard to the helpless ego which is at its mercy; in general, it represents the claims of morality, and we realize all at once that our moral sense of guilt is the expression of the tension between the ego and the super-ego.” This shows the brightness of the superego where a person learns about morality where they know what is good vs bad and are able to distinguish them such as knowing that stealing is a wrong thing to do.
