Psychoanalysis


 * Etymology and Definition**

A cursory search on the Internet for a definition of psychoanalysis will yield multiple results that seem to reference a similar document with varying degrees of improper citation [see footnote 1]. The recurring theme on the Internet is that psychoanalysis is both a theory and a treatment, which is true enough. The online Oxford English Dictionary defines psychoanalysis as, “A therapeutic method, originated by Sigmund Freud, for treating mental disorders by investigating the interaction of conscious and unconscious elements in the patient's mind and bringing repressed fears and conflicts into the conscious mind, using techniques such as dream interpretation and free association. Also: a system of psychological theory associated with this method” (psychoanalysis, 2007). The word first appeared in German and French writings, both forms introduced by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud in 1896 (psychoanalysis, 2007).


 * Theory**

Psychoanalysis was mostly developed by Sigmund Freud during the turn and first half of the 20th century. The therapeutic practice was intended to help patients with symptoms of hysteria who had no other physical causes or roots for their disorders. Freud wrote several accounts and models for understanding psychological phenomena such as narcissism, hysteria, dreams, and the development of sexuality. Most people who are vaguely familiar with psychoanalysis are able to reference terminology from Freud’s 1923 work The Ego and the Id, where Freud introduces a structural theory of the psychic underpinnings working in each person.

In structural theory, the psyche is comprised of three components, the ego, superego and id (Freud, 1923). The id represents the driving forces and base desires of the personality, and is present from birth; the superego represents the self-observing and self-critical judgments a person has of themselves that develop with other mental faculties of reason; the ego represents the part of the personality that negotiates between the driving forces of the id and the social reality of the external world (Freud 1923).

When these components of the psyche interact in an unhealthy balance, a patient will demonstrate symptoms of anxiety through psychological disorders. It is the job of the analyst to guide the patient through treatment to find the root of the anxieties and experience catharsis. The popularity of psychoanalysis has been somewhat usurped by recent advances in psychopathology and neuropharmacology, but psychoanalysis continues to have cache (see Appelbaum, 2011; Kaplan, 1963; Lehtonen, 2010; and Russell and Stiles, 1979).


 * Application of Psychoanalysis to Cultural Studies**

As advancements in neuroscience have displaced the prominence of psychoanalysis in psychology, cultural studies have taken up the mantle. In specific, cinema studies coopted the psychoanalytic lens for textual analysis for cultural artifacts. Writes Fuery: “Sigmund Freud asserts often, and with vigour, that psychoanalysis has a cultural intent - it needs to understand cultural processes in order to understand the psyche. Similarly, it is impossible to imagine a cinema outside culture” (2008, ¶3). When psychoanalytic principles are applied to cinema studies, //culture// becomes the patient through which //films// are the symptomatic expressions of anxiety and psychic repression. For further reading on psychoanalysis in film, see also Derrida 1998; Fuery, 2004; Kaplan, 1990; Metz, 1985; Penley 1989; and Silverman, 1988.


 * Application of Psychoanalysis to Rhetorical Studies**

While psychoanalytical practices are more often used in clinical research rather than in purely theoretical capacities, there are several scholars who have utilized psychoanalytical concepts to understand rhetoric as well as using rhetoric to understand psychoanalytical texts and concepts (Milton, 2011, 109; Butchart, 2013, 66; Spence, 1994, 77). Much of this work centers on twentieth century French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, primarily because portions of his work focus on the importance and processes of language and speech (Lundberg, 2012, xi-xiii). However, Freud was also known for employing rhetoric in his work, most notably using metaphors in his theoretical formulations as a way to increase credibility (Spence, 1994, 97). Freud was also known to assert claims rather than derive them and used metalepsis in his style of writing (Spence, 1994, 103; 107).

Many scholars tout Lacan’s concept of the Symbolic, the Imaginary, and the Real as central to understanding how Lacan understood and conceptualized rhetoric (Lundberg, 2012, 179). Lacan is best know for the complexity of his work, though there are those intellectuals who believe that because his work directly deals with the unfathomable state of the Real, it is by its very nature designed to challenge the defense of the Self and disrupt automatic thinking (Gunn, 2004b, 502). Some argue that Lacan posited that the unconscious, specifically linked to the Imaginary, is structured like language, arguing that it is either an exploration of cognition and narration or in order to draw attention to the relationship between speaker and community (Schleifer, 1992, 148; Bush, 2012, 284). Lacan’s work has also been interpreted as arguing that rhetoric is a conceptual model that structures social and linguistic discourse within the bounds of hegemony (Bush, 2012, 283).

Alternative interpretations argue that speech is a manifestation of the Symbolic and thus rhetoric is a form of analytical engagement with the conditions of production being knowledge and subjectivity (Lundberg, 2004, 499-500). Other theorists believe Lacan conceptualizes communication, including rhetoric, is mediation between subject and object, or in this case, the Self and the Other (as characterized by the unconscious) and creates an unstable relationship (Gunn, 2004a, 3). Communication thus becomes a way of dealing with fantasies of the Real, aspects of reality that are outside the realm of human understanding (Gunn, 2004a, 4).

Other interpretations of Lacan’s work place the individual as the subject of language, thus rhetoric is contingent on the intersection between the two, and plays a part in controlling individual action and decision making (Thomas, 1993, 344; 337). Scholars have also argued that Lacan postulated that communication itself (and to that end, rhetoric) was inherently flawed, since successful communication, wherein a receiver comprehends what the sender is saying, is not a guaranteed outcome of conscious intervention (i.e. language) (Butchart, 2013, 66). This is because Lacan believed there was no way to understand all through language, since it only acted as a sense of perception connected through a web of meanings (i.e. words), and thus communication is inherently unstable (Butchart, 2013, 68-69). Some dimensions and types of communication, such as fantasy, are argued to allow individuals to have a sense of autonomy while protecting them from the Real (Gunn, 2004a, 18).

[Footnote 1]: The only citation for this repeated mantra was found as a footnote to only one website the author found, which stated: [Adapted from a piece written by Eve Caligor, M.D. and Lisa Piazza, M.D., Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research.]

Lindsay Anderson (August 2012).

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 * References**

Appelbaum, J. (2011). Should psychoanalysis become a science? The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 71, 1-15.

Bush, R. (2012). Rhetoric, Psychoanalysis, and the Imaginary. //Cultural Studies, 26//(2-3), 282-298.

Butchart, G. C. (2013). The Uncertainty of Communication as Revealed by Psychoanalysis. //The Review of Communication, 13//(1), 66-84.

Derrida, J. (1998). Resistances of Psychoanalysis. Tr. Kampf, P., Brault, P., and Nass, M. (Eds.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Freud, S. (1955 [1923]). The Ego and the Id. XIX (2nd ed.), London: Hogarth Press.

Fuery, P. (2004). Madness and cinema: Psychoanalysis, spectatorship and culture. London: Palgrave.

Fuery, P. (2008). Psychoanalysis and Cinema. In J. Donald & M. Renov (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of film studies (pp. 226-244). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Gunn, J. (2004a). On Dead Subjects: A Rejoinder to Lundberg on (a) Psychoanalytic Rhetoric. //Quarterly Journal of Speech, 90//(4), 501-513.

Gunn, J. (2004b). Refitting Fantasy: Psychoanalysis, Subjectivity and Talking to the Dead. //Quarterly Journal of Speech, 90//(1), 1-23.

Kaplan, D. M. (1963). Classical psychoanalysis: Policies, values and the future. Psychoanalytic Review, 53(1), 99-111.

Kaplan, E. A. (Ed.) (1990). Psychoanalysis and the cinema. New York: Routledge

Lehtonen, J. (2010). Dimensions in the dialogue between psychoanalysis and neuroscience. International Forum of Psychoanalysis, 19, 218-223.

Lundberg, C. (2004). The Royal Road Not Taken: Joshua Gunn's "Refitting Fantasy: Psychoanalysis, Subjectivity and Talking to the Dead" and Lacan's Symbolic Order. //Quarterly Journal of Speech, 90//(4), 495-500.

Lundberg, C. (2012). //Lacan in Public: Psychoanalysis and the Science of Rhetoric//. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press.

Metz, C. (1985). The imaginary signifier: Psychoanalysis and the cinema. Tr. Britton, C., Williams, A., Brewster, B., & Guzzetti, A (Eds.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Milton, J., Polmear, C., & Fabricius, J. (2011). //A Short Introduction to Psychoanalysis// (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: Sage.

Penley, C.(1989). The future of an illusion: Film, feminism and psychoanalysis. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Psychoanalysis. (2007). In Oxford English Dictionary online. Retrieved from http://dictionary.oed.com.

Russell, R. L., & Stiles, W. B. (1979). Categories for classifying language in psychotherapy. Psychological Bulletin, 86(2), 404-419.

Schleifer, R., Davis, R. C., & Mergler, N. (1992). //Culture and Cognition: The Boundaries of Literary and Scientific Inquiry//. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Silverman, K. (1988). The acoustic mirror: The female voice in psychoanalysis and cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Spence, D. P. (1994). //The Rhetorical Voice of Psychoanalysis: Displacement of Evidence by Theory//. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Thomas, D. (1993). Burke, Nietzsche, Lacan: Three Perspectives on the Rhetoric of Order. //Quarterly Journal of Speech, 79//, 336-355.