#pyschoanalysis

[rotgospels]

Freud related the myth-grammar at work in us to the constellations of the family: to the tragically Greek "house." The psyche's layered contents reflect the structure of relationships within a home. Troy I, Troy II, Troy VIII . . . Secret, incestuous, murderous... The unconscious is the emblem of the labyrinth, the first royal "house," the house which is also, in myth, a maze which conceals its own shame, its subterranean bull violence.

Ruth Padel, excerpt from “Labyrinth of Desire: Cretan Myth in Us”

[grandhotelabyss]

It makes, then, complete sense that she should have such a loathing for modern art, which, along with the emergent field and discourse of psychoanalysis, disputed the very idea of a singular, unified self (Freud was only three years younger than Van Gogh, and the germs of psychoanalysis had begun to spread by the time of the latter’s death). In Gadsby’s world, and the world of #MeToo, the self begins as a unified entity, is broken by trauma, but is healed by storytelling, which returns the self to its moment of truth.

Yasmin Nair, “No, No, Nanette: Hannah Gadsby, Trauma, and Comedy as Emotional Manipulation”

[simin-ma-blog]

Psychoanalysis

Founded by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud, Psychoanalysis is a set of theories and techniques that study the human’s unconscious mind. Established in the early 1860s, Freud proposed that there are 2 main sections of the mind- the Conscious and the Unconscious. The Conscious is the thoughts that we are aware of and it is only the tip of the iceberg of our mind. While the unconscious makes up most of our mind and it is the fundamental foundation of our personalities and behaviours.  Hence Freud believed that by analysing our mind and making conscious of the unconscious mind, he can lift the repressed emotions and cure his patients. This idea revolutionised and pioneered the study of psychology and the treatments to mental illnesses.

The study of psychology and psychoanalysis is a vast and whole new territory to me, and at first glance, it seems to be completely irrelevant to the discipline of design. However, given more thoughts, there is a lot more connection between the two subjects than one would think. I believe that it is extremely important and relevant for us designers to have some understanding of psychology and how the human mind thinks. This is because the core of designs is its clients, the intended audience. We are designing for a living person/ people. Hence, by understanding the human psyche and how they might act, we can create a design that will resonate and respond well with the intended audience.

Additionally, the study of the mind is a great tool when designing. The idea of the unconscious mind is such a bizarre but fascinating concept, and it can act as a great source of inspirations. The subject has inspired generations of artist and designers, with the most well-known to be Salvador Dali and the surrealism movements. Because the unconscious mind has no constraints or limit to creativity, therefore I believe that there are endless possibilities and ideas that we can get hold of if we explore the subject in depth.

[francois26-blog]

AT THE WOLF'S LAIR

I allowed a wolf to snuffle around in my head a single wolf not her whole pack there to check if heading for breakdown if playing with full deck knowing if there were some old bone in there as yet undigested or even complete skeleton she would be sure to find it any detritus from the past impinging on my present jabbing an accusing parental finger into my soft, spongy cerebrum or edicts from the system nailed into its very core these you suspect a wolf would be perfect for, could track down, soon smell out and so I trundle across to her lair (no snow but sand of desert) cross no minefields, trenches, breast work defences (hers or mine) this madness in me speaking now nothing that a world on absolute edge should fear.

[iheartmyart]

Mike Force, commission for psychoanalysis thesis from Alex Smith, 2013, image posted with permission of the artist.

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[lifeafternewyork]

Psychoanalysts are fond of pointing out that the past is alive in the present. But the future is alive in the present too. The future is not some place we're going to, but an idea in our mind now. It is something we're creating, that in turn creates us. The future is a fantasy that shapes our present.

Stephen Grosz in The Examined Life. AKA: the focus of all my attention on a flight from JFK to LAX last night. If you yearn for a book that will keep you thinking long after you turn the last page, this is it.

[post-makhno]

Lacan discovered, or brought out into the open, the fact that the theory of the unconscious is incompatible with a theory of the subject (in the Cartesian sense of the term as well as the phenomenological one). . . [he] concluded that it was precisely the philosophy of the subject which had to be abandoned on account of this incompatibility, and that the point of departure should be an analysis of the mechanisms of the unconscious

Michel Foucault, Remarks on Marx p. 56-57

[tumblekitten]

"Stendhal noted in the margin of the first page of De l'Amour: 'I undertake to trace with a mathematical precision and (if I can) truth, the history of the illness called love.' Love is an illness: it entails the renunciation of his individuality and reason. For Stendhal, the devotee of enlightenment, this means denying one's very reason for existing. Love becomes a mortal danger, and only a greater danger (Dracula!) can cure the person who falls victim to it: 'The leap from Leucates was a fine image in antiquity. In fact, the remedy for love is almost impossible. It requires not only that danger which sharply recalls a man's attention to his own preservation; it also requires -- something far more difficult -- the continuity of an enticing danger.' An enticing danger, just as that of love is a dangerous enticement: fear and desire incessantly overturn into one another. They are indivisible. "

Franco Moretti - The Dialectic of Fear