4. Autobiography and psychoanalysis

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Marcus
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
Carl Jung ◽  
The Self ◽  
Inner World ◽  
Psychoanalytic Thought ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Psychoanalytic Theories ◽  
Inside Out

Life-writing has been central to psychoanalysis, which created its own form of biographical narrative. The psychoanalytic case study draws upon the dreams and reminiscences of patients to reconstruct their stories. Psychoanalysis has also profoundly shaped autobiographical consciousness. While psychoanalytic theories and therapies have led to new ways of thinking and writing about the self, psychoanalytic thought also takes up much earlier models of the mind and identity. Through the works of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, among others, ‘Autobiography and psychoanalysis’ explains how psychoanalysis has been a shaping force on 20th-century autobiography. The model of the ‘inside out’ suggests an exploration of the autobiographer’s inner world, which is then turned outwards, through writing and towards a readership.

‘Behind the Poetic Fiction’: Freud, Schnitzler and Feminine Subjectivity

2004 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-223
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Goodstein
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
The Other ◽  
Modernist Literature ◽  
Arthur Schnitzler ◽  
Feminine Subjectivity ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
Poetic Fiction ◽  
Psychoanalytic Theories

In 1922 Sigmund Freud wrote to fellow Viennese author and dramatist Arthur Schnitzler: ‘I believe I have avoided you out of a sort of fear of my double’. Through a series of reflections on this imagined doubling and its reception, this paper demonstrates that the ambivalent desire for his literary other attested by Freud's confession goes to the heart of both theoretical and historical questions regarding the nature of psychoanalysis. Bringing Schnitzler's resistance to Freud into conversation with attempts by psychoanalytically oriented literary scholars to affirm the Doppengängertum of the two men, it argues that not only psychoanalytic theories and modernist literature but also the tendency to identify the two must be treated as historical phenomena. Furthermore, the paper contends, Schnitzler's work stands in a more critical relationship to its Viennese milieu than Freud's: his examination of the vicissitudes of feminine desire in ‘Fräulein Else’ underlines the importance of what lies outside the oedipal narrative through which the case study of ‘Dora’ comes to be centered on the uncanny nexus of identification with and anxious flight from the other.

The Self in Meditation: The Art of Self-Transformation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Frazier
Keyword(s):  
Selective Attention ◽  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
The Self ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
Weather System ◽  
Inner World ◽  
Narrative Forms ◽  
The Mind

This chapter outlines a theory of meditation as an art of self-shaping, by emphasizing meditation’s efficacy as a tool for sculpting the “plastic” structures of the mind. First, it considers modern views of meditation as a form of healing that brings the mind “back” to its natural functioning. This stands in contrast with most traditional views of meditation as a way to change the self in permanent—and sometimes radical—ways. Second, it sketches a model of the mind’s “architecture of attention”—exploring the role of selective attention in cognitive processing and the cumulative structures of the self. Third, given this model of the mind, it considers some examples of how absorptive, deconstructive, and narrative forms of meditation shape the inner world of the practitioner. From this examination of meditative functions, there emerges an ontology of the self that recognizes its self-creative malleability. Less an atomic individual or an outward-shining power of perception, the self appears as a kind of dynamic weather system that is constantly transformed as it takes up the raw materials of sensory stimulus. On this model, meditation functions as the selective factor that allows different elements of that system to predominate and thereby shape the others. Finally, the chapter reminds that, far from the modern world’s concern with individual autonomy, classical meditation’s subtle artistry aimed to bring the self into alignment with broader realities.

scholarly journals A Psychoanalysis of Female Characters in the Novels Heat and Dust and Inside the Haveli : Function of Mother Archetype in the Characters of the Narrator and Geeta

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 72-81
Author(s):  
Deepali Jaiswal
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Carl Jung ◽  
The Self ◽  
Collective Unconscious ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Analysis Process ◽  
Mother Archetype

The psychoanalysts enhance our understanding of our consciousness, the self and self-identity. Psychoanalytic theory plays an important role in the comprehension of the fundamental condition of selfhood. The self is not an unified entity in psychoanalytical terms. Human subject emerges as an outcrop of the unconscious desire. After Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, a swiss psychologist is considered as an eminent contributor to psychoanalysis who theorized the concept of collective unconscious. The purpose of my study is to find out the presence of the collective unconscious and to analyse two female characters, The Narrator , from the novel Heat and Dust and Geeta from Inside the Haveli with the help of Jung's theory of  collective unconscious and mother archetype. In this research paper several theoretical concepts of  Carl Jung are used to analyse the female characters. Jung’s theories are applied during the analysis process such as personal conscious, collective conscious and archetypes. I would use qualitative method for the analysis of the characters of the Narrator and  Geeta. I would use important dialogues and incidents for the data collection for the analysis of the characters. The psychoanalytic study of the Narrator and Geeta shows that they both have collective unconscious. I would study the function of mother archetype in the life of the Narrator and Geeta

The Dreams of Santiago Ramón y Cajal

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Ehrlich
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Inner World ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Neurobiological Research ◽  
Intellectual Discipline ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Ramón Y Cajal

This book contains the first English translation of the lost dream diary of Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852–1934), the Nobel Prize-winning “father of modern neuroscience.” In the late nineteenth century, while scientific psychologists searched the inner world of human beings for suitable objects of study, Cajal discovered that the nervous system, including the brain, is composed of distinctly independent cells, later termed neurons. “The mysterious butterflies of the soul,” he romantically called them, “whose beating of wings may one day reveal to us the secrets of the mind.” Cajal was contemporary with Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), whose “secrets of the mind” radically influenced a century of thought. Although the two men never met, their lives and works were intimately related, and each is identified with the foundation of a modern intellectual discipline—neurobiology and psychoanalysis—still in conversation and conflict today. In personal letters, Cajal insulted Freud and dismissed his theories as lies. In order to disprove his rival, Cajal returned to an old research project and started recording his own dreams. For the last five years of his life, he abandoned his own neurobiological research and concentrated on psychological manuscripts, including a new “dream book.” Although his intention was to publish, the project was never released. The unfinished work was thought to be lost, until recently, when a Spanish book appeared claiming to feature the dreams of Cajal, along with the untold story of their complex journey into print.

scholarly journals “Celebrate your bloom story”

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-20
Author(s):  
Alora Paulsen Mulvey
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Sense Of Community ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
The Self ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
The Public ◽  
Online Platforms ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
A Site

Using 27-year-old Canadian beauty blogger Estée Lalonde as a site of automedia analysis (Maguire 2015), this paper argues that through the enactment of domestic femininity in the public sphere, social media influencers embody postfeminist ideals of individual empowerment while selling their branded selves through networked intimacy (Abidin 2015; Gill, 2016). Methodologically, I approach the case study with an understanding of the intersection between online platforms of the intersection between online platforms, life writing, and constructions of the self. Using cross-promotion, scheduled posts, and self-branding, influencers create a cohesive branded self, emphasizing perceived authenticity and a sense of community among followers. The exercise of self-branding is used to gain cultural and material capital (Hearn, 2008). Understanding postfeminism as an analytical lens through which we can problematize media texts (Gill, 2016), I argue that influencer marketing privileges a one-dimensional, postfeminist representation of an empowered young woman following her life’s passion (Duffy & Hund, 2015).

scholarly journals The detective, the psychiatrist and post-modernism

1998 ◽  
Vol 22 (9) ◽  
pp. 573-574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan Beveridge
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
External World ◽  
Individual Psychology ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
The Social ◽  
Post Modernism ◽  
Inner World ◽  
External Events ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Mind

The similarity between the work of the fictional detective and that of the psychiatrist has often been remarked. Both Marcus (1984) and Shepherd (1985) have compared the technique of the archetypal sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, with that of Sigmund Freud. The sage of Baker Street attempted to solve criminal cases by finding links between items in the external world, such as footprints, bloodstains or broken locks, while Freud tried to make sense of the mysteries of the mind by making connections between events in the inner world, such as dreams, thoughts and desires. Both attempted to provide an all-encompassing explanation of seemingly disparate phenomena. Over the years, the literary descendants of Holmes have become increasingly similar to psychiatrists, because, as well as attending to the external events, they also take account of the individual psychology of the criminal and the social context of the crime.

AAC Collaboration Using the Self-Anchored Rating Scales (SARS): An Aphasia Case Study

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 136-143
Author(s):  
Lynn E. Fox
Keyword(s):  
Augmentative And Alternative Communication ◽  
Rating Scales ◽  
Rating Scale ◽  
Therapeutic Process ◽  
Family Counseling ◽  
The Self ◽  
Alternative Communication ◽  
Her Family ◽  
Solution Focused

Abstract The self-anchored rating scale (SARS) is a technique that augments collaboration between Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) interventionists, their clients, and their clients' support networks. SARS is a technique used in Solution-Focused Brief Therapy, a branch of systemic family counseling. It has been applied to treating speech and language disorders across the life span, and recent case studies show it has promise for promoting adoption and long-term use of high and low tech AAC. I will describe 2 key principles of solution-focused therapy and present 7 steps in the SARS process that illustrate how clinicians can use the SARS to involve a person with aphasia and his or her family in all aspects of the therapeutic process. I will use a case study to illustrate the SARS process and present outcomes for one individual living with aphasia.

Cartesian Fingerprints in Beckett's Imagination Dead Imagine

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-243
Author(s):  
Irit Degani-Raz
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Levels Of Abstraction ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Limiting Case

The idea that Beckett investigates in his works the limits of the media he uses has been widely discussed. In this article I examine the fiction Imagination Dead Imagine as a limiting case in Beckett's exploration of limits at large and the limits of the media he uses in particular. Imagination Dead Imagine is shown to be the self-reflexive act of an artist who imaginatively explores the limits of that ultimate medium – the artist's imagination itself. My central aim is to show that various types of structural homologies (at several levels of abstraction) can be discerned between this poetic exploration of the limits of imagination and Cartesian thought. The homologies indicated here transcend what might be termed as ‘Cartesian typical topics’ (such as the mind-body dualism, the cogito, rationalism versus empiricism, etc.). The most important homologies that are indicated here are those existing between the role of imagination in Descartes' thought - an issue that until only a few decades ago was quite neglected, even by Cartesian scholars - and Beckett's perception of imagination. I suggest the use of these homologies as a tool for tracing possible sources of inspiration for Beckett's Imagination Dead Imagine.

The Relationship between Seeker and Spiritual Guide as portrayed in contemporary Western Sufi Autobiographies

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-332
Author(s):  
Kate Zebiri
Keyword(s):  
Life Writing ◽  
New Age ◽  
The Self ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
Religious Authority ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Continuity And Discontinuity

This article aims to explore the Shaykh-mur?d (disciple) or teacher-pupil relationship as portrayed in Western Sufi life writing in recent decades, observing elements of continuity and discontinuity with classical Sufism. Additionally, it traces the influence on the texts of certain developments in religiosity in contemporary Western societies, especially New Age understandings of religious authority. Studying these works will provide an insight into the diversity of expressions of contemporary Sufism, while shedding light on a phenomenon which seems to fly in the face of contemporary social and religious trends which deemphasize external authority and promote the authority of the self or individual autonomy.

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