The Psychological Makeup of Scottie’s Character in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo

This paper aims at studying the psychological makeup of Scottie’s character in Vertigo (1958), a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and usually considered one of his masterpieces. The paper emphasizes the importance of analyzing Scottie’s character from a psychoanalytic point of view, especially the images, dreams, and schizophrenic duality of his personality. The significance of the study lies in its attempt to resolve the argument about Scottie’s story. Some critics consider this story a fictional dream that resulted from the conflict that Scottie suffered from in the past in intense psychological trauma. On the other hand, the story is a complex murder story planned by an evil character called “Gavin.” To resolve this conflict of opinion, this paper tries to explain the complexity of Scottie’s surface and analyze it according to some psychoanalytic theories and concepts such as Freud’s theory of the Unconscious, and the idea of fantasy, and the dream work. The researchers conclude that considering Vertigo a dream is one of the ways that help to resolve the conflict about Scottie’s character and the film as a whole.

The Psychological Makeup of Scottie’s Character in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo

This paper aims at studying the psychological makeup of Scottie’s character in Vertigo (1958), a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and usually considered one of his masterpieces. The paper emphasizes the importance of analyzing Scottie’s character from a psychoanalytic point of view, especially the images, dreams, and schizophrenic duality of his personality. The significance of the study lies in its attempt to resolve the argument about Scottie’s story. Some critics consider this story a fictional dream that resulted from the conflict that Scottie suffered from in the past in intense psychological trauma. On the other hand, the story is a complex murder story planned by an evil character called “Gavin.” To resolve this conflict of opinion, this paper tries to explain the complexity of Scottie’s surface and analyze it according to some psychoanalytic theories and concepts such as Freud’s theory of the Unconscious, and the idea of fantasy, and the dream work. The researchers conclude that considering Vertigo a dream is one of the ways that help to resolve the conflict about Scottie’s character and the film as a whole.

DreamSenseMemory - a Gestalt-based dream-work approach embracing all our senses

Gestalt therapists believe that their task is to help their clients to experience repressed, ambivalent, and unpleasant things in order to accept and implement them in their whole self. To implement those ‘things’, those elements of the self, they need to be uncovered first, which is a process that often is achieved by dream work, as messages from the unconscious that are stuck in our dreams can be revealed by certain Gestalt-therapy methods. The method in focus is the newly developed DreamSenseMemory technique which is based on neurological findings on how the senses at play influence memory processing. Dream work with the DreamSenseMemory method has the advantage that by using this method on a regular basis, dream content will not only be remembered more often but also in more detail. Thus, effectively supporting dream work and its process of understanding the message of the unconscious, accepting the elements withing and implementing them in the self.