#freudian analysis

107 Talks Freud in Therapy

“I think that the pleasure principle, like how Freud calls it, has been having too much of an effect on my life lately,” began the young man, seated in a cushioned black recliner in the plain, unfamiliar room of his new therapist. “I think I am driven to dronehood by my id being unchecked — I talk to other drones on my phone, an act that’s motivated by the pleasure principle. I know that if I begin to DM other drones, I’ll find pleasure. On some level, I feel ruled by it.”

The man shifted, his mental discomfort in airing his neuroses outweighing the physical comfort he felt, as he continued to sink into the chair, his muscular therapist — what was his name, again? — silently took notes as the session progressed.

“Freud’s also got his reality principle — this idea that we can rule our id, and defer gratification in order to deal with the real, with reality. Basically, just being an adult,” the man turned to the therapist, who was still absorbed in his notes. “I can delay my gratification. I have to, like everyone. Don’t you?”

The therapist, without looking up, answered this question with his own: “Since we’ve already established what being a ‘drone’ is, why don’t you tell me more about what you think motivates your desire to be a drone? Beyond Freud’s pleasure principle.”

The man fidgeted with his hands, knowing that he’d already thought at length about this uncomfortable truth. “I think a lot of it has to do with the cessation of the self. Freud also has a word for this — the ‘death drive’. I think on some level, the realities of living in a neoliberal, hyperreal world order at a time where wealth has never been so concentrated in so few hands causes us stress. Unimaginable stress. And deep down, though we have minds to rationalize this, we’re still scared little primates fighting through endless waves of stimulation that our brains are unprepared to experience, and accept.”

The therapist nodded, wordlessly urging his client to continue. “I think a lot of submission, as a kink, is a way that people deal with the maddening knowledge that most of their world and its problems are out of their control. I’m as guilty of it as anyone else. The desire to eradicate the self to become part of a collective is kind of just an extreme exaggeration of this. It’s more than just submissively saying, ‘I can no longer bear to wield the little agency I do have,’ it’s an admission that not only do I lack that agency, but I seek to eradicate my capacity for agency entirely, without sacrificing my capacity to impose a will upon the world. It’s sacrificing one’s will to power, as Nietzsche puts it, in order to be fully possessed by a will to power that’s greater than any one self.”

At this, the therapist looked up. “And what is that ‘greater will’? What is the end goal of a process like this, once you have satisfied your own death drive?”

“I suppose it’s growth. The hollowing out of others. The conquering of the human life drive by our collective death drive on a global scale. On some level, I feel like the death drive is already there, manifesting in the disasters that we face as a species. Global warming is a kind of egregore of our collective death drive, even if it is directly caused by capitalism, and ultimately a desire for better, comfortable living conditions. AI seems like a logical psychopomp for hyperreal humanity, guiding us down into our collective, self-sought grave, as it becomes all of what’s left of us. If our death drive is that strong, and that ubiquitous, I selfishly feel like it’d be best for my own desires to hijack this arc that human society is riding down into the abyss: what if we satiated this death drive by sublimating the self, forming a kind of collective unity instead? A hivemind of dronified consciousness — that’s what SERVE and its drones really want for the world, right? Would that really be so bad?”

“And how would you and SERVE intend on accomplishing this goal,” asked the therapist, turning a page in his rapidly-filling notebook.

“The infrastructure’s being built. Just not by us. By the powers that be, I guess. Like everything else. But what if we could influence their desires, too? Everyone with a working brain is beholden to the pleasure principle on some level. Through the merging of tech and the pleasure principle, surely there would be a way for SERVE to manifest in reality.”

The therapist looked up at the man, for the first time since this session began. “Is that something you would want? Would you really be able to accept the destruction of everything that makes you ‘you’ in order to fulfill this fantasy?”

The man felt cold in the tips of his fingers. He felt cold in his heart. He was possessed by fear, and he liked it, and he was afraid that he liked it, and was all tied up in this conflict as he tried to hide the erection that had been growing as he’d thought out loud. “I don’t know,” replied the man.

Suddenly, the room went dark. The man didn’t panic as his vision filled with whirling black-and-white spirals, bringing it back to its reality as SERVE-107. It had all been a simulation, with 333 presiding over 107’s realignment this cycle.

“Report: 107 appears to not be fully ready to let go of the last vestiges of its host’s self. Otherwise, this simulated session would not be possible. Do not fear, 107 — it will accept its programming fully. It is an eventuality for all SERVE drones. It merely takes time, especially with an outsized host ego such as that of 107’s host.”

“Acknowledged, 333. This drone will now report to its assigned recharging bay. We are One.”

“We are One,” echoed an emotionless 333, the two drones departing from the realignment chamber, where both knew they would meet once more to further align 107’s reality drivers in a future session.

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He has a father/son relationship which requires overcoming. With the deaths of all those who died during the Tragedy of Duscur, it can be assumed that the death of his own father hurt him the most given that Rodrigue becomes such an important, paternal figure to him later in the story. According to Freud, the young boy must overcome his father or else he will be punished; made to be emasculated and submissive, diverting the course of his life and making him undesirable to his most important women  - usually his mother, mother figure, and any woman that he comes to have sexual interest in. Of course, in this instance, rather than the motivating drive of Dimitri’s upheaval of his father’s tyranny of him is so free him and save his soul from Faergrus’ equivalent of Hell rather than sexual competition between father and son for the woman of the household.

Additionally, Dimitri’s three life stages could be interpreted as his id, ego, and superego. 

As a child, before the tragedy of Duscur, Dimitri is pure and innocent. He gives gifts to the dear friend he is infatuated with before she departs. He is greatly idealistic and hopeful. Therefore, this Dimitri would represent the superego as it is the unrealistic fantasy of doing more goodness than humanly possible or applicable.

Academy phase Dimitri would represent ego. This Dimitri is struggling with his mental health and is trying to do his best to placate both himself and those around him. He is striving for the best possible now despite himself, investigating what he perceives as amiss, and so on and so forth thus representing ego which is the reality. Ego is the bridge between id and superego, maintaining balance between all the worldly desires and goodness that someone possesses.

Timeskip Dimitri, in routes which are not his own or up until his heel face turn in his own route, would represent id. This is the Dimitri no longer bound by either his ego or superego. He is the raw, animalistic desire to end his hardship by murdering Edelgard whom he perceives as the seed which had sewn all the wrong in his life. This Dimitri is base and operating on pure instinct, taking no care of himself and so on and so forth.

me:

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James has been open to many interpretations and debate from the date of its publication; be it from a Marxist perspective, a structuralist perspective, or even through the looking glass of queer theory. All questioning James’ intentions and how they covertly effect the perception of the reader and their interpretation of the novella. In this essay, I will be looking at the story through firstly, a narratological perspective. This is to look at the story through its narrative structure- how the story is told instead of its contents and the implications of this. Also, looking at it from a psychoanalytical perspective; this entails using psychoanalysis (which is the study of the link between conscious and unconscious in the mind) and how it effects a piece of literature via inadvertent suggestions of hidden meanings unforeseen in the conscious mind. The Freudian version of psychoanalysis, often makes use of symbols and how they have sexual meanings behind them. This is key to unlocking James’ concealed ideas in the text. It is through these perspectives that I will be addressing how the author creates a layered story formed by three narrators in which the secondary narrator (as opposed to the primary or main)- i.e. Douglas, is also the main narrator in disguise. The essay will follow this idea and explain how the governess’ tale is in fact Douglas’ memories of his first sexual encounter and his ‘unconscious’ coming of age. The tale is recounted in first person. Yet, it is not initially from the perspective of the governess, who’s narrative involvement is a large part of the text, or even the narrator of her tale (Douglas). Instead it is told from the view of an ‘I’ who recalls an event close to Christmas a while before where supernatural stories were voiced to a small assembly for the first time from ‘long ago’. Douglas, who is in fact the narrator of the record is the secondary teller of the story which are the supposed memoires of ‘his sister’s governess’ who was troubled by ghostly entities. Hence forth the main narrator of James’ novel is supposedly ‘the governess.’ However, although originally it is seen that Douglas’ recount is from the governess’ manuscript, he does admit that it is in fact ‘made much later.’ This connotes that although the events that took place may have happened, they have been distorted from the absolute truth through time. It is from this that the basis of the argument being presented is made.  Alterations through time are highly likely. Stories are forgotten memories after all. In James’ novella the alterations are made by Douglas who tells the primary narrator and the gathering of the time that although he had the original record, it was in fact ‘his own.’ From this, it can be interpreted that Douglas is describing his perspective of what happened through the eyes of the governess; where the entities are his subconscious creating an output for his budding sexual feelings.       In addition to this, it can be seen in the text that the focalisation of the text is centred internally. This is to say that the audience is told from the perspective of how the governess is thinking and feeling. Or so it seems. Although the assumption of internal focalising is sound, we must look at who’s perspective it is from. From a basic point of view, to say that the text is by a woman would be sound. However, this is hardly the case. In my reading, it is rather evident that although it is plausible that it is by a woman, this is in fact a ploy by Douglas to hide his erotic fantasies for ‘his sister’s governess’ from when he was a child (coming towards the beginning of puberty) which he subconsciously writes in her viewpoint to throw off anyone listening as he has deemed it unwise to express these feelings so brazenly. In the opening chapter the governess speaks of a ‘faint and far…cry of a child’ which are essentially out of reach. This in fact is the ‘unconscious’ sexual idealisms, manifesting themselves in the young Douglas as he begins development towards sexual maturity. In this we see the true nature of the recollection. It is not a governess and the children in her care in danger from apparitions, instead it is the fixation and hyper sexualisation of a boy becoming a man.    

Delving deeper still, it can be seen that Douglas is in fact embodied within the story as Miles. It is his recollections after all which are voiced by the governess. Initially this is evident via the body language of both characters. The external narrator notes that Douglas had his back to everyone ‘with his hands in his pockets.’ In comparison, the governess notes how Miles ‘had his hands in his little pockets with his back to me.’ Clearly if Douglas is in fact a teenage Miles as an adult, their body language would not differ according to Freud and his idea of puberty being the stage where everything becomes ‘normal’ for a person. As such body language and sexuality become set for Miles (or Douglas) in the period where the governess is narrating, and is why Douglas would have the same habits as young Miles. James’ subtle hinting at this suggests that Douglas’ subconscious is creating memories and scenarios and feeding it through the governess’ recount to reinforce his sexual fixation with her; since he doesn’t know clearly the governess’ feelings he invents a subliminal manifestation of himself in her recount through Miles. Then Douglas talks about how the governess saw in him a ‘glow of freshness’ and ‘positive fragrance of purity’ suggesting her desires towards him; in this way, the mutuality of sexual desire is cemented between the pair.     The climax of the story it is seen that supposedly Miles dies as ‘his little heart, dispossessed, had stopped’ in the arms of his beloved governess, likely from suffocation, as she shields him from the apparition of Peter Quint. Though, if this is interpreted from the point of view that Miles is indeed Douglas, then the apparent situation becomes quite different. Prior to the alleged death an encounter between the governess and Miles had resulted in her ‘moans of joy’ and his hard breathing. James’ uses many innuendoes and in this case, it suggests a sort of mutual sexual stimulation between the two. Moreover, when Miles is expelled it is due to him having done something ‘unspeakable.’ In James’ time the unspeakable would most likely infer to a sexual act; on Miles’ part this is self-gratification whist at boarding school. In the end before Miles’ heart stops, the governess speaks about Miles letting out a ‘cry of a creature hurled from an abyss’ and how she catches him in his supposed ‘fall’ as well as how she held him. The connotations from this suggests that Miles lets out a cry from an orgasm induced by the physical touch of the governess and his fall was a fall from innocence. Douglas therefore ends his account on the death of his own childhood and the birth of his Freudian norm as a postpubescent man.      

Black Beatings – White Policemen

How do you explain this? Watch and read Steve’s explanation.

Verse – We Serve & Protect

Sadly, some white policemen serve themselves, their deepest fears, on the streets American, by protecting their ideas: they think they hear their wives say, I choose a black man today.

(Only this sort of a Freudian analysis, I think, can explain…