PSYCHOANALYTIC COURSE MATERIAL
(click on course titles to view available course material)
Courses and Syllabi
Quizzes and Exams
We sincerely appreciate the following authors' willingness to share their work. If you adopt or modify any of these course materials for use in your own teaching, please be sure to properly credit their source.
Thank you!
"In this course we will examine psychoanalysis as a literary and artistic medium in its own right. In addition to studying classic texts of Freudian psychoanalysis (The Interpretation of Dreams, Dora) and those of “object-relations” theorists (Klein, Winnicott, Bion), we will explore the representation of psychoanalysis in the modern imagination. We will be looking, for example, at how post-war American film portrays the rehabilitation of the feminine hysteric through the patient-doctor relationship (Now, Voyager; The Three Faces of Eve; Lilith), and how the “confessional” school of post-war American poets (Plath, Lowell, Berryman) uses the therapeutic session as a basis for poetry. We will also examine the memoirs of Plath and Burroughs, the short stories of A.M. Homes (The Safety of Objects), the ‘family romance’ in the film Chinatown, and the comic or satiric representations of the analytic relationship in TV (The Sopranos, Frasier) and film (The President’s Analyst). What we hope to accomplish from this work is an appreciation of psychoanalysis as an influential and intriguing model (and modeler) of human consciousness, while testing its validity across various periods and genres."
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Art and Psychoanalysis: From Freud to Lacan (Fall, 2006)
Steven Z. Levin
Bryn Mawr College
View for an extensive list of teaching resources, images, and ideas linking art and psychoanalysis
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Psychoanalysis and Film (Spring 1995)
Richard Allen
Cinema Studies at NYU
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CULTURE AND SOCIETY
Susan Sugarman, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
Princeton University
"An inquiry into the basic nature of the human mind, as understood by Sigmund Freud. For Freud, our basic psychological nature has to do with what impels human thought and behavior. What processes in our minds make us think and act? What is it to think and to act? Why, as a species, do we think and act, when we might have done something else? The aims of the course are both to track Freud's attempt to identify the irreducible, primitive principles of mental life and to reflect on and critique them."
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Susan Sugarman, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
Princeton University
"Sigmund Freud also attempted to illuminate ordinary human experiences and values, such as people's susceptibility to humor, their capacity to become engrossed in fiction, and their susceptibility to superstition and religion. His insights into the everyday and his sense of where the productive questions lay reveal an incisiveness of argument that defy both earlier and subsequent thought on his topics. The seminar will consider both Freud's accounts of ordinary mental phenomena and his method of inquiry, with the aims of coming to understand some of his seminal thought, learning a powerful method of critical inquiry, and honing fresh ideas about the nature of ordinary mental life and human values."
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Law and the Unconscious Mind (Spring 2010)
Martha Grace Duncan, Ph.D., J.D.
Professor of Law
Emory University School of Law
"An introduction to basic psychoanalytic concepts and methodology, followed by application of psychoanalysis to legal issues. Employs psychoanalysis to illuminate such topics as hostility toward lawyers among lawyers and non-lawyers, and the unconscious attractions of imprisonment."
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Psyche, Culture, and Society (Spring, 2001)
Nancy J. Chodorow
Visiting Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; Professor of Sociology Emerita, University of California, Berkeley.
"This course has two goals. Its main goal is to provide you with an introduction to and overview of psychoanalysis. This theory, that helped to shape twentieth century thought, takes individual subjectivity and inner life as its central focus. We concentrate mainly on Freud, but you will also be introduced to a few important post-Freudian theorists. Second, it considers how psychoanalytic thinking contributes to sociocultural understanding. Prepare for heavy theory."
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Psychohistory (Winter 2000)
Peter Loewenberg
UCLA
"The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the evolution and state of the art of some psycho-social approaches to understanding human development, adaptation, and behavior so that you may see many levels of meaning in historical materials, and in your lives in the present."
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Freud as a Cultural Subversive (Spring 2000)
Peter Loewenberg
UCLA
"The purpose of this course is to assess the cultural legacy of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) on our times and this new century. The relationship that Freud made between our unconscious and the real ambiguities of our everyday life are subversive of binary thinking and therefore liberating of personal and cultural repression. Binary thinking is elemental and irreducible: either/or, yes/no, in/out, win/lose, for us/against us; it is primary process thought--the primitive, non-rational, wish fulfilling thought of dreams and of the unconscious. Freud deconstructed the seemingly self-evident binary oppositions of our lives and experience: good and bad, crime and guilt, success and failure, love and mourning, kindness and selfishness. He decentered the subject; he dissolved the polarities between self and object, inner and outer, society and psyche, private and public, mental and social. His thought is counter-intuitive to the separation of public from private thought and conduct. Psychoanalysis is radically anti-institutional and liberating because it decenters the universal need to claim knowledge and to institutionalize it with power. The conclusion of a psychoanalysis is the dissolution of the authority of the analyst. The psychoanalytic task of confronting, evaluating, and "corralling" binary thinking, of allowing space for ambiguity and nuance, is life-long for the individual and permanent for the culture."
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Freud and Psychodynamics, 1900-1939 (August 2000)
Peter Loewenberg
UCLA
"The purpose of this course is to assess the life and clinical legacy of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) on the psychiatry and culture of our times. The relationship Freud made between our unconscious, our neuroses, and the real ambiguities of everyday life are subversive of binary thinking and therefore liberating of personal repression and pain. While the readings below may appear to be a lot, please note that they are brief, often only one or two pages."
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The Social Unconscious: Culture, Self and Society (Fall, 2001)
Psychoanalytic Sociology: Culture, Self and Society (Fall, 2004)
Catherine B. Silver
CUNY Graduate Center
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LITERATURE
Why we like what we like - Literature and Psychoanalysis (Spring 2007)
Gerry Kauvar
Stephen Rosenblum
George Washington University
"A course in literary criticism that develops the capacity to use psychoanalysis as a way of interpreting fiction, poetry, and drama. We will use insights from psychoanalytic theory and practice to deepen our understanding of the works themselves, and as an aid to discovering why we like what we like. Students will be expected to use their own reactions to interpret literature and to understand why certain works appeal to them and why others don’t."
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"I used literary works by Steinbeck, T. Williams and Melville to illustrate issues and as
subject matter for the students' term papers."
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Psychological Approaches to Literature – I
"The course will focus on the journals and prose fiction of Nin, with special emphasis on her experience of consensual incest with her father in 1933 and her subsequent relationship, both– therapeutic and erotic, with Otto Rank, formerly one of Freud’s closest followers and a leading psychoanalytic authority on the incest theme. The readings will include two volumes of Nin’s journals, as much of her fiction as possible, including her pornography, and 'Beyond Psychology.'"
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Seminar: Literature and Psychoanalytic Theory
Henry Polkinhorn
San Diego State University
This is a reading-discussion seminar designed to explore contemporary
psychoanalytic theory, its clinical and research dimensions, applying this
knowledge to literary texts. The semester will begin with historical works
in psychoanalysis, progressing to the more recent schools of ego
psychology, self psychology, object relations, and the relational and
interpersonal movements. This work will provide the basis upon which
literary works from different historical and cultural periods will be
interpreted. In addition, students will develop individual research
projects under the guidance of the instructor and will share the result of
their work with the seminar.
Dante. The Divine Comedy: Vol. I: Inferno. Trans. Mark Musa. Penguin, 2003.
Freud, Sigmund. The Ego and the Id. Norton, 1960.
H.D. (Hilda Doolittle). Tribute to Freud. New Directions, 1974.
Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Robert Fagles. Viking, 1996.
James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw. Norton, 1966.
Lawrence, D. H. The Fox. Penguin, 1971.
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick. Norton, 2002.
Mitchell, Stephen A., and Margaret J. Black. Freud and Beyond: A History of
Modern Psychoanalytic Thought. Basic Books, 1995.
Shakespeare. Othello. Penguin, 1068.
Tyson, Phyllis, and R. Tyson. Psychoanalytic Theories of Development. New
Haven: Yale UP, 1990.
PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
Freud and Lacan (Spring 2005)
Suzanne Verderber
Pratt Institute
"This class will involve reading and discussion of key works of Sigmund Freud and French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Freudian concepts will be studied and discussed in concert with Lacan’s rereading of these concepts through the lens of developments in twentieth-century philosophy, structural linguistics in particular. Specific concepts to be examined include hysteria, fetishism and perversion, dreams, the structure of the psyche (unconscious, ego, and superego), gender and the Oedipus Complex, the pleasure principle, and the death drive. Students will be responsible for reading, class discussion, and several essays."
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Conceptual issues in psychoanalysis
Robert Maxwell Young
Sheffield University
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Current Psychoanalytic Theories (Fall 2003)
Jerome S. Blackman
Eastern VA Medical School
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Psychoanalytic Theory and Research (Fall, 2006)
Rosemary Cogan
Texas Tech University
"This class is a writing intensive research class. We will work together to come up with and carry out a project. This means that we will talk about readings together and then we will figure things out together and then we will plan and carry out our research project together. This will be a very different class experience than the lecture-test or lecture-discussion-test approach. You may experience this class as kind of chaotic at times! I invite you to relax and enjoy this experience. I invite you also to have confidence that at the end of the semester you will probably have a satisfying sense of accomplishment. In this class, you will 1) learn more about Freud's work and about some contemporary psychoanalytic research approaches, 2) do research, and 3) write about research."
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Advanced Psychoanalytical Theories and Psychotherapy (Spring, 2002)
David L. Downing
"This advanced seminar in the sequence of psychoanalytical courses examines theoretical and clinical applications of psychoanalysis to patients suffering from severe psychopathology and associated characterological, structural deficits. Viewing ætiology and treatment principally through Object-Relations paradigms, the aims of treatment can be construed as the fostering of emotional growth of the patient via a relationship of intensive enquiry and dialectic between psychotherapist and patient."
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Introduction to Psychoanalytic Theory and Criticism (Spring 2006)
Aranye Fradenburg
Candidate at New Center for Psychoanalysis in LA
lfraden@english.ucsb.edu
"What undergraduates are most concerned about NOW is in their own lives and what's going on in the world and what kind of knowledge/methods they are working on in other disciplines that psychoanalysis can support or enrich. From the undergrad point of view, the course needs to be about them, so to speak, not about psychoanalysis per se, but I don't mean lack of rigor by this--just that "relevance" needs to be THE standard in deciding on assignments, etc.; hence, race, sexuality, class, colonialism, violence, cutting, eating disorders, suicide, religion--examples etc. need to be drawn from this kind of field."
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Haverford Psychology: Foundations of Personality (Spring, 2004)
http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/p109g/p105g.04.html
Haverford Psychology: Seminar in Personality Theory, Freud (2005)
http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/p311.05.html
Douglas A. Davis
Emeritus Professor of Psychology
Haverford.College
CV:
www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/d2vita.html
blog:
d2blog.typepad.com/d2/"This seminar [Seminar in Personality Theory] is devoted to exploration of the writing and impact of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). We will read widely in Freud’s work, from Interpretation of Dreams to the clinical papers and essays on cultural theory. In applying Freud’s ideas to the intellectual questions of interest to us we’ll take up a series of topics from psychology, cultural theorists, and philosophy, including: The psychodynamics of dream and fantasy; The construction of gender identity and sexuality; 21st century identities in Freudian perspective."
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Link includes Dr. Barbour's power point presentation (as a pdf) focused on "Myths and Misconceptions."
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PSYCHOTHERAPY
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (Fall 2006)
Rhonda Reinholtz
University of Wisconsin
"My goal in this course is to provide you with a working knowledge of contemporary psychoanalytic psychology. Psychoanalytic psychology, like psychology more broadly, is comprised of numerous variations and viewpoints. This course is not exhaustive; you will be exposed to the issues that I have selected, but other psychologists might make different choices. At the end of the course, I expect that you will be versed in the major components of psychoanalytic theory and psychotherapy."
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SEX AND GENDER
Sociology Advanced Theory Seminar: Psychoanalysis and Feminism (Spring, 2000)
Nancy J. Chodorow
Visiting Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; Professor of Sociology Emerita, University of California, Berkeley.
"'
The personal is political' was one of the main claims of second wave feminism. Because psychoanalysis is our most elaborated theory of the personal and of how the personal shapes everything else, it became one of the earliest and perhaps, in many transformations and versions the most enduring, theoretical source for second wave feminist theory. In turn, second wave feminism influenced psychoanalysis. This seminar investigates the fields of psychoanalytic feminism and feminist psychoanalysis. We will be theorizing the most internal and emotionally charged matters of identity, subjectivity, sexuality, and passion and seeing how culture and society are shaped and lived from within."
*****LGBT-Affirmative Psychoanalysis: Undergraduate Curriculum
Judith Glassgold
drglassgold@patmedia.net
The following are suggestions of materials and topics for inclusion in undergraduate curriculum. The rationale for including psychoanalysis and LGBT issues in undergraduate study is 1) to introduce students early to cutting-edge psychoanalytic thinking 2) to dispel criticisms of psychoanalysis as outdated or irrelevant to modern issues. The flexibility of psychoanalysis and its insights into gender and sexuality are particularly relevant to LGBT issues.
The materials include literature appropriate for a broad range of classes, as it is assumed that it would be rare for a class to be solely on LGBT issues and psychoanalysis, unless it was a seminar or a senior honors project. Thus, a description of a curriculum for that course is included, but other readings are included as units that could be inserted into a variety of undergraduate courses. Of course, a variety of topics and texts could be interchanged. The focus was on trying to find works that would be accessible to advanced undergraduates or graduate students with a limited knowledge of psychoanalysis.
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Gender and Sexual Identity in Current Theory and Film (Winter, 2007)
James Hansell
University of Michigan
"We will survey current theories of gender and sexual identity development, relying primarily on psychodynamic accounts. These readings will provide context and analytical tools for our study of several recent films dealing with issues of gender and sexual identity."
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"Psychoanalysis is spoken in multiple tongues: popular, academic, and clinical. In each of these three spheres, there is dispute over who speaks the “correct” psychoanalytic language, for in the past twenty years there has been a profusion of psychoanalytic theories (Lacanian, feminist, relational, contemporary Kleinian). Along with classical Freudian theory, the post-Freudian theories have been taken up by social theorists in a variety of disciplines: political science, sociology, gender studies, queer theory, postcolonial and race studies, history, anthropology, and cultural studies, to name but a few. In this course [Psychoanalysis and Culture], we will study some of the psychoanalytic concepts that bridge the clinical world and the world of social theory: transference and countertransference, the unconscious, defense mechanisms, character, the Oedipus complex, identification, and the repetition compulsion. We will examine the way the different psychoanalytic schools define these concepts, and then look at how they have been applied to such cultural phenomena as individual and group trauma, identity formation, colonialism, and the numerous symptoms and psychopathologies of everyday life. We will look at theories that posit a relation between capitalism and narcissistic character and at theories that examine the psychic effects of racism, sexism, class inequality, and homophobia. Finally, we will look at the way cultural issues appear in psychoanalytic clinical practice."
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Course Quizzes
Jerome S. Blackman
Eastern VA Medical School
"I give one quiz at the beginning of each lecture, for about 5 minutes, covering the previous week's (3 hour) class. I grade these tests immediately, return them, then spend 5 minutes going over the answers. The class is usually 6-10 people, so this is workable."
Quiz topics include: Ego Strengths, Object Relations; Affects; Superego; Defenses; Neurosis and Neurotic Illness; Technique and Treatment.