INTRODUCE TOPIC
I focus on how drives can mix it up together, so they can understand why violence gets attached to sexuality so regularly, etc. Also, what does this tell us/require of us with respect to the future?
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I explain that both sex and aggression seem innate. I use Parens' descriptions of the four permutations of aggression depending on whether the aggression is constructive/ destructive and hostile/ non-hostile. Regarding sex, I usually ask how many students think the sex drive is biological vs. how many think it's a conditioned reflex. Most think it's biological, and that gives me an opening for discussion.
Jerome S. Blackman, M.D.
Adjunct Professor of Psychology
Virginia Wesleyan College
Jsbmd1@cox.net
jblackmanmd@aol.com
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To counter the idea that Freud reduces everything to sex, I stress that he always had an alternative set of motivations. I also help students see that Freud thought in complex ways about human sexuality. I explain that it's more like what we'd call sensuality, since it includes so much like tenderness and affection. The importance of conflict is emphasized and demonstrated with some case material.
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From my notes, available to students: INSTINCTS: The use of the term 'instincts' is not the same as we usually use, or as we used in the chapter on Learning. When discussing Freud, we should think of instincts as equating our usual meaning of Drives & Motivation.
The two Instincts are:
LIBIDO - Life Instinct - Motivates toward creating, building, meeting physiological needs, reproduction, etc.
THANATOS - Death Instinct - Motivates toward aggression, destruction, depression, suicide, laziness, any deterioration.
Thanatos seeks the energy-less state of Entropy. Freud saw life as a disturbance of the inorganic nature of matter. He thought that an input of energy stimulates the spark of life and that there is a drive to remove the disturbance of peaceful rest of non-being, and therefore to return to the state of lifeless matter.
Matthew Westra
Psychology Coordinator
MCC-Longview
Matthew.westra@mcckc.edu
http://www.mcckc.edu/~westra/WESTRA.HTML
Contributors were asked to:
Describe the most effective readings, media, or film resources you use to teach your students about Sigmund Freud, the person.
* How do you introduce these reading/media/film resources? What questions do you ask your students?
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Students see the importance of aggression/thanatos in Civilization and Its Discontents. Its surprising to them that Freud made as much as he does of unconscious aggression. They come in thinking the Freudian unconscious is only about sex acts.
Freud, S. (1929). Civilization and Its Discontents. S.E., 21:64-145.
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Movie: Body Heat
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In Body Heat, I point out how Kathleen Turner's character leads Racine on by drawing on his oral wishes, which he explicates directly (she invites him, early on to lick the sweat off her). I also point out his aggression in competing with her husband, etc.
Freud, S. (1915). Instincts and their vicissitudes. S.E., 14:117-140.
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In the research course, we carry out a research project. Two of these have led to little publications that are interesting for the students.
Cogan, R., Ashford, D., Chaney, B., Embry, S., Emory, L., Hoebel, H., Holstrom, N., Keithley, D. III, Lawson, M., McPherson, J., Scott, B., & Tebbets, J. Jr. (2004). Obsessiveness and a Thematic Apperception Test-based measure of aggression. Psychological Reports, 95, 828-830.
Cogan, R., Larrabee, L. K., Wyatt, I. M., Ontiberoz, A., Waters, S. K., Werner, M. L., Miller, A. L., Lovelady, A. C., Hurt, T. J., Hardin, E. D. III, & Gonzalez, P. M. (2002). Castration anxiety and phobias. Psychological Reports, 91, 1244-1246.
In the sexuality course, basic psychoanalytic ideas come in first when we talk about childhood and then when we talk about perversions. I use TAT material to illustrate.
COURSE ASSIGNMENTS
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