Wilhite: What Objects Mean: Chapter Two: Freudian Psychoanalytic Approach

Wilhite: What Objects Mean: Chapter Two: Freudian Psychoanalytic Approach

1. analyze material culture in terms of the way artifacts reflect various unconscious needs and desires and relate to our psychological make up (44)

   • psychoanalytic theory as an interpretive art (31)
     • it is the hidden meanings and symbolic significance of various artifacts of material culture that a psychoanalytic approach to the subject attempts to discover (32)
       • Can understanding the meanings we invest in our surroundings and objects give us clues to mental illnesses/nuerosis and perhaps the help/cures thereof?
     • There will be myriad interpretations; be open to all - be aware of others insights and ready to both explain (not defend) and change your own
     • Who should be trusted as best authority?
   • advertisers and the political machine are light years ahead of the general populace
   • Purpose of focus groups in product research and development

2. much of our thinking is based on ‘significant’ symbols and that we use symbols to impose meaning on things (42)

   • our understanding of symbols is connected to the communities in which we are born (42)
   • Our understanding/projected meaning of symbols is often unconscious and always social
     • Matches part of P's classification in Chapter Three

3. Levels: Classifications of artifacts

   • Consciousness: What an artifact does (33)
     • Collective projection on an object
   • Preconsciousness: Other aspects of the artifact's functionality of which we may be aware (33)
     • At this level we can make a symbol take on our own idiosyncratic meaning
   • Unconscious: Unrecognized symbolic meanings connect to the artifact (33)
     • How deeply ingrained are our responses?
   • Helpful in organizing the intention of the object and ethos of the culture that makes/gives meaning to the artifact

4. Typology o' Freud

   • Id: provides energy, but is unfocused and dissociated (37)
     • psychic representatives of the [motivational] drives (36)
       • shadow energies?
         • root of Spoonerisms and "Freudian slips"
   • Superego: provides restraint, but if too strong, it inhibits us too much and we become overwhelmed by guilt (37)
     • moral precepts of our minds as well as our ideal aspiration
       • Our completely impossible standards: our + projections on objects and people
   • Ego: stores up experiences in memory...guides us and mediates between id and superego (37)
     • Channel energy in to appropriate activity
     • Keep Mom at bay
     • individual’s relationship with environment (36)
       • Make your life your own- what symbols make you YOU?

5. Stages of life

   • oral
   • anal
   • phallic
   • genital
   • This categorization is where Jung and Freud differed and split
     • Freud is one way of interpretation- there are others; remember, working with any framework limits and expands

6. While more inclined towards Jungian analysis; I give Papa Freud his due