Psychoanalysis is a way of understanding human behaviour. This concept is based on the psychoanalytic principles established by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) whose those theories are referred to today as classical psychoanalysis. Since human behaviour is relevant to literary criticism, psychoanalytical criticism is important in literary theory.
Psychoanalytic concepts such as sibling rivalry, inferiority complex, oedipal conflict are common in daily life.
The origin of the unconscious:
The notion that human beings are motivated by desires, fears, needs and conflicts of which they are unaware – that is, unconscious- was one of Sigmund Freud’s radical insights. So, the unconscious is the storehouse of painful experiences and emotions, guilty desires, fears. The unconscious comes into being when we are vey young.
Later on, as an individual grows into adulthood, s/he undergoes many psychological experiences such as fear of intimacy, fear of abonnement, fear of betrayal, low self-esteem, insecure sense of self, oedipal complex etc.
For psychoanalysis, our sexuality is an inescapable human reality which may be affected by our conscious and unconscious mind. Sigmund Freud’s concept of id, ego and superego play a role in this regard. All guilty and good desires arise in id, and ego plays a role of referee between id and superego.
Super ego or cultural taboo determines which desires id will contain. Hence, psychoanalysis is the process whereby the clues of unconscious mind are understood by conscious mind which has literary relevance in critical theory.
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