Freud's Discussion Research Articles

Freud and the Semiotics of Repetition

Anyone who has been caught in grip of a compulsion to repeat a traumatic experience and who also happens to be a student of psychoanalysis naturally seeks an explanation of this phenomenon in of Freud. This search leads one back, sooner or later, to what many assume to be locus classicus of Freud's account of repetition-compulsion, Beyond Pleasure Principle, a book Laplanche describes as the most fascinating and baffling text of entire Freudian corpus (1967:106). For reasons that will become apparent, what I have to say about semiotic implications of Freud's discussion of repetition will have to be disentangled from beknotted pages of that strange text. As for nature of repetition-compulsion, entry on it in dictionary of Laplanche and Pontalis speaks both of value of concept and of confusion surrounding it: notion of compulsion to repeat is at center of Beyond Pleasure Principle.... So important is part played by this idea at this crucial moment that it is difficult either to lay down its strict meaning or to define its own particular problematic: concept reflects all hesitations, dead ends, and even contradictions of Freud's speculative hypotheses. This is one of reasons why discussion of repetition-compulsion is so confused-and so often resumed-in psychoanalytic literature. The debate inevitably involves fundamental options regarding most vital notions of Freud's work (1973:78). Lacan stresses enigmatic character of repetition-compulsion. He remarks, Nothing has been more enigmatic than this Wiederholen, which is very close, so most prudent etymologists tell us, to verb 'to haul' (haler)hauling as on a towpath-very close to a hauling of subject,

Transference: The Biographer's Dilemma

Freud's discussion of the pitfalls of "transference"—that is, the biographer's personal involvement in the life of the subject—has received too little attention from biographers who continue to romanticize and fictionalize the lives they write in response to unconscious inner fantasies. The problem is illustrated by Maurois' discussion of his emotions while writing his romantic lives of Shelley and Disraeli. Other illustrations are given. Transference may be regarded as the core problem in all biographical writing.

The relationship between psychological identification with instructors and student ratings of college courses

Drawing upon Freud's seminal discussion of psychological identification vis-a-vis group psychodynamics, this study investigated the relationship between degree of student identification with an instructor and students' ratings of instructional effectiveness. Specifically, it was hypothesized that students who highly identify with their instructor will rate the course more favorably, perceive greater progress on their part toward course related objectives, and report higher motivation to learn than students who do not identify with their instructor. Using a 50 item personality trait Q-sample, 96 undergraduates from eight different courses taught by three different instructors were asked to describe the instructor, their “actual” self, and their “ideal” self; Q-sorts for the instructor and “ideal” self were correlated separately for each student as the measure of identification. Instructional effectiveness was assessed using the Kansas State IDEA form. Correlational and path analyses of the data provided support for the hypothesis. Results are discussed in light of the unique contribution made by the traditional notion of identification to instructional outcomes and evaluation.

Anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism