Loading...
Publication
New psychology after 1920 is pseudo-psychology only to pseudo-intellectuals
| Name: | Description: | Size: | Format: | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 225.08 KB | Adobe PDF |
Authors
Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
Transactional analysis, group behaviour theory and control theory have provided us with the concepts of script, symbiotic schizophrenia, triangling in, undifferentiated group ego mass, and disor der neurosis, and a new respect for écriture. Group behaviour theory, for example, enables us to discover the nature of the mysterious laws and ideas mentioned by the Proustian narrator, to relate them to the psychological condition of the narrator, and to understand why the meanings had not been revealed to the reader. No other theory or system has explained both of these features of the text and the relationship between them. To reject such perspectives, which are based on clinical research, as pseudo-psychology is ignorant and irres ponsible. The same is true of the defense of the immorality of Proust’s characters. The venal character of the love between Swann and Odette and between the narrator and Albertine is undeniable. To
criticize such immorality is standard literary criticism, and to be upset by such criticism of immorality is possible only if one confuses the Proustian narrator with Proust himself. This despite the trouble Proust has taken to distinguish the narrator from himself, by changing the career of the father and the religion of the mother and by eliminating his brother. This is what is known as the biographical fallacy, denounced by Proust himself in Contre Sainte-Beuve. Fear of the new may explain such errors, but it cannot justify them. And they are related to a more general problem. Closed minds are the bane of the literary community: we must remain open to the new, if the intellectual life is to remain an intellectual adventure.
Description
Keywords
Literature Psychoanalysis Literatura Psicanálise
Citation
Brady, P. (2004). New psychology after 1920 is pseudo-psychology only to pseudo-intellectuals. In F. Pereira (Ed.), Proceedings of the twentieth International Conference on Literature and Psychoanalysis (pp. 3-7). Edições ISPA.