Wikipedia Trail: Hedda Gabler to Infantile Sexuality
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedda_Gabler
I began with one of the week's reading, Hedda Gabler. On the page I noticed that a writer named Joseph Wood Krutch analyzed the character Hedda Gabler, and came to the conclusion that she was the first depiction of a "neurotic" character, psychoanalyzing her using Freudian theory. This piqued my interest because I took AP Psychology in high school and I vaguely remembered Freud, and wanted I refresher. The clearest memories I have involving Freud in that class were of my professor saying the Freud "was on enough cocaine to tranquilize a horse" so we should take his theories with a grain of salt, and then seeing exactly what that meant when we learned how Freud believed young boys were attracted to their mothers and daughters to their fathers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud
Reading the Wikipedia page for Freud is exactly as crazy as when I read about him in AP Psychology. I immediately spotted the "cocaine" section of the page, and remembering the quote from earlier I clicked on it right away. There's no mention of how much he used, but he did use it frequently as a stimulant and pain reliever. He promoted its use for treating both mental and physical illness, though eventually the world discovered that a lot of people were becoming addicts and dying from cocaine, which tarnished his reputation in the medical community. I then went back to the top, and the next thing I was interested in learning about was "seduction theory", which had its own page.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freud%27s_seduction_theory
Seduction theory is a strange and frankly, creepy name for this theory considering that it revolves around the sexual abuse of children. Freud believed that many of his patients mental illnesses were caused by sexual abuse in their childhoods. Then, he changed his theory to say that any memories of sexual abuse were actually fantasies, because they were in denial of the fact that they masturbated as infants. Then he changed the theory again to say that the fantasies were occurring as an expression of lust towards their abuser, usually their parent, as part of his Oedipus complex theory. Also, most patients didn't bring up sexual abuse, rather, Freud assumed because of their behavior that they must have been sexually abused and repressed the memory. Freud would try to bring these memories to the surface by reenacting the abuse with the patient, but most patients remained adamant that they were not sexually abused. So basically, Freud was a coked out creeper fascinated with the sexual abuse of children, imagining that infants were "seducing" their parents out of lust, and wanted to reenact the events with his patients. Gross. In fact, he even used the phrase "Infantile sexuality" to describe his work, so that's what I clicked next.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosexual_development
Infantile sexuality was also referred to as Psychosexual development, which is what the infantile sexuality page redirects to. In this theory, there are five stages that children go through based on the erogenous zones on their bodies that they are exploring, and if you don't go through them properly you end up with mental issues. The five stages are oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. The oral stage is birth to a year, where the erogenous zone is the mouth so babies put everything in their mouths and gum at it. The anal stage is from one year to three years old, where the erogenous zone is the anus and urethra, and toddlers supposedly take pleasure in defecating and urinating. The phallic stage is from three to six years old, where the erogenous zones are the genitals and children begin masturbating. Latency is from six to puberty, where sexual feelings are dormant. Finally, genital is from puberty to death where sexual urges fully develop and are expressed. If you fixate in any one of these stages, you will have various issues. Ex: fixating in the oral stage can make you immature, gullible, naive, and manipulative.
I began with one of the week's reading, Hedda Gabler. On the page I noticed that a writer named Joseph Wood Krutch analyzed the character Hedda Gabler, and came to the conclusion that she was the first depiction of a "neurotic" character, psychoanalyzing her using Freudian theory. This piqued my interest because I took AP Psychology in high school and I vaguely remembered Freud, and wanted I refresher. The clearest memories I have involving Freud in that class were of my professor saying the Freud "was on enough cocaine to tranquilize a horse" so we should take his theories with a grain of salt, and then seeing exactly what that meant when we learned how Freud believed young boys were attracted to their mothers and daughters to their fathers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud
Reading the Wikipedia page for Freud is exactly as crazy as when I read about him in AP Psychology. I immediately spotted the "cocaine" section of the page, and remembering the quote from earlier I clicked on it right away. There's no mention of how much he used, but he did use it frequently as a stimulant and pain reliever. He promoted its use for treating both mental and physical illness, though eventually the world discovered that a lot of people were becoming addicts and dying from cocaine, which tarnished his reputation in the medical community. I then went back to the top, and the next thing I was interested in learning about was "seduction theory", which had its own page.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freud%27s_seduction_theory
Seduction theory is a strange and frankly, creepy name for this theory considering that it revolves around the sexual abuse of children. Freud believed that many of his patients mental illnesses were caused by sexual abuse in their childhoods. Then, he changed his theory to say that any memories of sexual abuse were actually fantasies, because they were in denial of the fact that they masturbated as infants. Then he changed the theory again to say that the fantasies were occurring as an expression of lust towards their abuser, usually their parent, as part of his Oedipus complex theory. Also, most patients didn't bring up sexual abuse, rather, Freud assumed because of their behavior that they must have been sexually abused and repressed the memory. Freud would try to bring these memories to the surface by reenacting the abuse with the patient, but most patients remained adamant that they were not sexually abused. So basically, Freud was a coked out creeper fascinated with the sexual abuse of children, imagining that infants were "seducing" their parents out of lust, and wanted to reenact the events with his patients. Gross. In fact, he even used the phrase "Infantile sexuality" to describe his work, so that's what I clicked next.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosexual_development
Infantile sexuality was also referred to as Psychosexual development, which is what the infantile sexuality page redirects to. In this theory, there are five stages that children go through based on the erogenous zones on their bodies that they are exploring, and if you don't go through them properly you end up with mental issues. The five stages are oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. The oral stage is birth to a year, where the erogenous zone is the mouth so babies put everything in their mouths and gum at it. The anal stage is from one year to three years old, where the erogenous zone is the anus and urethra, and toddlers supposedly take pleasure in defecating and urinating. The phallic stage is from three to six years old, where the erogenous zones are the genitals and children begin masturbating. Latency is from six to puberty, where sexual feelings are dormant. Finally, genital is from puberty to death where sexual urges fully develop and are expressed. If you fixate in any one of these stages, you will have various issues. Ex: fixating in the oral stage can make you immature, gullible, naive, and manipulative.
Hey Veronica!
ReplyDeleteI must say this has been quite a trip. Going through Wikipedia articles and through the Internet in general can get interesting because who knows where you would end up! I didn't take AP Psychology in high school but I had friends who did but I did hear about how crazy Freud's theories were. After reading this, I honestly had no idea how weird and gross his research was! I just knew him as the guy who believes that offsprings can get attracted to their parents. Interesting read Veronica!