Editing Psychoanalysis (section)

=== '''Freudian Psychoanalysis''' ===
For Freud, dreams, neurotic symptoms, and even art for that matter contain the imagined or fantasied wishes or the imaginary fulfilment of the individual wishes and which are refused by the reality or the prohibition of those desires due to extant social norms, order, morality, etc. The "libidinal" wishes which are forbidden and predominantly sexual come into conflict with the "censor" which in every individual is an internal representative of the standards of morality and norms in a society. The forbidden elements are repressed by the censor into the unconscious realm but are permitted to get a superficial satisfaction with distorted forms that hides the real motives and forbidden elements from the conscious mind.

For Freud, the residual traces of earlier stages of psychosexual development in a child are present in the unconscious of every individual and are present in adulthood as "fixations". Due to some later event in adult life a repressed wish is revived and it prompts a fantasy in a hidden way, it is a gratification which is akin to the way in which the wish had been fulfilled in early childhood. The job of a psychoanalyst is to unravel the true content underlying the disguised fantasies which Freud calls the 'manifest content' and in doing so we would arrive at the 'latent content' which are the unconscious wishes and desires hidden in the earlier disguised expression where one finds a semblance of satisfaction in. By doing so we arrive at the real and suppressed meanings.

An important concept of Freudian psychoanalysis is the power to 'sublimate' i.e. to direct the instinctual drives which have a sexual signification to higher, nonsexual goals. In literature, this process has its initiation from an author who now has the ability to elaborate fantasied wish fulfillments into the manifold features of a work of art in a way that conceals or deletes their merely personal elements, and so makes them capable of satisfying the unconscious desires that other people share with the individual artist. It opens "the way back to reality" especially for the reader or an audience who "obtain solace and consolation from their own unconscious sources of gratification which had become inaccessible” to them. For example, Christopher Marlowe, despite being amoral character of his times, like other University Wits is able to produce a drama like 'Doctor Faustus' which serves as a work of reference for people to not to disobey the source of good and a righteous life, i.e. the Church and to not overreach.<ref>Edward Albert 'History of English Literature'</ref><ref>David Daiches 'A Critical History of English Literature' Vol. 1</ref>

The core of Freudian psychoanalysis is that of a mind as having three functional aspects: the 'id' (that incorporates libidinal, forbidden and innate desires), the 'superego' (the internalization of the norms, morality, etc. which exists in a society) and the 'ego' (it acts to best negotiate or mediate between the uncontrollable desires of the 'id' and the stringent 'superego' which does not let one have moment of pure gratification). In Freudian psychoanalysis role of 'ego' is important in elaborating the manifest content, that how 'ego' manages to mediate between the opposing demands of 'id' and 'superego'.

'Oedipus complex' is the repressed but constant occupancy in the unconscious of a male infant, that is the desire to possess his mother and to eliminate his father. This term was derived by Freud from the Greek tragedy 'Oedipus Rex' whose protagonist killed his father, unknowingly, and married his mother. Critics use the example of 'Oedipus complex' in literature to explain the relevance of particular action or situation, such as critics have used the situation in 'Hamlet' where Hamlet is unable to make up his mind to kill his uncle who was married to his mother.