Repression

A Reexamination of the Concept as Applied to Folktales

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2474591
AutoresAllen Johnson (University of California, Los Angeles, autor correspondente)
Ano1998
Volume26
Fascículo3
Páginas295-313
Data de publicação1998-09-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoEthos (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0091-2131 • E-ISSN: 1548-1352
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1525/eth.1998.26.3.295
OpenAlexW2034825366
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas9
Referências citadas26

Psychoanalytic anthropologists assume that folktales often reflect unconscious beliefs and attitudes of listeners, who can tolerate anxiety-provoking images and messages (perhaps wish fulfillments) because these have been projected at a safe distance into the characters in the story. Here I argue that our theory for how such a process occurs is inadequate in terms of contemporary psychoanalytic theory. We need to reexamine a number of questions for which we may have assumed we already have answers, including the nature of repression and how it is accomplished; who or what "hears" an unconscious idea that has been collectively repressed when it is expressed in a folktale; and whether Freud's structural model of id-ego-superego can provide an adequate theoretical framework for understanding how unconscious ideas find their way into "expressive culture." I examine these questions in light of a folktale collected among Brazilian peasants. I conclude by questioning the central importance of the ego in repression, and propose a concept of a whole, or supraordinate, self to describe the actual agency in charge of repression

Agency (philosophy · ego and super-ego · Epistemology · Id · Id, ego and super-ego · Psychoanalysis · Psychoanalytic theory · Psychological repression · Sociology · Unconscious mind · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Music History and Culture · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology