The way we interpret the world and ourselves is reflected in what we do in this world. Sigmund Freud’s Three Case Histories, topic of the obsession neurosis, or the rat man is a great example of a situation that can cause a person to act differently. Freud develops techniques of interpreting the rat man by using patient’s stories and explanation. An obsessed person interprets the world differently than a non obsessed person.
Obsession is an idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person's mind. In the case the patient is presented with obsessive thoughts and behaviors that Freud felt would compel the patient to carry out. Freud theorized that these obsessive ideas and similar thoughts were produced by conflicts consisting of the combination of loving and aggressive impulses relating to the people concerned.
People have obsessions with love and fear but always living in fear will drive a person crazy. Always worrying about the deaths of loved ones would haunt just about anyone. In the case of the rat man he was obsessed with the cruel method the military used for torture. The method included rats that are trapped and the only escape is to borrow through a person’s anus. The rat man would obsess about the torture happening to his father or fiancé. A person’s fear controls the view of the world and can change what they do in this world.
I believe that people have a natural instinct of fear. Evolutionarily people have fears for spiders due to the poisonous factors. The people who didn’t have the fear died from the spider bite and the people who did have the fear survived. Fear is only natural but obsessions leads to irrationality. A person with obsession interprets the world and themselves differently and acts differently in the world.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Another interesting post. I think fear can also be a crippling factor, but I also think it can be a motivator as well. I agree that fear is natural, but when obsession mixes with fear that leads to irrationality. I thought the rat man story was incredibly interesting. The purpose of Military torture was to install fear into people whether that meant from the torture itself or the idea of torturing loved individuals. I also agree that fear can change what people do and think in the world either in a negative or positive way.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on people having a natural instinct of fear. It is up the people whether the fear will be a positive or a negative factor.
ReplyDeleteFreud would also probably say that the rat man, due to his obsessions, had an unresolved conflict during his anal stage of psychosexual development (which many theorists would argue, I'm not even sure if I agree with this theory). I liked how you talked about fear, I mentioned it only very briefly in my post. On page 13 you'll notice the footnote at the bottom that says the patient used the term "wish" or "fear" instead of what Freud reported to be an "idea" and I thought it was interesting to see how these terms can sometimes be interchangeable.
ReplyDelete