Psychoanalysis and Hidden Narrative in Film: Reading the Symptom

"There is no one school of psychoanalysis from which the author invokes authority. Rather, he compares and contrasts several schools and tries to find the common ground between them. Psychoanalysis and Hidden Narrative in Film begins the process of unifying competing schools into a single model of mind and offers clinical examples for many of the terms it seeks to operationalize. Central in this work are the horizontal axis of psychic bisexuality and the vertical axis of superego development and social ontology.

The author outlines four phallic nuclear complexes: Oedipus, Electra, Antigone, and Bellerophon-each relating to different motivational structures that define individual psychology. These complexes, in turn, are anchored in different stages of superego development, which are read as indicative of a relation to authority in society (secondary narcissism) or authority that links to religion and the supernatural (primary narcissism). These axes, along with discrete phases found within the stages of development, allow for different forms of cognition, erotogenic zones, and symbols- the enchanting promises of classical psychoanalysis- to be plotted and explained. Lastly, the economics of libido is contrasted to the economics of moros.This comes at a time when theories of narrative and semiotics still seek to cover the entire world, and the experience of subjectivity within it, in the same thread-bare blanket. It has long been time to express how exactly the child still remains in the adult, and for both critics and analysts to go past identifications with single schools and to engage with examples and arguments alone.

A book filled with many threads to pull, nuggets to digest and elaborate. A challenging amplification of Freudian concepts and their relevance for illuminating the work of the unconscious in film, literature, culture and clinic. Film is the principal focus but its tendrils lead in many directions. A rich compendium of suggestions to ponder and roads to explore."

-Michael Eigen, Ph.D., author of The Sensitive Self, Flames From the Unconscious and Under the Totem: In Search of a Path