Psychoanalysis theory

Here are the rules and regulations concerning the final essay. read them carefully

1. The general idea is that you are to write an essay in which you will confront a psychoanalytic theory or a set
   of psychoanalytic concepts (expounded by freud and/or one of the later theorists) with an empirical
   phenomenon.
2. 'confront' means that you can try to apply the theory to the phenomenon; or you can show how this
   phenomenon supports/illustrates the theory; or how the theory explains the phenomenon; or how the
   phenomenon disproves the theory; or how the theory needs to be modified if it is to explain the phenomenon;
   any of these possibilities will do.
3. 'empirical phenomenon' means a social, political, cultural, artistic or religious phenomenon; it can be a real
   life event, fact, tendency or fashion, but it can also be a movie, a book, a tv series. anything that involves love,
   hatred, self-love, aggression, relations between groups, internal dynamics of groups, religious feelings and
   needs, relations within families, the struggle between the individual and the society etc. the phenomenon
   should be well-known to you.
4. examples: can psychoanalysis throw light on the rise of antidemocratic politics? can we describe the
   possible effects of isolation in the pandemic in the light of the psychoanalytic thinking on the human body
   (anzeiu, lemma etc)? can psychoanalysis explain why crime and detective stories keep on being so popular?
   or: hanna segal's ideas applied to a conflict between local communities; or: is the mechanism of
   afterwardsness present in the collective narratives and collective traumas? or: is religious ritual to be seen as a
   set of collective obsessive-compulsive acts (freud) or as a collective extension of the play with the transitive
   object (winnicott)? can abraham/torok's theory of mourning and incorporation be applied to public/collective
   processes of mourning?
5. the essays length is not strictly determined, but it should be something between 5 and 15 standard pages,
   approximately
6. the essay should contain the following elements (in whatever order and structure): an exposition of the
   theoretical tools you are going to use/discuss (e.g. if you are going to talk about the death drive the basic
   assumption group function, explain what it is); an exposition of the phenomenon you are going to analyze; an
   attempt at 'confrontation' of the theory with the phenomenon in the sense defined above;
7. you do not have to be brilliant, but you have to do some thinking; play with the ideas you have learned, try to
   clash them against the world that you know and see if they can stand the reality test. do it your own way and
   you will do just fine.
8. you are most welcome to choose phenomena you have studied during other courses