PSI Tutor: Academic Mentor

As a psychology tutor and perpetual student of the science of psychology (it is!), I love to sit down to be thrilled by a Hitchcock movie ~ misogynist yes unfortunately, and yet such a clever director delivering engaging characters and thought-provoking story lines. The most recent viewing of an AH film for me was The Birds, enthralling to watch as I live in tropical Far North Queensland where birds (and bats) forever fly through the house (I live in a QLDer; a house which is actually one big open window), unless they are a Pee-Wee and then they stroll (past the two cats!) stopping to pick up dropped breakfast crumbs.

Over at Neurophilosophy http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2007/07/the_psychology_of_alfred_hitch.php

an intriguing article reminds us that AH was one of the first directors to introduce a psychological focus to his narratives. It is pointed out that although AH had his reservations about Freud and the psychoanalytic approach…

… AH relied on the use of numerous psychoanalytic symbols and motifs in his movies.Repression is one of the Defence Mechanisms of Freud’s that is noted to be highlighted in AH films; another being the Oedipus Complex; however, the most overriding archetype that is reportedly featured across AH genre of narratives is that of the Strong Mother Figure. However, how one operationalizes the concept of “strong” is clearly debatable. Personally, I think that Norman Bates mother was not a “strong mother figure” because she was highly authoritarian and extended long arduous punishments to her son. Whereas, Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hendren), in The Birds (1963), is a character I identify as a SMF because she often takes the lead in interactions and relationships, is not adverse to taking risks, she also does not appear to threatened by other women when it comes to the game of love, and does not hesitate to take charge of a situation when she feels she can; regardless that at the end of the film she is catatonic – induced by a bird attack, not from a broken heart.

For psychology students, or students of the history of, I endorse the idea of attending to AH films to see how one director utilized and evaluated the psychoanalytic approach. Students often ask me how to better understand how a particular school of thought would interpret an even or person; Mo has provided an insightful direction.

To develop a better understanding of psychoanalysis for you, the following links may be a starting point:

Freudian Themes in Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Spellbound’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A596748

Personality, Pathology, and the Act of Creation:
The Case of Alfred Hitchcock
http://www.peele.net/lib/hitch.html

Psychoanalysis in Bringing up Baby and Vertigo
http://www.offscreen.com/biblio/phile/essays/baby_vertigo/

be thrilled; beware your navel gazing~