This Week in Psychology...

The thing that stands out most about this past week is probably learning about Sigmund Freud. He was one weird dude. It was shocking to learn that many of the ideas are still implemented today, AND he did copious amounts of cocaine. Perhaps my favorite thing was listening to all of the poems that my fellow classmates composed about defense mechanisms. I got stuck with writing a poem about repression. The poem wound up being extremely dark and borderline disturbing since I really couldn't figure out how to write a poem about repression that was happy. There is really no need for one to repress happy thoughts so the poem was about a murder.

We also read a short article about Freud's case study Anna O. In the article a patient of a friend of Freud is exhibiting strange symptoms such as a severe cough, impaired sight, speach, and vision; and paralysis of the right side of the body. As Freud examined the case  deeper he discovered that all of Anna O's symptoms started as a result of events that occured while she was caring for her father, and concluded taht long-forgotten events are usually the base for problems, sometimes manifesting themselves in physical symptoms. After all of this I thought to myself, "Hm, this sounds like one of the all time greatest Who albums, Tommy!" Tommy is a rock opera based on the story of a boy who can not see, hear, or speak after he witnesses the murder of his biological father who presumably died when his bomber went down in WWII by his mother and her lover. Tommy's mother and her lover say:

You didn't hear it.
You didn't see it.
You won't say nothing to no one
Never in your life.
You never heard it.
Oh, how absurd it all seems
Without any proof.

At this point Tommy loses all of his senses but is able to connect to life through music and becomes amazing at pinball. In the end, Tommy goes back to normal and lives happily ever after, as does Anna O. I really enjoyed this article because I finally got the chance to draw a parallel between my favorite band and school!