Freud coined the term "return of the repressed" to explain the existence of neurotic symptoms. He theorized that an unconscious thought/feeling would constantly press for access to the executive fictions of the mind in order to be discharged.
The goal of Freudian therapy or psychoanalysis, was to bring repressed thoughts and feelings into consciousness in order to free the patient from suffering repetitive distorted emotions.
Classically, the bringing of unconscious thoughts and feelings to consciousness is brought about by encouraging a patient to talk in free association and to talk about dreams. Another important element of psychoanalysis is lesser direct involvement on the part of the analyst, which is meant to encourage the patient to project thoughts and feelings onto the analyst. Through this process, transference, the patient can discover and resolve repressed conflicts, especially childhood conflicts involving parents.
In the horror film 'Halloween' a return of the repressed narrative structure is used to show the audience the return of a psychotic killer after a previous encounter is shown where Mike Myers (the main antagonist) kills his sister at the young age of six. The audience then follows his actions as he escapes from a mental home and plots to kill various other people in Suburbia. By using this approach as the narrative structure to a horror film, the audience can not only follow the characters psychotic actions but can also see into possible reasons as to why people who have psychotic minds in films like Mike Myers so the things they do. In this particular film however there is no clear reason given as to why Michael has all these repressed emotions other than the fact he releases them by killing people.
However, by looking into the idea of the return of the repressed, theorists such as Freud can try to understand this by seeing if the reason behind these killings in horror films is due to bad childhood memories that have caused them to repress all their feelings which they take out on others later in life when it all gets too much.
Classically, the bringing of unconscious thoughts and feelings to consciousness is brought about by encouraging a patient to talk in free association and to talk about dreams. Another important element of psychoanalysis is lesser direct involvement on the part of the analyst, which is meant to encourage the patient to project thoughts and feelings onto the analyst. Through this process, transference, the patient can discover and resolve repressed conflicts, especially childhood conflicts involving parents.
In the horror film 'Halloween' a return of the repressed narrative structure is used to show the audience the return of a psychotic killer after a previous encounter is shown where Mike Myers (the main antagonist) kills his sister at the young age of six. The audience then follows his actions as he escapes from a mental home and plots to kill various other people in Suburbia. By using this approach as the narrative structure to a horror film, the audience can not only follow the characters psychotic actions but can also see into possible reasons as to why people who have psychotic minds in films like Mike Myers so the things they do. In this particular film however there is no clear reason given as to why Michael has all these repressed emotions other than the fact he releases them by killing people.
However, by looking into the idea of the return of the repressed, theorists such as Freud can try to understand this by seeing if the reason behind these killings in horror films is due to bad childhood memories that have caused them to repress all their feelings which they take out on others later in life when it all gets too much.
Can you relate this idea to why audiences might want to watch horror?
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