Psychology has alway interested me. I jumped at the opportunity to take the only Psychology class given at my high school. I am also currently enrolled in Psychology 100 for the fall semester, and I am enjoying every bit of it. Although, as of right now at least, I have little to no interest in majoring in Psychology, with all due respect to the current students that are. However it did surprise me to discover that my intended area of study, English, and Psychology actually have much more in common than I have ever even realized.
Moran explains the similarities between the two disciplines in his, Interdisciplinarity. He writes, “…psychoanalysis is, like literary criticism, a fundamentally hermeneutic activity.” Moran explains that this is true because the unconscious is repressed, meaning it cannot be actually discovered, only interpreted through conscious and subconscious statements and behavior. As discussed in previous chapters of Moran’s work, the English discipline is not concrete. For Freud, it was difficult to prove psychoanalysis as a science because according to “hard scientists,” as Moran calls them, a lot of Freud’s findings were based on “uncertain empirical basis” and “untested assumptions.” On the contrary, medical science for example, is usually concrete and based on certain empirical basis. However, what I love most about studying literature is that barely anything is ever set in stone .
In my high school English classes, my teachers would often have different interpretations of works than several of the students in the class. But the funny part about it was is that usually, the teacher never told those students they were wrong. Of course, unless there was no basis in the work to back up the student’s interpretation, then they could be considered to be stretching for an answer. However, it seems true that humans will almost always conflict in interpretations, just by nature. So why is only one interpretation allowed to be correct?
Freud’s psychoanalysis is rooted in proof based on solid, as well as loose, evidence in the field of science, it was just up to him to interpret his findings. From that interpretation, he came up with many key terms and concepts in the study of psychoanalysis that are still used today. He even became known as the father of psychoanalysis, all from his concepts that were discovered from scientific empiricism as well as interpretation. The human brain and a novel are completely different areas to discover and explore, but it is interesting to realize that such different things can have the basis of discovery in common.