Monday, January 30, 2012

Attaching a Negative Meaning to Trivial Events: That's What Psychoanalysts DO!!


The YouTube video is an episode from a PBS dramatization of the Tolstoy classic, Anna Karenina. In this episode Anna Karenina commits suicide by throwing herself in front of an oncoming train. After the suicide a group of people gather around Anna's lifeless body. Anna's illicit lover, Alexei Vronsky arrives on the scene and picks up Anna's purse (12:00 on the video), which is pink in color and shaped like a small pouch. To the layman, the purse is just a purse. A psychoanalyst might have a different view. He might see a symbolic representation of a vagina: pink in color and shaped like a small pouch. A subliminal communication, perhaps.

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