Blog Entry 3: "Fairy Tales and Psychology"

Psychology and Fairy Tales seem to go hand and hand. Psychology like Fairy Tales seem to be an art form; there are all kinds of ways to interperet a fairy tale, and in psychology our brains are always trying to make sense and interpret the enviroment around us. There's no "right way" to interpret them, just different. It's like when you stare at a painting in a museum, everyone will interpret the painting and it's meaning a different way. In our last classes discussion, Frued's theories (Ice Berge theory, of the Concious and Unconcious mind) were heavily emphasised, in interpreting fairy tales.

The Id (primal drive) Ego (intermediate/balancer) and the Super Ego (morals/ conscience) were heavily used in explaining Hansel and Gretel. For example, The Id appeared when Hansel and Gretel starting devouring the gingerbread house because they were so hungry. They didn't stop and think, "It's not polite to eat someone's house without asking." They just grabbed whatever they could and snarfed down any food possible, after bieng lost and frightened and hungry in the woods. Morality just flew out the window. The Super Ego seemed to take the form of  the witch because she was asking. "Who's that nibbling on my house?" seemingly refreshing the children's consciences, that bieng greedy can have dire consequences. The Ego decided to make an appearence when Hansel stuck out the chicken bone instead of his finger to postpone the witch from cooking as long aas possible.

The Oral stage was repetitive in Hansel and Gretel, for they were biting and nibbling at food (gingerbread house) and the theme of  repression and denial about bieng seperated from their mother,and having to cope with that, and the hunger that they felt was also used as well.

Psychotherapists have used fairy tales as a way to unlock and access repressed  unwanted, painful memories of patients, by asking them to chose their favorite fairy tales. By connecting or relating to a certain fairy tale character, say for example Hansel and Gretel, maybe a psychotherapist would be able to unlock a  repressed memory of how the patients parents abandoned them,or maybe how there was nothing to eat when they were growing up. And in gaining acess to that patient's memory they are then, hopefully, able to help the patient on the road to recovery.