Psychology 105g
Spring, 2004
Short Essay Topics

Each of these topics (and others I will post as the course concludes) seems to me suitable for brief but careful comment. As detailed in the Blackboard forum for this course, you are required to post there two essays of no more than 600 words each by the last day of class (March 5). Your grades on these will determine one-quarter of your course grade. My hope is that you will give these topics careful thought, perhaps reviewing your reading notes and parts of the recorded lectures. You are to answer each question based on materials from this course and not on recourse to the Internet or the Library. Include in your posting (I won’t count this toward the word count) the URLs of course materials you used in preparing you essay, and mention any other students’ postings or conversations you’ve had with them about the topic. You may email me drafts of answers you’re thinking of posting, and I’ll tell you whether I think it’s in the “A,” “B,” or “C” range. I also encourage you to attend the weekly study sessions with Page (pwidick@haverford.edu) and Emily (epurchia@haverford.edu), and to discuss these questions there.

Here are the questions to date [2/23/04]:

• Freud says every dream has a “navel,” and he says this at the point his interpretation of “Irma” reaches it (something to do with Irma’s “opening her mouth properly,” as I recall). What does he mean by “navel,” and why is this it, in “Irma”?
• Freud’s convinced “Dora”’s play with her purse alluded to masturbation. Does it? How do you know, in the case of “Dora”?
• How would Erikson explain the emotional content of “Night Terrors”? How are the infant’s and the father’s stage-specific issues related?
• How could Erikson say now what he meant to say with his “genital utopia” section in Childhood and Society? Say it, and explain why this is a good description of a healthy personality for 2004?

• Which of Erikson's suggested interpretations of Isak Borg's examination dream seems to best illustrate the "epigenetic" nature of personality? Why?

• How would Carol Gilligan explain this passage from “The Yellow Wallpaper”?
  “John is a physician, and perhaps--(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)--perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster.”
• Write a Gilligan-like paragraph about Anna Freud’s relationship to her father.
• D2 on Freud’s treatment of Anna
• D2-annotated resources on Anna Freud
• Pick a paragraph from “David” or “Nancy” that seems especially relevant to one of the developmental crises or psychosexual issues described by Freud, Shapiro, or Erikson and explain it clearly and succinctly.
• If you have seen the episode of My So-Called Life titled “Life of Brian” (DVD disk 3 on reserve for Psychology 214b, RealMedia excerpt here), explain the conversation between Brian Krakow and Angela Chase at the dance (roughly from “heartless” to “heartless”) in terms either of Kohlberg’s moral stage theory or Gilligan’s In a Different Voice. Get inside either Angela’s or Brian’s ego and describe some of the conflicting emotions and wishes there.

See the Blackboard forum for more details and for already-submitted student work.