Waterstone, Reading in Enfield

I am glad to say that I am happy to be a Shangwe writer. Having met Nicole in 2008, it has been an interesting journey in a creative kind of way. Over the years, developing my theme of what I write about and how I write, on reflection, is also proving to be an interesting process, as it looks quite autobiographical and a kind of unconscious process unfolding from my internal world.

As an introduction, Shangwe promotes and helps to develop writing and literature of Black British & Mixed Race women writers. True to the word, the same day I met Nicole Moore, Founder and promoter, in the Poetry Cafe, Covent Garden, she asked me to send her some work to showcase on her blog at http://shawana-lulu.blogspot.com/2008_09_01_archive.html, and there I am telling a story of certain significance about ‘remembering and not forgetting’. I seem to recall reading Freud's Introductory Lecture 1 and reading something about ‘parapraxes, slips and forgetting...’ and how in the forgetting there is a process of actually remembering. I suppose that was what I wanted to achieve by writing the poem on ‘US’.

Whereas my poem on ‘Us’ forms part of a compilation of book one of my autobiography, http://shawana-lulu.blogspot.com/2010/02/love-what-is-it.html, is an extract of book two, the follow on of me moving forward in my life. However, in moving forward this does not necessarily mean that I have forgotten events whether serious or minor in my life, as I believe all things that happen have a sense of a profound learning or explanation. In fact, ‘Love What is It’ came a little less than 2 years later having written over 300 poems processing who I am and my phantasies of others. Yet, there is a truth associated to this poem of me coming to know the thoughts of someone that led me to write that.

It has not been easy developing myself as a writer, as much time was needed to be given to exploring the mind of Freud and his contemporaries and the dual process of personal therapy to complete my training as a Psychodynamic Therapist and an analytical writer of Psychodynamic Thought.

There just seems to be something about a deeper understanding of psychology that adds flavour to writing about my experiences, human behaviours and outcomes, in the way that I choose to write!

Having completed foundation training at the Richmond Adult Community College, a Post Graduate Degree in Counselling at the Goldsmiths, University of London, and a Poet's Performance & Page course at The Arvon Foundation, I must say that this has given me more power to enrich not just my writing but my confidence and life too in reaching out to achieve whatever I want to do or be.

Well not so long ago, I was happy to have been asked to contribute to Nicole’s new book, comprising of her work and a collection of Black and Mixed Race writers’ contributions, me being one of them, of course, making my first published work in an anthology, launched in June 2010 at the Edmonton Green Library. I suppose that makes me a published writer then, doesn’t it. That being the case, I must also express my enjoyment of writing to a loyal online audience since 2008 as well.

I am delighted to take up another offer to read my contribution to the new book at a Waterstone event, Hair Power - Skin Revolution: A Collection of Poems and Personal Essays by Black and Mixed-race Women, edited by Nicole Moore.

http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/displayDetailEvent.do?searchType=2&store=611

WATERSTONE'S ENFIELD&sFilter=1 (please copy and paste this address into your url for event details).

Courtsey Nicole Moore

http://www.shangwe.com/

SKIN LAYER 1

In the room by myself
With the TV on
In the background.
I put my laptop to use,
Whilst I look at my skin
And note how smooth
It is and how I feel calm.

But soon enough,
A memory emerges
Of how ....

(c) Jennifer Hooper 2009-2010

Do come along to hear this intriguing and interesting read live on 17th Sept 2010 at Waterstone, 26 Church St, Enfield, (7 mins from Enfield Station), 6.30 pm to 8.30 pm, FREE ENTRY.

Returning back to when I first met Nicole, that immediate response of interest in me and my work did help me to have the confidence to take pride in my work as a new writer then, and has continued to have that effect until now.

As I continue to develop my theme on conflict and autobiographical phantasies, I do look forward to maintaining an online presence for some time. However, I assure you, there is something gripping about hearing the muse in person, as I am someone who likes to tell stories with a certain aspect of truth about them giving rise to the process of analysis within the listener.

Strachey, J., 1991. Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, Volume 1. London: Penguin Books

Jennifer


Second Anthology - Poetry Rivals' Collection 2010 - The Passions of the Poet - a collection of poems for adult writers, entered with 'Inferiority-Superiority Syndrome' (c) Jennifer Hooper 2010.

http://creativecounsellingtherapy.blogspot.com/2010/07/superiority-inferiority-syndrome.html

Poetry Rivals 2010
http://www.poetryrivals.com/

Arvon Foundation
http://www.arvonfoundation.org/p1.html

It's All Economics

It’s All Economics


It’s all economics meeting a certain end, isn’t it.

I do wonder whose end we are meeting though.

The ends of the housewife, the husband or both?

This is where conflict can start when,

Meeting a certain end dismisses the real

Science of economics with certain behaviours.



Gone is the notion of romance of the family,

Gone is the notion of the welfare of humankind,

And so the economics turns inwards.

A singular notion of survival, consumption

And wealth and thus pressure of economics for all.

So, when will your view of economics cease

To be activities of a violent concern?

(c) Jennifer Hooper 2010

Is domestic violence a private matter to be hidden and remain a secret?  According to whom.

Editor


History of Actor: Patrick Stuart and Patron of a Refuge
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/nov/27/patrick-stewart-domestic-violence

Courtesy The Guardian

The Superego

I must say going back to the Autumn of 2009 does remind me of my fear of embarking on my first theory paper on psychodynamic studies. I was petrified not just about the number of books that I might need to read but the task of getting the required understanding of what I was reading and putting it down in writing in my essay as proof of my research and profound learnings. Also the task of learning and doing academic writing proved challenging. Being the person that I am, it was just like me to pick one of the most difficult themes to write about from the list of topics. My reasoning was if I can write about something that is viewed as complex, then the much easier aspects of psychology would then fall into place and eventually it would all make sense. Well the task did prove difficult and I must say that sense of feeling petrified lasted up until I received my mark. With a bit more work the outcome did prove fruitful in gaining an appreciation for some of Freud’s and his contemporaries discoveries. Further, regarding the drives theory and it’s development and connection with the theme of object relations, it does seems Freud originally hinted on or touched on the topic of ‘the object’ in his works.

Of course I would have liked a much higher mark for my paper but having been told by a lecturer once ‘to not expect to learn too much in the first year as it all comes together in the second year’, I was happy to pass my first paper, albeit with a deeper understanding about psychodynamics to come in year two and beyond that.

Here we are with a ‘snippet’ of my theory paper of up to 4,000 words:

“Freud’s studies eventually led to his discovery of ‘psychical functioning’ and a more in-depth awareness of ‘unconscious mind’ mapping. Freud was actually the first person to construct and clarify a structural model of the mind in his essay The Ego and the Id (1923). Freud’s model defines ‘the ego’ as a topographical structure of a map of the conscious, pre-conscious and unconscious: elements of the psyche, also viewed by him as internal functions. However, Freud’s developmental psychology describes the 3 main functions in the apparatus of the psyche, as being the id, ego and superego. Whereas defensive processes he saw was part of the ego.

The Id Freud saw as a mixture of unorganised primitive instincts that he saw as biological drives, that is, a mass of automatic instinctual impulses present from birth. These drives he attributed to our instincts: the libido/sexual drive or love and aggression or hate, in conflict with each other. This conflict he saw as internal in our psyche by pressure from our superego, but also externally in the real world, in the sense of how instinctual impulses/energy drives humans to form relationships deriving pleasure-unpleasure, that is, social or anti-social behaviours.

Freud defines the Ego as the rational part of the mind, to balance conflicts between the id’s competing demands with the superego.

The Superego, Freud describes as the last function of the personality to develop. It is our guide or internal judge. Freud hypothesized that the superego evolved from the decisive introjections and re-introjections arising from interactions with primary care givers, authoritative figures, and society. These decisions are thought to be internalised as morals and rules that form an ‘ego ideal’ as well as censored behaviours that work like an internal restrainer. Freud seemed to suggest that the unconscious is made up of the id primarily with part of the superego, with the ego as the conscious part of the mind.

Freud further gives his view of the concept of defensive processes, more commonly known as defence mechanisms. He saw them as unconscious mental strategies, which are individual components of energy harnessed to ward off tension. Freud suggests that an understanding of defence mechanisms and their relation to the id, ego and superego, should aid us in understanding what he sees as a human tendency to be self deceptive in the use of them. Freud’s theories about the unconscious are still practical in clinical work today, where an analyst’s observation of their client’s use of defence mechanisms and how the analysts reflects or interprets the observations back to the client, may help the client with their problems. Moreover, Freud implies that all humans endure psychological battles as intrinsic dilemmas to a lesser or greater degree. ..”. (c) copyright Jennifer Hooper 2009-10

Strachey, J., 1991. Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, Volume 1. London: Penguin Books

Hinshelwood, R.D., 1991. A Dictionary of Kleinian Thought. London. 2nd Ed. : Free Association Books

Anderson, R., 1992. Clinical Lectures on Klein and Bion. London: Routledge.

THE SUPEREGO


Is there a super Ego today,

Or is there a superego everyday,

Or is this how you choose to play?



Are you feeling grey,

Or might there be dismay,

In not getting your way?



So what does the child say,

Everything is "nay",

Or is Puny Parent here to stay?



How does it go: sulk, slay,

Throw a tantrum, betray,

Go silent, stray.



Forget, prey,

Picture destruction or foul play?

Parle vous francais?



So you want someone to obey,

Or they are subject to an x-ray

Because only saints can get away.



I wonder whether one could weigh

The warring factions of id-ego and pray,

As it takes great courage to underplay

The moral guide misused, as an authoritarian power play.

(c) Jennifer Hooper 2010