© 1999 by Design History Society
‘When Things Go Wrong ... Inside the Inside’: A Psychoanalytical History of a Jug
London
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Abstract |
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The primary intention of this paper is to attempt to broaden and intensify the role of psychoanalysis in design history by drawing attention to the irrational nature of our relationship with objects. The paper is divided into two parts. The first part identifies the methodology and psychoanalytical theory that informs that main text, a subjective account of a relationship with a particular object, a jug. Winnicott's paper on ‘Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena’ is selected as a key text, but other theoretical perspectives from Klein and Freud are included when they have been used in the main text. The focus, however, in the second part is not so much on psychoanalytical concepts as on a methodology derived from the consulting room, the technique of free association, in which the inside of the jug is treated as a receptacle for personal associations and psychoanalytical theory. As the writer resolves a significant area of psychic damage that the jug evokes, so the perception of it changes from a dangerous and hostile object to a benign and even beautiful one. In this context the jug then becomes a focus of compassion and forgiveness.
Key Words: design theory • fetishism • methodology • psychoanalysis • psychology of design • transitional object