Daniel Debowy, Staff Psychiatrist, Student Mental Health and Counseling
Enrollment: Unlimited: Advance sign-up required
Sign-up by 12/31
Attendance: Participants welcome at individual sessions
Prereq: None
Fictional narratives allow for authors to discuss real-life struggles in a veiled manner. By taking their own experiences and those they observe in reality but embedding them in an invented context, authors can transmit emotionally resonant elements without becoming overwhelmed by the painful details of their own recollections. Similarly, readers might take away more from a story that speaks to their struggles than they do from their own initial musings about difficult times in their own lives.
Speculative Fiction (i.e., Science Fiction, Magical Fantasy, Superheroic Fantasy) works can provide some of the most effective "veils" for difficult life questions. Their remove from the everyday world provides dense camouflage for raising questions about life's meaning, political disagreements, and the nature of the human mind. Moreover, by suspending the rules of time and space that give us all frustration, they further reduce the distress we might experience when the same questions are raised in a realistic narrative. Lastly, some Speculative works deliberately play with physical reality in a way that triggers our deep seated fears of loss of control, what Freud termed "The Uncanny."
This course will discuss psychiatric themes in Speculative Fiction. The aim is to provide education about psychological theories through the aid of relevant Speculative Fiction pieces, as well as to help explain the enduring appeal of Speculative Fiction.
Sign up by emailing DEBOW@MED.MIT.EDU
Sponsor(s): MIT Medical
Contact: Daniel Debowy, E23-364, 617 253-2916, DEBOW@MED.MIT.EDU
Daniel Debowy - Staff Psychiatrist, Student Mental Health and Counseling