The Acquisition of Comedic Skills as a Component of Growth and Individuation: Post-Jungian and Psychoanalytic Perspectives.
type: CreativeWork
description: This dissertation proposes the argument that the comedic performance triggers and utilises Jung’s symbolic and archetypal processes. Stand-up comedy reflects social and psychological change in our society, towards class, gender equality and re-distribution of wealth and re-configuring social structures. Jungian theories are particularly pertinent to this study because they capture the psychological implications in both the inter and intra-psyche of the individual and social transformation. They examine the impact of the mythological and alchemical aspects of stand up comedy on the comedian whilst focussing on the archetype and the Amfortas Wound. While Freudian and post-Freudian theories prove to be more appropriate for examining the details of the agencies activated within inter and intra-psyche of the comedian during the performance. Jungian and post-Jungian theory examines the social and mythological aspect of stand-up comedy. Stand-up comedy and in particular women as stand-up comedians become a litmus test for society’s problems and issues and the rebalancing thereof social inequality. In the archetypal realm the comedy club becomes the ‘vas’, a symbolic sacred transformational space, in which stand-up comedy has the potential to become a transformative process for both the comedian and audience. Stand-up comedy is a transformative process for both the comedian and the spectator, while the comedy club becomes a vas, a symbolic sacred transformational space. The stand up comedian’s internal struggle is recreated into a personal comedic story, of individual versus the collective, Thanatos and Eros, personal versus social, responsibility versus irresponsibility, power, race, gender and hierarchy. The audience reflects upon these comedic stories and by doing so whether the comedian is successful or unsuccessful the comedian also reflects upon it hence transformation occurs. It is arguable that within this alchemical process the joke, on occasion, becomes the tricks…
abstract: This dissertation proposes the argument that the comedic performance triggers and utilises Jung’s symbolic and archetypal processes. Stand-up comedy reflects social and psychological change in our society, towards class, gender equality and re-distribution of wealth and re-configuring social structures. Jungian theories are particularly pertinent to this study because they capture the psychological implications in both the inter and intra-psyche of the individual and social transformation. They examine the impact of the mythological and alchemical aspects of stand up comedy on the comedian whilst focussing on the archetype and the Amfortas Wound. While Freudian and post-Freudian theories prove to be more appropriate for examining the details of the agencies activated within inter and intra-psyche of the comedian during the performance. Jungian and post-Jungian theory examines the social and mythological aspect of stand-up comedy. Stand-up comedy and in particular women as stand-up comedians become a litmus test for society’s problems and issues and the rebalancing thereof social inequality. In the archetypal realm the comedy club becomes the ‘vas’, a symbolic sacred transformational space, in which stand-up comedy has the potential to become a transformative process for both the comedian and audience. Stand-up comedy is a transformative process for both the comedian and the spectator, while the comedy club becomes a vas, a symbolic sacred transformational space. The stand up comedian’s internal struggle is recreated into a personal comedic story, of individual versus the collective, Thanatos and Eros, personal versus social, responsibility versus irresponsibility, power, race, gender and hierarchy. The audience reflects upon these comedic stories and by doing so whether the comedian is successful or unsuccessful the comedian also reflects upon it hence transformation occurs. It is arguable that within this alchemical process the joke, on occasion, becomes the tricks…
author: Kempinska, M Z
language: en
keywords: BF Psychology
date published: 2016-03
date modified: 2026-07-24T02:18:14Z
provider: University of Essex
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Essex