Mikhail Shimonov
While reading Beyond the Please Principle by Freud, it became increasingly apparent that there is a difference in respect to how Freud describes pleasure and pain from Gilbert. Although it is true that both study psychology, Gilbert studies positive psychology in which one would see events in a positive or optimistic light. However, Freud, not necessarily a pessimist, but rather crude and harsh in terminology and in relation to how he describes the game that his own grandson played as an infant – Fort Da.
The Fort Da game, being a simplistic form of expression of how Ernst would express his feelings and emotions in the form of ‘pain’ for when the toy was gone, and ‘pleasure’ for when it appeared. This is probably the reason why I feel a difference in the tone of both psychologists, one would experiment with his own grandson, while Gilbert would take his surroundings and other experiments run rather than on his own family (at least thats we know so far). But then again, it would seem irrational for one to be a psychologist and not try out experimental methods on his own family – I mean you would be able to learn so much since they’re right there.
