![]() ![]() This is achieved, in part, through psychodynamic defenses, some of which are more functional than others. This difficult transition brings with it “excessively disturbing…or disruptive states of mind” (Waddell 2002), which must be contained and managed by the young person. ![]() It requires the re-structuring of one’s personality along with the development of a stable self-identity, all the while tolerating the major physical and emotional changes that are taking place during puberty - the “swirling storm inside” that Elsa sings of. This process involves a complex shift on the child’s part from the infantile to the adult self. Indeed, Elsa’s journey in the movie closely mirrors the requirements that children must navigate in adolescence. Other fears include the fear of our inherent capacity for destruction which, in Elsa’s case, seems particularly pertinent. In adolescence, these “fears” often revolve around social situations and others’ perceptions of them – with fears of being humiliated or of not fitting in being pervasive. When Elsa sings of the “fears that once controlled me,” she might be singing for any member of the audience, and this concept acts as a strongly unifying idea. Similarly, the process of growing up itself brings with it many anxieties – from the child’s fear of her parents dying to the fear evoked by the aggressive urges that we gradually become conscious of and that form a normal and integral part of our psyche. This awareness evokes significant anxiety. When Elsa flees the kingdom, fearful of her uncontrollable powers, Anna sets off, with the help of Kristoff, an ice salesman, to bring her sister back to civilization and persuade her to withdraw the eternal winter that she has unwittingly inflicted on Arendelle.įrom a young age, children have an awareness of their need to grow up into adults. ![]() Anna, the more naïve, younger sister, is presented as an impulsive, extrovert character in contrast to Elsa. ![]() Elsa, the elder, more self-controlled sister, has the power to create snow and ice at will – a fact that she is forced to hide during her childhood before it ultimately comes to light at her coronation. Originally based on Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale, “The Snow Queen” (Anderson 1914), the writers adapted the story so that the central theme became that of the bond between two sisters, both princesses of the kingdom of Arendelle and orphans after their parents are lost at sea. The Disney movie Frozen, released in 2013, has, at the time of this writing, grossed in excess of $1.2 billion, making it the fifth highest grossing movie of all time (BBC News online 2014). Typical examples of these, and ones that are often experimented with during development, include: splitting (the psychological failure to integrate the positive and negative aspects of the self) projection (the externalization and attribution of negative feelings and urges to others) acting out (performing an action that is generally destructive to self or others) and repression (the unconscious suppression of undesirable feelings). These conflicts are often managed within ourselves by the employment of ego defenses. Such stories offer “conscious credence and body to id pressures” whilst also directly encouraging the development of the “budding ego.” They allow us to acknowledge the dynamic conflicts between the desires of the unconscious id, dominated by the “pleasure principle,” and those of the superego, which is governed, in part, by external world requirements. In his seminal work The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, the psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim purports that fairy tales speak not only to our conscious mind but also to our unconscious one (Bettleheim 1976). ![]()
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