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(Accepted for publication 24 of July, 2016)
The exploration of unconscious functioning, and of such psychoanalytic ideas as those pertaining to internal object relations, stages of development, defence mechanisms, or the phenomena of dreaming and parapraxes, combined with our clinical experience with real-life analysands, can also contribute to an understanding of the personalities and behaviours of the fictional characters we encounter in literature, drama and cinema.
Some of these concepts, even when not directly referred to here, will inform my reflections on three classic British films: David Lean's wonderfully romantic love story Brief Encounter (1945), Carol Reed's intense post-Second World War drama set in Vienna The Third Man (1949), and zany comedy Morgan. A Suitable Case for Treatment (1966), set in the ‘swinging London’ of the 1960s, by Karel Reisz.27