Self-psychoanalysis in Virginia Woolf: Suppression of seduction

Sigmund Freud, as the father of modern psychiatry, approaches the psyche as the source of all conflicts and challenges in life and he chases after a solution to confront the determiners of the psyche. He proposes psychoanalysis as a device to analyze the psyche through words and associations which are considered a ladder reaching the unconscious. Freud's theories influenced Virginia Woolf, one of the pioneers of modern literature, who had to struggle with her internal conflicts and the cultural conflicts of society. Woolf uses psychoanalysis as a means of exploring the depths of the psyche, as the determiner of her life. This thesis aims to prove that Virginia Woolf suffered from the consequences of sexual harassment, she was influenced by Freud's approaches and theories, and she applied self-psychoanalysis in order to realize her self-healing. This thesis also provides an analysis of Virginia Woolf's life, her literary identity and three of her works, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and Moments of Being in terms of psychoanalysis. The analyses performed in this thesis are supported by the statements and the explanations about Freud's approaches in psychoanalysis, defense mechanisms, creative writers and their motives. It also reflects Virginia Woolf's challenges sourced by her psychological and intellectual heritage, her childhood memories, her defense mechanisms, her sexual tendency and the shifts of heaven and hell in her life. The reflections of the difficulties which Virginia Woolf suffered are also examined through her works, by which she unconsciously justifies Frued's theories, which she claims not to have read until she and her husband visited him in 1939. Keywords: Virginia Woolf, Sigmund Freud, self-psychoanalysis, creative writers, sexual tendency, suppression, suicide, Eros, Thanatos,