Tommy's Psychodynamic

On Monday, our class had an in-class discussion about Tommy, which is a rock opera album by The Who. Although it has quite a wide range of possible theories that it can be examined through, I propose to examine Tommy through the lens of Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalytic theory. I chose to do this because the storyline of Tommy clearly articulates the psychodynamics of conversion hysteria (which is a mental disorder characterized by emotional excitability and psychological sensory or motor symptoms that can resemble different physical disorders, according to Jerome Tobacyk), and certain parts of the story reveal psychoanalytic themes, including defense mechanisms, repression, narcissism, catharsis, and charismatic leadership.
The main storyline

Each of these attempts reflect the main characteristics of the primary structural personality systems, which are the Id, the Superego, and the Ego. First , Tommy’s step-father attempts to cure him by bringing him to the Acid Queen, who is a gypsy-like woman who tries to shock him out of his state through a sexual, drug-based ritual This reflects Id resources (receiving sexual sensation through a negative experience) in an attempt to cure him. A second curative attempt made by Tommy’s mother involved a religious service that ended when he shattered the cult’s holy idol statue. Psychoanalytically speaking, his mother was attempting to arrange Superego resources (which was the representation of the religious leader as an ideal of the ego) in order to find a cure for Tommy. Lastly, Tommy is brought to a doctor, who serves to represent Ego qualities of rational reality testing and problem solving (Tobacyk). However, the Doctor does not find any physical causes for Tommy’s disabilities and thus declares that the symptoms are indeed psychogenic. According to the doctor, Tommy must look inwardly for a cure and be responsible for healing

In the film version of the story, Tommy’s mother, who is upset about his continual stare into a mirror (representing an internal phase of narcissism), throws him straight into it by accident. The mirror proceeds to shatter, along with all of his psychogenic disabilities. As Tommy crashes into the mirror, he is symbolically submerged under water, which can represent the unconscious. He then swims upward to the surface and into the light, which can represent repressed emotion and memories that are emerging into