[NeilE]

Good Evening All;

Ah the joys of Psychological enquiry!

I am reminded of the good Doktor Von Humbrol's famous lecture series "Towards A Deep Psychology of Modelling" that he gave in 1968 at Berkeley U. Unfortunately the burks at Berkeley didn't dig the Good Doctor and he was run out of town. He then spent 12 months in retreat with Dymphna on the Costa Del Sol....

On this topic of Modelling Psychology I have one word to say to you all....

FREUD!

It should be stated now that the Herr Doktor Von Humbrol was one of the great man's greatest students.

How does Freud touch on the world of plastic modellling you ask. Read on Dear Students and I will explain....

Firstly, Freud theorized that the human psyche had three component parts...Id, Ego, and Superego.

Firstly the ID. The Id creates a number of forces operant in modelling behaviour. It represents our primal urge to build the model no matter what. Think about the young child's model described by Dr Stephen earlier. It is isn't painted, it's decals are stuck on anywhere, glue is everywhere. The undeveloped child's mind, unable to externalise its thoughts sees immediate gratification in completing the model as soon as possible. The search for gratification is the cornerstone of Freud's "Pleasure principle" and is contrasted with "Thanatos" ( the death wish - more on this anon).

Even as adults the ID lives in all of us and must be satisfied regularly. In the healthy modeller, this is done in the regular completion of models to a skill level the modeller is happy with. In the unhealthy modeller, the ID forces her/him further and further on, to detail, to detail still further, leading to unfinished models that are never finished. The Id embodies possession also and the unfinished model is always possessed tightly by the id.

Another point - Stephen politely refers to AMS as "Advanced Modellers Syndrome", whilst we at The Institute pull no punches - we refer to it as "Anal Modellers Syndrome". The former is standard American usage, the latter European. I guess we don't have to deal with the moral majority....

Now the Ego. Briefly, the ego is the core of the balanced human's pysche. It balances the competing desires of the Id and Superego, to the benefit of the subject.

In modelling terms, this means knowing when to stop detailing/weathering/buying or when to do so. It is the voice of risk taking and experimentation in modelling. Building a healthy ego is a great counter to AMS we find.

Thirdly the Supergo, this is in modelling terms is the voice of judges, magazine builders/reviewers and other experts. That, if internalised tells the modeller what is "good", what is "right" and "wrong" about a model. It is a social normative impulse in the modeller.

So AMS? AMS, according to Herr Doktor Von Humbrol's Berkeley Lectures and his later publication "The Costa Del Sol Treatise", is a significant imbalance of the ID and Superego at the same time. It reflects an unhealthy desire to always build, to keep on detailing, competing with others, yet possessing the unfinished model forever. It yells its mine. mine! mine!. The Superego in AMS however, drives the modeller normatively to live up to the unreal expectations of the modelling world for perfection and absolute accuracy and into the waiting arms of the screaming Id.

Michael was very close with his sadism/masochism dicotomy, but we believe at The Institute that this is carried further in AMS. The masochistic modeller drives himself to detail more and more in order to satisfy the sadistic urges of others but also to satisfy his own latent sadism - a drive towards Thanatos. The AMS modeller is satisfying his own auto sadistic streak and his own auto masochistic urge. How often do we hear the comment "It would have been perfect if only I had added the squiggly thingie to the cockpit" The modeller is punishing himself here but then he is driven to do so by his own urges and sets up a paradoxical modelling situation that enables himself to simaltaneously self punish and suffer.

We at The Glencoe Institute, following the lead of the Great Herr Doktor Von Humbrol, have only scratched the surface of this topic.

There is much work to do, we much work fast before AMS spreads further....

There is much more to say on this topic...I haven't mentioned Jungian Modelling Theory, Skinner's Operant Modelling, or Pavlovian impulses....or the work of Brother Heller or of Revellus of Padua....

so little time, so little time.....

Neil
Director,
Glencoe Institute,
BSSc, BSW, MA Psych Airfix University