Sunday 15 February 2009

Idea for a Suicide prevention campaign

Advertising idea of the week: suicide prevention.

What do these three people have in common?

a) Sigmund Freud (psychoanalyst)

b) Justin Fashanu (footballer)

c) Chris Benoit (wrestler)

Give up?

So did they.

Suicide. It's not the answer.

3 comments:

Kevin 'In Salford' said...

What are your thoughts of, and the recent passing away of, Sir Clement Freud, Sigmund Freud's grandson?

What are your views on Freudian psychology, and how much do you think it influenced the life of Sir Clement himself?

(Tip: With also reference to Sir Clement's political career, and also to his much acclaimed 'Minced Morsals' advert).

There you go Tom, a current topical topic for you to expand on?

Tom said...

Clement Freud was a legend, a wit and a great writer to boot. It is Radio 4's and the nation's loss that he has died.

One of my favourite childhood (and adulthood) books was one of his: Grimble - also illustrated by Quentin Blake.

It has one of the best openings to any novel I've ever read:
"This is a story of a boy called Grimble who was about ten.You may think it is silly to say someone is about ten, but Grimble had rather odd parents who were very vague and seldom got anything completely right.

"For instance, he did not have his birthday on a fixed day like other children: every now and then his father and mother would buy a cake, put some candles on top of it and say, 'Congratulations Grimble, today you are about seven', or 'Yesterday you were about eight and a half, but the cake shop was closed.'"

Re: Freudian psychology - an extraordinary man with the finest mind of the twentieth century - unfortunately his work inadvertantly created the modern advertising industry with the principles of the unconscious mind and mass psychology, so it's not all good on that front.

As to his influence on Clement, I don't know enough to comment, but Sigmund must have feared for his life from one of his two sons, hence the Oedipus complex....

Joanne said...

Thanks for bringing my attention to that book. I love those first two paragraphs and I've never heard of it before so I'll have to get hold of it.

Also, I guess you probably already know but Chris Benoit was a murder-suicide. He killed his wife and son and then himself.