Frida Kahlo | Personality Analysis

Frida Kahlo - 3 Approaches

Lauren Banister | Psych 7 | Section 5201

Big 5 Trait Approach

• Openness to Experience
• Creative, painter, wore traditional Mexican clothing as an aesthetic preference
• Conscientiousness
• Sense of duty to post-coloial era Communist efforts and anti-nuclear work (but, engaged in many extramarital affairs)
• Extraversion
• Maintained a robust network of political activists, artists, friends, and lovers (her frequent isolation and loneliness was not voluntary)
• Agreeableness
• Empathetic towards the suffering of others, yet always more than willing to buck the system. ( Rebellious, strongly political make her less agreeable)
• Neuroticism
• Repeated medical imagery and wounds in her art suggests fixation on her pain

Introduction

• Mexican artist
• Had polio as a child
• At age 18, was in a severe bus accident; she suffered lifelong chronic pain
• Painted her own experience in a style many called surrealist
• Married artist Diego Rivera
• Was a part of the Communist Party

Humanistic Approach

Psychoanalytic Approach

• Her art explored gender, race and class, and showed how she was shaped by the post-colonial era
• Chronic pain and isolation disrupted meeting her need for safety and comfort, but her creativity and commitment to social causes demonstrates her striving for self-actualization, and bringing meaning to what could have been an otherwise lonely and (physically) painful life
• Experienced flow states through painting

• Fixation at the phallic stage; possible "penis envy" exhibited by flouting of gender norms
• Electra complex and strong closeness with her father
• Her art may have expressed her unconscious mind