Lecture Sigmund Freud ( )

Meanings of PA zTheory of personality zTheory of the mind zMethod for analyzing psychological processes zTherapy school zFramework for analyzing cultural products zWorldview

Traditional Psychology and PA zTraditional psychology: Ambivalent attitude towards psychoanalysis. Mainstream psychology Psychoanalysis Psychology of variables (the individual disappears) Psychology of the subject (the individual is the focus)

Historical division of PA: zI. Pre-analytic phase: zII. Analytic phase: yTrauma theories yTopographic theories yStructural theory zIII. Post-Freudian approaches

Freud's Early Life zSigmund Freud was born 1856 in Freiberg, Moravia. zHis family moved to Vienna in 1860, where Freud remained until the Nazis forced him to London in zUnusual family constellation --> sensitized Freud to family relationships? zOutstanding student. zFreud enrolled in the University of Vienna's medical school in 1873 zOutstanding teachers: yFranz Brentano yErnst Brücke zInterest in mechanistic physiology.

Preanalytic phase: z1881: MD. zCharcot zJosef Breuer (Anna O = Bertha Pappenheim) zFree association zTraining at Vienna's General Hospital: Studied under the famous brain anatomist Meynert ( ). Freud: Diagnosis of localized brain injuries. z1885: Meynert's support for a traveling grant to study in Paris with Charcot. zLectured to the Vienna Medical Society about his study with Charcot and hysteria. zFreud felt that he became an outsider.

Preanalytic phase: zPatients of hysteria were treated with: yHypnosis yCathartic method yPressure technique yFree association zFree association: Encourage patients to let their thoughts run free, and to honestly report whatever comes to mind, even if it seems irrelevant, embarrassing or anxiety arousing. zWith free association Freud discovered several new and interesting features of hysterical illness. y(a) A whole series of pathogenic ideas were often behind an individual hysterical symptom --> Overdetermination y(b) Memories seemed to have been actively (unconsciously) repressed by patients. y(c) Freud detected intrapsychic conflict in patients.

Analytic phase: Trauma theories z1895: Studies on Hysteria (together with Breuer) zSeduction theory zStudies on Hysteria (1895): First great classic of the new field psychoanalysis. zFreud and Breuer offered the hypothesis that hysterics suffer mainly from memories of emotionally charged experiences that have been somehow placed beyond the reach of ordinary consciousness --> pathogenic ideas. zFreud and Breuer referred to many hysterical symptoms as conversions (emotional into physical energy).

Continued z1896: Freud published his seduction theory of hysteria in a medical journal article. zPatients recalled scenes of early sexual mistreatment, often by parents or other close relatives. zFreud: All hysterics must have undergone sexual abuse as children. zSymptoms function as defenses against psychologically dangerous pathogenic ideas. zSeduction theory --> Critical reception from medical colleagues, who stopped referring patients to Freud. zFreud himself soon began to believe that his patients' childhood seductions had often been imaginary rather than real. zMasson (see film) charged that Freud merely caved in to the medical establishment by disavowing an unpopular point of view.

Analytic phase: Topographic theories z1900 The Interpretation of Dreams z1901 The Psychopathology of Everyday Life z1905 Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality z1909 Clark University zConscious, preconscious, unconscious zPsychosexual stages zDevelopment of psychoanalytic treatment

Topographic theories Interpretation of dreams zManifest content: Consciously experienced content of the dream. Fantastic images, often unintelligible to the dreamer. zLatent content: inspires the dream (in consciousness only after free association). zDreamers often resist the uncovering of this latent content (much as hysterical patients resisted the recollection of their pathogenic ideas). zThe sleeping mind transforms latent into manifest content by means of dream work. y(a) Displacement: The manifest content symbolizes the latent content in a "safe" way with images less distressing than the latent content --> Defensive function. y(b) Condensation: Several different latent thoughts may be symbolized by a single image of the manifest content. y(c) Concrete representation: Manifest content typically represents latent ideas by means of concretely experienced sensations

Dreams: The Primary and Secondary Thought Processes. zFreud saw both dreams and hysterical symptoms as resulting from similar unconscious symbolic processes. zFreud hypothesized opposed modes of mental activity: one unconscious and associated with dream and symptom formation (primary process), the other conscious and responsible for rational thought (secondary process). zInfants are born with the capacity for dreams but have to learn how to think rationally --> unconscious mode of thought = primary process; conscious mode = secondary process. zAdults' dreams and hysterical symptoms: Secondary-process thinking is abandoned in favor of the developmentally earlier primary process. Primary-process thought plays a positive role in creative and artistic thinking.

Dreams: The Wish-Fulfillment Hypothesis: zFreud had concluded that all dreams represent the fulfillment of wishes. zDreams: stimulated by latent wishes. zSymptoms: stimulated by sexual memories. zSeduction scenes reported by hysterical patients indirectly reflected sexual wishes rather than actual experiences.

Theory of Childhood Sexuality: zPatients, outwardly morally virtuous, secretly and unconsciously harbored sexual fantasies that respectable society would never tolerate. zSelf-analysis: Free association of his own dreams and symptoms. yUnconscious hostile wishes toward his consciously loved father. y"Sexual" wishes regarding his mother. zDeath = Absence. Sexuality = Any kind of sensual, physical gratification. zFreud concluded that anyone who honestly subjected himself or herself to analysis by free association would discover traces of similar wishes --> Oedipus complex.

1905: Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. zFreud postulated a generalized form of human sexual drive, present from birth onward. zHuman infant: Born in a state of polymorphous perversity capable of taking sexual (sensuous) pleasure from the stimulation of any part of the body. yIn earliest infancy: the mouth or oral zone predominates as the locus of this form of sexual gratification. yWhen toilet training begins, the anal zone assumes particular importance. yAfter children have developed fuller control over their bodies: Stimulation of the genital zone becomes a major source of sexual pleasure. Age of five: Oedipus complex emerges. yLatency stage (lasts until the physical maturation of puberty): Child enters a psychologically tranquil period suited for learning.

Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy zFreud realized that a patient has not ambivalences toward parents or other significant people but also toward the therapist. zTransference feelings: Patients tended to transfer onto Freud, as the therapist, motives and attributes of the important people from their past lives who were implicated in their neurotic symptoms. zEnduring cure requires the uncovering and analysis of the entire complex of underlying conflicts --> months or years to complete. zFreud did not provide the quick and specific cures for hysterical symptoms he had originally hoped for

Metapsychology: zFreud sought to place his clinical discoveries within a broader theoretical context --> a general model of the mind (metapsychology). zFreud's earliest metapsychological theorizing: neurophysiological background. zLater: Freud decided to avoid neurological technicalities by expressing his metapsychology in completely psychological terms.

Analytic phase: Structural Theories z1923 The Ego and the Id. zPersonality theory of id, ego, superego z1938: Vienna -> London zThe Ego and the Id: Three different kinds of demands conflict with one another. z(a) Demands from the body itself (biologically based urges for nourishment, warmth, sexual gratification) --> instincts. z(b) Demands imposed by external reality; z(c) Moral demands impinge on the mind independently of the instincts and external reality.

Continued zSeparate systems to process the three kinds of psychic demands. z(a) The id as the repository of unconscious powerful impulses and energies from the instincts. z(b) A perception-consciousness system: Conveys information about external reality to the mind. z(c) Moral demands originate from an agency which Freud called the superego. zThus the id, the perception system, and the superego all have conflicting demands on the psyche --> compromise. zPsychic agency responsible for compromise: the ego. zSome of the ego's compromises --> Hysterical symptoms (maladaptive).

Defense Mechanism zFreud saw everyday life as dominated by ego compromises he called defense mechanisms (together with Anna Freud). yDisplacement: Redirecting an impulse toward a substitute target that resembles the original in some way, but is safer. yProjection: Reversing unacceptable impulses by attributing them to someone else instead. yIntellectualization: An emotion-charged subject is approached in a strictly intellectual manner that avoids emotional involvement. yDenial: Believing and behaving as if an instinct driven event had never occurred. yRationalization: Acting because of a motive but explaining the behavior on the basis of another, more acceptable one. ySublimation: Channeling energy from an instinct to produce a creative and socially valuable result.

Civilization and Its Discontents zLove poses problems because of the possibility of losing the loved person through desertion, death, or other separation. zFew human experiences are more catastrophic than the loss of a loved person, and those who have once lost at love may be reluctant to try it again as the answer to the human dilemma. zWorld War I: Civilization is developing in a way as to increase opportunities for expression of the instincts of aggression and death, while decreasing them for sexuality and love.

After and beyond Freud zFreud left an extraordinary intellectual legacy. zFor psychotherapists and psychologists, Freudian theory remains a major source of both inspiration and contention. zInternational Psycho-Analytic Association zErik Erikson ( ) proposed a series of psychosocial stages. zThe object relations school places less emphasis than Freud did on the role of the instincts and more on the details of relationships with love objects. zAlfred Adler ( ) zCarl Gustav Jung ( ) zKaren Horney ( ) z--> Freud had overemphasized sexuality.