Transcript Freud’s Theory - Alston's Website

Psychoanalysis
The Theory of the Unconscious
 Freedom of the will is, if not completely an illusion,
certainly more tightly circumscribed than is commonly
believed.
 Whenever we make a choice we are governed by hidden
mental processes of which we are unaware and over which
we have no control.
 There is frequently nothing in the conscious mind which
can be said to cause neurotic or other behavior; therefore,
there must be an unconscious.
 Unconscious is rather structurally akin to an iceberg, the
bulk of it lying below the surface, exerting a dynamic and
determining influence upon the part which is amenable to
direct inspection—the conscious mind.
Instincts
 Eros (the life instinct) covers all the self-preserving and erotic instincts.
 Thanatos (the death instinct) covers all the instincts towards
aggression, self-destruction, and cruelty. Thanatos is the irrational urge
to destroy the source of all sexual energy in the annihilation of the self.
 Freud gave sexual drives an importance and centrality in human life,
human actions, and human behavior, arguing as he does that sexual
drives exist and can be discerned in children from birth, and that
sexual energy (libido) is the single most important motivating force in
adult life.
 Freud effectively redefined the term “sexuality” to make it cover any
form of pleasure which is or can be derived from the body. Thus his
theory of the instincts or drives is essentially that the human being is
energized or driven from birth by the desire to acquire and enhance
bodily pleasure.
Human Sexuality
 Oral stage of development: infants sucking
 Anal stage of development: defecation
 Phallic stage of development: interest in its sexual organs as a site of pleasure
 develops a deep sexual attraction for the parent of the opposite sex, and a hatred
of the parent of the same sex (the Oedipus Complex or the Electra Complex)
 feelings of guilt in the child, who recognizes that it can never supplant the
stronger parent
 Male children fear that because of the sexual attraction for his mother, he may
be harmed by the father (castration anxiety)
 Female children are initially attached to their mothers. When they discovers
that they does not have penises, they becomes attached to their fathers and
begin to resent their mothers who they blame for their "castration."
 Feelings repressed
 Conflict resolved by coming to identify with the parent of the same sex around
the age of five
 Latency period: sexual motivations become much less pronounced.
 Puberty: mature genital development begins, and the pleasure drive refocuses
around the genital area.
Neuroses and the Mind’s Structure
 Id: the part of the mind in which are situated the
instinctual sexual drives which require satisfaction
(unconscious)
 Super-ego: the part of the mind which contains the
“conscience,” namely, socially-acquired control
mechanisms which have been internalized, and which are
usually imparted in the first instance by the parents
(unconscious)
 Ego: the conscious self that is created by the dynamic
tensions and interactions between the id and the super-ego
and has the task of reconciling their conflicting demands
with the requirements of external reality (consciousness)
Defense Mechanisms
 attempt to prevent conflicts from becoming too
acute
 Repression: pushing conflicts back into the
unconscious
 Sublimation: channeling the sexual drives into the
achievement socially acceptable goals, in art,
science, poetry, and so forth
 Fixation: the failure to progress beyond one of the
developmental stages
 Regression: a return to the behavior characteristic
of one of the stages
Dream Analysis
 Manifest content of a dream (what the dream appeared to
be about on the surface)
 Latent content (the unconscious, repressed desires or
wishes which are its real object).
 Dream interpretation: slips of tongue, free-associations,
and responses to carefully selected questions lead the
analyst to a point where he can locate the unconscious
repressions producing the neurotic symptoms and cure the
problem
 The analyst must facilitate the patient himself to become
conscious of unresolved conflicts buried in the deep
recesses of the unconscious mind, and to confront and
engage with them directly.
Information from:
 Stephen P. Thornton
Email: [email protected]
University of Limerick
Ireland
 Last updated: December 29, 2010 | Originally
published: April 16, 2001