Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis



Chapter 16

Freud’s Influence





 Three great shocks to the collective

human ego (Freud, 1917)

 Copernicus: Earth not the center of

the universe.

 Darwin: Humans are not a distinctive

species.

 Freud: Unconscious forces rather

than rational thought govern our

lives.

Freud and Unconscious Forces



 Idea of the unconscious forces

 Not accepted by Wundt and Titchener

• Not amenable to study using introspection

• Cannot be reduced to sensory elements

 Functionalists disregarded it

• Although James acknowledged unconscious processes

• 1904: Angell devoted a mere 2 pages to topic in text

• 1921:Woodworth dealt with subject as postscript

 Watson: No use for either the unconscious or

consciousness

 Freud: Brought concept of the unconscious to psychology

Antecedents of the

Development of Psychoanalysis

Personal influences Zeitgeist

Introspection

Romantics

a dominant tool

in psychology



The Hypnotists

Few advances

(some success?)

FREUD in treating

mentally ill



Rationalists Mentally ill

are beginning

to gain attention



Darwin

Scientific psychology

is a very young science

Antecedents of the Development of

Psychoanalysis



 Ideas from Darwin

 The significance of dreams

 The importance of sexual arousal

 Notion of continuity in emotional behavior from

childhood to adulthood

 Humans are driven by biological forces of love and

hunger

 Ideas from Charcot

 Hysteria caused the “idea” of a physical injury

Antecedents of the Development of

Psychoanalysis



 Ideas from Romanes

 Elaboration on developmental continuity in

emotional expression from childhood to adulthood

 Idea that sex drive appears as young as 7 weeks



 Ideas from Kraft-Ebbing

 Sexual gratification and self-preservation the only

human instincts.

 Cumulative effect: In adherence to Darwin’s

leadership, scientists acknowledged sex as a

fundamental human drive.

Antecedents of the Development of

Psychoanalysis





 Additional influences

 From Freud’s university training

• Mechanistic orientation of Ernst Brücke, his

major professor.

• Prevailing determinist attitude reflected in

Freud’s concept of psychic determinism.

Antecedents of the Development of

Psychoanalysis





 From zeitgeist

 19th century Viennese attitude toward sex

• Generally permissive

• Freud and neurotic upper-middle-class

women: More sexually inhibited.

• Victorian England and puritan U.S.: Not as

stereotypically prim, proper, and inhibited

as sometimes portrayed.

• 1880s-1890s: From sublimation of sex to

overt expression.

Antecedents of the Development of

Psychoanalysis





 Moritz Benedickt

 Viennese neurologist and colleague of Freud

 Cures with hysterical women

 Patients talked about their sex lives

 Alfred Binet: Published on sexual perversions.



 Libido: A term already in use.

Antecedents of the Development of

Psychoanalysis



 Receptive zeitgeist led to interest in Freud’s

concepts

 Catharsis: Emotional release.

 Already a popular concept

 More than 140 publications on topic in German by

1890

 Freud’s concepts about dreams

 Anticipated in the literature of philosophy and

physiology.

 Already studied by Charcot, Janet, and Kraft-Ebbing

 Freud’s genius was his ability to weave ideas and

trends into a coherent system.

Sigmund Freud



 Born in Freiburg, Moravia (now Pribor, Czech republic)

 Moved to Vienna when four; Lived there approximately 80

years

• Father 20 years older than mother

• Strict, authoritarian

• Both feared and loved by Freud

• Mother

• Protective, loving

• Freud emotionally attached to her

• She was enormously proud of him

• Oedipus complex

• Fear of father

• Sexual attraction to mother

Sigmund Freud

Education







 As a young student

 Owing to his intellect, which was obvious

from an early stage of his childhood, his

parents favored him over his siblings, and

even though they were poor they offered

everything to give him a proper education.

 Entered high school (Leopoldstädter

Communal-Realgymnasium) a year early.

 Graduated in 1873 with honors

Sigmund Freud

Education



 University career

 Darwin’s theory: elicited an interest in science

 1873: began study of medicine at University of

Vienna

• Goal: research, not practice

• Eight years to get his degree: took courses

outside of medical curriculum, e.g., Philosophy

• Initially concentrated on biology: eel testicle

morphology

• Inconclusive findings

• Sexually related topic

• Moved to physiology: the spinal cord of the fish

• 6 years in physiological institute

Sigmund Freud

The Cocaine Episode





 Not illegal

 Use: for self, friends and family, medical patients

 Enthusiastically maintained it ameliorated his depression

and indigestion

 Called it a miracle drug; Thought it would lead to his fame

 Carl Koller, a colleague, learned of drug through Freud;

Used it to anesthetize eye during surgery

 Freud’s article on cocaine benefits in part responsible for

its widespread use in U.S. And Europe until 1920s

 For rest of career downplayed his initial approval

 Used it himself until middle age

Sigmund Freud

The Physician



 Wished for appointment in academic research lab

 Brücke, his professor and director of the lab where

Freud trained, dissuaded him.

 Used financial grounds

 Would take years to obtain professorship

 Freud too poor to provide for himself in interim

 Taking Brücke’s advice, Freud took medical exams for

private practice.

 1881: earned MD and started clinical neurology practice

 Did not like his work but the money kept him going

 Eventually treated hysterical patients to help pay

Sigmund Freud

The Husband



 Engaged to Martha Bernays

 Several wedding dates postponed due to finances

 Freud pawned watches and borrowed money to pay

costs of wedding

 4 year engagement to Martha

 Highly jealous of her

 Wanted to be center of her affection

 Would prefer she renounce her family

 Spent little time with her or their children

 Vacationed alone or with sister-in-law Minna

 Said Martha could not keep up with him while hiking

and sightseeing

Early Influences on the Development of

Psychoanalysis

Joseph Breur and the Case of Anna O.



 Josef Breuer (1842-1935)

 Famous for study of respiration

 Discovered the functioning of the semicircular

canals

 Made friends with the younger Freud

 Successful, experienced father figure who lent

money and gave advice to Freud

 Discussed patient cases with Freud, including Anna

O.

Early Influences on the Development of

Psychoanalysis

 Anna O. Joseph Breur and the Case of Anna O.

 Her case crucial to development of psychoanalysis

 21 years old, Intelligent, attractive

 Wide range of hysterical symptoms

 Symptoms first manifested while nursing her dying father with whom she

was very close

 Breuer began with hypnosis

 When Anna talked about symptoms connected with specific experiences,

symptoms abated (catharsis!)

 Daily sessions for 1 year

 Anna’s terms for symptom relief: “chimney sweeping” and “the talking

cure”

 Repulsive acts recalled under hypnosis

 Reliving the experiences under hypnosis ameliorated the symptoms

 Positive transference

 Breuer’s wife jealous of emotional bonds connecting her husband and

Anna

 Anna transferring her love for her father to love for her therapist

• A threatened Breuer terminated the therapy

Early Influences on the Development of

Psychoanalysis

Joseph Breur and the Case of Anna O.



 Pathogenic ideas: Ideas that cause physical

disorders.

 Cathartic Method: The alleviation of hysterical

symptoms by allowing pathogenic ideas to be

expressed consciously.

 Transference: The process by which a patient

responds to the therapist as if the therapist were a

relevant person in the patient's life.

 Countertransference: The process by which a

therapist becomes emotionally involved with a

patient.

Early Influences on the Development of

Psychoanalysis

Freud’s Visit With Charcot

 1885: Freud received a mini-grant to study with

Charcot

 Trained in hypnosis to treat hysteria

 Charcot became his father-figure

 Informed by Charcot of the function of sex in

hysteria

 Upon return to Vienna, Rudolph Chrobak,

gynecologist, reinforced possible link between sex

and emotional problems

Early Influences on the Development of

Psychoanalysis

The Birth of Free Association



 Resistance: The tendency for patients to inhibit

the recollection of traumatic experiences.

 Free Association: Freud's major tool for

studying the contents of the unconscious mind.

With free association, a patient is encouraged

to express freely everything that comes to his or

her mind.

 Like a psychological X-ray!

Early Influences on the Development of

Psychoanalysis

The Birth of Free Association



 Free association material

 Not random

 The experiences recalled are predetermined

 Cannot be consciously censored

 The nature of the conflict forces the material out to

be articulated to therapist

 Its roots were in early childhood

 Much of it concerned sexual matters

 1898: “...the most significant causes of neurotic

illness are to be found in factors arising from sexual

life”

Early Influences on the Development of

Psychoanalysis

Studies on Hysteria



 Studies on Hysteria: The book Breuer and Freud

published in 1895 that is usually viewed as marking the

formal beginning of the school of psychoanalysis.

 Repression: The holding of traumatic memories in the

unconscious mind because pondering them consciously

would cause too much anxiety.

 Conflict: According to Freud, the simultaneous tendency

both to approach and avoid the same object, event, or

person.

 Unconscious Motivation: The causes of our behavior of

which we are unaware.

The Beginnings of Psychoanalysis







Goal: remember traumatic experience…

Problem: resistance (defenses keep people from remembering)

First attempt: hypnosis

Another problem: temporary, sporadic, nonbelievable

Free Association: helps patients remember trauma

Causes of Hysteria: conflict from repressed trauma



The Role of Sex:

• Freud adopted central role of sex in his theory

• Imagined vs.real sex experiences- improvement or setback?



Bottom line: memories or fantasies of sex trauma created tension

or conflict btw conscious & unconscious mind. Tension needs to

be released somehow. Dreams, seemingly a “road to the

unconsciousness” were a logical place to start.

Early Influences on the Development of

Psychoanalysis

The Seduction Theory



 Seduction Theory: Freud's contention that hysteria

is caused by a sexual attack: Someone familiar to

or related to the hysteric patient had attacked him

or her when the patient was a young child. Freud

later concluded that in most cases such attacks

are imagined rather than real.

Freud’s Self Analysis





 Freud became “a textbook example of his theory”

 His sexual frustrations emerged as neuroses

 Year he gave up sex had “odd states of mind”

 Fears of death, travel, open spaces

 Diagnosed self as suffering from anxiety neurosis and

neurasthenia as a consequence of sexual tension

 Krull, 1986: “Freud’s theory of actual neurosis is thus a

theory of his own neurotic symptoms”

 Freud decided that he required psychoanalysis and

analyzed himself using his dreams

Freud’s Self Analysis

Analysis of Dreams



 Lesson from patients: Dreams a rich source of information providing

clues to causes of disorder.

 His deterministic belief that everything has a cause led him to look for

unconscious sources of the meaning in dreams.

 Dream analysis: “A psychotherapeutic technique involving interpreting

dreams to uncover unconscious conflicts.”

 Every morning Freud wrote down dream as he remembered it and free

associated to the resultant material.

 Emergent themes

 Hostility toward father

 Childhood sexual attraction to mother

 Sexual wishes regarding eldest daughter

 Result: the basis of his theory

 Two-year duration of self-analysis

Freud’s Self Analysis

Analysis of Dreams



 Dream Analysis: A major tool that Freud used in studying the contents of

the unconscious mind. Freud thought that the symbols dreams contain

could yield information about repressed memories, just as hysterical

symptoms could.

 Manifest Content: What a dream appears to be about.

 Latent Content: What a dream is actually about.

 Wish Fulfillment: In an effort to satisfy bodily needs, the id conjures up

images of objects or events that will satisfy those needs.

 Dream Work: The mechanism that distorts the meaning of a dream,

thereby making it more tolerable to the dreamer.

 Condensation: The type of dream work that conflicts several people,

objects, or events into one dream symbol.

 Displacement: The ego defense mechanism by which a goal that does

not provoke anxiety is substituted for one that does. Also, the type of

dream work that causes the dreamer to dream of something symbolically

related to anxiety-provoking events rather than dreaming about the

anxiety-provoking events themselves.

Freud’s Self Analysis

The Oedipus Complex





 Oedipus Complex: The situation that, according to

Freud, typically manifests itself during the phallic

stage of psychosexual development, whereby

children sexually desire the parent of the opposite

sex and are hostile toward the parent of the same

sex.

 Healthy resolution occurs when the child identifies

with the same sex parent.

 Electra Complex

 Female Oedipal Complex

The Psychopathology of Everyday Life





 Parapraxes: Relatively minor errors in everyday

living such as losing and forgetting things, slips

of the tongue, mistakes in writing, and small

accidents.

 Freud believed that such errors are often

unconsciously motivated.

 Overdetermination: Freud's observation that

behavioral and psychological phenomena often

have two or more causes.

 Actions and attitudes don’t always match

Freud’s Trip to the United States





 1909: Freud and Jung invited by G. Stanley Hall to Clark

University for 20th Anniversary celebration

 Freud lectured; Received honorary doctorate in

psychology

 Self-described in lectures as scientist and therapist with

significant findings

 Received with high regard

 James, Titchener, and Cattell were among the leading

American psychologists with whom he met

 1909/1910: publication of the Clark lectures in the

American journal of psychology, with numerous

translations

A Review of the Basic Components of

Freud’s Levels of Personality





 Early conception: two parts of mental life,

conscious and unconscious

 Conscious part like tip of iceberg

• Small and insignificant

• A superficial representation of the total

personality

 Unconscious part like the huge, submerged part of

iceberg

• Vast and powerful

• Contains the instincts; Driving forces of behavior

A Review of the Basic Components of

Freud’s Levels of Personality

A Review of the Basic Components of

Freud’s Theory of Personality

The Id

 Id (das es): According to Freud, the powerful, entirely

unconscious portion of the personality that contains all

instincts and is therefore the driving force for the entire

personality.

 Operates under the pleasure principle

 Instincts: According to Freud, the motivational forces

behind personality. Each instinct has a source, which is a

bodily deficiency of some type; an aim of removing the

deficiency; an object, which is anything capable of

removing the deficiency; and an impetus, which is a

driving force whose strength is determined by the

magnitude of the deficiency.

 Libido: The collective energy associated with the life

instincts.

A Review of the Basic Components of

Freud’s Theory of Personality

The Ego



 Ego (ich): According to Freud, the component

of the personality that is responsible for locating

events in the environment that will satisfy the

needs of the id without violating the values of

the superego.

 Operates under the reality principle

 Cathexis: The investment of psychic energy in

thoughts of things that can satisfy a person's

needs.

A Review of the Basic Components of

Freud’s Theory of Personality

The Superego



 Superego (über-ich): According to Freud, the

internalized values that act as a guide for a

person's conduct.

 Morals and values

 Anticathexis: The expenditure of psychic energy

to prevent the association between needs and

the ideas of anxiety-provoking objects or

events.

A Review of the Basic Components of

Freud’s Theory of Personality

Life and Death Instincts



 Instincts: “to Freud, mental representations of

internal stimuli (such as hunger) that motivate

personality and behavior.”

 Propelling or motivating forces

 Biological forces that release mental imagery

 Life Instincts (eros): The instincts that have as

their goal the sustaining of life.

 Death Instinct (thanatos): The instinct that has

death as its goal (sometimes called the death

wish).

A Review of the Basic Components of

Freud’s Theory of Personality

Anxiety and the Ego Defense

Mechanisms

 Anxiety: The feeling of impending danger. Freud

distinguished three types of anxiety: objective

anxiety, which is caused by a physical danger;

neurotic anxiety, which is caused by the feeling

that one is going to be overwhelmed by his or her

id; and moral anxiety, which is caused by violating

one or more values internalized in the superego.

 Ego Defense Mechanisms: The strategies

available to the ego for distorting the anxiety-

provoking aspects of reality, thus making them

more tolerable.

A Review of the Basic Components of

Freud’s Theory of Personality

Anxiety and the Ego Defense

Mechanisms



 Because we are social, we can not act out our

sexual and aggressive impulses.

 When ego fears losing the battle between id

and superego, anxiety results.

 “Anxiety is the price we pay for civilization”

 The ego uses Defense Mechanisms to reduce

anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.

A Review of the Basic Components of

Freud’s Theory of Personality

Anxiety and the Ego Defense

Mechanisms





 Repression: The basic defense mechanism that

banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings,

and memories from consciousness.

 Regression: Defense mechanism in which an

individual retreats, when faced with anxiety, to a

more infantile psychosexual stage where some

psychic energy remains fixated.

A Review of the Basic Components of

Freud’s Theory of Personality

Anxiety and the Ego Defense

Mechanisms



 Reaction Formation: Defense mechanism by

which the ego unconsciously switches

unacceptable impulses into their opposites.

 People may express feelings that are the

opposite of their anxiety-arousing

unconscious feelings.

A Review of the Basic Components of

Freud’s Theory of Personality

Anxiety and the Ego Defense

Mechanisms

 Projection: Defense mechanism by which

people disguise their own threatening impulses

by attributing them to others.



 Rationalization: Defense mechanism that offers

self-justifying explanations in place of the real,

more threatening, unconscious reasons for

one’s actions.

A Review of the Basic Components of

Freud’s Theory of Personality

Anxiety and the Ego Defense

Mechanisms



 Displacement: Defense mechanism that shifts

sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more

acceptable or less threatening object or person.

 As when redirecting anger toward a safer

outlet i.e. kicking the dog.

 Sublimation: Rechanneling of unacceptable

impulses into socially approved activities.

 Denial: Ignoring a problem and pretending it’s

not there. (Maybe it’ll go away on its own!)

A Review of the Basic Components of

Freud’s Theory of Personality

Psychosexual Stages of Development



 Personality forms in the first few years of life

 Problems with personality arise from

unresolved conflicts from early childhood.

 Children pass through a series of psychosexual

stages during which the id’s pleasure seeking

energies focus on distinct pleasure sensitive

areas of the body called erogenous zones.

A Review of the Basic Components of

Freud’s Theory of Personality

Psychosexual Stages of Development





 Oral Stage (first 18 months)

 Pleasures arise from sucking, biting, and

chewing

 Anal Stage (18 Mo-3 yrs)

 Boweland bladder retention and elimination

become a source of gratification

A Review of the Basic Components of

Freud’s Theory of Personality

Psychosexual Stages of Development



 Phallic Stage (3-6)

 Pleasure zone shifts to the genitals

 Timing of Oedipal complex

 Latency Stage (6-puberty)

 Sexuality is dormant

 Genital Stage

 Sexual feelings begin towards others

A Review of the Basic Components of Freud’s

Theory of Personality

Psychosexual Stages of Development

 Oral

• Erogenous zone = mouth

• Primary source of sensual pleasure is stimulation of the

mouth through sucking, biting, swallowing

 Anal

• Erogenous zone = anus

• Primary source of sensual pleasure is stimulation of the

anus through expelling or withholding feces

 Phallic

• Erogenous zone = genitals

• Primary source of sensual pleasure is stimulation of the

genitals through fondling or exhibition or through sexual

fantasies

 Latent

• No erogenous zone

 Genital

• Erogenous zone = genitals

Freud’s View of Human Nature





 Freud largely pessimistic about human nature.

 People can live rational lives but must first

understand the workings of their own mind.

 The Future of an Illusion (1927)

 Religion based on human helplessness and

insecurity.

 We create a powerful father figure to protect us.

 Religion is a painkiller, used to dull the pain of living.

 Religion should be replaced by scientific guides for

living.

Freud’s Fate





 Psychoanalysis labeled a “Jewish science” in

Germany.

 Nazis burned his books

 “What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages

they would have burnt me; nowadays they are

content with burning my books.”

 Fled to Paris and then London

 Died from a lethal injection given to ease his pain.

 Freud had cancer of the jaw for years and despite

numerous surgeries, continued smoking cigars.

Revisions of the Freudian Legend

The Reality of Repressed Memories





 Forgetting Happens

 Forgetting isolated past events, both negative

and positive, is part of everyday life

 Recovered Memories are Commonplace

 We recover memories of long-forgotten

events.

 It is unclear that the unconscious mind

forcibly represses painful experiences and, if

so, whether these can be retrieved by certain

therapist-aided techniques.

Evaluation of Freud’s Theory

Criticisms





 Poor method & poor

operationalization of

terms

 Dogmatic

 Too much sex

 Biased & not

scientific & not

testable (poor theory)

 Time consuming &

costly

Evaluation of Freud’s Theory

Contributions





 1st comprehensive psych theory of personality

 Treatment that didn’t torture the patient!!



 Opened topics up to other psychologists



 Brought tremendous popularity to new field of

psych

 Stimulated interest to treat mentally ill



 Inspired new ideas because he was a radical!!