Freud
Life of Freud
Oldest of 8 children born in Moravia (Czech Republic); Jewish family
Medical school in Vienna; neurology
Showed male eels had testes
New characteristics of neurons in fish
First gold-chloride technique of staining nerve tissue
Cocaine could be used as anesthetic
Private practice in Vienna for treatment of nervous disorders
(Berggasse)
Had 3 girls and 3 boys
Persuaded to leave Vienna after Nazi invasion-1938 b/c of Jewish
oppression
Considered all religion an illusion used by civilization to cope w/
feelings of infantile helplessness
Died from cancer of mouth and jaw (from cigar smoking) on Sept. 23, 1939
View of the Person
Human nature dominated by instinctual, unconscious, and irrational
forces
Human is selfish; at war w/ self both internally and externally;
aggressive and sexual
No free will; therefore incapable of dealing with own psychological
problems
People turn to religion in hope of gaining control over their urges
Used self-analysis in order to understand others behavior in terms of
himself
Most important book = The Interpretation of Dreams
Another book = Psychopathology of Everyday Life
Dreams allow people to experience wish fulfillments
Psychological Determinism = a belief that nothing about human behavior
occurs by accident or chance
Personality is "determined"
Didn’t promote biological determinism. Emphasized psychological
determinism
Explored his own childhood as the origins of his behavior
Belief that boys want to "kill" their fathers in order to "marry" their
mothers
This feeling of his may have created guilt when his dad died. Freud was
40.
Personality Structure
3 basic components of personality; 1st is biological side, 2nd is
psychological side, 3rd is societies contribution
Id, Ego, Superego are processes of the mind w/ "job" to organize mental
life and interact w/ one another
All powered by Libido (energy described as psychical desire, erotic
tendencies, sexual desire, and motive forces for sexual life)
Always struggling with each other to dominate personality
Id = origin of personality
Operates according to the Pleasure Principle (achievement of pleasurable
feelings as quickly as possible through the reduction of discomfort,
pain, or tension)
Satisfies it’s needs through the Primary Process (continual flow of
events involving images and wishes that demand immediate satisfaction)
Id is the reservoir of instincts
2 basic instincts
Eros = represents energy for preserving love for self and love of
others.
Thanatos = towards destructiveness and death aimed at returning living
things to original lifeless state. Promotion of aggressiveness is most
important function.
Preoccupation w/ self and needs "I want"
Ego = coherent organization of mental processes that develops out of Id
energy, has access to consciousness, and devoted to contacting reality to
satisfy Id’s needs
Adapt to outside world
Guided by the Secondary Process (includes intellectual operations like
thinking, evaluating, planning, and decision-making that determine
whether certain behaviors are beneficial)
Bridge to reality but not totally conscious
Ego’s reaction to threatening instincts is stress/anxiety
So, Ego calls upon Defense Mechanisms (internal, unconscious, and
automatic psychological strategies for coping and regaining control over
id instincts)
Repression — threatening material is unavailable for recall b/c it’s
been pressed down into the unconscious
Projection — protects individuals from threat by allowing them to
literally project their own traits to other people
Rationalization — excuse for threatening and unacceptable behavior and
thoughts
Intellectualize — talk and think at intellectual level rather than
emotional about what is threatening them
Undoing bad behavior by displaying behavior designed to reverse the
effects of the undesirable acts
Exaggerated use of defense mechanisms results in Neuroses (anxiety
driven patterns of abnormal behavior from over control of instincts)
Hysterical Neurosis = person develops symptoms of physical disorder to
avoid threatening experiences. Pretends.
Superego = representation of society in personality that incorporates
norms and standards of culture
Kid adopts society’s rules, regulations, and codes of right and wrong
Introjection = process where personality incorporates norms and
standards of its culture through identification w/ parents or role models
of society
Operates according to Morality Principle (code concerning society’s
values)
Conscience (internal agent punishing people when they do wrong; guilt)
To help control Id impulses by directing energy toward inhibiting id’s
expression of sexual and aggressive instincts
Seeks to suppress needs of Id rather than satisfy them
Illogically striving for 100% perfection
Superego can result in feelings of pride and self-respect through the
influence of the Ego Ideal (positive standards in form of internal
representations of idealized parental figures)
Five Stages of Personality (Psychosexual Stages)
4 of stages associated w/ erogenous zones (sensitive areas of body)
Sexual as defined by Freud = any pleasurable feeling associated w/
stimulation of erogenous zones.
Libido substituted as term for sexual cravings (reflections of Eros the
life instinct)
Everyone’s basic personality is established by age 5
May become fixated upon a stage; satisfaction frustrated; fixated people
likely to show regression
Every decision you display results from influences present in the
unconscious
Oral (narcissistic) Stage
-birth to 1 year -focus upon satisfying needs of mouth and digestive
tract; incl. Tongue and lips -Aim of Eros for self-preservation is made
possible by nourishment through mouth -Thumbsucking -Oral Receptive =
personality type derived from childhood pleasures of receiving food and
digesting it. Form relationships dependent upon others. Gullible.
Interested in getting info and knowledge and material goods "will swallow
anything" -Oral Aggressive = derived from childhood pleasures of mouth,
food, eating, but w/ more chewing, biting, and use of teeth. Sarcastic
and argumentative. Seek to hold firmly to others. Aggressive in
relationships w/ others
Anal Stage (2-3 yrs)
-sexual gratification occurs w/ relieving tension of full bowel and
stimulating anus -toilet training (issue of interpersonal interaction and
conflict b/t parent & kid) -Anal Retentive = delay of final satisfactions
to last possible moment. Always "save" for the future whether relating to
$ or need. Orderliness, stingy and stubborn. -Anal Expulsive =
inclination to disregard accepted rules of cleanliness, orderliness, and
appropriate behavior. React against others attempts to restrict them by
doing what they want whenever and wherever. Messiness, sloppiness,
aggressive destructiveness, temper tantrums, emotional outbursts and
cruelty.
Phallic Stage (4-5 yrs)
-satisfaction through masturbation
-central to Freud’s theory b/c
last infantile stage
provides context where 2 important complexes develop and critical issues
of anxiety and envy become relevant
basis of psychological and social identification for children
results in psychological and sex-role differences
determines development of superego
-difference b/t boys and girls
-boys have possessive love for mothers and see fathers as rivals (this
thinking influenced by Greek myth
-Oedipus complex = feelings, desires, and strivings revolving around a
boys desire for mom and hate toward dad. -Electra complex = love of dad
and hate of mom for girls -Boys experience Castration Anxiety = fear that
they might lose "boy parts"-vital organ of pleasure -Girls display penis-
envy = the wish to obtain one of their own. Girls might blame mothers. -
final step of Oedipal complex is formation of superego -Fixated male may
devote life to sexual promiscuity in quest for sexual gratification not
gotten as a child. Or he might get attracted to men. -girls have more
difficult time of identification w/ mothers. Why? Girls have ambivilance
for mothers and blame for not giving/taking away her the "boy part" Girls
Electra complex also turns to dad in hope of getting "missing part" from
him. -Freud believes that female superego develops less completely than
males
4) Latency Stage (6-12) -notable for absence of dominant erogenous zone
-children lay aside attraction to parents and become sexually
disinterested
-Libidinous instincts transformed through sublimation (process
reorienting instinctual aims that are more personally and culturally
acceptable) (Ex) teen fixed in anal stage might be interested in clay
substituting earlier desires to play w/ feces
5) Genital Stage (puberty +)
-phase of mature sexual love; directing feelings of lust and affection
towards others -1st 3 stages revolved around Cathexes (attachments of
libidinous energy to external world objects or fantasized internal
images). Pregenital stage cathexes typified by self-centered images.
Genital stage Cathexes directed less towards bodily pleasure but more to
emotional -final resolution of Phallic stage identification difficulties
for women. Accept themselves.
Freud view of Females
Girls more dependent on defense mechanism of repression
Weaker superego development
Women function at lower morality level than men
Elizabeth Young-Bruehl (1990) reasoned Freud’s view on women that they
are innately bisexual. Females first masculine b/c of wish to have "boy
part" then female b/c they accept themselves by Genital stage
so…bisexual.
Free Association
Freud’s primary technique for getting to unconscious
Person adopts a mental orientation allowing ideas, images, memories, and
feelings to be expressed spontaneously
One can experience Catharsis (process by which inner feelings are openly
expressed in words or behaviors)
Allow expression of anything and everything that comes to mind
Provides therapists clues about unconscious
Dream Interpretation
Manifest content of dreams (what is remembered) is deceptive and
shouldn’t be taken literally
Dreams are processes of the Id
Ego deals w/ conscious suppression of dream material by modifying Id
instinctual impulses and images represented by dreaming using censorship
and symbolic substitution. So, true content of dreams is disguised.
Latent content = underlying meaning of dreams
Dream symbol = something in dream representing some person, thing, or
activity involved in the unconscious processes.
Symbols are personal rather than universal
Each dream analyzed separately. Result is to discover some wish-
fulfillment for the dreamer (the primary purpose of dreaming)
Psychoanalysis
Systematic procedures for providing systematic procedures for providing
a patient with the insight necessary to rid the personality of it’s
neurotic conflicts.
Through insight, personally unacceptable and socially taboo experiences
buried in unconscious can be made conscious.
Freud tried hypnosis but was discouraged b/c afterwards symptoms didn’t
go away
Free association allowed patients to consciously comprehend everything
they said while saying it.
Couch used helps patients relax for effective free association
Sat behind patients to minimize therapist influence upon psychological
explorations
Transference = patients relate to psychoanalyst as if he were from their
past w/ whom they continued conflict with.
Countertransference = when analysts project their own unconscious needs
to the patient
Supporting and Qualifying Evidence
McVicker Hunt (1979) assessed evidence of lines of investigation from
Freud’s ideas. Found the studies "lent support" to Freud’s proposition
about "importance of childhood" but not to his psychosexual experiences.
Salvatore Maddi (1968) concluded that there’s qualified support for 2
Freudian concepts. Although Not all behavior is defensive, ego defense is
supported by studies relating to repression and there’s more evidence of
castration anxiety among men than women.
Lloyd Silvermam (1976) summarized 2 10-yr research programs. These
independent lab studies support relationship b/t certain types of
abnormal behavior and and types of unconscious conflict.
Psychoanalytic Theory predicts that info relevant to a certain fixation
or inner conflict would affect persons w/ that fixation/conflict, but
info related to other kinds of fixations would have no effect on them.
Blum (1949,1950,1962) assessed psychosexual fantasies in college
students asked to tell stories of series of cartoon pictures of a dog.
Study on castration anxiety in men and "envy" in women
Hall and Van de Castle (1965) to determine presence of castration
anxiety, wishes, and envy. Study severely criticized b/c used
explanations of results provided by non-Freudian theories.
Raskin and Shaw (1988) research for evidence on Freud’s oral stage.
Gabriel, Critelli, and Ee (1994) examined positive illusions of
intelligence and physical attractiveness among people administered a
narcissism test
DeAngelis (1994) 1st convincing experimental evidence for Freud’s
transference. Reported research by Anderson where subjects described sig.
Other and exposed to characterizations of fictional others including one
like the descriptions. Memory test where they falsely remembered features
of a significant other as belonging to the partially similar fictional
other, even if the feature was not part of what they said. Show we have
mental images of sig. Others from earlier that we may project as a whole
onto people we encounter later in life that resemble the sig.other. Freud
would agree that we tend to see the partial replica as totally like the
original. Emotional reactions may also be consistent w/ memory image and
persons resembling.
Slips of the Tongue have evidence of unconscious.
Michael Motley (1985;1987) slips are due to misfiring of brain and
verbal mechanisms. Motley believes traditional notions of unconscious may
not be entirely w/o merit. Can be embarrassing. When environment contains
clues relating to certain motivations we tend to have in unconscious
mind, words representing the forbidden motivation may pop out.
Greenwald (1992) says unconscious may be simple, straightforward and
unanalytical compared to consciousness
Limitations on Psychoanalytic Theory (PT)
Cannot be considered a fully scientific theory
Concepts are not open to direct observation; hard to test significantly
Little ability to predict behavior
Concepts work well when applied backwards, accounting for the past after
facts have been gathered (Stanovich, 1989)
Primary setting for gathering data has been the clinic, not laboratory.
In clinic, events that are irrelevant to diagnosis and treatment act on
patients and analysts but can’t be controlled.
Analysts, as observers, influence what they observe (Joseph 1980) Maybe
requiring analysts to undergo psychoanalysis may lessen their influence
by allowing them to see from patients’ perspective.
Clinic subject samples are unrepresentative of people in general
Freud’s major case studies were of Venetian women w/ abnormal behaviors,
upper class and single.
Ideas relied heavily on childhood. He had few child patients
Assumptions about children may be questioned
2 studies show 50% of kids 4-6 have knowledge of differences b/t girls
and boys and these children showed little emotional trauma over it. (Conn
and Kanner 1947, Katcher 1955)
Kohlberg (1966) says a better alternative to castration anxiety is
general childhood fear of bodily injury, not fear of losing a sex organ.
Foundation of Psychoanalytic theory has been questioned.
Freud’s Seduction thesis = belief that early patients were actually
sexually molested in childhood and repressed memories of these traumas
were source of their adult hysterical neuroses.
Freud changed his "real abuse" to "fantasy abuse" in later letters to
Masson. Changed not for objective, scientific purposes but for personal
reasons.
Masson’s reliability has even been questioned. Some believe Freud had
honest change of heart.
Early patients never claimed they were seduced (Esterson 1993)
Freud may have just suggested their seduction. Patients were under
pressure to report memories of seduction so they may have falsely
admitted (Powell and Boer 1994)
Patients may have also shown "false memory syndrome" (Loftus 1993)
Freud reported different findings at different times. Could’ve been a
liar or collected false evidence, blah, blah, blah
In summary of Masson guy: Masson accused that Freud, for personal
reasons, abandoned an earlier seduction theory in favor of fantasy
position. In addition, Powell and Boer charge that Freud suggested
seduction scenarios to patients who incorporated them into memory.
Esterson asserted that patients’ reports to Freud contained nothing
regarding to seduction; rather Freud consciously or unconsciously
invented the seduction scenarios.