Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis

The aim of this essay is to clarify the basic principles of Freud's theories and to raise the main issues.

It is important to be clear about the meanings of certain terms that you may come across and throughout the handout you will find footnotes clarifying certain terms. Firstly though, a word about the terms psychoanalysis and psychodynamics. Psychoanalysis refers to both Freud's original attempt at providing a comprehensive theory of the mind and also to the associated treatment. The term encompasses both Freudian theory and therapy. You will also come across the term psychodynamics. This term is used to denote the approach which began with psychoanalysis but which has now broadened into a much more diverse collection of theories and models developed by other psychologists, all of which nevertheless retain some of the main ideas of Freud's original theory.

1.8.1 BACKGROUND

Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 in Moravia, which was then part of the Austrian Empire and is now in the Czech Republic. He spent most of his life in Vienna, from where he fled, in 1937, when the Nazis invaded. Neither Freud (being Jewish) or his theories were very popular with the Nazis and he escaped to London where he died in 1939.

He had wanted to be a research scientist but anti-Semitism forced him to choose a medical career instead and he worked in Vienna as a doctor, specialising in neurological disorders (disorders of the nervous system). He constantly revised and modified his theories right up until his death but much of his psychoanalytic theory was produced between 1900 and 1930.

Freud originally attempted to explain the workings of the mind in terms of physiology and neurology ...(but)... quite early on in his treatment of patients with neurological disorders, Freud realised that symptoms which had no organic or bodily basis could imitate the real thing and that they were as real for the patient as if they had been neurologically caused. So he began to search for psychological explanations of these symptoms and ways of treating them.

In 1885 he spent a year in Paris learning hypnosis from the neurologist Charcot; he then started using hypnosis with his patients in Vienna. However, he found its effects to be only temporary at best and it did not usually get to the root of the problem; nor was everybody capable of being hypnotised. Meanwhile Breuer, another Viennese doctor, was developing another method of therapy which he called the cathartic method, where patients would talk out their problems. Freud adopted Breuer's method and called it free association which became one of the three fundamental tools of psychoanalysis.

Freud began his self-analysis during the 1890s and in 1900 published The Interpretation of Dreams, in which he outlined his theory of the mind, followed by The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1904), A Case of Hysteria and Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905).

Two of Freud's closest colleagues, Carl Jung and Alfred Adler, helped him form the psychoanalytic movement and the first International Psychoanalytic Congress was held in Salzburg in 1908. The Journal of Psychoanalysis was first published in 1909 and, in that year, Freud and Jung made a lecture tour of the USA. (From Gross, R (1996) Psychology, The Science of Mind and Behaviour, page 508)

1.8.2 FREUD'S STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY

Freud compared the human personality to an iceberg. The small part that shows above the surface of the water represents conscious experience ; the much larger mass below the water level represents the unconscious - a storehouse of impulses, passions, and inaccessible memories that affect our thoughts and behaviour. It is this portion of the mind that Freud sought to explore with the use of free association.

Freud also believed that personality was composed of three major systems: the id, the ego and the superego. Each system has its own functions but the three interact to govern behaviour.

(a) The id

The id is the most primitive part of the personality and the first to develop. It is present in the newborn infant. It is located in the unconscious and it is from the id that the ego and the superego later develop.

The id consists of the basic biological impulses (or drives): the need to eat, drink, eliminate wastes, avoid pain and gain sexual pleasure. Freud also believed that aggression was a basic biological drive.

The id seeks immediate gratification of these impulses. Like a young child, the id operates on the pleasure principle : it endeavours to avoid pain and obtain pleasure regardless of the external circumstances.

(b) The ego

As the child develops it learns that their impulses cannot always be immediately gratified. Some must be delayed (for example, hunger must wait until someone provides food) and some (for example, hitting someone) may be punished.

A new part of the personality, the ego, develops as the young child learns to consider the demands of reality. The ego constitutes our conscious self and obeys the reality principle : It is essentially the part of personality that decides what actions are appropriate and which id impulses will be satisfied in what manner. The ego mediates among the demands of the id, the realities of the world and the demands of the superego.

(c) The superego

The superego, is the internalised representation of the values and morals of society as taught to the child by the parents and others. It is essentially the individuals conscience. The superego decides whether an action is right or wrong. Initially, parents control a child's behaviour directly by reward and punishment. Through the incorporation of parental standards into the superego, behaviour is brought under self-control. The superego develops in response to parental rewards and punishments.

In summary, the id seeks pleasure, the ego tests reality and mediates, the superego constrains and strives for perfection. Not surprisingly, the three components of personality are in constant conflict: the ego postpones the gratification the id wants immediately and the superego battles with both because behaviour often falls short of the moral code it represents.

1.8.3 MANAGING THE CONFLICT

In order to deal with this conflict, the ego develops a series of defence mechanisms which allow