CLASSICS BY FREUD

• THREE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE THEORY OF SEX (1900)

• INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS (1900)

• INTRODUCTORY LECTURES ON PSYCHO-ANALYSIS (1916)

Significance of Freud’s Contributions:

• Psychotherapy

• Medical Model of Mental Disease

• Theory of Unconscious

• Application of Deterministic Philosophy to Unconscious

• Theory of Psychosexual Development

• Theory of Personality Dynamics

FREUD ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE UNCONSCIOUS• By the unconscious nature of mental life we have called forth

all the malevolence in humanity in opposition to psycho-analysis. Do not ... suppose that this opposition relates to the obvious difficulty of conceiving the unconscious or to the relative inaccessibility of the evidence which supports its existence. I believe it has a deeper source. Humanity has ... had to endure from the hands of science two great outrages upon their naive self-love. The first was when it realized that our Earth was not the center of the universe, but only a tiny speck in a world system of a magnitude hardly conceivable; this is associated in our minds with the name of Copernicus.

• The second was when biological research robbed man of his peculiar privilege of having been specially created, and relegated him to a descent from the animal world, implying an ineradicable animal nature in him: this transvaluation has been accomplished in our own time upon the instigation of Charles Darwin, Wallace, and their predecessors, and not without the most violent opposition from their contemporaries.

FREUD ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE UNCONSCIOUS (Cont’d.)

• But man’s craving for grandiosity is now suffering the third and most bitter blow from present day psychological research which is endeavoring to prove that the “ego” of each one of us that he is not even master in his own house, but that he must remain content with the veriest scraps of information about what he is going on unconsciously in his own mind. We psychoanalysts were neither the first nor the only ones to propose to mankind that they should look inward; but it appears to be our lot to advocate it most insistently and to support it by empirical evidence that touches every man closely. This is the kernel of the universal revolt against our science, of the total disregard of academic courtesy in dispute, and the liberation of opposition from all the constraints of impartial logic.

THEORY OF PSYCHOSEXUAL DEVELOPMENT

• “It is remarkable that those writers who endeavor to explain the qualities and the reactions of the adult individual have given so much more attention to the ancestral period that to the period of the individual’s own existence -- that is, they have attributed more importance to heredity than to childhood.” (S. Freud, Three contributions to the theory of sex, p. 35)

• PIAGET

- ”The child is the future of man.”

- “As the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.”

• Darwin (Instinct theory)

• Influence of embryology.

INFLUENCES ON FREUD’S THINKING (Zeitgeist)

• Experimental Psychology

-Search for Elements of Mind (Associationist Philosophers)

-Method of Introspection-Measurement of sensation -- (Psychophysics)-Taxonomies of other sciences -- (Chemistry,

Biology)

• Literary

- Dostoevsky- Hobbes

• Mystical Influence

- Orthodox Jewish background (Talmud)

• Fruits of Materialism in Physics and Biology:

- Bernard’s concept of homeostasis

- Helmholtz’s concept of the conservation of energy. Oath: “No other forces than common physical and chemical ones are active within the organism.”

Metaphors of Force

• force

• channeling

• concentration

• counter-force

• diversification

• reservoirs

• flowing

• clashing

• suppressing

• damning

• pooling

• directing

• energy

• entropy

FREUD AS A PRACTICING NEUROLOGIST

• Charcot’s Influence

- Traditional view of hysteria

- Male hysterics

• Breuer’s Influence

- “Studies of Hysteria”

- Case of Anna O.

PSYCHOANALYSIS

• Method of “free association”

• Slips of the tongue

• Resistance

• “Cathartic method” (talking out)

• Transference

• Dream Interpretation

Case of Anna O.Symptoms:

- paralysis of right leg and foot

- loss of sensitivity in right leg and foot

- disturbance of eye movements

- nausea

- impairment of much of her vision

- nervous cough

- hydrophobia--obtained water only from fruits

- speech impairment: could neither speak nor

- understand German “absences” during the late afternoon

STATIC DREAMS

• His lips and the tip of his nose were tickled with a feather. He dreamt of a frightful form of torture; a mask made of pitch was placed on his face and then pulled off, so that it took his skin with it.

• He was given eau-de-cologne to smell. He was in Cairo in Johann maria Farina’s shop. Some absurd adventures followed which he could not reproduce.

• A drop of water was dropped on his head; he was in Italy, was sweating violently and was drinking white Orvieto wine.

He was ill and lying in his room in his bed, with his mother sitting beside him, and dreamt that it was during the reign of terror. After witnessing a number of frightful scenes of murder, he was finally himself brought before the revolutionary tribunal. There he saw Robespierre and the rest of the grim heroes of those days. He was questioned by them and after a number of incidents which were not retained in his memory, was condemned, and led to the place of execution surrounded by an immense mob. He climbed onto the scaffold and was bound to the plank by the executioner. It was tipped up. The blade of the guillotine fell. He felt his head being separated from his body, woke up in extreme anxiety, and found that the top of the bed had fallen down and had struck his cervical vertebrae just in the way in which the blade of the guillotine would actually have struck them.

STATIC DREAMS, cont’d

NATURE OF DREAMS

• Function (Why people dream):

-Wish-fulfillment

-Preserve sleep

• Contents (What people dream):

-Manifest Content

-Latent Content

-Dreamwork

• Dreams must be interpreted

-Relative to recent experience(s)

-Thematically

• Futility of “glossary” approach to dreams:

-phallic symbols - elongated object (trees, cars, swords, snakes, pens, etc.)

-female symbols - receptacles (boxes, houses, cupboards, vessels, etc.)

-intercourse - repetitive activities (climbing steps or ladders, riding a horse, etc.)

Aliquis

A young woman who had already been married for a number of years dreamt

as follows :1. She was at the theatre with her husband,

and one side of the stalls was quite empty.

2. Her husband told her that Elise L. and her fiance also wanted to come, but could only get bad seats, three for a florin and a half, and of course they could not take those.

3. She replied that in her opinion they did not lose much by that.

(Freud, “A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis”, p. 128)

Scene I1. I am at the surface of the water. I start

to sink.

2. I keep going down further and further; it seems that it will never stop.

3. It gets darker as more and more water pushes on top of me.

4. Then I stop and then I begin to rise.

5. Suddenly I am once again at the surface, out in the light.

6. I am on the edge of the water, people are around me.

7. I am the center of things.

8. And then from the outside my sister enters the group.

9. People turn towards her

Scene II 10. The scene has changed; I am in a room

which appears to be a part of a house.

11. This room is remarkably like my analyst’s office, but the room is larger.

12. I am on the couch, across the room is my dog.

13. Dr. B. is seated in his chair. I believe that he is smoking but I am not sure.

14. I do not and cannot seem to look at him.

15. I am most miserably, extremely unhappy.

16. I weep, I am so full of emotion that I can do nothing but cry and that comes only in sobs.

17. I see a clock, it reads 5:33.

18. I began to draw myself up, to see whether or not I can leave.

19. Dr. B. goes toward what seems like the kitchen and returns with a bowl.20. It has several kinds of candy in it, the bowl is full.21. I reach for a colored one, but he points to another kind.22. I take the clear kind, the kind that reminds me of rock sugar candy.23. Dr. B. leaves again to return in a few minutes.24. This time he brings a cup and saucer filled with something hot. 25. I cannot be sure whether it be tea or coffee.26. During all this time Dr. B. has not uttered a word, he has remained calm and matter-of-fact.27. Suddenly I am awakened by our dog barking at what turns out to be the milk man.

SCENE II, cont’d

THEORY OF PERSONALITY

• Components:

- id

- ego

- super ego

• Processes, not physical entities.

ID, EGO, SUPER EGO• Id is the source of instinctual energy:

- Timeless

- Not modifiable, genetically defined.

- Operates in accordance with pleasure principle: to maximize pleasure.

- Activities of id are referred to generally as the primary process.

• Ego 

- Primary process often needs correction because the infant cannot discriminate fantasy from reality.

- Ego develops to insure that id is accomodated.

- Derives energy from the id.

- Uses reality principle.

- Relies on secondary processes (learning, perception, memory).

- Has no moral values.

•Super-ego- Internalization of values of parents

and society- Conscience: what leads to

punishment- Ego-ideal: what leads to reward

ID, EGO, SUPER EGO, cont’d

PSYCHOSEXUAL DEVELOPMENT

• Notice etymology: “psycho” and “sexual”.

- psycho: internalization of values regarding interpersonal relations

- sexual: dealing with bodily pleasure

• Early experiences with pleasure define the adult personality (embryological approach).

• Erogenous development: Pleasure derives not only from genital organs but from mouth and anus as well.

Stages -pregenital -oral-anal-phallic-latent-genital

All stages governed by expressions of instincts.-source (fixed)-aim (fixed)-object (variable)

Prototype - established by adjustment of individual to

challenges at each stage of development.

PSYCHOSEXUAL DEVELOPMENT, cont’d

PROTOTYPES

Response: Prototype:

Oral:

- Taking in Acquisitiveness (fixation)

- Holding on Tenacity (fixation)

- Biting Destructiveness (fixation)

- Spitting out Rejection (reaction formation)

- Closing Negativism (reaction formation)

Anal:

- Expulsive Messy, dirty, extravagant

- (fixations)

- Retentive Frugal, compulsively clean and orderly (reaction formations)

Phallic Stage (Castration complex)

• Boys (Oedipus complex):

-Desire to possess mother exclusively

-Jealous of father

-Fear of castration (what happened to girls)

-Renounces mother

-Identifies with father

-Turns towards other women

Phallic Stage (Castration complex), cont’d

• Girls (Electra complex):

- Desire to possess mother exclusively

- Notices lack of penis

- Feels castrated

- Blames mother

- Cathexis for mother weakens

- Penis envy

- Prefers father

- -Accepts hope of having a baby as substitute for penis