Freud's Theories
中矿大银川学院-七年级英语上册期末试卷
The Unconscious[edit]
Main article:
Unconscious mind
The concept of the
unconscious was central to Freud's account of the
mind. Freud believed that while poets and
thinkers had long known of
the existence of
the unconscious, he had ensured that it received
scientific
recognition in the field of
psychology. The concept made an informal
appearance in Freud's writings.
The
unconscious was first introduced in connection
with the
phenomenon of repression, to explain
what happens to ideas that are
repressed.
Freud stated explicitly that the concept of the
unconscious
was based on the theory of
repression. He postulated a cycle in which
ideas are repressed, but remain in the mind,
removed from consciousness
yet operative, then
reappear in consciousness under certain
circumstances.
The postulate was based upon
the investigation of cases of traumatic
hysteria, which revealed cases where the
behavior of patients could not be
explained
without reference to ideas or thoughts of which
they had no
awareness. This fact, combined
with the observation that such behavior
could
be artificially induced by hypnosis, in which
ideas were inserted
into people's minds,
suggested that ideas were operative in the
original
cases, even though their subjects
knew nothing of them.
Freud, like Josef
Breuer, found the hypothesis that hysterical
manifestations were generated by ideas to be
not only warranted, but
given in observation.
Disagreement between them arose when they
attempted to give causal explanations of their
data: Breuer favored a
hypothesis of hypnoid
states, while Freud postulated the mechanism of
defense. Richard Wollheim comments that given
the close
correspondence between hysteria and
the results of hypnosis, Breuer's
hypothesis
appears more plausible, and that it is only when
repression is
taken into account that Freud's
hypothesis becomes preferable.
[119]
Freud originally allowed that repression might
be a conscious process,
but by the time he
wrote his second paper on the
Defence
referred to as
occurred on an
unconscious level. Freud further developed his
theories
about the unconscious in The
Interpretation of Dreams (1899) and
in Jokes
and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905),
where he dealt
with condensation and
displacement as inherent characteristics of
unconscious mental activity. Freud presented
his first systematic
statement of his
hypotheses about unconscious mental processes in
1912,
in response to an invitation from the
London Society of Psychical
Research to
contribute to its Proceedings. In 1915, Freud
expanded that
statement into a more
ambitious metapsychological paper, entitled
Unconscious
between his conception of the
unconscious and those that predated
psychoanalysis, he found it in his postulation
of ideas that are
simultaneously latent and
operative.
[119]
Dreams[edit]
Main article: Dream
Freud
believed that the function of dreams is to
preserve sleep by
representing as fulfilled
wishes that would otherwise awaken the
dreamer.
[120]
In Freud's theory
dreams are instigated by the daily occurrences and
thoughts of everyday life. His claim that they
function as wish
fulfillments is based on an
account of the “dreamwork” in terms of a
transformation of
language and the reality
principle, into the
unconscious thought
governed by the pleasure principle, wish
gratification and the repressed sexual
scenarios of childhood.
[121]
In order
to preserve sleep the dreamwork disguises the
repressed or
“latent” content of the dream in
an interplay of words and images which
Freud
describes in terms of condensation, displacement
and distortion.
This produces the
dream
narrative. For Freud an unpleasant manifest
content may still
represent the fulfilment of
a wish on the level of the latent content. In the
clinical setting Freud encouraged free
association to the dream's manifest
content in
order to facilitate access to its latent content.
Freud believed
interpreting dreams in this way
could provide important insights into the
formation of neurotic symptoms and contribute
to the mitigation of their
pathological
effects.
[122]
Psychosexual development[edit]
Main
article: Psychosexual development
Freud’s
theory of psychosexual development proposes that,
following on
from the initial polymorphous
perversity of infantile sexuality, the sexual
“drives” pass through the distinct
developmental phases of the oral,
the anal and
the phallic. Though these phases then give way to
a latency
stage of reduced sexual interest and
activity (from around the age of
approximately
five up until puberty), they leave, to a greater
or lesser
extent, a “perverse” and bisexual
residue which persists during the
formation of
adult genital sexuality. Freud argued
that
neurosis or perversion could be explained in terms
of fixation or
regression to these phases
whereas adult character and cultural creativity
could achieve a sublimation of their perverse
residue.
[123]
After Freud’s later
development of the theory of the Oedipus
Complex this normative developmental
trajectory becomes formulated in
terms of the
child’s renunciation of incestuous desires under
the
phantasised threat of (or phantasised fact
of, in the case of the girl)
castration.
[124]
The “dissolution” of
the Oedipus Complex is then achieved
when the
child’s rivalrous identification with the parental
figure is
transformed into the pacifying
identifications of the Ego ideal which
assume
both similarity and difference and acknowledge the
separateness
and autonomy of the
other.
[125]
Freud hoped to prove that
his model was universally valid and turned to
ancient mythology and contemporary ethnography
for comparative
material arguing that totemism
reflected a ritualized enactment of a tribal
Oedipal conflict.
[126]
Id, ego and super-ego[edit]
Main
article: Id, ego and super-ego
Freud proposed
that the human psyche could be divided into three
parts: Id, ego and super-ego. Freud discussed
this model in the 1920
essay Beyond the
Pleasure Principle, and fully elaborated upon it
in The
Ego and the Id (1923), in which he
developed it as an alternative to his
previous
topographic schema (i.e., conscious, unconscious
and
preconscious). The id is the completely
unconscious, impulsive,
childlike portion of
the psyche that operates on the
principle
immediate pleasure and
gratification.
[127]
Freud acknowledged
that his use of the term Id (das Es,
from the
writings of Georg Groddeck.
[128]
The
super-ego is the moral
component of the
psyche, which takes into account no special
circumstances in which the morally right thing
may not be right for a
given situation. The
rational ego attempts to exact a balance between
the impractical hedonism of the id and the
equally impractical
moralism of the super-ego;
it is the part of the psyche that is usually
reflected most directly in a person's actions.
When overburdened or
threatened by its tasks,
it may employ defence
mechanisms including
denial, repression, undoing, rationalization,
and displacement. This concept is usually
represented by the
Model
[129]
This
model represents the roles the Id, Ego, and Super
Ego play in relation to conscious and
unconscious thought.
Freud compared the
relationship between the ego and the id to that
between a charioteer and his horses: the
horses provide the energy and
drive, while the
charioteer provides direction.
[127]
Sigmund Freud (frɔɪd;
[2]
German
pronunciation: [ˈziːkmʊnt
ˈfʁɔʏt]; born
Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23
September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist,
now known as the father
of psychoanalysis.
Freud qualified as a doctor of medicine at the
University of Vienna in
1881,
[3]
and
then carried out research into cerebral palsy,
aphasiaand
microscopic neuroanatomy at the
Vienna General Hospital.
[4]
Upon
completing his habilitation in 1895, he was
appointed
a docent inneuropathology in the
same year and became an affiliated
professor
(professor extraordinarius) in 1902.
[5][6]
In creating psychoanalysis, a clinical method
for
treating psychopathology through dialogue
between a patient and a
psychoanalyst,
[7]
Freud developed
therapeutic techniques such as the use
of free
association and discovered transference,
establishing its central
role in the analytic
process. Freud's redefinition of sexuality to
include its
infantile forms led him to
formulate the Oedipus complex as the central
tenet of psychoanalytical theory. His analysis
of dreams as wish-
fulfillments provided him
with models for the clinical analysis of
symptom formation and the mechanisms of
repression as well as for
elaboration of his
theory of the unconscious as an agency disruptive
of
conscious states of mind.
[8]
Freud
postulated the existence of libido, an
energy
with which mental processes and structures are
invested and
which generates erotic
attachments, and a death drive, the source of
repetition, hate, aggression and neurotic
guilt.
[9]
In his later work Freud
developed a wide-ranging interpretation and
critique of religion and
culture.
Psychoanalysis remains influential within
psychotherapy, within some
areas of
psychiatry, and across the humanities. As such, it
continues to
generate extensive and highly
contested debate with regard to its
therapeutic efficacy, its scientific status,
and whether it advances or is
detrimental to
the feminist cause.
[10]
Nonetheless,
Freud's work has
suffused contemporary Western
thought and popular culture. In the words
of
W. H. Auden's poetic tribute, by the time of
Freud's death in 1939, he
had become
different lives
[11]