Sigmund Freud

1856-1939

CLASSICS BY FREUD
Three Contributions To The Theory Of
Sex (1900)
Interpretation Of Dreams (1900)
Introductory Lectures On Psycho-analysis
(1916)

Significance of Freuds Contributions:

Psychotherapy
Medical Model of Mental Disease
Theory of 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 psychoanalysis. 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 CharlesDarwin, Wallace, and
their predecessors, and not without the most violent opposition
from their contemporaries.

Freud on the Significance of the Unconscious

(Contd)
But mans 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.

Influences on Freuds 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:

- Bernards concept of homeostasis
- Helmholtzs concept of the conservation of energy.
Oath: No
other forces than common physical and
chemical ones are
active within the organism.

Fyodor Dosteyevsky, Notes

Every man has reminiscences which he would
not tell to everyone but only to his friends. He
has other matters in his mind which he would
not reveal even to his friends, but only to
himself, and that in secret. But there are other
things, which a man is afraid to yell even to
himself, and every decent man has a number
of such things stored away in his mind (p. 57).

Ludwig Borne:
The Art of Becoming an Original Writer in
Three Days
Take a few sheets of paper and for three days on end
write down without fabrication or hypocrisy, everything
that comes into your head. Write down what you think
of yourself, your wife, of Goethe, the Last judgment, of
your superior-and when three days have passed you will
be quite out of tour senses with astonishment at the
new and unheard-of thoughts you have had. This is the
art of becoming a new writer in three days.

Mental Illness
Jean- Martin Charcot (1825-1893)
- investigated hysteria: manifests as delirium,
paralysis, rigidity, blindness, inability to speak, loss of
feeling, vomiting, hemorrhaging, seizures
- believed in psychological
cause of symptoms
- used hypnotism to
induce symptoms

Freud as a Practicing Neurologist

Charcots Influence
-Traditional view of hysteria
-Male hysterics

Breuers Influence
-Studies of Hysteria
-Case of Anna O.

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

Psychoanalysis
Method of free association
Slips of the tongue
Resistance
Cathartic method (talking out)
Transference
Dream Interpretation

Aliquis

Psychopathology of Everyday
Life
Freuds conversation with a young
student whom he meets on vacation:
Student, who is protesting anti-Semitism of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, quotes line from
Virgils Aenid:

Exoriar aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor.

(Let someone arise from my bones as
an avenger.)
Instead, student said:

Exoriar nostris ex ossibus ultor.

Students Free Associations

There springs to mind the ridiculous notion of dividing the
word aliquis like this: a and liquis. Then:
reliquiem (relic)
liquefying
fluidity
fluid
Then strange associations: I am now thinking of Simon
of Trent. (A 15th century saint)
Im now thinking of a recent newspaper article: What St.
Augustine Thinks of Women.
I met a man last week who reminded me of St. Benedict.

Freud: Three Saints: St. Simon, St. Augustine, St. Benedict.

Young mans next free association: St. Januarius and the
miracle of his blood.
Freud: Dont St. Januarius and St. Augustine have to do
with the calendar? Remind me of the miracle of blood.
They kept the blood of St. Janaurious in a phial inside the
Church of Naples, and on a particular holiday it
miraculously liquefied. The people attach great
importance to this miracle and get very excited if it is
delayed as it once happened when the French were
occupying the town.

Young man blushed.

Something comes to mindbut its too
intimate to pass on besides, I dont see any
connection, or any necessity for saying it.
Finally, I have suddenly thought of a lady from
whom I might easily hear a piece of news that
would be very awkward for both of us.
Freud guessed: Have her periods stopped?
Young man: How could you guess that?

Freud: Thats not very difficult; youve

prepared the way sufficiently. Think of the
calendar saints, the blood that starts to flow on
a particular day; the disturbance when the
event fails to take placeIn fact you made use
of the miracle of St. Janaurious to manufacture
a brilliant allusion to womens periods.
Young man: I certainly was not aware of it

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.)

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 I
1. 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 analysts 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.

SCENE II, contd

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.

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.

ID, EGO, SUPER EGO

Id is the source of instinctual energy:
Ego
- Primary process often needs correction
because the infant cannot discriminate
fantasy from reality.
- Ego develops to insure that id is
accommodated.
- Derives energy from the id.
- Uses reality principle.
- Relies on secondary processes (learning,
perception, memory).
- Has no moral values.

ID, EGO, SUPER EGO

Id is the source of instinctual energy:
Ego
Super-ego
Internalization of values of parents and society
Conscience: what leads to punishment
Ego-ideal: what leads to reward

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 individuals
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 trees inclined.

Darwin (Instinct theory)

Influence of embryology.

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.

PSYCHOSEXUAL DEVELOPMENT, contd

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.

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

(fixations)

Retentive

Messy, dirty, extravagant

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), contd

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