Intro to Freud:

WHO
Sigismund Schlomo Freud was a born on the 6th of May 1856 in the Moravian Town of Freiburg which
was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Jewish parents. He became a neurologist and founded
the discipline of Psychoanalysis. He developed theories on the unconscious mind and repression which
laid the groundwork for modern Psychology.

Psychology:
Ego and Id
Id: one’s animal self

Ego: one’s social self

Biology vs. socialization  negation between one’s selves

Id: the “it” in us  biological drives

The ego regulates the Id

The Super-Ego is the “above” ego or the visible ego. The Super-ego is our conscious negotiation
about attitudes and moral values which derive from our Id and ego sub-consciously

Sexuality
WE ARE, EVERY MINUTE OF OUR LIVES, SEXUAL BEINGS

Libido: Biological urges of the Id, the VITALITY of a person

Ego converts sexual urges by sublimation

People are born sexually neutral and learn about sex from parents

Kids have sexual feelings

From the ages of 3-5 children go through a “genital stage” where they determine their sexuality

Hysteria is rooted in childhood sexual abuse or fantasy

DEFENSE MECHANISMS:
Freud constructed a list, which was later finished by his daughter Anna, of the defense mechanisms
people use to deal with psychic distresses
 1) Repression: disturbing issues shut from one’s conscious thought
2) Denial: existence of a circumstance or object or reality is denied
3) Displacement: aggression or other emotion toward someone is placed toward a new person
4) Projection: another person is actually perceived to be the guilty party
5) Sublimation: a method for dissipating erotic feelings which channels libido in a new way
6) Transference: love transfers to someone that should have been returned by another

DREAMS:
Freud thought of dreams as a “substitution for the thought process” which are full of emotion and
meaning and which should be studied for the benefit of the dreamer and their psychic state.

Dreams are “detours by which regression can be evaded”

Method:

1) Make patient describe dreams without self-interpretation

2) Make the patient, without pre-meditations or criticisms, think of the association of each portion of
a dream to whatever is most obvious to them. This is done in very small bits of the dream and
never as a whole.
3) Make suggestions to the subject’s life that seem related and observe the effects
4) Make subject focus on whatever feelings are most “bad”
5) Theorize
6) Allow subject time to think about theory