CHAPTER III

Sigmund Freud and

Psychoanalysis: A General
Discussion
 CHAPTER III

Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis; A General Discussion

IGMUND FREUD MAY JUSTLY BE called the most influential

S intellectual legislator of his age. It was he who revolutionized
conventional thought and discovered the new method of treatment, which is
called the psychoanalysis. Originally he was the medical man and engaged
his mind in the study of treatment of nervous patients in his own clinic. He
found in his treatment that many of the abnormal behaviour and mental
disease of his patients originates from the nervous abnormalities. Thus
gradually he devoted himself in the study of psychology particularly the
psychology of the unconscious human mind. ’

Sigmund Freud was the man who can be ranked with Darwin
and Einstein whose work has radically changed the Western concept about
the human animal, his environment and die relationship between the two. He
is the man who first interpreted dreams and recognized the same as the
messages from the unconscious regions of die mind, who first accepted die
facts of infantile sexuality, who first made the distinction between the
primary and the secondary processes of thinking—the man who first made
unconscious mind real to us, 12

1. Chauhan: Advanced Educational Psychology . p. 45

2. Sigmund Freud,: New Introductory Lecture on Psychoanalysis, p. 24
 45

Psychoanalysis: definition and objectives

Psychoanalysis is basically scientific in outlook and it is primarily interested

in formulating any kind of philosophical theory. Yet no one not even the
analysts are interested in the problem of man and hence their psychological
theory automatically leads to the development of some kind of philosophy,
specially the philosophy of man.

The term, “psychoanalysis” can be explained in different ways.

Sigmund Freud repeatedly states it is method of medical treatment for
those who suffer from nervous disorders”. 34As it stresses on the release of
the internal workings of die mind, it is called the “depth psychology.” Again
this term can be explained in diree other ways: First, it is school of
psychology that stresses the dynamic, psychic determinants of human
behaviour and the importance of childhood experiences in molding the adult
personality. Second, psychoanalysis is a specialized technique for
investigative unconscious mental activities. Third, psychoanalysis refers to a
method of interpreting and treating mental disorders, especially the
psychoneurosis / Psychoanalysis is akin to psychiatry. The aim of both is
the cure of mental disorders, but the latter gives stress on die particular and
more scientific etiology of a disorder.

3. Sigmund Freud, The Major Works, 1952,/I General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, p

449.
4. J. D. Paze, Abnormal Psychology, p. 179,
 46

According to Philip Reiff, “Regarding its aim, psychoanalysis

at least programmatically, does not aim at achieving a more critical view on
the self, as does existentialism, e.g., which has sponsored a heightened
introspection in order to validate a more negative and critical view of both
self and the world. Rather psychoanalysis seeks to ease the burden of
responsibility and engagement. Hence arose the technique of educating die
patient to give up the whole of his critical attitude. Freud says: ‘self criticism
is to be replaced by neutral probing’... ” s

Psychoanalysis encompasses bodi a theory of personality and

the therapeutic technique. The theory is not concerned with the traditional
areas of psychology but with the emotional disturbance and therapy. The
psychoanalytic method is clinical observation rather than laboratory
experimentation 56

Freud says that psychoanalysis is based on the premise that

largely unconscious psychological forces determine human behaviour. It
assumes that psychological problems are a result of unsolved emotional
difficulties that occurred in early childhood. 7

5. Philip Reiff, Freud: The Mind o f the Moralist, London Methuen p.96
6. Encyclopedia Americana. Penguin series Vol. 22. p. 729.

7.S.L. Garfeld: Clinical Psychology, Dynamic Therapy, p. 370

 47

Psychoanalysis is a procedure for the investigation of mental

processes, which are almost inaccessible in any other way. It is the name of
a method that is based upon that investigation for the treatment of neurotic
disorders. Or it is the name of a collection of psychological information
obtained along those lines which gradually being accumulated into a new
scientific discipline.

Psychoanalysis as a method

As a method, psychoanalysis aims at adjusting man to his situation

by overcoming his mind from tension and anxieties. It is a cathartic method,
which gives the patients a positive or cathartic effect through froc
association.
Freud believed that much of human behaviour is irrational. It is
rooted in basic biological drives such as sex and aggression and governed by
unconscious motives. According to psychoanalytic theory, many forbidden
and punished impulses of childhood are repressed but remain in the
i ,

unconscious. More often they are expressed in dreams; neurotic symptoms;

slips of tongue and nervous mannerisms as well as some artistic and literary
products. In psychoanalytic therapy the method of free association and
dream analysis are used to uncover the patients’ unconscious, repressed
motives and impulses. Once anybody is aware of these repressed motives
and impulses, according to psychoanalytic theory, the patient can
understand, accept and control them.
 48

“The influence of psychoanalytic theory has been greatest in

the fields of developmental, personality, clinical, social and abnormal
psychology. Many concepts and ideas of psychoanalysis have gained wide
acceptance and have been assimilated in the thinking of many psychologists.
Among these ideas are the stress on the dynamic nature of human behaviour,
the role of strong, often unconscious forces and motives in influencing
behaviour; the reorganization of the effects of early experiences on later
behaviour and the anxiety-reducing and conflict-reducing function of certain
responses” 5 Let us consider also the following remarks:

"Prior to Freud, behaviour and personality had been attributed to

blood (heredity) and fatalistically accepted without fully giving up
the 19lh century emphasis on heredity, Freud demonstrates the
importance o f early childhood experiences in the formation o f adult
personality’’89
Freud’s discoveries may be grouped under three headings—an
instrument o f research, the findings produced by the instrument, and
the theoretical hypnosis inferred from findings. But these three
groups were mutually interrelated. Behind all o f Freud’s works, we
should posit his belief in the universal validity o f the law o f
determinism. As regards physical phenomena his belief was perhaps
derived from his experience in Briicke’s laboratory and so,
ultimately, from the school o f Helmhelt, but Freud extended the
belief uncompromisingly to the field o f mental phenomena and here
he may have been influenced by his teacher psychiatrist Meynert and
indirectly by the philosophy o f Herbert ” (from "His Life Sketch ’’)
8. Encyclopedia Americana.Vo\. 22. p.729.
9. Encyclopedia Bhtanica. Vol. 19.
 ,49

Psychoanalysis: an interpretative art

Freud’s new technique of treating neurotic patients changed the medical

treatment greatly and it prompted the physician to establish a new
relationship with the patients, which produced surprising result. It became
more justifiable to distinguish the procedure from the cathartic method by
giving it a new name. In the present times this method has been extended to
many other forms of neurotic disorders bearing the name psychoanalysis.
This psychoanalysis is an art of interpretation and it has set for itself the task
of carrying deeper investigations into the dark side of the human mind. In
the first place, it omitted Breur’s great discoveries that neurotic symptoms
are significant substitutes for other mental acts. Then it was a question
regarding the material produced by patients’ associations as though it hinted
at a hidden meaning and o f discovering that meaning from it. The attitude
adopted by the analyst physician most advantageously was to surrender
himself to his own unconscious mental activity—a suspended attention to
avoid reflection and to construct the conscious expectations. Again, he was
not supposed to try to fix anything that he had particularly in his memory
and by these means to catch the drift of the patients’ unconscious with his
own unconscious. It was then found that patients’ association with
unconscious emerged like allusions, as it were one particular theme and that
it was only necessary for the physician to go a step further in order to guess
the concealed material from the patient. It seems that work of interpretation
was not to be brought under strict rules and many things involving to play on
the part of the physician himself. And even at the present time too very little
is known about the unconscious, the structure of neuroses and the
pathological processes underlying them. It is a matter of satisfaction that a
 50

technique of this kind should be available although it had no strong

theoretical basis. Moreover it is still employed in analysis at the present day,
though with a sense of greater assurance and with a better understands of its
limitations.

Theoretical concepts of psychoanalysis

The main theoretical concepts of psychoanalysis propounded by Sigmund

Freud are being discussed below:

A) The mind: its levels and divisions,

B) The unconscious motives,
C) Psychic determinism,
D) Infantile sexuality,
E) Oedipus complex and Electra complex,
F) Castration,
G) Fixation,
H) Displacement,
I) The libido theory,
J) Narcissism,
K) The theory of instinct,
L) Anxiety,
M) The defense mechanism,
N) Freudian Symbols,
O) Catharsis,
P) Perversion,
Q) Primary and secondary processes,
R) Wish fulfillment.
 51

A) The mind; its levels and divisions

The basic assumption made by Freud about the human mind was that it is
divided into three parts: the conscious, the pre-conscious and the
unconscious. At birth the infant’s mind is ahnost totally unconscious but
gradually the conscious and the pre-conscious parts develop to serve the
members.

Freud assumed and believed that the unconscious is the

repository of all the basic drives and this is called the instinct. These instincts
include hunger, thirst and sex, which are labeled as libido. Freud believed
that conflict and frustration involving libido are at the root of all abnormal
human behavior. Latter on he subsumed all instincts under two fundamental
ones: Eros and Thanatos. He used Eros to indicate all the strivings for life in
the individual. Libido remains at the base of Eros. Thanato was called the
death instinct. It includes all the aggressive and destructive motives and
impulses of human beings.

Freud believed in the existence and reality of the unconscious

part of the mind that illustrates the basis of the whole human personality,
both normal and abnormal. He is the man who discovered that tension arises
in different part of the organism either from the external stimulation or from
the internally produced excitation. Now the sole aim of the organism is to
reduce the tension. In order to accomplish this task the organism learns to
adopt different methods and along with learning the personality goes on
developing gradually. In other words Freud thought that the personality of a
man is developed as a result of his response to the different sources of
tension.
 52

For Freud, human personality is made up of three major

systems: the id, the ego and super ego. These three systems work together
cooperatively and constitute a well-organized personality in a person who has
normal personality and enables the person to interact with external
environment.

Id, Ego and Super Ego

In psychoanalytic theory, the Id is most primitive and least accessible part in

unconscious. It includes instinctive sexual urges and repressed motives,
which seek immediate satisfaction. The Id cannot tolerate tension and it
always follows the pleasure principle. It is concerned with the wish fulfilling
reality. The Id is defined as the composite of pleasure seeking of immediate
satisfaction and completely out of touch of reality. It operates according to
the pleasure principle, seeking immediate gratification of desires or in wish
fulfilling fantasies. It makes the hungry child satisfied with a mental picture
of food and not with the actual food. It does not know any logic and reason.

The Ego is that aspect of personality, which strives to be logical

and reasonable and to cope with the world of reality. The Ego always
postpones the desire and to discharge the tension till it gets the desired
object. The secondary process, which means the problem solving, and
realistic thinking serve the reality principle. With this secondary process the
Ego makes plan of action and tests whether that plan can lead to the
discovery of the real objects, which satisfy the need and reduce the tension.
If it fails the Ego formulates a new plan of action and tests it. This process
The following is the picture of a schematic representation of Freud’s
concepts of mind and personality structure:

External Reality

/T
conscious

preconscious

superego

censor
unconscious

i d ' * ;

• T v r ••

[ From: Harold Martin(et-al): Psychology: Understanding Human behavior , Chapter 2,

theories o f personality, 1\ 37 ]
 53

goes on till the tension is reduced and the desired object is discovered, Ego
is called the executive personality. “It takes the role of mediator between the
demand of three hostile masters—the Id, Super-Ego and the external
world.” 10

The Super Ego is the moral part of personality, which is known

as conscience too. It stands for perfection, rather than pleasure. The Super
Ego was defined as an infantile combination of conscience of Ego ideal (the
person who wishes to become). The Super-Ego develops in the child’s mind
as a result of its response to the rewards and punishment adopted by the
parents. The child learns that if his acts are like that of parents he is
rewarded and if his acts are not like the parents’ expectation he is punished.
“The fear of punishment and the desire for reward develops Super-Ego in
the child’s mind.” *11

Consciousness and unconsciousness

The division of mental life into two segments—the conscious and the
unconscious—is the fundamental premise on which psychoanalysis is based.
The psychoanalyst accepts the view that consciousness is one property of
mental life, which may co-exist along with its other properties.

The term “conscious” is a purely descriptive one. Various

experiences show that a mental element (for instance an idea) is not as a rule
10 S.F., The Ego and the Id, p. 13
11. Niva Ghosh,: Freud and Adler on Man and Society, Pp.14-15
 54

permanently conscious. But a state of consciousness is characteristically

very transitory. An idea that is conscious now may not be in that state some
moments later. Under some certain circumstances it may be brought out
easily. What the idea was at the interval we do not know but we can say it
was latent and it was capable of becoming conscious at any time.

The unconscious is a very powerful mental process where a

quantitative and economic factor comes into question. This is the point where
the psychoanalysis steps in. The unconscious lies in the background to make
a link between infant life and adult life. It is the original source of all mental
processes. “Freud believed that the complex process of planning and
deliberating could go on in the unconscious. He even said that the whole
psychic life was primarily unconscious, with a quality of consciousness only
sometimes super added”. 12

There are two kinds of unconscious: One is latent but capable

of becoming conscious and the other is repressed and not capable of
becoming conscious in the ordinary way. In a descriptive sense, the latent
unconscious is called the pre-conscious. In a dynamic sense there is only one
unconscious. Freud finds it impossible to avoid this ambiguity. The
distinction between consciousness and unconsciousness is found to be a
question of perception.

12. Roberts. Woodworth, Contemporary Schools o f Psychology, p. 170.

 55

The analysts derive conclusions of neuroses from the conflict

between the conscious and the unconscious. They have found that “Neuroses
are the mental diseases in which socio-cultural, psychological and
interpersonal factors play major roles in causation, on the other hand, neither
physical vulnerability before the onset of the disease in any form or degree,
nor structural damage before and after onset of the disease is quite difficult
to be detected” , 13

For Freud the unconscious is a place or realm where repressed

memories or emotions reside and human behaviour is determined. The
conscious behaviour of a normal adult displays “Reality Principle” and the
unconscious is governed by “Pleasure Principle.” Further, the unconscious,
for Freud, consisted essentially of motive, which play an important role in
understanding and explaining the nature of human action.

B) The unconscious motives

Freud observed that the unconscious consisted essentially of motives. He

had firm belief in unconscious mental or “psychic” processes. From one of
his experiments he found that a “forgotten” wish might be very much in the
unconscious, with a queer effect on conscious behaviour. That a young
woman developed a hysterical paralysis, which gave expression to her un­
admitted desire to be rid of the duty of nursing her father, is a fine example

13. Myre Sim, Guide to Psychiatry, p. 450.

 56

to explain this unconscious behaviour. In his book Psychopathology o f

Everyday Life , Freud has assembled hundreds of such examples of lapses,
errors and automatisms. All of them reveal the hidden motives. In the first
one he found that the patients while under hypnosis got back their old
memories mainly of persons and events but they were kept strongly as
unfulfilled wishes:
“A young woman's sense o f duty to her sick father forced her to
give up her love affair—that was the kind o f memory that often came
to light (Woodworth, Contemporary Schools o f Psychology, p. 170.),
such a forgotten’ wish might still be very much alive in the
unconscious behaviour. That young woman developed a hysterical
paralysis which gave expression to her un-admitted desire to be rid
o f the duty o f nursing her fa th er” (Woodworth, Contemporary
Schools o f Psychology p.J70).

In any case the hidden motive can be found out by the means of
free association. Freud had some guiding principles in respect of
unconscious motives. One such principle is that what is forbidden must be
desired. And what is strongly forbidden must be strongly desired. Again
“what is abhorrent and shocking must be very strongly desired. To kill one’s
own father is; an extremely abhorrent deed, and the laws against such
conduct have sometimes been exceptionally strict. Therefore, there must be
a strong and common desire in the unconscious to commit this particular
crane . 14
* 59

14.Wcsodworth, Op-cit, p.170

 57

Once again a similar guiding principle is that what is feared is

probably desired, the fear being a mask for the unconscious desire.
Likewise, the extreme solicitude for some person’s welfare might mask an
unconscious desire to hurt his own self.

C) Psychic determinism

Woodworth writes, “Freud’s psychic determinism as applied to the neuroses

meant that every abnormal symptom has an aim, and has been driven by an
unconscious motive. According to him, Freud believed that the neurotic
symptoms were more than signs of weakness' Every symptom of a neurotic
has a meaning in terms of unconscious motives and unconscious
satisfactions. Any symptom, any slip of tongue, any dream points towards an
unconscious motive. If those motives can be brought to light and squarely
faced by the patients, there is chance of dealing with them rationally and
advance toward a cure.

D) Infantile sexuality or the Psychosexual development on a child.

Freud wrote about sex life of men and women with great freedom and in an
interesting style. He made very exciting statements about sex. Among them
the first one is that the neurosis are due to sexual maladjustment. The second
one was that the individual’s sex life began in infancy and not in puberty. He
believed that he could demonstrate strong sex desires and malicious
tendencies in the young child. He further said that the theory of infantile
sexuality was “a theoretical extract from very numerous experiences”—
experiences, that is, of the analyst in obtaining free associations from his
neurotic patients. He continued as follows:
 58

“At first it was only noticed that the... actual impressions had to be
traced hack to the past... The tracks still further back into childhood
and into its earliest years... the autoerotic activities of early years of
childhood...and now the whole sexual life o f the child made its
appearance.... Years late, my discoveries were successfully
confirmedfor the greater part by direct observation and analyses of
children o f very early years. (1914: p. 10).” 15

As for Freud the sex drive starts at die infant stage and not in
adolescence. In adolescence the sex glands and hormones get mature but
they don’t have yet die definite aim of the sexually adult, it is defused rather
than sharply focused. It aims at bodily pleasure from any organ such as
mouth, anus, genital organ. It is an autoerotic pleasure, which is first gained
from the mouth by sucking the breast as breasts of mother—a first love
object of a child. Later on it is substituted by sucking of thumb and leads to
kissing others of opposite sex, sometime later the young child gets pleasure
from his bowel movement. Most of them delay evacuation so as to get
stronger sensation. Still later they obtain pleasure by manipulating genital
organ. In these three stages—oral, anal, genital—the child feels restriction
from the external environment that is from the social environment and he
being frustrated tries to adjust himself adequately to the social demands
where he first intensifies the urge, then represses, and fixates at that
particular urge unconsciously. “So the oral erotic individual is acquisitive,
the anal erotic thrifty and orderly, the repressed genital erotic ultra
conscientious”. 16
15. Ibid
16Jbid, p.178.
 THE PSYCHOSEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF A CHILD WITH THE POSITIVE
AND CONSTRUCTIVE RESPONSE ON THE EXTERNAL WORLD:

According to Freud, adult personality is greatly influenced by the course of psychosexual

development in the childhood. As far as psychoanalytic theory is concerned, the libido at
birth is diffused over the skin area. Striking off the skin is highly pleasurable at this time.
Soon after birth the libido is localized in the mouth and lips. This stage, according to
Freud, is early oral stage. To show this development I have taken my own male child who
was bom 25th May, 2000 as a sample.

Early oral stage:

Pleasure is derived from sucking (nursing) mouthing toys and other objects.

Plate: 1
A one and half months old child
who is attracted by colour of
toys and it gets pleasure by
mouthing it (toys) and other
objects.

Plate: 2
A child of four months is
laughing when it is struck
off on its skin.
 Plate: 3
A five months old child is with its
mother.
Sexuality first seeks gratification
orally through sucking at the mother’s
breast. A child is unable to distinguish
between self and the breast. The infant
soon comes to appreciate its mother as
the first love object.

Plate: 4, a six months old child.

Freud believed that both the sexes

love mother as the latter satisfies all
► their needs and show resentment
towards their father whom they take
to be rival for mother’s possession.

Plate: 5
A child of six and half months old.

As teeth erupt, the infant enters the

late oral stage and at this stage he
gets satisfaction in biting. In the
picture, as the mother pulls out the
spoon from its biting, it cries.
 i
Plate: 6& 7
During this stage the child is ritually offered
solid food at any religious institution or at home.
The child in the picture (eight months and eight
days old) is being offered rice at Prajapita
Brahmakumari Iswariya Viswavidyalaya at
Nalbari on 2nd February 2001.
In Plate: 7 the child seems to be feeling happy
with its mother.

Plate: 8

A ten months old child learns to stand

► holding on a mora ( a sitting chair)
and then try to walk.
 Plate: 9
At the age of eleven months,
he successfully walks. But
even needs help from some
assistants like parents and
other helpers with whom he
feels comfortable and happy.

Early anal stage:

At this stage the child starts withholding faeces through which he tries to get an
autoerotic pleasure. The other pleasurable activities are such as biting things and putting
them in the mouth, rhythmical movement of legs and arms by the baby, swinging and see
saw, tearing things apart and throwing things down etc.
The picture in Plate: 10, the child is found tearing papers, throwing things down
and putting anything in mouth. That is why the mother has kept everything away out of its
reach. All the tables and chairs seem to be empty.

Plate: 10 A fifteen months old child Plate: 11 A sixteen months old child
At this stage the child is found to the act of defecation. The later anal stage coincides
with the initiation of toilet training, which finds infant deriving libidinal gratification from
withholding of faeces even to the point of constipation. This tendency lasts till seven
years.
 After the anal period, comes the early genital
period. At this time when the child is
between three to four years or between four
to five years old, the libido ends its migration
and becomes relatively focused in the genital
organs. This is the period of Oedipus
Complex. In this period the child lusts after
the parents of the opposite sex and feels rival
to the parent of the same sex.

Plate: 12, a three-year-old child

The child has been given

different activities to
successfully get over the
Oedipus Complex.
In the picture the child is
found to be telephoning to
his father asking him to
bring Chocolates and other
necessary things for him.
Thus he gets or claims
sufficient importance in the
family and so does in the
school too. Plate: 13, a four-year-old child

In normal child, this complex is soon

resolved by sublimating the sexual desire
that is re channeling it into socially
approved activities such as active play with
peers and by identifying with the parent of
the same sex for example, to encourage the
child to grow up and be like that parent.

Plate :14a five year old child

 I I
Plate: 16,
Plate: 15, a child of five years is Two children of five years and
playing holy. eleven years are playing inside room.

Plate: 17, the mother teaches

her child how to pray God.
A three and half years old child
is morally motivated by
religion. Like this, music, art,
drawing etc. help the child to
grow properly so to say a good
personality in future.
Plate 18:
Active play helps <
children to grow
properly.

Plate: 18

Plate: 19 - The period when

the child starts school, he
enters the latency period
during which libido is
suppressed and relatively
quiescent. This period is the
time of active play with peer
of the same sex . This stage
ends at puberty and final stage
begins.

Plate: 19: The children have been initiated to preparatory classes at

the age of 3+years.

Plate 21:
Here in this picture, the
children are going to the
Art school on Sundays
when formal schools are
closed and in the
evening they will leam
music at home.
The child standing on
the left is six years old
and the other child is of
twelve years old.

Plate: 20
They are six years old children studying at class 1.
in Modem school, Vidyapur, Nalbari District.
 59

The other pleasurable activities such as biting things and

putting them jn the mouth; rhythmical movements of legs and arms by the
baby, swinging and seesaw of the older child; tearing things apart and
throwing things down; showing off and looking at things, especially
exposing one’s own naked body and looking at that of another person and
those which shows young child’s sensuous and natural pleasure, Freud
regarded to be belonging to the general head of infantile sexuality.i;

E) Oedipus complex and Electra complex

The child’s libido is at first autoerotic and not focused on any external love
object. But in the course of psychosexual development, the development of
libido reaches its culmination at the age of four or five. During this period
the child’s libido is attached to a person—the boy’s libido or interest is
centered on the phallus or penis and this interest soon gives rise to a feeling
of sexual attraction towards the mother associated with the feeling of
jealousy towards the father.
j

Freud picked up the bare outline from the Greek legend where
the lame hero, Oedipus unwittingly killed his father, the king of Thebes, and
married his mother. Likewise die little boy of four or five years desires the
special love from his mother. But the boy does not only hale his fadier, he
loves him too and takes him as a model to be when he is grown up. There
appears a terrible conflict in his mind at this stage. A normal boy
accomplishes this heroic feat “He puts the past behind him so thoroughly
that vivid experiences of early childhood are forgotten (Freud’s theory of
'Loss of Childhood Memories’)” J 8 And “the boy identifies himself with his
17. ibid p 178
18.Ibid, p .180.
AUTO- EROTIC PLEASURE

Auto-erotic pleasure is found from different sources like the hostel girls are
dancing in a picnic, a nagara nam, from flying kites, from hide and seek
which starts from childhood (ku-ha), apswara nam observed by the women
folk, any indoor and outdoor games etc.

A picnic party of Girls’Hostel Mukalmuah,Nalbari performed their

in 1993. Picnic spot :Sanduvi, skill at Rajgarh , Guwahati on 4th
Dist. Kamrup Feb. 2006

Mr. Indraneel Dutta and Mr. Madhu Jalowal, Mr. Gaurav Barman at the age of
Nalbari are flying kites. seven Months.

A performance o f Apsara nam at Deharkuchi Village

Performer: LatePunyakali Devi. 1989.
 60

father, takes him into himself and adopts as his own both the positive
precept, ‘thou shalt be like thy father’ and the prohibitive ‘Thou shalt not
hate thy father nor covet his wife.’ These laws of conduct and
feeling become the basis of the boy’s conscience...” .19 Thus overcoming the
Oedipus problem die boy becomes free from the infantile libido and enters
into the sexual latency period that lasts till puberty.

“As Freud saw the matter (1923, pp.42-43), the girls too at
about the same age also meet this very problem, which is for Freud more
complicated and less dramatic. At this age both girls and boys behave in the
i >20
same way due to the mixture of homosexual tendency in both the sexes.”

One gets the impression that the simple Oedipus complex is by

no means its commonest form, but rather represents a simplification or
schematization, which to be sure, is often enough adequate for practical
purposes. A boy has not merely an ambivalent attitude towards his father
and an affectionate object- relation towards his mother, but at the same time
he also behaves like a girl and displays an affectionate feminine attitude to
his father and a corresponding hostility and jealousy towards his mother. It is
this complicating element introduced by bi-sexuality that makes it so
difficult to obtain a clear view of the facts”. 21

F) Castration .

Freud believed that both the sexes love mother as the latter satisfies all their
19.Ibid ,p 176.
20.Ibid, p 176
21. Ibid, Pp.180-181.
 61

needs and show resentment towards their father whom they take to be rival
for mother’s possession. This feeling persists in the boys and puts them into
a conflict. The boy thinks that his dominant father may punish him for his
incestuous wish for the mother. At this stage he is completely aware of his
genital and fears that his rival father might do some damage to his genital.
Thus he is akin to protect himself and his genital from the punishment of the
father. This fear of punishment and the desire for approval brings about a
repression of the incestuous desire for the mother and hostility towards the
father. It induces him to identify himself with the prohibitions of the father
to avoid punishment, Freud names this fear as the “castration anxiety.”

Among girls the case is more complex. As soon as the girl

becomes aware of the anatomical differences in genital organ, she feels to
have a penis of her own as she looks upon the possession of the male’s sex
organ to be superior to that of hers. She suspects her mother is responsible
for the castration of her sex organ for which she has lost it now. This feeling
leads her to transfer her love-object from the mother to the father who
possesses this desired organ. At the same time there grows a feeling of envy
towards the father, as he possesses that organ which she lacks. This envy is
known as the “penis envy” among the girls.

G) Fixation

In the course of normal development the personality passes through different

stages. At each one of these stages the ego encounters with a certain amount
of frustration or dissatisfaction and anxieties out of the restrictions imposed
upon him from the external environment.'When they became very great the
 62

personality may become fixated on one of early stages of development, He

becomes afraid of entering the new step, which is fraught with anxiety. His
personality may be temporarily or permanently halted. He becomes entirely
dependant and cannot learn how to become independent. This fixation again
determines the way of future regression. When in future he will face more
difficulties he will tend to regress to the stage in which he had been fixated
previously. So fixation and regression are said to be complementary to each
other. When the libido undergoes a fixation, the ego institutes an act of
repression. Regression of the libido without repression would never give rise
to a neurosis but would result in a perversion, an infantile sexuality.

H) Displacement

It was Freud’s contention that from the time of puberty it is an important

task on the part of all human individuals to make themselves separate from
the parents. On the part of a boy this task consists in releasing his libidinal
desire from the mother in order to employ himself in an external love object
and on the part of the girl this is the task of freeing her sexual desire from
the father. If the task of detachment is accomplished successfully, the child
ceases any longer to be a child and becomes a member of the society. If this
act of detachment is not accomplished successfully the child remains keenly
attached to his parents and is incapable of transferring his libido to a new
sexual object. It is the stage of Oedipus complex that plays a climax role of
infantile sexuality of both the sexes.

Freud thought that the source and aim of an instinct remain the
same; only the object varies during lifetime. This variation is due to
displacement of psychic energy. All the adult’s interests, preferences, taste;
 63

habits, etc. represent the displacement of energy from original object-

choices. They are the instinct derivatives and act as a motive force behind
each human behavior.

Displacement means the associative substitution of one signifier

in the dream for another, e.g., the king stands for one’s father. Displacement
usually occurs in such a way that a colorless and abstract expression of the
dream thought is exchanged for one that is pictorial and concrete. Whatever
is pictorial is capable of representation in dreams and can be fitted into
situation in which abstract expression, would confront the dream
representation with difficulties.

I) The Libido theory: Development of Libido

The form of energy, which is used by the life instinct, is called the libido. In
his earlier writing Freud used libido to denote sexual energy. But when he
revised his theory of motivation, libido was defined as energy of all the life
instincts, just as hunger is the craving for the gratification of nutritional
instinct.

Freud defined the libido as the “motor force of sexual life,”

both qualitative and quantitative in character. Quantitative: as it stands
distinguished in origin from the other psychic energy, operating in the
psychic processes in general. Qualitative: because it is a force of variable
quantity when directed to the object for the purpose of measuring sexual
excitement. 22
22..Freud, The Three Contributions to the Theory o f Sex, p.611.
 64

The libidinal energy has been differently named in different

states of its existence. It is Ego Libido in child - the ego itself is the object
of love for it. Object libido-when the libido cathexes itself in the sexual
object. Narcissistic libido-when it is taken back into the ego after getting
withdrawn from the object.

The libidinal impulses aim at their immediate gratification. The

human development occurs in terms of the development of libidinal
impulses. The three parts of the body - the mouth, the anus and the genitals
are associated with the libidinal satisfaction. The child passes through the
different stages like the oral, the anal and the phallic. Mouth is the primary
organ of pleasure for a child, which makes the contact with his first object of
desire, the mother’s breast. As it is withdrawn he gets satisfaction by
sucking thumb, then as an adult in eating, smoking, kissing and other sexual
acts connected with the mouth. This is the early oral phase, which is passive.
In later oral phase some sadistic impulses occur—a new type of relationship
is introduced. There grow two opposite attitudes, one friendly and the other
hostile; hostile towards father and friendly towards mother. And in other
way, with the eruption of teeth, the child longs for pleasurable union with
the mother and at the same time wishes to destroy her. 23

23. Niva Ghosh .Freud and Adler on Man and Society Pp. 39-48
 65

J) Narcissism

After tire phallic stage the child overcomes the fear of father. After the fifth
year of the child another category is introduced to him or her that is extreme
narcissism. This means the total identification with one’s own self. In this
stage, the boy has completely identified himself with the penis.

The term narcissism has been applied to a person, male or

female, who obtains his sexual satisfaction from admiring himself or herself
in a mirror and caressing his or her body as if it were that of another
person’s. One, who always craves love and admiration, without giving love
and admiration in return, is strongly narcissistic. The concept of narcissism
made the first break in the independent existence of the ego instincts. Freud
asserted that what was known as egoism had two components—a libidinal
narcissistic component and a non-libidinal narcissistic component. As he
wrote, narcissism is only the “libidinal component to the egotism of the
instinct of self preservation, a measure of which may justifiably be attributed
to every living creatures”. 24
Freud writes in his book On Narcissism, “A strong egoism is a
protection against disease, but in the last resort, we must begin to love in
order that we may not fall ill, and must fall ill, in consequence of frustration,
we can not love”. 25

24. Freud, Collected Papers on Narcissism. Pp.30-39.

25. Freud, Major Worksp. 404
 66

“Love is primarily narcissistic,” says Freud 26 Narcissistic persons are

those, who “are plainly seeking themselves as a love-object” and those
whose “object-choice may be tenned narcissistic”. 27
Narcissism is not a perversion, but the libidinal compliment to
the egoism of the instinct of self-perversion, a measure of which may
justifiably be attributed to every living creature. 28

K) The theory of instincts

Freud said that an instinct is force acting upon the psyche to produce the
mental changes. It has a source, and aim, and object and an impetus. Its
source is the bodily condition or the need and aims to fulfill the need. Freud
has termed instinct as a mental stimulation, which originates from the body
as a force, up for satisfaction. Psychoanalysts pay attention primarily with
the satisfaction of the instincts and their vicissitudes. 29

26. Havelock Ellis, Women: The sexual Impulse and (he Art o f Love. p.26.
27. Freud, On Narcissism, p.405.
2%.Ibid
29. c.f. Freud, Instincts and Their Vicissitudes, p. 415.
 67

The instincts are interchangeable and are subject to inhibition,

The close attachment of instinct to a particular object is known in
psychoanalysis as “fixation,” which makes the instinct immobile and un­
dynamic. 30
For Freud there are two main instincts namely instinct of self-
preservation or ego instinct and the instinct of the preservation of the species
or the sexual instinct corresponding to the two serious needs— hunger and
love. The sexual instincts are numerous and act first independently but
achieve more or less complete synthesis by degrees. Then they figure out
themselves as sexual instincts and get apart from the dominance of the ego
instincts, 31

Freud also assumed that “the unconscious is the repository of

all the basic drives, which he preferred to call the instincts, These instincts
include hunger, thirst and sex which he labeled libido”. 32 By treating his
i
neurotic patients, Freud found out that “Conflict and frustration involving
the libido are at the root of all abnormal human behviour ”, 33

30 ,B.K. Deka, “Influence o f Freudian Psychology in the Post War Fiction.”.

Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, submitted to Gauhati University, p.20
31 .Ibid

32. Harold Martin, Psychology: Understanding Human Behaviour, Pp.36-37

33. Ibid
 68

He later categorized all instincts under two fundamental divisions;

Eros and Thanatos. “Eros the principle of life and growth, Thanatos die
principle of decay and death, Eros the loving and constructive, Thanatos the
hateful and destructive” 34
In the neuroses occurring from the transference like that of
hysteria, obsessional neuroses, the sexual instincts come in conflict with the
ego instinct. And in narcissism the ego takes itself as an object of love. 35

L) Anxiety

When an individual is unable to cope with the external world smoothly, he

becomes frightened; his ego becomes flooded with anxiety. So the ego is the
real seat of anxiety. Anxiety is the reaction to danger and it can be defined as
signal or a warning against the danger. On the other hand it is tension, which
is not produced by the internal stimulation but by the external causes.

The original source of anxiety is the child’s apprehension of

being separated from his mother. When the individual is unable to reduce the
tension of anxiety by adopting effective measure, he falls into a traumatic,
which brings him to the state of infantile helplessness. Freud explains it as
the prototype of birth. Anxiety forces us into a state of helplessness, similar
to that of an infant who is forced by birth into a new environment, where it is
quite defenseless.

34. Woodworth, Op-cit, p. 184.

35. Ibid
 69

Freud recognized three types o f anxieties-real anxiety, neurotic

anxiety and moral anxiety. Real anxiety arises as result o f the perception o f

danger from the instincts, it is caused by the ego’s dependence on the

external world, neurotic anxiety is caused by the ego’ s dependence on the id;

and moral or normal anxiety is caused by the ego’ s dependence on the super­

ego.

M ) Defense m echanism or M echanism s o f self-defense

In course o f his practice o f psychoanalysis with mentally disturbed patients,

Freud supplied the term “ defense mechanism.” B y the term “ defense

mechanism” or mechanism o f self-defense he meant a habit, which a person

develops for: defending and at times enhancing his regard for himself.

Defense mechanisms have at least two general characteristics. First, they

defend the self. The se lf (or self-picture) is threatened, not necessarily with

annihilation but at least with serious injury. It is about to be made to appear

less admirable, less worthy, or less successful than we want it to be. The

mechanisms o f self-defense are used to bolster the se lf in this sort o f

situation. It goes without saying that this process may also work in a positive

direction. We may wish to see the self as more admirable, more worthy, or

more successful than it is, and thus we may call upon the defense

mechanism in order to enhance the self.

In the second place, the defense mechanisms are unconscious,

they are not used deliberately. While we are using a defense mechanism, we

do not understand or at least do not fully understand it or its purpose. Indeed,

we usually deny the purpose for which it was used if we are confronted with

it. Incidentally, the nearer the purpose comes to being obvious to an outsider,
 70

the more we may struggle to deny it! Thus the mechanism of self-defense is
among ,our best illustrations of autism and autistic reaction. The defense
mechanisms mentioned by Sigmund Freud are as follows. I ant however
discussing the major mechanisms here.

1. Rationalization,
2. Projection,
3. Regression,
4. Compensation,
5. Reaction formation,
6. Repression,
7. Fantasy,
S. Identification,
9. Introjections,
10. Sublimation,
1LResistance,
12. Displaced aggression,
13. Dissociation .u 1
Rationalization: It means making excuses or giving acceptable
reasons instead o f the real one. In other words rationalization is unconscious
false self-justification in which the person is unaware o f the fact that he is
using false reasons to defend the seif. This mechanism is often used to
reduce dissonance or inconsistency.

36. Harold Martin, (et-al) : Psychology: Understanding Human Behaviour. P p.l 11-119.
 71

Projection: Another defense mechanism is known as projection,

which is a habit of attributing one’s own unworthy impulses or motives to
other people. This mechanism often represents attempts to disguise our own
questionable motives by projecting them to other people.

Regression: To defend the self, we may revert to an earlier or happier

period in our lives and adopt the behaviour patterns, including the patterns of
thinking and feeling of the earlier period. Here the repressed wishes seek the
gratification by going back to the childhood period when there was no
conscious control of the ego on the desire.

Repression: By repression we mean a forcible “putting out of mind.”

When we use it we are attempting to forget though we are not aware of
doing so and succeed. Sometimes it is defined as “active forgetting.” In
repression feeling of guilt is usually connected with the forgotten event or
habit. Even though event may be forgotten and the memories repressed, the
effects linger on and may appear in various forms of abnormal behavior.

Fantasy: Fantasy is another defense mechanism, which includes

daydreaming. In daydreams the best example is “conquering hero.” And
“suffering hero” is a similar mechanism where the situation is reversed .The
child or adult imagines that he has been mistreated and goes away to a
distant country. Misfortunes overtake him and he is brought home seriously
ill or even dead. As he imagines the weeping and sorrows of those who
mistreated him before he went away, he has the satisfaction of feeling that
they are sorry for what they did. The daydream serves as a defense because
 72

it helps him to forget his present limitations and makes him feel that things
are not so bad: as they appear.

Identification; Identification not only makes the other person a part of

the self, but also permits us to live our lives and gain our satisfactions
through the experiences of the other person.

Introjection: Introjection is a contrasting defense mechanism with

projection, which means externalization of other man’s defects for torturing.
On the other hand introjection means the internalization of other people’s
thought with the purpose of torturing the self.

Sublimation: This is one of the successful defense mechanisms. It was

Freud who used this term in the theory of personality and explained the
l
,i

development of our so-called culture and civilization as the product of

sublimation. For him the development of culture and civilization has been
made possible by repressing the primitive desires, which are sexual in
nature, and redirecting them into socially acceptable and culturally creative
channels.

Resistance: Resistance may be both conscious and unconscious.

Conscious resistance is present when a patient in the process of free
association comes upon something, which he does not like to tell the analyst
because it is too personal and private. Unconscious resistance is shown by
the patient when trying to recall his memory but unable to bring it into light
owing to some difficulty. Thus it is seen that the conscious self is
unconsciously resisting. Resistance is a dynamic concept in the sense that its
 73

wishes are continually striving to emerge into conscious behaviour, as the

conscious expression is a very active way of expression. 37

Increasing emphasis on hostility and aggressiveness

The unconscious wishes that were fulfilled in dreams are often spiteful
wishes such as childish desire for the death of a brother or sister. In the
Oedipus complex the boy becomes hostile to his father as he thinks him to
be frustrating his free demands on his mother. Earlier Freud regarded
hostility as merely a self-evident corollary of frustrated libido. The libido
was energy, which could be displaced from one object to another and even
from one emotion to another or. from one kind o f behaviour to another. So
the transformation of love from the mother into hostility for the father
seemed possible without any new drive coming into play. The love hate
ambivalence manifested in the feelings and actions of friends and lovers all
come from the libido drive. For example, the cruelty of a sadist who obtains
sexual satisfaction only when subjecting his love to torture comes from the
libido drive. Freud observed that the hate ambivalence must be a fusion or
alloy of the two basic drives rather than a mere distortion of libido alone.
Any concrete motive is a fusion of love and hate, and of constructiveness
and destructiveness. So man’s constructive activities are at the same time
destructive. To build a house a man chops down trees.
Aggressiveness implies anger and hostility, sometimes vigor and
initiative; it must be a mistake, so we feel, to regard all human activity as
either erotic and energetic, or enterprising motives that are not belligerent.38

37. Ibid
38. Woodworth, Op-cit , p. 185
 74

N) Freudian symbols

According to Freud dreams employ the symbolism to give a distinguished

representation to their latent thoughts. There are some symbols, which mean
the same thing. But he suggests us to bear the curious plasticity of psychic
material. Thfe following are the symbols, which Freud discusses in The
Interpretation o f Dreams:
\

1. The Emperor and the Empress (King and Queen) in most cases
represent dreamer’s parents,
2. Prince and Princess—the dreamer himself or herself.
3. High authority conceded to the Emperor also conceded to the great
man.
4. Goethe appears as a father symbol that is Hitschmann.
5. All elongated objects like sticks, tree-trunks, umbrellas stand for
i
male’s genital organ. An account of opening the umbrella might be
related to an erection.
6. All sharp and elongated weapons, knives, daggers Mid pikes
represent male members.
7. A frequent, but not very intelligible symbol for the same is a nail
file: (a reference to rubbing and scraping).
8. Small boxes, chests, cupboards, ovens correspond to die female
i ‘

organ.
9. Cavities, ships— all kinds of vessels—represent female organ.
10. A room represents a woman.
11. The sort of key that will unlock the room is related to sexual act.
 75

12. Open room and locked room will be readily understood in respect
of Dora’s dream as a fragment of analysts of hysteria.
13. Walking through a suite of rooms signifies a brothel or a harem,
and marriage too.
14. An interesting relation to the sexual investigations of childhood
emerges when the dreamer dreams of two rooms which were
previously one or finds that a familiar room in a house of which he
dreams has been divided into two or the reverse. In childhood the
female genital and anus are conceived of as a single opening
according to the infantile cloacae theory, and only later is it
discovered that this region of the body contains two separate
cavities and openings.
15. Steep inclines, ladders, stairs, going up or down them are
symbolic representation of sexual act.
16. Smooth walls over which one climbs, facades of houses across
which one let’s itself down often with a sense of great anxiety
corresponds to erect human bodies.
17. The repetition in our dreams, the childish memories of climbing of
parents or nurses correspond to erect human bodies.
18. “Smooth” walls are men.
19. Table, whether bare or covered, and boards are women.
20. Wood represents feminine matter (Materie).
21. Island Madeira means wood in Portuguese.
22. Bed and board constitutes marriage.
23. Sexual representation complex is transposed to the eating
complex.
24. Woman’s hat symbolizes men’s genitals.
 76

25. Necktie is a symbol for penis as one can select it at pleasure, a

freedom.
26. All: complicated machines and appliances are very probably the
genitals.
27. All: weapons and tools are symbols for the male organ, e.g.,
i

ploughshare, hammer, gun, revolver, dagger, sword etc.

I
28. Landscape or bridges or wooded mountains may be recognized as
descriptions of the genitals.
29. Plans, maps etc. are the representation of human body, of the
genitals.
30. Where one finds incompressible neologisms one may suspect
combination of components having sexual significance.
31. Children signify genitals, since men and women are in the habit
■ i

of fondly referring to their genital organs as “little men,” “little

women,” “little thing.”
32. Little brother-the penis.
33. To play with or to beat a little child signifies masturbation.
34. Boldness, hair cutting, the loss of teeth, beheading symbolize
castration.
35. Appearance of a lizard in dream—lizard an animal whose tail if
pulled off, is regenerated by a new growth has the meaning of
double or multiple forms of the penis.
36. The animal, which in mythology and folklore play the genital
symbol also play in dream work of Freud the same symbol.
37. The fish, the snail, the cat, the mouse, above a il, the snake, which
is the most important symbol of male member.
THE FREUDIAN SYMBOLS:

A landscape:

According to Freud, when the

dreamer explains about a landscape,
or bridges or wooded mountains, may
be recognized as descriptions of the
genitals. (S. Freud, 1937:
Interpretation o f Dreams p, 336)

A stump of a tree with its trunk:

Stiff object or weapons, symbols oj

female genitals. All elongated objects
like sticks tree-trunks, umbrellas
stand for male’s genital organ.
Freud: Ibid.

A ritual pond and trees of Assam,

the former symbolizes female’ s
genital organ and the latter stands
for male’s genital organ.
Moreover, the water symbolizes
one’s extraordinary interest. ( ref.
P.78)

Hollow of anything
► symbolizes women’s
genital organ.
 In Assam, it has been found that the
men and the children wear on
shoes. Women specially wear
sandal. So men and the children
are related to shoes where for
Freud, shoe symbolizes women
genital organ and the children are
the little one and the little one
symbolizes penis.
‘Samvar’ P,25,23April,2006

The following are the symbols of male member:

A Wall lizard A Snake

A lizard, an animal whose tail if pulled off,

is regenerated by a new growth has the
meaning of double or multiple forms of the
penis. Ref. P. 76.No. 35
Source of pictures:
1. P.K. Sabarwal Introductory book of
Science: Holy Faith.
2. Chandrama Barkotoki: Assamese
Alphabet Book. 1994

A Ploughshare
 77

38. Small animals and vermin substitutes for little children i.e.,
undesired sisters or brothers.
39. To be infected in vermin is often the equivalent for pregnancy.
40. The airship whose employment is justified'by its relation to flying
and also occasionally by its form.
41. The right hand path signifies the way to righteousness.
42. Left hand path means the path to crime.
43. Left may signify homosexuality, incest, and perversion.
44. Right signifies marriage, relations, with a prostitute etc.
45. Relatives in dream generally stand for the genitals.
46. Somewhere sisters are symbols of the breasts.
47. Brothers as symbols of larger hemisphere.
48. Unable to overtake a carriage is a symbol of regret for being
unable to catch up with a difference in age.
49. The luggage of a brother is burden of sin.
50. Sometimes it symbolizes one’s own genitals.
51. Number three a symbol of male genital. Stiff object and weapons
as symbols of female genitals.
52. The genitals may be represented in dreams by other parts o f the
body:
a) Male member—hand or the foot.
b) Female genital—the mouth, ear, and eye.
53. The secretion of human body-mucus, tears, semen, urine etc.
may be used in dreams as symbols interchangeably.
54. Being run over symbolizes sexual intercourse.
55. Representation of genitals by buildings, stairs and shafts.
56. Slippers or chapels—vagina.
 78

57. Demons in cloaks and hoods are symbols of a phallic character.

58. Castration—decapitation (beheading).
59. Right and moral right and wrong39
60. Bridges—the idea of crossing Rubicon of one’s life, the acing of
decision.
61. Land, air and water—symbols of great interest. Land represents
the objective, the concrete, terra firma; air represents fantasy, the
inspirational thought, and the ideal.
62. When we have the dreams, which are not infrequent, of jumping
or of being able to jump over a house, or of wonderful powers of
flying and buoyancy, they generally can be interpreted as the
individual in contact with reality is not just as certain it should be.
63. The water symbol is one of extraordinary interest.
64. The earth symbolizes to a great extent the value of mother earth;
also involves mother relationship.
65. The water symbol represents intermediate element between earth
and air, and tends to represent that zone in our activities in which
thought and physical feeling meet, that point in which we realize
that physical feeling can be altered by thought processes. In their
adolescent period both girls and boys frequently dreams of water.
This period is tremendously critical important point. They will
often tell about many dreams of water and one very frequently
finds in that connection that these dreams refer to their early
discoveries that by mental imaginary, physical sensations and
physical changes can be produced.
39.Freud ; Interpretation o f Dreams: Chapter: “The Dream Work.” Pp. 335-336.
 79

66. House, the room, the cellar, and the cave represent one’s own life.
67. “1 was in a large house which was bare and unfurnished and
strange”—the idea that one knows so little about mental life when
one comes to study it seriously.
68. “ I was in a house on the first floor, and you were calling me down
the cellar.” There we have the idea of the challenge to come down
to the unconscious—to the cellar, the cave, what is below the
surface in life.
69. To make contact with the unconscious is very frequently
represented in dreams as a going down into the cellar.
70. Number four: A young man had an obsession about the number
four. It was impossible for him to go to sleep until he had arranged
everything on his table in fours, and he could not bear to leave a
pair of shoes outside his door without contriving to another dirty
pair to match them. Ultimately it was tracked down to this: The
man was a Jew, and four was the number of the family pew in the
synagogue and this four which had obsessed him for all these years
had represented symbolically in his life, all unconsciously, the
whole idea of the Jewish tradition, family tradition, family religion.
71. All animals in dream symbolism are full of significance. Animals
represent the libido in some shape or other. Bull, the forces of our
life to be powerful, rat, we are thinking of our powers in life
(sexual) without any justification. (Horse/dog, the animals that are
friendly... dogs always bite us, libido also bites symbolizes having
friendly, well-balanced attitude towards the libido. Bull—too
powerful for man to cope with single-handed. Individual has to be
purified by the blood of the bull.
 A Dog

Animals represent the libido in some shape or other. Bull, the forces o f our life to be
powerful, rat we are thinking o f our powers in life (sexual) without any justification.
Horse/dog , the animals that are friendly, wise, well balanced attitude towards the libido .
Bull too powerful for man to cope with single-handed. Dog always bites us so also
libido. Ref. P.79. No .71
Source of pictures:
1. P.K. Sabarwal Introductory book of Science: Holy Faith.
2. Chandrama Barkotoki: Assamese Alphabet Book. 1994
 80

72. Flowers represent the romance and sentiment of adolescence.

73. White bull—a pure libido.
74. Grail and spear both together—two great sex characteristics.
Grails symbolizes throughout the female constituent of life, the
idea of receptivity. Spear: the male symbol, the idea o f execution,
the aggression. The receptive and the executive belong to the
great eternal variety of life.
74. Cup or bowl broken with a very large sized stick is an indication
of the female principle broken, the male symbol exaggerated.
75. Policeman, father- symbols of authority.
76. Tooth - our equipment in life, teeth— for safety.
77. When we dream of a death of a relative we need not hasten to the
“Morning Post” for corroboration. Our unconscious is concerned
with something infinitely more important to us than the prediction
of the relative’s death. Our unconscious is telling us whether the
quality, which that relative stands for in our life, in our character,
is thriving or not or needs to be killed; and great many people lose
the message by treating such dreams as premonitory.
78. Stairs and climbing stairs symbolize coitus.40

G. A. Miller writes in his recent work Psychology that “Instead

of dreaming about a penis the dreamer may substitute the image with a gun,
a snake, a fountain pen, the number three and so on. For masturbation the
dream symbol may be climbing a tree or playing the piano.”41
40 .Freud, The New Psychology and Parent, ‘Dream Symbolism’ Pp.151-174
41. I b id
 81

Freud further says that the typical meaning of dreams with

dental stimulus substitute for masturbation for in popular saying a tooth and
male genital (or boy) were brought into relation with each other. Freud
i

writes of dreams of a dental stimulus that in males the motive force of these
dreams was derived from the masturbatory desires of pubertal period.

The dreams accompanied by anxieties and having as their

content, such objects as passing through narrow spaces or being in water are
based upon fantasies of intra-uterine (within the womb) life, of existence in
the womb and of the act of birth. What follows was the dream of a young
man who in his imagination had taken advantage of an intra-uterine
opportunity of watching his parent’s copulation.

In Oedipus dream there are the disguised dreams when asked

the patients always replied, “1 have no recollection of having had such
dream.” Immediately afterwards, a memory will immerge of some other
inconspicuous and indifferent dream which the patient dreamt repeatedly.
Analysis explains that these dreams are Oedipus dreams where the dreamer
dreams o f sexual intercourse with the dreamer’s mother. 42
According to Freud all dreams require a sexual interpretation.
The strikingly innocent dreams may embody crudely erotic wishes. Many
dreams that appear to be indifferent and which one would not regard as in
any respect peculiar lead back to analysis to wishful impulses, which are
unmistakably sexual and often of an unexpected sort. For instance, the
following dream displays sexual wish:
42. S. Freud : The Interpretation o f Dreams, PP. 521-22.
These two kinds o f seasonal flower in
Assam have special significance. These
bloom before Sibratri, which has been
observed by the girls, and they keep
themselves without food on the day
and not even drink water. In the
evening they offer puja with these
flowers and pour milk on the genital
organ o f God Siva with the wish of
getting a good husband so to say a
better genital organ.
Khurikajai flower

Datura flow er

In Assamese society, fishes are

always dressed by women.
That means women are related
to dressing fishes. For Freud,
fish symbolizes m en’s genital
organ. Scratching a fish in a
weapon symbolizes sexual a c t .

Mrs. Rinu Deka, dressing fish at her residence,

Sonkuriha. Nalbari District.

The Rongali Bihu in Assam is the

media to express the feeling of love
of youths. At this festival the young
girls wear on new Muga dresses and
Kopoi flower at their Khopa(a typical
hair style).The Kopoi Flower
symbolizes the erected penis and the
khopafa stiff object) symbolizes
female genital organ.
 82

“Standing back a little behind to stately palaces was a little

house and pushed the door open; I then slipped quickly and easily into the
inside of a court which rose in an incline”. 43

O) Catharsis
Freud made a name for himself by isolating a form of paralysis latter called
after him and the co-discovery of the local anesthetic effects of cocaine. But
in 1884 he became interested in the therapeutic uses of hypnosis upon which
he was to build his theory of psychoanalysis. In 1895, he and his colleague ,
Joseph Breuer published Studies in Hysteria in which they had used
hypnosis to probe the minds of their patients. But Breuer gave up practicing
the method for its “unprofessional inclination” i.e., “abreaction” or abnormal
love response to the analyst himself. Freud discovered that the “process of
abreaction” was the only access to the rapid and lasting cure of the patients
disorder. 44 Later he gave up the use of hypnosis in favour of free
association. Freud explained free association as means for “the discovery of
the hidden, forgotten, repressed things in the soul life”. ^In free association
the patients were asked to relax on a coach and say whatever came into their
minds, however absurd, unpleasant or obscene it might appear in everyday
standard. When it was done it seemed that powerful emotional drives swept
the uncontrolled thought towards the area of psychological conflict. Great
relief “Catharsis” seemed to follow, Freud noticed that frequently forgotten,
and painful memories were found to relate to unpleasant buried, sexual
experience in childhood.
43.Ibid, pp. 521-22.
44.S.F: B.W. “ Introduction,” p. 9.
45. S. Freud ’.Origin and Development o f Psychoanalysis, p. 13.
 83

Cathartic method works, as Woodworth puts it, by eliminating

sources of disturbance related to post emotional experiences of the patient .*6
The most important discovery in the free association method is the
unconscious resistance that the patient is accustomed to display in the
process of the analyst’s endeavour “to make him conscious of his
unconscious”. 47
It was in preference of transference and resistance that Freud
had discarded the method o f Hypnotism. He interpreted transference as an
amount of the patient’s tender emotion “often mixed with enmity,” directed
to the person of the physician.

P) Perversion

The most obvious result of repression and regression of sex is the perversion
of sex. It is not an isolated fact in the child’s sexual life and it does riot affect
any normal child or normal process of development of a child. A perversion
in childhood can become the basis for the construction of perversion
persisting throughout life. The perversion can be broken off and remain in
the background of a normal sexual development. “The process of
development which occurs in perversion is brought into relation with the
child’s incestuous object-love, with its Oedipus complex. It first comes into
prominence in the sphere of this complex, and after the complex has broken
down it remains, often quite by itself, the inheritor o f its charge of libido and

46. Woodworth, Contemporary Schools o f Psychology, p. 256.

47.S.F.Major.Work. “New Introductory Lecture: Lecture 31.” p. 835.
 84

weighed down by the sense of guilt that was attached to it. The abnormal
sexual constitution, finally has shown its strength by forcing the Oedipus
complex into a particular direction and by compelling it to leave an unusual
residue behind” 48

Q) Prim ary and secondary processes

As per Freud’s discovery, there are two psychic processes in psychic

apparatus. They are namely primaiy and secondary processes. Freud
describes in his book The Interpretation o f Dreams that primary processes
are present in an individual from the very beginning of life while the
secondary processes take shape gradually during the course of life dealing
with inhibiting and overpowering them and gaining complete control over
them perhaps in the prime of life 49
The primary process deals with the pleasure principle, which is
primitive and not disciplined, the whole of our fantasy exist on it. “Our
dreams, ideals, all illusions, religious and spiritual are creations of our
pleasure principle. Victims of obsession, over intellectualization,
schizophrenia, melancholia and even day-dreamers are persons who are
guided by the principle”. 50

48. Freud, CollectedPapersNal II, 1950.

49. Freud, The Interpretation o f Dreams, p.536.

50. B .K . D eka Influence o f Freudian Psychology in the Post War Fiction. An

unpublished P h D T h esis subm itted to Gauhati U n iv e r s it y , p. 15

 85

“The pleasure principle aims at reducing tension arising out of organic

excitation”. 57

R) Wish fulfillment

In The Interpretation O f Dreams, Freud writes that a wish can be satisfied

by an imaginary wish fulfillment. All dreams, even nightmares display
apparent anxiety, which are the fulfillment of such wishes. Dreams are the
disguised expression of wish fulfillments. Like neurotic symptoms, they are
the effects of compromises in the psyche between desires and prohibitions in
conflict with the realization. As mentioned above all dreams require a
sexual interpretation. The strikingly innocent dreams may embody crudely
erotic wishes.

Example: (as explained earlier)

“Standing back a little behind to stately palaces was a little house and
pushed the door open; I then slipped quickly and easily into the inside of the
court which rose an incline... here penetrating into the narrow spaces and
opening closed doors are among the commonest sexual symbols, and easily
perceived in the dream in a representation of an attempt at coitus a targo
(between the two stately buttocks of a female body). The narrow passage
residing in and incline stood for the vagina.” 52

51. Freud, Beyond Pleasure Principle, p.644.

52. Freud, The Interpretation o f Dreams: Penguin Books, p.521-22.
 86

Some dreams are bisexual since they unquestionably admit of

an “over interpretation” in which the dreamer’s homosexual impulses are
realized, impulses which are contrary to his normal sexual activities. Like
Freud, according to Stekel and Adler too all dreams are to be interpreted in
terms of sexual symbols. Therefore, a dream is defined as the psychic
activity of the sleeper and is the disguised expression of wish fulfillment.

“The child is being beaten”

This fantasy has feelings of pleasure. There is an autoerotic gratification—

the gratification in the genitals. There seems hesitation in confessing this
fantasy among the neurotic patients. It is because of that; the shame and a
sense of guilt are more strongly excited elements in this connection. If the
genital organization is met by repression there becomes a regressive
debasement in the genital. Eveiy mantel counterpart of the incestuous love
becomes unconscious or remains so. My father is beating me (I am being
beaten by my father). This being beaten is a meeting point or place between
the sense of guilt and sexual love. It is the punishment for the forbidden
genital relation as well as the regressive substitute. From this regressive
substitute it derives the libidinal excitation. This libidinal substitute finds its
outlet in autoerotic acts. Here for the first time we have the essence of
masochism means finding pleasure by paining oneself. “The little girl is
beating” fantasy through three phases: The first and the third are consciously
remembered and the second one is unconscious. This is undoubtedly
masochistic in nature. Its content consists in being beaten by the father and
carries with it the libidinal cathexies and sense of guilt. The former appears
to be sadistic (getting pleasure by giving pain to others). Here someone else
 87

is beating the child. The unconscious fantasy of the middle phase had
primarily a genital significance and developed by means of repression and
regression out of an incestuous wish to be loved by father.

According to Freud the male fantasy of being beaten also stands

for being loved (in a genital sense). The beating fantasy has its origin in an
incestuous attachment to the father.53

53.S.F.: Collected Papers VoUl ,.Pp. 172-201.