5/22/2023 Freud’s Mechanistic Vision of the Human Psyche by Prof. Ivan Rojas, M.D.

Personalities

Freud’s Mechanistic Vision

of the Human Psyche
Prof. Ivan Rojas, M.D.

Continuing on with my study of Freud’s ideas, I will focus today on

his general vision of the human psyche and of man’s nature in
general.

In many of his minor studies and lectures Freud addressed those

topics, but it was in his last analytical work on the human psyche
that he postulated his theories in a more complete form. This was
his famous The Ego and the Id, a work that he published in 1923 in
Vienna, Austria. It was his final work on Psychoanalysis properly
speaking.

In this work, Freud

reveals his complete
conception of the
psyche, his general
view on how the
human mind works.

He divided man’s
mind into three
principal parts.

The first is the ego,

the conscious part of
man. Man walks,
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5/22/2023 Freud’s Mechanistic Vision of the Human Psyche by Prof. Ivan Rojas, M.D.

thinks and makes The iceberg metaphor to understand the ego, id

conscious decisions: and super-ego
Behold the ego.

The second part is

the unconscious, the
more important part
from where all the
instinctive impulses
come: the passions,
sexuality, the
capacity to feel, hate
and even love men.

Finally, the third part

is the super-ego,
which are the
ensemble of our
moral laws, rules and
mental defenses that
in some way protect us from the force of our unconscious instincts.

He named these parts the ego, the id and the super-ego. They
constitute the basis of his theory on how the human mind works.
For him these three parts are always active and influencing one
another.

For him, the most primitive part is the unconscious or id, which, in
final analysis, is responsible for the desires, acts of will and the
deepest longings of the human soul.

Freud was completely atheistic and materialistic. As a typical 19th

century scientist, he was influenced by Positivism, although he
never admitted it or even spoke about it.

Hatred for philosophy & religions

I want to stress that in this study Freud demonstrated his hatred for
Philosophy and Religion. He thought that they were natural
enemies of science, which he placed in the first and only place of
importance. For him, the study of any discipline other than science
was a hindrance to the march of progress in society. He sets out
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5/22/2023 Freud’s Mechanistic Vision of the Human Psyche by Prof. Ivan Rojas, M.D.

this view in his book The Future of an Illusion, written in the 1930s.

Almost all of Freud's biographers report his strong aversion from his
childhood to philosophy, religion and even music. For example, at
his request, his parents forbade his sister, who had a clear talent for
piano and a liking for classical music, to study and play this
instrument because, according to the young Sigismund, “it was an
obstacle to his study of the sciences.” He could not bear even the
sound of a piano. Later, his sister complained strongly about this
imposition.

He was able to impose his inclinations because he was the only

male child of a traditional Jewish family that complied with the
whims of a son.

Later, he would tell his young disciple Carl Gustav Jung – who
afterwards became an ideological enemy – that Psychoanalysis
should remove itself completely from the “dangers” of Philosophy.

Freud paid a high price for not acknowledging the great masters of
philosophical thinking.

Let us not forget that Plato stated that “philosophy is the thinking
that explains the true nature of reality.” Philosophy teaches us to
think. To study it is absolutely necessary for anyone who wants to
deeply understand things and man.

Freud hated all this, and he ended by becoming a victim of the

positivist errors of his epoch.

He believed that one day science would find in the human brain
what he identified as the structures of the human personality, that
is, the ego, the id and the super-ego. This would configure a
mechanistic, capricious and simplistic system of thought.

Now then, Aristotle in his studies of Metaphysics already affirmed

that “the being operates according to its nature.” This means that a
material thing can only produce another material thing. Thus, of
itself the human brain, which is matter, flesh, cannot produce
consciousness, will or the abstract thoughts of man.

A piece of flesh like the human brain, although complex with its
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5/22/2023 Freud’s Mechanistic Vision of the Human Psyche by Prof. Ivan Rojas, M.D.

hormones, synapses and

natural network of neurons,
cannot produce abstractions,
thoughts and other spiritual
actions typical of human
beings.

A television or a radio can

transmit programs, but cannot
produce them. So also, the
human brain can pass on ideas
but it does not produce them.
They are elaborated by the
human soul.

Thus, Freud, like so many

other materialist and atheistic
authors, blatantly erred.

For Freud man is nothing but a

mass of cells, nerves and
Jung, first a disciple of Freud, later hormones. With this thesis he
became his mortal ennemy greatly harms human liberty
and the correlated conception
of free will. Man becomes
incapable of freely and fully “deciding” his actions. He becomes a
victim of his fears, passions and unconscious desires.

This is tantamount to renouncing the liberty to make decisions and

bear their consequences in this world and in the next. In final
analysis, man is an irresponsible and capricious being.

I must say that Freud did not call for abolishing punishments for all
kinds of criminals in society. But this is the conclusion that we
naturally reach when we study his extremely pessimistic vision of
human nature.

Today, most psychoanalysts no longer endorse such a gloomy

notion of mankind. A large movement in the field is trying to re-think
the mechanistic, simplistic ideas of Freud. Psychoanalysis is being
re-scrutinized from top to bottom.

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5/22/2023 Freud’s Mechanistic Vision of the Human Psyche by Prof. Ivan Rojas, M.D.

It is my hope that these revisions will reach the crux of the question,
which is the true nature of the human soul.

In my next article I plan to address the role of Carl Gustav Jung in

the destruction of Freud’s system and the importance of Religion for
the stability of human psyche.

Continued

Posted December 9, 2019

______________________

Related Topics of Interest

Freud – His Doctrines & Errors - 1

Sigmund Freud & Catholic Morals - 2

Freud’s Concept of Sexual Repression - 3

About Freudianism

Freudism in The Church Impotent

Catholic-Freudian Meditation in German High Schools

Cultural Revolution under the Church's Umbrella

TIA's Supposedly Utopic Standards on Culture

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Related Works of Interest

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