FREUD & PSYCHOANALYSIS

IS PSYCHOANALYSIS REALLY THAT

INFLUENCIAL?

MAJOR INFLUENCES ON FREUD’S THINKING

KEY NOTIONS IN PSYCHOANALYSIS

PSYCHOLOGICAL DETERMINISM
CONFLICT
UNCONSCIOUS

PSYCHOSEXUAL STAGES

STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY
ID, EGO, SUPEREGO

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ANXIETY & DEFENSE MECHANISMS
 PSYCHOANALYSIS =
the single most influential school of
thought of the XX century

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 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND THE ARTS

Surrealism -- Salvador Dali (1904-1989) 3

 Buñuel (1900-1983) --Un Chien Andalou

A man. A woman. A knife. An eye. A moon. A cloud. The man slices open the
woman's eye as a cloud slices across the moon.
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 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND LITERATURE

Broken Glass by (UM alumnus)

Arthur Miller

Set in 1938, during the rise of Nazism and government-sanctified anti-

Semitism, a Brooklyn couple are forced to deal with the wife's psychosomatic
paralysis. This affliction could exist for many disparate reasons, such as the
couple's bitter marriage, her husband's futile attempted assimilation into the
Gentile world, her obsession
with Hitler's assault on German Jews, or just as a plea for attention. It is up to
the couple's doctor to discover the root of this illness.
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 Question for the class:

In your view, why were Freud’s ideas and

psychoanalysis so shocking to society?

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Freud’s view of the human psyche as ridden by
unconscious and uncontrollable forces of sexual
origin.

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MAJOR INFLUENCES ON FREUD’S
THINKING:

3 historical phenomena
2 relationships

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ROMANTICISM
Celebration of the emotional and irrational aspects of human
nature

Delacroix (1798-1863) 9
RATIONALISM & EMPIRICISM
Providing a scientific account for all phenomena

Ramon y Cajal (1852-1934)

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RATIONALISM & EMPIRICISM
Providing a scientific account for all phenomena

e.g., providing a scientific explanation for hysteria?

(paralysis with no apparent physical cause)

FREUD’S MECHANISTIC VIEW OF THE MIND

mind = machine that uses psychological energy; this energy can
only be displaced or transformed (never destroyed)

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WW1
Self-destruction as part of human nature

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CHARCOT (1825-1893)
Hypnosis as a research method and therapeutic tool

Hysteria: paralysis with no apparent physical cause

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BREUER (1842-1925)

Talking-cure: unstructured talk about fantasies, dreams,

symptoms, fears ---> release of psychic energy
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KEY NOTIONS IN PSYCHOANALYSIS
•PSYCHOLOGICAL DETERMINISM

•CONFLICT

•UNCONSCIOUS

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PSYCHOLOGICAL DETERMINISM
There is not such thing as random behavior; all our acts are
determined by internal forces (wishes, fears) related to two
basic instincts

INSTINCTS: LIFE (libido) & DEATH (aggression)

Mental representation of a biological need; Energy of the
psyche

MENTAL ENERGY
Biological need  Increase in  Psychological need  Socially acceptable
(e.g., sex) tension/arousal -INSTINCT- expression
(e.g., sexual dream)

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CONFLICT

•Our lives are a constant negotiation of opposing

impulses (desire/fear; love/hate)

•Such conflicts produce anxiety (realistic, neurotic,

moral)

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TOPOGRAPHIC MODEL OF THE MIND
UNCONSCIOUS

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FREUD’S PSYCHOSEXUAL STAGES
Personality development is very much influenced
by sexual development

STAGES: Oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital

(see textbook for this topic)

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 STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY
ID EGO SUPEREGO

ORIGINS Present at birth Develops from Develops from society &

life experience parental standards

AWARENESS? Unconscious Both Both

CONTENT Instincts Reasoning Moral imperatives &

Ideal Self

NATURE Biological Psychological Social

GUIDING Pleasure Principle Reality Principle Guilt

PRINCIPLE

Different personalities result from the different interactions among these structures
(which compete with each other for the psych energy available). 20
 Question for the class:

Main difference between Ego and

Superego?

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Ego: guided by reality, postpones but
does not prohibit (is pragmatic, rational)

Superego: guided by morality, inhibits (is

moralistic, perfectionist)

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TOPOGRAPHIC MODEL OF THE MIND
TOPOGRAPHICAL MODEL OF THE MIND

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ANXIETY & DEFENSE MECHANISMS

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 EGO’S DEFENSE MECHANISMS
‘it’= ANXIETY PROVOKING, UNACCEPTABLE THOUGHT OR IMPULSE

•DENIAL: refusal to acknowledge its existence

•REPRESSION: pushing it out of awareness

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 EGO’S DEFENSE MECHANISMS
‘it’= ANXIETY PROVOKING, UNACCEPTABLE THOUGHT OR IMPULSE

•DENIAL: refusal to acknowledge its existence

•REPRESSION: pushing it out of awareness

•PROJECTION: attributing it to someone else

•REACTION FORMATION: overemphasizing its opposite
•REGRESSION: retreating to an earlier (immature) stage of
development
•IDENTIFICATION: identifying oneself with a feared person
•RATIONALIZATION: giving excuses for it
•INTELLECTUALIZATION: distancing oneself from it by ‘studying
it’ 26
 EGO’S DEFENSE MECHANISMS
‘it’= ANXIETY PROVOKING, UNACCEPTABLE THOUGHT OR IMPULSE

•DENIAL: refusal to acknowledge its existence

•REPRESSION: pushing it out of awareness

•PROJECTION: attributing it to someone else

•REACTION FORMATION: overemphasizing its opposite
•REGRESSION: retreating to an earlier (immature) stage of
development
•IDENTIFICATION: identifying oneself with a feared person
•RATIONALIZATION: giving excuses for it
•INTELLECTUALIZATION: distancing oneself from it by ‘studying
it’
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•DISPLACEMENT: shifting it to a nonthreating, neutral object
POSSIBLE TOPIC FOR EXTRA-CREDIT PAPER

Modern and empirical work on Ego’s functioning:

EGO-CONTROL & EGO-RESILIENCE

Jack & Jeanne Block (1980)

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CLASSIFICATION OF DEFENSE
MECHANISMS
•Hysteria grouping
•Obsessive grouping

(Table 3.3 in the textbook)

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