Historical-Hermeneutic

Approaches in the Social

Sciences
LESSON 2
 Psychoanalysis

-began with a young physician’s search for the treatment of his patients with emotional problems. Frustrated
by lack knowledge that existed during his time, he set out to develop his own methods of treatment.
Sigmund Freud
-a young doctor and his theory was known as psychoanalytic theory( Lahey 2007,464)
There are three levels of consciousness :
conscious mind
preconscious mind
unconscious mind
Three components of the personality structure:
The id
The ego
The superego
To Freud, the mind is like an iceberg; the conscious mind is merely the tip
visible above the surface, whereas the bulk of the important workings of the
mind lurks mysteriously beneath the surface. Just below the surface the
surface is what Freud called the preconscious mind. It consists of memories
that are not presently conscious but can easily be brought into consciousness.
The content contents of the preconscious were once conscious and can be
returned to consciousness when needed.
 The ego is formed because the was to find realistic ways to meeting its needs
and avoiding trouble caused by selfish and aggressive behaviour. The ego
operates according to reality principle. The id and ego have no morals. They
seek to satisfy the id’s selfish motives without regard for the goods of others.
Restrictiona are placed on the actions of the id and ego when the super ego
develops, the part of the mind that opposes the desires of the id by enforcing
moral restrictionsand by striving to attain goals of “ideal” perfection.
 HERMENEUTIC PHENOMELOGY

- Is a particular type of phenomenology among a range of phenomenological

methodologies, usually classified into two camps:
Descriptive Phenomenology
- It was developed by Edmund Husserl and Interpretive or Hemeneutic
phenomenology by Martin Heidegger. A basis difference between two camps is
that “hermeneutic phenomenology is used to interpret the meaning of lived
experiences and communicate the interpretation textually or symbolically
Transcendental Phenomenology
- Is based on discovering the objective universal essence of lived experiences the
communicating them through pure description.