Psychoanalytic School of Thought

Who was SIGMUND FREUD?

The Father of
Psychoanalysis
1900-Released
fundamental work
1881-Qualified on Psychoanalysis, 1930-Wins
from University “Interpretation of Goethe Literary
of Vienna Dreams” Prize

1884-Worked 1913-Carl Jung

with Breuer to moves away,
conduct separation of
hypnosis on theoretical core
hysteria patients
 What inspired the school of thought?

In the years 1880, Dr. Josef Breuer (1842-1925),

discovered a new procedure by means of which he
relieved a girl, who was suffering from severe hysteria, of
her various symptoms
Searching for connections in the memory during hypnosis,
she lived through the “pathogenic” scenes & was cured
Hypnosis culminated in cathartic treatment gave excellent
therapeutic results (Limitation- dependent on personal
relation)
Freud, later on, made an alteration in their technique, by
replacing hypnosis by the method of free association
 What is the central idea of the school?
 Psychoanalysis, " which in the course of time came to have two
meanings:
(1) a particular method of treating nervous disorders and
(2) the science of unconscious mental processes, which has also been
appropriately described as "depth-psychology"
 Psychoanalysis seems to favour certain classes of patients, milder
neuroses-hysteria, phobias and obsessions and sometimes, sexual
inhibitions and abnormalities
 Some unique attributes:
The physician requires special training
Both physician and patient must devote lots of time and make considerable
sacrifices
Replace unconscious mental acts with conscious ones
Process must have significance in relation to the disorder being treated
 Further into the type of Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis, when perceived as above, considers mental life from three
points of view: the dynamic, the economic and the topographical.
Dynamic Psychoanalysis
 Psychoanalysis derives all mental processes , apart from stimuli, from the
interplay of forces
 All of these forces are originally in the nature of instincts ; that is to say, they
have an organic origin. They are characterised by possessing an immense
(somatic) persistence and reserve of power (" repetition-compulsion "); and
they are represented mentally as images or ideas with an affective charge
(“cathexis”)
 Two types of instincts: ego instincts/object instincts
 Fundamental instincts which lie concealed behind the manifest ego-instincts
and object-instincts: namely ( a ) Eros, the instinct which strives for ever
closer union, and ( b ) the instinct of destruction, which leads toward the
dissolution of what is living
 Manifestation of the force of Eros in psychoanalysis is known as libido
 Economic Psychoanalysis
Pleasure-Pain Principle: Psychoanalysis supposes that the
mental representations of the instincts have a cathexis of
definite quantities of energy
The mental apparatus dams up these generated energies and
to keep excitations to a minimum
More these excitations, greater the pain
In the external world, the original principle gets changed to
“reality principle”
Reality principle gets the mental apparatus to postpone the
pleasure of satisfaction and to temporarily tolerate pain
 Topographical Psychoanalysis
Mental Topography: Topographically, psychoanalysis regards
the mental apparatus as a composite instrument
The mental apparatus is composed of an " id " which is the
reservoir of the instinctive impulses of an " ego” (the most
superficial portion of the id and one which is modified by the
influence of the external world)
 A " super-ego" which develops out of the id, dominates the ego
and represents the inhibitions of instinct characteristic of man
The property of consciousness has a topographical reference for
processes in the id are entirely unconscious
While consciousness is the function of the ego's outermost layer,
which is concerned with the perception of the external world
What are the underlying assumptions?
Psychoanalytic psychologists see psychological
problems as rooted in the unconscious mind.
Manifest symptoms are caused by latent (hidden)
disturbances.
Typical causes include unresolved issues during
development or repressed trauma.
Treatment focuses on bringing the repressed conflict to
consciousness, where the client can deal with it.
What to make of this theory?
Theoretical Basis: The first task of psychoanalysis was the
elucidation of nervous disorders
Based on the recognition of repression, the importance of
the sexual instincts and transference
What are neurotic symptoms?
Repressed tendencies born out of censorship of
displeasing influences to mind
By provoking resistance(physician brings the repressed
tendencies into consciousness), it is not always successful
These tendencies make themselves felt through circuitous
paths and indirect gratification of the same are the
symptoms
 Sexual Instincts
 Neurotic symptoms for sexual instincts are the most common for cultural
reasons, sex as a taboo
 Freud purports that in man, sexual life begins even before puberty
 Signs of above can be detected from the beginning of extra-uterine existence
Culminating Points
 At or before the fifth year(after which ensues the latency phase)
 Reach the age of puberty(second climax of instincts)
 This double onset is typical of humans and the first period of childhood is of
the greatest importance
 Subsequently , first period along with inherited sexual constitution decide
character/disease
 Before this there are a number of "pre-genital organisations" of the libido--
points at which it may become "fixated"
 the neuroses are to be regarded as inhibitions in the development of the
libido.
Oedipus Complex-In focus
There are no specific causes of nervous disorders
 Solution or neurotic inhibition depends on relative
strengths of the forces
The most important conflict with which a small child is
faced is his relation to his parents is the " Oedipus complex
“ where a male child desires his mother sexually and plots
to get rid of his father/senior male figure
Reactions against the instinctive demands of the Oedipus
Complex are the cornerstone of moral struggles of man as a
species
The super-ego, the moral factor which dominates the ego,
also has its origin in the process of overcoming the Oedipus
complex
Transference
DEFINITION :
• Process transferring feeling experience in early
relationship to someone important in present environment
• By " transference “, it is meant to be a striking peculiarity
of neurotics they develop toward their physician through
emotional relations
FUNCTION :
• Help client develop the freedom to love, work and play
• Help client in achieving self awareness
STEPS :
• Build working relationship with client
• Give extra attention to the client’s resistance
Both of an affectionate and hostile character, Transference is not
based upon the actual situation but is derived from their relations
toward their parents (the Oedipus complex)

 Transference is a proof of the fact that adults have not overcome

their former childish dependence and coincides with suggestion
Physician uses the above to induce the patient to overcome
internal resistances/repressions
Psychoanalytic treatment acts as a second education of the adult
Within this narrow compass it has not been possible to mention
many matters of the greatest interest, such as the " sublimation "
of instincts, the part played by symbolism, the problem of
ambivalence
 Psychoanalytic Model of Personality
(Iceberg Model)
1. UNCONSCIOUS
• Contains all the feeling, urges or instinct that are
beyond our awareness but it affect our expression,
feeling, action
 (E.g. Slip of tongue, dreams, wishes)

2. PRECONSCIOUS
• Facts stored in a part of the brain, which are not
conscious but are available for possible use in the
future
 (E.g. A person will never think of her home address
at that moment but when her friend ask for it, she
can easily recall it)
3. CONSCIOUS
• Only level of mental life that are directly available
to us
• The awareness of our own mental process
(Thoughts/feeling)
 EGO
• I want to • I am on a
Structural Model eat
chocolate!
• Eats a
small bar
super diet!

ID of SUPEREG
ID chocolate O
 It is the first portion of the personality to develop
 It is present at birth and has the qualities of a spoiled child
 ID is selfish and follows no rules, considers only the satisfaction of its own needs and
drives
 The ID is not rational and does not care how its wants are obtained

EGO
 The rational level of the personality
 It is the opposite of the ID which focuses on morality and justice
 Ego works against the ID and tries to control the ID’s impulses
 Ego is the balance between ID and Super-Ego

SUPER-EGO
 It makes decisions if things are right or wrong
 It has the ability to reward through feelings of satisfaction and self love and punish by
providing feelings of guilt and shame
 It is idealistic in nature, and perfection is its goal rather than pleasure seeking or
Theory Of Psychosexual Development
 Freud advanced a theory of
personality development focusing
on the effects of the sexual
pleasure drive on a person's
emerging personality.
 According to his theory, parts of
the personality develop as we
move through a series of
psychosexual stages.
 Each stage is characterized by
different demands for sexual
gratification and different ways of
achieving that gratification.
 The Psychosexual Stages
 Define how human personality
develops from our birth up to and
including early adulthood.
 Freud believed that children
experience unconscious sexual
fixations as they grow older.
 These sexual urges change drastically
after each stage.
 Oral / Anal / Phallic / Latency /
Genital
 Without a proper resolution following
each stage, we may experience faults
in our future personalities.
 The Oral Stage (0 - 1 and ½)
 In this stage, the mouth is the
infant’s primary erogenous zone,
meaning that the oral cavity is
where libidal energy is most
focused.
 Gains pleasure through sucking
and eating; the child ultimately
develops a sense of comfort
through oral stimulation.
 However, the child eventually
must become less dependent on
caretakers as it grows.
 In theory, an infant who is
neglected (under-fed) or
overprotected (over-fed) may
become orally fixated with the
The Oral Stage (continued)
 Fixation in this stage may result in
issues with dependency and
aggression.
 Moreover, this fixation can lead to
issues with eating, drinking,
smoking, and even obsessive habits
like nail-biting.
 If the child is not able to
successfully resolve his or her
sexual urges in the oral stage, then
the child will not be able to move on
to the next stage of psychosexual
development, the Anal Stage.
 The Anal Stage (1 and ½ - 3)
 The anal stage begins near the age of one,
when the child is just beginning to toilet
train.
 The erogenous zone shifts from the oral
cavity to the anal region with the
realization that going to the bathroom is a
pleasurable event.
 Freud believed that the unconscious mind
was going through a conflict during this
time.
 The “id” of our unconscious represents the
part of our being that finds pleasure in
expelling feces, while the “ego” and
“superego” signify culture’s pressure to
resist succumbing to bodily functions.
The Anal Stage (continued)
 Reoccurring theme: SELF-CONTROL
 Two things can go wrong in this stage-
too much control or too little control.
Both lead to anal fixation.
 If parents exhibit either of these
extremes during toilet training, then a
child may grow up to be anally expulsive
or anally retentive.
 “Anally expulsive” – limited levels of
self-control, defiance, hostility, are
disorganized / scatterbrained
 “Anally retentive” – Rigid, obsessively
organized, and overly subservient to
authority.
 After moving past the Anal Stage, the
child will transition into the Phallic
Stage.
 The Phallic Stage (3-6)
 The most intricate of the five stages; erogenous
zone shifts from the anus to the genitals.
 Freud developed his theory from the male
perspective (thus, “phallic” = “penis”)
 Males have the potential to develop an Oedipal
Complex, while females can develop an Electra
Complex.
 Oedipus Complex: Males are sexually intrigued by
their mothers and jealous of their father’s intrusion.
 Castration anxiety may develop as the boy
understands that his mother does not have a penis;
the child will repress his love for his mother and
Oedipus the King, solving the attempt to become like his father, thus developing a
Riddle of the Sphinx
“superego”.
 The Phallic Stage (continued)
 Electra Complex: Girls begin to
become attracted to their fathers, and
fall into a “penis envy” period (in
contrast to castration anxiety).
 Failure to resolve either of the
complexes can lead to fixation in this
stage.
 Phallic character: recklessness,
resoluteness, self-assuredness, and
narcissism.
 Unresolved incestuous complexes can
lead to a difficulty in dealing with
authority figures and a tendency to
have trouble with loving relationships.
 The Phallic Stage (continued)
Some believe that children who develop in single-parent or
abusive households never move past the Phallic Stage,
leading to “daddy issues”, etc.
Freud also believed that fixation in this stage sometimes
resulted in homosexuality due to the child’s inability to
identify properly with a rival parent (gender identity
problems).
If the Phallic Stage is resolved properly by the ego, the child
will then move into the Latency Stage, which is the most
peaceful interval in a person’s psychosexual development.
 The Latency Stage (8-13/Puberty)
 Not necessarily a stage in psychosexual
development; is more of transitioning
period between the Phallic and Genital
Stages.
 Sexual drive is dormant during this time
 Children in this stage repress their sexual
desires to focus on areas like academics
and athletics, etc.
 Same-sex friendships develop during this
time as well (not to be confused with
homosexual relationships)
 The Latency Stage is vital to a person’s
exploration of academic pursuits and
subjects that are not sexually oriented;
however, this perspective soon changes
radically.
 The Genital Stage (From Puberty-?)
 Following the Latency Stage, the
child’s sexual urges are aroused
once more; this time, the erogenous
zone shifts to the genitals.
 This stage is inversely related to the
other psychosexual stages, meaning
that less exposure in the other stages
will results in higher levels of sexual
expression in the Genital Stage.
 For example, if a child were to focus
on the Phallic Stage, then he would
establish Oedipal defense  Improper transitioning into the Genital
mechanisms and would not move stage may result in failure to form
into the Latency Stage properly (and heterosexual relationships in the future.
then on to the Genital Stage).
 QUICK RECAP
Who was Sigmund
EGO
Freud? •
What inspired thistoschool of
I want Dynamic • I am on a
eat • Eats a super diet!
thought? chocolate! Psychoanalysis
small bar
Psychoanalysi Topographical
of SUPEREG
s ID Psychoanalysis O
chocolate
Economic
Psychoanalytic model of Psychoanalysis
personality
The structure
The ice berg model
model
 The Psychosexual Development
ORAL Stages
ANAL PHALLIC LATENC GENITAL
Y

Over-fed Much Control Oedipus Academic Sexual

Under-fed Less control Complex Pursuits Expression
Electra Complex
Aggression Expulsive
Depression Retentive Castration Transfer Inability to form
Obsessive Anxiety heterosexual
habits Troubled relationships
Relationships
Daddy Issues
 Can you explain defence mechanisms?
• The term got its start in psychoanalytic
therapy, but it has slowly worked its way
into everyday language.
• In Sigmund Freud's topographical model
of personality, the ego is the aspect of
personality that deals with reality.
• While doing this, the ego also has to cope
with the conflicting demands of the id and
the superego.
• The id seeks to fulfil all wants, needs and
impulses while the superego tries to get
the ego to act in an idealistic and moral
manner.

What happens when the ego cannot deal

with the demands of our desires, the
constraints of reality and our own moral
standards ?
 Further on Defence Mechanisms
According to Freud, anxiety is an unpleasant inner state that people seek to avoid.
Anxiety acts as a signal to the ego that things are not going right. Frued identified
three types of anxiety:
• Neurotic anxiety is the unconscious worry that we will lose control of the id's
urges, resulting in punishment for inappropriate behavior.
• Reality anxiety is fear of real-world events. The cause of this anxiety is
usually easily identified. For example, a person might fear receiving a dog bite
when they are near a menacing dog. The most common way of reducing this
anxiety is to avoid the threatening object.
• Moral anxiety involves a fear of violating our own moral principles. In order
to deal with this anxiety, Freud believed that defense mechanisms helped
shield the ego from the conflicts created by the id, superego and reality.
 Denial - Denial is an outright refusal to admit or recognize that something
has occurred or is currently occurring. Drug addicts or alcoholics often
deny that they have a problem, while victims of traumatic events may deny
that the event ever occurred.
 Repression - Repression acts to keep information out of conscious
awareness. However, these memories don't just disappear; they continue to
influence our behavior. For example, a person who has repressed
memories of abuse suffered as a child may later have difficulty forming
relationships.
 Suppression - Sometimes we do this consciously by forcing the unwanted
information out of our awareness, which is known as suppression. In most
cases, however, this removal of anxiety-provoking memories from our
awareness is believed to occur unconsciously.
• Displacement - Displacement involves taking out our frustrations, feelings
and impulses on people or objects that are less threatening. Displaced
aggression is a common example of this defense mechanism.
• Sublimation - Sublimation is a defence mechanism that allows us to act out
unacceptable impulses by converting these behaviours into a more acceptable
form. For example, a person experiencing extreme anger might take up kick-
boxing as a means of venting frustration.
• Projection - Projection is a defense mechanism that involves taking our own
unacceptable qualities or feelings and ascribing them to other people. For
example, if you have a strong dislike for someone, you might instead believe
that he or she does not like you
• Intellectualization - Intellectualization works to reduce anxiety by thinking
about events in a cold, clinical way. For example, a person who has just been
diagnosed with a terminal illness might focus on learning everything about the
disease in order to avoid distress and remain distant from the reality of the
situation.
• Rationalization - Rationalization is a defense mechanism that involves
explaining an unacceptable behavior or feeling in a rational or logical manner,
avoiding the true reasons for the behavior. For example a student might blame a
poor exam score on the instructor rather than his or her lack of preparation.
• Regression - When confronted by stressful events, people sometimes abandon
coping strategies and revert to patterns of behavior used earlier in development.
For example, an individual fixated at an earlier developmental stage might cry
or sulk upon hearing unpleasant news.
How to use all this as Therapeutic
Techniques?
The six basic techniques of psychoanalytic therapy
are :
I. Maintaining the Analytic Framework
II. Free Association
III. Interpretation
IV. Dream Analysis
V. Analysis of Resistance
VI.Analysis of Transference
Therapeutic Goals
• Help the client become more aware of the
unconscious material
• Enriching the variety of defense mechanism so that
they are more effective & adaptable
• To be able to cope with difficulties and demands
• Strengthening of the Ego

Therapist Function’s And Role

• Analyst/therapist will use ‘black-screen’ approach where he/she will
has little exposure and maintain sense of neutrality
• This is to promote TRANSFERENCE RELATIONSHIP with client
While the client are engaging in ‘free association’,
the analyst will interpret the hidden meaning
behind their words.
The function of interpretation is to speed up the
process of uncovering unconscious material
Later, the analyst will teach their client their
meaning of the process of interpretation so that the
client will :
1. Gain insight of their problem
2. Increase awareness of ways to change
3. Gain control over their life
1. Maintaining the Analytic
Framework

• Maintaining therapist’s neutrality and objectivity

• The regularity and consistency of meetings
• Starting and ending the sessions on time
• Clarity on the fees
• Explain the basic boundary issues
2. Free Association
• Clients must say whatever that comes to mind, regardless
of how painful, silly or irrelevant it may seem
• Client must try to flow any feelings and thought freely
• This is the basic tool used to open the door to unconscious
wishes, conflicts and motivation
• Unconscious material will enter the conscious and the
therapist will interpret it
 Involves a therapist reading a list of words (e.g. mother, childhood
etc.) and the patient immediately responds with the first word that
comes to mind.
 Free association may not prove useful if the client shows resistance
 Presence of resistance (e.g. an excessively long pause) often
provides a strong clue that the client is getting close to some
important repressed idea in his or her thinking, and that further
probing by the therapist is called for.
 Freud reported that his free associating patients occasionally
experienced such an emotionally intense and vivid memory that
they almost relived the experience.
 This is like a "flashback" from a war or a rape experience. Such a
stressful memory, so real it feels like it is happening again, is called
an abreaction.
 If such a disturbing memory occurred in therapy or with a
supportive friend and one felt better--relieved or cleansed--later, it
3. Interpretation
• Analyst will explain the meaning of behaviors in dreams,
free association and etc.
• Identify, clarify and translate clients material
• To help client make sense of their lives and to expand their
consciousness
• Analyst must pay attention not only to the content but also
the process of conveying it to the patient
• The patients readiness to accept the material is an
important consideration.
• If the interpretation are too deep, the patient might not be
able to accept it and bring it into the conscious mind.
• Therefore, before telling the interpretation to the patient,
the analyst must evaluate the unconscious material.
• The closer the material to the preconscious, the more
likely the patient will accept it
4. Dream Analysis

• The avenue to study the unconscious material and giving

the client insight into some areas of unresolved problems
• Some memories are unacceptable by the ego that they are
expressed in symbolic form(dream)
• Dreams have two level of content which is Latent Content
(hidden but true meaning) and Manifest Content (obvious
meaning)
• Analyst studies content of dreams
5.Analysis of Resistance
• Progress of the therapy is slow - not paying fees, being late,
blocking thoughts during free association, refusing to recall
past memories
• Paying attention to resistance are important, the decision of
when to interpret the resistance and tell the client depends
on situation
• Therapist must avoid being judgmental, instead allow him
to address what makes him anxious
• Therapist must make client understand of their own
thought, feelings and action
6. Analysis of Transference

• Clients react to therapist as though they were a

significant other
• Counselor interprets the positive and negative
feelings of the client
• Release of feeling is an emotional catharsis
• Clients become aware of the emotions and able to
move onto another developmental stage
• Transference between client and therapist occur on
unconscious level
Some more applications
Rorschach ink blots
It is what you “read” into it that is important.
Different people will “see” different things depending
on what unconscious connections they make.
The ink blot is known as a projective test as the patient
'projects' information from their unconscious mind to
interpret the ink blot.
However, behavioural psychologists such as B.F.
Skinner have criticized this method as being subjective
and unscientific
 Freudian Slip
 Unconscious thoughts and feelings can transfer to the conscious mind in the
form of parapraxes, popularly known as “Freudian slips” or slips of the
tongue.
 We reveal what is really on our mind by saying something we didn’t mean
to.
 For example, a nutritionist giving a lecture intended to say “We should
always demand the best in bread”, but instead said “bed”.
 Another example is where a person may call a friend’s new partner by the
name of a previous one, whom we liked better.
 Freud believed that slips of the tongue provided an insight into the
unconscious mind and that there were no accidents, every behaviour
(including slips of the tongue) was significant (i.e. all behaviour is
determined).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpw8a8uo_xk
 So any use for Clinical Applications?
 Anxiety disorders such as phobias, panic attacks, obsessive-
compulsive disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder
 The aim is to assist the client in coming to terms with their own id
impulses or to recognize the origin of their current anxiety in
childhood relationships that are being relived in adulthood.
 Salzman (1980) suggests that psychodynamic therapies generally
are of little help to clients with specific anxiety disorders such as
phobias or OCDs but may be of more help with general anxiety
disorders.
 Salzman (1980) in fact expresses concerns that psychoanalysis
may increase the symptoms of OCDs because of the tendency of
such clients to be overly concerned with their actions and to
ruminate on their plight (Noonan, 1971).
 Depression may be treated with a psychoanalytic approach to some
extent. Psychoanalysts relate depression back to the loss every child
experiences when realizing our separateness from our parents early in
childhood. An inability to come to terms with this may leave the person
prone to depression or depressive episodes in later life.
 Treatment then involves encouraging the client to recall that early
experience and to untangle the fixations that have built up around it. The
aim is for clients to become less dependent and to develop a more
functional way of understanding and accepting loss/rejection/change in
their lives.
 Shapiro et al. (1991) report that psychodynamic therapies have been
successful only occasionally.
 One reason might be that depressed people may be too inactive or
unmotivated to participate in the session. In such cases a more directive,
challenging approach might be beneficial.
 Another reason might be that depressives may expect a quick cure and as
psychoanalysis does not offer this, the client may leave or become overly
involved in devising strategies to maintain a dependent transference
relationship with the analyst
How does the therapy stand to scrutiny?
 Therapy is very time-consuming and is unlikely to provide answers
quickly.
 People must be prepared to invest a lot of time and money into the
therapy; they must be motivated.
 They might discover some painful and unpleasant memories that had
been repressed, which causes them more distress.
 This type of therapy does not work for all people and for all types of
disorders.
 The nature of Psychoanalysis creates a power imbalance between
therapist and client that could raise ethical issues.
 Fisher and Greenberg (1977), in a review of literature, conclude that
psychoanalytic theory cannot be accepted or rejected as a package, 'it
is a complete structure consisting of many parts, some of which should
be accepted, others rejected and the others at least partially reshaped'.
 Fonagy (1981) questions whether attempts to validate Freud's
approach through laboratory tests have any validity themselves.
Freud's theory questions the very basis of a rationalist, scientific
approach and could well be seen as a critique of science, rather than
science rejecting psychoanalysis because it is not susceptible to
refutation.
 The case study method is criticized as it is doubtful that
generalizations can be valid since the method is open to many kinds of
bias.
 However, psychoanalysis is concerned with offering interpretations to
the current client, rather than devising abstract dehumanized
principles.
 Anthony Storr (1987), the well-know psychoanalyst appearing on TV
and Radio 4's 'All in the Mind', holds the view that whilst a great
many psychoanalysts have a wealth of 'data' at their fingertips from
cases, these observations are bound to be contaminated with
subjective personal opinion and should not be considered scientific
 Any Criticisms for the theory?
• The theory is focused almost entirely on male development with little
mention of female psychosexual development.
• Theories are difficult to test scientifically. Concepts such as the libido are
impossible to measure, and therefore cannot be tested.
• Future predictions are too vague. How can we know that a current
behavior was caused specifically by a childhood experience? The length of
time between the cause and the effect is too long to assume that there is a
relationship between the two variables.
• Freud's theory is based upon case studies and not empirical research. Also,
Freud based his theory on the recollections of his adult patients, not on
actual observation and study of children.
THANK YOU.
FREUDIAN CASE STUDIES
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daNCad
9YrPQ&list=PLbVFd0prSjYe8TmXsKd15nVfE
2acwFv8l
 RAT MAN CASE
 The case study was published in 1909 in
German
 Patient of Sigmund Freud-The subject was not
directly disclosed in the course of Freud’s notes
 Case received its name from a torture that
patient had heard about from a military officer,
where rats would eat their way into the anus of
the victim
 Patient felt a compulsion to imagine that this
fate was befalling two people dear to him,
specifically his father and his fiancée
 Irrational nature of this obsession -the man
had the greatest regard for his fiancée and his
father had actually been dead
 RAT MAN CASE
Treatment process Freud’s interpretations
Method used by Freud: • Obsessive ideas and similar
Talking Cure thoughts were produced by
• Rat Man was conflicts consisting of the
encouraged to share combination of loving and
• The patient presented aggressive impulses
with obsessional relating to the people
thoughts and with concerned
behaviours that he felt • Freud felt that the subject
compelled to carry out had unresolved oedipal
• During the course of issues
the talking treatment, • The patient’s fantasies and
subject begins to obsessional thoughts were
“transfer” his feelings caused by his sexual
towards Freud – experiences of infancy,
potential Father-in- especially the punishment
Law for masturbation
• This leads to his subject
wanting to dominate his
father and the “torture”
was a manifestation
Outcome
• Sigmund Freud
mentioned that defense
mechanisms such as
rationalization and
displacement were
involved
• The Rat Man was cured,
his fantasies started to
vanish and he was now
able to live his life in an
appropriate way
• This case history is one
more example of how
mental problems can be
solved through analysis
 DORA : AN ANALYSIS OF A CASE
OF HYSTERIA
 Dora Case is a famous case study described by Sigmund Freud. In 1905, Freud
published Dora Case in his new book, called Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of
Hysteria.
 Dora is the pseudonym given by Sigmund Freud to a patient diagnosed with hysteria.
Her real name was Ida Bauer. She was born on 1882 and died on 1945. Dora came to
see Freud when she was 18 years old. She developed several symptoms,
including dyspnea (difficulty breathing, hysterical
choking), cough, depression,avoidance of social
contact, threatens suicide, fainting spells, and aphonia (loss of voice).
 Dora lived with her parents and her brother, Otto. Her father, Philip Bauer, was a rich
textile industrialist, born in 1853. Her mother, Katherina Gerber, was born in 1862.
Dora’s parents had a beautiful relationship, based on real love. They became friends
with another couple, Herr and Frau K. (this are the names given by S. Freud).
 Dora sustained that Herr K. made her a sexual advance and she slapped his face. Herr
K denied all accusations. Dora’s father never believed her. He could not believe that his
best friend tried to abuse her daughter. Dora told Freud that her father had a
relationship with Frau K. and this may be the reason for which her father does not
believe her.
 The Dreams
 This is the first dream Dora recounted to Freud:
 “A house was on fire. My father was standing beside my bed and woke me up. I dressed
quickly. Mother wanted to stop and save her jewel-case; but Father said: ‘I refuse to let
myself and my two children be burnt for the sake of your jewel-case.’ We hurried
downstairs, and as soon as I was outside I woke up.”

 The second dream Dora recounted to Freud is:

 “I was walking about in a town which I did not know. I saw streets and squares which
were strange to me. Then I came into a house where I lived, went to my room, and found a
letter from Mother lying there. She wrote saying that as I had left home without my
parents’ knowledge she had not wished to write to me to say Father was ill. “Now he is
dead, and if you like you can come.” I then went to the station and asked about a hundred
times: “Where is the station?” I always got the answer: “Five minutes.” I then saw a thick
wood before me which I went into, and there I asked a man whom I met. He said to me:
“Two and a half hours more.” He offered to accompany me. But I refused and went alone.
I saw the station in front of me and could not reach it. At the same time, I had the unusual
feeling of anxiety that one has in dreams when one cannot move forward. Then I was at
home. I must have been travelling in the meantime, but I knew nothing about that. I
walked into the porter’s lodge, and enquired for our flat. The maidservant opened the door
to me and replied that Mother and the others were already at the cemetery”.
Freud’s Interpretation

 Freud interprets both dreams as referring to Dora’s sexual life. The jewel
case is a symbol of her virginity. Her father did not protect her from Her
K. Freud sees Dora as repressing a desire for her father, a desire for Herr
K, and a desire for Frau K as well.
 Through analysis, Freud interpreted Dora’s hysteria as a manifestation of
her jealousy toward the relationship between Frau K and her father. At
the beginning, the cure was a successful one. Freud helped Dora to get rid
of her cough. Freud pushed her to accept an attraction for to Her K.
Unfortunately, Dora was not able to accept this idea and he became more
and more distant. Dora stopped the treatment, after eleven months.
Freud considered this to be a therapeutic failure.
 Freud sustained the treatment failed because he ignored the
transference, an important phenomena in psychoanalysis.
 Dora case study helps us better understand how our unsolved internal
conflicts influence our psychological and physiological health.
Anna “O” (Bertha Pappenheim)

 Patient of Breuer  Treated for severe cough,

paralysis of the extremities on the right side of
her body, and disturbances of vision, hearing,
and speech, as well as hallucination and loss of
consciousness
 Was diagnosed with hysteria
 Freud implied that her illness was a result of
the resentment felt over her father's real and
physical illness that later led to his death
 She experienced 'absences' change of
personality accompanied by confusion
 She would mutter words or phrases to herself
Free Association & Transference

 She said anything that came to her mind  Chimney Sweeping

 The doctor noted down all the words and phrases she was muttering while
in those “absences”
 Later , he put her under hypnosis and he repeated the same words
 Hypnosis was stopped by her but she continued saying whatever came to
her mind(free association) irrespective of rationality
 After several meetings and discussions, Breuer found out the cause of her
illness- Bertha’s father was very ill
 While she sat by his bed, she experienced aphasia, eating disorders and
amnesia
 When transference happened, treatment was stopped
 ModernDiagnosis–
sufferedfromcomplexpartialseizures,soherillnesswasnotjustpsychological,
asFreudsuggested,butneurological
 Relevance to Counselling

 The method of free associations demands us to

temporarily give up intellectual censorship and freely
speak about any thought
 Later analysis of thoughts produced by means of the
above-mentioned method reveals certain repetitive
topics indicative of psychic unconscious complexes of
emotional charge
 They are autonomously activated by chance verbal
associations
 The task of psychoanalysis is to bring such complexes to
the surface of conscious mind, and integrate them into
the patient's life
Source: http://freudpsychoanalysis.com/case-studies-by-sigmund-freud/
http://www.freudfile.org/psychoanalysis/free_associations.html
Little Hans

 Hans Problem He felt unsafe on leaving the house because he

saw numerous horses right outside the door
 He also mentions that he especially fears the white horses with
black patches around the mouth and they also wore blinkers
 On the other hand, Hans’ father interpreted this as a reference
to his moustaches and spectacles
 Freud’s conclusion The boy was afraid that his father would
castrate him for desiring his own mother
 Freud’s interpretation The horses were symbolic of Hans’
phobia that the horse(father) would bite off(castrate) him for
harbouring incestuous desires for his mother
Interpretation

 The end of Hans’ phobia of horses was

followed by two significant fantasies
 First Fantasy Hans had several
imaginary children. When asked who
their mother was, Hans replies, “Why,
mummy and you are their
Granddaddy”
 Second fantasy The next day, Hans
imagined that the plumber had come
and first removed his bottom and then
his “widdler” and later on, given him a
larger version of each
Source:http://www.simplypsychology.org/little-hans.html
FREUDIAN CLOSING SESSION
Sandip Sahoo
Somil Goel
Ravi Ranjan
RECAP

 The central focus of this session.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vFf5CS27-
Y
 DORA : AN ANALYSIS OF A CASE
OF HYSTERIA
 Dora Case is a famous case study described by Sigmund Freud. In 1905, Freud
published Dora Case in his new book, called Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of
Hysteria.
 Dora is the pseudonym given by Sigmund Freud to a patient diagnosed with hysteria.
Her real name was Ida Bauer. She was born on 1882 and died on 1945. Dora came to
see Freud when she was 18 years old. She developed several symptoms,
including dyspnea (difficulty breathing, hysterical
choking), cough, depression,avoidance of social
contact, threatens suicide, fainting spells, and aphonia (loss of voice).
 Dora lived with her parents and her brother, Otto. Her father, Philip Bauer, was a rich
textile industrialist, born in 1853. Her mother, Katherina Gerber, was born in 1862.
Dora’s parents had a beautiful relationship, based on real love. They became friends
with another couple, Herr and Frau K. (this are the names given by S. Freud).
 Dora sustained that Herr K. made her a sexual advance and she slapped his face. Herr
K denied all accusations. Dora’s father never believed her. He could not believe that his
best friend tried to abuse her daughter. Dora told Freud that her father had a
relationship with Frau K. and this may be the reason for which her father does not
believe her.
 The Dreams
 This is the first dream Dora recounted to Freud:
 “A house was on fire. My father was standing beside my bed and woke me up. I dressed
quickly. Mother wanted to stop and save her jewel-case; but Father said: ‘I refuse to let
myself and my two children be burnt for the sake of your jewel-case.’ We hurried
downstairs, and as soon as I was outside I woke up.”

 The second dream Dora recounted to Freud is:

 “I was walking about in a town which I did not know. I saw streets and squares which
were strange to me. Then I came into a house where I lived, went to my room, and found a
letter from Mother lying there. She wrote saying that as I had left home without my
parents’ knowledge she had not wished to write to me to say Father was ill. “Now he is
dead, and if you like you can come.” I then went to the station and asked about a hundred
times: “Where is the station?” I always got the answer: “Five minutes.” I then saw a thick
wood before me which I went into, and there I asked a man whom I met. He said to me:
“Two and a half hours more.” He offered to accompany me. But I refused and went alone.
I saw the station in front of me and could not reach it. At the same time, I had the unusual
feeling of anxiety that one has in dreams when one cannot move forward. Then I was at
home. I must have been travelling in the meantime, but I knew nothing about that. I
walked into the porter’s lodge, and enquired for our flat. The maidservant opened the door
to me and replied that Mother and the others were already at the cemetery”.
Freud’s Interpretation

 Freud interprets both dreams as referring to Dora’s sexual life. The jewel
case is a symbol of her virginity. Her father did not protect her from Her
K. Freud sees Dora as repressing a desire for her father, a desire for Herr
K, and a desire for Frau K as well.
 Through analysis, Freud interpreted Dora’s hysteria as a manifestation of
her jealousy toward the relationship between Frau K and her father. At
the beginning, the cure was a successful one. Freud helped Dora to get rid
of her cough. Freud pushed her to accept an attraction for to Her K.
Unfortunately, Dora was not able to accept this idea and he became more
and more distant. Dora stopped the treatment, after eleven months.
Freud considered this to be a therapeutic failure.
 Freud sustained the treatment failed because he ignored the
transference, an important phenomena in psychoanalysis.
 Dora case study helps us better understand how our unsolved internal
conflicts influence our psychological and physiological health.
THE WOLF MAN
Brief Case history
 Sergueï Pankejeff (1886-1979) born 24th December 1886 to a wealthy Russian
aristocratic family in St. Petersburg.
 Following his sister’s suicide in 1906, in 1908 Pankejeff consulted some of the most
eminent psychiatrists in Europe.

Mother Father Sister Nurse Nanya English Wife Theresa

Governess
Pious ‘Manic- Lively, gifted,
Loved Sergie Eccentric and Nurse working
Woman, depressive’ Withdrewas a quarrelsome a Sanatorium,
Controlled Long absence from society
‘substitute’ woman, committed
sexual from home in 1906 son,
and he loved addicted to suicide in 1938
influences poisonedher very much alcohol
through herself
religion

 Pankejeff’s official diagnosis was ‘Manic-Depressive Insanity’ made by an eminent

psychiatrist Dr. Emil Kraeplin (1856–1926).
 Sigmund Freud questioned Dr. Kraeplin’s diagnostic authority, as he thought the young
man had ‘Obsessional Neurosis’.

The Dream of the Window Opening and 6 or 7 Motionless
White Wolves sitting still in a Tree Watching him.
A Dream is a fulfilment of a Wish
Pankejeff’s masochistic tendencies at the time of the
dream, years after he witnessed the primal scene,
suggested to Freud that the sexual act he envisioned
between his father and himself would be one in which he
assumed the passive role and his father the active role.
Pankejeff’s Anxiety Nightmare
"I dreamt that it was night and that I was lying
in bed. (My bed stood with its foot towards the
window; in front of the window there was a row
of old walnut trees. I know it was winter when I
had the dream, and night-time.)
Suddenly the window opened of its own accord,
and I was terrified to see that some white
wolves were sitting on the big walnut tree in
front of the window. There were six or seven of
them. The wolves were quite white and looked
more like foxes or sheep-dogs, for they had big
tails like foxes and they had their ears pricked
like dogs when they pay attention to something.
In great terror, evidently of being eaten up by
the wolves, I screamed and woke up.
My nurse hurried to my bed to see what had
happened to me. It took quite a long while
before I was convinced that it had only been a
dream. I had had such a clear and life-like
picture of the window opening and the wolves
sitting on the tree. At last I grew quieter, felt as
though I had escaped from some danger and
went to sleep again.”
(Freud, 1918, p.29)
Infantile Sexuality / Neurosis

Freud thought that the ‘cause’ of the 18 year olds breakdown was much earlier, “his
early years were dominated by severe neurotic disturbance”, which began before his
fourth birthday as an ‘Anxiety Hysteria’ in the shape of an ‘Animal Phobia’. The
‘Anxiety Hysteria’ then changed into an ‘Obsessional Neurosis’ with a religious
content.

Infantile Sexuality, Rivalry and Conflict

• Conflict between City and Country life, Society and Nature, Laws and Instincts.
• Rivalry and conflict between Sergueï’s and his more aggressive older sister Anna.
• Sexual seduction of Sergueï by his older sister, who seduced him into sexual practices.
• Jealousy and rivalry between Anna and the nurse e.g. Anna told Sergueï abusive and
slanderous stories about the nurse Nanya having sex the gardener and other men.
• Hostility felt by Sergueï towards his English governess, that he disliked.
• Rivalry between his beloved nurse Nanya and his English governess.
• Hostility felt by the English governess towards the boy’s nurse Nanya.
• Sergueï preference for his nurse.
• Father’s unmistakable preference for his daughter Anna and not his son Sergueï.
• Aggressivity of his sister Anna became identified with the aggressivity of the governess.
 Oedipus Complex and Fairy Tales - Determinants of Anxiety Dreams and Animal Phobia

“The effect produced

by these stories…
was shown by a
regular animal phobia.”
(Freud, 1918, p.32)
Wolf and the Seven
Little Goats.

“There must
have been some
fairy tale behind Little Red Riding Hood
his recollection”
(Freud, 1918, p. 31)

Oedipus Complex and Animal Phobia

In children’s animal phobias, animals are substitutes for the Father. Phobic reactions to animals arise out of the
Oedipus Complex and Freud thought they were among the earliest of childhood Psychoneuroses. Children displace
mixed ambivalent emotions towards the father onto an animal, but this displacement does not bring an end to the
conflict since the animal is regarded with both fear and interest.
 PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT
Talking: Cure through Language – Memory Tracing
Pankejeff would talk about forgotten memories of his childhood, related to the
complicated attachments he had to his pre-schizophrenic sister.
Together with Freud, they would try to reconstruct an intelligible story of his
psychosexual development. The information provided by his free associations was
employed as manifest material and attempts were made at filling in the gaps in his
memory.

Remembering Childhood Conflicts

A story Pankejeff heard ‘repeated’ in his childhood, was that at first he was a quite good
boy, but later became irritable and violent and “flew into a rage and screamed like a
savage.” (Freud, 1918, p.15)
Sergueï’s mother thought the ‘alteration’ in his character was due to the detrimental
influence of the governess. While his grandmother, thought his ‘irritability’ had been
provoked by arguments between the nurse and governess. The boy took the side of the
nurse and “let the governess see his rage.” (Freud, 1918, p.15)

Freud, S. (1914) Remembering, Repeating and Working Through and Freud, S. (1918[1914]) From the History of
an Infantile Neurosis,Vol. 17, An Infantile Neurosis and Other Works .
Dream Analysis
Pankejeff reported to Freud that the, “only piece of action in the
dream was the opening of the window; for the wolves sat quite still
without making any movement on the branches of the tree and
looked at me.” (Freud, 1918, p.29)
Freud thought this part of the dream contained a ‘reversal’.
It was the boy himself who had seen something (the primal scene)
and the opening of the window implied that what he had seen was
eye opening, but had caused him to feel enormously anxious, as if
he had seen something that he was not supposed to see.

Reconstruction of the Primal Scene

This view of the ‘window opening’ being the action center of the
dream, led away from Freud’s initial thought that the dream arose
from remnants of the fairytales and stories told to him, to the
conviction that behind the dream lay a real event. Namely, an
experience when he was 1½ sleeping in his parents bedroom and
witnessed them having sex from behind the way animals have sex,
‘doggy style’. The boy assumed the scene was an act of violence, but
“the expression of enjoyment he saw on his mother’s face did not fit
with this” and he was obliged to recognize the experience was one of
pleasure.
 Freud’s Analysis
Loss of Chronological Time in Memory: Sergueï remembered a ‘naughty period’
in which he transformed into an irritable violent child

Unconscious Repetition and Identification with Mother’s Illness: His intestinal

disorder was an identification with his mother, imitating her hypochondria, he
became nervous of his health.

Sexual Seduction by his Sister: At 3¼ years of age his sister Anna seduced him
into sexual practices. The sister’s seduction forced him into a passive role and had
given him a passive sexual aim.

Cruel English Governess (Bad Object): He identified the governess with the
bitchyness and slanderousness of his sister, i.e. a negative transference.

Threat of Castration: As a small infant he began to play with his penis in his
nurse’s presence as an attempt to seduce her. Nanya said that wasn’t good. The
comment was experienced as a threat and the boy’s dependence on his nurse
began to diminish. His emerging genital development was thwarted and he was
unable to express his libido. Instead, he got angry and started having fits of rage.
Alteration of Character: He gave up masturbating so that his sexual life, which
was just beginning to become genital, gave way before this obstacle and regressed
into a pre-genital stage of development. As a result of the suppression of his
sexuality, he became irritable, torturing animals and humans for sexual
gratification.

Pious Mother: His mother acquainted him with the Bible stories in order to elevate
him. Sergueï longed to be pious like his ideal Nanya and performed rituals like
praying every night and kissing all the holy pictures that hung in his room.
However, he had blasphemous thoughts about God and the Holy Trinity.

Fear of the Father

In the early years, relationship had been affectionate – a positive transference.
Initially the father preferred his son, but later the father preferred his sister and the
boy felt slighted. When the father was no longer able to conceal the pathological
features of his character, the boy’s fear of his father became the dominating factor.

Totemic Father
Freud called Pankejeff’s wolf a ‘totemic father-surrogate’ and said his patient had a
‘conscious’ fear of wolves and an ‘unconscious’ fear of his father. His father may
Identification with Christ
A further phase in his relationship with his father was expressed through Pankejeff’s
identification with Christ, the loving son of his father, the divine father. God was another
surrogate father who arrived on the scene after the animal totem had been eclipsed.
Through his identification with Christ, “his extravagant love of his father, which had made
his repression necessary, found its way at length to an ideal sublimation”.

Reconstruction of the Primal Scene

Pankejeff remembered his parent’s sexual intercourse (vaginal penetration from behind)
when he saw their genitals.

Anal Fixation / Eroticism: Pankejeff developed rectal and anal fixations that acted as a
central erotogenic zone for representing his insanity and obsessive compulsive disorder.
The anus became the organ he identified himself with women and through his intestinal
illness he expressed his identification with femininity.

Repressed / Latent Unconscious Homosexuality: The dream signified to Freud that the
wish he longed from his father was to be penetrated and this filled him with horror and he
repressed the impulse. Religion enabled him to bear witness to his love of his father and he
was not haunted by a sense of guilt, as the son’s love of the father was religiously
sanctioned. In this way he drained off his sexual current which had taken the form of
unconscious homosexuality
Differentiating Gender
Freud thought that during the dream of the window opening wide, the boy had fully
understood for the first time that women are sexually different from men.

Repressed Psychosexual Development causing Neurosis.

The sister’s seduction forced him into a passive role and gave him a passive sexual aim.
Sexual impulses and desires were viewed as socially unacceptable.. Instead of normal
psychosexual development, infantile neurosis resulted from the repression of his sexual
desires.

Unconscious Repetition and Identification with the Primal Scene

Under the influence of the primal scene, Freud thought that the boy concluded that his
mother had became ill by what his father did to her. His identification with his mother,
meant that he was in her place during the sexual scene.

Displaced memory of Copulation

Later Freud posited the possibility that Pankejeff witnessed copulation between animals,
then displaced to his parents.

Religious Sublimation
The boy’s mother’s and nurse’s efforts to educate him into the Christian faith contributed to
his sexual repression, to the arrest of his psychosexual development and to formation of an
obsessional neurosis reflected in blasphemous thoughts and compulsive acts.
Pankejeff’s Transference to Freud
In his transferences to Freud, he expressed unmet developmental needs for mirroring and
for an idealized self-object. He had a passive attitude of obliging apathy towards Freud –
perhaps perceived as the Wolf Man – and seemed to long for experiences of idealization
and mirroring and a relationship in which his narcissistic needs could be satisfied.
The ‘passive’ or ‘negative’ transference was expressed in Pankejeff’s submissiveness
after an interruption imposed by Freud and experienced by him as not having any choice
in the matter, i.e. Freud being controlling.

Freud’s Counter-Transference
Freud was mirroring Pankejeff’s repetitive transferences and must have responded to his
narcissistic longings by providing opportunities for idealizing transferences, but
Pankejeff had resistances to working through the characteristics of his desired ‘good’
objects.
The development of a healthy sense of self depends on the consistent availability of good
self-objects, but Pankejeff’s lack of good internal objects had led to his depression and
apathy that must have frustrated Freud.
The analysis led Freud to develop a negative counter-transference towards his patient,
which developed as a backlash effect of Pankejeff’s excessively passive transference.

Buirski, P. & Haglund, P. (1998) The Wolf Man’s Subjective Experience of His Treatment with Freud.
Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol. 15, Issue 1, pp.49-62.
Langs, R.J. (1972) ‘The Misalliance Dimension of the Case of the Wolf Man’, in Kanzer, M. & Glenn, J. (1980)
Freud and his Patients. Aronson, New York.
THE CASE OF BOB LYONS
CASE FACTS

 Highly successful executive – important

position in a large company
 Good athlete – swimming, hunting, golf,
tennis
 Church and parties – three children
 Vice President was mighty pleased – asked
for additional responsibility on two
occassions
CASE FACTS

 Replies to memos were delayed

 Got into a quarrel with two executives
 Had a long chat with the VP
 VP smelled trouble – called wife
 Insomnia was also occurring
CASE FACTS

 Admitted into a Hospital – on medication

 Another patient told VP – morose and depressed
 Discharged because of no physical illness
 Suggested to take a vacation
 Stayed at home for some days – took a vacation
to meet friends – Another week given off by VP
 Then , one day VP called – wife could not find
him – had committed suicide
PROBLE-

 Painful for the person who suffers and those

who deal with the person
 Destructive to the sufferer and the
organisation
 Origins are complex for either party to
realise; even the precipitating events
 Person dealing with the problem on-the-job
also rarely knows what to do
Heredity?

 Certain capacities and traits – eye color, nose

size
 Sensory and motor capacities – see, hear, feel
stimuli more keenly
 Mother’s diet, the illnesses she has during
pregnancy, and her general physical
condition affect the human fetus
Something physical?

 Inherit the capacity to coordinate their muscles

with greater or lesser efficiency
 May not inherit athletic or artistic skill, but
some inherit such a high level of sensitivity and
physiological harmony that they seem to have
a “natural bent” toward certain talents
 In general, people differ in the combination of
endowments that they have and in the degree
to which these endowments enable them to
cope with life’s stress
Family influence?

 social pressures and intimacy of relationships

with parents are transmitted through parents
to children
 Extended period of dependency also poses a
problem: wish to retain dependency and
desire to become an independent adult
 Dependency needs – resolved or unresolved
 Different companies will have different
dependency requirement of employees
SOMETHING INSIDE HIM

 Heredity causes seem unlikely

 Something inside him – emotional drives
 “aggressive”
 “highly successful”
 “set a vigorous pace”
 “drove himself relentlessly”
 Ways in which he channelized his energy
Warring drives

 Constructive drive (libido) – source of feeling of love,

creativity and psychological growth
 Destructive drive – feelings of anger and hostility
 Fuse these so that Constructive drive tempers controls,
guides Destructive drive
 Destructive drive into career
 Bob – channelized into work, family and community service;
however aggressive drive was dominant
 These two are included in “id” – along with many memories
and experiences
 Repression – process of “forgetting”, - experiences that can
not be handles on conscious level
Repression in Bob Lyon’s
case:
 May have learnt – get parents’ attention by good
performance
 Resented parents’ attitude for measuring love with
high performance
 Difficult to live with anger towards them – repressed
it
 Still “alive” and painful in his Id
 Relationships and experiences that provide affection
and gratification bring out the good side of people,
while those that precipitate frustration and anger
being out that bad side
SOMETHING OUTSIDE HIM

 Discharge drive in socially acceptable ways

only
 Controls on how we may express our drives
vary from culture to culture
 Parents encourage some while discouraging
other behaviours
 Based on the relationship, children either
accept them or let go of these as soon as they
can
Small, still voice

 Conscience – self-governing – Super ego

 Values of the culture
 Rules, prohibitions, taboos
 An ego ideal – image of our future self
 A police-judging or self-critical function
 Super ego develops as you grow and learn
“no” or “don’t”
Conscience and culture

 Superego is acquired and reinforced by the

culture in which one lives
 Many variations among families and sub-
cultures that become part of the superegos of
people in those groups
‘Know then thyself’

 People’s self-images are related to their superegos

 One measure of self-evaluation is the disparity
between self-ideal and how one perceives oneself at
present
 When contrary behaviour to superego is displayed –
guilt – restitution or atonement
 Children develop superego not being fully aware of
the values they are picking up
 Love and hate towards parents is common. We may
not be aware of our guilt related to hostility feelings
towards our parents and keep it inside us
The Balance Wheel

 Superego: built-in governor, internalized civilizing agent

 If values and rules are inconsistent, super ego is inconsistent
 Too many, too strict rules, superego becomes a harsh
taskmaster
 Even without punishment or strict rules, a tyrannical ego can
develop
 If performance is the basis of obtaining love and if there are
unrealistic expectations of extremely high performance –
behaviour tends to have a driven quality
 So much they should do or must do as contrasted to what they
would enjoy doing – feel uncomfortable unless constantly doing
what they feel they should , not exactly knowing why
Home and Job

 Needs for status, recognition, and esteem are

essentially needs for love and affection
 Every person has to deal with the realities of
the environment – whether with the
necessities of earning a living, the frustration
of an unsolved problem, the achievement of
personal goal, or something else.
Ego and Reality

 Something to do the balancing task –ego

 The organized executive functions of the personality,
those functions that have to do with self-control and
with testing reality
 Mental functions as recall, perception, judgement,
attention, and conceptual or abstract thinking
 Impulse arises – ego controls it till it checks with
super ego on consequences
 Process of checking in memory images and
organizing a response is what is known as thinking;
mostly unconscious
Beleaguered Ego

 Carrying out it functions requires strength

 Comes from various sources: basic inherited
capacities, experiences of love and
gratification
 Ego can not process all the stimuli it receives
and hence, some are directly passed onto id
Ego’s assistants

 Anxiety
 Defence mechanisms
Anxiety’s purpose

 Feeling of unease or tension

 There is no state of placid emotional
stability, just as there is never a smooth ocean
or an atmosphere devoid of air currents.
There is no peace of mind short of the grave.
Everyone is always engaged in maintaining
psychological equilibrium.
 Conscious and unconcsious anxiety
Ego defenses
 Mechanisms act automatically to help ego maintain equilibrium:
 Identification – process of behaving like someone else
 Sublimation – process by which basic drives are refined and
directed into acceptable channels
 Temporary devices – automatically called into play when
personality is in threat
 Denial – form of repression
 Rationalization
 Projection
 Idealization
 Reaction formation
 Substitution
 Compensation
 The Defensive Process
 When the ego is threatened in some fashion, anxiety
spontaneously and unconsciously triggers
 At times all of us project our own feelings, but we would
be sick indeed if we felt most of the time that everyone
else had it in for us.
 When emotional conflicts can be diminished and the need
for defensiveness can be decreased, the energy that
ordinarily maintains the defenses is freed for more useful
activity. In a sense, some of the brakes are removed from
the psychological wheel
 In Bob Lyons’s case, he acted to relieve his emotional pain
and killed himself before equilibrium could be restored in
a less destructive way. This balancing process is the
ultimate key to an understanding of Lyons’s case
 Fusion of drives toward appropriate target
 Displacement to less appropriate target
 Containment of drives: Being human, he has
aggressive impulses, but, having a severe
superego, he also feels guilty about them and goes
to great lengths to repress them. Because this man
constantly maintains a high degree of control to
meet the demands of his superego, he is already in
a potentially more explosive situation, ready to
defend himself from the slightest possible threat
 Displacement onto the self
The reason why
 Driven by extremely heavy superego, sublimed his drive
successfully into his work as long as he could
 Such a superego however is never satisfied
 Reaching a goal did not satisfy him, superego drove him
 Then, could no longer work as hard he had, led to environmental
deprivation
 No longer earn love by performing well
 Superego became more relentless
 Vacation – simply added to his guilt and feelings of unworthiness
and inadequacy
 Only way to appease his superego – kill himself
 Felt only temporary gratification from relentlessness
 It was a form of self-sacrifice
Groping for shadows – how can we identify
early symptoms?

 If the ego has a constant balancing task and calls certain

mechanisms into play to carry it out, the ego, being concerned
with psychological economy, will develop mechanisms that are
preferred because they work best consistently.
 The consistent modes of adjustment, the personality traits,
become the hallmarks by which we are known to others.
 Each has preferred modes of adjustment, preferred ways to
consistently maintain equilibrium.
 individuals often can make a contribution to the alteration of
external forces (ego-environment). Even minor changes in the
balance of forces can significantly affect how people feel, think,
and behave.
 The very fact that people do not radically change their styles of
behavior makes it possible to detect signs of emotional stress.
 The first sign of defense against stress is that a person seems to be
conspicuously more like always. A person who is ordinarily quiet may become
withdrawn under stress. If like Lyons, his or her first reaction may well be to
try to work harder.
 Second, if this line of defense does not work well (or if the stress is too severe
or chronic for that method alone), inefficient psychological functioning begins
to appear—vague fears, inability to concentrate, compulsions to do certain
things, increasing irritability, and declining work performance.
 Lyons’s case shows that tension, jitteriness, and inability to hold food or to
sleep all accompanied his psychological stress
 Psychological and physiological symptoms are ways of “binding” or
attempting to control the anxiety.
 That’s why it is dangerous to try to remove symptoms. Instead, it is wiser to
resolve the underlying problem.
 Conspicuous change in behavior indicates that the ego is no longer able to
maintain effective control.
 Obviously irrational behavior indicates the same thing. There is a loss of
contact with reality, seriously impaired judgment, and an inability to be
responsible for oneself. In such a state, Bob Lyons committed suicide.
Cautions

 See symptoms in yourself after reading the

theory
 All behaviour is motivated. The person is
doing the best he or she can. Love neutralises
aggression and diminishes hostility.
 Understanding
 Listening
 Referring
DREAM Analysis Video

 Not shown due to paucity of time

 What Can Psychoanalysis Offer
Organization Studies Today? Taking Stock
of Current SCENARIO
Marianna Fotaki, Susan Long and Howard S. Schwartz

 Greater conceptual inclusivity and crossing the boundaries between the

humanities and science;
 The study of affect and emotion in organizations
 An integration of psychoanalytical insights with social theory via
psychosocial approaches and ‘systems psychoanalysis’
 Linking psychoanalysis to discourses of power and the politics of life.
 Creating fusions between psychoanalysis, feminism and critical social
theory. The vast majority of psychoanalytical theory used to understand
organizations ignores gender, although there is some indication that
current psychoanalytical feminist theories of the body and absence of
women from symbolic space present in the work of Luce Irigaray, Julia
Kristeva and Helene Cixous is gaining ground in organization theory
 Psychonalysis at Organizations

 Psychoanalysis is different from

other human sciences (a brain not
a mind activity)
 However, Freud said Unconscious
is
 A source of motivation
 Active mind’s way of hiding thoughts
and desires from awareness
 Two contrasting approaches-
studying organizations
psychoanalytically and
psychoanalyzing organizations
 Approach A
 Starts from a theoretical and abstract approach, recognizes that organizations
are both a source of creativity and anxiety
 Interferes in the constant dynamics between each individual’s ego and
unconscious
 People’s dreams may be rooted in employee ship
 A loyal employee and drifter are expected to have a different psychological
orientation
 A leader, if places herself in the unconscious location of powerful parent
images, can exert great influence on followers
Approach B
 Starts from an interventionist concern
 Psychological vs org intervention to enhance org functioning?
 Attempts to identify unconscious forces, i.e. rivalries, fear of failure, anger over
betrayals which inhibits collaboration and org performance

Key Differences:
 A is concerned with rigour and analyzability, B with results and effectiveness
 A looks upon conflict as unavoidable in present orgs but B views conflicts as a
result of the same dysfunctions
Foundational Psychoanalytic Insights

 People in and out of organizations are emotional

beings with personal and family histories

 Through work, people seek to fulfill deeper

unconscious desires

 Organizations, as parts of society, become sites

where broader social and cultural dynamics are
enacted

 Organizations offer certain defenses against

anxieties which they provoke

 Not just discontent/anxiety, organizations also

open up possibilities of realizing collective visions
and stimulating contentment and creativity
 Psychoanalytic Interventions(Case Study)
 In a BBC show, Troubleshooter executives, though initially receptive to
criticism, went on the defensive on wide changes that undermine long
held beliefs
 Resistance to criticism
 Resistance to change
 In the game, consultant Psychoanalyst
 The more his diagnosis is resisted, rationalized, closer he is to the truth
 Organization under threat seeks solace in traditional practices and beliefs
 These corporate fantasies can have galvanizing or paralyzing effect
inhibiting growth or change
 The executives become “victims of the fiction they created” and the
organization becomes “neurotic”, fantasies as wide of individuals
 Way out?
 Hire a white knight, chances of success unknown, wrongly credited as well
 Exercise will to recover and not rationalize, reconcile the pursuit of truth with
overcoming of resistances
Thank you!