The Origins of Psychoanalysis

THE ORIGINS OF
PSYCHOANALYSIS
Sigmund Freud
2
 Born 1865 in Freiberg, Moravia to Jacob, his wool-merchant father.

Mother was Jacob’s third wife.
 Moved to Vienna in 1860 until 1938.
 Vienna exciting place of opportunity and optimism. In 1867, Jews

granted political rights and accepted into society.
 Freud assimilated, identifying as a German.
 About the time he was 15, liberal political atmosphere evaporated and
anti-Semitism became virulent, shattering assimilation
 Graduated from University of Vienna medical school with strong interest
in research but quickly married and realized only private practice would
provide needed financial support.
 Published well received scholarly papers on neurological disorders.
 Outbreak of WW II forced him to flee to London, where he died a year
later in 1939.
Freud’s theory is complex because:
3
 He kept modifying it as he went along

 He never presented a comprehensive summary of his final views
 His theory is more comprehensive than must since it has a
number of aspects. For example, he gives us:
 A theory of motivation
 A theory of thinking (which includes dreaming, etc.)
 A theory of personality development (psychosexual theory)
 A theory of mental structures (id, ego, superego)
 A theory of psychopathology and symptom formation
 A theory of psychotherapy
 Psychoanalysis represents not a finished theory but
rather an ongoing process of discovery about the
self - An Outline of Psychoanalysis (1940).
 The Interpretation of Dreams (first published in
1900) and Three Essays on Sexuality (1905).
THE DISCOVERY OF UNCONSCIOUS FORCES
 Psychoanalysis maybe said to begin with the case

history of one of Joseph Breuer’s patients, who is
known in the literature as Anna O.(Freud,1910)
Anna O.
 Among her symptoms were a paralysis of the right
arm and leg, difficulty in vision, nausea, the
inability to drink any liquids, and the inability to
speak or understand her mother tongue. Further,
she was prone to states of absence, an altered state
of consciousness in which there may be
considerable personality change, and later amnesia
or forgetting of events that occurred during that
period.
 Breuer concluded that Anna’s symptoms were
somehow determined by traumatic or stressful
events of the past and that the recollection of these
events had a cathartic effect. Catharsis.
 Talking cure.
 Transference.
 Some time later, Freud recalled the Anna O. episode
and began to use the “talking method” with his own
patients.
 Abandoning hypnosis – a practical necessity.
 a long process - this led him to think that although
the patient consciously wanted to remember those
events, some force within prevented the patient from
becoming aware of them and kept the memories
unconscious .Freud labeled this force resistance.
 Recognizing resistance leads to a dynamic
understanding of unconscious processes, or forces
of which a person is unaware.
 Wishes.
 Underlying Freud’s theory is the concept that
events and happenings in our lives evoke strong
feeling.
 Repression.
THE PSYCHOANALYTIC METHOD OF
ASSESSMENT AND RESEARCH
 Forces at work during trauma
Efforts to
remember
Unexpresse
Resistance
d emotions
Freud developed two primary procedures
 Free Association
 The interpretation of dreams and slips

 In free association, a patient is asked to verbalize whatever
comes to mind, no matter how insignificant, trivial, or even
unpleasant the idea, thought, or picture may seem.
 Free association is based on the premise that no idea is
arbitrary and insignificant.
 After free association, one reflects upon what one has said.
In the process, the resistance is analyzed, understood, and
weakened so that the wish is able to express itself more
directly.
 An activity for the break time.
The Interpretation of Dreams and Slips
 Cause and Motive.

Freudian Slip
 For Freud, the dream is the royal road to the
unconscious.
 Adults and Children.
 Manifest Dream and Latent Dream.
Dream Work:
 One important element is its use of symbols. Some
symbols employed in dreams are unique to the
individual dreamer and can be understood only in
terms of the individual’s particular history and
associations. Others are shared by many dreamers.
 Current neuroscientific evidence supports Freud’s

hypothesis that dreams are motivated phenomena
(Solms, 1999)
The Dynamics and Development of Personality:
 The goal of human behavior was simply to reduce

the tension created by the accumulation of too
much energy and to restore a state of balance -
Importance of Sexuality in his work.
Drive:
Source Impetus
Aim Object
Impulsive drives
Eros – Life Force
Thanatos – Death
Force.
Psychosexual stages of personality
 Freud also provided us with a view of how personality
develops through a series of five psychosexual stages
during which children encounter conflicts between the
demands of society and their own pleasure. According
to Freud, failure to resolve the conflicts at a particular
stage can result in fixations, conflicts or concerns that
persist beyond the developmental period in which they
first occur. Such conflicts may be due to having needs
ignored or (conversely) being overindulged during the
earlier period.
STRUCTURING PERSONALITY: ID, EGO, AND
SUPEREGo
THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE ID,EGO, AND
SUPEREGO TO CONSCIOUSNESS
 The world, Freud once wrote, is anake (the Greek
word for “a lack”), too poor to meet all of our
needs. As the id’s demands increase, the ego
becomes overwhelmed with excessive stimulation
that it cannot control and becomes flooded with
anxiety.
3 kinds of Anxiety
 Reality Anxiety.
 Neurotic Anxiety.
 Moral Anxiety.
In order for an individual to cope with anxiety, the

ego develops defense mechanisms, procedures that
ward off anxiety and prevent our conscious
perception of it
 Defense mechanisms are unconscious strategies
that people use to reduce anxiety by concealing its
source from themselves and others.
Defense Mechanism
 They occur on an unconscious level so that we are
not aware of what we are doing, and they deny or
distort reality so as to make it less threatening.
Activity -2
 Work in Pairs.
 Your group will have 5 minutes to write a short skit
that demonstrates this defense mechanism. Then,
you will share with the class and everyone will
guess which defense mechanism you are
demonstrating.
Psychoanalysis
 We have seen that for Freud neurosis emerges from
an unsatisfactory or arrested libidinal development,
when the realistic satisfaction of erotic needs is
denied. The person turns to neurosis as a surrogate
satisfaction and creates a partially satisfying world
of fantasy.
 The primary question is not “Am I normal or
neurotic?” but rather “To what degree is my
neurosis debilitating?”
 The goal of psychoanalysis is an ambitious one—a
full understanding, reorganization, and basic
change of the personality structure. Such goals
cannot be accomplished quickly or easily.
 Transference.
THE ANALYTIC PROCESS
 Efforts to test Freud’s concepts have been made, and the results
are mixed. It is difficult to translate many of his concepts into
operational procedures that allow for an unequivocal test.
Freud’s theory has more scientific backing than is commonly
recognized. The emerging field of neuropsychoanalytic research
combines neurological objective study of the brain with
psychoanalytic introspective study of the mind.
 Although Freud frequently suggested that his theory functioned
as science, he permitted many of his concepts to function
philosophically. Thus, in the final analysis, Freud’s theory needs
to be evaluated as a philosophy, in terms of its coherence,
relevance, comprehensiveness, and compellingnes

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THE ORIGINS OF

 Born 1865 in Freiberg, Moravia to Jacob, his wool-merchant father.

 Vienna exciting place of opportunity and optimism. In 1867, Jews

 He kept modifying it as he went along

 A theory of thinking (which includes dreaming, etc.)

 A theory of personality development (psychosexual theory)

 A theory of mental structures (id, ego, superego)

 A theory of psychopathology and symptom formation

 Psychoanalysis maybe said to begin with the case

 Forces at work during trauma

 The interpretation of dreams and slips

 Cause and Motive.

 Current neuroscientific evidence supports Freud’s

 The goal of human behavior was simply to reduce

Eros – Life Force

In order for an individual to cope with anxiety, the

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