Psychoanalysis

SIGMUND FREUD
(1856 – 1939)

• Freud known as the “Father of Psychoanalysis”.

• Sigmund Freud was born on May 6, 1856 in Freiberg (then Moravia,
now Czech Republic).

• He was one of 8 children and belonged to a Jewish family.

• At age 4, Freud’s father moved their family to Vienna, Austria.
 OTHER INTERESTING FACTS

• He was an extremely intelligent man.

• Early in his career, he thought cocaine could be a treatment to help

depressed patients; that didn’t work out.

• He smoked so many cigars which is why he developed terrible cancer of the

palate and jaw.
 FREUD’S WRITINGS

• Studies on Hysteria (1895) w/Joseph Breuer

• The Interpretation of Dreams (1900)
• The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901)
• Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905)
• Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905)
• Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920)
 PSYCHOANALYSIS
• Psychoanalysis is a science of understanding human behaviour in
terms of certain basic concepts.
 Freud’s first introductory
lecture

• Psychoanalysis is the name (1) of a procedure for the investigation

of mental processes which are almost inaccessible in any other
way, (2) of a method (based upon that investigation) for the
treatment of neurotic disorders and (3) of a collection of
psychological information obtained along those lines, which is
gradually being accumulated into a new scientific discipline. (From
Two Encyclopedia Articles, 1923)
 BASIC CONCEPTS
• Basic Instincts
Fundamental Assumptions of
• Unconscious Motivation Psychoanalytic Theory
• Psychic Determinism
• Energy Model
• Levels of the Consciousness
• Structure of Personality
• Psychosexual Stages of Personality Development
• Personality Dynamics
• Defense Mechanisms
• Psychoanalytic Therapy
 Aggr
BASIC INSTINCTS Sex essio
n

• Closely follows Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection – Selection by

Reproduction and Survival.

• Freud believed that everything humans do can be understood as

manifestations of the life and death instincts.

• Later termed as Libido/Eros (life) and Thanatos (death).

Life Instincts: Serves the purpose of survival.
Libido (Sex): Pleasurable behaviors.

Death Instincts: Drive to death and destruction.

Aggressive Drive: Compulsion to destroy, conquer, kill.
 UNCONSCIOUS MOTIVATION

• Individuals control their sexual and aggressive urges by placing them

in the unconscious.

• These take on a life of their own and become the motivated

unconscious.
 PSYCHIC DETERMINISM

• Nothing happens by chance or accident.

• Everything we do, think, say, and feel is an expression of our mind.

 ENERGY MODEL

• Humans are viewed as energy systems.

• Energy transformed but not destroyed.

LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
• Conscious - Current awareness.

• Preconscious - Not aware of material but it’s

retrievable (via ordinary retrieval).

• Unconscious - Not aware of material and it’s not

retrievable (via ordinary retrieval).
 CONTENT OF THE UNCONSCIOUS
• Unacceptable impulses (e.g., sexual and aggressive).

• Unfulfilled wishes which may produce anxiety.

• Early childhood experiences.

• Dreams.
 ID EGO

SUPEREGO

STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY
 ID: Reservoir of Psychic Energy
• Most primitive part of the mind; what we are born with.

• Source of all drives and urges.

• Operates according to the pleasure principle i.e., immediate

gratification.

• Primary process thinking.

• Innate biological instincts and urges; self-serving and irrational.

 EGO: Executive Part of Personality
• The part of the mind that constrains the id to reality.

• Develops around 2-3 years of age.

• Operates according to the reality principle.

• Secondary process thinking.

• Mediates between id, superego, and the environment.

SUPEREGO: Upholder of Values and Ideals

• The part of the mind that internalizes the values, morals, and ideals of
society.

• Operates according to the morality principle.

• Develops around age 5.

• Not bound by reality.

The superego determines what is right and what is wrong, and
enforces this through the emotion of guilt.

It sets the moral goals and ideals of perfection.

 Ego
Ideal

Conscience
Psychosexual Stages of Personality
Development
• Stages focused on Erogenous Zones.
Bodily areas which are chief focus of pleasure.
Key to development is “follow the energy”.

• Three aspects of each stage, i.e.

Physical focus/sexual focus (Erogenous Zone).
Psychological theme(s).
Adult character types “fixated” at that stage.
 ORAL STAGE
(Birth – 18 Months)

• Erogenous Zone: Mouth

• Psychological Theme: Trust
• Pleasure from
Sucking
Swallowing
Biting
 ANAL STAGE
(18 Months – 3 Years)

• Erogenous Zone: Anus/Buttocks Region

• Psychological Theme: Self-Control
• Pleasure from
Bowel Movements
“Holding It In”/Toilet Training
 PHALLIC STAGE
(3 – 6 Years)

• Erogenous Zone: Penis/Clitoris (Before the formation of the vagina.)

• Psychological Theme: Sex/Pleasure

• Pleasure from
Masturbation
• Two major elements i.e.
Superego
Sex Role Identity

• Awareness of pleasurable sensations associated with manipulating

the genitals.

• Energy (sexual) focused on genitals.

• Awareness of differences between men and women - in behavior

and anatomy.
Crisis During the Phallic Stage –

Oedi Elect
pus ra
Com Com
plex plex
• Oedipus Complex –
A boy’s sexual desire for his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred
for the rival father.

• Electra Complex –
A girl’s sexual desire for her father and feelings of jealousy and hatred
for the rival mother.
 Oedipus Complex –

• A boy’s sexual feelings for his mother and rivalries with his father.

• Psychological defenses against these threatening thoughts and

feelings form reaction patterns used throughout life.

• Form personality through identification with father.

• Diminishing the fear of castration by vicariously obtaining the

mother through father.
 Oedipus Complex – Castration Anxiety

• Unconscious fear of loss of penis and becoming like a female.

• Fear of powerful people overcoming them.

• Fear of revenge from the powerful people.

 Electra Complex –
• A girl’s sexual feelings for her father and rivalries with her mother.

• Upsurge in libido focused upon genitals.

• Observes boy’s penis and feels inferior.

• Blames her mother.

• Identification (defenses) with mother to obtain desires vicariously.

 Electra Complex – Penis Envy
• A girl’s feelings of inferiority and jealousy

• Turns affections from mother to father since blames mother for no

penis.

• Although can’t have penis but can have a baby.

• Thus, wants to find a good man like her father and produce a baby –
resolution to the Electra Complex after giving birth.
• The sexual feelings experienced at this stage (i.e. Oedipus & Electra)
are repressed by Neurotic Anxiety.

• Neurotic Anxiety is the first anxiety ever experienced.

First desire appears in the Phallic Stage towards the opposite sex
parent and repressed through Neurotic (unrealistic) Anxiety i.e.
Castration Anxiety and Penis Envy.
Resolution of complexes comes from 2 major
Defense Mechanisms
1. Identification
2. Introjection
• According to Freud, women are the emotional-being.

• Whereas, men are the rational-being.

• Viewed women as failed or inferior to men.

• Believed women to be morally inferior due to weak Superego

development.

• Admitted failure to understand women.

 LATENCY STAGE
(6 – 11 Years)

• The child in this period suppresses his or her psychosexual interest.

• Post-sexual time i.e., sexual desires become latent; not manifest.

• Sexual energies are channeled into school and friends.

• Use of Sublimation occurs for the first time at this stage.

• Children in this age group tend to play mostly with same sex peers.

• Tendencies for homosexuality can rise at this stage.

• There is some evidence that the ‘latent period’ is a cultural artifact.

Children in some societies do not experience a period of latency.
 GENITAL STAGE
(Pubertal Years)
• The individual in this period once again has a strong sexual interest in
other people.

• If he or she has completed the other stages successfully, primary

psychosexual satisfaction will be gained from sexual intercourse at this
stage.

• The individual who is fixated in an early period of development has little

libido left for this stage.
• However, for someone who is not fixated, they would engage in
Normal Sexual Relations
Marriage
Child-Rearing
 CONFLICT MODEL

VS.
SUPE
ID
REGO
 CONFLICT MODEL
• Id vs. Superego; Individual vs. Society.

• Restrained expression of all drives.

• Surplus energy results in anxiety.

 ANXIETY AND DEFENSE MECHANISMS

• Anxiety - A negative emotional state associated with a threat to the self.

It arises when the ego is faced with an influx of stimuli with which it
cannot cope.
• An aversive inner state that people seek to avoid or escape.

• Defense Mechanism - A technique used by the ego to protect itself from

anxiety.
• Defense Mechanisms can be psychologically healthy or maladaptive,
but tension reduction is the overall goal in both cases.
• According to Freud, what is the source of anxiety?
• The source of anxiety is physiological in nature and is intended
as an adaptive mechanism.

• According to Freud, what is the purpose of anxiety?

• Anxiety serves as a warning device to allow the ego to prepare
for an overwhelming situation.
 TYPES OF ANXIETY
Reality Anxiety Most Common Tension Reduction Method:
Real danger from the outside world. Removing oneself from the harmful situation.

Ex. Fear of a dog bite, fear arising from an impending accident

Neurotic Anxiety
Ego vs. Id Impulse
The unconscious worry that we will lose control of the id's urges, resulting
in punishment for inappropriate behavior.
Moral Anxiety
Ego vs. Standards of the Conscience (Superego)
Anxiety which results from fear of violating moral or societal codes, moral
anxiety appears as guilt or shame.
 WHAT ARE DEFENSE MECHANISMS?
• They are techniques used by the ego to protect itself from anxiety
and threats.

• Unconscious psychological processes designed to avoid or reduce

the conscious experience of anxiety.

• Useful in coping with unexpected or disappointing events.

• Can also make circumstances worse.

• When some type of anxiety occurs, the mind responds in two ways :

• First, problem solving efforts are increased,

• and Secondly, defense mechanisms are triggered.

• These are tactics which the Ego develops to help deal with the Id
and the Super Ego.

• All Defense Mechanisms share two common properties:

• They can operate unconsciously

• They can distort, transform, or falsify reality in some way.

• The changing of perceived reality allows for a lessening of anxiety,

reducing the psychological tension felt by an individual.
 Repression

SOME DEFENSE MECHANISMS

Reaction Formation

Displacement

Sublimation

Projection

Rationalization

Regression
Repression: “Angry? Me? I don’t feel mad.”

Projection: “I’m not mad at you. You are mad at me.”

Reaction Formation: “I’m not mad at you. I adore you.”

Displacement: “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at the maid.”

Rationalization: “I’m not mad at you. I’m just tired.”

Regression: “I’m taking my stuff and going home.”

Sublimation: “I’m directing my energies to writing a novel.”

• Repression - Keeping anxiety-producing thoughts out of the
conscious mind.

• Reaction Formation - Replacing an unacceptable wish with its

opposite.

• Displacement - When a drive directed to one activity by the Id is

redirected to a more acceptable activity by the Ego.

• Sublimation - Shift to activities that are valued by society.

• Projection - Reducing anxiety by attributing unacceptable
impulses to someone else.

• Rationalization - Reasoning away anxiety-producing thoughts.

• Regression - Retreating to a mode of behavior characteristic of an

earlier stage of development.
 PSYCHOANALYSIS

• Psychoanalysis is a science of understanding human behaviour in terms of:

Unconscious Mental Processes
Motives
Dynamics of Personality
• It encompasses:
Catharsis
Making the Unconscious Conscious
Techniques for Revealing the Unconscious
The Process of Psychoanalysis
PSYCHOPATHOLOGY IN PSYCHOANALYSIS

• Traumatic childhood experiences

• Unconscious conflicts

• Exaggerated use of Defense Mechanisms

• Fixations
 GOALS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS

1. To make the unconscious conscious.

2. Identify unconscious thoughts and feelings.
3. Enable the person to deal with the unconscious urges realistically
and maturely.
4. Intellectual and emotional insight into the underlying causes.
5. Working through or fully exploring the implications of those insights.
6. Strengthening the ego’s control over the id and the superego i.e.,
Ego Strength.
 PROCESS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS

• The psychoanalyst offers the patient interpretations of the

psychodynamic causes of the problems.

• The interpretations bring insight.

• Resistance may occur as a defense.

• Transference of feelings.
 THE UNCONSCIOUS

• Clinical evidence for postulating the unconscious:

• Slips of the Tongue i.e. Freudian Slips

• Dreams
• Posthypnotic Suggestions
• Material derived from Free-Association
• Material derived from Projective Techniques
• Symbolic content of Psychotic and Neurotic Symptoms
TECHNIQUES FOR REVEALING THE UNCONSCIOUS
• Free Association
• Dream Analysis
• Projective Techniques
• Hypnosis
• Recovered Memories
• Analysis of the Transference
• Analysis of Everyday Behavior
• Analysis of Resistance
• Making Analytic Interpretations
 Dreams
 Transference
 Resistance
 FREUDIAN SLIPS

• Psychological error in speaking or writing.

• Evidence of some unconscious urge, desire, or conflict/struggle

slipping through unintentionally.

• When Ego or Superego are not doing their job properly elements of Id
slip out or are seen.
 DREAM ANALYSIS

• “Royal road to the unconscious”.

• What is important in dreams is the infantile wish fulfillment

represented in them.

• Freud assumed every dream has a meaning that can be interpreted

by decoding representations of the unconscious material.
• Dream Symbol: Represents some person, thing, or activity involved in
the unconscious process.

• Manifest Content: What a person remembers and consciously

considers – only a partial representation.

• Latent Content: Underlying hidden meaning.

• Unconscious can manifest itself symbolically in a dream.

• Knife, Umbrella, Snake = Penis
• Box, Oven, Ship = Uterus
• Room, Table with Food = Women
• Staircase, Ladder = Sexual Intercourse
• Water = Birth, Mother, Anxiety
• Baldness, Tooth Removal = Castration
• Children Playing = Masturbation
• Fire = Bedwetting
• Robber = Father
• Falling = Anxiety
 TRANSFERENCE AND
COUNTERTRANSFERENCE

• Transference: The client reacts to the therapist as he did to an

earlier significant other.

This allows the client to experience feelings that would otherwise

be inaccessible.
Analysis of Transference – allows the client to achieve insight into
the influence of the past.

• Countertransference: The reaction of the therapist toward the client

that may interfere with objectivity.
 RESISTANCE
• Patient’s efforts to ward off efforts to dissolve neurotic methods of
resolving problems
• Examples
• Talk less
• Late for appointments
• Discuss trivial matters
• Intensification of symptoms
• Abatement of symptoms (“flights into health”)
 Definition

• Resistance means opposition. All those forces within the patient which
oppose the procedure and processes of analysis ..which hinder the patient
free association ,which interfere with the patient attempt to remember
and gain and assimilate insight ,which operate against the patient
reasonable ego and his wish to change ..
• Resistance serves as defense against analysis
 Techniques of analyzing resistance

Analyzing resistance

Working
Confrontation Clarification Interpretation
through
 CLINICAL EXPERIENCES: ANNA O.

• Unexpressed Emotion -> Pathology

• Unaware of Emotions (i.e., Unconscious)

• Emotional Expression Reduces Pathology

 VARIATIONS ON CLASSICAL
PSYCHOANALYSIS

★ Early Alternatives to Freudian Psychoanalysis

• Individual Psychology (Alfred Adler)
• Analytical Psychology (Carl Jung)
• Will Therapy (Otto Rank)
• Interpersonal Relations School (Harry Stack Sullivan)
 CONTRIBUTIONS AND LIMITATIONS

• Proponents argue it is the first and perhaps only comprehensive

theory of human nature.
• Psychoanalysis has had a major impact on Western thought.
• Critics maintain it is not contemporary.
• The nature of evidence upon which it was built can be criticized .
• Emphasis on sexual drives is inappropriate.
THANK YOU!