HCJ - Freud

Sigmund Freud is known for his theories on the unconscious mind, psychoanalysis and for suggesting that motivational energy for humans derive from sexual energy. Free association was a technique that Freud discovered. It was a technique used within psychoanalysis to help patients learn about themselves and how they feel, and was used as an alternative to hypnotherapy.

• We live in a Freudian world whether we like it or not.
• Freud was seen as a sexual renegade - this damaged our idea of ourselves as noble creatures.
• Freud's ideas contrasted those of the Enlightenment, because he believes we aren't controlled by rational things, whereas philosophers such as John Locke said humans are born with a 'blank slate' and it is the through experience that we gain knowledge.
• He viewed sex as a motivational factor for our actions.
• Women were seen to envy the penis; because women did not have penis' they saw themselves as bad and thought they had been castrated. As a result of this, women loved their father more because he had a penis, and rejected their mother as she lacked this.
• Freud thought that "self-love" as a race was a barrier to science in 3 ways:
  - It stopped people accepting that the earth was not the centre of the universe.
  - Darwin's theory of evolution.
  - The conscious brain was not in charge.
  
• The UNCONSCIOUS is the key to Freud:
  The mind is divided into 3 parts:
  - The Id - this operates on the pleasure principle and reacts from symbols.
  - Ego/Self - which is based on the reality principle; how to satisfy pleasures. (The origin of consciousness)
  - And the Superego - this has internalised rules of parents or society. (As Reich states, 'the policeman inside your head'.)
  
• Freud said there are 5 stages of development:
  1) Oral stage - mouth - premature weaning could lead to problems - eating, smoking drinking etc.
  2) Anal - toilet training
  3) Phallic phase - Obsessed with penis or lack of. Women's need for domination. (Oedipus complex)
  4) Latency - Sex becomes unimportant until after puberty.
  5) Genitals


• The battle between the Superego, Ego and the Id can result in REPRESSION which is when people lock their painful memories into their unconscious mind.
• Problems relate to difficulties in any of these phases:
  - Sublimation - turning sexual energy into something else, art/ sport for example.
  - Displacement - shameful thoughts, turning them into something else/someone else.
  - Projection - sending feelings onto someone else. (E.g. Initiating a fight)
  - Rationalisation - returning to an earlier stage of development. (E.g. Fetal position for comfort)
• The key to psychoanalysis is that you are hiding something form yourself. Freud claimed that he had found a way to deal directly with the unconscious, the Id.
• Hypnosis, pressure method, free association and dreams are examples of this.
• Ultimately these were methods to let off steam, because we could never escape the unconscious.
• Freud believed that aggression could never be eliminated, the idea was to try and control it.
• 'The group wants to be dominated' - there's a fear that no-one is in charge. There's a craving for a parent figure. (Now that 'God is dead'.)
• Freud said that civilisation was there to control people's desires.
• Freud said that in groups, people never gave up their libidinal feelings to their leader and the aggressive instincts to others outside the group.
• Attacks on Freud:
  - Scientific predictions could never be proved as Freud was so vague. 'You hate your mother.'
  - No proof that psychoanalysis works.