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Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis
- a. Viennese, doctor: Sigmund Freud, put forth a series of theories that undermined optimism about the rational nature of the human mind
- i. Freud’s thought, like the new physics and irrationalism of Nietzche, added to the uncertainties of the age
- 1. His major ideas were published in The Interpretation of Dreams, which contained the basic foundation of what came to be known as psychoanalysis
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Role of the Unconscious
- i. Human behavior strongly determined by the unconscious, by earlier experiences and inner forces of which people were largely oblivious
- 1. Hypnosis and dreams with elaborate code
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a. Why were some things unconscious?
i. According to Freud, the answer was repression, a process by which unsettling experiences were blotted from conscious awareness but still continued to influence behavior because they had become part of the unconscious
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Theory: Id
- a. Created intricate theory of the inner life of human beings
- i. Id: center of unconscious drives and was ruled by pleasure principle
- 1. Creatures of desire: human beings directed their energy toward pleasure and away from pain
- a. Id contained all kinds of lustful drives and desires and crude appetites and impulses
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Theory: Ego
- i. Ego: seat of reason and coordinator of the inner life
- 1. Governed by the reality principle
- a. Although humans were dominated by pleasure principle, a true pursuit of pleasure was not feasible
- b. Meant that people rejected pleasure so they could live together
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Theory: Superego
- i. go: conscience and represented inhibitions and moral values that society iin general and parents implsed on people
- 1. Force the ego to curb the id
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Ego and superego
- a. Ego and superego represented restraining influences on unconscious id and repressed what they wanted to
- i. Mostly repressed was sex
- 1. Infantile sexual drives= Oedipus complex
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Repression
a. Repression began in childhood and psychoanalysis was accomplished through a dialogue between psychotherapist and patient in which the therapist probed deeply into memory in order to retrace the chain of repression all the way back to childhood origins
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