Sigmund Freud

V

Psychoanalysis

The next important development in Freud’s theory of psychology came out of work he conducted with his friend and colleague Josef Breur, a Viennese physician who was involved in the treatment of a young woman who was distressed while caring for her dying father. The patient had developed a plethora of hysterical symptoms which Breur initially treated by hypnotic suggestion. Initial success gave way to disappointment when on her father’s death her symptoms relapsed with increased severity. Somewhat at a loss as to how to proceed, Breur had continued to talk to his patient on a daily basis and in time she began to talk about various reminiscences from the past, and about her daydreams. Remarkably, as her narrative revisited memories from the past, which were associated with the onset of a particular symptom, each symptom disappeared when accompanied by an emotional outburst. Breur made use of this discovery to eliminate her symptoms one at a time, and called the treatment the cathartic technique (from the Greek katharsis meaning “purgation”). The treatment was time-consuming and required considerable effort to reach dimly recalled and otherwise inaccessible memories.

The case was finally written up in 1895 by Freud and Breur in Studies on Hysteria. Their view was summed up in the statement “hysterics suffer mainly from reminiscences”. They proposed that, when faced with emotionally traumatic memories, hysterics subjugate them from conscious appreciation in order to prevent the unbearable emotional pain and suffering that they cause. Therefore, rather than being driven out of the mind, these memories are instead driven into an area of the mind that is unconscious and inaccessible. Here the memories may be redirected from the emotional system into the somatic or bodily system—and appear as physical symptoms apparently unexplained. These constitute hysterical or conversion symptoms.

Of the five cases constituting Studies on Hysteria, the remaining four are Freud’s. They outline the transition from treatment by hypnotic suggestion to the earliest descriptions of what is now known as psychoanalysis.

Now working on his own, Freud hypothesized that hysterical symptoms were most likely to arise when repressed traumatic memories related to adverse childhood sexual experiences. This generated tremendous controversy at the time because the existence of childhood sexuality was not widely accepted. In time he was forced to reconsider this aspect of his theory, instead relating the repressed memories to childhood fantasies of sexuality and their relationship to parental figures.

A

Dreams

The next development in Freud’s theory stemmed from his observations on dreaming. He came to see that many of the characteristics of dreams were shared with the symptomatic memories recalled by his patients in the narrative of “free association“. In his therapeutic relationship with his patients, Freud had abandoned hypnotic suggestion in favour of encouraging the person to speak freely about whatever came into his or her mind. Unintentionally, the patient would bring order to these “free associations”—the structure and content of which Freud used to try to understand underlying unconscious processes.

In dreams, he noted the same apparently unstructured experiences of thoughts and images coming into the mind that nevertheless seemed to be representative of some underlying unconscious process. To explain these phenomena, he suggested the existence of an inner censor which effected a compromise between conflicting mental forces and in the process disguised their meaning from conscious appreciation. He defined resistance as the unconscious defence against awareness of repressed experiences in order to avoid the resulting anxiety. He traced the operation of unconscious processes, using the free associations of the patient to guide him in the interpretation of dreams and slips of speech (parapraxes or “Freudian slips”—which Freud claimed were revelations of unconscious wishes).

He came to understand the mind as a series of layers with the most superficial layers in conscious appreciation, and the deeper layers containing repressed memories and remaining unavailable to conscious thought. This he termed the topographical model and likened it to an iceberg, a small part of which being visible above the surface with the greater submerged part being obscured from view. These ideas were published in 1900 in The Interpretation of Dreams.

Over the next two decades Freud’s work concentrated on modifying and improving his theory of psychoanalysis. He defined a number of principles and described a model of personality development.

B

The Unconscious

Perhaps Freud’s greatest contribution has been to describe the unconscious and to postulate that it obeys the principle of psychic determinism, which holds that human thoughts, feelings, and impulses, rather than being random, are linked in a system of causally related phenomena, behind which lies some reason or meaning. Freud concluded that on this basis unconscious processes could be investigated and understood. Some experiences which are not immediately accessible to conscious appreciation can be brought into the conscious mind by the process of remembering. Freud referred to these as the preconscious. Still deeper thoughts cannot be remembered and are actively repressed in the unconscious.

Unconscious experiences are not held to be subject to the same logic characteristic of conscious experience. Unconscious ideas, images, thoughts, and feelings can be condensed or dramatized in the form of abstract concepts and imagery. Often the relationship between the original experience and the unconscious symbolic representation can seem obscure.

C

Role of Conflict

The central theme of conflict had arisen early in Freud’s work. Conflict arises in a person’s conscious mind when one set of beliefs impacts adversely on another area of belief, causing emotional suffering felt as disappointment, anger, or frustration. Freud was interested in the unconscious aspect of mental conflict. He described the “pleasure principle” as another fundamental of psychoanalytic theory. This holds that human beings have a tendency to seek pleasure and avoid pain. The principle is said to dominate in early life, bringing the developing individual into conflict with their external world. These conflicts are retained in the unconscious.

Freud’s original concept held that the conflicts of early life arose as a result of innate drives. Also translated as “instincts” from the German word Triebe, drives are states of excitation occurring in response to stimuli. Freud described a libidinal drive that serves the species by directing individuals to reproduce. Later, he extended his model to include the psychoses (serious mental disorders in which patients have a distorted view of reality). In this, he described aggressive drives which he felt would serve to protect the species. These ideas were published in On Narcissism in 1914, reconsidered in The Metapsychological Papers in 1915, and further elaborated in The Dual Instinct Theory in 1920.

The term “Freudian” is often used in connection with these theories, many of which were to become major concepts in psychiatry. They were infused with rich symbolism, and were in the main preoccupied with reconciling the conflict between biological factors of human existence and what Freud believed were the civilizing aspects of human behaviour: aesthetics, intellectual capacity, and religion.

Freud believed that by understanding the crucial events and fantasy wishes of childhood, psychoanalysis could shed understanding on later adult character development with its attendant conflicts and neurotic symptoms. He conceptualized how development might occur in terms of the drives and their satisfaction according to the pleasure principle. The theory suggested that psychological and physiological changes occur that require the conflicts of childhood to be revisited as the individual seeks adult identity. Awareness of a conscious need to keep rein on the free expression of drives develops, failure to do so being felt as guilt. Masturbation fantasies and guilts come into conscious appreciation. Life becomes an equilibrium between drives, conflicts, and reality.

Conflicts repressed into the unconscious are retained but remain dynamic. From time to time they may overcome repression and re-emerge into conscious appreciation, precipitating anxiety or panic. To counteract this, the individual unconsciously effects various compromises using defence mechanisms, which become part of that person’s character. Examples of these include projection, where the individual ascribes to others his or her own unconscious desires, and reaction formation, where the individual adopts a pattern of behaviour directly opposed to a strong unconscious drive.

In 1923 Freud reformulated his ideas in a structural model of the mind which postulated the existence of the id, the ego, and the superego. Mental functions were grouped according to their role in conflict (see Psychoanalysis).

Freud’s therapy consisted of listening to the patient relate a narrative of free associations over many sessions. By listening to the patient’s associations and Freudian slips, contents of dreams, and thoughts, he linked and interpreted these experiences to the patient’s conscious world. He came to understand the nature of transference, in which the patient develops feelings for the therapist which are in fact representative of previous feelings towards other important figures in the patient’s life. These thoughts and feelings he interpreted and linked to the patient’s current emotional state.

VI

Major Influences

Freud’s early psychological work shows the influence of the sciences of the day on his thinking. Ideas from physics, chemistry, and evolutionary theory occur regularly in his writing. Although Jewish by birth and cultural tradition, Freud saw all religion as illusory and was non-practising. Instead, he can be seen as a determinist viewing the world and human experience as understandable in terms of cause and effect.

At the time, Darwin’s writings on the descent of human beings—the theory of evolution suggesting human beings were somehow related to, or descended from, their fellow animals—was challenging contemporary Judaeo-Christian belief. Indeed it was Darwin who emphasized instincts for survival and reproduction, formulated in Freud’s theory as basic drives.

Freud’s ideas can be seen in the same context. He too challenged philosophical and religious thinking by suggesting that human beings were rather less in control of their own thoughts and actions. His contention that unconscious thoughts and actions had to arise from within the self rather than from God conflicted with the contemporary notion of soul. From this period the disciplines of philosophy and psychology developed separately.

Freud was particularly interested in the “association” school of psychology, which included Johann Friedrich Herbart and Wilhelm Max Wundt, the first of whom may have contributed to free association as a therapeutic technique. Psychodynamic theory also has its origins in the physical concepts of opposing forces and vector analysis, with conversion symptoms reflecting the principle of conservation of energy held by the first law of thermodynamics. Freud considered Marxist theory and drew comparison with philosophy and religion, but did not become heavily involved in the politics of the day.