Psychoanalysis and Sigmund Freud

Psychoanalysis Definition

• Psychoanalysis is a set of psychological and psychotherapeutic theories.
• Includes associated techniques.
• Was created by Austrian physician Sigmund Freud.

Basic Belief of Psychoanalysis

• A person's development is determined by forgotten events in early childhood, and not just inherited traits.
• Human attitude, mannerism, experience, and thought are largely influenced by irrational drives rooted in the unconscious.
• It is necessary to bypass psychological resistance using defense mechanisms when bringing drives into awareness.
• Conflicts between the conscious and unconscious, or with repressed material, can manifest as mental or emotional disturbances such as neurosis, anxiety, or depression.
• Liberating elements of the unconscious mind is achieved by bringing this material into the conscious mind. This is done via skilled guidance, like therapeutic intervention.

Sigmund Freud Facts

• Freud lived from 1856-1939.
• He had a Jewish background but was an avowed atheist.
• He lived in Vienna until the Nazi occupation in 1938.
• Freud had a medical background and initially wanted to do "neurophysiological research."
• He had a private practice specializing in neurology.
• Josef Breuer and Anna O. were associates of Freud.
• He had a private practice in nervous and brain disorders.
• In the early 1900s, Freud published many works, including "Interpretation of Dreams" (1900) and "The Psychopathology of Everyday Life" (1901).
• In 1905, he conceptualized the sexual drive as the most powerful personality component.
• The Psychoanalytic Society was formed in 1906.
• Many works were burned during the Nazi occupation starting in 1933.
• He left Austria and fled to England in 1938.
• Freud died of jaw cancer in 1939.

Levels of Awareness

• There are three levels of awareness: Conscious, Preconscious, and Unconscious.

Conscious

• The conscious level contains the current contents of your mind that you actively think of.
• It is working memory and is easily accessed at all times.

Preconscious

• The preconscious contains contents of the mind you are not currently aware of.
• It includes thoughts, memories, knowledge, wishes, and feelings.
• It is available for easy access when needed.

Unconscious

• The unconscious keeps contents out of conscious awareness.
• It is not accessible at all.
• Processes actively keep these thoughts from awareness.

Freudian Components of Personality

• The Id, Ego, and Superego are the components Personality.

Id

• The Id resides entirely at the unconscious level.
• It operates under the pleasure principle including immediate gratification, and is not willing to compromise
• The personalities entire energy is generated by The Id.

Ego

• The Ego functions at the rational level of personality.
• It resides in all levels of awareness.
• It operates under the "reality principle."
• Includes attempting negotiation between the Id and Superego to satisfy both realistically.

Superego

• The Superego represents the moralist and idealistic part of the personality.
• It resides in the preconscious mind.
• It operates on the "ideal principle."
• Formation begins at 4-5 years of age.
• The superego is initially formed from the environment and others (society, family etc).
• It has internalized conventions and morals.
• Essentially, it is your "conscience".
• Also associated with feelings of pride, honor, guilt and anxiety.

Conflicts of Personality Components

• Conflicts among the Id, Superego, and Ego arise in the unconscious mind.
• The conflicts cannot be reached in the unconscious.
• They manifest in various ways including Slips of tongue ("Freudian slip"), Dreams, Jokes, Anxiety, and Defense Mechanisms.

Carl Jung Facts

• Carl Gustav Jung lived from 1875-1961.
• He was born in 1875 in Switzerland to a pastor and a theologian's daughter.
• His eldest sibling only lived for 3 days.
• His younger sister was born 9 years after.
• He married Emma Rauschenbach, from the wealthiest family in Switzerland in 1903
• 1906 he studied in Word Association and was initially interested in archeology.
• The family was influenced by both spirituality and mystic beliefs.
• His mother was institutionalized due to mental illness.
• He experienced childhood bullying and fainting spells.
• He experienced having personality 1 (extraverted) and personality 2 (introverted).
• He pursued medicine between 1894-1900.
• He maintained a friendship with Freud, with their first conversation lasting 13 hours,
• Was President of the International Psychoanalytic Association.

Analytical Psychology

• Analytical psychology is a compendium of opposites like:
  • Introverted and extraverted
  • Rational and irrational
  • Male and female
  • Conscious and unconscious
  • It includes being pushed by past events while being pulled by future expectations.

Levels of the Psyche

• Conscious:
  • Conscious images are those sensed by the ego.
  • The ego is the center of consciousness.
  • It's relatively unimportant in analytical psychology.
• Unconscious:
  • Personal Unconscious.
  • Collective Unconscious.

Personal Unconscious

• It includes repressed, forgotten, or subliminally perceived experiences by one individual.
• Contains infantile memories and impulses, forgotten events, and experiences originally perceived below the threshold of consciousness.
• Contains "complexes" including Emotionally toned conglomeration of associated ideas.

Collective Unconscious

• Jung's most distinctive concept also including Emotionally toned experiences derived from ancestors.
• Responsible for myths, legends, and religious beliefs.
• Refers to man's innate tendency to act in a certain way whenever experience stimulates a biologically-inherited response tendency.
• Has the archetypes.

Personal Unconscious vs. Collective Unconscious

• Personal: Composed of complexes.
  • Emotionally toned experiences.
  • Individualized components of the personal unconscious.
• Collective: Composed of archetypes
  • Generalized and derived from the contents of the collective unconscious.
  • Dreams are the main source.
  • Primarily emphasized over personal unconscious.

Archetypes

• Archetypes are ancient or archaic images that derive from the collective unconscious.

Persona

• The side of personality that people show to the world.
• It is not necessarily the same as the public face that one shows others.

Shadow

• Consists of morally objectionable tendencies as well as a number of constructive qualities that we are reluctant to face.
• The archetype of darkness and repression, representing the qualities that we do not wish to acknowledge but attempt to hide from ourselves and others.

Anima

• The feminine side of men originates in the collective unconscious as an archetype and remains extremely resistant to consciousness.
• Jung believed that the anima originated from early men's experiences with women including mothers, sisters, and lovers which combine into the concept of women.

Animus

• The masculine side of women originates in the collective unconscious as an archetype that is resistant to consciousness.
• Symbolic of thinking and reasoning and is capable of influencing the thinking of women, yet it does not belong to her.

Great Mother

• Considers the derivative of the animus and anima.
• Represents the opposing forces of fertility and nourishment on the one hand, and power and destruction on the other.

Wise Old Man

• Representative of wisdom and meaning, symbolizes human's pre-existing knowledge of the mysteries of life.
• Unconscious and cannot be directly experienced by the individual.

Hero

• Represented in mythology and legends as a powerful person, sometimes part god, and one who fights evil.
• Serves as a model for the ideal personality.

The Self

• The most comprehensive of all archetypes and is the archetypes of archetypes.
• It pulls together the other archetypes and unites them in the process of self-realization.

Comparison of Freud's and Jung's Psychoanalysis

• Freud:
  • View of the Unconscious: Dangerous, Personal unconscious, Negative id drives of sex/aggression.
  • Function of Dream: Wish fulfillment.
  • Logic of Dream: Primary process & censorship.
  • Analytic tool: Free association.
• Jung:
  • View of the Unconscious: Potentially dangerous force of nature, Personal & Collective unconscious, Bright shadow.
  • Function of Dream: Compensation.
  • Logic of Dream: Language of metaphor.
  • Analytic Tool: Amplification.