Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis

• Psychoanalysis helps identify hidden thoughts, behaviors, and desires causing problems.
• Psychoanalysis addresses deeply rooted issues and maladaptive perspectives.

Sigmund Freud: Founder of Psychoanalysis

• Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, was born in Austria.
• Freud spent most of his life in Vienna, earning a medical degree in 1881 and training as a neurologist.
• Freud started a private practice, where he treated patients with psychological disorders.
• Dr. Josef Breuer's experience with "Anna O." sparked Freud's interest; Anna O. had physical symptoms with no apparent physical cause.
• Breuer found that Anna O.'s symptoms lessened when she recovered memories of repressed traumatic experiences.
• This case led to Freud's interest in the unconscious mind, influencing his key ideas.

Psychoanalysis Defined

• Psychoanalysis is a therapy that releases pent-up or repressed emotions and memories, leading to catharsis or healing.
• The goal is to bring unconscious or subconscious content to the conscious level.
• Psychoanalysis involves discussing significant life questions and exploring complexities.

Freud's Model of Minds

• Freud divided the mind into three layers or regions: conscious, preconscious, and unconscious.
• Conscious: Contains current thoughts, feelings, and focus.
• Preconscious: Stores everything that can be recalled or retrieved from memory (subconscious).
• Unconscious: The deepest level, repository of processes driving behavior, including primitive and instinctual desires.

Later Model of the Mind

• Freud later proposed a structured model with three metaphorical parts: id, ego, and superego.
• Id: Operates unconsciously, focusing on instinctual drives and desires, comprised of eros (survival instinct) and thanatos (death instinct).
• Ego: Acts as a conduit and check on the id, meeting its needs in a socially appropriate way, tied to reality, and develops in infancy.
• Superego: Contains morality and higher principles, promoting socially and morally acceptable behavior.

Defense Mechanisms

• Freud believed the id, ego, and superego are in constant conflict, leading to defense mechanisms by the ego to protect the individual.
• Repression: The ego pushes disturbing thoughts out of consciousness.
• Denial: The ego blocks upsetting experiences from awareness, causing refusal to acknowledge what is happening.
• Projection: The ego attributes unacceptable thoughts, feelings, and motives to another person.
• Displacement: Satisfying an impulse by acting on a substitute object or person in a socially unacceptable way.
• Regression: Moving backward in development to cope with stress.
• Sublimation: Satisfying an impulse acceptably by acting on a substitute in a socially acceptable form.

Psychosexual Stages of Development

• Freud proposed children develop through five stages focused on different pleasure sources.
• First Stage (Oral): Pleasure from the mouth (e.g., sucking).
• Second Stage (Anal): Pleasure from the anus (e.g., withholding/expelling feces).
• Third Stage (Phallic): Pleasure from the penis or clitoris (e.g., masturbation).
• Fourth Stage (Latent): Little or no sexual motivation.
• Fifth Stage (Genital): Pleasure from the penis or vagina (e.g., sexual intercourse).
• Successful completion of each stage leads to a psychologically healthy adult with a fully formed ego and superego.
• Fixation: Individuals may get stuck, causing emotional and behavioral issues in adulthood.

Interpretation of Dreams

• Freud believed analyzing dreams gives insight into the unconscious mind.
• In 1900, Freud's book, The Interpretation of Dreams, outlined that dreams fulfill wishes and allow working through repressed issues.
• Manifest Content: the actual dream
• Latent Content: The true meaning behind the dream.
• Purpose of dreams: Translating wishes and desires through condensation, displacement, and secondary elaboration.
• Dreams were previously dismissed, but Freud's ideas sparked considerable interest.