PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORIES – FREUD AND BEYOND
By the early years of the twentieth century, Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) had begun to write about psychoanalysis, which he described as ‘a theory of the mind or personality, a method of investigation of unconscious process, and a method of treatment’ (1923/62). Central to a psychoanalytic approach is the concept of unconscious mental processes – the idea that unconscious motivations and needs have a role in determining our behaviour. This approach also emphasizes the irrational aspects of human behaviour and portrays aggressive and sexual needs as having a major impact on personality.
FREUD’S MODELS OF THE MIND
Freud developed a number of hypothetical models to show how the mind (or what he called the psyche) works: a topographic model of the psyche – or how the mind is organized; a structural model of the psyche – or how personality works; and a psychogenetic model of development – or how personality develops.
Topographic model of the psyche
Freud (1905/53b) argued that the mind is divided into the conscious, the preconscious and the unconscious. According to Freud, the conscious is the part of the mind that holds everything you are currently aware of. The preconscious contains everything you could become aware of but are not currently thinking about. The unconscious is the part of the mind that we cannot usually become aware of. Freud saw the unconscious as holding all the urges, thoughts and feelings that might cause us anxiety, conflict and pain. Although we are unaware of them, these urges, thoughts and feelings are considered by Freud to exert an influence on our actions. Structural model of the psyche Alongside the three levels of consciousness, Freud (1923/62, 1933) developed a structural model of personality involving what he called the id, the ego and the superego (figure 14.3). According to Freud, the id functions in the unconscious and is closely tied to instinctual and biological processes. It is the primitive core from which the ego nd the superego develop. As the source of energy and impulse it has two drives: Eros – a drive for life, love, growth and selfpreservation Thanatos – a drive for aggression and death. These drives, or instincts, are represented psychologically as wishes that need to be satisfied. External or internal stimulation creates tension, which the id seeks to reduce immediately. This is called the ‘pleasure principle’ – the idea that all needs have to be satisfied immediately, avoiding pain and seeking pleasure, regardless of external conditions. The id is directly linked to bodily experience and cannot deal effectively with reality. As such it is limited to two forms of response – reflex responses to simple stimuli (e.g. crying with pain), or primary process thinking (hallucinatory images of desired objects), which provides a basic discharge of tension. According to Freud, primary process thinking does not actually meet the fundamental need of the organism – just as dreaming of water does not satisfy thirst – so a sec ond structure, the ego, focuses on ensuring the id’s impulses are expressed effectively in the context of the real world. The ego, as a source of rationality, conforms to the ‘reality principle’ – delaying the discharge of energy from the id until an appropriate object or activity can be found. The ego engages in secondary process thinking. It takes executive action on the part of the ego to decide which actions are appropriate, which id impulses will be satisfied, how and when.
But the ego has no moral sense, only practical sense. It is a third structure, the superego, which, according to Freud, provides moral guidance, embodying parental and societal values. The superego has two sub-systems: n conscience, or images of what is right and what deserves punishment – this is the basis for guilt; and n ego ideal, or images of what is rewarded or approved of – this is the basis for pride. Violation of superego standards can generate anxiety over loss of parental love, which is experienced as guilt. By the same token, Freud viewed a ‘weak’ superego as the cause of self-indulgence and criminality. According to Freud, the ego mediates between id impulses, superego directives and the real world. Conflicts in this process can lead to three types of anxiety: n neurotic anxiety – that the id will get out of control; n moral anxiety – that past or future behaviour is immoral; or n reality anxiety – about objective dangers in the environment. When anxiety cannot be dealt with by realistic methods the ego calls upon various defence mechanisms to release the tension. Defence mechanisms deny, alter or falsify reality. As they operate unconsciously, they are not immediately obvious to us or to other people. Defence mechanisms include: displacement – substituting an acceptable behaviour for an anxiety-inducing one; projection – projecting the threatening thing on to others; reaction formation – creating an attitude opposite to the one that you hold; intellectualization – transforming emotional or affective drives into rational intentions; and regression – reverting to modes of behaviour from childhood in order to avoid conflict.
Psychogenetic model of development
Freud (1900/1953) proposed that child development proceeds through a series of stages related to physical development, and that adult personality is influenced by how crises are resolved at each stage. Each stage is named after an erogenous zone, or area of the body that can experience pleasure from the environment. Excessive gratification or frustration at any one stage can result in the fixation of libido and subsequent disruption to normal personality development. 1 Oral stage (birth to 18 months) At the beginning of this stage children are highly dependent on their mothers and derive pleasure from sucking and swallowing. Freud suggested that children who become fixated at this early oral stage derive pleasure in adulthood from activities such as overeating, smoking, drinking and kissing. He referred to such people as oral-incorporative or oral-ingestive. Later in the oral stage, children begin to cut teeth and experience pleasure from biting and chewing. Fixation at this later part of the stage results in hewing objects and nail-biting in adulthood, as well as being sarcastic and critical. Freud called those fixated at this level oral-aggressive or oral-sadistic. 2 Anal stage (18 months to three years) At this stage pleasure is gained from the expulsion and retention of faeces. This is also a stage at which children start to explore their environment but experience control and discipline from their parents. According to Freud, fixation at this stage may result in people being messy and generous – anal expulsive characters, or being mean and orderly – anal-retentive characters. 3 Phallic stage (three to five years) It is at the phallic stage that children discover pleasure from touching their genitals. They also become aware that they are in competition with siblings and their father for their mother’s attention. Freud believed that boys become increasingly attached to their mother at this stage and resent the presence of their father. These feelings produce anxiety or fear of punishment from the father – or castration anxiety.
In order to protect themselves against this anxiety, boys identify with their fathers. Freud called boys’ desire for their mother the Oedipus complex, because of the similarity to the ancient Greek play in which Oedipus unwittingly kills his father and marries his mother. Freud argued for a rather different process in girls. He believed that girls reject their mother at the phallic stage, owing to resentment that they have been born without a penis. They then feel increasing attraction to their father, who has the penis they lack. Penis envy is not resolved until women have a male child, thereby symbolically obtaining a penis. This process was also named after an ancient Greek play – Electra. In Greek mythology, Electra was famous for her devotion to her father, and sought revenge against her mother for her father’s death. Fixation at the phallic phase and failure to resolve the Electra or Oedipus complex was viewed as the cause of sexual and/or relationship difficulties in later life. 4 Latency stage (six to twelve years) According to Freud, personality is formed by the end of the phallic stage, and sexual impulses are rechannelled during the latency period into activities such as sport, learning and social activities. 5 Genital stage (13 years to adult) As young people approach the age of reproductive ability, they begin to focus their libido, or sexual energy, towards the opposite sex. If the earlier psychosexual stages have been successfully negotiated, the individual should now begin to form positive relationships with others.
IN THE WAKE OF FREUD
A number of notable theorists followed Freud. Some had worked with him and then moved on to develop their own versions of psychoanalytic theory. These theorists have been called neo-analytic, post-Freudian and psychodynamic, in order to differentiate their work from Freud’s. Jung’s aims and aspirations Carl Jung (1875–1961) was one of the first prominent analysts to break away from Freud. Jung worked with Freud in the early stages of his career, and was viewed by him as the disciple who would carry on the Freudian tradition. But Jung saw humans as being guided as much by aims and aspirations as by sex and aggression. To distinguish his approach from classic psychoanalysis, Jung named it analytical psychology (1951). A basic assumption of his theory is that personality consists of competing forces and structures within the individual that must be balanced. Unlike Freud, he emphasized conflicts between opposing forces within the individual, rather than between the individual and the demands of society, or betwe n the individual and reality.
Horney’s optimism
Karen Horney (1885–1952) was another disciple of Freud who developed a theory that deviated from basic Freudian principles. Horney adopted a more optimistic view of human life, emphasizing human growth and self-realization. She concentrated on early childhood development, and her work formed the basis of much later work in this area. One of Horney’s major contributions was her challenge to Freud’s treatment of women. She countered that, in the early part of the twentieth century, women were more likely to be affected by social and cultural oppression than the absence of a penis. The failings of psychoanalytic theory Freud was an original thinker who created a comprehensive theory of human behaviour, which had a profound impact on twentieth century society, as well as in areas of human endeavour such as art and literature. Few theorists in any scientific discipline have attained such a degree of fame, and few theoretical concepts have been so fully incorporated into Western culture. Despite this, Karl Popper ( 957) declared that psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience because it is inherently untestable. He argued that psychoanalysis is unfalsifiable because the logic of the theory allows for any finding to be explained in different ways. For example, Freud states that aggressive impulses can lead either to aggressive actions or to reaction formations against them. So it is impossible to test definitively any hypotheses about aggressive action.
Freudian psychoanalytic theory presents imprecise concepts and metaphors based on Freud’s interpretation of unrecorded therapy sessions, and as such it cannot be thoroughly examined through experimental and scientific methods. Nevertheless, recent developments within cognitive psychology concerning human memory and subliminal perception have reopened the unconscious for serious scientific investigation. For a related consideration from the neuropsychological perspective, see Faulkner and Foster (2002). These authors argue that the effects of brain injury may teach us a considerable amount about the relationship between the conscious and unconscious mind.
By the early years of the twentieth century, Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) had begun to write about psychoanalysis, which he described as ‘a theory of the mind or personality, a method of investigation of unconscious process, and a method of treatment’ (1923/62). Central to a psychoanalytic approach is the concept of unconscious mental processes – the idea that unconscious motivations and needs have a role in determining our behaviour. This approach also emphasizes the irrational aspects of human behaviour and portrays aggressive and sexual needs as having a major impact on personality.
FREUD’S MODELS OF THE MIND
Freud developed a number of hypothetical models to show how the mind (or what he called the psyche) works: a topographic model of the psyche – or how the mind is organized; a structural model of the psyche – or how personality works; and a psychogenetic model of development – or how personality develops.
Topographic model of the psyche
Freud (1905/53b) argued that the mind is divided into the conscious, the preconscious and the unconscious. According to Freud, the conscious is the part of the mind that holds everything you are currently aware of. The preconscious contains everything you could become aware of but are not currently thinking about. The unconscious is the part of the mind that we cannot usually become aware of. Freud saw the unconscious as holding all the urges, thoughts and feelings that might cause us anxiety, conflict and pain. Although we are unaware of them, these urges, thoughts and feelings are considered by Freud to exert an influence on our actions. Structural model of the psyche Alongside the three levels of consciousness, Freud (1923/62, 1933) developed a structural model of personality involving what he called the id, the ego and the superego (figure 14.3). According to Freud, the id functions in the unconscious and is closely tied to instinctual and biological processes. It is the primitive core from which the ego nd the superego develop. As the source of energy and impulse it has two drives: Eros – a drive for life, love, growth and selfpreservation Thanatos – a drive for aggression and death. These drives, or instincts, are represented psychologically as wishes that need to be satisfied. External or internal stimulation creates tension, which the id seeks to reduce immediately. This is called the ‘pleasure principle’ – the idea that all needs have to be satisfied immediately, avoiding pain and seeking pleasure, regardless of external conditions. The id is directly linked to bodily experience and cannot deal effectively with reality. As such it is limited to two forms of response – reflex responses to simple stimuli (e.g. crying with pain), or primary process thinking (hallucinatory images of desired objects), which provides a basic discharge of tension. According to Freud, primary process thinking does not actually meet the fundamental need of the organism – just as dreaming of water does not satisfy thirst – so a sec ond structure, the ego, focuses on ensuring the id’s impulses are expressed effectively in the context of the real world. The ego, as a source of rationality, conforms to the ‘reality principle’ – delaying the discharge of energy from the id until an appropriate object or activity can be found. The ego engages in secondary process thinking. It takes executive action on the part of the ego to decide which actions are appropriate, which id impulses will be satisfied, how and when.
But the ego has no moral sense, only practical sense. It is a third structure, the superego, which, according to Freud, provides moral guidance, embodying parental and societal values. The superego has two sub-systems: n conscience, or images of what is right and what deserves punishment – this is the basis for guilt; and n ego ideal, or images of what is rewarded or approved of – this is the basis for pride. Violation of superego standards can generate anxiety over loss of parental love, which is experienced as guilt. By the same token, Freud viewed a ‘weak’ superego as the cause of self-indulgence and criminality. According to Freud, the ego mediates between id impulses, superego directives and the real world. Conflicts in this process can lead to three types of anxiety: n neurotic anxiety – that the id will get out of control; n moral anxiety – that past or future behaviour is immoral; or n reality anxiety – about objective dangers in the environment. When anxiety cannot be dealt with by realistic methods the ego calls upon various defence mechanisms to release the tension. Defence mechanisms deny, alter or falsify reality. As they operate unconsciously, they are not immediately obvious to us or to other people. Defence mechanisms include: displacement – substituting an acceptable behaviour for an anxiety-inducing one; projection – projecting the threatening thing on to others; reaction formation – creating an attitude opposite to the one that you hold; intellectualization – transforming emotional or affective drives into rational intentions; and regression – reverting to modes of behaviour from childhood in order to avoid conflict.
Psychogenetic model of development
Freud (1900/1953) proposed that child development proceeds through a series of stages related to physical development, and that adult personality is influenced by how crises are resolved at each stage. Each stage is named after an erogenous zone, or area of the body that can experience pleasure from the environment. Excessive gratification or frustration at any one stage can result in the fixation of libido and subsequent disruption to normal personality development. 1 Oral stage (birth to 18 months) At the beginning of this stage children are highly dependent on their mothers and derive pleasure from sucking and swallowing. Freud suggested that children who become fixated at this early oral stage derive pleasure in adulthood from activities such as overeating, smoking, drinking and kissing. He referred to such people as oral-incorporative or oral-ingestive. Later in the oral stage, children begin to cut teeth and experience pleasure from biting and chewing. Fixation at this later part of the stage results in hewing objects and nail-biting in adulthood, as well as being sarcastic and critical. Freud called those fixated at this level oral-aggressive or oral-sadistic. 2 Anal stage (18 months to three years) At this stage pleasure is gained from the expulsion and retention of faeces. This is also a stage at which children start to explore their environment but experience control and discipline from their parents. According to Freud, fixation at this stage may result in people being messy and generous – anal expulsive characters, or being mean and orderly – anal-retentive characters. 3 Phallic stage (three to five years) It is at the phallic stage that children discover pleasure from touching their genitals. They also become aware that they are in competition with siblings and their father for their mother’s attention. Freud believed that boys become increasingly attached to their mother at this stage and resent the presence of their father. These feelings produce anxiety or fear of punishment from the father – or castration anxiety.
In order to protect themselves against this anxiety, boys identify with their fathers. Freud called boys’ desire for their mother the Oedipus complex, because of the similarity to the ancient Greek play in which Oedipus unwittingly kills his father and marries his mother. Freud argued for a rather different process in girls. He believed that girls reject their mother at the phallic stage, owing to resentment that they have been born without a penis. They then feel increasing attraction to their father, who has the penis they lack. Penis envy is not resolved until women have a male child, thereby symbolically obtaining a penis. This process was also named after an ancient Greek play – Electra. In Greek mythology, Electra was famous for her devotion to her father, and sought revenge against her mother for her father’s death. Fixation at the phallic phase and failure to resolve the Electra or Oedipus complex was viewed as the cause of sexual and/or relationship difficulties in later life. 4 Latency stage (six to twelve years) According to Freud, personality is formed by the end of the phallic stage, and sexual impulses are rechannelled during the latency period into activities such as sport, learning and social activities. 5 Genital stage (13 years to adult) As young people approach the age of reproductive ability, they begin to focus their libido, or sexual energy, towards the opposite sex. If the earlier psychosexual stages have been successfully negotiated, the individual should now begin to form positive relationships with others.
IN THE WAKE OF FREUD
A number of notable theorists followed Freud. Some had worked with him and then moved on to develop their own versions of psychoanalytic theory. These theorists have been called neo-analytic, post-Freudian and psychodynamic, in order to differentiate their work from Freud’s. Jung’s aims and aspirations Carl Jung (1875–1961) was one of the first prominent analysts to break away from Freud. Jung worked with Freud in the early stages of his career, and was viewed by him as the disciple who would carry on the Freudian tradition. But Jung saw humans as being guided as much by aims and aspirations as by sex and aggression. To distinguish his approach from classic psychoanalysis, Jung named it analytical psychology (1951). A basic assumption of his theory is that personality consists of competing forces and structures within the individual that must be balanced. Unlike Freud, he emphasized conflicts between opposing forces within the individual, rather than between the individual and the demands of society, or betwe n the individual and reality.
Horney’s optimism
Karen Horney (1885–1952) was another disciple of Freud who developed a theory that deviated from basic Freudian principles. Horney adopted a more optimistic view of human life, emphasizing human growth and self-realization. She concentrated on early childhood development, and her work formed the basis of much later work in this area. One of Horney’s major contributions was her challenge to Freud’s treatment of women. She countered that, in the early part of the twentieth century, women were more likely to be affected by social and cultural oppression than the absence of a penis. The failings of psychoanalytic theory Freud was an original thinker who created a comprehensive theory of human behaviour, which had a profound impact on twentieth century society, as well as in areas of human endeavour such as art and literature. Few theorists in any scientific discipline have attained such a degree of fame, and few theoretical concepts have been so fully incorporated into Western culture. Despite this, Karl Popper ( 957) declared that psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience because it is inherently untestable. He argued that psychoanalysis is unfalsifiable because the logic of the theory allows for any finding to be explained in different ways. For example, Freud states that aggressive impulses can lead either to aggressive actions or to reaction formations against them. So it is impossible to test definitively any hypotheses about aggressive action.
Freudian psychoanalytic theory presents imprecise concepts and metaphors based on Freud’s interpretation of unrecorded therapy sessions, and as such it cannot be thoroughly examined through experimental and scientific methods. Nevertheless, recent developments within cognitive psychology concerning human memory and subliminal perception have reopened the unconscious for serious scientific investigation. For a related consideration from the neuropsychological perspective, see Faulkner and Foster (2002). These authors argue that the effects of brain injury may teach us a considerable amount about the relationship between the conscious and unconscious mind.
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