PSYCHOANALYSIS
Who was Sigmund Freud?
“My Life is interesting only if it is related to psychoanalysis”
Freud 1884 Sigmund Freud (born Sigismund Freud) was an
Austrian neurologist born on the 6th May 1856 in a small town
named Freiberg, Moravia (now the Czech Republic). Although
born to a relatively poor Jewish family, Freud originally planned
to study law at the University of Vienna but later changed his
mind and opted for medicine. Upon graduating, Freud began
work in a psychiatry clinic in the Vienna General Hospital.
Psychiatry at this time however took no interest in the
psychological components of mental health, but simply viewed
behaviour in light of the anatomical structures of the brain. After
spending four months abroad on placement in the Salpetriere
clinic in Paris, Freud began to harbour an interest in “hysteria”
and particularly the hypnosis methods of its leading neurologist, Jean Martin Charcot. Upon his
return to Vienna, Freud left the Vienna General Hospital and set up a private practice
specialising in “nervous and brain disorders”. There, along with his colleague Joseph Breuer,
Freud began exploring the traumatic life histories of clients with hysteria, leading to the view that
talking was a “cathartic” way of releasing “pent up emotion”. Consequently, along with Breuer,
Freud published “Studies on Hysteria” (1895) and began to develop the first ideas towards
psychoanalysis.
It was about this time also that Freud began his own self-analysis in which he meticulously
analysed his dreams in light of unconscious processes culminating in his next major work “The
Interpretation of Dreams” (1901).Freud had by now also developed his therapeutic technique of
free association and was no longer practicing hypnosis. From this he went on to explore the
influence of unconscious thought processes on various aspects of human behaviour and felt
that amongst these forces the most powerful were the sexual desires in childhood which were
repressed from the conscious mind. Although the medical establishment as whole disagreed
with many of his theories, in 1910 Freud along with a group of pupils and followers founded the
International Psychoanalytic Association, with Carl Jung as president. In 1923 Freud published
“The Ego and the Id” revising the structural make-up of the mind, and continued to work
feverishly during this period developing his ideas. By 1938 and the arrival of the Nazis in
Austria, Freud left for London with his wife and children. Throughout this time he was plagued
by cancer of the jaw and after undergoing 30 operations, he died in London on 23rd September
1939.
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a treatment based on the theory that our present is shaped by our past. We
are often unaware of how experiences can affect us. Painful feelings can remain in the
unconscious mind and influence our current mood and behaviour and contribute to problems
with self-esteem, personality, relationships and work.
Because we are unaware of these forces, common problem-solving techniques – such as
seeking the advice of friends and family or reading self-help books– often fail to provide relief.
Psychoanalysis helps a person take control of these influences by tracing them back to their
origins and understanding how they have developed over time. This awareness offers the
person the opportunity to deal constructively with the way these influences affect their current
life.
Some of the problems treated by psychoanalysis include:
Depression
Generalised anxiety
Sexual problems
Self-destructive behaviour
Persistent psychological problems, disorders of identity
Psychosomatic disorders
Phobias
Obsessive compulsive disorders
Sigmund Freud’s Main Theories in Psychoanalysis
1. Psychosexual Development & The Oedipus Complex
One of Freud’s more famous theories was that of psychosexual development. Fundamentally,
Freud postulated that as children we move through a series of stages centred on erogenous
zones. Successful completion of these stages, Freud argued, led to the development of a
healthy personality, but fixation at any stage prevents completion and therefore the
development of an unhealthy, fixated personality as an adult. Although elements of this theory
are still used in modern day psychodynamic/psychoanalytical therapy, over time the therapy has
been replaced by more modern theory.
a.) Oral Stage (Birth to 18 Months):
Child becomes focused on oral pleasures such as sucking. Difficulties at this stage
could lead to an oral personality in adulthood centred around smoking, drinking
alcohol, biting nails and they can be pessimistic, gullible and overly dependent on
others.
b.) Anal Stage (18 months to 3 Years):
Focus of pleasure here is on eliminating and retaining faeces and learning to control
this due to societal norms. Fixation here can lead to perfectionism, a need to control
or alternatively the opposite; messy and disorganised.
c.) Phallic Stage (Ages 3 to 6 Years):
During the phallic stage the child’s pleasure move to the genitals and Freud argued
that during this stage boys develop an unconscious sexual desire for their mothers
and fear that because of this their fathers will punish them by castration. This
became known as the Oedipus Complex after the Sophocles tragedy. A fixation at
the stage could lead to confusion over sexual identity or engaging in sexual
deviances. Latency Stage (Ages 6 to puberty): Sexual urges remain largely
repressed at this stage.
d.) Genital Stage (Puberty Onwards):
This final stage leads to the individual switching their interest to members of the
opposite sex.
2. Id, Ego, Superego
a.) The Id: According to Freud the id is the completely unconscious, impulsive and
demanding part of the psyche that as a child allows us to get our basic needs met. This part
of the psyche operates on what Freud termed the pleasure principle and it’s all about getting
our every need and wish met with no consideration of the reality. The id seeks immediate
gratification.
b.) The Ego: The ego is based on the reality principle. It understands that the Id can’t always
have what it wants because sometimes that can cause problems for us in the future. As
such the Ego is the gatekeeper to the id, allowing it sometimes to have what it wants but
always making sure that the reality of the situation is taken into account. The Super-Ego: By
the time we reach age 5, Freud argued that we had developed another part of the psyche
called the
c.) Super-Ego. This is the moral part of the psyche and regardless of the situation always
believes we should do the moral thing. Some conceptualise this part as our coconscience
3. Defense Mechanism
The balancing act between these two aspects of the psyche can sometimes be difficult
for the Ego and so it employs a variety of different tools to help mediate known as
Defence Mechanisms. Some examples of defence mechanisms are:
Displacement: “i.e. arguing with your partner after an argument with a friend”
Projection: “ i.e. Stating that the other person is stupid when you’re losing the argument”
Sublimation: “i.e. Becoming a boxer so that you can hit others in a more socially
acceptable way”
Denial: “i.e. Denying that your husband is having an affair and carrying on asargument
Repression: “i.e. Forgetting something happened because it is too emotionally painfull.
4. The Unconscious
The concept of the unconscious was central to Freud’s view of the mind. He believed that
the majority of what we experience day-to-day (the emotions, beliefs and impulses) takes
place in the unconscious and is not viewable to us in the conscious mind. In particular, he
used the concept of repression to demonstrate that although an individual may not
remember something traumatic happening to them, this memory is locked away in the
unconscious. Yet importantly, these memories remain active in the unconscious and can
reappear in consciousness under certain circumstances and can cause problems for us
even in the unconscious.
Our conscious mind, however, according to Freud makes up a very small amount of our
personality – as we are only aware of the small tip of the iceberg of what is actually going on
in our minds. Freud also added a third level to our psyche known as the preconscious or
subconscious mind. This part of the mind is the one that although we are not consciously
aware of what’s in it at all times, we can retrieve information and memories from it if
prompted. This is one of the most important Freudian contributions and is still very much
used in psychotherapy today
Reference:
Department of Health & Human Services. (n.d.). Psychoanalysis. Better Health Channel.
https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/psychoanalysis
Jacobson, S. (2023, March 4). Sigmund Freud’s Main Theories in Psychoanalysis: A Summary.
Harley TherapyTM Blog. https://www.harleytherapy.co.uk/counselling/freuds-main-theories-
psychoanalysis.htm
