Chapter 2
Freud: Psychoanalysis

 

Learning Objectives

After reading Chapter 2, you should be able to:

1.    Describe how Freud's childhood experiences may have influenced his theory of personality.

2.    Argue pro or con whether Freud was scientific in his writings.

3.    Identify and explain the three levels of mental life.

4.    Describe the three provinces of the mind and their characteristics.

5.    Explain Freud's concept of the sexual and aggressive instincts.

6.    Discuss the importance of anxiety in psychoanalytic theory.

7.    List the Freudian defense mechanisms and give examples of each.

8.    Summarize the psychosexual stages of development and their possible effects on personality.

9.    Trace the development of the Oedipus complex for both boys and girls.

10.  Debate the accuracy of Freud's concept of women.

11.  Compare Freud's early therapeutic technique with his later approach and explain how his shift in techniques may have permanently altered the history of psychoanalysis.

12.  Explain Freud's concept of dreams.

13.  Discuss recent research related to Freud's concept of dreams.

Summary Outline

I.     Overview of Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory
Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis has endured because it  (1) postulated the primacy of sex and aggression—two universally popular themes, (2) attracted a group of followers who were dedicated to spreading psychoanalytic doctrine, and (3) advanced the notion of unconscious motives, which permit varying explanations for the same observations.
II.   Biography of Sigmund Freud
Born in the Czech Republic in 1856, Sigmund Freud spent most of his life in Vienna. Early in his professional career, Freud believed that hysteria was a result of being seduced during childhood by a sexually mature person, often a parent or other relative.  In 1897, however, Freud abandoned his seduction theory and replaced it with his notion of the Oedipus complex, a concept that remained the center of his psychoanalytic theory.  Near the end of his life and to escape Nazi rule, Freud moved to London where he died in 1939.
III.  Levels of Mental Life
Freud saw mental functioning as operating on three levels—unconscious, preconscious, and conscious.
       A.  Unconscious
The unconscious includes drives and instincts that are beyond awareness but that motivate most human behaviors.  Freud believed that unconscious drives can become conscious only in disguised or distorted form, such as dream images, slips of the tongue, or neurotic symptoms.  Unconscious processes originate from two sources: (1) repression, or the blocking out of anxiety-filled experiences and (2) phylogenetic endowment, or inherited experiences that lie beyond an individual's personal experience.
       B.  Preconscious
The preconscious contains images that are not in awareness but that can become conscious either quite easily or with some level of difficulty.
       C.  Conscious
Consciousness plays a relatively minor role in Freudian theory.  Conscious ideas stem from either the perception of external stimuli  (our perceptual conscious system) or from the unconscious and preconscious after they have evaded censorship.
IV.  Provinces of the Mind
Freud conceptualized three regions of the mind—the id, the ego, and the superego.
       A. The Id
The id, which is completely unconscious, serves the pleasure principle and contains our basic instincts. It operates through the primary process.
       B.  The Ego
The ego, or secondary process, is governed by the reality principle and is responsible for reconciling the unrealistic demands of the id and the superego.
C.  The Superego
The superego, which serves the idealistic principle, has two subsystems—the conscience and the ego-ideal.  The conscience results from punishment for improper behavior whereas the ego-ideal stems from rewards for socially acceptable behavior.
V.    Dynamics of Personality
Dynamics of personality refers to those forces that motivate people.
       A. Instincts
Freud grouped all human drives or urges under two primary instincts—sex (Eros or the life instinct) and aggression (the death or destructive instinct). Theaim of the sexual instinct is pleasure, which can be gained through the erogenous zones, especially the mouth, anus, and genitals.  The objectof the sexual instinct is any person or thing that brings sexual pleasure.  All infants possess primary narcissism, or self-centeredness, but the secondary narcissism of adolescence and adulthood is not universal.  Both sadism (receiving sexual pleasure from inflicting pain on another) and masochism (receiving sexual pleasure from painful experiences) satisfy both sexual and aggressive drives. The destructive instinct aims to return a person to an inorganic state, but it is ordinarily directed against other people and is called aggression.
       B.  Anxiety
Only the ego feels anxiety, but the id, superego, and outside world can each be a source of anxiety.  Neurotic anxiety stems from the ego's relation with the id; moral anxiety is similar to guilt and results from the ego's relation with the superego; and realistic anxiety, which is similar to fear, is produced by the ego's relation with the real world.
VI.  Defense Mechanisms
       Defense mechanisms operate to protect the ego against the pain of anxiety.
       A.  Repression
       Repression involves forcing unwanted, anxiety-loaded experiences into the unconscious.  It is the most basic of all defense mechanisms because it is an active process in each of the others.
       B.  Reaction Formation
A reaction formation is marked by the repression of one impulse and the ostentatious expression of its exact opposite.
       C.  Displacement
Displacement takes place when people redirect their unwanted urges onto other objects or people in order to disguise the original impulse.
       D.  Fixation
Fixations develop when psychic energy is blocked at one stage of development, making psychological change difficult.  Some adults may remain fixated on the anal stage of psychosexual development.
       E.  Regression
Regressions occur whenever a person reverts to earlier, more infantile modes of behavior. Some adults may return to the oral stage as a means of reducing anxiety.
       F.   Projection
       Projection is seeing in others those unacceptable feelings or behaviors that actually reside in one's own unconscious. When carried to extreme, projection can become paranoia, which is characterized by delusions of persecution.
       G.  Introjection
Introjections take place when people incorporate positive qualities of another person into their own ego to reduce feelings of inferiority.
       H.  Sublimation
Sublimations involve the elevation of the sexual instinct's aim to a higher level, which permits people to make contributions to society and culture.
VII. Stages of Development
Freud saw psychosexual development as proceeding from birth to maturity through four overlapping stages.
       A.  Infantile Period
The infantile stage encompasses the first 4 to 5 years of life and is divided into three subphases: oral, anal, and phallic. During the oral phase, an infant is primarily motivated to receive pleasure through the mouth.  During the 2nd year of life, a child goes through an anal phase.  If parents are too punitive during the anal phase, the child may adopt an anal triad, consisting of orderliness, stinginess, and obstinacy.  During the phallic phase, boys and girls begin to have differing psychosexual development. At this time, boys and girls experience the Oedipus complex in which they have sexual feelings for one parent and hostile feelings for the other.  The male castration complex, which takes the form of castration anxiety, breaks up the male Oedipus complex and results in a well-formed male superego. For girls, however, the castration complex takes the form of penis envy, precedes the female Oedipus complex, leads to a gradual and incomplete shattering of the female Oedipus complex and results it a weaker and more flexible female superego.
       B.  Latency Period
Freud believed that psychosexual development goes through a latency stage—from about age 5 years until puberty—in which the sexual instinct is partially suppressed.
       C.  Genital Period
The genital period begins with puberty when adolescents experience a reawakening of the genital aim of Eros.  The term "genital period" should not be confused with "phallic period."
       D.  Maturity
Freud hinted at a stage of psychological maturity in which the ego would be in control of the id and superego and in which consciousness would play a more important role in behavior.
VIII.     Applications of Psychoanalytic Theory.
Freud erected his theory on the dreams, free associations, slips of the tongue, and neurotic symptoms of his patients during therapy.  But he also gathered information from history, literature, and works of art. 
       A.  Freud's Early Therapeutic Technique
During the 1890s, Freud used an aggressive therapeutic technique in which he strongly suggested to patients that they had been sexually seduced as children.  He later dropped this technique and abandoned his belief that most patients had been seduced during childhood.
       B.  Freud's Later Therapeutic Technique
Beginning in the late 1890s, Freud adopted a much more passive type of psychotherapy, one that relied heavily on free association, dream interpretation, and transference.  The goal of Freud's later psychotherapy was to uncover repressed memories, and the therapist uses dream analysis and free association to do so.  With free association patients are required to say whatever comes to mind, no matter how irrelevant or distasteful.  Successful therapy rests on the patient's transference of childhood sexual or aggressive feelings onto the therapist and away from symptom formation.  Patients' resistance to change is seen as progress because it indicates that therapy has advanced beyond superficial conversation.
       C.  Dream Analysis
In interpreting dreams, Freud differentiated the manifest content (conscious description) from the latent content (the unconscious meaning). Nearly all dreams are wish-fulfillments, although the wish is usually unconscious and can be known only through dream interpretation. To interpret dreams Freud used both dream symbols and the dreamer's associations to the dream content.
       D.  Freudian Slips
Freud believed that parapraxes—now called Freudian slips—are not chance accidents but reveal a person's true but unconscious intentions.
IX.  Related Research
Although Freudian theory has generated much related research, it rates low on falsifiability because most research findings can be explained by other theories. In recent years, however, many researchers have investigated hypotheses inspired by psychoanalytic theory.  This research includes such topics as (1) unconscious mental processing, (2) pleasure and the id: inhibition and the ego, (3) the defense mechanisms, and (4) dreams.
A.    Unconscious Mental Processing
In recent years, neuroscience has been investigating the brain during a variety of cognitive and emotional task, and much of this work relates to Freud's notion of unconscious motivation.   For example, one pair of reviewers (Bargh & Chartrand, 1990) concluded that 95% of human behaviors are unconsciously determined, and that Freud's metaphor of the iceberg was probably accurate.  In addition Mark Solms (2000, 2004; Solms & Turnbull, 2002) argued that many Freudian concepts are consistent with modern neuroscience research.  These include unconscious motivation, repression, and the pleasure principle. 
      B.     Pleasure and the Id /Inhibition and the Ego
Some research (Solms, 2001; Solms & Turnbull, 2002) has established that the pleasure-seeking drives have their neurological origins in two brain structures, namely the brain stem and the limbic system.
      C.        Repression, Inhibition, and Defense Mechanisms
Solms (2004) reported cases from the neuropsychological literature demonstrating repression of information when damage occurs to the right-hemisphere and if this damaged region becomes artificially stimulated the repression goes away; that is, awareness returns.
      D.        Research on Dreams
Research by Wegner and colleagues (Wegner, Wenzlaff, & Kozak, 2004) tested Freud's hypothesis that wishes repressed during the day will find their way into dreams during the night.  Results showed that people dreamed more about their repressed targets than their non-repressed ones; that is, they were more likely to dream about people they spend some time thinking about, a finding quite consistent with Freud's hypothesis.
X.   Critique of Freud
Freud regarded himself as a scientist, but many critics consider his methods to be outdated, unscientific, and permeated with gender bias.  On the six criteria of a useful theory, psychoanalysis we rate its ability to generate research as high, its openness to falsification as very low, and its ability to organize data as average.  We also rate psychoanalysis as average on its ability to guide action and to be parsimonious.  Because it lacks operational definitions, we rate it low on internal consistency.
XI.  Concept of Humanity
Freud's concept of humanity was deterministic and pessimistic.  He emphasized causality over teleology, unconscious determinants over conscious processes, and biology over culture, but he took a middle position on the dimension of uniqueness versus similarity of people.

 

Test Items

Fill-in-the-Blanks

1.   As a young man, Freud harbored a strong wish to make a great discovery and thus to become famous. One such attempt involved the anesthetic properties of the drug __________________. 

2.   When Freud abandoned the ________________ theory, he dramatically changed the course of psychoanalysis.

3.   Freud's heavy emphasis on _______________ motivation allows for opposing explanations for the same observation.

4.   Freud believed that our _________________  endowment, or inherited unconscious images, sometimes influences our behavior.

5.   Unconscious images may become __________________ after being distorted, disguised, or otherwise transformed.

6.   The _______________ serves the pleasure principle.

7.   The superego has two parts, the _______________ and the conscience.

8.   A _______________ receives sexual pleasure from inflicting pain on other people.

9.   According to Freud, the two great instincts are sex and –––––––––––––––––––––––––––.

10. Moral anxiety results from the ego's relationship with the __________________________.

11. Defense mechanisms protect the ego against the pain of __________________________.

12. A ________________ formation is marked by the repression of one impulse and the ostentatious expression of its exact opposite.

13. The defense mechanism whereby a person redirects unwanted urges onto another person or object is called _________________.

14. The defense that involves the repression of the sexual instinct and the substitution of cultural or social accomplishments is called ________________________.

15. The infantile stage is divided into three substages: oral­­­­­, _____________________, and phallic.

16. According to Freud, the _________________ stage may lead to compulsive neatness, obstinacy, and miserliness in some people.

17. Freud believed that _______­­­­_______________ differences are responsible for different psychosexual development in boys and girls during the phallic stage.

18. The castration complex takes the form of ______________________ for girls.

19. The castration complex takes the form of ________________________ for boys.

20. The proper resolution of the __________________________ results in the emergence of a mature superego for boys.

 

True-False

_____1. Psychoanalytic doctrine is based in part on Freud's analysis of his own dreams.

_____2. Freud regarded himself mostly as a philosopher.

_____3. Freud's data were based mostly on experimental investigation.

_____4. Freud's lifelong friendship with Carl Jung greatly influenced the final shape of psychoanalysis.

_____5. Unlike many of his other theories, Freud’s famous seduction theory was one he never changed.

_____6. Freud believed that people are motivated mostly by unconscious urges.

_____7. Ideas that are not conscious but that can become so quite easily are said by Freud to belong to the preconscious.

_____8. The superego serves the idealistic and moralistic principles.

_____9. Psychoanalysis rests on two great instincts or drives:  sex and hunger.

____10. The aim of an instinct is to seek pleasure.

____11. Neurotic anxiety stems from the ego's dependence on the id.

____12. Defense mechanisms defend the id against anxiety.

____13. Repressions are the most basic of the defense mechanisms because they underlie all other defense mechanisms.

____14. The permanent attachment of libido onto an earlier stage of development best describes the defense mechanism of fixation.

____15. Sublimations often benefit society.

____16. The principal source of frustration during the oral period is weaning.

____17. For boys, the Oedipus complex occurs prior to the castration complex.

____18 For girls, the Oedipus complex occurs prior to the castration complex.

____19. During the 1880's, Freud's practice of psychotherapy was much more passive than it would become decades later.

____20. Freud's theory rates high on falsifiability.         

 

Multiple Choice

______1 The twin cornerstones of psychoanalytic motivation are
a.  sex and security.
b.  safety and security.
c.  hunger and sex.
d.  sex and aggression.

______2. Freud began his self-analysis shortly after
a.  he broke off his relationship with Fliess.
b.  he broke off his relationship with Jung.
c.  his mother died.
d.  his father died.

______ 3.   As a youth and young man, Freud was strongly motivated to
a.  win fame by making a great discovery.
b.  overtake his older brother Julius.
c.  practice medicine on the poor people of Vienna.
d.  become a rabbi and move to New York.

______4. What analogy did Freud use to illustrate the relationship between the ego and the id?
a.  rider and horse
b.  groom and bride
c.  chicken and egg
d.  hammer and anvil

______5. The id serves the _____­­_____  principle.
a.  pleasure
b.  reality
c.  moralistic
d.  idealistic

_____6.  Which regions of the mind have no direct contact with the external world?
a.  id and superego
b.  id and ego
c.  id only
d.  ego and superego

______7. Which of these is a manifestation of both sex and aggression?
a.  anxiety
b.  narcissism
c.  sadism
d.  love

______8. A masochist receives sexual pleasure from
a.  inflicting pain on others.
b.  joining a credit union.
c.  receiving pain inflicted by others.
d.  watching other people undress.

______ 9.   Freud called the mouth, anus, and genitals
a.  Oedipal strivings.
b.  erogenous zones.
c.  the aim of the sexual instinct.
d.  the aim of the aggressive instinct.

_____10. The guilt a person experiences after violating personal standards of conduct is called ________ anxiety.
a.  realistic
b.  neurotic
c.  manifest
d.  moral

_____11. According to Freud, anxiety is felt by the
a.  id.
b.  ego.
c.  superego.
d.  conscience.

_____12. Defense mechanisms protect the ego against
a.  feelings of shame.
b.  guilt.
c.  anxiety.
d.  public disgrace.

_____13. In Freudian theory, anxiety
a.  reduces repression.
b.  triggers repression.
c.  increases repression.
d.  is caused by repression.

_____14. After a drive or image has been repressed, it
a.  may remain unchanged in the unconscious.
b.  could force its way into consciousness in an unchanged form.
c.  could be expressed in a disguised or distorted form.
d.  any of the above.

_____15. With this defense mechanism, a repressed desire finds an opposite and exaggerated expression.
a.  fixation
b.  reaction formation
c.  sublimation
d.  projection

_____16. A completely weaned child goes back to the bottle after a younger sister is born.  This return to a more infantile pattern of behavior expresses a
a.  reaction formation.
b.  fixation.
c.  regression.
d.  projection.

_____17. Chad has great admiration for his history teacher.  He attempts to imitate this teacher's lifestyle and mannerisms.  This is an example of
a.  displacement.
b.  sublimation.
c.  projection.
d.  introjection.

_____18. This defense mechanism, unlike the others, usually results in some benefit to society.
a.  projection
b.  fixation
c.  sublimation
d.  regression

_____19. To Freud, the most crucial stage of development is
a.  infancy.
b.  latency.
c.  genital.
d.  maturity.

_____20. The anal triad consists of all these characteristics EXCEPT
a.  miserliness.
b.  aggressiveness.
c.  stubbornness.
d.  compulsive neatness.

_____21. Freud believed that differences between boys and girls in psychosexual development are due to
a.  parental expectations.
b.  cultural experiences.
c.  anatomy.
d.  hormones.

_____22. For boys, the castration complex
a.  takes the form of penis envy.
b.  shatters the Oedipus complex.
c.  comes before the Oedipus complex.
d.  all of these are correct.
e.  none of these is correct.

_____ 23.   For girls, the castration complex
a.  takes the form of penis envy.
b.  shatters the Oedipus complex.
c.  comes after the Oedipus complex.
d.  all of these.
e.  none of these.

_____ 24.   For boys,
a.  the Oedipus complex comes before the castration complex.
b.  the castration complex takes the form of castration anxiety.
c.  the Oedipus complex is solved when they identify with their father—at around age 5 or 6.
d.  none of these.
e   all of these are correct.

_____25. Freud believed that, with few exceptions, the unconscious meaning of dreams is an expression of
a.  early childhood traumas.
b.  wish-fulfillments.
c.  experiences of the day before.
d.  feelings of inferiority.

_____26. Psychoanalytic therapy is most likely to include this technique.
a.  homework assignments
b.  free association
c.  interpretation of early recollections
d.  an active, aggressive therapist

_____27. During the past dozen or so years, psychoanalysis has received most research support from
a.  operant conditioning.
b.  sociology.
c.  religion.
d.  neuroscience. 

 

Short Answer

1.  List several personal qualities of Freud that contributed to his psychoanalytic theories.

 

 

 

 

2.  Explain how the three levels of mental life relate to the three provinces of the mind.

 

 

 

3.  List and briefly describe at least eight Freudian defense mechanisms.

 

 

 

4.  Compare and contrast the course of development for both the male and the female Oedipus complexes.

 

 

 

5.  Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of psychoanalysis as a scientific theory.

 

 

 

 

 

 

6.  Discuss recent neuroscience research as it relates to Freud's theory.

 

 

Answers

Fill-in-the-Blanks                    True-False               Multiple Choice 

1.    cocaine                             1.       T                           1.    d
2.    seduction                          2.       F                            2.    d
3.    unconscious                      3.       F                            3.    a
4.    phylogenetic                     4.       F                            4.    a
5.    conscious                         5.       F                            5.    a
6.    id                                      6.       T                           6.    a
7.    ego-ideal                           7.       T                           7.    c
8.    sadist                                8.       T                           8..   c       
9.    aggression                        9.       F                            9.    b
10,  superego                           10.     T                           10.  d.
11.  anxiety                             11.     T                           11.  b
12.  reaction                            12.     F                            12.  c
13.  displacement                     13.     T                           13.  b
14.  sublimation                       14.     T                           14.  d
15.  anal                                  15.     T                           15.  b
16.  anal                                  16.     T                           16.  c
17.  anatomical (biological)      17.     T                           17.  d
18.  penis envy                        18.     F                            18.  c
19.  castration anxiety              19.     F                            19.  a
20.  Oedipus complex              20.     F                            20.  b
21.  c
22.  b
23.  a
24.  e
25.  b
26.  b
27.  c