Freud's psychoanalytic theories
Sigmund Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) is considered to be the founder of the psychodynamic approach to psychology, which looks to unconscious drives to explain human behavior. Freud believed that the mind is responsible for both conscious and unconscious decisions that it makes on the basis of psychological drives. The id, ego, and super-ego are three aspects of the mind Freud believed to comprise a person's personality. Freud believed people are "simply actors in the drama of [their] own minds, pushed by desire, pulled by coincidence. Underneath the surface, our personalities represent the power struggle going on deep within us".[1]
"Freudian analysis" redirects here. For the broader discipline founded by Sigmund Freud, see Psychoanalysis.Freud's theory of psychosexual development is represented amongst five stages. According to Freud, each stage occurs within a specific time frame of one's life. If one becomes fixated in any of the five stages, he or she will develop personality traits that coincide with the specific stage and its focus.
Anxiety and defense mechanisms[edit]
Freud proposed a set of defense mechanisms in one's body. These set of defense mechanisms occur so one can hold a favorable or preferred view of themselves. For example, in a particular situation when an event occurs that violates one's preferred view of themselves, Freud stated that it is necessary for the self to have some mechanism to defend itself against this unfavorable event; this is known as defense mechanisms. Freud's work on defense mechanisms focused on how the ego defends itself against internal events or impulses, which are regarded as unacceptable to one's ego. These defense mechanisms are used to handle the conflict between the id, the ego, and the superego.
Freud noted that a major drive for people is the reduction of tension and the major cause of tension was anxiety.[10] He identified three types of anxiety; reality anxiety, neurotic anxiety, and moral anxiety. Reality anxiety is the most basic form of anxiety and is based on the ego. It is typically based on the fear of real and possible events, for example, being bit by a dog or falling off of a roof. Neurotic anxiety comes from an unconscious fear that the basic impulses of the id will take control of the person, leading to eventual punishment from expressing the id's desires. Moral anxiety comes from the superego. It appears in the form of a fear of violating values or moral codes and appears as feelings like guilt or shame.
When anxiety occurs, the mind's first response is to seek rational ways of escaping the situation by increasing problem-solving efforts and a range of defense mechanisms may be triggered. These are ways that the ego develops to help deal with the id and the superego. Defense mechanisms often appear unconsciously and tend to distort or falsify reality. When the distortion of reality occurs, there is a change in perception which allows for a lessening in anxiety resulting in a reduction of tension one experiences. Sigmund Freud noted a number of ego defenses that were noted throughout his work but his daughter, Anna Freud, developed and elaborated on them. The defense mechanisms are as follows: 1) Denial is believing that what is true is actually false 2) Displacement is taking out impulses on a less threatening target 3) Intellectualization is avoiding unacceptable emotions by focusing on the intellectual aspects 4) Projection is attributing uncomfortable feelings to others 5) Rationalization is creating false but believable justifications 6) Reaction Formation is taking the opposite belief because the true belief causes anxiety 7) Regression is going back to a previous stage of development 8) Repression is pushing uncomfortable thoughts out of conscious awareness 9) Suppression is consciously forcing unwanted thoughts out of our awareness 10) Sublimation is redirecting ‘wrong’ urges into socially acceptable actions. These defenses are not under our conscious control and our unconscious will use one or more to protect one's self from stressful situations. They are natural and normal and without these, neurosis develops such as anxiety states, phobias, obsessions, or hysteria.
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality[edit]
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, sometimes titled Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex, written in 1905 by Sigmund Freud explores and analyzes his theory of sexuality and its presence throughout childhood. Freud's book describes three main topics in reference to sexuality: sexual perversions, childhood sexuality, and puberty. His first essay in this series is called "The Sexual Aberrations." This essay focuses on the distinction between a sexual object and a sexual aim. A sexual object is an object that one desires while the sexual aim is the acts that one desires to perform with the object. Freud's second essay was explained," Infantile Sexuality." During this essay, he insists that children have sexual urges. The psychosexual stages are the steps a child must take in order to continue having sexual urges once adulthood is reached. The third essay Freud wrote described "The Transformation of Puberty." In this essay, he examines how children express their sexuality throughout puberty and how sexual identity is formed during this time frame. Freud ultimately attempted to link unconscious sexual desires to conscious actions in each of his essays.
Dreams[edit]
The Interpretation of Dreams was one of Sigmund Freud's best known published works. It set the stage for his psychoanalytic work and Freud's approach to the unconscious with regard to the interpretation of dreams. During therapy sessions with patients, Freud would ask his patients to discuss what was on their minds. Frequently, the responses were directly related to a dream.[13] As a result, Freud began to analyze dreams believing that it gave him access to one's deepest thoughts. In addition, he was able to find links between one's current hysterical behaviors and past traumatic experiences. From these experiences, he began to write a book that was designed to help others to understand dream interpretation. In the book, he discussed his theory of the unconscious.
Freud believed that dreams were messages from the unconscious masked as wishes controlled by internal stimuli. The unconscious mind plays the most imperative role in dream interpretation. In order to remain in a state of sleep, the unconscious mind has to detain negative thoughts and represent them in any edited form. Therefore, when one dreams the unconscious makes an effort to deal with conflict. It would enable one to begin to act on them.
There are four steps required to convert dreams from latent or unconscious thoughts to the manifest content. They are condensation, displacement, symbolism, and secondary revision. Ideas first go through a process of condensation that takes thoughts and turns them into a single image. Then, the true emotional meaning of the dream loses its significance in an element of displacement. This is followed by symbolism representing our latent thoughts in visual form. A special focus on symbolism was emphasized in the interpretation of dreams.[14] Our dreams are highly symbolic with an underlying principle meaning. Many of the symbolic stages focus on sexual connotations. For example, a tree branch could represent a penis. Freud believed all human behavior originated from our sexual drives and desires. In the last stage of converting dreams to manifest content dreams are made sensible. The final product of manifest content is what we remember when we come out of our sleep.