The Handy Psychology Answer Book. Lisa J. Cohen

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СКАЧАТЬ conscious and pre-conscious as there is between the conscious and the unconscious. The conscious part of the mind contains all the mental content that is in our awareness. It is very small compared to the unconscious.

      Did Freud change his theory over time?

      Freud changed his theories several times over the course of his long career. He initially proposed seduction theory to explain hysteria, a common disorder of the late nineteenth century involving physical complaints without an actual physical basis. Seduction theory posited that hysteria resulted from early sexual experience, what we would now call childhood sexual abuse. This explanation was abandoned in the late 1890s, however, and Freud focused instead on unconscious sexual fantasy. In other words, the symptoms were caused by the patient’s disguised wishes rather than memories of real events. Freud also moved from a topological theory, focusing on the relationship between conscious and unconscious processes to a structural model, focused on the id, ego, and superego. Finally, in the 1920s Freud added the instinctual force of Thanatos, the death instinct, to his theory of instincts.

      What is the structural model?

      The structural model overshadowed the topological model’s focus on the conscious/unconscious division of the mind. While Freud still believed in unconscious processes, he became more and more interested in the compartmentalization of the mind into the id, ego, and superego. The id, translated literally as “it,” contains the animalistic passions that must be subdued in order for civilization to function. The id works on the pleasure principle, where wish equals reality and desire is not subject to restraint. The ego, Latin for the “I,” mediates between the id and reality. The ego operates on the reality principle and recognizes that the world does not always obey our desires. The superego is the source of our morality. It is formed through internalization of our parents’ rules and discipline. A strict superego results in inhibited, moralistic behavior. A weak superego results in self-indulgent, poorly disciplined, or immoral behavior.

      What is Freud’s theory of libido?

      Throughout his career Freud maintained a theory of libido as the primary motivating force behind all human behavior. In fact, he parted ways with some of his favorite protégées after they proposed competing theories about human motivation. Libido can be loosely translated as the sexual instinct, but really refers to all aspects of sensual pleasure. In Freud’s view, instincts press for release as part of the pleasure principle. Pleasure is only attained when tension is reduced through release of instinctual energy. If the instinct is blocked from release, it will seek another outlet, much like a river running downstream. This mechanistic view of human motivation was called the hydraulic model and reflects the scientific models of the day.

      What did Freud say about Thanatos, the death instinct?

      Following the carnage of World War I, Freud added Thanatos to his theory of instincts. Thanatos, the death instinct, explains human destructiveness. Because pleasure can only be found through the reduction of tension, there must be a drive to reach a state of total quiescence, a state of no tension at all. This is the equivalent of death, hence the death instinct. We now realize that pleasure comes from the build-up of tension as well the release of tension.

      Why was Freud so focused on sex?

      While the focus on sex may seem odd to modern eyes, it is important to consider Freud in the context of his own time. He was an extremely ambitious man who aimed to build an all-encompassing scientific theory to explain human behavior. In keeping with nineteenth-century mechanics, he looked for one single force that could explain all of human behavior. He was also a product of the Victorian period—a prudish, sexually inhibited time when sexual repression in the European upper middle-class was probably rampant. It is possible that many of the psychological symptoms his female clients exhibited truly were related to repressed sexuality. Over time, however, many of Freud’s theories, including the theory of libido and of psychosexual stages, were translated into emotional and interpersonal terms.

      What about Freud’s own Oedipal complex?

      We can question whether the particular configuration of Freud’s own family made him especially sensitive to Oedipal issues. Twenty years separated Freud’s parents, Amalia and Jacob, the same age difference between Freud and his mother. Freud was his mother’s (but not his father’s) first born and by many accounts had a particularly close and intense relationship with her throughout his whole life. She died at age ninety-five, only nine years before her son died.

      In the play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, the title character unwittingly kills his father and marries his mother; then he gouges out his eyes when he realizes what he has done.

      What is the Oedipal period?

      Freud believed that the libidinal instincts moved through a series of developmental stages, corresponding with different erogenous zones at different ages. In the phallic stage (approximately ages four to seven), the little boy goes through the Oedipal crisis, which results in the formation of his super-ego. Around this age, the little boy falls in love with his mother. Recognizing his father as his rival, he feels murderous rage toward his father, controlled only by his fear of his father’s greater strength. His fear that his father will cut off his penis in retaliation is termed castration anxiety.

      As a solution to this dilemma, the little boy identifies with his father, realizing that he will grow up to be a man just like him and then have a wife all his own. This internalization of the father and the father’s authority is seen to be the foundation of the super-ego and of a boy’s moral development. Freud was not as sure how to account for female moral development and assumed women to have weaker super-egos due to their obvious immunity to castration anxiety. While the specifics of this theory have been roundly criticized by feminists and developmental psychologists alike, Oedipal behavior is often observed in children this age, who can show strikingly romantic behavior towards older relatives of the opposite sex.

      How is Freudian theory seen today?

      Since the inception of psychoanalysis, Freud has always had passionate loyalists and detractors. Psychoanalysis has been trashed as all hocus-pocus; Freud’s writings have also been treasured as the Bible and seen as infallible. To some extent this is still the case today. However, many advances in our understanding of behavior and of the brain have shown that Freud was often onto something, although he was wrong in many of the specifics. Modern neuroscience, for example, has revealed the frontal lobe and the limbic system to function in dramatically similar ways to the ego and the id.

      How has psychoanalytic theory changed over the years?

      There have been many developments in psychoanalysis. In contemporary psychoanalysis, the schools of object relations, self psychology, and relational theory have translated Freud’s original ideas into interpersonal terms. The emphasis has shifted from sexual instincts to consideration of how early childhood relationships affect adults’ capacity to relate to others and manage emotions. Principles from attachment theory and ideas about self-reflective functioning (as found in the work of Peter Fonagy and Mary Target) have also informed contemporary psychoanalysis. Arguably, the integration of psychoanalytic concepts with advances in neuroscience currently forms the cutting edge of psychoanalytic theory.

      JUNGIAN ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY

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