1 / 41

Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis. Chapter 13. 1993. 1924. 1939. 1956. Freud’s place in history. “Psychoanalysis” and “Sigmund Freud”: known all over world Cover of Time magazine: 4 times, once 60 years after death. http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/. Freud’s place in history.

carina
Download Presentation

Psychoanalysis

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Psychoanalysis Chapter 13

  2. 1993 1924 1939 1956 Freud’s place in history • “Psychoanalysis” and “Sigmund Freud”: known all over world • Cover of Time magazine: 4 times, once 60 years after death http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/

  3. Freud’s place in history • Three great shocks to the collective human ego (Freud, 1917) • Copernicus • Darwin • Freud

  4. Freud’s place in history • Chronological overlap with other schools of thought • 1895: Freud’s first book • Wundt: age 63 • Titchener: age 28, structuralism beginning • Functionalism beginning • Watson: age 17 • Wertheimer: age 15

  5. Freud’s place in history • 1939 • Freud’s death • Wundtian psychology, structuralism, and functionalism were past • Gestalt psychology: in the process of transplantation • Behaviorism was dominant

  6. Psychoanalysis • Distinct from mainstream psychology • Methodology • Topics of study • Historical roots

  7. Antecedent influences on psychoanalysis • Idea of the unconscious forces • Not accepted by Wundt and Titchener • Functionalists disregarded it • Watson • Freud: brought concept of the unconscious to psychology

  8. Antecedent influences on psychoanalysis • Philosophical speculations • Early ideas about psychopathology • The influence of Charles Darwin

  9. Antecedent influences on psychoanalysis • Philosophical speculations • Mental events have different degrees of consciousness • Mental events sometimes conflict, with only the winners gaining consciousness • The mind is an iceberg; most of it is unconscious and hidden below the surface (Fechner) • Europe 1880’s : consciousnesswas apart of the intellectual climate and afashionable topic of conversation • Freud • Acknowledged that many others has speculated about consciousness, but claimed he was the first to find a way to study it

  10. Antecedent influences on psychoanalysis • Early ideas about psychopathology • Ancient times: mental illness = possession by demons, punishment for sin, disordered thought processes • Treatment: prayer and magic • 4th century Christianity: mental illness = possession by evil spirits • Treatment: inquisition, torture and execution

  11. Antecedent influences on psychoanalysis • Early ideas about psychopathology • 18th century view: mental illness = irrational behavior • Treatment: confined in institutions, sometimes displayed in public like zoo animals • 19th century: mental illness = broken machine • Treatment:instrument treatments

  12. Examples of Instruments • revolving chair • shock treatment • tranquilizing technique • Methods appear extreme to us but were used to relieve sickness rather than merely institutionalizing patients and ignoring them or worse

  13. Two major schools of thought in psychiatry • Somatic: causes of abnormal behavior are physical • Dominant view • Psychic: causes of abnormal behavior are emotional or psychological • Psychoanalysis: a revolt against the somatic orientation

  14. Changing Views on Mental Illness • The Emmanuel movement • Height of movement: 1906-1910 • Advocated Talk therapy = part of zeitgiest • Increased recognition of psychological causes of mental illness to both general public and therapeutic community • Opposed by medical community

  15. Antecedent influences on psychoanalysis • Hypnosis • Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) • Mental illness caused by lack of balance in body’s animal magnetism; cured by restoring equilibrium • Jean Martin Charcot (1825-1893) • Found hypnosis an effective treatment of hysterical patients • Used medical terminology in descriptions of symptoms and use of hypnosis

  16. Antecedent influences on psychoanalysis • The influence of Charles Darwin • Ideas from Darwin • Unconscious mental processes and conflicts • The significance of dreams • The hidden symbolism of certain behavioral symptoms • The importance of sexual arousal • Notion of continuity in emotional behavior from childhood to adulthood • Humans are driven by biological forces of love and hunger

  17. Antecedent influences on psychoanalysis • From zeitgeist (19th century) • Viennese attitude toward sex generally permissive • Victorian England and Puritan U.S. also not as prudish as often portrayed • Freud and neurotic upper-middle-class women more sexually inhibited than most

  18. Antecedent influences on psychoanalysis • Ideas already in use at time: • Unconsciousness • Mental illness as psychological • Catharsis (talking therapy) • Importance of dreams • Changing views of sexuality • Continuity between childhood and adulthood • Freud’s genius: his ability to weave the threads of ideas and trends into a tapestry of a coherent system

  19. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) • Much of his theory is autobiographical • Father 20 years older than mother • Mother • Oedipus complex

  20. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) • Experimentation with cocaine • Enthusiastically maintained it ameliorated his depression and indigestion • Freud’s article on cocaine benefits in part responsible for its widespread use in U.S. and Europe until 1920s • Discovery of addictive qualities of cocaine discredited Freud among his peers

  21. The case of Anna O. • Her case crucial to development of psychoanalysis (treated origianlly by Breuer) • Wide range of hysterical symptoms • Initial treatment: hypnosis • Positive transference

  22. The case of Anna O. • Anna O. (Bertha Pappenheim) not cured by Breuer • Institutionalized • Somehow overcame emotional problems • Became a social worker, feminist, proponent of education for women • Anna O. Case introduced Freud to the method of catharsis, the talking cure • Case published 1895: the formal beginning of psychoanalysis

  23. http://www.minddisorders.com/images/gemd_02_img0086.jpg The case of Anna O. • Conflicts between Breuer and Freud • Breuer not convinced, as was Freud, that sex is the sole cause of neurosis • Freud viewed sex as the key cause of neurosis • Experiences with Charcot • Gynecologist friend cases • Disagreement between them led to estrangement

  24. The childhood seduction controversy 1896 Paper: • Based on free-association data • Free-association: technique in which patient says whatever comes to mind • Reported that patients were exposed to childhood seduction traumas, often caused by the father or other older family member • The paper was received with skepticism • Kraft-ebbing: described it as a “scientific fairy tale” • Freud response: his critics “were asses and could go to hell.”

  25. The childhood seduction controversy • 1897: Freud reversed his position • The seduction scenes were fantasies • Patients believed they were real experiences • Fantasies sexual in nature, so sex remained the root of the problem • For Freud, sex remained the cause of neurosis

  26. The childhood seduction controversy • 1984: Jeffrey Masson, briefly director of Freud archives, wrote • Sexual abuse of Freud’s patients actually occurred • Freud called them fantasies to make his theory more agreeable to professionals and laymen • Contemporary data: child sexual abuse more frequent than supposed • Whether Freud deliberately suppressed the truth is undetermined

  27. The childhood seduction controversy • Other possible reason for reversal: • If Freud’s initial seduction theory was true, his father, like all fathers, might be guilty of abuse • Freud’s own sexuality • Held a negative attitude toward sex • Experienced sexual difficulties

  28. Refining methods of treatment • Freud became dissatisfied with hypnosis • A long-term cure not effected • Patients vary in ability to be hypnotized • Final techniques • Retained catharsis as a treatment method • Developed the method of free association (intrusion, evasion) • Dream analysis • Goal of psychoanalysis: bring repressed memories into conscious awareness • Repressed memories: the source of abnormal behavior

  29. Dream analysis • Lesson from patients • Dreams a rich source of information, providing clues to causes of a disorder • Freud’s deterministic belief • Everything has a cause • Led him to look for unconscious sources of the meaning in dreams • Two dream levels • Manifest content: conscious dream recollection • Latent content: underlying meaning • Freud analyzed his own dreams for 2 years • Emergent themes • Hostility toward father • Childhood sexual attraction to mother • Sexual wishes regarding eldest daughter

  30. Some famous ideas: • Parts of personality: • Id, ego, and superego • Represents a conflict model of personality • Freudian slip: • a behavior that reflects unconscious motives • Defense mechanisms: • unconscious devices, developed by the ego to protect against anxiety, which also distort reality • Repression: • preventing unacceptable ideas, memories, or desires from coming to conscious awareness

  31. Some famous ideas: • Psychosexual stages of personality development: • Children are autoerotic: • sensual pleasure derives from stimulation of the body’s erogenous zones • Each stage focuses on a different erogenous zone • Inadequate (too little or too much) stimulation at a given stage leads to adult behaviors tied to that stage • Key Freudian conviction: • neuroses arise from childhood experiences • By age 5: • adult personality almost completed • Thus Freud one of the first to emphasize the import of child development

  32. Freud’s System • Based on evidence formulated, revised, and extended by Freud who was sole interpreter • Freud insisted only psychoanalysts who abided by his methods could judge its scientific worth • Rarely responded to his critics • Rejected rebels from his own system • Jung, Adler • “Psychoanalysis was his system, and his alone.”

  33. Relations between psychoanalysis and psychology • Psychoanalysis was for the most part outside the mainstream of psychology • Psychoanalytical papers not accepted in American journals • Freud criticized by well-known American psychologists (Watson = “voodoo”)

  34. 1930’s and 1940’s psychoanalysis • Popular with the general public • Public often confused it with mainstream psychology (experimental psychologists furious) • The academics’ response • Claimed experimental tests of psychoanalytic concepts showed it to be inferior to experimental psychology (tests questionable)

  35. 1950’s and 1960’s • Translation of psychoanalytic concepts into behavioristic terms • Psychology incorporated many of Freud’s concepts [unconscious motivation, pivotal nature of childhood experience, use of defense mechanisms]

  36. The scientific validation of psychoanalytic concepts • More valid tests of Freudian concepts followed the more unconvincing studies of the 1930s and 1940s • Overall results: • Some concepts difficult to test experimentally: e.g., id, ego, superego, libido • Some support for: • Aspects of oral and anal personality • Castration anxiety • Relationship between dreams and emotional processes

  37. The scientific validation of psychoanalytic concepts • Some support for: • Unconscious aspects of cognition • Defense mechanism of repression • Freudian slips • No support for • Link between male oedipal complex resolution and identification with and acceptance of superego standards of father through fear • Inferiority of women’s bodily conceptions, morality, and sense of identity • Personality determined by age 5

  38. Criticisms of psychoanalysis • Undisclosed reasoning process for deriving inferences from data • Data not quantified or analyzed statistically • Not possible to determine their reliability • Only six case histories were published, and none provides compelling support • Data consisted of what Freud recollected • Freud may have recalled and recorded primarily the material consistent with his theses • Freud destroyed most of his data (patient files)

  39. Criticisms of psychoanalysis • Freud’s assumptions about human nature • Very pessimistic • No free will • Often contradicted himself • Definitions of key concepts are unclear

  40. Criticisms of psychoanalysis • Freud’s views on women • Lack of penis as cause of women’s alleged weak superegos and feelings of bodily inferiority • Karen Horney's defection and ultimate retort: men have womb envy • Verdict by contemporary analysts: • Freud’s views regarding psychosexual development of women unproven and wrong

  41. Contributions of psychoanalysis • Freud explored otherwise ignored areas • Unconscious motivating forces • Conflicts among those forces • Defense mechanisms, the unconscious mind, and dream analysis useful concepts

More Related