Lecture 3, Week 5- Freud

Freud, was the focus of the lecture this week and we discussed how today, we are still living in a Freudian world and how his theories are still very much relevant today.

Freud was born in Vienna in the 1850s and died in 1939 in London after battling cancer. during his time he was very well known as a hardworking and very ambitious man who believed through his psychoanalysis could solve many of humanity's problems. He was also seen by many as a sexual renegade who damaged our idea of ourselves as noble creatures and saw sex as a central motivation for our actions. For example, he believed that phallic symbols were all around us, that women had penis envy as they thought they had been castrated; thus resulting in them loving their father and resenting their mother. He also believed that our "self-love" prevented us from progressing in science and making new scientific discoveries as we do not like to see ourselves as being less than perfect.

Freud believed that the mind was divided into 3 parts:

• Id- The unconscious, which operates on the pleasure principle and wants to satisfy its desires. This is where our animal instincts come from.
• Ego- The conscious, which wants to satisfy its desires but in a way which is acceptable in reality and society.
• Superego- Is the internalised rules of our parents or society, telling us what is right and wrong.

Freud also believed that there were 5 stages of development:

• Oral- At this stage the child has a fixation with the mouth and if weaned prematurely problems such as smoking, drinking and eating obsessively could occur later in life.
• Anal- This is the toilet training stage and any problems may lead to them being compulsive.
• Phallic- At this stage the child may become obsessed with the penis (or lack of). The Oedipus complex occurs for boys where they want to be with their mother and kill their father and the Electra complex for girls where they want to be with their father and not their mother.
• Latency- Sex becomes unimportant until they hit puberty.
• Genital- They become obsessed.

Freud thought that because our Id, Ego and Superego were always battling against eachother, this caused repression. His defence mechanisms for this were as follows:

• Sublimation- The turning of sexual energy into something else.
• Displcament- The turning of Shameful thoughts into something/ someone else.
• Projection- The sending of feelings onto someone else.
• Rationalisation- Finding a more socially acceptable explanation.
• Regression- Returning to an earlier stage of development.

The key to psychoanalysis is that yiu are hiding something from yourself. Freud claimed that he had found a way to deal with the unconscious- the Id through a combination of; hypnosis, a pressure method, free association and dreams. These were all methods by which the Id could let off steam. Freud said that aggression could never be eliminated, " the group wants to be dominated" a fear no-one is in charge. He believed that there was a craving for a parent figure now that God is dead.

Attacks on Freud:

• His scientific predictions could be proven wrong, however, Freud was very vague and so it couldn't be tested.
• There is no proof that psychoanalysis works.
• Neuro science has developed more technology which questions Freud's theories and his belief in the Id, Ego and Superego.

Reich:

Reich believed in the complete opposite to Freud. He believed that the unconscious forces inside the mind were good and that it was their suppression by society that distorted them abd made people dangerous. He also believed that underlying sexual energy was good if it was released as humans would flourish.

Despite Freud's influence on Literature and other culture he stated, "The poets and philosophers before me discovered the unconscious. What i discovered was the scientific method by which the unconscious can be studied."