Freud

According to psychologists what makes people more likely to be religious?

• Examining the mental processes involved in religion, psychologists’’ conclude that, under certain circumstances, the brain is stimulated into a religious outlook.

• The stimulus can be emotionally, socially or physically based.

• This is not to say, incidentally that psychologists are asserting that God cannot exist.

• What they do say is that religious belief can be explained without requiring God, people adopt a religion because their psychological structure encourages them to. 

What in Freud’s background may influence his theories on religion?

• Freud’s anti-religious feelings can probably be linked to his Catholic nanny who regularly taught him about heaven and hell and also the antisemitism he encountered growing up.

• Freud opened a private practice in human nervous disorder and used hypnosis to treat patients with hysteria. 

• He believed hysteria to be the product of emotional trauma and that repressed emotions had to be discovered in order to deal with the problems. 

What does illusion mean? 

•  A belief derived from human wishes 

What does wish fulfilment mean?

• Certain circumstances, the human mind will create beliefs and images to satisfy its most basic longings and desires.

• Freud did not mean that religion is necessarily false of that there can be no God - but hat is answers the inner needs of the person. 

What is neurotic illness

• A neurotic illness involves physical symptoms - pain, compulsive behaviour etc, which unlike for a broken leg have no physical cause, but are rooted in the mind.

• Hysteria, obsessions,’, anxieties and phobias are all neurotic symptoms.

What is Repression?

• A psychological defence mechanism that involves keeping certain thoughts, feelings or urges out of concious awareness.

What is the concious mind?

• The conscious mind contains our present thoughts and accessible memories. 

What is the unconscious mind?

• The unconscious mind contains basic drives, such as breathing and forgotten memories.

What is Freud theory of religion?

• Freud’s argument is that religion is an illusion based on human wishes.

• It is created by the mind to hep us overcome:

1. Inner psychological conflict

• Religion is a form of neurotic illness

• It stems from the unconscious mind

• It results from incompletely repressed traumatic memory

• The trauma is invariably sexual in nature

• Therefore religion is an illusion resulting from sexual difficulties

2. Stress, which stems from the structure of society

2. Fears of the dangers of the natural world

Why does Freud consider religion to be a form of neurotic illness? 

(religion as an aid to overcome inner psychological conflict) 

• Because he observed similarity in religion and behaviours he observed in his patients with neurotic illnesses. 

What neurotic illness did he compare religious rituals to and why?

• The particular neurotic illness he has observed in his patients is OCD.

• The link with religion was made when Freud noticed close similarities between the behaviour of his patients in relation to the source of their obsession and of religious people in relation to the object of their worship.

Give 3 ways the performance of religious ritual is similar to the neurotic illness mentioned above

• He noticed, for example that both involve highly specific ritual behaviour 

• In both cases, this behaviour is filled with symbolic meaning for its followers, while at the same time it appears completely meaningless to the uninitiated. 

• In both cases, failure to perform a particular act results in severe guilt, which is inexplicable to others.

• And in both cases the object of attention is regarded with uncertainty. 

Is Freud right to make the link between OCD and ritual? 

• It may not be fair because religious ritual is free choice, whereas OCD is them being compelled. 

• However it may not be entirely a free choice as some people may be doing these rituals out of fear - they feel compelled. 

 

• OCD has a negative impact on a person's life and daily functioning, whereas rituals have a positive effect such as bringing peace 

Can religion be reduced to ritual or is there more to it?

• There is more to it e.g. belief, faith, community

What did Fred claim religion is - key quote

• Freud claimed that religion is ‘‘the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity’’

Why did Freud believe that religion was a universal obsessional neurosis? 

• Freud concluded that religion was a form of neurotic behaviour, caused, as in the case of other hysterias, by traumas buried deep within the psyche. 

What does Freud mean by the libido?

(conflict between our nature and civilisation)

• For Freud the libido/sex drive involves far more than the desire to have sex  - it represents the body’s general subconscious desire for satisfaction (libido), which stems from the unconscious. 

• In babies, the libido centres around the mouth, and the desire to suckle from the mother. 

• This changes as the child develops and is gradually transformed to the mature desire among adults to reproduce. 

• The sexual drive, or libido was the body’s most basic urge and therefore, the one most  capable of causing psychological problems within the development of the individual. 

Explain what the Oedipus complex is with reference to its different stages below

• Freud believed there was a universal human characteristic that all boys have, a subconscious desire to get rid of their fathers and have their mothers to themselves.

• This was arrived at through analysis of his patients and consideration of his own memories.

• Freud was the oldest of 8 children and his mother was 20 years younger than his father.

• Freud remembered feelings of passion for his mother and jealousy of his father.

How does a child’s desire for its mother link to feelings of hatred towards the father?

(What role does libido have in traumatic experience)

• Freud believed whereas the sucking child was used to having its mother’s sole attention, when the libido is transferred the sexual organ, there is an already present rival in the form of the father. 

What does a child do with those emotions?

(What role does libido have in traumatic experience)

• Feelings of jealousy and hatred combine with the respect and fear previously felt for the father. 

• The child represses the conflict deep within the unconscious mind.

• This leads to feelings of guilt and anger that are repressed but not completely dealt with. 

As a result of repressed trauma - how does this link to religion?

(What role does libido have in traumatic experience)

• The repression is only partial, and the event is channelled out in the form of neurotic symptoms. 

• One of these symptoms is religion:

• the ‘‘universal obsessional neurosis  of humanity’’

• ‘‘Religion is a return of the repressed ’’

• As a way of dealing with the repressed trauma, religion is formed and ritualistic behaviour is a coping mechanism believing it will help them get rid of their guilt. 

What is Primal Horde Theory?

• Freud speculated that in primitive societies, the social unit was something called the primal horde.

• Hordes were groups of people arranged around a single dominant male who had total authority over the group - and who held claim over all the females.

• Over time, the resentment of the younger males grew, until they grouped together to kill the alpha male.

• This resulted in mixed feelings towards him - hatred combined with respect.

• They felt guilt due to killing him.

• The strength of these feelings was so great that the father/alpha male became idolised and transformed into the totem of the group.

• Freud drew on the ideas of Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory to support his own ideas.

What are the 3 stages of primal Horde theory?

1. Animism

2. Religion

3. Religion as an illusion

What is stage 1 of primal horde theory?

(Animism)

• After the father’s/alpha males death, they begin to idolise the father figure, setting him up as a totem.

• The horde experiences a traumatic collective guilt which is transferred to some object or animal: the mind deflects the feelings of guilt onto the new totem.

• They create a totem animal to worship as a father substitute.

• The animal is sacrificed each year in the special totem meal which commemorates the original crime of killing and devouring the father. 

• For Freud, this act is the beginnings of religion. 

What is stage 2 of Primal Horde theory?

(Religion)

• Eventually, when the idea of totems became unsatisfactory totems were transformed into Gods of religions.

• An example of this is the Christian God.

• He is worshipped in the same way as the totems were - with reverence but also fear and so religion is formed.

What is stage 3 of Primal Horde theory?

(Religion as an illusion)

• Religion is therefore an illusion created by the mind to help us come to terms with the powerfully ambivalent emotions suffered during sexual development.

• It is a means of resolving inner conflict.

• Freud’s point is that the natural human response to being confronted by natural forces - including death - is one of panic and helplessness at our defencelessness and solitude.

• Religion helps by creating the belief that the natural forces are no longer impersonal, and that we are no longer powerless - through religious devotion we believe we can control them.

• Religious belief provides for the adult, a father figure who can protect just as the father protected the child.

What is Freud’s conclusion?

• Religion is for people who lack maturity to live comfortably as adults without their parents.

• Religion is as a result of the guilt surrounding the ‘Oedipus complex’ - the feelings of guilt towards their own father leads them to formulate an invisible father figure worshipped.

• Religion is an ‘‘infantile neurosis’’ that people would be better off without.