Psychoanalysis emerged from clinical settings, focusing on understanding and treating mental illness by exploring the unconscious mind.
This approach differed from academic and experimental psychology, which initially centered on consciousness and behavior.
Antecedents to Freud
Charcot
Charcot's work on hysteria significantly influenced Freud.
Leibniz (1646-1716)
Developed monadology, which posits different levels of awareness.
Included "petite perceptions," experiences occurring below the level of awareness, foreshadowing Freud's concepts of the unconscious.
Herbart (1776-1841)
Discussed the idea of a threshold separating conscious from unconscious ideas.
Introduced the concept of repression, where ideas are actively forced out of consciousness.
Herbert is credited with initiating the doctrine of the unconscious.
Fechner (1801-1887)
Compared the mind to an iceberg, with consciousness being a small, visible part.
Freud's Acknowledgment of Fechner
Freud acknowledged Fechner's influence, stating that he followed Fechner's ideas on many important points.
Helmholtz
Initially, Freud adopted Helmholtz's materialistic and positivistic approach to medicine.
Brontano (1838-1917)
One of Freud's teachers who stressed the importance of motivation in directing thought processes.
Carl Edward von Hartmann (1842-1906)
Wrote "Philosophy of the Unconscious," describing his mystical perspective on the unconscious.
Joseph Brewer
A direct and significant influence on Freud.
Brewer treated Anna O, a hysterical woman, whose case greatly impacted Freud's theories.
The Case of Anna O
Anna O displayed symptoms like paralysis, speech and sight disturbances, memory loss, and disorientation.
Brewer used hypnosis to help Anna O discuss her traumatic experiences, particularly related to caring for her dying father.
Expressing emotions and discussing past events led to improvements in Anna O's condition.
Brewer's method, termed the cathartic method, involved alleviating hysterical symptoms by consciously expressing pathogenic ideas.
Cathartic Method: Alleviation of hysterical symptoms by allowing pathogenic ideas to be expressed consciously.
Anna O referred to the treatment as the "talking cure."
Hypnosis and relaxation techniques facilitated the cathartic process.
Transference and Countertransference
Anna O began to respond to Brewer as if he were her father, a phenomenon later termed transference.
Transference: A patient responds to the therapist as if the therapist were a relevant person in the patient's life.
Brewer developed emotional feelings for Anna O, known as countertransference.
Countertransference: A therapist becomes emotionally involved with a patient.
Brewer discontinued treating Anna O due to the strain on his marriage and professional life.
Anna O was institutionalized following the discontinued treatment and later became an influential social worker, feminist, playwright, and spokesperson against slavery and abortion.
Anna O held a negative view of psychoanalysis throughout her life and did not allow psychoanalysis for girls in her care.
Freud's Acknowledgment of Brewer
Freud credited Brewer with the creation of psychoanalysis based on his treatment of Anna O.
Freud and Brewer co-authored "Studies on Hysteria" in 1895, where they presented the case of Anna O.
The publication of "Studies on Hysteria" is considered the official founding of the School of Psychoanalysis.
Sigmund Freud
Early Life
Born either on March 6 or May 6 (family claims May 6 to conceal premarital pregnancy).
Born in Friberg, Moravia (now in the Czech Republic), and moved to Vienna by age four.
His father was a wool merchant and married three times; Sigmund was the oldest of eight children from the third wife, and his mother was 20 years old.
His grandfather and great-grandfather were rabbis, indicating Jewish descent.
Freud identified as Jewish but held a negative attitude towards Judaism.
Displayed early intelligence, reading Shakespeare by age eight and teaching himself multiple languages.
Initially considered law or politics but chose medical school after reading Darwin's theory of evolution.
Education and Early Career
Ernst Brucke, a founder of materialistic positivism, was the most influential figure during Freud's medical studies.
Freud initially wanted to work in Brucke's lab but sought a higher-paying job upon getting engaged.
He worked at Vienna General Hospital and became an expert in diagnosing brain damage.
Work with Charcot and Cocaine
Freud worked with Charcot in Paris.
He became an advocate for cocaine, but faced criticism when its addictive properties became evident.
This controversy led to skepticism about his work in the medical community.
Freud was a frequent user of nicotine, smoking about 20 cigars a day, and struggled to quit despite knowing the health risks.
Medical Studies and Start of Psychoanalysis
Freud studied medicine, focusing on neuroanatomy and physiology.
The publication of "Studies on Hysteria" with Brewer in 1895 marked the beginning of psychoanalysis.
Initially, Freud aimed to explain hysteria through neurophysiology.
Private Practice and Development of Psychoanalysis
Freud established a private practice as a neurologist in Vienna.
Realizing he could not earn enough as a neurologist, he began treating hysteric patients.
He developed his ideas based on what he learned from Brewer, after finding typical physician methods ineffective.
Free Association
Due to the fact that Freud couldn't hypnotize everyone, he developed free association, encouraging patients to talk about whatever comes to mind.
The goal is to bring unconscious information to the surface.
The therapist doesn't guide or dig for info, they just listen.
Can also be used where the therapist says a word and the patient says whatever comes to mind first.
Free association helps with resistance, the tendency to inhibit recollection of traumatic events and brings out those traumatic events into the conscious level.
Freud suggested that these traumatic events were usually sexual and led to his seduction theory.
Seduction Theory
Suggests that hysteria is based on traumatic sexual experiences in childhood.
The medical community didn't receive it well, so Freud later abandoned it.
He then said patients had imagined the encounters, but they acted as real events.
Still thought neurosis was brought on by the repression of sexual thoughts.
Freud suggested that the change from real to imagined seductions was the real beginning of psychoanalysis rather than earlier on with Brewer.
Freud's Personal Struggles
Freud had his own sexual issues and a negative view of sex.
He thought that Sex was degrading, that it contaminates your mind. Very negative.
At the age of 41 he gave up sex, and during that same year he started self analysis because of anxieties.
He suffered from migraines, urinary problems, spastic colon, anxieties of travel, space, and heart disease.
Dream Analysis
Intended to uncover unconscious thought or conflicts.
Dreams are symbolic representations of repressed unconscious thoughts.
Analyzing dreams is a way to tap the unconscious like free association.
Dreams have both manifest content and latent content.
Manifest content: what the dream appears to be about.
Latent content: what the dream is really about.
According to Freud you have to be trained in cycloanalytic theory to interpret dreams as you must understand the dream work.
Dream work: the mechanism that distorts the meaning of a dream, making it more tolerable. Understanding the latent instead of just the manifest.
Condensation: type of dream work that causes several people, objects, or events to be condensed into one dream symbol.
Displacement: causes the dreamer to dream of something symbolically related to anxiety provoking events rather than the anxiety provoking event themselves. Allows you to change the content which is helpful
Universal Dream Symbols
Falling: sexual temptation
Garden: Vagina
Snake: Penis
Bathing: Birth
Beginning a journey: Dying
Children: Genitals and masturbation
King/ and or queen: Parents
Climbing stairs/driving car: sexual intercourse
Freud wasn't the first or only person to think that dreams are interpretable.
Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory of Personality
Grew out of his use of psychoanalysis to treat people with psychological disorders, explains personality in terms of early experiences, unconscious motives and conflicts, and how people deal with those things.
Hard to test but many people recognize these issues as being real.
Structure of Personality
Id: the instinctive component, our drive to satisfy basic needs.
Operates according to the pleasure principle: everything's based on what makes you happy.
Ego: our decision making component, considers social norms in satisfying the id.
Operates according to the reality principle: has to decide when to satisfy the id.
Superego: our moral component, operates according to internalized social norms.
Develops around three to four years. Start deciding when things are okay and not okay.
Levels of Awareness
Includes conscious, preconscious, and unconscious.
Conscious: what is in one's awareness at a given time, what you're currently thinking about.
Preconscious: the material that is just beneath the surface, easily retrievable.
Unconscious: the materials that are buried deeply below the surface, can still have a great impact on your behavior but it's much harder to find.