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Psychology
Chapter Summary: Sigmund Freud

About Sigmund Freud
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Freud was born in 1856 and died in 1939
He spent most of his life in Vienna, Austria, however he died in London soon after
retreating there prior to the beginning of World War II
He’s known for the development of an encompassing theory of the mind, developed
over the span of many decades
His work influenced:
→ How we think about every aspect of day-to-day life
→ How we think about the development of children
→ The causes and cures for mental illness
→ Origins of religion
→ The nature of war
→ Love, romance and sex
Freud systematized dream interpretation and to some extent, adopted a more scientific
perspective on it
Freud spoke about myths in literature, where he argued that often things like fairytales
expressed aspects of the unconscious
He developed a theory of the origin of religion, linking it to things like a desire for a
father figure and broader aspects of humanity
→ Connected this to his general theory of where civilization came from

Many of his ideas weren’t taken into regard by peers and scholars because they carried very
little validity
...


The Psychodynamic Approach
By Sigmund Freud

According to Freud, there are three distinct processes going on in your head, and they’re in
violent internal conflict
...


The id
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The first structure of the psyche
An individual is born with it
Consists of instincts, urges and needs, which are mainly aggressive and sexual in
nature
The sexual instinct (libido) is directed at self-preservation
The id functions only according to the pleasure principle
→ It wants its own desires satisfied immediately, which leads to a set of reactions
that lead to another system; the go
→ Id is based within the subconscious mind
→ Everything unacceptable to the ego is repressed to the id

The ego
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The second structure of the psyche
The ego constitutes the executive personality of the individual
The ego is not present at birth, but develops as the individual learns to differentiate
between himself and others, and cultivates an awareness of the reality in the
surrounding environment
The ego functions according to the reality principle
The ego is housed in the conscious
The ego must maintain a balance between the id and the superego, and reality
→ The id insists on gratification of an instinct or need, and the ego checks whether
it is realistic to satisfy the instinct or need, and takes the consequences into
consideration
The ego is capable of secondary process thinking, such as:
→ Logic
→ Words
→ Evaluation of consequences and time

The superego
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The superego is the conscience that develops from the ego
Starts at about the end of the Oedipus phase, at five to six years
It becomes an internal driving force when an individual avoids doing wrong through
internal conviction and not because of the fear of external punishment
The superego exists as a result of identification with the parent figures, mainly the
father figure
The superego holds up an ideal self as a benchmark to measure the ego

-

→ Should the ego fail to fulfil the image of the ideal self, the superego punished
with guilt
The superego can function from the conscious or the subconscious
The superego’s ideals are often just as unrealistic as the demands of the id

Example:
Sexual and aggressive impulses and fantasies penetrate the ego from the id
The ego cannot reconcile these impulses with reality or with the superego
They are considered threatening and taboo
Anxiety then forms within the ego and the superego punishes it with feelings of
guilt
The ego immediately represses the id impulses back to the subconscious
-

In the subconscious, fixations and complexes form around these impulses, and the
impulses will employ other methods to gain acknowledgement
The more the ego represses, the more the impulses within the subconscious demand
acknowledgement

The Psychosexual Developmental Phases
The Oral Phase: 0 – 2 years
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Earliest phase of development
All the child’s needs, perceptions and manner of expression are centered around the
mouth, and all needs are satisfied through the mouth too
The erotogenic zone is the mouth
The two instincts are oral erotic and oral sadistic

Too much or too little satisfaction can lead to an oral fixation which will manifest later in his
personality
...

Symptoms of hysteria manifest in different ways:
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Blindness
Deafness without physical cause
Paralysis
Trembling
Panic attacks
Gaps of memory, including amnesia

When these memories are recovered or when the impulses come to light, there’s what Freud
called catharsis
...

So, when treating symptoms of hysteria, it was good practice to get to these symptoms through
ways that’d facilitate catharsis
...


Person 1: Cat
Person 2: Dog

II
...


Person 1: Mother
Person 2: Sex

The outcome is usually that Person 2 is faced with a negative emotional reaction (like guilt or
embarrassment) and offers resistance which often leads to an explanation too
...


The Freudian Mentality
The basis of most Freudian explanation is that there are deeper psychological influences
behind our actions and behavior
...


Scenario:

An individual falls in love with another person and decides to get married to that
person
...
Its that time of my life,” or perhaps, “I feel very
strongly about that person and I want a life with them”
...

The Freudian Mentality:
A Freudian would insist that desires and motivations that govern behavior might
simply not be known personally
...


Scenario:

An individual is in session with a Freudian therapist
...

But suppose the patient is outraged and responds with, “No I don’t, that’s
horrible!”, a Freudian might say, “Well, your anger shows this idea is painful for
you, and you have repressed it from consciousness
...
”

The Scientific Assessment of Freud
Featuring Karl Popper

As mentioned above, Freud’s work faced speculation based on the validity and accuracy of
his theories
...

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He pointed out that what distinguishes science from non-science, is that scientific
predictions make strong claims about the world and run the risk of being proven false,
and that falsifiability is the absolute criteria through which you can distinguish science
from non-science
Very few philosophers today would agree with Popper’s claims, but what is agreed
upon, is that if the claim is too vague to be proven wrong, or too slippery to be proven
false, then it might not be a scientific theory in the first place

One of the main accusations of Freudian Theory is that its unfalsifiable, based largely on
anecdotes and the descriptions of clinical events
...

Although Freudian Theory isn’t taken that seriously within contemporary psychological
research, he had an extraordinary influence on clinical psychology, as well as how
psychologists and non-psychologists think about the mind
...


Terminology
Anecdotal evidence
A piece of biased evidence, usually drawn from personal experience, used to
support a conclusion that may or may not be correct
...

Generalize
In research, the degree to which one can extend conclusions drawn from the
findings of a study to other groups or situations not included in the study
...

Type I error
In statistics, the error of rejecting the null hypothesis when it is true
...


References
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Kuhn, T
...
(2012)
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Chicago, USA: University of Chicago Press
...
S
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Objectivity, value judgment, and theory choice, in T
...

Kuhn (Ed
...
320-339)
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Retrieved from
http://ebookcentral
...
com

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Balleine, B
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(2005)
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Physiology & Behavior, 86, 717–730
...
M
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Psychosexual Developmental Phases
...
124 – 135)
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(1977)
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Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice
Hall
...
, Ross, D
...
Imitation of film-mediated aggressive
models
...


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Bandura, A
...
; Ross, S
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(1961)
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Journal of Abnormal and Social
Psychology 63(3), 575–582
...
L
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Aversion conditioning in response to cancer and
cancer treatment
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