Psychoanalysis

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