About Freud.

1. About Freud. Lucie Johnson 11-25-06

2. How to access the unconscious? • From hypnosis • To free association • To the study of dreams • To the observation of everyday life • To play therapy

3. Studies in Hysteria: the Emergence of Method • With Breuer(1842-1925), studied Anna O., aka Bertha Pappenheim • Phenomena observed: spontaneous trances, pathogenic ideas, catharsis, transference, hysterical pregnancy, the importance of repressed traumatic events

4. Who is Anna O.? • Did Breuer cure Anna? (Bertha Pappenheim) • What is your theory as to why Anna O. became sick in the first place? • How do you think she got well? (given that Breuer ran away from her pseudo-pregnancy)

5. From hypnosis to free association • Freud was not a good hypnotist, hence got patients to relax instead. • Induced free association by putting his hand on the patient’s forehead. • Theorized that, since the patient would remember what happened, the cure would be more stable than a hypnotic cure.

6. The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). • Dreams are universal -hence the unconscious is universal. • Dreams, in their LATENT CONTENT (as opposed to manifest content) reflect the workings of unconscious motivation.

7. Organization of the Personality • In everyone then, there exists a primitive, instinctual layer of thought: the ID, which seeks to satisfy itself (pleasure principle). • The ID then encounters a limiting REALITY, and the EGO develops. • The EGO encounters a limiting SOCIAL REALITY, and the SUPEREGO develops.

8. There is always conflict • Health is a balance between the ID and the SUPEREGO. • The superego can be too weak or too stringent.

9. Freud and the theory of recapitulation • The id, for Freud, reflected a more primitive way of thinking. Primitive societies function more according to the id. • The superego builds civilization. • The child reflects this species development in his/her own development.

10. Stages of Development • Oral • Anal • Phallic (Oedipus and Electra conflicts) • Latency • Genital

11. Childhood Seduction • Were Freud’s patients in fact abused? Were their memories real? • Current controversy: • About Jeffrey Masson’s work • Jeffrey Masson himself

12. What do you think? • Is Jeffrey Masson right? Did Freud cave in to pressures when letting go of the seduction theory?

13. Death and life • In the later part of his career, Freud also emphasized the notion of LIFE instinct or EROS (in which he subsumed the LIBIDO -lit: I want- issuing from the ID) • He also developed the concept of DEATH instinct or THANATOS, a deep destructive tendency. In final analysis, he said, life is a detour toward death.

14. The End