Sigmund Freud

In lecture 2 we looked at the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. He was born in 1850 and died in 1939. He undertook recreational drug use, mainly cocaine and attacked the previous concept of the ‘noble human’, or in other words humans being thought of as generally ‘good’ or ‘virtuous’ beings at the base of their personality. This was evident in the enlightenment period. He was very pessimistic, ambitious and was said to be a ‘sexual renegade’. The reason he was like this may have been down to living through a world war as well as the severe economic depression of 1929, (the wall street crash). 

As far as his theories go, they were a dark vision of humanity, he believed that humans were not unconsciously ‘good’ as well as believing that the basic and fundamental human needs are aggression, violence, sex and aim towards self destruction. He came to the conclusion that human being were ultimately nasty and pleasure orientated.

The Freudien personality consisted of three processes which were constantly conflicting with each other. The first and most dominant process is the ID. This ID, Freud said, was the unconscious. It was the basic human instincts aimed at gaining pleasure and avoiding pain.

“A cauldron of seething excitations” – Always bubbling away, demanding expression.

The second process mentioned was the EGO or SELF. This he referred to as the reality principle or the voice of reason. This process of the mind is supposed to be constantly besieged by the stronger processes of the mind. It is the least powerful part of the personality.

The third and final process is the SUPEREGO. The superego was meant to of developed through socialisation and has impossible standards of unattainable perfection. It can be described as the policeman in your head, which is completely irrational, always telling you what you should be doing which then punishes you with guilt if the standards have not been achieved.

He also derived a theory on how humans are inflicted with three different types of pain. The first being our own decaying body and natural decline over our lifetime. (Freud died from mouth cancer so was very aware of this aspect of pain).  The second was the general misfortune we go through throughout our lives, for example getting parking tickets, losing your keys or falling over and breaking a bone. The last theoretical infliction of pain on humankind he proposed was strangely the everyday interaction with people. He believed that people were out to get us as we are all irrational beings who are inclined to hurt each other.

He believed that to remedy these problems the answer would be self analysis. However none of these methods would actually free you from this conviction of being part of this destructive, irrational and sexual humankind as all of this is built into our general nature and underlying unconscious. The aggression will never be eliminated.

Intoxication, however this only lasted for as long as you were intoxicated and made coming back to reality a lot harder in the long run.

Isolation, this freed you from the constrains of the everyday socialisation which people have to endure

Sublimation, undertaking a sporting activity or working, however this was generally mild and unfulfilling and what humans really want to do is be violent and have sex which will attain REAL satisfaction.

Displacement, turn your shameful thoughts into other thoughts

Projection, send your bad feelings onto someone else

Regression, return to an earlier stage of development

Hypnosis, free association, talk about things, mindlessly talk until the ID begins to show itself. Dreams are 

also a way for the ID to show itself.

Freud believed that hypnosis was the best way to reveal the unconscious ID in order to show that you are hiding something from yourself.

He believed that civilisation was a collective SUPEREGO, and that men are not gentle creatures, but instead aggressive forces.

“man is like wolf to man”

Freuds theories were widely discussed and debated throughout the 19^th century. They were widely scrutinised by other theorists such as Reich, who believed the opposite of Freud.

Reich believed that the unconscious forces within us are good however it was society which was to blame for our irrational behaviour. Society distorted our unconscious to make us dangerous. He followed the path of sexuality more than aggression unlike Freud and believed that sexuality was the cornerstone to our personalities. He believed that if sexuality was released then humans would flourish.

He criticised Freud for focusing too much on the mind and completely ignoring the body. He was a sexual radicalist and emphasised the significance of sex.