Under the Microscope Prof William RevilleSigmund Freud (1856-1939) was one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. He proposed that the mind is a complex energy system whose dynamics can be understood through the new science of psychoanalysis which he largely initiated.
He articulated the concepts of the unconscious, infantile sexuality and repression, and proposed a three-part structure for the mind, all part of a new map for the understanding of psychological development and the treatment of abnormal mental conditions. A fuller treatment of Freud can be found on the Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy.
Freud took a degree in medicine at the University of Vienna in 1881 and set up a private practice in 1886 specialising in the treatment of psychological disorders. He began a collaboration with Josef Breur and they developed the idea that many neuroses originate in deeply traumatic experiences that occurred in the past life of the patient but that become hidden from consciousness. The treatment was to bring the traumatic experience back to consciousness, confront it profoundly and discharge it, thereby releasing the underlying cause of the neurotic symptom. Freud and Breur published the theory and technique of the new psychoanalysis in 1895. Shortly afterwards Freud and Breur parted company because Breur was unhappy at the emphasis Freud placed on the sexual origins of neuroses.
Freud believed that living things are energy systems and saw the mind as a "psychic energy" system. The principle of conservation of energy was a milestone in 19th-century physics. This states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but can be transformed from one form into another, and the total energy of the universe is constant. Freud saw psychology as the study of the movement and modification of psychic energy within the mind.
Freud's theory of the mind is deterministic - everything has an underlying cause. Neurotic behaviour was commonly considered to be inexplicable, but Freud insisted on causes. Since there was frequently nothing in the conscious mind causing neurotic behaviour, determinism requires that the necessary causes must reside in unconscious mental states. The mind cannot therefore be equated with consciousness. The oft-used analogy is with an iceberg, the bulk lying beneath the surface exerting a determining influence on the part lying above the water which is the only part available for direct inspection - the conscious mind.
Freud believed that the principal motivating mental forces are instinctive drives. He divided these into two broad categories, Eros - the instinct for bodily (principally sexual) pleasure, and Thanatos - all instincts towards aggression, self-destruction and cruelty. He believed that humans, from birth, are mainly motivated to experience bodily pleasures, thereby releasing mental energy. Thus the infant goes through oral, anal and phallic stages of development, deriving pleasure initially from sucking, then defecation and next from the sexual organs. In this third phase the child forms a deep attraction for the parent of the opposite sex ("Oedipus complex") and a hatred of the parent of the same sex. Feelings of guilt arise, socially derived, and the child also realises he/she can never overcome the stronger parent. The child usually represses both the attraction and the hatred and resolves the Oedipus complex by identifying with the parent of the same sex. Aged about five, the child enters a period when sexual motivations are dampened down, until the onset of puberty when the pleasure drive again focuses on the genital area.
Freud saw normal human development as a negotiation of the pleasure drives through sequential conflicts. A mentally healthy adult is one who has successfully negotiated these conflicts and many mental illnesses can be traced back to unresolved conflicts. For example, excessive personal hygiene seen in some neurotics is interpreted by Freudians as resulting from unresolved anal stage conflicts.
In 1923, Freud proposed his famous three-part structure of the mind - the Id, the Ego and the Super Ego. Instinctive drives are located in the unconscious Id. Socially acquired control mechanisms (imparted in the first instance by parents) are located in the Super Ego, which unconsciously imposes restrictive rules on the pleasure-seeking drives of the Id. The Ego is the conscious part and must reconcile the conflicting demands of the Id and the Super Ego, taking account of the requirements of external reality.
Psychological well-being is that state where the three parts of the mind have a harmonious relationship. The mind possesses defence mechanisms to moderate the conflicts that arise between the parts. These include repression (pushing conflicts back into subconscious), sublimation (channel drives into socially accepted goals, eg art, science), fixation (not progressing beyond one of developmental stages) and regression (a return to one of the stages).
Freud's insights were revolutionary, but psychoanalysis today has fallen out of favour as a cutting-edge tool to either study or treat the mind. One of the characteristic elements of a scientific theory is that it can be falsified by new evidence. Psychoanalysis cannot be considered a scientific theory because it is too all-embracing in its scope to be falsifiable. This would have saddened Freud who considered himself a scientist first and foremost. William Reville is Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Public Awareness of Science Officer at UCC - http://understandingscience.ucc.ie