Psychoanalytic

Paradigm
RONALD C. YROG-IROG, Ph.D, RPsy
CIT UNINVERSITY
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
• Was a Jew born in the small town of Frieberg
Moravia on May 6, 1856.
• Freud graduated at the top of his class and was
accepted to medical school at the age of 17.
• He aspired to be a medical researcher; at the age of
26, he did an exceptional researcher on the nervous
system.
• He worked with highly successful neurologist Joseph
Breuer then develop a new method of treating hysteria,
a disorder with a wide variety of symptoms such as
paralysis, loss of sensation, and disturbance of speech
and sight.
• In 1885 Sigmund and Breuer published the book
Studies in Hysteria; they sold only 625 copies, but 13
years later, it was recognized as the beginning of the
psychoanalytic movement
• He went to France where he studied under Jean
Charcot, a French psychiatrist who used hypnosis
in treating hysteria.
• He used hypnosis for treating hysteria but later
abandoned it after discovering that not all patients
could be hypnotized.
• Eventually he developed the technique of free
association, which he called the fundamental
rule of psychoanalysis.
• Freud emphasized the importance of sexual
conflicts as the cause of hysteria. This conflicts of
ideas and professional differences ended the
harmonious relationship between Freud and Breuer,
resulting in Freud’s dismissal from the Vienna Medical
Society.

• He married Martha Bernays in 1986; they had six

children: three girls and three boys. The youngest,
Anna, eventually followed her father’s footsteps and
became a well-known child psychiatrist in London.
• After the Nazi’s invaded and occupied Austria
in 1938, his daughter was arrested then later
released by the Gestapo.
• Freud consented to leave Austria and transfer
to England.
• On September 23, 1939, one year after his
family migrated to England, Sigmund Freud
died at the age of 83.
View of Human Nature
• Human beings are biological organisms motivated by the
satisfaction of bodily needs.
• Religion and civilization developed either because of the fear of
the unknown or for protection against inborn aggressive
tendencies.
• Repressed thoughts manifest themselves in the course of
everyday life. All human behaviors have a reason. Nothing
happens simply by chance not even accident.
• Humor can express aggressiveness or sexual desire without
fear of retaliation by either the ego or the superego.
 The mind is made up of the id, ego, and superego.
The goal of the psyche is to maintain or regain an
acceptable level of dynamic equilibrium that maximizes
pleasure and minimizes tension. The energy used
originates in the id, which has a primitive and instinctive
nature. The ego, arising from the id, exists to deal
rationally with its basic drives. It also mediates between
the forces that operate on the id. The superego, arising
from the ego, acts as a moral brake or counterforce to the
practical concerns of the ego. It sets out a series of
guidelines that define and limit the ego’s flexibility.
 The superego is the moral arm of the
personality. It develops from internalized patterns of
reward and punishment that a young child experiences.
The superego is said to be fully developed when self-
control replaces environment or parental control.
The two subdivisions of the superego are:
a) conscience – the internalize experiences for which
a child is punished. When a child engages in this
behavior or even just thinks about it, he or she feels
“guilty.”

a)ego-ideal – the internalized experiences for which a

child is rewarded. A child who engages in this
behavior feel successful and proud.
 The superego constantly strives for the
perfection and is, therefore, unrealistic, just like the id.
The job of the ego is to satisfy both id ad superego.
Thus, the ego acts as the executive of the
personality.
the practical goal of psychoanalysis is to
strengthen the ego, to make it independent of the
overly strict concerns of the superego, and to
increase its capacity to deal with behaviors
formerly repressed or hidden in the id.
Cathexis and Anti-cathexis
Cathexis refers to a relationship or connection
between a need and an object that satisfies the need.

Anti-cathexis is the inhibition of an impulse by

either the ego or the superego.
Anxiety
• Human beings experience an extreme form of anxiety
when they are separated from their mother at birth. He
called this birth trauma.
• It signifies a change from an environment of complete
security to one in which the satisfaction of their needs
is less predictable.
• The function of anxiety is to warn us that, if we
continue thinking or behaving in a certain way, we will
be in danger. Since anxiety is not pleasant, we try to
reduce negative behavior
There are three kinds of anxiety:
a) reality anxiety – caused by real, objective sources of
danger in the environment. This is the easiest to reduce.
b) neurotic anxiety – fear that id’s impulses will overwhelm
the ego and make the person do something for which he/she
will be punished.
c) moral anxiety – fear of doing something contrary to the
superego and thus experience guilt.
 /There are two general ways of decreasing anxiety.
The first is to deal with the situation directly. We
resolve problems, overcome obstacles, either confront
or run from threats, or come to terms with the problem
to minimize its impact.
//The alternative approach to anxiety is distorting or
denying the situation itself. The ego protects the
personality by falsifying the nature of threat. This is
sometimes referred as defense mechanisms.
Two things common to ego and defense
mechanisms:
a) they are conscious, i.e., the person is
unaware that he or she is using them.
b) both falsify or distort reality.
The defense mechanisms are:
1. Repression
Repression forces a potentially anxiety-provoking
event, idea, or perception away from a consciousness,
thus precluding any possible resolution. Although it is
unconscious, the repressed element remains part of
the psyche and is active.
2. Displacement – the substitution of one cathexis by another,
the person’s true desire. When displacement results in
something beneficial, it is called sublimation. Impulses
toward self-destruction or destruction of less threatening
objects are called displaced aggression.
3. Identification – the tendency to increase personal feelings
of worth by taking on the characteristics of someone viewed
as successful.
4. Reaction Formation – objectionable thoughts are repressed
by the expression of their opposite goals. It masks parts of
the personality and restricts a person’s capacity to respond to
events.
5. Projection – something true about a person but might
cause anxiety if recognized is repressed and projected into
someone else instead.
6. Rationalization – justifying behavior or thoughts that are
anxiety-provoking. The person presents an explanation that
is logically consistent with or ethically acceptable for an
attitude, action, idea, or feeling that arises from the other
motivating sources.
7. Regression – returning to an earlier stage of development
when one experiences stress. It is a way of alleviating
anxiety by withdrawing from realistic thinking into behaviors
that have reduced anxiety in earlier years.
Tapping the Unconscious Mind
Freud employed several methods to determine the
contents of the unconscious mind:
1. Free Association. What is not spoken is as important as
what is said. Topics to which patients offer strong resistance
provide the analyst with useful hints to problem area in the
conscious mind.

2. Dream Analysis. Dreams are camouflaged or disguised

thoughts. The manifest content of a dream is what it appears
to be, while the latent content is the underlying repressed
thought that caused the dream.
 Forms of dream distortion
a) Condensation – when a part of something
symbolizes the whole thing.
b)Synthesis – when an idea contained in the manifest
content of a dream is actually a combination of many
ideas in the latent content.
c)Dislocation – displacement of unacceptable ideas to
something that is symbolically equivalent and
acceptable.
The nature of dreams and the process of repression explain why
the memory of dreams is so short-lived.
 3. Everyday Life. Freud believed that all human
behaviors have a cause; nothing happens simply by
chance.
Little mistakes such as lapses of memory provide
information about the unconscious mind. Slips of the
tongue reveal unconscious motives.
4. Humor. Humor allows expression of repressed
thoughts in a socially approved manner. For joke to be
funny, it must contain anxiety-provoking material. We
laugh only at things that bother us.
For Freud, human behavior is primarily instinctive and
motivated mainly by unconscious mechanisms. Instincts are
the driving forces behind personality.
Its four components are:
/The source, where the need arises, may be a part of the
whole body; a deficiency of some kind.
//The aim is to reduce the need until no more action is
necessary
///The impetus is the amount of energy, force, or pressure
used to satisfy or gratify the impulse
////The object represents experiences or objects that reduce
or remove body deficiency.

The Dynamics of Personality

 Freud assumed that normal and healthy mental and
behavioral patterns are achieved by reducing tension to
previously acceptable levels. A person with a need will
continue seeking activities that can reduce an original tension.
The complete cycle of behavior from relaxation to tension to
activity and back to relaxation is called tension reduction
model. Tensions are resolved by returning the body to the
level of equilibrium that existed before the tension arose.
 Freud noted two basic impulses: the life instinct or
Eros and the death instinct or Thanatos. Each of these
generalized impulses has a separate source of energy. The
libido is the psychic energy associated with the life instinct.
Freud believed that the libidinal energy is expended to prolong
life.
The death instinct prompts a person to return to the
inorganic state that preceded life. The struggle to satisfy the
biological needs ceases. For Freud, the aim of all life is death.
A derivative of the death instinct is aggression, which is the
need for self-destruction, manifested outwardly through
cruelty, suicide, or murder.
Psychosexual stages of
Development
Freud believed that every child goes through a sequence
of developmental stages; experiences during these stages will
later determine his or her adult personality characteristics.
The adult personality is formed by the end of the fifth year of life.
Each stage has an erogenous zone, which is the greatest source
of stimulation and pleasure during that stage. In order to make a
smooth transition from one psychosexual stage to the next, the
child must not be over-gratified or under-gratified because this can
lead to either fixation or regression.
 Freud uses the term fixation to describe what
occurs when a person does not progress normally
from stage to stage, and instead remains overly
involved with a particular stage. That person will
prefer to gratify his or her needs in simpler or more
childlike ways, rather than in an adult mode that
leads to normal development.
1. Oral stage – 1st year of life. The erogenous zone is
the mouth, particularly the lips, tongue, and later the
teeth. Physical expressions are sucking, biting, and
licking or smacking one’s lips. Although it is normal
to retain some interest in oral pleasures, it can be
pathological if this is the dominant mode of
gratification, i.e., if a person is excessively
dependent on oral habits to relieve anxiety or
tension.

A. Pregenital stage
2. Anal stage – 2nd year of life. The erogenous zone is the anus
or buttocks region. In the early part of this stage, pleasure is
derived from feces expulsion; fixation results in the lack of
sphincter control or enuresis. Symbolical acts are over-
generosity or wanting to give away everything he or she own;
this character is called anal-explosive.
In the later anal stage, pleasure comes from feces
possession, and affection is manifested through constipation.
Symbolic acts are stinginess, orderliness, and perfectionism.
This character is called anal-retentive
3. Phallic stage – 3rd to 5th year of life. The erogenous zone is the
genital area. This is considered the most controversial stage. Both
female and male children develop strong positive feelings toward the
mother because she satisfies their needs. In contrast, they resent the
father who is seen as a rival for the mother’s attention and affection.
This feeling will persist in males but will change in female children.
The male child begins to fear the father who is viewed as his
dominant rival. The fear becomes constriction anxiety, such that the
boy develops fear of losing his sex organ which is assumed to be
responsible for the conflict between him and his father. The anxiety
causes a repression of sexual desire for the mother and hostility
towards the father. When he grows up, he will seek characteristics
in women like his mother.
 On the other hand, the female child discovers she does
not possess a penis, for which she holds the mother
responsible and comes to hate her for it. This is known as the
electra complex. Her positive feelings for her father are
mixed with envy since he has something she does not have.
Freud termed this penis envy. The only hope for a female
child is to have a baby boy
 Erogenous zone or
Stage Age primary source of Gratification Conflict
pleasure

A. Pre-genital Stage: Eating, biting, thumb

0-1 yr. old Mouth Weaning
1. Oral sucking, chewing

Discharging & retaining

2. Anal 2-3 yr. old Anus Toilet training
bowel movement

Penis for boy, clitoris Boy-oedipus complex

3. Phallic 3-6 yr. old Phallus/genital
for girl Girl-electra complex

Directed to same sex, Social interactions with

B. Latency 6-12 yr. old None
school works, hobbies others

Heterosexual, mating, Establishing intimate

C. Genital stage 12-adult Genital
maturation relationship

Psychosexual Stages of
Development
 The three stages – oral, anal, and phallic – are
considered by Freud as basic ingredients of the adult
personality.
B. Latency stage – lower sexual energy and no love object, a
time of relative calm. For Freud, one’s personality is generally
completed by this stage.
C. Genital stage – the final stage following puberty. This is
when a person emerges from the pre-genital stage as the
adult he or she is destined to become. Hopefully, the
individual has been transformed from a selfish, pleasure-
seeking child to a realistic social adult with heterosexual
interests leading to marriage and child rearing.
 If the experiences during the pre-genital stages
caused fixations, these will be manifested throughout
one’s adult life. Only psychoanalysis can bring out
these repressed experiences, make the individual
face them and reduce their effects.
Evaluation of Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory
Strengths
1. Freud made major contributions to psychology and greatly
influenced the developmental approach. Psychoanalysis led to
the development and utilization of projective techniques, such
as free association and dream interpretation, in the assessment
of personality.
2. Outstanding contributions of Freud:
a. Discovering an investigating human phenomena and the
richness of observations on the details of human behavior
b. Developing an encompassing theory on complex human
behavior
3. Hall and Lindzey (1998)
-summarized the reasons for Freud’s influence
“… a fine literary style and an exciting subject matter
are not the main reasons for the great esteem in which
Freud is held. Rather it is because his ideas are
challenging, because his conception of man is both
broad and deep and because his theory has relevance for
our times. Freud may not have been a vigorous scientist
nor a first rate theoretician, but he was a patient,
meticulous, penetrating observer and tenacious,
disciplined, courageous, original thinker
1. Freud has been criticized for over-emphasizing sex
energy or libido. His basically negative perception of
women and their sexuality was a part of Victorian belief.
Freud’s theories were extremely controversial during his
time and remain so even today.
2. He focused too much on the conscious level of the mind.
3. Exclusive role of intrapsychic conflict, anxiety and
defenses and psychopathy.

Weaknesses