Freud’s psychoanalytic theory arrived during a time of revolutionary scientific thinking. Charles Darwin had shocked contemporary Victorian society by suggesting that humans are not divine creations after all, but just a higher’ form of animal. This revelation led to the idea that the human mind and human behaviour were also subject to scientific study and analysis. Freud’s theory was the first to try to explain the reasons, motivations and desires behind human behaviour, both normal and abnormal. His ground-breaking theory did not convince everyone however.
According to Freud’s theory the personality is composed of three parts the id, the ego and the superego. Freud stated that the id is completely contained within the unconscious mind and is made up of innate, primitive drives such as aggression and the satisfaction of bodily needs such as hunger and thirst. The id is biologically determined and is present at birth. It operates on the pleasure principle ie. it seeks to obtain pleasure and avoid pain. Unsatisfied desires create tension, so release must be sought either through real solutions or through fantasy, also called wish fulfilment. “Wish fulfilment is the expression, often through dreams, of a need or desire disguised in symbolic form” (Malim & Birch, 2000, p.802). The id is impulsive and is unaffected by social restrictions. The ego is believed to be contained within the preconscious and conscious minds and adapts the self pleasing drives of the id to the realities the outside world. It operates on the reality principle ie. satisfaction of need is postponed until the proper time and place. This does not mean that the ego has any notion of right and wrong, only that it recognises the rules and restrictions of the outside world. The superego is largely unconscious but also lies partially in the preconscious and conscious minds. It is said to represent a persons morality ie. their concept of right and wrong. It consists of two parts the ego ideal and the conscience. The ego ideal is concerned with what is right and proper. It represents the person’s view of the sort of behaviour that would be rewarded by others. The conscience is concerned with bad behaviour. It blocks the immoral impulses of the id. A person with a strong superego is less likely to break the rules of society.
In Freud’s theory the ego is constantly striving to strike a balance between the impulsive, gratification seeking id and the high moral standards set by the superego. If this balance cannot be maintained conflict results, which in turn leads to anxiety. This anxiety is caused by moral conflict (ego versus superego eg. temptation to commit a crime), impulse conflict (ego versus id eg. desire to inflict harm on an opponent), or through external threat (ego versus reality eg. severe family conflict), (Malim & Birch, 2000, p.730), and may manifest itself in either dreams which Freud believed to be symbolic of suppressed wishes – or neurotic symptoms such as panic attacks, phobias or even physical symptoms such as paralysis or blindness.
However individuals sometimes develop what Freud called defence mechanisms to insulate themselves from feelings of painful anxiety or guilt. Examples of these defence mechanisms include repression, denial, regression, displacement, sublimation and projection. Repression involves pushing unwanted memories or feelings from conscious thought into the unconscious. According to Freud this is the most basic and important defence mechanism, often supported by other defences. (Malim & Birch, 2000, p.730). Denial involves refusing to accept reality eg. that you have a drink problem or a serious illness. An example of regression is when a person, usually a small child, reverts to behaviour characteristics of an earlier stage of life when faced with a newborn sibling. Displacement is when a person redirects behaviour (usually negative) onto someone other than the person who is causing the negative behaviour, ie. taking it out on someone else’. Sublimation is a variation on displacement and is regarded as being a beneficial defence mechanism in that the person channels their negative behaviour into positive activities eg. redirecting aggression into sporting activities. Finally, projection involves someone assigning their own negative feelings onto another person or group eg. believing that all black people hate white people to disguise their own racism.
The above defence mechanisms are part of the unconscious mind, one of the three parts of the mind proposed by Freud’s theory the other two being the conscious and preconscious minds. According to Freud the conscious mind characterises all of the thoughts and feelings we are aware of at any given time, the preconscious contains thoughts which are readily available to us but which we are not currently aware of and the unconscious mind (the largest part) consists of repressed material such as desires and impulses, mostly sexual and aggressive, and is only accessible through psychoanalytic techniques such as dream analysis or free association, both mentioned later.
Freud also proposed that children pass through a number of stages during their development which he called psychosexual stages’. In these stages the libido or sexual energy is focused on a different part of the body. If the child fails to successfully negotiate one of these stages fixation occurs which according to Freud means that the child’s development halts at that particular stage. The oral stage occurs from birth to one year old during which time the id is dominant. The libido is centred on the mouth (sucking and biting) and fixation can occur due to the overindulgence or frustration of the child’s oral needs. The anal stage occurs from one to two years old when the child derives pleasure from the expulsion or with-holding of faeces. According to Freud, fixation at this stage leads to an adult personality which is overly concerned with cleanliness and orderliness and which is mean and stubborn. The child goes through the phallic stage from three to six years old where the libidinal energy is focused on the genital area. It is during this phase that the child develops the Oedipus/Electra complex (male/female respectively) which is a central component of Freud’s theory. The child desires sexual intimacy with the opposite sex parent and fears punishment from the same sex parent for these desires. This conflict is resolved when the child identifies with the same sex parent. Following this, the child adopts the moral standards of the parent and thus develops a superego. Freud believed that failure to overcome the Oedipus/Electra complex leads to most adult neuroses. The latency period occurs from age six to puberty. During this period the libido is dormant and does not focus on any particular area. Finally, the genital stage manifests itself during puberty due to hormonal changes within the body. All of the libidinal drives mentioned above are integrated into adult sexual feelings. Fixation is said to be normal at this stage.
Some of Freud’s methods such as free association (where patients are encouraged to talk about anything that comes to mind, even if it seems inappropriate) and dream analysis (where the therapist tries to decode the symbolism of dreams) are still widely used today. Indeed it could be said that Freud’s theory introduced psychological thought in the thinking of modern society. Most people in the developed world would be aware of some of the terminologies used by Freud eg. subconscious mind, ego, neuroses etc. and would also be aware of the use of psychiatry in the treatment of abnormal behaviour. Modern psychiatrists are also the only psychological therapists permitted to prescribe drugs, something which lends weight to the importance and recognition of psychoanalysis as a valid medical treatment. It could be argued however that Freud’s theory is detrimental to psychology in terms of it being thought of as a science. Free association and dream analysis are completely subjective methods of therapy, ie. the conclusions made are from the therapist’s own point of view and might not have been agreed with by another therapist. Also, Freud’s entire theory was based mainly on the study of middle class Jewish women which he was treating for hysteria’. He then generalised his findings from this unrepresentative sample to all people. Even the term hysteria’ is female; it is derived from the Greek hystera’ meaning womb. Freud provided no statistical analysis of his data to support his theory either. Has he done this he may have been able to show some correlation between his subject’s conditions or treatments which would perhaps have gained some scientific credibility for his work. Many of the processes and terms in this theory are also not directly testable, such as the idea that fixation during psychosexual stages leads to adult neuroses, or are not directly observable by scientific method, such as the existence of the id, ego and superego. This means that not only can Freud’s theory not be supported, it also cannot be refuted, a serious violation of the scientific method according to Popper (1959) (as cited in Malim & Birch, 2000, p.20)
Freud also believed that all of our behaviour arises out of a desire to satisfy biological needs, in other words we are genetically predisposed to behave in a certain way and that our environment has no bearing on our behaviour. It is possible however that Freud was inaccurate with his findings regarding the role of the environment in his theory. Freud maintains that the unconscious mind houses repressed memories of painful childhood events which influence our conscious thoughts and behaviour. It could be argued that these childhood events are a stimulus resulting in repression of the memory, which is a response, and the result is altered conscious thought and behaviour. This idea of stimulus/response is central to the behaviourist perspective which according to Passer and Smith (2001) “seeks to explain behaviour without invoking conscious mental processes, much less unconscious ones” (p.184), quite unlike Freud’s theory. Despite similarity to the behaviourist perspective in this aspect, Freud’s theory has been said to be unable to predict a person’s behaviour, just explain it after an event (Eysenck & Wilson, 1973, as cited in Malim & Birch, 2000, p.734)
Freud’s theory was the basis for some later psychoanalytic theorists too, who became known as the Post-Freudians. Melanie Klein for example adapted Freud’s theory for use with children. She developed play therapy, where the child’s play was thought to be a form of free association, as a technique for applying psychoanalytic principles to children, something that Freud didn’t believe was possible. A former student of Freud’s was Carl Jung, who further developed Freud’s theory on the make up of the human psyche. Jung believed that the mind was composed of the ego, the personal conscious and the collective unconscious. In this viewpoint the ego and personal unconscious are closely related, with the ego being identified with the unconscious mind and the personal conscious comprising anything which is not presently conscious but is not far from conscious thought (similar to Freud’s preconscious mind). The main difference however arises out of Jung’s belief in what he called the collective unconscious’. This, according to Jung is shared knowledge we are all born with but are not directly conscious of. Evidence of this can be found in what he called archetypes’ which are universal symbols and ideas which appear repeatedly in the religions, myths, art and literature of many different cultures. Erik Erikson was also a contemporary of Freud’s who agreed with most of Freud’s theory however he differed in that he thought Freud placed too much emphasis on sexuality in personality development. Erikson proposed psychosocial stages, as opposed to Freud’s psychosexual stages, each of which revolve around a conflict for which resolution will result in a favourable outcome. Erikson believed that personality development continued throughout life, not just up until puberty, with eight stages of development 1. Oral-Sensory: from birth to one, 2. Muscular-Anal: 1-3 years, 3. Locomotor: 3-6 years, 4. Latency: 6-12 years, 5. Adolescence: 12-18 years, 6. Young Adulthood: 18-40 years, 7. Middle Adulthood: 40-65 years, 8. Maturity: 65 years until death. Although the above Post-Freudians were influenced by Freud’s theory, the way that they changed and adapted it highlights their unhappiness with some aspects of it and is further evidence of the weakness of Freud’s theory in that his contemporaries and even students thought it to be inadequate in describing human behaviour.
It could be argued however, that Freud’s psychoanalytic theory was the forerunner of modern psychology as a whole. Although Freud’s theory seems to cover most aspects of human development and indeed explains many human behaviours it would seem that it is inaccurate and inadequate in many respects. Certain aspects of his theory were adapted by his fellow psychoanalyists, Jung, Klein and Erikson. Also, the idea that we are all driven by nothing but internal biological forces goes against modern behaviourist thinking. Nonetheless, Freud’s theory has value in that it started people thinking of the workings of the mind as something that was within the realms of science. He pioneered the idea that the human mind could be subject to scientific study, even though many would argue that his methods were unscientific. It is because of this that one could say that although his theory has little scientific importance today, it’s merit lies in the way that it opened people’s minds to the scientific study of the human mind and human behaviour.
