Introducing Psychoanalysis I

8/9/2019 Introducing Psychoanalysis I

1/50

INTRODUCING PSYCHOANALYSIS

Society

Mind/The

Unconscious

Society


2/50


What is Psychoanalysis?

Psychoanalysis is many things. It can be characterized as:

1) A Theory of how the mind works

2) A therapeutic method to deal with certain mental disorders

3) A Theory of the relationship between biology, mind and society


3/50


What is Psychoanalysis?

Psychoanalysis is many things. It can be characterized as:

1) A Theory of how the mind works

3) A Theory of the relationship between biology, mind and society


4/50


Psychoanalysis was invented by Sigmund Freud as a therapeutic technique to treat

his patients.

It was later expanded into a full blown theory of how the mind works.

The reason why psychoanalysis is important is because it provides a link between

society and the individual.


5/50


y In other words, psychoanalysis:

y Allows us to get a handle on the question of how social norms and values come

to acquire a presence inside of our minds.

y It helps us explain why that presence is felt as an external and constraining

force.

y As Talcott Parsons (1964) noted there is a convergence between Freud and the

work of sociologist Emile Durkheim in this respect


6/50


y Psychoanalysis also helps to explain:

y When there is a conflict between certain natural human impulses and the social

arrangements of private and public life

y How that conflict then shows up in psychological outcomes like anxiety,

depression, unhappiness, and anger.

y Psychoanalysis is also important:

y Because it shows how even the most intimate of our experiences (desires,emotions, hang-ups, obsessive behaviors) are always already about something

social and external to the individual.


7/50


This means that every single one of your most intimate psychological experiences

has some non-trivial connection to the social order.

There are many textbook introductions to psychoanalysis.

For this class, we will concentrate on a particular version of psychoanalysis which

ignores a lot of what other summaries think is important.


8/50


We will begin with some definitions of basic concepts.

The key to understanding psychoanalysis is to learn how to use certain common

words in different ways.


9/50


The basic conceptual division in psychoanalysis is between two kinds of mental

functioning (or processes): Conscious and Unconscious.

Most psychology (at the time that Freud was writing) and cotemporary

sociology focuses on conscious mental phenomena.

Freud thought that the notion of the unconscious was the main innovation inpsychoanalytic theory.


10/50


In psychoanalysis, conscious mental processes are of three kinds: perceptions,

feelings (emotions) and thoughts.

Psychoanalysis can be understood mainly as a theory of why we feel certain

emotions when confronted (in our consciousness) with certain thoughts and certain

perceptions.


11/50


From the point of view of consciousness or the self(which Freud called the ego), all mental processesare experienced as a form of stimulation. The ego

then sorts stimuli according to their source. The source can external (light, sound, touch, taste

and smell) or internal.

Perceptions are unique in that they are the only

kind of mental stimuli that come from the outside.


12/50



13/50


Memories, Mental Images, Fantasy, etc. can all be

thought as the internal analogues to the external

perception of visual stimuli. Freud thought of them

as a second-hand version of originally perceived(seen) stuff.

In the same way emotions, and thoughts are a type

of internal perception. After all you hear your

thoughts and you feel your emotions.


14/50


One important class of internal stimuli are physiological stimuli, such as hunger,

internal pains, sexual arousal, etc.


15/50

INTRODUCING PSYCHOANALYSISExternal perceptual

stimuli:

ego

Internal

Stimuli:

Thoughts,

Fantasy,Emotions,

Hunger


16/50


Dreams are important because during them the mind is completely absorbed by

internally produced images that come to be treated (by the dreaming ego) as if they

were real perceptions.


17/50


This brings up an important question: How do you know that you are not dreaming

right now?

Or in other words, how can you tell that your current perception of reality is

coming from the outside and not the inside?

Or in yet another set of words, how do you know that you are not hallucinatingyour current experience?


18/50


hallucination n.

Perception of visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, or gustatory experiences

without an external stimulus and with a compelling sense of their reality,

usually resulting from a mental disorder or as a response to a drug.

(From www.dictionary.com)


19/50


Here comes Freud s first brilliant insight: stimuli that hit the ego have to be

constantly classified by the ego into real and not real.

The ego does this by connecting each experience to its source.

If it is external then it is real. If it is internal then it is not real.

This classificatory function Freud called the reality testing function of the ego.


20/50


The ego of normal humans if pretty good at reality testing (in fact we have to do ithundred of times a day).

Freud (as a good Darwinian) gave an evolutionary explanation for it. If the egowasn t good at reality testing then we (as a species) would have died long ago.

Imagine how much energy we would have wasted running away from imaginary

bears and having sex with imaginary people!


21/50


However noted Freud (remember he was trained as a medical doctor and

concentrated on psychiatry) we can find examples of times when the ego s reality

testing function breaks-down: dreams and psychosis.


22/50


During dreams we do run away from imaginary bears, eat imaginary food and have

sex with imaginary people!

Not only that, but when we dream we really feel and think as if the stuff that we are

hallucinating is real (we cry, get scared, upset, etc.).

In other words, when we dream the ego s reality testing capacity breaks down.


23/50


During dreams the ego acts as if internal stimuli are in fact external stimuli; as if

mental images were real visual images, as if hallucinated sounds were in fact real

sounds.


24/50


There is another set of (not normal) people that have a chronic incapacity to tell

what is real (external) from what is not (internal):

in 19th century psychiatric lingo they were called psychotic. Today we call

them schizophrenic.


25/50



26/50


Schizophrenia is characterized by hallucinations on all five modalities:

1) visual hallucinations

2) auditory hallucinations

3) gustatory hallucinations

4) tactile hallucinations

5) olfactory hallucinations


27/50


Freud thought that you could think of dreaming and hallucinating as similar

conditions.

In fact he thought that we are all psychotic when dream, and that psychotics were

simply waking dreamers.

In both cases the common thing was that the reality testing capacity of the egois turned off.


28/50


The reason why we don t go about doing crazy

things we dream is that another capacity of the ego

is turned off:

motor control over the musculoskeletal system (i.e. the body).

What would happen if the ego had control over

moving the body while dreaming? We would act like psychotics! (Running from imaginary things, drinking

imaginary water, etc.)


29/50


That is exactly what people that have RBD or REM SleepBehavior disorder do.

RBD is the abbreviation of rapid eye movement sleepbehavior disorder. This sleep disorder is characterized by the

mentally or physically affected person acting out theirdreams. These dreams would usually be violent in nature andthis violent nature of the dreams would be distinctivelydifferent form the person s personality during the time theyare awake. In the light of this, RBD is accepted not only as a

motor control disorder by also a dream disorder. (from courses.brown.edu/ Mary_Carskadon-

PY0055_F03/sassigadd16.ppt)


30/50


In other words, when we dream the only part of the ego that is turned on is

consciousness (awareness of certain stimuli), that is when we sleep we are only

unconscious for those parts of the sleep cycle that don t involve Rapid Eye

Movement.


31/50


The important thing for Freud was that dreaming (and psychosis) allowed us to see

that the ego had different functions or capacities, some of which could be turned on

while others remained off.


32/50


For Freud the most important of these capacities

are the ones that we already mentioned:

1) Consciousness: the ego is characterized by its

capacity to be conscious (i.e. perceive external and

internal stimuli.

Remember that internal stimuli include all of the things

associated with mental life: feelings (including gut

feelings), thoughts, images, emotions, etc.)


33/50


For Freud the most important of these capacities are the ones that we already

mentioned:

2) Motor control over the body.


34/50



mentioned:

3) Internal control over the main cognitive functions (i.e. thinking, imagining, etc.).


35/50



mentioned:

4) Rational Thinking (reality testing).


36/50



mentioned:

5) Short Term Memory formation and long term memory storage: that is the

capacity to take external and internal stimulation and store (or decided not to)

them in a mental file cabinet for later retrieval.


37/50


However, Freud saw a lot of people that seemed to show symptoms which showedthat these capacities were damaged or incomplete:

1) Fugue or disassociative states (blacking out) are episodes in which a personloses all capacity to perceive reality. They do things but don t remember everhaving done them!


38/50



2) Ticks, slips of the tongue, etc., are episodes in which motor control is lost(speaking is just fancy motor control), the person s body does something withoutthe ego ordering the body to do it.


39/50



3) Compulsions are acts that some people (who suffer from OCD) feel like they mustdo (wash their hands, check for germs, check the stove, etc.). They have no controlover whether to do the acts or not.


40/50


However, Freud saw a lot of people that seemed to show symptoms which showed

that these capacities were damaged or incomplete:

4) Obsessions are thoughts that some people (who suffer from OCD) cannot stop

themselves from thinking about.


41/50




5) we already talked about dreaming and psychotic states as episodes in which

reality testing breaks down.


42/50




6) Amnesia is a state in which the person perceives external stimuli but is unable to

form memories of the events.


43/50


Freud noticed that in all of these cases it appears as if the ego has lost one of its

functions but some other mental agency has taken over for it.


44/50


In slips of the tongue, compulsions or ticks who makes the body do those things,

who wants to wash their hands all the time? Who called Mr. Snodgrass Mr.

Snobgrass?


45/50


In slips of the tongue, compulsions or ticks who wills or makes the body do those

things? Who wants to wash their hands all the time? Who called Mr. Snodgrass

Mr. Snobgrass by mistake?


46/50


In obsession, what mental agency wants to think about dead pigs all the time?

When an amnesiac remembers a lost memory who gave the order to forget it inthe first place?

When a person is in fugue state who s talking and behaving like nothing s happenedif the ego s conscious function is turned off?


47/50


Freud reasoned that the ego could not be the only control center of the mind, that

some other mental agency, which he called the unconscious sometimes did a lot of

the things that the ego normally does (think, fantasize, make the body move,

remember or forgets things, etc.).


48/50

INTRODUCING PSYCHOANALYSISExternal

perceptual

stimuli:

ego

Internal

Stimuli:

Thoughts,

Fantasy,Emotions

Conscious

Unconscious


49/50


from Peace.saumag.edu)


50/50


from

http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/freud.htm

l

Documents

Introducing Psychoanalysis I