Theories of Sigmund Freud, Research Paper Example

Introduction

Sigmund Freud is indeed one of the most influential psychologists of all times and his theories are still alive and continue to exercise influence over philosophers and psychologists all over the world. One may not agree with the theories of Freud or may consider them to be immoral and disgusting, but it doesn’t change the fact that all contemporary psychologists turn to Freud’s teachings at one point or another. During his lifetime Freud introduced several theories over which specialists in psychology, philosophy, and other disciplines still continue to debate. Notably, these theories include the theory of dreams, the theory of models of personality, and the theory about the psychosexual stages of human development.

Theory of Dreams

According to Freud dreams act somewhat as guardians of human sleep. Freud believed that while people are sleeping they have two groups of stimuli that can disturb their rest – external (noise, light, pain etc.) and internal (fears, ideas, desires, etc.). So in order not to disturb person’s sleep by having to react to all of these factors the mind generates dreams. But as Freud had always been interested in unconscious and subconscious aspects of human mind in his studying of people’s dreams he was concentrated on internal stimuli rather than on external ones. He believed that dreams, if they are correctly interpreted, serve as “royal road to understanding of unconscious mental processes”.

According to Freud’s theory there are two parts from which dreams are composed – manifest and latent content. Manifest content is what a person would remember after waking up, but Freud believed that this part of a dream is quite meaningless from a viewpoint that it possesses a disguised representation of true thoughts of a person. However, without manifest content it would be impossible to analyze and interpret latent content. On the other hand, latent content represent unconscious desires and forbidden thoughts of a person. Sigmund Freud believed that forces of repression keep unacceptable ideas in subconscious of a person, but these ideas seek a way to burst forth into consciousness all the time, and thus causing a constant internal struggle and conflict in human mind. So, at this point, dreams serve as both distortion and disguise of the latent content. Freud called the process of transforming latent content into a manifest content the “dream work”. The dream-work process translates dream-thoughts into dreams-content by a series of processes, of which condensation, displacement, symbolization and secondary revision are the primary four processes (Freud, 1900). So, basically, in the following four ways latent content is distorted and disguised in a manifest dream.

Condensation of dream-thoughts in necessary due the fact that dreams are very brief in the amount of information they provide if compared to the dream-thoughts for which they stand. So basically condensation is a process of combining several latent thoughts in order to make up one manifest dream situation or image (Hall, 1999).

Displacement in a manifest content is fulfilled when feelings and desires of a person, that in reality are connected with someone in particular, in a dream are directed towards some unexpected or absolutely meaningless objects or individuals.

According to Sigmund Freud symbolism plays very important role in the interpretation of manifest dreams. Freud believed that in manifest dreams various complex ideas and concepts are converted into and represented by some other images. However, these images have the same sounding or somehow are related to the hidden idea or concept. For example, in dreams such objects as suitcases, boxes, chests, ovens, etc. actually stand for female genitalia. And balloons, sticks, rockets, etc. stand for male genitalia. Therefore, all of them are hidden symbols (Freud, 1900).

Secondary revision is a final step of a dream work. It serves to reorganize a dream into a meaningful pattern, to solve all the contradictions that are present in a dream, and to synchronize a dream with an everyday life and experiences of a dreamer.

Thus according to Freud’s theory of dreams there are four processes that help to interpret a dream and to uncover the true latent content that is hidden throughout the manifest dream. And in its turn the reveal of the latent content leads to the uncovering of forbidden thoughts and desires that are living in the unconsciousness of a person and cause inner struggle to burst into consciousness.

Models of Personality

According to Sigmund Freud the psyche of a person consists of three basic elements, interaction of which constructs the mental life of an individual (Snowden, 2006). These three elements are Id, Ego, and Super-ego. Freud believed that for the most part all of these three elements are hidden in unconscious of people while very small part of them is available to conscious.

Id represents the basic drives of human beings and we are born already with our Id. Id strives for the immediate satisfaction of our needs, but these needs are based on a pleasure principle. So, basically, id wants to get whatever pleases it having no consideration of the external situation. Id doesn’t care about the reality, about other people, and norms that should be met. It just wants to get pleasure at any cost. Id is absolutely selfish and it is always present in unconsciousness of people. Freud’s (1933) formulation of Id:

It is the dark, inaccessible part of our personality, what little we know of it we have learnt from our study of the dream-work and of the construction of neurotic symptoms, and most of this is of a negative character and can be described only as a contrast to the ego. We all approach the id with analogies: we call it a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations… It is filled with energy reaching it from the instincts, but it has no organization, produces no collective will, but only a striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instinctual needs subject to the observance of the pleasure principle.

While people are born with their Id, Ego is developed throughout a person’s life as it’s based on the reality principle. The task of ego is to satisfy the needs of a person (id), but at the same time to take into a consideration the situation in which a person is placed as well as the needs and feelings of other people that surround a person. Thus ego seeks to please the id’s drives in realistic ways that will benefit in the long term rather than bringing grief (Noam et al., 1984). In some way, ego attempts to compromise the needs of an individual with the needs (and demands) of the reality, meaning society. According to Freud (1923):

…The ego is that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world … The ego represents what may be called reason and common sense, in contrast to the id, which contains the passions … in its relation to the id it is like a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse; with this difference, that the rider tries to do so with his own strength, while the ego uses borrowed forces.

Superego of a person is developed the last of the three elements of psyche and it strives for moral perfection. Superego is somewhat our conscience and it tells us what is right and what is wrong. While id is concentrated on satisfying its own needs and desires, super-ego is based on an idea of satisfying the external world, the reality and other people. Super-ego is responsible for the feeling of guilt if person does something that is inappropriate according to the moral norms. Basically, super-ego acts as internalized cultural values and norms.

While id and super-ego try to get what they want and satisfy their own drives – which are absolutely different and incompatible things – the ego tries to find a compromise between them. Ego attempts to balance the innate pleasure seeking and the demands of the society. Thus it is under a constant pressure, and this pressure in its turn leads to the inner struggle of a person and eventually to psychological problems.

Freud believed that most of the drives that people have in their lives (including those that are produced by id, ego, and super-ego) are hidden in the unconscious of people. But even though these drives are buried inside of people, they continue to exercise a strong impact on our actions (Freud, 1933). At the same time, conscious plays very insignificant role in analyzing people’s actions and realizing what they really are. It is generally believed that it is the study of unconscious that is the most important among all of Freud’s works. Through all of his theories Sigmund Freud tried to reveal the unconscious mind, because he believed that it is essential for understanding conscious thoughts and behaviors of people.

Stages of Development

In his works Sigmund Freud developed his own view on the development of children and he proposed his own psychosexual stages through which every person goes in the process of one’s development. In his theory of psychosexual development Freud stated that an individual’s psyche is driven by sexual pleasures and for each stage of development there is its own sexual desire and conflict, without solving which a person can’t move on to the next stage of development.

The Oral Stage (0 -2 years of age). This stage begins at birth and it is based on the pleasure that a baby finds in nursing. But even at this age an infant can receive a sort of mental and sexual trauma that would be preserved throughout the rest of a person’s life. This trauma is based on the refuse of a mother to nurse a baby on his/her demand or on the truncation of a nursing session too early. The oral character that is developed at this point has such features as enviousness, suspicion, pessimism, and sarcasm. On the other hand, a baby whose nursing demands were always (or almost always) excessively satisfied is characterized by optimism, admiration of others around him/her, and gullibility.

The Anal Stage (2-4 years of age).  At this stage and at this age a child faces a conflict between one’s own desires and the demands of one’s parents. Basically, for the first time in an individual’s life there starts a conflict between the id and the superego. In particular, the conflict here is between the child’s obsession with the erogenous zone of the anus that comes from the toilet training and the pressure to control the functions of one’s body. At this point it is the mission of parents to conduct a proper toilet training and the results of it will eventually form a child’s attitude towards authority (Altschule, 1977). There are two kinds of characters that can be developed during this stage – an anal expulsive character and an anal retentive character. The first one is characterized by carelessness, disorganization, messiness, etc. And people with the second type of character have such features as neatness, preciseness, carefulness, etc.

The Phallic Stage (4-5 years of age). According to Freud this stage is the most important in the development of an individual, because during this stage the most crucial sexual conflict occurs. This conflict is called Oedipus complex (in males) and Electra complex (in females). The nature of these complexes is based on an idea that a child starts to have an unconscious desire to possess his/her parent of an opposite sex and eventually to eliminate the one of the same sex.  The Oedipus complex in boys starts with love and desire for one’s mother as a representative of an opposite sex, but at the same time a boy has a great fear of his father. Eventually, the fear of the father defeats the desire for the mother, and so this desire becomes repressed. At this point a boy also comes to a conclusion that in order to be attractive for the opposite sex (his mother in particular) he must look like his father and thus an identification of an appropriate sexual role for a boy in his life occurs. As for the Electra complex of females Freud wasn’t that confident about the resolution of this complex. More precisely, Freud wasn’t sure that the complete resolution of Electra complex does actually occur; he believed that females always remain slightly fixated at the phallic stage. Such a fixation at this stage leads to the development of a phallic character which is represented by such features as narcissism, pride, recklessness, and so on. But phallic character can be developed in both males and females.

The Latency Stage (6 – puberty). Freud believed that at this stage sexual drives of a child somewhat fall asleep, and a child becomes concentrated on other activities such as school, friendship (same-sex), sport, etc. But this period of a dormant sexual activity lasts only until the process of puberty begins.

The Genital Stage (puberty and onward). During this stage a person once again becomes concentrated on one’s sexual drives and sexual activity. At this point, as sexual maturity occurs, a person turns to heterosexual relationships. The tricky thing at this point is that the capacity of a person to develop normal and healthy relationships with an opposite sex is based on the amount of energy one spends on unresolved psychosexual conflicts. Therefore, if a person is still fixed on the conflicts of some other stage of development (the phallic stage in particular), this person would always find it troublesome to construct normal relationships with an opposite sex.

This Freud’s theory of psychosexual development has always been criticized by other psychologists, because all of its attention in basically solely concentrated on the phallus (penis). This theory primarily turns around the fear of men to loose their masculinity, which is represented by their phallus, and around the desire of women to obtain the phallus. But the fact that this theory does explain a lot in the behavior of people both as children and adults, and that it does show how different features appear in the characters of people can’t be underestimated.

Conclusion

Theories of Sigmund Freud have been controversial during his lifetime and they still continue to raise various feelings, ideas, and debates over them. Everyone can think whatever one wants about Freud and his works, but it is a doubtless fact that it is Sigmund Freud who is considered to be the father of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. And even though a lot of psychotherapists theoretically reject Freud’s theories, they nevertheless continue to follow his approaches in their medical practice. It is as David Stafford-Clark (1965) has told: “Psychoanalysis was and will always be Freud’s original creation. Its discovery, exploration, investigation, and constant revision formed his life’s work. It is manifest injustice, as well as wantonly insulting, to commend psychoanalysis, still less to invoke it “without too much of Freud” (p.19).

The primary basis for Freud’s theoretical and practical study and analysis has always been the desire to understand people and to reveal the secret of their unconscious emotions and desires. And from the three theories that have been investigated in this paper it becomes evident that Sigmund Freud was dreaming of revealing the unconscious drives of human behavior and thoughts and seeing how these unconscious drives and thoughts influence people throughout all of their lives. The theory of dreams shows how the hidden and forbidden thoughts of a person try to burst forth into the consciousness of this person while one is sleeping. The theory of models of personality shows how the conflict between the unconscious aspects of human mind leads to a constant internal struggle that is always present in people’s lives. And the theory of the stages of psychosexual development helps to understand the origin of this unconscious struggle and to see to what features of a person’s character it can lead.

Freud himself believed that the discovery and explanation of the Oedipus complex is his greatest achievement in his life and work. However, today it is believed that it is the unveiling of the unconscious that is the greatest contribution of Freud to psychoanalysis, psychiatry, and psychotherapy. A lot of contemporary psychologists continue to agree with Freud that it is the repression of the unconscious conflict that for the most part motivates people in their lives. An example can be that a lot of people today confess of the crimes they have never committed simply because they have a hidden unconscious guilt and need to confess ruling over them. And such an explanation of human actions is an absolute discovery of Freud.

The funny thing is that even though technology continues to develop and more and more approaches and methods are invented to study human mind and behavior, Freud’s theories are still continue to flourish and their influence is as strong as it has been one hundred years ago. A lot of specialists agree that as the time passes a more sophisticated and deeper understanding of Freud’s ideas occurs.

And the evidence of an extremely high influence that Freud’s theories have can be observed not only in the science and psychology, but in literature and art as well. It is a well-known fact that Thomas Mann has written his novel “Death in Venice” under the influence of Freud’s ideas. And such writers as Kafka, Proust, Lawrence, Joyce, etc. in their works have explored a lot of Freudian themes. And it seems to me that such an influence on all spheres of human life can serve as the best proof of the fact that the ideas and teachings of Sigmund Freud are still alive, they continue to be influential today and they will definitely serve for the further development of psychology in the future. The influence of Freud’s theories is now far beyond the sphere of their original meaning and his concepts and ideas are now living in works and theories of a vast number of scholars and writers. And for me it serves as the best proof of the fact that theories of Sigmund Freud will live forever, as those of Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates.

References

Altschule, M. (1977). Origins of Concepts in Human Behavior. New York: Wiley.

Freud, S. (1900). The Interpretation of Dreams. Leipzig & Vienna: Franz Deuticke.

Freud, S. (1933). New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. W.W. Norton & Co.

Hall, C. S. (1999). A Primer of Freudian Psychology. New Haven: Meridian Books.

Noam, G. G., Hauser, S. T., & Santostefano S. (1984). Ego Development and Psychopathology: A Study of Hospitalized Adolescents. Child Development 55 (1): 184-194.

Snowden, R. (2006). Teach Yourself Freud. The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Stafford-Clark, D. (1965). What Freud really said. Pelican books.