Freud and Psychoanalysis
•	Life and career
•	Intellectual influences
•	Intellectual biases
•	Early theory
•	Later theory
•	Influence and importance
Freud’s Life
•	Born in Moravia 1856
•	Moved to Vienna soon
•	Parents were Jewish middleclass
•	Vienna almost all life
•	London just before death in 1939
Education
•	Enter U of Vienna in 1873
–	Good classical education
–	Studied medicine
–	Never much desire to practice
–	Lectures 
•	Brentano
•	Main influence was Brücke – colleague of Helmholtz
–	Studied hypnosis with Charcot

Career
•	Wanted academic career but anti-Semitism
•	Work with Breuer
•	First major publication was Interpretation of Dreams in 1900
•	Therapist – modest living
•	WW I deeply affected
•	Escaped Nazis in 1937
Major Intellectual Influences
•	Unconscious
•	Hypnosis
•	Materialism
•	Hegel
•	Darwin
•	Jewish
Major Intellectual Influences – The Unconscious 
•	Like all German philosopher-psychologists accepted the Leibnitsian idea
•	Studied
–	Hypnosis
–	Free association
–	Mistakes
–	Dreams
–	Self-analysis
•	Gave it a dynamic twist
Major Intellectual Influences II
•	Hypnosis
–	Charcot
–	Saw relationships between hypnosis and hysteria
•	Materialism
–	General German biological perspective
–	All mental life reduced to material forces
–	Newtonian
•	Conscious and unconscious ideas reduced to forced
•	Newton of the Mind
Intellectual Influences III
•	Hegel
–	A cultural Geist – collective, racial mind
–	Conflict – thesis, anthesis, synthesis
•	Darwin
–	Instinct
•	As chief motive force
•	German Trieb has a more mechanical connotation
–	Struggle and competition __ Darwin through Hegelian eyes
–	Mind was a process rather than a structure
Intellectual Influences – Jewish Background
•	The outsider
•	Intellectual and intellectualize
•	Messiah
Three Major Biases
•	Medical-Scientific
•	Aristocratic – Victorian
•	Pessimism
The Medical-Scientific Bias
•	Emphasis on body
•	Determinism
•	Causal-genetic
•	Energy as fundamental process
•	Disease analogy
–	Symptom-cause distinction
–	Causes not always directly observable
–	Therefore inferred causes crucial
The Aristocratic – Victorian Bias
•	Supreme rationalist – not always understood
•	Never trust masses
•	Women are less rational
•	Young non-rational
The Pessimist
•	Ultimately bad more real than good
•	Feelings of impending doom
•	Middle-aged and old when most writing
•	World War I devastating
–	Destroyed intellectual confidence
–	New war technologies
–	Destroyed cultural institutions and monuments
Characteristics of Theory
•	Scientific?
•	Reliance on inferred constructs
•	Reliance on analogy
•	Closed system
Freud’s Claim of Science
•	His claims
–	Theory rests on firm science in biology and physics
–	Theory rests on systematic observation
–	Science deals with causes and his theory was fully deterministic
Criticisms of Scientific Nature of Theory
•	Most sciences can make predictions
–	He never claimed theory could predict
–	Could postdict
–	However, also true of most theories of human behavior
•	No experimental possibilities
•	Freud always claimed experiments were irrelevant to his theory
•	And almost all experimental tests have failed
Inferred Constructs
•	Like all sciences inferred constructs loom large in his theory
–	Also true of physics and biology
•	Atoms
•	Genes 
–	The unseen have a greater reality
–	Also leads to sloppiness
Closed System
•	No practical way to prove theory wrong
•	Even criticisms are seen as support for the theory
Development of Theory
•	Theory has several stages
•	Pre-psychoanalytic stage
•	The early theory
•	Later developments
Pre-Psychoanalytic Stage
•	Early work with drugs
•	Stumbled into work with neurotic patients
–	Assumed to have “weak” nerves”
–	Fit interest in physiology
•	Work in 1890s – two accounts
–	Published work
–	Project for a Scientific Psychology
The Early Work on Hysteria
•	Treated hysteric women
–	Initially hypnosis
–	Then work with Breuer
•	Talking cure and free association
•	Hysteria must have psychological roots
•	Book with Breuer important
•	Intellectually moved beyond Breuer
The Controversy Over Early Sexual Abuse
•	Many women reported sexual abuse
–	So sexual trauma must be cause
–	But then “discovery” that cases were often not true
•	Crucial development in theory
–	Such reports were symptoms
–	But implicate early sexual feelings
–	Repression and symptoms as coverups
•	But Masson’s book In the Freud Archives
The Project for a Scientific Psychology I
•	Basically letters and notes to Fliess
•	Stimulated by recent developments in neurology
–	Neurons are structurally separate
–	Assumed barrier between neurons
The Project II
•	Assumed neurons mirrored entire system
•	Efficiency requires binding of energy and then release
•	Please-pain was crucial – hedonism
–	Pain was binding of energy that needed release
–	Please was discharge of energy
•	At “ego” (not yet fully developed) was neurons that could divert and direct energy
Early Psychoanalytic Theory
•	Self analysis
•	Interpretation of Dreams (1900)
–	Great intellectual act
–	Laid down structural theory 
•	Conscious
•	Unconscious
•	Preconscious
–	But no designation of id-ego-superego yet
•	Psychosexual development
–	Distribution of energy and changes through life
–	Psychosexual stages
The Psychosexual Stages
•	Nature of libido
•	Stages
–	Oral 
–	Anal
–	Phallic
–	Latency
–	Genital
•	Also primary vs. secondary processes
–	Reality principle
–	Impulse control
–	Not fully worked out in terms of ego yet
Extensions to other Areas
•	Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901)
•	Totem and Taboo (1913)
The Case Studies
•	Only published a half dozen
•	Controversy about how important they were as data for theory
•	Doctored to fit theory?
•	Interesting and creative
Case of Dora
•	Philipp Bauer brought daughter Ida (15) to Freud for cough but she refused treatment (1898)
•	Later began full treatment in 1900
–	Various hysteria systems
–	Cough and hoarseness
–	Vague depression
–	Female problems
–	Had been treated with various electrical treatments 
Ida’s (Dora) Family
•	Close to father
•	Disliked mother
•	Frau K (Hans Zellenka)
–	Father and Frau K had an affair (1895)
–	Dora had crush on Frau K. 
•	Imparted facts of life to her
•	Unhappiness in own marriage
•	Often shared bed on family vacations
•	Herr K.
–	Tried to kiss her when she was 13
–	Later tried to seduce her
Freud’s Analysis
•	Saw everything in sexual terms
–	Repressed homosexuality
–	Failure to respond to Herr K. 
–	Hysteric symptoms
•	Failed to treat real condition
•	Ida had continued unhappy and neurotic life
Theoretical Crisis in 1910s
•	Grouping of instincts
•	Conscious and unconscious
•	Socialization and guilt
Problems with Instincts
•	Previously 
–	Instincts that promote survival of self (hunger) 
–	Species (hunger & sex)
•	Aggression seems more important
–	“Mourning and melancholia”
–	Repetition compulsion
–	Sadism
–	War
New Theory of Instincts
•	Hunger and sex 
–	Preservation
–	And life enhancing
•	Aggression and death
Conscious/Unconscious Distinction Problems
•	Earlier theory had grouped parts of the mind  on basis of conscious/unconscious
•	Control and repression
–	Previously went with conscious part
–	Now seen to be largely unconscious
–	Made the distinction messy
•	Also narcissism
Socialization and Guilt
•	Began to see guilt as crucial
–	Allied with aggression directed inward
–	But had to be directed outward
•	Part of socialization
–	But not deliberate
–	Oedipus complex
A New Structural Theory
•	The components
–	Id
–	Ego
–	Superego
•	Based now on controlling function rather than conscious status
•	Later theories
–	More emphasis on ego
–	Anxiety and defense mechanisms
The Revision of the Theory
•	Beyond the Pleasure Principle 
•	Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego
•	Ego and Id
•	Civilization and Its Discontents
Evaluation of the Theory
•	Never played a large role in scientific psychology
–	Role of emotions
–	Spotlight in development
–	Not easy to translate into experiments or even observations
•	Considerable influence in therapy
–	But that is rapidly declining
–	Never much documental of success
Emphasis in Culture
•	Huge influence
•	Advertising
•	Child-rearing
•	Limitations of rationality
•	Mistrust of the obvious
Criticisms
•	Not much empirical support for any part of the theory
–	Repression never been documented
–	Nor has dynamic unconscious
•	Done great mischief