Freudian Concepts of Human Nature

Freudian Concepts of Human Nature

Background of Freudian Concepts

Freud conceived of and introduced entirely novel concepts to explain human psychology and the relationship of the individual to society. According to Freud, the initial frustrations of needs during infancy, the anger and frustration at the limits on personal autonomy imposed first by parental authority, and later, by societal authorities, leads to a foundational guilt for the natural desires that the individual learns are inappropriate for externalized expression. That includes the anger experienced by children toward their same-sex parents in relation for their desire for the affections of their opposite-sex parent.

Freud suggested that the eroticism of toilette training expresses itself as a need for order and cleanliness in the individual and Freud draws a parallel between that concept and the manner in which societal authorities and conventions force the individual to conform to rules and expectations that further frustrate the most natural desires of the individual. Freud refers to those who cannot successfully negotiate the psychological challenges of conforming their most natural instincts to the requirements of living harmoniously in society as "neurotics" and traces their external behavioral pathologies to specific elements of their formative experiences when they became hyper-focused on those particular aspects of ordinary human psychological development. Ultimately, Freud suggests that neuroticisms and guilt, or "discontentment" more generally, are the price that the individual pays for the benefits of living in the comparative safety and comfort afforded by human communities instead of living more freely without having to conform to social rules, values, and expectations as a condition of enjoying those benefits.

Freud also describes at great length the degree to which desires and frustrations of the individual (throughout life, in addition to those associated with the frustrations of infancy) produce external behaviors that are shaped by emotions, desires, and frustrations that the individual is unable to accept consciously. Freud introduced the concept of suppression and repression of those ideas into the unconscious mind as a mechanism for shielding the conscious mind from the trauma of confronting those conflicts.

However, Freud explained that this is an imperfect system in that repression and suppression lead to involuntary expression of those conflicts in sublimated ways through which the individual replaces them with other obsessions, phobias, and psychosomatic reactions. According to Freud, sublimated anger and rage that is contextually inappropriate to present circumstances, situations, and individuals is merely a form of sublimation through resentment, or literally through "re-feeling" emotions and anger that was never acknowledged consciously by the individual. The psychosomatic element is illustrated by the case of Lucy R., a patient whose inability to acknowledge her romantic desire for her employer or to consciously accept his rejection was repressed into her unconscious mind, subsequently manifesting itself in unexplainable physical symptoms.

The Secret Psychological Core of Individuals

"Everyone is a moon and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody."

-- Mark Twain

Freudian psychological concepts portray human beings as manifesting one set of emotions and actions externally that, to a great degree, belie the true nature of the individual. In Freudian terms, almost all external human behavior is a manifestation of unconscious desires and impulses that are entirely unseen by others; in most cases, they remain equally unseen to the individual who has no conscious awareness of why he or she experiences certain impulses, desires, anger, or fear. In that regard, the average individual lives out externalized manifestations of frustrations and rage that were experienced in infancy and during other foundational periods of psychological development.