Sigmund Freud & the Human condition

Sigmund Feud is popularly referred to as "the father of psychoanalysis." He lived between 1856 and 1939. His work and ideas have greatly influenced psychological imaginations and popularized notions such as Freudian sleep and dream symbolism, defense mechanism, unconsciousness, and many more. These notions have greatly contributed to films, literature, and theories such as feminism, psychology, philosophy and criticism.

Freud is also known for theories such as unconscious mind, specifically those revolving around repression mechanism. He redefined sexual desire as mobile and believed that it is directed towards a wide variety of objects. His therapeutic techniques improved the understanding of transference in therapeutic relationship. The technique presumed that human beings are able to gain insight into the unconscious desires through dreams.

Freud's psychoanalysis had an objective of bringing the repressed feelings and thoughts to consciousness. Freud's successors including his daughter Anna Freud postulated that the goal of the therapy was to allow for development of a stronger ego in the patient. Other theorists and researchers such as Jacques Lacan thought that the therapy would lead to the analysis and acknowledgement of the patient's inability to satisfy their basic desires.

Traditionally, it was believed that bringing the unconscious feelings and thoughts to unconsciousness could be enhanced if the patient was encouraged to talk freely about their dreams. The other important aspect of psychoanalysis is lack of direct involvement by the analyst in the whole process, which encouraged the patient to project the feelings and thoughts. The process of transference allows the patient to resolve and rebuilt the repressed conflict; specifically, the childhood conflict with one's parents.

Personality

According to Sigmund Freud's theory on psychoanalytic of personality, human behavior results from the interaction of the three components of the mind: superego, ego and the id. The structural theory of personality emphasizes on conflict on the parts of the mind, personality and mind shape behavior. Such conflicts are thought to be unconscious, thus, Freud argued that the personality which develops during childhood is shaped through psychosexual stages that he called psychosexual theory of development.

During the stages, the child faces conflict that results from social expectations and biological drives. These are internal conflicts, and if one manages to successfully master the stages, it results in maturity in personality. However, Freud's ideas have since been criticized because of the way he focuses on sexuality as a way that drives human personality development.

According to Freud, personality development results from interaction among the fundamental of human mind: superego, ego and id. Conflict among these three structures and an effort to balance among the desires of each one of them determine the approach we adopt towards the world and our desires.

The balance, which human beings are able to strike determines how they effectively solve the conflict between the two predominant behavioral tendencies: the biological pleasure seeking drives vs. how we are internally socialized to overcome the drive.

Psychosexual Stages of Development

According to Freud, the nature of conflicts among superego, ego and id keep on changing as one matures from childhood. He argued that the conflict progresses through a series of stages. He identified 5 stages each of which had a different focus: genital, latency, phallic, anal, and oral. Freud called this idea the psychosexual theory of development. Each of the psychosexual stages was believed to directly relate to the physical center of pleasure. Consequently, the child is presented with conflicts between the id (biological drive) and superego (the moral and social drive). The reason for this is that biological pleasure seeking drives focus on different areas of one's body; Freud called this erogenous zones.

The ability of the child to resolve conflicts determines how best they will be able to cope when they become adults. Failure to have this resolved could make one get fixated in that stage. This could lead to unhealthy personality traits. However, if they were successfully resolved, it could make one grow into a healthy adult. (Boundless, 2016).

The Human Mind

The core of psychoanalytic revolves around understanding human mind. The theory of Sigmund was introduced in 1900's and is still critical in the theory of human mind despite the numerous studies that have been done on psychoanalytic theory.

At the center of the theory, are psychopathologies that lead to mental illness within an individual. Freud's theory is categorical that the human mind exists in three levels of consciousness and awareness. The introduction of these psychopathologies is believed to affect people and require some form of treatment. Thus, psychoanalysis is the appropriate treatment of the psychopathologies.

The diagram below shows how Freud divided the three levels and the estimated usage of each level. They are the unconscious, the subconscious, and the conscious.

The acceptance of Freud's psychoanalytical theory has been discredited by professionals who at times dismiss it as mere thoughts. However, within the theory, there is a concept or a model that has withstood the test of time.

Freud's Conscious Mind

Consciousness can best be understood as being aware of the existence of something, calling it to mind. However, there are two challenges to this perspective. Firstly, it is estimated that only 10% of the human mind's work is as a result of conscious thoughts. Secondly, the view does not in any way attempt to explain the events created within the mind. Thus, the conscious mind can only address the following functions:

• The ability of the mind to direct one's focus

• The mind's ability to imagine things that are not real.

A conscious mind is considered the most important part of human mind and serves as a human's beings scanner. It perceives events, triggers the way we react and will store it in the subconscious and unconscious human mind. It is readily available in human beings.

Freud's Subconscious Mind

The human subconscious is thought to be the store of the recent memories that require a quick recall. The name of the person you have just met and your telephone number are stored in the subconscious mind. The mind holds current information, which you need to use in your day-to-day activities. It also holds the recurring thoughts, feelings, habits and behavioral patterns. It is considered to do the minds donkeywork and serves as a RAM (random access memory). From this, it is clear that the unconscious mind is the source of automatic thoughts and dreams. It is also the source of ideas that appear without provocation and the source of forgotten memories, which will be accessed at some later point and is the center of implicit knowledge i.e. things that we learned, and which we are able to do without thinking about them.

Freud's Unconscious Mind

This is where all our memories and past experiences are stored. The memories that have been repressed through trauma, those that have been forgotten because they are no longer important are stored. These are the memories from which the habits, beliefs, and behaviors are formed.

An earlier review showed that the unconscious mind sits deeper under the subconscious. That the two, the unconscious and the subconscious mind have a direct link to each other and deal with almost same things. However, the unconscious mind is considered the cellar and could be treated as the underground library of all our behaviors, memories and habits. It is one of the stores where our deep-seated emotions that we were programmed with are kept.

From Freud's psychoanalytic theory, we deduce that it is in the unconscious mind where changes can occur if psychoanalysis is used. (Journal Psyche, 2015).

The Theory of Human Nature: Child Development, Drives, the Unconscious and Mental Determinism.

The main idea in Freud's theory of human nature revolves around application of determinism to psychology. In effect, it appears to imply that humans do not possess the free will, no wonder that Freud was not very sure about the philosophical question. He thought that biological and psychological drives were critical to determining the content of unconsciousness. He also believed that human beings are capable of making rational judgments and decisions. This is similar to one of the Marx's ideologies, even though Marx believed that social and economic concerns were the main causes of our consciousness.

The second most important idea in Freud's theory was the postulation of unconscious. Freud believed that there were the preconscious states i.e. those that are not continually unconscious, but which can easily be recalled when needed.

The human mind contains some elements of which we are not aware of. However, the elements exert pressure and influence the way we behave. It's been noted that some elements of our unconsciousness originated from our conscious mind. A traumatic event in our childhood may have been repressed through the process of pushing ideas into the unconscious state. (Is this done unconsciously or consciously? ) At this point, he advances the infamous three-part division of the mind: 1) superego- the human conscious mind that confronts the ego of anxiety, guilt and moral rules. 2) Id, the drive occasioned by instincts that seek to satisfy immediate pleasure. 3) ego- the conscious mental state that is governed by the reality principle. The ego attempts to reconcile the demands of id, which are always in constant conflict.

Freud's third idea focuses on instincts or drives. The drive manifest itself in a number of ways: According to Freud's original model, it is apparent that the drives must be discharged. if not. they allow unlimited amount of pressure to build up. The model may be good but not the best of all. According to Freud, the sexual drive is much greater than any of the drives fronted by the critics of his time. However, other important drives that were noted include self-preservation and eros (the life enhancing drives) and death instinct, aggression and sadism (self-destructive instincts referred to as Thanatos). Fred acknowledged that these were the initial ideas.

Freud's forth aspect according to his theory was his approach to human personality development account. He emphasized on the importance of childhood because it is a key factor that determines the child's future development. According to him, it is important to remain nice to your children because it was critical to understanding their behavior when they become adults. Childhood facets determine how the adult behaved. He singled out various sexual stages of development as some of the aspects that are greatly influenced by the stages of child sexual development.

It is a well-known fact that Freud has been critical of the Oedipus complex. His point was that the love between the child and the parents is at some point foreshadowed by the conscious adult love. He, however, noted that if a person does not go through the developmental stages and develop properly, they may require psychoanalysis to help them reverse the damage caused (Reasoning and mind, 2014).

References

Boundless. (2016, August 17). Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory of Personality. Retrieved from Boundless Psychology: https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/personality-16/psychodynamic-perspectives-oa

Journal Psyche. (2015). Freud's Model of the Human Mind. Retrieved from Authors & Journal Psyche: http://journalpsyche.org/understanding-the-human-mind/

Reasoning and mind. (2014, Novemeber 18). Summary of Freud's Basic Ideas. Retrieved from http://reasonandmeaning.com/2014/11/18/theories-of-human-nature-chapter-16-freud-part-1/