Sigmund Freud Essays (Examples)

Freud Civilization and Its Discontents

Humankind strives for happiness, but according to Sigmund Freud, the creation of civilization as a means to further this goal has instead generated unhappiness. In his book Civilization and its Discontents, Freud asserts the happiness of the individual is often sublimated to the need for civilization to establish law and order. People have an instinctual desire for absolute freedom which includes a need to be sexually promiscuous as well as to be violent. To repress these naturally occurring human instincts and create an orderly society, humans have turned to civilization. But in doing so, humans have also created the source of their unhappiness; they are no longer allowed to act in a manner that is instinctually natural. By repressing their natural urges, humans are civilized, but live in a continual state of discontent.

In his analysis of civilization and why so many of its members…

Works Cited

Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and its Discontents. Buckinghamshire, England:

Chrysoma Associates. 2005. Web. 9 Dec. 2012.

 http://lightoftheimagination.com/Freud-Civil-Disc.pdf

Sigmund Freud

I have chosen to write my I-search paper about Sigmund Freud, known today as the father of psychoanalysis. He has impacted our society a great deal and this is obvious when you simply open up a psychology textbook. This semester I am taking a psychology course and we talk about him a lot. I have learned, not only through my psychology course, but also through my dad who majored in psychology in college, that Freud has influenced how modern day psychologists treat their patients. Some people follow what Freud has said and use his theories and ideas to treat their patients. This is what made me wonder about Sigmund Freud. Who was this person and how has he impacted my decade so much? Has he really contributed as much as people say he has and if so, what exactly did he do? Do his theories even work? With…

References

Benjamin, Ludy T., and David N. Dixon. "Dream Analysis by Mail: An American Woman Seeks Freud's Advice." American Psychologist 51.6 (1996): 461-468.

Boeree, Dr. C. George. "Sigmund Freud." Shippensburg University. 1997. 22 Nov. 2004.

<  http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/freud.html 

Editors. "Conflict and Culture." Library of Congress. 7 Nov. 2001. 22 Nov. 2004.

And moreover, the virtues that had been "automatically" accorded to Freud over the years -- "clinical acumen, wisdom in human affairs, dedication to his patients and to the truth" -- are now obscured by the skepticism that has come due to the deep questioning and investigation over time (Kramer, 1998, pp. 199-200). That skepticism among scholars has also been brought on by a lack of "accord" between what Freud posited and "with contemporary opinion about paranoia and post-traumatic stress disorder" (Kramer, 201).

That having been said, contemporary attacks on Freud's character tends to "diminish his work," which may not be fair Kramer continues (201). If estimates of Freud the man are dragged through the mud of unfair criticism and doubt, then Freud's work suffers as well. Kramer wonders, was Freud just a "relentless self-promoter" or do his ideas and theories have value as strong, profoundly honest science? (201).

illiam J.…

Works Cited

Costigan, Giovanni. (1965). Sigmund Freud: A Short Biography. New York: The Macmillan

Company.

Ewen, Robert B. (2003). An Introduction to Theories of Personality. East Sussex, UK:

Psychology Press.

Freud's invention, 'psychoanalysis', wherein the patient would be encouraged by the doctor to talk freely about his varied memories and dreams and associations and thoughts, which became an important part of the psychiatric treatment of patients suffering from mental illnesses, in later years, was, when first introduced in the Vienna of the end of the century, openly ridiculed.

When Freud's 'Interpretation of Dreams' was released, there was a commotion as to why these theories could not be accepted. However, Freud's friend and staunch supporter, Adler, saw Freud through the turbulent times, and extended his full and complete support to him, whereby he came to Freud's defense in a medical journal and insisted that Freud's theories be given the attention that they deserved. Gradually, support for Freud did grow, and soon his ideas and theories managed to capture the attention of the rest of Europe, and then the rest of the…

References

Psychology Biographies - Sigmund Freud: 1856-1939. Retrieved at  http://allpsych.com/biographies/freud.html . Accessed on 20 June, 2005

Schorske, Carl. Fin-de-siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture. May, 2001. Retrieved at  http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/personal/reading/schorske-siecle.html . Accessed on 20 June, 2005

Sigmund Freud (1856 to 1939). Retrieved at http://cml.austincollege.edu/courses/ci11e/am/Freudsketch.htm. Accessed on 20 June, 2005

Was ist "das Ich"? Retrieved at  http://www.wie.org/j17/wasist.asp . Accessed on 20 June, 2005

The personal and scientific environments within which Freud grew up therefore represent his primary influences. A further influence came in the form of physics. The second half of the nineteenth century, during which Freud did most of his important work, saw great advances in physics. According to Thornton, the discovery mostly responsible for this was Helmholz's principle of conservation energy. Helmholz held that the total amount of energy in a physical system is constant; that it could be changed but not annihilated; and that when the energy is moved from a part of the system, it would reappear in another part. This principle influenced areas such as thermodynamics, electromagneticism, and nuclear physics. The 19th century therefore saw major discoveries that changed the world.

For Freud, this meant that his field of study was significantly influenced by the principle. At the University of Vienna, for example, Freud's professor, Ernst Brucke published…

References

Boeree, C.G. (2009). Personality Theories: Sigmund Freud. Retrieved from  http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/freud.html 

Chiriac, J. Freud and the "Cocaine Episode" Retrieved from  

116). By defining these elements, he constructs a safe model that only applies to his people. Still it was this premise of the potential illness found in the Jewish male that shaped "the discourse of psychoanalysis concerning gender and identity.

The next step in his revolutionary study came with defining his style of psychology. He believed in determination as a construct. This was defined; as one's action is causally determined with consideration that one does not have free will. Freud took this notion a step further and deducted that it is possible to have freedom. This type of conclusion would be typical of Freud's thinking and may seem contradictory and confusing. Deterministic systems by nature are "large closed systems and induce claustrophobia" (Gay, 1990 p. 79). Still he did not believe that people were mere puppets to unknown forces beyond their control. To combat the nature of determination, Freud created…

Works Cited

Bodie, Malcolm. 1991. Inventing the "I." London: Fontana Press.

Gay, Peter. 1990. Reading Freud: Explorations and Entertainments. New Haven: Yale

Gay, Peter. 1989. The Freud Reader. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.

Gilman, Sander L. 1993. Freud, Race, and Gender. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche both addressed the concept of human nature and of the society in which human nature are bound by. However due to their different approaches on the matter, they formulated totally different theories for each. This paper endeavours to explore their theories behind human nature, the impact of the world they were living in at the time, religion and approaching utopia through Freud's Civilization and its Discontents and Nietzsche's eyond Good and Evil.

Regarding human nature, Freud was reticent in purporting that we are inherently sinful, but rather that we come in this world full of Id. This wild, instinctive foundation is the basis upon which the infrastructure of the human psyche is erected. We are born into a dangerous world and we endeavor to evade pain and secure pleasure. Freud perceives the Id as a product of our evolutionary progress as Darwin outlined it (e.g.…

Bibliography

Freud, Sigmund., Civilization and its Discontents, trans. And ed., James Strachey (New York W.W. Norton, 1961)

Nietzsche, Friedrich., Beyond Good and Evil -- Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, trans. And ed., Marion Faber (Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks, 1998)

As a consequence many have thought that the subconscious is some sort of "mystic" area where all the secrets are hidden. These secret parts have also been considered to have negative connotations. Research done in the area after Freud suggests that the subconscious remains "hidden" not because this is its final and fundamental characteristic, but because the individual does not go through with a powerful process of introspection. The mysteries which are hidden in the subconscious remain hidden until the person decides to take a good look inside him, analyze himself and face his fears.

A further critique that can be brought to Freud's theory regarding the interpretation of dreams refers to the powerful sexual dimension which he gives to the symbols in dreams. While the theory is very interesting and many associations can be demonstrated, such is not the case with all of them. Numerous voices have wondered to…

Bibliography:

Freud, S. The interpretation of dreams. Avon, 1980

Freud, S., Gay, P. The Freud reader, W.W. Norton & Company, 1995

Neu, J. (editor) the Cambridge Companion to Freud (Cambridge companions to philosophy), Cambridge university press, 1991

Singler, D. The navel of the dream: Freud, Derrida and Lacan and the gap where "something happens" in SubStance, volume 39, number 2, 2010 (iisue 122) pp.17-38

Response 2: Freud

Freud's statement that the only human purpose is to reproduce does not mean that life is meaningless, but that humans are driven, much like animals, not by higher spiritual motivations as theorized in Judaism and Christianity. Even the idea of God comes from the primal, id-driven need for security in a cruel world, the type of security one desires from one's idealized parents. This not only deflates the importance of God, but also one's parents, as it suggests that one's parents are never entirely good enough to provide complete security and comfort. It also suggests that the need for God is childish as well as primitive, a desire to remain in an infantile state when a person has all of his or her needs fulfilled without real effort. Often, humans feel helpless in the face of their problems, and it is easy to look to a Higher…

Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents: Why does Freud think life is hard for human beings? people likely to be happier in a civilized or uncivilized state? What are the benefits of order? Why is civilization hostile to sexuality? How does civilization inhibit aggression?

Freud's central paradigm is that the tension between the individual and civilization is historically grounded in the violence of warfare and humanity in the early part of the century. The devastation of the First World War haunted Freud, who presumed that "the basis of [the hostility of civilization] was a deep and long-standing dissatisfaction with the ten existing state of civilization and that on that basis a condemnation of it was built up, occasioned by certain specific historical events." (91) His modified just-so stories of taming the fire and slaying the father transfer to his association of the Erziehung, the Germanic upbringing and education, to both…

He focused on the progressive replacement of " erotogenic zones in the body by others. This early biological organism of sexuality first looks for oral gratification by sucking at its mother's breast, which later will be replaced by other objects. At first, the infant is not able to recognize the distinction between itself and the breast, but it soon begins to see its mother as its first external love object. Freud would later argue that before the infant reaches this point of understanding, it is able to see its own self as a love object and develop into a narcissistic love of its personhood.

Once the child goes through this oral state during the second year of life, its erotic emphasis transfers to the anus. This is encouraged by the challenges of toilet training. The child's enjoyment from defecating comes into conflict with the need for self-control. The third phase…

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved April 23, 2008.  

Some, such as Carl Jung, reconceived the nature of the unconscious, while others, such as Melanie Klein, replaced drives or instincts with interpersonal ("object") relations as the pivot of the psyche. Others, such as Alfred Adler, placed relatively greater emphasis than Freud did on the ego, while lessening the emphasis on the sexual drives. In Freud's wake, many varieties of talking therapy were created, some ultimately with little connection to the tenets of psychoanalysis, save the notion that people's ways of thinking about their lives, cultivated by their previous experience, may taint their happiness more than do the external events that befall them. Diverse therapies also share the belief that giving expression to one's concerns may both begin to lift the burden they impose and promote self-enlightenment (Freud, Sigmund, 2008, Criticism of…Section, ¶ 3).

Table 1 depicts some of these theorists and how they altered or changed Freud's theories.

Table…

REFERENCES

Associated Press. (2006). Freud celebrated, debated at 150; many of the father of psychoanalysis ideas have been modified or discarded during the last century. Telegraph -- Herald

(Dubuque). Retrieved February 17, 2010 from HighBeam Research:

 http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-11206670.html 

Caropreso, F. & Simanke, R.T. (2008). Life and death in Freudian metapsychology: A

267).

None of the eighteen patients had been aware of being sexually abused prior to being treated by Freud. She quotes him: "…at the bottom of every case of hysteria there are one or more occurrences of premature sexual experience" that belong to early childhood but are "reproduced through the work of psychoanalysis" (p. 267). The very fact that Freud publicly raised this issue -- "a shocking topic…to many of his contemporaries" -- not only brought it into the public light, it showed that he recognized "the gross power imbalance implicit in such situations." Those power imbalances (a child abused by an adult) held "grave psychological consequences" for the child, he recognized.

Conclusion: To fully understand the pioneering Freud, credited with inventing psychoanalysis, one must read further than just one or two of Freud's essays, and must delve into his work deeply enough to realize his own developmental evolution. By…

Works Cited

Freud, Sigmund. Dora: an Analysis of a case of Hysteria. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.

Freud, Sigmund, and Rieff, Philip. Sexuality and the Psychology of Love. New York: Simon

And Schuster, 1997.

Hoffman, Leon. "Freud's Theories About Sex as Relevant as Ever." Psychiatric News, 40.15

Freud's Interpretation Of Dreams

Sigmund Freud's 1908 work, The Interpretation of Dreams, is his attempt to place apply the psychological analysis to the study of dreams. The work relies heavily upon Freud's understanding of how the unconscious and conscious mind control both the meaning and interpretation of dreams. To Freud, the dream is often a means of wish-fulfillment, where the content of dreams represents the unconscious desires (wishes) of the dreamer. Dream content can be understood in terms of both the "manifest" (literal and conscious) meaning, and the "latent" (unconscious and symbolic) meaning. Freud argued that ultimately dreams act as an important window into the unconscious workings of the human mind.

Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams is an important attempt to reconcile the distorted, surreal world of dreams with our conscious lives and scientific understanding. The world of dreams is often distorted and disturbing, and difficult to understand with our…

Works Cited

Fontana, David. 2004. The Secret Language of Dreams. Chronicle Books.

Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams, 3rd Edition. Translated by A.A. Brill (1911). 11 April 2004.  http://www.psywww.com/books/interp/toc.htm

Sigmund Freud

Psychoanalysis and the Self: Sigmund Freud's Influence in 19th Century Philosophy and Science

Nineteenth century thinking was characterized by the emergence of two revolutionary ideologies that influenced the course of human history for the succeeding centuries: Karl Marx's conflict theory and Sigmund Freud's method of psychoanalysis in psychology. Marx's analysis of the political economy of the capitalist system led to the development of the Socialist movement. Freud's psychoanalytical theory, meanwhile, emphasized the pursuit for self-knowledge and individuality as the key towards personal development.

This paper gives focus on the life of Sigmund Freud, mainly because of his significant contribution towards establishing the kind of contemporary society prevalent in Western societies -- that is, an individualist society, wherein the pursuit of self-knowledge led to social and personal (individual) progress.

orn in the Czech Republic in 1856, Sigmund Freud had led the life of a true scientist and academician. Educated…

Bibliography

Freud, S. (1999). The Interpretation of Dreams. Translated by J. Crick. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gilman, S. (1994). Reading Freud's Reading. NY: New York University Press.

Levine, M. (1999). The Analytic Freud: Philosophy and Psychoanalysis. NY: Routledge.

Santrock, J. (2000). Psychology. NY: Prentice-Hall.

Freud even put an age on the development of the superego -- five years old. And he separated the superego into two parts: the ego ideal and the conscience. The ego ideal sets up our standards that are generally approved by parents and teachers, etc. If we obey these standards we feel good about it. The conscience is the opposite. It is composed of things that are not viewed as positive by society. These are things that lead to bad situations for us, and give us feelings of guilt.

We have dealt with two of Freud's major theories: those of the conscious vs. unconscious mind, and the id, ego, and superego. There was much more that he accomplished in the study of psychoanalysis:

Life and Death Instincts. This was the theory that we have life (or sexual) instincts that deal with survival and pleasure and the energy that is created…

Bibliography

Boeree, C.G. (2009). Sigmund Freud. Retrieved February 25, 2010, from webspace.ship.edu:  http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/freud.html 

Krull, K., & Kulikov, B. (2006). Sigmund Freud. New York: Penguin Group.

Sigmund Freud. (2010). Retrieved February 25, 2010, from notablebiographies.com:  http://www.notablebiographies.com/Fi-Gi/Freud-Sigmund.html 

Strupp, H. (1967). An introduction to Freud and modern psychoanalysis. Hauppauge, NY: Barron's Educational Series.

The ego is objective, and basically deals with the reality of the environment and acts as a control center of the personality (Rana). Freud believed that an individual's experiences in the early years of childhood determined his adulthood, what kind of person he or she will become (Rana). The stages of childhood include: 1st year is the oral stage; 2nd year is the anal stage; 3rd-5th year is the phallic stage; 6th-12th is a period of latency; and after puberty is the genital stage (Rana). He also believed that the personality uses defense mechanisms to protect the individual from anxiety, when information is pushed down into the unconscious it is referred to as repression (Rana). hen an individual assigns his own faults or shortcomings to another person, it is referred to as projection (Rana).

Other aspects include rationalization, denial, identification, regression, and fixation (Rana).

Psychoanalysis has become a common therapy…

Works Cited

Boeree, George C. Dr. "Sigmund Freud: 1856-1939." 2006. Retrieved December 07, 2006 at  http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/freud.html 

Gay, Peter. Freud: A Life for Our Time. W.W. Norton & Company. 1988. Pp. 4.

Rana, Himmat. Muskingum College. May 1997. Retrieved December 07, 2006 at  http://muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/freud.htm

.. But they seem to have observed that this newly-won power over space and time, this subjugation of the forces of nature, which is the fulfillment of a longing that goes back thousands of years, has not increased the amount of pleasurable satisfaction which they may expect from life and has not made them feel happier." This insight then, marked the point in which he asserted that in order for civilization to further improve self-control in society must be enforced, for temperance was needed in a society that aspired too much without contemplating its consequences on people's changing standards of happiness, contentment, and morality.

Foucault expressed a similar assertion concerning self-control, although he differed from Freud in that he proposed that while self-control was needed in society, he also argued that too much control over society can only cause detriment, eventually stagnating improvement and development of civilization. He best described…

Freud may have attempted to do too much with his analysis; he attempts to defragment the mystery of group dynamics into easily adjustable and important social dynamics. This book raises some extremely important psychological lessons in its application to human resources management. HR focuses on creating a cohesive team that can operate within the framework of the corporation. In order to create this cohesive team, Freud argues that a strong leader must be present that develops rapport with other members of the group as the father of the "primal clan." This relationship itself must be fashioned so that the values of the members reflect the values of the leader and thus they symbiotically form bonds of love. Although on a theoretical level these statements may have implicit truth, application in real world HR is extremely difficult. To nurture this type of culture, HR managers must stress the development of strong…

Much like other notable psychologists preceding him such as Le Bon, Freud attempts to explain the phenomena of the collective life through individual psychology. In doing so, Freud utilized this book as a means to eliminate the commonplace notions of heredity, mentality and suggestion as motives for collective behavior. Instead replacing them with a self-constructed model of unconscious identification. Freud's purpose within this seminal work is to clarify the irrationality of the group in order to reduce it. Despite his strong claims and the backing of his contemporaries, many current psychologists view this work on psychoanalysis as less provocative than his other works. One such expert, Robert E. Park, on review of this book explains, "Suggestion, imitation, the herd instinct, and every other attempt to solve the problem of human relations by the magic of a single word - all these resolve themselves into some one of the varied manifestations of the fundamental sexual impulse" (Park, npg). Freud may have attempted to do too much with his analysis; he attempts to defragment the mystery of group dynamics into easily adjustable and important social dynamics. This book raises some extremely important psychological lessons in its application to human resources management. HRM focuses on creating a cohesive team that can operate within the framework of the corporation. In order to create this cohesive team, Freud argues that a strong leader must be present that develops rapport with other members of the group as the father of the "primal clan." This relationship itself must be fashioned so that the values of the members reflect the values of the leader and thus they symbiotically form bonds of love. Although on a theoretical level these statements may have implicit truth, application in real world HRM is extremely difficult. To nurture this type of culture, HR managers must stress the development of strong infrastructural values at the outset of corporate development so that members of the group assume the group objective at an early stage. Furthermore, the expansion of social cohesion is extremely important because it will destroy the fabric of social institutions.

Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego., Review author[s]: Robert E. Park

The American Journal of Sociology © 1925

Sigmund Freud’s theory of personality and the structure of the human mind have been among the most influential in all of the social sciences. Freud had a tremendous influence on his contemporaries like Carl Jung and also Alfred Adler, and also went on to influence the next generation of psychologists, culminating in Neo-Freudian psychology and modern psychoanalysis (Funder, 2016, G-7). Jung, Adler, and others then went on to develop their own psychological theories and practices, whereas some followers of Freud became more entrenched in the psychoanalytic tradition, which uses a specialized form of talk therapy that focuses on the patient’s early childhood.
Freud’s methods initiated what has become nearly synonymous with psychotherapy: talk therapy. Free association, hypnosis, dream analysis, and other methods are used to help a patient bring into conscious awareness that which lies buried in the unconscious mind. Freud would have treated mainly wealthy women—those who could afford…

References
Funder, D. C. (2016). The personality puzzle (7th ed.). New York: W.W. Norton & Co. “Sigmund Freud,” (n.d.). Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://www.iep.utm.edu/freud/

revos (2005) further states,

"…A person's identity is formed through a series of personal experiences, which reflect how the individual is perceived by both him or herself and the outside world -- the phenomeno-logical field. Individuals also have experiences of which they are unaware and the phenomenological field contains both conscious and unconscious perceptions. The concept of the self is, according to Rogers, however, primarily conscious. The most important determinants of behavior are the one's that are conscious or are capable of becoming conscious. Roger argues that a definition of the self that includes a reference to the unconscious (as with Freud) can not be studied objectively as it can not be directly known."

This perfect description given by revos (2005) is precisely what Rogers would have envisioned of his theory. His aims, unlike Freud, were to allow humanity to return, instead of alienating individuals by placing them in categories…

Prevos, P. (2005). Hidden Personalities According to Freud and Rogers. Retrieved September 29, .

Prevos, P. (2005). Hidden Personalities According to Freud and Rogers. Retrieved September 29, .

Ansbacher, Corey, Phillips and Schultz. (2005). Freud's Strengths and Weaknesses. Retrieved September 30, .

Freud Civilization and Its Discontents

Sigmund Freud's volume, Civilization and its Discontents, he tackles no less than the broad and ambitious concept of man's place in the world. In this volume, he looks at culture from his unique psychoanalytical perspective, and touches upon a number of important concepts, including aggression, civilization and the individual, organized religion, the death drive and Eros, and the super-ego and conscience. Civilization and its Discontents was written a mere decade before the great psychoanalysts death, and is in many ways an important compilation of many of his most renowned theories on the mind, human nature, and the structure of human society.

First published in German in 1929, Civilization and its Discontents delves deeply into Freud's theories of aggression, the death drive, and its adversary, Eros. In the book, Freud seeks to look into the relationship between man's inner desires, and the establishment of modern civilization.…

Works Cited

Freud, Sigmund. 1989. Civilization and its Discontents. W.W. Norton & Company.

Instead of canceling the visit, the person grudgingly gets ready to go and at the train station accidentally gets on the train that takes home back home instead of the one that takes him to the relative's house. This in Freud's mind would be a bundled action because the person did not feel comfortable canceling so instead his subconscious took over and provided a way for him to get out of going by doing what he secretly wanted to do in the first place, which was to remain at home.

Accidental self-injury has long been attributed to the theory of bungled actions. If a person gets into a car accident and is killed or almost killed one may later discover that the person in the wreck was depressed and was facing a court date, or a divorce or financial ruin. The accident in the car according to Freud would not…

Sigmund Freud developed the theory of bungled actions for the purpose of explaining why people have accidents. In his practice there was no such thing as an accident, but instead, every accident had an underlying often subconscious reason for happening. Freud believed strongly that it was not only necessary to explore these bungled actions but to understand their foundational roots so that the person could let go of the problem and have a healthier mental attitude.

REFERENCE

Freud, Sigmund (1960) The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. Volume VI. Translated By James Strachey. London: The Hogarth Press, 1960.

Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Max Weber (1864-1920) were the distinguished German scholars of their time and both of them individually contributed a great deal in the understanding of society and its paraphernalia.

There is not much to compare between the two scholars apart from the fact they both were Germans and prominent sociologists. Karl Marx is regarded as the founder of 'socialism'. He was a great philosopher and intellectual. His philosophy essentially articulates that it's in the very nature of man to bring change in the world. This transformation process is called labor and this capacity to bring change is termed as labor power. Karl Marx's thought on sociology and philosophy had deep rooted impact on society. He was of the view that ideologies are the product of the social structure and by that he meant the theoretical perception of right being the driving force for setting up of mechanism…

References

Gillespie, a. 2005. G.H. Mead: Theorist of the social act. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 35, 19-39.

George Herbert Mead. March 15, 2007  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Herbert_Mead "

Freud, Sigmund. General Psychology Theory (Macmillan, 1963).

Freud, S., Civilization and its Discontents (Standard Edition), 21 (1930), pp. 59-145.

In this regard, Demorest concludes that, "Together these and other theorists have provided accounts of what it means to be a person that all fit within the psychodynamic paradigm, a perspective that holds a vision of people as at their core driven by dynamic forces in their unconscious minds" (2005, p. 3).

Freud's influence on psychoanalytic thought, though, required some time to take hold and many of his methods were rejected outright by the contemporary medical establishment, particularly in the United States. For example, following Freud's only trip to North America in 1909, one psychiatrist believed that, "Many patients were psychotically disturbed and deemed to be beyond the reach of Freud's intellectual 'talk therapy'" (Beam, 2001, p. 94). Not only did others think that Freud's methods were not appropriate for some patients, Freud himself acknowledged their limitations. In fact, Beam points out as well that, "Freud himself thought most schizophrenics…

References

Beam, A. (2001). Gracefully insane: The rise and fall of America's premier mental hospital.

New York: Public Affairs.

Cherry, K. (2010). Freud's patients and therapy. About.com: Psychology. Retrieved from  http://psychology.about.com/od/sigmundfreud/ig/Sigmund-Freud-Photobiography/Freud-s-Patients-and-Therapy.htm .

Demorest, A. (2005). Psychology's grand theorists: How personal experiences shaped professional ideas. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious

Although the general theme of Sigmund Freud's Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious (first published in 1905) is the characteristics and composition of jokes, and their relationship with the unconscious mind, the content of Chapter VI is rather narrower and more specific. Entitled The Relation of Jokes to Dreams and to The Unconscious, Chapter VI deals almost exclusively with Freud's theoretical arguments.

A large section, at the beginning of the chapter, digresses from book's overall theme as Freud provides a summary of the ideas and theories proposed in his previous work, Interpretation of Dreams (1900). This is relevant because of the similarities that are subsequently drawn between jokes (through the joke-work) and dreams (through the dream-work). Freud details the processes that he considers to be involved with both jokes and dreams, namely displacement, condensation (with or without the formation of substitutes), representation…

Works Cited

Billig, Michael. "Freud and the Language of Humour." The Psychologist. 15.9 2002:

Freud, Sigmund. Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious. Toronto: Hogarth Press

Limited, 1969.

The major criticisms of Freud's Theory thought that it was difficult to test and there was too much emphasis on Biology.

Humanistic Theory- was developed by Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow and emphasizes the internal experiences such as feelings and thoughts and the individual's feelings of worth. It believes that humans are naturally good and have a positive drive towards their own self-fulfilment. Rogers was most interested in the interaction between mental health, self-concept and self-esteem. Maslow believed that every person has an in-born drive to develop all their talents and capacities and calls this self-actualization. The critics of this theory felt that it is naive to assume that all people are good and think it takes a narrow view of personality.

Social-Cognitive Theory- by Albert Bandura believes that personality comes from the person's history of interaction with the environment. He believes that self-efficacy comes from having a strong belief…

Freud's Psychosocial Development Theory Presumes That Adult Character Is Established By Age 5

Freud finds that we humans are extremely symbolic creatures; we have a common set of symbols that provide us a very effective language for our shared wishes. What case does he make that we are accustomed to symbolic experience and that we talk about these symbols in the bigger society of humankind? Freud's theory presumes that adult character is established by age 5, with the resolution of the Oedipus issue. Hence, it only explains character growth into adolescence. On the other hand, Jung regarded that character continued to develop across the lifespan and explains levels of mature growth not regarded by Freud. Both theorists highlighted the subconscious, but Erickson went beyond to talk about the significance of the combined unconscious; an idea Freud particularly refused. Both had little actual physical proof to back up their speculation. However,…

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…

personality - Sigmund Freud.

In a healty person, parts interact? 3) In unhealthy person, interact? Give a faulty interaction lead problems a person? 4) In ur words Defense Mechanisms? 5) Give 2 examples Defense Mechanism: Repression Displacement Rationalization Regression Projection Reaction Formation Sublimation.

Sigmund Freud's personality theory describes the three parts of the personality as the id, the ego, and the superego. The Austrian psychoanalyst considered that people are born with an id, a feature that assists them in getting them whatever pleasures them. The Id will stop at nothing from accomplishing an individual's basic needs and does not allow him or her to express any interests in things other than his or her own well being. As a child's understanding of the world evolves, the ego starts to govern his or her thinking as he or she starts to notice that other people's interests are also important. The ego…

Philosophy

Sigmund Freud enumerates that the human psyche consists of the unconscious id, the ego (which is partly conscious and partly unconscious), and the superego (also partly conscious and partly unconscious). At first, a newborn has only an id, which consists of blind drives that seek satisfaction. In a few months, the ego is developed when the newborn experiences resistance and frustration of its drives by the outside world: it realizes that it is separate from that external world and develops a sense of self. The superego will develop later, when it has internalized the rules, prohibitions and ideals of its parents. In the meantime, the ego is the infant's structure that relates with the outside world on the basis of the reality principle, whereby the developing child learns to weigh its choices according to the consequences. This it does while pursuing or fulfilling the innate pleasure principle, whereby it…

Bibliography

Lavine, Thelma Z. From Socrates to Sartre: the Philosophic Quest. reissue edition. Bantam Books, 1985

Stevenson, Leslie. SevenTheories of Human Nature. New York: Oxford University Press, second edition, 1987

Christianity and the views of Sigmund Freud and William James

This paper discusses the concept of a Creator in Christianity and also focuses on the views held by Sigmund Freud and William James on this subject. While Christianity believes firmly in the existence of Creator, Freud maintains that this concept has originated from man's deep-rooted neurosis. James on the other hand felt that religious beliefs had some biological and psychological connections and therefore it is important for man to devise his own concept of a Creator rather than believing on the one that he has inherited from his ancestors.

CONCEPT OF A CEATO

Most religions in the world support the concept of a Universal Creator, the one being who has single-handedly created the entire Universe and is considered to be a benevolent merciful soul. While in some polytheist religions, the concept of Creator may differ slightly, but in all three…

References

William James: The Varieties of Religious Experience

Freud, Sigmund, The Future of an Illusion, 1927.

"Inner-directed mockery, Jewish self-satire, and self-criticism are found in the Pentateuch itself, as when the Children of Israel look up at Moses just before the parting of the Red Sea and say, "Are there no graves in Egypt, that you have taken us to die in the desert?" (Ex. 14:11, cited by Kirschenblatt-Gimblett and ex).

Laughter becomes a healing salve, which is uniquely human. Freudian views of Jewish humor are among the richest and most accurate interpretations of the phenomenon of masochism because Freud was unafraid to explore the darkness of the human experience. Jewish humor is "dipped in tragedy," ("Laugh and the orld Laughs ith You" 2011). As Ben-Amos states, "The current conception of Jewish humor originated, as many modern ideas have, with Sigmund Freud," (112).

The Freudian view of Jewish humor is absolutely applicable to Jewish humor in America. American Jewish humor begins with the premise that a…

Works Cited

Abrami, Leo M. "Psychoanalyzing Jewish Humor." My Jewish Learning. Retrieved online: http://mobile.myjewishlearning.com/culture/2/Humor/What_is_Jewish_Humor/Defining_Jewish_Humor/Psychoanalyzing_Humor.shtml

Ben-Amos, Dan. "The "myth' of Jewish humor." Western Folklore 32(2), April 1973.

Kirschenblatt-Gimlett & Wex.

"Laugh and the World Laughs With You," (2011). Living a Jewish Life. Retrieved online:  http://www.mazorguide.com/Culture/Humor/background-2.htm

Heidiegger Camus

Martin Heidegger's Being and Time addresses both of these complex philosophical concepts, being and time. Being means existence, or the fact that something can exist. Heidegger approaches the concept of being from multiple perspectives. Being is the quality of existence, or the fact that something exists. Does this mean the opposite of Being is Nothingness? What does Heidegger say about anti-matter? Heidegger also probes the force that causes a thing or concept to come into being. It may only be possible to contemplate the quality or state of being if the thinker exists, meaning that a nothing cannot think about a something. Heidegger comes close to suggesting the existence of a collective human soul, a grand Being, which he calls Dasein. The Dasein is not quite like the Nietzsche, but it is an archetypal super being that has the potential to contemplate existence.

For Heidegger, Being and Time…

"The Myth of Sisyphus" by Albert Camus explores the nature of reality via what the author calls the "absurd." Life has an absurd character to it, which human beings grapple with and find either confusing or funny. The concept of the absurd resolves a classic existential dilemma: that is, the meaning of life. Camus suggests that it is acceptable if life has no meaning, and that people can still live happy and fulfilling lives without an ultimate sense of meaning. The search for meaning can in itself be viewed as an absurdity in the human condition. In "The Myth of Sisyphus," Camus claims that the only way to resolve existential angst is accepting the absurdity of life and moving through it. The central allegory of the Myth of Sisyphus is a Greek story of Sisyphus, who is punished to eternal damnation on earth by having to roll a rock up a hill. The rock rolls down again, and so Sisyphus is in a state of perpetual motion. Nothing is happening, but if Sisyphus can accept the absurdity in the situation, he can achieve liberation. This mentality can be applied to any frustrating situation in life. Any time a person feels trapped, the simple awareness and acceptance of that fact can lead to mental liberation. Camus's philosophy can be applied to any life situation in which a person can find the humor in the absurdity of an event or a person.

Sigmund Freud wrote "Civilization and its Discontents" in 1929. Freud discusses social psychology, explaining how an individual struggles to maintain a personal identity as well as a collective identity. The social norms that pressure the individual to conform to society are often in conflict with one's inner truth or desire. In fact, a person's desires are frequently in conflict with the social norms. They are taboos. Freud expanded upon this general concept in his theory of the personality as being divided into id, ego, and superego. The superego represents the social norms and cultural values that constrain the individual; whereas the ego is the person's individualism which struggles to assert itself. The id is the desire that all people have for food, sex, and pleasure. This is what Freud refers to as the pleasure principle.

Freud's writings have had a huge impact on the field of psychology but also on sociology and anthropology. More than that, Freud's writings have had an impact on the way people perceive the world. Most people have heard of the Freudian concepts that are outlined in "Civilization and its Discontents."

When one thinks about Freud's theory one has to presume Freud's conscious thoughts or his theory regarding an Oedipus complex represents not his real thoughts but his defensive condensations, displacements, reversals, omissions, and distortions of his real thoughts. If one wishes to look inside his real thoughts regarding an Oedipus complex, one has to analyze and interpret the manifest content of his thought with these defenses in mind. According to Freud, a person must use this method of analysis to overcome such defenses and resistances. The first rule of Freud's technique was to reject the manifest content or the apparent meaning of the dream, symptom, or activity as merely a distorted substitute for one's real thoughts (Freud's Theory Analyzed -- a eport on esearch n.d).

Freud thought that one's conscious thoughts would be unconsciously determined and distorted by what one had censored. One's conscious thoughts condensed, displaced, reversed, omitted, covertly…

Reference List

A Brief Outline of Psychoanalytic Theory, n.d., Available at:

http://homepage.newschool.edu/~quigleyt/vcs/psychoanalysis-intro.pdf

Bridle, S. And Edelstein, a., 2009, Was ist "das Ich"?, Available at:

http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j17/wasist.asp

"The work of civilization has become increasingly the business of men, it confronts them with ever more difficult tasks and compels them to carry out instinctual sublimations of which women are little capable" (Rosenfels 21).

When considering leaders and their followers, Freud believed that some people were meant to be controlled as a result of their laziness and of their instinctual abandonment. These individuals influence each-other in adopting an indifferent attitude with regard to their own fate. They are saved by people who are capable to set an example through their strength of will and who take on managerial positions in order to control the masses (Rosenfels 21).

One of the reasons for which Freud expressed dissatisfaction with his experience in the U.S. was the fact that he did not appreciate the attitude that American husbands had in regard to their wives. He believed that one had to control his…

Bibliography:

Rosenfels, P. (1980). Freud and the scientific method. Ninth Street Center.

Paul Rosenfels discuses Freud's determination to consider that inequality governed the human society. In addition to expressing his opinion regarding the "men are superior to women" concept that was common at the time, he also related to a series of other relationships that he considered imbalanced. Freud practically considered that there was no relationship that did not involve an inequality rapport, as he typically focused on people's problems and tried to emphasize them in order for individuals to understand the reason for their inferiority while in a relationship. Rosenfels also speaks about how Freud used personal experience in producing theories regarding social inequalities.

Boeree, George. "Sigmund Freud." Retrieved October 16, 2011, from the Shippensburg University Website:  http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/freud.html 

Boeree describes some of the basic characteristics of Freud's personality theory and focuses on the importance of the unconscious in comparison to the conscious and the preconscious. The doctor also relates to how Freud came to consider that human behavior is determined by factors that are not immediately accessible. Boeree also relates to each trait of the personality theory in particular and explains the way that it functions in regard to people's activities. This source recounts Freud's determination to discuss a subject that people living contemporary to him generally considered to be unimportant, especially given that most individuals were inclined to favor easy explanations when trying to come up with a solution for some mental illnesses.

Therefore, it is necessary to account for the acquisition of habits.

Due to certain limitations of the behaviorism approach, there have been revisions to the theory over the century. For example, although behaviorism helped people to forecast, alter, and change behavior over time, it did not attempt nor intend to understand how or why the theory worked. The present-day social cognitive approach asserts that behavior is results from an ongoing reciprocal three-way relationship among the individual (cognition), the environment (physical context, which consists of the organizational structure and design, social context or other people), and the person's past behavior. This broader view, called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) incorporates the cognitive in addition to the behavioral approaches to therapy and view people "as active seekers and interpreters of information, not just responders to environmental influences" (Nevid, 2007, p. 484). Many psychologists now believe that behavior is understood best by studying the…

References Cited:

Fall, K.A., Holden, J.M. & Marquis, A. (2004) Theoretical models of counseling and psychotherapy New York: Taylor and Francis.

Freud, Sigmund. (1926). Inhibitions, symptoms, and anxiety, SE, 20(14): 111-205.

Kohlenberg, R.J., Bolling, M.Y., Kanter, J.W. & Parker, C.R. (2002) Clinical behavior analysis: where it went wrong, how it was made good again, and why its future is so bright. Behavior Analyst Today. 3(3): 248-253

Martz, E (2002) Principles of Eastern philosophies viewed from the framework of Yalom's four existential concerns. International Journal for the Advancement of Counseling. 24(1): 31-42

Cliff likes to challenge people to games, sometimes making bets. Yet when he loses, he does not take the situation too seriously. Cliff does not avoid conflict or argument, and yet he also tries to create win-win situations. Cliff is frequently portrayed as the voice of reason in the show, such as when he tries to talk his wife out of having another baby. He points out where his children are acting on their impulses, and proves to be a good disciplinarian. A psychoanalytic personality perspective suggests that Cliff Huxtable is an ideal person with a healthy, well-developed ego.

In the Cosby Show, the Huxtable children are developing their superegos based on what they learn from their parents and Cliff serves as an excellent role model for them. Cliff Huxtable is a well-adjusted man who does not demonstrate any apparent neuroses. Difficult emotions such as anger, fear, and embarrassment are…

Reference

Stevenson, D.B. (1998). Freud's division of the mind. The Victorian Web. retrieved April 30, 2010 from  http://www.victorianweb.org/science/freud/division.html

Freud and Psychology

In the field of psychology, Freud's work is a popular topic. Much of what he created is very controversial, and some of it has been discredited and changed (Leahey, et al., 2014). However, there is also a lot of it that is still used today, and that provides information for psychologists and psychotherapists who want to help people live better lives. There are two main areas of Freud's work that are still important today. These are his theory of personality development and his theory of psychotherapy. It is also important to consider why they are valid or not valid in current practice, so one can determine what direction one wants to take with proper techniques. Freud's theory of personality has three components, which are the Id, the Ego, and the Superego (Sulloway, 1991). According to Freud, all of these work together to make up a person's specific…

References

Leahey, T.H., Greer, S., Lefrancois, G.R., Reiner, T.W., Spencer, J.L., Wickramasekera, I.E., & Willmarth, E.K. (2014). History of psychology. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education.

Pigman, G.W. (1995). Freud and the history of empathy. The International Journal of Psycho-analysis, 76( Pt 2): 237 -- 256.

Sulloway, F.J. (1991). Reassessing Freud's case histories: The social construction of psychoanalysis. Isis, 82(2): 266