Complexity of brain just beginning to be understood
Freud's Training
Graduated medical school
Started as a researcher
Clinical practice started
Needed money
Started on Easter
Charcot
Ideas can cause symptoms
Problems not in the flesh
Problems in an idea
Ideas outside of awareness
Ideas can bring temporary cures
Hysteria
Considered common and chronic in women
Hysterics
Suffered from physical disabilities
Evidenced no obvious physical impairment
Considered by doctors of the time as
Malingerers
Morally suspect fakers
Generally weakened nervous system
Symptoms
Random
Meaningless
History of Diagnosis
First diagnosed in at least 4th century BC
APA dropped diagnosis in 1952
Ancient, medieval, Renaissance, and modern medical authorities before Freud characterized hysteria as a collection of "vague and sexually focused" symptoms
chronic arousal
anxiety
sleeplessness
irritability
nervousness
erotic fantasy
sensations of heaviness in the abdomen
lower pelvic edema
vaginal lubrication
History of Treatment
First Century AD & Earlier
Hippocritic corpus
Celsus
17th Century
Pieter van Foreest (1653)
When these symptoms indicate, we think it necessary to ask a midwife to assist, so that she can massage the genitalia with one finger inside, using oil of lilies, musk root, crocus, or [something] similar. And in this way the afflicted woman can be aroused to the paroxysm. This kind of stimulation with the finger is recommended by Galen and Avicenna, among others, most especially for widows, those who live chaste lives, and female religious, as Gradus [Ferrari da Gradi] proposes; it is less often recommended for very young women, public women, or married women, for whom it is a better remedy to engage in intercourse with their spouses.
19th Century
Pinel
Gall
Tripier
Briquet
Freud's Diagnosis
Disease of mind not of brain
Ideas, not nerves, are the origins of problems
Disturbing ideas connected to a stressful event
Not remembered by the patient
"Hysteria was caused by trapped memories and the feelings associated with them"
Memories and feelings never processed normally
Split off from the rest of the mind
Fester and rise to the surface as troubling and "seemingly inexplicable" symptoms
Content of the memories and feeling
Disturbing
Unacceptable
In conflict with the rest of the person's ideas and feelings
"incompatible with the rest of consciousness and were themselves actively kept out of awareness"
"Whereas Breuer saw hysterics as people susceptible to altered states of consciousness, to being 'spaced out,' Freud saw hysterics as people rent with conflicts and harboring secrests, from themselves as well as from others."
Freud's Treatment
Hypnosis
Breuer
Bertha Pappenheim
Anna O.
"chimney sweeping"
"talking cure"
Using hypnosis her associations lead back to origin of symptoms
Origin connected to a disturbing and forgotten memory
Talking leades to an emotional discharge
Emotional discharge followed by symptoms disappearing
From Hypnosis to Psychoanalysis
Rooted in clinical work treating patients
Theory leads to technical innovations
Innovations led to new clinical data
New clinical data led to new theories
Started with hypnosis
Found it less helpful in reaching problematic memories and feelings
Symptom relief was temporary
Permanent symptom relief
Unconscious objectionable and disturbing material must become available to normal consciousness
Hypnosis gave the analyst access to the secrets but remained secret from the patient
Disturbing memories accessed during the hypnosis "slipped beyond reach again as the patient" was brought out of the hypnotic state.
Any awareness the patient gained during hypnosis was lost when the hypnosis ended
There was a mental force keeping the memories at bay
Freud called this a "defense."
Hypnosis artificially bypasses the defense
Struggling with the clinical problem to remove this defense leads to advances in both theory and technique
Theory: topographical model of the mind
Technique: free association
Topographical Model
Unconscious
System Ucs
Repository of unacceptable ideas and feelings
Preconscious
System Pcs
Repository of acceptable ideas and feelings
Capable of becoming conscious
Conscious
System Cs
Repository of ideas and feelings in immediate awareness at any given time
Theoretical shift leads to a clinical shift
From the analyst discovering the patient's secrets through hypnosis
To removing the patient's mental defenses against the secrets
Efforts to dismantle the defenses completely rather than temporarily like hypnosis leads to free association
Free Association
Similar to hypnosis
Reclines on couch
Quiet
Induces a particular state of mind
Between normal wakefulness
and a hypnotic trance
Analyst sits behind and out of direct vision
Patient encouraged to say whatever comes to mind
Do not edit
Do not screen
Follow tangents
Passive observer and reporter of stream of consciousness
Function
Helps the analyst discern patient's secrets
Defenses remain intact
Defenses can be noted
Defenses can be addressed
Bypasses the normal process of editing of
Disturbing feelings
Unwanted ideas
Conflicts
Forbidden wishes
Patient remains fully awake
Impossible to do for very long
Process breaks down in the face of defenses
Patients stop talking
Reach repressed material
Disturbing feelings
Unwanted ideas
Conflicts
Forbidden wishes
Thoughts about the analyst
Contain conflictual thoughts and feelings transferred from past
Becomes object of intense
Longing
Love
Hate
Transference & Resistance
Patients resist free associating
Embarrassing thoughts
"Seemingly trivial" thoughts
Thoughts pertaining to the analyst
Resistance against free association are same force as the defenses that drove the original memories into the unconscious
Transference and Resistance must be
Exposed
Identified
Disolved
Analyzing free associations and the resistances to free association provides access to both sides of the symptomatic conflict
The secret thoughts and feelings
The defensive thoughts and feelings rejecting the secrets
Dreams
Common in a patient's free associations
Treated as any other free association
Contained hidden thoughts
Connected to earlier experiences
Disguised fulfillments of conflictual wishes
A compromise between the mental force pushing the wish into consciousness
The mental force keeping the conflictual wish at bay
True meaning is hidden from the dream experienced
Latent content is distorted into manifest content
Condensation
Displacement
Symbolism
Create
Distorted images appear
Meaningless
Disconnected
Strung together in a storyline by the process of "secondary elaboration"
Childhood Sexuality
Many forbidden memories, ideas, and feelings were related to
Sex
Sexuality
Early childhood experiences
Infantile seduction theory
"The root of all neurosis is the premature introduction of sexuality into the experience of the child."
Rejected by peers
Eventually didn't fit the data
Patients without explicit memories of molestation
Self-analysis
Never seduced
Wished to be seduced
Inherently controversial
Child is seduced
Child wishes to be seduced
Theory of Instinctual Drive
Textual Sources
Mitchell & Black (1995) Freud and Beyond pp. (13, 14, & top 15)
Freud (1910) Formulations on the Two Principles on Psychic Functioning
Freud (1915a) Drives and Their Fates
Freud (1915b) Repression
Loewald (1980) Primary Process, Secondary Process, and Language
Drive Theory.ppsx
Psychic Functioning
Origins of Investigation
Developed from studying neurosis
"We have long observed that every neurosis has the effect, and so probably the purpose, of forcing the patient out of real life, of alienating him from reality."
"The Neurotic turns away from reality because he finds either the whole or parts of it unbearable."
Primary Processes
Origins in the Ucs
Oldest process
Remnants of a phase of development in which Ucs processes were the only processes.
These processes obey the "pleasure principle"
"basic ideation"
Pleasure Principle.ppsx
Failure leads the mind to change
Mind resolves to form an "idea"
This is an idea of the circumstances of the "outside world" And to endeavor to change the circumstances.
"With this, a new principle of psychic activity was initiated; now ideas were formed no longer of what was pleasant, but of what was real, even if this happened to be unpleasant."
Reality Principle.ppsx
Secondary Processes
Develop with the advent of the Reality Principle
Motor activity changes
"Under the rule of the pleasure principle [motor discharge] had served to relieve the [mind] from increases in stimulation by means of innervations sent inside the body (physical gestures, expressions of emotion)..."
Under the reality principle, motor discharge "was now given a new function, being deployed to make expedient alterations to external reality."
Motor discharge is "transformed into action."
It now became necessary to hold motor discharge (action) in check..."
Motor discharge is held in check "via the thought process, which evolved from basic ideation."
"Thought Processes"
"Thought became endowed with the qualities that enable the [mind] to tolerate the increase in tension from stimuli while discharge was deferred."
"essentially a trial run of an action"
Thought Processes.ppsx
Origins of language
"Split"
Fanaticizing
Exempt from reality-testing
Obeys pleasure principle
Does not rely on actual objects
Seen in "daydreaming"
Tolerate increasing tension
Accurate reality-testing
Obeys reality principle
Relies on actual objects
General tendency of psychic apparatus (mind) is to tenaciously cling to existing sources of pleasure and have difficulty giving them up
Transition from "pleasure" to "reality"
Gradual
Not along a uniform front
Example: sexual development
Two egos
Pleasure-ego (Pleasure-I) can do nothing but wish, pursue pleasure, and avoid unpleasure
Reality-ego (Reality-I) has no other task than to strive for what is useful and to protect itself from what is harmful
Reality Principle: Momentary pleasure with uncertain consequences is given up, but only in order to obtain the new approach, a more secure pleasure later on.
Drive Theory II
Drive Characteristics
Pressure
Force
Workload it represents
Aim
Always satisfaction
Discharge of tension
Satisfaction only achieved by removing the state of stimulation at the source of the drive
Object
"That upon which or through which the drive is able to achieve its aim"
remove the state of stimulation
discharge tension
Most variable characteristic of drive
Not originally connected to the drive
Discovered through experiences
"The drive appropriates the object on the basis that the object is suitable to provide satisfaction" (remove state of stimulation; discharge tension)
Could be external
breast
bottle
pacifier
could be part of the "subject's" (infant's) body
thumb
fingers
As the drive unfolds, the object may be changed as often as required
Same object may be used for multiple drives
Fixation is a particularly intimate attachment of a drive to an object
Often seen in very early phases of development
Puts an end to the drive's ability to change (mutability)
Vigorously resists detaching from the object
Source
Physical process in an organ or part of the body, whose stimulation is represented in the psyche [mind] by the drive
Physical stimulation of an organ or body part which is represented in the mind (psychic apparatus) as a need (drive)
Freud speculates process might be chemical and perhaps mechanical
Drive Types
Great scope of arbitrariness
Freud's two primal drives
Ego (I) drives (Self-preservation drives)
Sexual Drives
Learned about through treatment of neuroses
Root of every neurotic illness lay in a conflict between the demands of sexuality and the demands of the ego (I)
Characteristics
Many in number
Emanate from a great variety of organic sources (body parts)
Mouth
Anus
Glans/Clitoris
Skin
Initially act independently of each other
Aim of each drive is to obtain "organ pleasure" (discharge tension = pleasure)
When synthesized, the psychic apparatus [mind] harnesses them for the reproductive function and become recognizable as "sexual"
Initially, the sex drives are dependent upon the ego (I) drives and become detached from the ego (I) drives only gradually; when finding an object, they follow the paths laid down by the ego (I) drives.
A proportion of the sex drives remain attached to the ego (I) drives throughout life and thus provide the ego (I) drives with "libidinal" components
Libidinal components are easily overlooked during normal functioning
Foreplay
Anal eroticism
Manifest themselves in illness
Capable of feats far removed from original functions (e.g., sublimation)
Drive Fates
Reversed into opposite
Subject (ego [I]) -- Object
Pleasure--Unpleasure
Active--Passive
Example: Transforming love into hate
coexistence is example of emotional ambivalence
Complicated
pp. 25 - 28
Elaborated on by Klein
Love into Hate.ppsx
Turning back on the self
Example: Masochism
"One fate that a drive impulse can experience is to run up against resistances seeking to put it out of action."
"flight is of no avail"
"the ego (I) cannot escape from itself"
"judicious rejection (disapproval) is found to be a good measure against drive impulses"
Repression
"A preliminary stage of this disapproval, something between flight and disapproval, is repression --a concept that could. not have been formulated in the days before psychoanalytical studies."
See pp. 35-36
Not an original defense mechanism
"Its essence consists simply in the act of turning - and keeping - something away from the conscious."
Cs/Ucs separation is prerequisite
Primal Repression
"Psychic (ideational representative of the drive being denied access to the conscious"
Fixation: that particular drive representative (idea, belief, feeling) continues to exist unchanged and the drive remains attached to it (idea, belief, feeling).
Actual Repression
"Psychic derivatives (ancillary ideas, close approximations, similar feelings) of the repressed representative (idea, belief, feeling), or trains of thought that, though originating elsewhere, have become associated with it (idea, belief, feeling).experience the same fate as the primally repressed material."
"Follow-up Repression"
Failed Repressions
Anxiety Hysteria (pp. 42-43)
Conversion Hysteria (pp. 43-44)
Compulsion Neurosis (pp. 44-45)
Sublimation
Oedipus Complex
Sophocles Greek Tragedy
Basic Story
Does not describe a man aware of impulses
Describes someone trapped in a dreadful and unavoidable fate