Seminar Paper on Freud, Chapeter 3

My Seminar paper is on chapter 3 titled Freud to Derrida, but is focused on Freud.  Sigmund Freud was not considered to be a Philosopher at all, he saw himself as a Scientist and as inventor of a new Science. The opening couple of pages of the chapter basically give us a brief summary of Freud’s life. It tells us that In 1856 Freud was born in Moravia to an Austrian family of non-observant Jews. Four years later Freud and his family moved to Vienna, this is where Freud began to train as a doctor. He then joined the staff of the general hospital 1882, where initially he specialised in Brain anatomy. He also joined with neurologist Joseph Breuer, treating hysterical patients under hypnosis. In 1886 he married Martha Bernays whom he had 6 children with, three girls and three boys.

In conjunction with Breuer, in 1895, Freud published a work on hysteria which presented an original analysis on mental illness. Slowly over time, Freud began to stop using hypnosis as a method of treatment and began to use another method of treatment which he called psychoanalysis.  Freud said that psychoanalysis consists of nothing more than an exchange of words between patient and doctor.  The premises underlying Freud’s new method was that the hysterical symptoms that a patient may have were the result of memories of a psychological trauma that had been repressed by the patient, but could be recovered in the form of free association. Freud often encouraged his patients, lying on a couch, to speak about whatever it was that came to mind. Through these sessions Freud became convinced that these psychological traumas dated back to infancy and had a sexual content to them.

In isolation from his medical colleagues, Freud continued in practise in Vienna. In 1900 he published, what is considered to be the most important of his works. It was called The Interpretation of Dreams. In this book his main argument was that, similar to neurotic symptoms dreams were a coded expression of repressed sexual desires.

In 1902 Freud was appointed to an extraordinary chair of neuropathology at Vienna University. He began to obtain Pupils and colleagues, with the main two being Alfred Adler and Carl Jung, both of whom eventually went their separate ways from Freud and founded their own schools.  In 1923 Freud published a book called The Ego and The Id, in which he presented us with a new detailed anatomy of the unconscious mind. He then went on to publish a controversial book on the origin of religion called The Future of an Illusion. Freud himself was an Atheist but this did not stop him from identifying with the Jewish culture or from suffering the assaults of anti-Semitism. Psychoanalysis was banned by the Nazis and in 1938 when Germany annexed from Austria, Freud was forced to move to England. Finally on September 23^rd, 1939 due to suffering with Cancer of the Jaw for sixteen years Freud died of a lethal injection of morphine administered by his physician at his own request. His Psychoanalytic work was continued by his youngest daughter Anna.

The chapter then goes on to discuss Freud’s theories in more detail. The next part is taken directly from the chapter, as it describes Freud’s psychoanalytic theory in the best possible way for us to understand it. ‘In a set of introductory lectures delivered between 1915 and 1917 Freud summed up psychoanalytic theory in two fundamental theses. The first is that the greater part of our mental life, whether of feeling, thought, or volition, is unconscious. The second is that sexual impulses, broadly defined, are supremely important not only as potential causes of mental illness but also as the motor of artistic and cultural creation. If the sexual element in the work of art and culture remains to a great extent unconscious, this is because socialization demands the sacrifice of basic instincts. Such instincts become sublimated, that is to say diverted from their original goals and channelled towards socially acceptable activities. But sublimation is an unstable state, and untamed and unsatisfied instincts may take their revenge through illness or mental disorder’.

Kenny then goes on to say ‘the existence of the conscious, Freud believed, is manifested in three different ways: through everyday trivial mistakes, through reports of dreams, and through the symptoms of neurosis. Dreams and neurotic symptoms, it is true, do not on their face, or as interpreted by the unaided patient, reveal the beliefs, desires, and sentiments of which the unconscious is deemed by Freud to consist. But the exercise of free association in analysis, he believed, as interpreted by the analyst, reveals the underlying pattern of the unconscious mind’.  ‘It is sexual development that is the key to this pattern. Infantile sexuality, Freud explained, begins with an oral stage, in which pleasure is focused on the mouth. This is followed by an anal stage, between the ages of one and three, and a ‘phallic’ stag, in which the child focuses on its own penis or clitoris. At that time, Freud maintained, a boy is sexually attracted to his mother, and resents his father’s possession of her. But his hostility towards his father leads him to fear that his father will retaliate by castrating him. So the boy abandons his sexual designs for his mother, and gradually identifies with his father. This is the Oedipus complex, a crucial stage in the emotional development of every boy’.  

The main thing that concerns me with this theory is how has Freud managed to do sufficient research on this to come to this conclusion? He must of firstly, had to have watched children inappropriately touching themselves, which if he did then by today’s standards that would be considered as paedophilia. The only other way that he could have come to this conclusion is through his ‘free association’ talks with patients, but even through these, I highly doubt that the majority of his patients said that they resented their fathers because they were sexually attracted to their mothers as children. And even if they did I highly doubt it was because they just openly admitted it. I think he would have had to talk them into thinking about it and also manipulated the meaning of what he was discussing with them, for him to come to those conclusions.  What do you guys think? Also I wonder what he had the same thought about girls as children, did they resent their fathers to because they were sexually attracted to their mothers? Or was it the other way round where they resented their mothers because they were sexually attracted to their fathers? My opinions is that Freud’s theories, even though they are very interesting and for the most part seem to make sense on the surface, they have very little foundation to them that you can honestly say are believable. I think he has taken his theories from a little bit of what he actually found out through his patients and the rest from how he wishes things worked.  The following extract from page 76 in Kenny’s book sides with what I believe. ‘Most of his detailed theories, when they have been made precise enough to admit of experimental testing, have been shown to lack foundation. Medical professionals disagree how far psychoanalytic techniques are effective forms of therapy, and if they are, whence they derive their efficacy’.

Kenny moves on to talk briefly about the ego, superego and the id. Kenny explains that Freud says that the whole point of the ego is to insure reconciliation between all parts of the soul. He says that as long as the ego is in harmony with the id and the superego, all will be well. But if there is conflict between the id and the superego this will lead to melancholia and depression, or between the ego and the id, this will lead to neurosis. Also when the ego comes into conflict with the external world psychosis develops.

Lastly Kenny closes his section on Freud by saying ‘people who have never read a word of Freud can happily identify their own Freudian slips, no philosopher since Aristotle has made a greater contribution to the everyday vocabulary of psychology and morality.