Chapter 13

Psychoanalysis: The Beginnings

I. The Place of Psychoanalysis in
the History of Psychology
■ A. 1895
■ 1. formal beginning of psychoanalysis

■ 2. Wundt: age 63

■ 3. Titchener: age 28
■ 4. functionalism: just beginning to flourish
■ 5. Watson: age 17
■ 6. Wertheimer: age 15
The Place of Psychoanalysis in
the History of Psychology
■ B. 1939
■ 1. Freud’s death
■ 2. Wundtian psychology, structuralism, and
functionalism were history
■ 3. Gestalt psychology: in the process of
transplantation
■

■ 4. behaviorism was dominant

The Place of Psychoanalysis in
the History of Psychology
■ C. Psychoanalysis
■ 1. not a school of thought directly comparable
to the others

■ 2. subject matter is abnormal behavior

■ 3. primary method is clinical observation

■ 4. deals with the unconscious

Antecedent Influences on
Psychoanalysis
■ 1. Philosophical speculations about
unconscious psychological phenomena

■ 2. Early ideas about psychopathology

■ 3. Evolutionary theory
Philosophical speculations
about unconscious
■Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646–1716) developed
an idea he called monadology.

■ Monad was an unextended psychic entity.

■Lesser degrees of consciousness were

called petites perceptions.

■The conscious realization of these was

described as apperception
Philosophical speculations
about unconscious
■ Fechner mind is analogous to an iceberg
that had a greater impact on Freud.

■ Freud was not the first to discuss seriously

the unconscious human mind.
 Early ideas about
psychopathology
■ 2000 BC, The Babylonians believed that the cause of
mental illness was possession by demons, a condition
they treated humanely with a combination of magic and
prayer.
■ Ancient Hebrew cultures regarded mental illness as
punishment for sin and relied on magic and prayer to
cure it.
■ Greek philosophers— notably Socrates, Plato, and
Aristotle—argued that mental illness arose from
disordered thought processes.
■ In the fourth century, mental illness was
once again blamed on evil spirits
■ The treatment mandated by the church for
over 1,000 years involved torture and
execution for those thought to be possessed
by the devil.
■ in the fifteenth century, and continuing for
300 year- severe punishment was the only
cure
■ By the eighteenth century, mental illness
came to be viewed as irrational behavior,
and mentally ill persons were confined in
institutions similar to jails.

■ These prisons came to be known as lunatic

asylums, described as “cemeteries for the
still breathing”
More humane treatments
■ Juan Luis Vives (1492–1540) first to treat
mentally ill sensitively and humanely.

■ Philippe Pinel (1745–1826), taking time to

listen to their complaints.

■ Benjamin Rush (1745–1813), irrational

behaviors were caused by too much or too
little blood.
Nineteenth century
■ Two camps: the somatic and the psychic.

■ Somatic: abnormal behavior had physical

causes such as brain lesions, under-
stimulated nerves, or overly tight nerves.

■ Psychic: subscribed to emotional or

psychological explanations for abnormal
behavior.
The Emmanuel Movement
■ Emmanuel Church Healing Movement,
which argued for the use of psychotherapy.

■ Power of suggestibility and moral authority

■ Talk therapy.

■ Freud made his only visit to the United

States.
II. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939):
The Development of Psychoanalysis
■ A. Background
■ 1. born in Freiberg, Moravia
(Pribor, Czech Republic), and then
moved to Vienna.

■ 2. Father: strict and authoritarian

Mother: protective and loving

■ 3. Personality: self-confidence,
ambition, desire for achievement
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

■ 4. 1873: began study of medicine at U. of Vienna

■ a. 8 years to get his degree
■ b. initially concentrated on biology
■ c. moved to physiology: the spinal cord of the
fish
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
■ 5. cocaine
■ a. used cocaine until at least his middle
age
■ b. 1884: paper on cocaine’s beneficial
uses published

■ 6. 1881: MD degree, began practice as a

clinical neurologist
 Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
■ B. The case of Anna O.
■ 1. Josef Breuer (1842-1935)
■ Helped Freud. Breuer was a father-figure to Freud.
■ Worked together
■ 2. Anna O.
■ a. 21 years old
■ b. wide range of hysterical symptoms
■ c. symptoms first manifested while
nursing her dying father
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
■ d. Breuer began with hypnosis
■ 1) Anna referred to their conversation as
"chimney sweeping" and "the talking cure“
■ 2) recalled disturbing experiences under hypnosis
■ 3) reliving the experiences under hypnosis
reduced the symptoms
■ e. positive transference
■ f. Anna O. not cured by Breuer
■ g. case introduced Freud to the method of catharsis
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
■ . He used method of dream analysis
■ a. He believed that everything has a cause

■ b. He conducted a personal dream analysis.

He wrote down the dream stories and then
free associated to the material
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
■ 6. 1900: The Interpretation of Dreams
■ a. analyzing his own neurotic episodes
and childhood experiences
■ b. outlined the Oedipus complex

■ 7. adopted dream analysis as standard

technique
III. Psychoanalysis
as a Method of Treatment
■ A. Resistances
■ A blockage to disclose painful memories during a free-
association session

■ B. Repression
■ The process of baring unacceptable ideas. Memories, or
desires from conscious awareness, leaving them to
operate in the unconscious mind
IV. Psychoanalysis
as a Method of Treatment
■ C. Transference
■ The process by which a patient responds to the
therapist as if the therapists were a significant
person (such as a parent) in the patient’s life

■ D. Dream analysis
■ 1. A psychotherapeutic technique involving
interpreting dreams to uncover unconscious
conflicts

■ 2. dreams represent disguised satisfaction of

repressed desires
Psychoanalysis as a Method of
Treatment
■ 3. The essence of a dream is the fulfillment of
one’s wishes

■ 4. Patients describe dream, they express their

forbidden desires (latent dream content) in
symbolic form.

■ 5. not all dreams are caused by emotional

conflicts
VI. Psychoanalysis as a System of
Personality
■ A. Instincts
■ 1. Mental representations of internal stimuli
(such as hunger) that motivate personality
and behavior
Psychoanalysis as a System of
Personality
■ 2. the life instincts
■ a. self-preservation and survival of the species
■ b. manifested in libido
■ Libido: the psychic energy that drives a person toward
pleasurable thoughts and behaviors

■ 3. the death instinct

■ a. a destructive force
■ b. can be directed inward (suicide) or outward (aggressive)
■ c. only when a death became a personal concern
Psychoanalysis as a System of
Personality
■ B. Conscious and unconscious aspects of
personality
■ 1. conscious
■ a. small and insignificant
■ b. a superficial aspects of the total personality

■ 2. Unconscious
■ a. vast and powerful
■ b. contains the instincts
Psychoanalysis as a System of
Personality
■ 3. Later, Freud replaced the conscious/unconscious
distinction with the concept of id, ego, and superego.
■ id (Es)
■ a. corresponds to earlier unconscious
■ b. the most primitive and least accessible part of
personality
■ c. includes sexual and aggressive instincts
■ d. followed pleasure principle
■ 1) reduces tension
■ 2) methods: seeks pleasure and avoids pain
Psychoanalysis as a System of
Personality
■ 4. ego (Ich)
■ a. The rational aspect of personality responsibility
for controlling the instinct

■ b. is aware of reality and regulates id

■ c. followed the reality principle

■ Holding off the id’s pleasure-seeking demands
until a appropriate object can be found to satisfy
the need and reduce the tension
Psychoanalysis as a System of
Personality
■ 5. superego (Uber-Ich)
■ a. the moral aspect of personality derived from
internalizing parental and societal values and
standards.
■
■ b. represent morality

■ c. behavior is determined by self-control,

postpone id satisfaction to more appropriate
times and spaces or inhibit id completely
Psychoanalysis as a System of
Personality
■ C. Anxiety
■ 1. indicates ego is stressed or threatened
■ 2. three types
■ a. objective: fear of actual dangers
■ b. neurotic: fear of punishment
■ c. moral: fear of one’s conscience
Psychoanalysis as a System of
Personality
■ D. Psychosexual stages of personality
development
■ 1. one of the first to emphasize the
importance of child development

■ 2. personality pattern almost complete by

age 5
Psychoanalysis as a System of
Personality
■ 3. psychosexual stages: marked by
autoeroticism
■ a. oral: sensual satisfaction, oral personality
■ b. anal: toilet training: dirty/neat, clean
■ c. phallic: attitudes toward the opposite sex
develop
■ d. latency
■ E: genital