The psychoanalytical approach is a controversial doctrine based on the system of psychoanalysis developed by Sigmund Freud. Freud was primarily interested in investigating the unconscious mind through the study of dreams, mental illness and everyday slips of the tongue or actions. He conducted a series of in-depth studies of adult neurotic, which enabled him to devise his theory of human personality, a theory of psychosexual development and an explanation of the causes and treatment of neuroses.
Freud was interested in neurotic mental illness and developed his own technique: free association, which became one of the fundamental tools of psychoanalysis. Freud’s patients had to describe whatever came to mind- no matter how silly. They often revealed memories that had disturbed them in childhood a great deal and resulted in their neurotic behaviour. Quite often, the patients had difficulty recalling this childhood event. Freud, by use of free association would encourage them to remember the event from there past and so the patient could come to terms with it and hence recover from his neuroses. Another method was the interpretation of dreams in which Freud outlined his theory of the mind. A further discovery was transference, where the patient projects his feelings on to the therapist.
Freud found that personality consisted of three structures; the Id, the Ego and the Super Ego .The Id is the unconscious mind – it follows the pleasure principle and it contains inherited instincts and primitive drives. The Ego or reality principle is developed from the Id and acts as a mediator between the instinctive demands of the Id and the outside world. The Ego stands for reason and good sense. The Super Ego acts as a control mechanism and it maintains the influence of parents, significant adults and teachers. All behaviour can be explained in terms of dynamic interaction between the Id, Ego and Super Ego. For example, a well-adjusted person is governed by his Ego, a psychopath by his Id and the anxious neurotic by his Super Ego.
The Essay on Id, Ego and Super-Ego As it relates to “The Lord of the Flies”
Many people have different types of personalities. The characters from the story The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, have 3 different parts of personality of the brain. According to Freud these are the three parts Id, Ego and the Super-Ego. Freud’s personality theory really shows in The Lord of the Flies. In the story Jack would be described as the Id. According to Sigmund Freud, Id is the ...
Freud believed that a child’s early experiences in life influenced how their personality and sexual development proceed together. According to Freud two main instincts live in the Id: Eros, the love instinct and Thanatos, the death instinct. The energy of Eros is the libido, which enamates from the Id, attaching itself to different parts of the body during sexual development. The first stage is the Oral stage, which takes place between 0-18 months old where the libido fixates on the mouth and sexual pleasure is obtained through oral stimulation. The anal stage takes place between 8 months and 4 years and the libido fixates on the anal orifice, sexual pleasure is obtained through stimulation of the anal membrane. The next stage takes place between 3 and 6 years- this is called the phallic stage where the libido fixates on the genitals and sexual pleasure is obtained through stimulation of the genitals.
The latency period covers 5-12 years, this is where the libido is desexualised and directed out into peer group activities. It is a period in which little sexual activity occurs. In addition the earlier sexual activities are removed from the conscious mind and placed in the unconscious by the mechanism of repression. The fifth stage is puberty and adolescence (12-16 years) where the whole network of sexual impulses reappears and the child experiments with all its previous patterns of sexual activity until ‘normal’ genitality is achieved. The sixth and final stage is adult sexuality (16 years onwards) where the individual develops new, intimate sexual relationships, eventually settling for one partner and developing concern for the next generation. According to Freud if the libido is frustrated or inhibited in its operation, it will re-emerge as neurotic mental illness.
The Term Paper on Latency Period Sexual Stage Child
Freud's Developmental Stages Freud advanced a theory of personality development that centered on the effects of the sexual pleasure drive on the individual psyche. At particular points in the developmental process, he claimed, a single body part is particularly sensitive to sexual, erotic stimulation. These erogenous zones are the mouth, the anus, and the genitals. The child's libido centers on ...
Psychoanalytic therapy treatment demands three to five interviews a week for an average of 2-4 years. It needs a close, personal and satisfying relationship between the patient and the therapist. The patient is interviewed extensively and encouraged to say whatever occurs to him, particularly in relation to his background or childhood. During this process of free association, the therapist attempts to identify the unconscious conflict at the heart of the problem and infer its contents. The therapist also uses dream interpretation to penetrate the unconscious mind and infer its contents. Eventually the patient will experience transference and become aware of the trauma producing the neurosis. This can become a very emotional process and may cause feelings of love or hatred towards the therapist by the patient. There is also counter- transference, which refers to the therapist’s feelings of irritation, dislike or sexual attraction towards the client.
The psychoanalytical approach concepts are poorly defined and are very generalised. This means that these concepts are not easily testable, as the approach is very subjective. For example: ink blots and house, tree person tests are both very subjective tests and it depended on what the client was thinking about before they started the tests rather than what happened in a ‘life-changing moment’ in childhood. The psychoanalytical approach is not a scientific theory as it is impossible to explain how Freud could be proved wrong. Freud’s focus for the development of the theory was based on a small number of abnormal people and he attempted to make it work for normal people. From the small number of case studies, Freud constructed a theory with an extremely broad range as it covers human development, the structure of personality and the treatment of neuroses.
The Term Paper on Pluralized Therapy The Logical Approach To Add
Pluralized Therapy-The Logical Approach to ADD Attention deficit disorder, in earlier times, was given a variety of names including: minimal brain dysfunction, minimal brain damage, hyper kinetic syndrome and hyperactive child syndrome. DSM III (1980), published by the American Psychiatric Association describes two subtypes of attention deficit disorder: attention deficit disorder with ...
Criticisms for the psychoanalytical approach include: the stages of development could largely be culturally determined, his theory of normal development is based on the study of mental patients and his theory is based on a very small number of subjects. Research into the effectiveness of psychoanalysis reveals that 67-72% of all psychoneurotic patients in the USA was discharged as recovered or significantly improved after one year without any therapy. Also Professor Finesinger (1951) reported that 58% of clients were recovered or improved after 52 days in hospital averaging only 27 hours of psychoanalysis each. H.J. Eysenck (1952) surveyed several reports of improvements in neurotic patients after psychoanalytical therapy and eclectic therapy compares the recovery rate with the standard two year recovery rate of 72%. He found that the eclectic therapy gave 64% cure rate but the psychoanalytic therapy only gave a 44% cure. Sloane et al (1976) randomly allocated 94 severely neurotic patients to one of three groups:
1.Psychoanalytic psychotherapy
2.Behaviour therapy
3.No treatment (control)
The results after four months showed that all three groups had improved significantly; with both groups of formally treated patients improving significantly more than the control group on target symptoms. This data provides evidence that therapy of both formally treated groups is effective.
Freud’s psychoanalytical approach is a very large theory based on a very small number of adult neurotic patients. He correlated this to all people and although useful in parts cannot be used as a therapy to cure all patients.
