Sigmund Freud, Enough Said.

Sigmund Freud was a lovely Austrian fellow that is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind. In this blog I hope to make this a little more clear and explain his theories as best as I can.

He was nominated for a Nobel prize three times, one for literature and twice for medicine; however he never actually won one. He was seen as a sexual renegade which meant that society did not like his ideas and theories. His theories on sex made them out to be animals and not the noble creatures they like to think of themselves of.

Freud saw sex as a central motivational factor to our own actions. For example phallic symbols are all around us: fruit, buildings, stationary and glasses all can represent the male genitalia. Freud believes that these are all made by the subconscious to look like the penis.

Penis Envy. This is what women have towards there fathers. Girls believe that they do not have penis because they have been castrated for being naughty. Thus making them love and adore their fathers for having a penis and not loving their mothers as much because they have been naughty and have been castrated.

Oedipal Complex. This is when boys want to have sex with their mother. They want to kill their father and make love to their mother. However they realise that their fathers are a lot stronger and that if they try to kill them and loose they will be castrated and not have a penis anymore.

Freud thought of 'self love' as a race, was a barrier to science in three ways:
1. It has stopped us accepting that the Earth was not the centre of the universe.
2. Darwin's theory of evolution.
3. The conscious brain was not in charge.
This was the key the Freud, the unconscious, this has been his legacy. We were becoming more clever and understanding more things but Freud said that the mind is divided in to three main parts which are conflict. These three main parts were:
1. The ID - the unconscious. This part is active from birth, it is the animal part, the instincts and operates on the pleasure principle. The animal part, that just wants to have fun and loves symbols as it can not talk. It acts like a child and just wants to do whatever is going to pleasure he body.
2.Ego - the self, the conscious, the person, what we are aware of at present. Reality principle, how to satisfy pleasures of origin of consciousness.
3. Superego - internalised rules of parents or society. It is the policeman in your head, always trying to keep the ID under control. When you sleep the superego sleeps and so the ID is let loose to think and d what it wants, thus your dreams.

Freud believed that there were five stages of development and that if any of these stages were not completed successfully the person would never act correctly with that part of the stage.
1. Oral - mouth, premature weaning could lead to problems of eating too much or too little, smoking, sucking on pens etc
2. Anal - toilet training, if this stage isn't completed properly they may be compulsive, clean or stingy.
3. Phallic Phase - obsesses with penis of there lack of. Women need for domination and the Oedipus complex.
4.Latency - sexuality and sex isn't important.
5. Genitals- puberty, after this you are obsessed.

The battle between your Ego, Superego and ID can result in repression (censorship) and defense mechanisms. Such as:
- Sublimination - turning sexual energy in to something elsse, (art, sport.)
- Displacement - shameful thoughts, turn them in to something else/someone else.
- Projection - send feelings on to someone else.
- Rationalisation - more socially acceptable explanation.
- Regression - returning to earlier stage of development.

The key to psychoanalysis is that you are hiding something from yourself. Freud claimed that he had a way to deal directly with the unconscious, the ID. Freud believed that everyone was hiding something from themselves. His way to uncover the secret within the person was to get them to talk to him about everything and he would then find a direction with what you were talking about and uncover the secret from that. For example, if you were talking about an argument with your father, Freud may say that A. (if you are a girl) you had penis envy and you wanted your father to love you more, or B. (if you are a boy) that you want to have sex with your mother and that you wanted to kill your father but to not fail and let him castrate you. Freud also believed that dreams were the, 'royal road to the unconscious'.

He also said that the group (society) "wants to be dominated", and that there is a fear that no one is in charge now that "God is Dead." - Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Freud believed that civilization was there to control people and that groups gave up their sexual feelings to their leader and aggressive feelings are unleashed on the people outside the group.

Against Freud:
-Falsibility, proper scientific predictions could be proven wrong but Freud was so vague that it couldn't be tested. This was also the reason for him not winning the Nobel prize. There is also no proof that psychoanalysis actually works.