Freuds Theory of Dream-Work - Essay Example

Question 2 Explain Freud’s theory of the dream work and examine the criticisms made of it Freud’s Theory of Dream-Work Name Institution Course Date Freud’s Theory of Dream-Work Introduction Sigmund Freud’s theory of dream work is a theory that explains the meaning of the manner in which the unconscious emotion and thoughts work when one is asleep. Freud was majorly concerned with a research method called psychoanalysis, where he would listen to his patient’s experiences and then utilize these experiences to make diagnosis and treatment of mental diseases. Freud established that patients usually stated dream during the sessions, and thus decide to utilize them as a scientific scheme of evaluating the mind. He believed that dreams symbolized a hidden fulfillment of a suppressed wish. He also believed that the study of dream offered the simplest way to understand mind’s unconscious activities. In his theory of dream work, Freud identified two parts of a dream; the manifest content that can be remembered gains consciousness and the latent content, which is the dream that people do not remember. Understanding the Concealed Meaning of a Dream Freud differentiated between the latent content and manifest content of a dream. According to Freud (2000) the manifest content is what the person who had the dream remembers, while the latent content of is the representational meaning of a dream or the underlying desire. The manifest content of a dream is the information which the conscious or awake person memorize experiencing. It comprises of the aspects of real images, contents and thoughts in the dream which the person is cognitively conscious of upon waking up. The latent content of a dream demonstrates the concealed meaning of an individual’s unconscious desires, thoughts and drives (Freud 2000). The unconscious or unaware mind actively represses what can be disclosed from the dream’s latent content so as to safeguard the person from negative or unsuitable feelings which are usually hard to deal with. Freud (2004) considered that through revealing the implication of an individual’s deeper ideas and hidden motivations, a person could effectively gain an understanding her or his interior struggles via ultimately solving issues that lead to worries in their lives. In comparison to information simply recognizable, the latent content of a dream makes up all things beneath the surface. The latent content of a dream is the symbolic meaning of the dream which lies behind the dream’s literal content. The concealed meaning of a dream played an influential function in Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. Freud considered that uncovering the concealed meaning of dreams into awareness could alleviate psychological distress. The latent content of dreams is a concealed connotation of a dream and it is connected to fulfillment of wish. The manifest content of a dream is the real exact subject issues of a dream whilst the latent content of a dream is the principal significance of these representations. This means that the manifest content of a dream disguised the true desires and wishes of the person dreaming, which are exposed or brought out in the dream’s latent content (Marcus, 1999). Freud’s theory of dream work centered upon assisting individuals to bring out the concealed, unconscious feelings and thoughts into consciousness. Freud considered that dreams’ latent content is repressed and concealed by the unconscious mind in order to safeguard the person from thoughts and feelings that are difficult to deal with. While the mind conceals these emotions in the sub conscious and unconscious mind, such desires, thoughts and fears can still influence the conscious behavior and thoughts (Marcus, 1999). Through uncovering the concealed denotation of dreams, Freud considered that individuals could better comprehend their troubles and solve the matters that make their lives to have problems. In his psychoanalytic interpretation, Freaud believe that dreams revolve around wish fulfillment and individuals dream about things that they secretly desire and wish for. Majority of these urges may be shocking or inappropriate, and therefore the mind masks the concealed denotation in the dream’s manifest content. Through uncovering the symbolic meaning of a dream, Freud considered that individuals could be relieved from several psychological afflictions (Marcus, 1999). Dreams as a fulfillment of wish Freud (2004) regarded dreams as the royal way to the unconscious because it is in dreams that defenses of the ego are minimized so that a number of the suppressed things comes through to consciousness, even though in a twisted form. Freud considered that people sleep because they are exhausted of receiving and reacting to the exterior stimuli within the environment. This basically implies when people fall asleep, they withdraw from reality and they reduce environmental stimuli. Freud had his personal dream in 1895 that was used to form the foundation of his theory of dream work. Freud was worried about a patient named Irma, who wasn’t responding well to treatment as he had personally expected. He in the real sense took the blame on himself for the failure of the treatment and he had a guilt feeling. Freud’s dream was that he met the Patient at a social gathering and took a check up on her. Freud then spotted the chemical formula for the medicine that another physician had administered to Irma flash out in front of his. He discovered that the Condition of Irma was as a result of an unhygienic syringe utilized by the physician and his guilt was therefore relieved (Freud, 2011) Freud deduced his dream as a fulfillment of wish. Freud had desired that the poor condition of Irma want his blunder and the dream he had had accomplished this desire through enlightening him that Irma’s condition was caused by the fault of the other physician. Based upon his dream, Freud moved ahead to suggest that a key role of a dream was fulfillment of desires. Aspects of Feud’s theory of dream-work The procedure through which the underlying desire is interpreted or decoded into manifest content is known as dream work. The dream work aims at transforming the prohibited desire into a unsuitable or non-threatening form, thus minimizing anxiety and allowing people to go on sleeping. Dream work entails the procedure of condensation, displacement, overdetermination, consideration of representability and secondary revision (Freud, 2013). Condensation The condensation process entails merging of two or more images or ideas into a single image or idea. Freud’s justification of the role of condensation demonstrates that a sole image can be transformed into a collective figure, joining usually contradictory elements. Condensation is generated by latent contents which have a universal characteristic being merged and combined into a sole unity within the manifest dream. Freud (2013) notes that the condensation process is like building a novel conception out of a thing that several individuals, places and things have in common. It is similar to creation of imagination that may combine things which don’t usually do not fit in together into a bizarre novel unity. The innovative imagination cannot invent anything but it can just join elements which are weird to each other. Dream work puts thoughts which might be unacceptable and objectionable, but which are properly created and articulated into a different form. Therefore, through condensation, two diverse latent trains of idea might be joined into a single manifest dream (Freud, 2013). Displacement Displacement is the verity that a thought’s emphasis, intensity or interest is likely to be disconnected from it and be moved to other thoughts, which were initially of minimal intensity or power but which had a relationship to the initial thought through a series of connections. Dream censorship attains its end only if it is successful in making it unfeasible to trace back the path from the insinuation to the real thing. Elements which show up in the dream itself or manifest content are often not significant in regard to dream thoughts or the deformed wish. The real meaning of dream thoughts does not need to be represented within the dream at any time (Freud, 1990). People do not require a resemblance of a subject matter for them to make the form of allusion that displacements go after. Allusions reinstate the initial thought through strange external associations like verbal ambiguity and sound. The allusions utilized in displacements are united with the aspects they reinstate by the majority of remote and external associations and are thus not usually comprehensible as such(Freud, 1990) When these when these associations are undone, their interpretation offers the notion of being a dreadful story or of a forced or illogical explanation pulled by hair of their head. The allusions which enhance displacements are similar to metonymic tropes and are opportunistic on basis of proximal or accidental factors, which makes it difficult for them to trace back the path to the place of the distressing intensity (Freud, 1990). Overdetermination Overdetermination is the aggravating causes of the hysterical symptom. This is in reference to deferred action through which a provocation or cause appears to be stimulated after the incident , fortified by a minor, although identical incident that takes place later, which appears rather intensely to propose a concept of time being not subordinate to the current. The death of a close relative or friend may be distressing and possibly not completely identified, yet the consequent loss of an insignificant possession may aggravate the severest sorrow, possibly reactivating the original aggravation under the symbol of the minor tragedy. The implication is that a trauma might have minimal or no influence initially but a later ordeal of an analogous form provokes a sign through eliciting the aggravation of the initial trauma as well. This procedure is repeatedly continued. This pattern is called a repetition compulsion, through which an individual is forced to repeat that are distressing or harmful (Freud, 2004) Consideration of Representability and Secondary Revision According to Freud (2011) considerations of representability comprise of changing of ideas into visual objects. The essence of dreams’ formations and dream work lessens the content dream ideas to its unrefined material of activities and objects. Secondary revision is the manners trough which a dream work uses elements of rational narrative to assist disguise the reality that there are contradictions , which are film like series patched in so as to move away from the otherwise conflicting material. This implies that it’s a subsequent order of cover up. The first or original order masquerades the desire, with the second order disguising the blatancy of the masquerade. Secondary happens when the alert mind brings together wish fulfilling objects in a reasonable order of occurrences, further making the latent content ambiguous. This is the manner in which the dreams’ manifest content can be transformed into forms that believable events (Freud, 2011). Criticisms on Freud theory of dream work Freud’s theory of dream work is challenged because it relied on interpersonal element of patient-analyst relationship or transference and emphasizes more on the ego processes. Fisher and Greenberg (2010) argue that the theory is good at offering explanation but is not excellent at foretelling behavior which is a key goal of science. This makes the theory unfalsifiable in that it cannot be refuted or proved true since it is hard to test and gauge the conscious mind objectively. Today, the theory of dream work is amongst forms of psychotherapy utilized in psychiatry. Several objections have been made against conventional psychoanalysis due to its methodological inflexibility and lack of theoretical rigidity. Modern psychologists point out that conventional psychoanalysis depends a lot on vagueness for its information, such as free associations and dreams. With the absence of empirical proof, Freudian theory of dream work usually appear weak, and eventually do not succeed in initiating treatment standards (Fisher & Greenberg, 2010). Majority of proof for Freud’s theory of dream work is obtained from an unreliable sample. Freud only studied himself and his patients. The major setback with his studies is based upon studying a single individual in detail and majority of his patients studied being middle aged females from Vienna. This form of study makes generality to the universal populace, for instance the entire world difficult. Several psychologists contend that the focus of Freud on gender as a personality determinant is too categorical. Other setbacks with conventional psychoanalysis are connected to Freud’s scheme of analysis. For his analysis to get to its aimed conclusions, he needed regular sessions with a patient over several years (Fisher & Greenberg, 2010). Conclusion Freud’s theory of dream-work explains the meaning of the way the unaware thoughts and emotions work when a person is sleeping. Freud considered dream to be a fulfillment of wish and a royal way to the unconscious since it is through dreams that the ego defenses are lessened so that the suppressed things are uncovered when one gains consciousness, though in a twisted form. In order to fully understand dream work, an individual is required to gain an understanding of the way the mind transmits latent thoughts to manifest ideas. The manifest content of a dream is what the dreamer remembers, whilst the latent content of a dream is the symbolic meaning of a dream. Bibliography Freud, S, 2011, Dream Psychology, Wiley & Sons, New York. Freud, S, 2000, The Interpretation of Dreams, Dover Publications, New York. Freud, S, 2004, The interpretation of Dreams: The Complete and Definitive Text, Kessinger Publishing, Montana. Marcus, L, 1999, Sigmund Freud’s the Interpretation of Dreams: New Interdisciplinary Essays, Manchester University Press, Manchester. Freud, S, 2013, A general Introduction to Psychoanalysis, Sheba Blake Publishing, Brooklyn. Freud, S, 2011 Introductory Lectures on psychoanalysis, Penguin Books, New York. Freud, S, 1990, New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis: The Standard Edition, W. W. Norton & Company, New York. Fisher, S., & Greenberg, P, 2010, Freud scientifically reappraised: Testing the theories and therapy, John Wiley & Sons, New York. Read More