Freud and the Unconscious - Research Paper Example

Phi130SP3: Essay 2 Q: Topic 3, Freud and the Unconscious. Why, according to Freud, must psychic life be divided into what is conscious and what is unconscious? Explain what Freud means by ‘the unconscious’ and evaluate the reasons he gives for supposing it exists. A: Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist and psychologist who founded psychoanalysis, a term which he defined in 1922 as a procedure of investigation, a method of treatment and a collection of psychological information. As a procedure of investigation, psychoanalysis examines mental processes which cannot be examined in any other way. As a method of treatment, psychoanalysis seeks to cure neurotic disorders and as a collection of psychological information, it accumulates all information related to the investigation of the mental processes as well as the treatment for such mental processes if applicable. Freud did most of his works in the late 19th century in Vienna. One of Sigmund Freud’s prominent works is the structural conception of the psyche wherein he divided it into two structures: the conscious and subconscious. The structural conception of the psyche by Freud is significant because this formed the basis of psychoanalysis. Freud later on, expounded on this theory and developed it into the tripartite structural division of the psyche consisting of the following: the ego which is the eyes and window to the outside world and is conscious and pre-conscious; the id which represents the basic instincts of man, which is unconscious and contains the sexual and aggressive drives of a person, and; the superego, is the ‘conscience’ and also the organ of repression (Sherratt 2002 p 50). The basis of Freud’s findings, theories and analysis of mental processes which led to the advancement of psychoanalysis was his works on patients suffering from hysteria. The works of Freud on the human psyche can be classified into five: the psychosexual theory of human development; the division of the psyche into the conscious and unconscious; the categories of ego and id; the theory of human development, and; the notion that psyche is composed of the life instincts and death instincts. It is the second theory of Freud on psyche which is the structural division of psyche into the conscious and the unconscious which formed the fundamental principle of psychoanalysis (Sherratt 2002 pp 50-51). Freud based his structural division of the human psyche from his observations of his patients with hysteria. He detected that individuals had motives and thought processes that they themselves were not aware of and that these motives and thought processes were not rational. The existence of these conflicting motives and thought processes in the individual’s mind led Freud to conclude that these two are separate and distinct and therefore each must be given a distinct name and personality of their own. Hence, while conscious thoughts are known and rational, the unconscious is characterized by its being concealed and hidden even to its owner. In addition, the unconscious has the characteristic of being irrational (Sherratt 2002 p 52). The rationale for placing a dividing line between the two structures is that each of these regions follows different laws of thought-association, one the System Conscious and the other the System Unconscious. Thus, the System Conscious deals with perceptions of the external world and reality and where rational laws are being enforced like the logical determinations of opposing sides and emotions like love and hate or good and evil. While ideas in the System Conscious are being enforced by the secondary process, all thought processes in the System Unconscious are being enforced by the primary process, a process whereby the importance of an idea is determined by the instinctive charges inherent to that idea and their association by the emotional linkages of these ideas. There is therefore a barrier that exists between the two systems and division of the human psyche (Hendrick 1999 p141-142). Moreover, the rationale behind the division of the psyche into the conscious and the unconscious therefore was Freud’s inability to characterize all thought processes, desires and ideas in his patients as purely conscious and therefore had to introduce its structural division to account for the unknown part. “What Freud was mainly concerned about in this division was how to explain certain ego properties, qualities and tension states impacted on the nature of wish, defense, drive discharge, and self-preservation, and how the I stood in relation to the alien force and presence compartmentalized from the ego itself” (Mills 2004 p 129). He defined the unconscious in terms of the conscious; that is by the differences that existed between one system from the other. To understand the meaning of unconscious therefore implies the understanding of the Freudian definition of the conscious. To Freud any mental processes which can only be assumed and inferred to but not directly known belong to the sphere of the unconscious (Neu 1991 p 34). Thus, all mental processes which the conscious, which he called an organ of perception, cannot fully comprehend and are therefore unavailable to it belong to the sphere of the unconscious. Freud offered the following propositions regarding the unconscious: first, unconscious processes represent those which have been repressed from the conscious; second, there are ways, which are limited however, by which unconscious thoughts can be made available and therefore known to the conscious like through hypnosis and psychoanalysis, and; third, they have no system of voluntary control which really makes them dangerous (Miller 2007 pp 42-43). Specifically, Freud tried to prove the existence of the unconscious, a place he in the first place defined as inaccessible to the conscious, by establishing the three areas of the unconscious: the preconscious, the unconscious containing the repressed thoughts and desires, and the unconscious as a mental system. With regards to the pre-conscious there is little question in this area as it can be manifested by the fact that there are ideas and thoughts which although are not present in the consciousness may however be recalled at any time and thus, their traces in the psyche established. Examples of these are names of people, mathematical formulas and the historical past of an individual. In the second level where the unconscious holds repressed thoughts and desires, Freud offered by way of proof experiments done during hypnosis. Thus, a person under hypnosis may be commanded to do a particular act after he is brought put of the hypnosis. Experiments have proved that such a person, although without recollection of what went on during the hypnosis will perform the commanded act during hypnosis at the given time without understanding why he is doing the act. Freud’s conclusion was that the command that was inserted in the unconscious during hypnosis never left there and was reactivated at the commanded time. The reactivated notion was further illustrated by Freud with the examples of persons under hysteric attacks. Rejecting his earlier theory that hysteric attacks are triggered by traumatic events, Freud believed that these attacks happened in the same way that a person brought out after hypnosis performed a command. The implication is that, a hysteric attack is a manifestation of unconscious ideas or thoughts which manifest randomly and involuntarily. Everything else not accountable by the pre-conscious and the unconscious belong to the unconscious as a mental state (Gabriel 1983 p 122). For Freud, the unconscious is underpinned by repression, so that any proof of the unconscious always fundamentally rested in the repressed. He based this conclusion on the number of mental patients he had and the experiences he gathered while tending to these patients (Gabriel 1983 p 122). Freud’s psychology therefore was centered much on repression and as a matter of fact, instead of crediting himself with the discovery of the unconscious, he owned up instead to discovering repression and hailed its discovery as the “cornerstone on which the whole structure of psychoanalyses rests.” (qtd. Billig 1999 p 15). Freud’s contribution to the field of psychology and the field of psychoanalysis cannot be doubted. There are those however who contested Freud’s complete reliance on his experiences with hysterical patients to explain the concept of repressed memories and therefore the unconscious as a way of explaining where these repressed memories are kept hidden. Critics, for example, say that the subjects of the experiments and analysis may have been swayed or brainwashed by the experimenters’ suggestions during the experiment and thus his statements may have been tainted by such suggestions. Philosopher John Searle, for example, countered Freud’s conception of the conscious as a mere “mode of perception of states that are unconscious in their mode of existence. It is as if the unconscious mental states really were like furniture in the attic of the mind, and to bring them to consciousness we go up in the attic and shine the flashlight of our perception on them. Just as the furniture “in itself” is unseen, so mental states “in themselves” are unconscious.” The implication is a progressive hierarchy of conscious states (Kelly, Kelly & Kelly 2007 qtd. P 331). Moreover, Freud seemed to find difficulty in the development of the role of repression and the unconscious in women because of the dissimilarities in the overall concealed desires and hidden aggression of the sexes, a difficulty which he was later forced to term and call women as the “dark continent.” (Klages 2006 p 73). Nevertheless, only Sigmund Freud can be rightfully called the father of psychoanalysis. References Billig, Michael 1999, ‘Freudian Repression: Conversation Creating the Unconscious,’ Cambridge University Press. Gabriel, Yiannis 1983, ‘Freud and Society,’ Routledge, 1983 Hendrick, Ives 1999, ‘Facts and Theories of Psychoanalysis,’ Routledge, 1999 Kelly, Edward F, Kelly, Emily, Kelly, Emily Williams 2007, ‘Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century,’ Rowman & Littlefield. Klages, Mary 2006, ‘Literary Theory: A Guide for the Perplexed’, Continuum International Publishing Group. Miller, James Grier 2007, ‘Unconsciousness,’ READ BOOKS. Mills, Jon 2004, ‘Rereading Freud,’ SUNY Press. Neu, Jerome 1991, ‘The Cambridge Companion to Freud,’ Cambridge University Press. Sherratt, Yvonne 2002, ‘Adornos Positive Dialectic,’ Cambridge University Press. Read More