Freud Alienation Essay

Marx and Freud The source of alienation and discontent has been argued by many people, two major people being Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx. Marx believed that the source of man’s alienation came from society, specifically the economy and state. Freud argued that discontentment came from a more personal place, on more of a psychological level. Marx’s solution was to abolish private property, eliminating people’s feelings of not seeing their work pay off. Freud’s method to eliminate discontentment was for people to attend therapy. Specifically, Freud used psychoanalysis, which is specific to a person’s subconscious.
Marx believed that the more a person worked the more alienated they felt. To Marx “alienation consists of the lack of community,

He also perceived money as a cause of alienation. Money is what drives people to be an active member in society, for example where they work. People must work to survive. Marx sees this as selling themselves to their job, which is a form of alienation. He then broke down alienation into different types of alienation. One type of alienation Marx discussed was the alienation of man from himself. This is when a man “does not fulfil himself in his work but feels miserable, physically exhausted and mentally debased” (Stevenson, 142). When a man cannot see how his work is contributing to society as a whole, he begins to lose motivation to succeed. Also, when all of a person’s time and effort go into their work it will become their identity. People will lose their identity in their work, that’s all they will be known for, rather than their hobbies or talents. Marx also argues that man feels alienated at work. “The materials he uses and the objects he produces are alien to him, because they are owned by someone else.” (Stevenson, 142). He

He believed “to achieve this happy result can require a long process perhaps weekly sessions over period of years.” (Stevenson, 160). Through this therapy, Freud believed that professionals, like himself, could help interpret what a person’s subconscious is trying to tell them. An example of looking into the subconscious is through dreams. Freud saw dreams as “the disguised fulfillment of the unconscious wishes that are its real ‘latent’ content” (Stevenson, 160-161). When a person would go to therapy, they would discuss their dreams. The therapist would interpret the dream and explain to their patient what they thought the dream meant. While Freud believed this would solve most of a person’s unhappiness he never saw people as being able to be completely happy because no matter what they do there will always be that internal struggle. His overall goal was to teach people where there feelings of discontentment are coming from and why they are feeling that