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Sigmund freud theory of psychoanalysis
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“My position was a common one; I wanted to do the right thing, but could not help regretting the damnable expense.” (221) This quote is stated in the novel Fifth Business by ‘Robertson Davies’, this quote is one of the many examples of Sigmund Freud’s theories, this quote shows his Tripartite theory. Freud believed that the majority of human behavior is driven by desires and the restraining of these desires. Freud had many theories, two of the more known of theories are; his theory of Infantile Sexuality is generally explained by the Oedipus complex. Oedipus was an abandoned as a baby and raised by another family, who eventually kills a man on a crossroad, marries and has children, and eventually finds out that he killed his biological father …show more content…
In the novel Fifth Business by ‘Robertson Davies’ there are many examples proving his theories. The examples prove both his Oedipus complex and his tripartite theory. The Oedipus complex was shown in the novel at many different points, but the three times that stick out the most are, one when Dunstable Ramsay took an egg to practice magic tricks and lied to his mother about taking the egg which she later found out because the egg had broken in his pocket. Mrs. Ramsay was displeased with his actions and took the punishment to the next level by whipping him repeatedly resulting in Dunstable breaking down and crying, afterwards he feels unloved by his mother and that her love came at a high cost which he will not ever fully get back again. This shows Freud’s theory because it is a scene that shows how their mother and son bond has broken, Mrs. Ramsay may love her son but not in the way that she had before where she would get …show more content…
Although there were many parts in the novel that showed that many times they acted without thinking, using their unconscious minds, there is a lot of parts in the novel that shows that they did think things through and used their superego as well. The first time that stands out for someone that used their superego is when Dunny accepts the award of the Victoria Cross from the King, everyone believes and feels that Dunny is a hero to them for his heroic actions, whereas Dunny himself finds that he acted more out of fear when he was in the war and was not a hero. At the same time Dunny also knew that he could not let the people down and tell them he’s not a hero, the result of this he as stated in the novel on page 80 did his best to behave proper, while for he does not believe him-self that hes a hero, but at the same time not protesting to the people that he is one in order to keep their hopes up because people need a hero to look up to. This shows that Dunny thought his actions through this time before he acted because he did not want to disappoint anyone, therefore this is a act out of the conscious mind. Another time that the superego in someone in the novel was shown when Leola was in bed and wanted Dunny to kiss her like he used to, even though Dunny had kissed her in a non formal fashion, he did stop because he knew it was not right and because he did not love her, this is a
Sigmund Freud is known as the founding father of psychology. If it wasn’t for Freud and his work psychology probably wouldn’t be around today (Javel, 1999). Although Freud had many followers there were some who didn’t agree with his work and found his work to be very controversial. There were also many who criticized his work, one of his most controversial and criticized work was his psychosexual stages of development and his believes about the famous “Oedipus Complex.” Psychoanalysis is the first known modality used to treat individuals with psychological disorders. Freud’s work was a foundation for many whether they believed in his work or not. From his work other psychologist
...ual tendencies by repressing them. He claims that this will be better for society and allow for better coexistence between people. Freud used free association so that we would be able to relate anything which came into our mind, regardless of how irrelevant or embarrassing. By just stating whatever is on one’s mind Freud was able to find what we are like and further analyze the root of our problems. He believed that we would eventually verbalize what our unconscious mind was storing and he would then be able to treat us. Freud stated that the Oedipus complex is essential for maturation. It is a process that must occur in males and (Electra complex) in females. It is critical for the child to identify with being in competition with other males and a fixation for mating with females during this stage. If they do not then they may become homosexual or pedophiles etc.
Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 to Jewish Galician parents in the Moravian town of Pribor in the Austrian Empire (“Sigmund Freud” n. pag). During his education in the medical field, Freud decided to mix the career fields of medicine and philosophy to become a psychologist (“Sigmund Freud” n. pag). During his research as a psychologist, he conceived the Structural Model Theory, which he discussed in his essay Beyond the Pleasure Principle. The theory states that the human psyche is divided into three main parts: the id, ego, and super-ego (“Id, Ego, and Super-ego” n. pag). He concluded that the id was the desire for destruction, violence and sex; the ego was responsible for intellect and dealing with reality; and the super-ego was a person’s sense of right and wrong and moral standards (Hamilton, n. pag). Freud argued that a healthy individual will have developed the strongest ego to keep the id and super-ego in check (“Id, Ego, and Super-ego” n. p...
According to Freud, sexual desire is the center of everything. Every action we take and every word we speak has an underlying, perhaps subconscious, sexual theme as its driving force. The first stage in Freud's Oedipus Complex is the oral stage. In the example given by Tom Davis, an English professor at Birmingham University, "the child is in a state of sexual bliss: at the mother's breast, receiving nourishment, in a sexual relationship not only with his mother, but, he thinks, the whole world." After the oral stage comes the anal stage: in this stage the child learns that he cannot always do what he wants when he wants to. Eventually the child reaches the genital stage, that is, he becomes aware of his own penis. About this time, he also realizes that girls don't have penises and irrationally concludes that they have been castrated by Daddy to prevent...
Sigmund Freud believed that adults seduced children and this is where their problems came up in adulthood. As for all things, many people did not agree with Freud’s theory. “Freud believed that people could be cured by making conscious their unconscious thoughts and motivations, thus gaining insight” (McLeod, “Psychoanalysis”). According to Freud’s Psychoanalytical Theory, there are three elements of personality the id, ego and superego. The id is an individual’s inner child.
Psychoanalytic Theory itself has, what seems to be, two contradictory halves: Freudian psychoanalysis and Lacanian psychoanalysis. The first half focuses solely on the author and the unconscious mind; the second considers the unconscious, but prefers to concentrate on outside influences by deconstructing the text itself. According to Freud, interpretation is achieved by examining conflicts and symbols, such as Freudian slips and dream images. These outlets are help to determine whether an individual’s external behavior coincides (or conflicts) with their internal emotion. Freud placed emphasis on sexuality and the Oedipus complex, which is the idea of repressed sexual feelings toward a parent of opposite sex. He also defined three levels of the subconscious mind: the ego, the super-ego, and the id. Barry explains that the stages align with “the consciousness, the conscience, and the unconscious” respectively (93). On the other hand, Lacan, a follower of Freud, concentrated on the relationship between an author and his or her work. He claimed the two were inexorably connected, that objectivity is nonexistent. In an essence: an author’s personality is used to interpret the text and, in contrast, the text is used to gain insight about the author. Regardless of the emphasis, psychoanalytic criticism engages an
McLeod (2008) states that the superego attempts to manage the urges of the id and convince the ego to think and act towards moralistic goals rather than simply realistic ones and to strive for perfection. There are two aspects of the superego: the ideal ego and the conscience. The ego ideal is the general idea one has of how to behave to be classified as an upstanding member of society; it includes norms, rules and standards for good behavior. The methods he used to obtain his information and data raised questions from other scientists.
Freud emphasized that early childhood experiences are important to the development of the adult personality, proposing that childhood development took place over five stages; oral, anal. Phallic, latent and genital. The phallic stage is the most important stage which contains the Oedipus complex. This is where the child (age 4 - 6 yrs) posses the opposite sex parent and wants rid of the same sex parent. Freud argued that if the conflict is not resolved in childhood then it could cau...
... middle of paper ... ... Freud clears the thick confusion surrounding Hamlet’s inconsistent mentality by attributing it to the Oedipus complex. Theater audiences and literary enthusiasts are not spared of Shakespeare’s astonishing ability to capture the human spirit in his play Hamlet.
Sigmund Freud was an Austrian psychoanalyst in the twentieth century whose studies and interests were focused on psychosexual behavior, psychosocial behavior, and the unconscious. He blames incestual desires and acts on neurosis and believes neurotics were victimized and molested in their youth. Congruently, this is his explanation for sexual urges in children. He watched psychiatrists fail at inventions of electrical and chemical treatments for mental disorders, only for them to turn to treatments that followed concepts of psychoanalysis. Even though drugs diminish symptoms of suffering he believed psychoanalytic or talking therapy would truly restore a patient’s self-esteem and welfare. As quoted by Ernst G. Beier:
“Psychological - or more strictly speaking, psychoanalytic -investigation shows that the deepest essence of human nature, which are similar in all men and which aim at the satisfaction of certain needs... [are] self-preservation, aggression, need for love, and the impulse to attain pleasure and avoid pain...” At its simplest form, this quote perfectly explains Sigmund Freud’s theory on human nature. Human beings, according to Freud, are in a constant state of conflict within themselves; trying to satisfy their animalistic instincts, while also maintaining a socially appropriate life. Freud termed these animalistic tendencies that we have, the Id. The Id is essentially our unconscious mind, it is the part of us that has been there since the day we were born and is what drives our life’s needs and desires. The Id simply aims to satisfy our sexual or aggressive urges immediately, without taking into account any further implications. On the other hand, Freud used the term, the Superego, to describe man’s conscience and sense of morality. It is the Superego’s job to keep the Id in check by combatting the desire to satisfy urges with the feeling of guilt or anxiety. Finally, the Ego, is the conscious representation of the constant battle between the Superego and the Id. It must work to satisfy human’s instinctual tendencies while taking into account their conscience and doing what is rational and acceptable. Freud argues that these internal process that are constantly at work in our mind are what shape humans to do the things that they do. Thus, he believes, the goal of human nature is to satisfy our basic aggressive and sexual desires while adhering to cultural and social standards.
In Sigmund Freud's observation, humans are mainly ambitious by sexual and aggressive instincts, and search for boundless enjoyment of all needs. However, the continuous pursuit of gratification driven by the identification, or unconscious, directly conflicts with our society as the uncontrolled happiness. Sigmund Freud believed that inherent sexual and aggressive power prevented from being expressed would cause our "society to be miserable and the forfeiture of contentment." Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic view of personality theory is based on the perception that greatly of human behavior is determi...
When Freud in his Interpretation of Dreams made his now famous observations about Oedipus the King, he naturally focused on the main issue: that Oedipus killed his father and married his mother.(1) A further Freudian analysis of the play reveals another issue that came to dominate psychoanalysis: the preference of Oedipus for his daughters. Oedipus's preference for Antigone and Ismene appears only at the very end of the play, but it completes the picture of incest and murder in the family.
Throughout Freud’s time, he came up with many different theories. One of his theories was Life and Death Instincts. This theory evolved throughout his life and work. He believed that these drives were responsible for much of behavior. He eventually came to believe that these life instincts alone couldn’t explain all human behavior. Freud then determined that all instincts fall into one of 2 major classes: the life instincts or the death instincts. Life instincts deal with basic survival, reproduction, and pleasure. Death instincts are apparent after people experience a traumatic event and they often reenact the experience. In Freud’s view, self-destructive behavior is an expression of the energy that is created by the death instincts.
Freud believed that humans develop through stages based on particular erogenous zones. Freud theorized that to gain a healthy personality as an adult, a person would have to successfully complete a certain sequence of five stages. Within the five stages of Freud’s psychosexual development theory, Freud assumed there would be major consequences if any stage was not completed successfully. The stages, in order, were the oral stage, the anal stage, the phallic stage, the latency stage, and the genital stage. In general, Freud believed that an unsuccessful completion of any stage would make a person become fixated on that particular stage. The outcome would lead the person to either over indulge or under indulge the failed stage during adulthood. Freud truly believed that the outcomes of the psychosexual stages played a major part in the development of the human personality. Eventually, these outcomes would become different driving forces in every human being’s personality. The driving forces would determine how a person would interact with the world around them. The results from Freud’s theory about the stages of psychosexual development led Freud to create the concept of the human psyche; Freud’s biggest contribution to