Introducing Psychoanalysis E-Book

Ivan Ward

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Graphic Guides
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 110

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

The ideas of psychoanalysis have permeated Western culture. It is the dominant paradigm through which we understand our emotional lives, and Freud still finds himself an iconic figure. Yet despite the constant stream of anti-Freud literature, little is known about contemporary psychoanalysis.  Introducing Psychoanalysis redresses the balance. It introduces psychoanalysis as a unified 'theory of the unconscious' with a variety of different theoretical and therapeutic approaches, explains some of the strange ways in which psychoanalysts think about the mind, and is one of the few books to connect psychoanalysis to everyday life and common understanding of the world. How do psychoanalysts conceptualize the mind? Why was Freud so interested in sex? Is psychoanalysis a science? How does analysis work? In answering these questions, this book offers new insights into the nature of psychoanalytic theory and original ways of describing therapeutic practice. The theory comes alive through Oscar Zarate's insightful and daring illustrations, which enlighten the text. In demystifying and explaining psychoanalysis, this book will be of interest to students, teachers and the general public.

Leseprobe

Published by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre, 39-41 North Road, London N7 9DP Email: [email protected]

ISBN: 978-184831-210-4

Text copyright © 2000 Ivan Ward

Illustrations copyright © 2013 Icon Books Ltd

The author and illustrator has asserted their moral rights

Originating editor: Richard Appignanesi

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

What is Psychoanalysis?

A Part of Psychology

A Depth Psychology

The Dream Work

The Search for Meaning

What is a Dynamic Unconscious?

The Unconscious is Mysterious – not Mystical

The Hidden Forces of Behaviour

The Knowable Mind

Is Psychoanalysis a Religion?

Shamanism and Psychoanalysis

Some Crucial Differences

A Substitute for Religion?

Psychoanalysis is not a Religious Rite

Is Psychoanalysis a Science?

Freud’s Metapsychology

Inappropriate Scientific Proof

What Sort of Science Is It?

The Hermeneutic Critique

Telling a Better Story

Psychoanalysis is Not Story-Telling

Some Weird Ideas

The Importance of Sexuality

No Mating Season

Other Peculiarities of Human Sexuality

Troublesome Sexuality

Childhood Sexuality

Body and Mind Connected

The Abuse of Children

The Oedipus Complex

Placing the Oedipus Complex

Emotional Attitudes

Unconscious Infantile Images

Castration Complex

Many Levels of Meaning

Penis Envy

Establishing Identity

Untransformed Penis Envy

Shifting the Emphasis

Models of the Mind

Models and Hypotheses

1. Models of the mind indicate hypotheses about how mental stuff is organized and regulated.

Repression

Defence Mechanisms

Defence and Mental Integrity

2. Models embody hypotheses about how the mind develops over time.

Ego Functions

3. Models embody hypotheses about what the mind is “constructed” of.

Internal Objects Dramas

4. Models may embody hypotheses about how psychic contents get “into” the mind.

Identification

Identifications Change

Winnicott’s Dyad

Transitional Space

5. Models embody hypotheses about how things get pushed out of the mind.

Early Phantasies of Good and Bad

Different Models Can Agree

What is Projection?

Manifold Projections

Projective Identification

Containment of Experience

6. Models enable us to think of how psychological events are “caused”, in a way that makes psychological sense.

Why Do I Do That?

Traumatic Causes

Separation and Attachment

Harlow’s Experiment

Compromise Formation

Obsessional Rituals

Anxiety

The Key Concept of Anxiety

7. Finally, models of the mind enable us to think about “what people are like”.

Freud’s Instinct Theory

Phases of Development

The Libidinal Subject

Character Armour

The Primary Self

Healthy Narcissism

A Note on Models

How Does Psychoanalysis Work?

Diagnosis: a Problem of Naming?

The Anti-Diagnostic Factor

The Essence of Analysis

Reasons for Analysis

It’s Not Only Private

Free Association or “Freeing Something”

Catharsis or Remembering

Making the Unconscious Conscious

Analytic Listening

Listening with indifference

Aims of Psychoanalysis

The Process of Change

The Problem of Resistance

Resistance and Secondary Gain

Interpretation

Interpretations in Analysis

Mutative Interpretations

The Dance of Interpretation

The Analytic Relationship

What Would Your Friend Do?

The Transference Problem

Four Metaphors for Transference

Problems of Countertransference

Is Analysis Suitable for Everyone?

Does It Work?

Pyschoanalysis or Psychotherapy?

The Influences of Psychoanalysis

Childcare and Education

Psychoanalysis and Advertising

Psychoanalysis and Feminism

Psychoanalysis and Anti-Racism

Psychoanalysis, Ecology and Politics

Paradigm and Theory

Can psychoanalysis say anything about the future?

Further Reading

Biographical Notes on Psychoanalysts

Biographical Notes on Psychologists

Acknowledgements

Index

What is Psychoanalysis?

Psychoanalysis is a theory of the human mind, a therapy for mental distress, an instrument of research, and a profession. A complex intellectual, medical and sociological phenomenon.

It was conceived in the late 1890s by the Austrian physician Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), who is still the figure most closely associated with the subject and most often attacked by critics.

I HAD TO PAY HEAVILY FOR THIS. PEOPLE DID NOT BELIEVE MY FACTS AND THOUGHT MY THEORIES UNSAVOURY …

Freud was forced to leave his home in Vienna when Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938. He emigrated with his family to London, England, in June of that year. And it was there, at 20 Maresfield Gardens, in December 1938, less than a year before his death, that Freud broadcast a statement for the BBC. He summarized his life’s work and the history of psychoanalysis.

I STARTED AS A NEUROLOGIST TRYING TO BRING RELIEF TO MY NEUROTIC PATIENTS. I DISCOVERED SOME IMPORTANT NEW FACTS ABOUT THE UNCONSCIOUS IN PSYCHIC LIFE … … THE ROLE OF INSTINCTUAL URGES AND SO ON.

Today we are familiar with psychoanalysis from all the jokes and cartoon images that take some knowledge of it for granted.

IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES, MR JONES, I WILL HAVE TO INCREASE MY FEE

Many of its concepts have become everyday cultural currency: “Freudian slip”, “wish fulfilment”, “Oedipus Complex”, “libido”, “dream symbolism”, “sexual stages”, “oral and anal personalities”, “ego, id and superego”, “repression” and the “unconscious”.

Psychoanalysis is more than a particular set of concepts and therapeutic procedures. For good or ill, it has become, as W.H. Auden wrote, a “whole climate of opinion”. It has given us a way to understand the “irrational” in human life as consistent with what we know of the “rational”. It has elucidated the importance of sexuality in human motivation. It has shown that psychological events have hidden meanings. It has emphasized the fundamental importance of childhood. It has recognized psychic conflict and mental pain as an inescapable part of the human condition.

It can truly be said that psychoanalysis has transformed the way we see ourselves in modern “Western” societies.

WE NO LONGER ASSUME THAT WE ARE TRANSPARENT TO OURSELVES.

A Part of Psychology

“OUT OF THESE FINDINGS GREW A NEW SCIENCE, PSYCHOANALYSIS – A PART OF PSYCHOLOGY – AND A NEW METHOD OF TREATMENT OF THE NEUROSES.”

Psychoanalysis is part of psychology. Some key psychologists are pictured with Freud. Brief sketches of their contributions can be found at the end of this book on here, along with the psychoanalysts named in the text. For Freud, psychoanalysis is about memories, thoughts, feelings, phantasies, intentions, wishes, ideals, beliefs, psychological conflict, and all that stuff inside what we like to call our minds.

A Depth Psychology

Freud called psychoanalysis a “depth psychology” because of its assumption of an unconscious part of the mind, and because he saw it as a comprehensive theory.

THE ANALYSIS OF DREAMS GAVE US AN INSIGHT INTO THE UNCONSCIOUS PROCESSES OF THE MIND AND SHOWED US THAT THE MECHANISMS WHICH PRODUCE PATHOLOGICAL SYMPTOMS ARE ALSO OPERATIVE IN THE NORMAL MIND. THUS PSYCHOANALYSIS BECAME A DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY AND CAPABLE AS SUCH OF BEING APPLIED TO THE MENTAL SCIENCES …

The metaphor of “depth” implies a stratified concept of the mind, one layer laid upon another. It is often assumed that the “deeper” the level, the more “primitive” and dangerous the contents.

In this model, the analyst’s role is to translate conscious thoughts, feelings, phantasies and behaviour into their unconscious antecedents (and supposed determinants). The patient says: “You’ve changed your curtains.” The analyst says: “You’re only saying that because you love your mother.” Not all psychoanalysts agree with this assumption of depth.

SINCE THERE IS NO WORKABLE METHOD FOR DISCOVERING THE CONTENTS OF A PARTICULAR UNCONSCIOUS, THEN THE PSYCHOANALYST IS AT SERIOUS RISK OF SIMPLY MAKING IT ALL UP TO FIT PRECONCEIVED NOTIONS. IT COULD BE ARGUED THAT THE UNCONSCIOUS POSTULATE HAS BECOME OUR COLLECTIVE FANTASY, A GHOST IN THE MACHINE WHICH CAN EXPLAIN ALMOST ANYTHING AND WHICH ONLY WE, THE PSYCHOANALYSTS, CAN IDENTIFY.

The Dream Work

In Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), the metaphor of depth is reproduced in the distinction between the “manifest content” of the dream and the unconscious “latent content”. Linking the two is a system of transformations – the dream work. Interpretation turns the strange and alien manifest dream into something with psychical meaning – an unconscious “wish” that the subject is attempting to express.

BUT FREUD SAYS IT IS NOT STRAIGHTFORWARD TO TRANSLATE FROM ONE LEVEL TO THE OTHER. A DREAM NEVER TELLS US WHETHER ITS ELEMENTS ARE TO BE INTERPRETED LITERALLY OR IN A FIGURATIVE SENSE OR WHETHER THEY ARE TO BE CONNECTED TO THE MATERIAL OF THE DREAM-THOUGHTS DIRECTLY OR THROUGH THE INTERMEDIARY OF SOME INTERPOLATED PHRASEOLOGY.

“IN INTERPRETING ANY DREAM-ELEMENT, IT IS IN GENERAL DOUBTFUL…” WHETHER IT IS TO BE TAKEN IN A POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE SENSE (AS AN ANTITHETICAL RELATION). IF THE DREAM ELEMENT IS “FIRE”, IT COULD STAND FOR “WATER”. “WHETHER IT IS TO BE INTERPRETED HISTORICALLY (AS A RECOLLECTION).” IT COULD BE A FIRE YOU HAVE WITNESSED. “WHETHER IT IS TO BE INTERPRETED SYMBOLICALLY” COME ON BABY, LIGHT MY FIRE. “OR WHETHER ITS INTERPRETATION IS TO DEPEND ON ITS WORDING.” PERHAPS YOU WOULD LIKE TO FIRE YOUR BOSS.

The Search for Meaning

In other words, you just don’t know. All that the psychoanalyst can do is try to gather more and more associations and see if things start to coalesce. You find yourself on a psychical spaghetti junction, with only a few bits of theory to signpost the way. Most of us would love to know what our dreams mean.

BUT PSYCHOANALYSIS DOESN’T PROVIDE SIMPLE ANSWERS; THERE ARE MULTIPLE MEANINGS AND ENDLESS ASSOCIATIONS. IT IS MORE TO DO WITH THE PROCESS THAN ANY FINAL “MEANING”. WE AVIDLY READ DREAM DICTIONARIES AND WOULD LIKE TO IMPRESS OUR FRIENDS BY INTERPRETING THEIR DREAMS.

But, at the same time, there are a few certainties that we can hold on to. (1) Everyone dreams; (2) everyone recognizes that some of the things in dreams are connected to what has happened to us in our waking lives; and (3) everyone has some obscure notion that dreams must “mean” something.

AND PERHAPS, AT THE CORE OF DREAMS, THERE MAY BE SOMETHING THAT DOES NOT CHANGE AND IS THE SAME IN ALL OF US.

Freud distinguished his concept of the unconscious from previous concepts. Psychoanalysis is not only a depth psychology but also a dynamic psychology, with a concept of a dynamic unconscious.

What is a Dynamic Unconscious?

Most people believe in a descriptive unconscious of some kind. Many of our everyday functions are unconscious – eating, walking, even talking – and life would be impossible if they were not.

When psychoanalysts talk of a “dynamic” unconscious, they add a lot more weight to the notion by their assumptions of the role that it is always playing in our lives.

IT IS CONTINUOUSLY AT WORK MOTIVATING OUR BEHAVIOUR. THE CONTENTS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS ARE DESCRIBED AS DYNAMIC – INSTINCTUAL FORCES, WISHES, UNCONSCIOUS PHANTASIES, INTERNAL OBJECT RELATIONS. AND WE PLACE IMPORTANCE ON CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES AS DYNAMIC OR “MOTIVE FORCES”.

Freud used the example of post-hypnotic suggestion to show the existence of the unconscious. The hypnotized person does not know why he is carrying out the suggestion made to him under hypnosis (“eat onions”, “pretend to be a dog”, “open your umbrella and hold it above my head”, or “sing Somewhere over the rainbow’).

ONIONS ARE VERY GOOD FOR YOU. HE MAKES UP ALL KINDS OF SPURIOUS REASONS TO EXPLAIN HIS CONDUCT. I WANTED TO PRACTICE BARKING TO SCARE POTENTIAL BURGLARS. I THOUGHT AS IT WAS RAINING YOU MIGHT LIKE TO TRY MY UMBRELLA. THE SONG JUST POPPED INTO MY HEAD.

The Unconscious is Mysterious – not Mystical

Dreams allow us a glimpse into a different world. But the unconscious is not a mystical or occult phenomenon. It is simply a part of the mind.

A SPIRITUALIST MIGHT ASSERT THE EXISTENCE OF “SPIRIT GUIDES” LOOKING OVER ONE. THE PSYCHOANALYST MIGHT TALK OF INTROJECTIONS OF PARENTAL FIGURES (OR ASPECTS OF THEM) INTO THE SUPEREGO. THE OCCULTIST MIGHT TALK OF THOUGHTS COMMUNICATED FROM ANOTHER WORLD. THE PSYCHOANALYST MIGHT SPEAK OF THE SUBTLE UNCONSCIOUS COMMUNICATION OF THE TRANSFERENCE RELATION.

Whereas the regression therapist might talk of “past lives” (e.g. Grandma says: “I love you so much I want to eat you up – I must have been a cannibal in a previous life.”), the psychoanalyst might talk of the life we had before language or below the barrier of repression and infantile amnesia.

In practice, psychoanalysts use many different models to think about what’s “in” the unconscious, how it is structured and how it affects behaviour. They see these contents in a dynamic sense as urges that motivate both the creative expression of the person and the inhibitions, symptoms and anxieties that may seem to deplete him of energy, tie him in knots or undermine his possibilities for enjoying life.

I HAVE ARGUED THAT THE UNCONSCIOUS NOT ONLY CONTAINS THE SEXUAL AND AGGRESSIVE IMPULSES OF THE CHILD BUT ALSO EMBODIES EGO CAPACITIES, DEFENSIVE FUNCTIONS, CHILDHOOD THEORIES AND SO ON. THE UNCONSCIOUS IS CONCEIVED AS A “CHILD WITHIN”.

The Hidden Forces of Behaviour

Sometimes these contents may be organized mental products (elaborate phantasies, for instance); at other times they are derivatives of repressed drives (such as “cannibalistic” urges to “incorporate”) or unconscious body images (as full of something “bad”, for instance); they may be infantile representations of parents, or repetitions of early patterns of relationships; they may be unconscious infantile forms of thinking; they may be unconscious psychic functions, defence mechanisms or psychical universals.

ANY PARTICULAR BEHAVIOUR MAY HAVE CONTRIBUTIONS FROM ALL THESE SOURCES. YOU MEAN, IF I BECAME A FIREMAN IT MIGHT BE BECAUSE OF AN INFANTILE PHANTASY OF SAVING MUMMY FROM DANGER?

But it could also involve grandiose phantasies based around derivatives of micturation – just as in the story by Rabelais (1483–1553), Gargantua sat astride Nôtre Dame and drenched the city below.