CHAPTER 3 : Introduction to Psychoanalysis
INFORMATIONS COMPLEMENTAIRES ET
RESUME DES PRINCIPALES NOTIONS A CONNAITRE
Vous venez de lire le texte No23 intitulé « an introduction to basic concepts in
psychoanalysis» (Pages 77 à 81 de l’ouvrage de Masse, L. Pullin, W. Hughes, E. et
Shankland, R., 2011 edité chez Dunod).
Nous ajoutons à ce texte introductif des informations complémentaires et nous faisons
un résumé des principales notions à connaître.
Insights on Freud's notions:
Psychoanalysis is closely identified with Freud and focus on a dynamic interplay of conscious
and unconscious elements. Sigmund Freud's theory of personality was called psychoanalysis,
and it has been highly influential. His concept of the unconscious is based on his study of
patients' emotional conflicts through a technique termed free association. Freud found that
dreams, jokes, accidents (Freudian slips, mistakes, parapraxis) and symptoms (as
repressed wish) reveal unconscious conflicts.
Dreams have both a manifest content (what the dreamer relates) and a latent content (the
dream's underlying meaning). According to Freud, the personality includes three separate but
interacting systems: the Id, the Ego, and the Superego.
Freud's Conceptualization of Personality Structure
According to Freud, the personality includes three separate but interacting systems:
Structure Basis in Level of Principle followed Process used
name personality consciousness
Id Biological drives Unconscious Pleasure-unpleasure Primary process
and instincts principle thinking
Ego Control of Mostly conscious Reality principle Secondary process
individual actions thinking
Superego Conscience and Part conscious ------------------- -------------------
social inhibitions Part unconscious
The interplay of these conflicting forces within the mind is known as psychodynamics. The id
consists of the biological drives with which the infant is born, and its energy is divided between
Eros, the life instinct generated by the libido, and Thanatos, the death instinct. The Id's
tendency to devote itself to the immediate reduction of tension is called the pleasure principle.
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The ego, which develops at about the age of six months, controls the individual's actions and
manipulates the environment according to the reality principle, which is based on the
organism's concern for safety. The superego emerges from the resolution of the Oedipus
complex, as the child internalizes the moral standards of the parent of the same sex.
The preconscious, according to Freud, is the area that lies between conscious awareness and
the unconscious. When thoughts are in the preconscious they are not at the conscious level nor
are they buried in the unconscious but they are in between and can be retrieved or called into
consciousness. According to Freud, this is an area where thoughts stay temporarily, not
permanently.
Graphic depiction of personality
EGO
Conscious
Unconscious
SUPEREGO ID
Freud believed that nearly all human behavior is directed toward resolving inner conflicts and
restoring homeostasis, or equilibrium. He conceived of drives as having four characteristic
features: a source, an aim, an object, and an impetus.
Drives give rise to the libido-energy that drives all psychological activity.
Cathexis is the investment of libido in objects. According to Freud, psychic energy can be
displaced, or transferred, from the original object to a variety of substitute objects.
When psychic conflicts become extreme, the result is anxiety. Anxiety is a state of psychic pain
akin to fear, and can take the form of reality anxiety, moral anxiety, and neurotic anxiety.
Freud distinguished three types of anxiety, each based on a different source of danger.
The ego attempts to avert anxiety in a variety of ways, frequently by the use of defense
mechanisms.
Repression is a defense mechanism that keeps threatening thoughts and memories in the
unconscious.
Rationalization is the process of justifying by reasoning after an event, a defense mechanism
against self-accusation or a feeling of guilt.
Denial consists in refusing the confrontation with a real problem and to ignore it.
Regression is a return to an earlier stage of development in response to a perceived threat.
Projection is the unknowing attribution of one's own impulses or fears onto others.
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Displacement is the transference of psychic energy from the original object to a variety of
substitute objects.
Reaction formation is the replacement in consciousness of an anxiety-provoking feeling with
its opposite (see exercise No1 for other names of defense mechanisms)...
Psychosexual Development:
Freud's developmental notions, many inspired by Karl Abraham's original work, centered
around the idea that libido invests certain bodily zones with energy as the child grows older.
The order of stages is: oral (birth to eight months), anal (eight months to two years), phallic
(two years to six), latency (six to twelve), genital (puberty to adult). The three early stages,
collectively called the pregenital stage are the oral, the anal, and the phallic (three to five
years) stages. Following the pregenital stage, the child enters a period of latency. With
adolescence, another eruption of libidinal forces upsets the stabilization of the latency period,
and the adolescent enters the final stage of psychosexual development, the genital stage.
During therapy, resistance, or attempts by the client to block treatment, must often be dealt
with. Transference neurosis, often regarded as necessary to effective therapy, occurs when the
client transfers to the analyst emotions originally directed toward the parents and reenacts early
conflicts. The therapist's transference projections (in other words, enactment of old conflicts
from the family of origin) onto the patient is termed “counter-transference”.
Today, Freud's method is only one among many types of psychotherapy used in psychiatry.
Many objections have been leveled against traditional psychoanalysis, both for its
methodological rigidity and for its lack of theoretical rigor. A number of modern psychologists
have pointed out that traditional psychoanalysis relies too much on ambiguities for its data, such
as dreams and free associations. Without empirical evidence, Freudian theories often seem
weak, and ultimately fail to initiate standards for treatment.
Although these critics are justified, Freud's methods of psychoanalysis revolutionized the
treatment of emotional problems. To Freud we owe the idea that individual psychotherapy (the
"talking cure") can, through the relationship of patient and therapist, develop self-knowledge
and thus increase the patient's control over her or his actions. Forms of therapy that reject much
or all of Freud's basic theory rely on variations of his technique. Psychoanalysis has had an
enormous influence.
Le livre d’anglais pour psychologues comprend un lexique anglais/français et
français/anglais (pages 233-269); pour le compléter ou pour ceux qui n’ont pas le livre,
voici le vocabulaire utile à la compréhension du texte:
TERMS AND ISSUES TO KNOW
Anal (stage) Oedipus complex
Anxiety Oral (stage)
Cathexis Parapraxis
Counter-transference Phallic (stage)
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Defense mechanisms (see Exercise Nr1) Pleasure principle
Denial Preconscious
Displacement Pregenital stage
Dreams Projection
Drive Psychoanalysis
Ego Psychodynamics
Eros Psychosis
Free association Rationalization
Freudian slips Reaction formation
Gain from illness (secondary gain) Reality anxiety
Genital stage Reality principle
Homeostasis Regression
Id Repression
Impetus Resistance
Jokes, Superego
Latency (period or stage) Symptoms
latent content Talking cure
Libido Thanatos
manifest content Transference
Moral anxiety Transference neurosis
Neurosis Unconscious
Neurotic anxiety
Une fois que vous aurez pris connaissance du support du livre ainsi que de ce texte,
vous irez dans la rubrique EXERCICE de la plate-forme « MOODLE » et ouvrirez
l’exercice intitulé « Psychoanalysis ». Vous pourrez évaluer votre compréhension
des textes et vous entraînez ainsi à l’examen…
Pour celles et ceux qui veulent aller plus loin, nous mettons à disposition 5 chapitres
reprenant les principaux concepts psychanalytiques. Vous les trouverez plus bas
dans la rubrique « Documents complémentaires » soit :
http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/psychoanalysis/freud.html
Ce même site vous permet également d’accéder à des définitions de concepts psychanalytiques :
http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/psychoanalysis/psychterms.html
