Psychoanalysis :: Psychoanalytic Theory and Methods

Psychoanalysis is a system of psychology originated by the Viennese physicianSigmund FREUD in the 1890s and accordingly further developed by himself, his students,and other followers. It consists of three kinds of related activities (1) amethod for research into the human mind, especially inner experiences such asthoughts, feelings, emotions, fantasies, and dreams (2) a systematicaccumulation of a body of k directledge round the mind and (3) a method for thetreatment of psychological or excited disorders.Psychoanalysis began with the discovery that HYSTERIA, an illness with physicalsymptoms that occurred in a wholly healthy physical body--such as a numbnessor paralysis of a limb or a loss of voice or a blindness--could be caused byunconscious wishes or forgotten memories. (Hysteria is now commonly referred toas conversion disorder.) The French neurologist Jean Martin CHARCOT well-tried to ridthe mind of undesirable thoughts through hypnotic suggestion, but without durable succe ss. Josef Breuer, a Viennese physician, achieved better results byletting Anna O., a newborn woman patient, try to empty her mind by just notificationhim all of her thoughts and feelings.Freud refined Breuers method by conceptualizing theories about it and, usingthese theories, coitus his patients through interpretations what was going oninside the unconscious part of their minds, frankincense making the unconscious becomeconscious. Many hysterias were cured this way, and in 1895, Breuer and Freud make their findings and theories in Studies in Hysteria.CLASSIC PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORYTraditional psychoanalytic theory states that all human beings are born withinstinctual drives that are invariably active even though a person is usuallynot conscious of thus being driven. Two drives--one for sexual pleasure, calledlibido, the other called aggression--motivate and motivate close behavior. In theinfant, the libido first manifests itself by making sucking an performance withpleasurabl e sensations in the mouth. Later similar pleasures are experienced inthe anus during bowel movements, and finally these erotically tinged pleasuresare experienced when the sexual electronic organ is manipulated. Thus psychosexualdevelopment progresses from the oral through the anal to the priapic stage.(Phallic, in psychoanalytic theory, refers to both male and female sexualorgans.)During the vizor of the phallic phase, about ages three to six, theselibidinous drives focus on the provoke of the opposite sex and lend an eroticcast to the relation in the midst of mother and son or between father and daughter, theso-called Oedipus COMPLEX. However, most societies strongly disapprove of thesesexual interests of children. A TABOO on incest rules universally. Parents,therefore, settle children to push such pleasurable sensations and thoughtsout of their conscious minds into the unconscious by a process called repression.