Facts And Theories Of Psychoanalysis

Ives Hendrick, Hendrick, Ives

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781136340802
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery

First Published in 1999. This is Volume VII of twenty-eight in the Psychoanalysis series. This is the third edition of Facts and Theories of Psychoanalysis, which indicates that usefulness of this book to readers and students over a period of twenty-three years since its first publication would seem partly a result of the original selection of those facts and theories for emphasis in 1934 which are still in 1957 the foundation of psychoanalytic science.

Part One

The Facts of Psychoanalysis

Chapter

I

The Unconscious

PSYCHOANALYSIS is the science of the unconscious functions of the mind and personality, developed by Sigmund Freud and three generations of his students. The term “psychoanalysis” is properly used in the following ways:

1. to designate empirical observations on those mental and emotional determinants of human personality and behavior which are not disclosed by the investigation of rational thought and motivation (either by introspection or by direct study of another);

2. to describe the special technique of Freud for the demonstration and study of these unconscious mental events and for the treatment of personality problems, neurotic symptoms, and diseases which are caused or influenced by them; and

3. to signify that theoretical system of psychology which consists in the abstraction of these observations and the inductive inferences made from them.

In a broader and less scientific sense, “psychoanalysis” may properly be used to include the application of knowledge of the individual derived from such studies to many allied subjects—to sociology, anthropology, economics, to the arts and literature, to comparative religion and ethics, to such professions as social work, nursing, psychology, pedagogy, and criminology—indeed, to all branches of learning which deal with human nature and its derivatives. Psychoanalysis has also, especially during the last twenty years, made significant contributions to medical research and the therapy of many diseases long known to medicine by the symptoms of damaged organs or abnormality of function.

“Psychoanalysis” is a word much misused (though far less often than it used to be). Sometimes it is dilettantishly used as a synonym for “psychotherapy,” rather than as a special method of psychotherapy—indeed the most thorough method yet devised for affecting fundamental processes of personality development. Frequently patients without technical knowledge speak of their “psychoanalysis” when they have had some other type of psychiatric help. At other times “psychoanalysis” is misused in a less complimentary way, usually by those who have studied it seriously but have no clinical experience, as though the conclusions of psychoanalysts had no more empirical basis than a speculative philosophy or fanatical dogma. Not infrequently, older physicians, of distinction in their own branch of medicine, are unable to think of psychoanalysis as a branch of science because the possibilities of new knowledge of human processes derived from the study of psychological data are beyond their own field of experience and comprehension. Most commonly, perhaps, “psychoanalysis” is misused by intellectuals who argue its validity as though it were a philosophy, an ethical system, or a set of theories; such discussion, whether it be heated or dispassionate, seems alien and unproductive to the analyst himself, whose primary convictions originate in what his patients have told him.

The Unconscious

Though psychoanalysis is concerned with many aspects of conscious thought, it is the development of a special technique for exploring unconscious ideas which defines it as a specialized field of mental science. “Unconscious” is a word which Freud uses in two senses: as a simple adjective, to describe mental phenomena of which the person is unaware; or, secondly, as a substantive, to designate the aggregate of observations of such mental activity. In this substantive and more theoretical sense, Freud refers to “the Unconscious,” as though it were a special region of the mind. This does not imply any special knowledge of actual anatomical segregation in a definite portion of the brain; it is merely a convenient means of thinking of the totality of those psychological processes which differ from other mental phenomena chiefly in the inability of the subject to recognize or recall them by a simple effort of attention. The Unconscious, therefore, is the source of unconsciously motivated thoughts and acts, taken in the aggregate.

It is the particular task of psychoanalytic technique to investigate systematically the details of unconscious thoughts, memories, and wishes. When the objectionable idea or memory occurs to a patient, we say that this idea had been unconscious whenever the patient was previously unaware of it, though it had exerted a causal influence on his symptoms and actions. These unconscious thoughts cannot be discovered by the everyday intellectual processes of rational thought; for, indeed, it is a fact that consciousness of a certain thought can be so painful it evokes the need to keep such ideas in an unconscious state.

Most arguments against the existence of an “Unconscious” are of a philosophical nature, advanced by those who ignore the basic empiricism of Freud. It is this which distinguishes Freud’s scientific contribution from that of philosophers, such as Spinoza, Schopenhauer, and Hartmann, who had previously surmised an unconscious type of thinking. Freud’s achievement was to prove the validity of many of the intuitive conclusions of these gifted but unscientific men by laborious observations.

Other arguments against the concept of the Unconscious are occasionally advanced by scientists who have applied Freud’s technique either inexpertly or not at all.

The Unconscious, like the chemical concept of atoms, is theoretical in so far as it is never observed directly; and empirical in that it is an essential inference if we are to explain logically and systematically a large mass of isolated observations which may be consistently confirmed. Otherwise the phenomena studied by analysts appear inexplicable and chaotic. These phenomena must be closely related to all vital manifestations of the organs the study of whose functions comprises normal and abnormal physiology. Certainly this is true of the brain. And, indeed, since the modern study of the anatomy of the brain and its network of nerves to other portions of the body was established, specialists in the field have striven to define thought and its pathological effects in terms of structural knowledge. Thrilling as were their achievements in elucidating some diseases in terms of brain anatomy, their efforts to explain those phenomena which Freud has elucidated were unavailing. For, practically, our knowledge of the more subtle and complex physiological functions and neurological pathways is wholly inadequate to describe the Unconscious in a useful way by its unknown chemico-physical properties or anatomical localization. If, however, in accordance with our observations, we formulate our inductions and generalizations in psychological terms, we succeed in describing certain properties and general laws of the Unconscious which are of substantial value.

For example, a hysterical paralysis (in which no disease of the tissues can be demonstrated) is obviously the result of some alteration of function in certain muscles and nerves; yet neither normal nor abnormal physiology gives a useful explanation of the process. Neurologists succeed only in diagnosing it as “functional,” and many internists as a “general nuisance.” On the other hand, psychoanalysis successfully describes this type of symptom in terms of unconscious mental processes which have general validity, not only for the specific case, but for all other symptoms of hysteria in other cases which manifest them. It can also show that some of these same laws are decisive for a large variety of other phenomena (for example, obsessions and dreams), the description of whose obvious properties discloses no resemblance to hysteria. And it can show how the etiology of the hysterical symptom differs from that of these other phenomena, and why an individual patient suffers from paralysis rather than some other abnormal function, and why the paralysis affects that particular part of the body in that particular case.

Freud originally called each impulse which motivates a specific act, phantasy, or symptom a wish, as it represents a certain insistent need of the individual, even though it is consciously denied.

Many examples of human behavior could be cited where the effectiveness of a wish which is unconscious is obvious to anybody except the subject. The girl who vehemently criticizes the taste in clothes of a friend often cannot consciously admit the real motive: “I wish I looked like her, and hate her because that man admires her.” The mother who consciously maligns a school-teacher who justly punishes her son cannot endure the conscious thought: “My son was bad, not so good as the other children.” The real motives of the “reformer” who consciously believes he is protecting others’ morality and unconsciously enjoys a mass of obscene literature in the role of public censor are commonly recognized. In Eugene O’Neill’s play Mourning Becomes Electra, Lavinia contrives the death of Captain Brant, her mother’s lover, apparently to defend her father and avenge her mother’s turpitude. At the height of angry passion, she suddenly cries: “Brant” to her own lover. Every member of the audience realizes the mistake is not pure chance, but discloses her love of Brant, even though she has so persistently concealed it from herself. The significance of a similar “slip of the tongue” in real life was immediately apparent when a man said to his childless wife: “When you’re sewing, I think of Penelope weaving at her womb.”

These are all examples of the unconscious but effective wishes which are the primary object of psychoanalytic study. The girl does not know her jealousy; the mother cannot think of her child’s fault; the reformer may be unaware of his hypocrisy; Lavinia could not endure the thought of a hopeless and guilty love; the husband conceals his thwarted wish for a child. The reason for these people’s blindness to their own motives is in every case the same: awareness of the emotion associated with the unconscious thought is too excruciating to be endured, and the painful thought must therefore be excluded from conscious meditation. Nevertheless, though unconscious, the emotional tension associated with each of these ideas impels the individual to some form of expression which has the dual purpose of satisfying indirectly the emotion and of disguising its real source. Thus hatred of a rival is expressed by condemning the rival’s taste instead of her success in love; the censor explains his obscenity as an act of social beneficence; Lavinia’s life is consumed, not by thoughts of love for Brant, but by thoughts of how bad her mother is and how wronged is her father; the husband affectionately praises his wife’s sewing and does not condemn her childlessness.

The technical term for such exclusion of painful thoughts from consciousness is repression. The intellectual distortion by which the individual explains an unconsciously motivated act or symptom is termed rationalization.

Psychoanalysis has shown that rationalization is a secondary process, and that unconscious wishes are more vital factors in the motivation of human conduct. Every mental and social act can be shown by the study of its unconscious motive to have a definite cause, to be purposeful and “emotionally logical,” however unreasonable it may appear biologically or intellectually. Rationalizations of such primary wishes do not in themselves constitute abnormality. It is only when unconscious motives produce acts or symptoms which lead to suffering or are detrimental to happiness and success, as is conspicuously the case in all psychoneurotic manifestations, that the repressed, unconscious wishes become of prime medical importance.

Unconscious wishes are generally less obvious than the simple cases cited above and are apparent neither to the subject nor to another person. The special technique of psychoanalysis must then be utilized in order to discover them.

For example, can a more adequate reason than “pure accident” be found why a man loses one of two theater tickets? No other explanation than “pure accident” is apparent to the patient or to his friends. Psychoanalysis discloses a series of memories which had been forgotten, and were “unconscious.” On the reverse side of the lost ticket he had scribbled the address of a man with whom he had an appointment. The appointment was of considerable practical importance. Although their relationship was cordial, on one occasion the man had made a casual remark which severely wounded the patient’s feelings. This he had forgotten until the memory returned in analysis. He, therefore, had two attitudes concerning his friend: conscious friendship and a practical need of his help, and the unconscious wish: “I hate the man who said that about me, and don’t want to see him again.” Those were incompatible attitudes. Yet, though the conscious feeling of friendship was not only more pleasant but advantageous, the wish to avoid a person he at the same time unconsciously hated had determined the “accidental” loss of a card bearing his address and thus fulfilled the wish not to see him again.

The relationship of the unconscious wish to behavior is somewhat more complex in the following example. A man could not remember the name of a recent acquaintance, Mrs. Barney. He was sure his moderate feeling for the lady was pleasant and there was no latent antagonism. By use of psychoanalysis it was demonstrated that her general personality and social position, as well as a similarity of names, had suggested that of another woman, Mrs. Barnet. This woman he scarcely knew, but her name had been frequently mentioned in association with a man whose hostility had greatly injured his business. One sees here how unconscious events may be indirectly associated with an otherwise “innocent” detail of experience and cause forgetfulness. Memory of the lady’s name threatened him with the pain of recalling a similar person and consequently a very unpleasant episode of his life. Even though his emotions in regard to neither of the two ladies necessitated repression, a chance association with a repressed and pain-provoking memory affected his mental attitude to them. His forgetfulness is similar to forgetting the name of a town where one once had one’s suitcase stolen.

Another patient was much distressed in life by an excessive meekness and lack of self-confidence. For a long time he had been laughed at for a sudden, tic-like movement of his flexed arm across the front of his body. Eventually he recalled that this was a repeated abbreviation of a pose he had occasionally assumed consciously, when much younger, before a mirror, imitating pictures of Napoleon with hand in waistcoat. These phantasies of being world-conqueror had long been forgotten. When they became conscious, the tic disappeared and the patient could no longer argue that his over-modesty and lack of aggression, which were in fact a denial of excessive, childish ambition, were special virtues.

Another man one day saw an overcoat hanging from the door-knob of his older brother’s house. Thereafter he had to go home a roundabout way, so that he should not see this door. Such behavior was completely inexplicable until, in the course of analysis, he recalled that the instant he had seen the coat he had thought it was crepe, and then recounted a series of occasions for violently hating his older brother. The illusion that the coat had been crepe had expressed a deep, repressed wish that his brother might be dead. The avoidance of his brother’s house was, therefore, a purposeful precaution against the chance of again stimulating the recognition of a hatred which had long been “repressed” and denied by a conscious feeling of special solicitude for his brother’s well-being.

Freud’s discovery that decisive motives in human thought and conduct are very often unconscious was the outcome of his investigation of the psychoneuroses, at first hysteria, and later the compulsion and obsessional neuroses.¹

Investigations by Hypnosis

As a young physician, Freud had gained recognition for researches in physiology and neurophysiology in the laboratories of Brücke and Meynert. In his clinical work, he became interested in hysteria, and left Vienna for Paris in 1885, at the age of twenty-nine, to spend a year in Charcot’s clinic at the Salpetrière. This world-famous master was demonstrating that symptoms of hysteria could be produced and allayed by hypnotic suggestion. Though Charcot himself attempted to explain the remarkable effectiveness of hypnosis by a physiological theory doomed to early obsolescence, his actual work had fully established the fact that psychological influences could definitely affect bodily mechanisms.

After a visit to the famous Bernheim in 1889 had convinced him of the limitations of hypnotic suggestion, Freud returned to Vienna and became the collaborator of his former teacher, Dr. Josef Breuer. This eminent physician had already, between 1880 and 1882, discovered that hysterical patients could recall experiences of which they had no memory when in a normal waking state.

For example, among other hysterical symptoms a German girl presented paralysis of an arm and inability to converse in her mother tongue, so that generally she understood only English. Under hypnosis a forgotten and tremendously emotional experience was recalled. This was a scene of nursing her dying father, when her arm was pressed against the chair exactly where her paralysis developed, and she spoke an English prayer. Another woman developed a tongue-tic, making a clucking noise every time she became excited; under hypnosis she recalled that this involuntary act began when striving to make no noise which might awaken her child, who was ill. A man who had a severe hysterical pain in his hip recalled under hypnosis that it was first experienced when witnessing the forcible extension of an ankylosed hip-joint of his brother.

Freud now collaborated with Breuer, adopted his technique, and confirmed and amplified his observations. In 1893 they published together their observations and inferences, their conclusive demonstration of significant uncons...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Preface to Third Edition
• Preface to Second Edition
• Preface to First Edition
• Acknowledgments Editions I, II and III
• Table of Contents
• Part I: The Facts of Psychoanalysis
• Part II: The Theories of Psychoanalysis
• Part III: Therapy by Psychoanalysis
• Part IV: The Psychoanalytic Movement
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• Glossary
• Index