Introducing Psychoanalysis

A Graphic Guide

Ivan Ward, Oscar Zarate

• Publisher: Icon Books
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781848318748
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychiatry & Mental Health
• Index: Psychology

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.

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 ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• What is Psychoanalysis?
• Further Reading
• Biographical Notes on Psychoanalysts
• Acknowledgements
• Index