Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory Essay -- Sigmund Freud

Freuds Psychoanalytic TheoryI.Over find of Freuds Psychoanalytic TheoryFreuds analytic thinking is the best known of all personality theories because it (1) postulated the primacy of sex and aggression both universally popular themes (2) attracted a group of fol baseborners who were dedicated to spread psychoanalytic doctrine and (3) advanced the whimsey of unconscious motives, which permit vary explanations for the same observations.II.Biography of Sigmund FreudAlthough he was born in the Czech commonwealth in 1856 and died in London in 1939, Sigmund Freud spent nearly 80 years of his life in Vienna. A physician who never in carry to practice general medicine, Freud was intensely curious about human nature, and in his practice of psychiatry he was perhaps more interested in learning about the unconscious motives of his patients than in curing neuroses. Early in his professional c arer, Freud believed that hysteria was a result of being seduced during childhood by a sexually mat ure person, often a parent or other relative. However, in 1897, he abandoned his seduction theory and replaced it with his notion of the Oedipus complex. Some recent scholars have contended that Freuds decision to abandon the seduction theory in favor of the Oedipus complex was a major computer error and influenced a generation of psychotherapists to interpret patients reports of early sexual abuse as merely childhood fantasies.III.Levels of Mental LifeFreud saw mental mental process as operating on three levels the unconscious, the preconscious, and the conscious.A. UnconsciousThe unconscious consists of drives and instincts that are beyond awareness but that motivate many of our behaviors. Unconscious drives net become conscious only in disguised or misshapen form, such as dream images, slips of the tongue, or neurotic symptoms. Unconscious processes begin from two sources (1) repression, or the blocking out of anxiety-filled experiences and (2) phylogenetic endowment, or in herited experiences that lie beyond an individuals personal experience.B. PreconsciousThe preconscious contains images that are not in awareness but that can become conscious every quite easily or with some level of difficulty.C. Conscious cognizance is the only level of mental life directly available to us... ...pecially in women. Other research found that people who are orally fixated tend to see their parents more negatively than do people who are slight orally fixated.X.Critique of FreudFreud regarded himself as a scientist, but many contemporary critics consider his methods to be outdated, unscientific, and permeated with sexual bias. On the six criteria of a utilizable theory, we rated analysis high on its ability to generate research, very low on its falsifiability, and average on organizing knowledge, guiding action, and being parsimonious. Because it lacks operational definitions, we rated psychoanalysis low on internal consistency.XI.Concept of HumanityFreuds view of h umanity was deterministic and pessimistic. He also emphasized causality all over teleology, unconscious determinants over conscious processes, and biology over culture, but he took a middle position on the dimension of uniqueness versus similarities among people.BIBLIOGRAPHYPsychCrawler (American mental Association)Online.Psychological Online Documents (Psychologisches Institut der Univ. Bonn)Online.PSYCline Links to Psychological Journals (Armin Gnther)Online.