Freudianism - what is it? Definition and direction

Freudianism is one of the first separately formed areas of psychology, variants of the name are also possible as orthodox psychoanalysis and Freudianism-Lacanism. The concept of Freudianism appeared thanks to the founder of this theory, Zsigmond Freud, who was engaged in depth psychology and psychoanalysis as a method of cognition and personality correction.

Having several branches, we can say that its name depends on which follower’s theory the students accepted more. Those who followed Jacques Lacan are somewhat different from the followers of Freud's orthodox views, despite the fact that the scientist himself tried to return everything to its original sources. The most separated movement was Jungianism and others, which criticized the ideas of Freud himself, but remained in the concept of psychoanalytic consideration of mental processes.

Briefly, Freudianism is a direction of psychological science, where all the problems of any complexes and characteristics of an adult personality are reduced to the sexual instinct. Freudianism and neo-Freudianism are close directions, but globally different in essence. The new theory, recognizing and relying on the structures identified in the classical understanding (such as complexes, structure-I concepts, id and super-ego, as well as psychological defenses and regression), speaks of the individualistic formation of man, the humanistic approach, representing a more expanded model , which denies the division of people according to the principle of biology and sexual desire. Many critical comments even at the time of its formation, and especially after with the development of the evidentiary and experimental base, were directed towards Freudianism, since all the conclusions were based on the study of a couple of cases and the theoretical speculations of the author himself without experimental evidence.

Being the beginning of psychoanalysis, Freudianism represents only a small part of it, moreover, it is skeletal and quite difficult, both for understanding and for the practice of psychocorrection, restoration, etc. Psychoanalysis is not identical to Freud’s theory itself, therefore it is worth separately describing the key points of Freudianism in order to avoid confusion with other more progressive theories that are not subject to such massive criticism.

To begin with, any actions and even dreams are interpreted from a sexual position, the impossibility of satisfying them, or vice versa. The stages of personality formation are strictly structured and also have a sexual basis, in addition, each individual is considered as going through certain basic complexes (Oedipus, Electra), with the only difference being that this passage has a different outcome.

Definition of "Freudianism"

The term comes from the name of the famous scientist Sigmund Freud, who proposed his theory of human psychoanalysis. Freudianism is a theory of psychoanalysis that explains some mental processes that occur at the unconscious level. According to Freud, the entire mental life of a person consists of three main levels: unconscious, preconscious and conscious.

Freud associates the unconscious level with sexual energy. Freud in his theory identifies the following components of personality:

1. “Id” is the carrier of instincts.
2. “Ego”, or in other words “I”, which acts according to the principle of reality.
3. “Super-Ego”, or “Super-I”, is responsible for the moral qualities of the individual.

If a conflict arises between these components, then defense mechanisms begin to appear.

Freudian ideas

The main mechanism of all Freudianism is based on the harmonious combination of the opposing aspirations of the human psyche - towards life (eros) and towards death (thanatos). This includes everything that is inherent in man, since it allows him to divide his life into destruction, i.e. the desire to kill and create, i.e. desire to continue. Depending on the stage of development and life events experienced in the individual, the martidal or libidinal phase may predominate, affecting all other actions and implementation. All processes are perceived as completely natural, because without the destruction of the irrelevant, there will simply be no place for the new and necessary.

Problems of a personal and social nature, in the key of desires for destruction or creation, shape the expenditure of the amount of vital energy and the direction of its application. So, only if actions are directed only for their intended purpose without understanding the consequences, a violation of important life spheres can occur (succumbing to the desire to kill leads to imprisonment, privilege in various sexual relationships leads to the loss of a significant partner, etc.).

Closing such desires from fulfillment also negatively affects the personality and level of vital energy, since by limiting one need, the entire sphere of desires and their fulfillment is closed. The idea of ​​Freudianism offers a way out in creating conditions for the sublimation of desires and energies, which can be destructively carried out for their intended purpose or if there is no possibility of implementation. Sublimation is the implementation of received energy (it is always supplied when a need arises, as a resource for implementation) for purposes other than its intended purpose. It is this mechanism that explains the creative and ingenious abilities of people.

The entire desire of the psyche, according to the ideas of Freudianism, comes down to receiving pleasure, the level of complexity of which may differ, but remains so. In order to understand what level should be satisfied, the personality was divided into structures, the influence of which and the conscious understanding of the laws of action, where it differs and has different degrees for the personality itself.

The id level is the most primitive, subconscious, it is also called the animal level. All desires and aspirations here are dictated by survival mechanisms, are practically not realized, but have a very strong influence. Here the main goal is pleasure, and without taking into account the surrounding reality and social aspects - the main engine is inside. The ego level is transitional and is necessary in order for the emerging needs of the unconscious level to somehow be realized under the current conditions. This is a kind of structuring component. The superego performs the function of control and supervision; it is the most social part of the personality, constantly thinking about the consequences of actions.

The role of Freudianism in psychology

Freudianism in psychology occupies a very important stage, because it is thanks to Freud’s teachings that we can talk about the treatment of neuroses and prolonged depression, but for this it is necessary first of all to identify the cause of these diseases. The main point for starting treatment is first of all psychoanalysis. Freud's experiments using hypnosis proved that various feelings and the desire to achieve a goal can change the behavior of the subject, even if he himself is not fully aware of it.

The Birth of Freudianism

The theory of Freudianism was formed in the nineteenth century, when Freud worked with mental pathologies, the main direction of which was represented by various types of neuroses and hysterical deviations. In addition to clinical practice, neurological work, achievements of behavioral psychology and various other points affecting human motivation were studied. Up to ten people worked in this direction, and the first works dealt specifically with the study of hysteria, where the main point was not the reduction of the psyche to cognitive moments, but rather the identification of subconscious and uncontrollable moments.

Freudianism in psychology was based on biological principles, where instinctive attraction appeared as a result of internal irritation. The mechanism of any behavior and motivation was determined by how quickly and effectively a person can satisfy any emerging need or reduce the negative impact of external factors. From here, a normal state of mind was also identified, where health was assessed as calm and balance, while the inability to satisfy a desire or a person’s inability to find options for restoring spent energy was considered a neurotic disorder of homeostasis.

The picture of the psyche drawn by Freud was new for that time, describing hidden structures, albeit at a rather primitive level with many aspects of biologization, but still trying to talk about the hidden. Moving away from mechanical language, logical justification and dry structuring, Freudianism begins to promote the position that not everything in a person is amenable to patterns and explanation. This is the first theory that makes a person truly human, unpredictable, but at the same time with attempts to describe the mechanisms of internal formations.

The basis of the emergence of Freudianism

Based on his long clinical observations, Sigmund Freud was able to form a new, until then unknown psychological concept. Freudianism is also a theory that is based on the concept of a triune personality structure:

1. “It” in this case refers to mental processes that occur on an unconscious level. This means that these mental processes were laid down even before the birth of the child, for example, heredity plays a role. “It” is aimed at obtaining pleasure of any nature, primarily sexual.
2. The second structure is called “I”. It is aimed at maintaining balance, so the “I” is almost constantly in conflict with the “It”. For every person, his “I” lives in reality, that is, mental processes begin to manifest themselves after a certain situation arises that requires an immediate solution. Freud classifies this structure as innate; it is formed not only at the unconscious level, but also in the preconscious.

3. The third structure is called the “Super-I”. It is considered to be acquired during life and plays the role of critic and conscience. Therefore, if the “I” cannot cope with the “It,” then the “Super-Ego” comes into force, which acts according to conscience. If a person cannot find an outlet for his “super-ego” for a long time, Freud advises to give an outlet to this energy through conversation or even express oneself in creativity.

Fundamentals of Freudianism

The fundamentals of Freudianism come down to maximally strengthening the human ego as a transitory and connecting structure. It is this that can prevent the development of neuroses, achieve the desired, and maintain sociality. Tension that grows in an individual under the pressure of external forces (demands and prohibitions of society, condemnation and shame) and internal motivations (intimate desires, biological aspirations, morbid tendencies) lead either to a disruption of mental homeostasis or to the development of psychological defenses. When the psyche cannot cope, the person ends up in a pathology clinic, but if there were still resources, then defenses are built that slightly distort reality and make it accessible to survival.

Defense mechanisms are the basis for describing human behavior in Freudianism. So repression speaks of a traumatic experience and the impossibility at this stage of life to accept and internalize it. Sublimation shows both the presence of energy and hidden real needs - if you look at the average person, you can understand how much everyone can do sports (or other activities), when these indicators are overestimated, it means there is emptiness in another area that requires implementation.

Regression appears when a person finds himself in conditions that are extreme or traumatic for him and then a slippage occurs to previous levels. These can be primitive reactions of calming (adults begin to suck their thumbs like children) or decision-making (choose the brightest, as in adolescence).

The goal of all psychoanalytic therapy is to harmonize the conflicts that arose in the personality in the early stages of development. The entire system of development, the passage of age-related crises, any achievements and methods of building activity are considered through the prism of the first years of life, where problems, successes, compensatory mechanisms and defense styles were laid down.

What is the essence of Freudianism?

A doctor can properly direct a person’s energy by conducting psychoanalysis. Freudianism indicates that in some cases a person can cope with his problem on his own, but for this the psyche must turn on protection; if this does not happen, then it will not be possible to do without the help of a specialist. Here are the main types of protection:

1. Initially, defense manifests itself in the repression and suppression of thoughts that are considered unacceptable.
2. When projection occurs, at an unconscious level the human psyche tries to get rid of obsessive desires and ideas.
3. Rationalization manifests itself when it is not possible to abandon an idea, and then a person tries to justify himself.

Definition

Freudianism is a generalized name for numerous philosophical schools whose representatives intended to explore Freud's theories in order to explain the nature of phenomena and reveal the secrets of the subconscious.

In psychology, Freudianism as a philosophical doctrine is different from the method itself - psychoanalysis, to which Freud attached a more universal meaning. Since its inception, Freudianism as a philosophy has not been something integral; Freud himself interpreted ideas about the unconscious in two ways, since in it he saw the cause of both creative and destructive processes, which contributed to different interpretations of Freud’s ideas.

We recommend: Fundamentals of Depth Psychology

Freudism began to actively spread after the First World War, as a result of the general crisis in the traditional psychology of bourgeois society and culture as a whole. It was during that period that the scientist proposed a new theory about the structure of the human psyche as a special system, the basis of which was the contradiction between certain levels of the psyche, especially between consciousness and the unconscious (subconscious). Freudianism talks about the biological foundations of human consciousness.

Trying to expand the boundaries of the use of psychoanalysis, the scientist tried to integrate the fundamentals of the doctrine into almost all spheres of culture and society: myths, folklore, art, religion, astrology, although initially this movement belonged to psychology.

Main directions in Freudianism

Freud identifies three main motives: anxiety, aggression and sensuality. Freudianism considers them to be the basis of all human actions. The direction is divided into five main phases of personality development:

1. The oral phase, which manifests itself even at the birth of a child, for example, a child, having been born, immediately strives to suck the mother’s breast.

2. The anal phase consists of praising a child who can already go to the potty on his own.

3. Phallic behavior manifests itself at a more mature age, when the child begins to communicate with his peers of different sexes and is able to compare himself and others.

4. Latent manifests itself during a period when interest in sexual characteristics fades away somewhat.

5. Genital comes when full puberty occurs.

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Chapter 2. Psychological Concepts

Freudianism, psychoanalysis

No other direction has become so famous outside of psychology as psychoanalysis. His ideas influenced art, literature, medicine and other areas of science related to man. This concept is called “Freudianism” after its founder Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Based on the ideas of Freud, but supplementing and clarifying them, a whole psychological direction of “psychoanalysis” was gradually formed (psychoanalytic theories also include the theories of Horney, Adler, Jung, Fromm, Reich, etc., although each of them introduced their own new and original ideas ).

The term "psychoanalysis" has three meanings:

1. theory of personality and psychopathology;
2. method of treating personality disorders;
3. a method of studying a person’s unconscious thoughts and feelings.

Freud used a topographical model, according to which three levels can be distinguished in mental life: Consciousness, preconsciousness, and unconsciousness. The level of consciousness consists of the sensations and experiences that you are aware of at a given moment in time. Consciousness encompasses only a small percentage of all information stored in the brain, with certain information being conscious for only a short period of time and then quickly relegated to the preconscious or unconscious level as the person's attention moves to other cues.

The area of ​​the preconscious, sometimes called "accessible memory", includes all experiences that are not currently conscious, but can easily return to Consciousness spontaneously or as a result of minimal effort. The deepest and most significant area of ​​the human psyche is the unconscious. The unconscious is a repository of instinctual urges plus emotions and memories that are so threatening to consciousness that they have been repressed and repressed into the unconscious, but it is this unconscious material that largely determines a person's daily functioning, although he is not aware of it. Unconscious experiences are completely inaccessible to human consciousness, but to a large extent determine the actions of people.

Based on many years of clinical observations, Freud formulated a psychological concept according to which the human psyche, the personality, consists of 3 structures, levels: “IT”, “I”, “SUPER-I” (structural model of mental life). “IT” is the unconscious part of the psyche, a seething cauldron of biological innate instinctual drives: aggressive and sexual. “IT” is saturated with sexual energy - “libido”. A person is a closed energy system, the amount of energy in each person is a constant value. Being unconscious and irrational, “IT” obeys the pleasure principle, i.e. pleasure and happiness are the main goals in human life. The second principle of behavior is homeostasis - the tendency to maintain approximate internal balance. The “I” (EGO) level of consciousness is in a state of constant conflict with “IT” and suppresses sexual desires. The level of consciousness is formed under the influence of society. The “I” is influenced by three forces: “IT”, “SUPER-I” and society, which makes its demands on a person. The “I” tries to establish harmony between them, obeying not the principle of pleasure, but the principle of “reality”. The “SUPER-I” serves as the bearer of moral standards; it is that part of the personality that plays the role of critic, censor, and conscience. If the “I” makes a decision or takes an action to please “IT”, but in opposition to the “SUPER-I”, then it experiences punishment in the form of feelings of guilt, shame, and remorse.

Rice. 2.1 Schematic representation of personality structure according to Freud

The relationship between the structural and topographical models of mental life can be depicted as follows: the “IT” sphere is completely unconscious, while the “I”-EGO and the “SUPER-I” operate on all three levels.

“I”-EGO is responsible for making decisions. The EGO seeks to express and satisfy the desires of the “IT”-ID in accordance with the restrictions imposed by the rules of society, the outside world, i.e. The EGO helps ensure the safety and self-preservation of the body; it is the EGO that analyzes, reasons, and makes decisions.

The formation of the psyche, especially the “SUPER-I” in a child, occurs through overcoming the Oedipus complex. In the Greek myth about King Oedipus, who killed his father and married his mother, hidden, according to Freud, is the key to the sexual complex that supposedly gravitates over every man from eternity: the boy is attracted to his mother, perceiving his father as a rival, causing both hatred and fear , and admiration, the boy wants to be like his father, but he also wants him to die, and therefore feels guilty and is afraid of his father. Fearing castration, the child overcomes sexual attraction to his mother, overcomes the Oedipus complex (by the age of 5-6) and develops a “SUPER-I”, a conscience.

Rice. 2.2 Relationship between the structural model and levels of consciousness

“SUPER-I”, or superego, contains a system of values ​​and norms that are compatible with those accepted in a person’s environment, which allow him to distinguish between what is good and what is bad, what is moral and immoral. Freud divided the superego into two subsystems: conscience and the ego ideal. conscience includes the ability for critical self-evaluation, the presence of moral prohibitions and the emergence of a feeling of guilt in a person when he did not do what he should have done. The EGO-ideal is formed from what is approved and highly valued by parents and the person himself; it leads a person to set high standards for himself. The superego is considered fully formed when parental control is replaced by self-control. However, this principle of self-control does not serve the purposes of the reality principle. The superego tries to completely suppress “indecent desires” on the part of “IT”, tries to direct a person to perfection in thoughts, words and actions, punishes and torments a person spiritually and even physically if a person violates the norms of conscience.

The “SUPER-I” does not allow instincts into the “I”, and then the energy of these instincts is sublimated, transformed, embodied in other forms of activity that are acceptable to society and man (creativity, art, social activity, labor activity, in forms of behavior: in dreams, slips of the tongue, slips of the tongue, jokes, puns, in free associations, in the features of forgetting). Thus, sublimation is the transformation of the energy of suppressed, forbidden desires into other types of activities that are allowed in society. If the “libido” energy does not find an outlet, then the person will have mental illness, neuroses, hysterics, and melancholy. To escape the conflict between “I” and “IT”, means of psychological defense are used. Protective behavior allows a person to protect himself from those problems that he cannot yet solve, allows him to relieve anxiety from threatening events (loss of a loved one, favorite toy, loss of love from other people, loss of self-love, etc.), allows “ get away from the threatening reality,” sometimes transform this threat. For some time, a protective mechanism is necessary, since a person cannot solve the problem at the moment, but if time passes and the person does not solve the problem, then later this protective mechanism can be an obstacle to personal growth, the person’s behavior becomes unpredictable, he can harm himself to himself, he moves away from reality and from the problems that he needs to solve, i.e. The defense mechanisms themselves often give rise to more and more new problems, and a person hides his real problem, replacing it with new “pseudo-problems”. Freud identified the following defense mechanisms:

1. repression of desires - involuntary removal of unpleasant or illicit desires, thoughts, feelings, experiences in certain situations from consciousness into the area of ​​​​the unconscious psyche “IT”; suppression is not final, repressed thoughts do not lose their activity in the unconscious and to prevent their breakthrough into Consciousness, a constant waste of mental energy is required, as a result of which there may not be enough energy to maintain a person’s activity and health, as a result, repression is often the source of bodily diseases of a psychogenic nature ( headaches, arthritis, ulcers, asthma, heart disease, hypertension, etc.). The mental energy of suppressed desires is present in the human body, regardless of his consciousness, and finds its painful bodily expression. The result of suppression is demonstrative indifference to this area, reality. There is complete suppression - when painful experiences are so suppressed that a person completely forgets them and does not know that they were in his life, but they indirectly affect his health and behavior. repression is partial suppression, a person “holds back” experiences, tries not to think about them, but cannot completely forget them, and repressed experiences “break through” in the form of unexpected violent affects, inexplicable actions, etc.;
2. denial - withdrawal into fantasy, denial of any event as “untrue.” “This cannot be” - a person shows clear indifference to logic, does not notice contradictions in his judgments;
3. rationalization is an unconscious attempt to justify, explain one’s wrong or absurd behavior, the construction of acceptable moral, logical justifications, arguments to explain and justify unacceptable forms of behavior, thoughts, actions, desires, and, as a rule, these justifications and explanations do not correspond to the true reason for the committed act , and the true reason may not be realized by a person;
4. inversion or reaction - substitution of actions, thoughts, feelings that correspond to a genuine desire, with diametrically opposite behavior, thoughts, feelings (for example, a child initially wants to receive his mother’s love for himself, but, not receiving this love, begins to experience the exact opposite desire to annoy his mother, make her angry, cause a quarrel and hatred of the mother towards herself);
5. projection is an unconscious attempt to get rid of an obsessive desire, idea, by attributing it to another person, attributing to another person one’s own qualities, thoughts, feelings - i.e. “removing the threat from oneself.” When something is condemned in others, this is precisely what a person does not accept in himself, but cannot admit it, does not want to understand that these same qualities are inherent in him. For example, a person claims that “some Jews are deceivers,” although in fact this could mean: “I sometimes deceive”; Thus, projection allows a person to place blame on someone else for his shortcomings and failures. Projection also explains social prejudice and scapegoating, since ethnic and racial stereotypes provide a convenient target for attributing negative personality characteristics to someone else;
6. substitution - the manifestation of an emotional impulse is redirected from a more threatening object or person to a less threatening one. For example, a child, after being punished by his parents, pushes his little sister, breaks her toys, kicks the dog, i.e. the sister and the dog replace the parents with whom the child is angry. This form of substitution is less common when it is directed against oneself: hostile impulses addressed to others are redirected to oneself, which causes a feeling of depression or condemnation of oneself;
7. isolation - separation of the threatening part of the situation from the rest of the mental sphere, which can lead to separation, dual personality, and an incomplete “I”;
8. regression - a return to an earlier, primitive way of reacting; stable regressions manifest themselves in the fact that a person justifies his actions from the perspective of a child’s thinking, does not recognize logic, defends his point of view, despite the rightness of his interlocutor, the person does not develop mentally and sometimes childhood habits return (biting nails, etc.). In severe cases, when “the present situation is unbearable for a person,” the psyche defends itself by returning to an earlier and safer period of its life, for example, early childhood, and regression leads to loss of memory of later periods of life. Milder manifestations of regression in adults include intemperance, resentment (sulking and not talking to others), opposition to authority, childish stubbornness, or driving at a recklessly high speed.

All people use defense mechanisms to some extent, and this becomes undesirable when people rely excessively on them, when they distort the picture of a person’s needs, fears, and aspirations. All defense mechanisms have common properties:

• they operate on an unconscious level and are therefore means of self-deception;
• they distort, deny, or falsify the perception of reality to make the anxiety less threatening to the person.

Anxiety, or a feeling of impending danger, can be of the following types:

• realistic anxiety - an emotional response to the threat of real dangers in the outside world, helps ensure self-preservation;
• neurotic anxiety is an emotional response to the danger that unacceptable impulses from the “IT” will become conscious, this is the fear that the EGO will be unable to control sexual or aggressive desires, and you will do something terrible that will entail severe negative consequences;
• moral anxiety - when the EGO experiences a threat of punishment from the SUPER-I, when “IT” strives for the active expression of immoral thoughts or actions and the SUPER-I responds to this with feelings of guilt, shame and self-blame; • Social anxiety arises from the threat of exclusion from a peer group due to inappropriate behavior.

Freud later showed that anxiety, originating in the superego, ultimately develops into the fear of death and the expectation of retribution in the afterlife for past or present sins.

Anxiety in neurotics is a consequence of inadequate discharge of libido energy and is a means of warning a person about impending danger. When the body is threatened, anxiety arises. With real anxiety, the threat comes from a specific external source; with neurotic anxiety, its source is unknown. In infancy and childhood, anxiety arises as a result of excessive excitation of instincts - later it appears in anticipation of danger, and not as a reaction to danger. An alarm signal mobilizes protective measures, mechanisms aimed at avoiding a real or imagined external threat, or psychological defenses that neutralize the increased excitation of instincts. Instinctive drives that were once, in some situations, unacceptable, and therefore were expelled from consciousness, suppressed, hidden in the unconscious part of the psyche, are preserved as hidden centers of excitation and gradually undermine the defense system. Thus, neuroses develop as a result of a partial failure of the defense system. A more severe disorder of defense mechanisms leads to mental illnesses (for example, schizophrenia), which are characterized by significant deformation of the ego and perception of reality.

S. Freud's theory of sexual development

Features of sexual development in childhood determine the character, personality of an adult, his pathologies, neuroses, life problems and difficulties. Freud formulated a theory of sexual development. In his opinion, psychosexual activity begins during breastfeeding, when the baby's mouth becomes an erogenous zone - a zone of pleasure (oral stage). The mouth remains an important erogenous zone throughout a person’s life; even in adulthood, residual manifestations of oral behavior are observed in the form of chewing gum, nail biting, smoking, kissing, overeating, drinking alcohol, oral sex, etc. All infants experience certain difficulties associated with weaning from the mother's breast, nipple, horn, because this deprives them of the corresponding pleasure, and the greater these difficulties, the greater the concentration of libido at the oral stage. A child who received excessive or insufficient stimulation in infancy and became fixated on the oral stage, according to Freud, will most likely develop an oral-passive personality type - he expects a “maternal attitude” towards himself from the world around him, constantly seeking support and approval , overly dependent and gullible. During the second half of the first year of life, the second phase of the oral stage begins - the oral-aggressive or oral-sadistic phase, when the child develops teeth and biting becomes a means of expressing a state of dissatisfaction and frustration caused by the absence of the mother or delay of gratification. Fixation at the oral-sadistic stage is expressed in adults in such personality traits as a love of argument, pessimism, critical “biting,” cynicism, and a tendency to exploit others and dominate them in order to satisfy one’s own needs.

With toilet training, the focus shifts first to the sensations associated with defecation ( anal stage ) and later to the sensations associated with urination (urethral phase). During this period, children enjoy holding and pushing out feces. Freud showed that the way parents toilet train a child influences his later personality development. If parents behave inflexibly, insisting “go to the potty now,” the child develops a protest, a tendency to “hold,” constipation begins, and an anal-retentive personality type may be formed, which is characterized by stubbornness, stinginess, punctuality, methodicalness, and cannot tolerate disorder. and uncertainty. The second result of anal fixation, due to parental strictness regarding the toilet, is the anal-thrusting type, which is characterized by destructive tendencies, restlessness, impulsiveness, even sadistic cruelty. If parents encourage their children to have regular bowel movements and praise them for doing so, this, according to Freud, helps develop the child's ability to self-control, fosters positive self-esteem and even develops the child's creativity.

Finally, at about the age of four, these private drives unite, and interest in the genitals, in the penis, begins to predominate (phallic phase). Children may look at their genitals, masturbate, show interest in issues of birth and sexual relations, spy on their parents' sexual relations, and experience sexual urges. At the same time, the Oedipus complex (or Electra in girls) develops, the essence of which is a predominantly positive attitude towards the parent of the opposite sex and aggressive behavior towards the parent of the same sex. According to Freud, children later give up oedipal tendencies due to fear of castration. At the age of 5-7 years, a boy suppresses, displaces from consciousness his sexual desires in relation to his mother and begins to identify himself with his father (adopts his traits): he masters the norms and models of male gender-role behavior, assimilates basic moral norms, i.e. The SUPER-I is formed as a consequence of overcoming the Oedipus complex. The girls overcome the Electra complex (according to Greek myth, Electra persuades her brother to kill their mother and her lover and avenge the death of their father), suppress their attraction to their father and identify with their mother.

Adult men with a fixation on the phallic stage behave impudently, boastfully, recklessly, strive to achieve success, to prove their masculinity, that “they are real men,” through the conquest of women like Don Juan. In women, phallic fixation leads to a tendency to flirt, seduce, to promiscuity, to the desire to dominate a man, to show assertiveness and self-confidence. Unresolved problems of the Oedipus complex were regarded by Freud as the main source of subsequent neurotic behavior patterns, especially those related to impotence, frigidity, and homosexuality.

This is followed by the so-called latent period (up to 10-11 years), when the child’s interests are focused on learning and communication, but with the onset of puberty, the genital period of sexual development begins, when sexual desires and interests intensify and concentrate on certain representatives of the opposite sex. According to Freud, all adolescents in early adolescence go through a “homosexual period”, preferring the company of peers of the same sex, and even occasional homosexual games. However, gradually the partner of the opposite sex becomes the object of libido energy and courtship begins. Hobbies in youth normally lead to the choice of a marriage partner and the creation of a family. Under favorable circumstances, development ends with the onset of “psychological maturity,” the main parameters of which are: a person’s ability to love another person as such, and not for the sake of satisfying his own sexual needs; a person’s desire to prove himself in productive work, in creating something new and useful for people. But not every person reaches the stage of “psychological maturity”; many people, for various reasons, seem to be “stuck” and fixed at previous stages of development. Fixation is the inability to progress from one psychosexual stage to another. It leads to excessive expression of needs characteristic of the stage at which fixation occurred, to the specific formation of character and personality type, to specific problems of adult life, i.e. early childhood experiences play a critical role in the formation of adult personality. Fixation can occur both as a result of frustration (when the child’s psychosexual needs are suppressed by the parents and do not find optimal satisfaction), and as a result of over-care on the part of the parents, when the parents do not allow the child to manage himself. In any case, according to Freud, the result is an excessive accumulation of libido, which subsequently, in adulthood, can be expressed in the form of “residual behavior”, a specific character and specific deviations.

Excessive passion for erotic activity or, conversely, conflicts, prohibitions or traumas that interfere with it can cause a delay in the development of libido at some stage. Such a delay with an inability to resolve the Oedipal situation becomes the cause of psychoneuroses, sexual perversions and other forms of psychopathology. Freud and his followers developed a detailed, dynamic system in which various emotional and psychosomatic disorders are correlated with specific features of libidinal development and maturation.

In psychoanalysis (according to Freud), the task is: 1) to recreate from these specific manifestations a group of forces that cause painful pathological symptoms and unwanted inappropriate human behavior; 2) reconstruct a past traumatic event, release repressed energy and use it for constructive purposes (sublimation), give this energy a new direction (for example, using transference analysis, release initially repressed childhood sexual aspirations - turn them into adult sexuality and thereby give them opportunity to participate in personal development). The goal of psychoanalytic therapy, in Freud’s humble words: “To transform the excessive suffering of neurosis into the normal, ordinary misfortunes of everyday life.” Psychoanalysis uses the methods of “free association”, dream analysis, transference and countertransference, resistance analysis, etc.

Freud recognized the existence of two basic instincts: the instincts of life and death. The life instincts, or Eros, include all forces that serve the purpose of maintaining life and procreation. The most important of them are sexual instincts and sexual energy - libido. The second group - death instincts, called Thanatos - underlies all manifestations of cruelty, aggression, murder and suicide, all harmful forms of behavior that destroy human health and life (drunkenness, drug addiction). The death instincts obey the principle of entropy, strive to maintain dynamic equilibrium, as a result, all living beings have an inherent desire to return to the uncertain state from which they came, and people unconsciously have an inherent desire for death. This position of Freud is controversial and is not recognized by many psychologists.

The disadvantage of Freudianism is the exaggeration of the role of the sexual sphere in the life and psyche of a person; a person is understood mainly as a biological sexual being who is in a state of continuous secret struggle with society, which forces him to suppress sexual desires. Therefore, even his followers, neo-Freudians, starting from Freud’s basic postulates about unconsciousness, went along the line of limiting the role of sexual desires in explaining the human psyche. the unconscious was only filled with new content: the place of unrealized sexual desires was taken by the desire for power due to feelings of inferiority (Adler), the collective unconscious (“archetypes”), expressed in mythology, religious symbolism, art and passed on by inheritance (C. Jung), the inability to achieve harmony with the social structure of society and the resulting feeling of loneliness (E. Fromm) and other psychoanalytic mechanisms of rejection of the individual from society. Thus, from the position of psychoanalysis, a person is a contradictory, tormented, suffering creature, whose behavior is predominantly determined by unconscious factors, despite the opposition and control of consciousness, and therefore a person is often a neurotic and conflicted creature. Freud's merit lies in the fact that he attracted the attention of scientists to a serious study of the unconscious in the psyche, and for the first time identified and began to study the internal conflicts of a person's personality.

Freud's psychoanalytic theory is an example of a psychodynamic approach to the study of human behavior: in this approach, unconscious psychological conflicts are believed to control human behavior.

As psychoanalysis developed, it was enriched with new ideas and approaches, and the following psychoanalytic concepts arose:

1. Individual psychology of A. Adler
2. Analytical psychology by K. Jung
3. Ego psychology of E. Erikson
4. Sociocultural theory of K. Horney
5. E. Fromm's theory
6. The theory of Reich et al.

We will consider these concepts in more detail in those sections of the textbook where their presentation will contribute to a deeper understanding of certain problems of psychology.

The tasks of psychoanalysis in Freudianism

If we describe Freudianism briefly, then the main objectives of this teaching and psychoanalysis for the treatment of mental disorders can be considered:

1. Recreation from all the data collected as an anamnesis of symptoms that are pathological for a person.
2. The ability to reconstruct the event that caused the trauma, release suppressed energy and give this energy the opportunity to choose a new direction.

Psychoanalysis is carried out so that in the future a person can avoid turning his excessive suffering into neurosis. In this way, according to Freud, it is also possible to suppress a person’s conflict.

Representatives of Freudianism

Freudianism is a theory that was developed in the future. The representatives of this theory later became the students of Freud himself. A. Adler slightly reworked his teacher’s theory, pointing out that the main thing in psychoanalysis is not the drives occurring at the unconscious level, but the desire of each person to assert himself in society. According to Adler, all the processes described by Freud can manifest themselves only after the child feels inferior in comparison with adults.

G. Jung is considered another prominent representative of Freud’s teachings, who not only supported the theory of his teacher, but also actively began to develop it, arguing that psychoanalysis not only can influence one person, but also influences the behavior of an entire group. The ideas of Freudianism were actively supported by Otto Rank, who found the main factors of fear and anxiety. In his opinion, they are hidden even in the birth of a person; his theory is called “birth trauma.”

Abstract: “Freudism and psychoanalysis”

CONTENTS Introduction 1. Philosophical and natural scientific premises of psychoanalysis 1.1 Philosophical approaches in the study of the psyche 1.2 Historical development of the ideas of S. Freud 2. The essence and content of psychoanalysis 2.1 Psychoanalysis and Freudianism 2.2 The relationship between the conscious and unconscious in Freud’s teachings 3. Conscious and unconscious: problem and essence 3.1 P. Ricoeur: a special reading of S. Freud. Hermeneutics of psychoanalysis 3.2 Post-Freudian interpretation of consciousness and its structure 3.3 Modern psychoanalysis 3.4 Methodological significance of the teachings of S. Freud Conclusion List of sources used

INTRODUCTION

The philosophy of psychoanalysis is one of the most famous trends in European philosophy of the 20th century, which had the most significant impact not only on many philosophical schools, but also on the entire spiritual culture - art and literature, theater and music, political and social doctrines. The popularity of psychoanalysis has given rise to the popularity of various psychological services in the Western world.

A distinctive feature of psychoanalysis is that it is addressed to humans, focused on understanding the human psyche in all its diversity.

The founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, was a psychiatrist; the successors of his philosophical traditions, Carl Gustav Jung, Karen Horney and Erich Fromm, were also practicing psychoanalysts, but the philosophy of psychoanalysis is broader than the utilitarian goal of medical care. In addition to the dynamic concept of the psyche and the creation of effective methods for treating neuroses, psychoanalysis formed many concepts and original hypotheses related to the problems of philosophical anthropology, philosophy of culture, philosophy of life, and made conclusions that went far beyond the scope of medical practice, which caused a lot of controversy that has not stopped to this day. .

The history of psychoanalysis begins in 1880, when J. Breuer, a Viennese doctor, told Freud that one patient, talking about herself, was cured of the symptoms of hysteria. Under hypnosis, she was able to reveal a deeply traumatic event in her life while experiencing an extremely strong emotional reaction, and this resulted in a reduction in symptoms. Freud used the same technique with other patients and confirmed Breuer's results. They reported their findings in a joint publication, Studies in Hysteria, which suggested that the symptoms of hysteria are determined by masked memories of forgotten “traumatic” events. The memory of these events disappears from consciousness, but continues, nevertheless, to have a significant impact on the patient. Freud saw the reason for this disappearance from consciousness in the conflict between certain impulses associated with this event and moral principles.

At the present stage, Freudism is not a single integral system, but many different scientific schools and directions, in order to understand the situation in world psychology, the relationship of various scientific forces in it, you need to know the teachings of Freud himself, to know how it developed and acquired such a profound influence on different approaches to the human psyche.

The relevance of this topic lies in the fact that psychoanalysis plays a fundamental role in considering various personality conflicts, since from childhood a person can be haunted by a variety of empathy, feelings, and emotions.

1. PHILOSOPHICAL AND NATURAL SCIENTIFIC PREREQUISITES OF PSYCHOANALYSIS

1.1 PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACHES IN THE STUDY OF THE PSYCHE

Psychoanalysis in its classical form was founded by Z. Freud at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, when a breakdown of traditional ideas about human mental life, methods and boundaries of knowledge of mental reality, which became the object of close attention and controversy among philosophers, psychologists, physiologists, and neurologists, was planned.

The division of the psyche into conscious and unconscious is the main premise of psychoanalysis, and only it gives it the opportunity to understand and introduce to science frequently observed and very important pathological processes in mental life. Psychoanalysis cannot transfer the essence of the psyche into consciousness, but must consider consciousness as a quality of the psyche, which may or may not be attached to its other qualities. [2, p.253]

The history of the development of philosophical thought clearly demonstrates that interest in understanding the human soul manifests itself already at the earliest stages of the formation of philosophical knowledge - in ancient Greek, ancient Chinese and ancient Indian philosophy.

The saying “know yourself,” which belonged to the founder of ancient philosophy, the ancient Greek thinker Thales, and which later became the central thesis of the philosophy of Socrates, shows how much importance was attached in the ancient world to understanding man and his spiritual life. [1, p.80-81]

At the same time, already in Thales there is a distinction between the soul and the body, as the essences of human existence that cannot be reduced to each other. The main difference between the soul and the body, according to him, is that the soul is endowed with the property of rationality, while the body does not have this property.

The idea of ​​the rationality of the soul, which formed the basis of many philosophical systems of antiquity, in later centuries developed into the doctrine of the consciousness of human mental life. In the 17th century, Descartes formulated the thesis about the identity of the mental and conscious. According to Descartes, a person acquires absolute power over passions through his will. [1, p. 81-84]

The problem of the relationship between reason and passions was constantly raised in philosophy and psychology in the future, gradually moving to the plane of consideration of the relationship between conscious and unconscious perceptions, ideas, motives, and motives of human behavior.

In Leibniz's philosophy, this problem was posed in connection with the consideration of the so-called “small” “imperceptible perceptions” that a person is not aware of. The German thinker proceeded from the fact that without a reasonable comprehension of these “imperceptible perceptions” or “unconscious suffering”, the idea of ​​personality, of the inner world of the “I” is far from complete. He made an attempt to penetrate into the inner world of man, distinguishing in the individual the sphere of phenomena of the “I” and the sphere of consciousness of the “I”.

Hegel also had philosophical discussions about the unconscious. In Hegel's Philosophy of Spirit, consideration of the unconscious acts of the spirit was correlated with the illumination of the dark “unconscious hiding place”, in which a world of “infinitely many images and ideas is preserved without their presence in consciousness.” At the same time, Hegel traces in detail how exactly the images and ideas that lie dormant in the depths of the human being rise to the surface of consciousness, becoming included in a person’s everyday experience.

Hegel's description of the wanderings of the “unconscious spirit” was of a rational nature. It organically fit into the rational constructions of Hegelian philosophy. But there was another line in philosophy, where the problem of the unconscious was considered in an irrational way.

A. Schopenhauer, who criticized Hegelian rationalism, in his main philosophical work “The World as Will and Idea” put forward the doctrine that the beginning of all things is the unconscious will, and the first fact of consciousness is the idea. In Schopenhauer's understanding, it is the unconscious will that creates real objects that, through representation, become accessible to human consciousness.

The problems of the unconscious are also discussed in the works of E. Hartmann, and his voluminous work “Philosophy of the Unconscious” (1869) is entirely devoted to this issue. The German philosopher did not limit himself to analyzing the mental unconscious, but tried, like Schopenhauer, although in a different form, to translate this concept into an ontological section. In his theory, the “metaphysics of the unconscious,” the unconscious acts as an integral element of the human psyche, the source of life and its driving force. [1, p.80-84, p.104-108]

Psychoanalysis is not only a type of psychotherapeutic and clinical practice. At the same time, it is a philosophical doctrine about man, a social philosophy, thus belonging to factors of an ideological order. It is in this sense that psychoanalysis has become an integral part of Western culture. According to Berger, “If Freud did not exist, he would have to be invented.” According to Berger, the main social reason for the spread of psychoanalysis is the almost complete separation of the spheres of public and private life in bourgeois society. This leads to an “identity crisis”: only a few people have the opportunity to find their “true self” in civil life, politics, business, culture. For the majority, in the conditions of division of labor and capitalist rationalization of production and consumption, it remains to look for their “true self” in private life.

Already Freud's early works contain his basic philosophical ideas, going beyond the special problems of psychotherapy and medical psychology, while his later works are still based on the experience of communicating with patients and are focused on a deeper understanding of this experience. [5, p.159]

Some of Freud's early students, most notably Carl Jung (1875-1961) and Alfred Adler (1870-1937), used psychoanalysis as a starting point for developing their own psychological concepts. Jung interpreted the nature of drives in many ways differently than Freud. In addition to the personal conflicts of the individual, culturally determined and unconsciously transmitted symbolic representations of the main “themes” of human existence are important. According to his concept, at the center of individual experience are constantly emerging mythological themes common to all humanity. [7, p.112-115]

Psychoanalysis developed in the following direction: from the therapy of neuroses and methods of studying unconscious mental processes to “metapsychology,” that is, a set of theoretical postulates about the human psyche and the “destiny of drives.” This general theory then served as the foundation for the application of psychoanalysis in various fields of knowledge: ethnography, religious studies, social psychology and sociology. [3, p.808]

The Nazis' rise to power forced many European psychoanalysts to emigrate to the United States, where the center of psychoanalytic thought moved. During this period, the leading psychoanalytic scientists were H. Hartman (1894-1970), E. Chris (1900-1957) and R. Lowenstein (1898-1976). In a number of joint publications, they formulated the main provisions of psychoanalysis as the foundation of general psychology. The development of Hartmann's concept of the adaptive function of the “Ego” contributed to the formulation of fundamental working hypotheses about the nature of drives, maturation and development of the mental apparatus. Freud's daughter Anna Freud (1895-1982), who was involved in psychoanalysis of children and long-term studies of child development, also contributed to these theories. She analyzed the various means by which the ego defends itself against the threat of intrusion by unwanted unconscious impulses. [8, p.286]

Psychoanalysis significantly influenced the development of the entire Western civilization. Understanding that a person’s behavior is influenced by factors that lie outside the sphere of his consciousness and are, at best, under partial control, has added sanity in the assessment of both others and ourselves. [9, p.275]

1.2 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF S. FREUD'S IDEAS

FREUD (Freud) Sigmund (Sigismund Shlomo) (1856-1939) - Austrian doctor, neurologist, psychopathologist, psychiatrist, psychologist. Founder of psychoanalysis and Freudianism. In 1873 he entered the medical faculty of the University of Vienna. I took a course in Brentano's philosophy. Doctor of Medicine (1881). Privat-docent of neurology (1885). In 1885-1886 he trained in Paris with Charcot at the Salpêtrière clinic. Under the influence of his ideas, he came to the idea that the cause of psychoneural diseases could be unobservable dynamic trauma to the psyche. In 1892 he developed and used a new therapeutic method - the method of insistence, focused on constantly forcing the patient to remember and reproduce traumatic situations and factors. In 1895 he came to the conclusion that it was fundamentally wrong to identify the mental and the conscious and that it was important to study unconscious mental processes. From 1896 to 1902 he developed the foundations of psychoanalysis. He substantiated an innovative dynamic and energetic model of the human psyche, consisting of three systems: the unconscious - the preconscious and the conscious. Despite the emphasized anti-philosophical and anti-phenomenological pathos of this theoretical scheme, F. approached the reconstruction of the unconscious outside the existing context of knowledge about consciousness and pre-consciousness, as well as postulating the practical impossibility of further talking about consciousness in itself. (After F., it became possible to talk about consciousness only “dialectically”: as a “task”, and not as a “source”.) He showed that unconscious motives determine human behavior in normal and pathological conditions, and various kinds of erroneous actions indicate the presence unconscious motives and intrapsychic conflict. The radical turn set by Freud in the European intellectual and, in particular, psychological tradition, which largely overcomes Descartes' ideas about man, was the elimination of phenomenological approaches from the analysis of the unconscious.

In the tradition of psychoanalysis, the unconscious is treated as unknowable, but adherence to the principles of empiricism and realism led Freud to the discovery that the It is ultimately knowable in its “representational representations.” In 1905 he substantiated ideas about the nature and functioning of libido, the development of human sexuality and repressed sexual desires as a source of neuroses. In 1907 he gave the classic definition of the unconscious. In his work “Totem and Taboo” (1913), he extended the paradigm of psychoanalysis to the spheres of universal human culture and early forms of religious beliefs. The problem of culture in its entirety can be reduced, according to Freud, to the following questions: what is the level of the lowest limit to which it is permissible to artificially minimize human drives and desires; to what extent this process is combined with inevitable failures; what is the mechanism of social compensation for these victims to individuals on the part of society. Culture appeared in Freud, thus, as a certain balance of the processes of libidinal “investments” and “counter-investments” (which later allowed Freud’s critics to call his approach to culture as an “economic model”). The interpretation of Freud, who analyzed, in particular, from this perspective, the relationship between artistic techniques of art and human phantasms, can be reduced to the following: “We call the first seduction, preliminary pleasure, the very right to pleasure that is given to us so that we can free ourselves from the highest pleasure arising from much more deep psychic origins. I believe that any aesthetic pleasure generated in us by the creator has the character of preliminary pleasure, while true pleasure in a work of art stems from the fact that thanks to it our soul is freed from a certain tension. It may even be that the fact that makes us henceforth enjoy our own fantasies without embarrassment and shame, to a large extent, leads to such a result.” In the book “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” (1920), he outlined the foundations of the psychoanalytic theory of personality. In 1921 he published the book “Psychology of the Masses and Analysis of the Human Self” - a psychoanalytic compendium on problems of personality, social psychology and sociology. In the book “I and IT” (1923), F. outlined the psychoanalytic concept of personality structure and its defense mechanisms. F.'s entire concept served as the basis for his conclusion: man is not a “sick animal,” as Nietzsche argued, man’s lot is in inevitable conflicts. Man is a unique creature who goes through a long period of childhood and subsequently depends on it for an even longer period. Man, according to Freud, is “prehistoric” because of his own infantile fate (the hypothesis of the Oedipus complex, etc.). He paid increasing attention to the problems of cultural studies and philosophy. In 1927 he published the book “The Future of an Illusion” - a psychoanalytic panorama of the past, present and future of religion, interpreting the latter in the status of obsessive neurosis. In 1929 he published one of his most philosophical works, “Anxiety in Culture.” In general, Freud’s theoretical scheme in its “philosophical dimension” is characterized by the fact that it is not Eros, libido, will, human desire in themselves that are the subject of the thinker’s creativity, but a set of desires in a state of permanent conflict with the world of cultural institutions, social imperatives and prohibitions, personified in parents, various authorities, public idols, and so on. After emigrating from Austria in 1938, he published the study “Moses and Monotheism” (1939) - dedicated to further psychoanalytic understanding of philosophical and cultural problems. Freud's life, as well as his works, had a colossal impact on the radical change in existing and the formation of fundamentally new ideas about man and his world (it became impossible to interpret the philosophy of the subject as a philosophy of consciousness), on the transformation of the very appearance of the system of humanitarian knowledge, on the alleviation of the suffering of people in their real life. life. [3, p.1114-1115]

The emergence of neo-Freudianism

Of course, Freud's theory remained a key phenomenon in all cases, so we can say that Freudianism is the foundation that was laid in neo-Freudianism. Freud's psychoanalysis was based solely on three levels that exist in the psyche of every person, but representatives of neo-Freudianism argued that the leading role still remains with socio-cultural influence. It is the influence of society that can cause internal conflict in a person. For example, a feeling such as anxiety can arise in a child only after he encounters a hostile world.

Despite the fact that the two theories, Freudianism and neo-Freudianism, have quite a lot of differences, the same unconscious processes were taken as the basis. Hatred and anxiety cause discomfort to the individual, so there is a struggle within the person himself, and this is the reason for the conflict within oneself, which requires immediate elimination, otherwise mental illness may occur.

Freud's structural model of mental life

Freud's psychological concept consists of three structures - “It”, “I”, “Super-ego”.

Figure 1. Personality structure according to S. Freud. Author24 - online exchange of student work

The “it” or “id” is the unconscious part of the psyche and can be compared to the cauldron of biological innate instincts, aggressive and sexual. The unconscious part of the psyche is saturated with sexual energy (libido). For each person, who is a closed energy system, the amount of energy is a constant value. “It” obeys the pleasure principle, being unconscious and irrational. Pleasure and happiness are the main goal in human life.

The second principle of behavior is homeostasis, which means the tendency to maintain approximate internal balance.

“I” or “Ego” is a level of consciousness that suppresses sexual desires and is in a state of constant conflict with “It”. The formation of the level of consciousness occurs under the influence of society, which, together with the “It” and the “Super-I”, makes its demands on a person. The “I” obeys the principle of reality and tries to establish harmony between the “It” and the “Super-ego”.

The bearer of moral standards is the “Super-I”, which is part of the personality that plays the role of critic, conscience, censor. When the “I” performs any action to please the “It”, but, in opposition to the “Super-Ego,” the Ego experiences guilt, shame, and reproach.

Responsible for making decisions, the “I” tries to express and satisfy the desire of “It”, but with the restrictions imposed by society and its rules. It follows that the safety and self-preservation of the body is ensured by the “Ego”, reasoning, analyzing and making the appropriate decision.

In children, the formation of the “Super-I” occurs through overcoming the Oedipus complex.

Freud believed that the key to the sexual complex that looms over every man is the Greek myth of Oedipus the King, who killed his father and married his mother. Feeling attracted to his mother, the boy sees his father as a rival, who at the same time arouses fear, hatred, and admiration in him. He wants to be like his father and wants him to die, and hence the fear and feeling of guilt before his father. Sexual attraction to the mother is overcome by fear of castration, i.e. overcoming the Oedipus complex and the emergence of a “super-ego” containing values ​​and norms compatible with the person’s environment.

The “super-ego” makes it possible to distinguish good from bad, moral from immoral, it does not allow instincts into the sphere of “I”.

As a result of this, the energy of instincts is sublimated, transformed and embodied in activities acceptable to man and society.

Note 2

Hence, sublimation is the transformation of the energy of suppressed desires into socially permitted activities.

Representatives of neo-Freudianism

There were many more representatives of neo-Freudianism than Freudianism itself. Several scientists can be called the most prominent. Thus, G. Sullivan argues that a person’s personality is not an innate phenomenon, but an acquired one, and it is formed exclusively with the help of the society that surrounds it. That is, the baby begins to repeat the interpersonal relationships that he has as a model. A child’s personality in childhood can be formed even during play, when the child communicates with peers.

E. Fromm in his works points out that a person is a combination of biological and social principles. In his opinion, the entire human psychology is based on the love of life and the desire for death.

Psychoanalysis shows that a person may be prone to neurosis if he has not been able to find love and understanding in society. It is important for each individual to achieve complete harmony in society, which he strives for throughout his life. According to many scientists, if an individual can be healed, then there is a possibility that a complete healing of society can occur.

It is worth noting that all the ideas of Freudians and neo-Freudians were able to influence social life and the development of culture and ethics. As for society itself, it is on the path to improvement.

Freudianism as the basis of depth psychology

 The relevance of this study is due to the fact that the complex of developments within the framework of Freudianism and depth psychology contributed to a significant influence on psychology as a science and currently acts as one of the leading foundations of both Western and domestic psychology.

Key words: Freudianism, psychology, personality, psychoanalysis, instincts

Relevance of this research is caused by the fact that the complex of developments within the Freudianism and Depth Psychology promoted the significant influence on psychology as science and now acts as one of the leading fundamentals of both the western and domestic psychology.

Keywords : Freudianism, psychology, person, psychoanalysis, instincts

Very often, when it comes to depth psychology, as well as Freudianism, many tend to be of the opinion that both concepts are almost identical, however, in fact, this is far from the case.

Freudianism was developed by the famous Austrian psychiatrist, psychologist and neurologist Sigmund Freud in 1896. The scientist began his research as a physiologist and neuropathologist, and then, having summarized and analyzed psychotherapeutic practice, he turned his accumulated experience into a psychological theory. Freud came to the conclusion that the physiological approach to the psyche was insufficient, and proposed his own system for analyzing human mental life, calling it psychoanalysis. Psychology in psychoanalysis has again found a living person, since ancient times its inherent depth of penetration into the essence of his soul and behavior. The psyche, according to Freud, contains three formations: I, Super-Ego and Id.

All mental processes and phenomena are considered by supporters of Freudianism based on the three most significant points of view:

– topical;

– dynamic;

– economic.

In the first case, we are talking about a schematic, spatial representation of the structure of mental life, based on the use of various authorities, differing in their location and functions. Initially, Freud's topical system of mental life was represented by three formations discussed earlier (Ego, Super-Ego, Id), the relationships between which were regulated by internal censorship. Since the early 1920s. Freud identifies other authorities: I (Ego), It (Id) and Super-I (Super-Ego). The last two systems were localized in the “unconscious” layer.

In a dynamic examination of mental processes, it is assumed that they are studied as forms of certain (most often hidden from consciousness) purposeful drives from the position of transition from one subsystem existing in the mental structure to a qualitatively different one. The economic option involves analyzing a number of mental processes solely by focusing on energy components (libido energy is the most widespread).

In an effort to prove his theories, Freud turned to the study of such manifestations of unconscious activity as neurotic symptoms, erroneous actions and dreams. One of his fundamental works, “The Interpretation of Dreams,” published in 1900, was devoted to the problem of dreams. In it, Freud argued that dreams are unique mental acts that not only have meaning, but also a functional task. Freud carefully analyzed the work of a dream, disassembled it into its component parts and offered his own version of an explanation of the essence of a dream - a mental action aimed at fulfilling an unfulfilled desire through hallucinatory satisfaction. According to Freud, during sleep, unconscious desires that have not found satisfaction are able to partially enter the area of ​​consciousness in a state of sleep. During sleep, the effect of internal censorship is partially weakened, so desires can, having undergone a certain transformation, appear in consciousness in the form of disguised images. The book presented a technique for dream interpretation, the task of which was to transform explicit content into hidden content, that is, work in the opposite direction. Freud paid attention to the symbolism of dreams, showing how things unacceptable for censorship can undergo transformation into certain symbols. By analyzing the patient's dreams, it was possible to find the key to his inner world, determine the origin of the mental conflict and help in understanding the traumatic material. Dream analysis became an integral part of Freud's therapeutic techniques.

Speaking about the essence of depth psychology, we must take into account that it acts as a concept that is more meaningful in its semantic aspect than Freudianism. When studying the organization of human behavior, these directions attach particular importance to motives and attitudes that are hidden by consciousness.

Thus, Freudianism, together with neo-Freudianism, individual, and analytical psychology, acts as one of the components of depth psychology.

Before considering the significant achievements made within the framework of depth psychology, it is worth paying attention to Freudianism as one of its components. It was its representatives who initially determined that the main role in human behavior in general and in the organization of his mental life is played by innate instincts. Despite the current existence of many options for their differentiation, the separation of the sexual instinct - Eros or Libido, as well as the instinct associated with aggression and the desire for destructive activity - Thanatos, has become particularly widespread.

Within the framework of depth psychology, the main attention was paid not only to this approach, but also to the version that was subsequently developed by A. Adler. The scientist was of the opinion that the main human instinct is the desire for superiority and perfection.

A significant achievement of Freudianism can be considered the discovery that unconscious attraction comes into conflict with the norms existing in culture. Freud argued that human instincts are by nature asocial and selfish. Social norms are a rein that is put on them and thereby makes it possible for people to live together.

Subsequently, representatives of depth psychology noticed that both mental and social development of a person occurs by establishing a balance between instinctive impulses and cultural norms. Because of this, the self-component of most people is aimed at finding a compromise between the unconscious power of a person, constantly striving to be released, and the norms existing in society.

It was Freudians and supporters of depth psychology who noted the possibility of achieving a certain result in such dissonance only through the use of defense mechanisms. In this case, this concept refers to an unconscious mental process, the main action of which is aimed at minimizing the influence of negative experiences. Based on the degree of their impact, mechanisms are usually divided into effective and ineffective.

Effective defense mechanisms make it possible to cope with shocks and gradually return to an optimal state, while ineffective ones become the root cause of many neurotic disorders and the occurrence of anomalies in personal behavior.

Currently, the attitude towards psychoanalysis is noticeably changing even among the Freudians themselves. There is a tendency when in their works they criticize his views or try in a certain way to dissociate themselves from this direction. Some researchers see this as a symptom of the internal decay of Freudianism.

Even more significant is the criticism directed at the factors that determine personality. According to the founder, the incentives that help determine it are almost the same at all times (we are talking about complexes, as well as instincts). Consequently, one cannot speak of any social conditioning of personality. Progressive scientists reject this unscientific, metaphysical position of psychoanalysis in its philosophical essence. Thus, J. Furst, based on facts, shows that mental phenomena, such as consciousness, for example, are formed under the influence of social conditions, and are not immediately given in a “ready-made form” and therefore have their own history of origin and development.

Of course, these trends of a critical nature, constantly becoming more acute, cannot go unnoticed by depth psychology. As for the subject of criticism, which is characteristic of depth psychology, the presence of a number of uncertainties in such a component as analytical psychology is of particular importance.

For example, despite the denial by psychologists-analysts of the fact of the exclusively sexual nature of libido energy (adherents of this direction pay attention to the fact that we can talk about a diverse nature), most methodological orientations are still characterized by exactly the same directions as psychoanalysis, which contributes to ambiguity of interpretation and all related areas of depth psychology.

Thus, contrary to frequently encountered opinions about the identity of these directions, at the present stage it is Freudianism that acts as the basis of depth psychology.

Freud's research, which aimed to study the unknown elements of the human psyche, touched not only on the problems of neurotic diseases, but also on such well-known social phenomena as culture, religion, art, and ethics. In a number of his works, Freud touched upon issues that were not previously within the scope of interests of classical psychology. However, Freud's psychoanalysis became such a universal discipline in terms of direction of research that it was able to cover all aspects of human activity in its reviews. Individual and mass psychology, analysis of outstanding personalities and cultural traditions, childhood sexuality and dreams - this and much more received a new interpretation in the works of the outstanding Austrian thinker, not to mention the fact that many of Freud's discoveries were heuristic in nature.

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