1885–1899 In 1885, Freud was given the opportunity to study at the
Salpêtrière in Paris under the famous neurologist
Jean-Martin Charcot. Charcot had specialized in the field of
hysterical paralysis and established hypnosis as a research tool, the experimental application of which actually made it possible to eliminate
symptoms of this kind. Paralysed people could suddenly walk again, and blind ones could see. Although this 'messianic' effect is not known to last long, as Freud soon realized through his own experiments, the phenomenon of hypnotic false-healing played a decisive role in reinforcing his idea of a purely psychological background to the complex neurotic clinical picture. A few years later (1887–88), he worked as a
neurologist in a hospital (the Public Institute for Children's Diseases in
Vienna), where some little patients suffered from neurotic symptoms. All attempts to develop a suitable neuronal treatment failed; in fact, the detailed examinations did not reveal any organic defects. In the
monograph written on this
cases, Freud documented his
differential-diagnostically supported suspicion that neurotic symptoms probably would have psychological causes. Finishing the ineffective hypnosis, the idea of psychoanalysis began to receive serious attention; Freud initially called it
free association. His first attempt to explain neurotical symptoms on this path was presented in
Studies on Hysteria (1895). Co-authored with
Josef Breuer, this is generally seen as the birth of psychoanalysis. For example, she sometimes liked to jokingly rename her talking cure as
chimney sweeping, an association about the fairy tale through which part of a pregnant woman's house 'the
stork' gives birth to the baby – or in
Lacan's words: "The more Anna provided
signifers, the more she chattered on, the better it went." See also
Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905). Around the same time, Freud had started to develop a
neurological hypothesis about mental phenomena such as memory, but soon abandoned this attempt and left it unpublished. Insights into neuronal-biochemical processes that store experiences in the brain – like engraving the proverbial
tabula rasa with some code – belongs to the
physiological branch of science and lead in a different direction of research than the psychological question of what the differences between consciousness and unconsciousness are. After some thought about a suitable term, Freud called his new instrument and field of research
psychoanalysis, introduced in his essay "Inheritance and Etiology of Neuroses", written in 1896.
The abuse thesis In 1896, Freud also published his
seduction theory, in which he confidently claimed to have uncovered repressed memories of sexual abuse in each of his few early patients. This type of
sexual excitations of the child should therefore be understood as a prerequisite for the later development of
hysterical and other neurotic symptoms. Later the same year, he became aware of an
inconsistency: Freud was now working with a few additional patients, and most of them expressed their "emphatic disbelief" in respect of his childhood sexual abuse thesis, explaining that they "had no feeling of remembering the
infantile sexual scenes" he suggested. Freud's final position on the origin of neurosis in general is summarized in his late work
The Discomfort in Culture. Accordingly, to this work, the causes of neurotic symptoms lie not in a general sexual abuse of children, but in the abolition of the natural horde life and the method by which each generation since then taught the next to adopt the rules of coexistence known as totemism and–or morality. See also
Moses and Monotheism and
The Future of an Illusion.
The secrecy mechanism In the mid-1890s, he was still upholding his hypothesis of sexual abuse. In this context, he reported on fantasies of several patients, which on the one hand would point to memories of scenes of
infantile masturbation stored in the unconscious, while the more conscious parts on the other hand would aim to make these morally forbidden acts of childish pleasure unrecognizable, to cover them up. The interesting point for Freud here was not so much the secretiveness itself (a well-known behavior of
Victorian era), but the following twofold realization: a) That children – at that time considered as
innocent little angels – initiate pleasurable actions of their own accord; have 'drives' at all, as later assigned to the 'id'; and b) the presumably by moral aducation initiated emergence of a
psychopathological mechanism, whose ability consists in being able to hide impulses of this kind from one's own consciousness. Moral education declares them to be forbidden, imposing a
taboo which leads to a belief in guilt, even
original sin. This raised the question for Freud of the origin of moral prohibitions. A field of research that led him deep into the evolutionary and cultural (pre)history of mankind (see Darwin's primal horde; its abolition through patricide and introduction of monogamy in
Totem and Taboo) and which, by his own account, he had to leave unfinished as an untested hypothesis due to the lack of
primate research. as it formulated the realization that every dream contains a symbolically disguised message that can be decoded with the help of the dreamer's
free associations. The purpose of every dream is, therefore, to inform the dreamer about his complex inner situation: in essence, a conflict arising from the demands of innate needs and externally imposed behavioral rules that prohibit their satisfaction. Freud called the former the
primary process, taking place predominantly in the unconscious, and the latter the
secondary process of predominantly conscious, more or less coherent thoughts. metaphor. It is often used to illustrate the spatial relationship between Freud's first model and the new concepts (id, ego, superego), synthesising both into the structural model. Disadvantage: an iceberg contains no libidothe purpose-cause (source) of all drive-energetic dynamics and economy of the living soul (biological organism as a whole). Freud summarized this view in his first model of the soul. Known as the
topological model, it divides the organism into three areas or systems: the unconscious, the preconscious and the conscious. Sexual needs belong to the unconscious and are forced to remain there if the contents of the conscious mind ward them off. This is the case in societies that generally consider all extra- and premarital sexual activity (including homoeroticism, that of biblical
Onan and incest) to be a 'sin', passing this value on to the next generation through concrete or threatened punishments. Moral education creates fears of punitive violence or the deprivation of love in the child's soul. They are stored neuronally in the preconscious and influence consciousness in the sense of the imprinted rules of behavior. (Freud's second model of the soul,
the three-instance or structural model, introduces here a clearer distinction.
Topology is no longer the decisive factor, but the specific
function of each of the three instances. This new model did not replace the first one: it integrated it.)
The Interpretation of Dreams includes the first comprehensive conceptualization of
Oedipus complex: The little boy admires his father because of the mental and physical advantages of the adult man and wants to become like him, but also comes into conflict with him over the women around, cause of the
taboo of incest. This initiates – growing up from the id – anger that can escalate into a deadly urge for revenge against the father. Impulses that the little boy cannot act out (not least due to the child's deep dependence on his parents' love) and therefore are repressed into the unconscious. Symptomatically, this inner situation manifests itself as a feeling of inferiority, even a castration complex, genital phobia. The myth of Oedipus is about the attempt to liberate the 'amputated' potency of the id, but it fails because of the remaining unconscious motives. As the ego is overwhelmed by the punitive fear of the moral content of its 'preconscious' superego, it cuts off the instinctive desire for self-knowledge from itself (blinds itself). Attempts to find a female equivalent of the Oedipus complex have not yielded good results. According to Freud, girls, because of their anatomically different genitals, cannot identify with their father, nor develop a
castration phobia as sons do, so this syndrome seems to be reserved for the opposite sex. Feminist psychoanalysts like
Christiane Olivier debate whether the father of psychoanalysis might have been a victim of
sexism in this case. To compensate for their supposed shortcoming, they postulate a
Jocasta complex consisting of an
incestuous desire of mothers for their infant sons; but other analysts criticize this naming (and attempt of generalization), since Sophocles'
Jocasta in particular does not exhibit this behavior. (Instead, she gave her baby away to be killed, instigated by her husband and the oracle that a grown-up son would kill him.) The witch's special interest in
little Hansel – while she merely abuses his sister as a kitchen slave – offers much better evidence here, although it's still unclear whether such
Crunchy house syndrome can be as widespread in our form of society as the Oedipus itself.
Critics of the abuse thesis and psychoanalysis in general In the later part of the 20th century, several Freud researchers questioned the author's report that his very first patients had informed him of childhood sexual abuse. Some of the researchers argued that Freud had imposed his preconceived view on his patients, while others raised the suspicion of conscious forgery. These are two different arguments. The latter tries to prove that Freud deliberately lied in order to make the allegedly unfounded psychoanalysis appear as a legitimate science; the former assumes an unknowingly committed act (countertransference). Freud, aware of his retraction of the abuse thesis, replied at various places in his work in the same way to both types of argument: that natural science is a process based on
trial and error. A slow but sure becoming, in which it is impossible to have precisely defined concepts from the outset, respectively phenomena that from now on have been clarified without any gaps and contradictions. "Indeed, even physics would have missed out on its entire development if it had been forced to wait until its concepts of matter, energy, gravity and others reached the desirable clarity and precision." The psychologist
Frank Sulloway points out in his book
Freud, Biologist of the Mind: Beyond the Psychoanalytic Legend that the theories and hypotheses of psychoanalysis are anchored in the findings of contemporary biology. He mentions the profound influence of
Charles Darwin's theory of evolution on Freud and quotes this sense from the writings of
Haeckel,
Wilhelm Fliess,
Krafft-Ebing and
Havelock Ellis. • Oral (ages 0–2); • Anal (2–4); • Phallic-Oedipal or first genital (3–6); • Latency (6–puberty); and • Mature genital (puberty onward). in
Worcester, Massachusetts with Freud present, 6 September 1909. His early formulation included the idea that, because of societal restrictions, sexual wishes were repressed into an unconscious state, and that the energy of these unconscious wishes could result in anxiety or physical symptoms. Early treatment techniques, including hypnotism and
abreaction, were designed to make the unconscious conscious in order to relieve the pressure and the apparently resulting symptoms. This method would later on be left aside by Freud, giving free association a bigger role. In
On Narcissism (1914), Freud turned his attention to the titular subject of
narcissism. Freud characterized the difference between energy directed at the self versus energy directed at others using a system known as
cathexis. By 1917, in "
Mourning and Melancholia", he suggested that certain depressions were caused by turning guilt-ridden anger on the self. In 1919, through "A Child is Being Beaten", he began to address the problems of
self-destructive behavior and
sexual masochism. Based on his experience with depressed and self-destructive patients, and pondering the carnage of
World War I, Freud became dissatisfied with considering only oral and sexual motivations for behavior. By 1920, Freud addressed the power of identification (with the leader and with other members) in groups as a motivation for behavior in
Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. In that same year, Freud suggested his dual drive theory of sexuality and aggression in
Beyond the Pleasure Principle, to try to begin to explain human destructiveness. Also, it was the first appearance of his "structural theory" consisting of three new concepts
id, ego, and superego. Three years later, in 1923, he summarized the ideas of id, ego, and superego in
The Ego and the Id. In the book, he revised the whole theory of mental functioning, now considering that repression was only one of many defense mechanisms, and that it occurred to reduce anxiety. Hence, Freud characterized repression as both a cause and a result of anxiety. In 1926, in "Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety", Freud described how intrapsychic conflict between the drives and the superego caused anxiety, and how that anxiety could lead to the inhibition of mental functions such as intellect and speech. In 1924,
Otto Rank published
The Trauma of Birth, which analysed culture and philosophy in relation to separation anxiety which occurred before the development of an
Oedipal complex. Freud's theories, however, characterized no such phase. According to Freud, the Oedipus complex was at the centre of neurosis, and was the foundational source of all art, myth, religion, philosophy, therapy—indeed of all human culture and civilization. It was the first time that anyone in
Freud's inner circle had characterized something other than the Oedipus complex as contributing to intrapsychic development, a notion that was rejected by Freud and his followers at the time. By 1936 the "Principle of Multiple Function" was clarified by
Robert Waelder. He widened the formulation that psychological symptoms were caused by and relieved conflict simultaneously. Moreover, symptoms (such as
phobias and
compulsions) each represented elements of some drive wish (sexual and/or aggressive), superego, anxiety, reality, and defenses. Also in 1936,
Anna Freud, Sigmund's daughter, published her seminal book
The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense outlining numerous ways the mind could shut upsetting things out of consciousness.
1940s–present , Pierre Cotet, François Robert, Alain Rauzy and Janine Altounian in
France When
Hitler's power grew, the Freud family and many of their colleagues fled to London. Within a year, Sigmund Freud died. In the United States, also following the death of Freud, a new group of psychoanalysts began to explore the function of the ego. Led by
Heinz Hartmann, the group built upon understandings of the
synthetic function of the ego as a mediator in psychic functioning, distinguishing such from
autonomous ego functions (e.g. memory and intellect). These "ego psychologists" of the 1950s paved the way to focus analytic work by attending to the defenses (mediated by the ego) before exploring the deeper roots of the unconscious conflicts. In addition, there was growing interest in
child psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis has been used as a research tool in childhood development, and is still used to treat certain mental disturbances. In the 1960s, Freud's early thoughts on the childhood development of
female sexuality were challenged; this challenge led to the development of a variety of understandings of female sexual development, many of which modified the timing and normality of several of Freud's theories. Several researchers followed
Karen Horney's studies of societal pressures that influence the development of women. In the first decade of the 21st century, there were approximately 35 training institutes for psychoanalysis in the United States accredited by the
American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA), which is a component organization of the
International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA), and there are over 3000 graduated psychoanalysts practicing in the United States. The IPA accredits psychoanalytic training centers through such "component organizations" throughout the rest of the world, including countries such as Serbia, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and many others, as well as about six institutes directly in the United States.
Psychoanalysis as a movement Freud founded the
Psychological Wednesday Society in 1902, which
Edward Shorter argues was the beginning of psychoanalysis as a movement. This society became the
Vienna Psychoanalytic Society in 1908 in the same year as the first international congress of psychoanalysis held in Salzburg, Austria. The second congress of psychoanalysis took place in Nuremberg, Germany in 1910. A third congress was held in Weimar in 1911. The
London Psychoanalytical Society was founded in 1913 by
Ernest Jones.
Developments of alternative forms of psychotherapy Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) In the 1950s, psychoanalysis was the main modality of
psychotherapy. Behavioral models of psychotherapy started to assume a more central role in psychotherapy in the 1960s.
Aaron T. Beck, a psychiatrist trained in a psychoanalytic tradition, set out to test the psychoanalytic models of depression empirically and found that conscious ruminations of loss and personal failing were correlated with depression. He suggested that distorted and biased beliefs were a causal factor of depression, publishing an influential paper in 1967 after a decade of research using the construct of
schemas to explain the depression. Bowlby was trained psychoanalytically but was concerned about some properties of psychoanalysis; he was troubled by the dogmatism of psychoanalysis at the time, its arcane terminology, the lack of attention to environment in child behavior, and the concepts derived from talking therapy to child behavior. In response, he developed an alternative conceptualization of child behavior based on principles on
ethology. Bowlby's theory of attachment rejects Freud's model of
psychosexual development based on the Oedipal model. For his work, Bowlby was shunned from psychoanalytical circles who did not accept his theories. Nonetheless, his conceptualization was adopted widely by mother-infant research in the 1970s. ==Theories==