Freud’s
theories have had a great influence on the cultural life of this
century, probably much greater than that of any other doctrinal system.
The field where his ideas have encountered the greatest difficulties has
been that of his own terrain, Psychiatry. Psychoanalysis is still
polemical, although many of the current discoveries can be divided in
two main groups: those with exclusive orientation or very preferentially
psychoanalytic, and those that do not accept more than a few fragments
of psychoanalysis, considering the rest to be an “interpretive fantasy.”
To this latter group belong all the “official” European psychiatric
schools (universities).
We
can distinguish two aspects in psychoanalysis: psychoanalytic theory of
the human psyche, normal and pathological, and the psychoanalytic
technique as a psychotherapeutic method. Both are almost exclusive works
of the portentous mind of a single man, of such originality and keen
thinking that he was able to elaborate them against all the doctrines
and scientific prejudices of his era. Although in recent decades certain
theoretical aspects of the doctrine and those of the its practical
application have been modified and completed, it was elaborated and set
out by S. Freud in his books, published between 1910 and 1915.
Psychoanalytic Theory:
Psychoanalytic
theory has five conceptual pillars: topographic, genetic, dynamic,
economic and structural. The topographic concepts: contain the most
important contribution of psychoanalysis to modern psychology: the
discovery that psychic life is divided into conscious, preconscious and
subconscious strata. The psychic contents of the subconscious have a
large effect on the subject’s personality and behavior. They are not
directly appreciable (the individual is not aware of his subconscious
psychic life), but they can be divined and interpreted, through their
symbolic modes of expression: dreams (the “real path” for exploring the
subconscious, failed acts, mistakes and things forgotten) and neurotic
symptoms. Genetic concepts: Freud demonstrated that the ultimate
ethology of current behavioral disorders derive, in large part, from
remote psychic conflicts from early childhood. The modes of response and
human behavior are structured with the influence that all the incidents
of their life have over their biological constitution. Their entire
history plays a role in each new reaction and the modes of reacting vary
over the course of normal development, and this development may be set
at an intermediate phase or may regress to it due to the effect of
affective traumas, thus giving way to neurotic symptoms. The analysis of
these symptoms and the study of normal and neurotic children allowed
him to elaborate the psychoanalytic theory of development and its
stages, which are condensed in the theory of the development of the
libido and its phases; all normal children pass through three phases of
libido before the age of seven. The oral phase, which lasts from birth
until age one and a half; in it, the essential sources of pleasure are
centered in the mouth, the lips, the tongue and the stomach. The most
pleasant activity is sucking, to which biting is later added. The skin,
thermal sensations and bodily equilibrium are secondary sources of
pleasure. In this phase, the child does not differentiate itself well
from its surroundings, so its relationships with objects are basically
narcissistic and pre-ambivalent self-criticisms. In life, they are
manifested in pleasures associated with smoking, drinking and
non-genital physical sexual activities. Between one and a half and three
years of age they go through the anal phase, in which the greatest
source of pleasure shifts to the anus, the rectum and the bladder, and
the greatest sensual pleasures are those associated with the expulsion
of feces and urine, and later with their retention. The phallic phase or
genital phase ranges from three to seven years of age, and with it the
reactive differences between the two sexes begin. In boys, the pleasant
sensitivity of the penis begins and they go through a period of normal
masturbation. Simultaneously they realize that girls do not have a penis
and they interpret this as the consequence of a mutilation. They feel a
sexual inclination toward their mother and in their actions of
masturbation they associate their libidinous fantasies with her. Their
feelings toward the father, in whom they see a more powerful rival, are
charged with jealousy and hostility. The attraction towards the mother
and the hostility and fear toward the father were christened by Freud
with the name of the Oedipus complex and the feelings of guilt due to
their love for the mother and the wishes of death for the father awaken
castration anxiety, since this is imagined to be their punishment. The
anxious fear of castration and the feelings of guilt inhibit their
masturbation activities, which disappear along with the most intense
sexual fantasies, entering the latency period. In girls, the basic
conflictive situation arises from the discovery of their lack of a penis
(penis envy complex), whose absence they reproach the mother about,
from whom they detach in their affections, turning their love towards
the father (during some time this conflict was called the “Electra
complex,” but the name has ceased to be used, and the problem is
referred to as the “female Oedipal complex”).
The
sensitivity of the clitoris is awakened, which is the subject of
masturbation, which later stops, with all the emotional tensions and the
fantasies of the Oedipal complex, when faced with the fear of losing
her parents’ love, and the girl thus enters her latency phase. The
latency phase ranges from seven to twelve years. The resolution of the
Oedipal conflict and the development of the superego (moral norms,
concepts of good and bad, scale of values, etc.) shut off the sexual
tendencies, and aggressive impulses appear. In this phase, great
advances and efforts are being made in the field of learning and social
relations begin outside the family environment (groups of friends,
school). For the first time, there is admiration for individuals who do
not belong to the family. With puberty and the instinctive impulses
derived from their hormonal turbulence, the balance of the latency phase
is upset and new conflicts appear, which last throughout adolescence
(until twenty years of age), with alternate triumphs of the instinctive
tendencies of the superego or of the sense of reality. In the spiritual
realm, it is a stormy phase, with extreme positions of idealism,
romanticism, yearning for knowledge and rebellious attitudes. Blessed
are we, the youth who live off our dreams, although it is only in a
phase of our life! God wishes many of us to live eternally carrying out
those dreams and idealism, even though he bestows torment upon us and
also gives us great joys. The dynamic concepts: these envelop the
perpetual conflict between the instinctive tendencies, which urgently
require satisfaction, and the “counter-instinctive forces” (the
principle of reality and the superego), which are opposed to this demand
for pleasure. The individual may renounce their instinctive
gratification in exchange for salvaging their safety or self-esteem.
Life
is a battlefield in which the principle of pleasure and the principle
of reality are continually fighting. The structural concepts: these
assume a series of hypotheses of the division of the human psyche.
Independently from the three strata described above, conscious,
preconscious and subconscious, within a person there are three groups of
psychodynamic structures: the id, the ego and the superego. The id
feeds on all the instinctive tendencies, its original basis is somatic
and it is molded by environmental influences. The id operates on the
level of the subconscious and responds automatically to the principle of
pleasure; its instinctive tendencies seek immediate satisfaction,
despite reality and its consequences. The ego, or self, is the control
system of the psychic structure. It organizes and synthesizes thought,
memory and judgment, words and ideas and the sense of time and space.
The ego obeys the principle of reality, which means that it is capable
of postponing and sacrificing obtaining a pleasure with the aim of
achieving a greater one in the future. The superego is structured in a
later stage of development, in the genital phase, at the expense of the
resolution of the Oedipal conflict, of the facets of appreciation of the
parents and punishments and the rewards derived from them. It contains
the ethical norms, ideals and scale of values.
Critical Appreciation of Psychoanalysis:
All
types of opinions exist in this polemical wasps’ nest, and they are
almost always, are expressed with extremism and passion: A)
Psychoanalysis, due to its duration, price, relatively elevated mental
level required of the sick person and the number of people trained to
practice it, must be reserved for certain special cases. B)
Psychoanalysis goes beyond the purely curative mission that any
treatment must have and attempts a total transformation of the
personality, according to its sectarian criteria, for which in addition
to futile it is morally disputable. C) Psychoanalysis will allow for an
understanding of the subconscious, but it will not cure any sick person,
its extraordinary duration being what allows spontaneous remissions to
arise in these three years, falsely interpreted as the success of the
analytical technique. D) The remaining psychotherapies and the
biological treatments are those which only cure cases of spontaneous
remission. Only psychoanalysis has authentic therapeutic efficacy, both
regarding neurosis as well as psychosis. There is a little bit of truth
in each of these impassioned points of view.
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