What are the Concepts and Principles of Psychoanalysis: Introduction to the Topic

What are the concepts and principles of psychoanalysis? In this Introduction paper will be an attemp to asnwer this quastion. To start with, for psychoanalytic thought, “irrational and violent conflict is not an anomaly of the human condition but forms the very core of it”. Psychoanalytic thought came from the ground-breaking work of Professor Sigmund Freud who used it as a therapy to help people with hysteria and phobias, theorising that it was the human unconscious that held the key to recovery. If his patients were to relax, he could get them to expose these fears and instincts and could determine the cause of their hysteria and phobias to encourage them to recovery.  It is this same theory of psychoanalysis that remains in use by many psychologists, especially by social psychologists to work out how people, groups and societies work and function. This led to the basis of contemporary psychoanalysis, psychodynamic theories, and psychotherapies.

The book “Studies in Hysteria”, by Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud brought psychoanalysis to the public domain. The book signals Freud's move from physician to become a psychoanalyst:  the tool of therapy is talk, rather than medicine'.

Freud stated these memories were part of the mind's unconscious, hidden away due to anxiety that Freud believed where irrational, violent and taboo sexual instincts lurk, kept at bay by the conscious mind. These were part of what he called the bestial self which, when asleep or daydreaming, filter through the conscious mind as dreams, nightmares and slips of the tongue, from which he states it keeps the bestial self in control. This gives rise to the notion of the Id, ego, and super ego. He would later publish the book 'Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious', revealing more of the relationship between the true conscious and unconscious mind.

Freud also put forward the theory the “pleasure principle”: standing for satisfying instinctual or the irrational, violent and destructive urges, also seen by Freud as the “Id” and the reality principle i.e., standing for reality or the super-ego. The former has not changed with instinctual urges striving to get out, while the latter was to acquire a more social aspect rather than the natural one. Though, in doing this, it was seen as taming the ego and subduing the libido. This was seen in his later work that highlighted the ultimate progress of human civilisation. It can be seen, that as the conscious fought its external battles, the unconscious strived to deal with its own internal conflicts i.e. that of the Id, ego, and the super-ego. 

Freud viewed the Id as (the self) or the unconscious which included the libido, or the sexual drive, controlled by the ego. This showed what formed the drives that Freud determined drove the human soul. These drives, Freud said, were instinctive behaviours inherited from our fore bearers and were kept in our unconscious mind. Those instincts, such as irrational fear, violence and destruction were part of the everyday life of our ancestors. These irrational, violent and destructive urges are not an anomaly of the human psyche, rather they form the very core of what humans are. However, these drives and instincts are under the control of the super ego, which kept irrational, and at times, violent and destructive urges under control. The super ego was constructed from social norms and rules about social behaviour taught to the person by parents, and then society itself when they became adults.

These theories developed over time, and even while Freud was alive there were those who disagreed with his ideas and theories. This meant psychology and psychoanalysis parted ways, which the psychological world looked on psychoanalysis as being unscientific, and, as the theories could not be disproven, it wrote them off as useless, and unimportant.  

Many perceive Freud's work as a simple matter of talking to people and getting them to relax, ultimately revealing inner thoughts, fears, and anxieties. He would then use this analysis to work out what was causing the patients' hysteria or phobias to help them overcome their problems. He later wrote “Group Psychology and the Analysis of Ego”, which revealed the psychology behind a group, the people who would be part of it and how they thought i.e., the ego of the members of the group. Although Freud had his critics, he also had his supporters who thought he was a radical thinker. “Freud identified with others notably women, homosexuals and mad people without the discursive support that we have today'.  As others have put forward their theories, Freudâ's theories on psychoanalysis and psychodynamics, where the unconscious blends with the conscious mind, are as relevant today as when his theory originated. Yet, Freud continued to develop his theories, changing, reviewing, and striving to advance his knowledge and learning of the human psyche. Even today the theory of psychoanalysis is still useful to social psychology. 

Some academics believe that psychoanalysis and social psychology cannot work together, as social psychology is an academic discipline, whereas psychoanalysis or psychodynamic therapy is seen as a therapeutic technique, and the knowledge stemming from this is a matter of validity and subjectivity of the context, from which the interpretation of how this knowledge can be proven. However, a case study taken from an empirical research project shows a revealing connection made between psychoanalytic thought and social psychology. This is evidenced by the Israeli-Palestine conflict, between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs, and self-identifying Palestinians who are also citizens of Israel “but are caught somewhere in between”. One feature of the conflict is the “passionate” destructive irrationality of the bloodshed. It is this irrationality that plays an important part in how people, no matter which side they are on, make sense of the conflict and violence. To understand the violent destructiveness of the conflict, participants and supporters of each side point to the 'other' side. This seems to be understood by both sides as “we” Israelis or Palestinians, are peaceful and rational and  'those' Palestinians or Israelis are violent and irrational, thus demonstrating that the conflict can be seen as a “split” state of affairs, with one side being seen as purely rational and peaceful, and the other as irrational and violent.

This asks how this “passionate” state of affairs can be understood, and why is such a reality split, with blame for the violence placed on one side while the other is absolved as totally innocent. It is here, possibly, that a psycho dynamically informed social psychology could be seen as useful, by using psychoanalysis in the way of a form of talking therapy to get both sides to begin to understand why the other side feels the way it does, and why they are acting in such an irrational and violent way. 

Different aspects of psychoanalysis and social psychology show that, as much as there are different aspects to why there should not be a link between psychoanalysis and social psychology, there are also some reasons for the link between the two, as exemplified in some of Freud's work. Such theories as repression form the basis of our unconscious mind, as well as how some thoughts are kept in our unconscious mind. This can best be highlighted in the previously shown example of serious events such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the passionate and irrational violence that continues to go on between the two sides to this day. 

If there was some psychoanalysis applied to the problem, there may be a way to help resolve the conflict. It could be that psychoanalysis could be of use to contemporary social psychology in working out what is really going on in this bitter conflict. This also shows that irrational and violent conflict lies at the core of human behaviour. As Freud has shown, these drives are what truly control the human soul, as 'we are not even masters in our own house', and are controlled by forces in our unconscious mind that we have no conscious control over. Yet, this is kept in control by the super ego, guided by the reality principle, which when studied through the view of social psychology, can be used to understand why people behave in the way they do, therefore showing how psychoanalytic thought can be evaluated to be of benefit to social psychology.

References.

• Freud, S. (1940) An Outline of Psycho-Analysis. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume 23, London, Vintage, pp. 141'207 (this edition 2001).
• Freud, S. (1923) The Ego and the Id. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume 19, London, Vintage, pp. 3'66 (this edition 2001).
• Freud, S. and Breuer, J. (1895) Studies in Hysteria. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume 2, London, Vintage (this edition 2001).
• Freud, S. (1905b) Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume 8, London, Vintage (this edition 2001).
• Freud, S. (1921) Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume 18, London, Vintage, pp. 67'144 (this edition 2001).
• Freud, S. (1920) Beyond the Pleasure Principle. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume 18, London, Vintage, pp. 7'64 (this edition 2001).
• Kaposi, D. (2014) Violence and Understanding in Gaza: The British Broadsheets' Coverage of the War, London, Palgrave Macmillan
• Kaposi, D. (2017) DD317 Advancing Social Psychology: Block2,section 5, Chp. 13-15. The Open University, Milton Keynes. Week 23 study guide: Encountering Sigmund Freud (open.ac.uk) Accessed 02042021.
• Hollway, W. (2006) Professor of Psychology and co-director of the Research Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance at the Open University. Psychoanalysis in social psychological research | The Psychologist (bps.org.uk). Accessed 16042021.