Freuds House

Freud, 1856-1939, Austrian psychiatrist, founder of psychoanalysis

was born in Moravia.
This is a photo of his birth house. The name "Zajic" written on the
house is the last name of the family the Freuds rented the house from.
Sigmund's nurse "Nannie" was probably Monika Zajic, a relative of Mr.
J. Zajic, the locksmith, who owned the house and had a workshop
there.

Freuds Family

Freud's household in England consisted of himself and the women who

cared for him.
His wife Martha, her sister Minna Bernays, and their daughter Anna
were the immediate family and had formed the nucleus of Freud's
domestic circle since the marriage of the two older daughters, Mathilde
and Sophie, some 25 years earlier. The other members of the
household were Dorothy Burlingham, a pioneer of child psychoanalysis
and a close colleague of Anna Freud's; and Paula Fichtl, the
housekeeper who had been with the family since 1929.

Some of his most famous works

Some of Freuds most famous works are:

• The Interpretation of Dreams (1900)

• The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1904)
• The Ego and the Id (1923)
• Totem and Taboo (1913)
• Moses and Monotheism (1939)

As well as numerous essays on sexuality, psychiatry, the human

mind, and human behavior.
Although, many objected to his theories, the basic structure of
psychoanalysis as the study of unconscious mental processes is
still Freudian.

The ID

Freud noticed the many conflicts within thought and mental processes,
and the seeming battle between levels of consciousness led him to
define these forces. He identified three distinct forces, which he
referred to as the id, ego, and superego.
Freud defined the id as the drive within us to bring ourselves pleasure
(the pleasure principle). The id is concerned with satiating all basic
urges from thirst and hunger to sexual desire, and is determined to
attain satisfaction at any cost. People act on the id alone when first
born, and as time progresses, they learn to suppress these desires in
the interest of conventionality; they realize that a person cannot
merely have whatever he/she wants whenever he/she wants it, and
that the individual must act in accordance with society. A person who
is very spontaneous, hedonistic, or self-centered may be a product of
their id, and the inability/unwillingness to repress or suppress it. The
desires of the id are often placed in the subconscious, and can
manifest in dreams in order to bring about wish fulfillment, so that the
individual is not psychologically damaged by the constant suppression
of these thoughts and the inability to relieve the tension that causes.

The Ego

The ego is what brings about one's understanding that one is a part of
a society, and cannot always satisfy the urges of the id. The ego does
not necessarily ignore the id, but rather governs and controls it. It
often devises a plan to obtain that which the id desires; for example,
responding to hunger by waiting until lunch-time and going to the
store to buy a sandwich, the ego has satisfied the will of the id, but
done so in a controlled manner, rather than ravenously seeking out
food when hunger is first sensed. The ego is often seen as being
responsible for practical and rational decision making.

Freud as a Doctor and a Philosopher

Freud was both a medical doctor and a philosopher. As a doctor, he

was interested in charting how the human mind affected the body,
particularly in forms of mental illness, such as neurosis and hysteria,
and in finding ways to cure those mental illnesses. As a philosopher,
Freud was interested in looking at the relationship between mental
functioning and certain basic structures of civilization, such as religious
beliefs. Freud believed, and many people after him believe, that his
theories about how the mind worked uncovered some basic truths
about how an individual self is formed, and how culture and civilization
operate.
Sublimation

When Freud looks at civilization (which he does in Civilization and its

Discontents), he sees two fundamental principles at work, which he
calls the "pleasure principle" and the "reality principle." The pleasure
principle tells us to do whatever feels good; the reality principle tells
us to subordinate pleasure to what needs to be done, to work.
Subordinating the pleasure principle to the reality principle is done
through a psychological process Freud calls SUBLIMATION, where you
take desires that can't be fulfilled, or shouldn't be fulfilled, and turn
their energy into something useful and productive. A typical Freudian
example of this would focus on sex. Sex is pleasurable; the desire for
sexual pleasure, according to Freud, is one of the oldest and most
basic urges that all humans feel. (The desire for sexual pleasure
begins in early infancy, according to Freud. But humans can't just have
sex all the time. If we did, we'd never get any work done. So we have
to sublimate most of our desires for sexual pleasure, and turn that
sexual energy into something else--into writing a paper, for example,
or into playing sports. Freud says that, without the sublimation of our
sexual desires into more productive realms, there would be no
civilization.

According to Freud (in his book The Interpretation of Dreams), dreams

are symbolic fulfillment's of wishes that can't be fulfilled because
they've been repressed. Often these wishes can't even be expressed
directly in consciousness, because they are forbidden, so they come
out in dreams--but in strange ways, in ways that often hide or disguise
the true wish behind the dream.

Parapraxes

Another way into the unconscious besides dreams is what Freud calls
PARAPRAXES, or slips of the tongue; he discusses these in The
Psychopathology of Everyday Life. Such mistakes, including errors in
speech, reading, and writing, are not coincidences or accidents, Freud
says. Rather, they reveal something that has been repressed into the
unconscious. A third way into the unconscious is jokes, which Freud
says are always indicative of repressed wishes. He discusses this route
to the unconscious in Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious.

Conscious and Unconscious

One of Freud's initial theories on the levels of consciousness was that

there were merely two states: the conscious and the unconscious. He
emphasized the importance of those mental processes which took
place in the unconscious, as being responsible for many aspects of
human behavior; for instance, a man might think CONSCIOUSLY that
his bumping into a woman was purely accidental in nature, but
actually it may have actually been a manifestation of his
UNCONSCIOUS sexual desire for her, as he managed to invade her
intimate space and has brought his body into a sort of forceful contact
with hers.
Freud came to find this "black or white" definition of consciousness to
be unsuitable, however, and redefined his theory on consciousness,
incorporating a third level: the pre-conscious. The conscious level of
mental activity is the level on which all thought processes occur. What
one thinks, conceptualizes, or understands takes place on this level of
activity. The preconscious is where information is stored away, but is
easily obtainable. Fond memories and the knowledge of how to
perform day-to-day activities are examples of information stored at
this level. The unconscious is where memories and information are
stored which cannot be accessed readily. Most of a person's past
history is stored on this level of consciousness, as well as those
thoughts and memories which have been put out of mind in order to
preserve a person's mental stability and/or to prevent pain
(repressed).

Defense Mechanisms

The conflicts which exist between the id, ego, and superego
undoubtedly result in some degree of anxiety or stress. Without a
mechanism of protection against this anxiety, it could present a threat
to mental health and stability. To deal with anxiety, the ego employs
what are known as defense mechanisms. We often use these
mechanisms subconsciously in our lives, and it is normal and healthy
to do so - to a degree. To use defense mechanisms in excess is
unhealthy not only due to the fact that they require "psychic energy,"
and can eventually become stressful themselves, but excessive use of
defense mechanisms may lead to hiding from issues and problems as
opposed to dealing with them (also a significant source of anxiety).

DENIAL
This is one of the most common defense mechanisms. Denial is the act
of refusing to accept the realities of a situation. This can often prove
unhealthy when denial is not soon replaced by acceptance, because
the longer the gravity of a situation is ignored, the more serious it can
become; for example, if one is in denial a disease's diagnosis, the
disease may become worsen as it goes untreated. Disease is perhaps
the best example for this defense mechanism, as the diagnosis of a
disease is the most commonly denied reality, especially in cases where
the disease is fatal. In fact, denial is acknowledged as the first stage in
the process of death and dying (the five stages being denial, anger,
bargaining with God, depression, and acceptance, in that order)

FANTASY
Many are familiar with the act of fantasizing. Perhaps you work at a
stressful and tiresome job, dreaming of the day when you will run the
company and get to take it easy and order everyone else around.
Perhaps you watch an action movie and envision yourself as a daring
hero or heroine. These are examples of fantasy. Fantasy is a normal
and acceptable behavior, and can be positive in many ways, such as
providing a motivation to achieve. However, one must realize that
fantasy and reality are two separate entities, and that fantasizing will
neither resolve conflicts nor bring about self-improvement. One must
actively pursue the goals of fantasies in order for them to become
realities.

REACTION FORMATION
With this defense mechanism, the individual attempts to compensate
for an unacceptable impulse by displaying the TOTAL OPPOSITE of that
impulse in great excess. One can often identify the presence of a
reaction formation by an incredibly extreme portrayal of emotion,
especially if there seems to be in instantaneous change. For example,
as often seen in young children, a boy finds a female classmate to be
attractive, and grow to be quite fond of her. Afraid of the fact that his
male friends may laugh at or insult him for admitting his desire, he
becomes verbally and even physically abusive to her, and begins to
treat her with such disrespect that it's as if she is the embodiment of
all that angers him. He may even convince himself that he actually
hates the girl. However, though the pressures and anxieties that would
have come with admitting his desire are now absent, his desire
remains latent and unresolved. It is for this reason of a failure to bring
about resolution that reaction formations can prove to be dangerous.

DISPLACEMENT
This is another of the most common defense mechanisms. This occurs
as a result of repression. When one is not able to release stress, or
satisfy the urges of the id, due to circumstance, the resulting anxiety
is often displaced onto another person or object innocent of any
wrongdoing and disconnected for the situation. Most commonly,
displacement takes the form of outward physical or verbal aggression.
For example, a boy punished by a teacher at school may deal with his
anger toward the teacher by going home and hitting his sister. A
stereotypical act of displacement (one which is truly all too common in
society) is that of an individual coming home from a job in which
he/she has been dominated and stressed by an employer, and dealing
with the resulting anger by abusing his/her family physically and/or
emotionally, and demanding to be served and waited on.

REGRESSION
Regression is the method of reverting back to a behavior that was
comforting, enjoyable, or protective in youth. Sometimes the behavior
is less "child-like," in that it demonstrates a youthful innocence or free
will, than it is "childish," immature and inappropriate. The commonality
of this particular mechanism is much greater in younger individuals. It
is most common for very young children to revert back to behaviors
from their infant years when they feel a need to acquire attention, or
feel that their sense of undivided love is threatened. An only child
would be more susceptible to this, as this "center of attention" feeling
they are used to is no longer possible. Events that might bring about
such an act of regression in a child are the remarriage of a parent after
divorce, or even that parent beginning to date again. The child may
begin to whine or cry more often, or begin bedwetting. Adults are
most susceptible to this after severe traumatic experiences, sometimes
curling into the fetal position or sucking thumbs, or playing with dolls
etc.

RATIONALIZATION
In rationalization, one tries to find a reason or excuse for one's
behavior which is more acceptable to the ego and superego. Again,
one often fabricates a great deal of information as opposed to facing
the reality of a situation. This particular defense mechanism works
extremely well as it totally rids the individual of any sense of guilt,
remorse, or responsibility; therefore, it must be avoided as it tempts
the individual to hide from reality. For example, a woman is fired for
missing an excessive amount of days at work without explanation, and
for poor performance while she was on the job. The real cause of the
problem is the woman's alcoholism, but she rationalizes that it was
due to the fact that her boss hated her, the other employees felt
threatened by her ability, and that the company discriminates heavily
on the basis of sex.

PROJECTION
Projection is similar to denial in that one is unwilling to accept the
realities of one's own self. In projection, the faults and shortcomings,
the taboo urges, of an individual are seen not as present in one's self,
but rather in others. Often, it is the URGE to perform an unacceptable
deed, the will of the id which the ego and superego will not permit an
individual to perform, which is seen as present in others. One's
inability to commit an act, and the urge's subsequent repression, can
manifest itself this way. For example, an employee at a convenience
store considers overcharging customers for items, and keeping the
difference for himself, but thinks better of it and decides against it.
Suddenly, the employee begins to notice that all of the other workers
are doing just that: grossly overcharging customers and pocketing the
money. Another good example would be that of a man feeling
extremely hateful towards a relative over a petty conflict, but then
reluctantly deciding to forget the incident ever happened. The man
then begins to feel that his family no longer loves him, or wishes to do
him harm.

REPRESSION
This is the most common of the defense mechanisms, and the basis for
many of Freud's theories. Repression is essentially forgetting, but it is
not as if the information is disposed of permanently; rather, the
information is tucked away into the subconscious and has the potential
to resurface violently at any moment. The forgetting is used for
defense as it protects the individual from consciously dealing with
painful circumstances and events. Sometimes the act of repression is
referred to as "blacking/blocking out." Certain painful events, ranging
from blocks of minutes to hours to days to years, can be "lost," no
recollection of the is possible through conscious effort. Incidents of
experiencing or witnessing physical pain and/or violence are often
forgotten, but significantly traumatic emotional experiences can be
blocked as well. Some instances of repression fall under the category
of parapraxes as well, such as the forgetting of appointments and
names.