By convention, the birth of psychoanalysis is dated with the first comprehensive interpretation of a dream written by Freud: it was a personal dream of his from the night between 23 and 24 July 1895, and also reported in “ The Interpretation of Dreams ” (1899) as “ the dream of Irma's injection ”. “ History of Psychoanalysis ” collects the historical account of that vast movement of thought which made its debut at the dawn of the twentieth century and had its starting point in the work of the Viennese doctor Sigmund Freud .
Discovering the unconscious
The unconscious It is one of the most interesting concepts in psychology. It seems to contain our entire experience of reality, even if it appears beyond our awareness and control. It is the place where we keep all our memories, pensieri and feelingsThe concept fascinated neurologist Sigmund Freud, who wanted to find out if it was possible to explain things that, at the time, seemed beyond the confines of psychology. Those who had begun to examine the unconscious feared that it might contain psychic activity too powerful, too frightening, or too incomprehensible for our conscious mind to absorb. Freud's work on the subject was pioneering. He described the structure of the mind as formed by the consciousness, From 'unconscious and from preconscious, and popularized the idea of the unconscious, introducing the concept that it was that part of the mind that defines and explains the workings behind our ability to think and experience.
Our daily mind
It's easy to take for granted the reality of consciousness and naively believe that what we think, feel, remember and experience makes up the whole of human mind. Freud says instead that the active state of consciousness, that is, the operating mind of which we are directly aware in our everyday mind, is only a fraction of the complex of psychological forces that operate in our psychic realityConsciousness exists at a superficial level, to which we have easy and immediate access. Beneath consciousness lies the powerful dimension of the unconscious, the storehouse that dictates our behavior and our active cognitive state. Consciousness is actually a puppet in the hands of the unconscious. The conscious mind is merely the surface of a complex psychic world. Everything that is conscious, that we actively know, was unconscious before it surfaced. But not everything becomes known: much of what is unconscious remains unconsciousMemories that aren't in our everyday working memory, but haven't been repressed, reside in a part of the conscious mind that Freud called the preconscious. We can bring these memories into consciousness at any time. The unconscious acts as a receptacle for ideas or memories that are too intense, too painful, or otherwise too difficult for the conscious mind to process. Freud believed that when certain ideas or memories (and the emotions associated with them) threaten to overwhelm the psyche, they are removed from memory accessible to the conscious mind and stored in the unconscious.
The motivating impulses
The unconscious is also the place where our thoughts reside. instinctive biological drivesDrives govern behavior, directing us towards choices that promise to satisfy our basic needs, and ensure our survival: the need for food e water; the sexual desire to ensure the continuation of the species; the need for find warmth, shelter e compagnia. But Freud states that the unconscious also contains a contrary impulse, the death drive which is present from birth. It is a self-destructive impulse that pushes us to move forward, even if doing so brings us closer to death. In his later works, Freud moved away from the idea that the mind was structured into conscious, unconscious, and preconscious, to propose a new control structure: the id, the ego, and the superego.Es (formed by primitive drives) obeys the pleasure principle, which says that every impulse of desire must be immediately gratified: he wants everything now. Another part of the mental structure, theIo, instead recognizes the reality principle, which says that we cannot have everything we want, but we must take into account the world we live in. The Ego negotiates with the Id, trying to find reasonable ways to help it get what it wants, without causing harm. The Ego is in turn controlled by the Super I., the internalized voice of the parents and of the moral code of society. The Superego is a judging force and the source of our consciousness, of the guilt and shame.
Accessing the unconscious
Other well-known ways the unconscious reveals itself are Freudian slips and the process of free association. A Freudian slip is a verbal error that Freud believed reveals a repressed belief , thought , or emotion . It involves the involuntary substitution of one word for another that sounds similar, but which inadvertently reveals something the person actually feels. Freud used the technique of free association (developed by Jung), in which the patient, upon hearing a word, is asked by the therapist to say the first word that comes to mind. Freud believed that this process allows the unconscious to break through, since our minds use automatic associations , and thus hidden thoughts find expression before the conscious mind has a way to prevent them.
The school of psychoanalysis
Freud founded the important Vienna Psychoanalytic Society , through which he exerted a powerful influence on the mental health community of the time, training other therapists and acting as the undisputed authority on what was and was not acceptable practice. Over time, some of his disciples and practitioners modified his ideas, eventually splitting the Psychoanalytic Society into three: the Freudians (who remained faithful to Freud's original thinking), the Kleinians (followers of Melanie Klein's ideas), and the Neo-Freudians (a group that incorporated Freud's ideas into a broader therapeutic practice). Freud's ideas still influence every type of contemporary therapy administered by all psychologists and psychotherapists.
Gianni Broggi
