Reflections on Treatment Options

History and Philosophy of Psychology, First Edition. Man Cheung Chung and Michael E. Hyland. © 2012 Man Cheung Chung and Michael E. Hyland. Published 2012 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

9

The Unconscious Mind Freud and Jung

and the ‘Talking Cure’

When a person in the street is asked to name a famous psychologist, they are likely to name Freud. No-one is likely to mention Wundt, and yet Wundt not Freud is described as the founder of scientific psychology. There are several reasons for the importance of Freud in popular psychology in contrast to scientific psychology. One reason has to do with the purpose of psychology. Freud practiced as a talking and listening therapist, that is, as a psychotherapist, and he played an immensely important role as an early psychotherapist. However, he was never trained as a psychologist, and never saw himself as a psychologist. The early psychologists were not psychotherapists. They were interested in perception, not mental illness. There was a fundamental distinction between psychology and psychotherapy in the his- tory of psychology. This chapter covers two different contributors to psychotherapy, both of whom believed in the existence of the unconscious mind: Freud and Jung. Other contributors and colleagues of Freud and Jung will be described briefly.

In the 19th century when Freud started practising, there were limited approaches to managing mentally ill people. If people were seriously disturbed (what nowadays would be described as schizophrenic) they would be incarcerated in an asylum to protect themselves and others. However, if people were not seriously disturbed but had what were then described as ‘nervous illness’ they remained at home and were treated in a variety of ways, including hypnosis. Freud worked with people who had ‘nervous illness.’ The large institutions for the mentally ill that were built in the 19th century were not emptied by Freud’s treatment, but the fact it helped any people at all was seen as a great advance. Mental illness was and remains a difficult illness to treat, and even today powerful drug treatments simply suppress symptoms rather than actually ‘cure’ the patient. That Freud could take a patient with symptoms and actually cure some of them was an immense achievement. We should bear this point in mind because Freud and his theory have often (and quite

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legitimately) been criticized. And although the talking cure may work for reasons which are quite different from those Freud suggested, the fact that the cure was suggested by him is a notable achievement (Ellenberger, 1970).

Freud

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), or Sigismund Schlomo Freud as he is named in the family Bible, was born in Freiburg, Moravia (now part of the Czech Republic). Freud’s family were Jewish, and the family moved to Leipzig in 1859 partly for business reasons and partly in response to anti-Jewish feeling including pogroms (from the Russian word, meaning ‘devastation’) which were greater in Moravia. The family moved to Vienna in 1860. Freud lived in Vienna until 1938 when he emigrated to London to escape Nazi persecution. Many of his relatives, including his sisters died in the holocaust. Freud was a heavy smoker, and considered himself addicted to smoking. He spent the final 45 years of his life trying unsuccessfully to give it up, and died from cancer of the throat – which was almost certainly the consequence of his smoking.

A gifted student, Freud entered the University of Vienna at the age of 17 to study medicine. After initial study, a grant from his zoology professor enabled him to develop his research interests in physiology. He tried to discover the location of the testes of eels, and later studied the cells of the spinal cord. Freud received his MD in 1881 and worked his way up the ranks until he was appointed Professor of Physiology (Frixione, 2003). At this point, Freud decided to change careers to become a physician. There were several reasons to this choice. Partly, this was because academic salary, unless supplemented by private tuition, was compara- tively poor. In addition he was Jewish, and this would also have hampered a research career in an academic institution, but not a career in medicine as a private practitioner (Gay, 1988; Kahn, 2002).

So Freud worked in the General Hospital of Vienna, to gain the experience necessary to go into private practice, and in 1885, he was appointed a Privatdozent a highly respected position. In the late 1870s Freud had met and worked with Josef Breuer, a Viennese physician who befriended him and helped him gain clinical experience, and Freud also studied psychopathology under Jean Charcot in Paris in 1886. Charcot delivered lectures which widely attended by people from across the world including William James (Charcot, 1877/1991). Charcot was particularly interested in the disease then called Hysteria – where a person was unable to use an arm or leg, but the limb was otherwise healthy. These patients, often ladies, suffered from symptoms described variously at the time as the vapours, palpitations, swooning, neurasthenia, and paralysis (Drinka, 1984). Charcot believed that hysteria was caused by degeneration of the nervous system which had a hereditary basis and led to susceptibility to hypnosis.

One of Charcot’s students, Pierre Janet (1859–1947) believed that when painful thoughts and feeling became unavailable to consciousness, then this could lead to

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hysterical symptoms. Janet believed that hysterical symptoms had their origins in trauma which could no longer be remembered by the patient. That is, a defining characteristic of the hysteric was an inability to remember the traumatic event which brought on the symptoms. The idea of psychic trauma therefore predates Freud’s own theories of the repression of traumatic events (Libbrect and Quackelbeen, 1995).

Box 9.1 The Biological Basis for Mental Illness

Jean Charcot was a neurologist by training and believed that hysteria had biological basis. Prior to the development of psychoanalysis, Freud also adopted the same assumption in his Project for a Scientific Psychology (Freud, 1895) where he hoped to be able to show a link between the nervous system and psychic phenomena. Freud abandoned this idea without completing it in 1896 or 1897. Looking back, we can see that his failure was in part due to lack of understanding of the brain and a methodology, such as fRMI which nowadays provides insights into the relationship between mental phenomena and the brain. The Soviet neurologist A.R. Luria (1902–1977) became interested in psychoanalysis in the 1920s and proposed an integration between neurology and psychoanalysis (Gillett, 2003; Solms, 2000). With the modern rise of cognitive neuroscience, the modern view is far more accepting of a link between psychological and neurological theories. Nevertheless, the link between mental disease and underlying biology remains challenging even today. For example, although students of medicine and psychology are taught that depression is caused by lack of serotonin in the brain, that explanation is widely disputed (Lacasse and Leo, 2005) and inconsistent with the weak efficacy of serotonin enhancing medication (Kirsch, 2009).

In addition to working with Charcot and Breuer, Freud was formed a friendship with Wilhelm Fliess (1858–1928). In a letter to Fliess, Freud describes his feelings about the death of his father, likening his feelings to that of Hamlet. This letter shows the beginnings of an idea which was to emerge as the Oedipus complex – that boys were jealous of and had sexual feelings towards their mothers (Olry and Haines, 2007).

Fliess, like the majority of people in the 19th century, believed in a biological explanation for mental illness. However, in Fliess’s case, he believed the cause was in the nose. Fliess believed that it was necessary to operate and correct defective noses in order to cure mental illness. Freud referred one of his patients, Emma Eckstein, to Fliess for treatment. Emma had premenstrual depression. However, the operation went wrong and Emma continued to bleed, almost causing her to die. On referral to another surgeon, it was discovered that Fliess had left a piece of

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gauze in Emma’s nose. Freud would have been well aware that this biological treatment of mental illness was not effective.

Freud was particularly influenced by a patient of Breuer’s known as Anna O, a young woman whose psychiatric symptoms were helped when she was able to talk about her experiences under hypnosis. After gaining experience in the hospital, Freud began working in private practice. Because of his perceived success of Anna O using hypnosis, he tried to used that method with other patients, but found that whereas some patients were able to enter a hypnotic trance, for others the trance was too shallow to enable the patient to recover the experiences that seemed to be the cause of the problem. Freud found that rather than rely on hypnosis, it was enough for the patient to lie comfortably on a couch and let their mind wander. Eventually Freud developed the method of free association which was a structured way of allowing the mind wander and which replaced the method of hypnosis. He also used the analysis of dreams as another way of finding out about the unconscious mind. At the same time Freud began to develop his theory, more of which later.

Box 9.3 The Case of Anna O

Anna O was really Bertha Pappenheim, a young Jewish woman who developed symptoms that included a nervous cough while caring for her seriously ill father. Because of her cough, Anna was prevented from caring for her father. She first visited Breuer in 1880. Her symptoms progressed, including paralysis and mood fluctuation, deteriorating still further, including anorexia, when her father died in 1881. By recalling and talking about the events which first brought about those symptoms, the symptoms disappeared. Breuer and Freud wrote in their first paper in Studies on Hysteria (Breuer and Freud, 1895/1955).

Box 9.2 Freud and His Father

Sigmund Freud’s relationship with his father was complex. First, Freud’s father was 20  years older than his mother. Freud’s mother was his father’s third wife. Freud had two elder brothers, and Freud wrote in 1924 that one of these brothers, Philipp, had taken his father’s place as the rival for his mother. So  there were four players not three in Freud’s experience of the Oedipus complex! (Fuchsman, 2004)

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One important component of Freud’s theory was the ‘seduction hypothesis’, which was the hypothesis that mental problems in women were often the result of sexual experiences when they were children, and where the sexual experience had been initiated by adults, often fathers or uncles. One reason Freud developed this hypothesis was that women often report such experiences under hypnosis or that these experiences were suggested by his method of free association. When Freud suggested that sex was the basis for mental illness, the response of others was very negative. Later, Freud was to suggest that the early childhood sexual experiences were imaginary rather than real, though he still maintained that childhood trauma was responsible for later mental problems (see Box 9.4). In view of later evidence that child abuse is real, there has been considerable debate over the extent to which Freud changed his ideas on the basis of social pressures around him, and the extent to which these social pressures existed (Esterson, 2002a, 2002b; Gleaves and Hernadez, 1999; Masson, 1984; Rand and Torok, 1995).

However, there is another possible reason why Freud explained hysteria in terms of a sexual aetiology in contrast to the previous view that it was degeneration of  the nerves which had a hereditary basis. Although Freud had had a warm

‘For we found to our great surprise at first, that each individual hysterical symptom immediately and permanently disappeared when we had succeeded in bringing clearly to light the memory of the event by which it was provoked and in arousing the companying affect, and when the patient had described that event in the greatest possible detail and had put the affect into words.’

They concluded:

‘Hysterics suffer mainly from reminiscences.’ (Ellenberger, 1972)

In fact the case is far more complex that often cited. First, the written record of this case appears 13 years after the case ended, based on the patient’s notes. Second, Anna was prescribed morphine and chloral hydrate (probably by Breuer and Freud, because these were common prescriptions at the time), and she was maintained on these drugs till she recovered. Third, despite the talking cure supposedly working, she was hospitalized in 1881. It was only in 1882 when she was in a hospital that any attempt was made to wean her off the drugs – which may have been contributing to the worsening of her symptoms in the first place.

Ramos (2003) says ‘After a review of Bertha’s clinical picture, it is clear that the vast majority of her symptoms …. are compatible with dependence on a nonbarbiturate sedative and narcotics.’ (p. 246)

An alternative interpretation to that given by Breuer and Freud is that it was not the talking cure which worked – but the removal of drugs which had such harmful effects (Ramos, 2003).

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relationship with both Charcot and Breuer, his relationship with these men cooled  – for reasons Freud never described. However, a possible reason is that Charcot and Breuer may have felt, as did many at that time, that Jews had a genetic tendency towards degeneration and nervous diseases, and Freud, who was Jewish, may have felt uncomfortable with this anti-Semitic view (note this view of Jewish genetic degeneration was later used by Hitler). Hence, Freud looked an alternative to the hereditary cause of madness which was one dominant model of the late 19th century (Roith, 2008). It is worth mentioning that Freud’s relationship with Fliess, another of his early contacts also broke down. The breaking up of relationships was not an unusual feature of Freud’s life.

Box 9.4 Two Examples of Freud Explaining Hysteria in Terms of a Sexual Aetiology:

Dora and the Wolf Man

The case study of Dora (real name Ida Bauer) was published by Freud in 1901 and represents a good example of work with young women. Dora was a hysterical girl of 18 years old, who was depressed and had episodes when she lost her voice. By all accounts her family life was chaotic – including a father who was having an affair with the couple for whom she baby sat, and where the husband of the couple propositioned her from the age of 14. Freud analysed her dreams and interpreted her problems as being due to repressed desire for her father, and both members of the couple for whom she babysat. Dora rejected this interpretation and ceased analysis. However, later she came back without symptoms, accepting there was some truth in what Freud had said. Others have suggested that this case illustrates that Dora got better when she matured sufficiently to stand up to Freud and the cast of dysfunctional characters who made up her life (Decker, 1991).

The case study of the ‘Wolf Man’ (Sergei Pankejeff ) is another case where Freud provides a sexual interpretation. Sergei came to Freud because he was very depressed and constipated. The label Wolf Man comes from a dream reported by Sergei where he saw six or seven white wolves outside his bedroom window. He was afraid of being eaten by the wolves, screamed, and woke up. Freud interpreted this dream as being caused by Sergei seeing his parents having sexual intercourse (from behind – i.e. in the position adopted by dogs) – though he later suggested that Sergei might have witnessed copulation between animals which then generalized to his parents. Sergei was not impressed by this interpretation. After all, young children in well-off families did not sleep in the room of their parents but with a nanny. Freud claimed to have cured Sergei, but the evidence suggests that Sergei was in and out of treatment throughout his life (May, 1990).

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Freud also believed that the therapeutic relationship was important to the therapeutic process. This realization dawned on him when a female patient suddenly embraced him. Other clinicians of the time had responded negatively to these events, now known as transference, but Freud thought it an important part of  the therapeutic process and proof of the sexual basis of mental illness. In addition, Freud introduced the idea of counter-transference where the clinician develops feelings that are part of the therapeutic encounter. Freud believed that clinicians should recognize and resist these feelings which were the result of the effect of the patient on the clinician’s unconscious.

Box 9.5 Freud on Transference

The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement: ‘The fact that a grossly sexual, tender or inimical, transference occurs in every treatment of a neurosis, although this was neither desired nor induced by either party, has, for me, always seemed to be the most unshakable proof that the forces of the neuroses originate in the sexual life. This argument has surely not been seriously enough considered, for if it were, there would be no question as to where the investigation would tend. For my own conviction, it has remained decisive over and above the special results of the work of the analysis.’ (Freud, 1914/1917, p. 5)

Freud carried out psychoanalysis on himself (a fact which undoubtedly influenced his theory – he has been described as an obsessional neurotic). He also believed that to become a psychoanalyst it was necessary to be psychoanalysed, in particular to be aware of the effects of counter-transference. Consequently, psychoanalysis becomes somewhat of a club where people had undergone the rather lengthy period of psychoanalysis in order to join.

Both the idea of a sexual origin of mental illness and issues of transference and counter-transference were deeply upsetting to the respectable, Victorian establishment within which Freud was working. In fact, Breuer stopped working with Freud because he found the sexual element of the therapy too disconcerting. At least, that was Freud’s interpretation of the break down in their relationship. In describing their split, Freud noted that Breuer failed to recognize the sexual connotation of the case of Anna O and went on to write: ‘When I later began more and more resolutely to put forward the significance of sexuality in the aetiology of neuroses, he was the first to show the reaction of distaste and repudiation which was later to become too familiar to me, but which at that time I  had not yet learnt to recognize as my inevitable fate.’ (cited in Forrester and Cameron, 1999)

Freud must therefore be credited with developing his own theory, despite it being inconsistent with the values of the society of its time. Because Freud’s theory

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is often lampooned, it is worth mentioning that Freud developed his theory with some personal bravery. He was well aware that many people, including his intimate friends, began to avoid him when he proposed that mental illness had a sexual aetiology. In the following sections we describe the ideas developed by Freud.

Psychoanalysis

Freud is often described as the father of psychoanalysis, because many other contributors contributed to this work both in his lifetime and afterwards. Psychoanalysis is a theory of personality, a method for studying the mind, and a method for treatment. Freud was a prolific writer and his major works have been collected together in 23 volumes (Freud, 1892–1940, vols 1–23).

Structure of the mind

Freud suggested two different types of structural system in the mind. The first was  the distinction between the unconscious and conscious. The second was the  distinction between the ego, superego and id. We start by considering the  unconscious.

One of Freud’s great achievements was his suggestion that there is, in addition to the conscious mind, an unconscious mind. Like many advances in science, there were antecedents. For example, the philosopher Eduard von Hartmann had published a book in 1869 with the title Philosophy of the Unconscious. However, Freud not only suggested that there was an unconscious but showed how the unconscious could have effects on everyday life (Capps, 1970). Freud’s unique achievement, therefore, was that he showed the relevance of the unconscious to everyday life.

The idea of an unconscious was diametrically opposed to the psychology of the day. Wundt had defined psychology in terms of the conscious mind. The idea that there are mental contents (i.e. mind descriptions) which are not available to introspection, was an entirely novel way of conceptualizing what we mean by ‘mind’. Mind is not just the conscious bits, but also all the other bits that a person does not have access to. Freud also believed that the unconscious was far more important in determining behaviour than the conscious. Thus, not only did he suggest the existence of an unconscious mind, but he also suggested that the unconscious mind was important.

The idea of the unconscious mind raises conceptual and scientific problems. You, the participant, know what is in your conscious mind, because you are aware of the contents of your consciousness. I, the scientist, am not directly aware of the content of your mind, but I can find out by asking you. So, scientists’ perceptions of the contents of the consciousness of others are based on the assumption that the others can give an informed report about the contents of consciousness. Indeed, that was the aim of the introspection provided by Wundt – to make sure people were able to accurately describe the contents of consciousness. However, if you, as participant, are unaware of your unconscious,

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which by def inition you must be, then how exactly can I, as a scientist, know what is in your unconscious? The answer provided by Freud was to make inferences about the unconscious indirectly. So the unconscious cannot be observed by the participant (or patient) directly, but by using the reports of the participant (or patient) the scientist (or therapist) gains indirect insight into the unconscious of the participant (or patient).

The idea that the outside observer or therapist has a privileged position in understanding the mind of the patient is a novel departure from our normal under- standing of consciousness. It also leads to a feature of psychoanalysis that has been criticized. In effect the therapist is able to say ‘you do not know what is going on in your mind but I do’. This kind of statement places the therapist in a position of power, because if the patient denies a particular undesirable unconscious thought, the therapist simply argues that this denial stems from the patients unwillingness to admit to the undesirable thought. Thus, Freud’s suggestion of the unconscious not only suggested that the mind works differently to that previously thought but also led to a form of therapy where the therapist, the psychoanalyst was ‘in charge’.

Box 9.6 The Psychoanalyst is Always Right!

Therapist: I think this shows that you hate your father.

Patient: No I don’t, I like him very much. In fact last Christmas I gave him a very generous present.

Therapist: What was the present?

Patient: I gave him a ticket to go on a world cruise.

Therapist: That proves it – the cruise is a symbolic way of sending him on a journey to death. It just shows as I said before, that in the unconscious which only I can tell you about, you really want your father dead.

A second structural distinction made by Freud was between the ego, the superego and the id. This particular distinction suggests that different parts of the mind have different functions. The idea that the mind has functions had, of course, been suggested earlier by the functionalists. The function of the mind was to direct behaviour. Freud’s suggestion was different. He suggested that the different functions of the ego, superego and id had to do with the internal regulation of the mind. These three components are as follows:

The id is the source of motivation or desire. It is the id that motivates us to do things. Freud’s concept of the id was derived in part from the concept of energy,

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physical energy. Freud thought there was a kind of mental energy, which was analogous to physical energy but different from it. Like physical energy, mental energy could not be destroyed, but it could be channelled. It could be channelled into acceptable courses of action or into unacceptable courses of action. What kind of mental energy was coming from the id? The id is a kind of instinct: it makes you want to do things. But what kind of things does it make you want to do? Freud originally thought there was one desire called the Libido. The Libido is the sexual instinct. Later (after 1921) Freud thought there were two instincts, Eros and Thanatos. Eros is similar to the Libido in that it drives people to sexual activity. Thanatos is the death instinct – it drives people to kill others. So, according to Freud, there are two basic human instincts. One is to have sex, and the other is kill people. You will of course realize that this presents a somewhat negative view of human nature. This negative view is, however, not unique to Freud. The Christian idea of ‘original sin’ is that people are basically bad because of the original sin committed by Adam when he ate the apple in the Garden of Eden. According to this view, Jesus saves people from original sin – i.e. their natural state of badness.

It cannot have escaped even the most unobservant student that people do not just go around having sex and killing people. The reason, according to Freud is that the primary instincts of sex and aggression are inhibited due to the superego. The superego is the moral force. It is the part of the mind that decides what is acceptable or unacceptable behaviour. Random acts of sex and killing are not treated as acceptable by the superego, and the superego therefore inhibits the id’s naughty instincts. However, because energy is not destroyed, the inhibition by the superego leads to a build up of id energy. This build up of energy would lead to all kinds of problems were it not for one other component of the mind, the ego.

The ego is the part of the mind that intervenes between the id and superego. What the ego does is to act as a form of negotiator. The ego finds ways of releasing the id energies that are acceptable to the superego. This acceptable form of energy release is called sublimation. So, for example, a student can sublimate his killing instinct by playing football or working hard. The student can sublimate his sexual instinct by acts of kindness to others and by altruistic love. By sublimating the id instincts in acceptable ways, a person can engage in a range of positive activities, despite the fact the energy for these activities comes originally from the naughty desires of sex and aggression.

The distinction between id, superego and ego parallels Freud’s distinction between the pleasure principle and reality principle. The pleasure principle is that people try to obtain pleasure as this releases the tension which is built up by the id. That is, people are ‘driven’ by an internal state to obtain pleasure (which in Freudian terms is sex and aggression). The reality principle results from the development of the superego and the ego realizes that it is not possible simply to give way to pleas- ure as reality means that pleasure must be inhibited. So, Freud’s theory is one where there is a conflict between an instinctual drive for pleasure and the reality that pleasure is forbidden.

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Methods for finding out about the unconscious

Freud used four methods for making inferences about the unconscious. The first method he used was hypnosis. As stated above, Freud rejected this method because many patients could not be hypnotized. Furthermore, it did not seem to matter whether the patient was hypnotized or not. The failure of hypnosis as a general technique led Freud to use an alternative technique (free association or word association), see later.

Slips of the tongue or slips of the pen are instances where someone says or writes something that they do not intend, but in so doing give a revealing insight into the unconscious. The problem with slips of the tongue or slips of the pen is that they occur rarely, so they are only useful under those rare circumstances when they arrive.

Box 9.8 An Example of a Slip of the Pen

A friend of one of the authors who lives in Cornwall, UK, had an elderly German visitor to stay. The visit did not go well for a variety of reasons. When she returned home, the visitor wrote a thank you note. In this note she meant to write ‘thank you for your hospitality.’ In fact she wrote ‘thank you for your hostility.’

Box 9.7 The Idea of Catharsis

Freud’s theory is often likened to a hydraulic system where a bucket of water is constantly being filled and needs to be emptied in one way or another. The idea that people need to engage in certain sorts of activity has long history. The idea of catharsis stem from the days of Ancient Rome. The rulers of Rome reasoned that the common people needed to fight in wars every now and then. However, as these periods of time when there were no wars, the rulers found ways of allowing the common people to express their aggressive instincts – in ways which would not threaten the rulers themselves. So the rulers invented the Roman Games. The general idea being that if you see something aggressive happening, then you are less likely to want to be aggressive yourself – e.g. seeing Christians thrown to the lions will make the common people more docile. In fact later research failed to support the catharsis idea. People are usually more aggressive after watching a football game than before, not less aggressive as would be predicted by the catharsis hypothesis.

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Word association or free association became one of Freud’s most important methods for making inferences about the unconscious. Word association is practised by asking the patient to lie on a couch and just say the first word that comes into their head when the psychoanalyst gives a cue word. However, Freud believed that, even under circumstances of relaxation, the superego remained vigilant and would not allow the patient to reveal traumatic truths. So, instead of focussing on the word said by the patient, Freud focused on the delay before the next word was said. For example, if the patient is given the cue word ‘table’ and replies ‘chair’, this will be done at a certain speed which is characteristic of that patient. If, the patient is then given the cue word ‘mother’ and there is a long delay before the reply ‘home’ is given, then there is a large latency to the word ‘mother’. Freud thought that large latencies occurred when patients initially came up with some other response which was then censored by the superego. The extra delay reflects the time taken to find an alternative, more acceptable response.

Dream analysis was the final method used by Freud to make inferences about the unconscious. However, even when dreaming the superego remains vigilant, so unacceptable ideas are expressed in dreams in a symbolic form. For example, if you dream about a pen, then you are dreaming about a phallic symbol. A purse, pencil case or house, on the other hand, are female symbols. If for example, you dreamt that you placed your pencil in your pencil case, then this is evidence that there is an unconscious wish to engage in sexual intercourse with someone – who exactly, the psychoanalyst must work out from other evidence.

Defence mechanisms

The id and the superego are in conflict, with the id trying to get you to do naughty things, and the superego trying to stop you. This conflict can create anxiety, particularly if the id energy builds up because it has not been sublimated. Defence mechanisms are ways of avoiding the anxiety created by the conflict between superego and id. There are several defence mechanisms, including:

Projection means that you project your undesirable characteristic onto someone else. Suppose that you do not engage in sexual activity and there is no way for you to sublimate your libido. One result may be that you see everyone else as over-sexed. Alternatively, you may believe one person or a group of people over-sexed. There is a common stereotype of minority groups that they are over-sexed, and one explanation for this is that it is the consequence of projection.

Denial occurs when a person denies something that doesn’t need denying – and when this occurs, the inference is that the thing denied is true. Let us suppose we ask a patient, who a nurse reminds the patient of, and the patient says for no reason ‘Well, she doesn’t remind me of my mother’, then we are likely to conclude that the nurse really does remind the patient of the patient’s mother. There is a famous line in the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare: The lady doth protest too much, methinks’ (Hamlet, Act III, scene II). When people deny something too vehemently this may be because they are not telling the ‘real’ truth.

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Reaction formation occurs when the patient responds to their unacceptable wishes by taking an extreme opposite form. So for example, a person seething with unsatisfied lusts may present himself as someone who is very much against sexual liberty, and denounces sex before marriage in a highly rigid and stereotyped way. People who take extremely pious positions may do so as a reaction against what they know is unacceptable within themselves.

Rationalization occurs when you find an apparently satisfactory reason for doing something you really want. For example, the Spanish Inquisition was characterized by extreme cruelty, but decent people rationalized their behav- iour by saying that heretics’ souls were being saved by them being burned at the stake.

Repression means that one simply becomes unaware of the events relating to the unacceptable mental content. This mental content becomes repressed into the unconscious where it creates later mental problems. The idea of repression was central to the seduction hypothesis (see above). Freud originally thought that real abuse was suppressed, but later believed that it was the desire for abuse that was suppressed.

One feature of these defence mechanisms is that the use of this concept makes  the psychoanalyst more powerful in relation to the patient. If the patient accuses the psychoanalyst of something, then that must be projection. And if the patient denies that it is projection, then that is evidence of denial. Further more ‘good’ behaviour of the patient can be interpreted as reaction formation. The psychoanalyst ends up confirming the original basis of the theory: that the patient has unacceptable desires. The patient is powerless against these arguments.

Freud’s theory of psychosexual development: his theory of personality

Freud believed that the child goes through biological stages, when different parts of the body become ‘erogenous zones’. The idea of biological stages reflects Freud earlier training in physiology. He believed that there was a physiological sequence of events that was genetically determined. By ‘erogenous zone’ Freud meant a part of the body that gave pleasure when stimulated by touch – he did not mean erogenous in a specifically sexual way. There are five stages:

Oral stage, 0–2 years

Anal stage, 2–3 years

Phallic stage, 4–5 years

Latency stage, 6–13 years

Genital stage, +13 years

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Each of these stages has characteristics (see later), and if the child is either under-stimulated or over-stimulated at a particular stage, then the child becomes fixated in that stage and the adult personality acquires the characteristics of that change. So, for example, if the child receives too much oral stimulation, it will develop into an adult with oral characteristics. Equally if the child receives too little oral stimulation, it will develop into an adult with oral characteristics.

Of these five stages, the first three are the most important. Freud believed that sexuality was inactive in the latent period – i.e. there was no specific erogenous zone, and that the genital stage reflected the mature person. Consequently, Freud described three different personality types – the oral type, the anal type and the phallic type.

The oral stage and oral personality Anyone who is familiar with babies will know that they like to suck on things – and not only nipples and bottle teats. Freud believed that at age 0–2 the mouth and lips were erogenous zones and the child obtained erogenous pleasure from sucking. According to Freud there is an early oral stage characterized by passive sucking and a later oral stage characterized by aggression and biting. Adult manifestations of orality include smoking and kissing.

The oral personality is characterized by a tendency to be narcissistic. Narcissism means that you are self-focused and self-loving. So people who focus only on themselves are manifesting an oral trait. Oral people are always asking for things from other people, either pleading and passive, as characterizes the early oral personality, or aggressive and demanding, as characterizes the late oral personality. Whether early or late, oral people are dependent on others just as the 2 year old child is dependent on others.

Box 9.9 Narcissism and the Story of Narcissus

The word narcissism comes from Ancient Greek legend on Narcissus. Narcissus was a beautiful young boy who was loved by the nymph Echo, but who Narcissus rejected along with the other nymphs, one of whom prayed the Narcissus would one day love someone who spurned bum. Later Narcissus saw is reflection in a pond, and thought he had seen the most beautiful nymph in the world. The nymph seemed interested in him, but he reached, the nymph disappeared. Narcissus pined for his reflection and eventually died. Echo and other nymphs took pity on him, and turned him into a flower.

The anal stage and the anal personality For parents at least, potty training is an important event in the development of a child. Life becomes a lot easier when the child is potty trained! The anal stage is the stage associated with potty training, i.e. two and three years old. During the period of potty training, the child realizes that there is a choice between the instinctual pleasure of

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letting go whenever the desire arises, and societies demand that the potty should be used at particular times. That is, there is potty training involves of ‘struggle of wills’ between the pleasure of release and parental demands for retention.

The anal personality has three characteristics, sometimes referred to as the anal triad. First, there is a tendency to be clean and tidy. Cleanliness and tidiness can be interpreted as a reaction formation against the mess of faeces. People who go around saying things like ‘cleanliness is next to Godliness’ and spraying all surfaces with bactericide cleansers are exhibiting anal behaviour. The second characteristic is parsimony or stinginess. The anal person is mean, because the child has learnt that he or she can exert power over others by saving up the ‘powerful faeces’. The faeces is released leading to praise from the adults, so clearly the faeces has some power over the adults, only to be released when needed. The third and final characteristic is obstinacy, which reflects the tendency of the child to keep the parents waiting and follow his or her own course of action with regard to potty training. Freud also distinguished anal expulsives who tend to keep their rooms in a terrible mess and anal retentives who are very tidy but often keep a ‘rubbish draw in their desk’ to put all the rubbish.

The phallic stage and the phallic personality It is very striking that Freud’s account of the phallic stage relates to the male rather than the female. Freud did provide a female account of this stage (see below on the  Electra complex) but the focus was on the male. This and other types of evidence leads writers to conclude that much of Freud’s theory was based on his experience of himself.

At age 4–5 years of age, the young boy becomes aware of sexual differences between boys and girls – boys have a penis, girls do not (we point this out just in case any student has led a very sheltered life). At the same time, the young boy recognizes a sexual desire for the mother. However, the boy develops anxiety over this sexual desire, and this anxiety leads to fear of castration by his father – called castration anxiety. There is a conflict between the sexual desire and anxiety over this desire and this conflict is called the Oedipal conflict (after the Greek story of Oedipus who unintentionally married his mother, see Box 9.10).

Box 9.10 The Story of Oedipus

Oedipus’s father, the King of Thebes is told by an oracle that he will be killed by his new born son. The king sends his son to be killed by a shep- herd. Instead Oedipus is given from one shepherd to another until he is given to the King of Corinth who is childless. When he grows up, Oedipus kills the King of Thebes and marries the Queen of Thebes who is his own mother. Later they both learn the truth – his mother kills herself and Oedipus blinds himself.

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The way the boy sublimates his desire for his mother (i.e. finds an acceptable form for this desire) is very clever. He identif ies with the father. By identifying with the father the boy obtains his mother sexually in a surrogate or sublimated form. By identifying with the father, the child takes on the moral code of the father. So Freud says that the ‘superego is the heir of the Oedipal conflict’, meaning that the satisfactory resolution of the Oedipal conflict leads to the formation of the superego. The phallic personality is one where the male has to prove, symbolically, that he has not been castrated. People who are high achievers, who are show offs, and who are always trying to ‘look big’ are all phallic personalities.

Box 9.11 The Case of Little Hans

Little Hans (in fact Herbert Graf ) was a 4 year old boy who developed a fear of horses. Freud did not see Little Hans, but treated him using the father as an intermediary. Freud was convinced that this fear of horses stemmed from hostility towards the father and an unresolved Oedipal conflict. Little Hans had pointed out to his mother that horses have ‘widdlers’ and that his mother did not have one – i.e., he was aware of sexual differences. His mother had previously told Hans not to play with his widdler – ‘If you play with your widdler, Dr A will cut if off and then what will you have to widdle with? This admonition by his mother led to an association of castration anxiety and horses. So, whenever Little Hans saw a horse he was reminded of his hostil- ity towards his father, his love for his mother, and the fear of castration that this produced.

An entirely different explanation might be that Little Hans saw a horse and cart fall down in the street and became afraid simply due to associative learning (compare with Watson’s account of Little Albert – children are  afraid of loud noises). Students can make their own mind as to whether the Freudian or Behaviourist explanations of Little Hans are more likely.

The Electra conflict is the female equivalent of the Oedipal conflict but as an idea it was poorly developed. The young girl like the young boy becomes aware of sexual differences. The lack of a penis leads to young girl to develop penis envy (note to all female students: if you deny having penis envy, this is evidence of the defence mechanism of denial!). The young girl obtains the father’s penis by identifying with the mother, and so obtaining the father’s penis in symbolic form, at the same time taking the moral code from the mother. (Wow!)

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Freud’s theory of personality is one of personality types. Apart from those who are lucky enough to get through to mature sexuality without fixation at any stage, people are either oral, anal or phallic. Knowledge of this fact will give the astute student a strong advantage in any argument. When your mother tells you to tidy your room, tell her not to be so anal. When your father criticizes you for lack of achievement compared to his own, tell him not to be so phallic. And when your friends ask you for things that you don’t want to give, tell them not to be so oral. ( Just joking – unfortunately students can sometimes believe things just because it appears in a text book.)

Freud’s followers

Freud attracted many others to his way of thinking, and in 1911 formed the International Psychoanalytic Association (Ellenberger, 1970; Gellner, 1985; Roazen, 1975). Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) was amongst those who were followers of Freud, and Jung became the first president of that association. Freud chose Jung for this role because he was not Jewish, unlike many of his other followers. Freud believed that anti-Semitism would harm the association if a Jew headed the group (Blum, 1998). Other members included Alfred Adler (1870–1937) who was to go on to develop his own theory based round the need for power, and which he called individual psychology. Differences between Adler and Freud which came to a head in 1911 led to the two men going differ- ent ways. A similar split occurred with another early member, Otto Rank (1884–1939) who suggested that the trauma of birth was the basis for mental problems (Rank, 1929/1994). One early member, Ernest Jones (1879–1958) remained true to Freud’s original ideas. Jones founded the British Psycho- Analytic Society in 1913 and wrote a much respected biography of Freud ( Jones, 1953, 1955, 1957). However, many psychoanalysts went on to develop theories that were very different from Freud’s in many ways. Karen Horney (1885–1952), for example, dismissed the idea of penis envy and suggested that a child feels isolated and helpless in a potentially hostile world. Thus, the history of psychoanalysis is one where Freud’s original ideas have been modified beyond recognition. Nevertheless, as Anthony Storr (1989), a psychoanalyst himself said:

‘What one can say with conviction is that, even if every idea which Freud put forward were proven wrong, we would still be in his debt….Freud was enor- mously inventive and ingenious. He produced a considerable number of hypotheses which, even when wrong, deserve serious consideration and detailed refutation.’ (p. 127).

Freud’s ideas have been criticized (Fisher and Greenberg, 1996) and these will be discussed in the following chapter.

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Jung

Jung’s scholarly parents had modest means and so Jung (1875–1961) could only study at his local university of Basel. Although attracted to archaeology, Basel did not offer a degree in this subject, so Jung studied medicine, obtaining his degree in 1900 and becoming a lecturer in psychiatry at the same university in 1905 (Hannah,  1976;

Box 9.12 How Original Was Freud?

Although Freud is often credited with considerable originality, the ideas he developed were anticipated by the philosopher Schopenhauer. There are parallels between many of the ideas current in late 19th century German romanticism and Freud’s theory. For example Schopenhauer’s concept of the Will has parallels in Freud’s theory of the id. Freud said he did not read Schopenhauer until these parallels were pointed out to him – there is no reason to doubt his statement. However, this example illustrates the possible influence of culture on the development of novel ideas (Young and Brook, 1994). Other parallels with Freudian theory and previous ideas are not difficult to find. In book 9 of Plato’s republic (Plato, 380 BCE approx) there is a description of desires that occur when people dream. When a person ‘is asleep, then the bestial and savage part...begins to leap about, pushes sleep aside, and tries to go and gratify its instincts...It does not shrink from attempting incestual intercourse in its dream, with a mother or with any man or god or beast. It is ready for any deed of blood, and there is no unhallowed food it will not eat.’ Further examples of pre-Freudian ideas relating to the id are not difficult to find. The short novel Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was published by Robert Louis Stephenson in 1886 (Stephenson, 1886) which anticipates Freud’s ideas that everyone has a dark side. The story tells of a good man, Dr Jekyll, who, with a mysterious medicine is transferred into a very bad man, Mr Hyde. Even the idea that personality was linked to parts of the body is not without precedent. In Richard Burton’s Illustrated Edition of the Arabian Nights, published in 1897, there is the following curious footnote on page 29 (footnote 271) ‘The natives of India, Hindus (pagans) and Hindis (Moslems), unlike Europeans, accustom themselves to evacuate twice a day, evening as well as morning. This may, perhaps, partly account for their mildness and effeminacy; for: C’est la constipation qui rend l’homme rigoureux’. The latter translates as: it is constipation that makes a man rigorous, which appears to be a French proverb. The reality is that no-one is entirely original, in that ideas have to come from somewhere. Freud’s originality was in putting the different ideas to which he was exposed into a novel theory.

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McLynn, 1997). Jung was appointed a junior member of staff at the University Psychiatric Clinic in Zurich which was headed by Eugene Bleuler, and became a senior physician in 1905. He resigned in 1909 from this post, because he did not get the psychiatric laboratory he was expecting (Möller, Scharfetter and Hell, 2002).

Jung read Freud’s book Interpretation of Dreams in 1900, and the two men began corresponding in 1906, with Jung meeting Freud for the first time a year later. The two set up an immediate friendship. Together the two men were invited to attend a conference organized at Clark University by Stanley Hall in 1909 – but with the recognition by Hall that Freud was the more eminent of the two (Evans and Koelsch, 1985). During the boat trip across the Atlantic, Jung offered to psycho- analyse Freud. Freud refused giving as a reason that it would undermine his authority. Jung then realized that his intellectual master, Freud, had feet of clay, as he was motivated by the need to be superior to others, and this contributed to the break up of the relationship between the two. Their trip to America was largely successful with Freud being given an honorary degree. Eventually both men had an influence in America. There are currently about 60 Jungian analysts registered in New York, but Jung’s influence tended to be outside the medical sphere. Whereas Freudians maintained their original link with medicine for much longer, Jungians have been less interested in evidence and scientific evaluation (Ekstrom, 2002).

There were several other reasons for the break down between the two men. In  addition to the personal difference concerning authority, Jung felt Freud’s addiction to smoking was bad. In addition, Jung disagreed with Freud’s emphasis on sexuality. The relationship between Jung and Freud was to break down fully in 1912. In a letter to Freud, Jung wrote:

‘If ever you should rid yourself entirely of your complexes and stop playing the father to your sons, and instead of aiming continually at their weak spots took a good look at your own for a change, then I will mend my ways and at one stroke uproot the vice of being in two minds about you.’ ( Jung on December 18, 1912)

Box 9.13 Jung and Freud’s Relationship and the Case of Sabina Spielrein Carl

Jung and Sigmund Freud’s relationship cannot have been made easier by the case of Sabina Spielrein. Jung was both mentor, therapist and had an intense emotional relationship with Sabina who was deeply in love with Jung. Freud was involved as a negotiator in this difficult situation (Kerr, 1994).

Jung had come to develop his own ideas which at first (up to about 1906) Freud was happy to accept, and where Freud was the master and Jung the willing protégé (Stepansky, 1976). However, as often happens with protégés, they can develop ideas which overtake those of their masters, and Jung developed ideas with which

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Freud was unhappy. Jung deemphasized the role of sexuality. He published his new ideas in 1912, well aware that this would affect his relationship with Freud. Indeed, Freud did object and in 1912 the two men stopped their personal correspondence with a complete termination of relations in 1914. Unlike other Freudian ‘disciples’ Jung had developed his own ideas before meeting Freud, and it was the similarity between some aspects of their ideas that led to the initial friendship. Jung set up analytic psychology in contrast to psycho-analysis. Analytic psychology provides a very different psychodynamic interpretation to that provided by Freud, and it is for this reason that it is described here.

One final point should be made to distinguish Freud from Jung. Freud produced a number of original ideas, which although linked to other philosophers, probably did not derive from them (see below). Jung, who had an early interest in archaeology, was much more widely read than Freud, and his interests spanned, mythology, alchemy, philosophy and religion. Freud developed new ideas, but Jung discovered new connections between ideas that had been previously published. In this book we describe the work of Jung because it is so different from other psycho-analysts, and because his work provides a connection with phenomenological and existen- tial psychology discussed in the next chapter ( Jung, 1921, 1923, 1928, 1933, 1953, 1954, 1959a, 1959b, 1963, 1964).

Structure of the mind

Like Freud, Jung distinguished the conscious from the unconscious, but there the similarity stops (Storr, 1999). First, Jung introduces the ego. The ego is:

‘a complex of representations which constitutes the centrum of my field of consciousness and appears to possess a very high degree of continuity.’

The ego can be likened to the concept of self. Jung says that the conscious is ‘floating on the sea of unconsciousness’ and the ego is part of the conscious. So the ego is influenced by the unconscious, as is the rest of the conscious. Note that although Jung thought the unconscious was an important part of the psyche, he also thought the conscious was important. However, the crucial difference between Jung and Freud is over the fact that, first, Jung did not believe that psychic energy was limited to sexual or destructive forces (the libido). Instead he saw a variety of different kinds of energy (see later). Second, Jung distinguishes different kinds of the unconscious.

According to Jung, there is the personal unconscious. The personal uncon- scious consists of conscious material that is personal to you as an individual. This will include repressed material that has been acquired over the lifetime. The personal unconscious is similar to Freud’s concept of the unconscious. In addition, Jung suggests that there is a collective unconscious. The collective unconscious consists of material which is genetically transmitted to people, and is therefore common to more than one person. Jung imagined that the collective

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unconscious could be understood in layers – there is unconscious material that is common to a group of individuals, a race, and to the whole of humanity. The idea that there are racial differences in the collective unconscious was consist- ent with views then prevalent but which are less acceptable today. However, the important point and one which was illustrated in many of his writings is that there is a collective unconscious that is common to all humanity. This universal collective unconscious, Jung believed, is responsible for similarities in images in different cultures which he noticed occurred from his reading about different cultures. He noticed that there were similarities between cultures that could not be explained in cultural terms because there had been no contact (e.g. South America and Asia).

The idea of a collective unconscious logically follows from two other assumptions. The first is that there is an unconscious mind; and the second is that the mind has a genetic basis. It is evident that there is a genetic basis to the body, but it would have been less apparent at the time that there must be a genetic basis for mind – as indeed there must be. If there is a genetic basis for mind, and some of the mind is unconscious, then there must be a genetic basis for the unconscious. Jung’s innovation was to suggest the nature of the contents of this collective unconscious. He suggested that there were particular forces, called archetypal images, and these will be considered shortly. That Freud could not accept the collective unconscious is consistent with Jung’s suggestion that their split arose over Freud’s inability to accept innovation from another person.

The functions of the conscious and unconscious mind

Jung suggested that the unconscious compensated for the conscious. That is, what- ever happens in the conscious, the exact opposite happens in the unconscious. This is called the principle of compensation. The way the principle of compensation works is best understood in terms of the functions of the mind. Jung suggested that there were four psychic functions and two psychic attitudes. We start with the four psychic functions, which are four different ways of understanding the world in which we live:

Thought. Thought is the rational evaluation of things in terms of truth or falsity. The scientific method is based on the use of the psychic function of thought.

Feeling. Feeling is the evaluation of things in terms of whether they feel good or bad. Feeling is the emotional reaction to something, whether we like it or not.

Sensation. Sensation is the appreciation of things as they are. For example, it involves awareness of the physical properties of an object and attention to detail.

Intuition. Intuition is an appreciation of the inner meaning of things. It is an understanding of potential and what goes beyond the physical appearance.

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These four feelings are arranged in pairs of opposites:

Thought and feeling are opposites

Sensation and intuition are opposites

Any of the four functions can be the dominant function in the conscious. But when one is dom- inant in the conscious, the opposite function is dominant in the unconscious. This means, for example, if thought is dominant in the conscious, then feeling will be dominant in the unconscious. To take the exam- ple further, suppose there is a scientist whose working life is full of rational thought. This person may nevertheless, from time to time, engage in irrational behaviour motivated by feelings originating from the unconscious and which seem totally out of character – for example a sudden outburst of rage. Alternatively, suppose a person is focused on sensation and detail, that person may nevertheless have intuitive insight in the unconscious mind perhaps expressed through dreams.

The example of thought as dominant in the conscious is illustrated in Figure 9.1 (note: any of the four functions can be dominant). The other two functions, sensation and intuition in this example are called auxiliary functions as they are of moderate activity in both conscious and unconscious ( Jacobi, 1942).

One thing to note from the diagram is that it is possible to be dominant with a mixture of thought and intuition, or dominant with a mixture of thought and sensation. The former might make a good theoretical scientist; the latter a good empirical scientist. Jung’s theory of personality allows a person to be located anywhere round the circle. This system of personality description is the basis for the Myers-Briggs personality inventory, which is still used today (Myers, 1962) and will be described later in this chapter.

In addition to the four psychic functions, Jung also suggested that there were two psychic attitudes, called extroversion and introversion. Note the spelling of extroversion. A later psychologist, Hans Eysenck (1916–1997), who was fiercely opposed to psychoanalysis, also used this concept, but he spelt it extraversion, as the concept is similar but not exactly the same as that used by Jung (Eysenck, 1947, Eysenck and Eysenck, 1984).

Extroversion, in Jung’s interpretation, is a psychic attitude where someone says ‘yes’ in situations of uncertainty. It is an attitude based on ‘going for it’ or ‘taking risk’. Introversion is a psychic attitude of saying ‘no’ in uncertainty. It is an attitude of caution and careful consideration before action: ‘look before you leap’. Jung suggests that people are either extrovert in the conscious in which case they are introvert in the unconscious; or they are introvert in the conscious in which case they are extrovert in the unconscious. The four psychic functions and two psychic attitudes form a basis for describing people. Note how different this is from Freud’s theory of personality which is based on oral, anal and phallic types. In Jung’s

Figure 9.1 The example of thought as dominant in the conscious

Thought

Conscious

Sensation Intuition Unconscious

Feeling

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system a person might be described as having a dominant thought function and being extrovert. However, that same person will have a dominant feeling function in the unconscious and the unconscious will also be introvert.

Individuation

Although we are not aware of our unconscious mind, the conscious and the unconscious work together. This harmonious working together is called individu- ation – i.e. where a person acts as a unique and co-ordinated whole. In the healthy person, the unconscious mind does not work in opposition to the conscious mind, but rather helps the conscious mind. Lack of harmony or neurosis occurs when the unconscious and conscious are no longer acting in harmony, in particular, when material from the conscious disappears into the unconscious. To cure neu- rosis and to be healthy it is important for people to become as aware as possible of their unconscious, and the messages the unconscious is trying to tell them.

Analytical psychotherapy and gaining information about the unconscious

The Jungian approach to analysis is very different from that of Freud. In Freudian analysis, the therapist is the expert. The therapist is detached and all knowing. In Jungian analysis, the relationship is much of a dialogue between equals where the patient and therapist together are trying to understand the patient’s uncon- scious. Jung thought it right for the therapist to describe himself or herself to the patient so they formed an understanding relationship. Jung’s aim was to help the patient understand the problem – not to re-experience the problem as is the case in the Freudian ‘talking cure’. Jung used four methods for finding out about the patient’s unconscious:

Case history. Jung believed that the therapist should examine the incidents and coincidences in the patient’s life, and how the neurosis developed. He believed that what the patient saw as coincidences were often part of pattern that could be understood from a different perspective.

Word association. Jung examined the meaning of the associated words, not just the delay as used in the Freudian method. Jung believed that if the patient was in a relaxed state, word association provided information about associations in the unconscious, because of the link between the unconscious and conscious ( Jung, 1910).

Symptom analysis. Particular symptoms occur for particular reasons. For example, hysterical loss of movement in a limb may be due to anxiety over the use of that limb. For example, if you lose the power of walking, this may be because you are anxious you will walk somewhere where you will be in danger.

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Dream analysis. Dream analysis was Jung’s most important method of finding out about the unconscious. Jung thought dreams were a way in which the unconscious tried to communicate with the conscious, but that dream was influenced by both the conscious and unconscious. Jung asked his patients to keep detailed dream diaries. If you do this yourself, it is important to keep pencil and paper close to your bed as dreams are rapidly forgotten when you wake. When interpreting a dream, the therapist and patient examine possible hypotheses. Some are messages about the past, and some dreams are warnings or preparations for events that are yet to come. Sometimes the meaning of a dream could only be understood in the context of other dreams and also in the context of the other three methods of finding out about the unconscious. So it was important to consider dreams not as isolated incidents but part of an unravelling story about the unconscious. Jung also thought that fantasies are an expression of the unconscious, as was creative writing, so all acts of creativity could be understood in terms of messages from the unconscious. In analysing a dream, the patient is asked about the setting (the time, place and people), the theme or problem, the plot and the solution. The patient is asked to try to find connections with his or her life experiences and experiences in the dream.

Archetypal images

Archetypal images are symbolic images from the collective unconscious. These act as force fields that influence the content and functioning of the uncon- scious and hence the conscious. They can be thought of as the source of energy, but in contrast to Freud, they are not limited to negative sexual and aggressive instincts, even though this instinct is recognized in the archetype of the Shadow. Recognizing the importance of these archetypal images contributes to individuation.

There are three main types of archetype: the shadow; the anima/animus, and the wise old man/great earth mother.

The Shadow is the primitive or inferior part of the psyche. It is not evil but it is definitely bad. It is similar to the id but without the exclusive emphasis on sex. Jung thought that there is a shadow in everyone, as illustrated in the story of Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde, a story about a man who could reveal his bad side (Mr Hyde) when he took a particular medicine. Coming to terms with the shadow means accepting that you are not perfect.

The anima/animus. Females have a male part of their unconscious, the animus, and males have a female part, the animus. Failure to recognize the opposite sex component in the unconscious can lead to relationship problems. Failure of men to recognize their female side can lead to poor relationships with women and an attempt to dominate. Failure to recognize the male part in women leads to them being attracted to males who treat them badly.

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The wise old man/great earth mother. This is the spiritual archetype which is male (wise old man) in the case of men and female (great earth mother) in the case of women. Examples from art and literature include the female and male prophets. Jung felt that failure to understand the spiritual aspect can lead to problems. In his book Modern man in search of a soul, he suggests that modern life denies the esoteric and spiritual in each of us, and so this leads to feelings of meaninglessness.

Evaluation

Jung’s theory was based on careful observations of many different cultures and his observation of people. When asked how he derived his ideas of the four psychic functions, for example, he replied that it simply occurred to him that this made sense. There was never any attempt to test his ideas, and like Freud, one can question whether his theory is falsifiable. Like Freud, it is probably best to conclude that it is, but it is a very weak theory.

Jung’s writings were not limited to psychotherapy. He wrote psychological analyses of religious texts, as well as psychological analyses of art and literature. A highly educated man, Jung developed immense knowledge of different cultures and was particularly interested in Eastern cultures – he taught himself Sanskrit (an ancient Indian language) so he could read texts in the original Indian language. His work had strong links with Eastern Philosophy. Jung thought the East more spiritually advanced than the West, and his focus on Eastern mystical thought makes him particularly attractive to those with New Age interests. Whether Jung’s work is science or art is a matter of debate. In essence Jung paints an interesting interpretation of the world in which we live. Whether that is the ‘true’ interpreta- tion, and whether there is indeed a true interpretation is a subject for discussion. Is there one way of describing the human condition, or are there several comple- mentary ways of describing that condition? If the latter is accepted, then perhaps Jung’s contribution is that he provides a rationale for helping people live happy lives, and the truth of falsity of his theory becomes less important.

Jung’s approach to therapy moved away from the therapist as the expert to one of dialogue and relationship. This movement in therapy towards dialogue and understanding is taken another step further in phenomenological and existential approaches to psychology which are considered in the next chapter.

The Myers-Briggs personality inventory

As was mentioned above, Jung’s theory of personality has a practical application in the form of the Myers-Briggs personality inventory. The Myers-Briggs person- ality inventory was developed by Katherine Briggs (1875–1968) and her daughter Isabel (1897–1980) neither of whom were educated as psychologists and neither of whom had faculty positions. Katherine Briggs’s interest in personality devel- oped on meeting, in 1917, her future son in law (nickname ‘Chief ’, surname Myers) who was so different from other members of her family. She began to

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develop a personality theory of her own but realized, on reading Jung’s account of personality types that his theory was more extensive and better than hers. This work on personality development was extended by her daughter, Isabel (who by now had married her ‘Chief ’). Isabel Myers, who also wrote two novels, gained experience working in personnel department of a large bank, and so was uncon- nected to the world of academic psychology. Nevertheless she was exposed to test theory and test development from the perspective of personnel manage- ment, and together mother daughter collected a considerable body of data on their test. The original Briggs-Myers scale was published in 1942 and was moti- vated in part by the observation that during the Second World War people were taking jobs out of patriotism, that they did not enjoy, but would have enjoyed jobs more consistent with their dispositions. The name Briggs-Myers scale was changed to Myers-Briggs in 1956. The Myers-Briggs Type Inventory and theory is based largely on Jung’s ideas of types and extroversion-introversion with some small differences. What is particularly interesting about the scale is the way people have responded to it.

The Myers-Briggs Type Inventory categorizes people into types – you are either one thing or another. This contrasts with the more conventional approach in psychology where personality is described in terms of traits. The Five Factor theory of personality is a trait theory and its development was described in an earlier chapter. Psychologists have been almost universally rather negative about the Myers-Briggs scale. For example, Costa and McCrae (1989) submitted the Myers-Briggs questionnaire to factor analysis, and showed that the theory was inconsistent with the underlying factor structure. Instead, responses to items of the Myers-Briggs questionnaire could be understood with the five factor structure. Their conclusion, therefore, is that the Myers-Briggs questionnaire is based on the wrong theory – the five factor theory is correct. Yet despite this negative reaction, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, as it is known, is one of the most widely used personality scales in the world – and possibly the most widely used as some claim. It is used in personnel management and selection by a wide variety of different well-known companies all over the world.

Why is the Myers-Briggs scale so popular? There are several possible reasons. One is that laypeople and users of the scale (who are typically not psychologists by training) find typologies easier to understand. A trait describes how much you are of something. In the case of measures of the Big Five traits, everyone is somewhere on dimensions of neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness. Many people fall in the middle of these dimensions –for example, being a little neurotic or a little extrovert. However, in the case of the Myers-Briggs, everyone is one of four pairs of alternative types. Of these eight types, six will be recognized from the description of Jung’s theory above: Extravert or Introvert (note the spelling is no longer Extrovert), Sensing or Intuition, and Thinking and Feeling. There is one additional pair: Judging and Perceiving. So in the case of the Myers-Briggs everyone can be described by four types. Perhaps it is the simplicity of the Myers-Briggs that appeals to users.

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A second possible reason for the popularity of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is that all types are essentially positive in nature. With the Big Five, a person can be neurotic, disagreeable, or un-conscientious. No such negativity exists with the Myers-Briggs – which has been likened by some critics to a Chinese Fortune cookie – it tells you something nice which is sufficiently vague to appeal to  everyone.

Students should try to decide for themselves why the Myers-Briggs has been so popular. Perhaps you don’t need to be right to be successful! Alternatively, the questionnaire may contain some fundamental truth, rooted in Jungian theory that factor analysis fails to reveal. Jung never actively supported Briggs or Myers or their scale, even though he knew of its existence. The fact that their work is the most lasting testimony to Jung’s theory and perhaps even the  whole psychoanalytic movement may strike the reader as either curious or ironic.

Concluding comments on Freud and Jung

Freud and Jung have much in common. They both share the idea that the reasons people give for their actions are not the ‘real reason’. The ‘real reason’ for actions is often hidden from people. This is the view of people where people are less in control of their own lives than they might imagine. The distinction between a person’s reasons and the ‘real reason’ is important. When people give reasons for their actions, they usually do so by referring to a future goal. For example, if I ask students why they are studying this psychology class, they may reply because they want to get a degree in psychology. The degree in psychology is in the future and they are motivated by this future goal. That is they ‘strive for’ this future goal. However, Freud and Jung suggest that the real reason is not what people think they are striving for, but due to drives that are locked away in the unconscious. People are ‘made’ to do things by their unconscious. They do not have the free will they think they have.

Freud’s theory is reductionist in that he suggests the ‘real reason’ for people’s behaviour is linked to a conflict between the pleasure and reality principles. People really want to do all kinds of naughty things but are prevented from doing so. Jung’s view is broader in that he suggests that the ‘real reason’ is due to several factors, which may include a desire for naughty things, but also may include a desire for spiritual fulfilment. Notice, however, that Jung’s spiritual fulfilment is motivated by archetypes, which, like the id, drive people to do things. People are not striving for spirituality; they are impelled towards spirituality because of the structure of the collective unconscious.

Students may notice a similarity between psychoanalytic perspective and the behavioural perspective. Both perspectives reject the idea of free will in suggesting that behaviour is caused by factors outside people’s control. In a later chapter we will examine approaches where the idea of free will is not only accepted but central to an understanding of people.

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Other early contributors to psychoanalysis

Freud and to a less extent Jung had a large following. When inventors of new ideas have followers, it is not unusual for the followers to have ideas that are different from the original inventors. In addition to Jung, there were a large number of ‘post-Freudians’ and here we mention just three because they illustrate different kinds of divergence from the original theory.

Alfred Adler (1870–1937) was, like Jung, one of Freud’s early disciples, and was born and lived in Vienna. Freud invited him to become a member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society of which he became president in 1910. Like Jung, Adler’s disagreements with Freud led to a personal rift, and after 1911, when he resigned from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, Adler never saw Freud again. Adler disa- greed not only with Freud’s emphasis on sexuality but also on the idea that people were the victims of their biology (Adler, 1917, 1925, 1927, 1958). Adler thought that an important motivation was created by feelings of inferiority. People who have an inferiority complex are overwhelmed by this motivation. To overcome this, Adler says that people have views about the world, what he called ‘guiding fictions’ which channel these feelings of inferiority into productive outlets. As these guiding fictions are not fixed, Adler believed that people have the capacity to form their own destiny, and are therefore ‘free’ which was neither envisaged by Freud or Jung, and is therefore related to the later humanistic movement in psy- chology (see Chapter 11), for which he can be seen as a precursor.

Karen Horney (pronounced ‘horn-eye’) (1885–1952) was trained in psychoanal- ysis in Berlin, by former students of Freud, but moved to the United States in 1932, first as associated director of the Chicago Institute of Psychoanalysis, moving in 1934 to the New York Psychoanalytic Institute (Paris, 1994). Like others, Horney disagreed with Freud’s emphasis on sexual motivation.

According to Horney, the relationship between the child and parents is the key to later psychological health. If the parents are loving, then the child grows up normally. However, when parents are indifferent, inconstant or show they don’t like their child, then the child is said to have experienced the ‘basic evil’. Children who experience the basic evil are likely to develop mental illness. This is because the experience leads to a feeling of ‘basic hostility’ to the parents, and repression of the basic hostility (i.e. not admitting you hate your parents) leads to ‘basic anxiety’. Basic anxiety leads to three types of pathological response. A  first type is always to give in, on the basis that people don’t hurt you if you always give in to them. A  second type is to always act with hostility towards other people – if you hurt them then they cannot hurt you. A final way is to become detached and withdraw on the basis that if you are not involved then others can’t hurt you. Horney agreed with Freud that women often feel inferior to men but rejected his idea of penis envy. Instead, she felt that women’s inferi- ority was simply due to culture – a view shared by feminists who to a greater or lesser extent changed that culture to achieve greater equality between men and women (Horney, 1937, 1939, 1942, 1950).

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Horney’s lasting contribution is that she awakened an interest in the importance of the quality of the relationship between parents and children – leading to later research on parent child separation and much more besides.

Eric Erikson (1902–1994) completed his training at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute in 1933 and then moved to the United States. Erikson agreed with Freud’s idea of stages of development, but suggested that, in addition to those suggested by Freud, there were others in later life. Erikson’s eight stages were: oral, anal, genital, latency, puberty or adolescence, young adulthood, adulthood, maturity and old age. In each stage there is a crisis – Erikson accepted the Freudian interpretation of the earlier stages. Erikson’s lasting contribution has been on the understanding of old age, and in particular the conflict between integrity and despair which occurs in older people (Erikson, 1962, 1968, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1985).

Psychoanalytic theory developed in many different ways that were very differ- ent from Freud’s original theory. These developments included object-relations theory and self-psychology theory (Buckley, 2003; Mitchell and Black, 1995). In object-relations theory, infants are driven to attach themselves to a people rather than, as Freud suggested, by the need for instinctual gratification. These early experiences of relationships then influence later life – the implication is that men end up marrying women who are like their mothers! Self-psychology theory is based on the belief that children need to feel admired, praised and accepted, and to idealize their parents. Children develop their goals through this idealization of the parents, but as they grow older they realize their parents have feet of clay and they therefore develop new ways of self-evaluation. Parents of adolescent children often fail to recognize the developing individualization of their child – leading to endless rows and subsequent difficulty of developing self-worth by the child. Self- psychology theory has parallels with Rogerian psychology to be discussed in a later chapter.

Freud visited the USA in 1909, but despite his reputation in Europe, psy- choanalysis had little impact at first. However, by the 1920s it had captured the popular imagination and was influencing literature. Scott Fitzgerald’s book Tender Is the Night was published in 1934 and provides a fictionalized account of Freud’s seduction hypothesis. Freud’s theory and its later developments had such a large role in the US that it was becoming more dominant than the experimental psychology of the time. By the 1950s there was an attempt to combine experimental psychology with psychoanalysis by providing empirical tests (Hornstein, 1992), but it is at this point of history that psychoanalysis began to wane – not because it was shown to be false, but because of the development of the first effective psychoactive drugs (see Chapter 13). Freud’s influence in the UK was less than in the USA, as the British preferred psychologists who de-emphasized sexuality (Rapp, 1988). The theatre produc- tion ‘No sex please, we’re British’ was a romantic comedy first appearing in London’s West end in 1971.

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The role of psychoanalysis in academic psychology

In conclusion, the history of psychoanalysis is that it was started by Freud, but developed into a whole range of different theories and approaches by his followers. A comparison with Freud and Jung’s theories which were described above shows how wide the gap was within this community of therapists, but there are equally diverse approaches taken by others cited above. Psychoanalytic theory is very dif- ferent from the other types of psychology which are described in previous chapters. Given that neither Freud nor Jung was academic psychologist in the conventional sense, one might question whether their ideas had an impact on the thinking of the more conventional psychologists. One way of evaluating the impact of psychoa- nalysis on psychological thinking is to examine to what extent psychoanalysis is described in psychology textbooks in the early part of the 20th century. Note that modern books with titles of the form ‘introduction to psychology’ will almost inevitably include an account of Freud, if not Jung. The answer is that psychoana- lytic ideas were almost never included in psychology textbooks. There are one or two exceptions. Arthur Tansley (1871–1955) was a successful academic botanist who in mid-life became interested in psychology, and published The New Psychology and its Relation to Life in 1920 (Tansley, 1920). In the preface he writes on the gap between ‘normal’ psychology and ‘psychopathology. He goes on to write:

‘It seemed to me that it would be possible to fill this gap by combining what may be called the ‘biological’ view of the mind – a view excellently represented, for instance, in Dr McDougall’s well-known Introduction to Social Psychology – with the concepts which we owe mainly to the great modern psychopathologists, Professor Freud and Dr Jung.’ (pp. 5–6)

Although Tansley’s book is an exception, it seems that psychoanalytic ideas were accepted as part of psychological education. The authors have in their possession a double sided page of which the beginning of the first page is:

University Extension Lectures (University of London)

Proposed course: The Application of Psychology to the Work of Pastors and Teachers.’

In order to meet the needs of a growing number of clergy, ministers, teachers and social workers who are anxious to discover how far the methods of Psychology can be applied in the work of moral education, arrangements are being made for Two  Years’ University extension course on the above subject, a draft syllabus of which is given overleaf.

The first year’s course will begin on October 22nd, 1931, subject to the enrolment of sufficient number of students to meet the University charges..…

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The syllabus, on the back page, shows that first term was devoted to the topics of  experimental psychology, but the second and third terms are devoted to the study of Freud, Adler, Jung and McDougall. The syllabus refers to the ‘Nature and meaning of the unconscious’, ‘Dreams: theories and significance,’ and ‘Suggestion: its nature and power. The second term of the second year includes ‘Application of the methods of Freud, Adler and others to the work of Moral Education’. Thus, it seems that psychoanalytic theory was being taught by uni- versity lecturers in the 1930s, even though psychoanalysis was not a significant part of academic psychology. This page, incidentally, was found inside a copy of Sully’s Outlines of Psychology (see Chapter 4). Sully was the first professor of psy- chology at University College London.

The talking cure: its curious history

Let us return to Freud’s great achievement: the invention of the ‘talking cure’. By the 1920s and 1930s there were a number of therapists all providing a ‘talk- ing cure’ and all stemming in one way or another from Freud’s original insight, but many disagreeing with either some or much of what Freud had said. Freud had invented psychotherapy, but there are many psychotherapies – nowadays there are more than 200 different types of psychotherapy (Wampold, 2001). Each of these psychotherapies presented itself as the ‘correct’ psychotherapy. Each one claimed success in its therapy. An obvious question is this: if one type of psychotherapy is better than another (e.g. if Jung’s is better than Freud’s) then it should follow that one type of psychotherapy should be more successful than another.

By the 1930s there was sufficient research on the various therapies for Saul Rosenzweig to carry out a review. His review was published in 1936 with the title Some Implicit Common Factors in Divers Methods of Psychotherapy: ‘At last the Dodo said, ‘Everybody has won and all must have prizes.’ Rosenzweig was quoting from the children’s story Alice In Wonderland, and illustrated an extraordinary finding: All the different psychotherapies were equally effective.

The finding that ‘all psychotherapies produce equivalent outcomes’ was first discovered by Rosenzweig, and has come to be known as the Dodo bird effect. Despite the invention of newer therapies the results have remained the same: recent reviews and meta-analyses come to the same conclusion, and the Dodo bird effect remains alive and well today (Wampold, 2001). Irrespective of whether the psychotherapy is psychoanalytic, or cognitive (for example, cognitive behav- iour therapy) or humanistic (see Chapter 11), the results are remarkably similar. All therapies work, and any differences between the effectiveness of different therapies is small. Interestingly, believing in your therapy is one factor which seems to help outcome – and this is known as the allegiance effect. Therapists need to have ‘allegiance’ to a therapy to be effective (Wampold, 2001). In addition, some therapists are better than others though the reasons for these differences are difficult to explain.

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There are two responses to the Dodo bird effect. One is to say that despite their different theories and backgrounds, therapists are remarkably consistent in what they do. This interpretation, known as eclecticism, suggests that therapists tend to combine a range of different therapeutic techniques each of which comes from a different psychotherapeutic framework. The alternative response is to say that the reason psychotherapies are effective has nothing to do with the specific techniques that are employed, but are simply due to factors that are common to all psycho- therapies. This second response is known as the common factors model of psychotherapy. For a variety of reasons, research supports the common factors model. One finding that is particularly galling to psychotherapists is that although there are substantial differences between the success of different psychotherapists, there is no evidence that the length or type of training makes any different to outcome. It is the therapist that is important, not the therapy (Wampold, 2001). Not surprisingly, this topic is highly controversial.

So what are the common factors of psychotherapy? These have been identified (Frank and Frank, 1991) as:

1. An emotionally charged, confiding relationship with a helping person. 2. A healing setting. 3. A rationale, conceptual scheme, or myth that provides a plausible explana-

tion  for the patient’s symptoms and prescribes a ritual or procedure for resolving them.

4. A ritual or procedure that requires the active participation of both patient and therapist and that is believed by both to be the means of restoring the patient’s health.

The list above is very similar to the features of healing techniques used by shamans (healers from North Europe and Asia) as well as African witch doctors. Have we advanced since then? Probably, but it is an interesting topic for discussion. Freud formalized talking cures as a form of therapy. Exactly why talking cures help is a matter of considerable debate even today and is beyond the scope of this book. There are those who believe that although psychotherapy works (in the sense that people tend to get better), we do not really understand why it works. Debate about why psychotherapy works is not new: it is part of the history of psychology.

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Chung, M. C., & Hyland, M. E. (2012). History and philosophy of psychology. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated. Created from ashford-ebooks on 2021-11-22 22:30:42.

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