Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory (original) (raw)

Freud's relevance for contemporary psychoanalytic technique

Psychoanalytic Psychology, 2006

It is argued that Freud's influence on contemporary technique is best seen by separating Freud as a hermeneuticist from Freud as a natural scientist. Freud's hermeneutic work is elucidated by a depiction of his earliest model of technique and its application in The Interpretation of Dreams. The division of the latter work into the first 6 chapters as a hermeneutic and the last chapter as a metapsychology is used to show not only the split but the conflict in Freud between his hermeneutic of the mind and his attempt to found psychoanalysis as a natural science. It is shown that the shift in analytic thinking from the primacy of drives to the growth and transformation of the self has maintained interpretation as a necessary, although insufficient, condition for the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis and that interpretation continues to bear the stamp of Freud's hermeneutic of the mind.

Reading Freud’s Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality

2020

With this remarkable work of scholarship, Van Haute and Westerink continue their pathbreaking project of making visible a largely unfamiliar Freud. Their meticulous readings demonstrate not only the historical and conceptual significance of the first edition of Three Essays, but also its astonishing relevance for contemporary debates about sex and gender."

Critical Observation of Freud's Theories

"Analyze any human emotion, no matter how far it may be removed from the sphere of sex, and you are sure to discover somewhere the primal impulse, to which life owes its perpetuation." Sigmund Freud.

The blighted germs of heterosexual tendancies’: Reading Freud in (be)hindsight

Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology

This paper argues for an understanding of Freud’s ‘queer’ contributions to social psychology, and posits the ongoing utility of psychoanalysis for developing social psychological approaches to understanding both same-sex attracted identities and heteronormativity. Through an elaboration of two key areas of Freud’s work, namely his implicit critiques of heteronormativity and his explicit support for the rights of those who do not identify as heterosexual, I propose that the problematic aspects of psychoanalytic theory must be placed alongside the considerable gains to be made from the application of Freud’s work to theorising within social psychology. In particular, I suggest that the understandings of identity and desire as formulated through psychoanalysis demonstrate the always already queer nature of social psychology through its engagement with psychoanalysis. I conclude by highlighting the ongoing tools that a psychoanalytic social psychology may provide for challenging heteronormativity and privileging non-normative accounts of subjectivity.

History and Evolution of Freudian Theory

Sigmund Freud, born in Austria in 1856, was the most important and instrumental personality and mind scientist in the twentieth century. First 10 years (1886-1896) in Freud's career as a psychoanalyst were crucial and useful for everyone in the psychology field. Freud's interest in the evolutionary roots of the human mind and its neurotic and psychotic diseases was shown in his first ten years of his career as a psychiatrist and continued throughout his writing career, according to Young (2006). Freud's theoretical insights and innovative psychotherapy approach transformed psychiatry according to Ellman (2018). The seduction theory, the theory of regression, and the theory of dream are some of his most important ideas. In laying the groundwork, Freud had a tremendous effect on later thinkers and his ideas are still being debated and discussed in psychology today. II. The First 10 Years A. The Beginning of Freud's Career as a Therapist According to Messias (2014), Sigmund Freud is the most important historical figure, followed by Carl Jung and John Dewey. Talk therapy, popularized by Freud, became popular among persons suffering from anxiety and mood problems throughout the third period. In addition to the seduction and regression ideas, and the theory of dreams, he speculated about psychological problems and the unconscious mind.