Freud "Such a huge ego"

Like Beyonce would sing 'I got such a huge ego'- Freud constantly attacked the three parts we are made up of. The ID, the ego and the super- ego. We battle everyday with our ego and the ID but we can never contain our ID- our aggresion. We can only distract it.

Overview

Freud started with the major problem of humanity. We are all unhappy. He was a psychiatrist in Vienna. He claimed are very troubled and how can we be this troubled in life?
 
Sigmund Freud was born in Moravia into an Austrian jewish family.

 
-He believed he discovered the unconscious mind.

Freud answer to overcome this troubled life Is Psychoanalysis. We think we are in control, we think we are rational, you think you’ve chosen your top out of choice  but Freud would say we do not have control of our desires.

Frued’s deeply pessimistic mind may be linked to his background. As a Jew he grew up with the fear of Nazi’s in Vienna. 1930’s was the great reccision- this he encountered. Freud had constant pain everywhere he suffererd with ongoing cancer.

Freud attacked many philosophers with his opposing ideas. He followed Plato’s triplate. The self reasion, the spirt and desire. Represented in the chariot. But Plato believed reason could rule the others but Freud believed reason was the weakest.

He also attacked Marx. Marx said we are suffering with alienation but there is a better future ahead. We need to progress with history and the “Geist.” Our progress to happiness is telelogical- we will progress to happiness and a communist state. Marx said we have the ability to evolve. Whereas Nietzsche said we have the ability to overcome. But Freud said attackts this by claiming that it is too idealistic. Frued states that our deepest needs are aggression and the desire to hurt people. This view is consistant of Hobbes and Machiavelli.

Marx diagnosed unhappiness but he did not find a solution. Freud offered a solution.

The solution to end painful human nature is psychoanalysis.   

We are divided within ourselves. Into three parts.

1.The ID. This is the answer to our misery. It dominates us. The ID is dominant from birth. Sex and aggresion are fused in our ID. They dominat our personality.

2.The EGO- The voice if reason. The least powerful part of our personality. Our desisions we think are rational. Plato;s freason is powerful but Freud said this character ‘ego’ our rational self is “embattled” is is the loser.

3. The Super Ego. This didn’t come from birth. It comes from soialisation. The rules of a persona and society. The super ego punishes you with guilt if you do not get perfection.

Yourself is dominated by ID. But everyday we battle with the ego and the super ego. You cannot contain the ID but you can distract it.

"The Interpretation of Dreams" was published in 1899. The methods of interpretation devoted to dream imagery have become classical and standard procedures of psychoanalysis as a whole. The "dream work" is the process by which the mind condenses, distorts and translates "dream thoughts" into dream content. Freud distinguishes two factors in a dream; manifest content and latent content. The manifest content is the surface-level content, the dream images usually taken from random impressions of the immediately preceding day, that we easily remember when we wake and willingly speak about. this every day life interpreted dream has no meaning because it is a disguised representation of what is underlying the dream.

-Latent dream thoughts fear the light of consciousness and are artfully disguised in the images of the manifest content of the dream. It is the true meaning of the dream, the forbidden and negative thoughts and unconscious desires.

Freud says that all dreams represent the fulfilment of a wish on the part of the dreamer and maintains that even anxiety dreams and nightmares are expressions of unconscious desires.

"The Interpretation of Dreams" argues that dreams are coded with sexual desires. This was a theory that was also applicable to neurotic people as well as normal people. According to Freud, dreams often have a sexual tone to them and use the symbols in manifest content to signify the underlying sexual meaning of our dreams. He stated that when we observe a hollow object in our dreams, it is a symbol of a womb, while any elongated object is phallic.

He damaged the idea of ourselves as noble creatures and challenged the Enlightenment  and writers such as Rousseau's "Man is the measure of all things."  This attracted criticism and Freud was regarded as the sexual renegade.

I think Freud would enjoyed Beyonce's song 'Ego.' It shows how dominant sexualition is on our society. The song is full of innuedo's related to sex and the Ego title is what Freud says we battle with every day. Althought the theory that Freud offered is not applied now by psychiatrists. But he was very influential on our society now.

Attacks on Freud.
His idea that we are not rational attacks romantisied philosopherers belifes. He challenged Rousseau's idea of man that we are 'noble savages.'
- Freud's ideas were vague and not verifably true. To conter act this Karl Popper would of argue that his ideas could be falsified as all statments are open to be falsified.
- Schopenhauer said that 'the Will is a secret antagonist of the intellect' therefore we are guided by internal forces, not our ID.

Reich was a contemporary psyhciatrist. He believed in the opposit of Freud. The unconsious thoughts inside our minds are good. The underlying energy is sexuality and if this is released than human beings would flourish. It is the idea that we should not suppress our energys but express them to maintain happiness. The reason for our unhappiness is that society suppresses our sexual energy.