Freud and his followers came up with an unconscious mind account. This serves a significant part in explaining psychoanalysis. There was the division of the mind by Freud into a conscious mind, also known as the ego as well as the unconscious mind. Later, it was demarcated into the id (Instincts and ego) and conscience (superego).According to the theory of Freud, unconscious refers to the processes in the mind whereby individuals create an image of themselves being unaware. Freud came up with a proposal of the hierarchical and vertical architecture of the human consciousness, the preconscious, conscious and the unconscious mind.
According to Freud’s belief, there are certain psychic events that occur in the unconscious mind which may be inclusive of the hidden messages from the unconscious. Based on his interpretation, these events contain actual and symbolic importance. Regarding psychoanalysis, the unconscious is not inclusive of everything that is not conscious, but the things that are actively repressed from the thought that is aware or what a person is aware of consciously. From the views by Freud, the unconscious mind is a repository for the socially unacceptable wishes, ideas or desires, painful emotions, traumatic memories that are put out of the mind by the psychological repression mechanism. The phenomena of the unconscious is inclusive of such things as automatic skills, repressed feelings, thoughts, subliminal perceptions and automatic reactions. They may also include the hidden desires and phobias that one may have and they may be deemed to be complex and complicated, such contends did not have to be solely negative.
In the view of psychoanalysis, the unconscious refers to the force that can be seen by its effects in that the expression is the symptom. Freud refers to psychoanalysis as a particular function of the mental processes and not necessarily the universal attributes of them. According to him, consciousness is a function that emanates from a system’s operations. It is an integral part of the rest of the interior world and the external world which makes up our “mental apparatus.” Freud insists that the unconscious mind has a substantive presence.
The suggestions by Freud do not refer to the unconscious mind as epiphenomenal but as a by-product of the workforces in the unconscious. The functional tasks of the consciousness cannot be assigned to the unconscious. Consciousness, according to Freud serves as the filter for the external stimuli that acts as the barrier of such stimuli. It acts as a limitation of what an organism faces from the outer world. The outer world contains large and complex simulations that may be overwhelming to the organisms, and when there are no mechanisms of safeguarding it, then the body would die. In that sense, therefore, this particular view places the self-consciousness as an unconscious adversary who keeps the unconscious hidden ("Sigmund Freud").
The access to the unconscious thoughts is not direct to the ordinary introspection, but such thoughts have the capability of being interpreted and tapped by special techniques and methods which may include free association, meditation, verbal slips and dream analysis. These ideas from the unconscious mind are usually cryptic in which the experts who are expected to interpret the messages in them are the psychoanalysts. The concepts of the unconsciousness according to Freud are based on numerous observations. For instance, Freud referred to the “slips of the tongue” as being associated with the unconscious in that they display the true feelings of a person on a particular subject. For example when someone says” I opted for a summer curse” ("Sigmund Freud").
This particular example depicting the word “Course” instead of “curse” shows that the speaker used the word accidentally and that they have negative feelings about it.Freud also observed that the dreams of his patients expressed feelings that were important but such patients were not aware of them. After such observations, Freud concluded that the psychological disturbances are brought about by personal conflicts that are in the Unconscious level. The theory of Psychoanalysis by Freud helps to explain motivation, personality, and mental disorders when the focus is made on the unconscious determinants of behavior. Freud later applied this notion of the unconscious mind to give an explanation of certain types of aberrant behaviors ("Sigmund Freud").
It is a typical behavior of the human beings to refer to the constant relationship between interpretations of dream elements and the elements themselves as figurative. The dream part is on its own is a symbol that makes up the unconscious thought of a dream. Freud came up with three distinctions of the dream while he was investigating the relationship between the actualities of fantasy elements. These distinctions were that of illusion, viz that of the proportion of a whole and that of imagery. The most important and the worth noting chapter of Dream study is symbolism. There are fascinating discussions by many people about this. Now, since there is a permanence translation of symbols, then, the ideal of modern dream interpretation as well as the ideal of ancient is left behind by the technique that is applied.
Such techniques are necessary to explain, in certain cases without considering the dreamer, who has no knowledge regarding the symbol. When the dreamer is acclimatised with the symbols from the customary dream which is furthermore of the dreamer; then the circumstances in which the dreamer lives; as well as the impressions that such a vision received; before having that dream makes it possible for the dream to be interpreted even without having to get additional information. This particular trick only impresses the dreamer and flatters the interpreter. It acts as a gratifying happening in which there is the usual grueling procedure of carrying out the cross-examination of the dreamer ("Sigmund Freud").
This information is misleading. Our function is not to perform tricks. When interpretation is constructed on the symbol’s acquaintance, then this technique is not capable of replacing or comparing with the associative technology. However, it is only an associative method supplement which serves to only furnish the latter with results that are usable. But concerning the familiarity with the psychic situation of the dreamer then one must consider the fact that they have no limitation to the interpretation of acquaintance dreams. In that case, therefore, it means that one is not familiar with the daily occurrences that act as stimuli for such dreams and that the subject’s association gives one the knowledge of the thing that is referred commonly as the psychic situation (Freud).
Many human beings have been familiarized with the saying that “Life is an illusion.” This statement seems to be casual, but indeed, it applied by many to imply an understanding of reality. Fred explains the pleasure principle to give a contrast between some actions that many of us see as illusions or realities. This pleasure principle conveys the work of sex drives. The work of sex drives is in such a way that they are governed by the directive or imperative, which is only a command through which the pleasure can be obtained. In this case, comfort is not taken as consumption outcomes processes or intakes. Commonly, the thought that many of us have is that pleasure is a result that is as a result of satisfying a want or need. From such a conception then desire is depicted to be linked to trying to attain something that is essentially not present (Ricouer, 34).
According to the understanding of Freud on pleasure, he associates it to be as a result of expenditure or discharge that turns on the elimination of the internal pressure, relief of tension through the release of something like energy. The drives are the causal factors of these forces that seek satisfaction from the tension’s relief which is mostly experienced by human beings as the feeling of experiencing pleasure (Ricouer, 34).
In contrast to this, the death drive is not that which seeks to have relief of tension, but it is that condition which results in the relieving events that are unpleasant. Without the death’s drive postulation, then Freud has the thought that his theory his argument is made to decrease all the moments of pursuing the rude actively to seeking the desires for pleasure (Lundin, 101). This results in the loss of explanatory power because the difference between pain and pleasure seems to be occluded and every desire that one may be having of pain should be serving as a “secret” mode of comfort. Therefore, for the death drive to keep the explanatory power postulated by the psychoanalytic theory, then it must be perceived as serving a different function than the sex drives (Ricouer, 34).
Freud through his “reality principle” helped to explain the variations in operations of both the sex drive and the death drive. This principle is important because it invokes a rule that modifies the pleasure principle scope. It is possible to say that the sex drives are not curtailed or restricted, and then the organism is put at risk (Lundin, 101). The principle of reality serves as a directive that is imposed on the sex drives, through an apparent mental apparatus or unconscious mechanism that calls for the gratification postponing. In that manner, the sexual impulses are therefore redirected towards some other activities through sublimation.
This is an important point to consider, and it helps Freud to explain the different human activities that are not necessarily associated with sex drives. However, as products that lead to the redirection of such disks. In addition to this, it also helps him to diagnose the dreams, fantasies, and neuroses that are consequences of stymieing of the drives. The death drive is something that adds to the instincts’ account with which someone desires to welcome their demise. Nevertheless, this is not true (Ricouer, 35).
Death drive should not be termed as something that can be treated as a desire or thought. It is rather, a desire for change nullification. It is the longing towards a form of inertia or state that is marked by the movement towards acquiring sameness. The constant repetition is the result of unconscious longing for things to gradually repeat themselves. Such longing is equal to the act of seeking death. The death drive is, in particular, trying to establish equilibrium.
The death drive operates in a way that is contrary to the pleasure principle because it aims at halting such drives or negating them, but it does not serve as a regulator fashion of the reality principle. The pleasure principle is in a way an extension of the pleasure principle in that it works to ensure that happiness is achieved on a long-term basis. On the contrary, the death drives cuts such strategies, and its satisfaction is acquired when this life-prolonging and enhancing desires are learned (Ricouer, 35).
Work Cited
Freud, Sigmund. "A General Introduction To Psychoanalysis, By Sigmund Freud : TENTH LECTURE". Ebooks.adelaide.edu.au. N.p., 2017. Web. 27 Jan. 2017.
Lundin, Roger. There before Us. 1st ed. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Pub., 2007. Print.
Ricouer, Paul. Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation. 1st ed. Yale: N.P., 1970. Print.
"Sigmund Freud". Webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/freud.html. N.P., 2017. Web. 22 Jan. 2017.
