Psychoanalysis Theory: Freud's Invention That Changes the Face of Humanity

What Are the Components of the Human Psyche According to Psychoanalysis Theory?

The School of Psychoanalysis divides the human psyche into three basic elements which are ego, upper ego, and Id, and it sees man as the product of this interaction and conflict between the three elements. What bears the results of this conflict and transmits it to external reality is the ego. The ego bears the pressure it exerts on it from the desires, lust, and instincts, as well as the pressure of the higher ego from the principles, values, ideals, and morals, as well as the customs of society and the perception of others around us.

What Are the Details of Psychoanalysis Theory?

According to Freud, Psychoanalysis theory is looking at the human past, more precisely at childhood, as the anxiety that occurred to the child as a result of painful or frightening experiences is stored in the subconscious to be then evoked in the post-pubertal stage, involuntarily and unconsciously. So, when we do a certain behavior, and we want to explain the motives behind it to others, we cannot give a correct description, which is not a lie; rather, it is to ignore the painful childhood experiences that we have been exposed to.

Psychoanalysis Theory: "Adler" and the Importance of Inferiority:

The Psychoanalysis school did not stop at Sigmund Freud; rather, it gave birth to many students who later became teachers. Perhaps the most notable of them was Adler, who emphasized the importance of feeling inferior to human beings, and he considered it a motivation for action and excellence, and he changed the negative perception of this concept. Also, he considered the state of perfection to be an illusory state that does not exist, and if a person senses it, it is a serious problem that may lead them to commit grave mistakes against themselves and the right of others around them, like the paranoia of Adolf Hitler, who involved himself and the whole world in a global war that claimed the lives of millions of people. 

How Can a Sense of Perfection Affect a Person's Life According to Psychoanalysis Theory?

This state of perfection affects a person in another way, making them in a state of despair and depression, finding nothing in life that can be achieved, and losing the desire to work, diligence, and achievement. That is because they think they have reached everything accessible, and the reason for this was their lack of a sense of inferiority that was pushing them to walk the path of life.

This is what has been observed by many successful people, creators, and celebrities who have achieved many achievements, awards, and successes, and have risen to the highest honors podiums,  and then this sense of perfection crept into them, which led to their falling into a state of depression. Unfortunately, some of them ended their lives by committing suicide because they felt that they had achieved everything that could be achieved; therefore, there was no longer any need to complete life.

So, if you feel inferior, smile and laugh, as it's a good, positive, and necessary feeling in human life. Adler asserts that the feeling of inferiority motivates a man to seek meaning, while perfection kills this desire by satisfying it until it weakens and dies.

How Was Carl Jung Influenced by Psychoanalysis Theory?

Carl Jung was influenced by Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalysis theory, and Jung is the first to point out the existence of what he called at the time the collective unconscious or what is now called collective consciousness. Jung found that people share certain ways of thinking as if they had one mind.

What Are the Postulates of Psychoanalysis Theory?

Psychoanalysis theory is based on several foundations and postulates from which it tries to explain the human psyche and its normal or abnormal behaviors, and then it tries to find solutions to it or an appropriate way of dealing with it. The most important of which are:

1. The school of Psychoanalysis asserts that human nature is evil in origin, and all human attempts to do good or pretend to do so are attempts to overcome the motives of evil found in their innate.
2. Proponents of the Psychoanalysis School refer to the law of nature, which states that every organism satisfies its needs and instincts and ensures its survival and breeding conditions, regardless of the damage to other organisms.
3. The Psychoanalysis School affirms that the human psyche is evil in man's view because the concept of good and evil already does not exist in nature, ecosystem, food chains, or others. If we look from the place of the cosmic order, the human psyche is neither good nor evil, but it is part of the Earth's life system and a stage in the food chain.

What Are the Methods of Psychoanalysis Therapy?

1. Free Crumbling Therapy:

It is a therapeutic method that depends on the discharge of every thought, feeling, or intention that comes to the patient's mind, whether it is logical or illogical to bring all the thoughts that exist in the subconscious space into the consciousness, then subjecting them to mechanisms of criticism and reasoning. This is aimed at dealing with them and not with their results or symptoms such as anxiety, fear, anger, or depression.

2. Conversion Therapy: 

In which all the thoughts or feelings of the patient are put forward and transformed into psychoanalysis or into the psychiatrist who foresees them and analyzes them from an objective and logical point of view, which is the external observer’s perspective who has no relationship, benefit, or interest in these ideas. This conversion consists of two basic types which are positive transference, in which the patient transmits positive feelings such as joy, love, or admiration, and negative transference, in which the patient expresses a negative feeling, such as aversion, hatred, or sadness.

3. Dream Analysis Therapy:

The founder of Psychoanalysis school Sigmund Freud asserts that dreams are an important path to reach the unconscious, as the dream is the subconscious means to achieve the repressed desires that one could not express in the waking state. Dreams may be derived from today's events that somehow provoke the unconscious which came to respond to this excitation through dreams.

What Are the Advantages of Psychoanalysis Theory?

1. Freud was the first to open the door to childhood in interpreting human personality.
2. The innovation of psychoanalysis therapy mechanisms that have established a new approach to psychotherapy is now parallel to drug therapy.
3. Psychoanalysis changed science's and society's perception of psychiatric illness; This has radically transformed this field.
4. Freud was the first to speak on the term unconscious and to associate it with human life and various behaviors.

What Are the Disadvantages of Psychoanalysis Therapy?

1. In the view of some critics, psychoanalysis theory has over-spoken about the impact of unconscious and childhood details on adult human life without denying its important role, but it is not the whole issue.
2. The Psychoanalysis theory says that the great part of a person's personality forms in the first five years of their life, and some critics see this as a lot of exaggeration. Modern science has proven that a person's personality can change at any stage of their life, but the chance of change weakens with age.
3. Freud relied too much on sexual motivations in human life and early childhood. According to modern science, this factor's impact is somewhat exaggerated.
4. Many argue that psychoanalysis theory was somewhat biased towards men. It considered them the focus of its study and neglected the role of women and their presence in life in many aspects of the theory, which is another negative flaw in the theory of psychoanalysis.
5. Some critics argue that psychoanalysis theory lacks scientific research methodology because Sigmund Freud studied certain cases and generalized the results. This is unacceptable in modern-day scientific research methodologies.
6. The ambiguity of some of the basic concepts on which psychoanalysis theory relied, such as the id, the ego, and the superego, which are broad concepts with unclear boundaries.
7. From another point of view, these negativities can be considered quite normal within the period in which the theory arose. Science was young and scientific research was in its infancy.

In Conclusion:

The great importance of psychoanalysis lies in the fact that it opened the door to a different approach to mental illness or psychological disorder, and it was the turning point in changing the lives of millions of people, and here lies the importance of science, thought, and reason. One idea can change the lives of millions of people.