An Introduction to Freud | Part II | Topographical Model & Psychosexual Stages

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This is part 2 of the basic lecture on the classic Freudian method. and about the specifics of the way Freud's theory of mind evolved over time.

It is important that you know that Freud did not have one theory of mind. He began listening to his patients, following his phenomenal logical method, his looking and listening and careful observation of the patient's mind. He evolved a perspective and then he did it some more and then he learned more.

Freud's topographical model of the mind: Freud's Iceberg Model for Unconscious, Pre-conscious, & Conscious

Freud argued that people have three levels of awareness:

(Unconscious Mind) Simply what this means is we have consciousness. This is me. I'm sitting here now. I'm thinking about this that and the other. Most people, before Freud thought that's who we are. Freud was really the first to explore the details of conscious and unconscious. This opening up of a deep and profound and often dark psychic reality where most of the human mind can be located.

We also have a (Preconscious) This is something like RAM (Random Access Memory). If I ask you when is your birthday? The question is where was that information before I asked the question. It wasn't in your conscious mind but it clearly wasn't in your unconscious mind because you don't have instant access to it. Preconscious: this is ordinary memory. Things that aren't in the conscious, but can be readily brought into conscious.

(Unconscious): Part of the mind that is not directly accessible to awareness. This is where urges, feelings and ideas that are tied to anxiety, conflict and pain. Where most of the work of the Id, Ego, & Superego take place.

Freud discovered that there were complexities of the mind that weren't explained by this theory so he changed his theory:

Freud realized that from birth and possibly even before that children have very specific developmental phases to go through. Freud’s theory of the psychosexual stages posits four stages—oral, anal, phallic, genital which in Freud’s day was an absolutely revolutionary way of thinking about human mental development and personal growth and psyche growth.

The 4 phases are:

Phase 1: The oral phase: From birth to 2 years what is the child doing? what is what is the main focus of a baby's world? It’s the mouth, it's the breast it's, the nipple everything that the baby gets in its little hands where does it go? Into the mouth.

Phase 2: Anal Phase: Here Freud noticed something shifted around 2 years about the time most children started to become potty trained. Freud realized the first big conflict between the child and the adults the first real one. The child has always defecated where it wanted to. And now it's being told it has to defecate here not there. This generates conflicts inside the child's mind. This generates a feeling of of conflict and of of even persecution. It is about control where the child discovers he can control, please or frustrate parents by expelling or withholding feces. The Freudians believe this phase is associated with later hostile, sadistic and obsessive behavior.

Phase 3: Phallic Phase: This phase has been the source of most conflict and critique about Freud’s data. For most little boys and little girls that's not a confusing thing they realize and they identify with the father or the mother depending on their biology.

We'll start with the little boy. The little boy realizes that it has a **** and that makes it like father. But it also realizes that mother and father are doing something that is that he is a little boy for the first time is excluded from. But this is a troubling thing. The 5 year old boy supposedly (and unconsciously) feels both profound love for his mother and hatred of his father. But no society can tolerate incest and this leads to the castration complex which is belief that the father revenges the child’s jealous rage by castration which nullifies the complex. So this fantasy of castration anxiety according to Freud comes up in the little boy's mind and it's so terrifying. But he represses his desire for his mother and that's the developmental resolution of the Oedipus complex.

The phallic stage is followed by latency and then the genital stage which occurs from adulthood and onwards. The sources of conflict are manifold and concern many of the difficulties experienced by all people, establishing healthy relationships, getting a job, enjoying life.

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Donovan Bigelow is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) in private psychotherapy practice in Seattle, Washington. His clinical focus is on adolescent, adult, and couples therapy. He believe that therapists cannot take a patient deeper than they have been willing to go themselves.

Видео An Introduction to Freud | Part II | Topographical Model & Psychosexual Stages канала Donovan R Bigelow