his hand against her forehead. Subsequently, Freud
found that placing his hand on patients’foreheads
and asking them to remember events surrounding
the origin of the symptom were just as effective as
hypnosis. He soon gave up placing his hand on
patients’foreheads and simply asked them to talk
about whatever came to their minds. This was the
beginning of what came to be known as the method
of free association.
The Freudian View: A Brief Review
A major assumption of Freudian theory,psychic
determinism, holds that everything we do has mean-
ing and purpose and is goal directed. Such a view
enables the psychoanalyst to utilize an exception-
ally large amount of data in searching for the roots
of the patient’s behavior and problems. The mun-
dane behavior, the bizarre behavior, the dream,
and the slip of the tongue all have significance and
meaning.
To account for many aspects of human behav-
ior, Freud also assumed the existence ofunconscious
motivation. His use of this assumption was more
extensive than that of any previous theorist, and it
allowed him to explain much that had previously
resisted explanation. The analyst first assumes that
healthy behavior is behavior for which the person
understands the motivation. The important causes
of disturbed behavior are unconscious. Therefore, it
follows that the goal of therapy is to make the
unconscious conscious.
The Instincts. The energy that makes the human
machine function is provided by two sets of
instincts: thelife instincts (Eros)and thedeath instincts
(Thanatos).The life instincts are the basis for all the
positive and constructive aspects of behavior; they
include bodily urges such as sex, hunger, and thirst
as well as the creative components of culture such as
art, music, and literature. But all these activities can
serve destructive ends as well. When this happens,
the death instincts are responsible. In practice, mod-
ern analysts pay scant attention to death instincts.
However, Freud found them necessary to account
for the dark side of human behavior (the compul-
sively self-destructive behavior of the neurotic, our
inability to avoid wars, etc.). In any event, for Freud
the ultimate explanation for all behavior was an
instinctual one, even though the instincts he posited
are unobservable, cannot be measured, and often
seem better able to explain events after they occur
than before.Personality Structures. Psychoanalysis views
personality as composed of three basic structures:
the id, the ego, and the superego. Theidrepresents
the deep, inaccessible portion of the personality.
We gain information about it through the analysis
of dreams and various forms of neurotic behavior.
The id has no commerce with the external world—
it is the true psychic reality. Within the id reside the
instinctual urges, with their desire for immediate
gratification. The id is without values, ethics, or
logic. Its essential purpose is to attain the unham-
pered gratification of urges whose origin resides in
the somatic processes. Its goal, then, is to achieve a
state free from all tension or, if that is unattainable,
to keep the level as low as possible.
The id is said to obey thepleasure principle, try-
ing to discharge tension as quickly as tension
reaches it. To do this, it uses aprimary processkind
of thinking, expending energy immediately in
motor activity (e.g., a swelling of the bladder that
results in immediate urination). Later, the id
replaces this aspect of the primary process by
another form. It manufactures a mental image of
whatever will reduce the tension (e.g., hunger
results in a mental representation of food). Dream-
ing is regarded as an excellent example of this form
of the primary process. Of course, this primary
process cannot provide real gratifications, such as
food. Because of this inability, a second process
develops, bringing into play the second component
of personality—the ego.
Theegois the executive of the personality. It is
an organized, rational system that uses perception,
learning, memory, and so on in the service of need
satisfaction. It arises out of the inadequacies of the
id in serving and preserving the organism. It346 CHAPTER 12