The Philosophical Critique of Freud - Assignment Example

Sigmund Freud Theory on Dream Works By: Professor: Class: University: City: State: Date of submission: Sigmund Freud Theory on Dream Works Introduction Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is considered the father of psychoanalysis responsible for the revolution of the dreams through his works: The Interpretation of Dreams. In the study, Freud commences the analysis of dream to understand various aspects of personality that relate with pathology through believing that nothing that people do occur by chance as each action and thoughts is motivated through people’s unconsciousness at certain levels. To live with a civilized society, people have the tendency of looking back into their urges and repress associated with their impulses. Nonetheless, such urges and impulses need to be released in similar manner and they have the tendency of surfacing in disguised forms. One of the ways through which the urges and impulses are released is through is people’s dreams. Considering the content of the unconscious could be disturbing to the extreme levels, Sigmund Freud believed that such unconsciousness expresses itself through symbolic language. Based on the analysis, Freud categorized the identified aspects of mind into Id, Ego, and Superego. It is centered mainly on the primal impulses, wish fulfillments, unchecked urges, desires, and pleasures; Ego relates to consciousness, self-aware aspect of the mind, rational, and morality; and Superego is the censor for Id that enforces the moral codes within the ego. When people wake up, the superego suppresses their impulses and desires for the ID. Through the dreams, people are able to acquire of their unconsciousness or Id (Bartleby, 2015). Considering that while dreaming the guards are down, the unconsciousness of people have the opportunity to act and express some of the hidden desires of Id. Nonetheless, at times, the desires of Id may be disturbing or psychologically harmful to some extent making the censor to come into play, which translates the disturbing content of the Id to an acceptable symbolic forms. This is important as it assists in preservation of sleep and prevents people from waking up in shocked images leading to occurrence of confusing and cryptic dream images. Dream Concept According to Freud Sigmund Freud noted that the major reason people struggle to remember their dreams is associated with the superego that does its job through protection of the conscious mind from the disturbing desires and images conjured by the unconscious. After mastering the dream censorship and symbolic representation, one needs to be sure of dream distortion though people are not in a position to understand most of the dreams. For such reasons, people seem to use mutually supplementary methods: calling up the association of the dreamer until there is penetration from the substitute to the actual and based on ones knowledge, a person supplies to meaning of the symbol (Bartleby, 2015). Based on Freud’s theory of dreaming, dreams are things that seem to outdo the psychical stimuli that disturb sleep through hallucinatory satisfactions. Within the psychological levels, the dreams are wish fulfillment. Moreover, their function or the adaptive purpose within the psychological level involves preservation of sleep. In Freud’s final work, they are disguised attempt at wish fulfillment. Freud’s general theory commences with the repression concept, which is a cognitive process used in the denial of the wishes, fears, and thoughts that threaten people or contribute to anxiety. Furthermore, repression creates high level of unconsciousness, which is an aspect, which outside people’s waking awareness. However, repression is successful completely considering that there is return of the repressed through the dreams, jokes, Freudian slips, individual symbols, and cultural symbols. Most of the cultures especially the religion plays important role as group defense mechanism. The large part of attraction within the Freud’s theory is its comprehensive nature. Some research consider dreams to be like the neurotic symbols which sometimes embody various cultural symbols expressing some of the hidden desires in a collective manner. There are three major aspects with the theory of dreams (Freud, 2008). The latent content express the repressed wishes; dream work involves condensation, displacement, dramatization, and elaboration; and manifest content represents the dream as people experience it, which is often unintelligible. The Dream Work Aspect The dream work carries out some of the transformations at the command of the censor that is responsible for making sure that partial satisfaction of the wishes do not disturb the sleep. Therefore, if the dream work fails to represent the wishes adequately, then the dreamer is likely to be anxious and wake up from the sleep. From analysis, it is important to note that sometimes the dreams often fail in their adaptive functions that involve preservation of sleep. Based on the psychoanalytical view of being in a position of understanding properly the dream work, it is important to understand the manner in which the mind transfers from the latent thoughts to the manifest (Jay, 2016). Condensation is the first step and involves combination of different unconscious thoughts into one. Through such process, it is easier for the mind to express the unconscious thoughts into dream. Condensation may occasionally be absent though it needs to be present as rule. According to the Freud dream theory, the dreams often have the manifest and the latent contents. The manifest contents refer to what the dream seem to be saying which in most cases is bizarre and nonsensical in nature. On the other hand, the latent content refers to what the dream is trying to pass across since dreams often give people a look into their consciousness. Freud believes that people have the ability to chip through the manifest contents of their dreams with an aim of revealing the underlying significance and associated latent through utilization of the method of free association. Through free association method, people start with one dream symbol then follow automatically with what comes onto their mind. Dreams continue in such manner until the dreamer sees the leads. To further assist in the interpretation of the cryptic images associated with the dreams, Freud made classification on the images various processes. Displacement takes place when the desire for one thing is symbolized through another thing or person and projection occur when the dreamers propel their desires and needs onto the other people. Symbolism on the other hand is symbolized when the repressed urges of the dreamer are acted out in a metaphoric manner and condensation involves a process in which the dreamers hide their feelings or urges through either underpinning or contracting them into brief dream images and events. Therefore, the meaning of such dream imagery might not be obvious or apparent. Finally, rationalization aspect of the dream work is the last tool. It involves organization of the dreaming mind as an inherent dream into one, which is considered comprehensive and logical (University of California Press, 2016). In some cases, it is referred to as secondary revision. Freud theory is particularly preoccupied with the sexual content within the dreams. According to the theory, sex is the major cause of the things occurring within the dreams. Moreover, each long slender or engaged objects need to represent the phallus while the receptable denotes the female genitalia. Critics of Freud’s Theory of Dream Works Grunbaum (1986) was one of the critics of the theory asserting that,” while psychoanalysis may thus be said to be scientifically alive, it is currently hardly well.” Throughout the years, several criticisms have emerged which can be grouped into different categories. Many critics were contended that that the theory lacked empirical evidence and relies majorly on the therapeutic achievements while others asserting that even the clinical data used in theory are inaccurate, selective, and flawed. The method involved in the psychoanalysis especially the role of free association and ideas on the interpretation of the dreams have been criticized. Some of the critics also reveal that the psychoanalysis used is simply not the science and most of the principles used are inaccurate. However, some critics disagreed with Grunbaum insisting that even though the extra clinical studies needs to be undertaken, the clinical data are reliable and important source of evidence considering that it would be otherwise difficult to test. Researchers state that the case studies used in the theory failed to place adequate stress on revealing the outcome of the treatment. Free association is the method used in the psychoanalysis in which the patients speak regarding the subject matter and the analyst develops conclusion based on what is said. Some researchers reveal that the method is neither free nor validating the evidence within the theory. The method is not valid to access the repressed memories of the patients since there is no way to ensure that the analyst has the ability to distinguish between the actual and imagine memories of the patients due to the influence of the analyst’s leading questions. Some researchers argue that it is not clear on the amount of contamination, infection spread within the session, and the extent to which the responses are balanced. Most people think that some of the flaws associated with the theory motivate the analytic and psychodynamic practitioners to overlook the place and significance of ordinary common sense (Freud, 1989). Considering that psychoanalysis used in the theory majorly deals with the unconscious motives and the repressed emotions. Therefore, the common sense seems to be no longer applicable. Some critics hold that it is increasingly becoming important for the analysts to aware of the common sense and its significant roles in the psychoanalysis process. There are also criticisms associated with the principles of the theory. Few fundamentalist psychoanalysis hold that Freud was a scientist. Although most of the psychoanalysts consider themselves as scientists, the critics have different opinion. Psychoanalysis is not falsifiable. Some critics state that some dreams failed to show the signs of wish fulfillment as highlighted by Sigmund Freud. The critics point to the anxiety and punishment dreams. The theory has explanatory power; however, it lacks the scientific validity (Freud, 1989). The psychodynamic model used in the theory provided some of the believable explanations for the causes of abnormality, but the theory lacks the empirical research required to support the theory. In the dream theory, Freud based the arguments on the ideas majorly the subjective analysis of the middle class Vietnamese women. Moreover, the psychoanalysis theory also depends on the subjective interpretation of the therapists. The theory depends much on the interpretation of the capability of the therapist to interpret what the client says. According to Freud, if the client accepts the interpretation of the dream, then it was probably correct. Nonetheless, if the client rejects the interpretation, it could simply be the conscious mind of the client rejecting the unacceptable but accurate interpretation. Another challenge associated with the methodology is that Freud used a biased sample. While developing the theory, Freud used a group of middle class women aged 20-44. All the sampled women had serious emotional problems; therefore, the sample cannot reliably generalize the population. Most research agree that the dreams are disguised fulfillment of the repressed infantile wish. However, for Freud, the repressed and forbidden factors are the wishes from childhood ambitions learnt within the social world. It is surprising that Freud’s theory is not about “sex.” Most of the dreams discussed are ambition or aggressive wishes to the other people. Conclusion Freud spent many years developing the hypothesis on the role of dreams and interpretations. According to the dream theory developed, Freud argued that dreams allow people to discharge the unacceptable and unconscious wishes and urges. Dream is a disguised fulfillment of the repressed desire. It is disguised since the repressed desires could be either sexual or aggressive to urge the dreamer to wake up. Nonetheless, the major problem associated with the theory is that the interpretation of the dream function is not something to achieve in an objective manner. For interpretation of the cryptic dream images, Freud developed and classified the images into various processes: displacement, projection, symbolization, condensation, and rationalization. References Bartleby. (2015). VI. The Dream-Work. Sigmund Freud. 1913. The Interpretation of Dreams. Retrieved April 3, 2017, from http://www.bartleby.com/285/6.html Bartleby. (2015). XI. The Dream-Work. Sigmund Freud. 1920. A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis. Retrieved April 3, 2017, from http://www.bartleby.com/283/11.html Freud, S. (1989). Introductory classes on psychoanalysis. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Freud, S. (2008). Collected works of Sigmund Freud: Three contributions to the theory of sex, and dream psychology. Charleston, SC: BiblioBazaar. Jay, M. E. (2016). Sigmund Freud | Austrian psychoanalyst | Britannica.com. Retrieved April 3, 2017, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sigmund-Freud#ref386097 University of California Press. (2016). Adolf Grünbaum: The Philosophical Critique of Freud. Retrieved April 3, 2017, from http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft4w10062x&chunk.id=s1.3.41&toc.id=ch3&brand=ucpress     Read More