An Outline of Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory

Topographical Model of the Mind

• conscious
• unconscious
• preconscious

Structural Model of the Mind

• id: pleasure principle; irrational; present at birth; primary process
• ego: reality principle; rational; develops out of the id's interaction with external world; secondary process
• super-ego: conscience

Psychic Determinism: Unconscious basis of mental life. (Cf. Marx)

Note: Keep in mind the distinction (as Strachey often does not) between

• instincts (Instinkt): biologically fixed
• drives (Trieb): variable; insatiable; a function of one's individual life history

Idealized Economics of Energy: Drives (Trieb)

• libidinous ("libido"): sexual ("total available energy of Eros"); variable
  • Eros: erotic/possessive/unifying
• nonlibidinous: nonsexual; variable
  • Thanatos: destructive/aggressive/divisive; typically unconscious, it makes itself known in some forms of sexual behavior.

Note: It's important to notice the deviation from this theoretical distinction between Eros and Thanatos. In practice, they are characterized by an ambivalence in the sense that they are often both present in the same behavior.

It's also not clear that Freud maintains a consistent distinction between drives and instincts in his discussions of the will to love and death.

Also, the economic/hydraulic metaphor used to characterize expenditures of energy can be misleading, e.g. if they suggest invariance, that would imply that they linked to instincts (biologically driven) not drives.

Thus, it may be useful to keep in mind the analytical distinctions among

• energy: primordial; pure
• libido: energy channeled into sexual behavior
• instinct
• drive

Partial Drives Linked to Phases of Development

• oral
• anal
• genital

At puberty, these partial drives are fused through the genital drive.

Significance of Childhood for Adult Experience and Behavior (Cf. "oceanic feeling".)

Significance of Dreams

Sources

• lost memories
• linguistic symbols
• repressed experiences
• archaic material (a priori)
• dream-work
• dream interpretation
• displacement
• condensation

Oedipus complex

Problem of Civilization (Kultur): How can the demands and desires of the individual be reconciled with those of the group?

Thus, Freud links the discontent experienced by civilized human beings to stages in the psychic development of the child.

• end of primary narcissism
• beginning of socialization
• adherence to the reality principle
• internalization of values
• sexual differentiation
• accompanying anxiety (Oedipal complex)

© T. R. Quigley, 1998

Revised 3 MAR 98