Freud and Psychoanalysis

Psychology has always intrigued me, so I was excited when I learned that the next book we were reading is Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud. I knew a little bit about his theories from my brief psych class in high school, but I pretty much only knew that he was big on the idea of the unconscious.  After reading just the assigned sections of this book, however, it is obvious that this man had many, many more controversial ideas that remain sort of scandalous to this day. 

One of my biggest concerns with Freud’s ideas and theories is that they are so subjective and he presents them in such a way that there is virtually no way to disagree with him.  His subject matter is mainly focused on our unconscious desires, or the thoughts and feelings that we are unaware of because they are in some way harmful or unwanted and therefore, repressed.  Although I do think he might be onto something there in some ways, it is rather annoying that it is impossible to contradict him.  Say, for example, you go to Freud for psychoanalysis because you have been having strange, recurring dreams.  Freud will sit you down and discuss every aspect of this dream and make you say anything and everything that comes to mind, no matter how appalling or undesirable the thought is.  Then he will proceed to make conjectures about what these dreams mean, focusing, most frequently, on some sort of incestuous or otherwise improper sexual desire that he claims you possess in your unconscious.  He might say, for instance, that you are having these dreams because you are feeling lust for your son.  No matter what you say to the contrary, or how vehemently you protest, he can always claim that you have no idea about it because it is in your unconscious and therefore you have no access to it.  Either way, you are going to leave admitting to that aberrational hidden meaning whether it is true or not! This is far from my only problem with Freud’s logic, but as I said, it is one of my biggest.

Although some of the things Freud claims are a little questionable, I do like his idea about the Oedipus Complex.  Freud believed that as human beings, we are attracted to people who are similar to our mothers or fathers.  This originated from the Ancient Greek story of King Oedipus, who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother.  He hypothesized that our first love object is either the mother or father (depending on gender and orientation) and that a feeling of jealousy toward the other parent arises as a result.  These feelings are carried on into adulthood, where they are passed on as an attraction to potential mates who have a lot in common with that first love object.  As I was reading about this phenomenon in my book, I couldn’t help thinking about my own relationship with my boyfriend.  We have been dating for close to two years, and I started to notice a couple months into our relationship how similar he is to my father.  My dad was a stay-at-home father and pretty much raised me, so we have had a very strong relationship my whole life.  It was interesting to notice then, that the guy I chose has a lot of the same tendencies and interests as my dad.  They both have the same sense of humor, and once they get talking about something it will be a couple hours before anyone else is able to get a word in.  Both have this sort of animalistic love of nature and take pride in their manhood, loving to hunt and go to our cabin in the mountains.  With this in mind, I think Freud was correct in his conjectures about the Oedipus Complex, although I think that it probably does not apply to everyone, depending on the strength of the relationship with the parent.

Freud is an interesting man.  He was known to be a big fan of cocaine and some of that drug usage may have inspired some of his ideas, but in my opinion he is still well worth studying.