Psychoanalysis and Freud

Psychoanalysis is a method of psycho therapy originated by Sigmund Freud, based on the exploration of the unconscious mental process as manifested in dreams and disturbed relationships with other. The aim of psychoanalysis is to reveal the repressed anxieties and then to overcome the effects of bad experiences in early childhood, by using the technique of free association.

As far as literature is concerned it analyses characters invented by authors, the language they use and what is known as Freudian imagery. In the Freudian method of literary character is treated as a living being, whereas in the method of Jaques Lacan literature is seen as a symptom of the writer. The contribution of both Freud and Lacan to psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic criticism of literature have left an indelible mark on the thought process of writers of the subsequent generations.

Sigmund Freud (1851-1939) was a practicising psychoanalyst. In his early career he treated cases of hysteria. Later on, identity, sexuality and the unconscious also become his concerns. His greatest contribution is that he gave the world for the first time in its history the new and powerful ways of looking into human thought and behavior.

According to Freud the larger part of the individual’s mental processes is unconscious. On account of some social taboos attached to certain sexual impulses many of them are repressed. They are actively excluded from the conscious level of awareness. At the same time there are many other things in human mind-shape over which we have not much control. They become latent soon after being conscious for a short period. They may become conscious again. One variety of the unconscious gets transformed into the conscious easily. Freud is more concerned with the second variety of the unconscious.

As a psychoanalyst therapist Freud observed in his patients unresolved conflicts between the unconscious inclinations and the repressive demands of the ego. That reveals to him there psycho-zones- the ‘ego’, the ‘id’, and the ‘super ego’. The ‘id’ is tied up with the ‘libido’ i.e. sexual energy. It is very dangerous because it knows no good or evil. It is only concerned with obtaining satisfaction for instinctual needs. Hence it has no regards for moral restraints, social conventions or legality or entice. It follows the primordial life principle. The other two psycho zones protect the individual and society. The ‘ego’ is a kind of governing agent and controls the ‘id’. The ‘superego’ is a kind of moral censoring agency. It leads man to perfection. Thus ‘id’ is linked with the pleasure principle, to ego to the reality principle and the super ego to the morality principle.

The next important contribution of Freud is his explanation of child psychology. According to him, a child around the age of age of five draws some sort of sexual gratification from his mother. He calls this process the “Oedipus Complex”.

Jackques Lacan a French critic offers a re-reading of Freud’s theories in the light of linguistics. According to him the unconscious is structured like a language. Three orders or cognitive dimensions are central to Lacan’s thought. These are the ‘imaginary’, the ‘symbolic’ and the ‘real’. In imaginary there is no distinction between the subject and the object. The symbolic order is the realm of language and the real is the realm of the impossible.

However many feminist critics objected to Freud’s sexism. Though the French feminist theory relies greatly on psychoanalysis.