Inside the unconscious, Freud associated several different drives with the foundation of human social practices and "rules." The three drives which ruled desire and it's controllable content were called the Id, the Ego, and the Superego. The Id is the drive that is focused upon primitive sexual desires and pleasures, many of which are expressed as instinctual or hidden, and repressed through a process of sublimation. The Id is composed of two different latent drives: the Eros (life instinct), which encompasses self-preservation and erotic instincts, and the Thatanos (death instinct) which covers instinctual acts of aggression, self-destruction, and cruelty. The Superego is an unconscious screening mechanism which seeks to limit the blind pleasure-seeking drives of the Id by the imposition of restrictive rules, or moral boundaries.
(It is important to note that a common misconception associated with Freud is that he states that all human actions spring from motivations that are entirely sexuall in origin; the existence of Thatanos asserts that the motivation of some behaviors are not sexually motivated, as Thatanos is the irrational urge to "destroy the source of all sexual energy in the annihilation of the self."
Even deeper within the Eros of the Id is the exceptionally infamous Oedipus complex that Freud expounded upon in great detail. The name Oedipus comes from a Greek myth where the hero, Oedipus, unknowingly kills his father consequently gaining his kingdom, and unwittingly marries his mother, the widowed queen. Freud expanded on this as a story where the latent infantile desires of humanity were manifested and acted out, to a horrible ruinous end. Jocasta, Oedipus' mother, kills herself and Oedipus lives the rest of his life out as a blinded man. This supposedly reflects humanity's innate desire to mate with the parent of the opposite sex (the "object of desire") and kill the one of the same sex (the "default rival"). Conversely, the lesser-known "Electra Complex" was applied to women, which mirrored the Oedipus complex with an interesting addition of something called "penis envy," a female castration anxiety that resulted in feelings of resentment and inferiority. This is generally one of the more dismissible theories presented by Freud, as many women find that the theory has no application in their lives. Karen Horney argued that penis envy does not begin to play a role in women's lives until they begin to suffer the actual disadvantages of being a woman in society. Freud saw that society created mechanisms in order to ensure social control of these "wild" human instincts, and the main vein of guilt that springs from them is the prohibition against incest. The emphasis on the past being alive in the present is a core theme within the psychoanalytic approach to the individual and society.
What is interesting about Freud is that the times are reflected in the varying atmosphere of acceptance he found himself in; he gained his most fervent following towards the end of his career in the 1920's when there was a perceptible shift from the importance of society to the importance of the individual, a time that was characterized by a "disregard for authority," a questioning and abandonment of traditional Victorian values, and an intellectual revolution that rivals the free-thinking 70's. Freud was the obvious answer to these perplexing issues; he offered explanations for such a constrictive society around the turn of the century, something to which validity had been lent merely by the scientific nature of his research, thus the intellectual and the emotional were satisfied. The Victorian society is characterized by prudence and moral strictness, and taboos placed upon women and sexuality.
Sexuality was considered to be the shortcoming of mankind, only tolerable for reproductive purposes. Freud said, "What we call happiness in the strictest sense comes from the (preferably sudden) satisfaction of needs which have been dammed up to a high degree." For such a perfunctory and inherent act, the guilt associated with sex was something that was unhealthy in its entirety. One of the reasons that Freud was embraced so fully was because the idea of sex as a sin was something that people accepted initially due to social convention.
Women, although often misrepresented and over-"male"-ized in Freud's work, accepted Freud because, unlike the Victorian standard, Freudian theory placed just as much emphasis and importance on female sexuality as it did on the males'. (Tradition demanded that the Victorian woman only desire sex as part of her responsibility to reproduce; for a society so hell-bent on demolishing all traces of blasphemous sexuality, it is an irony indeed that the only function a woman served was to reproduce and raise a family.) The woman of the day was taught that women who were outside the sphere of male dominance (marriage and financial dependence) were feared, and considered "fallen." There were many attacks on the dominant moral standards of the time, particularly on the sexual standards. Women were growing increasingly dissatisfied; authors like Lucretia Mott, Charlotte Gilman, and Susan B. Anthony had already begun to sow the seeds of discontent. And while their arguments were mostly philosophical and appealed to them on a more theoretical level, Freud's unbiased regard for both sexes established the intellectual/scientific background to the feminist argument. Freud's ideas were welcomed where they were seen as a tool in this rebellion. However, Freud's theories presented a bit of a paradox in that they were obscure and rendered the ultimate outcome of social reform difficult. Later psychoanalysts like Wilhelm Reich (and many American neo-Freudians) rejected Freud's concept of innate destructive impulses, which rendered "true" social interaction impossible and suggested that these impulses depend upon environmental factors, insecurity and frustration. However, these suggestions were made generally for a type of "hope" for social reform.
During the 1920's, other psychoanalysts tried to elaborate on Freud's concept of character development. Karl Abraham, a Berlin analyst stressed the effects wrought by the way parents deal with their offsprings' impulses, crediting their treatment to the amount of anger, hatred and frustration that mistreatment could create. Freud's idea that certain behaviors unconsciously satisfy neurotic impulses became the backbone to Franz Alexander's theory, that character is a life-style of repetitive mode of behavior. He also expanded Freud's criminal theory, which postulated that criminals commit crimes from a deep sense of guilt, and his theories would later influence many typologies of the criminal, the psychopath, and the "accident prone."
Throughout his lifetime, Freud founded many associations, most notably the International Psychoanalytic Association, an association which is still in operation today. He also ran the Psychoanalytical Press, which disseminated Freud's major works along with pamphlets, clinical discussions, and essays on culture. These were subjects discussed thoroughly within mainstream journalism as well, finding many a willing ear in newspapers and magazines all over the world.
Freud has become a deeply fascinating subject to me as I've studied him. What is most impressive to me about his work is the singular brilliance of one man who held in his hand the power to change the way people view themselves for centuries to come, a man who came up with ideas that will probably never be entirely disproved. And even then, if his most poignant ideas ever fall victim to falsehood, Freud will have accomplished his most dear wish, a step towards an answer to the question which plagued him all his life:
If forms of social life fail to meet basic psychological needs, what then are the consequences for society of these unfulfilled desires?
"Human life in common is only made possible when a majority comes together which is stronger than any separate individual and which remains united against all separate individuals."
-Sigmund Freud, 1930
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