FREUD’S PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

A Biological Approach

E. V. RAMANA MURTY

Darwin, Mendel and Freud are the most remarkable human biologists of this century and they have revolutionized the concepts regarding human nature and mind. They made a clean sweep of the orthodox thought and changed the whole perspective of human life. Darwin postulated the Organic Evolution of man. Principles of inheritance of man are studied on the design based on Mendel’s simple mathematical experiments with pea plants. Freud took the equally important aspect of man that the human psyche has secret sexual and biological layers which condition the general behaviour of man. The fact is that each of these great men happened to live at a time when the current of opinion was traditional and was much against them. They were treated with derision and hostility by the contemporary men. Vox populi may be Vox dei. But it is true that these great scientific geniuses were first insulted and ill-treated by common multitudes, only to be recognized and honoured after many years of persecution. Today, to a large measure these three men were highly esteemed as godfathers in the fields of human evolution, inheritance and psychology.

Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 in a small town in Czechoslovakia. He studied medicine and settled for a living in Vienna. Freud went to Paris in 1885 and under Charcot he studied the use of hypnosis for the treatment of hysteria. Studies in Hysteria by Freud and Bruer was published in 1893. For unexpected reasons, he soon gave up the practice of hypnosis and began to use another technique basing on his own discovery that the mind has two vitally important parts, the conscious and the unconscious which though appear integrated have an autonomous existence at the same time. While treating his patients Freud used to ask them to relax on a couch and say whatever came into their minds, however absurd, unpleasant, or obscene it might appear by normal standards. When this was done it appeared that powerful emotional drives swept the uncontrolled thoughts in the direction of the psychic conflicts as logs floating on the surface of a great river are whirled about by the currents beneath the surface of water. He concluded to compare the mind to an ice berg, the tip above the sea being the part which is under conscious control and apparent. Below the sea surface exists the gigantic unconscious–the repository of the urges, the impulses, the passions, the wishes, the repressed ideas, feelings and thoughts which largely determine the psychological behaviour of man. Although it is a hard task to ascertain what Freud meant by neuroses, in his Introductory Lectures on Psycho-analysis he clearly remarked that “Neuroses arise when the gratification of the erotic need is prevented in the world of reality.” In his book Interpretations of Dreams he most vehemently proclaimed that” the chief part in the mental lives of all children who later become psycho-neurotics is played by their parents. Recently, Dr. Alayne Yates, a British psychiatrist, has proved the same principle of Freud in her book Sex without Shame. Dr. Yates claims that most emotional problems of adults stem from biological and sexual repressions when they were mere infants. The behaviour of infants resemble those of adult perverts.

Freud’s Libido Theory conceives that the libido in an individual is regarded as a closed energy system regulated by the physical laws of conservation of energy. Libido passes through stages of maturation, each of which is biologically determined. The manifestation of libido is centred on specific erotogenic zones of human body–mouth, anus, penis and has a particular way of gratification. Libido withdrawn from one area must inevitably produce effects elsewhere. On similar accounts, in his theory of wit Freud explained laughter as an explosive expression of energy previously employed to repress anti-social feelings. “Just for Fun” jokes lift the repression from sadistic feelings encrusted with real hate or irreverence for men and matters around. It must be understood that Freud’s idea is not that “everything is sex.” Component instincts such as scoptophilia, the desire to feel and look and motility are also stressed as corollary effects.

From his observation that fears are frequently the expression of unconscious desires, that a conscious fear is after the expression of an unconscious wish, Freud was drawn to formulate two other hypotheses which were later to be incorporated in his Theory of Psycho-analysis. These hypotheses were infantile sexuality and the Oedipus-Electra Complexes. “The boy’s whole body is a sexual organ” and each area needs to develop its full erotic potential, he feels sexy in the same way that he feels hungry. Different stages of development of a child foster different attitudes. From one to three years of age they swing to object to anything and make demands in an overbearing manner. At this stage various outcomes are also possible. According to Freud the boy’s phallic phase begins about the end of the third year when the boy’s interest becomes centred upon his sexual growth. This interest soon gives rise to a reeling of attraction towards his mother associated with feelings of jealousy, resentment and rivalry against his father. This is Oedipus complex, named after the king in Sophocle’s play Oedipus Rex, who killed his father and married his mother, of course, without knowing one another’s identity. Similarly the girl becomes interested in her bodily organs and she later on develops an envious desire to be like the boy. She soon develops an attraction towards her father and it is postulated that the girl’s attachment to her father is called as the Electra Complex. from a Greek myth in which Electra connives at the death of her mother who had murdered her father. However, it should be clarified that originally Freud, when he used the word “sex” meant it to be a much wider connotation to apply to any pleasurable sensation such as body functions, and also sublimate feelings like tenderness, pleasure in work and friendship. In decent terms he used the word to refer to what would ordinarily be described as desire.

In his books, Beyond the Pleasure Principle and The Ego and the I published in 1922, Freud presented that there are two basic instincts in man, a Life Instinct or Eros, and a Death Instinct or Thanatos. The Life Instinct comprises the old libido concept and part of the self-preservation drive. The Death Instinct, in fact, is an innate destructiveness and aggression directed primarily against the self. The life instinct is creative, whereas the death instinct is a force which is constantly working towards death and ultimately towards a return to the original inorganic state of life which gives complete freedom from tension and stress of living.

The often heard objection to Freud’s work is that psychoanalytic hypotheses are unscientific and are essentially clinical rather than experimental. The opponents claim Freud’s hypotheses are tested on the mentally abnormal patient lying on the couch. It is a clear misunderstanding. No one can adjudicate the validity of Newton’s laws merely by sleeping under an apple tree.

Freud, like most scientists of his time, was a rationalist and materialist with a great admiration for Darwin, the founder of the origin of species and organic evolution. Freud in his psycho-analysis followed an evolutionary and biological approach. Freud’s views of human nature are based on Darwin’s theory of evolution which profounds the biological principle of “Struggle for existence” leading to “Survival of the fittest.” Similarly, society is depicted by Freud as a mass of isolated individuals those most natural emotion is hostility, pushing and pinching each other in the name of the survival of the fittest. But under certain circumstances they will fully band together for self-protection. The civilized personality of man is compared to an ivory tower concealing the inner stinking cave where his physical needs or personal relationships for private gains can be enjoyed without interference. Freud’s biologism strongly affirms that the source of man’s trouble lies deep within himself, biologically and is not simply the result of adverse social or material condition, as believed by many other psychologists.

Freud’s biological approach though considered as ambiguous and obscene by some critics, it gained much popularity and usefulness in the present day world. Freud’s psycho-analysis is admitted on an grounds to be a dominating aspect of psychology. Freud revolutionized our way of looking at ourselves. He is a moulder of thought than a mere discoverer of any fact. The brilliance of his mind and his keen insight have opened the doors into a storehouse of theories and hypotheses which will keep researchers in human biology and psychology busy for many years to come. Recently psycho-analysis is being applied for the study of inborn complications of human mind that have been caused by rapid evolution of Homo sapiens and also by hereditary implications that were generated by genetic factors leading to abnormalities in the making of body and mind of modern man.

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