An evening with Herr Freud

On a certain day of a certain month in a certain year, my best friend said to me, " You know, I have a test tomorrow, and guess what the topic is ? Sigmund Freud and his Psychoanalytic theory! what a pervert! always linking everything to sex!! If you ask him why the grass is green and why water is wet you'd probably end up with him deducing that either you have repressed sexual desires which make you think about the "wetness" or there is something inherently sexual about mother nature..A freak of nature is what i call him!". I replied, "Well, I don't really know much about him and his theories, except for that book he wrote..though i haven't read it" and then she says, "Yeah! well lucky you! ". 

Today, she is no more. It's a depressing thought, she was the finest friend i ever had. The most wonderful girl of them all. The smartest, cutest and most beautiful girl ; she passed away in January 2009 at the age of 18. There is no equal to her, hence the void she created cannot be filled.

This post is not about that little darling, this post is about the freak of nature, Sigismund Schlomo Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939), an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis and my personal observations and experiences since the day i spoke with my friend.  

At the outset it must be said that i did not really understand much of what we spoke about Herr Freud that day. My belief in the powers of psychology was not too great in those days, a position that has significantly changed since then. Though I could not link the theory of Freud to any practically useful or rational observation at that time, i now realize that i wasn't looking deep enough at it. I have always analysed people and their behavior's and tried to reconcile myself with a rationalization of some kind which describes these people to me. It is fascinating to come up with the many character traits that people have and try to constantly predict their reactions to their surroundings. It is like an eternal experiment where my control group consists of people with very distinct behavioral traits. The experimental group comprises mostly of  new acquaintances who i am yet to decipher. The most interesting part of all this is that i am mostly correct in my analysis and can predict reactions of many people fairly accurately. I confess that i also try and "play" some of them. 

Having established my passion for analysis of the human mind i now move into the subject matter of our little tete a tete. I agree with Herr Freud to a great extent when he says that sexual drives are the primary motivational forces of human life. I now believe, after having observed people for many years with my considerably juvenile skills, that sexual repression in the unconscious mind can have pronounced effects on the conscious and more often than not lead to the establishment of specific character traits in people. No theory in modern psychology disputes the enormous power of the unconscious mind. People may agree or disagree on many crucial points but it is held as a fact that the power of the unconscious over the individual is unquestionable. The human mind can basically be divided into two parts: the conscious, which is the mind referred to in statement's such as " you are out of your mind"; and the unconscious, which is the unexplored but most powerful realm.

The conscious mind is aware of all the established social norms and is constantly trying to make the individual fit into these cliches. The conscious mind provides the ability to think and make decisions, it makes us aware of things. The conscious mind contains memories, facts, feelings, perceptions and basically is what defines us as an individual. The unconscious however, is what constitutes the bulk of the psychoanalysis of the human mind. The realm of the unconscious is the untapped reservoir of the mind that contains all the memories, it contains the raw emotions and desires of an individual. The unconscious has no bounds, does not acknowledge reason, it simply defines the true nature of a person. The unconscious also controls all the involuntary actions of the body itself. Dreams, imaginations and fantasies are simply a way of communication between the conscious and the unconscious. 

It is this unconscious mind that is at the root of all problems. Since the unconscious has no limits, we can have any number of taboo sexual desires or other such unorthodox beliefs and fantasies confined within it. The conscious has no knowledge of what the unconscious contains. An average happy person may have perverse desires in his unconscious of which he is perfectly unaware most of the times. It is the constant struggle between such desires to be kept out of the consciousness of the human mind and adapt to the conventional sense of morality that gives us the personality we possess. Effectively, a compromise is reached between the unconscious and the conscious. In Freudian terms, the struggle between the Id and the super ego results in the ego of a person. 

Our discussion up to this point has been in terms of  Classical Psychology. My purpose in writing this post is to establish and concur with Herr Freud that sexual repression in the unconscious can be and probably is a defining factor in the formation of the personality of a child. Freud suggested that these desires may take the form of sexual attachment to the parent of the opposite sex. Since this is taboo, the child is forced to bury these irrational thoughts and feelings in the unconscious and behave in a manner expected of him by the society. This desire, however does not get suppressed so easily. For some people, they try to fulfill these desires in other ways. The most obvious of which is the physical attraction to members of the opposite sex. 

It is a radical notion to suggest that people fulfill their inner lust for their parents by acts of coitus with other people, but that is what Freud says. I, on my part am not an authority on the subject but i don't conform with his views. Although i do concede that i can understand from where these views may have emerged, i think the extrapolation may be taking things a bit too far. The statement that of sex being at the root of most events i agree to, i also give in to the fact that a child may have desires for the other relative when he is small, this is not to be seen as the kind of carnal pleasures that adults are after, it is purely an innocent feeling of a confused child. As Freud has said before, the unconscious has no bounds and he believed that up to the age of 5 a child may have developed such innocent feelings which are treated as taboo in society. As the child grows however, the parents' out of all people initiate the child in to the ways of normal acceptable human society. When the child grows up enough to feel guilt for his feelings, he tries to suppress those memories and thus the unconscious comes into play. Freud says that these feelings do not go away and the person satisfies his desires using substitutes. 

I believe that, the feelings for the parents are simply a way of introducing a child to the opposite sex. It is purely co incidental that parents are in the scheme of things. I am of course an amateur but i do understand that it is possible for a child to develop an attraction to the human body of the opposite sex, it would be the work of hormones i suspect; It is simply this attraction that is carried forward and gives desire to a person creating a want for the body of the opposite sex which is perfectly natural. The Oedipus and Elecktra complex are probably in favor of Herr Freud but i still somehow believe in what i have just said. Perhaps, after i go into further depths of psychology i may be persuaded to change my views.  

  The concept of the unconscious and the conscious, their interactions through dreams and fantasies and the struggle to constantly keep your primal instincts at bay is what makes up the discipline of Psychology. Neurotics face problems in keeping their desires hidden and trying to conform to societal rules.These problems often manifest in the form of physical troubles. It is not an exact science, psychology, but it is fascinating nevertheless!.