Question

According to Freud what is the cause of neurotic symptoms (like hysteria, obsession, phobia)? Give an example. How does this relate to the unconscious (or id)? What are some of the different ways Freud offers to treat such symptoms? What are some of the problems with Freud’s model? What does it mean to say it is “pseudoscientific”? Do you agree/disagree with these criticisms?

Answer 1

Neuroses can be caused by

1. by internal impulses that are improperly repressed by the ego and that, therefore, find alternative expression
2. by external traumatic events (a sexual encounter, sexual abuse, war trauma).

Relation of neurotic symptoms to id:

In general, a neurosis represents an instance where the ego's efforts to deal with its desires through repression, displacement, etc. fail: "A person only falls ill of a neurosis if his ego has lost the capacity to allocate his libido in some way" (Introductory Lectures 16.387). The failure of the ego and the increased insistence of the libido lead to symptoms that are as bad or worse than the conflict they are designed to replace. The ego generally perceives "an advantage through illness," as Freud terms it; the symptom, that is, allows the ego to side-step the conflict between his ego and his id through a symptom that allows him to experience pleasure in an alternate (if often debilitating) fashion. The symptom is a substitute for the instinctual impulse but one that is so reduced, displaced, and distorted that it is often not recognizable as a gratification but looks more like a compulsion or even an illness. Example: the obsessional neurotic's compulsion to clean. Once such a symptom is put in place, the ego will often reinforce it by rationalizing and taking advantage from the behavior (it is good to be clean; look how much more conscientious I am than others.) The more ingrained and rationalized a symptom becomes, the more resistant it will be to the psychoanalytical cure.

Treatment:

The treatment of neurosis consists of making conscious some of the unconscious until "we transform the pathogenic conflict into a normal one for which it must be possible somehow to find a solution. However, simply stating the "truth" of a patient's neurosis is often not enough, since the work of repression is such that the patient may hear the analyst's words but not believe them or perhaps allow the "truth" to stand alongside a continuing illness.

Problem with Freud’s model:

Freud in the years 1893 to 1897 formulated three distinct and mutually incompatible theories of neurosis centred respectively on (a) psychic trauma and defence, (b) sexual trauma (seduction), and (c) repressed sexuality (libido). For Freud the decisive step was the shift from the first to the second theory, not from the second to the third. It is examined how Freud gave priority to the libido/fantasy theory until he returned in 1926 to a general trauma theory with his second theory of anxiety. The fate of Freud’s theory of neurosis in later psychoanalytic thinking is described as a process of dilution rather than an exploration of what is right and what is wrong in the theory. It is argued that the basic fault common to Freud’s second and third theories is the insistence on an exclusive sexual aetiology of the neurosis. On the other hand, it is argued that Freud’s first theory, centred on emotional trauma and defence, has turned out to be basically right and is therefore well suited to constitute a basis for a contemporary theory of neurosis (non-neurological mental disorders).

It is called pseudoscientific because there are beliefs, theories, or practices that have been or are considered scientific, but have no basis in scientific fact. This could mean they were disproved scientifically, can't be tested scientifically, or lack evidence to support them.

Yes I agree with the criticisms especially for the second and third theory.