Psychoanalysis is one of the trends in psychology, founded by the Austrian psychiatrist and psychologist Z. Freud at the end of the 19th - the first third of the 20th century.

This psychological direction is based on the concept of the unconscious by Z. Freud. The impetus for a deep study of the unconscious was for Freud the presence at a hypnosis session, when a suggestion was made to the patient, who was in a hypnotic state, according to which, after waking up, she had to get up and take an umbrella standing in the corner and belonging to one of those present. Before awakening, she was instructed to forget that this suggestion had been given. After waking up, the patient got up, went over and took the umbrella and then opened it. When asked why she did this, she replied that she wanted to check if the umbrella was working or not. When she was noticed that the umbrella was not hers, she was extremely embarrassed.

This experiment attracted the attention of Freud, who was interested in a number of phenomena. First, the unawareness of the causes of the actions taken. Secondly, the absolute effectiveness of these reasons: a person performs a task, despite the fact that he himself does not know why he does it. Thirdly, the desire to find an explanation for their action. Fourthly, the possibility, sometimes through lengthy interrogations, of bringing a person to the memory of the true reason for his action. Thanks to this occasion and relying on a number of other facts, Freud created his own theory of the unconscious.

According to Freud's theory, there are three spheres or areas in the human psyche: consciousness, preconscious and unconscious. He referred to the category of consciousness everything that is realized and controlled by a person. Freud attributed hidden or latent knowledge to the area of ​​preconsciousness. This is the knowledge that a person has, but which is currently absent in the mind. They are triggered when an appropriate stimulus occurs.

The area of ​​the unconscious, according to Freud, has completely different properties. The first property is that the content of this area is not recognized, but it has an extremely significant influence on our behavior. The area of ​​the unconscious is active. The second property is that information that is in the area of ​​the unconscious hardly passes into consciousness. This is explained by the work of two mechanisms: displacement and resistance.

In his theory, Freud singled out three main forms of manifestation of the unconscious: dreams, erroneous actions, neurotic symptoms. To study the manifestations of the unconscious within the framework of the theory of psychoanalysis, methods for studying them were developed - the method of free associations and the method of dream analysis. The method of free association involves the interpretation by the psychoanalyst of the words continuously produced by the patient. The psychoanalyst must find a pattern in the words produced by the patient and make an appropriate conclusion about the causes of the condition that arose in the person who applied for help. As one of the variants of this method in psychoanalysis, an associative experiment is used, when the patient is prompted to quickly and without hesitation name the words in response to the word uttered by the psychoanalyst. As a rule, after several dozen trials, words associated with his hidden experiences begin to appear in the answers of the subject.

Dreams are analyzed in the same way. The need to analyze dreams, according to Freud, is due to the fact that during sleep the level of consciousness control decreases and a person sees dreams caused by a partial breakthrough into the sphere of consciousness of his drives, which are blocked by consciousness in the waking state.

Freud paid special attention to neurotic symptoms. According to his ideas, neurotic symptoms are traces of repressed traumatic circumstances that form a highly charged focus in the sphere of the unconscious and from there perform destructive work to destabilize the mental state of a person. In order to get rid of neurotic symptoms, Freud considered it necessary to open this focus, that is, to make the patient aware of the causes that determine his condition, and then the neurosis would be cured.

Freud considered the basis for the emergence of neurotic symptoms to be the most important biological need of all living organisms - the need for procreation, which manifests itself in humans in the form of sexual desire. Suppressed sexual desire is the cause of neurotic disorders. However, such disorders can also be caused by other causes not related to a person's sexuality. These are various unpleasant experiences that accompany everyday life. As a result of displacement into the sphere of the unconscious, they also form strong energy centers, which manifest themselves in the so-called erroneous actions. Freud referred to erroneous actions the forgetting of certain facts, intentions, names, as well as typos, reservations, etc. These phenomena were explained by him as a result of difficult or unpleasant experiences associated with a particular object, word, name, etc. In turn, Freud explained slips of the tongue, slips of the tongue, or accidental omissions by saying that they contain the true intentions of a person, carefully hidden from others.

The formation of Z. Freud's views went through two main stages. At the 1st stage, a dynamic model of the psyche was developed, including the idea of ​​its three areas: consciousness, preconsciousness and the unconscious. At the 2nd stage (starting from the 1920s), psychoanalysis turns into a doctrine of personality, in which three structures are distinguished: It (Id), I (Ego) and Super-I (Super-Ego). The structure of the id contains innate unconscious instincts (the instinct of life and death), as well as repressed drives and desires. The structure of the ego is formed under the influence of the external world and is under the bilateral influence of the id and the superego. The structure of the Super-I contains a system of ideals, norms and prohibitions, which is formed in individual experience through identification with the Super-I of parents and close adults. The struggle between the structures of the Super-I and It generates unconscious defense mechanisms of the personality, as well as the sublimation of unconscious drives.

However, very few followers of Z. Freud agreed with him that sexual desires determine the whole life of a person. This direction was further developed in the works of A. Adler, C. Jung, E. Erickson, K. Horney, A. Assogiolli, E. Fromm and others.

So, A. Adler creates his own version of psychoanalysis - individual psychology, in which the central place is given to the problems of target determination of human behavior, the meaning of life, the conditions for the emergence of an inferiority complex in a person and means of compensation (overcompensation) for real and imaginary shortcomings.

E. Erickson on a large empirical material, he proved the socio-cultural conditioning of the human psyche, as opposed to classical psychoanalysis, where man and society were opposed. The most important in the concept of E. Erickson is the concept "psychosocial identity": a stable image of the Self and the corresponding ways of behaving a person that are developed during life and are a condition for mental health. But with significant social upheavals (war, disasters, violence, unemployment, etc.), psychosocial identity can be lost. The main role in the formation of this personal education is played by the I (Ego), which focuses on the values ​​and ideals of society, which become the values ​​and ideals of the personality itself in the process of educating the individual.

K. Jung, one of the students of Z. Freud, created his own version of psychoanalysis - analytical psychology. Based on the analysis of dreams, delusions, schizophrenic disorders, as well as on the study of mythology, the works of Eastern, ancient and medieval philosophers, K. Jung comes to the conclusion about the existence and manifestation in human psychology collective unconscious. According to K. Jung, the contents of the collective unconscious are not acquired in the individual life experience of the subject - they already exist at birth in the form archetypes that are inherited from ancestors.

And according to C. Horney, neuroses develop due to contradictions in people's relationships that actualize a person's feeling "root anxiety". A particularly important role in the neurotic development of the personality is played by relationships with parents in childhood.

In the most general concept, this is the desire to explain the secret reasons for certain actions and opinions. Most people did not even think about the fact that consciousness is only a small fraction of the entire psyche. Outside of it there is a powerful psychic machine that has been formed over long millennia and whose work is inaccessible to self-consciousness, just as it is inaccessible to monitor the work of one's liver or other vital organs. But it is precisely in this deeply hidden, unconscious region of the psyche that the initial source of many of our thoughts and sensations lies hidden.

What is psychoanalysis?

It combines spiritual and physical. Mental inconsistencies develop into a disease of the body. Also here are sympathies or antipathies for specific individuals, the origins of quarrels, which are sometimes so difficult to make out. In the unconscious, all our most important decisions ripen, impulses are outlined for both heroic and criminal deeds, which are not at all expected by either the one who will bring them to life, or his neighbors. All social, personal relationships, the psychology of the masses - all this is built on unconscious motives.

The tasks of psychoanalysis.

The first and perhaps the most important goal of psychoanalysis- this is an interpretation of the contradictory that appears in the head of a person and in his relations with others. It is clear that psychoanalysis is performed by all individuals with both normal and deviant psyches, as soon as they encounter only something that offends their nature. The definition of psychoanalysis in a special and purposeful category, which can represent the therapeutic communication of a doctor with his patient, appeared already in the 20th century - probably due to the fact that strong and unexpected changes in people's social relations led many of them to mental discomfort of various kinds.

In the process of urbanization, increasing mobility, rapid cultural development and other processes, the established psychological ties in society have changed. There appeared a feeling of loss of life meaning, an insurmountable barrier of generations, loneliness and uselessness, the impossibility of realizing one's self, which had not been similar in the past, a feeling of loss of life meaning. Due to all of the above, the number of mental illnesses, crimes in the heat of passion, suicides has increased, all conflicts have become more acute. Psychoanalysis as a medical direction and section of psychology appeared then, at the dawn of the twentieth century. He was not only an invention of science, belonging to a brilliant mind. In addition, it became a response to sociological changes that required special personal adaptation in the situation of the emerging alienation of people and dangerous conflict.

All originality psychoanalysis lies in the fact that he appeared on the verge of linking medicine, science and communication. This can also explain his scientific revolutionary nature, the super-strong interest of the mass public in him, as well as a number of accusations, reproaches, decisions about immorality and deceit that fell on poor psychoanalysts from everywhere. Psychoanalysis opened the doors to a new era of human self-knowledge.

History of psychoanalysis.

thorny road development of psychoanalysis unusual and unique. Met with reproaches and distrust in academic circles, he, after a certain time, gained popularity, which in scale can only be compared with the fame of Marxism, for example, and various world religions. Thought up by its inventor as a method of healing neuroses and a theory of spiritual development, psychoanalysis soon became the philosophy of every person and of an entire culture, found itself at the very epicenter of social and political life. It can be added that in Nazi Germany the manuscripts of the great Freud were destroyed by fire, and in the USSR they were hidden in special storage facilities. Already in the 20th century, psychoanalysis became known to the whole world.

Some manuscripts of Freud and his followers were published in the 20-30s in the Russian version founded by the professor. YES. Ermakov "psychoanalytic library". For several decades psychoanalysis was officially banned. And only by the mid-80s, books by Freud, Jung, Adler and other immortal psychoanalysts began to be published everywhere. Acquaintance with the structure of personality and the science of psychoanalysis will not pass without a trace for anyone, any person, having understood its essence, turns into a more sophisticated, more self-critical, less prone to blind trust in advertising, catchy posters, ideological slogans. Psychoanalysis cultivates self-control, tolerance, responsibility, respect for one's own and others' freedom in people. And these are precisely the necessary qualities that we most of all need to this day.

Psychoanalysis is not only a type of psychotherapeutic and clinical practice. At the same time, it is a philosophical doctrine of man, a social philosophy, belonging to the factors of an ideological order. It is in this sense that psychoanalysis has become an integral part of Western culture.

According to the definition of a psychological dictionary, psychoanalysis (psychoanalytic therapy) is a psychological trend founded by the Austrian psychiatrist and psychologist S. Freud at the end of the 19th century. Initially developed as a method of treatment of neuroses; then it turned into a general psychological theory that placed the driving forces of mental life, motives, drives, meanings in the center of attention; subsequently became one of the important areas of philosophy of the XX century. It is based on the idea that behavior is determined not only and not so much by consciousness as by the unconscious. So, the term is used in three main senses:

1) theoretical direction in psychology;

2) a special methodology for the study of the psyche;

3) psychotherapeutic method: a set of ways to identify the characteristics of a person's experiences and actions due to unconscious motives.

The main technical means of psychoanalysis: 1) the associative method - the analysis of free associations; 2) dream analysis and interpretation of dreams - a method of dream analysis; 3) analysis and interpretation of various erroneous and unintentional (accidental) symptomatic actions of everyday life - a method of error analysis.

The philosophical dictionary gives the following definition:

Psychoanalysis is:

1) In the narrow sense of the word - a psychotherapeutic method developed by Z. Freud in the late 90s. XIX century for the treatment of psychoneuroses. Psychoanalysis as a method of therapy consists in identifying, then bringing to consciousness and experiencing unconscious traumatic ideas, impressions, mental complexes.

2) In the broad sense of the word, various schools of dynamic psychotherapy are called psychoanalysis. Moreover, we can talk not only about the theoretical platforms of these schools, but also about the institutionalized movement that is carried out on the basis of them. Psychoanalysis as a movement originates from a circle of supporters of S. Freud, who united around him in 1902 and founded the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society in 1908. Modern successors and continuers of this movement belong to the so-called "classical" or "orthodox" psychoanalysis - its most numerous, powerful and influential direction. In theoretical terms, classical psychoanalysis is Freudianism, in some respects refined and reformed in the 1930s and 1950s. Other areas (schools) of psychoanalysis, much less institutionalized and influential, were founded by students who had moved away from Freud - A. Adler, K. Jung, who only for a short time became close to him and the Vienna Society.

Consequently, the essence of psychoanalysis can be considered at three levels: as a method of psychotherapy, as a method of studying the psychology of the individual, and as a system of scientific knowledge about the worldview, psychology, and philosophy.

Freudianism - and this is its merit - sought to fill psychological knowledge about a person with a new life truth, create a theory and, on its basis, obtain information useful for solving practical, primarily psychotherapeutic problems. It is no coincidence that Z. Freud began his scientific demands with an analysis and generalization of psychotherapeutic practice and only then turned the accumulated experience into a psychological theory.

The concept of "psychoanalysis" was introduced into scientific literature at the end of the 19th century. to refer to a new method of studying and treating mental disorders. For the first time, this concept was used in an article on the etiology of neuroses, published in German on May 15, 1896. Laplanche and Pontalis' Dictionary of Psychoanalysis gives the following definitions of psychoanalysis: a research method based on identifying the unconscious meanings of words, actions, products of a person's imagination (dreams, fantasies , delirium); a method for treating neurotic disorders based on this study; a set of theories of psychology and psychopathology, in which the data obtained by the psychoanalytic method of research and treatment are systematized.

Psychoanalysis is one of the directions in psychological science, which is based on the definition of anxieties and internal conflicts of the individual, hidden in the depths of the subconscious. Such conflicts can be one of the causes of psycho-emotional trauma. The founder of this trend is Sigmund Freud, who devoted his life to the study of unconscious processes. Thanks to his teachings, psychologists around the world got the opportunity to work with the motives of the behavioral model hidden in the subconscious of the individual. Let's find out what psychoanalysis is in psychology and talk about the basics of this doctrine.

Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory founded by the Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud, as well as a method of the same name for the treatment of mental disorders.

Psychoanalysis is one of the psychological teachings that considers the human personality in the form of a struggle between consciousness and the subconscious. This confrontation affects the level of emotional perception and self-esteem, and also determines the degree of interaction with the outside world. Most often, the source of conflict between the subconscious and consciousness is the negative life experience gained by a person throughout his life. Human nature is arranged in such a way that each person tries to avoid various types of pain and is aimed at finding pleasure.

Psychoanalysis is a branch that studies the interaction between the unconscious and conscious areas.

The theory of psychoanalysis is built on the assertion that the human personality is based on three components: the unconscious, preconscious and conscious parts. Each of these components are interchangeable and dependent on each other. The preconscious part contains human desires and fantastic ideas. Focusing on such stimuli moves them from the preconscious part to the realm of consciousness. Morality and morality are social values ​​that determine the human personality. Their influence on the perception of certain life events can cause the consciousness to perceive various life situations as painful or acceptable. With painful perception, memories of traumatic circumstances are deposited in the unconscious area.

Such life experience, as it were, is separated from the rest, with the help of invisible barriers. Human psychoanalysis is based on two analytical mechanisms:

1. The study of spontaneous actions that are committed throughout life.
2. Analysis of personality, with the help of associations and interpretations of dreams.

Freud's theory

The human behavioral model is regulated by consciousness. Research on this topic helped Sigmund Freud to reveal the existence of a certain layer that is responsible for various lusts and inclinations. Since Freud was a practitioner, in his research he determined the existence of a whole layer of motives, which are called unconscious.

The goal of psychoanalytic therapy is to be able to unravel a person's personality, and not just calm him down.

According to Freud, it is precisely such motives that are the root cause of the occurrence of diseases of the nervous system and the human psyche. Thanks to this discovery, scientists have been able to find the means that can stop the struggle within the patient's personality. One of these means was the method of psychoanalysis, which is a method of resolving internal conflicts. The treatment of neuropathic pathologies was not Freud's main goal. This great scientist sought to find methods that would help restore the mental health of the patient as much as possible. Through trial and error, a theory of analysis of the patient's personality was developed, which is widely used today.

The uniqueness and effectiveness of Freud's methodology has become highly widespread and has become one of the most famous "tools" for restoring the psyche. The classical version of psychoanalysis should be regarded as a kind of revolution in psychological science.

What is the theory of psychoanalysis

What does psychoanalysis study? The basis of this teaching is based on the assumption that the behavioral model has in its nature unconscious motives that are hidden deep within the personality. The middle of the last century can be characterized as a revolution in psychological science, since the world was presented with methods that allow you to look at the internal psychological tension from a new point of view.

According to Freud, the human personality consists of three components. They received the names "Super-I", "I" and "It". "It" - the unconscious part of the personality, in which various objects of gravity are hidden. "I" is a continuation of "It" and arises under the influence of external forces. "I" is one of the most complex mechanisms, the functionality of which covers both the conscious and unconscious levels. Based on this, it follows that the "I" is one of the tools to protect the psyche from external influences.

Many of the mechanisms that protect the psyche from damage are prepared at birth for the influence of external stimuli. However, the violation of the process of personality formation and the negative microclimate that prevails within the family can become a source of various pathologies. In this case, the influence of objective reality leads to a weakening of the defense mechanisms and causes distortions. It is the force of curvature of the adaptive defense mechanisms that leads to the emergence of mental disorders.

Psychoanalysis is a method of scientific observation, the study of personality: its desires, drives, impulses, fantasies, early development and emotional disorders.

Psychoanalysis as a direction of psychology

The definition of the characteristics of the human psyche, proposed by Freud, has become very widespread in psychology. To date, many modern methods of psychotherapeutic correction have been built on this theory. Jung's analytical psychoanalysis and Adler's individual psychoanalysis are one of the main "tools" for identifying internal conflicts that are sources of pathological perception.

The theories of the aforementioned scientists are based on the research of Sigmund Freud. The main difference between these methods is the limited importance of sexual motives. Thanks to the followers of Freud, the unconscious part of the personality received new characteristics. According to Adler, the manifestation of lust for power is a compensation for an inferiority complex.
Jung's research was based on the study of the collective unconscious. According to the scientist, the unconscious part of the individual's psyche is based on hereditary factors. According to Freud himself, the unconscious level is filled with phenomena that were pushed out of the conscious part of the psyche.

Use of psychoanalysis in psychology

The method of psychoanalysis is based on three main elements that fully reveal the whole concept of this teaching. The first element is a kind of stage at which material is collected for study. The second element involves careful study and analysis of the data obtained. The third element is interaction using the data obtained as a result of the analysis. Various techniques are used to collect information, including the method of confrontation, associations and transference.

The method of building free associations is based on creating a model of situations that exactly repeat certain life events. This approach allows you to identify certain processes occurring at the unconscious level of the psyche. The use of this method makes it possible to obtain data on pathological processes in order to further correct mental disorders. Correction is carried out by understanding internal conflicts and the causes of their occurrence. One of the important conditions in the use of this method is the creation of a strong communicative relationship between the psychologist and the patient, aimed at eliminating psychological discomfort.

Psychoanalysis studies the internal, coming from the subconscious, driven by instincts and the principle of pleasure, the tension of a person.

To do this, the patient must voice every thought that is born in his head. These thoughts may be obscene or borderline absurd. In order to achieve a high result, it is necessary to create the right relationship between the doctor and the patient. The transfer technique involves the unconscious transfer of the characteristic personality traits of the patient's parents to the attending physician. Thus, the patient relates to the doctor in the same way as he treated close relatives in early childhood. At the same time, the substitute person gets the opportunity to identify children's desires, grievances and psychological trauma received during the formation of the personality.

It is important to note that psychotherapeutic intervention often encounters the phenomenon of internal resistance emanating from the patient. It manifests itself in the form of a failure to comprehend causal relationships and a violation of the process of creating a new model of behavior. The cause of resistance is an unconscious refusal to touch internal conflicts, which is accompanied by the appearance of obstacles on the way to identifying the cause of mental disorders.

The main task of personality analysis is to perform four sequential actions:

• interpretation;
• working out;
• clarification;
• opposition.

Further, the joint efforts of the patient and the psychologist are aimed at achieving a specific goal, which was identified as a result of the analysis. The technique of interpreting dreams involves the interpretation of dreams, which are a deformed form of unconscious motives.

Modern theory of psychoanalysis

Such representatives of psychoanalysis as Alfred Adler, Jacques Lacan, Karen Horney and Carl Jung made an invaluable contribution to the development of this area of ​​psychology. It was their modified theory of classical psychoanalysis that made it possible to create new methods for revealing the hidden properties of the human psyche. Over the course of a hundred years that have passed since the advent of the method of psychoanalysis, various principles have appeared, on the basis of which a multi-level system has been built that combines various approaches to resolving internal conflicts.

Thanks to the followers of Freud, whole complexes of psychotherapeutic correction appeared, which contain methods for studying the unconscious part of the human psyche. One of these methods is the release of the personality from those restrictions that are created in the subconscious area and hinder personal development.

To date, the methodology of psychoanalysis includes three main branches that are complementary and interconnected with each other:

1. Applied form of psychoanalysis- is used to identify and study general cultural factors with the help of which certain social issues are resolved.
2. Clinical form of psychoanalysis- a method of therapeutic assistance to people faced with internal conflicts that provoke the occurrence of neuropsychic pathologies.
3. Psychoanalytic ideas- which are a kind of ground for the construction of methods of actual correction.

A person who has undergone psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic therapy will be able to radically change himself and his life.

Psychoanalysis has a high degree of distribution in various fields of science. Psychoanalysis in philosophy is a peculiar method of interpreting the foundations and mores established in society. The classical form of psychoanalysis was one of the reasons for the development of the sexual revolution, since it is in it that the concept of sexual desire is expressed most clearly. The current form of psychoanalysis is based on ego psychology and object relations teachings.

To date, the use of the method of analyzing the patient's personality helps to cope with both neurotic diseases and complex mental disorders. Thanks to the constant improvement of this area, scientists every day identify new ways to eliminate various pathologies. A huge contribution to the improvement of this branch was made by the followers of Freud, whose teaching was called neo-Freudianism. However, despite the high prevalence and application in various fields, the theory of psychoanalysis often faces criticism. According to some scientists, this direction is pseudoscience and has undeservedly gained such high popularity.

Chapter 3. Basic concepts of psychoanalysis

crowding out

Crowding out - the process of detachment from consciousness and retention outside its mental content, one of the mechanisms for protecting a person from conflicts that are played out in the depths of his psyche.

Psychoanalysis was based on several ideas and concepts about the nature and functioning of the human psyche, among which an important place was occupied by the idea of ​​repression. As noted in the section devoted to the consideration of the philosophical origins of psychoanalysis, in his work “On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement” (1914), Freud emphasized that he came to the theory of repression on his own and considered it original for many years. But once O. Rank drew Freud's attention to the work of the German philosopher A. Schopenhauer "The World as Will and Representation" (1819), which contained the idea of ​​resistance to the perception of a disease state, and it became obvious that this coincided with the psychoanalytic understanding of repression. It is possible that Freud's acquaintance with the work of A. Schopenhauer, to which he referred in his work "The Interpretation of Dreams" (1900), served as an impetus for him to put forward the concept of repression. It is also possible that he could also get the idea of ​​repression from a textbook on empirical psychology by H. Linder. This textbook was a generalized presentation of the main ideas of I. Herbart, the author of the position according to which much of what is in the mind is “displaced from it” (it is known that during the last year of study at the gymnasium, Freud used the textbook of G. Linder).

Otto Rank( 1884-1939) - Austrian psychoanalyst, one of the first students and associates of Freud. In 1906, he met the founder of psychoanalysis by presenting him with a letter of recommendation from A. Adler and the manuscript of Art and the Artist. On the advice of Freud, he received a university education, becoming a doctor of philosophy. For a number of years - Secretary of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, editor of the psychoanalytic journal Imago, director of the International Psychoanalytic Publishing House in Vienna. He had considerable erudition and an analytical gift for interpreting myths, legends, and dreams. In 1924, he put forward the idea of ​​birth trauma, according to which this traumatic event underlies the emergence of neuroses. In 1935 he emigrated to the USA, practiced psychoanalysis and taught at various universities. He put forward the concept of volitional therapy. Author of The Myth of the Birth of a Hero (1909), Motif of Incest in Poetry and Saga (1912), Birth Trauma (1924), Volitional Therapy (1936) and others.

Freud's ideas about repression really formed the basis of psychoanalysis. Thus, in the work “Investigations of Hysteria” (1895), published jointly with J. Breuer, he suggested that some kind of psychic force not located on the part of the ego initially displaces the pathogenic idea from the association, and subsequently prevents it from returning to memory. In The Interpretation of Dreams, he developed this idea: the main condition for repression (repression) is the presence of a child complex; the process of repression concerns a person's sexual desires from childhood; memory is more easily repressed than perception; at first, repression is expedient, but in the end it turns into a pernicious renunciation of psychic domination.

Freud did not have an unambiguous definition of repression. In any case, in his various works, he understood repression as:

¦ the process by which a mental act capable of being conscious becomes unconscious;

¦ return to an earlier and deeper stage of development of a mental act;

¦ pathogenic process, manifested in the form of resistance;

¦ a kind of forgetting, in which memory "wakes up" with great difficulty;

¦ one of the protective devices of the personality.

Thus, in classical psychoanalysis, repression showed similarities with such phenomena as regression, resistance, and a defense mechanism. Another thing is that, along with the recognition of similarities, Freud at the same time noted the differences between them.

In particular, in his Lectures on Introduction to Psychoanalysis (1916-1917) he emphasized that although repression falls under the concept of "regression" (return from a higher stage of development to a lower one), repression is still a topically dynamic concept, and regression is purely descriptive. Unlike regression, repression deals with spatial relationships that include the dynamics of mental processes. Repression is the process that is primarily characteristic of neurosis and best characterizes it. Without repression, the regression of libido (sexual energy) does not lead to neurosis, but results in perversion (perversion).

When considering repression, Freud raised the question of its forces, motives, and conditions for its implementation. The answer to this question boiled down to the following: under the influence of external circumstances and internal urges, a person develops a desire that is incompatible with his ethical and aesthetic views; the clash of desire with the norms of behavior that oppose it leads to an intrapsychic conflict; the resolution of the conflict, the cessation of the struggle are carried out due to the fact that the idea that arose in the mind of a person as a carrier of an incompatible desire is subjected to repression into the unconscious; the idea and the memory associated with it are eliminated from consciousness and forgotten.

According to Freud, repressive forces serve the ethical and aesthetic requirements of a person that arise in him in the process of upbringing and cultural development. The displeasure that he experiences when it is impossible to realize an incompatible desire is eliminated by repression. The motive for repression is the incompatibility of the corresponding representation of a person with his Self. Repression acts as a mental defense mechanism. At the same time it gives rise to a neurotic symptom which is a substitute for what the repression has prevented. Ultimately, repression turns out to be a prerequisite for the formation of a neurosis.

To illustrate the process of repression, we can use the comparison used by Freud when he lectured on psychoanalysis at Clark University (USA) in 1909. In the audience where the lecture is being given, there is a person who breaks the silence and distracts the lecturer's attention with his laughter, chatter, and the tramp of feet. The lecturer announces that under such conditions he cannot continue lecturing. Several strong men from among the listeners take over the function of restoring order and, after a short struggle, put the violator of the silence out the door. After the violator of the order has been "forced out", the lecturer can continue his work. But so that the negligent listener does not enter the audience again, the men who have repressed themselves sit near the door and take on the role of guards (resistance). If we use the language of psychology and call the place in the audience consciousness, and outside the door - the unconscious, then this will be an image of the process of repression.

The study and treatment of neurotic disorders led Freud to the conviction that neurotics cannot completely repress the idea associated with incompatible desire. This representation is eliminated from consciousness and memory, but it continues to live in the unconscious, at the first opportunity it is activated and sends a distorted substitute from itself into consciousness. Unpleasant feelings are added to the substitutive idea, from which, it would seem, a person got rid of due to repression. This substitutive representation is a neurotic symptom, as a result of which, instead of the previous short-term conflict, long-term suffering sets in. As Freud noted in The Man Moses and Monotheistic Religion (1938), a previously repressed idea awakened under the influence of a new occasion contributes to the intensification of a person's repressed desire. And since the path to normal satisfaction is blocked for it by what can be called a "repression scar", it makes another path for itself somewhere in a weak spot. The path to the so-called ersatz-satisfaction, which now makes itself felt in the form of a symptom that arises without "consent", but also without understanding from the side of consciousness.

For the recovery of a neurotic, it is necessary that the symptom be translated into a repressed representation along the same paths by which the repression from consciousness into the unconscious was carried out. If by overcoming the resistances it is possible to bring the repressed back into consciousness, then the intrapsychic conflict that the patient wanted to avoid can get a better way out under the guidance of the analyst than with the help of repression. In this regard, repression was seen by Freud as a person's attempt "to escape into illness", and psychoanalytic therapy as a good substitute for unsuccessful repression.

An illustration of analytic work is the same comparison that was used by 3. Freud when lecturing at Clark University. So, despite the exclusion, the expulsion of the violator from the audience and the installation of a guard at the door do not give a complete guarantee that everything will be in order. A person forcibly thrown out of the audience and offended by his screams and knocking on the door with his fists can make such noise in the corridor that it will interfere with the lecture even more than his previous indecent behavior. It turned out that the displacement did not lead to the expected result. Then the organizer of the lecture takes on the role of mediator and restores order. He negotiates with the violator of silence and addresses the audience with a proposal to allow him back to the lecture, and gives his word that the latter will behave appropriately. Relying on the authority of the organizer of the lecture, the audience agrees to stop the crowding out, the violator of the order returns to the audience. Again comes peace and silence, as a result of which the necessary conditions are created for normal lecture work. Such a comparison is appropriate for the task that, according to Freud, falls to the lot of the doctor in the psychoanalytic treatment of neuroses.

The founder of psychoanalysis distinguished between the unconscious in general and the repressed unconscious. The term "unconscious" is purely descriptive, in a sense vague and static. The concept of “repressed” is dynamic, speaking of the flow of various, often opposing mental processes and indicating the presence of some kind of internal force (resistance) that is able to restrain mental actions, including actions to realize the material removed from consciousness.

According to Freud, the repressed unconscious is that part of the human psyche that contains forgotten perceptions and pathogenic experiences that are the source of neurotic diseases. In the repressed unconscious there is also everything that can manifest itself not only as a neurotic symptom, but also in the form of a dream or an erroneous action.

In the article "Some Remarks on the Concept of the Unconscious in Psychoanalysis" (1912), Freud wrote that the repressed unconscious makes itself felt in the dream in its most graphic form. During the night, a string of thoughts, brought to life by a person’s daytime spiritual activity, finds a connection with any unconscious desires that the dreamer has with early childhood but which are usually repressed and excluded from his conscious being. These thoughts can become active again and emerge in consciousness in the form of a dream, of the hidden meaning of which, as a rule, he knows nothing and, therefore, has no idea about the content of what is in the repressed unconscious.

In "I and It" (1923), which outlined a structural approach to the consideration of the human psyche, Freud noted that the repressed is a typical example of the unconscious. At the same time, he emphasized that the psychoanalytic concept of the unconscious follows directly from the doctrine of repression and that, in the strict sense of the word, the term "unconscious" applies only to the repressed dynamic unconscious.

In the process of analytical work, based on the topical (spatial) and dynamic conception of the human psyche, it turned out that the distinction made between the preconscious and the repressed unconscious turned out to be insufficient and practically unsatisfactory. It turned out that the self connected with consciousness, on the one hand, organizes repression, due to which a part of the psyche becomes saturated with the material of the repressed unconscious, and on the other hand, resists attempts to approach the repressed during analytic therapy. Since the resistance, of which the patient knows nothing, comes from his ego and belongs to him, therefore, in the ego itself there is something unconscious, which appears like the repressed, but is not so. As Freud later remarked in The Man Moses and Monotheistic Religion (1938), it is true that everything repressed is unconscious, but it is not true that everything belonging to the ego is conscious. Hence the need arose for a structural understanding of the human psyche, for the recognition, along with the preconscious and the repressed unconscious, of such an unconscious in the Self, which Freud called the Super-I. At the same time, he began to proceed from the fact that the repressed unconscious merges with the id, but represents only a part of it. Thanks to the resistance of repression, this repressed unconscious is separated only from the ego. With the help of the id, it opens up the possibility of uniting with the ego.

The isolation of the unconscious Superego in the structure of the psyche made it necessary to consider the relationship between it and the repressed unconscious. Having made an attempt of this kind, Freud expressed the idea that the Super-I has, as it were, the double face of the Ideal I: one personifies the duty (“you must be like a father”); the other is a prohibition (“you have no right to do everything that your father does, since only he has the right to do a lot”). The prohibition emanating from the Superego is associated with the repression of the oedipal complex. Moreover, from Freud's point of view, it is noteworthy that the very emergence of the Super-I in the human psyche is due to repression, the presence of the repressed unconscious. The stronger the Oedipus complex was at a certain stage of the child's psychosexual development, the faster it was repressed under the influence of upbringing, the stricter the Super-I, which rules over the I in the form of conscience, an unconscious sense of guilt, subsequently turns out to be.

As psychoanalysis matured and developed, Freud introduced various refinements to the understanding of repression. On the approaches to psychoanalysis, he preferred to talk more about protection than about repression, which was reflected, in particular, in his article "Defensive neuropsychoses" (1894). Subsequently, he shifted the focus of the study to the plane of putting forward the theory of repression, according to which:

¦ repressed remains viable;

¦ one can expect the return of the repressed, especially if the erotic feelings of a person join the repressed impression;

¦ the first act of repression is followed by a long process, when the struggle against the drive finds its continuation in the struggle with the symptom; in therapeutic intervention there is a resistance that acts in defense of repression.

Thus, in the article "Repression" (1915) 3. Freud put forward the idea of ​​"primary repression", "repression in aftereffect" ("pushing after", "post-repression") and "return of the repressed" in the form of neurotic symptoms, dreams, erroneous actions.

Later, the founder of psychoanalysis again returned to the concept of "protection" in order to establish the relationship between defense mechanisms and repression. In particular, in Inhibition, Symptom and Fear (1926), he emphasized that there is every reason to use the old concept of “protection” again and include repression as one special case (in Russian editions of this work, translated called "Fear", instead of the concept of "protection" the term "reflection" is used). Along with this clarification, he identified five types of resistance (three emanating from the ego, one from the id, and one from the superego), among which "resistance of repression" referred to one of the types of resistances of the ego.

In his last works, for example, in "Finite and Infinite Analysis" (1937), Freud once again drew attention to the problem of repression and noted that all repressions occur in early childhood, representing the primitive protective measures of the immature, weak I. In subsequent periods of development man, new repressions do not arise, but the old ones are preserved, to the services of which the ego resorts, striving to cope with its instincts. New conflicts are resolved through post-repression. The real achievement of analytic therapy is the subsequent correction of the original process of repression. Another thing is that, as Freud noted, the therapeutic intention to replace the previous repressions that led to the emergence of the patient's neurosis is not always carried out in full by reliable forces of the ego.

The idea expressed by Freud in Inhibition, Symptom and Fear that repression is one of the types of defense served as an impetus for other psychoanalysts to reveal the mechanisms of defense of the Self. A. Freud published the book "Self and Defense Mechanisms" (1936), in which, along with repression, she singled out nine more defense mechanisms, including regression, projection, introjection, and others. Subsequent psychoanalysts began to pay special attention to defense mechanisms. Freud, in his work “Finite and Infinite Analysis”, stressed that he never had any doubts that “repression is not the only method that the ego has at its disposal for its own purposes”, but it is something “completely special, more sharply different from other mechanisms than they differ from each other. The essence of analytic therapy remains unchanged, since the therapeutic effect, according to Freud, is associated with the awareness of the repressed in the id (unconscious), and the repressed is understood in the broadest sense.

Anna Freud(1895-1982) - daughter and follower of Z. Freud, founder of child psychoanalysis. Received a pedagogical education, worked as a teacher. In 1918-1921 she was analyzed by her father. From 1918 she took part in meetings of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and in international congresses. In 1923 she opened her own psychoanalytic practice, in 1924 she headed the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute, in 1926 she became secretary of the International Psychoanalytic Society. In 1938, together with her father, she emigrated to England, where a year later she opened a military children's orphanage. From 1944 to 1947 she was elected General Secretary of the International Psychoanalytic Association. She opened a training course for child psychoanalysts and in 1952 became director of a child therapy clinic in Hempstead. Honorary Doctorates from Harvard and Columbia Universities. In 1973 she was elected honorary president of the International Psychoanalytic Association. Author of the books Introduction to the Technique of Child Psychoanalysis (1927), Self and Defense Mechanisms (1936), Norm and Pathology of Childhood (1965). Worked on the edition of the collected works of 3. Freud, which was published in London in 1942-1945.

When considering the psychoanalytic understanding of repression, it must be borne in mind that Freud's interpretation of it was refined as psychoanalysis developed. This concerned not only the relationship between protection and repression, but also the driving forces that set in motion the process of repression. After the founder of psychoanalysis had carried out the structural division of the psyche into the id, the ego, and the superego, he faced the question of which mental instance the repression should be correlated with. Answering this question, he came to the conclusion that repression is a matter of the Super-I, which either carries out repression on its own, or “gives a task” for repression to the obedient I. This conclusion was made by him in the “New Cycle of Lectures on Introduction to Psychoanalysis” ( 1933), which contained various additions to his previous views, including an understanding of dreams, fear, and the constituent parts of the psyche.

Ultimately, in psychoanalysis, great importance is attached to the repressed unconscious, the nature, conditions and forces of formation of which are the subject of both research activity and therapeutic practice. It is no coincidence that the analysis of dreams, erroneous actions and neurotic symptoms by means of psychoanalysis revealed the essential role of the repressed unconscious in the formation of these phenomena.

Sayings

Z ... Freud: "The theory of repression is both the cornerstone on which the building of psychoanalysis is based, and the most important part of the latter."

Z. Freud: “Everything that is repressed is unconscious, but we cannot assert that it is repressed in relation to everything unconscious.”

Z. Freud: ““Repressed” is a dynamic word that takes into account the play of mental forces and indicates that there is a desire to manifest all mental influences, among them the desire to become conscious, but there is also an opposite force, resistance, capable of holding back part of such mental influences. actions, among them the action of awareness. The sign of the repressed remains that, despite its power, it is not capable of becoming conscious.

Z. Freud: “We recognize that culture and high education have a great influence on the development of repression and assume that this changes the mental organization, which can also be introduced by an inherited predisposition. As a result of such changes, what is usually perceived as pleasant now seems unpleasant and is rejected with all psychic powers. As a result of the repressive activity of culture, the primary, but now rejected by internal censorship, opportunities for enjoyment are lost.

Fixation and regression

Fixation - the continuing attachment of a person to certain objects and goals, phases and stages of development, images and fantasies, ways of behavior and satisfaction, relationships and conflicts.

In psychoanalysis, the concept of fixation refers to the description of the unconscious processes that take place at various stages of a child's psychosexual development. They are associated with fixing the libido on a particular sexual object or sexual goal, as well as with regression, focusing on trauma, mental delays and disorders, and the exclusion of pathogenic material from the human mind.

Reflections on the nature and specifics of fixation were contained in many studies of Freud, from his first works to the works of a later period of his life, in which psychoanalytic ideas and theories underwent a change. Thus, in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), when considering the mental apparatus, the founder of psychoanalysis proceeded from the fact that in different mental systems the same stimulus can have one or another fixation. If one system includes fixing an association by simultaneity, then in another system the same material may be located by other types of coincidence. In the context of understanding the dream work, he distinguished between fiction and regression.

In Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), Freud considered questions about the fixation of preliminary sexual goals, delays in the intermediate sexual goal of emphasized sexual staring, and fixation of libido on faces of the same sex. Paying special attention to the conditions for the emergence of sexual perversions, he expressed a number of considerations about the possible attachment of a person to certain stages of psychosexual development and certain features of the sexual object. In particular, he emphasized that perversions are explained not only by the fixation of infantile inclinations, but also by regression to them due to the obstruction of other paths of sexual desire. In addition, Freud singled out such a mental phenomenon as "increased tenacity", by which he understood the ability to fix early impressions of sexual life, which is characteristic not only for perverse persons, but also for neurotics. Finally, he developed the idea that he had previously expressed in the mid-1990s that random childhood experiences associated with the influence on sexuality (for example, seduction from other children and adults) provide such material that can be fixed and lead to are persistent mental disorders.

Freud's notion of fixation on trauma as the source of neurosis arose at the initial stage of the formation of psychoanalysis. Later, he expanded the concept of fixation, correlating it with sexual objects and goals, stages of psychosexual development, and human activity in general. At the same time, in many of his works, written at different periods of his life, fixation on trauma retained its pathogenic significance.

In On Psychoanalysis (1910), Freud noted that the fixation of mental life is a characteristic feature of neurosis, and that due to the affective attachment to former painful experiences, neurotics cannot get rid of the past and for the sake of it they leave the present unattended. In Lectures on Introduction to Psychoanalysis (1916–1917), he gave a clear illustration of the causes of neurotic diseases. In this work, Freud demonstrated how and in what way patients become fixed in a certain segment of their past and cannot free themselves from it, as a result of which the present and future remain alien to them. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), he again emphasized that the patient is "psychically fixed" on the trauma and that this kind of fixation on the experiences that caused the illness is often observed in hysteria. At the same time, the founder of psychoanalysis correlated fixation with obsessive repetition, characteristic of all living organisms. In The Man Moses and Monotheistic Religion (1938), he not only viewed neurosis through the prism of fixation and compulsive repetition, but also emphasized that the negative reactions of the neurotic represent the same fixation on trauma as their antipodes, that is, positive reactions.

Only in this case it is not about striving for a compulsive repetition, but about pursuing the opposite goal, so that there are no memories and repetitions of a forgotten trauma.

In the Lectures on Introduction to Psychoanalysis, Freud expressed an idea that served as an impetus for the further development of psychoanalytic ideas about both fixation and neurosis. This idea boiled down to the fact that the phenomenon of fixation at a certain stage of the past goes beyond the framework of neurosis and may not coincide with it.

As an example of an affective fixation on something, we can take such a state of a person as sadness. It leads to a complete withdrawal from both the present and the future. But sadness, as Freud noted, is different from neurosis. Another thing is that there are neuroses that are a pathological form of sadness.

From Freud's point of view, the fixation leading to the emergence of a neurosis is nothing more than the stopping of a private desire at an early stage of a person's psychosexual development. The stronger any fixation on the path of development, the more likely it is that a person can regress to this fixation. In research terms, this leads to the assumption that fixation and regression are not entirely independent of each other. In therapeutic work, it is important not to lose sight of the relationship between fixation and regression, in which the inability to resist external obstacles and the corresponding regression depend on the degree of strength of the fixation on the path of the patient's psychosexual development. In general, the fixation of the libido is, according to Freud, a powerful factor in mental illness. However, in the etiology of neuroses, fixation of the libido is a presupposing, internal factor. But it becomes pathological only when a forced refusal to satisfy the desire is added to it, acting as a random, external factor. In addition, it is important to consider how I relate to the firm fixation of my libido at some stage of its development. If it treats him negatively, then an intrapsychic conflict arises, and the ego resorts to repression where fixation is observed in the libido.

Thus, the psychoanalytic understanding of the causes of neurosis includes the concept of fixation and boils down to the following:

¦ first there is a forced renunciation of attraction;

¦ then there is a fixation of the libido, pushing the attraction in a certain direction;

¦ and finally, there is a tendency to mental conflict as a result of the development of the ego, which rejects such a manifestation of libido.

Fixation is closely related with regression, which represents, in general terms, a return from a higher stage of development to a lower one, in the psychoanalytic sense - a return to previously passed stages of psychosexual development, to the original primitive ways of thinking and behavior.

Interest in the problem of regression manifested itself in Freud in connection with the consideration of the nature and specifics of dreams. In The Interpretation of Dreams, he correlated the formation of a dream with a process of regression within the supposed mental apparatus, when all correlations of thoughts disappear or find a vague expression, and ideas turn back into the sensual images on the basis of which they were previously formed. In Freud's understanding, in the waking state of arousal and irritation, they are oriented towards the successive passage of the systems of the unconscious, preconscious and consciousness. During sleep, they flow in the opposite direction, rush to the acts of perception. Thus, in a regressive way, a sample of the primitive work of the mental apparatus, rejected because of its inexpediency, is preserved.

In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud also drew attention to the fact that regression is characteristic not only of dreams, but also of normal thinking. For example, when intentional recollection corresponds to a backward movement from some complex act of representation to a simpler material of perception. Various visions of mentally normal people also correspond to regressions, not to mention hallucinations in hysteria and paranoia, which are really regressions and are thoughts turned into images. In this sense, Freud distinguished between the regression of normal mental life and pathological cases of regression.

Subsequently, he repeatedly turned to understanding the phenomenon of regression. In one of the supplements to the reprint of The Interpretation of Dreams in 1914, Freud identified three types of regression:

¦ topical, associated with the functioning of the mental apparatus with its characteristic systems of the unconscious, preconscious and consciousness;

¦ temporary which includes regressions in relation to libidinal objects and stages of psychosexual development;

¦ formal correlated with the replacement of ordinary, developed forms and methods of figurative representation and thinking with more primitive, ancient ones.

With the deepening of psychoanalytic ideas about the psychosexual development of man and the etiology of neurotic diseases, Freud began to pay more and more attention to the processes of regression. In his Introduction to Psychoanalysis Lectures (1916-1917) he singled out two types of regression: a return to the first narcissistic libidinal objects and a return of the general sexual organization to earlier stages of development. Both types of regression were perceived by him as typical, characteristic and playing a significant role in transference neuroses.

Viewing regression from the point of view of the return of sexual organization to earlier stages of development, Freud warned analysts not to confuse regression with repression. In general terms, that is, in the sense of returning to an earlier, deeper stage in the development of a mental act, regression and repression are processes similar to each other, to which he gave the name topical. But if the concepts of "regression" and "repression" are used in a special (psychoanalytic) sense, then it should be borne in mind that there is a fundamental difference between them, the essence of which can be reduced to the following: regression is a purely descriptive concept, repression is topically dynamic; regression is not entirely a mental process, an organic factor plays a significant role in it, while repression is a purely mental process that has "nothing to do with sexuality."

Such Freud's ideas about the difference between regression and repression were not only theoretical, but also had a practical orientation associated with understanding the etiology of neuroses and the treatment of neurotic diseases. In particular, he proceeded from the fact that in hysteria, the regression of libido to primary incestuous objects is most often observed, but there is no regression to an earlier stage of sexual organization, and, consequently, in the study of hysteria, the significance of regression becomes clear later than the role of repression in this disease. In obsessive-compulsive disorder, on the contrary, along with the repression, the regression of the libido to the early stage of sadistic-oral organization is a decisive factor in symptom formation.

In Inhibition, Symptom and Fear (1926), 3. Freud gave a metapsychological explanation of regression. In accordance with it, the decisive role in its formation is played by split, disconnected drives and isolated erotic components, from the initial phase of their development, joining the destructive drives of the sadistic phase. In the same work, he considered regression as one of the defense mechanisms of the self.

Freud's understanding of regression necessitated further study of this phenomenon. Along with the conceptual developments that lie in line with classical psychoanalysis, individual researchers also expressed such considerations that testified to a revision of the traditional psychoanalytic view of the phenomenon of regression. Thus, C. G. Jung raised the question of recognizing the teleological significance of regression. He believed that a return to the infantile level is not only a regression, but also the possibility of finding a new life plan. That is, regression, in essence, is also the basic condition for a creative act.

In modern psychoanalytic literature, the problem of regression is discussed from the point of view of its causes, stages of development, depth of manifestation, object and subject of the goal, results of work, expediency of containment or activation in the process of analytic therapy. Along with the negative meaning of regression, leading to the formation of symptoms, its positive meanings are also considered as an incentive to restore the disturbed balance, an intermediate state for the implementation of adaptive reorientation. Analysts also focus on regression as a mechanism for protecting the Self, “bad” regression as a state of disintegration, and “good” regression as a progressive process necessary for human life.

Sayings

Z. Freud: "The fixation of mental life on pathogenic traumas is one of the most important characteristic features of neurosis."

Z. Freud: “Every neurosis has such fixation in itself, but not every fixation leads to neurosis, coincides with it or gets in its way.”

Z. Freud: "Regression is, of course, one of the most important psychological features of the dream process."

Z. Freud: "Regression of the libido without repression would never lead to neurosis, but would result in perversion."

Libido(from lat. libido-“lust”, “desire”, “aspiration”) is a concept used to refer to mental energy that gives impetus to various manifestations of sexuality, directed at various objects and making itself felt during the course of mental processes and the formation of structures of an individual-personal and socio-cultural order .

The concept of "libido" was used by Cicero, according to whom, libido(or unbridled desire) is contrary to reason and can be found in all fools. It was introduced into scientific literature in the second half of the 19th century in the works of M. Benedict "Electrotherapy" (1868), A. Moll "Study of Sexual Libido" (1898) to denote sexual desire, sexual instinct. At the beginning of the 20th century, the term "libido" was widely used in psychoanalysis to describe the various manifestations of sexuality.

Freud used the concept of "libido" before psychoanalysis arose. If the term "psychoanalysis" was introduced by him into scientific circulation in 1896, then his first use of the concept "libido" refers to the middle of 1894. It finds its reflection in the work "Project for a Scientific Psychology", which was sent in parts to his Berlin doctor W. Fliess and which was not published during Freud's lifetime. Distinguishing between anxiety neurosis and melancholia, he wrote that the former is characterized by the accumulation of physical sexual tension, while the latter is characterized by the accumulation of mental sexual tension. An external source of excitation causes such a change in the psyche, which, growing, turns into mental excitation. Having reached a certain amount, physical sexual tension gives rise to mental libido, which then leads to coitus. Anxiety neurosis is characterized by a deficiency of sexual affect, mental libido.

A few months later, at the end of 1894, Freud wrote that the patient who explains his unwillingness to eat as lack of appetite actually has a different cause, since loss of appetite in sexual terms is nothing but loss of libido. In this respect, he believed, melancholy represented mourning for the lost libido. More than two decades later, these ideas were further reflected in his work "Sorrow and Melancholy" (1917), where it was emphasized that in melancholy many fights for the object are tied up, in which hatred and love oppose each other. The first is to free the libido from the object, the second is to keep the position of the libido under pressure.

Letters to W. Fliess in 1897 contain Freud's reflections on infantile sexuality, according to which a delay in the realization of libido at an early age can lead to suppression and neuroses. Subsequently, these reflections were further developed in the work "Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality" (1905), in which, when considering the stages of the psychosexual development of the child, he correlated libido with human sexual desire by analogy with hunger, corresponding to the food instinct. In subsequent editions of this work, Freud advanced the psychoanalytic theory of the libido. In accordance with it, libido was understood as a force capable of quantitative change, which can measure all processes and transformations in the field of sexual arousal.

For Freud, libido is primarily a special kind of energy, different from the energy underlying mental processes. Its specificity is that the libido has a special origin associated with sexual arousal, and has the character of a psychically expressed amount of energy. Based on this understanding of libidinal energy, Freud believed that its increase or decrease, distribution or shift should and could explain the observed psychosexual phenomena. If the libido finds its psychic application in order to enter into connection with sexual objects, then in this case it can be seen how it fixes itself on objects, passes from one object to another and directs the sexual activity of a person, leading to satisfaction, that is, a partial and temporary weakening , the attenuation of libidinal energy.

In On Narcissism (1914), Freud's theory of libido was further developed: he distinguished between object-libido, ego-libido, and narcissistic libido. This was due to three circumstances: a more thorough study of the question of a person's attitude to his own body as a sexual object than before; therapeutic activity, during which the psychoanalyst encountered the narcissistic behavior of patients whose narcissism was not a perversion, but a libidinal addition to the egoism of the instinct of self-preservation; observations on the life of primitive peoples and children. The latter allowed us to suggest that initially the libido concentrates on one's own ego (primary narcissism), later part of the libido is transferred to objects (object-libido), but this transfer may not be final, as a result of which the libido may turn inward again (secondary narcissism).

Speaking of different types of psychic energy, Freud believed that in a state of narcissism, both types of energy are merged into one and rough analysis is unable to distinguish between them. In the early works of the founder of psychoanalysis, it was precisely the division of drives into sexual and drive Ego that was carried out. Under libido, sexual energy was understood, in the form of which sexual attraction strives for its realization and ultimately leaves an indelible mark on a person’s life.

Freud's theory of libido, presented in On Narcissism, was a kind of response to the innovations that C. G. Jung introduced into the psychoanalytic understanding of libido, which was reflected in his book Libido, Its Metamorphoses and Symbols (1912). The final break between them in 1913 was due to a number of circumstances, among which an important place was occupied by a divergence in views on libido. If in the first part of "Libido, Its Metamorphoses and Symbols" Jung still adhered to the Freudian understanding of libido, expressing only separate considerations about the possibility of using the concept of libido to explain what he called "inversion neurosis", then in the second part of this work he already unequivocally wrote not only about the need to transfer the Freudian theory of libido to the psychotic area, but also about an expanded interpretation of the libido as such.

After reviewing the first part of the material later included in the publication "Libido, Its Metamorphoses and Symbols", Freud in one of his letters to Jung at the end of 1911 noted that Jung's reflections on the libido seemed interesting to him. At the same time, he expressed concern about possible misunderstandings in connection with the extended interpretation of the libido. He emphasized that for him libido is not identical with any desire and that, according to his hypothesis, there are only two drives (sexual and ego drive) and only the energy of sexual desire can be called libido. Freud was concerned that Jung might disappear for a long time, in his words, "in clubs of religious-libidinal fog." Anticipating a negative attitude towards his innovations, the Swiss psychiatrist did not send the manuscript version of the second part of his work to the founder of psychoanalysis. Meanwhile, in it, instead of the “descriptive psychological” or “actually sexual” concept of libido, he proposed a “genetic” definition, according to which the term “libido” began to denote psychic energy in general that goes beyond sexuality. Jung's understanding of libido meant, in fact, desexualization, since in the extended interpretation, libido included, in addition to sexuality, other forms of "spiritual energy". Therefore, it is not surprising that, after reading Jung's book on libido, Freud in another letter replied to him that he liked this work very much in particular, but did not like it in general.

From Jung's point of view, libido is not so much sexuality as mental, spiritual energy as such, manifested in the life process and subjectively perceived by a person as an unconscious desire or desire. Since the libido undergoes a complex transformation, taking various symbolic forms, the deciphering and interpretation of libidinal symbolism is recognized as one of the essential tasks of analytical psychology, put forward by Jung in opposition to Freud's classical psychoanalysis.

In The Libido, Its Metamorphoses and Symbols, Jung argued that Freud's theory of the libido had failed to apply to schizophrenic patients. That is why he, Jung, had to resort to an expanded concept of libido, especially since, in his opinion, in the analysis of the case of Schreber carried out by Freud in his work “Psychoanalytic Notes on an Autobiographically Described Case of Paranoia” (1911), the founder of psychoanalysis himself abandoned sexual the meaning of libido and identified it with psychic interest in general. Such a statement caused sharp criticism from S. Ferenczi, who tried to defend the Freudian theory of libido. In turn, arguing about this with a Swiss psychiatrist, Freud in his work “On Narcissism” noted that Jung’s statement was too hasty, the evidence he cited was insufficient, he never and nowhere declared such a rejection of the theory of libido.

The controversy between Jung and Freud in connection with the understanding of libido led to the fact that for a long time the founder of psychoanalysis did not recognize an extended interpretation of this concept. True, speaking against various kinds of accusations of pansexualism, he emphasized that in psychoanalysis there really is an expanded interpretation of sexuality, if we understand by this the study of child sexuality and the so-called perversions (sexual perversions). But only in the 1920s did he begin to use the more harmonious concept of "Eros". At the same time, he invariably emphasized that the expanded sexuality of psychoanalysis is close to the Eros of the "divine" Plato.

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Basic Concepts Living Space Living space is a key concept in Kurt Lewin's field theory. The content of this term includes the entire set of real and unreal, actual, past and future events that are in

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Chapter 1. Basic concepts of psychotherapy The concept of "psychotherapy" has many definitions. The semantics of the term is most often defined as "therapy carried out by psychological methods". At the same time, this term has acquired a wider meaning over the past decades.

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Chapter 2. Basic concepts of mental health