The repressed in Freud's theory is scientifically knowable
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Scholarly opinion is sharply divided on whether Freudian repression is scientifically knowable, with some researchers pointing to modern empirical work on memory suppression and neuropsychoanalysis while critical reviews conclude the Freudian system lacks scientific validity.
Repression has become an empirical fact that is at once obvious and problematic. Fragmented clinical and laboratory traditions and disputed terminology have resulted in a Babel of misunderstandings in which false distinctions are imposed (e.g., between repression and suppression) and necessary distinctions not drawn (e.g., between the mechanism and the use to which it is put, defense being just one). “Repression” was introduced by Herbart to designate the (nondefensive) inhibition of ideas by other ideas in their struggle for consciousness. Freud adapted repression to the defensive inhibition of “unbearable” mental contents. Substantial experimental literatures on attentional biases, thought avoidance, interference, and intentional forgetting exist, the oldest prototype being the work of Ebbinghaus, who showed that intentional avoidance of memories results in their progressive forgetting over time. It has now become clear, as clinicians had claimed, that the inaccessible materials are often available and emerge indirectly (e.g., procedurally, implicitly). It is also now established that the Ebbinghaus retention function can be partly reversed, with resulting increases of conscious memory over time (hypermnesia). Freud's clinical experience revealed early on that exclusion from consciousness was effected not just by simple repression (inhibition) but also by a variety of distorting techniques, some deployed to degrade latent contents (denial), all eventually subsumed under the rubric of defense mechanisms (“repression in the widest sense”). Freudian and Bartlettian distortions are essentially the same, even in name, except for motive (cognitive vs. emotional), and experimentally induced false memories and other “memory illusions” are laboratory analogs of self-induced distortions.
Fragmented clinical and laboratory traditions and disputed terminology have resulted in a Babel of misunderstandings in which false distinctions are imposed (e.g., between repression and suppression) and necessary distinctions not drawn (e.g., between the mechanism and the use to which it is put, defense being just one). “Repression” was introduced by Herbart to designate the (nondefensive) inhibition of ideas by other ideas in their struggle for consciousness. Freud adapted repression to the defensive inhibition of “unbearable” mental contents.
Freud's clinical experience revealed early on that exclusion from consciousness was effected not just by simple repression (inhibition) but also by a variety of distorting techniques, some deployed to degrade latent contents ( denial ), all eventually subsumed under the rubric of defense mechanisms (“repression in the widest sense”). Freudian and Bartlettian distortions are essentially the same, even in name, except for motive (cognitive vs. emotional), and experimentally induced false memories and other “memory illusions” are laboratory analogs of self-induced distortions.
In a telling conversation with Joseph Sandler (Sandler & A. Freud 1985), published posthumously, she anticipates one of Daniel Holender's (1986) criticisms of experimental psychology's efforts to demonstrate nonconscious priming: The prime might have been fleetingly conscious but forgotten by the time the experimenter tests for it. Here is how Anna Freud treats the conundrum in an interchange on the defense mechanism of reaction formation: Anna Freud : Heinz Hartmann would say that it can become automatic. Joseph Sandler :… I still think that there must be an awareness of the impulse to evoke the response. Anna Freud : Hartmann and I
There must be a momentary awareness. (Sandler & Freud 1985, pp. 22–23) Charles Eriksen, the great critic of subliminal perception, later proposed also the idea of “automatization” of highly practiced behaviors (Eriksen & Pierce 1968), now a common notion in cognitive psychology. 2 2. A foreshadowing of the present twofold organization of repression can be found in Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams (1900/1953) : “There can be no doubt that the censoring agency, whose influence we have so far recognized in limitations and omissions in the dream-content, is also responsible for interpolations and additions to it” (Freud 1900/1953, p. 489). 153 Cited by Cited by Loading...
Forgetting and remembering in psychology: Commentary on Paul Connerton's `Seven Types of Forgetting' (2008) . Memory Studies, Vol. 1, Issue. 3, p. 273. CrossRef Google Scholar Littrell, Jill 2008. The Status of Freud's Legacy on Emotional Processing: Contemporary Revisions . Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, Vol. 18, Issue. 4, p. 477. CrossRef Google Scholar Hennig-Fast, Kristina Meister, Franziska Frodl, Thomas Beraldi, Anna Padberg, Frank Engel, Rolf R. Reiser, Maximilian Möller, Hans-Jürgen and Meindl, Thomas 2008.
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During the past 25 years, a momentous change has been overtaking the study of Sigmund Freud and his elaborate, engrossing, but ever more controversial creation, psychoanalysis Formerly, authors who deemed Freud worth discussing at book length tended to be either Freudian loyalists or partisans of some variant doctrine that shared at least a few of Freud's depth-psychological premises Their critiques were often selectively astute but rarely rigorous or thoroughgoing No doubt the same can still be said of most new books in the field, produced as they are by practicing analysts on the one hand and, on the other, by academic humanists who have raised their sights above narrowly “positivistic” (alias empirical) concerns Increasingly, however, Freud's oeuvre has been receiving sustained attention from scholars who hold no personal stake in the fortunes of psychoanalysis As recent works by Scharnberg (1993), Esterson (1993), Wilcocks (1994), Dawes (1994), Webster (1995), and Erwin (1996) attest, independent studies have begun to converge toward a verdict that was once considered a sign of extremism or even of neurosis that there is literally nothing to be said, scientifically or therapeutically, to the advantage of the entire Freudian system or any of its component dogmas
It has been proposed that performance in the think - no think (TNT) task represents a laboratory analogue of the voluntary form of memory repression. The central prediction of this repression hypothesis is that performance in the TNT task will be influenced by emotional characteristics of the material to be remembered. This prediction was tested in two experiments by asking participants to learn paired associates in which the first item was either emotionally positive (e.g. joy) or emotionally negative (e.g. hatred). The second word was always emotionally neutral (e.g. socks). Consistent with the repression hypothesis, significant memory suppression was observed in both experiments following 'no think' instructions for memories associated with emotionally negative material. No suppression was observed for memories associated with emotionally positive information. Implications of these findings for the relationship between performance in the TNT task and the controversial notion of memory repression are considered.
Neuroscience was the basic science behind Freud's psychoanalytic theory and technique. He worked as a neurologist for 20 years before being aware that a new approach to understand complex diseases, namely the hysterias, was needed. Solms coined the term neuropsychoanalysis to affirm that neuroscience still belongs in psychoanalysis. The neuropsychoanalytic field has continued Freud's original ideas as stated in 1895. Developments in psychoanalysis that have been created or revised by the neuropsychoanalysis movement include pain/relatedness/opioids, drive, structural model, dreams, cathexis, and dynamic unconscious. Neuroscience has contributed to the development of new psychoanalytic theory, such as Bazan's (2011) description of anxiety driven by unconscious intentions or "phantoms." Results of adopting the "dual aspect monism" approach of idiographic psychoanalytic clinical observation combined with nomothetic investigation of related human phenomena include clarification and revision of theory, restoration of the scientific base of psychoanalysis, and improvement of clinical treatments. By imbricating psychoanalytic thinking with neuroscience, psychoanalysts are also positioned to make contributions to neuroscience research. Freud's original Project for a Scientific Psychology/Psychology for Neurologists can be carried forward in a way that moves psychoanalysis into the twenty-first century as a core contemporary science (Kandel, 1999). Neuroscience as the basic science of psychoanalysis both improves the field, and enhances its scientific and cultural status.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Abstract Neuroscience was the basic science behind Freud's psychoanalytic theory and technique. He worked as a neurologist for 20 years before being aware that a new approach to understand complex diseases, namely the
Freud worked as a neurologist and neuroscience researcher for 20 years (Sacks, 1998 ) before turning his interest to a pure psychological theory, trying to explain common and previously incomprehensible disorders such as hysteria. Freud and Breuer ( 1893-1895 ) proposed using neuroscience to understand this disorder. Breuer considered the topic of energy in the nervous system while Freud described an unconscious mind. Both started to appreciate that the splitting of the psyche was not only present in hysterical patients, but in every human being.
Freud wrote his last attempt to understand the mind from a neurobiological perspective in the 1895 Project for a Scientific Psychology/Psychology for Neurologists . Although he abandoned neuroscience in his theory, Freud thought at the end of his life (Freud, 1938 ) that neuroscience was still needed to support his provisional proposals of psychoanalysis. 100 years later a group of psychoanalysts and neuroscientists from all over the world renewed Freud's original approach using contemporary neuroscience resources. Solms and Turnbull ( 2011 ) have proposed a dialogue between the neurosciences and psychoanalysis that can make relevant contributions to both fields.
Consciousness seems to enhance survival because we can reflect and think about the very fact of being alive (Solms, 2013 ). Dreams Psychoanalysis was officially born in 1900 with Freud's dream theory. The mind was primarily unconscious. Dreams became the royal road to the unconscious. Thus, dreams had to be interpreted. This theory was predominant until psychoanalysis suffered a cultural credibility defeat with the publication of the activation-synthesis model by (Hobson and McCarley 1977 ). They claimed, with neuroscience evidence, that dreams were the meaningless froth of random pontine firing during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep (Solms, 1997 ).
Only patients whose brains have been exposed to cocaine or heroin have dreams that involve looking for and trying to use these drugs. Dreams that involve SEEKING alcohol probably signal the transition from alcohol abuse (psychological addiction) to alcohol dependence (physical addiction; Johnson, 2011 ). Cathexis Although Panksepp ( 1999 , pp. 28–29) and Yovell ( 2008 ) are reluctant to claim any 1:1 mapping of Panksepp's instinctual systems onto Freud's libido, Johnson ( 2008 ) has found another consilience by using the SEEKING system to explain the Freudian concept of cathexis. This psychoanalytic concept is on the endangered theory list.
For linguistic intentions, the phantoms are phonemic. She uses the compulsions of the Rat Man (Freud, 1909 ) to show displaced action based on word representations, shifting from an intention to marry (in German, “heiraten”) his beloved to various substituted rats: Frau Hofrat—the governess he had sexual play with as a child, fear of rats, the German term “Raten” which refers to payments to be made. Words or ideas that are repressed cause the phantoms to be undischarged, creating anxiety. A constant underlying dynamic of compulsion is undoing of unconscious intentions.
More psychoanalytic insights and new theories are likely to appear when psychoanalysts make observations tuned by neuroscience information, such as Bazan's concept that anxiety is driven by repressed, urges, “phantoms,” or the concept that physical pain and human relationships may be modulated by the same system. The brain is the organ of affects and subjectivity. It is the organ of the mind. Psychoanalysis is a theory but also a technique in practice that then benefits directly from information coming from other fields, particularly neuroscience, the study of the nervous system which increasingly includes subjective aspects.
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