Freudian Psychoanalysis: The Unconscious, Libido, and Repression

The Foundations of Freudian Psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud is the founder of one of the most popular streams in psychology: psychoanalysis. The idea of transforming psychological studies resulted from his direct contact with clinical cases of neurotic patients. Freud changed the way we understand patients' problems and their methodology, focusing on their experiences and taking what they told him about their inner world, dreams, and fantasies as a reference. Freud's draft of a metapsychological psychology aimed to scientifically address transcendent aspects of human beings, such as morality or religion.

The psychoanalytic paradigm was initially based on the thermodynamic models of the physics of his time. Thus, the human mind was compared to a steam engine, which explains the use of thermodynamic idioms like 'repression,' referencing the pressure of a gas contained within a physical system. The studies by Santiago Ramón y Cajal on neurons and the circulation of electrical impulses in the brain were adopted by Freud under the name of psychic energy, thereby retaining the physical principle of energy conservation. The brain would be subjected to pressure from this energy, or libido, and would need to be given an outlet through dissipative actions.

Core Concepts of Psychoanalytic Theory

Freud sought to provide an explanation of the human psyche through a spatial model representing different areas or systems that comprise dispositional and operational modes, as well as the interactions that occur between them.

The Unconscious Mind

One of the things that caught Freud's attention was the resistance by many of his patients to verbalize or express certain contents of which they were unaware. This phenomenon was called repression. Repression kept instinctual drives hidden in a place in the human psyche, "the other scene," prohibiting their normal conscious expression.

Interestingly, the subject himself is not aware that he has undertaken a repressive function, removing all memory of the process. The basic characteristics of the unconscious are:

• Its contents are made up of representations of instinctual drives, which take the form of fantasies, desires, and ideas.
• The usual laws of logic have no place in these representations; instead, instinctual desire takes over.
• The contents are energized and equipped with high instinctive mobility. This often leads to the occurrence of displacement and a struggle to reach the conscious level, colliding with the repressive elements of censorship.
• The only way to access the preconscious and conscious systems is through a 'disguise,' which takes the form of a compromise between two irreconcilable impulses.

The unconscious is, in turn, formed by the deepest layers, containing all content repressed during childhood.