Psychoanalytic Theory: Unconscious Acts and Mental Disorders

The Unconscious Mind and Failed Acts

Failed acts (parapraxes) are acts of the unconscious. These include omissions and mistakes we make that are due to a desire seeking expression; these desires exit through mistakes and similar errors.

The Interpretation of Dreams

Dreams are formations of the unconscious. Freud described them as the via regia (the royal road), which he considered the best way to discover the unconscious symbolically through the partnership and associations of the patient. Dreams are interpreted using the associations of the patient (for example, the white rat).

Dream Content and Analysis

The study of dreams makes a distinction between:

• Manifest content: The story as told by the dreamer.
• Latent content: The underlying meaning of the dream.
• Rest day (Day residue): This is not significant for the analysis of sleep and sleep onset.

Understanding Neurotic Symptoms

Neurosis is an intrapsychic conflict that has no loss of reality, and there is awareness of the disease. It indicates a mismatch between an unconscious psychic wish and the impossibility of satisfying it. The result is the manifestation of symptoms:

Types of Neurosis

• Hysterical neurosis: In hysteria, the individual cannot experience pleasure because the demand for pleasure is met with fear, and the Oedipus complex is present. Erogenous zones are phallic and oral. Libido is distributed throughout the body except on the genitals. The defense mechanism is repression, specifically repressed sexuality.
• Phobic neurosis: This is an irrational fear (of people, things, animals, etc.) resulting from unwanted sexual fantasies. The defense mechanism is displacement, where the dread is moved to another person or object.
• Obsessional neurosis: This features thorough, detailed thinking with excessive moral consciousness and ruminative thoughts. The mechanism of defense is avoidance. It manifests in an aggressive, irritable manner, causing problems and creating a shield over feelings to avoid expressing them. It involves rituals used to feel safe.

Psychosis and the Loss of Reality

Psychosis is a serious disease characterized by the loss of the criterion of reality. The defense mechanism is foreclosure, through which there is a rejection of reality. The difference between psychosis and neurosis is the detachment from reality; in psychosis, there is no consciousness of the illness, leading to hallucinations and imaginings that alter the perception of meaning, touch, sight, and smell.

Major Psychotic Disorders

• Schizophrenia: Causes hallucinations and delusions that alter reality.
• Bipolar disorder: A brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, and the ability to function. It is bipolar in nature: one pole is depressed and the other pole involves manic euphoria.
• Hebephrenic schizophrenia: Characterized by fundamental and characteristic distortions of perception, thought, and emotion, including auditory hallucinations.
• Manic-depressive illness: Refers to mood changes from high (manic) to extremely low (depression). Another name for manic-depressive illness is bipolar disorder.

Interpersonal Relationships and Other Conditions

Interpersonal relationships may involve strong sentimental weakness, and cognitive functions or knowledge can be damaged.

Neurosis, Psychosis, and Perversion

In these cases, there is a departure from genital sexuality (e.g., homosexuals, pedophiles, transvestites, and so on).

Psychopathy

The psychopath is often intellectually brilliant and experiences no guilt.