Theme: Charley a thirty one year old having worked late at night enters Grand Central Station from Vanderbilt avenue, with the aim of boarding a train home. As the station is large consisting of various corridors and two levels catering for different trains, he loses his way. He finds himself in what he thinks is the third level of the station.
He realizes that something is different there as the people are dressed differently and the area is lit not with the electric light of the modern times but with open gas fires. He suddenly makes the discovery that he has somehow entered the year 1894. he sees the date on the news paper ‘The World’ that has not been published for many years. The paper that he glances at bears the date June 11, 1894. he is filled with excitement and he decides to buy two tickets for Galesburg, the peaceful town that he has grown up in. Charley discovers that he does not have the appropriate currency of that period and is therefore unable to buy the ticket.
His wife and his psychiatrist friend, Sam as well as his other friends are quite alarmed when they hear his account and forbid him to seek the third level again. They treat the incident as a figment of his imagination and attribute it to his desire to escape from the stresses of his life. However, Charley’s friend, Sam disappears and Charley finds a letter from him in an old First Day Cover dated July 18th 1894. In the letter, Sam tells Charley that he has settled in down in Galesburg and urges him not to give up his search for the Third level as it is well worth the effort.
Sam is now engaged in a nice little hay, feed and grain business, something that he has always wished he could do. The author leaves the readers wondering what the Third Level really is. Though Charley is able to find proof of his experience, is it really possible to make this transition back and forth in time? Jack Finney a writer of science fiction treats his favorite subject, Time in a new dimension. The shadowy, eerie world that lies somewhere between dreams, desires and reality is what he calls The Third Level. It is the point where the past, the present and the future meet and here nothing is, as it seems.
Signature of the subject teacher ………………………………………………………………….. Lesson Plan THE THIRD LEVEL Page B Date of starting :…2ND APRIL 2009………… Number of periods: . ………08………………. Actual date of starting: …2ND APRIL 2009…… Date of completion: …18TH APRIL 2009…. Short questionsComprehensive questions Attempt the following questions in 60-70 words each: 1. What discovery did Charley make? How? Answer in about 120 words: 1. Do you think that the third level was a medium of escape for Charley? 2. What did Charley’s friends and doctors say about the third level?
How did his wife react? What was Charley’s reaction to it? 2. What do you infer from Sam’s letter to Charley? 3. Reaching the third level was just a coincidence. This was not the first time that he had lost his way. Justify. 3. “The modern world is full of insecurity, fear, war, worry and stress”. What are the ways in which we attempt to overcome them? 4. How the third level at the Grand Central Station was different from other two? 4. Do you see an intersection of time and space in the story? 5. What confirmed to Charley that he was on the third level? Why did Charley wish to go to Galesburg? 5.
Apparent illogicality sometimes turns out to be a futuristic projection. Discuss. 6. What was Charley’s reaction after coming back from the third level? 6. Philately helps keep the past alive. Discuss other ways in which this is done. What do you think of the human tendancy to constantly move between the past, the present and the future? 7. What convinces Charley and Louisa about the existence of the third level? 8. What was the psychiatrist’s analysis of Charley’s description of the third level at the Grand Central Station’signature of the Principal ……………………………………………… ADDITIONAL IMPORTANT QUESTION WITH ANSWER HINTS: QA.
What does Charley, the narrator, say about the Third Level at Grand Central Station? How does does his psychiatrist friend respond? Ans. Charley asserts that there are three levels at Grand Central Station. His assertion is based on his personal experience. He has been on the third level. Among others, he talked to a psychiatrist friend about it. The psychiatrist said that it was waking dream and wish fulfillment. He was unhappy and just wanted to escape. QB. What curious experience did Charley have one day when he went to Grand Central Station to take the subway? Ans. Charley walked down a flight of stairs to the second level.
He ducked into a n arched doorway heading for the subway and got lost. The corridor turned left and slopped downwards, but he kept on walking. He heard only the empty sounds of his own footsteps. The tunnel turned sharp left. He went down a short flight of stairs and came out on the third level at Grand Central Station where he had glimpses of the old world life of 1894. QC. What do learn about Galesburg, Illinois during 1894? Ans. Galesburg is described as the wonderful town with big old framed houses and huge lawns. The branches of the splendid old trees met overhead and covered the streets.
In 1894, summer evenings were twice as long. People set out on there lawns. The men would be smoking cigars and talking quietly. The women would be waving palm leaf fans. There were fireflies all around. It was a peaceful world that had not been ravaged by the two World Wars of the twentieth century. Q. 1Do you see an intersection of time and space in the story “The Third Level”? A free play between fantasy and reality in “The Third Level” makes the story transcend all barriers of time and space. Thus Charley strays into 1894at the third level and then gets back to the 20th century.
Sam transports himself to Galesburg, Illinois in 1894 and yet his communication with Charley in the 20th Century brings about a convincing intersection of time and space. Q. 2How did the psychiatrist explain Charley’s flight to the non-existent “third level’? The psychiatrist explained that Charley couldn’t obviously have reached the third level as it didn’t exist at all. He was of the view that fear, insecurity, war, worry and the like, made his tension-ridden mind work out an escape route for himself. The third level was a creation of his own imagination and waking-dream wish fulfillment i. . Charley’s experience of the third level was a rationalization of his dreams and unfulfilled wishes of the subconscious mind. The flight never took place as the whole episode was a figment of his imagination. Q. 3’Yes, I’ve taken the obvious stem. ‘Why does Charley term meeting he psychiatrist as an obvious step’? The moment Charley talked about his coming across the non-existent third level, everybody got alarmed and felt that he needed to see a psychiatrist. Under the circumstances, it was plain and clear that he should seek an expert’s opinion to rule out any psychiatric problem.
Hence he terms it as ‘an obvious step. ‘ Q. 4Why did the psychiatrist’s analysis make Louisa lose her temper and how did the psychiatrist appease her? Louisa and Charley were leading a happy married life. So, the wife couldn’t tolerate the psychiatrist’s observation about Charley being an unhappy man. However, her anger subsided when he moved on to say that he was referring to modern man’s unhappiness in general. Q. 5What was Charley’s state of mind as he comes back from the office? Why did he decide to take the subway from the Grand Central Station?
Having worked late at the office, Charley was fatigued and bored. He wished to return to his loving wife, Louisa and to the comfort of his home, as fast as possible. The bus would have taken longer to cover the distance, so he decided to take the subway. Q. 6How did Charley reach the third level? In his hurry to take a train back home, Charlie came to Grand Central from Vanderbilt Avenue and took two flights of stairs to reach the second level from where his train was to leave. He got lost while ducking into an arched doorway, which led to the subway and he found himself into a tunnel.
The tunnel took him to another flight of stairs at the end of which he found himself on the third level at Grand Central Station. Q. 7What does ‘the third level’ symbolize? Third Level symbolizes man’s yearning to delve deeper into the world of imagination as an escape from the world of harsh realities. It stands for his quest for ‘the fabulous ordinariness of a bygone age’ that was free from the modern razzle-dazzle, sophistication and material comforts but exuded peace and tranquility. Q. 8What does Grand Central Station symbolize? The Grand Central Station symbolizes the labyrinth that this world is with its intricate and tangled pathways.
The network of passages is so complicated that rather than reaching the destination, one keeps on moving up and down all one’s life to look for entries and exits. Q. 9’Now I don’t know why this should have happened to me’. Charley wondered why out of the whole tension-ridden world, he alone took a flight to the ‘third level’. Why do you think, it happened to him? The level of sensitivity and power of imagination vary from person to person. Caught in the web of monotony, dull routine and fast life, Charley finds it difficult to cope with such a life. So on the wings of imagination; he takes a flight to the non-existent world.
Q. 10What does Charley compare Grand Central Station to? Why? Charley compares Grand Central Station to a tree. Just like a tree grows putting forth new leaves and branches and spreading its roots, Grand Central Station seemed to him to be pushing out new corridors and staircases. The comparison of the numerous doorways, stairs and corridors of the station to the roots of the tree is odd yet quite graphic and convincing. Q. 11Give a description of the ‘third level’? The general layout of the third level was more or less similar to that of the second level.
But it had comparatively smaller rooms, fewer ticket windows and train gates. The information booth in the center was wooden and it bore an old look. One could spot a small Currier ; Ives locomotive with a funnel-shaped stack on this level. Everyone in the station was dressed like ‘eighteen-ninety-something. ‘ Q. 12What sort of dresses and appearance did Charley come across on the third level? Charley came across men and women wearing 19th Century dresses. Men supported fancy moustaches, beards and sideburns. Tiny lapels, four-button suits, derby hats and pocket gold watches seemed to be in fashion.
Women went about wearing fancy cut sleeves, long skirts with high-buttoned shoes. Thus, at the third level, Charley was puzzled to see people in old fashioned clothes and hair-style. Q. 13If the third level was just a product of Charley’s imagination, why wasn’t it rosier than reality? Ordinarily imagination adds color to reality and makes it look larger than life. However, the non-existent third level was a lackluster place because Charley’s imagination took him to the past. Somewhere at the back of his mind there was a yearning for the fabulous ordinariness of the bygone days.
He was looking for tranquility and not any razzle-dazzle of the modern world. Hence it lacked rosiness. Q. 14How did Charley confirm the specific date of the era that he had passed into? On reaching in third level, Charley was quite puzzled to see a strange looking platform and an outdated locomotive. Even the people seemed strange with their old-fashioned hair-styles, clothes and shoes. To do a reality check, he looked at the newspapers on sale at a kiosk and fond a copy of newspaper “The World” carrying a lead story on President Cleveland.
Clearly, he had got ‘transported’ to late 19th century. Later on, he confirmed from the Public Library files that the newspaper was dated 11th June, 1994. Q. 15Why did Charley run back from the third level? When Charley produced the modern currency to pay for the two tickets to Galesburg the ticket clerk accused him of trying to cheat and threatened to hand him over to the police. This made Charley sense trouble and he turned away and got cut of the third level fast, lest he was arrested and jailed. Q. 16 Why could Charley not reach the third level again?
Charley could not reach the third level of Grand Central Station because despite his best efforts he failed to locate the tunnel that had taken him to this level earlier. A more rational explanation is that he could never experience the same level of consciousness which had transported him earlier to the third level of Grand Central. Q. 17What do you understand by a first-day cover? The value of a newly issued stamp increases if it has the postmark of the date of issue on it. Therefore the stamp collectors buy new stamps on the very first day of its sale and paste them on self-addressed envelopes and post them.
These envelopes are called the first day covers. With just a blank paper enclosed inside, they are never opened. Q. 18Why was Sam attracted towards Galesburg’sam, who was a typical city boy, was fascinated by Charley’s description of Galesburg, Illinois, as a wonderful town with big old frame houses, huge lawns and tremendous trees lining the streets. He was so bogged down by the tension and burden of modern life that he thought of escaping to the ‘peaceful world’ of Galesburg of 1894 with long summer evenings and an easy going, peaceful life. Q. 9How did Charley come to know that Same hand found the third level? Charley came across first day cover that he had never seen in his collection earlier. It had his grandfather’s Galesburg address and it contained a note written by Sam mentioning that he had found the third level and was in Galesburg since two weeks. This was a solid proof that Sam had found the third level. Q. 20Sam’s letter to Charley from Galesburg showed that he was quite happy there. He had taken a fancy to the quiet, simple and peaceful life there away from the hurry and worry of New York.
He liked the way people enjoyed music, dance and socializing. It was a perfect place for his hay feed and grain business. He even invites Charley and Louisa to come over to Galesburg through the ‘third level. ‘ Q. 21Why did Sam buy eight hundred dollars of old-style currency? What did he think of this bargain? What apparently seemed to be a foolish bargain was considered to be very profitable by him as he had sold his materialistic earnings to buy fulfillment of his soul Moreover, eight hundred dollars was enough to start hay, feed and grain business in Galesburg. Q. 2Why does Charley say, ‘he (Sam) certainly can’t go back to his old business’? Charley knew that though it was less profitable, the quiet business of hay, feed and grain would given Sam a greater sense of satisfaction. Moreover, being a psychiatrist he had no scope of reverting to his own profession as in 1894 a psychiatrist would be absolutely redundant. By 1894 the science of psychiatry was in its infancy and psychiatrists were relatively unknown. Q. 23Do you think that the Third Level was a medium of escape for Charley? Why? War, Worry, insecurity and fear keep on gnawing at the modern man’s mind all the time.
This helplessness and frustration leaves man baffled and at a loss to know how to face life. It is then, that he looks for ‘a temporary refuge from reality. ‘ Pursuit of hobbies like stamp-collecting diverts his attention temporarily and gives him some comfort. The fast pace of life, overwork and subconscious apprehensions had made Charley much too uneasy and restless. He yearned for peace, tranquility and serenity. Like many and serenity. Like many others, he too turned to philately but probably, the degree of relief that this hobby provided, was not sufficient to calm him down emotionally.
Hence the redoubled efforts of his subconscious mind for escape resulted in his flight to the third level-a level of existence, which he associated with tranquility. His psychiatrist friend, Sam, also diagnosed Charley’s claim to have visited the third level, as ‘a waking dream wish fulfillment. ‘ Hence, the third level was undoubtedly, medium of escape for Charley. Q. 24Bring out the contrast between the world the Charley lived in and the one that he strayed into. Charley lived in a world full of insecurity, fear, war and worry-a world where the fast pace of life always left man running a race against time.
As a result everybody had in their mind, a desire for escape. The world that he strayed into, on the other hand, lacked in sophistication of the modern world but it was free from the complexities of the modern life Simplicity, Tranquility, peace and serenity pervaded this world. People lived in big old farm houses with sprawling lawns. The streets were lined on both sides with massive trees with their branches forming a canopy. People had ample leisure time and liked to socialize with each other. There was no mad rush and the world was not torn with war. In fact, even the First World War was two decades away.
The two worlds of Charley thus stood in complete contrast with each other. THE THIRD LEVEL SHORT ANSWER TYPE QUESTIONS 1. What does the third level refer to? 2. Would Charley ever go back to the ticket-counter on the third level to buy tickets to Galesburg for himself and his wife? 3. Do you think that the third level was a medium of escape for Charley? Why? 4. What do you infer from Sam’s letter to Charley? 5. ‘The modern world is full of insecurity, fear, war, worry and stress. ’ What are the ways in which we attempt to overcome them? 6. Do you see an intersection of time and space in the story? 7.
Apparent illogicality sometimes turns out to be futuristic projection. Discuss. 8. Philately helps keep the past alive. Discuss other ways in which this is done. What do you think of the human tendency to constantly move between the past, the present and the future? 9. You have read, ‘Adventure’ by Jayant Narlikar in Hornbill Class XI. Compare the interweaving of fantasy and reality in the two stories. 10. What will the President of the New York Central and the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroads swear? What did the narrator claim? 11. Why did the narrator talk to a psychiatrist friend of his and what did he say about the third level? 2. How did the narrator’s psychiatrist friend analyze his claim of being at the third level of Grand Central Station? 13. What did the narrator’s friends say about him? What did his stamp collecting point to? 14. What did the narrator say about his escapism from the real world? 15. The narrator thinks that the Grand Central is growing like a tree. What makes him think so? Why has it been ‘an exit’? 16. How did the narrator get lost when he was heading for the sub-way? 17. How did the narrator come out on the third level at grand Central Station after he had lost the way? 18. What did the narrator see unusual at the third level? 9. Describe Galesburg Illinois in 1894. Why did the narrator want two tickets to Galesburg, Illinois? 20. “That ain’t money, mister” said the clerk to the narrator. Why did he warn the Narrator? 21. How did the narrator get the old-style currency? Why couldn’t he buy two tickets for Galesburg in spite of having the currency used in 1894? 22. Why was the narrator’s wife Louisa worried? 23. What is a first day cover? Explain. 24. What strange thing was found among the oldest first day covers? How did it come there? 25. What was written in Sam’s letter to Charley? 26. Why couldn’t Sam go back to his old business? 7. What does Charley’s psychiatrist friends say about his visit to the third level? 28. What do Charley’s friends think about his stamp collection? 29. Why does Charley compare the Grand Central Station to a tree? 30. How does Charley find himself on the third level at the Grand Central Station? 31. What peculiar things does Charley notice on the third level? 32. Do you think that the third level at the Grand Central was a medium of escape? If yes, how? 33. Why is the clerk surprised when Charley starts counting the money? 34. What does Charley do after he leaves the third floor? 35.
Could he go to the third floor again to buy tickets for him and his wife? 36. What is a ‘first-day cover’? How is it collected? 37. What strange thing does Charley find in his stamp collection? 38. Who wrote that letter and to whom? 39. What was written in the letter that Sam wrote to Charley in 1894? 40. What happens to his friend Sam? Where does Charley suspect him to be? 41. What is the most revealing fact about Sam? 42. The Grand Central Station has only two levels. Charley said there were three. What did his psychiatrist friend think? 43. What did the psychiatrist think about Charley’s stamp-collection?
Why did Charley not agree with him? 44. How was Charley often lost on the Grand Central Station? 45. How did Charley reach the third level? 46. How did Charley realize that he was on the third level? 47. How did Charley make sure that he had actually travelled in the past? 48. Why did Charley rush back from the third level? 49. Why did Charley want to go to Galesburg? 50. How did Charley prepare to go to Galesburg? Why couldn’t he reach there? 51. How did Charley learn that his psychiatrist friend had reached Galesburg of 1894? 52. What did Sam write to Charley from Galesburg? 53. Why does Charley think Sam escaped to Galesburg? 4. How do you find the ending of the story surprising? LONG ANSWER TYPE QUESTIONS 1. What does the third level refer to? Is it a medium or a way of getting away from the unpleasant and insecure present forgetting your normal life? 2. How did Charley stumble into the third level at Grand Central Station? Describe his experience there? 3. Describe Charley. Do you think his being on the third level at Grand Central Station was a waking-dream wish fulfillment? What did his stamp collecting point to? 4. ‘The Third Level’ at the Grand Central Station is nothing but a convenient excuse for escapism.
Justify the statement. 5. Describe Charley’s character with special reference to his escapist tendency. 6. Describe Charley’s impression of the world he encounters on the third level at the Grand Central Station. Why couldn’t he buy tickets to Galesburg? 7. How has Jack Finney interwoven fantasy and reality in ‘The Third Level’? Also highlight the interaction of space and time in the story. 8. Charley wanted to go home quickly but he reached the third level. How did he get there? 9. What was the third level like? How did Charley know he had bumped into the past? 10. Why did Charley come back from the third level?
What did his psychiatrist friend think about his experience? 11. Sam’s letter to Charley is a fine blend of reality and fantasy. Comment. __________________________ Sigmund Freud IINTRODUCTION Sigmund Freud In the late 19th century Viennese neurologist Sigmund Freud developed a theory of personality and a system of psychotherapy known as psychoanalysis. According to this theory, people are strongly influenced by unconscious forces, including innate sexual and aggressive drives. In this 1938 British Broadcasting Corporation interview, Freud recounts the early resistance to his ideas and later acceptance of his work.
Freud’s speech is slurred because he was suffering from cancer of the jaw. He died the following year. Culver Pictures/Courtesy of the BBC Sound Archives. All rights reserved. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Austrian physician, neurologist, and founder of psychoanalysis, who created an entirely new approach to the understanding of human personality. Through his skill as a scientist, physician, and writer, Freud combined ideas prevalent at the time with his own observation and study to produce a major theory of psychology. Most importantly, he applied these ideas to medical practice in the treatment of mental illness.
His newly created psychotherapy treatments and procedures, many of which in modified form are applied today, were based on his understanding of unconscious thought processes and their relationship to neurotic symptoms (see Neurosis). Regarded with skepticism at the time, Freud’s ideas have waxed and waned in acceptance ever since. Nevertheless, he is regarded as one of the greatest creative minds of the 20th century. IIFREUD’S LIFE Freud’s Study in Vienna Austrian doctor Sigmund Freud spent many hours refining his theories in this study of his home in Vienna, Austria.
Freud pioneered the use of clinical observation to treat mental disease. The publication of The Interpretation of Dreams in 1899 detailed his technique of isolating the source of psychological problems by examining a patient’s spontaneous stream of thought. Authenticated Photos/Archive Photos Freud was born into a middle-class Jewish family in Freiberg, Moravia (now Pribor, Czech Republic), on May 6, 1856. When he was three years old his family, fleeing from the anti-Semitic riots then raging in Freiberg, moved to the German city of Leipzig.
Shortly thereafter, the family settled in Vienna, where Freud remained for most of his life. Although Freud’s ambition from childhood had been a career in law, he became intrigued by the rapidly developing sciences of the day after reading the work of British scientist Charles Darwin. Freud decided to become a medical student shortly before he entered Vienna University in 1873. Inspired by the scientific investigations of the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Freud was driven by an intense desire to study natural science and to solve some of the challenging problems confronting contemporary scientists.
In his third year at the university Freud began research work on the central nervous system in the physiological laboratory under the direction of German physician Ernst Wilhelm von Brucke. Neurological research was so engrossing that Freud neglected the prescribed courses and as a result remained in medical school three years longer than was normally required to qualify as a physician. In 1881, after completing a year of compulsory military service, he received his medical degree. Unwilling to give up his experimental work, however, he remained at the university, working in the physiological laboratory.
At Brucke’s urging, he reluctantly abandoned theoretical research to gain practical experience. Freud then spent three years at the General Hospital of Vienna, devoting himself successively to psychiatry, dermatology, and nervous diseases. In 1885, following his appointment as a lecturer in neuropathology at Vienna University, he left his post at the hospital. Later that year he worked in Paris with French neurologist Jean Charcot. On his return to Vienna in 1886 Freud began private practice in neurology. Also hat year Freud married Martha Bernays, to whom he had become engaged four years earlier. The first of their children was born the following year. Their family would become complete with the birth of Anna in 1895, who herself would become an important psychoanalyst (see Anna Freud). In 1902 Freud was appointed professor of neuropathology at the University of Vienna, a post he held until 1938. In 1923 he developed cancer of the jaw. Although repeated operations and prosthetic appliances in his mouth made his life most uncomfortable, he continued working incessantly until his death.
When the Germans occupied Austria in 1938, Freud was persuaded by friends to escape with his family to England. He died in London on September 23, 1939. IIIFREUD’S WORK Freud was by training a research scientist and a physician. His decision to devote himself to the neglected and poorly understood area of emotional disorders has to do with currents of the time as well as his own interests. Chief among these was the prevailing attitude toward scientific endeavor at the time. Scientists were looking for causes and for connections between previously unrelated phenomena.
Although Jewish by birth and cultural tradition, Freud saw all religion as illusory and was non-practicing. Instead, he can be seen as a determinist, viewing the world and human experience as understandable in terms of cause and effect. AHypnosis and the Influence of Charcot In 1885 Freud was awarded a government grant enabling him to spend 19 weeks in Paris as a student of French neurologist Jean Charcot. Charcot, who was the director of the clinic at the mental hospital, the Salpetriere, was then treating nervous disorders by the use of hypnotic suggestion.
Fascinated by the apparent success of these treatments, Freud met and studied with several of the leading figures in the field. Charcot’s group had been tackling the problem of hysteria, a term derived from the Greek word for “womb. ” Hysteria traditionally was seen as a condition of women and was characterized by unexplained fainting, paralysis, loss of sensation, tics, and tremors. In time, Charcot came to see that men could also be so troubled. Although the mechanism of hysteria was not understood, Charcot and his contemporaries showed that its symptoms could be cured by hypnosis.
Freud’s studies under Charcot influenced him greatly in channeling his interests to psychopathology (the study and treatment of disorders of the mind). In his practice in Vienna, Freud met many patients with nervous disorders for which there was no apparent physical cause. Their symptoms included paralyzed limbs, tics, tremors, loss of consciousness, memory impairment, and numbness that could not be explained. These unexplained cases were labeled as “neurotic,” meaning that they were similar to neurological conditions. In time they became known collectively as “neuroses. Freud’s observation of Charcot’s use of hypnosis in the treatment of similar disorders led him to conclude that there could be powerful mental processes operating that remain hidden from conscious understanding. He began to employ hypnosis in his own practice, publishing articles on the subject in 1892. Freud came to understand hysterical neurotic symptoms as the product of a conflict between opposing mental forces. Conscious forces representing “will” were balanced by unconscious opposing forces representing “counterwill. ” He understood hypnosis to act on the side of will to subjugate the counterwill, thus obliterating the symptom.
The idea of conflict proposed in the 1892 paper “A Case of Successful Treatment by Hypnotism: With Some Remarks on the Origin of Hysterical Symptoms Through ‘Counterwill’” was to become a fundamental principle of psychoanalysis. BThe Beginning of Psychoanalysis Pioneers of Psychoanalysis In 1909 pioneers of the growing psychoanalytic movement assembled at Clark University to hear lectures by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. The group included, top row, left to right, A. A. Brill, Ernest Jones, Sandor Ferenczi, and bottom row, Freud, Clark University President C.
Stanley Hall, and Swiss psychiatrist Carl G. Jung. The visit, the only one Freud made to the United States, broadened the influence and popularity of psychoanalysis. Corbis The next important development in Freud’s theory of psychology came out of work he conducted with his friend and colleague Josef Breuer, a Viennese physician who was involved in the treatment of a young woman who was distressed while caring for her dying father. The patient had developed a number of hysterical symptoms, which Breuer initially treated by hypnotic suggestion.
Initial success gave way to disappointment when on her father’s death her symptoms returned with increased severity. Somewhat at a loss as to how to proceed, Breuer had continued to talk to his patient on a daily basis and in time she began to talk about various reminiscences from the past and about her daydreams. Remarkably, as her narrative revisited memories from the past, which were associated with the onset of a particular symptom, each symptom disappeared when accompanied by an emotional outburst. Breuer made use of this discovery to eliminate her symptoms one at a time.
He called the treatment the cathartic technique (from the Greek katharsis meaning “purgation”). The treatment was time consuming and required considerable effort to reach dimly recalled and otherwise inaccessible memories. Freud and Breuer published the case and several others in 1895 under the title Studies on Hysteria. Their view was summed up in the statement “Hysterics suffer mainly from reminiscences. ” They proposed that when faced with emotionally traumatic memories, hysterics subjugate them from conscious appreciation to prevent the unbearable emotional pain and suffering that they cause.
Rather than being driven out of the mind, however, these memories are driven into an area of the mind that is unconscious and inaccessible. Here the memories may be redirected from the emotional system into the somatic (bodily) system and appear as apparently unexplained physical symptoms. The cases that constitute Studies on Hysteria outline the transition from treatment by hypnotic suggestion to the earliest descriptions of what is now known as psychoanalysis. Working on his own Freud hypothesized that hysterical symptoms were most likely to arise when repressed traumatic memories related to adverse childhood sexual experiences.
This view generated tremendous controversy at the time because the existence of childhood sexuality was not widely accepted. In time Freud was forced to reconsider this aspect of his theory, instead relating the repressed memories to childhood fantasies of sexuality and their relationship to parental figures. B1Dreams The next development in Freud’s theory stemmed from his observations on dreaming. He came to see that many of the characteristics of dreams were shared with the symptomatic memories recalled by his patients in the narrative of “free association. In his therapeutic relationship with his patients, Freud had abandoned hypnotic suggestion in favor of encouraging the person to speak freely about whatever came into his or her mind. Unintentionally, the patient would bring order to these free associations, whose structure and content Freud used to try to understand underlying unconscious processes. In dreams Freud noted the same apparently unstructured experiences of thoughts and images coming into the mind that seemed to be representative of some underlying unconscious process.
To explain these phenomena, he suggested the existence of an inner censor that effected a compromise between conflicting mental forces and in the process disguised their meaning from conscious appreciation. He defined “resistance” as the unconscious defense against awareness of repressed experiences in order to avoid the resulting anxiety. He traced the operation of unconscious processes, using the free associations of the patient to guide him in the interpretation of dreams and slips of speech. Slips of speech or parapraxes, now known as “Freudian slips,” Freud claimed, were revelations of unconscious wishes.
His 1904 publication, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, discusses these ideas. Freud came to understand the mind as a series of layers, with the most superficial layers in conscious appreciation and the deeper layers containing repressed memories and remaining unavailable to conscious thought. He termed this the topographical model and likened it to an iceberg, a small part of which is visible above the surface while the greater submerged part remains obscured from view. These ideas were published in 1900 in The Interpretation of Dreams.
During the first two decades of the 1900s Freud concentrated on modifying and improving his theory of psychoanalysis. He defined a number of principles and described a model of personality development. B2The Unconscious The Mind as an Iceberg Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, compared the human mind to an iceberg. The tip above the water represents consciousness, and the vast region below the surface symbolizes the unconscious mind. Of Freud’s three basic personality structures—id, ego, and superego—only the id is totally unconscious. © Microsoft Corporation.
All Rights Reserved. Perhaps Freud’s greatest contribution was to describe the unconscious and to postulate that it obeys the principle of psychic determinism, which holds that human thoughts, feelings, and impulses, rather than being random, are linked in a system of causally related phenomena, behind which lies some reason or meaning. Freud concluded that on this basis unconscious processes could be investigated and understood. Some experiences that are not immediately accessible to conscious appreciation can be brought into the conscious mind by the process of remembering.
Freud referred to these experiences as the preconscious. Still-deeper thoughts cannot be remembered and are actively repressed in the unconscious. Unconscious experiences, according to Freud, are not subject to the same logic characteristic of conscious experience. Unconscious ideas, images, thoughts, and feelings can be condensed or dramatized in the form of abstract concepts and imagery. Often the relationship between the original experience and the unconscious symbolic representation can seem obscure. B3Role of Conflict The central theme of conflict had arisen early in Freud’s work.
Conflict arises in a person’s conscious mind when one set of beliefs impacts adversely on another area of belief, causing emotional suffering felt as disappointment, anger, or frustration. Freud was interested in the unconscious aspect of mental conflict. He described the “pleasure principle” as another fundamental of psychoanalytic theory. This holds that human beings have a tendency to seek pleasure and avoid pain. The principle is said to dominate in early life, bringing the developing individual into conflict with the external world. These conflicts are retained in the unconscious.
Freud’s original concept held that the conflicts of early life arose as a result of innate human drives or instincts. He conceptualized how development might occur in terms of the drives and their satisfaction according to the pleasure principle. Among the chief drives was the libidinal, or sexual, drive, which serves the human species by directing individuals to reproduce. Awareness of a need to keep rein on the free expression of drives gradually develops, and failure to rein in these drives (and fantasies about their expression) is felt as guilt.
Life becomes an equilibrium between drives, conflicts, and reality. Freud believed that by understanding the crucial events and fantasy wishes of childhood, psychoanalysis could shed understanding on later adult character development with its attendant conflicts and neurotic symptoms. Later, he extended his model to include psychoses (serious mental disorders in which people have a distorted view of reality). Conflicts repressed into the unconscious are retained, according to Freud.
From time to time they may overcome repression and reemerge into conscious appreciation, precipitating anxiety or panic. To counteract this, the individual unconsciously produces various defense mechanisms, which become part of that person’s character. Examples of defense mechanisms include projection, where the individual ascribes to others his or her own unconscious desires (“I hate you,” for example, becomes “You hate me”), and reaction formation, where the individual adopts a pattern of behavior directly opposed to a strong unconscious drive.
In 1923 Freud reformulated his ideas in a structural model of the mind that postulated the existence of the id, the ego, and the superego. Freud gave the name “id” to unconscious drives. The id knows nothing of morality or reality. It seeks only to gratify the instinctual drives, and it operates solely according to the pleasure principle. Freud held that the biological drives of a young person are often frustrated by delays and restricted by the demands of parents and other older members of the family.
As time passes, the demands of the community or society also become important obstacles to id gratification. In adapting to the environment, the child begins to acquire an ego, or set of conscious perceptions, memories, and thoughts that enable the person to deal effectively with reality. Thus, according to Freud, the ego obeys the reality principle. As the individual absorbs the teachings of family and society, he develops a superego, or conscience, that frequently conflicts with the drives of the id.
In many cases the ego reduces the conflict by at least partially fulfilling the id impulses through socially acceptable behavior. Often, however, the conflict disappears on the conscious level as unfulfilled impulses are repressed into the unconscious mind. Freud’s therapy consisted of listening to the patient relate a narrative of free associations over many sessions. By listening to the patient’s associations, Freudian slips, contents of dreams, and thoughts, he linked and interpreted these experiences to the patient’s conscious world. He came to understand the nature of “transference,” in hich the patient develops feelings for the therapist that are in fact representative of previous feelings toward other important figures in the patient’s life. These thoughts and feelings Freud interpreted and linked to the patient’s current emotional state. CFreud and His Times C1Major Influences Freud’s early psychological work shows the influence of the sciences of the day on his thinking. Ideas from physics, chemistry, and evolutionary theory occur regularly in his writing. At the time, Charles Darwin’s writings, especially the theory of evolution, were challenging contemporary Judeo-Christian belief.
Indeed it was Darwin who emphasized instincts for survival and reproduction, formulated in Freud’s theory as basic drives. Freud’s ideas can be seen in the same context as Darwin’s. Freud, too, challenged philosophical and religious thinking by suggesting that human beings were rather less in control of their own thoughts and actions than previously believed. His contention that unconscious thoughts and actions had to arise from within the self rather than from God conflicted with the contemporary notion of soul. From Freud’s time on, the disciplines of philosophy and psychology developed separately.
Freud was particularly interested in the “association” school of psychology, which included Johann Friedrich Herbart and Wilhelm Max Wundt, the former of whom may have contributed to free association as a therapeutic technique. Psychodynamic theory—the model of conflicting forces influencing the subconscious—also has its origins in the physical concepts of opposing forces and vector analysis. Freud’s theory that unresolved conflicts can be converted into physical symptoms reflects the principle of conservation of energy held by the first law of thermodynamics.
Yet Freud’s ideas were new and radical, and it is easy to see why Freud came into conflict so readily with the society and establishment of his time. He relied on the support of friends such as Breuer. By 1906, however, a small number of pupils and followers had gathered around Freud, including Austrians William Stekel, Alfred Adler, and Otto Rank; American Abraham Brill; and Eugen Bleuler and Carl Jung from Switzerland. Other notable associates, who joined the circle in 1908, were Hungarian Sandor Ferenczi and Briton Ernest Jones.
C2International Acceptance Increasing recognition of the psychoanalytic movement made possible the formation in 1910 of a worldwide organization called the International Psychoanalytic Association. As the movement spread, gaining new adherents through Europe and the United States, Freud was troubled by the dissension that arose among members of his original circle. Most disturbing were the defections from the group of Adler and Jung, each of whom developed a different theoretical basis for disagreement with Freud’s emphasis on the sexual origin of neurosis.
Freud met these setbacks by developing further his basic concepts and by elaborating his own views in many publications and lectures. After the onset of World War I (1914-1918) Freud devoted little time to clinical observation and concentrated on the application of his theories to the interpretation of religion, mythology, art, and literature. Among his later writings are Totem and Taboo (1913), Ego and the Id (1923), New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1933), and Moses and Monotheism (1939).
Freud created an entirely new approach to the understanding of human personality by his demonstration of the existence and force of the unconscious. In addition, he founded a new medical discipline and formulated basic therapeutic procedures that in modified form are still applied in the treatment of neuroses and psychoses. Although never accorded full recognition during his lifetime, Freud is generally acknowledged as one of the great creative minds of modern times. His daughter Anna Freud also became a well-known psychoanalyst.
