Freud Questions

reading questions for

Sigmund Freud's Clark University lectures

When Freud studied with Charcot, what two bold theories impressed him?
What did the case of "Anna O." demonstrate to Freud?
What was "seduction theory" and what replaced it?
What was the main idea in Interpretation of Dreams?
What was the fundamental point of Psychopathology of Everyday Life?
How was Freud's treatment of sexual development different for his times?
What is the difference between the two mental processes: primary and secondary?
Why did Freud include the Thanatos drive in addition to the Eros drive after WWI?
What are the three parts of his "structural theory" of the mind, and how do they inter-relate?
Did Freud think people are readily able to "see" what goes on in their heads?

What were the symptoms of Breuer's patient, and how did physicians usually explain these symptoms?
If the diagnosis was "hysteria", how did physicians generally treat the patients?
What led Breuer to invent the "talking cure" to treat his patient, and how did this cure help her?
In theory, how did hypnosis facilitate Breuer's treatment?
In Breuer's view, how were the symptoms of hysteria and previous emotional experiences connected?
On what is the mental life of the hysteric fixated, and how does this fixation effect current moods?
What commonly happens to emotional experiences that later can lead to hysteria?
How does the suppression of past emotions influence the surface expression of them?
How does the account of Breuer's patient lead Freud to postulate different mental states?
What is the difference between the conscious and unconscious mental states, and what is the relation between the two?
How do symptoms of hysteria arise in the "hypnoid" state?
Why does Freud think that Breuer's theory is incomplete?

How did the theories of Freud, Breuer, and Charcot differ from other contemporary theories of hysteria as a mental phenomenon?
How did Janet relate the mental cause of hysteria with the physical body, and why did Freud disagree with this theory?
Why did Freud stop using hypnosis, and what advantages or disadvantages did its replacement have over it?
Why were patients able to recall past traumas in a normal, non-hypnotized mental state?
How did Freud work to get his patients to recall past traumas?
How does "repression" interfere with Freud's process?
Why are some specific wishes repressed, but not others?
How does repression protect the patient from these wishes?
Why is Freud's allusion to the university president as a mediator a good analogy for the psychoanalyst's role in dealing with repression?
Why does a repressed wish still effect hysterical symptoms, and how does it express itself in the conscious mental state?
Why can we track the form of the repressed wish from the form of the symptom?
Once psychoanalysis has brought a repressed wish into the patient's consciousness, how can it be dealt with?

Why was Freud incorrect to say that simple insistence led patients to recall suppressed memories?
How do these two forces interact: the conscious intention to explore unconscious wishes and the resistance against making those wishes conscious?
How does resistance to the repressed wish effect its conscious expression?
Why are jokes an example of distortion in everyday life?
How do the words "allusion" and "substitute" explain the process of distortion?
What is a "complex", and why would free associations tied to a repressed wish form a complex?
How does free association give the psychoanalyst information about the repressed wish?
How do dream life and normal life relate to one another?
Why does Freud make a distinction between the "manifest content of the dream" and the "latent dream-thoughts"?
How is the distortion of dreams similar to the symptoms of hysteria, and how is the dream related to repressed wishes?
How is "dream-work" similar to psychoanalysis?
Why would knowledge of symbolism in myth help to interpret dreams?
How is anxiety in dreams related to repression?
How would a psychoanalyst observe slips of the tongue, fidgeting, and other small actions differently from an untrained person?
How do these small actions express repressed wishes?
Why do psychoanalysts believe that they can actually trace repressed wishes through a host of observations on free association, dream interpretation, and small faulty actions?
How does Freud answer other people who condemn his techniques?

Why, according to Freud, are psychoanalysts convinced that that the erotic life is central to explanations of mental illness?
Why is sexuality so often ignored by doctors and the general public?
How are sexuality and traumatic experiences linked in Freud's theory, and why, then, is an examination of the patient's childhood so important?
Why do most people ignore infantile sexuality?
What does Freud mean when he says infantile sexuality is made up of many factors?
Why is thumb-sucking an expression of "auto-erotism" in Freud's theory?
How is "object-choice" different from "auto-erotism", and how does object-choice influence one person's relations to another?
What role does gender play in a child's "object-choice"?
What role does repression play in the formation of a person's sexual character?
How are development and pathology related?
In terms of auto-erotism, why does Freud classify homosexuality as a "perversion"?
How does adult "neurosis" relate to infantile sexuality, as compared with a "perversion"?
How does the child's first choice of object relate to its parents, and how does this choice effect relations towards the unchosen parent?
Why is the myth of Oedipus apropos of Freud's theory?
Why is object-choice of a parent the "nuclear complex" of neurosis, and why would a child's detachment from its chosen parent lead to a more stable mental life?
How can the role of psychoanalysis be viewed in light of the child's first object-choice?

How does the frustration of erotic needs lead to illness, but why is resistance to giving up erotic needs so great?
How do humans use fantasy life, and how do different fantasies relate to personality?
Why is the difference between neurosis and normal life quantitative, not qualitative?
How does "transference" determine how a patient relates to the physician?
What role does a physician play in using transference to help the patient?
An obstacle to the acceptance of psychoanalysis is the supposed danger raised by bringing repressed wishes to consciousness. Why does Freud think this perception of danger is false?
How do conscious and unconscious wishes effect mental life differently?
How does conscious "judgment" differ from repression?
How does "sublimation" effect the mental influence of a repressed wish?
In Freud's view, why can some repressed wishes be safely satisfied?

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