Freud and anna freud defences
Freud’s Model of Repression and the Mind and Anna Freud’s Unconscious Defences
We need defences to survive. They are often likened to a psychic skin which are there to protect us from life’s knocks. Our defences are unconscious and we tend to take them for granted when they are working well. However, defences can become overwhelmed or too rigid and cause distress which often brings a client into therapy. No list of defences is exhaustive. It was beyond the scope of this essay to look at how others have built on Freud’s defences such as Melanie Klein. I believe understanding defences is key for both ourselves and our client.
Freud’s Model of Repression
Gomez (1997) felt Freud saw the mind was dynamic and consisted of two parts the conscious and the unconscious. The unconscious part gives rise to impulses in one part of the mind. Society or our own inner voice forces us to repress these impulses. Our unconscious serves as the storehouse for this collection. Many of our inner urges are too disturbing for the conscious mind (and society at large) to cope with immediately. Therefore, we mobilize our defences against these impulses. We only give ourselves away in slips of the tongue or dreams.
Freud (1959) felt ” Aspects of ourselves which disturb us to the point that they give rise to anxiety or psychic pain may be rejected by us and lead to employing a number of defence mechanisms to suppress or disown what is unacceptable to consciousness”
Freud (1959) saw psychoanalysis as the key to unlocking this painful resistance by way of three processes,"recollection, repetition, and working through" and emphasized the crucial component of ‘working through’ in the change process. Freud felt if a client could recall what happened where they felt safe mental distress could be relieved. You will see below that Freud realized with time it was not that straight forward.
The Structural Model in repression
Freud proposed that the mind is divided into three
We need defences to survive. They are often likened to a psychic skin which are there to protect us from life’s knocks. Our defences are unconscious and we tend to take them for granted when they are working well. However, defences can become overwhelmed or too rigid and cause distress which often brings a client into therapy. No list of defences is exhaustive. It was beyond the scope of this essay to look at how others have built on Freud’s defences such as Melanie Klein. I believe understanding defences is key for both ourselves and our client.
Freud’s Model of Repression
Gomez (1997) felt Freud saw the mind was dynamic and consisted of two parts the conscious and the unconscious. The unconscious part gives rise to impulses in one part of the mind. Society or our own inner voice forces us to repress these impulses. Our unconscious serves as the storehouse for this collection. Many of our inner urges are too disturbing for the conscious mind (and society at large) to cope with immediately. Therefore, we mobilize our defences against these impulses. We only give ourselves away in slips of the tongue or dreams.
Freud (1959) felt ” Aspects of ourselves which disturb us to the point that they give rise to anxiety or psychic pain may be rejected by us and lead to employing a number of defence mechanisms to suppress or disown what is unacceptable to consciousness”
Freud (1959) saw psychoanalysis as the key to unlocking this painful resistance by way of three processes,"recollection, repetition, and working through" and emphasized the crucial component of ‘working through’ in the change process. Freud felt if a client could recall what happened where they felt safe mental distress could be relieved. You will see below that Freud realized with time it was not that straight forward.
The Structural Model in repression
Freud proposed that the mind is divided into three