I’ll begin by saying that Freud was around in the late 1800s. He was the first person to try a ‘talking cure’ when it came to mental illness, so he is extremely influential and has contributed some very useful ideas to the field of psychology and psychotherapy. He treated female patients with hysteria, an illness which caused a loss of bodily function, for instance limb paralysis. They all claimed they had been molested by male family members, and when they talked through the ordeal, they were cured of their illness. Freud claimed that these women were not molested, they wanted to be, but knew it was bad, and had repressed the desire.

Before you go mental at Freud, you must realise; this is the 1800s! It’s only in the last 20 years that people have accepted that child abuse is a lot higher than was first thought. Over 100 years ago, the idea of it was unthinkable and it was thought to be extremely rare.

This idea of repression is what Freud’s theory is most famous for. He claims that our mind has three levels: the conscious, the pre-conscious, which is accessed via dreams and therapy such as free-association, and the unconscious. It is our unconscious desires which we repress in order to function normally.

Id, Ego and Superego

Our psyche, according to Freud, is split into three. The first construct is the Id. This is where all of our instinctual desires come from. The Id, you might say, is the devil on our shoulder pushing us to do whatever we want to do. This is where our repressed desires come from. The second construct, the Superego, is what you might refer to as the parent, moderating our behaviour to accord with what society expects. It is our conscience, our ability to know that what we want is not always right. 

These two constructs are controlled, to some extent anyway, by the Ego. The ego is the sense of self. It translates what the Id wants into some kind of acceptable behaviour. For an example, Freud might claim that playing a musical instrument is the Ego’s way of controlling the Id’s urge to masturbate!

Psychosexual Stages of Development

The ideas of the id, ego, and the superego slot into Freud’s much more controversial theory that we all go through psychosexual stages of development. He proposed that three aspects of childhood affect whether we become ‘fixated’ at a particular stage; the Oral stage, the Anal stage, or the Genital stage. These aspects are breast feeding, toilet training and genitals.

The Oral Stage

If a child is excessively gratified (in other words, allowed to go on breast-feeding for a long time) they will become fixated in this stage. They will also become fixated if they are frustrated (in other words, not allowed to breast-feed for as long as they want). Freud claims that these fixations cause a person to revert to the behaviour patterns associated with the childhood phase, in subtle and indirect ways. A gratified person will show this through being very optimistic, desiring a regular income, being generous and cheerful, and liking soft foods. They have the attitude that ‘good things last forever’. Conversly, frustrated people become pessimistic, hostile, cruel and clingy. They have the attitude that ‘good things never last’.

The Anal Stage

Freud claims that here, a child gets sexual satisfaction from retaining a full bowel, or from excreting. I think you can all see straight away that this is INSANE! He claims children as young as 18 months have a definite sexuality and are aware of it!

The anal character manifests in adulthood via behaviours such as hoarding, attention to detail,  persistence, and an urge to clean things. The hoarding comes from the desire to hoard excrement, and so on.

The Genital Stage

This is where things start to get really freaky. If you didn’t think it was already bad, just wait! Freud claims that 5 year old children want to have sex with their opposite-gender parent, and see their same-sex parent as a rival for the opposite-sex parent’s attention. This relates back to his hysteria patients mentioned above. Women have an elektra complex, and men have an oedipus complex. Young boys know that their desire is wrong and they fear castration; they view girls as being boys who were castrated! Instead they attempt to appease the father by relating to him. Conversly, the girls do not fear castration, but go through experiences of mourning the loss of their penis and feeling inferior to males – Freud coined the term ‘Penis Envy’ to explain the phenomenon.

If you’re thinking that this is absolute bull, Freud would have a response for you! You only think that because you have repressed your memories from 5 years old and younger, along with your oedipus/elektra complex!

He’s really thought of everything!

What’s great for Freud is that his theory encompasses all human behaviour. He has an explanation for everything. If somebody buys cheap presents, likes to hold on to items and money and are rude, they have an anal personality. If they are really nice and generous, they have simply repressed their anal personality and are overcompensating!

This is great for Freud as he can explain everything, but it also lacks scientific proof. He only studied cases of single patients, and there is a massive overemphasis on the sexual drive. 

My theory is that Freud had these desires, and felt the need to make them okay by creating this whole theory of personality!

Thoughts?

Her fans take it all in stride, of course.  Just another part of the show, the circus.  But a strangely-large number of people are saying that this is “more than a little disturbing”, perverted, and sending bad messages to impressionable minds.

So, before forming my own opinion, I looked for myself.  I will not include the link, because this site is a family site.  But it wasn’t hard to find at all.  I have a message for all of those who think it’s perverted.

Exactly what part of that photo shoot is “more than a little disturbing”?  Did you get your first connection to the Internet today?  Have you been living in a cave for the last 50 years?  There is nothing even remotely disturbing about any of these pics — and yes, I went to find the rest of them; it was quite easy.  While it isn’t my favorite photo shoot of the day, I saw nothing awful about it.

I’m not disturbed in the least by it.  If you are, then you are either eight years old, or repressed.

Image via Wikipedia (This isn’t from the controversial shoot — just included to show the young woman hard at work.)

We have to get the puritanical hypocrites to stop calling anything sexy “dirty” and “disturbing”.  I’ve lived and worked all over the world, and the U.S. has some of the most uptight and repressed sexual ideas on the planet.

Ever wonder why the U.S. has some of the highest per-capita sex crimes rates on earth?  Ever wonder why places with legalized prostitution have the lowest?  Or did you even bother to find out?  Simple; it’s because they accept sex as a bodily function, and don’t blush and giggle like elementary school kids when they hear the word “nipple”.

There are 6+ billion people on this planet, and pretty much all of them have nipples.  Some people even have three!  Get over it.  Seeing a nipple once in a while won’t turn your kids into a slobbering degenerate — but flying into a panic, throwing fits over your pre-programmed morality, and calling nudity “disturbing” will certainly send your child the message that sex is dirty and evil, and screw them up for life.

During May and beginnings of June students throughout Santiago started calling for protests specially on Thursdays and also students have taken schools. During this protests students have protested in interesting and creative ways that include dancing, acting and mocking famous scenes. For example in one manifestation they portrayed the ex president of Chile Salvador Allende. Students have shown discontent with president Sebastian Piñera and th ex minister of education Joaquin Lavin. Also students showed discontent with vice president Rodrigo Hinzpeter and ex spokesman Ena Von Baer. The 30th of June there was a protest that is thought of gathering 400 thousand people.

The Government gave a 21 point proposal to the students on August 1st. There was another protest for August 4th stating that they didn’t accept the proposal. This protest was cancelled by the government and when protesters gathered police scattered them and then the incidents started. Protesters scattered but they started little fires and barricades in the street to show that they where still there. Police got the teargas and the water-throwing cars to stop the protest. Again protesters that weren’t necessarily with the cause took advantage other situation and went out in look of trouble. Molotov’s where thrown and a fire started in a store. There where 874 protesters detained and the student federation president, Camila Vallejos called the center of Santiago a “state of siege”. Through the social networks (mostly facebook and twitter) people where called to a “cacerolazo”. The “cacerolazo” consist on people making noise with pans and pots. This mode of protesting hasn’t been used since the military dictatorship years.

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Pumping operations and counter-investment:

Repression is initially described as a dynamic operation, implying and requiring constant maintenance of a counter-investment of the ego so there is no returning. The operation of counter-investment steal emotional energy of self-esteem of the individual whenever it is threatened in front of the drives. In the years 1911-1915, Freud devoted himself to present a theory articulated the process of repression, distinguishing it three times, but we add one more point, the counter-investment that prevents his return to the field of ego.

That focuses on repression:

As we said, we must emphasize that it is neither on the drive, to the extent that it is organic (e.g. hunger, thirst, “horny” etc.) Escapes conscious-unconscious alternative, nor about the affect itself. Only representatives (ideas, images, emotions, feelings, etc..) Drive connected to the id are repressed. These elements are fixed to the repressed representative primary, or come of it or take it in connection with fortuitous.
Repression reserves, each of psychic representation, a distinctive destination “entirely individual,” according to their degree of deformity, their separation from the core value of your unconscious or affective (unpleasant). The operation of repression can be seen in the triple record of metapsychology:

The repression, the ego as a defensive operation, modeled censorship (superego):

From the point of view, although in the first theory of the psychic apparatus Freud describes repression as maintenance out of consciousness, nor why the body assimilates the repressive consciousness. It is censorship that provides the template for this. In the second model, the repression is considered a defensive operation of the ego (Partially unconscious).

Repression under the economic point of view / energy:

From the economic point of view, repression involves a complex mechanism of divestment, reinvestment or cross-investments, focusing on the psychic representation of instinct.

Repression under the dynamic point of view, conflict, id x ego x superego:

From the dynamic point of view, the main problem is the conflict between desire and defense is a cause of action of repression (ideal ego and superego), since the satisfaction of generating a pulse of pleasure would eventually raise an unpleasant, triggering thus the operation of repression.

Repression and the level of conscience / empathy for each individual:

We can say that in the early stages of human consciousness, the individual predominantly egocentric probably will not have a developed moral conscience empathic. Herein lies a collection of smaller internal mechanisms of censorship and hardly use the mechanism of repression, since this evolutionary stage the more instinctive nature and predominantly egocentric accept with ease from the drives of the id without guilt, making him seek satisfaction their needs, without worrying about the social consent or even their own forum. Since the stages of moral conscience more lucid, more empathic, in which the individual knows what to do, according to its moral basis (idealized), the action of censorship inspection will be much larger and depending on the performance of the superego can be produced settlements, as mechanisms of appeasement, the inability to accept momentary ego and develop the primitive impulses that infiltrate the conscious field. In this case, repression consist of a defense of the moral, since the structure of the self-centered ego will likely still have an affinity for the power produced by the unconscious desire of the id, there is great possibility of the individual to accept these impulses with the subsequent manifestation of contrary attitudes the basis of values ​​accepted as proper to govern their relations (ego ideal).

Please do not get me wrong here, because I love the way that I can get libraries worth of information, on any damn thing I choose to look up, just by posing a question on a search-engine. Truly, for any writer, a wondous resource, and invaluable fot accuracy of facts in non-fiction pieces, but think about the wider picture, just for a few moments.  Not so very long ago, less than a single generation, large parts of the world were controlled by despotic rulers, who kept thier subjects firmly under control.

Look at the middle-east now, a genuine powder-keg of repressed fury, hatred and violence that always was ‘on the brink’, until two weeks ago, when the world social networking phenomena finally caught up with the ordinary citizens there, waking them up to a world in which thier opinion COULD actually count for something, if only they were prepared to voice thier feelings, in sufficient numbers. Mahatma Ghandi was reborn, or at least his dogma, as the Egyptian people set about proving, yet again, that passive(mostly) rebellion can achieve cherished ambitions.

People power, glorious and free, erupted through the Egyptian nation like a tidal wave, sweeping aside a dictator who thought himself invincible, until army. police and other former repressors simply refused to do his bidding anymore, sharing the irresistable mood of the people, not wanting to turn on them, but instead joining thier ranks. A fairytale coming true, and democracy at last finding a way to establish itself in that part of the world, but was it really that whimsical?

Look now at the terrible scenes in Lbya, where the undoubtedly insanr Gaddafi, refusing to surrender his 40 year grip on absolute power, is threatening to kill every single person who opposes him, in thier brand new uprising. It seems, however, that sections of the army and police, in the east of the country, have deserted him, akin to thier Egyptian brothers, so the country is set, it seems, for a bloodbath, and we in the west will tut,tut, and shake our heads, but no more than that.

IN Bahrain, the authorities are being equally ruthless, and many of the leaders of middle-east states are now fearful of the volcanic upwlling of feeling that is surging through the ordinary people there. Quite simply, they have had enough of never being listened to, or, as they see it, valued, and so they mean to change things, by taking up the flag of free speech and democracy, and refusing to put it down again, even on pain of death.

It is with a horrid, creeping sensation of foreboding and dread, that we must watch as events unfold, for we are powerless to do anything at all, either to help or prevent this tide of revolution. There has, for far too long, been an old order occupying the seats of power, and perhaps the time has finally arrived for the oredinary inhabitants of these places to stand up and be counted, as they are doing in thier millions. We might be justified in fearing for them, and the stability of the whole region, but we should applaud thier bravery, and wish them well.

Although some therapists advise you to discharge anger harmlessly, bleeding it off a little at a time, like excess steam from a pressure cooker (to which end I have had great fun with clients beating up pillows, putting old grievances on bonfires, smashing plates and screaming on the pier-head in the dark of night), I prefer not to waste this energy, but to harness it productively.

As I learned to recognise, access and use this anger, I became able to handle more intense and frightening sources until one day, blocked on the production of a key project for my degree and tempted to acknowledge that I was simply incapable of work at that level and might as well give up, I found myself contacting a huge awareness of resentment of the woman who had seduced my husband from me.

I had thought I had been quite civilised about it all, offering to befriend them both, acknowledging that he had changed, that I was a burden, an ageing, sick woman, no longer beautiful and desirable. I hoped they would be happy.

But I was aware of a burning desire that he would see through her surface attraction, realise that she could not love him as I did, vent his anger on her for what his obsession had cost him and for the ruin of his life. I imagined him down and out, lonely and defeated, ravaged and broken, swimming out to sea until his great strength gave out.

Now I finally became aware of the towering inferno of my anger, of the power I had repressed, afraid even to look at it. I had been so terrified of the consequences of expressing my rage that I had repressed it totally and in so doing had reduced myself to an enervated shell of a woman who was using almost her entire life-force to deny the existence of an anger she had every right to feel.

I acknowledged my right to feel angry. I realised that the violent and destructive thoughts  that terrified me were only symbols of my pain. Once subjected to reason the impulses were defused. Only as primitive, irrational responses repressed at deep limbic levels did they exist in visceral reality. Once lifted into consciousness and available for dispassionate inspection, they felt shocking, but irrelevant and even faintly amusing.

So I imagined taking hold of the anger, experiencing it, revelling in it, holding it in my arms and embracing it, gradually crushing it down and down until it formed a warm, glowing ball of pure, primal energy, like hot, red wool in my hands. It was mine. I could make anything of it I wanted. I saw myself using it to focus on the project, working with confident brilliance, untiring, deftly marshaling arguments and facts into an elegant, reasoned whole.

And so it was.

Now I know how angry I was. I know how to use that anger. I realise  how I had repressed my anger and turned it destructively against myself. I know now, how to access it, to control it and reclaim the energy I had been wasting.  Now I can use it to break through a writer’s block, or to complete a household task I had not wanted to start.

Like most experiences, seen creatively, it has changed from a devastating negative to a positive opportunity for growth. It has focused and empowered me, because someone took the trouble to teach me how, so that I can relate to others in that same dilemma and help them to find their own way out of the trap.

·       “No, I’m not angry… hurt, maybe.. bewildered, disillusioned, ashamed, guilty.. but not angry, I can’t say that.”

·       “No, I’m not angry….perhaps a little sad, disillusioned, determined to do better, but not angry, no, not that.”

·       “I’m never angry. What good does it do? It doesn’t change anything. It just upsets me and other people. I just feel helpless and a bit sick.”

These comments are typical of people who have learned the lessons of childhood messages. “Control yourself.” “Don’t make a fuss” “Simmer down”. They then spend the rest of their lives doing just that.

They expend vast stores of mental energy controlling their emotions, hiding them from others and even from themselves, whilst underneath they continue to bubble, seething silently. And because these feelings are forbidden, they accept the blame for everything that goes wrong, because they don’t deserve anything good.

They know they are discontented. They don’t know why. But they do know that they have no right to resentment.

Another kind of person handles the same problem in a different way. They know they are angry and they know why. They intend that everyone else should know too. They rehearse their anger and in so doing exhaust a nervous system kept in a constant state of “flight or fight” excitation. 

·       “I’m bloody angry. They won’t get away with it. I’ll make myself felt. They took on the wrong person this time”

·       Yes, I’m mad, and why shouldn’t I be? If you don’t like it, you know what you can do..”

·      
“Don’t tell me to shut up. I intend to be heard. I’ll scream and scream and scream until I make myself sick!”

Some people might argue that these temper tantrums are legitimate ways of working off steam. I would dispute that as a wasteful, offensive and ill-thought-out strategy.

In the first place it distresses and alienates those who are not directly responsible for the anger. The person who does not like it does indeed know what he or she can do, and may well do it.

In the second place it is often counterproductive. The employer who took on the wrong man can easily dismiss him.

Thirdly, it is bad for the health. Constant excitation can lead to stress symptoms, heart and blood pressure problems, auto-immune disease. Yes, you will make yourself sick…and it is so unnecessary, so impractical: such a waste.

Assaglioli, high priest of psychosynthesis, identified rage as a primal force, an upwelling of raw energy, having no regard for consequence, no conscience and no morality.  Once we can recognize that energy, we can harness it productively, rather than repressing it or letting it use us in ways that are destructive to ourselves and others.

All defense mechanisms have two characteristics in common:

1.)    they deny, falsify, or distort reality

2.)    they operate unconsciously so that the person is not aware of what is taking place

Repression.    This is one the earliest concepts pf psychoanalysis. Before Freud arrived at this final formulation of personality theory in terms of the id, ego, and superego, he divided the mind into three regions: consciousness, preconsciousness, and unconsciousness. The preconscious consisted of psychological material that could become conscious when the need arose. Material in the unconscious awareness, however, was regarded by Freud as being relatively inaccessible to conscious awareness; it was said to be a state of repression.

Projection.      Reality anxiety is usually easier for the ego to deal with than either neurotic or moral anxiety. Consequently, if the source of the anxiety can be attributed to the external world rather than to the individual’s own primitive impulses or to the threats of conscience, the person is likely to achieve greater relief for the anxious condition. This mechanism by which neurotic or moral anxiety is converted into an objective fear is called projection.

Reaction Formation.     This defensive measure involves the replacement in consciousness of an anxiety-producing impulse or feeling by its opposite. For example, hate is replaced by love. The original impulse still exists but is glossed over or masked by one that does not cause anxiety.

Fixation and Regression.       In the course of normal development, the personality passes through a series of rather well – defined stages until it reaches maturity. Each new step that is taken, however, entails a certain amount of frustration and anxiety. If these become too great, normal growth may be temporarily or permanently halted. In other words, the person may become fixated on one of the early stages of development because taking the next step is fraught with anxiety. The overly dependent child exemplifies defense by fixation; anxiety prevents it from learning how to become independent.

Marcuse’s referred to the conflict between man potential instinct for libidinous behaviour was repressed in society and the price of progress was a repression of that instinct capped with sense of guilt. Unlike Freud, Marcuse disagreed that repression of that instinct was necessary for civilization to advance; Eros he said was liberating and constructive.

He argued that sex was rewarded to those who performed better; those who performed poorly were alienated in society. If one were to apply this notion today there is some sense when one hears of people who have regular sex and perform better at work because they are less anxious; a certain anxiety is a spin off in relationships which are not fulfilling to one partner or another. Even having had some physical contact in terms of contact, according to educators, sociologists, behaviorists  helps the person to perform better at work or at the school; there is also less distraction about not having scored the night before or thoughts about  why he or she did not want to be intimate with you.

Biological repression as was suggested by Freud was not the cause of our troubles, they were due to a ‘surplus repression’ produced by institutions over recorded time. Marcuse distinguished between basic repression and surplus repression, the later being due to a social domination of our behaviour; libidinous behaviour being repressed in social contexts.  The scarcity of resources and their poor distribution to meet individual needs is a result of this form of repression.