Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego - Assignment Example

Question 1: What if anything, can psychoanalysis tell us about how civilization was formed? Give reasons for your views? Student Name Tutor Course Date Question 1: What if anything, can psychoanalysis tell us about how civilization was formed? Give reasons for your views? Introduction Psychoanalysis is a theory based on the notion that people are not aware of the numerous factors that influence their emotions or behavior. Psychoanalysis is based upon three principle tenets which forces of psychical apparatus; the Id, ego and superego. The Id possesses the quality of unconsciousness and has all inherited things and instincts or impulses. The ego possesses the quality of consciousness and is liable for regulating demands of instincts and Id, perceiving the and acts as a connection amid the exterior world and the Id. Additionally, the ego is responsible for responding to stimulus either via flight or adaptation, regulation of activity and endeavors to attain pleasure and shun unpleasure. The superego is liable for limitation of fulfillments and symbolizes the influence of other like role models, teachers and parents, along with the influence of the cultural, social and racial traditions. The demands of the superego are controlled by the Id (Freud, 2010). This paper looks at how psychoanalysis along with the interaction of these three psychical a How psychoanalysis tell pparatus explains how civilization was formed. Psychoanalysis and its explanation of the contemporary consumer capitalism Contemporary consumer capitalism or entrepreneurship has craftily mastered the practice of manipulation of psyche and transformed the technique into an industry per se in the sphere of public relations, marketing and advertising. The ability of advanced capitalism to utilize the universal tendencies within the mind of human beings, especially the unconscious psyche or mind has resulted to the thriving of a refined propaganda clamor that shapes the opinion of the public and governs the behavior of people (Bowlby, 2006). Edward Beryans, who was an American nephew of Freud, discovered contemporary propaganda. During world war one he was a significant liberal who escalated an underground government campaign aimed at persuading America to take its military to the atrocity in Europe. Bernays (2004) argues that the intellectual manipulation of organized opinions and habits of the people is a significant aspect within a democratic society. The socially essential manipulators represent an imperceptible government that is the actual ruling power in the country. True and appropriately, to his statement, Bernays was able to re-brand his propagandist position by euphemistically re-terming propaganda or misinformation civic relations (Bernays 2004). Leigh (2004) notes that the marketing and advertising industries have created attempted and tested schemes of putting their products up for sale. The schemes have their roots in the psychoanalytical notion of tapping into unconscious mind, appealing to the suppressed wishes, sublimating them via purchasing power together with promises of individual strength, empowerment, fulfillment and pleasure via expenditures. People find their identities in the things they purchase and express themselves via the products that they own. Purchasing has turned into a procedure of self-assertion and what individuals purchase determines their status and can also signify their belonging to a particular group or their belief in a model or their loyalty to the brand (Leigh, 2004). According to Bowlby (2006), consumer fashions and trends are evidence to the significance of Freud’s examination of the herd instinct. In Freud’s point of view, people possess an impression of the state in which a person’s personal intellectual and separate emotions are greatly weak for them to materialize to something on their own and are extremely obliged to wait for reinforcement through repetition in an identical manner. From the psychoanalytical viewpoint, rampant consumerism can be viewed as the expression of the libidinal wishes sublimated with the retail therapy or instinctual impel of individuals to be a portion of a herd. The achievement of advertising or marketing is gauged by its capability to convince potential clients that the ownership or possession of a particular commodity will offer them a place in the market. It also depends on the capability to convince them that their internal conflicts, fears and anxieties can be solved and pleasure can be achieved via the simple activity of purchasing the commodity (Bowlby, 2006). Psychoanalysis and its explanation of contemporary social phenomenon and mental problems Freud (2013) argues that the pleasure-seeking portion of the human mind or psyche, which is the Id, is suppressed by non-natural boundaries that are imposed on the Id by the society which are mentally internalized and symbolized in superego portion of the human mind. The egos of human beings are an merger of these two opposing portions of the mind or psyche, working in combination and antagonism with both, endeavoring after the delight rule sought after by people’s primordial Id while maintaining the socially and respectability suitable behavior that is commanded by the superegos. The ego is a portion of the psyche, which has the capability of directly controlling the body (Freud, 2013). The categorization of the three metaphysical parts of the mind; the Id, the ego and the superego essentially results to an inclusive elucidation of numerous social phenomenon and problems. Freud (2010) notes that the generalized internalized suppression, of human beings Oedipus complex; which is the precursor of the superegos, incestuous wishes as well individuals’ key identification with patriarchal figure s acts as a vital scheme to comprehending the prevalent psycho-pathologies in people. In addition, the sublimation of primary, crude drives connected with people’s Ids and suppressed libidos, mat to some degree satisfy these drives. The development of art works, advancement in science along with technological innovation and the obsession with accretion of more consumer commodities distinguishes people’s contemporary civilization from their primordial past. These are simply a reification of people’s abstract instinctual aspirations, materialized and replaced with supplementary socially construct aspirations that more neatly fit with the values and norms of peoples’ of a certain era (Freud, 2013). In Freudian psychoanalytical terms, grief or agony that people suffer because of subjugation of people’s aspirations is partly preventable. A scheme for preventing suffering utilizes dislocations of libidos that are allowed by people’s physical devices, with the sublimation of the forces taking part in prevention of grief. Artists find pleasure in creating fashions and products of their imaginations while scientists find pleasure in discovering truths and solving problems. Freud (1990) argues that within generally exclusive trends that these soothing reliefs were set aside for just a privileged and small minority that have the unique gifts and aptitudes that aren’t precisely common. This presumption is indicative of the tendency of Freud in his work to reserve psychotherapy and psychoanalysis as a resolutely bourgeois search and see no or little hope in the masses or crowds searching for socially useful or higher pursuits in order to invalidate the intuitive delight of Id. Psychoanalysis and its explanation of politics and leadership Psychoanalysis externalizes and applies too generally individual neuroses and turns personal psychic problems and mental characteristics into-all-inclusive elucidations of social occurrences entailing political structures but does not place these trends in their social, historical and cultural context. Applying to the large scale social institutions and processes the categories and concepts which Freud have created on the personal sphere, he generalized his essentialist perspectives on the personal psyche and tried to elucidate every social phenomenon via a firm grid that his elucidations had developed before. The analysis of the crowd mentality by Freud, especially for the people’s desire to be controlled by habitually dictatorial leaders, is not an exception but pose interesting queries and calls for discussion on engaging elucidations of totalitarianism humanity and leadership’s eagerness for devastation (Brunner, 2001). According to Brunner ( 2001) Freud, in his book group psychology and the analysis of the ego, sets on examining the psychological causes for the glamor of leaders and this wide social trend is examined from an entirely psychoanalysis view. A leader accedes to the position of a patriarch, an influential figure that offers grounding and enforces rules and regulations within a disturbing and chaotic world. The popularity of the leader depends on his capability to exemplify static moral values, express a structured visualization of the globe and unite the masses of persons, binding the masses behind them (Freud, 1990). The impact of the libidinal attraction or appeal is total servitude, adoration as well as the readiness to be submissive. The seductions of authority and figure have their roots in the libidinal investment or personal investment and from the incentive of being a portion of the horde as well as the degeneration to a herd instinct. Their leader hypnotizes the crowd members. What the leader offers to his followers is a novel psychological dispensation whereby the superego of the individuals is not consistent and usually inaccessible since it is unaware or unconscious (Freud, 1990). Psychoanalysis and its explanation of civilization as an inhibition of natural instincts According to Freud, civilization occurs because of inhibition of people’s natural instincts. According to Freud (2009), civilization is the key reason for unhappiness amid civilized individuals. Humanity’s movement into a civilized society needs the suppression of their primitive yet much insisted wishes. Due to this reason, a civilized society is a replacement formation of kinds, for individual’s atavistic drives and instincts. Freud (1989) notes that individuals deem that civilization are largely being continually developed afresh, because every person who makes a new entry into the human community repeats the sacrifice of instinctual fulfillment for the gain of the entire society. The primordial desires, with sexual impulse being the strongest, are diverted or sublimated towards supplementary goals, which are socially greater and not sexual. People’s instincts and primordial desires are therefore, suppressed. Nevertheless, Freud deemed that sexual desire was so influential and it consistently threatened to resurface and thus distract the conscious functioning of people’s mind (Freud, 1989). The perspective that individual’s deeds within a civilized society are not regulated by their rational decision making capabilities, but by the intricate and normally unconscious interplay of the hostile elements of the psyche is reverberated by several modern anti-civilization thinkers. Freud’s themes in examination of civilization, its displeasure and the inevitable social and psychological harm that comes out due to inception of the sophisticated organization of the community influences Theodore Kaczynski’s work. According to Kaczynski (1996) a well instituted and widespread sense of subjection or powerlessness , mental instability and anxiety exists not as a result of the interior suppression of the oedipal wish or early distressing experiences, but due to the control of people’s livelihoods by the large scale establishments along with people’s lack of influence over their personal lives. Nevertheless, this is not by any scheme a radical disparity from the thinking of Freud. Whilst the psychoanalytical standpoint of Freud blames a nearly factional dispute amid the Id and superego on the instability of self, Kaczynski (1996) explains the lack of independence decision making or supremacy procedures in the development of the whole populaces of psychologically disturbed subjects. Similar to Freud’s texts, sublimation of actual desires and needs for what is described by Kaczynski as surrogate actions, is viewed as an essential prescription for individuals living within a society whereby the health of the mind is largely defined by the degree to which a person behaves. This is based to the requirements of the scheme and behaves without demonstrating any symptoms of stress. Sublimation by Freud can be straightforwardly connected to Kaczynski notion of surrogate actions, an act that is geared toward a synthetic goal that individuals establish for themselves simply to have an objective to work toward or just for sake of fulfillment, they attain from pursuing this goal (Brunner, 2001). Conclusion The theoretical analysis of the mind by Freud and the concept of regression, libidinal development and its sublimation clearly explain that civilization was formed due to manipulation of people’s psyche. The partition of the mind into three key opposing portions and the pleasure instincts intrinsic to all human beings clearly explains social phenomenon, patterns and currents of people’s behavior which run all through the history of human civilization. The growth of marketing, advertising and consumer psychology within the world of business and civic relations are all indicative of the assertion that the mind can’t be comprehended as a rational whole, but it is in reality irrational and can be manipulated and shaped by drives and desires that people cannot be able to control. Bibliography Freud, S, 2010. An outline of psychoanalysis, W. W. Norton & Company, New York. Bernays, E, 2004, Propaganda, IG Publishing, New York. Freud, S, 1990, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, W. W. Norton & Company, New York. Bowlby, R, 2006, Shopping with Freud, Routledge, London. Leigh, R, 2004, The Human Side of Retail Selling: A Textbook for Salespeople in Retail Stores and Students of Salesmanship and Store Organisation, D Appleton & Company, New York. Freud, S, 2009, Civilisation and Its Discontents, Penguin Books, London. Brunner, J, 2001, Freud and the Politics of Psychoanalysis, Transaction Publishers, New Jersey. Kaczynski, T, 1996, The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future, Filiquarian Publishing, Minneapolis, Freud, S, 2013, The Ego and The Id, The Hogarth Press, London. Freud, S, 1989, Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, W. W. Norton & Company, New York. Read More