Freud
Mind of Matter or MOM podcast
Your mind, or perspective isn't reality. It’s a tool, a filter through which the internal and external world is strained. Getting more perspective is add new tools to your psychological tool kit, like a colorblind person getting color correcting glasses for the first time
We will start the Mind Over Matter series (MOM) by outlining the fathers of psychology Jung, Nietzsche, Adler, and today we start with Freud.
Sections
Levels of the psyche
Analogies for them
What a Self defense mechanism is according to Freud
The 3 types of anxiety as defined by Freud
What types of defense mechanisms there are in Freud's veiw
And then my take on them
THE ID
unconscious that seek pleasure
Blind desire, detached, basic primal instincts, impulsive, satisfactory
It is the Horse to the rider
THE EGO
“self” taking account for the unconscious, mediating the balance being pain and pleasure, the body and the mind, and reality
THE SUPEREGO
“the conscience of mind”
Emerging around 5 or 6 years old this is the developed filter of real life regarding implementations of right and wrong.
Split further into “the ideal self” and “consciousness”
The concince contains ideals and morals the exist within society that prevent people from acting out based on their internal desires
The ideal self contain images of how people ought to behave according to societal ideals
Self IDeal is a borrow term from Freud's predecessor Alfred Adler who we will doing a podcast on later. Adler say the selfideal as the ideal self. Makes sense right. The best person you could be. Or God in a christian view
ID solitary vicious wild beast
EGO collaborative wild beast like wolves
SUPEREGO based in familial, cultural, religious, social software.
ID raw components of a computer
EGO operating software
SUPER EGO web browser and google's search engine algorithm.
Society is the internet**
Freud claimed we hold Self Defense mechanisms to protect a favorable or preferred view of ourselves. Not to be confused with the “ideal self within the SUPEREGO. Each part the ID EGO and SUPEREGO will conflict with each other from time to time. This is where self defence mechanism manifest, most commonly as anxiety
Freud identified 3 types of anxiety .
Reality Anxiety, Neurotic Anxiety, & Moral Anxiety
Reality Anxiety is the most basic and is of the EGO. Getting hurt. Pain
Neurotic Anxiety comes from an unconscious fear that the basic impulses of the id will take control of the person, leading to eventual punishment from expressing the ids desires
Moral anxiety comes from the superego. It appears in the form of a fear of violating values or moral codes, and appears as feelings like guilt or shame.
Anxiety occurs and the you attempt to find a rational way of escaping it using defense mechanism. These are ways that the ego develops to help deal with the id and the superego. Defense mechanisms often appear unconsciously and tend to distort or falsify reality. When the distortion of reality occurs, there is a change in perception which allows for a lessening in anxiety resulting in a reduction of tension within one's experiences. Sigmund Freud noted a number of ego defenses
1) Denial- believing that what is true is actually false
Dating someone who sucks and you stay with them. You know they sucks but you turn a bling eye on it as defence mechanism from the anxiety of breaking up
2) Displacement- taking out impulses on a less threatening target
Upset at work and you take it out on your romantic partner rather than facing and resolving the issue
3) Intellectualization- avoiding unacceptable emotions by focusing on the intellectual aspects
Analyzing aspect of your situation that are as far from the core of emotion. That could be think about the FACT that she cheated on you but not the fact that she was WILLING to because YOU fell short.
4) Projection- attributing uncomfortable feelings to others VERY COMMON
Obviously this is the blame game. Its Mom’s fault, Its her fault
Carl Jung Agreed “Projection is one the commonest psychic phenomena, Everything that is unconscious in ourselves we discover in our neighbour, we treat them accordingly” Archaic Man
This is huge. Verd often the things we dislike in ourselves we dislike in others. We are blind to see it in ourselves, we deny it.
5) Rationalization- creating false but believable justifications
Tied to intellectualization. I quit my job because my boss treated my poorly and not think that he was harsh on you because you were performing poorly
6) Reaction Formation- taking the opposite belief because the true belief causes anxiety
BURN IT TO THE GROUND. Fighting with my partner… so lets break up. Also phonemons like Stockholm syndrome
“Little man syndrome” often think they are bigger than they are
7) Regression- going back to a previous stage of development
In response to the anxiety of a promotion or added responsibility at work you choose to regress to another position or job below your current position to avoid that anxiety
“Choosing” to be single because of the anxiety of a relationship
8) Repression- pushing uncomfortable thoughts out of conscious awareness
9) Suppression- consciously forcing unwanted thoughts out of our awareness
Denying a promotion because you deny your own ability
People who don't want to think about their loved ones dying.
10) Sublimation- redirecting ‘wrong’ urges into socially acceptable actions. These defenses are not under our conscious control and our unconscious will use one or more to protect one's self from stressful situations. They are natural and normal and without these, neurosis develops such as anxiety states, phobias, obsessions, or hysteria.
These are the good ones. Stress relievers and stress managers.
Working out your anger ect ect
Projection can be a useful tool for your meditation space. We should strive to be critical of what we dislike and project onto others, extract it from the physical world and reintegrate it into our mind into something closer to conscious awareness. This is hard. This can be damn near impossible if your still deep in neurosis.
On the contrast if you are too deep into projection it is its own neurosis.
You will constantly be looking for scapegoats to project on and mostly likely to be a loved one.
I think we can all relate to this
Ultimately you push them away. then what? Look within at what Jung calls “the shadow” or find another.
Keep doing this and eventually you learn it's easier and more safer (from your shadow) to (get ready for this) its easier to project on to an entry group of people as your scapegoat.
t the choice is simple. You're served an solution, your giving a nice white screen to project on.
#collectivism #identitypolitics #intersectionality #reactionaryfeminism #blacklivesmatter #bluelivesmatter
** It is important to note that not all defense mechanisms are entirely negative. The political statements are generally about the abstraction humans into groups and NOT about the specifics of the political issue**
Projection primes your for collective ideology. When offered a group to project on and a group to join in that projection, history tell us we join.
Some love to blame the majority of war on religion, i offer projection.
We must be honest with ourselves.
We mustt be honest without ourselves in order to be honest with others
We must be honest with outselves BEFORE we can be honest with others
We must embrace our shadow.
In our next podcast we will dive into the psychology of the great Carl Jung
The individuation process with includes the Shadow
Jung believed if we didn't answer answer the projection of the shadow on an individual level then the only outcome would be Wars
End Jung qoute from Visions: Notes of the Seminars Give between 1930 and 1934
“Modern people, are ignorant of what they really are
We have simply forgotten what a human being really is,
So we have men like Nietzsche and Freud, and Adler, who tell us what we are quite mercilessly.
We have to discover our shadow. Otherwise we are driven into a world war in order to see what beasts we really are”
