FRUED AND PSYCHOLOGY

By : Muhammad Muhibbuddin

One of the experts of psychology in 20th was Sigmund Freud (1859~1939). He was famous by his important invention in psychology dicipline, namely psychoanalysis. It is a method to analyze a soul or behaviour of human being. Frued’s invention was not acquired suddenly, but gradually. He researched several mentally sick persons for many years.  

Freud was born at Freiburg and he grew up at Vina, and because of NAZI, he requested political asylum to England. He lived in England until passed away. When he was invited by his parents to move to Vina, the Darwin’s work entitled Origin of the Species was published. At that time, Freud was three years old. In science, Darwin’s book telling a theory of evolution caused hard debating among people. Besides that, one year after publishing of Darwin’s book, Gustave Fechner invented psychology.  

Hence, in the second half of 19th century, the science of biology and psychology expanded widely. Other scientits, such as Loius Pasteur and Robert Kosch, at the time, published their invention about theory of bacteria, and then, Gregor Mandel invented a famous dicipline of science of descent namely genetics. The developing of science in 19th century, especially in biology and psychology, gave an influence significantly for Freud. Both the scientits, Darwin and Fechner, influenced more for Frued’s intellectual developing until he could invent his famous theory of psychology namely psychoanalysis. 

Frued graduated from school of medicine, Vina University. Although he graduated from school of medicine, he actually did not have desire to open medical practice. But, the fate forced him to open medical practice to heal mental sick people. And the fate indeed led to him to reach his succesful as a scientist. Because of his diligence, he invented psychoanalysis theory and conceptualized  psychological structure of human being.

Psychological Structure  of Human Being

Psychological structure can also be called by structure of soul or psychology of behaviour. In Freud’s opinion, our soul has a structure. This psychological structure of human being consists of three things : ide, ego and super ego. Every one of the such structure is related each other. But, each one has a own role and degree. How is the description of every one of psychological structure expressed by Freud through his theory, psychoanalysis?

Id.

Frued said that our soul was like an ice mountain lain on water. So, only the top is visible, but enormous part of soul is invisible. It means that in Freud’s opinion, enormous part of soul of human being is lain on unconsciousness, hence it is invisible. The unconsciousness  space in psychological structure of human being is called Id. Based on Freud’s opinion, the action of human being is determined enormously by Id. It means that the action of human being more be restrained by his unconsciousness.

Id is the most elementary stratum of psychological structure of human being. Id contains all impersonal, unconsciousness and random elements of human being behaviour.  The real thing to prove existence of Id is a dream. Freud said that a dream is reflection of desire of human being. The pheneomena of dream is provided by unconsciousness. Because of this, Freud also wrote a book regarding  interpretaion of dream.

The next, in Freud’s opinion, the unconsciousness can be also proved by some mistakes we do them spontaneously or by accident. The spontaneity in some mistakes indicates Id or unconsciousness in our soul. Whatever mistake we do by accident actually caused by Id. For example, when we want to open a meeting but we even say : “Let’s close  the meeting”! The mistake we did by accident can happen, because  we are actually restrained by Id. 

Ego. 

The second element of psychological structure of human being is Ego. Ego is rational element and it is enormously consciousness. Whatever we do by design or based on consciousness, it is reflection of Ego. So, Ego does not tend to fulfill absolutely demands of Id. Hence, although Ego is actually influenced by Id or unconsciousness power, but it also looks at the objective fact; it also considerates external reality. Ego exists between Id and Superego. 

The starting point of Ego is an action of identification. The act of identification is a way for ego to separate between objective reality and subjective reality. In Id, objective reality and subjective reality are integrated. But in Ego, both of them are separated. The separation of them indicates rationality of Ego. The rationality leads to Ego to considerate an external world or objective world. 

Therefore, Freud said that if Id is determined by pleasure principle (desire), Ego is dominated by reality principle. It is reflected by objective thinking that is in accordance with social demands. Shortly,  a pleasure principle in Id is replaced to be a reality principle in Ego.

Superego 

Superego is the last level of psychological structure of human being. If ego is famous as a reality principle, superego is famous a morality principle. Freud said that superego actually is part of Ego, but it has more complicated psychological structure and still has a close connection with Id. Superego is a power which separates itself from Ego. Superego is reflected by self criticism and  self evaluation. Thus, it is very close to moral principle.

In superego space, the problem is more connected with instruction, prohibition, and high ideas. For example, ourselves say; ‘’don’t steal!”, ‘’don’t kill‘‘, etc. The prohibition is a value implanted to subject since childhood. The value in the following becomes a consciousness of subject when he or she is adulthood. Therefore, superego is formed since childhood.

That is the short explanation of Freud’s psychological concept. The Freud’s theory in the following was criticized by his own student, Curl Gustav Jung with his theory called by analytical psychology. One of parts of Freud’s theory criticized by Jung is oedipus complex concept.