Freudian psychoanalysis is one of the ways to understand human nature and apply this understanding to treat psychological problems. It is difficult to discuss all its aspects and ramifications but broadly speaking Freud postulated that human beings are primarily driven by the ‘pleasure principle’ or libido, which is the primal instinct. Later he modified this to accommodate the phenomenon of self harm etc to postulate another principle operative in life, the death wish or thanatos. He also postulated three parts of the mind, – Id which is the part with the most powerful primal, animal instincts of food, sex, hunger, survival etc; the Ego which regulates these to give a modified expression according to the social needs and demands and finally, the superego which is the moralising mind. The third and aspect of his postulate is the existence of defence mechanisms that modify the basic instincts.
Basically his whole field was limited to the animal instincts, the unconscious defence mechanisms of the ego modifying it and a civilisational superstructure such as religion etc which work towards repressing the subconscious animality in us.
There are several defects in his theory. For example he does not take into account man’s higher strivings and aspiration, the presence of higher elements such as renunciation, sacrifice, nobility, courage and the experience of divinity in man lumping and dumping them together as merely a social construct. In other words he inverts the evolutionary process by looking at the higher as a shadow of the lower, love as a modification of lust, for example. It is a bottom up view of creation looking at the inconscient principle as the driving force..The spiritual understanding is far more complete with a top down view. It looks at lust as a degradation of love. Man suffers not only due to the suppression of the subconscient parts as Freud suggested but much more due to the suppression of the higher spiritual elements as spiritual psychology suggests.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
