Freud

Question 1

Why is it ironic that psychology is called a science?

Answer 1

Science addresses the physical world and religion addresses the inner world. Psychology addresses the inner world but tries to call itself a science.

Question 2

Who is Sigmund Freud?

Answer 2

A psychologist in the 20th century.

Question 3

What does psyche mean?

Answer 3

personality

Question 4

What are the three elements of psyche?

Answer 4

Id, ego and superego which all develop at different stages of one’s life.

Question 5

What is the id?

Answer 5

Primitive ans impulsive part of the psyche which responds to our instincts.

Question 6

What is the ego?

Answer 6

Decision making part of the psyche.

Question 7

What is the superego?

Answer 7

Moral part of the psyche which includes the conscience.

Question 8

What did Freud note in his paper 1907?

Answer 8

People who suffered from obsessional neurosis exhibited similar patterns of behaviour as religious people who feel uneasy about neglecting repeated actions.

Question 9

What is the main difference of people suffering from obsessional neurosis and religious people, according to Freud?

Answer 9

Sufferers don’t understand the meaning of their actions.

Question 10

What is an instinctual impulse?

Answer 10

An instinct that is unconscious but active in the psyche.

Question 11

What did Freud say was the meaning of the repeated actions?

Answer 11

An unconscious protective measure against the temptation to give way to these instinctual impulses.

Question 12

Quote from Freud defining religion.

Answer 12

“Religion as a universal obsessional neurosis”.

Question 13

Why is it called a collective neurosis?

Answer 13

Because neurotic compulsions and religious practices are found universally.

Question 14

What does totem mean?

Answer 14

Something that is a symbol for the family of tribe.

Question 15

What is totemism?

Answer 15

A system of belief where humans are said to have a mystical relationship with a spirit being eg animal or plant.

Question 16

Briefly explain Darwin’s primitive horde theory.

Answer 16

• Human beings originally lived in small groups called hordes.
• A single dominant male seized the women for himself, fighting off including their sons.
• At some time a band of brothers came back to kill their father.
• Ater, they feel guilty and become rivals to each other.
• Social order collapsed and a totem took the place of the father.

Question 17

What did the totem represent?

Answer 17

The dead father from the primal horde.

Question 18

What did the totem become?

Answer 18

The reputation of the slaughtered father grew to divine proportions and became worshipped and became the God.

Question 19

According to Freud, where does our inherited sense of guilt come from?

Answer 19

The memory of killing our father in the primal horde or having entertained such thoughts.

Question 20

According to Freud, how does primal horde theory explain Holy Communion?

Answer 20

The Son (Christ) has replaced the totem and it’s a totemic meal.

Question 21

What is the Oedipus complex?

Answer 21

The theory that young males are sexually attracted to their mothers so resent their fathers. These feelings are repressed by the fear of their fathers.

Question 22

What did Freud think was the most basic instinct?

Answer 22

The libido/ sexual drive

Question 23

For Freud, what does the libido represent?

Answer 23

The body’s desire for satisfaction that originates in the id.

Question 24

How does the Oedipus complex link to the primal horde theory?

Answer 24

Freud says that the main reason the brothers killed the father was due to sexual frustration - the father was preventing their sexual desires from being fulfilled.

Question 25

The Oedipus complex was named after a character in a play, what happened in this play?

Answer 25

A boy kills his father and commits incest with his mother, when he found out that it was incest, he gouged his own eyes out with his bare hands.

Question 26

Freud says that boys aged 3-6 fear castration when they begin to grow up, for what reason?

Answer 26

• Weaning means the boy no longer has his mother’s breast which he thought was part of him.
• When his parents found him exploring his penis, they were upset.
• He discovered that some people do not have penis’ and thought of it as punishment rather than knowing that they are women.

Question 27

Quote by Freud about the parental complex.

Answer 27

“We recognise that the roots for the need for religion are in the parental complex.”

Question 28

What did Ludwig Feuerbach say?

Answer 28

He saw God as a projection of the human mind based on our longings and desires.

Question 29

What did Freud say about our desires and God’s attributes?

Answer 29

Each attribute of God can be interpreted as an expression of hope that humans have to be free from their limitations.

Question 30

According to Freud, why were the doctrines created?

Answer 30

Religious people created them so that their wishes would be fulfilled.

Question 31

How is religion a reaction against helplessness, according to Freud?

Answer 31

We help helpless in both the external and internal forces of nature. Religion provides security and gives us more control which means that we no longer feel powerless.

Question 32

Why is the Darwinian theory so important to Freud’s theory?

Answer 32

It’s based on the idea of natural selection - increasing the chance of survival by passing on genes that are helpful e.g the sexual drive

Question 33

Briefly give three challenges to Freud’s ideas.

Answer 33

• Lack of anthropological evidence for primal horde
• Lack of psychological evidence for Oedipus complex
• Evidence basis too narrow

Question 34

why is the lack of evidence for primal horde a problem?

Answer 34

• Merely a speculation by Darwin
• It is thought now that there is a greater variety in the way that people were grouped.
• The primal horde has never been observed
• Just because there was a primal horde, doesn’t mean that they worshipped a totem either.

Question 35

Why is lack of evidence for Oedipus complex a challenge?

Answer 35

• Beliefs, motives and emotional responses varies greatly in different cultures.
• A polish anthropologist studies the Trobriand race.
• The were disciplined by their uncles so the discipliner (uncle) and sexual rival (father) were separate.
• Some cultures the mother is dominant and the father plays little role is bringing up the child.
• Some cultures have no God or no male God.

Question 36

Why is the narrow evidence basis a challenge?

Answer 36

• He argues the importance of the father figure developing into the male God but fails to consider religions with female Gods e.g Egyptian Isis cult.
• His theory is not scientific according to Karl Popper as it cannot be tested and falsified.
• Many of Freud’s patients told him about being seduced as children by male relatives but he viewed them as fantasies, now would be seen as sexual abuse.