Sigmund Freud's Hypnosis As The Cause Of Mental Illness

Improved Essays
I’m in the middle of a sentence, talking to a friend, when all of a sudden my mouth starts to feel full. Trying to feel around with my tongue, it feels as if I have marbles in my mouth. I begin spitting them out and come to realize they are teeth; my teeth. I search for a mirror and see nothing but gums. As I look down I have a handful of my teeth. I start to panic because I don’t know what is happening and I can’t even speak or smile without people realizing I don’t have teeth. As the anxiety builds I awaken and come to my senses. It was just a dream, a dream I’ve had before but never the less a dream. As I lie in bed remembering how awful it was to feel my own teeth crumble in my mouth I can’t help but wonder what it all meant. Especially …show more content…
Among his many ideas, Freud believed psychoanalysis, or the “talking cure”, was a predominant way to help alleviate the mentally ill. His theory of psychoanalysis explained that some people can be cured by making their unconscious thoughts known. Unconscious thoughts including dreaming. In order to ameliorate someone, Freud came up with hypnosis which would help determine whether there is a mental problem but it was not considered a treatment plan. Hypnosis is where an individual is in a state of consciousness and loses capability of themselves, yet they are extremely responsive and open to suggestion and/or direction. It is intended for a person to calm their mind to the point where they can remember suppressed memories or faded dreams. In this case, when Freud was analyzing dreams he broke them up into two categories: wish fulfillment and manifest versus latent …show more content…
Every morning after I wake up from that dream of losing my teeth, I would have usually just googled what it meant but, studying Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis theory, I was able to take the manifest content and try to decipher it into a plausible explanation that meant more than just me losing my teeth. The manifest content is what I distinctly remember; feeling my mouth full and then spitting my teeth out into my hand. The latent content symbolizing the loss of teeth can actually be interpreted in many ways. One way of censoring the latent ideas was through symbolization with how the teeth relate to my appearance. Losing them could have meant I was embarrassed or had anxiety about my appearance and how others perceived me. The other two censorships fall more underneath condensation. Freud would have probably agreed with it symbolizing “sexual impotence or consequence of getting old” (Dream Moods 2016). Then there is the other version of condensation that is much deeper whereas the loss of teeth resemble the loss of voice, feeling inferior about something and perhaps not having my voice heard. This is because teeth in general are used to bite and be aggressive which can be viewed as power and without teeth means without power. All these hidden symbolisms could

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    The therapist needs to engage the client with their subconscious mind in the most effective way possible, in order that the client may gain an awareness of, and be able to access, their own potential. This highlights the essential view of the therapist as a skilled helper, enabling the client, rather than an all-knowing and all-powerful practitioner. As *Sandor Ferenczi so eloquently stated in 1916: …' the unconscious mental forces of the patient appear as the real active agent, whereas the hypnotist, previously pictured as all-powerful, has to content himself with the part of an object used by the unconscious of the apparently unresisting patient according to the latter's individual and temporary disposition'. Ferenczi not only developed an awareness of the complications associated with client conformity in his work (another important consideration), but also clarified the then termed 'Maternal' (permissive, warm, supportive) and 'Paternal' (authoritarian, direct, aggressive) styles of hypnotherapy (now termed 'Permissive' and 'Authoritarian') by recognising their associations with traditional parental approaches.…

    • 2138 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    INTRODUCTION According to American Psychological Association, hypnosis is a technique used to treat patients by bringing the patient in a state of trance. Through hypnosis, a hypnotist can bring about sensations and psychological behaviors in the person being hypnotized. Hypnosis is widely practiced across the world and has found many important uses as well. This technique is used to treat many mental problems including depression, anxiety, paranoia, etc.…

    • 1459 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A. Exploring the Unconscious i. Freud used free association, in which he told the patient to relax and say whatever came to mind. ii. Called his treatment techniques psychoanalysis iii. Beneath our awareness is the larger unconscious mind with its thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. 1.…

    • 627 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Hypnosis involves concentration, focused attention, and inner absorption. An individual can have a more powerful mind by concentrating their thoughts and attention. This increased focus of the mind can help the person control their emotions and thought processes. Through hypnosis, individuals can reach their…

    • 772 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Father Of Hypnotherapy

    • 232 Words
    • 1 Pages

    Hypnosis, also known as hypnotherapy, is one of the most fascinating phenomena’s of the human mind. Hypnosis according to the American Psychological Association is a method of inducing a trance or a dream state of deep relaxation in order to treat disorders of a mainly psychological or emotional origin. Although the history of hypnosis is full of contradictions, the work of Franz Anton Mesmer helped our understanding of hypnosis. Mesmer was born in May 23, 1734 and is considered the father of hypnosis. In his early career, he used magnets and magnetized objects to do what today's hypnotists do in the showroom.…

    • 232 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    My heart dropped, my lips started quivering, my hands and feet became numb. I couldn’t understand anything that was coming out of the dentist's lips. I wasn’t sure what to do. Somehow when the dentist called me up to the chair, I had this weird feeling of strength that I’ve never felt. I was relaxed until I saw the needle, my heart started to beat rapidly.…

    • 651 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Essay On Hypnotherapy

    • 700 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Hypnosis is defined as a state of focused concentration whereby a person less aware of their surroundings. As such, therapists involved in mind-body medicine use hypnotherapy to treat psychological and physical conditions with the individual whom the therapy is conducted on accepting suggestions that may help change their behavior. Hypnotherapy is geared toward helping a person to solve their own problems although it does not work for everyone since no one can be hypnotized unwillingly. Hypnosis is believed to cause the brain to release some natural substances that affect the way an individual reacts to pain and disorder symptoms and thus helping a person to deal with hunger, heartbeat, and blood pressure.…

    • 700 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Lobotomy Analysis

    • 1548 Words
    • 7 Pages

    By understanding how hypnosis affects the body and mind, psychologists such as Ray, are slowing demystifying the suspicious ways of mental persuasion, and gaining a deeper insight into the unconscious…

    • 1548 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Freud believed that nothing you do occurs by chance; every action and thought is motivated by your unconscious mind at some level. a. In order to live in a civilized society, you have a tendency to hold back your urges and hide your impulses. b. Because they can’t be expressed in a social setting, our urges and impulses are expressed in our unconscious mind, through our dreams. 2. For this reason, Freuds theory about dreams focused primarily on sexual desires and symbolism.…

    • 1734 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of hypnosis is usually a magician convincing a person to act like a chicken. Hypnosis, however, is a real approach that doctors can use to treat pain, depression, anxiety, phobias, and more. Hypnosis is a state in which a person appears to be under a trance and is extremely concentrated (Brandt, 2012). It is not a new concept. In fact, hypnosis was used by the ancient Egyptians over 2,000 years ago (healing power, 2006).…

    • 1072 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Therapy with Dream Analysis Reveals Critical Information Although children are taught to not take dreams too seriously; to remember dreams are not real, only imagination, this is not the case for all dreams. In reality, “...the dream serves as a substitute for a number of thoughts derived from our daily life, and which fit together with perfect logic” (Freud, 1987, p. 184). This proves our brains are still thinking well enough at night to make our dreams logical. Proving dreams are just as significant as any other thoughts. Humans’ brains never quit thinking, so dreaming is full of senseful thoughts which have purpose.…

    • 723 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    He explores and supports this interpretation throughout this paper. The second states that dreams are a form of spiritual liberation from everyday life. The third states that dreams have no importance and are only ‘accidental disturbances’ sent from ‘internal organs’. The fourth states that dreams, however bizarre, can be broken to symbols and hints that ‘foretell’ the future. (pgs…

    • 1694 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Psychology Of Dreams Essay

    • 1221 Words
    • 5 Pages

    First, I am going to start out with the definition of Psychology. Psychology is the scientific study of the human mind and its functions. Speaking of the human mind and its functions, dreams, what are they? Dreams are a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person’s mind during sleep. Dreams are very mysterious, they are the “royal road to… the unconscious,” a famed psychologist once said (Sigmund Freud).…

    • 1221 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In his analysis of dreams and the dream-work, Freud theorized that there were two distinct kinds of content in relation to dreams. The first kind of dream content is manifest content and refers to the material experienced in the surface of the dream. Manifest content includes all of the elements of images, thoughts, and content in the dream that is retained in an individual’s memory upon awakening. The second kind of dream content is latent dream-thoughts and refers to the relevant material of the dream discovered through analysis. Latent dream-thoughts consist of the hidden meaning of an individual’s unconscious thoughts, wishes, and desires.…

    • 526 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Freud believed in the expression of language to help reveal the nature of his patient's dreams. He used the term 'dream-work' to describe the ways in which dreams materialize from the unconscious and argued that dreams reflect desires which are supressed by the superego in order for the ego to develop as a social individual. There are instances however, when desires often escape from the unconscious and are revealed through slips of the tongue or within dreams themselves. The content of a dream is produced by 'dream-thoughts' and presented in the form of illustrated signs which are then deciphered back into dream-thought to obtain the correct meaning. The relationship between the way dream-thoughts are displaced and condensed can be applied…

    • 151 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays