Research Assignment Psychoanalytic Theory and Social Work (Essay Sample)

Psychoanalytic Theory and Social Work
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Psychoanalytic Theory and Social Work
* Introduction
Social work derives much enthusiasm from the work of early novelists, especially in line with personality paradigms. The vast experiences and knowledge attained from these primary thinkers makes good ground into explaining the genesis of the self and its character. Given this pendulum swing of ideas towards expounding the self from the rest, it becomes critically important to analyze how the thoughts of these novelists make up personality (Aron & Starr, 2013). One critical discourse is that explained by Sigmund Freud in his paper about personality as explained in the unconscious effort (Giordano, 2013; Aron & Starr, 2013). Psychoanalytic theory explains how behavior is shaped by thoughts in the form of id, ego and the superego. The id deals with pleasure principle, the ego keeps the id in check with regards to reality and the superego looks at how the id can be satisfied based on morals and values of given society. The link between this theory and social work can be traced back to the time of the First World War when the demand of social workers exploded due to post traumatic war causalities. The marriage between these disciplines with war victims led to establishment of the psychoanalytic theory as a primary pedagogy in the study of social work across the globe. Although seen as grounded theory of impractical understanding, the theory has found its ground not just in psychology but also in understanding mental problems such as neurosis in psychopaths within American prisons, social injustices like race among others. Thus, the present paper aims to extrapolate psychoanalytic theory and examine how it found its roots into the social work discipline.
B. History
The global acceptance of psychoanalysis is drawn exactly from the founding father of psychology, Sigmund Freud. He became the trailblazer of modern psychology by moderating the ways in which the mind shapes behavior. Born in a family of three boys and five girls in Vienna, Freud developed interest in medicine from a very tender age. He was the firstborn in that family and after seeing how his household struggled financially, his career became clearer. Freud’s interest in medicine became a reality due to his Jewish faith (Rana, 2017). Freud took his leaving tests in 1873 at “Leopoldstadter Communal-Real-und Obergymnasium” and that is when he enrolled at University of Vienna in the medicine faculty. In 1881, he obtained his doctorate degree and that is when his journey in neurology began when he was working at the Institute of Physiology as a research assistant under Ernst Bruke. Later on he opened a neurology center at Vienna. Under Jean Martin Charcot, he practiced hypnosis as a clinical mechanism for dealing with mental challenges.
Later, nervous ailments became his specialty where he concentrated specifically on hysteria. The first book he wrote was titled Studies on Hysteria and this came on the backdrop of major milestones on his theory of the mind in 1885. The Interpretation of Dreams and Psychopathology of Everyday Life were later influenced by the death of his father in 1901 and `1900. The latter work gained much acceptance from intellectuals due to the theories of the mind. The death of his daughter in 1920 inspired him to write Beyond the Pleasure principle and later in 1923 he wrote the Ego and the Id. It is in this final work that the structural foundation of the theory of the mind was established (Rana, 2017). He later died in 1939 from a recurrent cancer.
C. Theorist
Psychoanalytic theory is attributed to Sigmund Freud. He was born on the 6th of May 1856 in Freiberg which is a small town in Moravia part of Austria-Hungary. Freud was the first born in a family of eight kids. As a Jewish child his choice for a career was limited and that is why medicine became the ultimate choice (Bakan, 2012). Initially he had the dream of becoming a minister or an army general but all this changed due to religion. His mother and father were wool merchants and his father was very stern and authoritarian to his mother which made the boy to grow up in fear, respect, hate, and love for his parents (Engler, 2014).
He devoted his entire life in studying instinctual forces and how they developed into shaping human behavior. In his analysis, he identified the mind to be developed into hierarchical and ordered mental systems in which the top systems regulate the lower ones which are more primitive. Instinctual forces according to him emanated from dark center of an individual’s mental life called the unconscious or the id. In his study of many clients as a mental physician, he noticed that the patient suffered from feelings of guilt which they had no control over (Perlman and Brandell, nd). In these discoveries, he realized the unconscious mind was the higher strata and it was much more complex than he had believed.
The first patient to be treated by psychoanalysis was Anna O, where Bruer recognized that the patient was traumatized by past events which led to the development of catharsis or in other words emotional release. It is believed that when Anna recalled the traumatic events, she explicably did so with so much intensity that at some point she could let out the feeling to the doctor present. The two doctors present Sigmund and Bruer believed that the patient was healed permanently because she could see the unconscious being controlled (Engler, 2014). The process of hypnotizing an individual became more profound way of dealing with these traumas in an individual and it became the cornerstone off psychoanalytic theory because he could recall the episode and develop ‘talking method’ to his clients (Engler, 2014).
D. How the Theory Became Part of Social Work Knowledge
To a great extent theories are developed to explain a situation through testing experiences using a hypothesis. Psychoanalysts by this degree define the boundaries upon which they ascertain a certain discipline such as social work. During the period of the First World War, Psychoanalytic were growing in prominence across Europe and the USA (Healy, 2014). At the same time social work had become a paid professional practice with formal training. It had a methodological work in terms of casework but in real sense it lacked some theoretical strengthening (Hutchinson & Oltedal, 2014). The only way this could be possible was through the application of psychology and more importantly via the psychodynamic theory.
Sigmund Freud had started developing his theory which could be applicable by social workers all across the globe. The unconscious aspect was the focal point for understanding human behavior development, psychological syndromes and social functioning (Hutchinson & Oltedal, 2014). The demand for social workers after the First World War became so high due to the increased number of casualties from the war. In this degree, the social workers realized that most of their patients were suffering from post-traumatic war events leading to psychological maladies, and in this case the need for a psychological theory that could help in their treatment became very essential. In other words, the situation made the theory to become popular in handling war patients. A good example is in Norway where the Norwegian Women’s National Council of Social College was formed in 1920 paving way for the formation of a one year course in social work and the theory became a primarily pedagogy for students(Hutchinson & Oltedal, 2014). A two year course began in 1950 in Norway and this had to spread to other regions of the world such as the US. Today, the theory is applicable in solving social problems and understanding the cause of social injustices in terms race, minority issues, and vulnerable groups in society (Berzof, 2012; Frank 2015). Frank (2015), points out on the desire to have value system that is enshrined in the frameworks of national Association of Social Workers code of ethics. A new approach is being developed in understanding neuroscience today especially when dealing with psychopaths in prisons (Brandell & Schechter, 2015; Frost 2015).
E. Description of the Theory
Psychoanalytic theory emphasizes on the self but from a very different angle. Since Charles Darwin had rejected religious explanation of human beings, the mind became the central focus for many scholars at that time. Unable to maintain a stable family by working in a laboratory the soon to be the father of Psychology became a physician started to work in a hospital. Since he was influenced by the natural order of life he set forth to establish how behavior in the real world was explained in the unconscious subset of the mind.
Freud’s theory challenges the normal evaluations of the self as only one point of subjectivity which is just a region close to the tip of an iceberg (Elliot, 2015). According to the theorists, the self or rather the ego is a facet of subjectivity that is created through interpersonal relationships and even some very intense emotional experiences that individuals go through from earl infancy and childhood. Before establishing the ego, one has to consider the id which is the most primitive part of personality. It deals with pleasure gratification and nothing else. Once this is established the ego takes over by regulating the id. In other words, the libido produced during the id is repressed by the ego according to the environment. Finally is the superego with either punishes or rewards the ego based on morals and standards set inside an individual’s personality (Engler, 2014).
F. Specific Terms
The major terms found in the theory include, the Id, ego and the superego. These three terms form the basis of this theory by locating them to the self. Before he could se...