1895: Project for a Scientific Psychology:
 

"To represent psychical processes as quantitatively determinate sates of specifiable material particles, thus making those processes perspicuous and free from contradiction".
 

Motivation: Hysteria and obsessions seem to display quantitative aspects: stimulus, substitution, conversion, discharge:

"suggested the conception of neuronal excitation in a state of flow"
 

Neurones: basic material particles

Q: the "energy" that flows according to the laws of motion
 

"Principle of neuronal inertia":Neurones tend to divest themselves of Q.
 

Normal path of discharge: muscular activity directed toward "flight from the stimulus"
 

Primary function of the system: to discharge all possible Q
 

Secondary function: to maintain levels of Q necessary for action when necessary
 

Cathected neurone: Neurone filled with Q, to fulfill the secondary function
 

Resistance: Mechanism for preventing discharge of Q at the "contact barriers" between neurones.
 

All the functions of the nervous system are comprehended under these two functions.
 

The Aetiology of Hysteria (1896)

Attempt at a general causal theory of hysteria
 

The aim: To understand the origins of pathology through "anamnesis," i.e. recovering forgotten circumstances that are causal factors in the development of symptoms
 

The problem: Having to rely on incomplete, dishonest, or irrelevant reports by the patient
 

The solution: Learn to understand the patient's contemporary symptoms as symbolic of the incidents that caused the neurosis.
 

"Breuer's discovery": "Symptoms of hysteria are determined by certain experiences of the patient;s which have operated in a traumatic fashion and which are being reproduced in his psychical life in the form of mnemic symbols."
 

Tracing hysterical symptoms back to a "traumatic scene"
 

Requirements:

The scene must be a "suitable determinant", i.e. appropriate to the affect involved in the symptom
 

The scene must have sufficient "traumatic force"
 

Too often, the scenes recalled by patients fail to meet these requirements, and no therapeutic gain results.
 

Solution: To follow "chains of association" from the remembered scenes, all the way back to forgotten scenes that meet the requirements.
 

Sexual experience as aetiological precondition for hysteria:
 

Remembered sexual scenes usually lack the suitability and traumatic force.
 

The causal factors must therefore be sought in the time before sexual awareness: i.e., in childhood sexual assault.
 

Trauma from infantile sexual experience remains in the psychic system through "memory traces" (unconscious memories)
 

Are these memories genuine?
 

1. They are reproduced with a level of affect that is only consistent with the assumption that they are true.

2. They are repugnant to the patient, and only recalled unwillingly and under compulsion.
 

Freud's reasons to question the "seduction theory":
 

1. Frequent failure of analysis to lead a satisfactory conclusion-e.g. patient abandons treatment just as it seems to be working
 

2. Implication of widespread abuse by fathers, given the frequency of hysteria
 

3. "There are no indications of unreality in the unconsciousness, so that one cannot distinguish between truth and fiction that is cathected with affect."
 

4. In the worst cases, the original memory never breaks through the barriers of resistance.

The structure of Freud's "seduction theory":
 

Underlying physiological hypothesis: Neurotic symptoms are, in general, the indirect effects of "cathected affect". They release the "energy" associated with affect that is not expressed through normal pathways.
 

Methodological assumption: The correct explanation of these symptoms must follow the scientific model of deduction from universal deterministic laws. This implies that they must be traced to a single universal cause.
 

Explanatory criteria: the cause must be a "suitable" determinant (i.e. The associated affect must be appropriate to the affect displayed in the neurosis), and must have sufficient "traumatic force".
 
 
 
 

Causal hypothesis: The cause of hysteria is always the repressed memory of some traumatic event. Repression creates the "cathected affect" that can only escape through neurotic behavior, or behavior not controlled by the forces of repression (e.g. Testimony given under hypnosis, free and uncontrolled association of ideas)
 

Investigative assumption: The symptoms are linked to their cause in a strictly deterministic manner by an "associative and logical structure". Therefore a chain of associations is necessarily a causal chain in reverse.
 

Therapeutic technique: Pursue associative threads from the content of neurotic symptoms to unpleasant memories; find associative threads from those memories to deeper, more traumatic and "suitable" memories, i.e. memories of actual childhood sexual experiences.
 

Criterion of success: Interpretation of symbolism in neurotic symptoms eventually leads to the unconscious memory of an event that meets the explanatory criteria. The patient's assent to the interpretation leads, through "abreaction" or otherwise, to relief of the symptoms and general improvement.
 

The structure of Freud's Oedipal theory:
 

Identical to the structure of the "seduction theory," except that the source of the cathected "energy" is no longer assumed to be an event, but a repressed wish. The wish has to satisfy two criteria:
 

1. It has to be powerful and elemental enough to provide the necessary energy to produce symptoms.
 

2. It has to be by nature so repugnant to the conscious mind, that its repression is necessary.
 

This points inevitably in the direction of earliest childhood: later events are too readily remembered to qualify as repressed. The repressed desires must therefore date from the time before memory in order to be satisfactory causes of neurotic symptoms.

It also points inevitably in the direction of sexual desire, which uniquely fills the requirements for causal explanation:
 

1. It is sufficiently powerful to provide the necessary energy;
 

2. It is sufficiently distasteful to the mind of a growing child, especially given the shame that comes to be associated with it, and can only be represented indirectly in some disguised form.
 

3. It fills the gap left by the seduction theory, not only because of 1 and 2 but also because it explains the sexual themes in the neuroses that were treated under the old theory.
 

The theory of dream interpretation
 

1. Dreams as neurotic symptoms: the causal theory of dreams
 

Dreams are, like other neurotic symptoms, expressions of affective energy that cannot be released through normal channels because the associated feelings (desires) are repressed. They are too distasteful to the conscious mind to be acknowledge.
 

Like other symptoms, dreams are compromises between the desire that struggles for expression and the forces of repression.
 

The feelings whose repression causes dreaming are invariably (for neurotic patients) infantile sexual desires.
 

2. Dreams as symbolic "texts": the interpretive theory of dreams.
 

The content of dreams, by a chain of associations, inevitably leads back to the feelings that caused them.
 

Therefore, the causes of dreams and their contents are inextricably linked.
 

The "manifest content": the dream as experienced, taken at face-value
 

The "latent content": the wishes or desires that the dream expresses in a distorted form.
 

The "dream-work": processes that change the latent content into the manifest content.
 

Condensation: fusing of multiple images from life into a single dream-image (e.g. one person in the dream who represents several actual acquaintances)
 

Displacement: shifting of emphasis in the dream onto something remote or apparently insignificant
 

Representation: Expression of connections among ideas (e.g. causal or logical connections) by visual arrangements. This expresses the strange "dream logic".
 

Secondary revision: Placing the irrational or disconnected parts of a dream into some intelligible or coherent order.
 

Censorship: Attempt of the conscious mind to block repressed wishes from coming to consciousness.
 

Dreams as the "guardians of sleep": dreaming disguises that which would otherwise disturb us into waking up. Therefore the "dream-work" supposedly fulfills the function of protecting our sleep from disturbing influences by distorting them into an acceptable form.

The interpretation of dreams begins from the assumption that the dream fulfills such purposes.