It's always interested me that Freud's map of the mind reflects the Greek polis' ideas on civilised, rational thinking, self control and virtue being exclusive to cities (Superego/ego), and passions, especially dark passions, being in a separate place-the natural world governed by Pan-a deity for lust and drunkeness. Once outside of the city, before the invention of the pastoral, the world was a place without rules and self-control was at a minimum.
These paradigms of control, virture, civilised behaviour could be seen in the earliest urban centres where the natural world expressed the bestial and unruly.
Freud often employed Greek myths to symbolise mind-traits, such as Narcissism, sometimes incorrectly, but was it the basis of his understanding of human personality?
Some articles addressing these topics:
Freud, Vergil, and Aeneas: an unnoticed classical influence on Freud. American Journal of Psychoanalysis. 1987 Fall;47(3):279-81. J. Glenn
Fabio Stok, Sigmund Freud's Experience with the Classics, on Academia.edu at http://www.academia.edu/7733777/Sigmund_Freuds_Experience_with_the_Classics
A manuscript on Freud's literary culture by Graham Frankland at https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5c18/9b54d35c346d95809c359058c98a7fc73a18.pdf
The issue is also addressed in the book Reading Freud's Reading edited by Sander L. Gilman, Jutta Birmele, Valerie D. Greenberg, Jay Geller NYU Press 1993
Also a New York Times article on The Literary Freud at http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/13/magazine/the-literary-freud.html
Freud and the Greeks: A study of the influence of classical Greek mythology and philosophy upon the development of Freudian thought Garfield Tourney, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, Jan 1965 DOI: 10.1002/1520-6696(196501)1:13.0.CO;2-N
Thanks. This was something I noticed when I first studied psychodynamic theory, being a Classicist first.
Freud's ideas are clearly propositions found within earlier cultures, not just Greece, which tended anyway to act as a 'creative conduit' for Near Eastern cultures. The Id/Ego separation reflects the separation of urban life and the 'wild'-analysed by Ian Hodder the archaeologist in his work on Catalhoyuk. The city is about control, re-constituted as analysis and rationality. Aristotle's thoughts on the oikos and Greek politics can be seen in Freud's map of the mind. Hodder also viewed the home as reflecting psychic needs as well as physical ones.
His classification of the mind is also closely linked to the writings of the Roman physician Galen. Galen’s classification of the mind was definetly a product of his training and exposure to the classical worldview associated with what Zilboorg & Henry referred to as the medical psychology of the Greeks and the Romans. When I was first exposed to Galen’ writing, I was amazed by how Freud’s classification of the mind mirrored Galen.
While the city or urban distinction may have been a further elaboration of existing classifications, it may be difficult to attritute the actual classifications to specific myths that are independent of other developments in the classical views of key medical institutions that were prevalent in classical writings on mental health concerns that had been reviewed by Freud. That is, the distinction you are interested in was probably at the crux of Galen and Freud’s classification, but what I am questioning is whether Freud was offering an alternative explanation of an existing classification developed by Galen that departed from Aristotle and other medically oriented thinkers during classical period. In essence, was the bases for Freud’s classification Galen rather than a specific set of Greek myths.
Not really the myths per se I was considering, although have a look if you can at Ovid's Narcissus and Echo as it is much more interesting than Freud's take on the matter. Deeper, more philosophical.
I was indicating how many cultures in the ancient world viewed private-public space, the city and country-forests, hills, mountains, etc, and how closely this mirrors Freud's thought.
But even the Oedipus legend has a wider range than Freud's interpretation, given also how sadly, badly wrong he was on the matter.
In my mind as I have Freud he used classic tales as a metaphor for what the unconscious contains. Also those grate masters telling them spoke from what in there mind could be found. The best of them are alive even in these days in our mind..Oedipus is a reality deep in what we have in our childhood felt.It radiates everywhere even in an adult mind but we must find it, it hides..
Where Oedipus Complex is concerned, does it worry you that in developing this idea he chose to dismiss the child-abuse related by his patients?
Dear Stanley. as analyst's today we learn to listen to it in our work with the analysand.Yes it is a good question you made. I'm a psychoanalyst it means that I listen to the unconscious of the patient, memories give another kind of a sound or melody .It is not only anxiety it is more.
I trained as an analyst myself, and have academic qualifications in the field.
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