What Is Freud’s Unconscious Theory and How Is It Applied in the Art Work of Dada/ Surrealist Artists?

Freud believed human behavior was not consciously controlled, and credited three parts in the mind to any psychological activity. These are called the unconscious, the preconscious and the conscious. Personality too was given three parts, the id, the super ego and the ego. Freud believed these parts in our mind have their individual parts to play in the way we go about life. He also stated the only way to work through conflicts that arise from our subconscious and unconscious mind is through dream analysis and psychoanalysis. Other key concepts in psychodynamic theory are the psychosexual stages of development, anxiety, defence mechanisms, and free association.

Dr Sigmud Freud (1856-1939), is the founder of the psychodynamic approach. Dr Sigmud Freud believed that childhood experiences and unconscious thoughts had an effect on people’s behaviour.

Freud attempted to examine how our society viewed the human mind by turning society’s attention inward and exploring the mind’s inner secrets. One of the large discoveries Freud popularized in society was the concept of a conscious and unconscious part of the mind. He believed the unconscious part of the mind was the primary source of human behavior because it comprised unreachable thoughts. This concept was a radical way to understand the mind, and Freud was the first to use psychology instead of sciences, such as biology, to discover where the mind hid its secrets. He believed studying psychology would help humans determine their base

Freud’s unconscious and conscious systems are related to different functions of the three main structures of the mind, the id, the ego, and the superego. According to Freud, the traditional idea of

Freud’s most credible work is that of the unconscious mind. He proposed that there are

Freud’s theory states that the human mind and behavior is governed by 3 parts and each part plays a significance in a

Freud created the Psychodynamic Approach to explain behaviour. Within it, he describes that there are 3 components of the human mind: The conscious, Pre-conscious and Unconscious. The conscious is the part of the mind which is in our awareness; it contains behaviours and desires which we are aware of. The pre-conscious is the part of the mind between the conscious and unconscious, it contains items such as memories and desires which we are not currently thinking about but can easily bring to conscious awareness. Lastly is the unconscious. This part of the mind is

Freud believed that the human personality consisted of three interworking parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id, the largest part of the mind, is related to desires and impulses and is the main source of basic biological needs. The ego is related to reasoning and is the conscious, rational part of the personality; it monitors behavior in order to satisfy basic desires without suffering negative consequences (Boundless.com). The superego, or conscience, develops through interactions with others (mainly parents) who want the child to conform to the norms of society (Boundless.com). Freud believed that our adult lives were shaped by childhood experiences, meaning that if children did not receive the proper nurturing, that the child would be stuck in that stage or behaviors

Freud’s theory is that dreaming is meaningful, unlike the activation synthesis theory. He believed that the mind had three sections, represented in a shape of an iceberg; the conscious, the subconscious and the unconscious. The conscious is the tip of the iceberg above the water involves everything we are aware of right now such as our thoughts. The

In the 1880’s Sigmund Freud developed a theory about the unconscious mind and went on to create psychoanalysis.

The three different levels of consciousness that discussed in his study were the conscious, preconscious, and the unconscious state. Conscious is a thought that is currently in the awareness. Preconscious is a thought that is also from part of the memory process, which is currently not at awareness. Unconscious is a thought that cannot be voluntarily brought into the awareness. Freud explained that during the id stage, it is completely unconscious, thus only to be present at birth where it acts accordingly by the pleasure principle. A pleasure principle means of seeking an immediate pleasure, despite of understanding the formal reason, logic, safety, and morality to avoid the pain, and also in satisfying of a person needs. Hock (2009) pointed out that id stage consists of “basic human biological urges and instincts such as hunger, thirst, and sexual impulses” (p. 236).

Sigmund Freud created strong theories in science and medicine that are still studied today. Freud was a neurologist who proposed many distinctive theories in psychiatry, all based upon the method of psychoanalysis. Some of his key concepts include the ego/superego/id, free association, trauma/fantasy, dream interpretation, and jokes and the unconscious. “Freud remained a determinist throughout his life, believing that all vital phenomena, including psychological phenomena like thoughts, feelings and phantasies, are rigidly determined by the principle of cause and effect” (Storr, 1989, p. 2). Through the discussion of those central concepts, Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis becomes clear as to how he construed human character.

The psychoanalytic perspective, is the outlook that behavior and personality are effected by the conflict between one’s inner dreams n and expectation of society. Most of this conflict occurs in unconscious, which is outside the knowledge of an individual. Renowned psychologist, Freud established the psychoanalytic theory as an explanation for perplexed phenomena such as the meaning behind dreams, slips of the tongue, and behavioral reflex reactions to stressful situations. The unconscious is a primary focus in psychoanalytic theory due to its typical development in childhood and the ways in which it influences nearly every detail of an individual’s life. The unconscious mind also holds unvented memories and unexpressed urges that make their process into the conscious mind through a variety of different means. However, topographical theory of the mind states that conscious, preconscious, and unconscious serve as motivating forces in human behavior. Corsin & Wedding (2011) define the conscious as mental activity which individuals are fully aware of, preconscious as thoughts and feelings that could be easily brought to mind and unconscious as thoughts, feelings, and desires of which one is unaware of.

I think one of the greatest examples of a Freudian artist is Picasso. He may seem like an obvious choice for a response concerning artists, however, I think this is because he is the quintessential artist that

Freud viewed the unconscious mind as the primary source of human behavior. Freud saw the conscious mind as only the “tip of the iceberg” of the mind, because people are not always conscious of every decision they decide to make. For example, you may consciously think ‘I’m thirsty.’ and drink water, but according to Freud, that only scratches the surface of the decisions we make. According to Freud, the unconscious mind contains “significant” and “disturbing” thoughts and experiences that we need to keep out of the conscious mind. Traumatic events would be one such example of a thought that needed to be kept out of the conscious mind, and therefore was