Course Outline
SUBJECT: STS 101 (SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY)
DATE: OCTOBER 1, 2024
Topic: SIGMUND FREUD REVOLUTION
I. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
With the strategy of the class reporting, the students will be able to:
● Identify the Psychoanalytic Theory by Sigmund Freud.
● Explain the different stages of Psychosexual Development.
● Identify the responsible erogenous zone in fixation.
● Understand the basics of Freud’s theories, such as the unconscious mind, the id, the
ego, and the superego.
II. LEARNING COURSE OUTLINE
● The students will have an interactive class reporting about the Sigmund Freud
Revolution.
● After the reporting, the professor will ask questions related to the topic, and the reporters
will answer.
● The professor will add something about the topic that is being tackled.
III. LEARNING ASSESSMENT
To measure the capability of the student's comprehension about the topic of Sigmund Freud's
Revolution, a short ten-item quiz. This will be done to assess their learning after the discussion
of our group.
IV. LECTURE
1. WHO IS SIGMUND FREUD?
-Sigmund Freud is an Australian neurologist who was born on May 6, 1856. He is perhaps
most known as the founder of psychoanalysis. Freud developed a set of therapeutic techniques
centered on talk therapy that involved the use of strategies such as transference, free association,
and dream interpretation.
2. WHAT IS PSYCHOANALYSIS?
-Psychoanalysis is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques that deal in part with the
unconscious mind, and which together form a method of treatment for mental disorders.
3. The Psychoanalytic Theory
Basic Tenets
■Person's behavior
■ Emotional and Psychological Problems
■ Personality Development
■ Defense Mechanism
Therapeutic Techniques
■ Dream Interpretation
■ Free Association
■Transference
Practice
■ Psychoanalytic sessions (Patient- therapist face to face interaction)
4.Freud's Models of the Mind
Levels of Mental Life
● Topographical
● Structural
Topographical Model:
(Conscious, Preconscious, and Unconscious)
CONSCIOUS
● Consciously aware stimuli presently around you at a given point
● Communicates to the world and the inner self through speech, pictures, writing, physical
movement, and thought.
● Only level of mental life that are directly available to us
PRECONSCIOUS
● Accessible memories
● Contains thoughts and feelings that a person is not currently aware of, but which can be
easily brought to conscious
● Easy to retrieve into conscious awareness
UNCONSCIOUS
● The most important part of the mind, is the part you cannot see
● Information that you are not aware of, but impacts and controls your personality
● The primary source of human behavior
Structural Model:
(Id, Ego, and Superego)
ID
● present at birth and demands immediate gratification
● the pleasure principle
● a part of you that is concerned with satisfying your desires (hunger, thirst, anger, etc.)
● does not distinguish between reality and fantasy
EGO
● reality principle; rationality
● logical aspect of personality
● consists of reasoning, tolerance, memory, understanding, judgment, and planning
● mostly located in the conscious part
SUPEREGO
● ideals and morals
● learned rights and wrongs that control you
● incorporated from parents
● becoming a person's conscience
● operates mostly at preconscious level
5. Criticisms of Freud's Ideas
(Overemphasis on Sex)
● He gives sexual desires or activities as the cause of neurotic disorders or mental illness
● Also emphasize on sex in personality developmental stages (phallic stages).
● Suggested sexual abuse in childhood as fantasies rather than reality.
● Conveyed that human's sexuality is based on feelings of Narcissism, Masochism, and
Passivity.
Lack of Falsibility
● His method is totally unscientific, cure totally depend on information from patient and his
childhood experiences.
● This is unscientific method and accuracy is not guaranteed.
● His measures/methods were untreatable.
6. FIVE STAGES OF PSYCHOSEXUAL DEVELOPMENT
A. oral stage (Birth to 1 Year) - the focus is on sucking and biting, which eventually develops into
the child's dependency on caretakers and the incorporation of different foods and objects.
B. anal stage (1 to 3 Years) - the focus shifts to toilet training and associated control issues,
which contributes to the development of the superego and personality traits such as orderliness,
cleanliness, and stinginess.
C. phallic stage (3 to 6 Years)- is the most critical stage in terms of personality development and
centers around the child's sexual desire, especially towards his or her parent of the opposite
gender. Oedipus complex is a crucial component of the phallic stage, where boys have a sexual
longing for their mothers and hostility towards their fathers, which contributes to the emergence
of superego through resolution.
D. latent phase (6 Years to Puberty)- sexual desires are repressed, and energies are focused on
developing skills.
E. genital phase (Puberty to Adult)- the individual's core interest returns to sexual
satisfaction outside the family context.
7. Sigmund Freud Today
-Like the rest of us, Freud was a storyteller and, just like the rest of us, he believed in his
stories, as did others. It's hard, even impossible, to come up with a truly unique narrative
about human behavior, but Freud certainly integrated many existing ideas and presented
them in a unique way.
-During a time when there was no Facebook or even television, books were the currency of
ideas and Freud certainly was able to spread his ideas through his writings. The man wrote
more than 20 books. In so doing he focused popular attention on the mind and human
motivation. He inspired people to think about thinking and he created the groundwork for
psychotherapy and the treatment of psychological issues.
-That's not to suggest that if Freud hadn't lived there would be no such thing as psychotherapy
today, but he was a thought leader in moving the discussion about the mind-and
therapy-forward. The last century has seen the most explosive development in human
knowledge and public access to it.
-It might be unrealistic, therefore, to think of any ideas from a hundred years ago. especially
outside the physical sciences would completely stand the test of time. Perhaps it's a testimony
to Freud that he still has many followers today and that we continue to discuss his ideas and
influence.
