Freud%20Returns?%20%20Like%20a%20Bad%20Dream

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Freud Returns? Like a Bad Dream

• By J. Allan Hobson (2004)
• Presented by Amanda Garner Patrick Utz

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Mark Solms validates Freud

• Solms holds the chair in neuropsychology at the
  University of Cape Town he is the author of the
  article Freud Returns (2004).
• Neuroscientists are finding data that they feel
  fit together with Freuds psychological theories.
• This data includes brain imaging and lesion
  studies, which Solms feels support Freuds
  conception of the mind.

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Freuds views

• The ego allows the id to fulfill its desires
  while sleeping, which leads to strange dreams.
• Bizarre dreams are caused by the minds effort to
  conceal the unacceptable instinctual wishes
  welling up in the unconscious.
• The concealment of the unacceptable causes dreams
  to be filled with symbolic disguise and
  censorship.

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J. Allan Hobson Counterpoint

• Hobson is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard
  Medical School.
• Neurobiological evidence supports the idea that
  dream bizarreness stems from normal changes in
  brain state.
• These normal changes occur when chemical
  mechanisms in the brain stem activate different
  regions of the cortex.

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• Several studies have found that the chemical
  changes can determine the quality and quantity of
  dream visions, emotions, and thoughts.
• The ego-id disagreement cannot control brain
  chemistry, therefore the disguise-censorship
  theory must not be valid.
• Without Freuds disguise-censorship theory we
  are left with only a few remains of Freuds dream
  theory.

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Remains of Freuds Dream Theory

• Instinctual drives or unconscious wishes could
  cause dream formation.
• Parts of the limbic system are responsible for
  producing anxiety, anger, and elation, which
  Freud would consider instinctual drives.
• Evidence reveals that activating those parts of
  the limbic system will lead to the shaping of
  ones dreams.

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Hobson Counterpoint

• Anxiety and anger are not wishes.
• People dream about negative emotions just as
  often as they dream about positive emotions.
• Half of our wishes for ourselves are negative.
• Emotions in dreams are not disguised, they enter
  clearly and can lead to nightmares.
• Freud could never explain why so many dreams are
  negative.

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Freuds view of Free Association

• Free association is when a person says everything
  and anything that comes to their mind in relation
  to their dream as it is interpreted by a
  psychoanalyst.
• The true meaning of dreams are hidden.
• The real emotions of dreams can only be recovered
  by the method of free association.

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Hobson Counterpoint

• Free association is not necessary to interpret
  dreams.
• There is no concealment of meaning or emotion
  what you see is what you get.
• The actual dream content is what is most
  important for interpreting.
• With close attention of the dreamer and their
  therapist, the feelings that dreams represent
  will be revealed.

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Final Point Solms and Freudians

• Saying dreams are created by brain chemistry is
  saying that dreams hold zero emotional messages.
• Recent lesion and brain imaging research is
  revealing that the forebrains instinctual-motivat
  ional circuitry is linked to dreaming, which
  supports Freuds explanation of dreams regarding
  wish fulfillment.

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Final point Hobson

• The chemical activation-synthesis theory has
  always supported the fact that dreams are full of
  emotion and meaning it is only in disagreement
  with Freuds explanation of dream bizarreness as
  concealed meaning.
• No amount of neurobiological tinkering can fix
  the fact the psychoanalysis is terribly in error.