Sigmund Freud's About Psychodynamic Approach

Sigmund Freud has become one of the most controversial people in the field of psychology, but he remains one of the most famous. His ideas about human development have widely been rejected, but his theories about the human mind, particularly consciousness, are still often referenced today. Freud believed that there were three levels of consciousness: the conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious, and that we had different levels of awareness of each one. This idea is often represented using an iceberg, as the tip of the iceberg is easy to reach, just like the conscious, while the bottom is very difficult to access, similar to the unconscious. In his lecture series “About Psychoanalysis”, given in 1909 at Clark University, Freud explains

The game guides players through their consciousness, allowing them to observe what exists in the different aspects of our brains and how the different levels of our consciousness become more complex and obscure, all while relating to some of the main aspects of Freudian psychology.

As the lecture series focused on a type of therapy, it makes sense that Freud spent a good deal of time talking about how therapy can effectively be used to help a patient who is in a state of “hysteria”. According to Freud, therapy is needed to unearth our repressed thoughts so that we may handle them properly and prevent them from causing problems later in our lives. If the root of the problem is not reached, then whatever repressed memories and feelings we may have will manifest themselves in ways that negatively impact our lives. To make matters worse, these manifestations may occur years after the initial trauma and may have nothing to do with it, making

Some examples are more direct, such as the inability to drink water due to anger and dream analysis, which were discussed earlier, but there are still more examples. One therapy card states “You finally feel like your id, ego, and superego are balanced,” which relates to Freud’s belief that therapy should mediate between the three aspects of our personality. Though these three are not mentioned much in this series of talks, Freud does briefly recount how the ego is another obstacle that gets in the way of accessing our unconscious, so keeping the ego from getting out of control is another way to help solve the problems in our unconscious. Freudian slips are also featured in the game, both in the unconscious section; one deals with repressed romantic feelings, while the other references Freud’s ideas about our relationship with parental figures. Freud discusses this in one of the speeches, characterizing the slips as references to the deeper desires of a person, and they are usually those that we do not wish to admit to ourselves or other people. Another main facet of Freudian psychology is the need to uncover repressed anger and reach catharsis. Like other types of repressed feelings, anger at one event may show up later and misdirect itself, as demonstrated by the board space about the smell of lavender triggering anger. Though there is no catharsis in