Editing Psychoanalysis (section)

====The meaning of dreams====
In 1899, Freud's work had progressed far enough that he was able to publish ''[[The Interpretation of Dreams]]''. This, for him, was the most important of his writings,<ref>Gay, Peter. 1988. ''Freud: A Life for Our Time''. New York: [[W. W. Norton & Company|W. W. Norton]]. pp. 3–4, 103.</ref><ref>Freud, Sigmund. 1913 [1899]. ''[[The Interpretation of Dreams]]''. [[Macmillan Publishers|Macmillan]].</ref> as it formulated the realisation that every dream contains a symbolically disguised message that can be decoded with the help of the dreamer's [[Free association (psychology)|free associations]]. The purpose of every dream is, therefore, to inform the dreamer about his complex inner situation: in essence, a conflict arising from the demands of innate needs and externally imposed behavioural rules that prohibit their satisfaction. Freud called the former the ''primary process'', taking place predominantly in the unconscious, and the latter the ''secondary process'' of predominantly conscious, more or less coherent thoughts.

[[File:Structural-Iceberg.svg|thumb|280px|The [[iceberg]] metaphor. It's often used to illustrate the spatial relationship between Freud's first model and the new concepts (id, ego, superego), synthesising both into the structural model. Disadvantage: an iceberg contains no libido: the purpose-cause (source) of all drive-energetic dynamics and economy of the living soul (biological organism as a whole).]]
Freud summarised this view in his first model of the soul. Known as the ''[[Id, ego and superego#Advantages of the structural model|topological model]]'', it divides the organism into three areas or systems: The unconscious, the preconscious and the conscious. Sexual needs belong to the unconscious and are forced to remain there if the contents of the conscious mind ward them off. This is the case in societies that generally consider all extra- and premarital sexual activity (including homoeroticism, that of biblical [[Onan]] and incest) to be a ‘sin’, passing this value on to the next generation through concrete or threatened punishments. Moral education creates fears of punitive violence or the deprivation of love in the child's soul. They are stored neuronally in the preconscious and influence the consciousness in the sense of the imprinted rules of behaviour. (Freud's second model of the soul, [[Id, ego and superego|the three-instance or structural model]], introduces here a clearer distinction. ''Topology'' is no longer the decisive factor, but the specific ''function'' of each of the three instances. This new model did not replace the first one: it integrated it.)

''The Interpretation of Dreams'' includes the first comprehensive conceptualisation of [[Oedipus complex]]: The little boy admires his father because of the mental and physical advantages of the adult man and wants to become like him, but also comes into conflict with him over the women around, cause of the [[incest taboo|taboo of incest]]. This initiates – growing up from the id – anger that can escalate into a deadly urge for revenge against the father. Impulses that the little boy cannot act out (not least due to the child's deep dependence on his parents' love) and therefore are repressed into the unconscious. Symptomatically, this inner situation manifests itself as a feeling of inferiority, even a castration complex, genital phobia. The myth of Oedipus is about the attempt to liberate the 'amputated' potency of the id, but it fails because of the remaining unconscious motives. As the ego is overwhelmed by the punitive fear of the moral content of its ‘preconscious’ superego, it cuts off the instinctive desire for self-knowledge from itself (blinds itself).

Attempts to find a female equivalent of the Oedipus complex have not yielded good results. According to Freud, girls, because of their anatomically different genitals, cannot identify with their father, nor develop a [[castration anxiety|castration phobia]] as sons do, so this syndrome seems to be reserved for the opposite sex.<ref>Sigmund Freud, ''On Sexuality'' (Penguin Freud Library 7) p. 342.</ref> Feminist psychoanalysts like [[:de:Christiane Olivier (Psychoanalytikerin)|Christiane Olivier]] debate whether the father of psychoanalysis might have been a victim of [[sexism]] in this case. To compensate for their supposed shortcoming, they postulate a ''Jocasta complex'' consisting of an [[incest]]uous desire of mothers for their infant sons;<ref>{{cite book |last1=Olivier |first1=Christiane |title=Jokastes Kinder: Die Psyche der Frau im Schatten der Mutter}}</ref> but other analysts criticise this naming (and attempt of generalisation), since Sophocles' [[Jocasta]] in particular does not exhibit this behaviour. (Instead, she gave her baby away to be killed, instigated by her husband and the oracle that a grown-up son would kill him.) The witch's special interest in [[Hansel and Gretel|little Hansel]] – while she merely abuses his sister as a kitchen slave – offers much better evidence here, although it's still unclear whether such ''Crunchy house syndrome'' can be as widespread in our form of society as the Oedipus itself. However, Christiane O. courageously confronted her own problems in her relationship with her son and husband.