Freud & Faith: Part 1, Insight

Every semester for the past few years I've lectured on Sigmund Freud in my class PSYC 493 History of Theories in Psychology. It's a Senior level class and by the time the students reach it they are throughly down on Dr. Freud. Given that my colleagues are Christian and come at psychology from a cognitive-behavioral slant this outcome isn't surprising. In class after class Freud functions as a punching bag.

I'm sympathetic to this attitude about Freud. But I feel that it is my duty in PSYC 493 to give Freud his most charitable reading. And I'd like to take a few posts to share some of those perspectives, presenting how I see and appreciate Freud.

I start by telling the students about my metaphor for approaching Freud. Specifically, Freud is like an autostereogram:



Unpacking the metaphor, I think Freud was largely off on the details. Like an autostereogram, if you read Freud in a fine-grained way you can't see much. But if you step back from Freud, gaze through him and kind of allow yourself to grow cross-eyed, well, some new vision of things just might pop out at you. Read in crisp detail I don't think Freud has much to offer. But a fuzzy Freud, where only the broad, bold gestures of his theory are noted, is a remarkably insightful thinker.

In this post let's start with Freud's master stroke, the existence of the unconscious.

Most are familiar with Freud's basic notion that the majority of psychic existence takes place outside of awareness. We call this the iceberg metaphor. That is, the mind is like an iceberg. The conscious mind peeks out above the waters but gives no indication about the vast mass below the surface, the unconscious. Our conscious mental life is only, as they say, the "tip of the iceberg."

What is the practical import of the iceberg model of the mind? Well, basically this: You don't know who you are.

Recall the famous dictum of Socrates: Know thyself. Freud is in complete agreement with this sentiment. The goal of psychoanalysis is, at root, insight. Or, as Freud said, to "make the unconscious conscious." In short, Freud stands in the grand Greek tradition of self-awareness, self-investigation, and self-knowledge.

But Freud adds a twist to the Socratic dictum. He makes it harder. Basically, Freud's model of the unconscious implies that insight is very, very difficult.

Freud's claim is that our experience of the self is, at root, one of befuddlement. We just can't figure ourselves out. If you've ever looked in the mirror and said "What is wrong with me?" then you get Freud's basic point.

This experience of befuddlement is nicely illustrated by Paul in Romans 7 who ends the chapter with the lament "Wretched man that I am!"

If insight and self-knowledge are hard to obtain what is a person to do? Well, Freud's answer was that we need some outside assistance. For Freud this assistance was provided by the psychoanalyst. But, again, I'd like to fuzz Freud up a bit on this point. I don't think an analyst is (always) necessary. I think the important point Freud makes is the notion that insight requires community. You can't figure yourself out by thinking really, really hard. You need someone to give you some concrete feedback about your behavior.

For example, let's ask these questions: Is Richard Beck a good husband? Father? Friend? Co-worker? Well, if we follow Freud we know that the last person who can give a good answer to these questions is me. I can't see myself clearly. So if you, or I, want to know if I'm a good father you'll need to ask (or I'll need to ask) my family. They are better situated to answer that question. In short, if I want to "know myself" I need to start having conversations with the people in my life. Introspection only goes so deep. It's like staring into a mud puddle.

I think all this has important implications for spiritual formation. Freud's thought highlights the need for community in the pursuit of self-awareness and self-understanding.

"Know thyself" is about conversation rather than introspection.

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