Freud's Psychoanalytic Practice

Psychoanalysis is the study and analysis of the unconscious mind using a set of therapeutic procedures and theories. In practice, numerous psychoanalytical strategies are applied in the treatment of mental health conditions. It offers a method of addressing the dynamics of personality development and personality organization. Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist, pioneered psychoanalytic techniques in the late nineteenth century, and they are now widely used in the treatment of mental diseases and personality analysis. One of the underlying tenets of psychoanalysis is that a person’s personality development is determined by the forgotten events and experiences during his early childhood life. It also asserts that irrational drives rooted in the unconscious mind largely determine human behaviour and cognition.

The purpose of this paper is therefore to analysis how the basic concept of Freud’s psychoanalytical practice can be applied to Joseph Haydn, a former Austrian’s classical music composer, singer, and performer. He was born on 31st March 1732 in Austria and later died on 31st May 1809 in Vienna. He was one of the greatest music composers during the Classical period and became very instrumental in the development of chamber music. He spent much of his career as a musician especially singing for the wealthy Esterhazy family. Today, Joseph Haydn is largely regarded as the father of the symphony and his operas treated as some of the best music pieces. The following sections discuss how the basic components of Freud’s psychoanalytical practice can be applied to Joseph Haydn; they include (1) the components of psyche, (2) defence mechanisms, (3) theory of psychosexual development, (4) id, ego, and superego, (5) and early relationship with parents.

1. The components of psyche

There are three basic components of psyche namely the conscious, unconscious, and precocious; their work is mainly to maintain a balance between the opposing qualities. They do this while at the same time engaging in an active development of the individualism. Psyche is directly responsible for the person’s thoughts, feelings, and faculty of reasoning. In essence, it drives the actuating course of a person’s life. This section of the paper discusses the three components of the psyche with respect to Joseph Haydn by looking at his entire lifespan, that is, from childhood until death.

(a) The conscious mind

In the Freud’s psychoanalytic practice, the conscious mind is that part of the psyche that enables an individual to pay attention at the moment. This may include the individual’s current thinking process as well as objects to attention. It is largely constituted by the individual’s current awareness. Joseph Haydn’s conscious mind was fully developed as it enabled him to focus mostly on the current events. This enabled him to consider undertaking important things fast especially those that directly affected his life. By focusing only on his conscious mind, Haydn was able to avoid disruptions in his life, especially in his music career.

(b) Preconscious mind

The precocious mind includes a collection of things that an individual does not pay attention to even though he or she is aware of them. When an individual pays attention to these things, they are immediately brought to the conscious mind. It is essential to note that an individual may choose to or not pay attention to these things. Furthermore, as explained by Blahak, Bazner, and Hennerici (2015), an individual, to a certain extent, control his or her awareness of things by focusing on a wider awareness rather than very close to only one conscious one. In essence, an individual expands his or her consciousness by including as much as possible the information in the precocious mind.

(c) Subconscious mind

In the Freud’s psychoanalytical practice, subconscious mind includes the process and content that cannot be reached directly from the conscious mind. Because of this, the subconscious mind acts and thinks independently of the conscious and preconscious mind. According to Summerer (2006), Freud Sigmund argued that much of people’s behaviour is driven directly from their subconscious minds. It is in charge of almost all our actions. The subconscious mind has an alarming consequence that makes it hard for an individual to control their behaviours.

It is evident that, from childhood, Joseph Haydn had a dream of one day becoming a popular musician in Europe if not the entire world. However, this information was kept in his subconscious mind. That is why he spent much of his time practicing court music at the Esterhazy family in a very remote estate. He lived a very isolated life in the family for nearly 15 years. This dream of becoming a great musician did not interfere with information about his current status and activity as stored in his conscious mind.

2. Defence Mechanisms

Freud Sigmund also noted a number of defence mechanisms some of which Joseph Haydn also displayed. The conflicting demands of the id, ego, and superego makes an individual feel threatened, which eventually necessitates the desire to have a form of defence mechanism. In essence, the conflicting demands of these forces make an individual not only feel threatened but also overwhelmed - this feeling often leads to anxiety. Individuals often use defence mechanisms to protect themselves from being subjected to the feelings of guilt or anxiety. These feelings often arise when an individual feel threatened or when both id and superego start demanding too much. Some of the defence mechanisms identified for the psychoanalytical practice include regression, repression, denial, projection, displacement, regression, as well as sublimation among others. Joseph Haydn displayed a number of this defence mechanism in different occasions as shall be discussed here below.

(a) Repression

Regression is a type of unconscious defence mechanism that is employed by the individual’s ego to control threating or disturbing thoughts from reaching the conscious mind where they can be executed. Here, for instance, an individual represses thoughts that would result in feelings of guilt. It forces disturbing ideas, memories, and wishes into the unconscious mind where they are hidden and forgotten.

Joseph Haydn used repression as a defence mechanism for most of his life. As a young boy interested in music, he found an opportunity to live with Frankh who would help advance his career. However, at Frankh’s household, life was not easy for Haydn as he frequently humiliated and hungry. However, he chose to repress the feeling of hunger and humiliation for the entire time stayed with the family. Instead, he focused on his music training and was later noticed by the people of Hainburg.

(b) Denial

This defence mechanism involves blocking the awareness of external events. This involves refusing to experience a situation if it is too much to handle. At some point in his life, while still searching for a breakthrough, Joseph Haydn used denial as a defence mechanism. For instance, despite the biting reality of his poor family background, he blocked the awareness of this the moment he joined the wealthy Esterhazy family as a court musician. He started life with the other family but secretly working hard to change his situation. He never attempted to expose his ordeal situation to the wealthy family.

(c) Sublimation

This defence mechanism attempts to use substitute object to satisfy impulses in a way that is socially acceptable. Sublimation is one of the greatest defence mechanisms that were overwhelmingly used by Joseph Haydn. Discouraged and humiliated by the filthy status of his clothing land of sustainable income, he chose to put all his efforts in singing and composing songs so that he can forget his troubles. He absorbed his mind in music to an extent that he felt greatly relieved and not bothered by his present status. He used music as a socially acceptable substitute object to satisfy his impulses.

3. Theory of Psychosexual Development

The theory of psychosexual developed, as was proposed by Freud Sigmund, suggests that children development passes through series of stages related to various erogenous (stimulating) zones. This theory is based on the idea that the roles played by parents in managing their children’s aggressive and sexual drives are very crucial in fostering their comprehensive development; this takes place during the first few years of childhood. Freud's psychoanalytic practice suggests five stages of psychosexual development namely oral, anal, and phallic, latency, as well as genital stages; each of these stages must be meeting successfully for the child to develop fully. A child who lacks proper nurturing of any of these stages becomes stuck in that stage of development. As asserted by Fayek (2013), the child’s experience during each of these five stages shapes his/ her personality and behaviour as he/she grows into adulthood. In general, through the control of their id, the pleasure-seeking urge of children is focused on different parts of their body known as the erogenous zones.

(a) Oral stage

These are basically children aged between zero and one year. During this stage, the mount is the most important pleasure centre for children. This is why children within this age bracket have a sucking reflex and desire to suck their mother’s breast. During this stage, the child tends to put everything he/she can touch the mouth to fulfill this pleasure. If this need is not well met, the child may develop negative habits such as sucking thumbs as well as biting their nails later in life.

Even though little information is available about Joseph Haydn’s childhood life, it can be concluded that this need was perfectly fulfilled. This is because there is no record of any information about Joseph Haydn displaying negative habits such as sucking thumbs and biting nails. Therefore, it can be assumed that his parents did a wonderful job in helping meet the desire of oral pleasure.

It can also be assumed that this stage was not fully developed in Haydn’s life because information such as sucking of thumbs is rarely recorded. Therefore, the absence of such information cannot be a full surety that it did not happen.

(b) Anal stage

These are children who are between one and three years old. During this development stage, children experiment and play with their faeces and urine quite often. During this stage, their libido is focused on the anus, which makes children to derive pleasure in playing with faeces and urine. Thus, toilet training manifests the kind of control that they would exert on their bodily functions. As a result, early proper toilet training may make such children be uptight and obsessed with order, precision, punctuality, and a number of less healthy traits such as stubbornness, stinginess, and meticulousness. Therefore, to apply Freud’s Psychoanalytic practice to Joseph Haydn, we need to investigate whether he displayed any of these traits in adolescence or adulthood.

Joseph Haydn was notably uptight with his music training and career something, which helped him to develop his musical gifts and talents. From childhood when his parent sent him to live with Johann Matthias the choirmaster of a cathedral church, he purposed himself to apply keenness and precision in order to achieve excellence in music. Besides this, little information is available that can tell us whether he was stubborn, or stingy. Furthermore, he pursued his music career with great care and treatment in details. His music career and entire life were basically marked by precise accordance with details, which actually showed his meticulous trait. With this information, we can conclude that the development of Joseph Haydn’s anal stage was successfully completed.

Bokanowski (2006) asserted that harsh or early potting training tend to make a child develop a personality that hates the mess. Such a child grows up becoming obsessively tidy, punctual, and respectful of authority. Such traits can be said of Joseph Haydn because he was very respectful of the authority and always punctual. On the other hand, children who did not receive harsh or early potty training often becomes anal expulsive. Later in life, they are associated with traits such as the excessive willingness share things with others and giving some away: they also tend to be messy, rebellious, as well as disorganized. Such traits were not remarkably manifest in Joseph Haydn.

(c) The phallic stage

These are children between three to six years old. During the phallic stage, children find pleasure in playing with their genitals. At this time the struggle with sexual desires to the opposite sex begins to develop; they show this by developing much affection towards their opposite sex parents, that is, girls towards fathers and boys towards mothers. The boy develops a desire for his mother and strong urge to replace his father because he has become an unseen rival in the mother’s attention and the same applies to the girl. At the same time, the boy becomes afraid of his father fearing he might be punished for his feelings.

As explained by Freud, during the phallic stage, boys love their penis the most hence start developing the castration anxiety. By considering his father as his main rival, he then thinks of ways to eliminate him. This leads him to start imitating, copying, as well as joining the masculine behaviours of his dad. He internally adopts values, behaviours and attitudes that he thinks might help him eliminate his father. This process leads him to take the male gender roles in the family.

By applying this to Joseph Haydn, we can confidently assert that he successfully completely this psychosexual development stage, which enabled him to take the male gender roles in the society. Otherwise, if this development stage was compromised, then Haydn could have had contrasting gender traits despite being a man, that is, he could have shown feminine-like traits such as radiance, sensuality, thoughtfulness, and empathy during his adulthood.

(d) Latency stage

These are children aged between six and twelve years. During this stage, their sexual instincts subside while the development of their superego takes pace. At this stage, they learn to start behaving in a morally accepted ways as well as adopt values and behaviours of their parents and other important people in the society. They start learning the moral fabrics of the society and thrive to live by such rules.

During this stage, children tend to focus more on hobbies, schoolwork, and friendship among others. This was noted of Joseph Haydn as he maintained a number of many friends. During his school life, he actively participated in outdoor activities and building a good friendship. Therefore, it can be concluded that Joseph Haydn successfully completed this development stage. He maintained close friendships with the wealthy Esterhazy family.

This stage was also highly developed because he managed to successfully acquire and developed new skills in singing and playing different musical instruments, which enabled him to become one of the most successful musicians in his days.

(e) Genital stage (puberty)

This is the last stage in psychosexual development and starts from age twelve during which sexual impulses re-emerge and the child’s attention starts focusing on seeking the fulfillment of sexual pleasure. Haydn (2012) noted that this stage will lead to the child’s engagement in proper sexual behaviours but only if the previous stages were successfully developed. This desire to fulfill proper sexual behaviour will culminate in marriage and childbirth. During the genital stage, the adolescent does many sexual experimentations, which lead to the development of a loving one-to-one relationship with the opposite sex. Instead of self-pleasure, their sexual instincts are directed to having or establishing heterosexual pleasure.

Joseph Haydn successfully completed the genital development stage as can be seen in him settling down and establishing a family. He married Maria Anna Keller with whom he had children Alois, Anton, Nikolaus, and Polzelli. He established a stable and loving family that lasted throughout their lives, which is a strong indication that his genital stage was successfully developed.

4. Id, ego, and superego

Freud Sigmund also discussed the three basic components of personality namely the id, ego, and superego. The id, ego, and superego are always engaged in a constant mortal combat making the position of the human personality as being on the battlefield. Freud expressed that the overall human behaviour is the result of constant interaction between the id, ego, and superego. The constant interaction often creates conflicts, which eventually result in anxiety thus leading to the development of various defence mechanisms.

(a) The id

The id is the storeroom and controller of all primitive drives of an individual. It relies on the use of pleasure principle to control and operate all human primitive drives. In this perspective, its main aim is to seek pleasure and avoid all forms of pain - that is the primary work of id. Orange, Atwood, and Stolorow (2015) asserted that the id has no real perception of the reality and is only interested in satisfying its needs through the feud’s primary processes such as hunger and self-protection among others. It is also essential to note that the id is in full control during childhood but its influence reduces with age. Little inference can be made about this because of lack of relevant information about Joseph Haydn’s childhood life when the id is mostly relied upon.

(b) Ego

Ego is highly developed than id and is aware of reality. Because of this, ego attempts to operate within the reality principles, which enables it to recognize what is real, as well as comprehend the consequences of certain behaviours. For example, the ego is able to comprehend of the consequences and effects of social rules needed to socialize and live with other people in the community. The ego relies on the use of secondary processes such as recognition, perception, judgment, as well as memory to identify these consequences, all of which are developed during childhood. The ego’s main task is that is balancing the demands of the id and superego using the constraints of reality. The individual’s higher mental processes such as problem solving and reasoning are controlled by the ego. The development of Haydn’s ego took well on course, which resulted in his controlled behaviour in childhood throughout to adolescence and adulthood. He was able to delay some of his gratifications and play his life well despite the many challenges that he faced in life especially early years.

(c) Super-ego

Superego is the top-most developed component of an individual’s personality. It is where human values and social morals are constructed and developed. These are usually developed on the basis of rules of right and wrong that an individual has learned in childhood from their parents. These rules are contained in their conscience. The superego seeks to inhibit the id’s demand for pleasure thereby acting as its counterbalance. The development of Haydn’s superego can be analysed by considering the principles by which he lived his life. When he came of age, Haydn developed a strong love for morality; he chose to live within the guiding moral principles of his society and was never at loggerhead with any moral tenet.

5. Early relationship with parents

Joseph Haydn never spent most of his time with his parents. At the age of six, his parents allowed him to stay with his relative Johann Matthias Frankh so that he can find ample time to develop his musical talent. Despite being away from his parents most time, Haydn still maintained a close relationship with them. He showed his parents lots of love and always supported them.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this paper has discussed how the basic concepts of Freud’s psychoanalytic practice can be applied to a famous person like Joseph Haydn. Haydn, just a little boy from poor family background worked his ways and become one of the renowned singers and music composers in the world. The analysis discovered that Haydn’s personality development was consistent with Freud’s psychoanalytical theories. The analysis was divided into five sections namely (1) the components of psyche, (2) defence mechanisms, (3) theory of psychosexual development, (4) id, ego, and superego, (5) and early relationship with parents.

References

Blahak, C., Bäzner, H., & Hennerici, M. G. (2015). Joseph Haydn's encephalopathy: new aspects. Progress in brain research, 216, 317-329.

Bokanowski, T. (2006). The practice of psychoanalysis. London: Karnac.

Fayek, A. (2013). Freud's other theory of psychoanalysis: The replacement for the indelible theory of catharsis. Lanham: Jason Aronson.

Haydn, J. (2012). Joseph haydn - piano sonata no. 47 in b minor - hob.xvi: 32 - a score for solo piano. Place of publication not identified: Read Books.

Orange, D. M., Atwood, G. E., & Stolorow, R. D. (2015). Working intersubjectively: Contextualism in psychoanalytic practice (Vol. 17). Routledge.

Summerer, E. M. (2006). Franz Joseph Haydn. New York: PowerKids Press.