
Psychoanalysis and Cognitive Psychology
A Formalization of Freud's Earliest Theory
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Psychoanalysis and Cognitive Psychology: A Formalization of Freud's Earliest Theory is an attempt to translate psychoanalytic theory into a computer model—a model psychoanalysts will accept as accurately mirroring Freud's theory, while at the same time satisfying the demands made upon any formal model within contemporary psychology. Given the vast extent and the continued development of psychoanalytic theory, the present study focuses on Freud's earliest theory. In a sense, this limitation is a natural one. Anyone really wishing to come to grips with psychoanalytic theory will listen to Freud's advice and follow the path he himself took. In his earliest theory, the theory of abreaction, Freud lays the foundation for all of his later work. Here, for the first time, we encounter concepts—psychical conflict, repression, unconscious ideas, the principle of constancy—which have proved decisive for the development of psychoanalytic theory. Moreover, this was the period during which Freud himself was obsessed by the idea of representing his theory in a single, coherent model, much as in natural science. The present monograph may be regarded as a belated effort to realize the ideal that Freud had in mind in his Project for a Scientific Psychology: a psychology in which psychical processes are represented in such a manner that they become ""perspicuous and free from contradiction"".
Table of Contents
Preface
1. Introduction
Critique of Psychoanalytic Theory
Obsolescence of the Critique
Plan of the Book
2. The Theory of Abreaction: a Brief Overview
Memories and Hysteria
The Theory of Abreaction
3. Ideas: the Problem of Cognitive Representation
Ideas
Incompatible Ideas
The Ego
Representation of Knowledge Structures
The Conceptual Representation of a Traumatic Event
Discussion
4. Affect in the Theory of Abreaction
Introduction
The Physiological Aspect
The Cognitive Aspect: Idea and Affect
Termination of the Affective State
Proton Pseudos: False Connections between Ideas and Affect
Freud's Dilemma: The Relationship between Psychology and Physiology
5. Information-Processing Systems and the Relationship between Psychology and Physiology
The Concept of Reduction
Information Theory
Shannon's Concept of Information and Information in a Wider Sense
Basic Features of an Elementary Cybernetic System
The Computer: Cognitive Representations in a Machine
The Relationship between Program and Machine
The Relationship between Psychology and Physiology
Summary
6. Fitting Affect into the Model
Freud's Dilemma and a Solution
Affect as a Multileveled Phenomenon
Arousal
Involuntary Motor Responses
Experience of Affect: an Evaluation Process
Control of Emotional Expression
Abreaction: the Function of Emotional Expression
Summary
7. Working-over
Working-over in the Theory of Abreaction
Fitting Working-over into the Model
Abreaction, Working-over, and the Principle of Constancy
Programming Working-over: Reproduction
8. Memory
Freud's Conception of Memory
Fitting Episodic Memory into the Model
9· Symptom Formation
Introduction
Anxiety Neurosis
Obsessional Ideas
Hysterical Symptom Formation
Summary
10. Epilogue
Bibliography
Author Index
Subject Index
Product details
- No. of pages: 316
- Language: English
- Copyright: © Academic Press 1985
- Published: January 28, 1985
- Imprint: Academic Press
- eBook ISBN: 9781483272290
About the Author
Cornelis Wegman
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