Psychoanalysis and Cognitive Psychology

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"".

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