ABSTRACT
The creative products of human endeavor as they are expressed in culture evolve in response to the needs of the times. This is also true of psychological theories, whose particular orientation is in large part a reflection of sociopsychological conditions. In Freud’s time, the repressive nature of social and sexual mores dictated values that called for excessive emotional restraint, especially in the realm of sexuality. The result for many persons was psychological conflict so severe that it was expressed in neurotic symptoms whose origin remained unknown, since the socially unacceptable emotion was relegated to the unconscious. The discovery of the dynamic unconscious—that is, that the repressive social influences of the outer world were internalized, came into conflict with instinctual wishes and caused repression within the person’s psychic life—was Freud’s great achievement. It led to an explanation of the life of the mind in terms of conflict between the gratification of drives and the dictates of ego and superego and was referred to as a conflict psychology.
