ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 introduces both Sigmund Freud, father of psychoanalysis, and his youngest daughter, Anna Freud, an important psychoanalytic theorist in her own right. In the early twentieth century, Freud proposed a theory of the human mind that was to start a revolution in modern psychological thought. Freud suggested that the main causes of “hysteria” and neurosis (both common terms for mental disorders in Freud’s day) were actually hidden thoughts and memories (often of trauma) that he characterized as “the unconscious.” To Freud, these unconscious feelings, impulses, and memories were a major influence on the otherwise conscious behavior of human beings. He created a new model for the human psyche, one that included the conscious thoughts and identity (“ego”), as well as two major realms of the unconscious: the “id,” filled with primal drives such as root sexual desires and violence, and the “superego,” which was responsible for controlling such impulses. Anna Freud furthered her father’s work by contributing additional theories about defense mechanisms and childhood development. The chapter includes a number of exercises for the actor based on both Freuds’ work.
