Psycho-sexual analysis, repression, the subconscious and the id, ego, and super-ego are all concepts that can be attributed to Sigmund Freud. They are all also aspects and concepts we see illustrated in his Interpretation of Dreams, a two-case description of two clients and an interpretation of each of their dreams. Freud interpreted all dreams as some form of wish-fulfillment, and the two clients in this work come to him believing that their dreams disprove the theory of wish fulfillment. In the passage under analysis here, from chapter four in the book, entitled ôDistortion in Dreams,ö Freud (1976) discusses ôcounter-wish dreams.ö Published in 1900, FreudÆs book created enormous controversy, as many criticized his methods of dream interpretation as pseudo-science. In this passage, Freud (1976) contends that individuals, who wish to prove him wrong by showing their dreams are frustrated in a dream, are in a ôstate of resistance.ö The work relates to French culture in that Freud used his government grant to spend 19 weeks working in Paris under the French neurologist, Jean Charcot. CharcotÆs use of hypnosis on mental patients, as a way to deal with hysteria and nervous disorders, influence Freud and led him to believe some problems arise from the psyche of an individual.
The passage under analysis comes after Freud provides a background on the literature dealing the dream analysis. Freud (1976) then provides his method of interpreting dreams, where he proposes to show that dreams are interpretable and that he disagrees with the ôprevailing doctrine of dreams.ö Freud argues in the chapter before this passage that dreams represent an outlet for wish-fulfillment. Freud did not believe that dreams followed any type of rational process. Freud believed that the interplay among the id, ego, and super-ego are responsible for thoughts or images being repressed from our conscio
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