Miriam Pierce, CSW, FIPA, BCD-P

Freud’s Model of the Mind and Its Significance for Modern Life

Pondering the question of cultural theory and Freud’s model of the mind, what came to my mind was the case of a former patient; a young Latin American woman seeking a successful career as an artist, living on her own in New York City in a neighborhood that embodied the ethnic and cultural diversity of this modern-day city.  She worked and studied with a group of artists who, like her, came from other countries and who, in the main, lived as struggling students.  Like Frida Kahlo, the Mexican artist whose father was European and mother a native Mexican, my patient explored her diverse heritage through her creative art.  She was very interested in her own internal turmoil as well as the political turmoil within both her family of origin and in her country’s history in dealing with the “primitive” native and colonial European heritage.

My patient came for help because, following the recent breakup of a long-term relationship with a boyfriend, she was suffering with panic attacks, an inability to sleep, and intensive homophobic fears.  She was in her mid-twenties, and had not had any lesbian concerns until the breakup.  While she had friends who were gay, she had never felt interested in sexual relationships with women and the thought felt alien to her.  I believed that the intensity of the anxiety she experienced indicated that these fears had exposed underlying identity concerns not dealt with during her childhood and adolescence.

Her maternal native Latin American grandmother had married a European businessman and thus the family spanned two cultural worlds.  Her parents were divorced when she was three years old, and, as her mother worked long hours, she spent a good part of her childhood in her maternal grandparents’ home.  She had visited with her birth father during summer holidays but had a distant relationship with him during her childhood.  Now when she visited her family she stayed with her maternal grandparents.  The short clinical vignette that follows takes place after a six week trip to visit her family in Latin America.  In her family women are expected to marry in their early twenties.  They would question her about her unmarried status, and disapproved of her lifestyle in New York.  Prior to her leave taking, she worked in therapy to prepare and fortify herself for the reunion and the anticipated criticism. 

In the first session following her family visit, she reported that she had been able to experience a rapprochement with her mother.  While she found her mother physically distant and non-nurturing, she was nevertheless able to appreciate her mother’s intelligence, while recognizing her emotional limitations.  This ability to see her mother through different ‘lenses’ came about after an experience she had participated in with her artist friends.  In her country there is a drug practice that purports to offer a mind-expanding and mind-cleansing opportunity, the native equivalent of a growth experience.  She had previously been reluctant to participate, but this time felt compelled to do so by her friends.

The participants sat in a circle with a shaman at the center beating a drum while the drug was given.  He chanted a rhythm, which seemed to move from his belly upwards.  This drug and the accompanying rhythm appeared to induce vomiting on cue, while the participants were mesmerized by the chanting.  My patient felt as though she was experiencing her own birth, which was violent, and then gradually less so, but nevertheless a primal, primitive experience.  Then, as in a dream, she felt she was being chased by a devil-like figure, but when she turned to look she identified the attacker as herself. 

Upon her return, in the reunion with me she was relieved to be able to recapture the sense of constancy that we had established before she left for this extended break.  She noted that she had felt at the time that she could recover from her drug-induced hallucinatory experience by keeping me in mind, knowing that she would be returning soon to our sessions.  We approached this material as we would a dream, my patient associating to the images and her affective responses.  While proceeding with our analytic work, I kept in mind Freud’s tripartite model of the mind, as elaborated in “The Ego and the Id.”  This model informed the primitive psychic world that my patient was frightened of and alone in.  Volume 19 of the Standard Edition not only begins with “The Ego and the Id,” it also contains articles which explore a 17th century demonological neurosis, a possession by the devil.  Freud discusses the psychological meaning of the pact with the devil as a way of overcoming a sense of powerlessness.  My patient recognized the attacker demon within herself; working with me provided the background of safety she needed to allow herself to explore these persecutory anxieties. 

I understood the attacker in her dream state as the primitive aspect of her superego.  She had made a pact with the ‘demon devil’ aspect of her id. This was revealed during the course of her treatment as material surfaced not heretofore revealed.  Her self reflecting ego capacities gave her a new perspective and the therapeutic alliance allowed her to explore deeper and earlier trauma, alleviating the intensity of her anxiety and guilt. 

Freud’s tripartite model of the mind informed the clinical work with my patient—a young modern woman living in a modern world, bridging the cultures in which she was raised—and, I believe, it continues to be a relevant model for our practices in the 21st century.

REFERENCES

Freud, S. (1923). The Ego and the Id. SE 19:13-56.
_______ (1923). A Seventeenth Century Demonological Neurosis. SE 19:73-105.

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