are never fully eliminated. Rather, they are merely repressed and have the poten-
tial to influence our behavior later in life in a number of ways. Businessmenwho aggressively go after rivals are said to be expressing Oedipal urges left
over from their earlier competition with their father.
After resolving the Oedipus complex, the child passes into the latency
stage . Sexual desires abate during these years. Boys and girls seem fairly unin-
terested in each other during the latency stage. A look at any playground will
verify that boys play with other boys and girls play with other girls. But all ofthat changes with puberty. Erogenous urges return and are focused in the
adult genital regions. If a child has progressed to this genital stage without
leaving large amounts of libido fixated at earlier stages, normal sexual func-
tioning is possible.
Getting at Unconscious Material
At first glance, it would appear that Sigmund Freud created a problem forhimself. If the most important psychological material is buried in the uncon-
scious and therefore outside of our awareness, how can psychologists study
it? Moreover, how can a psychotherapist help his or her clients when the key
to understanding the client ’s problems is unavailable for inspection? Not sur-
prisingly, Freud had an answer to this dilemma. He maintained that strong id
impulses do not simply disappear when they are pushed out of consciousness.Although the true nature of these impulses is repressed by a strong ego, the
impulses are often expressed in a disguised or altered form. If psychologists
know what to look for, they can catch a glimpse of unconscious thoughts byobserving seemingly innocent behaviors. The following are seven techniques a
Freudian psychologist might use to get at unconscious material.
Dreams
Freud called dreams the “royal road to the unconscious. ”In 1900 he pub-
lished The Interpretation of Dreams, presenting for the first time a psycholog-
ical theory to explain the meaning of these nighttime dramas. According to
Freud, dreams provide id impulses with a stage for expression. They are, in
fact, a type of wish fulfillment; our dreams represent the things we desire.
This is not to say that we want the unpleasant and frightening things we
sometimes dream about to literally come true. Freud drew a distinction be-
tween the manifest content of a dream (what the dreamer sees and remem-
bers) and the latent content (what is really being said). Overt expression of
many unconscious desires would be difficult to face upon waking. That’ s
why they were repressed in the first place. However, these unacceptableimages can surface in disguise in our dreams. Freud maintained that many of
our unconscious thoughts and desires are represented symbolically. Dreams
involving penises, sexual intercourse, and vaginas might be threatening to thedreamer. But we would have no problem with a dream about fountains, air-
plane rides, or caves. “The dreamer does know what his dream means,”
Freud wrote. “Only he does not know that he knows it, and for that reason
thinks he does not know it ”(1916/1961, p. 101).“Innocent dreams …
are wolves in sheep ’s
clothing. They turn
out to be quite thereverse when we take
the trouble to analyze
them. ”
Sigmund FreudThe Freudian Theory of Personality 53