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SCIENCE IN THE NEWS - How Sigmund Freud Changed What People Thought of the MindBy Brianna Blake

Broadcast: Tuesday, May 02, 2006

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VOICE ONE:

This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I'm Bob Doughty¹.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Barbara Klein. Sigmund Freud is on a lot of minds. This week is the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of his birth.


Sigmund Freud

VOICE ONE:

So this is a good time to talk about his influence on the treatment of mental disorders² through psychotherapy.

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VOICE TWO:

Sigmund Freud was born May sixth, eighteen fifty-six, in Moravia, in what is now the Czech Republic. He lived most of his life in Vienna, Austria.

Freud studied medicine. By the end of the nineteenth century, he was developing some exciting new ideas about the human mind.

Yet his first scientific publications dealt with sea animals, including the sexuality of eels⁴.

VOICE ONE:

Freud was one of the first scientists to make serious research of the mind. The mind is the collection of activities based in the brain that involve how we act, think, feel and reason.

He used long talks with patients and the study of dreams to search for the causes of mental and emotional problems. He also tried hypnosis. He wanted to see if putting patients into a sleep-like condition would help ease troubled minds. In most cases he found the effects only temporary.

Freud worked hard, although what he did might sound easy. He sat with his patients and listened. He had them talk about whatever they were thinking. All ideas, thoughts -- anything that entered their mind had to be expressed.

There could be no holding back because of fear or guilt⁵.

VOICE TWO:

Freud believed that all the painful memories of childhood lay buried in the unconscious self. This part of the mind, he said, contains wishes, desires and experiences too frightening to recognize.

If these memories could somehow be brought into the conscious mind, the patient would again feel the pain. But this time the person would experience them as an adult. The patient would feel them, be able to examine them and, if successful, finally understand them.

In this way, Freud reasoned, the pain and emotional pressure of the past would be greatly weakened. They would lose their hold over the person's physical health. Soon the patient would get better.

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VOICE ONE:

Sigmund Freud saw the mind as divided into three parts: the id, the ego⁶ and the superego.

Under this theory, the superego acts as a restraint. It is governed by the values we learn from our parents and society. The job of the superego is to help keep the id under control.

The id is completely unconscious. It provides the energy for feelings that demand the immediate⁷ satisfaction of needs and desires.

The ego provides the immediate reaction to the events of reality. The ego is the first line of defense⁸ between the self and the outside world. It tries to balance the two extremes of the id and the superego.

VOICE TWO:

Many of Freud's theories about how the mind works also had strong sexual³ connections. These included what he saw as the repressed feelings of sons toward their mothers and daughters toward their fathers.

If nothing else, Freud's ideas were revolutionary. Some people rejected them. Many others came to accept them. But no one disputes his great influence on the science of mental health.

Professor James Gray at American University in Washington says three of Freud's major ideas are still part of modern thinking about the mind.

One is the idea of the unconscious mind. Another is that we do not necessarily know what drives us to do the things we do. And the third is that we are formed more than we think in the first five years, but not necessarily the way Freud thought.

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VOICE ONE:

Doctor Freud was trained as a neurologist. He treated disorders of the nervous system. But physical sickness can hide deeper problems. His studies on the causes and treatment of mental disorders helped form many ideas in psychiatry⁹. Psychiatry is the area of medicine that treats mental and emotional conditions.

Freud would come to be called the father of psychoanalysis.

VOICE TWO:

Psychoanalysis is a method of therapy. It includes discussion and investigation¹⁰ of hidden fears and conflicts.

Sigmund Freud used free association. He would try to get his patients to free their minds and say whatever they were thinking. He also used dreams and other methods to try to explore unconscious fears and desires.

His version of psychoanalysis remained the one most widely used until at least the nineteen fifties.

VOICE ONE:

Psychoanalysis is rarely used in the United States anymore. One reason is that it takes a long time; the average length in the United States is about five years. Patients usually have to pay for it themselves. Health insurance plans rarely pay for this form of therapy.

Psychoanalysis has its supporters as well as its critics. Success rates are difficult to measure. Psychoanalysts say this is because each individual case, after all, is different.

VOICE TWO:

More recently, a number of shortened¹¹ versions of psychological therapy have been developed. Some examples are behavior therapy, cognitive¹² therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy. Behavior is actions; cognition is knowing and judging.

Some patients in therapy want to learn to find satisfaction in what they do. Others want to unlearn behaviors that only add to their problems.

There might be a lot of talk about the past. Or patients might be advised to think less about the past and more about the present, and the future.

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VOICE ONE:

Other kinds of therapy involve movement, dance, art, music or play. These are used to help patients who have trouble talking about their emotions.

In many cases, therapy today costs less than it used to. But the length of treatment depends on the problem. Some therapies, for example, call for twenty or thirty visits.

How long people continue their therapy can also depend on the cost. People find that health plans are often more willing to pay for short-term therapies than for longer-term treatments.

VOICE TWO:

Mental health experts say therapy can often help patients suffering from depression, severe stress or other conditions.

For some patients, they say, a combination of talk therapy and medication works best. Today there are many different drugs for depression, anxiety and other mental and emotional disorders.

Critics, however, say doctors are sometimes too quick to give medicine instead of more time for talk therapy. Again, cost pressures are often blamed.

Mental health problems can affect work, school and life in general. Yet they often go untreated. In many cases, people do not want others to know.

VOICE ONE:

Mental disorders are common to all countries. The World Health Organization estimates that mental, neurological or behavioral problems affect four hundred fifty million people at any given time.

The W.H.O. says these disorders have major economic and social costs. Yet governments face difficult choices about health care spending. The W.H.O. says most poor countries spend less than one percent of their health budgets on mental health.

There are treatments now for most conditions. Still, the W.H.O. says there are two major barriers. One is lack of recognition¹³ of the seriousness of the issue. The other is lack of understanding of the services that exist.

VOICE TWO:

The father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, died on September twenty-third, nineteen thirty-nine.

Freud left Vienna soon after troops from Nazi¹⁴ Germany entered Austria in nineteen thirty-eight. The Nazis¹⁵ had a plan to kill all the Jews of Europe, but they permitted Freud to go to England. His four sisters remained in Vienna and were all killed in Nazi camps.

VOICE ONE:

Freud was eighty-three years old when he died in London after a struggle with cancer. Anna Freud, the youngest of his six children, became a noted¹⁶ psychoanalyst herself.

Before Sigmund Freud, no modern scientist had looked so deeply into the human mind.

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VOICE TWO:

SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Brianna Blake and produced by Cynthia Kirk. I'm Barbara Klein.

VOICE ONE:

And I'm Bob Doughty. Read and listen to our programs at www.unsv.com. And listen again next week for more news about science, in Special English, on the Voice of America.

1 doughty   

adj.勇猛的，坚强的

参考例句：

• Most of successful men have the characteristics of contumacy and doughty.绝大多数成功人士都有共同的特质：脾气倔强，性格刚强。
• The doughty old man battled his illness with fierce determination.坚强的老人用巨大毅力与疾病作斗争。

2 disorders   

n.混乱( disorder的名词复数 )；凌乱；骚乱；（身心、机能）失调

参考例句：

• Reports of anorexia and other eating disorders are on the increase. 据报告，厌食症和其他饮食方面的功能紊乱发生率正在不断增长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The announcement led to violent civil disorders. 这项宣布引起剧烈的骚乱。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 sexual   

adj.性的，两性的，性别的

参考例句：

• He was a person of gross sexual appetites.他是个性欲旺盛的人。
• It is socially irresponsible to refuse young people advice on sexual matters.拒绝向年轻人提供性方面的建议是对社会不负责任。

4 eels   

abbr. 电子发射器定位系统（=electronic emitter location system）

参考例句：

• Eels have been on the feed in the Lower Thames. 鳗鱼在泰晤士河下游寻食。
• She bought some eels for dinner. 她买回一些鳗鱼做晚餐。

5 guilt   

n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责

参考例句：

• She tried to cover up her guilt by lying.她企图用谎言掩饰自己的罪行。
• Don't lay a guilt trip on your child about schoolwork.别因为功课责备孩子而使他觉得很内疚。

6 ego   

n.自我，自己，自尊

参考例句：

• He is absolute ego in all thing.在所有的事情上他都绝对自我。
• She has been on an ego trip since she sang on television.她上电视台唱过歌之后就一直自吹自擂。

7 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

• His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
• We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。

8 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

9 psychiatry   

n.精神病学，精神病疗法

参考例句：

• The study appeared in the Amercian science Journal of Psychiatry.这个研究发表在美国精神病学的杂志上。
• A physician is someone who specializes in psychiatry.精神病专家是专门从事精神病治疗的人。

10 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

11 shortened   

v.弄短，缩短( shorten的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She shortened the skirt by an inch. 她把裙子缩短了一英寸。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Vacations have lengthened and the work week has shortened. 假期延长，工作周就缩短了。 来自辞典例句

12 cognitive   

adj.认知的，认识的，有感知的

参考例句：

• As children grow older,their cognitive processes become sharper.孩子们越长越大，他们的认知过程变得更为敏锐。
• The cognitive psychologist is like the tinker who wants to know how a clock works.认知心理学者倒很像一个需要通晓钟表如何运转的钟表修理匠。

13 recognition   

n.承认，认可，认出，认识

参考例句：

• The place has changed beyond recognition.这地方变得认不出来了。
• A sudden smile of recognition flashed across his face.他脸上掠过一丝笑意，表示认识对方。

14 Nazi   

n.纳粹分子，adj.纳粹党的，纳粹的

参考例句：

• They declare the Nazi regime overthrown and sue for peace.他们宣布纳粹政权已被推翻，并出面求和。
• Nazi closes those war criminals inside their concentration camp.纳粹把那些战犯关在他们的集中营里。

15 Nazis   

n.（德国的）纳粹党员( Nazi的名词复数 )；纳粹主义

参考例句：

• The Nazis worked them over with gun butts. 纳粹分子用枪托毒打他们。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The Nazis were responsible for the mass murder of Jews during World War Ⅱ. 纳粹必须为第二次世界大战中对犹太人的大屠杀负责。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。