7. Illusions and Discontents: Psychoanalysis and Religion

“…the question confronting mankind is the abolition of repression––in traditional Christian language, the resurrection of the body.” Norman O. Brown

Freud claims that religion is the product of the human desire to have wishes fulfilled; that through religion we project what we long to be the case against what reality and/or society permits. Religion is thus an illusion. He considers the religious belief in God the perfect father to be a repressed compensation for our own imperfect fathers––this perpetuates the infantile longing for a perfectly loving parental figure. Religion, in other words, retards human development and interferes with the larger goal of attaining human maturity. While science aims to be clear about what is real and what is illusion, religion blurs this distinction and is symptomatic of mass repression. But is Freudian psychoanalysis really so dismissive of faith? This essay attempts to uncover the complex and subtle psychoanalytical view of religion.

For Freud the unconscious begins with repression––when an individual refuses to admit real desires and thoughts to conscious life; when he or she refuses to recognise his or her true nature. Dreams and neurotic symptoms which interrupt into the conscious domain do not give a perfect image of the unconscious thought of an individual, but they do give sufficient evidence that it exists in the form of a conflict between two psychic forces. Freud extends this into a theory of human nature, claiming that the repressed unconscious is present in all human beings and that we are all therefore neurotic in some way or another. Mental health then is a normative judgement about the social acceptability of the neurosis of a given case.

Where Descartes and the Enlightenment claimed that the foundation of human nature rested in reason and pure thought, Freud posited that the driving force behind the universal and fundamental realm of unconscious repression is desire. Thus, psychoanalysis effectively destroys the concept of pure reason as fundamental to human nature and demonstrates that it is desire above all else that motivates our psychology: I desire, therefore I am. Freud posits ‘the pleasure principle’ which claims that, above all, our psychic energy is concerned with the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. However, this desire for pleasure is at odds with the rest of the world; the pleasure-principle is in conflict with the reality-principle, and it is this that is at the root of repression. But the pleasure principle holds fast in the unconscious, evidencing itself in reality through dreams and symptomatic behaviour. In this view, the conscious self can be understood as the surface mediator between our inner desiring selves and the outer world––governed by the reality principle, the conscious self is a largely linguistic psychological apparatus which allows for acculturation. Indeed, it has often been said that Freud srtikes a fatal third blow to the notion of human dignity. Like Copernicus and Darwin, who respectively shattered mankind’s assumptions about his elite place in the cosmos and nature, Freud’s claims remove humanity from its special position in consciousness and sheds doubt on the assumption that we are the masters of our own minds. Because emotions are necissarily fragmented by feeling, understanding and, ultimately, by the expressive form they take, Freud also questions the assumption that our understanding of the meaning of our emotions is consistent. Indeed, cultural and social variables could play and enormous role here as well. Considering this perspective it is very difficult to understand emotion as simply an internal mental state whose nature and meaning is secure.

Freud was clearly inspired by Darwinian thought and early on he identified the reality-principle with the “struggle for existence”, implying that, in essence, psychological repression was due to economic factors––the need to work. Later on Freud constructs a more complicated theory which claims that man, in effect, represses himself by creating civilisation. Freud came to the conclusion that mankind creates society, society imposes repression, repression is the cause of universal neurosis; and thus there is an intrinsic relationship between civilisation and neurosis. From this basic concept of universal repression comes Freud’s tripartite theory of the psyche and its constituent structural elements: id, ego and superego.

Freud divided the id (instinct and internal desire) into two parts: Eros (life, desire) and Thanatos (death). Eros is related to instincts that are crucial to pleasurable survival, such as eating and copulation––the instinct an infant has to suckle, or the drive the adult has for sex. Thanatos most clearly represents an unconscious wish to die––to put the struggles of life to an end. Freud also posited a relationship between the death instinct and our desire to escape reality through media, fiction, alcohol and drugs and religion. Thus the id is the source of our most fundamental drives for food, sex and agression––it is atemporal, amoral, egocentric and illogical. It is the home of the libido and is essentially infantile in nature. Indeed, Freud saw the mind of an infant to be all id: a collection of impulses and desires directed by instinct which demand immediate satisfaction.

Mediation between the external world the id and the superego is carried out by the ego. While it allows for the conscious expression of some instinctive desires from the id––depending on their perceived consequences––, the ego’s primary function is the protection of the individual. When id desire conflicts with reality or the individual’s internalisation of society’s morals, norms, and taboos, defence mechanisms are often used by the ego. Psychoanalysis structures these mechanisms on four levels with level one being the most pathological and four the most normal or healthy.

The mechanisms included in level one are viewed as psychotic and include: denial, distortion and delusional projection. These mechanisms arise form the ego when reality is too disturbing or threatening to accept; they permit a delusional reshaping of reality and effectively eliminate the need to cope with it. While the pathological use of these level one mechanisms may render the adult individual insane to others, they are also a healthy part of dreams and childhood psychology.

In an attempt to deal with anxiety provoked by threatening people or by uncertain or uncomfortable reality, level two mechanisms include: projection, paranoia, prejudice, idealisation of others, jealousy, passive aggression, somatization and acting out. Behaviour of these types are often seen in severe depression and personality disorders. In adolescence, however, the occurrence of all of these defences is normal. Those who use these defences habitually are often viewed as immature, difficult to deal with or out of touch with reality.

Level three mechanisms, while common amongst adults, can often cause problems in relationships, work and life in genera when used as the primary style of coping with the world. Displacement, dissociation, intellectualisation, reaction formation and repression are all common at this level.

Finally, level four mechanisms include altruism, anticipation, humour, identification, introjection, sublimation, and suppression. These mechanisms are considered by psychoanalysis to be mature and indicative of the healthy adult; and while they may have their origins in immature responses, they have been adapted over the years in order to optimise pleasure and mastery. The deployment of these mechanisms allows the subject to integrate conflicting emotions and thoughts while still remaining effective; and as a result, persons using these mechanisms are viewed as having virtues. (see glossary below)

Additionally Freud posited a super-ego, which opposes the id and tends to control the ego. The symbolic voice of the father, the super-ego dictates cultural rules, morality and taboo; and plays a large part in instantiating guilt. It is born out of the Oedipus complex: a stage of psycho sexual development in childhood where children of both sexes regard their father as an adversary and competitor for the exclusive love of their mother. In Civilisation and Its Discontents, Freud extends this idea to society by presenting a “cultural super-ego.” For Freud mankind is caught between civilisation’s demand for conformity and the individual desire for freedom. The culture of civilisation inhibits man’s instinctual drives, which results in feelings of non fulfilment. Additionally, Freud maintains that while human beings are inherently savage, our aggression is weakened and disarmed by civilisation which imbues us with a sense of guillt––the mechanism by which cultural norms are enforced.

The position that all of mankind is neurotic and that at the core of humanity is pure savage aggression is certainly a difficult concept to accept. At first glance it seems to throw history into darkness and mankind into a homogenous and undesirable state. Certainly, this is a questionable assumption. It is important, however, that we consider the context in which Freud was writing. World War I must have had an important impact on his central observation about the tension between the individual and civilisation. Europe, coming out of a relatively stable period, was entering a period of what must have seemed like catastrophic change––the very foundations of modernity were crumbling and, with the shock of a world war, the future would have seemed very uncertain indeed. Freud must have seen symptoms this anxiety in his patients and the society at large. Additionally, we should keep in mind that there are certain types of neurosis which psychoanalysis claims can serve a practical role during the historical development of a society. These different neuroses have different sets of symptoms and different structures with regards to the relation between the repressed, the ego, and reality. Freud claims that there is a co-relation between cultural variation and types of neurosis. In Civilisation and its Discontents he writes:

“If the evolution of civilisation has such far reaching similarity with the development of an individual, and the same methods are employed in both, would not the diagnosis be justified that many systems of civilisation––or epochs of it––possibly even the whole of humanity––have become ‘neurotic’ under the pressure of civilising trends? To analytic dissection of these neuroses therapeutic recommendations might follow which could claim great practical interest.”

Freud viewed neurosis as being dynamic because of the weak nature of neurotic compromise; he saw neurosis as a psychological process with profound historical implications. Left to itself, Freud viewed the pattern of this process as regressive, always moving towards the source of repression. In the dreams and symptoms expressed by his patients, he saw themes and images that were intrinsically linked to the ritualistic and mythical history of humanity. Thus, for Freud, the link between history and neurosis is religion. The mistake has often been made that Freud’s statement that religion is a “substitute-gratification” and Marx’s view that religion is “the opiate of the masses” mean essentially the same thing. While a surface reading of Freud could certainly give the impression that psychoanalysis views religion simply and only as a mistaken manifestation of wish fulfilment, we must consider that the Freudian concept of “substiute-gratification” also contains truth: distorted by repression, substitute-gratifications express the very real and timeless desires of the human soul.

Psychoanalysis views religion as a neurosis as well as an attempt to cure that neurosis from the inside. Freud’s position is that religion has tamed antisocial instincts and created a sense of community around a shared set of beliefs, thus helping the civilisation. However, it has also exacted an enormous psychological cost to the individual by making him perpetually subordinate to the primal father figure of God. Thus the fundamental positive psychoanalytical understanding of history can be seen as a process of gaining maturity, or independence from our self-instantiated psychological apparatus (religion). However, as Freud points out in the dark conclusion of Civilisation and its Discontents, regression is possible as well. For Freud it is the task of psychoanalysis to complete what religion has failed to do: overcome the repressed infantile neurosis of the individual and society and allow mankind to emerge as a mature entity.

Freud here is consistent, for if we examine his levels of ego defence mechanisms we find a correlation between the the most pathological or infantile mechanisms in level one with the most delusional and dogmatic aspects of religion. But religiously inspired thought has shown itself capable, especially via the individual, to rise and exhibit the altruism and other qualities associated with level four responses. However, these individual cases or small groups are easily reabsorbed into the dominant delusional ideology. For Freud, a psychoanalytical study of the individual, civilisation and history is crucial if mankind is achieve its ideal––to move beyond these historically necessary but ultimately dangerous neurotic illusions.

While Freud makes clear that it is desire that rules the human condition, for him it is science above all that offers mankind a humble place of reflection on his place in the world. Thus, psychoanalysis in the grandest sense, is a study of the fundamental unsatisfied and repressed desires which drive history; it is a science of history that takes up where Marx leaves off. Economic determinism rests on the tacit assumption that economic progress is driven by needs that are fully conscious and ultimately biologically determined. In Freud’s view, however, history gives ample evidence that man is never fully satisfied with the satiation of conscious desire––psychoanalysis offers a way out of destructive neurosis and endless discontent. Where Marx begins with the grand narrative of opposing economic forces in society, Freud’s dialectical struggle begins with in the individual case. The goal of psychoanalysis is to deepen the historical understanding of the individual and thereby the society so that mankind may “awaken” from his own history as if from a nightmare; to engage life rather than history; or, as Norman O. Brown puts it, “to enter the state of Being which was the goal of his Becoming.”

While the Freudian model of psychoanalysis is an elegant and, in an of itself, consistent system of thought, it rests on certain assumptions and comes to certain conclusions which have not only seen it discredited as science but have also raised the ire of feminists and anthropologists alike. His conclusions about the psycho sexual development of children and claims about the universality of the Oedipus complex have attracted harsh criticism; and, looking at Freud’s ideas in retrospect, it is difficult to separate them from the man and his times. Still, it is difficult to deny that Freud was on to something big. Psychoanalysis has not only spawned an enormous legacy but has also profoundly influenced 20th century thought across a wide variety of domains, from education to advertising. But what of this ‘promise’ of psychoanalysis? What of this claim that psychoanalysis might rid mankind of this ‘disease’ that is history in which religion plays such a pivotal role? Freudian psychoanalysis and the economic determinism of Marx both engage in the kind of prophetic historical vision inspired by Hegel and a dialectical interpretation Darwin’s ideas. Marx offers a clear and inevitable––albeit erroneous––outcome to the process of economic determinism; Freud, however, remains vague about the nature of the final rapprochement of psychological forces which have plagued mankind since the inception of society. For psychoanalysis, it seems, the final, positive state of mankind would be one free of repression; but does this not ultimately require a final and eternal subsumption of eros and thanatos? an eternal reconciliation of life and death; conscious and unconscious; physical and psychic? Is this not, in a sense, a resurrection? Clearly, the ultimate Freudian vision for psychoanalysis is no less mythical or grand than that of Christianity. It is nothing less than the salvation of mankind.

“…because the body is satisfied, the death instinct no longer drives it to change itself and make history, and therefore, as Christian theology divined, its activity is in eternity.”
Norman O. Brown

There are several more episodes of this on You Tube under the name “Century of the Self”

READING: Freud’s various theories about the origins and nature of religion are presented in Totem and Taboo, The Future of an Illusion, and Moses and Monotheism.
See also: Norman O. Brown, Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History.

Ego Defence Mechanisms, Glossary of Terms:

Level 1

Delusional Projection: Gross delusions about external reality, usually paranoid in nature.

Denial: Refusal to accept external reality because it is too threatening; refusing to perceive or consciously acknowledge the more unpleasant aspects of external reality.

Distortion: A reshaping of external reality to meet internal needs.

Level 2

Projection: a primitive form of paranoia; also reduces anxiety by allowing the expression of the undesirable impulses or desires without becoming consciously aware of them; attributing one’s own unacknowledged unacceptable/unwanted thoughts and emotions to another; includes severe prejudice, severe jealousy, hyper vigilance to external danger, and “injustice collecting”; shifting one’s unacceptable thoughts, feelings and impulses within oneself onto someone else, such that those same thoughts, feelings, beliefs and motivations are perceived as being possessed by the other.

Acting out: Direct expression of an unconscious wish or impulse without conscious awareness of the emotion that drives that expressive behaviour. Fantasy: retreat into fantasy in order to resolve inner and outer conflicts. Hypochondriasis (a.k.a. somatization): The transformation of negative feelings towards others into negative feelings toward the self

Passive aggression: Aggression towards others expressed indirectly or passively.

Idealisation: Subconsciously choosing to perceive another individual as having more positive qualities than they may actually have.

Level 3

Intellectualisation: A form of isolation; concentrating on the intellectual components of a situations so as to distance oneself from the associated anxiety-provoking emotions; separation of emotion from ideas; thinking about wishes in formal, affectively bland terms and not acting on them; avoiding unacceptable emotions by focusing on the intellectual aspects.

Displacement: shifts sexual or aggressive impulses to a more acceptable or less threatening target; redirecting emotion to a safer outlet; separation of emotion from its real object and redirection of the intense emotion toward someone or something that is less offensive or threatening in order to avoid dealing directly with what is frightening or threatening.

Reaction Formation: Converting unconscious wishes or impulses that are perceived to be dangerous into their opposites; behaviour that is completely the opposite of what one really wants or feels; taking the opposite belief because the true belief causes anxiety. This defence can work effectively for coping in the short term, but will eventually break down.

Dissociation: Temporary drastic modification of one’s personal identity or character to avoid emotional distress; separation or postponement of a feeling that normally would accompany a situation or thought.

Repression: Process of pulling thoughts into the unconscious and preventing painful or dangerous thoughts from entering consciousness; seemingly unexplainable naiveté, memory lapse or lack of awareness of one’s own situation and condition; the emotion is conscious, but the idea behind it is absent.

Level 4

Introjection: Identifying with some idea or object so deeply that it becomes a part of that person

Sublimation: Transformation of negative emotions or instincts into positive actions, behaviour, or emotion.

Altruism: Constructive service to others that brings pleasure and personal satisfaction.

Anticipation: Realistic planning for future discomfort

Humour: Overt expression of ideas and feelings (especially those that are unpleasant to focus on or too terrible to talk about) that gives pleasure to others. Humour enables someone to call a spade a spade, while “wit” is a form of displacement.

Identification: The unconscious modelling of one’s self upon another person’s character and behaviour.

Suppression: The conscious process of pushing thoughts into the preconscious; the conscious decision to delay paying attention to an emotion or need in order to cope with the present reality; able to later access uncomfortable or distressing emotions and accept them