The Episode About Freud: Let's Get Freudian Slippery

In this episode, we explore the unconscious mind, defense mechanisms, psychosexual development, and the structure of personality—key concepts that appear across the NCE, NCMHCE, and social work licensure exams. Through clinical examples, exam-style questions, and practical teaching, this episode helps you move beyond memorization to true understanding. We also discuss how mental health practice is evolving alongside AI and emerging technology. Learn more and track your licensure progress with the Licensure Concierge app.

Transcript

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Let's take a trip to Vienna, late 1800s. Gas lamps flicker along narrow cobblestone streets, horse-drawn carriages pass quietly in the cold evening air. In a modest apartment, a physician sits surrounded by books, anatomical drawings, and ancient artifacts. His name is Sigmund Freud. At this time, mental illness is not treated through conversation. It is treated with restraints, with institutionalization, with speculation about weak moral character or nervous exhaustion. But Freud is beginning to notice something different. Patients, particularly women diagnosed with hysteria, present with paralysis, blindness, tremors, symptoms that have no identifiable medical causes, no tumors, no lesions, no physical injuries. Yet the symptoms are real. Freud begins to ask a radical question. What if the body is speaking when the mind cannot? What if symptoms are not random but meaningful? In 1895, Freud and Joseph Brouwer published studies on hysteria, introducing the idea that unconscious psychology conflicts conflicts can manifest physically. For the first time in Western medicine, the mind is positioned as the driver of symptoms. This moment marks the birth of psychoanalysis. And whether you love Freud or critique him in We Will Do Both today, you cannot understand the history of mental health without understanding this turning point. Freud did not just introduce new ideas, he changed how we conceptualized human behavior, symptoms, personality, and even the therapeutic relationship itself. Happy New Year! Yes, I know it is February, and I know that I put an episode out earlier this year in January. That was more of just a get off your butt and do an episode episode. Um, this one is my first official episode that I'm counting for the year. But if you're new here, my name is Matt Lawson. I'm a licensed professional counselor, coach, and educator. Um, this podcast exists for one simple reason to help you move from confusion to clarity as you prepare for licensure and stepping into career in the mental health profession. I'm really excited for this year, folks. Um, there are some really great changes coming to the podcast, and I think is going to just help more people. Um I let me just share with you um what I have planned for this year. First, if you've been listening, um you've heard me mention that uh Licensure Concieros app is up and is a resource and it's going. I've had uh some good um feedback already with the purchases that have gone through that. Um, it's looking really good so far. I am regularly working on updates to it, um, and I hope and I'm hoping to add new features to it this year as well. But it's helped, and it really is helped being a lot of people just track their hours and their continuing education, and that's really what I wanted to um do at baseline with this app. And please check it out. Um the link will be in the show notes um so you can take a look. Next up, I have been working on building more of a community, an online community for Licensure Lifeline. So this is something I, you know, that has been asked for and talked about um really since the show started. Um, but I've had multiple, many people write in asking, like, are there any resources online? Are there any student study groups online? Um, do I provide any type of coaching around studying? And this is something that I'm hoping will answer a lot of these questions. Um, this is going to be an online group where you can get into it, get a subscription, um, you know, meet other individuals that are studying for the test. Uh, I'll be hosting things like study groups. I'll be hosting um little online courses very similar to what I do in the podcast. Um, but it's I'm gonna make it a resource for people that are both studying and starting their career in mental health. But I will definitely get into more details as I get closer to being done with this. I'm hoping to launch it next month, and um you'll have links and all that stuff once it's uh up and going. Also, the podcast is going to be evolving. Um, you know, I really like the format of the podcast. I've gotten really good feedback about the format of the podcast. I want to make it more like almost like a masterclass where you really are like taking deeper dives into some of these topics. Um, it's not going to take away from what I'm what I've been doing here. Like I'm still gonna have like question, multiple choice questions and go over vignettes and things like that. Um, but I'm going to give more details on topics. This also means that the episodes are probably gonna be a little bit longer and they are going to, I'm gonna be releasing probably on a bi-weekly cadence, um, just to give me enough time to really put these episodes together the way I want to. But the core of the show is not going to change. I'm just gonna add more. And with that adding more, I'm also going to create um something where if people want to opt into like a longer show, um, you I'm I'm gonna offer some type of subscription um probably through something like Patreon, where you can get longer episodes um for for a subscription. And the last thing here, I'm working on a book. Um, I many of you have heard me talk about um, you know, like tech in the industry and things like that. And that is what the book is going to be about. Um, you know, I'm really interested in this area, the the melding of psychology and technology. So, you know, it's something that's very near and dear to me, something I'll be doing a lot of research on. But that will be out this summer. And as again, that gets closer, I'll give you more information on that as well. So lots of stuff going on this year. Um, I'm excited for uh for the podcast. You know, it's uh it really has just amazed me how much this has evolved and um just the feedback that I get is just is so great. And just I want to thank everybody for hanging with me. Um, I'm really hoping that people are getting a lot out of this and just nailing those tests. Um, I I know how much how nerve-wracking it was and has been over the years for me to take those tests, and I hope if anything, this just provides some level of comfort. So, on to this episode. Um, yeah, we're we're talking Freud today. So I'm going to start the beginning of the year going back to some of the main theorists in the field. Of course, I'm gonna kick things off with Freud. So that is going to be the main um the main topic today. But before we get into that, let's go into the news. I originally heard this story on NPR, um, but it was really interesting. Some of the reports that are coming out, some of the statistics that are coming out around how teens are using chatbots, but more and more are increasingly using AI chatbots as part of their emotional support, with both positive engagement and serious concerns emerging, right? Recent surveys found that more than one in eight adolescents and young adults used AI chatbots for mental health advice. And many users report engaging with them at least monthly. At the same time, psychologists and safety advocates are warning that these tools can create emotional dependence and reinforce unhelpful thinking patterns because they mimic relational responses without true clinical grounding. That is one of the aspects of using chatbots the way this it's being talked about here is the chatbot, they are they're the algorithms that they are based on meld to the person that is using them, right? So, you know, they they do, they learn, they understand, they start to understand your patterns, they understand the way you talk, the way you think, um, what you what you need. Like they the the the LLM is looking to please you, and it will do, it'll say and do things that it's it thinks is pleasing you. And I put things in quotation marks. Um, but it doesn't necessarily have a good grounding in sound mental health support. So again, something to really look for, especially if you are considering working with teens and adolescents. Um, you know, they have this convenient way now that they're being brought up around to get advice that has very low um barriers to entry for them, right? There's not really any emotional or psychological concern that they're going to be judged by talking to these things. So it makes it that much easier for them to talk. And right now, we're looking at chatbots that are at a level that can give seemingly emotional support. Um, that's false, um, right? I mean, this is not, it's not real emotional support, it's just what it thinks emotional support looks like. So it's it becomes a really important conversation to have with teens and young adults just around where they're getting their advice, what they're what they're talking to to learn about some of these things. Um definitely something to keep on your radar. Okay, from the tech world, let's go take a look at just the um some trends in the professional life of a mental health um therapist. So there's been a really striking analysis that highlights the broader healthcare workforce crisis that continues to impact patient care, including behavior health services. So we're seeing you know significant shortages in healthcare in general, but um even more so in behavior health. And you know, we're seeing a lot of policies uh around um financial support for behavior health just being cut right and left. Um, you know, it's it's interesting, like especially like at some of the a lot of the schools um in my area, they don't have um counselors on site anymore. They don't have school counselors. And, you know, it's it's it's one of those things it just gets so frustrating to see, um, especially after some type of tragedy at a school, you know, the first thing they do is talk about how it's how this is a mental health issue and how kids need more mental health support. Yet we're seeing these trends where they're just cutting funding for mental health services. So, you know, just talking toward advocacy, we need to advocate for ourselves, we need to advocate for our communities and find ways to provide this support that is always needed. All right, let's get into the main topic today, Sigmund Freud. So, you know, it doesn't matter what your modality is. Um, you know, it's it in modalities, uh most of us are become pretty eclectic anyway. Like you pull things from a bunch of different modalities. In psychoanalysis is no different. I I've I know very few individuals that are pure psychoanalysts, that are pure um utilizers of CBT, ACT, DBT. Um, everybody kind of draws from everything. So, you know, Freud does like these pieces that he came up with, even though some of them are very out of date and just um misinformed, um, the relevancy of what he did and what psychoanal an psychoanalysis continues to be is extremely relevant in modern times. Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist, so he got his start in medicine, right? Um practiced in the late 1800s and early 1900s. At the time, medicine focused almost entirely on physical explanations for illness, right? There was no sense that there's there was something going on in the brain that could be impacting the rest of the body. So psychologically, um psychology was suffering just poorly, like it was just doing poorly. Um, you know, people that exhibited um psychological issues were oftentimes just institutionalized. They were taken and put away from society, um, so they couldn't cause problems. Um but Freud proposed that much of human behavior is driven by unconscious processes, meaning that people are influenced by thoughts, memories, conflicts, motivations that they are not consciously aware of all the time. And just that statement, right? I mean, it just seems so like now today, I mean it's just like, yeah, of course, like our thoughts, our memories, conflicts in the past impact us, and there's you know, it could could have this underlying effect. But this wasn't necessarily a a thing back when Freud started practicing. So if you remember nothing else about Freud for the exams, remember this. Freud equals unconscious motivation plus early childhood plus internal conflict. Those are his things. So there is pillars that uh just really underline psycho psychoanalysis. Freud first described the mind using what he called the topographical model. This model divides in from awareness into awareness into three different levels. Um, so I'm sure you've seen um this that that uh picture of the iceberg. And so you have like the conscious mind, and that's above the water. This is what are what we're actively aware of, the thoughts, the feelings, perceptions happening right now. Then the pre-conscious mind, just below the surface, um, information you're not thinking about currently, but you can easily access um memories, learned information uh and in like stored knowledge, right? Um, then you have the unconscious mind. This is way deep underwater in that iceberg model. Um, this is Freud's most influential contribution. The unconscious contains repressed memories, unresolved traumas, unacceptable impulses, and internal conflicts. Freud believed psychological symptoms often develop when unconscious material tries to surface but is blocked by psychological defenses. It's pretty wild, right? So Freud thought that there was this conflict going on a lot of the times within our our brains, where these things that were pushed deep down were trying to resurface, reclaim attention, but psychological defenses are keeping them at bay, that forming walls, forming the fences around them. So think about this like a clinical example of this. A client develops unexplained anxiety around authority figures. Through therapy, they discover unresolved fear and anger toward critic um critical, a critical parent. Ferd would say that the anxiety is not random, but it is symbolic of an unresolved, unc unconscious conflict. So the reason this individual has issues with authority figures was because they had potentially an authoritarian parent in their life. And even though that's not a conscious thought for them, um, even you know, that might this might be safe, they may say something like, Yeah, I have no idea why I have issues with authority. Um, you know, being able to being able to explore that and exploring like how they were raised and what parents were like around them, like stuff like this can come out. A little tip for the exam: if a question mentions hidden motivations, symbolic patterns, or repressed experiences, Freud's usually the answer. But let's move on to another really significant um area for Freud, the structural model. So this is the id, the ego, and the superego. Freud later expanded his theory into what is called the structural model of personality. This is one of the most tested Freudian concepts that you'll see on the exam. So, first off, you have the id. ID, um, this is a that primitive instinctual part of the personality present from birth. Um, it operates on pleasure principles. The id wants immediate gratification of needs such as hunger, sex, aggression, and comfort. It does not consider logic consequences or morality. So, an example here, a toddler screams because they want a toy immediately, operating primarily from the id. So, yeah, like id, really young, just acting on instinct, um, you know, going to the most animalistic way of getting things done in your life. The superego. This represents internalized moral standards, social expectations, and um conscientiousness. It develops through parental and cultural influences. The super ego strives for perfection and can produce guilt or shame. I always remember this one. I would envision Superman um saving society, like that's social expectations. So Superman has that is grounded in social expectations, social standards. Um, so I that's one of the ways I always remember this. But an example might be a client feeling intense guilt or having angry thoughts toward a loved one that reflects superego influences. Last one here is the ego. Um, this is the mediator between the id and the superego um and the reality of the world. It operates on the reality principle. The ego attempts to satisfy the id's desires in a socially acceptable way while managing the superego's expectation. So the ego is the referee, right? Um, and I always thought about that, like a referee that has ego written across the front. The referee between the superego and the id. Clinical application here most psychological distress, according to Freud, occurs when the ego becomes overwhelmed, trying to manage the id and the superego. Next up with Freud, we have defense mechanisms. This is another really big one for him. So Freud believed when internal conflicts become overwhelming, the ego uses defense mechanisms to reduce anxiety. Defense mechanisms are unconscious strategies that distort reality to protect the individual from emotional distress. These are extremely high yield exam topics. Um there's a lot about defense mechanisms that are I've seen on the test. Um, first up, you have repression. So pushing the distressing memories out of conscious awareness. An example of this is a client who has no memory of early childhood trauma. They've repressed that memory. Projection attributes um one unacceptable feeling to someone else. So a client may project um something like hostility toward their partner, accusing their partner of being angry or aggressive. Um, you know, this so uh I'm sorry, a client that feels hostile toward their partner um may accuse them of being angry or aggressive. Displacement. This is redirecting emotional responses from the original source to a safer target. An example, yelling at a family, yelling at a family member after being criticized by a boss. So I'm sure you've heard that phrase, um, we hurt the one that's the ones that we love. This is a perfect example of displacement. Um people tend to feel more comfortable around loved ones, and it's easier for them to yell at, let's say, a family member where they know that they already know what the consequences are, versus yelling at a boss that has wronged them where their consequence may be getting fired and losing their income. Um, so that's displacement. Reaction formation, expressing the opposite of one's true feelings. So treating someone with um exaggerated kindness when harboring resentment, rationalization, um, that's creating a logical explanation to justify unacceptable behavior. That's an easy one. And it kind of says what it does, right? You rationalize. Denial is another the next one here, another really easy one, refusing to acknowledge reality or distressing facts. Um that's this is something that's kind of nice. You know, you see things like denial and um rationalization, because they're so upfront, they kind of say do what they they say, you know, it's it it is like you can it helps you be a little bit more strategic with what you need to uh memorize and learn. You can already like kind of check those off as like got those. Okay, let's get into psychosexual development. So Freud believed personality develops through five stages of childhood focused on pleasure-seeking zones. First up, you have the oral stage, birth one um birth to one year old, right? Um, this is you know, fat the focus around this is mouth and feeding, potential fixations that occur here, um dependency, substance use, overeating, and nail biting. I remember studying these in grad school, and I I hadn't really thought about it up to this point. I don't know why I would. Um like I guess I'd never really even heard of these stages, psychosexual stages until grad school. Um but if you think about like fetishes and things like that, it's really interesting to kind of consider you know how fetishes develop. Develop in individuals. And when you when you kind of consider like the psychosexual stages, it was something that you know I hadn't really thought about. And definitely like I had a couple of friends that were getting into sex therapy when we were in grad school. And it was just really interesting discussions around these things and the psychosexual stages. So next stage here, anal stage, ages one to three years old. Focused around this is toilet training, control, potential fixations, anal retentive, right? Rigid perfectionist controlling, anal explosive, messy, disorganized, impulsive. Next up, phallic stage, ages three to six years, focus on genital awareness and identification with same-sex partner. Freud proposed the Oedipus and the Electra complex during this stage as conflicts. Next up, you have the latency stage, ages six to puberty. So this focused on social and academic skill development. Sexual impulses are relatively dormant for the most part at this stage. Then the genital stage is adolescence and adulthood, mature relationships, and sexuality development. Um good exam memory here. Think OAP OAPLG. Umpal large oral anal phallic latency genital genital. OAPLG. Alright. Next up, transference and counter-transference. These two always these two things always kind of messed with me. So I'm hoping I can give you some some tips here to keep to remember them. So transference occurs when a client unconsciously redirects feelings from past relationships onto their therapist. An example might be a client begins viewing the therapist as a parental figure and reacts emotionally based on that history. Countertransference occurs when the therapist projects their own unresolved emotions onto the client. So, example, a therapist becomes overly protective of a client who reminds them of a younger sibling. The thing that I use to remember this is the counter-transference. I always imagined the therapist behind a counter pushing, projecting their unresolved emotion onto the client. So think about like a therapist standing behind a fast food counter and pushing their projecting their stuff onto somebody else. Okay. All right. So in modern therapy, we see um, you know, in psychoanalysis has evolved um from the time of Freud, right? We have modern psychoanalysts. And, you know, so you still see a lot of them, some of the main tenets, like understanding childhood trauma and exploring unconscious relationship patterns and recognizing defense mechanisms. You know, is that those are things that have been kind of stayed in the psychoanalysis arena that we can use as uh exploratory tools with individuals today. Um, so you know, it it again, like these these concepts are definitely from or the the roots of these concepts are from a time where we were just starting to understand things, but they their evolution really does um allow us for for some really in-depth conversation with the people that we're trying to support um just around these certain areas. Let's get into some multiple choice questions. So, question one A client frequently expresses intense anger towards their supervisor, but reports being unable to confront them. Instead, the client reports becoming irritated and yelling at their family after work. Which Freudian defense mechanisms best explain this behavior? Is this projection, reaction formation, displacement, or repression? The correct answer is C. Displacement. So displacement occurs when an emotional energy is redirected from what from the original source of the distress to a safer, less threatening source. Remember? In this case, the client cannot safely express anger toward their supervisor, but they can they do feel comfortable expressing it toward their family member. Um next up. According to Freud's structural model of personality, which component operates on the reality principle? Is that the id, the ego, the superego, or pre-consciousness? The answer here is gonna be ego. The ego balances the desire of the id with the moral expectations of the super ego. Remember, ego is the referee, eG-o in a referee shirt, um, with ego right across the chest. Considering consider real-world consequences, the ego functions on the reality principle, attempting to meet the needs in the socially acceptable and realistic ways. Question number three: a therapist notices feelings unusually protective of a client who remain who reminds them of their younger siblings. This is best described as transference, counter-transference, projection, or identification. Counter-transference, right? So remember, therapist standing behind the counter pushing their stuff onto the clients, um, projecting their stuff onto the clients. So projecting their unresolved emotional reactions onto a client, the therapist's emotional response is based on personal experiences rather than clients' behavior alone. Next question. Freud believed that adult personality traits are significantly shaped by unresolved conflict occurring during early childhood developmental stages. This belief reflects Freud's emphasis on behavioral conditioning, humanistic self-actualization, psychosexual development, or cognitive restructuring. You know this one. Psychosexual development. Freud believed personality develops through psychosexual stages, unresolved conflicts, or fixations during these stages. Influence, um, they influence adults' personality traits and psychological functioning. Alright, question number five. A client reports having no memory of repeated childhood abuse despite documentations confirming it occurred. Freud would most likely explain this phenomenon as denial, repression, rationalization, or sublimation. The answer to this one is going to be repression. Repression involves unconsciously blocking distressing memories or impulses from conscious awareness. Freud viewed repression as a central defense mechanism protecting individuals from over overwhelming psychological pain. Last question. Freud would describe this as projection, counter-transference, transference, or resistance. Answer to this one's gonna be transference, right? Transference occurs when a client unconsciously transfers feelings and expectations from a past relationship onto the therapist. This is a central concept in psychodynamic therapy and often becomes material in therapeutic exploration. All right, folks, this is what you can expect from the episodes moving forward. They're gonna be longer. Um, I'm gonna give you more information, go just deeper into the topics. Um, you know, and like I said, you know, I'm gonna have that option for even longer episodes eventually that you'll be able to access. So, you know, I'm really hoping that this is going to be something that just again helps just more people. But let's wrap up with Freud today, um, just kind of stepping back and really looking at the material that was covered. Freud fundamentally changed how we understand human behavior, right? He introduced the idea that our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are influenced by unconscious processes, early childhood experiences, and internal psychological conflicts. Those concepts continue to shape modern therapy, even in approaches that moved away from traditional psychoanalysis. Today, we really got into Freud's major contributions, including the structure of personality through the id, the ego, and the superego, the role of defense mechanisms and managing things like anxiety. Um, we got into psycho-sexual development stages and powerful clinical concepts of transference and counter-transference. For exam preparation, remember the big anchors. Freud is almost always connected to unconscious motivation, early development, um developmental influences, and internal conflict between competing psychological forces. For clinical practice, Freud reminds us that symptoms often carry meaning. When clients present with repeated relational patterns, intense emotional reactions, or behaviors that seem confusing or contradictory, it is often worth exploring what unconscious story might be shaping their experience in life. Understanding this theory is not about memorizing historical figure, right? It's about developing a framework of understanding human behavior with depth, curiosity, and clinical intentionality. As we move through this year, we're going to continue to um building on these uh these master class type um podcasts. And um I'm really again hoping that these foundational concepts um can help you pass the test and start shaping your professional life. Thank you again for spending this time with me today. And as always, until next time, keep learning.