On Mon, 02 May 2016 08:16:58 -0700, Christopher Green wrote:
On May 2, 2016, at 10:39 AM, Mike Palij <[email protected]> wrote:
I think that the "Freudian Iceberg" falls into this category and
though this has been corrected to some degree, there still
is no single source that points out the problems with this
conception.
I didn't write an article about the Freudian iceberg. However,
in an article that I wrote about Stanley Hall's relationship with
Ernst Haeckel last year, I did include a paragraph pointing out
that the iceberg metaphor for the unconscious mind appeared
(perhaps first) in an 1898 article by Hall.
Hall's orignal article was:
Hall, G. S. (1898). Some aspects of the early sense of self.
American Journal of Psychology, 9, 351-395.
My mention of it appeared in:
Green, C. D. (2015). Hall's developmental theory and Haeckel's
recapitulationism. European Journal of Developmental Psychology,
12, 656-665.
There are several issues that have to be considered with respect to
the Freudian iceberg:
(1) My own experience has been frustrating in tracking down 19th
century sources and, in some cases, either finding them inaccessible
or still under copyright (I am continually amazed at what is under
copyright protection even when it is over 100 years old and no longer
in print -- who holds the copyright?). My limitations in reading German
has also been a problem (AI's promise of language translation is
still just a dream). I have my own opinions about the Freudian
iceberg and I'll briefly review them here.
(2) I think that there is consensus that Freud never explicitly used the
iceberg metaphor even though many of the people who have either
talked about Freud in the popular media (e.g., Freud's obituary in the
NY Times where the metaphor is presented and implicitly linked to
Freud) and in psychology textbooks (Ken Steele found images of
the overall "shape" of the mind in Freud sources dated 1923 and 1933,
neither of which are icebergs but the image from Healy et al 1930 is
closer to an iceberg, and Ruch & Zimbardo's Psychology and Life 7th
has the Healy image but in subsequent editions it becomes an
iceberg -- Zimbardo claims to have come up with the iceberg idea).
Subsequent intro psych textbooks "borrowed" this image/concept
and elaborated upon it while giving bogus references for sources).
Though intro psych textbooks have cut back using this image in
describing Freudian theory, it continues to pop up in unexpected
places (e.g., a recent psychology of language textbook).
(3) I maintain that during the 19th century the "mind as an iceberg"
was a popular metaphor but I have difficulty is getting solid references
for this. This is partly due to the access and copyright issues
mentioned
earlier.
(4) Outside of psychology (and even in psychology) there is the view
that Freud developed the theoretical construct of the unconscious but
in point of fact the unconscious had been discussed and argued about
long before Freud showed up. Indeed, as we shall see, Freud was
influenced by these discussions and borrowed from them. G. Stanley
Hall in his 1912 "Founders of Modern Psychology" describes how
Fechner's conception of the mind-soul (since he believed in the mind
as an extension of the soul) was based on the iceberg metaphor.
Quoting Hall:
|To Fechner the soul was not unlike an iceberg which
|is eight-ninths under the water's surface or threshold out
|in a denser and darker medium, but the tides of which,
|and not the wind above, determine its course, often in the
|teeth of a gale. He measured what was above this threshold
|only in order to draw inferences concerning what
|was below it, but here this figure limps, for when the top
|of the iceberg melts off the bottom of it does not go on
|and down into the pelagic depths, nor does it become a
|diffusive power.(page 171).
I do not know where Hall got the idea that Fechner's model
of mind-soul was a metaphorical iceberg (he provides no
sources) and since Freud was familiar with Fechner's work,
it is not surprising it might be implicit in his work though he
preferred other metaphors. Radman Zdravko in his 1997
"Metaphors of Mind" cites Freud's use of a three-story house
as representing the id, ego, and superego (see his page 138).
Zdravko however draws Freud's lineage further back than
Fechner which I expand upon next.
(5) One source that should be read for a larger historical
background on Freud's intellectual lineage is the following:
Sarup, G. (1978). Historical antecedents of psychology:
The recurrent issue of old wine in new bottles. American
Psychologist, 33(5), 478-485
As I have mentioned in the past, Johann Friedrich Herbart
(for some basic background on Herbart, see the Wiki entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Friedrich_Herbart )
Sarup argues for Herbart as having had a major influence
on Fechner, Freud, and others -- his Figure 1 shows the
links between Herbart and Freud and how Herbart's influence
affected psychological theory. Herbart's conception of the
mind as an "apperceptive mass" -- a connected dynamic
network of ideas and perceptions -- only part of which is
available to consciousness and which concepts make it to
consciousness is dependent upon processes of inhibition
and excitation that operated to either raise a concept above
the threshold of consciousness or kept it below the threshold.
Zdravko also identifies the iceberg metaphor with Herbart
and I think one can see how this metaphor follows the path
of Herbart to Fechner to Freud. The problem is clearly
establishing the links with the appropriate references. And
doing do has been a giant PITA.
-Mike Palij
New York University
[email protected]
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