... physical cause. When treated under hypnosis patients were encouraged to 'free associate', where the patient is asked to verbalize whatever is in their heads. Freud found that many of his patients disclosed traumatic past experiences of sexual abuse. Freud developed the 'seduction theory', where he came to the conclusion that most psychological problems stem from sexual abuse as children. I will not go into detail of the seduction theory now, but later Freud dismissed this idea claiming that the patients were not disclosing repressed memories but repressed desires. His view was that we have many desires, not all of which can be met. Some of which we are aware of but do not act on (suppressed desires), and others of which we are not aware and have repressed to our unconscious mind. (Bee H: 1995) Freud believed that personality structure is set into three parts. The super-ego, which contains rules ...

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