Assignment 4: Influence of the Unconscious

The discovery of the unconscious is typically attributed to Freud even though it has roots long before Freud was born. Freud was, however, influential in popularizing the unconscious. Freud and his followers maintained that much of what influences us is unconscious. The better we are able to discover these influences, the more we are able to moderate or change these influences in our behavior, thoughts, and emotions.

What implications does this have for morals and ethics?

Address the issue of responsibility — for example, what implications does this have for acting-out or criminal behavior?

What was Freud’s view of human nature?

What role would this play in understanding the importance of therapy?

How would Freud or a psychodynamic thinker evaluate the effectiveness of therapy?

The body of the paper should be between 3 pages, double-spaced 12-point, Times New Roman or Arial font, with 1-inch margins all

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.