Question

What are the potential and practical harms of applying psychoanalysis within the criminal justice system?

Answer 1

The psychoanalysis theory is developed by Sigmund Freud, who is known as one of the fathers of psychology. According to his theory the human stores the information in the conscious and unconscious mind. He divided human behavior as the result of the interaction between three components of mind these are id, ego, and superego. The childhood experiences, thoughts, feelings, and desires are stored in the unconscious mind that affects a person's behavior in the future.

According to psychoanalytic theory, the unconscious mind governs people's emotions, behavior, and actions without the person being aware of it. The mind is like an iceberg whatever portion is visible is our conscious mind and the remaining portion that is hidden in our unconscious mind this acts as a repository that can be retrieved.

Childhood trauma like mental and physical abuse, neglected childhood, broken family, etc reflect in the form of anxiety, depression, illness, low self-esteem, and low confidence.

The psychoanalytic theory was used in the criminal justice system to study the behavior and cause of the act and for constructing the policy. This theory believes that the people are born as a blank slate and there is constant interaction between the environment and mind, the mind keeps on accumulating the trauma in the unconscious mind and it comes out in the form of deviant behavior. This theory contradicts the biological approach that claims that it is human genes that are responsible for a person to show deviant behavior.

The use of psychoanalytic theory can bring out repressed emotions and experiences and transferred it from unconscious to conscious mind thus it can be used to correct the criminal and stop him from further crimes. According to this theory, the id represents instincts if the id is not controlled it will show aggression and a person can engage in random acts of violence.

The potential and practical harms of applying psychoanalysis will be that the unconscious mind of the criminal will be studied by the therapists; the interpretation may be right or wrong one cannot judge. Secondly, his views and interpretation cannot be scientifically proved and verified.

If childhood experiences are the only reason for deviant behavior then there are many reasons to believe that the circumstances and experiences do affect a person’s behavior. The sociological and criminological perspectives say that the act of crime can be an impulsive reaction or a person can take to crime if he lacks empathy.