Essay, Research Paper: Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud, physiologist, medical doctor, psychologist and father of psychoanalysis, is recognized as one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century. As the originator of psychoanalysis, Freud distinguished himself as an intellectual giant. He invented new techniques and for understanding human behavior, his efforts resulted in one of the most comprehensive theories of psychology developed.
Freud was born May 6, 1856 in Freiberg in Moravia (what is now Czechoslovakia) to his Jewish parents, his father Jacob who was a wool merchant and his mother Amalia Nathansohn. His father Jacob was 20 years older than, Amalia, Freud’s mother and Freud had to older brothers from his father’s previous marriage. Sigmund Freud was born Scholomo Sigismund due to increased anti-Semitism he changed his name in 1878. Freud was the firstborn in a Viennese family of three boys and five girls. When he was four, his family moved to Vienna were he spent the rest of his life. Although Freud’s family had limited funds and a small apartment, his parents made every effort to fuel his intellectual genius. Although he had many interests, because of his Jewish background his fields of choice were limited.
At the age of 17, he began to study medicine at the University of Vienna. After graduating in 1882, he joined the staff of the Vienna General Hospital, specializing in neurology. He studied in Paris (1883-5) under Jean Martin Charcot, and it was there that he changed from neurology to psychopathology, the branch of psychology that deals with the abnormal workings of the mind. Working with the Austrian neurologist Josef Breuer in the treatment of hysteria by recalling of painful experiences under hypnosis. In 1893, Freud and Breuer wrote Studies of Hysteria, which marked the beginning of psychoanalysis. Shortly afterwards he met a young woman, Martha Bernys, whom he eventually married. Freud and Martha gave birth to six children, the youngest of whom, Anna, was herself to become a distinguished psychoanalyst and founder of child psychoanalysis. Freud set up a private practice to treat psychological disorders and gave him much material which he based some of his theories. At first, Freud’s theories shocked some of his colleagues. Some of Freud’s most creative work came at a time when he was experiencing severe emotional problems of his own. When he was forty he had numerous psychosomatic disorders, such as exaggerated fears of dying and other phobias. Freud continued to study and attracted support from few people such as Jung and Adler who were themselves to make major contributions to the school of psychoanalysis. Because of his controversial work, when Nazi storm troopers invaded the city in 1938, Freud was arrested in his home and held captive until his unsold books were burned publicly. Upon his release a few weeks later, he moved to London, where he lived out the last months of his life. In September 1939, Freud died of cancer at the age of 83.
Some of his accomplishments include the “Interpretation of Dreams,” written in 1900, which was to lay the foundation for his research over the next forty years. It suggested that brain functions can be divided into three categories: the Id, the Ego, and the Superego. The Id represents basics wants and instincts and could be shown by an infant child. The Ego recognizes that there is another world besides self and it acts to serve the Id's goal of immediate gratification. Neuroses can result from this conflict. The Superego is our conscience, a force we are not aware of. It struggles to put the Id in check, with the Ego in the middle. Freud believed dreams result from a conflict, and release stress caused from desires that remain unfulfilled. The Id causes the dreaming state, which can be decoded by expert analysis.
Although many psychiatrists and psychologists now disagree with some of Freud's ideas, his insight has had strong and useful influences in many fields: his research into unconscious drives has had a significant impact on criminology, sociology, and anthropology. His work changed the way many people think about personality and motivation, and caused a re-evaluation of the importance, which attaches to early family relationships and their effect on the developing personality. However, his most important influence was to inspire modern psychiatry by his examination of mental illness. However, although he inspired fields of scientific study, often his methods were not very scientific. In fact, he described himself to his friend Wilhem Fliess not as a scientist but as an 'adventurer' and his methods were often fearlessly unscientific, partly because of the new and controversial nature of his study. The main weakness of Freudian analysis is that, in order to explore the abnormal; he had to establish what 'normal' was. To do this he looked to himself, and extrapolated from his own experiences into a general theory.
One of the most interesting and controversial ideas of psychoanalysis is the Odeius complex. Freud believed that in the phallic stage of development (between the years of 2 and 3) every boy dreams of his mother. However, the boy's sexual interests are soon met with the threat of castration. The successful growth involves identification with the father and assuming an active and aggressive social role in a male- dominated society. For a little girl the ideal of the Oedipus complex is different. She gives up the desire for the mother by becoming her Daddy's little girl. In fact she might become too attached to Daddy. As such feelings were unacceptable to the moral ego the female repressed them.



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