Essay, Research Paper: Freud

Sigmund Freud s The Unconscious
The unconscious, or also knows as the subconscious, is "the complex of mental
activities within an individual that proceed without his awareness." ("Unconscious"
Encyclopedia Britannica) Sigmund Freud was the first to suggest that the unconscious
affects a person s behaviour despite the mind not perceiving the thought. Although
theorists deny the actuality of the unconscious, Freud s concepts of different conscious
states are well established and continue to be in important aspect of modern psychiatry.
Sigmund Freud, born in Freiberg, Moravia, now Pribor in the Czech republic, in
1856, entered the University of Vienna medical school in 1873 in hope of pursuing
neurophysiological research. This pure research was difficult to perform by this man of
the Jewish faith as it was mainly only preferable by the independently wealthy. In 1886,
Freud opened a private practice specializing in nervous and brain disorders. By 1900, he
introduced the masses to the opinion of the unconscious mind when he published The
Interpretation of Dreams. Freud s theories were the root of ridicule. Despite the negative
publicity that Freud received, he continued his practice and studies. Today, what was
mocked, is now seen as one of the most influential ideas in psychoanalysis to date. But
why does Freud s The Unconscious hold such substantial relevance today and how does it
influence generations of those concerned with the study of the human mind?