Sigmund Freud

Published 09.02.2024 | By Йосиф

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud was an influential Austrian psychologist who left a strong mark with the founding of the school of psychotherapy and the discovery of the method of psychoanalysis.

Sigmund Freud’s big idea that the unconscious is the true psychic reality and key to human behavior spread rapidly in Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and had a huge impact on mental health care.

How was the life of Sigmund Freud? What are his findings? And what is the relevance of his ideas today?

Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 in the city of Freiberg, Austrian Empire, into a large Jewish family. His father is a small-time wool merchant who, together with his wife, raises seven children.

In 1860, the Freud family moved to Vienna. There, Sigmund was enrolled to study at a private Jewish school. He then continued his education in high school and became top of his class. He learned Hebrew, Latin, Greek, English, Italian, French and Spanish. After a brief interest in law, in 1873 Sigmund Freud was accepted as a medical student at the University of Vienna, where he became an advocate of biological Darwinism, which later became the model for his own scientific research. In 1881 he defended his doctorate.

As a student, Freud showed an increased interest in philosophy and literature. Among the philosophers who left a strong impression on his future work are Empedocles, Plato, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, and among the writers and poets – Sophocles, Shakespeare, Goethe and Dostoyevsky.

Again in this period, Sigmund Freud met Jean-Martin Charcot, a famous neurologist from Paris, a pioneer in the field of hypnosis and hysteria, and was greatly inspired by his scientific works and medical practice.

After graduating from university in 1886, Freud worked as a surgeon, neurologist and psychiatrist in several clinics in Vienna. Opened his private practice together with Dr. Josef Breuer, who is known for being the first to successfully use intensive psychotherapy to treat mental illness – “The Anna O Case.”

Together, Freud and Breuer developed a method based on the so-called “unconscious” which they believed could release repressed memories, feelings and experiences and channel them into the “conscious”. This method was described in their joint work, Studies on Hysteria (1895).

Sigmund Freud then devoted himself to neuropathology and psychotherapy and conducted numerous clinical studies and psychotherapy sessions. Later, he stopped this practice and turned to the application of the psychoanalytic approach in history, literature and anthropology.

In the period 1902-1938, Sigmund Freud was professor of neuropathology at the University of Vienna. There he invites a small group of doctors every Wednesday to discuss his ideas. This is how the foundations of the famous “Vienna Psychoanalytic Society” were laid, created with the mission of popularizing mental health care.

Freud’s work is devoted to psychoanalysis, psychosexual development, human sexual behavior, the influence of the unconscious as part of the psyche on history, anthropology, religion and art.

Among Freud’s more famous works are: “Defensive Neuroses” (1894), “Interpretation of Dreams” (1900), “Psychology of Everyday Life” (1901), “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality” (1905), “Totem and Taboo” (1913), “Introduction to Narcissism” (1914), “The Unconscious” (1915), “I and It” (1923), “The Future of Illusion” (1927), “Civilization and its Disenchantment” (1930) , “Moses and Monotheistic Religion” (1932). Most of Freud’s books were also published in Bulgarian.

Sigmund Freud was awarded the Goethe Prize for his contribution to psychology and German literary culture, as well as being an honorary foreign member of the British Royal Society of Medicine. Sigmund Freud married Martha Bernays in 1886. They had six children. One of his daughters, Anna, became his devoted assistant, and later a famous psychologist, following in her father’s footsteps.

When Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, Freud’s books published in German were burned, and the threat of being arrested by the Nazis after the annexation of Austria to Germany loomed over him and his family. With the help of his colleagues, Freud managed to emigrate to London, Great Britain, together with his wife.

Sigmund Freud suffered from jaw cancer for a long time and underwent dozens of painful operations. Retired in London in 1939 after an assisted suicide. His funeral was attended by a large number of his followers.

Freud and the unconscious

One of the main ideas of Sigmund Freud, with a particular contribution to psychology, is the idea of the so-called “unconscious”.

The idea of the unconscious existed before Freud. Philosophers, neurologists and psychiatrists before him tried to explore the unconscious, but shared that this would reveal incomprehensible and even terrifying facts that the human mind would not be able to accept, that’s why they only reached the level of some assumptions about him. Strongly fascinated by the topic of the unconscious, Sigmund Freud decided to explain this phenomenon beyond the possibilities and limits of psychology at the time. His thesis is that the unconscious is part of the human psyche and that there is a scientific method that makes it possible to study it.

In this regard, Freud notes:

“Poets and philosophers before me have discovered the unconscious. What I have discovered is the scientific method of studying it.”

This is how Freud reasoned:

There are thoughts, memories, feelings and experiences that are too strong, heavy and literally crush our psyche because our consciousness cannot process them.

Our consciousness pushes out such thoughts, memories, feelings and experiences along with instinctual urges (not accessible to consciousness).

The unconscious silently guides the mind and behavior. It “moves” us, but we do not understand this.

The difference between the unconscious and our conscious thoughts generates psychic tension (internal conflict).

Mental tension can be released when repressed thoughts, memories, feelings and experiences in the unconscious area are released. This is done with the help of psychoanalysis.

Freud, Psychic Energy and Biological Drives

The role of psychic energy and biological drives is another key idea of Sigmund Freud.

To explain psychic energy, Freud referred to Ernst Brücke’s thesis on the so-called “dynamic thought”. Brücke – one of the creators of the “new physiology in the 19th century” believes that the human organism is an energy system and the amount of energy in it is constant – it cannot be destroyed, but only moved and transformed.

Sigmund Freud applied this way of explanation to mental processes and claimed that thanks to the so-called “mental energy” our consciousness redirects thoughts, feelings, memories and experiences to the unconscious. The unconscious hides them, represses them, as they are unpleasant, unbearable and caused by childhood traumas, by violence, threats, unfulfilled desires, etc. Freud called this process “repression”.

Freud also describes the so-called “biological urges”, which according to him are also part of the unconscious. The function of biological drives is to direct our behavior in the direction of satisfying basic needs such as water, food, shelter, warmth, sex, and companionship.

But Freud also argued that the unconscious also contains the opposite drive – a death instinct that is present in us from birth. This drive is self-defeating and pushes us forward, even though it brings us closer to death in doing so.

Freud and the human psyche

Sigmund Freud’s thesis on the human psyche is as original as the ideas mentioned above.

Freud originally believed that the human psyche consisted of three parts:

Conscious;

Preconscious;

Unconsciously.

Later, Freud developed this thesis and came to the conclusion that the human psyche has a more complex construction. He says: “The psyche is like an iceberg, it shows only one-seventh of the volume above the water.”

Freud gives a new meaning to the elements of the human psyche and christens them:

It;

I;

Overself.

Like a real iceberg, there are hidden parts of the construction of the human psyche. “Its” are the primitive impulses that Freud believed to obey the Pleasure Principle. According to this principle, we seek immediate gratification of our primitive impulses, something like “I want everything now”. “It” is the unconscious part of our psyche.

Part of the visible part of the “iceberg” of the psyche, according to Freud, is “I”, i.e. “consciousness” – current thoughts, feelings and desires. If we observe only our conscious self, we will understand too little about ourselves and our actions. “I” is guided by the Reality Principle. The self strives to obtain many things, but it also conforms to the environment in which it lives. The self includes part of the unconscious, but also the conscious and the preconscious. There is a kind of negotiation of the I with the It, in the course of which the I finds some reasonable solutions to get what it wants without causing harm.

“Superego” is that part of our psyche which, according to Freud, exercises control over the ego. The super-self brings together the moral values adopted by our parents and society. The Overself is our judge, conscience, source of guilt and shame.

Freud’s conclusion is that the unconscious is the “place” of manifestation of conflicting forces. On the one hand, there are biological impulses, on the other – repressed memories and feelings, on the third – the contradictions between reality and inner views. A collision occurs, which leads to a state of dissatisfaction, anxiety, depression, neurosis.

Freud argued that such mental states could be overcome through psychotherapy.

Freud and psychotherapy

Sigmund Freud’s psychotherapy, identified with the name “psychoanalysis”, is one of his greatest contributions to psychology and its application in psychiatry.

Based on the fact that the unconscious is part of the human psyche, Freud believed that internal conflicts could be recognized by symptoms preserved in consciousness. Freud developed a unique method of treating mental illnesses, namely working with the conflicts that lurk in the unconscious.

In his practice as a psychotherapist, Freud sought to help patients release repressed memories using several methods:

By interpreting patient-stated preferences; personal criteria for evaluating reality; symbols they pay attention to or use. Freud initially held sessions with patients several times a week, but the therapy itself continued for years.

By interpreting patients’ dreams. According to Freud, every dream reflects some desire or repressed sexual feeling. The unconscious sends coded messages to the conscious, so dreams are strange, incomprehensible, “distorted”, but he believes that the interpretation of dreams is the royal road to knowledge about the unconscious activities of the psyche.

By interpreting inadvertent errors (“language error”) of patients. According to Freud, these involuntary errors reveal repressed thoughts, feelings, desires.

By encouraging patients to make free associations, which he then interprets.

Quotes from Freud

Sigmund Freud is famous for winged thoughts that embody his wisdom and his attitude to the world:

“We don’t choose each other by chance. We only encounter the one that already exists in our subconscious.”

“Unfortunately, repressed emotions don’t die. They are silenced. But internally they continue to influence the person.”

“When we give, we actually want. And what we want is always and only love.”

“Most people don’t really want freedom because it implies responsibility, and people fear it.”

“You don’t stop looking for strength and confidence outside, but you have to look within yourself. Because they have always been there.”

“The moment a man begins to doubt his life and worth, he becomes sick.”

“We live in a very strange time and note with astonishment that progress goes hand in hand with barbarism.”

“Any normal person is actually only partially normal.”

“We come into the world alone and leave it alone.”

“Dreams are the royal road to the unconscious.”

“The first man who cursed instead of throwing a stone was the father of civilization.”

“Sex begins when a woman takes a man’s hand.”

“The only person you should compare yourself to is the past you. And the only one you have to be better than is you now.”

“Before you diagnose yourself with depression and low self-esteem, first make sure you’re not surrounded by idiots.”

“One never gives up anything, one simply replaces one pleasure with another.”

“The first sign of stupidity is the complete absence of shame.”

“The masses have never known the thirst for truth. They want illusions they cannot live without.”

“One fine day, these same people start thinking about these same things in a completely different way. Why they didn’t think so earlier remains a dark mystery.”

“Despite my 30 years of research into the female soul, I have not been able to answer the question that no one has yet answered: ‘What does a woman want?’

In summary

Sigmund Freud was an influential Austrian psychologist who left a clear mark with the founding of the school of psychotherapy and the discovery of the method of psychoanalysis.

Unlike representatives of behaviorism in psychology, Freud’s ideas were directed to the psychopathology and treatment of the psyche and behavior, not to the study of them. He does not use experiments as a research method, but relies on clinical research and the method of psychoanalysis to make the “unconscious” make sense of the conscious.

In the 1950s, Sigmund Freud’s popularity declined, mainly under the influence of the feminist movement, but his ideas became classics in psychology and contributed to the development of medicine, sociology, anthropology, literature and art.

Teodora Pavlova

https://novini.bg/razvlecheniq/kultura/826316