Sigmund Freud
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- Freud redirects to here. For other Freuds, see Freud (disambiguation)
Sigmund Freud (May 6, 1856 - September 23, 1939) was an Austrian psychiatrist and the founder of the psychoanalytic school of psychology, a movement that popularized the theory that unconscious motives control much behavior. He became interested in hypnotism and how it could be used to help the mentally ill. He later abandoned hypnotism in favor of free association and dream analysis in developing what is now known as "the talking cure." These became the core elements of psychoanalysis. Freud was especially interested in what was then called hysteria, and is now called conversion syndrome. The last name Freud is pronounced "Froyd" or "Froid".
Freud's theories, and his treatment of patients, were controversial in 19th century Vienna, and remain hotly debated today. Freud's ideas are often discussed and analyzed as works of literature, philosophy, and general culture in addition to continuing debate around them as scientific and medical treatises. He is commonly referred to as "the father of psychoanalysis."
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His life
Sigismund Schlomo Freud was born into a Jewish family in Freiberg (Příbor), Moravia, the Austrian Empire (now the Czech Republic). In 1877, he abbreviated his name to Sigmund Freud. Although he was the first-born of three brothers and five sisters among his mother's children, Sigmund had older half-brothers from his father's previous marriage. His family had limited finances and lived in a crowded apartment, but his parents made every effort to foster his intellect (often favoring Sigmund over his siblings), which was apparent from an early age. Sigmund was ranked first in his class in 6 of 8 years of schooling. He went on to attend the University of Vienna at 17, in 1873-1881.
In his 40's, Freud "had numerous psychosomatic disorders as well as exaggerated fears of dying and other phobias" (Corey 2001, p. 67). During this time Freud was involved in the task of self-analysis. He explored his own dreams, childhood memories, and the dynamics of his personality development. During this self-analysis, he came to realize the hostility he felt towards his father (Jacob Freud), and "he also recalled his childhood sexual feelings for his mother (Amalia Freud), who was attractive, warm, and protective" (Corey 2001, p. 67). Corey (2001) considers this time of emotional difficulty to be the most creative time in Freud's life.
Overall, little is known of Freud's early life as he destroyed his personal papers at least twice, once in 1885 and again in 1907. Additionally, his later papers were closely guarded in the Sigmund Freud Archives and only available to Ernest Jones, his official biographer, and a few other members of the inner circle of psychoanalysis. The work of Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson shed some light on the nature of the suppressed material. Freud had little tolerance for colleagues who diverged from his psychoanalytic doctrines. For example, he attempted to expel those who disagreed with the movement (Corey, 2001).
Following the Nazi German Anschluss, with the financial help of his patient and friend Princess Marie Bonaparte, Freud fled Austria with his family. On June 4th, 1938 they were allowed across the border into France and then they traveled from Paris to Hampstead, London, England, where they lived at 20 Maresfield Gardens, now the Freud Museum. As he was leaving Germany, Freud was asked to sign a statement that he had been treated respectfully by the Nazis. An oft-repeated story claims Freud complied, but then added at the bottom the sarcastic note: "I can heartily recommend the Gestapo to anyone." The actual document contains no such comment.
Freud's daughter Anna Freud was also a distinguished psychologist, particularly in the fields of child and developmental psychology. Sigmund is the grandfather of painter Lucian Freud and comedian and writer Clement Freud, and the great-grandfather of journalist Emma Freud, and fashion designer Bella Freud.
Sigmund Freud was also both a blood uncle and an uncle-in-law to public relations and propaganda wizard Edward Bernays. Bernays's mother, Anna Freud Bernays, was sister to Sigmund. Bernays's father, Ely Bernays, was brother to Sigmund's wife, Martha Bernays Freud.
Freud was a smoker of Churchill-style cigars for most of his life; even after having his jaw removed due to malignancy, he continued to smoke until his death in 1939. It is said that he would smoke an entire box of cigars daily.
Freud's patients
This is a partial list of patients whose case studies were published by Freud, with pseudonyms substituted for their names:
Freud_Sofa.JPG
- Anna O. = Bertha Pappenheim (1859 - 1936)
- Cäcilie M. = Anna von Lieben
- Dora = Ida Bauer (1882-1945)
- Frau Emmy von N. = Fanny Moser
- Fräulein Elizabeth von R.
- Fräulein Katharina = Aurelia Kronich
- Fräulein Lucy R.
- Little Hans = Herbert Graf (1903-1973)
- Rat Man = Ernst Lanzer (1878-1914)
- Wolf Man = Sergius Pankejeff (1887-1979)
People on whom psychoanalytic observations were published but who were not patients:
- Moses
- Daniel Paul Schreber (1842-1911)
- Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
Other patients:
- H.D. (1886-1961)
- Emma Eckstein
- Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Freud's innovations
Freud has been influential in two related, but distinct ways. He simultaneously developed a theory of the human mind and human behavior, and clinical techniques for attempting to help neurotics.
Early work
A lesser known interest of Freud's was neurology. He was an early researcher on the topic of cerebral palsy, then known as "cerebral paralysis". He published several medical papers on the topic. He also showed that the disease existed far before other researchers in his day began to notice and study it. He also suggested that William Little, the man who first identified cerebral palsy, was wrong about lack of oxygen during the birth process being a cause. Instead, he suggested that complications in birth were only a symptom of the problem. It was not until the 1980s when his speculations were confirmed by more modern research.
Freud was an early user and proponent of cocaine (see Freud and Cocaine (http://www.historyhouse.com/in_history/cocaine/)). He wrote several articles on the antidepressant qualities of the drug, and he was influenced by his friend and confident, Wilhelm Fleiss, who recommended cocaine for the treatment of the "nasal reflex neurosis." Fleiss operated on Freud and a number of Freud's patients whom he believed to be suffering from the disorder. Emma Eckstein underwent disastrous nasal surgery by Fleiss.
Freud hoped that his research would provide a solid scientific basis for his therapeutic technique. The goal of Freudian therapy, or psychoanalysis, was to bring to consciousness repressed thoughts and feelings, in order to allow the patient to develop a stronger ego. Classically, the bringing of unconscious thoughts and feelings to consciousness is brought about by encouraging the patient to talk in "free-association" and to talk about dreams. Another important element of psychoanalysis is a relative lack of direct involvement on the part of the analyst, which is meant to encourage the patient to project thoughts and feelings onto the analyst. Through this process, called "transference," the patient can reenact and resolve repressed conflicts, especially childhood conflicts with (or about) parents.
The unconscious
Perhaps the most significant contribution Freud has made to modern thought is his conception of the unconscious. During the 19th century the dominant trend in Western thought was positivism, the claim that people could accumulate real knowledge about themselves and their world, and exercise rational control over both. Freud, however, suggested that these claims were in fact delusions; that we are not entirely aware of what we even think, and often act for reasons that have nothing to do with our conscious thoughts. The concept of the unconscious was groundbreaking in that he proposed that awareness existed in layers and there were thoughts occurring "below the surface." Dreams, called the "royal road to the unconscious", provided the best examples of our unconscious life, and in The Interpretation of Dreams Freud both developed the argument that the unconscious exists, and described a method for gaining access to it. The Preconscious was described as a layer between conscious and unconscious thought—that which we could access with a little effort.
Crucial to the operation of the unconscious is "repression." According to Freud, people often experience thoughts and feelings that are so painful that people cannot bear them. Such thoughts and feelings—and associated memories—could not, Freud argued, be banished from the mind, but could be banished from consciousness. Thus they come to constitute the unconscious. Although Freud later attempted to find patterns of repression among his patients in order to derive a general model of the mind, he also observed that individual patients repress different things. Moreover, Freud observed that the process of repression is itself a non-conscious act (in other words, it did not occur through people willing away certain thoughts or feelings). Freud supposed that what people repressed was in part determined by their unconscious. In other words, the unconscious was for Freud both a cause and effect of repression.
Psychosexual development
Main article: Psychosexual development
Freud also believed that the libido developed in individuals by changing its object. He argued that humans are born "polymorphously perverse," meaning that any number of objects could be a source of pleasure. He further argued that, as humans developed, they fixated on different and specific objects through their stages of development—first in the oral stage (exemplified by an infant's pleasure in nursing), then in the anal stage (exemplified by a toddler's pleasure in controlling his or her bowels), then in the phallic stage. Freud argued that children then passed through a stage where they fixated on the parent of the opposite sex and thought the same-sexed parent a rival. Freud named his new theory the Oedipus Complex after the famous Greek tragedy by Sophocles.“I found in myself a constant love for my mother, and jealousy of my father. I now consider this to be a universal event in childhood” Freud said(Sax263-283). Freud sought to anchor this pattern of development in the dynamics of the mind. Each stage is a progression into adult sexual maturity, characterized by a strong ego and the ability to delay gratification. (see Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality.) It also seems that Freud believed that the manipulation of the genitals and the sexual desires are something that undermines the human as oneself. Surrendering to his sexual desires would mean the unconscious as the triumphant mind.
Freud hoped to prove that his model was universally valid. He thus turned to ancient mythology and contemporary ethnography for comparative material. Freud used the Greek tragedy by Sophocles Oedipus Rex to point out how much he believed that people (young boys in particular) desire incest, and must repress that desire. The Oedipus conflict was described as a state of psychosexual development and awareness. He also turned to anthropological studies of totemism and argued that totemism reflected a ritualized enactment of a tribal Oedipal conflict.
The id, ego and superego
Freud sought to explain how the unconscious operates by proposing that it has a particular structure. He proposed that the unconscious was divided into three parts: Id, Ego, and Superego. The Id (Latin, = "it" = es in the original German) represented primary process thinking — our most primitive need gratification type thoughts. The Superego (überich in German) represented our conscience and counteracted the Id with moral and ethical thoughts. Freud based the term Id on the work of Georg Groddeck. The Ego (ich) stands in between both to balance our primitive needs and our moral/ethical beliefs. A healthy ego provides the ability to adapt to reality and interact with the outside world in a way that accommodates both Id and Superego. The general claim that the mind is not a monolithic or homogeneous thing continues to have an enormous influence on people outside of psychology.
Freud was especially concerned with the dynamic relationship between these three parts of the mind. Freud argued that the dynamic is driven by innate drives. But he also argued that the dynamic changes in the context of changing social relationships.
Defense mechanisms
According to Freud, the defense mechanisms are the method by which the ego can solve the conflicts between the superego and the id. The use of the mechanisms required eros, and they are helpful if moderately used. The use of defense mechanisms, may attenuate the conflict between the id and superego, but their overuse or reuse rather than confrontation can lead to either anxiety or guilt which may result in psychological disorders such as depression. His daughter, Anna Freud, had done the most significant work on this field, yet credited Sigmund with Defense Mechanisms as he began the work. The defense mechanisms include, denial, reaction formation, displacement, repression/suppression (the proper term), projection, intellectualisation, rationalisation, compensation, sublimation and regressive emotionality.
- Denial means that someone will not (deliberately) admit to the truth. For example, a student may have received a bad grade on a report card but tells himself that grades don't matter.
- Repression occurs when someone cannot remember a past traumatic experience, while suppression is a conscious effort to do the same.
- Intellectualisation involves removing one's self, emotionally, from a stressful event. Intellectualisation is often accomplished through rationalisation rather than accepting reality, one may explain it away to remove one's self.
- Compensation occurs when someone takes up one behavior because one cannot accomplish another behavior. For example, the second born child may clown around to get attention since the older child is already an accomplished scholar.
- Sublimation is the channeling of impulses to socially accepted behaviours. For instance, the use of a dark, gloomy poem to describe life by such poets as Emily Dickinson.
- Reaction formation takes place when someone takes the opposite approach consciously compared to what he wants unconsciously. For example, someone may engage in violence against another race because, he claims, they are inferior, when unconsciously it is he himself who feels inferior.
The life and death instincts
Freud believed that humans were driven by two drives, libidinal energy/Eros and the death drive/Thanatos. Freud's description of Eros/Libido included all creative, life-producing drives. The Death Drive represented an urge inherent in all living things to return to a state of calm, or, ultimately, of non-existence.
Speculation on religion
Towards the end of his life, Freud wrote Der Mann Moses und die monotheistische Religion (Moses and Monotheism), in which he takes up the idea that Moses got his monotheism from Egypt. Moses was an amalgam of two men, one an Egyptian who taught the Hebrews the monotheistic religion of Akhnaten and was murdered by the Hebrews (specifically Joshua), and the other a Midianite who taught the Hebrews to serve Yahwe, a volcano-god whose abode was Mount Sinai in western Arabia. According to Freud the Jews killed the first Moses in a sort of symbolic rebellion against the father figure of God. Freud believed that the Jews carry a racial memory of this murder. In his analysis of the roots of anti-Jewish feeling, he writes that Jews bear the reproach of other peoples as having killed God: "They will not admit that they killed God, whereas we do and are cleansed from the guilt of it." Excerpts (http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/moses.html) Reviews (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0394700147/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/102-0653022-6097729?%5Fencoding=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=283155)
Freud's legacy
Freud trained as a medical doctor, and as such, he believed his research methods and conclusions were scientific. However, his research and practice were condemned by many of his peers, as well as later psychologists and academics. Some, like Juliet Mitchell, have suggested that this is because his basic claim, that many of our conscious thoughts and actions are motivated by unconscious fears and desires, implicitly challenges universal and objective claims about the world (some proponents of science conclude that this invalidates Freudian theory as a means of interpreting and explaining human behavior; some proponents of Freud conclude that this invalidates science as a means of interpreting and explaining human behavior). Psychoanalysis today maintains the same ambivalent relationship with medicine and academia that Freud experienced during his life.
Clinical psychologists, who seek to treat mental illness, relate to Freudian psychoanalysis in different ways. Some clinical psychologists have modified this approach and have developed a variety of "psychodynamic" models and therapies. Other clinical psychologists reject Freud's model of the mind, but have adapted elements of his therapeutic method, especially his reliance on patients' talking as a form of therapy. Experimental psychologists generally reject Freud's methods and theories. Like Freud, Psychiatrists train as medical doctors, but—like most medical doctors in Freud's time—most reject his theory of the mind, and generally rely more on drugs than talk in their treatments. This could be more to do with modern drive to a 'quick fix' rather than problems with Freud's theories, however.
Freud's psychological theories are hotly disputed today and many leading academic and research psychiatrists regard him as a charlatan. Although Freud was long regarded as a genius, psychiatry and psychology have long since been recast as scientific disciplines, and psychiatric disorders are generally considered diseases of the brain, the etiology of which is principally genetic. Freud's lessening influence in psychiatry is thus largely due to the repudiation of his theories and the adoption of many of the basic scientific principles of Freud's principal opponent in the field of psychiatry, Emil Kraepelin. In his book "The Freudian Fraud", research psychiatrist E. Fuller-Torrey provides an account of the political and social forces which combined to raise Freud to the status of a divinity to those who needed a theoretical foundation for their political and social views. Many of the diseases which used to be treated with Freudian and related forms of therapy (such as schizophrenia) have been unequivocally demonstrated to be impervious to such treatments.
Freud's model of psycho-sexual development has been criticized from different perspectives. Some have attacked Freud's claim that infants are sexual beings (and, implicitly, Freud's expanded notion of sexuality). Others have accepted Freud's expanded notion of sexuality, but have argued that this pattern of development is not universal, nor necessary for the development of a healthy adult. Instead, they have emphasized the social and environmental sources of patterns of development. Moreover, they call attention to social dynamics Freud de-emphasized or ignored (such as class relations).
Some criticize Freud's rejection of positivism. The philosopher of science, Karl Popper formulated a method to distinguish science from non-science, or "pseudoscience". For Popper, all proper scientific theories are potentially falsifiable. If a theory is incapable of being falsified, then it cannot be considered scientific. Popper pointed out that Freud's theories of psychology can always be "verified", since no type of behaviour could ever falsify them. Although Popper's demarcation between science and non-science is widely accepted among scientists, it remains a controversial one itself within philosophy of science and philosophy in general.
Within psychiatry, there are disputes over the causes of mental illness. Many psychiatrists argue that all mental illnesses are caused by neurological disorders. The work of Emil Kraepelin established scientific psychiatry, which maintains this view, although it is worth noting that Freud made significant contributions in this area. Other critics, such as Thomas Szasz, argue that mental illness does not even exist, since there is no objective pathology to observe.
Behaviourism, evolutionary psychology and cognitive psychology reject psychoanalysis as a pseudoscience. Humanistic psychology maintains that psychoanalysis is a demeaning and incorrect view of human beings. The other schools of psychology have produced alternative methods of psychotherapy to psychoanalysis, including behavior therapy, cognitive therapy and person centred psychotherapy.
The official position on the impetus for mental disorders and on interpretation of behaviour and mental processes is eclectic: it includes all perspectives of psychological schools (including Psychoanalytic, Behaviouristic, cognitive, and Humanistic).
Major works
- The Interpretation of Dreams, 1900
- The Psychopathology of Everyday Life,1901
- Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, 1905
- Totem and Taboo, 1913
- On Narcissism, 1914
- Beyond the Pleasure Principle, 1920
- The Ego and the Id, 1923
- The Future of an Illusion, 1927
- Civilization and Its Discontents, 1929
- Moses and Monotheism, 1939
See also
- Alfred Adler
- Carl Jung
- Anna Freud, daughter
- Karen Horney
- Ernest Jones
- Erik Erikson
- Otto Rank
- Wilhelm Reich
- Melanie Klein
- Jacques Lacan
- Freud Museum
- List of Austrian Scientists
- List of Austrians
- List of Jewish scientists and philosophers
- Psychology of religion
Books critical of Freud and psychoanalysis
Dufresne, T. Killing Freud, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2003, ISBN 0826468934
Eysenck, H. J. and Wilson, G. D. The Experimental Study of Freudian Theories, Methuen, London (1973)
Eysenck, H. J. The Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire, Scott-Townsend Publishers, Washington D. C., (1990) ISBN 1878465015
Jurjevich, R. M. The Hoax of Freudism: A study of Brainwashing the American Professionals and Laymen Dorrance (1974) ISBN 0805918566
LaPiere, R. T. The Freudian Ethic: An Analysis of the Subversion of Western Character Greenwood Press (1974) ISBN 0837175437
MacDonald, K. The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements Authorhouse (2002) ISBN 0759672229
Macmillan, Malcolm. Freud Evaluated: The Completed Arc MIT Press, 1996 ISBN 0262631717 [originally published by New Holland, 1991]
Mitchell, Juliet. Psychoanalysis and Feminism: A Radical Reassessment of Freudian Psychoanalysis Originally published in 1974; Basic Books reissue (2000) ISBN 0465046088
Stannard, D. E. Shrinking History: On Freud and the Failure of Psychohistory Oxford University Press, Oxford (1980) ISBN 0195030443
Thornton, E. M. Freud and Cocaine: The Freudian Fallacy, Blond & Briggs, London (1983) ISBN 0856341398
Webster, Richard. Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science, and Psychoanalysis BasicBooks, 1995. ISBN 0465095798
External links
- Freud Museum in London (http://www.freud.org.uk/)
- Sigmund Freud Life and Work (http://www.freudfile.org/)
- Scientific Method in the Interpretation of Dreams (http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/phil/psychology/ScientificMethodInTheInterpretationOfDreams/Chap1.html)
- Scientist or storyteller? (http://books.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4445608-99939,00.html)
- Freud Chronologie (dt.) at www.lichtensteiger.de (http://www.lichtensteiger.de/freud.html)
- Freud's Philosophy (http://www.iceion.com/philo/philo.php?page=freud)
- Sigmund Freud Museum, Berggasse 19, Vienna (http://www.freud-museum.at/)
- One Hundred Years of Sigmund Freud (http://www.positivehealth.com/permit/Articles/Regular/litt55.htm)
- Sigmund Freud Biography and Quotations (http://atheisme.free.fr/Biographies/Freud_e.htm)
- Sigmund Freud's article on Psychoanalysis from the 1926 (Thirteenth) edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (http://www.britannica.com/original?content_id=1309)af:Sigmund Freud
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