Life of Sigmund Freud in Brief

Life of Sigmund Freud in Brief Sigmund Freud was born on May 6, 1856 in Freiberg, Moravia. Freiberg was also known as Pribor, Czech Republic. His father was a wool merchant and his mother was a lively woman, who was twenty years younger than his father. And also was a second wife. Sigmund was his mother first child of seven and he had two older half brothers. His family moved to Vienna at the age of four. Sigmund was a genius child and eventually went to medical school in 1873. He spoke several languages. He spoke German and Hebrew at home. And he learned Lathing, Greek, French, and English. He was interested in Darwin’s theory of evolution. Therefore he learned it and observed cause it was a scientific experiment explore. He became connected in research under the direction of a physiology professor ‘Ernst Brucke’ Therefore as an experiment he cut more than 400 male’s eels prove the structure of the testicles . Therefore his first experiment was about sex. During his study in university he had experimented with the cocaine, which was not illegal substance at that time. He made cocaine himself and introduce for practice medical to his fiancée, sister, and friends. Carl Koller, one of his friend, after conversation about drug casually, conducted his own experiment and found that cocaine can be use for anesthetize for human eye. In 1920 Frud published the paper on cocaine’s benefit. Therefore Frud was criticized several times in Europe and U.S. Freud moved to England just before World War II, as Vienna became increasing dangerous place for Jews, especially for ones as famous as Freud. September 23,1939, Freud died of cancer of the mouth and jaw that he had suffered from the last 20 years of his life. FREUD’S WORKS TO PSYCHOLOGY Origin of Psychoanalysis After graduating from medical school Freud treated patients who suffered from certain ailments or diseases, but who had nothing physically wrong with them. These patients were not consciously faking their symptoms and often the disappeared through hypnosis, or even just by talking. On the basis of these observations, Freud formulated a theory of personality and a form of psychotherapy known as “Psychoanalysis.” It became one of the most influential and prominent school of Western thoughts of the 20th century. Freud believed that people are motivated largely by unconscious forces, including sexual and aggressive drives. He also believed that although unconscious motives can be suppressed, they must find a suitable outlet in order for a person to maintain a healthy personality. He also likened the human mind to the ice berg. The small tip that floats on the water is the conscious part, and the vast region, beneath the surface comprises unconscious part. To probe unconscious mind, Freud developed the psychotherapy technique of free association. In free association, the patients have to recline and talk about thought, wishes, memories, memories, and whatever comes to mind. Freund, in particular, encourage patients to free associate about associate about their dreams which he believed were the “royal road to the unconscious”. According to, Freud, dreams are disguised expressions of deep, hidden impulses. Thus, as patients recount the conscious manifest content of dream, the psychoanalysts try to unmask the underlying latent content; the content refers to what the dreams really mean. According Freud, instincts constitute the driving force behind personality. He claimed that instincts have a source, an aim, an object and impetus. Freud also emphasized the Ego- mechanisms which are the conscious process that reduce anxiety by distorting or falsifying reality. Repression is most basic ego- defense mechanism, because all the other ego- defense mechanisms first employ repression. Displacement is another ego-defense mechanism which is substituting a non-anxiety-provoking goal for one that does cause anxiety. Besides, he too, mentioned importance of identification, projection, reaction formation, and rationalization in context of ego-defense mechanism. Many of Freud views, specially, his belief that sexual urges were energizers of human behavior. He also believed that this behavior shocks both professionals and laypeople. Despite these criticisms, Freud’s impact was upon psychology. He provided important insights into understanding the emotional lives of humans. He encouraged psychologists, to consider the impact behavior of processes which are not immediately, available to conscious inspection. Freud’s views more will be discussed thoroughly in next topics, particularly. Freud’s Theory of Consciousness The discovery of a connection between repressed memories and behavior led Freud to propose a novel concept of different levels of consciousness. • Conscious • Subconscious • Preconscious • Unconscious In theories of Freud, conscious, is aspect of mind which contains those thoughts and feelings of which we are immediately aware at the given moment. According to Freud subconscious are the portions of the mind which are below the level of conscious awareness. The subconscious is divided into two levels: the preconscious and the unconscious. The first, Freud believes that it is the part of the subconscious mind which can be accessed by deliberate choice and second refers to the portion of the subconscious which cannot be directly accessed by the conscious mind. For Freud he unconscious is a powerful concept and a powerful force in behavior. Thoughts and feelings, according to Freud’s theory of consciousness, are powerful forces that could manifest patients in physical symptoms. Freud’s Theory of dreams Freud published a book The Interpretation of Dream (1900). As he analyzed dreams, he came to the conclusion that, dreams operate on two levels. They are: the manifest content and the latent content. Manifest is the symbolic content of a dream which the conscious mind is aware of both during sleep and on walking and the latent content, in Freud’s theory, is the true meaning of a dream, which is transformed by the dream censor into symbolic form as the manifest content. This dream expresses two characteristics of Freud theory of dreams. First he believes that dreams were basically, motivated by wish fulfillment which expresses fantasies that were not acceptable or even possible in real life. Second, it shows how the actual nature of the dream is transformed into something less, threatening to the conscious mind. The mechanism of this process was called the dream sensor by Freud. Its function is to ensure that sleep is not disturbed by the unconsciously expressed desires that are basis of dreams. To accomplish this mechanism, the dream censor converts s the content of the dream into symbolic form, the manifest content. Freud’s Theory of personality Much as in his analysis of the structure of conscious, Freud conceived of personality, in terms of, a three part-structure: the Id, Ego, and Super Ego. In Freud’s theory, Id is the element of the psyche which is the source of all basic drive, ego, is the portion of psyche which represents the moral demands of family and society, and is therefore governed by moral constraints, and super ego, in psychoanalysis, is the element of psyche which provides the integrating of personality by mediating between the id and the super ego, and also mediates the links with the outside word. Freud’s Theory of psychosexual stages These stages reflect differences in the function of drive energy, associated with changes in the function of mind. These functioning stages of mind are called, psychosexual stages of development. Altogether, Freud concluded that there are five stages, the first four of which occur in childhood. These stages also play a central role in the development of personality. • Oral stage • Anal stage • Phallic stage • Latency stage • Genital stage In oral stage, extending from birth to about 15 months, an infant is gratified by nursing. Baby cries to express its anger and frustration. In this context, nursing is not just a means of obtaining food, but it is a primary source of pleasure through oral stimulation. In 2nd stage, the oral stage, which is between fifteen months to three years of infant age; during this stage the focus of drive energy shift to the lower end of the digestive tract and the major conflict, is toilet training. Phallic stage, the 3rd stage of development, extending from about 3 to 5 years of age, during which gratification is focused on the genitals, although not in the form of adult sexuality. The Oedipus complex occurs during this stage. He wrote, ‘I have found love of the mother and jealousy of the father in my own case too’ (Freud 1954, p.223). 4th stage, the latency, begins at about age five and extends until puberty. In which, the drive appear to be relatively inactive. Hence, the concept of gratification of touching genital is latent or hidden. Genital, the final stage of psychosexual development, which extends from puberty onwards, during this stage, drive energy, is focused on the genitals, with adult expression of sexuality. From the start of psychoanalysis, Freud attracted followers, many of whom later, proposed competing theories. As a group, these neo-Freudians shared the assumption that “unconscious plays an important role in a person’s thoughts and behaviors”. However, most parted company with Freud, over his emphasis on sex as a driving force. For example, Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875-1961) theorized that, “all human inherit a collective unconscious, the conscious contains universal symbols and memories from their ancestral past”. Furthermore, he was interested in spiritual side or metaphysical content of the unconsciousness. He disputed against Freud claiming thus “Freud was wrong in assuming that consciousness has own individual origin, but there is a collective unconsciousness”. According him, the experiences of our ancestors which are reflected in cultural myths and symbols are the basis of unconsciousness. Again, consciousness is morals, ideas, and norms of a culture. The major disagreement between Freud and Jung was concerning of nature of the libido. Freud saw it as mainly sexual energy, and Jung saw it as general energy that could be directed at various problems a they arose, whether they are biological or spiritual. Jung postulated two major attitudes or orientation that a psyche could manifest. They are introversion and extroversion. In addition to the attitude, Jung had discussed four functions of thoughts which are, sensing, thinking, feeling, and intuiting. He also, expounded that, the thinking and feeling functions are rational and the sensing and intuiting functions are irrational. According Jung, there are three stages of development: childhood, young adulthood, and middle age. During the childhood which is from birth to adolescence, he said during which time the skills necessary for survival are learned. Young adult hood (from adolescence to about 40 years old) according to Jung is when a person typically learns a vocation, gets married, and raises children. From the about age 40 to the later years, the middle age stage was considered by, Jung the most important time of life, because philosophical and spiritual values are stressed and the meaning of life is sought. Conversely, Jung’s theory has been praised for accounting for the multitude of human attributes. As the result of psychoanalysis developed, another psychoanalyst and Australian physician named Alfred Adler (1870-1937) theorized that, “people are primarily motivated to overcome inherit feeling of inferiority”. He rejected Freud’s idea of motivation is basically a large extant to internal unconsciousness, and disputes that “motivation is not coming from unconsciousness, and it is not unconscious activity”. After, having studied, Freud idea of personality, externalized an idea altering that, personality development starts and ends during the child-hood, and circumstantial factors affects the development of personality. Adler also disputed Freud’s notion of repression, infantile sexuality, and the importance of the unconscious. His viewpoint was called individual psychology, which stresses the wholeness and uniqueness of each person as he or she struggles to overcome feelings of inferiority. He also theorized that humans are primarily motivated to seek superiority and perfection and he believed that person must insert meaning into their lives by inventing ideals or fictional goals that give them something to live and organize their lives. Such fictions are called fictional finalisms or guiding fiction. Adler, likewise, externalized a theory, stressing that all persons have an innate potential to live in harmony with other people. each person must solve their major problems in life and each person requires a strong social interest that referred to firstly occupational task, secondly, societal task, and finally love and marriage tasks. He also revealed that the nature of child’s interaction with the mother, is determined to what extend the child develops social interest. According to Adler, there are three types of people, with mistaken lifestyles. They are: the ruling- dominant type, the getting learning type, and the avoiding type. Again, he disputed that there are three child-hood conditions which are possible to cause a mistaken life-style. According to him, physical inferiority, spoiling or pampering, and neglecting are the causes that make our life mistaken in child-hood stage. Adler did not believe that personality is completely determined by biological inheritance, early experience, and the environment. He also created research methods, which included the study of birth order, first memories, and dream analysis. According to alder, the major goal of psychotherapy is to replace a mistaken life-style. Beside these theories which mentioned earlier, Adler, had presented a lot of important and specific speculations and ideology in order for developing psychoanalysis. What have been internalized yet, are considerably the important factors of part of Adler’s entire theories. It is well-known that Freud was highlighting in context of sexuality, but Eric Erikson disputed that Freud is very adamant regarding the sex factor. He formulated a disputation, mentioning that, “psycho-social development in personality is more important. Limitation on development of the personality is wrong. Personality development is a continuous aspect.” Freud’s methodology really was subjected to criticism. In order to form his theory on dreams, personality, and psychosexual stage etc, Freud had adopted introspection, the method of diving into mind for performing experimental self-observation. Some considered that Freud’s theory is not reliable as the subjects can divulge his thoughts and objectivity of the data can be questionable. Karen honey, a German-born American psychiatrist, is another psychoanalyst who emerged during, the psychoanalysis developed throughout the world. He argued that “humans have a basic need for love and security, and become anxious when they isolated and alone”. By the time went on, the history of psychoanalytic development, fetched us another psychoanalyst who criticized Freud and his psychoanalysis. BIBLIOGRAPHY • Chaplin, J.P, and krawiec, T.S.( 1963). Systems and theories of Psychology. New York: Hoit Rine Hart and Winston. • Duane Schultz,P., & Sydney Schultz,E. (2004). A History of Mordern Psychology. (8th ed.). Belmont: RR Donnelley. • Earnest Jones, M.D. (1955). The life and work of Sigmund Freud. (Vol-02). New York: Basic books, INC. • James Kalat. (2004). Introduction to Psychology. (7th ed.). North Carolina: Courier Corpation. • Hilgard, Ernest R.( 1953). Introduction to psychology. New York: Harcourt, Brace and company, INC. • Hollitscher, walter.(1947). Sigmund Freud: An introduction. Ed. Karl Monnheim. London: kega paul, French, trubner & Co, Ltd. • Freud, Sigmund. (1954). The origin of psychoanalysis. London: IMAGO Publishing Company. CONTENT 1.Life of Sigmund Freud in Brief 01-02 2.FREUD’S WORKS TO PSYCHOLOGY 02-09 • Origin of Psychoanalysis 02-03 • Freud’s Theory of Consciousness 03-04 • Freud’s Theory of dreams 04-05 • Freud’s Theory of personality 05 • Freud’s Theory of psychosexual stages 05 -09