Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud

(1856 – 1939)

Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, who co-founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. He is commonly referred to as “the father of psychoanalysis”. His most enduring contribution to Western thought is his theory of the unconscious mind, especially his account of the mechanisms of repression, his redefinition of sexual desire and his therapeutic techniques, especially the value of dreams as sources of insight into unconscious desires.

The concept of the unconscious is central to Freud’s account of the human mind. Even though medical science in the latter part of the 19th century discovered an autonomous nervous system that appeared unconscious, or beyond consciousness, it was Freud who ascribed to it a content and the function of repression.

— According to Freud, painful experiences, thoughts and feelings, are banished from the conscious mind into the unconscious, where they are repressed
— However, the the content of the repressed experiences of the unconscious continues to shape our wishes and actions – for example, traumatic experiences from childhood have an influence on a person’s behaviour and wishes long into adulthood.

— Since past experiences shape and influence our actions, there is no possibility of a free will. — Freud thought that dreams, which he called the “royal road to the unconscious”, provide access to the unconscious side of our mind and also mimic the internal logic of the unconscious mind.

Freud proposed that the conscious and unconscious parts of the psyche could understood as a three-part system comprised of:
— the Id: the unconscious; primary process thinking and instinctual needs and drives, ie. the primitive drives of sexuality, aggression and need-gratification impulses

— the Ego: the organised conscious mediator between the id, the superego, and the external world. The ego balances our primitive drives, moral ideals and taboos, and the limitations of reality. To defend itself from the impulses of the id, the ego develops defence mechanism such as repression, projection, denial, rationalisation, etc.

— the Super-Ego: the socially-induced conscience, which counteracts the id with moral and ethical thoughts. It is based on the internalization of the world view, norms and values we absorb from the surrounding environment and culture.

Among the more controversial aspects of Freud’s contribution to psychology, is his model and ideas on psychosexual development. According to him, the sexuality of a person is developed through a series of stages that correspond to the fixation on certain erogenous areas. These are:

  1. (1)  the oral stage (birth – 1 year), fixated on the mouth
  2. (2)  the anal stage (1-3 years), fixation on bowel and bladder elimination
  3. (3)  the phallic stage (3 – 6 years), fixation on genitalia and the origin of the Oedipus complex: young boy’s emotional and sexual fixation on their mother and rivalry towards their father
  4. (4)  the latent stage (6 – puberty), where sexual feeling lie dormant
  5. (5)  the genital stage (puberty-adulthood), where sexual interests mature

The underlying premise is that children as children develop, they go through these stages, in trying to pursue and satisfy their sexual drive (libido). Failure to do so in any of the given stages results in anxiety and fixation that persist into adulthood and manifests itself in the form of mental illnesses such as neurosis, hysteria or different personality disorders.

Even though many of his ideas can be seen as flawed, or biased by his own fixation on sexuality, they have been a major influence for our understanding of human nature. The idea that childhood experiences are foundational for the development of mature personality, led to many innovations and research in psychology. Lastly, Freud popularized the idea of therapy as we know it today – that is, that you can talk about your problems and in this way attempt to solve them.