Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939) is famous for his provocative and influential psychodynamic theory.

Life

Freud was born in Freiberg, Moravia (today's Pribor in the Czech Republic) in 1856. However, Freud spent most of his life (from ages 4 to 82) in Vienna. In 1938 he left his home for London, pressured by the threat of Hitler's invading army. He died the following year.

Freud attended medical school in Vienna. He was a brilliant student whose early work focused around the nervous system; particularly brain functioning. Freud became interested in psychology while studying under Jean Charcot, an emminent French neurologist. Charcot was treating patients who suffered blindness and paralysis (a disorder called conversion hysteria). Freud's observations of these patients led him to believe that there was a subconcious part of the mind, capable of exerting a powerful control over behaviour. In the years following his work with Charcot, while treating neurotic patients, Freud invented his famous psychoanalysis.

Freud's methods attempted to access the subconscious aspect of the mind and included hypnosis, dream interpretation and free-association (saying aloud whatever comes to mind). Freud himself suffered from depression, and attempted to treat himself through the interpretation of his own dreams.

His first book, The Interpretation of Dreams, was published in 1900. Freud's radical work was immediately unpopular with the Victorian society of his time. However, followers slowly became attracted to his ideas -- which proved to be revolutionary.

Freud's Psychodynamic Theory

Freud's Tripartite Theory of Personality

Freud viewed the human personality as having three discrete structures which interacted with each other: the id, the ego and the superego.

The id is a fundamentally irrational aspect of personality. It seeks the immediate gratification of its instinctual wants, and because of this is said to operate according to the "pleasure principle". However, the id is wholly subconscious and can not directly effect the external world.

Since the id cannot effect the external world itself, another aspect of personality called the ego develops. Unlike the id, the ego operates on a primarily conscious level. It's purpose is to mediate between the id and reality, and operates according to the "reality principle". The ego tests and monitors reality, finding safe ways to outlet the irrational desires of the id.

Finally, a third structure called the superego develops. The superego is a moral center which absorbs the values and ideals it's parents and society. It's function is self-control, thus with it's development external controls (such as parenting which reinforces and punishes) are substituted.

Freud's Three Psychosexual Stages of Development

The first of Freud's three psychosexual stages is the oral stage. During this stage the id seeks gratification through pleasuring the oral errogenous zone. This stage begins at infancy and revolves around eating and sucking.

Next is the anal stage, wherein the id derives pleasure through waste elimination. This stage occurs at ages 2-3 years. Freud viewed this stage as significant because it marks a child's first attempt to control a biological impulse in order to meet the demands of society.

The phallic stage begins at 4-5 years of age. During this stage Freud's famous Oedipus and Electra complexes emerge. These complexes are named after characters of Greek myth whose narratives share common traits. Male children develop a sexual desire for their mother, view their father as a rival, and fear that he will castrate them as a result -- the so called Oedipus complex. Female children, on the other hand, develop penis envy (the Electra Complex). They blame their mothers for their lack of penis, and desire to compensate for this by giving birth to their father's children. The phallic conflicts are resolved by method of repression. Through repressing the child learns to identify with it's same-sex parent, allowing for both the vicarious possession of the opposite-sex parent and the development of the superego.

Freud believed that during any of these three stages deprivation or overindulgence may cause "fixation", which is arrested development through the psychosexual stages.

Freud's Psychoanalytic Ego Defence Mechanisms

Freud believed that anxiety occurs when impulses emminating from the id threaten to overpower the ego. The ego can respond to this threat by using coping mechanisms that are in line with reality. However, if these attempts to cope realistically fail, the ego may resort one or more of the following eight defense mechanisms:

• Denial
• Displacement
• Intellectualization
• Projection
• Repression
• Rationalization
• Reaction Formation
• Sublimation

References

• Passer, Michael W; Smith, Ronald E; Atkinson, Michael L; Mitchell, John B; Muir, Darwin W. (2003). Psychology: Frontiers and Applications. First Canadian Edition. Canada: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. ISBN 0-07-089188-5
• Freud, Sigmund; ed. McLintock, David (2002) Civilization and Its Discontents. London: Penguin Books Ltd. ISBN-13: 978-0-141-18236-0 ISBN-10: 0-141-18236-9

See also

• Mind
• Psychology
• Developmental psychology