Sigmund Freud Biography

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist. He developed psychoanalysis, which is a method through which an analyst unpacks the unconscious conflicts based on dreams, free associations and fantasies of the patient. His theories on libido, child sexuality and the ego, among the other topics, were a few of the most influential academic concepts of the 20th century.

Sigmund Freud's Early Life, Education, Career and Family

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Freud was born on May 6, 1856. His birthplace was in the Austrian town of Freiberg. It is now referred to as the Czech Republic. When Freud was 4 years old, his family moved to Vienna, the town where he would live and work for the remainder of his life. In 1881, he received a medical degree. As a young researcher and a medical student, Freud's research focused on neurobiology by exploring the biology of the brains and nervous tissue of both animals and humans.

After graduation, Freud promptly set up a private practice and have begun treating different psychological disorders. He has attempted to comprehend the path of human knowledge and experience, seeing himself first and foremost as a scientist rather than a doctor.

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Early in his professional career, Freud became greatly influenced by the work of his Viennese colleague and friend, named Josef Breuer, who observed that encouraging a hysterical patient to talk freely about the first experiences of the symptoms resulted in the symptoms gradually abating.

After more work together, Breuer has ended the relationship, feeling that Freud placed much emphasis on the sexual origins of the neuroses of a patient and was completely unwilling to consider other viewpoints. In the meanwhile, Freud continued to refine his own argument.

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Wife and Kids

In 1882, Freud married Martha Bernays. They had 6 children — the youngest of whom, named Anna Freud, went on to become a distinguished psychoanalyst herself.

Theories Proposed by Sigmund Freud

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The psychoanalytic theory of Freud, inspired by his colleague Josef Breuer has posited that neuroses had their origins in deeply traumatic experiences, which had occurred in the patient's past. He also thought that the initial events had been forgotten and removed from consciousness. His treatment was to empower the patients to recall the experience and bring it to a consciousness stage, and in doing that, confront it both emotionally and intellectually. Then, he believed that one could discharge it and rid oneself of the neurotic symptoms. A few of Freud's most discussed theories, as the Sigmund Freud biography summary are included as:

• Psychic energy: Freud has postulated that the id was either the basic psychic energy source or the force, which drives all mental processes. In specific, he believed that sexual urges or libido was psychic energy, which drives all human actions; where, the libido was countered by the Thanatos, the death instinct, which drives destructive behaviour.

• Id, Ego and Superego: These are the 3 important parts of the human personality. The id is the impulsive, primitive and irrational unconscious, which operates solely on the outcome of pain or pleasure and is responsible for the instincts to aggression and sex. The ego is the "I" people perceive, which evaluates the outside the social and physical world and makes plans accordingly. Whereas the superego is defined as the conscience and moral voice that guides the ego, violating it results in feelings of anxiety and guilt. Freud also believed that the superego is developed primarily during the first five years of life, depending on the moral norms of one's parents, and that it is affected by other role models during adolescence.

• Dream Analysis: In his book - named "The Interpretation of Dreams," Freud believed that people usually dreamed for a reason: to cope with the problems, where the mind is struggling with subconsciously and cannot deal with consciously. Dreams were fueled by the wishes of a person. Freud also believed that by analyzing our memories and dreams, we could understand them that can subconsciously influence our current feelings and behaviour.

• Oedipus Complex: Between the ages of 3 and 5, Freud has suggested that as a normal part of the development process, all kids are sexually attracted to the opposite sex's parent and in competition with the parent of a similar sex. This particular theory is named after the Greek legend of Oedipus, who killed his father and thus he could marry his mother.

Freud's theories were no doubt influenced by the other scientific discoveries of his day. The idea of humans as a progressing part of the animal kingdom by Charles Darwin undoubtedly influenced Sigmund Freud's study of human behaviour. Furthermore, Freud's scientific investigations into the human mind were inspired by the development of a new concept by the scientist "Hermann von Helmholtz," saying that energy in any given physical system is always constant. The work of Freud has been both hotly critiqued and rapturously praised, but no one has influenced the science of psychology as intensely as Sigmund Freud did.

The great reverence, which was later given to Freud's theories, was not in evidence for a few years. Most of his peers thought his focus on sexuality was either excessive or obscene. He was asked to give a series of lectures in the United States in 1909, but it wasn't until the publication of his book "Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis" (published in 1916) that his popularity skyrocketed.

These are the few life and works of Sigmund Freud and Sigmund Freud brief biography.

Books Published by Sigmund Freud

Freud has published numerous count of important works on psychoanalysis. A few of the most influential ones include:

'Studies in Hysteria' (1895)

Breuer and Freud published their findings and theories in this book, which discussed their theories that by confronting the trauma from one of the patient's past, where a psychoanalyst can help a patient rid her or himself of neuroses.

'The Interpretation of Dreams' (1900)

In the year 1900, after a serious period of self-analysis, Freud published what has become his very important and defining work that posits where dream analysis can give insight into the workings of the unconscious mind. The book was remained controversial, producing such topics as an Oedipus complex. Several psychologists say this work gave birth to the modern scientific process of thinking about the mind, including the fields of psychiatry, psychology and psychoanalysis.

'The Psychopathology of Everyday Life' (1901)

This book gave birth to the one, which is the so-called "Freudian slip" — the psychological, which means that behind the misuse of words daily in speech, writing and the forgetting of words and names. In these slips, he explained through an example series, revealed our inner desires, fantasies and anxieties.

'Three Essays on Theory of Sexuality' (1905)

While none will die without sex, the whole of humanity would go without it. So, Freud believed that sex drives human instincts. In this work, he explores the relationship between sex and social behaviour and sexual development without applying his controversial Oedipal complex.

Death

In 1938, Freud fled Austria to escape the Nazis and was died in England on September 23, 1939, at the age of 83, by suicide. He had requested a lethal morphine dose from his Doctor following a painful and long battle with oral cancer.

Freud's Perspectives

Outside of the psychology field, Freud wrote and theorized a broad range of subjects. Also, he wrote about and developed the theories that are related to topics including dreams, sex, women, religion and culture.

Views on Women

Both during and after his life, Freud was criticized for his views of femininity, women and female sexuality. His most famous critics are the other psychologist - Karen Horney, who rejected his view that women have suffered from "penis envy." instead, she argued that men experience "womb envy" and are left with inferiority feelings because they are unable to bear the children.

Views on Religion

Freud was born and raised Jewish, but in adulthood, he described himself as an atheist. "The whole thing is patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone having a friendly attitude to the humanity, it is painful to think that the great majority of the mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life," he wrote in religion.

He then continued to have a keen interest in the topics of spirituality and religion and wrote a number of books focused on that subject.