Sigmund Freud - Sigmund Freud - Psychoanalytic theory: Freud, still beholden to Charcot’s hypnotic method, did not grasp the full implications of Breuer’s experience until a decade later, when he developed the technique of free association. An even more important influence on Freud however, came from the field of physics. In 1938 the Nazis annexed Austria, and Freud, who was Jewish, was allowed to leave for England. This analysis revealed to him that the love and admiration which he had felt for his father were mixed with very contrasting feelings of shame and hate (such a mixed attitude he termed ambivalence). When he returned to Vienna, Freud experimented with hypnosis but found that its beneficial effects did not last. First of all, Freud himself was very much a Freudian—his father had two sons by a previous marriage, Emmanuel and Philip, and the young Freud often played with Philip’s son John, who was his own age. Freud’s psychoanalytic theory was initially not well received—when its existence was acknowledged at all it was usually by people who were, as Breuer had foreseen, scandalized by the emphasis placed on sexuality by Freud. However, the response he encountered was so ferociously hostile that he masked his findings and offered his theory of the unconscious in its place (see Masson, J. It was not until 1908, when the first International Psychoanalytical Congress was held at Salzburg that Freud’s importance began to be generally recognized. In fact, ideas about the … What is attractive about the theory, even to the layman, is that it seems to offer us long sought-after and much needed causal explanations for conditions which have been a source of a great deal of human misery. If this contention is true—and it must at least be contemplated seriously—then this is undoubtedly the most serious criticism that Freud and his followers have to face. Sigmund Freud. On this basis, parents have been accused and repudiated, and whole families have been divided or destroyed. Thus it is a mistake to interpret Freud as asserting that all human actions spring from motivations which are sexual in their origin, since those which derive from Thanatos are not sexually motivated—indeed, Thanatos is the irrational urge to destroy the source of all sexual energy in the annihilation of the self. This technique, and the theory from which it is derived, was given its classical expression in Studies in Hysteria, jointly published by Freud and Breuer in 1895. In 1900, after a protracted period of self-analysis, he published The Interpretation of Dreams, which is generally regarded as his greatest work. Thus the centuries-long approach of deeming the behavior of a neurotic patient as unexplainable is a faulty one, according to Freud. He thus saw the psychosexual development of every individual as consisting essentiall… Freud positioned the key repressions for both, the normal individual and the neurotic, in the first five years of childhood, and of course, held them to be essentially sexual in nature; since, as we have seen, repressions which disrupt the process of infantile sexual development in particular, according to him, lead to a strong tendency to later neurosis in adult life. Freud’s account of the sexual genesis and nature of neuroses led him naturally to develop a clinical treatment for treating such disorders. It is in this sense that the mind is to be understood as a dynamic energy-system. Kluwer, 1999. One of Freud's greatest contributions to psychology was talk therapy, the notion that simply talking about our problems can help alleviate them. Unsurprisingly, this in turn has given rise to a systematic backlash in which organizations of accused parents, seeing themselves as the true victims of what they term False Memory Syndrome, have denounced all such memory-claims as falsidical — the direct product of a belief in what they see as the myth of repression. The result has been that in the United States and Britain in particular, many thousands of people have emerged from analysis with recovered memories of alleged childhood sexual abuse by their parents; memories which, it is suggested, were hitherto repressed. To create a cure, the analyst must facilitate the patient himself to become conscious of unresolved conflicts buried in the deep recesses of the unconscious mind, and to confront and engage with them directly. Another possibility would be the conscious, rational control of formerly repressed drives—this is suppression. Freud’s theory of the unconscious, then, is highly deterministic—a fact which, given the nature of nineteenth century science, should not be surprising. Freud accordingly terms this the oral stage of development. Sigmund Freud, often known as the father of psychoanalysis, is one of the most important figures in the early development of the field of psychology. Freud further said that the unconscious consists of the thoughts and feelings which humans have repressed over the years, usually tracing back to events taking place in the childhood. However, the repressed instinctual drive, as an energy-form, is not and cannot be destroyed when it is repressed—it continues to exist intact in the unconscious, from where it exerts a determining force upon the conscious mind, and can give rise to the dysfunctional behavior characteristic of neuroses. Thus, instead of treating the behavior of the neurotic as being causally inexplicable—which had been the prevailing approach for centuries—Freud insisted, on the contrary, on treating it as behavior for which it is meaningful to seek an explanation by searching for causes in terms of the mental states of the individual concerned. The second fifty years of the nineteenth century saw monumental advances in contemporary physics, which were largely initiated by the formulation of the principle of the conservation of energy by Helmholz. The evolutionary doctrine radically altered the prevailing conception of man—whereas before, man had been seen as a being different in nature from the members of the animal kingdom by virtue of his possession of an immortal soul, he was now seen as being part of the natural order, different from non-human animals only in degree of structural complexity. Freud’s account of the unconscious, and the psychoanalytic therapy associated with it, is best illustrated by his famous tripartite model of the structure of the mind or personality (although, as we have seen, he did not formulate this until 1923). He articulated and refined the concepts of the unconscious, infantile sexuality and repression, and he proposed a tripartite account of the mind’s structure—all as part of a radically new conceptual and therapeutic frame of reference for the understanding of human psychological development and the treatment of abnormal mental conditions. This method proved effective as Freud observed a decrease in the symptoms of the patients. However, Freud always took the occurrence of resistance as a sign that he was on the right track in his assessment of the underlying unconscious causes of the patient’s condition. Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis was my first approach to mind ... then I practised yoga meditation, I used autogenic training and, not satisfied yet, I joined Scientology for a while studying and applying their techs. Notwithstanding the multiple manifestations of psychoanalysis as it exists today, it can in almost all fundamental respects be traced directly back to Freud’s original work. He did in fact offer an early seduction theory of neuroses, which met with fierce animosity, and which he quickly withdrew and replaced with the theory of the unconscious. Some philosophers believe the self is embedded in the soul, which is argued to be immortal, immaterial, changeable or unchangeable. There is some debate as to how literally Freud intended this model to be taken (he appears to have taken it extremely literally himself), but it is important to note that what is being offered here is indeed a theoretical model rather than a description of an observable object, which functions as a frame of reference to explain the link between early childhood experience and the mature adult (normal or dysfunctional) personality. This was to become the personal (though by no means exclusive) basis for his theory of the Oedipus complex. He was certainly philosophically literate, conversant with the thinkers of his day and directly influenced in his work by Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche. The developmental process, then, is for the child essentially a movement through a series of conflicts, the successful resolution of which is crucial to adult mental health. From his account of the instincts or drives it followed that from the moment of birth the infant is driven in his actions by the desire for bodily/sexual pleasure, where this is seen by Freud in almost mechanical terms as the desire to release mental energy. Portrait of Sigmund Freud by Max Halberstadt, 1921 (Wikimedia Commons) Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, which revolutionized the modern understanding of the mind, was born in Freiburg, Moravia, in 1856. See also the articles on Descartes’ Mind-Body Distinction, Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness and Introspection. This had its origins in, and was a generalization of, Breuer’s earlier discovery that traumatic childhood events could have devastating negative effects upon the adult individual, and took the form of the general thesis that early childhood sexual experiences were the crucial factors in the determination of the adult personality. He was initially greatly heartened by attracting followers of the intellectual caliber of Adler and Jung, and was correspondingly disappointed when they both went on to found rival schools of psychoanalysis—thus giving rise to the first two of many schisms in the movement—but he knew that such disagreement over basic principles had been part of the early development of every new science. At the heart of Freud’s psychoanalysis is his theory of infantile sexuality, which represents individual psychological human development as a progression through a number of stages in which the libidinal drives are directed towards particular pleasure-release loci, from the oral to the anal to the phallic and, after a latency period, in maturity to the genital. Then why is Sigmund Freud in philosophy? Freud’s Philosophy of the Unconscious. Through this method he aimed to weaken the forces of the moral guide, the Super-Ego, in order to reach the cause of the disorder hidden somewhere in the Id. Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock. Perfect for acing essays, tests, and quizzes, as well as for writing lesson plans. Like Marx, his ideas were a product of the culture in which he lived, and were an attempt to come up with a scientific view of human behavior (in Marx's case, of the behavior of groups, in Freud's case, individuals). As one contemporary Freudian commentator explains it, Freud’s change of mind on this issue came about as follows: Questions concerning the traumas suffered by his patients seemed to reveal [to Freud] that Viennese girls were extraordinarily often seduced in very early childhood by older male relatives. Ireland, Works on Freud and Freudian Psychoanalysis. Accordingly, he got his patients to relax in a position in which they were deprived of strong sensory stimulation, and even keen awareness of the presence of the analyst (hence the famous use of the couch, with the analyst virtually silent and out of sight), and then encouraged them to speak freely and uninhibitedly, preferably without forethought, in the belief that he could thereby discern the unconscious forces lying behind what was said. Henri Ellenberger stated that its range of influence permeated "all the fields of culture ... so far as to change our way of life and concept of man." In this sense, then, the object of psychoanalytic treatment may be said to be a form of self-understanding—once this is acquired it is largely up to the patient, in consultation with the analyst, to determine how he shall handle this newly-acquired understanding of the unconscious forces which motivate him. As such it is completely normal and an integral part of the developmental process through which every child must pass on the way to adulthood. It is argued that nothing of the kind is possible with respect to Freud’s theory—it is not falsifiable. This is the method of free-association, the rationale for which is similar to that involved in the analysis of dreams—in both cases the super-ego is to some degree disarmed, its efficiency as a screening mechanism is moderated, and material is allowed to filter through to the conscious ego which would otherwise be completely repressed. The theory is termed tripartite simply because, again like Plato, Freud distinguished three structural elements within the mind, which he called id, ego, and super-ego. This was followed in 1901 by The Psychopathology of Everyday Life; and in 1905 by Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. In this way, it is often alleged, the unquestioning acceptance of a set of ideological principles becomes a necessary precondition for acceptance into the movement—as with most religious groupings. This, however, gives rise to (socially derived) feelings of guilt in the child, who recognizes that it can never supplant the stronger parent. The famous theory of Unconsciousness presented by Freud is one of its kind, in which he presents the idea that a large portion of human attitudes can be explained through mental processes and resulting actions which are not clearly visible. Freud, according to them, had stumbled upon and knowingly suppressed the fact that the level of child sexual abuse in society is much higher than is generally believed or acknowledged. The theory upon which the use of leeches to bleed patients in eighteenth century medicine was based was quite spurious, but patients did sometimes actually benefit from the treatment! And Freud was … With the help of his colleague Joseph Breuer, he developed the theory of the mind as a complex energy structure. Sigmund Freud was born 150 years ago this year. It was through his association with his close friend and colleague Josef Breuer that Freud became aware of a woman known in the case history as Anna O. The treatment was to enable the patient to recall the experience to consciousness, to confront it in a deep way both intellectually and emotionally, and in thus discharging it, to remove the underlying psychological causes of the neurotic symptoms. In 1885-86, Freud spent the greater part of a year in Paris, where he was deeply impressed by the work of the French neurologist Jean Charcot who was at that time using hypnotism to treat hysteria and other abnormal mental conditions. Sigmund Freud was the father of psychoanalysis and clinical practice (Art Archive). In this way, it is suggested, the theory of the Oedipus complex was generated. The impact of Sigmund Freud’s contributions in the field of psychology, semiotics creativity, and neuroscience can never be neglected. Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was a physiologist, medical doctor, psychologist and influential thinker of the early twentieth century. This statement begs a number of questions, not least, what does the expression extraordinarily often mean in this context? This happens at the age of five, whereupon the child enters a latency period, in which sexual motivations become much less pronounced. Deeply associated with this view of the mind is Freud’s account of instincts or drives. Sigmund Freud's Philosophy Of The Self; Sigmund Freud's Philosophy Of The Self. Here we will confine ourselves to: (a) the evaluation of Freud’s claim that his theory is a scientific one, (b) the question of the theory’s coherence, (c) the dispute concerning what, if anything, Freud really discovered, and (d) the question of the efficacy of psychoanalysis as a treatment for neurotic illnesses. Secondly, and at a more general level, account must be taken of the contemporary scientific climate in which Freud lived and worked. University of Limerick Thus his theory of the instincts or drives is essentially that the human being is energized or driven from birth by the desire to acquire and enhance bodily pleasure. Freud, through his concepts of the Conscious and Unconscious, and through practice of hypnosis, was led to the treatment of psychological disorders through talking, which he termed as psychoanalysis. The difficulty with Freud’s theory is that it offers us entities (for example repressed unconscious conflicts), which are said to be the unobservable causes of certain forms of behavior But there are no correspondence rules for these alleged causes—they cannot be identified except by reference to the behavior which they are said to cause (that is, the analyst does not demonstratively assert: “This is the unconscious cause, and that is its behavioral effect;” rather he asserts: “This is the behavior, therefore its unconscious cause must exist”), and this does raise serious doubts as to whether Freud’s theory offers us genuine causal explanations at all. By what standard is this being judged? Shortly after his marriage in 1886, which was extremely happy and gave Freud six children—the youngest of whom, Anna, was to herself become a distinguished psychoanalyst—Freud set up a private practice in the treatment of psychological disorders, which gave him much of the clinical material that he based his theories and pioneering techniques on. Failure to resolve this can lead to later neurosis. However, Freud’s most important and frequently re-iterated claim, that with psychoanalysis he had invented a successful science of the mind, remains the subject of much critical debate and controversy. Freud: A Very Short Introduction – Anthony Storr. This lasts until puberty when mature genital development begins, and the pleasure drive refocuses around the genital area. Thus the principle of the conservation of energy (physical, not psychic), which influenced Freud so greatly, is a scientific one because it is falsifiable—the discovery of a physical system in which the total amount of physical energy was not constant would conclusively show it to be false. It should be emphasized here that Freud’s genius is not (generally) in doubt, but the precise nature of his achievement is still the source of much debate. In the James Bond song, “Die Another Day,” Madonna says, “Sigmund Freud, analyze this.” This is no surprise since Sigmund Freud is “the father of psychoanalysis.” When we think of Sigmund Freud, we think of a psychologist who analyzes people. On the question of what makes a theory a genuinely scientific one, Karl Popper’s criterion of demarcation, as it is called, has now gained very general acceptance: namely, that every genuine scientific theory must be testable, and therefore falsifiable, at least in principle. 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