Sigmund Freud

Sigismund Schlomo Freud was born on May 6 1856 in Freiberg, Moravia, in the Austrian Empire. He died on September 23 1939 in London. He was the founder of psychoanalysis. Freud was an acting neurologist, psychologist and psychiatrist.

Psychoanalysis

He first used the term psychoanalysis in 1896, after he wrote the essay "Studien über Hysterie" ("Studies in Hysteria", 1936) with Josef Breuer in 1895. In the examination of Breuer's technique of free association, Sigmund Freud started to develop psychoanalysis. Breuer used the technique of free association on the patient Bertha Pappenheim who suffered from different mental illnesses. The patient – afterwards known under the pseudonym Anna O. – described the mental symptoms she was suffering from once more and went through her suppressed feelings once again, thus abreacting them. The basis of the method of psychoanalysis was therefore invented at the end of the 19th century. While further developing the technique, Freud asked the patients to express all of the thoughts they had at that moment. He hoped to reproduce inarticulate thoughts from the unconscious. Freud developed his psychoanalysis and wrote down its principles Die Traumdeutung, first published in 1899 (The Interpretation of Dreams, 1913). Sigmund Freud analyses himself in this work and thus it has strong autobiographical traits. It contains fundamental psychological ideas like the Oedipus Complex or the impact of repression on the person. During the work on this book he already had ideas concerning sexuality which he developed into a proper theory in Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualität, first published in 1905 (Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, 1910). In Das Ich und das Es (The Ego and the Id, 1927), first published in 1923 he introduces the Ego, the Id and the Superego as structural characteristics of the psyche.

Later life

His psychoanalysis plays an important role in the two works Die Zukunft einer Illusion (The Future of an Illusion, 1928) and Das Unbehagen in der Kultur (Civilization and Its Discontents, 1930). Sigmund Freud suffered from chronic pain after developing palatal cancer in 1923. Especially in the book of 1930 a very dark view on the world emerged: "[Er] beklagte sich darüber, daß hinter dieser Arbeit kein Drang mehr stecke. 'Was sollte ich aber tun? Man kann nicht den ganzen Tag rauchen und Karten spielen, im Gehen bin ich nicht mehr ausdauernd, und das meiste, was man lesen kann, interessiert mich nicht mehr. Ich schrieb, und die Zeit verging mir dabei ganz angenehm'" (quoted in Gay 611).

Freud was not that optimistic for the success of this book, because he thought it did not contain anything that had not been said before. However, this was one of his most successful and influential works. Especially in the work from 1930 his religious opinions play an important role. In it he describes religion as infantile or a palliative.

Freud had to flee to London due to the ever growing influence of the German Reich and the National Socialist Party which not only persecuted Jews, but also thought Freud's theories decadent and wrong, with his family in 1938. One year later, Freud committed suicide with the aide of his doctor. He was no longer able to speak and was permanently in agonizing pain.

Sigmund Freud has forever changed the understanding of the human mind by inventing the field of psychoanalysis. Though some of his theories are outdated, many of his methods are in a modified way used in practise up until today. He coined many words such as the subconcious or the Oedipus Complex and his work plays an important part in the transition from the 19th to the 20th century.

Sources

Gay, Peter. Freud. Eine Biographie für unsere Zeit. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1995.

Gribbin, John. The Encyclopædia Britannica Guide to: The 100 Most Influential Scientists. The Most Important Scientists from Ancient Greece to the Present Day. Sigmund Freud. UK: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc, 2008.