Sigmund Freud was born in the Czech Republic in 1856. He is an Australian psychologist who is known for the development of techniques and theories of psychoanalysis. He developed psychoanalysis which is a method through which other analysts have been able to unpack conflicting unconscious basing them on fantasies, dreams and free associations of the patients (Freud 23). Some of the most influencing academic contributions that he has made include libido and the age, child sexuality among other topics that he developed in the 20th century.
Freud’s father, referred to as “Jakob” was a wool trader who had been married to another wife before he wed Freud’s mother (Jay1). The father who was 40 years when Freud was born can be described as being rare and authoritarian while the mother was emotionally present.
Although Freud had other brothers, he was not closely attached to them but was more attached to his nephew John, who provided the intimate friend and also hatred rival that reproduced in the later stages of Freud’s life (Jay 1). For example, the sensitivity to perianal authority within such that he later talked about in his theories and work was mainly stimulated by the decline in power that his father suffered in his generation. The father suffered this ion the liberal rationalists who lived in the Habsburg Empire. It is also believed that the interest that he had in the theme of the seduction of daughters was based in the complicated ways in the context of the attitude that Viennese had towards female sexuality.
When Fred was four years, his family relocated to Vienna where he lived and worked for the most part of his life. He started studying medicine at the University of Vienna, and he had a medical degree in 1881. After graduation, he worked as a doctor at the Vienna General Hospital. He got engaged, and his marriage led to six children in which his last born Anna became a distinguished psychoanalyst.
In his career, Freud viewed himself as a scientist most and not a doctor. Many people thought that he was a doctor, but he took more of his time on science and research. He endeavored through this to make understanding of human knowledge and the experience that human went through his journey of development. The movement of the family from Freiburg was mainly due to economic reasons. Despite the dislike that Freud had to the imperial city, he was forced to become part of it. It is also from the city that most of his thoughts and the arguments on the theories that he developed at a later part of his life emerged. They were mainly encouraged by the political and the social situation in the city.
His career and development of theories
Earlier in his career, he was mainly influenced by the discoveries and the works of his friend, Jose Breuer. Breuer had made a discovery that through the encouragement of a hysterical patient to talk about the earlier experienced and the symptoms that he had seen, these symptoms sometimes abated. This discovery encouraged Freud and he posited that the neurons of the patient in these situations had their origins in the traumatic events and experiences that the patient had gone through. As part of the treatment, he argued that the patient could be empowered to recall the experiences and bring them to his awareness. In doing so, he could challenge it both emotionally and intellectually. He supposed that a patient in these situations could then release it and rid themselves of the neurotic indications. The findings and the theories that the two friends developed were first published in the book Studies in Hysteria in 1895.
The relationship between Breuer and Freud ended when Breuer felt that Freud had made much emphasis on the sexual origin on the patients’ neutrons and he was not willing to look at other factors that could have brought the change. He was not willing at the time to welcome other viewpoints and suggestions by Breuer. Freud in this aspect decided to focus on this point of arguments and he went ahead to refine his own arguments. Most of the contemporaries that he had were that the emphasis he had on sexuality was either overplayed or scandalous just as it had been seen by Breuer. He had an in vitiation in 1909 to give several lectures in the United States. After the visit, he made more analysis on his theories and wrote another book in 1916, ‘Five Lecturers on Psycho-Analysis’. His fame grew exponentially from the arguments that he made in this book.
In 1985, Freud went to Paris as a student where he studied neurology and it is at the school that he met neurologist Jean Charcot. The 19 weeks that he had in the French capital greatly contributed to the development of his career and opened up ways through which he explained his theories. It is this time that he spent with Charcot that gave him a lead to his works and some of his theories. He realized during this time that the psychological disorders that patients might be undergoing might have had an origin in the mind. He decided to get more on this. He was also inspired by the practices and the knowledge of the neurologist and when he returned to Vienna the previous year, he set up his private exercise. In his practice, he mainly focused and specialized on brain and nervous disorders. In his practice, he developed a theory that humans have an insentient in which aggressive and sexual instincts are continuous conflict to gain reign with the defense against them. He began an analysis of himself in 1897 and did a major work in 1900, “The Interpretation of Drama” in which he examined dreams basing them on experiences and unconscious needs(Freud 41).
He was appointed the Professor of Neuropathology at the University of Vienna in 1902. He held this post until 1938. Although in his career and the discoveries that he made at this time and later, the medical establishments disagreed with many theories he developed. Students and followers began to gather and look keenly on some of the arguments that he made and compared them to the medical establishments that they knew or researched about. He worked with some of the students until there the establishments of International Psychoanalysis Association in 1910. The organization was founded by Carl Jung who was his close friend. Carl Jung broke with him to develop his own philosophies.
After the First World War, Freud did not spend much of his time in clinical observations and used most of time on the application on the theories that he had developed to history, literature, art and anthropology. In 1923, he did more research on the theories and published the book “The Ego and the Id” (Freud 78). In the book, the main idea was the suggestion on the new physical model of the mind. He divided the mind in to the “id” and the “superego’.
Lasting legacy
Freud has remained an icon in the world of psychology and medicine. Many of the theories that Freud developed including those on ‘Psychic energy’ were in no doubt influenced by the discoveries that were made by other scientific discoveries at the time. One of the works that influenced his thinking and actions were those of Charles Darwin. Darwin developed an understanding of humankind as progressive elements of the animal kingdom that led and informed the investigation by Freud on human behavior. Additionally, the new principles that were formulated by Helmholtz which stated that the energy in any given system is constant were used by Freud in studying the human mind. At first, however, he was not uncertain about the exact status of the sexual element in the conception of the mind that he developed. The work that Freud did have been criticized but there is still no person in history that has influenced the science of psychology as intensely as he did.
Although Freud has contributed extensively in understanding human psychology, there have been many controversies over some of his publications. For example, during his early years, the Nazis openly burned a number of his books in 1933. This invasion by the Nazis was the beginning of his end. In 1938, shortly after the Nazis occupied Austria, he left for London together with his daughter Ann and wife. He had been diagnosed with cancer of the jaw and went through thirty operations. He died of cancer in 1939.