Summary: Introduction To Psychology; Sigmund Freud

A great portion of the psychological theories, ideologies and beliefs that are prevalent in modern day psychology are all based on foundational ideologies by the father of psychology, who is none other than Sigmund Freud. Even though he was highly criticized for his methods and extremism, there is no doubt that his theoretical concepts are still recognized, where he laid the first building blocks for the modern-day psychological theories that are prevalent today. From introducing the development theory and the psychoanalytic theory, to the development of his therapeutic methods, dream theory and talking therapy, it is easy to say that Freud’s work contributed greatly to the study of psychology.

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist who was born on the 6th of May 1856 to a Jewish wool merchant in a small town called Freiburg. Freud only spent his first four years as a child living in Freiburg before his father moved his family to Vienna Austria, where he continued to live for the rest of his life.

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During his earliest studies on psychiatry in, Freud was quite intrigued by the study of neuropsychology during his time at The University of Vienna’s medical school. Being known for being an extraordinary student since youth, Freud excelled in this study and practiced it during his work in a psychiatry clinic run by the very famous brain anatomist, Dr. Theodore Meynert, where he became quite skilled in the diagnosis of organic brain disorders. Freud’s first studies on hysteria and hysterical theories started after Freud left the clinic and encountered French neurologist, Dr.

Jean Charcot during a convention in Paris, France, which was the first-time Freud started developing his studies on hysteria (Fancher, 1998)

One of the Freud’s biggest contributions towards psychology was the introduction of the Freudian Psychoanalytical Theory. However, to adequately analyze it, the underlying theory, that it is based upon must be analyzed as well. This theory is called the Theory of Personality, which was also developed by Freud. The concept of this theory revolves around the idea that a human mind consists of three major parts: the id, the ego and the superego (Abu-Raiya, 2014).

The first part of the human mind is claimed by Freud to be completely unconscious, is called the id. Freud argues that this part of the mind is mainly composed of a person’s sexual urges as well as aggressive tendencies (Abu-Raiya, 2014). Freud also expresses that the main role of id is to maximize one’s pleasure, while minimizing any forms displeasure that a person may experience (Abu-Raiya, 2014). The id also experiences a principle called primary processing, which is described as the exclusion of itself from reality. However, the problem arises when this principle clashes with another principle called the reality principle embedded within the second part of the mind that Freud describes called the ego. Freud describes the ego as the part of the human mind which represents the conscious part of the mind, mainly driven by this reality principle, which is basically the realization that an external reality does indeed exist (Abu-Raiya, 2014). The ego also introduces the concept of secondary processing, which is the logical thinking of a human brain. Moreover, the third and final part of the brain that Freud introduces is called the superego. This part of the mind is formed during one of the earlier stages of Freud’s Oedipus Complex stages, around the age of 3, where the child starts to recognize and incorporate societal standards, norms and expectation into his/her own personality. During this stage, the child also starts to convene more towards their same-sex parent, identifying themselves as being similar to them. Freud believes that these three parts of the mind work together to “regulate the psychological life of a person” (Abu-Raiya, 2014) throughout the person’s life. This theory introduces an underlying concept embedded within that Freud tried to explain, and that is the mind is mainly made up of a conscious part and an unconscious part. Freud characterized the conscious part of the mind to be as “All perceptions which are received from without (Perception of the senses) and from within (sensation and feelings)” (Abu-Raiya, 2014), where unconsciousness is perceived play quite a big role in a person’s mental life. Freud characterized the unconscious part of the mind to be where all the repressed images, thoughts and impulses are pushed to (Abu-Raiya, 2014). The introduction of this concept is considered to be the main building block for the introduction of his theory of psychoanalysis.

As stated previously, the inference made from the theory of personality is the importance of distinguishing between the conscious and the unconscious, which plays a key role for laying the ground for the greatest contribution Freud has given to psychology and that is the introduction of the theory of psychoanalysis. Shedding light on the importance of the unconscious part of the mind, Freud clearly stated that the unconscious plays a major role in the repression defense mechanism where he also refers to it as a “reservoir for urges, lapses, distractions and dreams” (Samuel, 2013). This statement led Freud to the conclusion that in order properly find out about these repressed meanings, he must properly analyze these meanings through analyzing the unconscious through psychoanalysis. To Freud, psychoanalysis was mainly a way of therapy aiming to treating mental “nervous disorders”, where he believed that these disorders arose due to conflicts between reality, and desires embedded within our unconsciousness, as well as a way exploring the unconscious part of the mind and understanding the behavior of a person (Samuel, 2013). The story of the birth of psychoanalysis came due to the ineffectiveness of Freud’s first therapeutic methods used on his patients who suffered from hysterical symptoms. Freud used different therapeutic methods such as hydrotherapy, which is the prescription of hot or cold baths to cure symptoms, as well as another method called electrotherapy, which consisted of shocking certain body parts with mild voltages to try and cure the symptoms, and finally hypnosis, where Freud tried to hypnotize his patients into believing that they did not actually have these symptoms. However, all these proved to be quite ineffective and inconsistent in most cases (Fancher, 1998). Looking for more effective alternatives, Freud remembered a case he came across earlier in his life, called the case of Bertha Pappenheim. Bertha had severe hysterical symptoms, and at the time was treated by a physician called Dr. Josef Breuer (Fancher, 1998). Dr. Breuer used a therapeutic method on Bertha called the cathartic method of treatment, where under the effect of hypnosis, Bertha would remember any previously forgotten memories or experiences that had deep emotional effects on her, and when expressing them freely, this would lead to her symptoms disappearing (Fancher, 1998). This observation led Freud to noticing the importance of expression as a form of therapy, where he introduced his earliest forms psychoanalytical therapy. Freud introduced a form of therapy called talking therapy, where he believed that in patients expressing their thoughts freely without interruption, this would lead to a decline in their symptoms (Samuel, 2013). Building on this, Freud also introduced the concept of free association, which is the process of letting a patient’s mind wander freely through any thoughts that may arise during therapy due to the symptoms they were experiencing (Fancher, 1998). However, the main problem that arises with this method is that there is a notion of resistance embedded within one’s mind, where it filters any disturbing memories and experiences and pushes it into the unconscious, also known as repression (Fancher, 1998). Shedding more of emphasis on the role of the unconscious, Freud then decided to tackle his patients’ symptoms through exploring the unconscious part of their minds to tackle to root of the problem itself (Samuel, 2013) (Elzer &Gerlach, 2014). Freud would try to explore his patients’ unconscious for the causes of these illnesses and symptoms by analyzing his patients’ histories and childhoods, trying to find the experience or memory that may have led to these illnesses arising, which is his most recent method psychoanalytical therapy that he is quite known for (Samuel, 2013).

To furtherly understand the unconscious part of the mind furtherly, Freud introduced another one of his major works; the dream theory. Freud deeply believed that dreams were the “road to the unconscious”, where the unconscious attempts solve internal struggles of a person during the dream as well as fulfilling a person’s deepest wishes (1900). He believed that all dreams had a deeper meaning to them, convincing him that these deeper meanings could be found if dreams were interpreted (Fancher, 1998). This can be seen Freud clearly stating, “In the following pages, I shall demonstrate that there is a psychological technique which makes it possible to interpret dreams, and that on the application of this technique, every dream will reveal itself as a psychological structure, full of significance, and one which may be assigned to a specific place in the psychic activities of the waking state” in his first book published about dream interpretation (1900). Attempting to start his analytical studies, Freud firstly used himself as his first test subject through self-analysis in attempting to analyze his own dreams and interpreting them to find their deeper meaning, known as his famous dream analysis of “The Dream of Irma’s Injection” (Fancher, 1998). Freud concluded that dreams have two contents within them; firstly, the manifest content, which mainly consists of the actual experiences a dreamer experiences during the dream. These experiences were subject to free association by the dreamer to try and uncover the hidden meaning within these experiences, which Freud referred to as the latent content (Fancher, 1998)

Freud has received and still receives criticism today regarding some of his methods and ideologies. However, perhaps one of his biggest criticisms was his overemphasis on sexuality and impulses (Samuel, 2013). This can be furtherly explained using the example of the psychoanalysis of the case of Little Hans. Little Hans had a fear of if he goes out, a horse might bite his penis off. To analyze this through psychoanalysis and free association, Freud constantly analyzed Hans’s manifest dreams into sexual meanings all the time, where every dream he had had a sexual meaning behind it, leading to Freud’s over emphasis on not only sexuality in adults, but also with children through infantile sexuality (Buchanan, 2013). Moreover, one of Freud’s most recognizable harshest critics might be his former pupil and understudy, Carl Jung. Jung was one of Freud’s first followers, applying his theories in practice, especially Freud’s psychoanalytical theory. However, due to Freud’s emphasis on sexuality and limiting perspective from other factors, this led to Jung disagreeing with Freud and creating his own theory of analytical psychology which de-emphasizes sexuality and focuses more on the concept of free will .(Samuel, 2013)

Sigmund Freud’s work has influenced the science of mind and behavior greatly. Starting off with the introduction of personality theory, which was a very important building block for one of the most important theories that is still widely recognized today and that is the theory of psychoanalysis. The emergence of this theory and its therapeutic methods could be considered one of the psychological breakthroughs that happened, where a very well-known psychologist, James S. Van Tesslaar commented by saying that “one of the most important practical contributions of science in modern times,” (Samuel, 2013). The introduction of talking therapy and the concept of free association has led to its spread of use over the years, where it has significantly lead to a lot of psychological illnesses being cured using this therapeutic method over the years. Even though there have been major criticisms from multiple reputable individuals over the years, there is no denial that Freud’s overall contributions to the science of psychology is quite extraordinary.

References:

1. Abu-Raiya, H. (2014). Western Psychology and Muslim Psychology in Dialogue: Comparisons
2. Between a Qura’nic Theory of Personality and Freud’s and Jung’s Ideas. Journal of Religion and Health.
3. Buchanan. (2013). The Little Hans Assemblage. Visual Arts Research.
4. Elzer, M., & Gerlach, A. (2014). Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: A Handbook. Karnac Books.
5. Fancher, R (1998). The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud (1910) with
6. Introduction & Commentary by Raymond E. Fancher
7. Freud, S (1900). The interpretation of dreams (Die Traumdeutung)
8. Samuel, L. R. (2013). Shrink: A Cultural History of Psychoanalysis in America. Lincoln:
9. University of Nebraska Press.