Biography of Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Shlomo Freud, the creator of the movement that became famous under the name of depth psychology and psychoanalysis, was born on May 6, 1856 in the small Moravian town of Freiburg (now Příbor) into the family of a poor wool merchant. He was the first-born of a young mother. After Sigmund, the Freuds had five daughters and another son from 1858 to 1866. In 1859, when the wool trade declined, the family moved to Leipzig, and in 1860 the family moved to Vienna, where the future famous scientist lived for about 80 years. “Poverty and misery, misery and extreme squalor,” - this is how Freud recalled his childhood. There were 8 children in the large family, but only Sigmund stood out for his exceptional abilities, amazingly sharp mind and passion for reading. Therefore, his parents sought to create better conditions for him. While other children learned their lessons by candlelight, Sigmund was given a kerosene lamp. So that the children would not disturb him, they were not allowed to play music in front of him. For all eight years at the gymnasium, Freud sat on the first bench and was the best student. Freud felt his calling very early. “I want to know all the acts of nature that have taken place over thousands of years. Perhaps I will be able to listen to its endless process, and then I will share what I have acquired with everyone who thirsts for knowledge,” a 17-year-old high school student wrote to a friend. He amazed with his erudition, spoke Greek and Latin, read Hebrew, French and English, and knew Italian and Spanish.
He graduated from high school with honors at the age of 17 and entered the famous University of Vienna to study medicine in 1873.
Vienna was then the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, its cultural and intellectual center. Outstanding professors taught at the university. While studying at the university, Freud joined the student union for the study of history, politics, and philosophy (this later affected his concepts of cultural development). But of particular interest to him were the natural sciences, the achievements of which produced a real revolution in minds in the middle of the last century, laying the foundation for modern knowledge about the body and living nature. From the great discoveries of this era - the law of conservation of energy and the law of evolution of the organic world established by Darwin - Freud drew the conviction that scientific knowledge is knowledge of the causes of phenomena under the strict control of experience. Freud relied on both laws when he later moved on to the study of human behavior. He imagined the body as a kind of apparatus, charged with energy, which is discharged either in normal or pathological reactions. Unlike physical apparatus, an organism is a product of the evolution of the entire human race and the life of an individual. These principles extended to the psyche. It was also considered, firstly, from the point of view of the individual’s energy resources, which serve as the “fuel” of his actions and experiences, and secondly, from the point of view of the development of this personality, which carries the memory of both the childhood of all humanity and one’s own childhood. Freud, thus, was brought up on the principles and ideals of precise, experimental natural science - physics and biology. He did not limit himself to describing phenomena, but looked for their causes and laws (this approach is known as determinism, and in all subsequent work Freud is a determinist). He followed these ideals when he moved into the field of psychology. His teacher was the outstanding European physiologist Ernst Brücke. Under his leadership, student Freud worked at the Vienna Institute of Physiology, sitting for many hours at a microscope. In his old age, being an internationally recognized psychologist, he wrote to one of his friends that he had never been as happy as during the years spent in the laboratory studying the structure of nerve cells in the spinal cord of animals. Freud retained the ability to work concentratedly, completely devoting himself to scientific pursuits, developed during this period, for subsequent decades.
In 1881, Freud graduated from the university. He intended to become a professional scientist. But Brücke did not have a vacant place at the physiological institute. Meanwhile, Freud's financial situation worsened. Difficulties intensified in connection with his upcoming marriage to Martha Verney, who was as poor as he was. I had to leave science and look for a means of subsistence. There was one way out - to become a practicing doctor, although he did not feel any attraction to this profession. He decided to go into private practice as a neurologist. To do this, he first had to go to work in a clinic, since he had no medical experience. At the clinic, Freud thoroughly mastered the methods of diagnosing and treating children with brain damage (patients with infantile paralysis), as well as various speech disorders (aphasia). His publications about this become known in scientific and medical circles. Freud gains a reputation as a highly qualified neurologist. He treated his patients using the methods of physiotherapy accepted at that time. It was believed that since the nervous system is a material organ, the painful changes that occur in it must have material causes. Therefore, they should be eliminated through physical procedures, influencing the patient with heat, water, electricity, etc. Very soon, however, Freud began to experience dissatisfaction with these physiotherapeutic procedures. The effectiveness of the treatment left much to be desired, and he thought about the possibility of using other methods, in particular hypnosis, using which some doctors achieved good results. One of these successfully practicing doctors was Joseph Breuer, who began to patronize the young Freud in everything (1884). They jointly discussed the causes of their patients’ illnesses and the prospects for treatment. The patients who approached them were mainly women suffering from hysteria. The disease manifested itself in various symptoms - fears (phobias), loss of sensitivity, aversion to food, split personality, hallucinations, spasms, etc.
Using mild hypnosis (a suggested state similar to sleep), Breuer and Freud asked their patients to talk about events that once accompanied the appearance of symptoms of the disease. It turned out that when patients managed to remember this and “talk it out,” the symptoms disappeared, at least for a while. Breuer called this effect the ancient Greek word “catharsis” (purification). Ancient philosophers used this word to denote the experiences caused in a person by the perception of works of art (music, tragedy). It was assumed that these works cleanse the soul of the affects that darken it, thereby bringing “harmless joy.” Breuer transferred this term from aesthetics to psychotherapy. Behind the concept of catharsis was the hypothesis according to which the symptoms of the disease arise due to the fact that the patient had previously experienced an intense, affectively colored attraction to some action. Symptoms (fears, spasms, etc.) symbolically replace this unrealized but desired action. The energy of attraction is discharged in a perverted form, as if “stuck” in organs that begin to work abnormally. Therefore, it was assumed that the main task of the doctor is to make the patient re-experience the suppressed attraction and thereby give the energy (neuro-psychic energy) a different direction, namely, to transfer it into the channel of catharsis, to defuse the suppressed attraction by telling the doctor about it. This version about affectively colored memories that traumatized the patient and were therefore repressed from consciousness, the disposal of which gives a therapeutic effect (movement disorders disappear, sensitivity is restored, etc.), contained the germ of Freud’s future psychoanalysis. First of all, in these clinical studies, the idea “cut through” to which Freud invariably returned. Conflict relations between consciousness and unconscious, but disrupting the normal course of behavior, mental states clearly came to the fore. Philosophers and psychologists have long known that behind the threshold of consciousness are past impressions, memories, and ideas that can influence its work. The new points on which the thought of Breuer and Freud lingered concerned, firstly, the resistance that consciousness provides to the unconscious, as a result of which diseases of the sensory organs and movements arise (up to temporary paralysis), and secondly, resorting to means that allow remove this resistance, first to hypnosis, and then to the so-called “free associations”, which will be discussed further. Hypnosis weakened control of consciousness, and sometimes completely removed it. This made it easier for the hypnotized patient to solve the task that Breuer and Freud set - to “pour out his soul” in a story about experiences repressed from consciousness.
In 1884, Freud, as a resident at the hospital, was sent a sample of cocaine for research. He publishes an article in a medical journal that ends with the words: “The use of cocaine, based on its anesthetic properties, will find its place in other cases.” This article was read by the surgeon Karl Koller, Freud's friend, and at the Stricker Institute of Experimental Pathology he conducted research on the anesthetic properties of cocaine on the eyes of a frog, a rabbit, a dog and his own. With the discovery of anesthesia by Koller, a new era began in ophthalmology - he became a benefactor of humanity. Freud indulged in painful thoughts for a long time and could not reconcile that the discovery did not belong to him.
In 1885, he received the title of privatdozent and was given a scholarship for a scientific internship abroad. French doctors used hypnosis especially successfully; to study their experience, Freud went to Paris for several months to see the famous neurologist Charcot (now his name is preserved in connection with one of the physiotherapeutic procedures - the so-called Charcot shower). He was a wonderful doctor, nicknamed the “Napoleon of neuroses.” Most of the royal families of Europe were treated by him. Freud, a young Viennese doctor, joined the large crowd of trainees who constantly accompanied the celebrity during rounds of patients and during sessions of their treatment with hypnosis. The incident helped Freud get closer to Charcot, to whom he approached with a proposal to translate his lectures into German. These lectures argued that the cause of hysteria, like any other disease, should be sought only in physiology, in disruption of the normal functioning of the body and nervous system. In one of his conversations with Freud, Charcot noted that the source of oddities in the behavior of a neurotic lies in the peculiarities of his sex life. This observation stuck in Freud’s head, especially since he himself and other doctors were faced with the dependence of nervous diseases on sexual factors. A few years later, under the influence of these observations and assumptions, Freud put forward a postulate that gave all his subsequent concepts, no matter what psychological problems they concerned, a special coloring and forever connected his name with the idea of \u200b\u200bthe omnipotence of sexuality in all human affairs. This idea about the role of sexual desire as the main driver of human behavior, their history and culture gave Freudianism a specific coloring and firmly associated it with ideas that reduce all the countless variety of manifestations of life to the direct or disguised intervention of sexual forces. This approach, designated by the term “pansexualism,” gained Freud enormous popularity in many Western countries - and far beyond the boundaries of psychology. This principle began to be seen as a kind of universal key to all human problems. 
As already mentioned, Breuer and Freud came to the clinic after working in a physiological laboratory for several years. Both were naturalists to the core and, before taking up medicine, they had already gained fame for their discoveries in the field of physiology of the nervous system. Therefore, in their medical practice, they, unlike ordinary empirical doctors, were guided by the theoretical ideas of advanced physiology. At that time, the nervous system was viewed as an energy machine. Breuer and Freud thought in terms of nervous energy. They assumed that its balance in the body is disturbed during neurosis (hysteria), returning to normal levels due to the discharge of this energy, which is catharsis. Being a brilliant expert on the structure of the nervous system, its cells and fibers, which he studied for years with a scalpel and a microscope, Freud made a brave attempt to sketch out a theoretical diagram of the processes occurring in the nervous system when its energy does not find a normal outlet, but is discharged along the paths leading to disruption of the organs of vision, hearing, muscles and other symptoms of the disease. Records have been preserved outlining this scheme, which has already received high praise from physiologists in our time. But Freud was extremely dissatisfied with his project (known as the "Project for Scientific Psychology"). Freud soon parted with him and with physiology, to which he had devoted years of hard work. This did not mean that from then on he considered turning to physiology pointless. On the contrary, Freud believed that over time knowledge about the nervous system would advance so far that a worthy physiological equivalent would be found for his psychoanalytic ideas. But he could not count on contemporary physiology, as his painful thoughts on the “Project of Scientific Psychology” showed.
Upon returning from Paris, Freud opens a private practice in Vienna. He immediately decides to try hypnosis on his patients. The first success was inspiring. In the first few weeks, he achieved instant healing of several patients. A rumor spread throughout Vienna that Dr. Freud was a miracle worker. But soon there were setbacks. He became disillusioned with hypnotic therapy, as he had been with drug and physical therapy.
In 1886, Freud married Martha Bernays. He met Martha, a fragile girl from a Jewish family, in 1882. They exchanged hundreds of letters, but met quite rarely. Subsequently, they had six children - Matilda (1887-1978), Jean Martin (1889-1967, named after Charcot), Oliver (1891-1969), Ernst (1892-1970), Sophia (1893-1920) and Anna ( 1895-1982). It was Anna who became a follower of her father, founded child psychoanalysis, systematized and developed psychoanalytic theory, and made a significant contribution to the theory and practice of psychoanalysis in her works. 
In 1895, Freud finally abandoned hypnosis and began to practice the method of free association - talking therapy, later called "psychoanalysis". He first used the concept of “psychoanalysis” in an article on the etiology of neuroses, published in French on March 30, 1896. From 1885 to 1899, Freud conducted intensive practice, engaged in in-depth self-analysis and worked on his most significant book, The Interpretation of Dreams. The exact date is known when Freud deciphered his first dream: July 14, 1895. Subsequent analyzes led him to the conclusion that unfulfilled desires come true in dreams. Sleep is a substitute for action; in its saving fantasy, the soul is freed from excess tension.
Continuing his practice as a psychotherapist, Freud turned from individual behavior to social behavior. In cultural monuments (myths, customs, art, literature, etc.) he sought the expression of the same complexes, the same sexual instincts and perverted ways of satisfying them. Following trends in the biologization of the human psyche, Freud extended the so-called biogenetic law to explain its development. According to this law, the individual development of an organism (ontogenesis) in a brief and condensed form repeats the main stages of development of the entire species (phylogeny). In relation to a child, this meant that, moving from one age to another, he follows the main stages that the human race has gone through in its history. Guided by this version, Freud argued that the core of the unconscious psyche of the modern child is formed from the ancient heritage of humanity. The unbridled instincts of our wild ancestors are reproduced in the child's fantasies and his desires. Freud did not have any objective data in favor of this scheme. It was purely speculative and speculative. Modern child psychology, having vast experimentally verified material on the evolution of child behavior, completely rejects this scheme. A carefully conducted comparison of the cultures of many peoples clearly speaks against it. It did not reveal those complexes that, according to Freud, hang like a curse over the entire human race and doom every mortal to neurosis. Freud hoped that by drawing information about sexual complexes not from the reactions of his patients, but from cultural monuments, he would give his schemes universality and greater persuasiveness. In fact, his excursions into the field of history only strengthened distrust in scientific circles towards the claims of psychoanalysis. His appeal to data concerning the psyche of “primitive people”, “savages” (Freud relied on the literature of anthropology), aimed to prove the similarity between their thinking and behavior and the symptoms of neuroses. This was discussed in his work “Totem and Taboo” (1913).
Since then, Freud took the path of applying the concepts of his psychoanalysis to fundamental questions of religion, morality, and the history of society. It was a path that turned out to be a dead end. Social relationships of people do not depend on sexual complexes, not on libido and its transformations, but it is the nature and structure of these relationships that ultimately determine the mental life of an individual, including the motives of his behavior.
Not these cultural and historical researches of Freud, but his ideas concerning the role of unconscious drives both in neuroses and in everyday life, his orientation towards deep psychotherapy became the center of unification around Freud of a large community of doctors, psychiatrists, and psychotherapists. The time has passed when his books did not arouse any interest. Thus, it took 8 years for the book “The Interpretation of Dreams,” printed in an edition of 600 copies, to be sold out. These days, in the West, the same number of copies are sold monthly. International fame comes to Freud.
In 1907, he established contact with the school of psychiatrists from Zurich and the young Swiss doctor K.G. became his student. Jung. Freud pinned great hopes on this man - he considered him the best successor to his brainchild, capable of leading the psychoanalytic community. The year 1907, according to Freud himself, was a turning point in the history of the psychoanalytic movement - he received a letter from E. Bleuler, who was the first in scientific circles to express official recognition of Freud's theory. In March 1908, Freud became an honorary citizen of Vienna. By 1908, Freud had followers all over the world, the “Wednesday Psychological Society”, which met at Freud’s, was transformed into the “Vienna Psychoanalytic Society”. In 1909, he was invited to the USA; many scientists listened to his lectures, including the patriarch of American psychology, William James. Hugging Freud, he said: “The future is yours.”
In 1910, the First International Congress on Psychoanalysis met in Nuremberg. True, soon among this community, which declared psychoanalysis a special science different from psychology, strife began that led to its collapse. Many of Freud's closest associates broke with him yesterday and created their own schools and directions. Among them were, in particular, researchers who became major psychologists, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Jung. Most parted with Freud because of his adherence to the principle of the omnipotence of the sexual instinct. Both the facts of psychotherapy and their theoretical understanding spoke against this dogma.
Soon Freud himself had to make adjustments to his scheme. Life forced me to do this. The First World War broke out. Among the military doctors there were also those familiar with the methods of psychoanalysis. The patients they now had suffered from neuroses associated not with sexual experiences, but with the traumatic experiences of wartime. Freud also encountered these patients. His previous concept of neurotic dreams, which arose under the influence of the treatment of the Viennese bourgeois at the end of the 19th century, turned out to be unsuitable for interpreting the mental trauma that arose in combat conditions among yesterday's soldiers and officers. The fixation of Freud's new patients on these traumas caused by an encounter with death gave him reason to put forward a version of a special drive, as powerful as sexual, and therefore provoking a painful fixation on events associated with fear, causing anxiety, etc. This special the instinct that lies, along with the sexual, in the foundation of any form of behavior, Freud designated by the ancient Greek term Thanatos, as the antipode of Eros - a force that, according to Plato’s philosophy, means love in the broad sense of the word, therefore, not only sexual love. The name Thanatos meant a special attraction to death, to the destruction of either others or oneself. Thus, aggressiveness was elevated to the rank of an eternal biological impulse inherent in the very nature of man. The idea of the primordial aggressiveness of man once again exposed the anti-historicism of Freud’s concept, permeated with disbelief in the possibility of eliminating the causes that give rise to violence.
In 1915-1917 He gave a large course at the University of Vienna, published under the title "Introductory Lectures in Psychoanalysis." The course required additions, which he published in the form of 8 lectures in 1933.
In January 1920, Freud was awarded the title of full professor at the university. An indicator of real glory was the honoring in 1922 by the University of London of five great geniuses of mankind - Philo, Memonides, Spinoza, Freud and Einstein.
In 1923, fate subjected Freud to severe trials: he developed jaw cancer caused by an addiction to cigars. Operations on this occasion were constantly carried out and tormented him until the end of his life.
In 1933, fascism came to power in Germany. Among the books burned by the ideologists of the “new order” were Freud’s books. Upon learning of this, Freud exclaimed: “What progress we have made! In the Middle Ages they would have burned me, in our days they are content to burn my books.” He did not suspect that several years would pass, and millions of Jews and other victims of Nazism would die in the ovens of Auschwitz and Majdanek, including Freud's four sisters. He himself, a world-famous scientist, would have faced the same fate after the capture of Austria by the Nazis if, through the mediation of the American ambassador in France, it had not been possible to obtain permission for his emigration to England. Before leaving, he had to give a signature that the Gestapo had treated him politely and carefully and that he had no reason to complain. Putting his signature, Freud asked: is it possible to add to this that he can cordially recommend the Gestapo to everyone? In England, Freud was greeted with enthusiasm, but his days were numbered. He suffered from pain, and at his request, his attending physician Max Schur gave two injections of morphine, which put an end to the suffering. This happened in London on September 21, 1939.
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On December 7, 1938, a BBC team visited Sigmund Freud at his new flat in north London, Hampstead. Just a few months earlier, he had moved from Austria to England to escape Nazi persecution. Freud is 81, his speech is extremely difficult - he has incurable cancer of the jaw. On that day, the only known audio recording of the voice of Sigmund Freud, the creator of psychoanalysis and one of the most influential intellectual figures of the 20th century, was created.
Text of his speech:
I started my professional activity as a neurologist trying to bring relief to my neurotic patients. Under the influence of an older friend and by my own efforts, I discovered some important new facts about the unconscious in psychic life, the role of instinctual urges, and so on. Out of these findings grew a new science, psychoanalysis, a part of psychology, and a new method of treatment of the neuroses. I had to pay heavily for this bit of good luck. People did not believe in my facts and thought my theories unsavory. Resistance was strong and unrelenting. In the end I succeeded in acquiring pupils and building up an International Psychoanalytic Association.But the struggle is not yet over.
I began my professional career as a neurologist, trying to bring relief to my neurotic patients. Under the influence of an older friend and my own efforts, I discovered a number of important new facts about the unconscious in mental life, the role of instinctive drives, and so on. From these discoveries grew a new science - psychoanalysis, part of psychology, and a new method of treating neuroses. I had to pay dearly for this little piece of luck. People didn't believe my facts and thought my theories were dubious. The resistance was strong and relentless. In the end I managed to find students and I created the International Psychoanalytic Association. But the fight is not over yet.
Sigmund Freud was born on May 6, 1856 in the small Austrian town of Freiberg, Moravia (in what is now the Czech Republic). He was the eldest of seven children in his family, although his father, a wool merchant, had two sons from a previous marriage and was already a grandfather by the time of Sigmund's birth. When Freud was four years old, his family moved to Vienna due to financial difficulties. Freud lived permanently in Vienna, and in 1938, a year before his death, he emigrated to England.
From the very first classes, Freud studied brilliantly. Despite limited financial resources, which forced the whole family to huddle in a cramped apartment, Freud had his own room and even a lamp with an oil wick, which he used during classes. The rest of the family were content with candles. Like other young men of that time, he received a classical education: he studied Greek and Latin, read the great classical poets, playwrights and philosophers - Shakespeare, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. His love of reading was so strong that the debts in the bookstore grew rapidly, and this did not evoke sympathy from his father, who was strapped for money. Freud had an excellent command of the German language and at one time received prizes for his literary victories. He also spoke fluent French, English, Spanish and Italian.
Freud recalled that as a child he often dreamed of becoming a general or minister. However, since he was a Jew, almost any professional career was closed to him, with the exception of medicine and law - so strong were the anti-Semitic sentiments then. Freud chose medicine without much desire. He entered the medical faculty of the University of Vienna in 1873. During his studies, he was influenced by the famous psychologist Ernst Brücke. Brücke advanced the idea that living organisms are dynamic energy systems subject to the laws of the physical universe. Freud took these ideas seriously, and they were later developed into his views on the dynamics of mental functioning.
Ambition pushed Freud to make some discovery that would bring him fame already in his student years. He contributed to science by describing new properties of nerve cells in goldfish, as well as confirming the existence of testicles in male eels. However, his most important discovery was that cocaine could be used to treat many diseases. He himself used cocaine without any negative consequences and prophesied the role of this substance as almost a panacea, not to mention its effectiveness as a pain reliever. Later, when it became known about the existence of drug addiction to cocaine, Freud's enthusiasm began to wane.
After receiving his medical degree in 1881, Freud took a position at the Institute of Brain Anatomy and conducted comparative studies of the adult and fetal brain. He was never attracted to practical medicine, but he soon left his position and began to practice privately as a neurologist, mainly because scientific work was poorly paid, and the atmosphere of anti-Semitism did not provide opportunities for promotion. On top of that, Freud fell in love and was forced to realize that if he ever got married, he would need a well-paid job.
The year 1885 marked a critical turn in Freud's career. He received a research fellowship, which gave him the opportunity to travel to Paris and train for four months with Jean Charcot, one of the most prominent neurologists of the time. Charcot studied the causes and treatment of hysteria, a mental disorder that manifested itself in a wide variety of somatic problems. Patients suffering from hysteria experienced symptoms such as paralysis of the limbs, blindness and deafness. Charcot, using suggestion in a hypnotic state, could both induce and eliminate many of these hysterical symptoms. Although Freud later rejected the use of hypnosis as a therapeutic method, Charcot's lectures and clinical demonstrations made a strong impression on him. During a short stay at the famous Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, Freud changed from a neurologist to a psychopathologist.
In 1886, Freud married Martha Bernays, with whom they lived together for more than half a century. They had three daughters and three sons. The youngest daughter, Anna, followed in her father's footsteps and eventually took a leading position in the psychoanalytic field as a child psychoanalyst. In the 1980s, Freud began collaborating with Joseph Breuer, one of the most famous Viennese doctors. Breuer had by that time achieved some success in treating patients with hysteria through the use of the method of freely telling patients about their symptoms. Breuer and Freud undertook a joint study of the psychological causes of hysteria and methods of treating this disease. Their work culminated in the publication of Studies in Hysteria (1895), in which they concluded that hysterical symptoms were caused by repressed memories of traumatic events. The date of this significant publication is sometimes associated with the founding of psychoanalysis, but the most creative period in Freud's life was yet to come.
The personal and professional relationship between Freud and Breuer came to an abrupt end around the same time that Studies in Hysteria was published. The reasons why colleagues suddenly became irreconcilable enemies are still not entirely clear. Freud biographer Ernest Jones argues that Breuer strongly disagreed with Freud on the role of sexuality in the etiology of hysteria, and this predetermined the break (Jones, 1953). Other researchers suggest that Breuer acted as a “father figure” for the younger Freud and his elimination was simply predestined by the very course of development of the relationship as a result of Freud’s Oedipus complex. Whatever the reasons, the two men never met again as friends.
Freud's claims that problems related to sexuality underlie hysteria and other mental disorders led to his expulsion from the Vienna Medical Society in 1896. By this time, Freud had very little, if any, development of what would later become known as the theory of psychoanalysis. Moreover, his assessment of his own personality and work, based on Jones's observations, was as follows: “I have fairly limited abilities or talents - I am not good at science, mathematics, or numeracy. But what I possess, albeit in a limited form, is probably developed very intensively.”
The period between 1896 and 1900 was a period of loneliness for Freud, but a very productive loneliness. During this time, he began to analyze his dreams, and after his father's death in 1896, he practiced introspection for half an hour before bed every day. His most outstanding work, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), is based on the analysis of his own dreams. However, fame and recognition were still far away. To begin with, this masterpiece was ignored by the psychiatric community, and Freud received only a royalty of $209 for his work. It may seem incredible, but over the next eight years he managed to sell only 600 copies of this publication.
In the five years following the publication of The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud's prestige had grown so much that he became one of the world's most renowned physicians. In 1902, the Psychological Environments Society was founded, which was attended only by a select circle of Freud's intellectual followers. In 1908, this organization was renamed the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. Many of Freud's colleagues who were members of this society became famous psychoanalysts, each in his own direction: Ernest Jones, Sándor Ferenczi, Carl Gustav Jung, Alfred Adler, Hans Sachs and Otto Rank. Later, Adler, Jung and Rank left the ranks of Freud's followers and headed competing scientific schools.
The period from 1901 to 1905 became especially creative. Freud published several works, including The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901), Three Essays on Sexuality (1905), and Humor and Its Relation to the Unconscious (1905). In “Three Essays...” Freud proposed that children are born with sexual urges, and their parents appear as the first sexual objects. Public outrage followed immediately and had a wide resonance. Freud was branded as a sexual pervert, obscene and immoral. Many medical institutions were boycotted due to their tolerance of Freud's ideas on the sexuality of children.
In 1909, an event occurred that moved the psychoanalytic movement from its dead point of relative isolation and opened the way for it to international recognition. G. Stanley Hall invited Freud to Clark University in Worchester, Massachusetts to give a series of lectures. The lectures were very well received and Freud was awarded an honorary doctorate. At the time, his future looked very promising. He achieved considerable fame; patients from all over the world signed up for consultations with him. But there were also problems. First of all, he lost almost all his savings in 1919 due to the war. In 1920, his 26-year-old daughter died. But perhaps the most difficult test for him was the fear for the fate of his two sons who fought at the front. Partly influenced by the atmosphere of the First World War and the new wave of anti-Semitism, at the age of 64 Freud created a theory about the universal human instinct - the desire for death. However, despite his pessimism about the future of humanity, he continued to clearly formulate his ideas in new books. The most important are “Lectures on Introduction to Psychoanalysis” (1920), “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” (1920), “I and It” (1923), “The Future of an Illusion” (1927), “Civilization and Its Discontents” ( 1930), New Lectures on an Introduction to Psychoanalysis (1933), and An Outline of Psychoanalysis, published posthumously in 1940. Freud was an exceptionally gifted writer, as evidenced by his being awarded the Goethe Prize for Literature in 1930.
The First World War had a huge impact on Freud's life and ideas. Clinical work with hospitalized soldiers expanded his understanding of the variety and subtlety of psychopathological manifestations. The rise of anti-Semitism in the 1930s also had a strong influence on his views about the social nature of man. In 1932, he was a constant target of attacks by the Nazis (in Berlin, the Nazis staged several public burnings of his books). Freud commented on these events: “What progress! In the Middle Ages they would have burned me, but now they are content with burning my books.” It was only through the diplomatic efforts of Vienna's influential citizens that he was allowed to leave the city shortly after the Nazi invasion in 1938.
The last years of Freud's life were difficult. Since 1923, he suffered from a spreading cancer of the pharynx and jaw (Freud smoked 20 Cuban cigars daily), but stubbornly refused drug therapy, with the exception of small doses of aspirin. He worked persistently despite undergoing 33 major surgeries to stop the tumor from spreading (which forced him to wear an uncomfortable prosthesis to fill the empty space between his nasal and oral cavities, leaving him unable to speak at times). Another test of his endurance awaited him: during Hitler's occupation of Austria in 1938, his daughter Anna was arrested by the Gestapo. It was only by chance that she was able to free herself and reunite with her family in England.
Freud died on September 23, 1939 in London, where he found himself as a displaced Jewish emigrant. For those interested in learning more about his life, we recommend the three-volume biography written by his friend and colleague Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud. Published in England, an edition of Freud's collected works in twenty-four volumes was distributed throughout the world.
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In the fall of 1885, having received a scholarship, Freud went on an internship with the famous psychiatrist Charcot. Freud is fascinated by Charcot's personality, but the young doctor is even more impressed by his experiments with hypnosis. Then, at the Salpêtrière clinic, Freud encounters patients with hysteria and the amazing fact that severe bodily symptoms, such as paralysis, are relieved with the mere words of the hypnotist. At this moment, Freud first realized that consciousness and the psyche are not identical, that there is a significant area of mental life about which the person himself has no idea. Freud's long-standing dream - to find an answer to the question of how a person became what he became, is beginning to take on the contours of a future discovery.
Returning to Vienna, Freud gives a speech to the Medical Society and faces complete rejection from his colleagues. The scientific community rejects his ideas, and he is forced to look for his own path to their development. In 1877, Freud met the famous Viennese psychotherapist Joseph Breuer, and in 1895 they wrote the book “Studies in Hysteria.” Unlike Breuer, who presents in this book his cathartic method of releasing the affect associated with the trauma, Freud insists on the importance of remembering the event itself that caused the trauma.
Freud listens to his patients, believing that the causes of their suffering are known not to him, but to themselves. Known in such a strange way that they are stored in memory, but patients do not have access to them. Freud listens to patients' stories about how they were seduced as children. In the fall of 1897, he understands that in reality these events might not have happened, that for mental reality there is no difference between memory and fantasy. What is important is not to find out what happened “in reality”, but to analyze how this mental reality itself is structured - the reality of memories, desires and fantasies. How is it possible to know anything about this reality? Allowing the patient to say whatever comes to mind, allowing his thoughts to flow freely. Freud invents the method of free association. If the course of movement is not imposed on thoughts from the outside, then their own logic is revealed in unexpected associative connections, transitions from topic to topic, sudden memories. Saying whatever comes to mind is the basic rule of psychoanalysis.
Freud is uncompromising. He refuses hypnosis because it is aimed at relieving symptoms, and not at eliminating the causes of the disorder. He sacrifices his friendship with Joseph Breuer, who did not share his views on the sexual etiology of hysteria. When Freud spoke about childhood sexuality at the end of the 19th century, Puritan society turned away from him. He will be separated from the scientific and medical community for almost 10 years. It was a difficult period of life and, nevertheless, very productive. In the fall of 1897, Freud began self-analysis. Lacking his own analyst, he resorts to correspondence with his friend Wilhelm Fliess. In one of his letters, Freud will say that he discovered in himself many unconscious thoughts that he had previously encountered in his patients. Later, this discovery will allow him to question the very difference between mental norm and pathology.
The psychoanalytic process of self-knowledge of the subject reveals the importance of the presence of the other. The psychoanalyst participates in the process not as an ordinary interlocutor and not as someone who knows something about the subject being analyzed that he himself does not know. A psychoanalyst is one who listens in a special way, catching in the patient’s speech what he says but does not hear himself. In addition, the analyst is the one to whom the transfer is made, the one in relation to whom the patient reproduces his attitude towards other people who are significant to him. Freud gradually understands the importance of transference for psychoanalytic treatment. Gradually it becomes clear to him that the two most important elements of psychoanalysis are transference and free association.
Then Freud began writing The Interpretation of Dreams. He understands: dream interpretation is the royal path to understanding the unconscious. In this one phrase one can read all of Freud’s caution towards words. First, interpretation, not interpretation. This makes psychoanalysis similar to astrology, the interpretation of ancient texts, and the work of an archaeologist interpreting hieroglyphs. Secondly, the path. Psychoanalysis is not a symptom-relieving practice, which is what hypnosis is. Psychoanalysis is the subject's path to his own truth, his unconscious desire. This desire is not located in the hidden content of the dream, but is located between the obvious and the hidden, in the very form of transforming one into the other. Thirdly, this is a path to understanding, not a path to the unconscious. The goal of psychoanalysis, therefore, is not to penetrate into the unconscious, but to expand the subject's knowledge of himself. And finally, fourthly, Freud speaks specifically about the unconscious, and not about the subconscious. The last term refers us to physical space in which something is located below and something is located above. Freud avoids attempts to localize the instances of the mental apparatus, including in the brain.
Sigmund Freud himself will designate his discovery as the third scientific revolution, which changed man's views on the world and himself. The first revolutionary was Copernicus, who proved that the Earth is not the center of the universe. The second was Charles Darwin, who disputed the divine origin of man. And finally, Freud states that the human ego is not master in its own house. Like his famous predecessors, Freud paid dearly for the narcissistic wound he inflicted on humanity. Even having received the long-awaited recognition of the public, he cannot be satisfied. America, which he visited in 1909 to give lectures on an introduction to psychoanalysis and where he was received with a bang, disappoints with its pragmatic attitude towards his ideas. The Soviet Union, where psychoanalysis received state support, by the end of the 20s abandoned the psychoanalytic revolution and embarked on the path of totalitarianism. The popularity that psychoanalysis receives frightens Freud no less than the ignorance with which his ideas are rejected. In an effort to prevent abuse of his creation, Freud participates in the creation of international psychoanalytic movements, but in every possible way refuses to occupy leadership positions in them. Freud is obsessed with the desire to know, not the desire to control.
In 1923, doctors discovered a tumor in Sigmund Freud's mouth. Freud underwent an unsuccessful operation, which was followed by another 32 during the 16 years of his remaining life. As a result of the development of a cancerous tumor, part of the jaw had to be replaced with a prosthesis, which left non-healing wounds and also interfered with speech. In 1938, when Austria became part of Nazi Germany as a result of the Anschluss, the Gestapo searched Freud's apartment at Bergasse 19, and his daughter Anna was taken away for interrogation. Freud, realizing that this can no longer continue, decides to emigrate. For the last year and a half of his life, Freud lives in London, surrounded by family and only his closest friends. He is finishing his latest psychoanalytic works and fighting a developing tumor. In September 1939, Freud reminds his friend and doctor Max Schur of his promise to provide one last service to his patient. Schur kept his word and on September 23, 1939, Freud passed away as a result of euthanasia, independently choosing the moment of his death.
Freud left behind a huge literary legacy; his Russian-language collected works total 26 volumes. His works to this day arouse keen interest not only among biographers; being written in an outstanding style, they contain ideas that again and again require comprehension. It is no coincidence that one of the most famous analysts of the 20th century. Jacques Lacan entitled the program of his work “Back to Freud.” Sigmund Freud repeated more than once that the motive of his work was the desire to understand how a person became what he became. And this desire is reflected throughout his legacy.
Ministry of Health of the Republic of Belarus
Vitebsk State Medical University of the Order of Peoples' Friendship
Department of Public Health and Healthcare
on "History of Pharmacy"
on the topic of: "Sigmund Freud"
Executor:Stepanova Elena Olegovna
senior teacher T.L. Petrishche
Vitebsk, 2010
Real name Sigismund Shlomo Freud.
Austrian doctor and psychologist, founder of the theory and method of treating neuroses, called psychoanalysis and which became one of the most influential psychological teachings of the 20th century.
Born on May 6, 1856 in Freiberg in Moravia, a small town in what is now Czechoslovakia, into a Jewish family. His father Jakob Freud was a textile merchant. When Sigmund was three years old due to financial difficulties, the family moved to Vienna, where he graduated from high school with honors at the age of 17, and then in 1873 entered the medical faculty of the University of Vienna. In 1881 he received his doctorate in medicine and became a doctor at the Vienna Hospital. He began his scientific career as a specialist in the field of physiology and neurology. A difficult financial situation forced him to leave “pure science.” He became a psychiatrist and discovered that knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the brain was of little help in the treatment of neuroses.
In 1882, Freud began treating Bertha Pappenheim (referred to in his books as Anna O.), who had previously been a patient of Breuer. Her varied hysterical symptoms provided Freud with enormous material for analysis. The first important phenomenon was the deeply hidden memories that broke through during hypnosis sessions. Breuer suggested that they are associated with states in which consciousness is reduced. Freud believed that such a disappearance from the field of action of ordinary associative connections (field of consciousness) is the result of a process that he called repression; memories are locked in what he called the “unconscious”, where they were “sent” by the conscious part of the psyche. An important function of repression is to protect the individual from the influence of negative memories. Freud also suggested that the process of becoming aware of old and forgotten memories brings relief, albeit temporary, expressed in the relief of hysterical symptoms.
Psychoanalysis unintentionally contributed to the idea that all repression and suppression should be avoided, lest it lead to a “steam boiler explosion,” and that education should in no case resort to prohibitions and coercion.
In 1884 he joined Joseph Breuer, one of the leading Viennese doctors, who conducted studies of hysterical patients using hypnosis.
Freud's work in neuroscience paralleled his early experiences as a psychopathologist in the fields of hysteria and hypnotism. Freud's first publication on neuroanatomy concerned the roots of the neural connections of the auditory nerve (1885). Then he published a research paper on the sensory nerves and the cerebellum (1886), followed by another article on the auditory nerve (1886).
In 1885-1886 he trained in Paris at the Salpêtrière clinic with the famous Jean Martin Charcot. Returning to Vienna, Freud became a private practitioner. Initially, he tried to follow the French teachers - to use hypnosis for therapeutic purposes, but soon became convinced of its limitations. Gradually, Freud developed his own treatment technique, the method of “free association.”
Free association method. Freud suggested that his patients give up control over their thoughts and say the first thing that comes to mind. Free association, after a long time, led the patient to forgotten events, which he relived emotionally. Because the response occurs in full consciousness, the conscious “I” is able to cope with emotions, gradually “cutting a path through subconscious conflicts.” It was this process that Freud called “psychoanalysis,” using the term for the first time in 1896.
After much searching, Freud came to the concept of the unconscious mind, which differed significantly from previous theories. Both philosophers and physicians wrote about the unconscious before him. The novelty of his teaching was that he put forward a dynamic model of the psyche, in which not only a large group of mental disorders was given a logical explanation, but also the relationship between conscious and unconscious processes, the latter being unambiguously identified with instinctive impulses, primarily with sexual attraction. For Freud, man is homo natura, a natural being, differing from other animals in a slightly larger capacity of memory and in the fact that his consciousness, in the process of evolution, began to mediate relations with the environment. All living things exist according to the pleasure principle, i.e. strives to satisfy his needs and avoid suffering. Man differs from animals in that he postpones the gratification of drives or even suppresses them if immediate gratification threatens survival. Thus, he replaces the pleasure principle with the reality principle. In early childhood, a creature that has just emerged from the mother’s womb of nature knows no limitations and does not have a developed intellect, and therefore exists only on the principle of pleasure. The drives of this period remain in the psyche of an adult, but they are suppressed and repressed into the unconscious, from where they make themselves felt in dreams (when the “censorship” of consciousness is weakened) or in neurotic symptoms. Drives conflict with social norms and moral prescriptions. Human existence has always been and remains a battlefield between multidirectional instinctual aspirations and cultural demands.
Psychoanalysis was based on the theory of child psychosexual development. It was for his assertion that problems related to sexuality underlie all mental disorders that Freud was expelled from the Vienna Medical Society in 1896.
In 1886, Freud married Martha Bernays. In their marriage they had three sons and three daughters. Soon after his marriage, Freud began to collaborate with Joses Breuer (one of the most famous Viennese doctors who achieved success in treating hysteria by freely telling patients about their symptoms and problems). Together they began to study the psychological causes of hysteria and moved further in studying ways to treat it. Their joint work culminated in the publication of the book A Study of Hysteria in 1895, in which they came to the conclusion that the cause of hysterical symptoms was repressed memories of tragic events.
As early as 1896, Freud began to analyze his dreams and practiced self-analysis for half an hour before going to bed every day, and on this analysis his 1900 work “The Interpretation of Dreams” is based, which still remains a kind of “Bible” for his followers. Dreams are mental activities that occur in a state of reduced consciousness called sleep. Studying his own dreams, he observed what he had already deduced from the phenomenon of hysteria - many mental processes never reach consciousness and are removed from associative connections with the rest of experience. By comparing the manifest content of dreams with free associations, Freud discovered their hidden or unconscious content and described a number of adaptive mental techniques that correlate the manifest content of dreams with their hidden meaning. Some of them resemble condensation, when several events or characters merge into one image. Another technique, in which the motives of the one who is seeing the dream are transferred to someone else, causes a distortion of perception - so, “I hate you” turns into “you hate me.” Of great importance is the fact that mechanisms of this kind represent intrapsychic maneuvers that effectively change the entire organization of perception, on which both motivation and activity itself depend.
Since 1902, S. Freud invited four doctors to his home every Wednesday to discuss the ideas and concepts underlying psychoanalysis. These doctors were: Alfred Adler, Max Kahane, Rudolf Reitler Wilhelm Stekel. Freud presented his ideas, and his listeners had the opportunity to exchange ideas about what they heard. Each Sunday edition of the New Vienna Daily published a report on the discussions in Freud's house. This is how the first psychoanalytic circle arose, called the “Wednesday Psychological Society.” In subsequent years, these meetings began to be attended by famous people, and later by psychoanalysts, who subsequently began to practice psychoanalysis.
In 1907, Freud proposed dissolving the society in order to create a new association of like-minded people, which in April 1908 received the name “Vienna Psychoanalytic Society”. And in 1910 the International Psychoanalytic Association was organized.
After further observations of patients, a new work, “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality,” was published in 1905. His conclusions about the sexual nature of man became known as the libido theory, and this theory, together with the discovery of childhood sexuality, was one of the main reasons that Freud was rejected by his fellow professionals and the general public.
Freud came to the conclusion that the main area of repression is the sexual sphere and that repression occurs as a result of real or imagined sexual trauma. Freud attached great importance to the factor of predisposition, which manifests itself in connection with traumatic experiences received during the period of development and changing its normal course. He suggested that children are born with sexual urges, and their parents appear as the first sexual objects.
The libido theory explains the development and synthesis of the sexual instinct in its preparation for reproductive function, and also interprets the corresponding energetic changes.
The driving force that gives us the energy of life, creativity, creation is called libido by Freud, or sexual energy. Personal health depends on the “correct” placement of sexual energy, since, according to Freud, “libido concentrates on objects, fixates on them or leaves these objects, moves from them to others and from these positions directs the individual’s sexual activity, which leads to satisfaction , that is, partial, temporary extinction of libido.” In healthy people, “excess” sexual energy fuels the processes of creativity, the creation of material and spiritual values, that is, it is sublimated. Unsublimated libido causes neurotic diseases.
Freud's theory of childhood sexuality revolutionized psychotherapy. According to this theory, a child goes through several stages in his development:
Oral-cannibalistic (from 0 to 1 year) is characterized by the priority of the oral (oral) zone - when the child receives pleasure by sucking milk from the mother's breast. “Stuck” at this stage of development leads to adults becoming smokers, drunkards, biting their nails, and enjoying sucking lollipops.
Anal-sadistic (1 - 2 years). During this period, the child is potty trained, so all his positive and negative experiences are associated with the act of defecation. Adults who did not manage to fully “go through” this stage of development in childhood return to it in old age, when sexual functions fade away and sexual life is no longer the main source of pleasure. Then the old people begin to talk about their favorite topics: about food and the results of food digestion.
Genital (2 - 5 years) - the child’s knowledge of his genitals, the search for an answer to the question: “Where do children come from?” The child accepts the fact of the existence of two sexes without hesitation. At the same time, Freud writes, “it is something self-evident for a boy to assume that all people known to him have the same genitals as his own...”, and a girl, noticing that the boy’s genitals are different from her own, recognizes them, but is jealous their presence and regrets their absence in his own body.
Latent stage (from 5-6 years to adolescence). During this period of a child’s development, such traits as a sense of shame and adherence to aesthetic and moral standards are formed in his character. Sexual energy, previously directed at studying the genital organs, is sublimated in study, knowledge of the world, creativity, and sports.
A new stage of genital development (13 - 14 years) - there is an increased growth of muscle mass, puberty. A teenager’s thoughts rush to his body, the peculiarities of its structure and development, and sexual interest in the opposite sex begins to appear.
Each stage plays a certain role in the development of a child’s personality, and “getting stuck” at any of them, according to Freud, can lead to neurotic disorders in adults.
Rice. Freud in his Viennese office.
Oedipus or Electra complex (Oedipus the King is a hero of Greek mythology who killed his father and married his mother; Electra is a heroine of Greek mythology who helped her brother avenge his father by killing his mother). These complexes, according to Freud, are universal for all people; they are the basis for the psychoanalytic concept of individual human development from childhood to adulthood.
In 1911 the New York Psychoanalytic Society was founded. The rapid spread of the movement gave it not so much a scientific, but a completely religious character. Freud's influence on modern culture is truly enormous.
His first major contribution to social theory was made in Totem and Taboo (1913), where he applied the implications of his psychological theories to society as a whole. Represents the first attempt to apply the point of view and principles of psychoanalysis to the unclear problems of the psychology of primitive culture and religion. Freud talks about the behavior of primitive tribes using the example of modern tribes of savages, and the influence of the primitive on the modern, especially on the behavior of neurotics.
In 1919, the book “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” was published. It expresses a new idea for traditional psychoanalysis, asserting that, along with Eros as the original attraction to life, human behavior is governed by the opposite sign, the desire for death, for the return of a living organism to a lifeless state.
In 1921, Freud modified his theory, taking as a basis the idea of two opposing instincts - the desire for life (eros) and the desire for death (thanatos). This theory, in addition to its low clinical value, has given rise to an incredible number of interpretations. Referring to Schopenhauer, Freud argued that “the goal of life is death,” although life can and should be lived happily, one must only learn to channel dark impulses for the benefit of the mind. In 1921, the University of London announced the beginning of a series of lectures on five great scientists: the physicist Einstein, the Kabbalist Ben Baimonides, the philosopher Spinoza, and the mystic Philo. Freud was fifth on this list. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize for his discoveries in the field of psychiatry. But Freud's colleague Wagner-Jauregg received the prize for his method of treating paralysis by sharply increasing body temperature. Freud said that the University of London did him a great honor by placing him next to Einstein, and the prize itself did not bother him.
For more than thirty years, Freud refrained from developing a comprehensive theory of personality, although during this time he made many important and detailed observations in his work with patients. Finally, in 1920, he published the first of a series of systematic theoretical works, Beyond the Pleasure Principle.
In 1923 Freud made attempts to develop the concept of libido. The phenomenon of mental resistance of patients to the disclosure of repressed memories and the existence of an intrapsychic censorship factor was established. This served as the impetus for Freud to create a dynamic concept of personality in the unity of conscious and unconscious factors.
Freud argued that human consciousness consists of three inextricably linked parts: “Id” (“it”) is the unconscious part of our personality, consisting of primitive instincts, innate impulses. The key word of this part of consciousness is “I want” “Ego” (“I”) is a buffer between our instincts and the outside world, society. The “ego” directs our behavior in the right direction, facilitating the safe satisfaction of instinctual needs. “Ego” is the leading apparatus of adaptation “Superego” (“superego”) is our conscience, ethics, value system. The “superego” is acquired with the development of personality, in the process of education. The key words for this part of consciousness are “should”, “must”.
"I" and "It" (1923). Consciousness and subconsciousness. Consciousness puts up barriers, but the subconscious prefers not to notice them. And then consciousness becomes just a kind of “theater of military operations” of the subconscious. These are fears, dreams, strange dreams.
"The Future of an Illusion" (1927). The psychological and sociocultural foundations and functions of religion are considered. Freud defines culture as “everything in which human life rises above its animal conditions and in which it differs from the life of animals.” Postulates the presence in all people of destructive tendencies that are antisocial and anticultural in nature, and in the behavior of a large number of individuals these tendencies are decisive. The lack of spontaneous love of work in people and the powerlessness of reason against their passions are believed to be common properties responsible for the fact that cultural institutions can only be supported by a certain amount of violence.
In 1933, a series of brochures was published under the general title “Continuation of Lectures on Introduction to Psychoanalysis.”
In this work, he tried to revise his early view of the external manifestations of instincts - love and hatred, guilt and repentance, grief and envy. Before he began to reflect on the deep nature of these basic phenomena, he defined them from the standpoint of the logic of feelings.
Since 1923, Freud, who smoked 20 Cuban cigars a day, suffered from cancer of the pharynx and jaw, but stubbornly refused drug therapy, with the exception of small doses of aspirin. He underwent 33 difficult operations that were supposed to stop the growth of the tumor, was forced to wear an uncomfortable prosthesis that filled the space between the oral and nasal cavities, and therefore at times could not speak. he was constantly tormented by severe pain, which became more and more unbearable every day. On September 23, 1939, shortly before midnight, Freud died after asking his friend Dr. Max Schur for an injection of a lethal dose of morphine to end his suffering. Freud gradually gained followers who complemented and corrected his teaching. The most famous of them are Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, Otto Rank.
Alfred Adler introduced into psychology the concept of an inferiority complex. Unlike Freud, who argued that in any newborn the leading sexual need is manifested in sucking the mother's breast, Adler spoke of the need for superiority as the main one. If a personality is “flawed”, that is, has a physical defect, then two ways of its development are possible: either withdrawal into illness or overcompensation (overcoming an inferiority complex). Such people become great scientists, politicians, writers, artists, etc.
Carl Jung, unlike his teacher, was interested in European and Eastern occultism, metaphysics and was convinced that religion contributes to a person’s desire for integrity and fullness of life. He introduced into psychology the concept of the collective unconscious, which contains the experience of all humanity. The fruit of the collective unconscious is dreams and fantasies.
The theory of psychoanalysis in the most general terms boils down to the following: All our behavior is determined by two principles - the principle of pleasure and the principle of reality. The principle of pleasantness is characterized by self-centeredness, individualism, and anti-socialism.
The reality principle expresses, on the contrary, direct acquaintance with real life and the need to submit to its demands. A conflict arises between the desire for something pleasant and the demands of life, as a result of which many desires must remain unfulfilled. Such unfulfilled desires are often forced out of the realm of consciousness and move into the realm of the unconscious, where they persist, continuing to influence human behavior. Striving to break into consciousness, repressed desires come into conflict with conscious ideas and gain the upper hand over them during such states as dreams, daydreams, etc. Therefore, based on a correctly interpreted dream, one can judge a person’s unconscious experiences. The interpretation of dreams is Freud's most remarkable discovery. He showed that sleep is not nonsense, but a distorted, disguised fulfillment of a repressed desire. Most of the repressed ideas, according to Freud, are of sexual origin. However, the term “sex” (libido, eros) is understood by Freud very broadly, embracing the entire area of pleasant sensations, and not just sexual emotions in the narrow sense. The task of psychoanalysis is to penetrate into the hidden meaning of drives, discover the internal unconscious aspirations of the individual and help her free herself from them.
Otto Rank studied the theory of dreams, correlating the material of dreams with mythology and artistic creativity. His most famous work is “The Trauma of Birth,” in which he argues that the expulsion of the fetus from the mother’s womb is the “fundamental trauma” that determines the development of neuroses, and that every person has a subconscious desire to return to the mother’s womb.
Freud psychology dream libido
Bibliography
1.Freud.Z. The future of one illusion// Twilight of the Gods/ Freud.Z.- M., 1990.- P.94.
Freud.Z. Interpretation of dreams. - Yerevan, 1991. - reprint of the 1913 edition.
Freud.Z. Totem and taboo. - M.: Publishing House of Political Literature, 1992.
Kulikov.V.I., Khatsenkov.A.F. Modern bourgeois philosophy and religion. - M.: Political Publishing House. literature, 1977
Alekseev.P.V., Bolshakov.A.V. and others. Reader: Fundamentals of Philosophical Knowledge. - M.: Political Publishing House. literature, 1982
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Sigmund Freud - Austrian psychoanalyst, psychiatrist and neurologist. Founder of psychoanalysis. He proposed innovative ideas that resonate in scientific circles even today.
Sigmund Freud was born in the city of Freiberg (now Příbor, Czech Republic) on May 6, 1856, becoming the third child in the family. Sigmund's mother is the second wife of Jacob Freud, who already had two sons from his first marriage. Trade in fabrics brought the family profit, which was enough to live on. But the outbreak of the revolution trampled even such a small initiative against the background of other ideas, and the family had to leave their home. First, the Freud family moved to Leipzig, and a year later to Vienna.
A poor area, dirt, noise and unpleasant neighbors are the reasons that did not create a positive atmosphere in the house of the future scientist. Sigmund himself did not like to remember his early childhood, considering those years unworthy of his own attention.
The parents loved their son very much and had high hopes for him. Passion for literature and philosophical works was only encouraged. But Sigmund Freud did not read childish, serious literature. In the boy’s personal library, the works of Hegel and Hegel occupied a place of honor. In addition, the psychoanalyst was fond of studying foreign languages, and even complex Latin was surprisingly easy for the young genius.
Studying at home allowed the boy to enter the gymnasium earlier than expected. During his school years, conditions were created for Sigmund to unhindered completion of assignments in various subjects. Such love from his parents was fully justified, and Freud graduated from high school successfully.
After school, Sigmund spent many days alone, thinking about his future. Strict and unjust laws did not give a Jewish boy much choice: medicine, law, commerce and industry. All options, except the first, were immediately discarded by Sigmund, considering them unsuitable for such an educated person. But Freud had no particular interest in medicine either. In the end, the future founder of psychoanalysis chose this science, and psychology will become the basis for the study of various theories.
The impetus for the final decision was a lecture at which a work entitled “Nature” was read. The future philosopher studied medicine without his usual zeal and interest. During his student years in Brücke's laboratory, Freud published interesting and informative articles on the nervous system of some animals.
After graduation, Sigmund planned to continue his academic career, but the environment required the ability to earn a living. Therefore, after working for several years under some famous therapists of that time, in 1885 Sigmund Freud applied to open his own neuropathology office. Thanks to the recommendations, the scientist received permission.
It is known that Sigmund also tried cocaine. The effect of the drug amazed the philosopher, and he wrote a large number of works in which he revealed the properties of the destructive powder. One of Freud's closest friends died as a result of cocaine treatment, but the enthusiastic explorer of the secrets of human consciousness did not pay due attention to this fact. After all, Sigmund Freud himself suffered from cocaine addiction. After many years and a lot of effort, the professor finally recovered from his addiction. All this time, Freud did not abandon his studies in philosophy, attending various lectures and keeping his own notes.
Psychotherapy and psychoanalysis
In 1885, thanks to the support of friends, influential luminaries of medicine, Sigmund Freud got an internship with the French psychiatrist Jean Charcot. The practice opened the eyes of the future psychoanalyst to the differences between diseases. From Charcot, Freud learned to use hypnosis in treatment, with the help of which it was possible to cure patients or alleviate suffering.
Sigmund Freud began to use conversations with patients in treatment, allowing people to speak out and change their consciousness. This technique became known as the “Free Association Method”. These conversations of random thoughts and phrases helped the astute psychiatrist understand the patients' problems and find solutions. The method helped to abandon the use of hypnosis and pushed me to communicate with patients in full and clear consciousness.
Freud introduced the world to the view that any psychosis is a consequence of a person’s memories, which are difficult to get rid of. At the same time, the scientist came up with the theory that most psychoses are based on the Oedipus complex and infantile childhood sexuality. Sexuality, as Freud believed, is the factor that determines a large number of human psychological problems. “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality” supplemented the scientist’s opinion. Such a statement based on structured works caused scandals and disagreements among Freud's psychiatrist colleagues who opposed the theory. Representatives of the scientific community said that Sigmund was delusional, and he himself, as experts suggested, was a victim of psychosis.
The publication of the book “The Interpretation of Dreams” initially did not bring the author due recognition, but later psychoanalysts and psychiatrists recognized the importance of dreams in the treatment of patients. According to the scientist, dreams are a significant factor influencing the physiological state of the human body. After the release of the book, Professor Freud was invited to give lectures at universities in Germany and the USA, which the representative of medicine himself considered a great achievement.
The Psychopathology of Everyday Life is another of Freud's works. This book is considered the second work after The Interpretation of Dreams, which influenced the creation of the topological model of the psyche developed by the scientist.
The book “Introduction to Psychoanalysis” took a special place among the scientist’s works. This work contains the core of the concept, ways of interpreting the theoretical principles and methods of psychoanalysis, as well as the philosophy of thought of the author. In the future, the basics of philosophy will become the basis for creating a set of mental processes and phenomena that have received a new definition - “Unconscious”.
Freud also tried to explain social phenomena. In the book “Psychology of the Masses and Analysis of the Human Self,” the psychoanalyst discussed the factors that influence the crowd, the behavior of the leader, and the “prestige” obtained as a result of being in power. All of these books by the author are still bestsellers.
In 1910, there was a split in the ranks of Freud's students and followers. The students’ disagreement with the fact that psychosis and hysteria are associated with the suppression of human sexual energy (this theory was adhered to by Freud) is the reason for the contradictions that led to the split. Disagreements and strife tired the great psychiatrist. The psychoanalyst decided to gather around himself only those who adhered to the basics of his theory. Thus, in 1913, a secretive and almost secret community, the “Committee,” appeared.
Personal life
For decades, Sigmund Freud paid no attention to the female gender. Frankly speaking, the scientist was afraid of women. This fact caused a lot of jokes and gossip, which embarrassed the psychiatrist. Freud convinced himself that he could live his whole life without women interfering in his personal space. But circumstances developed in such a way that the great scientist succumbed to the influence of the charm of the fair sex.
One day, on the way to the printing house, Freud almost fell under the wheels of a carriage. The passenger, who regretted the incident, sent the scientist an invitation to the ball as a sign of reconciliation. Already at the event, Sigmund Freud met his future wife Martha Beirnais, as well as her sister Minna. After some time, a magnificent engagement took place, and then a wedding. Married life was often overshadowed by scandals; jealous Martha insisted that her husband break off communication with Minna. Not wanting to quarrel with his wife, Freud did just that.
Over 8 years of family life, Martha gave her husband six children. After the birth of his youngest daughter Anna, Sigmund Freud decided to completely renounce sex. Judging by the fact that Anna became the last child, the great psychoanalyst kept his word. It was the youngest daughter who looked after Freud at the end of the scientist’s life. In addition, Anna is the only one of the children who continued the work of her famous father. A children's psychotherapy center in London is named after Anna Freud.
The biography of Sigmund Freud is full of interesting stories.
- It is known that the psychoanalyst was afraid of the numbers 6 and 2. The scientist never stayed in hotels that had more than 61 rooms. Thus, Freud avoided ending up in the “hell room” number 62. In addition, under any pretext, on February 6, the Austrian did not go out into the street, he was afraid of the negative events that, as the scientist assumed, were expected on that day.
- Freud listened only to himself, considering his own opinion to be the only true and correct one. The scientist demanded that people listen to the speeches very carefully. Surely, not just one theory of the scientist is connected with these moments, but with similar demands on others, the psychoanalyst tried to prove his superiority, satisfying his pride.
- The psychiatrist’s phenomenal memory is another mysterious moment in the biography of the Austrian doctor. Since childhood, the scientist memorized the contents of books, notes and pictures that he liked. Such abilities helped Freud in learning languages. The famous Austrian, in addition to German, knew a large number of other languages.
- Sigmund Freud never looked people in the eye. This feature was clearly noticed by those around him who met the doctor during his lifetime. The scientist avoided looking, so representatives of the scientific community suggest that the famous couch that appeared in the psychoanalyst's room is connected with this moment.
Death
Intensive study of medical and philosophical works, a busy daily routine and the work of a thinker left a heavy imprint on Sigmund Freud’s health. An Austrian psychoanalyst fell ill with cancer.
Having undergone a large number of operations and not getting the desired result, Freud asked the attending physician to provide a favor and help him die, free from pain. In September 1939, a dose of morphine ended the scientist’s life, consigning his body to dust.
A large number of museums have been created in Freud's honor. The main such institution was organized in London, in the building where the scientist lived after forced emigration from Vienna. Also, the museum and hall in memory of Sigmund Freud is located in the city of Příbor (Czech Republic), in the scientist’s homeland. The photo of the founder of psychoanalysis is often found at international events dedicated to psychology.
Quotes
- “Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanity.”
- “The task of making man happy was not part of the plan for the creation of the world.”
- “The voice of intellect is quiet, but it never tires of repeating - and there are listeners.”
- “You never stop looking for strength and confidence outside, but you should look within yourself. They have always been there."
- “In a number of cases, falling in love is nothing more than a psychic capture by an object, dictated by sexual primary urges for the purpose of direct sexual satisfaction and, with the achievement of this goal, fading away; this is what is called base, sensual love. But, as we know, the libidinal situation rarely remains so uncomplicated. Confidence in a new awakening of a need that had just died out was probably the immediate motive why the capture of a sexual object turned out to be long-lasting and it was “loved” even during those periods of time when there was no desire.”
- “Just today my deceased daughter would have turned thirty-six years old... We are finding a place for the one we lost. Although we know that the acute grief after such a loss will be erased, we remain inconsolable and will never be able to find a replacement. Everything that stands in an empty place, even if it manages to fill it, remains something else. That's how it should be. This is the only way to prolong the love that we do not want to renounce.” - from a letter to Ludwig Binswanger, April 12, 1929.
Bibliography
- Dream interpretation
- Three essays on the theory of sexuality
- Totem and taboo
- Psychology of masses and analysis of the human “I”
- The future of one illusion
- Beyond the pleasure principle
- Me and it
- Introduction to Psychoanalysis