Lecture on Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud
(6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939)

The second lecture of the semester was based around the theories of Sigmund Freud. He was an Austrian neurologist who developed a form of therapy where he accessed the mind of his patients. This therapy later became known as hypnotherapy and is still used as a popular treatment across the world today. Every human being has an unconscious mind which they are unable to control and are not aware of its existence. Freud believed that human beings hide things from themselves and hypnotherapy was a method in which the mind can be accessed to deal with the unconscious mind and this is a key feature in what is known as psychoanalysis.

Freud was an incredibly ambitious theorist who tried to find answers to almost everything in the world.  His ideas are still used today as it can be argued that we live in a Freudian world, from time to time we use “Freudian slips” or parapraxes, which are errors in speech, memory, or action which occurs due to an unconscious thought or memory. Freudian slips got their name from Freud’s 1901 book named The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, which analysed a collection of errors which he concluded were accidental errors of the mind. Freud’s ideas came at a time in history where society has strict moral values and directly challenged the ideas of philosophers such as Rene Descartes and John Locke during the enlightenment period.  Freud believed, like the majority of modernists that the world cannot be fully understood using science, but it can be analysed using the power of the mind.

In his essay written in 1920 named Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud suggested that the human mind could be divided into three parts called the id, ego, and super-ego which are all at conflict with each other.  The id is a group of instincts which aim to gain pleasure and to avoid pain and disregards all consequences for its actions.  For example a young child may ask her mother for a toy in a shop but her mother says no. The child will feel upset that she is unable to have the toy and may cry or have a tantrum in order to persuade her mother to buy her the toy thus avoiding pain. The ego is the voice of reason and is in a constant battle with the id and superego in order to make the right decisions about behaviour or thought. When the ego feels threatened by the id and superego, it may use defence mechanisms such as denial and repression. The superego develops through child development, parental rules and through social interaction.  It keeps your mind under control and sets targets throughout life, however these targets are often impossible or difficult to achieve. Freud believed that humans are divided within ourselves as we are not at peace with our minds and due to the conflict between the id, ego and superego our personality is confused and we are unable to release our true personality and identity. This battle between the three parts results in repression as humans are afraid to release their powers in case it has negative consequences.

I have found an excellent youtube video giving more detail about Freud's theory of the unconscious mind. Its very informative and well worth a watch.

Freud’s ideas can be viewed as being pessimistic as he portrays a fairly dark and dim picture of humanity and our lives are based around pain for three main reasons.  Our bodies physically decay over time causing injury and disease which eventually kills us. Events in our everyday lives cause us to feel pain as they can upset us or make us feel angry such as losing a loved one. Finally, and most importantly interaction with other people can cause humans a degree of pain. Freud believed that human beings were out to hurt each other both physically and emotionally and the way to cope with this pain is to gain access to the Id through hypnotherapy to make the ego stronger and more able to deal with pain.  

There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the theories of Freud over the last decades which many theorists claiming that psychoanalysis was vague and there has been no definitive proof that it is successful. It has been argued that the unconscious mind was discovered long before Freud’s theories by the German philosopher, Sir Christopher Riegel during the 18^th century who coined the phrase. The 20^th century psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Wilheim Reich argued that human beings were good people but were oppressed by society; therefore they showed negative behaviour and violence. He also believed that sex was the way in which it was possible to measure a person’s happiness, what a man!!