Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Schlomo Freud whose real name at birth was Sigismund,was born on May 6, 1856, in Freiberg, Moravia, now Pribor, in Czech Republic. The son of Jacob and Amalia(who was 20 years younger than her husband). Sigmund had seven younger brothers and sisters. His family constellation was unusual because Freud's two half-brothers, Emmanuel and Philipp, were almost the same age as his mother. Freud was slightly younger than his nephew John, Emmanuel's son. This odd situation may have triggered Freud's interest on family dynamics, leading to his ulterior formulations on the Oedipus Complex. Freud's family background was Jewish, though his father was a freethinker and Freud himself was an assured atheist. Within his home he was known as the "golden child". He was treated with the most respect in his house, one incident in particular is when he was trying to study and his sisters were playing the piano and were told to stop because they were disturbing Sigmund. As a child he would keep written descriptions of his dreams, ironically he would later write one the greatest books on psychology The Interpretation of Dreams.Sigmund Freud showed signs of independence and brilliance well before entering the University of Vienna in 1873.
Freud believed that by piecing together his patients' accounts of their lives, he decided that the loss of feelings in one's hand might be caused by, say, the fear of hearing or seeing something that might arouse grief or distress. Over time, Freud saw hundreds of patients. He soon recognized that hypnosis was not as helpful as he had first hoped. He then pioneered a new technique termed "free association." Patients were told to relax and say whatever came to mind, no matter how horrifying or irrelevant. Freud believed that free association produced a chain of thought that was linked to the unconscious, and often painful, memories of childhood. And this is where Psychoanalysis begins. Underlying Freud's psychoanalytic perception of personality was his belief that the mind was akin to an iceberg- most of it is hidden from view. The conscious awareness is the part of the iceberg that is above the surface but below the surface is a much larger unconscious region that contains feelings, wishes memories which persons are largely unaware. Some thoughts are stored temporarily in a preconscious area, from where they can be retrieved at will. However, Freud was more interested in the mass of thought and feelings repressed- forcibly blocked from conscious thought because it would be too painful to acknowledge. Freud believed that dreams and slips of tongue and pen were windows to his patient's unconscious. Intrusive thoughts or seemingly trivial errors while reading, writing and speaking suggested to Freud that what is said and done reflects the working of the unconscious. Jokes especially were an outlet for expressing repressed sexual and aggressive tendencies. For Freud, there were no accidents. Freud believed that human personality, expressed emotions, strivings, biological impulses and the social restraints against their expression. This conflict between expression and repression, in ways that bring the achievement of satisfaction without punishment or guilt, drives the development of personality. Freud divided the elements of that conflict into three interacting systems: the id, ego, and the superego. Freud did not propose a new, naive anatomy, but saw these terms as " useful aids to understanding" the mind's dynamics. The id is a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that continually toils to satisfy basic drives to survive, reproduce and aggress. The id operates on the pleasure principle- if unconstrained, it seeks instantaneous gratification. It is exemplified by a new born child who cries out for satisfaction the moment it feels hungry tired, uncomfortable- oblivious to conditions, wishes, or expectations of their environment. As the child learns to deal with the real world, his ego develops. The ego operates on the reality principle, which seeks to superintend the id's impulses in realistic ways to accomplish pleasure in practical ways, avoiding pain in the process. The ego contains partly conscious, thoughts, judgments, and memories. The ego arbitrates between impulsive demands of the id, the restraining demands of the superego and the real-life demands of the external world. Around 4 or 5, a child's ego recognizes the demands of the newly emerging superego. The superego is the voice of conscience that forces the ego to consider not only the real but also the ideal. Its focus is on how one should behave. The superego develops as the child internalizes the morals and values of parents and culture, thereby providing both a sense of right, wrong, and set of ideals. It strives for perfection and judges our actions, producing positive feelings of pride or negative feelings of guilt. Someone with an exceptionally strong superego may be continually upright and socially correct yet ironically harbor guilt-, another with a weak superego may be wantonly self-indugent and remorseless. Because the superego's demands often oppose the id's, the ego struggles to reconcile the two. Analysis of his patients
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