Biography of Sigmund Freud | Creator of psychoanalysis

Creator of psychoanalysis, their conceptions of the unconscious and the human psychology revolutionized all areas of culture.

Sigismund Freud, who, at the age of twenty-two, would change the name to the Sigmund, was born in Freiberg, in the ancient Moravia (now Pribor, Czechoslovakia), on May 6, 1856. His father was a wool merchant who, at the time of birth, already had forty-one years and two children in a previous marriage; the largest of these was approximately the same age as the mother of Freud - twenty years younger than her husband — and was, in turn, father of a child of one year. In his middle age, Freud had to comment that the impression that caused this rather tangled family situation resulted of awakening their curiosity and sharpen your intelligence.

In 1859, the economic crisis gave the fret with parental trade and the following year the family moved to Vienna, where it lived long years of difficulties and hardships, being very frequent seasons in which, for the rest of her long life (died in October 1896), the father would be out of work. Freud always detested the city in which, on the other hand, lived until a year before his death, when, in June 1938, and despite the intercession of Mussolini, and Roosevelt was forced, given their status as Jewish - his works had been burned in Berlin in 1933, to embark on the path of exile to London as a result of the Anschluss the annexation of Austria to rancid project pangermanist of the great Germany, prepared by the nazis with the help of Seyss-Inquart and the Austrian proselytes.

Freud in his Studio

The family remained faithful to the Jewish community and customs; Although it was not particularly religious; the father can be considered it close to Freethought and the own Freud had already lost religious beliefs in adolescence. In 1873, she completed her secondary studies with excellent qualifications. He had always been a good student, corresponding to the sacrifices for his education made by their parents, who are promised a brilliant career for his son, who shared their expectations. After considering the possibility to study the law, decided by medicine, but not with the desire to exercise it, but moved by a certain intention of studying the human condition with scientific rigor. Halfway through the race, he took the decision to engage in biological research, and from 1876 to 1882, worked in the laboratory of physiologist Ernst von Brücke, interested in some nerve structures of animals and in the anatomy of the human brain. From that time dates his friendship with the Viennese physician Josef Breuer, fourteen years older that he who had to provide support, both moral and material. In 1882 he met Martha Bernays, his future wife, the daughter of a family of Jewish intellectuals; the desire to get married, their scarce economic resources and few prospects for improving their situation working with Von Brücke made that it desist from his career as researcher and decided to make a living as a physician, title that had obtained in 1881, three years late.

Without any predilection for the exercise of general medicine, he decided to acquire sufficient clinical experience that would allow them to reach a certain prestige, and, since July, 1882 to August 1885, worked as a resident in various departments of the General Hospital of Vienna, deciding to specialise in neuropathology. In 1884 was commissioned a study on the therapeutic use of cocaine, and not without some imprudence, experienced it on his person. It did not become a drug addict, but some which caused another battering, as the push to addiction to his friend Von Fleischl trying to cure him of his morfinomania, compounding, indeed, appropriate. In medical circles were left to hear some criticism and its reputation was somewhat overshadowed. In 1885, was appointed Privatdozent of the Faculty of Medicine of Vienna, where he taught throughout his entire career, first neuropathology, and, later, psychoanalysis, but without access to any Chair.

Obtaining a grant for a study tour took him to Paris, where he worked for four months and medium in the Neurology service of the Salpêtrière under the direction of Jean Martín Charcot, by then the most important French neurologist. There he had the opportunity to observe manifestations of hysteria and the effects of hypnosis and suggestion in the treatment of the same. Back in Vienna, he married in September 1886, after a long courtship marked by ruptures and reconciliations, as a result, in particular, from jealousy which felt towards anyone that I could be object of the affections of Martha (including his mother). In the ten years following the wedding, the couple had six children, three boys and three girls, the youngest of which, Anna, born in December 1895, would become child psychoanalyst.

Shortly before marrying, Freud opened a private practice as a neuropathologist, using electrotherapy and hypnosis for the treatment of nervous diseases. His friendship with Breuer crystallized, then, in closer collaboration, which finally fructificaría in the creation of psychoanalysis, albeit at the price that the relationship between the two broke. Between 1880 and 1882, Breuer had treated a case of hysteria (that of the patient which then would be referred to as 'Anna o'.'); to interrupt the treatment, told how Freud the symptoms of the sick (intermittent limb paralysis,) as well as disorders of speech and view disappeared when it was itself in hypnotic state, origin or explanation. In 1886, after having checked in Paris the operability of hypnosis, Freud forced Breuer to talk to you again about the case, and overcoming her initial resistance, to indulge in making joint paper on hysteria. During the gestation of this work, which appeared in 1895, Freud developed his first ideas on psychoanalysis. Breuer participated to some extent in development, although slowing down the scope of speculation later features of the Freudian doctrine and refusing to, finally, Subscribe to the growing conviction of Freud about the role of sexuality in the etiology of mental disorders.

In 1896, after breaking with Breuer somewhat violently, Freud began to transform the therapeutic methodology that had qualified for "catharsis", based on hypnosis, in what he called the method of 'free association'. Working alone, victim of the contempt of the other doctors, treating his patients led him to forge the essential elements of the psychoanalytic concepts of 'unconscious', 'suppression' and 'transfer'. In 1899, it appeared his famous interpretation of dreams, but with issue date of 1900, and three contributions to the theory of sex, the second largest of his works was published in 1905. These two were the only books that Sigmund Freud reviewed promptly in each of its successive editions.

Until 1905, and although by that time his theories had already stamped definitely early threshold and were solidly established, had few disciples. But in 1906 it began to attract more followers; the circle of that, since 1902, gather some nights at home in order to orient themselves in the field of psychoanalytic research, it was expanded and changed, even several times in composition, thus consolidating a psychoanalytic society which, in the spring of 1908, at the invitation of Karl Gustav Jung, held in Salzburg the first psychoanalytical Congress. The following year, Freud and Jung traveled to United States, invited to give a series of lectures at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, checking with surprise the enthusiasm inspired by Freudian thought there much before that in Europe. The international society of psychoanalysis, presided over by Jung, who retained the Presidency until 1914, year in which was forced to resign, as a corollary of the Freud failed by the same breakdown in 1913, to declare inadmissible enlargement Jungian concept of 'libido' further than their strictly sexual significance was founded in Nuremberg in 1910. In 1916 he published Introduction to psychoanalysis.

In 1923, cancer of the jaw was diagnosed with and had to undergo the first of a series of interventions. Since then and until his death in London on 23 September 1939, he was always sick, though not declined its energetic activity. Their great contributions to the diagnosis of the State of our culture date from this period (the future of an illusion [1927], the unrest in the culture [1930], Moses and monotheism [1939]). Already beforehand, through works notably Totem and taboo (1913), inspired by biological evolution of Darwin and social evolutionism with Frazer, had given testimony to what extent considered the paramount importance of psychoanalysis, beyond a therapeutic efficacy that judged always restricted, resided in instrument status to investigate the determinants in the thinking and the behavior of men.

Chronology of Sigmund Freud

1856	Born in Freiberg (Czechoslovakia).
1859	He moved with his family to Vienna.
1885	He studied with Jean Martin Charcot in Paris.
1895	He published his "studies on hysteria" in collaboration with Breuer.
1900	He published "The interpretation of dreams".
1905	He published "Three contributions to the theory of sex".
1908	Held in Salzburg the first psychoanalytic Congress
1909	He travels to the United States with his colleague Carl Gustav Jung.
1910	Foundation in Nuremberg of the international society of psychoanalysis.
1916	It publishes "Introduction to psychoanalysis".
1930	He published "The unrest in the culture".
1938	He settled in London
1939	Dies in London.

Sigmund Freud and the Psicoanlalisis

Freud didn't intend to create a complete psychological theory, but came to elaborate a system explaining the psychology of the man as a whole. He began studying the mental disorder and were then asked for their causes. He ended up developing a general theory of the psychological dynamism of its evolution through different periods of development and the impact of society, culture and religion in personality, as well as creating a form of treatment of mental disorders. He managed to make a psychological theory which encompassed the normal and abnormal personality, and which affected all fields of knowledge: Sociology, history, education, anthropology and the arts.

The first concern of Freud, within the field of the human psyche, was the study of hysteria, through which came to the conclusion that the hysterical symptoms depended on repressed internal psychological conflicts and the same treatment should focus on the patient to replicate the traumatic events that had caused such conflicts. The technique used in principle for it was hypnosis.

He came to the conviction that the origin of mental disorders is on the sex life and sexuality begins much earlier than in those moments it was thought, in early childhood. The affirmation of the existence of the infantile sexuality produced many critical and opponents to his theory.

Later introduced other treatment techniques: free association. At the beginning it was parallel to the use of hypnosis, but this last technique just discarding it as less effective. In the free associations the patient expresses uncensored everything that comes to consciousness spontaneously.

Subsequently, incorporates the interpretation of dreams in psychoanalytic treatment, because that means that sleep expresses, latent form and through a language of symbols, the origin of psychic disorder conflict. The interpretation of dreams is an arduous task in which the therapist has overcome "resistances" which lead the patient to censor their trauma, as a form of Defense.

Another aspect to keep in mind in psychoanalytic therapy is the analysis of the transfer, understood as the update of feelings, desires, and primitive and childish emotions that the patient had towards their parents and most representative figures and that now threatens the therapist. Analysis will allow the patient to understand what obey these feelings, desires and emotions, and reinterpret them unless they cause anguish.

Freud in 1939

Freud makes a topographic formulation of the psyche and includes the three systems: one conscious; Another preconscious, whose contents can be passed to the former; and other unconscious, whose contents have no access to consciousness. Repression is the mechanism that makes the contents of the unconscious to remain hidden. Later presents a new formulation of the psychic apparatus that complements the previous one. In this structural formulation the psychic apparatus consists of three instances: do this, unconscious instance that contains all the drives and is governed by the principle of pleasure; I, who has mostly aware content, but can also contain unconscious aspects, is governed by the principle of reality and acts as an intermediary between it and the other instance of the psychic apparatus; and the superego, which represents ideal and moral standards.

A basic concept in the Freudian theory is that of "impulse" or pulsion (triebe, in German). It is the basic part of the motivation. Initially the difference two types of drives: the impulses of the self or self-maintenance and sexual impulses. Sexual impulses are dynamically expressed by libido, as rally in the psychic life of sexual drive, is the psychic energy of sexual drive. Later he recast his theory of impulses and differentiated between impulses of life (Eros), in which are included the two previous formulation, and impulses of death (Thanatos), understood as the tendency to complete reduction of tensions. Freud had a hedonistic conception of human behavior: understand that pleasure was given by the absence of tension and displacer for the presence of the same. The Agency, initially, is oriented towards the pleasure (pleasure principle) and avoids tensions, displacer and anxiety.

Freud, in addition, contributed a vision evolving regarding the formation of the personality, to establish a series of stages in sexual development. In each of the stages, the end is always common, sexual pleasure, libido development. The difference between each one of them is in the "object" to get that pleasure. The child receives instinctual gratification from different parts of the body depending on the stage in which it is located. Throughout the development, the erotic activity of the child focuses on different erogenous zones. The first stage of development is the oral stage, in which the mouth is the erogenous zone par excellence, includes the first year of life. Below is given the anal stage, ranging up to three years. Follows the phallic stage, around age four, in which the child spends the "Oedipus complex". After this period the infantile sexuality becomes a period of latency, which wake up when you reach puberty with the genital phase.

In parallel with this intrapsychic development of the subject, going a process of socialization in which relations with others are configured. It is very important also the identification process, allowing the subject to incorporate the qualities of others in itself, for the formation of their personality.

In its infancy, and even today, psychoanalysis has been a doctrine which has aroused strong passions, in favor and against. Among the criticisms that have been made to the theory of Sigmund Freud, the main has been the lack of objectivity of observation and the difficulty of deriving specific verifiable hypotheses from theory.

Despite the great reproach that Freudian ideas, especially in medical circles, his work brought together a large group of followers. Among them were Karl Abraham, Sandor Ferenczi, Alfred Adler, Carl Gustav Jung, Otto Rank and Ernest Jones. Some of them, such as Adler and Jung were away from the tenets of Freud and created his own psychological conception.

There is no doubt that psychoanalysis was a revolution for psychology and thought of the time and has served as basis for the development and proliferation of a lot of theories and psychological schools.

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