Sigmund Freud - Biography

Sigmund Freud

[Brief Biography of Sigmund Freud]

• The founder of Psychoanalysis
• The first son of Jakob Freud and Amalia Mathanson
• Born in Austria in 1856, died in 1939 (83 years old)
• close relationship with mother
• Medical doctor by training but preferred the academe to medical practice
• Married Martha Bernays and had 6 children, one of them following his footsteps Anna Freud.
• Driven by a strong desire for fame, reading to a midlife crisis
• He would be awarded the Goethe prize for literature in 1930

[Psychoanalytic Theory]

  Freud emphasize 'Id' among these things.

[Provinces of the Mind]

 
  - Id

• Desire principle or pleasure principle
• contains the primary drives
• Raw energy, amoral, illogical
• Assumes that people are born pure Id.

  - Ego

• Reality principle
• Only province in touch with external reality
• Ego is developed when infants distinguish self from the world

  - Super Ego

• Morality principle or Idealistic principle
• Should (Ego ideal) & Should not (Conscience)
• Unrealistic
• Super Ego is developed from the parents

  - 3 types of personality

• Pleasure seeking
• Overly uptight
• Healthy balance

[Id & Drives]

 
  - Eros

• Aim : experience pleasure / reduce sexual tension
• Entire body, not just genital stimulation
• Libido
• Narcissism, Love, Sadism, Masochism

  - Thanatos

• Death & Destruction
• Ultimate goal : Self destruction
• Explains the occurrence of wars, etc.

[Ego & Anxiety]

 
  - Unpleasant affective state that warns of danger
  - The true source of anxiety is the ego, but it has subtypes depending on it's secondary sources :

1. Neurotic Anxiety

• Apprehension of an unknown danger
• Usually due to unconscious feeling from childhood experience

     2.  Moral Anxiety

• conflict between realistic need and one's conscience

     3. Realistic Anxiety

• Similar to fear

  - Ego preserving mechanism
  - Single danger
  - Defense mechanisms reduce anxiety