Born in 1856, Sigmund Freud began treating patients through hypnosis alongside Joseph Brewer, and concerned himself with mental illness and the mind; publishing work on hysteria. However this all changed when he replaced his previous work with a new treatment which he called psychoanalysis. The patient would sit on a chair and talk about their dreams, thoughts and feelings, with the patient and doctor exchanging words; expressing whatever was on their mind allowing the doctor to find out psychologically what was causing mental trauma for the patient. Often it would relate back to infancy and have sexual content according to Freud. This theory led to a break with his partner Brewer who did not agree with Freud.
It could be said that Freud was obsessed with sex and in particular infant sexuality; he believed that through our lives certain things we do will be caused by the unconscious and have a sexual meaning; buildings shaped liked penis is an example.
'The interpretation of dreams' was Freud's most famous work; Freud believed that his work was science and that he was a scientist, but his critics disagreed, they couldn't not find any proof of Freud's interpretation of dreams and his conclusions could not be proved. Freud concluded in the cases of many patients, that neurotic symptoms were an expression of sexual desires. Sexual desires, according to Freud, were found in every person, but if a stage in childhood development was hindered then neurotic symptoms would be present.
The stages of development according to Freud were; Oral- pleasure through the mouth, Anal- e.g. toilet training, Phallic- obsession with the penis ( women would develop penis jealousy and males would follow the oedipal complex where they would hate their father and want to have sex with their mother. This would be followed by the latency stage- sexuality and sex become very important and the Genitals stage- which would be puberty. Freud attempted to come up with a female version of the oedipal complex but it never quite worked out.
Freud felt that everyday mistakes, reports of dreams and neurotic symptoms revealed the existence of the unconscious. Every day hidden mistakes have hidden motives according to Freud; when we express things publicly that we don't mean to and would rather conceal; this is the unconscious. Our unconscious wishes can also be expressed through psychoanalysis, but the dreamer has to accept that whatever the doctor says their dream means is what their dream means; which can often be hard to accept for the dreamer who can not come to terms or understand that their dream means that they have sexual desires for their mother or other strange conclusions. This led to criticism for Freud. Finally the examination of neurotic symptoms such as obsessive behavior can also lead to the revelation of the unconscious.
Freud eventually replaced these ideas with the threefold scheme of mind. He believed that the mental apparatus of every person was composed of the id, the ego and and the superego. The id would be found at birth and is the animal apart of us; it is our unconscious according to Freud. It aim is to gain pleasure and avoiding pain, it is a bundle of instincts. Freud believed that it dominates us but we are unaware of it. It wants us to kill, fight, have sex and destroy others and ourselves. The ego is our reality principle, it is our reason, our conscious, and often mirrors part of the soul.
The superego however is the policeman in our head, it develops through social circumstances and we are not born with it, it keeps us in line, and sets impossible standards for ourselves; it makes us want to achieve the best whereas the id would settle for partying and underachieving in a social circumstance and the ego would be happy with second best, the superego makes you feel guilt if you don't achieve the best. It is often compared to religion as it has the same morals; it is our common sense and is in a constant battle with the id.
If all these three are in harmony then there is no neurosis according to Freud. once again this is where Freud is criticised by medical professionals and scientists as his theories can not be proved. Socially however Freud changed the boundaries between morals and medicine; with therapy rather than punishment for mental illness.
Freud was a pessimist and felt that our id needed to be suppressed. He felt that life was pain; he had personal experience of this as he had cancer of the mouth and therefore felt that our decaying body was of great pain to us, life was the second pain, our every day interaction with people was the next pain. he felt that humans were bad and that the ego needed to be strengthened through psychoanalysis but this treatment would not work for everyone and therefore there were coping mechanisms that could help. There were intoxication; e.g. alcohol, but this is only temporary. Isolation could also help; staying away from other people, as according to Freud this was the biggest pain a human could feel. Sublimation was next; e.g playing sport, drugs or studying would take away the pain of life and these forms would also be socially acceptable; however these were only mild releases.
Freud was followed by Reich but he ended up believing the complete opposite to Freud; he felt that humans were good and that sex was a good expression and that it would get bad of the bad oregons in the room which could only be released through an orgasm. Rather than suppressing, Reich believed that it was good to express ourselves through sex as it would help humans flourish. He felt that sex was a measure of human happiness. He also encouraged patients to express feelings openly, unlike Freud.
Freud's ideas were a break from the enlightenment. The ideas of facts, figures and our all round knowledge of how the universe works. Freud attacked teleological progression saying that we were not moving forwards as a race. He was a skeptic of the enlightenment like Marx as they believed that reason was not in control of us the id was, and therefore if we are being controlled we could not be on our way to being super beings. Marx felt that people did not know what made them happy and therefore we cant access the unconscious.
Freud's ideas were so influential however that his language and ideas are still used today, we hear his terms used and don't even realise that it is Freud we are quoting or his ideas we are stating. His ideas became a way of life rather than science.
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