Icons of the 20th Century

4. Sigmund Freud

(May 6, 1856 - September 23, 1939)

an Austrian psychologist

Most famous for: His theories which imply that sexual drives are the primary motivational forces of human life; he interpreted dreams as sources of insight into unconscious desires. He was the first one to come to the conclusion that  the emotions and ideas that the mind keeps in the unconscious, via dynamic repression, can concentrate upon a boy’s desire to sexually possess his mother, and kill his father (the so called by him **Oedipus complex)

.He also believed that the Oedipus complex is a desire for the mother in both sexes (he believed that girls have a homosexual crush for their mother). Sigmund Freud further proposed that girls and boys resolved their *complexes differently — he via ***castration anxiety, she via ****penis envy; and that unsuccessful resolutions might lead to neurosis,pedophilia, and homosexuality. Hence, men and women who are fixated in the Oedipal and Electra stages of their psychosexual development might be considered “mother-fixated” and “father-fixated” as revealed when the mate (sexual partner) resembles the mother or the father.

In his later work, Freud proposed that the human psyche could be divided into three parts: Id, ego, and super-ego. The id is the impulsive, child-like portion of the psyche that operates on the "pleasure principle" and only takes into account what it wants and disregards all consequences.

Freud acknowledged that his use of the term Id (das Es, "the It") derives from the writings of Georg Groddeck. 

The super-ego is the moral component of the psyche, which takes into account no special circumstances in which the morally right thing may not be right for a given situation. The rational ego attempts to exact a balance between the impractical *hedonism of the id and the equally impractical moralism of the super-ego; it is the part of the psyche that is usually reflected most directly in a person's actions. When overburdened or threatened by its tasks, it may employ **defense mechanisms including ***denial, repression and displacement.

Freud believed that people are driven by two conflicting central desires: the life drive (libido or Eros) (survival, propagation, hunger, thirst, and sex) and the death drive. The death drive was also termed "Thanatos", although Freud did not use that term; "Thanatos" was introduced in this context by Paul Federn.

He also regarded the monotheistic god as an illusion based upon the infantile emotional need for a powerful, supernatural pater familias. He maintained that religion — once necessary to restrain man’s violent nature in the early stages of civilization — in modern times, can be set aside in favor of reason and sience.

*complex - A complex is a core pattern of emotions, memories, perceptions, and wishes in the personal unconscious organized around a common theme, such as power or status. (Ex:  if you had a leg amputated when you were a child, this would influence your life in profound ways, even if you were wonderfully successful in overcoming the handicap. You might have many thoughts, emotions, memories, feelings of inferiority, triumphs, bitterness and determinations centering on that one aspect of your life

*hedonism -  is a school of thought which argues that pleasure is the only intristic good.In very simple terms, a hedonist strives to maximize net pleasure (pleasure minus pain).

**Oedipus -  Oidípous meaning "swollen foot") was amythical Greek king of Thebes. He fulfilled a prophecy that said he would kill his father and marry his mother, and thus brought disaster on his city and family. This legend has been retold in many versions, and was used bySigmund Freud to name the Oedipus Complex.

**defense mechanisms - 

unconscious psychological strategies brought into play by various entities to cope with reality and to maintain self-image. Healthy persons normally use different deferenses throughout life.The purpose of ego defence mechanisms is to protect the mind/self/ego from anxiety, social sanctions or to provide a refuge from a situation with which one cannot currently cope.

***castration anxiety - the conscious or unconscious fear of losing all or part of the sex organs, or the function of such.According to Freud, when the infantile male becomes aware of differences between male and female genitalia he assumes that the female's penis has been removed and becomes anxious that his penis will be cut off by his rival, the father figure, as punishment for desiring the mother figure.

***denial, repression and displacement- denial:used to describe situations in which people seem unable to face reality or admit an obvious truth; an outright refusal to admit or recognize that something has occurred or is occurring.Drug addicts or alcoholics often deny that they have a problem, while victims of traumatic events may even deny the event occurred.Denial functions to protect the ego from things that the individual cannot cope with. repression: it acts to keep information out of conscious awareness.However, these memories don't just disappear, they continue to influence the individual's behavior. Sometimes individuals do this consciously by forcing the unwanted information out of awareness, which is known as suppression.displacement- involves taking out our frustrations, feelings and impulses on people or objects that are  less threatening to us.

****penis envy- refers to the reaction of a girl during her psychosexual development to the realization that she does not have a penis.Freud considered this realization a defining moment in the development of gender and sexual identity for women.In contemporary culture, the term sometimes refers inexactly or metaphorically to women who are presumed to wish they were men.

Freud and his daughter Anna, 1912

Freud  described the tendency to inflict and receive pain during sexual intercourse as “the most common and important of all perversions”, and that both psychosexual tendencies usually occur in the same person. That masochism is a form of sadism against the Self.

Quotes:

"Dogs love their friends and bite their enemies, quite unlike people, who are incapable of pure love and always have to mix love and hate. " 

"Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility." 

"Religion is a system of wishful illusions together with a disavowal of reality, such as we find nowhere else but in a state of blissful hallucinatory confusion. Religion's eleventh commandment is "Thou shalt not question." 

"No mortal can keep a secret. If the lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore." 

"Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength." 

"Despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, I have not been able to answer... the great question that has never been answered: what does a woman want?"