Sigmund Freud Essay Research Paper Sigmund Schlomo

Sigmund Freud Essay, Research Paper

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. He had a prodigious memory and loved reading to the point of running himself into debt at various bookstores. As a child Sigmund learned six languages, two of which were self taught. To avoid disruption of his studies, he often ate in his room. When Freud was eight years old, he was reading Shakespeare, Goethe, Kant, Hegel, and Nietzche. Inspired by the scientific investigations of the German poet Goethe, Freud was driven by an intense desire to study natural science and to solve some of the challenging problems confronting contemporary scientists.

Though he was intellectual he still suffered hardship due to him being Jewish. An incident in which Freud remembered in one day his father came home and described a story of a man who knocked Freud s father s hat off because he was Jewish. Sigmund expecting a brilliant response was mortified to learn that his father did nothing but pick his hat off the ground and continue on. Sigmund was outraged by his fathers actions and swore that if the time came he would stand up for himself. This anger towards his father for not defending himself can also be seen as an underlining cause for the development of his Oedipus Complex.

Having considered studying law previously, he decided instead on a career in medical research, beginning his studies at Vienna University (1873). His true love was for medicine above all; the idea of studying practicing medicine to him. As a student, Freud began research work on the central nervous system, guided by Ernst von Br cke (1876), and qualified as doctor of medicine in 1881. He worked at the Theodor Meynert’s Psychiatric Clinic (1882-83) and later studied with Charcot, at the Salpetri re, in Paris (1885). He didn t receive his medical degree until 1881 because he saw neurological research was so engrossing that he neglected the prescribed course and remained in school for three years longer than was normally required.

After medical school, Freud spent three years at the General Hospital of Vienna, devoting himself successively to psychiatry, dermatology, and nervous disease; in 1885 he left his post at the hospital. Freud began a private practice, specializing in nervous disorders. He was soon faced with patients whose disorders made no neurological sense. For example, a patient might have lost feeling in his foot with no evidence with no evidence to any sensory damage. He wondered if the problem could be psychological rather physiological. Freud s first published work, On Aphasia, appeared in 1891; it was a study of the neurological disorder in which the ability to pronounce words or to name common objects is lost as a result of organic brain disease. His final work in neurology, an article, Infantile Cerebral Paralysis, was written in 1897 for an encyclopedia, since by this time Freud was occupied largely with psychological rather than physiological explanations for mental disorder.He recorded his valuation and constructed his theories in 24 volumes published between 1888 and 1939.

While exploring the possible psychological roots of nervous disorders, Freud spent several months in Paris, studying with Jean Charcot, a French neurologist from whom he learned hypnosis. On return to Vienna, Freud began to hypnotize patients and encouraging them while under hypnosis to speak openly about themselves and the onset of their symptoms. It was in this way that Freud discovered what he termed the unconscious. Freud s new orientation which he named Psychoanalysis in 1896 was heralded by his collaborative work on hysteria with Viennese physician Josef Breuer. The work was presented in 1893 in a preliminary paper and two years later in an expanded form under the title Studies on Hysteria. The publication of this work marked the beginning of psychoanalytic theory formulated on the basis of clinical observations.

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