Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud

Introduction

The world famous neurologist, Sigmund Freud developed a human behavior approach named as psychoanalysis (Gay, 1988). He was a person of massive learning and enormous talents and capacities. Freud's writings fill up nearly thirty volumes and cover almost each and every aspect of human history, culture, and experience.

Discussion

The Early Years

This great neurologist was born on 6th May 1856, in Moravia, a region in Czech Republic at present (Erwin, 2002). He was born to Jacob, a wool merchant and Amalia. Amongst seven other kids of this couple, Sigmund was the firstborn, and thus remained the most favorite child in the family.

From his early childhood days, Sigmund Freud was a brilliant student, who has a considerable goal. At a very young age, he was predominantly interested in learning humanities and history (Frosh, 1999). At the age of seventeen, he got admission in the University of Vienna's medical school.

While studying, Freud carried out a research in the laboratory of Brucke, publishing quite a few papers in the course, yet putting off his own graduation from the medical school to carry on the research. Even though he felt haggard to the university life, he had a slight hope of acquiring a university position. Unwillingly, Freud started pursuing the training that would make him eligible for practicing medical. In the year 1885, whilst in the middle of his medical training, he got a small funding to study in Paris with Jean-Martin Charcot, the very well-known French neurologist. Freud was extremely influenced by the theories and ideas of Charcot (Erwin, 2002).

Psychoanalysis Development

Freud married Martha Bernays soon after he got back from Paris Shortly and started his private practice. Afterwards, he started to treat different nervous disorders in his practice. Freud tried out quite a lot of techniques, together with a form of hypnosis and electrotherapy. Even though at first unbeaten with hypnosis, he turned discontented with it at the time when he discovered that symptoms often returned. In its place, he started to use a new technique named as free association.

In the year 1897, Sigmund Freud started a self-analysis. Since he was concerned for years by a range of symptoms that he recognized as neurotic in beginning, he expected that this analysis would give a personal advantage over and above allow him a better comprehension of his patients (Gay, 1988).

Freud published the book “The Interpretation of Dreams”, which he, and a number of others, well thought-out his most significant work. Soon after that, Freud published “The Psychopathology of Everyday Life” in 1901, which is a description of the way in which unconscious needs put across themselves in everyday life.

While his reputation and name grew, Freud started to catch the attention of followers, a number of whom turned in to significant theoreticians and analysts in their individual right. Alfred Adler, Karl Abraham, Otto Rank, Ernest Jones, Carl G. Jung and Sandor Ferenczi were among them (Erwin, 2002). Freud started to meet up with disciples in Vienna on a regular basis to talk about psychoanalysis and ...