Sigmund Freud

The Legacy of Sigmund Freud
[student’s name]
[university/course]
[date]
The Legacy of Sigmund Freud
Born as Sigismund Freud to a jewish family, Sigmund Freud explored the human mind deeper than any researcher who came before him. He is most famous for psychoanalysis – a method used to understand human behavior and to treat mental illness. His work is so broad it influenced not only psychology but also art, literature, and even child rearing. Words like "libido, anal, neurotic, repression, denial, cathartic, projection, rejection and Freudian slip are known even by every day people. While has been called everything from "a con-man to a dirty-minded pansexualist" ADDIN CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "URL" : "/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/bhfreu.html", "accessed" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2015", "3", "8" ] ] }, "author" : [ { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "PBS Online", "given" : "", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" } ], "container-title" : "PBS", "id" : "ITEM-1", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "1998" ] ] }, "title" : "Sigmund Freud", "type" : "webpage" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=6174b7bc-9e23-49c0-bda6-a5171fd397e5" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "formattedCitation" : "(PBS Online, 1998)", "plainTextFormattedCitation" : "(PBS Online, 1998)", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(PBS Online, 1998)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" }(PBS Online, 1998), it is undeniable that his extensive research has redefined how people looked at themselves and the way they view their lives.
The case of Anna O, a patient of Josef Breuer suffering began Freud’s journey towards psychoanalysis. Anna O suffered from hysteria and exhibited physical symptoms such as paralysis, loss of speech, convulsions, among others. Freud discovered that his friend Breuer was able to help Anna O recover from her illness by enabling her to recall her traumatic experiences through hypnotism. Freud soon adopted hypnotism as a method of treatment for his patients suffering from hysteria, but decided to abandon it after some time. Freud discovered that "he could get patients to talk just by putting them in a relaxing position (the couch) and encouraging them to say whatever came into their heads (free association). He could then analyze what they had remembered or expressed and determine what traumatic events in their past had caused their current suffering" ADDIN CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "URL" : "/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/bhfreu.html", "accessed" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2015", "3", "8" ] ] }, "author" : [ { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "PBS Online", "given" : "", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" } ], "container-title" : "PBS", "id" : "ITEM-1", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "1998" ] ] }, "title" : "Sigmund Freud", "type" : "webpage" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=6174b7bc-9e23-49c0-bda6-a5171fd397e5" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "formattedCitation" : "(PBS Online, 1998)", "plainTextFormattedCitation" : "(PBS Online, 1998)", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(PBS Online, 1998)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" }(PBS Online, 1998). Thus began psychoanalysis, known today as the "talking cure".
While Breuer’s methods weren’t entirely effective for Freud, he never forgot about Anna O. In fact, Freud gained a deeper idea from contemplating on Anna O’s case – an idea that he would pursue for the rest of his life. For Freud, the physical symptoms exhibited by Anna O were in fact manifestations of deeply repressed internal conflicts, conflicts that have been locked away in the deepest recesses of the unconscious mind. He believed that deep in the unconscious are primitive desires and events that patients are too afraid to acknowledge. Freud, then, did not simply try to explain mental illness: he has created a theory that tried to explain the human psyche. At the heart of this theory is the psychic apparatus of the mind – the id, ego and superego – each one fulfilling a basic function. The id "represents our earliest way of relating to the world, an unselfconscious desiring for fulfillment of our basic needs" ADDIN CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "URL" : "/people/736/000029649/", "accessed" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2015", "3", "8" ] ] }, "author" : [ { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "Soylent Communications", "given" : "", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" } ], "container-title" : "NNDB", "id" : "ITEM-1", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2014" ] ] }, "title" : "Sigmund Freud", "type" : "webpage" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=d7607247-cb32-4698-a32c-fa2584bfc8bd" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "formattedCitation" : "(Soylent Communications, 2014)", "plainTextFormattedCitation" : "(Soylent Communications, 2014)", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Soylent Communications, 2014)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" }(Soylent Communications, 2014), the ego "understands about limitations and about strategies for overcoming limitations" ADDIN CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "URL" : "/people/736/000029649/", "accessed" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2015", "3", "8" ] ] }, "author" : [ { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "Soylent Communications", "given" : "", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" } ], "container-title" : "NNDB", "id" : "ITEM-1", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2014" ] ] }, "title" : "Sigmund Freud", "type" : "webpage" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=d7607247-cb32-4698-a32c-fa2584bfc8bd" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "formattedCitation" : "(Soylent Communications, 2014)", "plainTextFormattedCitation" : "(Soylent Communications, 2014)", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Soylent Communications, 2014)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" }(Soylent Communications, 2014) and the superego is the "internalized sense of right and wrong, the conscience" ADDIN CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "URL" : "/people/736/000029649/", "accessed" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2015", "3", "8" ] ] }, "author" : [ { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "Soylent Communications", "given" : "", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" } ], "container-title" : "NNDB", "id" : "ITEM-1", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2014" ] ] }, "title" : "Sigmund Freud", "type" : "webpage" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=d7607247-cb32-4698-a32c-fa2584bfc8bd" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "formattedCitation" : "(Soylent Communications, 2014)", "plainTextFormattedCitation" : "(Soylent Communications, 2014)", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Soylent Communications, 2014)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" }(Soylent Communications, 2014). Freud was fascinated in the way these three aspects of the psyche could contradict each other and create internal conflict that leads a person to act erratically. He realizes that while the superego can sometimes control the id from acting, the irrational behaviors do not disappear entirely leading the person to act irrationally. To treat his patients, Freud proposed that the goal of psychoanalysis is to make the unconscious conscious – to discover the source of the dysfunction and to heal it – so that they can make better decisions for themselves.
Working in a highly repressive society, Freud went on to discover various neurotic illnesses due to repressed sexuality. Freud then began to research on his patient’s sexual history – their experiences of love and hate, shame, guilt, fear, desire, and how they handled these overwhelming emotions. Thus began the most controversial part of Freud’s work â€&ldqu...