Freud, Sigmund
Geb. Príbor (Nordmähr. Gebiet) 6.5. 1856, gest. London 23.9. 1939, österr.
Arzt und Psychologe. Emigrierte 1938 nach London. Entwickelte das psychoanalyt.
Therapieverfahren (Psychoanalyse), bei dem er zugleich seine Einsichten in die
Triebstruktur menschl. Verhaltens gewann. Als Zentraltrieb nahm F. den Geschlechtstrieb
an. Da gerade die Entfaltung der geschlechtl. Triebhaftigkeit durch gesellschaftl. Regeln
und Tabus unterdrückt wird, ergeben sich nach F. hieraus die Fehlentwicklungen, die zu
Neurosen führen, denen auszuweichen ledigl. durch Sublimierung mögl. sei.
Werke
Die Traumdeutung (1900), Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens (1901), Totem und Tabu
(1913), Das Ich und das Es (1923), Das Unbehagen in der Kultur (1929).
(c) LexiROM (Meyers Lexikonverlag).
Freud, Sigmund (1856-1939)
Austrian physician, neurologist, and founder of psychoanalysis.
Freud was born in Freiberg (now Príbor, Czech Republic), on May 6, 1856, and educated at
the University of Vienna. When he was three years old his family, fleeing from the
anti-Semitic riots then raging in Freiberg, moved to Leipzig. Shortly thereafter, the
family settled in Vienna, where Freud remained for most of his life.
Although his ambition from childhood had been a career in law, Freud decided to become a
medical student shortly before he entered the University of Vienna in 1873. Inspired by
the scientific investigations of the German poet Goethe, he was driven by an intense
desire to study natural science and to solve some of the challenging problems confronting
contemporary scientists.
In his third year at the university Freud began research work on the central nervous
system in the physiological laboratory under the direction of the German physician Ernst
Wilhelm von Brücke. Neurological research was so engrossing that Freud neglected the
prescribed courses and as a result remained in medical school three years longer than was
required normally to qualify as a physician.
In 1881, after completing a year of compulsory military service, he received his medical
degree. Unwilling to give up his experimental work, however, he remained at the university
as a demonstrator in the physiological laboratory. In 1883, at Brücke's urging, he
reluctantly abandoned theoretical research to gain practical experience.
Freud spent three years at the General Hospital of Vienna, devoting himself successively
to psychiatry, dermatology, and nervous diseases. In 1885, following his appointment as a
lecturer in neuropathology at the University of Vienna, he left his post at the hospital.
Later the same year he was awarded a government grant enabling him to spend 19 weeks in
Paris as a student of the French neurologist Jean Charcot. As the director of the clinic
at the Salpêtrière mental hospital, Charcot was then treating nervous disorders by the
use of hypnotic suggestion. Freud's studies under Charcot, which centred largely on
hysteria, influenced him greatly in channelling his interests to psychopathology-the
scientific study of mental disorders.
In 1886 Freud established a private practice in Vienna specializing in nervous disease. He
met with violent opposition from the Viennese medical profession because of his strong
support of Charcot's unorthodox views on hysteria and hypnotherapy. The resentment he
incurred was to delay any acceptance of his subsequent findings on the origins of
neurosis.
The Beginnings of Psychoanalysis
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 only at
the insistence of the editor, since by this time Freud was occupied largely with
psychological rather than physiological explanations for mental disorders. His subsequent
writings were devoted entirely to that field, which he had named psychoanalysis in 1896.
Freud's new orientation was heralded by his collaborative work on hysteria with the
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. In this work the
symptoms of hysteria were ascribed to manifestations of undischarged emotional energy
associated with forgotten psychic traumas. The therapeutic procedure involved the use of a
hypnotic state in which the patient was led to recall and reenact the traumatic
experience, thus discharging by catharsis the emotions causing the symptoms. The
publication of this work marked the beginning of psychoanalytic theory formulated on the
basis of clinical observations.
During the period from 1895 to 1900 Freud developed many of the concepts that were later
incorporated into psychoanalytic practice and doctrine. Soon after publishing the studies
on hysteria he abandoned the use of hypnosis as a cathartic procedure and replaced it by
the investigation of the patient's spontaneous flow of thoughts-called free association-to
reveal the unconscious mental processes at the root of the neurotic disturbance.
In his clinical observations Freud found evidence for the mental mechanisms of repression
and resistance. He described repression as a device operating unconsciously to make the
memory of painful or threatening events inaccessible to the conscious mind. Resistance is
defined as the unconscious defence against awareness of repressed experiences in order to
avoid the resulting anxiety.
He traced the operation of unconscious processes, using the free associations of the
patient to guide him in the interpretation of dreams and slips of speech. Analysis of
dreaming led to his theories of infantile sexuality and of the so-called Oedipus complex,
which constitutes the erotic attachment of the child for the parent of the opposite sex,
together with hostile feelings towards the other parent. This aligned to the emphasis on
the biological bases for human behaviour-particularly sex and aggression-were among
Freud's most controversial theories.
In these years he also developed the theory of transference, the process by which
emotional attitudes, established originally towards parental figures in childhood, are
transferred in later life to others. The end of this period was marked by the appearance
of Freud's most important work, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). Here Freud analysed
many of his own dreams recorded in a three-year period of self-analysis which began in
1897. This work expounds all the fundamental concepts underlying psychoanalytic technique
and doctrine.
In 1902 Freud was appointed a full professor at the University of Vienna. This honour was
granted not in recognition of his contributions but as a result of the efforts of a highly
influential patient. The medical world still regarded his work with hostility, and his
next writings, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1904) and Three Contributions to the
Sexual Theory (1905), only increased this antagonism. As a result Freud continued to work
virtually alone in what he termed "splendid isolation".
By 1906, however, Freud had a small number of pupils and followers-including the Austrian
psychiatrists William Stekel and Alfred Adler, the Austrian psychologist Otto Rank, the
American psychiatrist Abraham Brill, and the Swiss psychiatrists Eugen Bleuler and Carl
Jung. Other notable associates, who joined the circle in 1908, were the Hungarian
psychiatrist Sándor Ferenczi and the British psychiatrist Ernest Jones.
International Acceptance.
Increasing recognition of the psychoanalytic movement made possible the formation in 1910
of a worldwide organization called the International Psychoanalytic Association. As the
movement spread, gaining new adherents through Europe and the United States, Freud was
troubled by the dissension that arose among members of his original circle. Most
disturbing were the defections from the group of Adler and Jung, each of whom developed a
different theoretical basis for disagreement with Freud's emphasis on the sexual origin of
neurosis. Freud met these setbacks by developing further his basic concepts and by
elaborating his own views in many publications and lectures.
After the onset of World War I Freud devoted little time to clinical observation and
concentrated on the application of his theories to the interpretation of religion,
mythology, art, and literature. In 1923 he was stricken with cancer of the jaw, which
necessitated constant, painful treatment in addition to many surgical operations. Despite
his physical suffering he continued his literary activity for the next 16 years, writing
mostly on cultural and philosophical problems.
When the Germans occupied Austria in 1938, Freud was persuaded by friends to escape with
his family to England. He died in London on September 23, 1939.
Freud's main contribution was to create an entirely new approach to the understanding of
human personality by his demonstration of the existence and force of the unconscious. In
addition, he founded a new medical discipline and formulated basic therapeutic procedures
that in modified form are applied widely in the present-day treatment of neuroses and
psychoses through psychotherapy. Although never accorded full recognition during his
lifetime and often questioned by others in the field since then, Freud is generally
acknowledged as one of the great creative minds of modern times.
Among his other works are Totem and Taboo (1913), Ego and the Id (1923), New Introductory
Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1933), and Moses and Monotheism (1939).
"Freud, Sigmund," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 96 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1995
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