Sigmund Freud

A.Life span

Sigmund Freud was born Sigismund Schlomo Freud on May 6, 1856, in Freiburg, Moravia, which later became the Czech Republic. As the founder of modern psychoanalysis, Freud was to change the conceptions of human mental life by showing that many seemingly illogical, unconscious psychological processes ignored by contemporary conventional science are powerful influences shaping human beings across the lifespan, including day-to-day actions, attractions, and avoidances. Freud entered the University of Vienna in 1873 at age seventeen to study medicine. He studied the humanities for his first year and read philosophy widely (admiring Ludwig Feuerbach), which validated his reservations about the specialized study of medicine. Freud worked in Carl Claus's laboratory in Vienna (a propagandist of Darwin) and saw himself as an "intellectual researcher into nature" (Gay 1998). Freud completed his education at the University of Vienna in 1881 at the age of twenty-five. His education continued when, as a trained neurologist, he studied under the tutelage of eminent mentors such as Ernst Brucke, a famous physiologist, and Theodore Meynert, a brain anatomist and psychiatrist. Freud's innovation in the field of human mental health was to give a developmental account of a dynamic, embodied mind in which unconscious processes played a determining role. Freud was an evolutionary naturalist. He saw humans as Oedipal apes, driven to survive and reproduce; and as cultural creatures, born more dependent than most animals into nuclear families, capable of identifying with those we love and of internalizing parental sanctions and ideals. This legacy has informed child development's concerns with the quality of parent-child interactions and the acquisition of abilities and morality alike. 

Freud used clinical methods and observation since his theory suggests bias may arise in self-report due to defensiveness where impulses or thoughts conflict with morals. His case study method privileged the unique in-depth study of an individual; his theory development on this basis showed his equal commitment to generality, to discovering lawlike patterns. Privileging the early years as formative of personality (even where individuals may consciously recollect very little of them), his clinical work revealed the active contribution of the child to development. His essays on infantile sexuality in 1905 (which posited an active infantile sexuality that could scarcely be countenanced in his late-nineteenth-century culture) suggested personality was shaped by the pattern and quality of parental attendance to a child's bodily and affectional needs. He never renounced his conviction that drives—the most prominent of which in his early thought was the sex drive—were the impetus for much of our mental life. Having studied hysteria with Jean Charcot at the Salpêtriére, a pathological laboratory in Paris (1885-1886), Freud went on to reveal how some bodily symptoms were psychological in origin (i.e., psycho-genic). Wishes, losses, conflicts, of which humans may consciously know very little, may be expressed as dreams, physical symptoms, inhibitions, wordless anxieties, slips of the tongue, and bungled actions. His work with Josef Breuer in 1895 displaced hypnosis with the use of the "talking cure," where unconscious conflicts were traced via free association, whereby the patient said anything that came to mind without self-censorship. The talking cure was supplemented Sigmund Freud changed the conception of human mental life by showing that many seemingly illogical, unconscious psychological processes are powerful influences shaping human beings across the lifespan. (Hulton-Deutsch Collection Limited/Corbis) after 1900 by the analysis of dreams. Symptoms could be relieved when conflicts were emotionally recontextualized, in part through the relationship to the analyst where past issues came alive again in the present (a technique called transference). As a Jewish scholar in bourgeois Vienna, Freud was influenced by and an observer of a civilized sexual morality that he felt required of us a surplus repression (where urges and associated longings are pushed from awareness and denied expression), which damaged health and hindered contributions to culture. Financial problems had delayed his marriage to Martha Bernays (they were engaged in 1882 and married in 1886), and the realities of marriage were not equal to his expectations. Freud believed that World War I confirmed his theories about aggression and the regression to more primitive behavior that collectivities made possible. Freud suffered much loss in his life and wrote poignantly about the links between mourning and depression. In 1923 he discovered a cancerous growth on his palate, but, cherishing his cigars, sought neither specialists nor oral surgeons, going instead to general practitioners. His daughter Anna, who was to be his professional successor, tended the father who had analyzed her until his death in 1939.

B.Theories

The Id, Ego and Superego (The Structural Model of Personality)

According to Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory of personality, personality is composed of three elements. These three elements of personality--known as the id, the ego and the superego--work together to create complex human behaviors.

The Id 

The id is the only component of personality that is present from birth. This aspect of personality is entirely unconscious and includes of the instinctive and primitive behaviors. According to Freud, the id is the source of all psychic energy, making it the primary component of personality. The id is driven by the pleasure principle, which strives for immediate gratification of all desires, wants, and needs. If these needs are not satisfied immediately, the result is a state anxiety or tension. For example, an increase in hunger or thirst should produce an immediate attempt to eat or drink. The id is very important early in life, because it ensures that an infant's needs are met. If the infant is hungry or uncomfortable, he or she will cry until the demands of the id are met. However, immediately satisfying these needs is not always realistic or even possible. If we were ruled entirely by the pleasure principle, we might find ourselves grabbing things we want out of other people's hands to satisfy our own cravings. This sort of behavior would be both disruptive and socially unacceptable. According to Freud, the id tries to resolve the tension created by the pleasure principle through the primary process, which involves forming a mental image of the desired object as a way of satisfying the need.

The Ego 

The ego is the component of personality that is responsible for dealing with reality. According to Freud, the ego develops from the id and ensures that the impulses of the id can be expressed in a manner acceptable in the real world. The ego functions in both the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious mind. The ego operates based on the reality principle, which strives to satisfy the id's desires in realistic and socially appropriate ways. The reality principle weighs the costs and benefits of an action before deciding to act upon or abandon impulses. In many cases, the id's impulses can be satisfied through a process of delayed gratification--the ego will eventually allow the behavior, but only in the appropriate time and place. The ego also discharges tension created by unmet impulses through the secondary process, in which the ego tries to find an object in the real world that matches the mental image created by the id's primary process.

The Superego 

The last component of personality to develop is the superego. The superego is the aspect of personality that holds all of our internalized moral standards and ideals that we acquire from both parents and society--our sense of right and wrong. The superego provides guidelines for making judgments. According to Freud, the superego begins to emerge at around age five.

There are two parts of the superego:

• The ego ideal includes the rules and standards for good behaviors. These behaviors include those which are approved of by parental and other authority figures. Obeying these rules leads to feelings of pride, value and accomplishment.  
• The conscience includes information about things that are viewed as bad by parents and society. These behaviors are often forbidden and lead to bad consequences, punishments or feelings of guilt and remorse.

The superego acts to perfect and civilize our behavior. It works to suppress all unacceptable urges of the id and struggles to make the ego act upon idealistic standards rather that upon realistic principles. The superego is present in the conscious, preconscious and unconscious.

The Interaction of the Id, Ego and Superego

With so many competing forces, it is easy to see how conflict might arise between the id, ego and superego. Freud used the term ego strength to refer to the ego's ability to function despite these dueling forces. A person with good ego strength is able to effectively manage these pressures, while those with too much or too little ego strength can become too unyielding or too disrupting.

According to Freud, the key to a healthy personality is a balance between the id, the ego, and the superego.

C.Contribution to Understanding Learners and Learning

Regardless of the perception of Sigmund Freud’s theories, there is no question that he had an enormous impact on the field of psychology. His work supported the belief that not all mental illnesses have physiological causes and he also offered evidence that cultural differences have an impact on psychology and behavior. His work and writings contributed to our understanding of personality, clinical psychology, human development, and abnormal psychology. Freud wrote and theorized about a broad range of subjects including sex, dreams, religion, women, and culture.

Theories and major contributions:

• The Conscious and Unconscious Mind 
• The Id, Ego, and Superego 
• Life and Death Instincts 
• Psychosexual Development 
• Defense Mechanisms

Major works:

• The Interpretation of Dreams 
• The Psychopathology of Everyday Life 
• Totem and Taboo 
• Civilization and Its Discontents 
• The Future is an Illusion 
• Psychoanalysis