Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis. Although, for the most part, his theories are not as accepted as he originally intended, his fundamental ideas are used often in terms of neo-Freudian theory. He constructed the idea of the unconscious, as well as the id, ego, and superego. Now, it is quite understandable, on a superficial level at least, why sex was the main topic which Freud's theory revolved. The time was one of sexual suppression, even to the degree of covering piano legs with cloth because they were deemed too sexually stimulating. Therefore, the natural course of belief for Freud was that there was a stress and conflict in the minds of the people due to the sexual suppressions of their innate human desires.

Although that is an interesting stance to have taken at the time, and whether it applied more then than it does now, is completely inconsequential. The argument, is not whether this idea is valid or not, it is to the extent to which that Freud has applied this theory when psychoanalyzing his patients. In the book Sigmund Freud: Three Case Histories edited by Philip Rieff, we are exposed to three case histories of Freud's patients, called the "Wolf Man," the "Rat Man," and the Pyschotic Doctor Schreber, respectively. In each one of these cases, there is always some form of sexual motive behind their abnormal behavior. For example, the book begins with the case of the Rat Man, where Freud interprets the rat to be a manifestation of a penis. When the man expressed his fear and abhorrence towards how the rats were used as a form of torture by being allowed to bore themselves into the anus of the victim, Freud decided, was in actuality his desire to be sexually penetrated by his fath...

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... were to act wrongly. What would it be about their behavior that would cause the death of their father? Why the father in particular and not his mother? The therapy would basically consist of trying to understand the self-imposed stresses and suppressions, and in turn, to possibly release them and function on a more productive, and healthier manner.

In conclusion, Freud was truly a brilliant human being. He was the man who founded the whole idea of the "unconscious," and how the presence of such an "organ" so-to-speak, has ramifications on our functioning lives. The mechanisms behind which we function began in Freud's mind. Was he wrong? I would rather say, he was inaccurate and that the neo-Freudians improved on an exceptional concept. That now-a-days, we have a more innovative, improved, versatile system that was based on a fundamentally functioning model.