Phychoanalysis In Modern Psychology: Sigmund Freud And The Mind

1236 Words3 Pages

Most people may believe that the mind is too complex or difficult to understand, or that there is not a way of truly understanding one 's brain activity and the way it functions. However, a man by the name of Sigmund Freud has done remarkable research to test these theories so that humans may finally be able to fathom essentially the details of why people do what they do. He has been a huge asset in the psychology world not only for founding the term psychoanalysis, but also by developing new words in the psychology field that have helped to further modern research used today.
To begin, Sigmund Freud was born in Freiberg, which is now known as the Czech Republic, on May 6, 1856, and was four years old when his family moved to Vienna. He received …show more content…

Freud’s account of the unconscious is best shown in this model. The psyche model has many similarities with the thoughts of Plato over 2,000 years earlier. Like Plato, Freud distinguished three structural elements within the mind, which he called id, ego, and super-ego. The id operated at an unconscious level, which comprises the two principles Eros, life instinct, and Thanatos, death instinct. Eros helps the individual to survive, directing life-sustaining activities such as respiration and eating while the Thanatos is viewed as a set of destructive forces. When this energy is directed outward onto others, it is expressed as aggression and violence. The ego develops from the id during infancy. The ego’s goal is to satisfy the demands of the id in a safe and socially acceptable way. The superego develops during early childhood and is responsible for ensuring moral standards are followed and can also make a person feel guilty if the moral standard is not …show more content…

He had spent most of his life living and working in Vienna, but this changed when the Nazi 's annexed Austria in 1938. In addition to being Jewish, Freud 's fame as the founder of psychoanalysis made him a target to the Nazis. A friend found safe passage for Freud, his wife, Martha, and his youngest daughter, Anna, to England. He and his family left Vienna on June 4, 1938, arriving two days later in London, England. As a heavy cigar smoker, Freud had been suffering from mouth cancer since 1923 and had already had several operations. Sadly his cancer returned and Freud’s doctor exclaimed that the tumor was inoperable. On September 21, 1939, Freud asked the doctor to administer a fatal dose of morphine and he died at the age of

Open Document