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Sigmund Frued Mini Bio

=Sigismund Freud=

Fact File
Born 06/05/1856 Freiberg, Moravia. Eldest son to Joseph and Amalie Freud. (Joseph had children from a previous relationship)


 * __Sigmund Schlomo Freud__**

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jJ6Lhk1pNg

Born Sigismund Schlomo Freud on the 6ht of May 1856. The eldest of seven, Sigmund was the apple of his mother, Amalie’s eye. As a child Freud excelled in school placing top of his class seven out of eight years. In 1873 he began his medical studies attending the University of Vienna and during this time changed his name to Sigmund. It has been widely publicized the reasons for Freud’s choice in studying medicine was not to help those in need but rather to entertain a love interest, Martha Bernays, his fiancé who would not have considered Sigmund as a potential partner if he did not have such a career. In 1879 Freud obtained his medical degree. With little interest in medicine Sigmund gravitated toward the path of Psychology and conducted research in neurophysiology becoming an Instructor at the University of Vienna. 1885, Freud begins studying with Jean-Martin Charcot at the Salpetriere in Paris. Here Charcot was using hypnosis to treat patients with what was at the time known as hysteria the symptoms for which included hallucinations, partial paralysis and nervousness. Patients were photographed which leaves a lot of Charcots studys in question as the patients would ‘play’ to the camera and exaggerate their symptoms.


 * __Anna O. and Talk Therapy.__**

Continuing with his research in hypnotism it was a friendship with colleague Josef Breuer that contributed to the development of Freud’s most famous therapeutic technique. The case is known as Anna O. a patient whose symptoms of hysteria were relived vividly by talking about her traumatic experiences. This showed the power and affect of the mind, its capabilities of memory and the emotions evoked years later, how talking can surface these. Freud continued to develop his ideas about the unconscious, talk therapy and other theories, first using the term ‘psychoanalysis’ in 1896 and after the death of his father began a long period of self-analysis. A focus of this introspection was Freud’s dreams from which he derived what he considered an intense feeling of love toward his mother and provided a basis of his now infamous Oedipal Complex. // "I have found, in my own case // ," he wrote, //"being in love with my mother and jealous of my father, and I now consider it a universal event in early childhood"// (Freud, 1897).

In 1922 Freud was diagnosed with gum cancer and sadly lost this battle on the 23rd of September 1939.

‘A Freudian slip is when one is speaking and accidently inserts a word on one’s subconscious mind in place of another penis.’


 * __Influences Upon Freud__**

Josef Breuer –His treatment in the case of Anna O became the formative basis of the Freudian theory and psychoanalytical practice.

Greek Mythology – In particular the Greek tragedy ‘Oedipus Rex’ by Sophicles - The Oedipus Complex, Oedipus being the young prince who killed his father and married his mother, accidently of course….

Jean-Martin Charcot – Research on hypnotism.

Erik Erikson – Child Development (Closely linked with the Oedipus Complex)


 * __Who Did Freud Influenced?__**

One of the world’s most influential thinkers Freud has had an unprecedented impact on Psychology and psychiatry in general. The psychology of child development, treatment of mental illness, field of abnormal psychology and the study of the personality and considered the founder of psychoanalysis. Carl Jung was strongly influenced by Freud, in particular dream interpretation. Freud made such an impact in the fields of psychiatry and psychology that it is almost impossible to discuss theories without referencing him.


 * __Freud’s Ego Defence Mechanisms__**


 * Repression –**Where impulses or memories which are too frightening or painful are excluded from conscious awareness. (Atkinson et al., 1993)


 * Suppression –** Deliberate self-control, keeping impulses and desires in check, or temporarily pushing aside painful memories. (Atkinson et al., 1993)


 * Projection –** Unconscious mechanism that protects us from recognizing our own undesirable qualities by assigning them in exaggerated amounts to other people. (Atkinson et al., 1993)


 * Regression –** Where the individual may resort back to child like behavious in order to deal with a certain situation in their lives.




 * Sublimation –** Impulse released in the form of a socially acceptable and even admired behaviour. (Passer & Smith, 2007)


 * Denial –** A refusal to acknowledge anxiety arousing aspect’s of ones enviroment, and can involve the emotions connected with the even itself. ( Passer & Smith, 2007)




 * Displacement –** An unacceptable or dangerous impulse repressed and then directed at a safer substitute or targer. (Passer & Smith, 2007)


 * Rationalization –** Person constructs a false but plausible explanation/excuse and the situation is dealt with as an intellectually interesting event. (Passer & Smith, 2007)


 * Isolation of Affect –** Split between thoughts and feelings. Painful, troublesome, frightening feelings are removed from the thoughts they usually accompany and forced from conscious awareness. (Grenwald, 2010)

indicates the opposite feeling.
 * Compensation –** Reversal or undoing of a feeling by doing something that




 * __The Subconscious__**

The unconscious is a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges and memories that are outside of our conscious awareness. Most of the contents of the unconscious are unpleasant such as anxiety or pain. According to Freud the unconscious continues to influence our behaviour, even though we are unaware of these underlying currents. Sigmund developed a theory of personality based on the assumption that the unconscious could influence people’s behaviour. He concluded that there were three unconscious forces.

Primitive, instinctive component of the personality based on desires and urges.
 * The id** (pleasure principle)

Components that suppress these urges and desires.
 * The ego** (reality principle) **The superego** (morality principle)

Freud felt that because these desires and urges were suppressed that at some point they would need to break free and did so in the form of disguised and unrecognizable dreams. This is where one of Freud’s greatest studies comes to light, Dream Interpretation. Nearly everything is sexual according to Freud because a human at their most primitive lists this as their basic need. In Freud’s eyes every long slender object eg knife, cigar etc represents male genitalia and any bowl shaped object eg cave represents the female genitalia.
 * __Case Studies__**


 * Anna O.**

One of Freud’s most famous case studies Anna O was hysterical, paralyzed, hydrophobic and in love with her therapist. Freud treated her using a technique called “Free Association”. This is where the analyst intended to create conditions in which patients could grasp the significance of their symptoms and thereby free themselves from illness. Through Freud’s help Anna overcame these symptoms and became a social worker and the leader of the women’s rights movement in Germany.

When Hans was five he witnessed a horse and carriage collapse which in turn lead to a fear of horses and going outside. In Freud’s opinion Hans was experiencing the Oedipus Complex, wanting to possess his mother and seeing his father as a rival. The repression of his aggressiveness toward his father led him to displace his feelings to an external object, in this case the horse.
 * Little Hans**


 * Wolf Man**

Freud’s treatment of Wolf Man centered around a dream the man had had. Freud believed that this dream was a direct result of having seen his parents having sex as a child and this dream would play a major role in Freud’s theory of psychosexual development. After a year of therapy Freud declared Wolf Man cure and the man returned to Russia. “//I dreamt that it was at night and that I was lying in bed. Suddenly the window opened of its own accord, and I was terrified to see that some white wolves were sitting on the big walnut tree in front of the window. They had big tails like foes and they had their ears pricked like dogs. In the great terror, evidently of being eaten up by the wolves, I screamed and woke up.”//