Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Austrian psychologist, psychiatrist and neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis.

Biography

See the biography itself →

The teachings of Z. Freud

Freud stated that human behavior is governed not by ideals, not by reason and not by the rules of decency, but by instincts: the instinct of sex and the fear of death. He argued that the basis of all our actions are secret desires, complexes and neuroses. You can learn about them by analyzing your dreams. According to Freud, not consciousness, but the unconscious controls human behavior. Look →

Freud believed that there is a single list of innate drives that are common to all people and cannot be changed: these are life drives, sexual drives, death drives. Look →

Freud proposed a three-component model of the psyche, consisting of «It», «I» and «Super-I». Look →

Freud influenced the entire European culture: Proust, Joyce, Sartre, Dali, Picasso. The influence of Z. Freud on both academic and practical psychology is enormous. From the work of Z. Freud went:

• actually Freudianism, or classical psychoanalysis, deriving all the problems of an adult from sexual instinct, see →
• a psychoanalytic approach that derives all the moments and problems of an adult from the events and experiences of his childhood, see →
• a psychodynamic approach that deduces what is happening in the human soul from the deep struggle (dynamics) of unconscious forces, see → Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav Jung stand out among Freud’s students.

Publications

Sigmund Freud once wrote poetry, in psychology he began his research more as a physiologist and neuropsychologist, but became famous for his research as the founder of psychoanalysis: Studies in Hysteria (1895), Interpretation of Dreams (1900), Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901 ), Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious (1905), Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), Totem and Taboo (1913), Lectures on Introduction to Psychoanalysis (1916-1917), side of the pleasure principle” (1920), “Psychology of the Masses and Analysis of the Self” (1921), “I and It” (1923), “The Future of an Illusion” (1927), “Civilization and Those Dissatisfied with It” (1930), “Moses and Monotheism (1939), Outline of Psychology (1940, unfinished), Analysis of the Phobia of a Five-Year-Old Boy, On Dreaming, On Psychoanalysis, Beating a Child: On the Origin of Sexual Perversions.

Modern assessment of the legacy of Z. Freud

Despite the fact that psychoanalysis has become a «sacred cow» in psychology, psychoanalysis has no direct relation to science, it is more poetry, mythology and a practical approach. There is no scientific data that either confirms his position on the leading role of sexual drives. Its effectiveness in comparison with the behavioral and humanistic approach is low. Look →