Sigmund Freud was born of Jacob Freud and Amalia in Freiberg, Moravia on 6 May 1856. Citizens in his home area were Czechs, and the Jewish people were German speakers who were assimilated to the Austro-Hungarian. Freud was humorous, a trait many believed he inherited from his father. As an independent being, he illustrated his liberalism, free thought, and moral feature through his Jewish anecdote. Freud had the capability of expressing intense feelings. According to people, Freud had inherited sentimentalism from his mother. It was clear that he enjoyed his mother’s unconditional affection. He realized that the unconditional affection in reality fulfilled the feeling of victory and undoubted success.
Furthermore, unpleasant events occurred in his early age that played a part in his road to the later victory. According to his narration, his father’s humiliating phrase, which suggested that he would come of nothing should have afflicted him. On the contrary, the scene in his memory was always accompanied by an account of his works and successes. He also encountered other challenges that motivated him towards his works and success. The Freud’s were Jewish, and they had a severe experience in the overwhelmingly catholic community. The Jewish were later liberated by Emperor Francis Joseph and allowed to settle in any place in the vast empire. Later, the Freuds moved to Vienna where educational and professional opportunities were better. In this area, there was a significant concentration of the Jewish families and the living standard was higher than in the provinces.
Freud attended a local elementary school in the Leopoldstadt slum and later joined the Sperl Gymnasium secondary school. As an individual, he was an extensive reader. Leopoldstadt was a slum where the Jewish families dwelled. As a bright student, Freud studied subjects that included Greek and Latin, history, mathematics, and natural sciences. His family noticed that he was a superior student since he performed well especially in his final examination. Later, Freud joined University of Vienna and enrolled in the medical school. In his medical practice, Freud was greatly fascinated by the scientific sector than the clinical sector. He was attracted the scientific laboratory. His admission in Vienna was a golden chance because University of Vienna had become the world capital of medicine.
Freud received his doctorate at the age of twenty after seven years of study in the University. Freud wooed Martha Bernays although he was not fiscally established to support a family, and later they were engaged. After receiving his doctorate, Freud joined Allgemeine Krankenhaus general hospital for three years. He engaged in the psychiatry department for five months in the hospital under Theodor Meynert. During this time, the study of psychological behavior was not highly practiced and was considered less important. Later, Freud left for abroad for further studies and specialized in neurological he was interested in studying the human nervous system. During his study under neurologist Jean Martin, Freud gained an interest in the hysteria illness. He was fascinated by Jean’s demonstration of hysteria’s Psychological origins. He learnt that hysteria involved ill physical symptoms seldom accompanied by a medical cause. His journey as a psychoanalyst had begun.
Freud commenced his private medical practice that specialized in neurology. He was an extremely private man who loved travelling. He later married Martha Bernays, and they had six children. As a devoted family man, he performed his practices in a consultation room that was attached to his home. Freud’s daughter Anna turned to one his great followers. After returning to Vienna, Freud was determined to specialize in treatment of hysterical patients. He relied on Hypnosis, which involved altering an individual’s attention resulting into a transformation in their bodily experiences. Freud had acquired this technique from Charcot Breuer who was also interested in the same field. Joseph had proved the success of hypnosis through hypnotizing a traumatized patient. It involved making the patient recall traumatizing events in the past. Through several experiments, they confirmed the success of this technique. Later, they both published a book known as the Studies of Hysteria.
Freud began using the term psychoanalysis during his major life work. This term defined the technique of treating a mental illness through exposing and discussing an individual’s unconscious thoughts and feelings. He had abandoned hypnosis and adopted the psychoanalysis form of treatment. He lured his patients into talking and discussing their problems. The technique aimed at releasing the sturdy emotional energy, which had been abandoned and imprisoned in the unconscious mind. He viewed that the repression acted as an impediment that affected the normal functioning of the psyche and would even cause physical retardation. Primarily, Freud had started the study with himself. He performed the unique project on his own self-analysis. He carried out this task by initially analyzing his dreams. During this project, he discovered a belligerent feeling towards his father. Surprisingly, he also realized that he had developed sexual feelings towards his mother during his childhood. This came with the opposition suggesting Freud’s remembrance of his past contributed to his theory. He published a book known as Interpretation of Dreams that was a significant scientific result.
Freud continually developed his therapeutic methodology and abandoned hypnosis into a more effective technique. He adopted the technique of Free Association. Moreover, his interest in theories developed as much as his circle of his supporters. He also gained critics who opposed his theories especially due to their commitment to religion. Freud believed that religion was unscientific. During his work on psychoanalysis, Freud compiled a chain of papers that explained the influence of the unconscious mind processes on different aspects of human behavior. According to his study, he highlighted the strong force of sexual desires. He discovered that the force of sexual desires during early child hood are blocked from the conscious awareness and stored within the personality. He contributed to this debate through a published book known as Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. The violently protested publication described the experiences of sexuality. It was later accepted in all schools that engaged in the study of psychology. Freud began engaging a small group of interested colleagues into an evening study and presentation of psychoanalytic papers and discussion.
Despite Freud’s illness, his years illustrated significant scientific productivity. During his study, he published findings on different issues that were related to psychology. His findings and publications contributed greatly to psychology. He published books like Beyond the Pleasure Principle that addressed the importance of aggressive sexual drives. He also improved his theoretical framework and systematized his data regarding the structure of the mind. These findings were put down in a publication known as The Ego and the Id. Freud reviewed his theory of anxiety that illustrated it as signal of danger from approaching unconscious fantasies. It was published as Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety Publication.
Freud’s theories had a great impact on the sector of psychology. His findings and contribution confirmed the notion that some and not mental sicknesses are provoked by physiological disorders. Still, Freud witnessed that cultural differences had an influence on psychology and human behavior. His findings upgraded people’s understanding of human development, abnormal psychology, clinical psychology, and understanding of personality. Freud was a great influence to other competent psychologists.