Sigmund Freud (May 6, 1856 - September 23, 1939) was an Austrian neurologist, who

became interested in hypnotism and how it could be used to help the mentally ill. He later
abandoned hypnotism in favor of free association and dream analysis in developing what
is now known as "the talking cure." These became the core elements of psychoanalysis.
Freud was especially interested in what was then called hysteria, and is now called
conversion syndrome.

Freud, his theories, and his treatment of his patients were controversial in 19th century
Vienna, and remain hotly debated today. His ideas are often discussed and analyzed as
works of literature and general culture in addition to continuing debate around them as
scientific and medical treatises. As one critic put it in 2003, the followers of Sigmund
Freud consider him "... a great medical scientist who uncovered important truths about
human psychology...", while others (especially in competing fields such as psychiatry)
see him as a "...philosophical visionary who re-imagined human nature and helped us
confront taboos, but whose theories, offered as science, fail under scrutiny".

His life
He was born Sigismund Schlomo Freud in Freiberg, Moravia (now known as Pribor in
the Czech Republic). In 1877, he abbreviated his name from Sigismund Schlomo Freud
to Sigmund Freud.

Little is known of Freud's early life as he twice destroyed his personal papers, once in
1885 and again in 1907. Additionally, his later papers were closely guarded in the
Sigmund Freud Archives and only available to Ernest Jones, his official biographer, and a
few other members of the inner circle of psychoanalysis. The work of Jeffrey Moussaieff
Masson shed some light on the nature of the suppressed material.

In 1938 following the Nazi German Anschluss of Austria, Freud escaped with his family
to England. He died in England in 1939.

Freud's daughter Anna Freud was also a distinguished psychologist, particularly in the
fields of child and developmental psychology. Sigmund is the grandfather of painter
Lucian Freud and comedian and writer Clement Freud, and the great-grandfather of
journalist Emma Freud, fashion designer Bella Freud and PR man Matthew Freud.

Freud's Innovations
Freud has been influential in two related, but distinct ways. He simultaneously developed
a theory of the human mind and human behavior, and a clinical technique for helping
unhappy (i.e. neurotic) people. Many people claim to have been influenced by one but
not the other.

Perhaps the most significant contribution Freud has made to modern thought is his
conception of the unconscious. During the 19th century the dominant trend in Western
thought was positivism, the claim that people could accumulate real knowledge about
themselves and their world, and exercise rational control over both. Freud, however,
suggested that these claims were in fact delusions; that we are not entirely aware of what
we even think, and often act for reasons that have nothing to do with our conscious
thoughts. The concept of the unconscious was groundbreaking in that he proposed that
awareness existed in layers and there were thoughts occurring "below the surface."
Dreams, called the "royal road to the unconscious" provided the best examples of our
unconscious life, and in The Interpretation of Dreams Freud both developed the
argument that the unconscious exists, and developed a method for gaining access to it.

The Preconscious was described as a layer between conscious and unconscious thought—
that which we could access with a little effort. (The term "subconscious" while popularly
used, is not actually part of psychoanalytical terminology.) Although there are still many
adherents to a purely positivist and rationalist view, most people, including many who
reject other elements of Freud's work, accept the claim that part of the mind is
unconscious, and that people often act for reasons of which they are not conscious.

Crucial to the operation of the unconscious is "repression." According to Freud, people

often experience thoughts and feelings that are so painful that people cannot bear them.
Such thoughts and feelings—and associated memories—could not, Freud argued, be
banished from the mind, but could be banished from consciousness. Thus they come to
constitute the unconscious. Although Freud later attempted to find patterns of repression
among his patients in order to derive a general model of the mind, he also observed that
individual patients repress different things. Moreover, Freud observed that the process of
repression is itself a non-conscious act (in other words, it did not occur through people
willing away certain thoughts or feelings). Freud supposed that what people repressed
was in part determined by their unconscious. In other words, the unconscious was for
Freud both a cause and effect of repression.

Freud sought to explain how the unconscious operates by proposing that it has a
particular structure. He proposed that the unconscious was divided into three parts: Id,
Ego, and Superego. The Id (Latin, = "it" = es in the original German) represented primary
process thinking — our most primitive need gratification type thoughts. The Superego
represented our conscience and counteracted the Id with moral and ethical thoughts. The
Ego stands in between both to balance our primitive needs and our moral/ethical beliefs.
A healthy ego provides the ability to adapt to reality and interact with the outside world
in a way that accommodates both Id and Superego. The general claim that the mind is not
a monolithic or homogeneous thing continues to have an enormous influence on people
outside of psychology. Many, however, have questioned or rejected the specific claim
that the mind is divided into these three components.

Freud was especially concerned with the dynamic relationship between these three parts
of the mind. Freud argued that the dynamic is driven by innate drives. But he also argued
that the dynamic changes in the context of changing social relationships. Some have
criticized Freud for giving too much importance to one or the other of these factors;
similarly, many of Freud's followers have focused on one or the other.
Freud believed that humans were driven by two instinctive drives, libidinal energy/eros
and the death instinct/thanatos. Freud's description of Eros/Libido included all creative,
life-producing instincts. The Death Instinct represented an instinctive drive to return to a
state of calm, or non-existence and was based on his studies of protozoa. (See: Beyond
the Pleasure Principle). Many have challenged the scientific basis for this claim.

Freud also believed that the libido developed in individuals by changing its object. He
argued that humans are born "polymorphously perverse," meaning that any number of
objects could be a source of pleasure. He further argued that as humans developed they
fixated on different, and specific, objects—first oral (exemplified by an infant's pleasure
in nursing), then anal (exemplified by a toddler's pleasure in controlling his or her
bowels), then phallic. Freud argued that children then passed through a stage where they
fixated on the parent of the opposite sex. Freud sought to anchor this pattern of
development in the dynamics of the mind. Each stage is a progression into adult sexual
maturity, characterized by a strong ego and the ability to delay need gratification. (see
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality.)

Freud's model of psycho-sexual development has been criticized from different

perspectives. Some have attacked Freud's claim that infants are sexual beings (and,
implicitly, Freud's expanded notion of sexuality). Others have accepted Freud's expanded
notion of sexuality, but have argued that this pattern of development is not universal, nor
necessary for the development of a healthy adult. Instead, they have emphasized the
social and environmental sources of patterns of development. Moreover, they call
attention to social dynamics Freud de-emphasized or ignored (such as class relations).

Freud hoped to prove that his model, based primarily on observations of middle-class
Viennese, was universally valid. He thus turned to ancient mythology and contemporary
ethnography for comparative material. Freud used the Greek tragedy by Sophocles
Oedipus Rex to point out how much we (specifically, young boys) desire incest, and must
repress that desire. The Oedipus conflict was described as a state of psychosexual
development and awareness. He also turned to anthropological studies of totemism and
argued that totemism reflected a ritualized enactment of an tribal Oedipal conflict (see
Totemism and Taboo). Although many scholars today are intrigued by Freud's attempts to
re-analyze cultural material, most have rejected his specific interpretations as forced.

Freud hoped that his research would provide a solid scientific basis for his therapeutic
technique. The goal of Freudian therapy, or psychoanalysis, was to bring to
consciousness repressed thoughts and feelings, in order to allow the patient to develop a
stronger ego. Classically, the bringing of unconscious thoughts and feelings to
consciousness is brought about by encouraging the patient to talk in "free-association"
and to talk about dreams. Another important element of psychoanalysis is a relative lack
of direct involvement on the part of the analyst, which is meant to encourage the patient
to project thoughts and feelings onto the analyst. Through this process, called
"transference," the patient can reenact and resolve repressed conflicts, especially
childhood conflicts with (or about) parents.
A lesser known interest of Freud's was neurology. He was an early researcher on the
topic of cerebral palsy, then known as "cerebral paralysis". He published several medical
papers on the topic. He also showed that the disease existed far before other researchers
in his day began to notice and study it. He also suggested that William Little, the man
who first identified cerebral palsy, was wrong about lack of oxygen during the birth
process being a cause. Instead, he suggested that complications in birth were only a
symptom of the problem. It was not until the 1980s when his speculations were
confirmed by more modern research.

Freudian theory and practice have been challenged by empirical findings over the years.
Some people continue to train in, and practice, traditional Freudian psychoanalysis, but
most psychiatrists today reject the large majority of Freud's work as unsupported by
evidence and best used for inspiration or historical study, if at all. Although Freud
developed his method for the treatment of neuroses, some people today seek out
psychoanalysis not as a cure for an illness, but as part of a process of self-discovery.

Freudian Psychoanalysis, Psychology, and Psychiatry

Freud trained as a medical doctor, and consistently claimed that his research methods and
conclusions were scientific. Nevertheless, his research and practice were condemned by
many of his peers. Moreover, both critics and followers of Freud have observed that his
basic claim, that many of our conscious thoughts and actions are motivated by
unconscious fears and desires, implicitly challenges universal and objective claims about
the world (proponents of science conclude that this invalidates Freudian theory;
proponents of Freud conclude that this invalidates science). Psychoanalysis today
maintains the same ambivalent relationship with medicine and academia that Freud
experienced during his life.

Clinical psychologists, who seek to treat mental illness, relate to Freudian psychoanalysis
in different ways. Some clinical psychologists have modified this approach and have
developed a variety of "psychodynamic" models and therapies. Other clinical
psychologists reject Freud's model of the mind, but have adapted elements of his
therapeutic method, especially his reliance on patients' talking as a form of therapy.
Experimental psychologists generally reject Freud's methods and theories. Like Freud,
Psychiatrists train as medical doctors, but—like most medical doctors in Freud's time—
most reject his theory of the mind, and generally rely more on drugs than talk in their
treatments.

Freud's psychological theories are hotly disputed today and many leading academic and
research psychiatrists regard him as a charlatan. Although Freud was long regarded as a
genius, psychiatry and psychology have long since been recast as scientific disciplines,
and psychiatric disorders are generally considered diseases of the brain whose etiology is
principally genetic. Freud's lessening influence in psychiatry is thus largely due to the
repudiation of his theories and the adoption of many of the basic scientific principles of
Freud's principal opponent in the field of psychiatry, Emil Kraepelin. In his book "The
Freudian Fraud", research psychiatrist E. Fuller-Torrey provides an account of the
political and social forces which combined to raise Freud to the status of a divinity to
those who needed a theoretical foundation for their political and social views. Many of
the diseases which used to be treated with Freudian and related forms of therapy (such as
schizophrenia) have been unequivocally demonstrated to be impervious to such
treatments.

Freud's notion that the child's relationship to the parent is responsible for everything from
psychiatric diseases to criminal behavior has also been thoroughly discredited and the
influence of such theories is today regarded as a relic of a permissive age in which
"blame-the-parent" was the accepted dogma. For many decades genetic and biological
causes of psychiatric disorders were dismissed without scientific investigation in favor of
environmental (parental and social) influences. Today even the most extreme Freudian
environmentalists would not deny the great influence of genetic and biological factors.
The American Psychiatric Association's "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual" (the latest
edition of which is the DSM-IV), the official standard for diagnosing psychological
disorders in the USA, reflects the universal adoption of the neo-Kraepelinian scientific-
biological approach to psychiatric disorders, with its emphasis on diagnostic precision
and the search for biological and genetic etiologies—largely ignored during the earlier
Freud-dominated decades of the twentieth century.