Sigmund Freud and some of his popular theories
Freud's work on how our mind works received both praise and criticism during his life time and after death
Hyderabad: Anyone, who has even an iota of curiosity about psychology, must have heard about or spent a fair chance of time learning about Sigmund Freud and his popular and controversial theories on the mind and the way it works, which was also known as Freudian psychoanalysis, the school of thought created by this famous scientist.
Freud was born in Frieberg, Moravia (today’s Czech Republic) in 1856, but his family moved to Vienna where he went to school, graduated, got married, and became a doctor. After developing psychoanalysis, Freud became one of the most influential and controversial thinkers of the 20th century.
Some of his theories
Sigmund Freud’s theories suggest that unconscious memories, thoughts, and urges influence human behaviour. Freud argued that human behaviour is largely determined by unconscious motivations that stem from childhood experiences, specifically encounters with love, loss, sexuality, and death, and complex emotional attitudes toward parents and siblings.
One of Freud’s greatest contributions was talk therapy, the notion that simply talking about problems can help alleviate them.
The unconscious mind played a vital role in all of Freud’s theories, and he considered dreams to be one of the key ways to look into what lies outside humans’ conscious awareness. When working with a client, he would focus on a particular dream symbol, and then use it to see what other thoughts and images came to the client’s mind.
He believed that by examining dreams, he could see how the unconscious mind and conscious awareness work. That’s why, he named the dreams ‘the royal road to the unconscious.’ In his work ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’ Freud analysed dreams based on unconscious desires and experiences.
One of his popular theories deals with defence mechanisms, where he said that when someone seems unwilling to face a painful truth, they might be accused of being in ‘denial mode.’ Similarly, if they try to look for a logical explanation for unacceptable behaviour, they are said to be ‘rationalising.’ For instance, rationalisation for smoking includes: ‘One cigarette won’t hurt me’ or ‘If I quit, I’ll just gain weight.’
He felt that denial and rationalisation represent tactics that the mind uses to protect itself from anxiety.
However, his craziest ideas, which garnered much criticism during his lifetime and after death, were the ‘Oedipus Complex’ and the ‘Electra Complex’ where he suggested that we’re all repressing our true desires to have sex with our parents.
While many psychologists feel that his ideas were hopelessly vague and just words, which can’t be tested scientifically, for some, the man was an apparent genius.
