Sigmund Freud (May 6, 1856 - September 23, 1939) founded the school of psychoanalysis and is responsible for bringing to popular attention concepts such as the "Freudian slip" and the very idea of the "unconscious mind." So deep was his impact on the field that the average person's impression of psychology -- complete with talk therapy, a patient reclining on a couch, and dream analysis -- is that of Freudian psychoanalysis.
Freud was born in Moravia, in what is now the Czech Republic. His father, 41 year old Jacob, was 20 years older than his mother, and despite facing poverty in Sigmund's infancy, the two put all the money they could muster in furthering the boy's education when it became clear how intelligent he was. They relocated to Vienna, Austria, where Freud graduated school with honors before joining the faculty at Vienna University. His early research involved eel physiology and the nervous systems of fish, and he soon opened his own medical practice, specializing in neurology.
There was no separate industry for psychologists at the time; problems of the mind were problems of the brain. Freud's patients did not necessarily have physical problems, but were troubled by neuroses and other issues that we now consider principally psychological in nature. He quickly abandoned the popular use of hypnosis, and instructed his patients to simply talk about their problems. Much of the efficacy of Freud's early treatments came from his own sharp mind -- he was able to see patterns of behavior that the patient might not, and to draw connections they had missed. When we go to an insightful friend to "talk out our problems," or sit down with our spouse to talk through the issues troubling our family, we're emulating Freud -- and as simple as it sounds, the idea of "talking things out" (as opposed to "negotiating a compromise," for instance) was virtually unheard of before the end of the nineteenth century. Even staunch anti-Freudians who reject Freud's theory of mind and of sexual development stand by the so-called "talking cure," which has become the cornerstone of therapy and counseling.
At the same time, his views on human nature were, of course, subjective. He had a deepset fear of death, and his own analysis of his dreams led him to recognize a lifelong hostility towards his father, and early childhood sexual feelings for his mother. He smoked often, and used cocaine as a stimulant, recommending it as a remedy for many ills (including morphine dependency). Further, in his 40s he told his wife that they would now live a life of celibacy, because he needed to sublimate his libido in order to have more creative energy available to him. (There have always been rumors that Freud was having an affair with his sister-in-law; Carl Jung claimed to know about it, but did so only after falling out with Freud).
Around the turn of the century, Freud published his first books, advancing his theories of human psychology based on the fifteen years he had spent treating patients. As developed by Freud, his technique of psychoanalysis involves leading the patient through free association, often using dreams as a starting point. The analyst remains as uninvolved as possible, interacting only as much as is necessary to keep the patient talking, or to pursue a conversational thread. He believed that unconscious memories -- inaccessible to the conscious mind, but felt through dreams, yearnings, and instincts -- were responsible for many neuroses and other mental ills. He didn't invent the notion of the unconscious, but he popularized the idea of a layered mind, in which some thoughts or feelings occur "below the surface." It's a compelling notion, one the general public accepts so thoroughly that it's hard to believe the idea didn't exist two hundred years ago.
Freud focused heavily on repression, the act of the mind burying feelings and memories it doesn't want to deal with. Nothing can be removed from the mind, Freud said -- it can only be moved to the unconscious, the mental basement, the unlit storage area. He later developed and systematized this idea further into the id, ego, and super-ego, taking their names from the Latin: the id is the source of such fundamental cravings as food, sex, and instant gratification; the super-ego is the conscience, formed by emulating the father-figure (or an idealized father-figure); and the ego is the self that mediates between those two extremes and the practical needs imposed by the outside world. (The super-ego says stealing is wrong; the id says it's hungry; the outside world has no food except for someone else's loaf of bread. The ego struggles with what to do.) Problems between the id and super-ego are sometimes dealt with by defense mechanisms -- the ego may intervene to rationalize a decision the super-ego disapproves of, may sublimate the id's desires into other activities (as Freud believed his celibacy sublimated his sexual energies into success in his work), or may simply deny the reality of some unpleasant aspect of the outside world.
Many of Freud's theories were less easy for the general public -- and the scientific community -- to accept. He built his model of psychosexual development with references to ancient mythology in order to demonstrate that it was a universal model of the human condition, not one created by cultural factors. According to his "Oedipus complex," the love or sexual feeling for one's mother and hostility towards one's father is a constant in human nature; most of human nature is similarly explained by sexual feelings, from the female's jealousy of the male phallus to the male fear of castration. This is the component of Freudian thought most likely to be discarded by his followers and opponents.
Carl Jung, younger than Freud by 20 years, was one of his most promising students -- the two corresponded from afar for years and had conversations that were known to last all day. In time, the two grew apart thanks to differences in their views of the unconscious. Jung believed Freud was too much of a pessimist, seeing only repression where Jung saw the unconscious's ability to create and imagine. Though they were bitter enemies by the end of Freud's career, Jung's most famous notion -- that of the collective unconscious -- built directly on what he had learned from Freud.
In 1938, Freud -- a nonobservant Jew -- and his family left Austria after the Nazi annexation of the country. He died a year later. After dozens of operations on the mouth cancer caused by his cigar smoking, he asked his doctor to end his life with a gradual overdose of morphine. He died on September 23, 1939, but perhaps did so with dignity, having conquered the fear of death that had plagued him for so long.
