CLIL – FILOSOFIA
SIGMUND FREUD
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 from a Jewish family which moved to Vienna 4 years later. In
1873, Freud begun studying medicine at the University of Vienna. He became a doctor in 1881,
specializing in nervous disorders. In 1885 he moved to Paris to study with dr. Charcot, who used
hypnosis to cure hysteria. He returned to Vienna and began to collaborate with Joseph Breuer,
using the “cathartic method”. The symptoms of hysteria disappeared when, under hypnosis, the
patient recalled and re-lived the emotional circumstances bringing about the psychic trauma.
In 1895 the two men published the Studies on Hysteria, presenting some case studies on their
patients. The most important case-study was the patient Anna O., a young woman: invited to talk
about her symptoms while under hypnosis, she improved when recovered memories of traumatic
incidents. This was the beginning of the “talking cure“. Freud was enthusiastic about the new
method, but his emphasis on the exclusively sexual causes of hysteria made his theories
unpopular and led to break with Breuer. In this period Freud also replaced the use of hypnosis
with the method of freeassociations. According to Freud, our thoughts have unconscious roots
which we can reach by means of free associations.
The Interpretation of dreams
In 1899, Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams. He used to define the dreams as “the
royal road to the Unconscious”. Dreams, in Freud’s view, are forms of “wishfulfilment” —
attempts by the unconscious to resolve a conflict of some sort.
Because the urges from the unconscious are often disturbing, a “censor” in the preconscious
(later the Superego) will not allow it to pass unaltered into the conscious. During dreams, the
preconscious is more relaxed than in waking hours, but is still attentive: as such, the unconscious
must distort the meaning of the latent dream. Consequently, images in dreams are transformed
in the more acceptable manifestdream. Yet, to understand its true meaning, we need a deeper
interpretation.
His history of mind
What were the basic elements of Freud’s theory of the mind?
Freud
provided two different descriptions of
the
mind:
the
first
was
developed
in
his 1900 book The Interpretation of dreams, distinguishing the conscious strand of personality
from the material which is not conscious but can be called easily into consciousness, “preconscious.” The most important idea was the “unconscious”: it does not include all that is not
conscious, but rather what is actively repressed from conscious thought or what a person is
averse to knowing consciously. Freud viewed the unconscious as a repository for socially
unacceptable ideas, wishes or desires, traumatic memories, and painful emotions put out of mind
by the mechanism of psychological repression.
In 1920 Freud developed a new version of his description of the mind introducing three ideas: the
“id”, “ego”, and the “superego”.
The id is entirely unconscious; it obeys the “pleasure principle” and wants to act on impulses and
instincts. The ego is mostly conscious and partly unconscious; it obeys the “reality principle,”
interposing between the person and reality.
The superego is also mostly conscious but partly unconscious; it is the internalization of society’s
restrictions on behaviour. Repression is the method by which objectionable material in the
conscious part of the ego and superego is made unconscious.
According to Freud the three elements or forces of the mind interact and conflict among them,
causing mental illness. A “neurosis” is a mental illness caused by the partially successful
repression of unwanted thoughts or desires, which leads to secondary symptoms such as
depression, hysteria, and anxiety.
(fonte: www.orizzontescuola.com - clilspagnolo.blogspot.it)