Psychoanalytic Theory
Psychoanalytic Theory by: Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud was born as Sigismund Schlomo Freud (May 6, 1856 – September 23, 1939). He is psychology’s most famous figure, one of the most influential and controversial thinkers. He is a Viennese Physician who wanted to devote himself to medical research, but limited funds and barriers to academic advancement for Jews in Austria forced him into the private practice of medicine. One of his main interests was neurology, the study of the brain and treatment of disorders of the nervous system, a branch of medicine then in its infancy.
He attended a fellowship study with Europe’s most renowned neurologist, Jean Martin Charcot in October 1885, Freud acknowledged that the experience of the stay is one of the turning point in turning him toward the practice of medical psychopathology and away from a less financially promising career in research neurology.
Charcot’s approach on curing hysteria was through hypnosis. Freud tried to follow Charcot’s lead but he turned away from this approach and favoured the approach of free association and dream analysis.
In free association, in order to relieve patients of symptoms with no apparent physical cause, Freud asked questions designed to summon up long buried memories. This approach came to be known as the “talking cure”. The ultimate goal of this talking was to locate and release powerful emotional energy that had initially been rejected, and imprisoned in the unconscious mind. Freud called this denial of emotions “repression”, and he believed that it was often damaging to the normal functioning of the psyche and could also retard physical functioning as well, which he described as “psychosomatic” symptoms. With this approach, he was able to conclude that the source of emotional disturbances lay in repressed traumatic experience in early childhood.
The “talking cure” is widely seen as the basis of psychoanalysis.
The Psychoanalytic Theory
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud was born as Sigismund Schlomo Freud (May 6, 1856 – September 23, 1939). He is psychology’s most famous figure, one of the most influential and controversial thinkers. He is a Viennese Physician who wanted to devote himself to medical research, but limited funds and barriers to academic advancement for Jews in Austria forced him into the private practice of medicine. One of his main interests was neurology, the study of the brain and treatment of disorders of the nervous system, a branch of medicine then in its infancy.
He attended a fellowship study with Europe’s most renowned neurologist, Jean Martin Charcot in October 1885, Freud acknowledged that the experience of the stay is one of the turning point in turning him toward the practice of medical psychopathology and away from a less financially promising career in research neurology.
Charcot’s approach on curing hysteria was through hypnosis. Freud tried to follow Charcot’s lead but he turned away from this approach and favoured the approach of free association and dream analysis.
In free association, in order to relieve patients of symptoms with no apparent physical cause, Freud asked questions designed to summon up long buried memories. This approach came to be known as the “talking cure”. The ultimate goal of this talking was to locate and release powerful emotional energy that had initially been rejected, and imprisoned in the unconscious mind. Freud called this denial of emotions “repression”, and he believed that it was often damaging to the normal functioning of the psyche and could also retard physical functioning as well, which he described as “psychosomatic” symptoms. With this approach, he was able to conclude that the source of emotional disturbances lay in repressed traumatic experience in early childhood.
The “talking cure” is widely seen as the basis of psychoanalysis.
The Psychoanalytic Theory