Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud was born in Austria in 1856 and founded the discipline of Psychoanalysis. Freud thought himself more of a scientist than a philosopher, but had a massive influence on the field of psychology especially philosophy of the mind, ethics and religion. Freud described psychoanalysis as nothing more than exchanging words with your patient. Freud thought that by simply talking to his patients would reveal some kind of psychologically traumatic event in the persons past that they have repressed. Freud came to the conclusion that the traumas dated back to infancy and were usually related to sex. This lead him to his sexual development theories.

Freud explained that there are several stages of a child’s sexual development which can affect people in later life. The first stage is the oral stage which is from birth to 15 months, during this phase pleasure if focused on the mouth for example thumb sucking and biting things. Too much or too little gratification in this stage can lead to an oral fixation in later life

The second stage is the anal stage, from the age of 15 months to 3 years old. The most important part of this phase is toilet training which is a conflict between the Id and Ego, which will be covered later. If this stage is over emphasized then it can lead to a compulsive personality and if the parents do not put enough emphasis on this stage can lead to the opposite, so a messy or disorganised person.

The third stage, and the stage that Freud focused on the most is the phallic stage, which spans the age of 3-6 years old. In this stage children becomes aware of its own body and focuses on its own genitals. During this stage a male becomes sexually attracted to his mother which leads to resentment and jealousy towards his father. This jealousy leads him to fear his father because he fears that his father will retaliate by castrating him. This leads to the boy abandoning his attraction to his mother and he begins to identify with his father and becomes sexually attracted to women, This is the Oedipus complex and is a crucial stage in male development.

In his later work Freud expanded on his work on the unconscious mind by breaking the mind into three mental apparatus: the id, the ego and the super ego.

The id is the impulsive instinctual and acts according to the pleasure principle and seeks to avoid pain and gain pleasure.

The ego is the reason and common sense and its role is to balance between the basic impulses of the id while balancing this with the super-ego. As long as there is balance between the id and the super ego then everything is ok, but an imbalance can lead to neurosis.

The super-ego makes us act in a socially acceptable manner and works in conflict with the id and seeks for perfection and is what we call our conscience. An example of the super ego in society would be the church which sets out impossible rules which if not adhered to will lead to punishment in this case eternal damnation.

Freud used these three mental apparatus to explain different mental disorders caused by a lack of harmony between the three parts of the psyche, Conflicts between the id and ego lead to neurosis for example OCD and phobias. Conflicts between the id and super ego lead to depression and if the ego comes into contact with the external world psychosis appears because people loose their contact with reality.