Dr. Sigmund Freud

6 May 1856 –

23 September 1939

Born in Freiburg in Moravia

View of Freiburg

Freud’s birthplace

Freud and his father,

Freud’s mother,Amalia

Early Life

• 1859: Moves to Leipzig• 1860: Moves to Vienna• 3 brothers and 5 sisters• 1865: Enters Leopoldstäter Real-und Obergymnasium,

where he is a brilliant student from the outset• 1873: Graduates by passing his exams most impressively• 1876: Wins a research grant• 1877: Joins Ernst Brücke, German physiologist teaching at

the University of Vienna• 1881: Obtains his medical degree

Jacob Freud’s family, Vienna, 1878

Trains at Vienna General Hospital, 1582-1585

1885-1886

• Studies in France with French neurologist, Jean Martin Charcot

• They work at the mental hospital, the Salpêtrière

• 1886: Returns via Berlin, where he studies children’s diseases– Opens private practice– Marries Martha Bernays

Jean Martin Charcot

Charcot, La Leçon

Engagement picture; Martha Bernays

1887-1900• 1877: Mathilde born• 1877: Meets Wilhelm Fliess• 1888: Begins to publish papers• 1889: Jean-Martin born• 1891: Oliver born• 1893: Sophie born• 1893: The Alfred Dreyfus affair• 1895: Anna born• 1895: Studies on Hysteria, with Breuer• 1896: The word “psychoanalysis” appears in

print for the first time• 1899/1900: The Interpretation of Dreams

Wilhelm Fliess

Josef Breuer

Studies on Hysteria, 1895

psychoa'nalysis. Also with hyphen and (rare) as psychanalysis. [ad. F. psychoanalyse (S. Freud 1896, in Rev. Neurologique IV.

166): see psycho- and analysis. Freud earlier used psychische analyse and klinischpsychologische

analyse (Neurol. Centralbl. (1894) XIII. 364).] a. A therapeutic method originated by Freud for treating

disorders of the personality or behaviour by bringing into a patient’s consciousness his unconscious conflicts and fantasies (which are attributed chiefly to the development of the sexual instinct) through the free association of ideas, analysis and interpretation of dreams and parapraxes, etc., and allowing him to relive them by transference.

b. A theory of personality and psychical life derived from this, based on concepts of the ego, id, and super-ego, the conscious, pre-conscious, and unconscious levels of the mind, and the repression of the sexual instinct; more widely, a branch of psychology dealing with the unconscious.

Oxford English Dictionary

The Interpretation of Dreams, 1899/1900

1901-1910

• 1901/1904: The Psychopathology of Everyday Life• 1902: Founds the Psychological Wednesday Society• 1905: Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious• 1905: Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality• 1907: Jung first visits Freud’s home• 1908: First International Congress of Psychoanalysts• 1909: Little Hans, Rat Man• 1910: Publishes more papers

The PsychopathologyOf Everyday Life,1901

Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality,1905

Karl Jung

International Congress of Psychoanalysts, 1911

1912-1918• 1912: Founds Imago• 1912:Founds International Journal for Medical Psychoanalysis• 1912: Break with Jung• 1914: 28 June, Austria’s Archduke Ferdinand and his consort

are assassinated at Sarajevo– 23 July: Austria issues ultimatum to Serbia; war follows– 4 August: War becomes general.– Freud’s 3 sons volunteer for the army– Late in the year Freud’s early patriotic enthusiasm slowly

wanes as he watches the general slaughter with increasing gloom.

• 1915: Publishes many papers• 1918: War Ends: they stay in Vienna, cold and hungry• 1918: Wolf Man

[War] strips us of the later accretions of civilization, and lays bare the primal man ine ach of us. It compels us once more to be heroes who cannot believe in their own death; it stamps strangers as enemies, whose death is to be brought about or desired; it tells us to disregard the death of those we love. “Thoughts for the Times on War and Death,” 1915

Freud with sons, Ernest, left,and Martin, right. Salzburg, August 1916

The Psyhchoanalysis ofWar Neuroses, 1919

Trench warfare, WWI

1920-1929

• 1920: Daughter Sophie dies in the influenza epidemic

• 1920: Beyond the Pleasure Principle• 1921: Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego• 1923: The Ego and the Id• 1923: First operation on his jaw and palate (cancer)• 1925: Daughter Anna goes to the Conventions• 1926: Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety• 1927: Riots and general strike in Vienna• 1927: The Future of an Illusion• 1929: Completes Civilization and Its Discontents• 1929: Stock market crash in New York, October

1930-1936• 1930: Freud is awarded the prestigious Goethe prize• 1930: 14 September: Nazis elected to the German Reichstag.

Nazis becoming powerful in Austria• 1931: Threatened collapse of the Austrian Credit-Anstalt,

once very powerful.• 1932: Einstein and Freud correspond; their letters are

published together as “Why War” in March 1933• 1932: New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis• 1933: Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany and launches

Nazi Regime• 1933, 10 May: Book burnings at Berlin’s Opernplatz; Freud’s

writings are included• 1934, 25 July: Attempted Nazi coup fails, but Chancellor

Engelbert Dollfuss is murdered. Kurt Schuschnigg takes over• 1935: Austria repeals anti-Habsburg laws • 1936: Freud’s cancer returns; he undergoes major operation

Why War? Correspondence at the instance of the League of Nations,on the possibleprevention of war,published March 1933

Nazi book burnings at Berlin’s Opernplatz,10 May 1933

1938• Freud refuses to believe that Nazis will invade• 12 February: Schuschnigg visits Hitler• 9 March: Schuschnigg announces a plebiscite on

Austrian independence• 11 March: German ultimatum to Austria.

Schuschnigg resigns. The Nazi Arthur Seyss-Inquart becomes Chancellor.

• 11 March: Freud enters into his diary: Finis Austriae• 12 March: Anschluss with Germany proclaimed• 13 March: Hitler in Vienna• 22 March: Anna Freud summoned to the Gestapo,

then released• 4 June: Freud, his wife, and Anna take train to Paris• 6 June: They go to London. Moses and Monotheism• 9-10 November: “Kristallnacht” in Nazi Germany

Freud and his daughterAnna, 1916

1939

• Freud’s cancer returns. It is inoperable• Freud closes his practice• 1 September: Germans invade Poland• 3 September: Britain and France declare war• 21 September: Freud is given injections of

morphine by his physician, Max Schur• 23 September: Freud dies at 3 a.m.

Freud’s house inLondon

A Simplified Outline of Freud’s Ideas

• Like the work of many other important thinkers, Freud’s work is complex and not fully consistent. His thinking evolved over the course of 50 years, and he often changed or rejected parts of his earlier thinking. Moreover, many later parts of his work, when he was old and mortally ill, were expressed quite schematically. What follows is therefore a summary of major points, which, inevitably, skips over some of the finer points.

• Broadly speaking, Freud’s work traces the relationship among a number of different systems or structures of the human psyche. The elements include:

The elements of the psyche:

• The Id

• The Ego

• The Superego

The areas of the mind:

• The Unconscious

• The Preconscious

• The Conscious

The fundamental instinctive drives

• Eros

• Thanatos

An adaptive model of the individual’s relationship with the world, comprising

• The Pleasure Principle

• The Reality Principle

A model of the individual’s developmental cycle, comprising the following phases:

• Oral

• Anal

• Phallic

• Latent

• Genital

These Systems• Are related• Are ontogenetic (part of a developmental sequence

of the organism• Undergo constant change in the normal life of an

individual • All Freud’s assumptions posit a developmental

history of the individual based on:– The interaction of the contingent history of the individual

with the– Structured history of the various developmental forces

and sequences

• The individual is, at the least dialectically formed

The Id• At birth the individual is psychically not fully formed• A totally unconscious mass of instinctive desires• The individual is unaware that she or he is one• The child assumes that it is the world, complete and self-

sufficient.• The child has no real awareness of self• The child is a bundle of drives seeking to fulfill the pleasure

principle• All its actions are pure manifestations of the two major

drives EROS and THANATOS, though at this stage EROS seems completely dominant

• The child is thus totally driven to seek pleasure; it is a collection of wants in search of immediate satisfaction

• The primary satisfaction it seeks is through its oral area, by putting things in its mouth