Sigmund Freud was born in the year 1856, in Moravia. He and the entire family moved to Vienna when he was only five, where he spends most of his time. He was a brilliant student, who attended medical school, and specialized in physiology. In his life, he was highly controversial. Before the World War II, Freud immigrated to England when Vienna was a more dangerous place. Later he died of cancer. In his life, he came up with several theories and did a lot in the community of psychology (Bacock, 2002).
Sigmund Freud is one of the controversial and influential philosopher and psychologist of the 20th century. Undoubtedly, his theories and actions shaped the views of personality, sexuality, memory, therapy, as well as childhood. Other key psychological thinkers have supported and contributed to Freud’s work, while others came up with opposing new theories and ideas (Thurschwell, 2009).
Sigmund Freud theories were tremendously influential but are subject to critics in the past and now. His ideas and theories have shaped psychology and the lives of people, in fact, ideas have turned into the base of human culture, with terminologies such as repression, denial, and Freudian slip appearing frequently in our language.
In his life, Freud popularized the idea of the conscious mind. According to him, the conscious mind is the things an individual is aware of at any given moment; for example, present memories, thoughts, feelings, as well as perception (Bacock, 2002). The part that works closely with the conscious mind is preconscious; these were the smallest parts that could be made conscious. The unconscious part of the mind is the largest, such as instincts and drive. The unconscious is always the source of motivation, toward desires as neurotic compulsions and sex.
Furthermore, Freud’s theory of motivation shaped the field of psychology. He believed that motivation of human beings came from two inner drives know as Thanatos and Eros. Eros referred to the drive of life while Thanatos is the urge to overcome dissatisfactions of live, through forgetfulness and death (Thurschwell, 2009). As a matter of fact, Sigmund Freud shaped psychology though his ideas on the unconscious and conscious mind, the ego, id, and superego, life and death instincts, psychosexual development, and defense mechanism. After he had developed the ideas of conscious, and unconscious, Freud abandoned it, and replaced it with the concept of id, ego, and super-ego.
Freud believed that human beings psych could be put into tree divisions, namely, id, ego, and superego. The id in humans is impulsive and operates on the pleasure principle. It only takes in what is wanted and totally disregards all penalty. The ego, on the other hand, functions as per reality principle (Bacock, 2002). Therefore, in real life ego and the id conflict, this is because, the ego works towards the satisfaction of the id, but in the process, it meets numerous barriers of the world. Finally, the record of events and things that are to be avoided and its strategies to undertake becomes the superego. This concept is not completed until an individual is seven years old, but in some case, individuals never complete it.
Sigmund Freud also shaped and contributed to the field of psychology through psychosexual development theory. He anchored the concept using the dynamics of the mind, in his study each stage in human life is a development to sexual maturity, characterized by powerful ability, and ego to holdup gratification (Thurschwell, 2009). He used Oedipus conflict to elaborate on the existence of attraction in the family; to him the concept is bisexual.
The legacy of Freud will always be in numerous field, including psychotherapy, science, philosophy, and feminism. Recently, most psychological concepts and ideas used in the psychology school of thought are attributed to the work of Freud. Perhaps, he theorized and wrote on a wide range of human lifestyle including dreams, sex, culture, women, and religion (Bacock, 2002). These perceptions modeled not only psychology, but also other subjects. Through his human psychology theories, he influenced other thinkers who contributed to further shaping of psychology. These eminent psychologists are Carl Jung, Anna Freud, Alfred Adler, and Melanie Klein. Hence, the life and work of Sigmund Freud had noteworthy effect in shaping psychology (Thurschwell, 2009).
References
Bacock, R. (2002). Sigmund Freud. New York: Routledge.
Thurschwell, P. (2009). Sigmund Freud. London: Wiley.
