1856–1939

“The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to the unconscious activities of the mind.” – Freud

SIGMUND Freud’s popular impact remains profound even today. Yet for a scientist who changed the world, some critics would argue that his methods were at best unscientific and at worst downright reckless. Indeed, later thinkers in the fields of psychology and psychiatry have long since discredited many of his conclusions but still the Austrian’s influence pervades. Whatever the rights or wrongs of his ‘scientific’ deductions, Sigmund Freud remains the benchmark by which others working in the same field must compare themselves and compete against.

Medical Beginnings

Freud’s entry into science was far less controversial. He began by studying medicine at the University of Vienna in 1873 and went on to take up a position at a hospital in the same city from 1882. It was time spent working with the French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–93) in Paris 1885, however, which set him on the path of his future career. Here he worked with patients suffering from hysteria and began to analyse the causes of their behaviour. Additional research with Josef Breuer back in Vienna during the early 1890s helped develop the basis for all of his future work, culminating in the publication of Studies in Hysteria in 1895.

The Idea of ‘Free Association’

In common with views generally held at the time, at the heart of Freud’s conclusions was a belief that mental illness was normally a psychological rather than a physical brain disease. Once one accepted this premise then Freud’s introduction of the idea of “psychoanalysis” for diagnosing the causes of mental disorder (and indeed ultimately to explain all mental behaviour) was a logical one.

One of the innovative tools he developed to aid in this was the idea of “free association”. Rather than hypnotise people as was traditional, Freud advocated this method whereby patients enunciated thoughts or ideas which came into their consciousness without prior contemplation or analysis.

Dream Theory

From this Freud believed he could make an insight into the “unconscious” of a patient and, in particular, the “repressed” thoughts and emotions (often related to past negative experiences) which their “conscious” prevented from being articulated or enacted upon. For Freud, having a patient understand and acknowledge their repressed desires was a route to therapy and ultimately the treatment of a mental disorder. He also believed that dreams offered a major insight into repressed thoughts held in the unconscious mind. This is shown in his most prominent work – which fully established his revolutionary approach – and which is entitled The Interpretation of Dreams, published in 1899.

While many critics were able to bear with – if not necessarily agree with – Freud’s interpretations up until this point, he caused an outcry with his 1905 Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. His conclusions included the explanation that most repressed behaviour was in essence suppression of sexual impulses and, most shockingly, this activity began in infancy. It was here that he also introduced the now notorious concept of the Oedipus complex, a phrase used by Freud to describe feelings of sexual attraction of a child for its parent of the same sex, and hostility to the parent of the other sex. This phrase, Freud claimed, speculatively at best, was one that all children passed through.

Gradually, however, Freud’s analyses would gain credibility, if not necessarily with everyone, and certainly by the 1920s they had entered the popular consciousness on a global scale. He wrote many other texts including the 1923 The Ego and the ID. Freud effectively redefined the “unconscious” as the “ID”, an intangible collection of base impulses such as instincts and emotions present in the mind from birth. With experience, living and structure, aspects of the ID would gradually help formulate a person’s “ego”.

Freud By Name, Freudian By Nature

Freud’s legacy remains as much in the tools of language that he has bestowed on the modern world as anything else. Terms he introduced or of which he altered the meaning to give them our now common understanding, include: psychoanalysis, free association, the ID, the ego, neuroses, repression, the Oedipus complex and, of course, the Freudian slip. The structured, systematic approach he brought to analysing an inherently difficult-to-quantify subject also pervaded the work of his successors in the field.