sigmund freud essay

Sigmund Freud’s Theories Analytical Essay

Introduction, background of psychodynamics, the unconscious, childhood influences, strengths of freud’s theories, weaknesses of freud’s theories, the cognitive approach, reference list.

Sigmund Freud is one of the earliest pioneers of psychology. He is among a team of people whose discoveries have led to the development of psychology from one level to another. Currently, this subject is considered to be the broadest of all scientific subjects. This is not a small achievement considering the fact that psychology was just a miniature subject a few centuries ago.

This essay will discuss the major theories of Sigmund Freud as far as the psychodynamic approach to human behaviour is concerned. The essay will also look at the strong points in support of and against the theories. Finally, the essay will describe the cognitive approach to psychology as an alternative to Freud’s theories.

Psychodynamics is a type of study that focuses on the relationship between parts of the brain which coordinate to yield a certain human behaviour. The main components of psychodynamics are the human psyche, the personality of an individual and the mind. The organization of these three elements gives way to an effect on a person’s mental activity, emotional control and motivational forces.

This study also holds that the power of the mind which influences the states of the mind can be divided into emotional forces and inner forces that affect human behaviour. The following are theories that Sigmund Freud developed in his course of study of psychodynamics.

Sigmund Freud suggests that the unconscious state of the human mind is the major cause of the way individuals behave (Ahles 2004). Freud explains that the exact character of a person can only be determined through the knowledge of such a person’s unconscious state of mind. He explains that no action or deed is ever done without the preconception of the mind and the coordination of the elements of the mind. A surprising discovery that Freud made states that people rarely if ever know what goes on in their mind.

Freud holds that most of the actions of people are beyond their control. The decisions made are actually determined by their psyche. Unlike the personality of an individual, this component of the human mind consists of various parts which are in constant conflict with each other. These components include the ego, the id and the superego. According to Freud, these are the elements which are believed to be in control of the human behaviour.

The disagreement among the superego, the ego and the id usually leads to a decision that is favourable to all of them. The disagreement among these three goes on in the unconscious and so the person cannot really tell what is going on in his or her mind. However, this person may be in a position to feel the repercussions of the conflict. For instance, he or she may experience excitement, depression or even a headache as a result of what is going on in the unconscious state of mind.

The superego, the ego and the id each have different roles to play in the whole process of decision making and influence of human behaviour in the mind. Their roles can be summarised into three forces which are the instinctual drive, the moral constraint and the consideration of realistic possibilities at the time of decision making.

The id is controlled by instinctual drives such as an obsession for food, sex, drink and other wants. The id is only concerned about the acquisition of these desires and does not pause to consider the possibility or impossibilities of accessing them. In some cases, it might even get frustrated if it fails to achieve its desires.

On the other hand, the superego works on the basis of moral constraints. It advocates for only what is right and acceptable in the eyes of the society. The superego is the component that takes into consideration the advice and wise counsel that a person receives and prompts him to act according to them. The superego can go as far as punishing the individual if he acts contrary to the moral virtues he is supposed to adhere to. It does this by instilling a remorse feeling of guilt and anxiety.

Finally, the ego is the voice of reason behind the decision making process. As much as the id and the superego have a say in the entire process, it is the ego that finally decides what is to be done. It does this by considering the possibilities of both actions suggested by the id and the superego and then balancing between the needs of the id and the moral constraints imposed by the superego.

As pointed out earlier in this essay, Freud’s psychodynamic theory suggests that a majority of the thinking that goes on in the human mind happens without the knowledge of a person. According to Freud, the human mind can be divided into three main parts: the conscious, the preconscious and the unconscious.

The conscious part of the mind contains a small portion of mental activity that we are aware of and is majorly made up of thoughts and perceptions. The preconscious state of mind is deeper than the conscious but shallower than the unconscious. In this state of mind, the person is in a position to know hidden things but only if he or she tries to do it. It majorly comprises of stored information and memories.

In the unconscious state of mind, an individual does not know and cannot know things that go on in his or her mind (Mcleod 2007). There is a lot of information that falls under this state. These include shameful experiences, violent motives, fears, unacceptable sexual desires and traumatic experiences.

Most of these things are kept in the subconscious state of mind because the person refuses to think about them either because they threaten him or her or that they are totally unacceptable. The superego plays a big role in forcing these things from the conscious to the subconscious because of the guilt they evoke.

However, the repression of these thoughts into the unconscious state has the potential of doing a person more harm than good. This is because of the accumulating effect that the thoughts discussed above have on the mind. The locking up of these thoughts is one of the causes that lead to madness caused by depression or stress. This happens after the individual is unable to bear the weight of the locked up thoughts and becomes a victim of the same.

In some cases though, the ego may try to get rid of the pressure in the unconscious state of mind by finding alternative outlets. For instance, the ego can develop defence mechanisms that work by changing the form of one impulse into another form or type. A good example is that of individuals who refuse to accept shameful things about themselves and instead see the fault in others.

Sigmund Freud points out that the way people are brought up has a great impact on their later lives. This has a lot to do with the virtues they were taught by their parents and people around them. It also depends with the cultural background of the society in which the people are brought up in. The structure of a person’s psyche and personality is greatly influenced by the way he or she is treated by other people during childhood.

Sigmund Freud’s theories would not have been wildly accepted and used had they not been sure and convincing. His theories are currently used in a number of medical practices such as psychoanalysis.

This is the most significant strength of Freud’s theories. Through his psychodynamic approach to psychology, it has been possible to identify causes of mental disorders and even try to restore the mental stability of mentally disorderly persons. The dream therapy which is based on the theories has also been helpful in the treatment of mentally disturbed patients.

In addition to that, the theories can be used to describe and explain any phenomena in life. This is because they provide an insight to the main factor that propels life in the universe; human behaviour. It is therefore possible that the theories of Sigmund Freud can be incorporated in almost each and every aspect of daily life and used to unravel hidden meanings.

The last strength of these theories is that they are among the few psychodynamic theories that used experimental methods to arrive at conclusions. The practical experimentation of the theories by Freud lends credence to their effectiveness. The documentation of the experiments can also serve as guidelines to medical practitioners who use the theories in treatment.

First and foremost, Sigmund Freud’s theories are not in a position to be scientifically proved. This is because they can neither be measured nor quantified. The theories are therefore closed to constructive scrutiny. Had they provided room for scientific testing and proving, chances are that the theories could even have been improved and made into a better form than they are now.

Secondly, Freud’s theories are marginalised and present a possibility of bias. This is because the theories were developed from a small localised sample population in Vienna. Moreover, the majority of the people were middle-aged women and therefore the results cannot be used to provide a general worldwide view. They were based on mere clinical observations that cannot be a representation of the entire world population.

The last weakness of Sigmund Freud’s theories is that they did not take into account variations in culture. The experiments were solely done on white middleclass patients who represent only a fraction of the world population. The theories then generalise the conclusions and similarly apply them to other people from other cultures. This leads to misleading and in accurate information.

Cognitive psychology is the study of how people understand, recall, talk, think and evaluate problems (Neisser 1967). Unlike psychodynamics, cognitive psychology is a purely scientific approach to psychology. This is because it can be tested in the laboratory and proved.

Cognitive psychology deals mostly with the mental activity of an individual as opposed to psychodynamics which basically deals with behavioural characteristics. Cognitive psychology is also based on the acknowledgement of states of mind that are internal such as obsessions, notions, motivations and courage.

The cognitive approach is based on a number of assumptions. First and foremost, the approach suggests that a combination of scientific processes influences the behaviour of human beings. The second assumption is that this human behaviour only comes about as a response to external factors or stimuli. Finally, the cognitive approach also holds the view that genetic factors and other physical features have no influence on human behaviour. It suggests that people act the way they do because of their own thoughts.

Although the cognitive approach is among the latest sub disciplines of psychology, it has been successfully incorporated in many subjects such as personality psychology and abnormal psychology. The development of computers and increased artificial intelligence has also led to the widespread use of the cognitive approach.

From the foregoing discussion, it is evident that Sigmund Freud was a prominent psychologist whose psychodynamic theories revolutionized the entire discipline of psychology. His psychodynamic theories, namely the psyche, the unconscious state and childhood influences have provided meaningful explanations to some of the phenomena in life. The theories are also widely in use today because of their strengths and credibility.

However, they also have weaknesses which led to the establishment of the cognitive approach. This approach focuses on the mental activities and thought processes as major factors which influence human behaviour. The approach has grown due to the recent developments in psychology as a discipline. Finally, the cognitive approach has benefited from increased use of technology in the discipline of psychology.

Ahles, S. (2004) Our inner world: A guide to psychodynamics and psychotherapy. New York, Johns Hopkins University Press.

Mcleod, S. (2007) Psychodynamic approach. Web.

Neisser, U. (1967) Cognitive psychology. New York, Meredith.

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On Narcissism, 1914, by Sigmund Freud

On Narcissism , 1914 was a significant point in the development of Freud's theories. The work was produced after work on his earlier theories on dreams and the unconscious mind. It also comes immediately he began to explore the various aspects of the unconscious mind such as the 'id'. However, Freud does not mention the 'id' in this work. Instead, he gives suggestions on the existence of these various parts of the mind. In addition, Freud begins to talk about the mind's self-control mechanisms, which he refers to as the 'ego-ideal'. However, he does not directly mention the superego, which would be the basis of his later works. It is important to note that it is one of his most technical works. In this work, Freud uses many clinical terms, which might not be easy for the common reader to understand.

In the work, Freud introduces the concept of 'narcissism'. He defines it as adoration one accords themselves in light of them being an object of sexual desire. He views narcissism as some sort of neurosis. However, he also postulates that all humans have some level of narcissism throughout their development. In his work, Freud differentiates between two types of narcissism, primary and secondary narcissism. Primary narcissism preexists in all human beings; this type of energy is present from birth. He postulates this is the type of narcissism, which causes individuals their affection towards an object. For instance, when a mother expresses unadulterated love for her child it is a result of this primary narcissism. In addition, he speculates this is the same type of energy evident in young kids. At this point in their life, kids will often believe themselves to be super beings capable of performing amazing feats just by their words.

However, at some point in their life, this primary narcissism is directed outwards to an object. This is because it causes too much conflict within the individual. Freud speculates that secondary narcissism develops when individuals turn this object affection back on themselves. This is after the affection had already been projected outwards to other objects besides themselves. The result is that an individual becomes cut off from society and disinterested in others. Freud postulates that such an individual will have low self-esteem. This is due to their inability to express love to others and have it expressed back to them. In addition, such a person is full of shame, guilt and often very defensive. This is because narcissism causes an individual to seek self-preservation.

In his work, Freud speculates that narcissism from to distinct sources. In the first place, the person is driven by a need to self-preserve; secondly, the individual is driven by the sex drive, essentially the need to procreate. During childhood, these two drives are usually the same and no differentiation can be made. In essence, the more affection 'libido' is projected to others 'object-libido', the less energy there exists for self-love 'ego-libido'. In essence, Freud postulates object libido emanates from a need to ensure the survival of the species. Consequently, Freud argues that the concept of love is for ensuring continuation of the species. He further argues that for the individual and the species to survive, there is a need for maintaining a delicate balance between these two libidos. For instance, if an individual want to eat, he must have some ego-libido, however if he want the species to survive, he must have object-libido. An imbalance occurs when too much energy is directed inwards to the individual. The result is that the personality of the person becomes infected and they can no longer function properly in society.

In later chapters of his work, Freud seeks to explain the cause of homosexuality. According to Freud, the mother-child relationship, the child directs their outward affection towards the mother. However, homosexuals do not learn to project their object-libido correctly, according to Freud, these individuals chose a different object of their choice. Instead, they tend to choose a different object on which to project their affection. According to Freud, this is narcissism in its purest form. In addition, Freud had a few choice words for the behavior of beautiful women. He postulated that most of these beautiful females were narcissists interested in self-adoration. He postulated they tended to look for someone who could develop an admiration for them in the same obsessive way they loved themselves. Consequently, such women were found to be highly attractive to men primarily due to their indifference of what other though of them.

Freud postulates that children expressed their love for children as a way of fulfilling their own narcissistic desires. This primary narcissism reemerges after the child's birth. Freud later explores the ego ideal. In this work, he explains that as a person develops, they develop a sort of self-censorship. In paranoid individuals, the ego ideal is too strong and uncontrolled, which causes an individual to develop of being monitored by unseen persons. Freud also explains, the ego ideal could be the cause of the voice reported in mental patients, which is often said to be critical of the individual.

Consequently, self-esteem is weighed against the satisfaction of this ego ideal. How much self-esteem one has then depends on how much affection and love they are able to derive form the object of their desire. If object-libido is projected outwards without reciprocity, it can lead to low self-esteem.

Freud's work, particularly touching on homosexuality, has elicited much criticism over the years. However, even his critics still find inspiration when they trying to develop their own psychoanalytical theories. His work is still relevant today, for instance, the current societies are arguably some of the most narcissistic in the history. The phenomenon where young and old people seem to have developed lack of empathy for each other is subject of interest for many scholars. However, Freud quite complex work may not provide all the answers to this phenomenon. However, it does raise interesting issues on the role of family in the development of individuals into caring members of a society.

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Sigmund Freud's Life, Theories, and Influence

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Cara Lustik is a fact-checker and copywriter.

Keystone / Hulton Archive / Getty Images

Psychoanalysis

• Major Works
• Perspectives
• Thinkers Influenced by Freud
• Contributions

Frequently Asked Questions

Psychology's most famous figure is also one of the most influential and controversial thinkers of the 20th century. Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist born in 1856, is often referred to as the "father of modern psychology."

Freud revolutionized how we think about and treat mental health conditions. Freud founded psychoanalysis as a way of listening to patients and better understanding how their minds work. Psychoanalysis continues to have an enormous influence on modern psychology and psychiatry.

Sigmund Freud's theories and work helped shape current views of dreams, childhood, personality, memory, sexuality, and therapy. Freud's work also laid the foundation for many other theorists to formulate ideas, while others developed new theories in opposition to his ideas.

Sigmund Freud Biography

To understand Freud's legacy, it is important to begin with a look at his life. His experiences informed many of his theories, so learning more about his life and the times in which he lived can lead to a deeper understanding of where his theories came from.

Freud was born in 1856 in a town called Freiberg in Moravia—in what is now known as the Czech Republic. He was the oldest of eight children. His family moved to Vienna several years after he was born, and he lived most of his life there.

Freud earned a medical degree and began practicing as a doctor in Vienna. He was appointed Lecturer on Nervous Diseases at the University of Vienna in 1885.

After spending time in Paris and attending lectures given by the French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot, Freud became more interested in theories explaining the human mind (which would later relate to his work in psychoanalysis).

Freud eventually withdrew from academia after the Viennese medical community rejected the types of ideas he brought back from Paris (specifically on what was then called hysteria ). Freud went on to publish influential works in neurology, including "On Aphasia: A Critical Study," in which he coined the term agnosia , meaning the inability to interpret sensations.

In later years, Freud and his colleague Josef Breuer published "Preliminary Report" and "Studies on Hysteria." When their friendship ended, Freud continued to publish his own works on psychoanalysis.

Freud and his family left Vienna due to discrimination against Jewish people. He moved to England in 1938 and died in 1939.

Sigmund Freud’s Theories

Freud's theories were enormously influential but subject to considerable criticism both now and during his life. However, his ideas have become interwoven into the fabric of our culture, with terms such as " Freudian slip ," " repression ," and " denial " appearing regularly in everyday language.

Freud's theories include:

• Unconscious mind : This is one of his most enduring ideas, which is that the mind is a reservoir of thoughts, memories, and emotions that lie outside the awareness of the conscious mind.
• Personality : Freud proposed that personality is made up of three key elements: the id, the ego, and the superego . The ego is the conscious state, the id is the unconscious, and the superego is the moral or ethical framework that regulates how the ego operates. Conflicts and interactions between these parts makeup one's personality.
• Life and death instincts : Freud claimed that two classes of instincts, life and death, dictated human behavior. Life instincts include sexual procreation, survival, and pleasure; death instincts include aggression, self-harm, and destruction.
• Psychosexual development : Freud's theory of psychosexual development posits that there are five stages of growth in which people's personalities and sexual selves evolve. These phases are the oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latent stage, and genital stage.
• Mechanisms of defense : Freud suggested that people use defense mechanisms to avoid anxiety. These mechanisms include displacement, repression, sublimation, regression, and many more.

Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis

Freud's ideas had such a strong impact on psychology that an entire school of thought emerged from his work: psychoanalysis . Psychoanalysis has had a lasting impact on both the study of psychology and the practice of psychotherapy.

Psychoanalysis sought to bring unconscious information into conscious awareness in order to induce catharsis . Catharsis is an emotional release that may bring about relief from psychological distress. 

Research has found that psychoanalysis can be an effective treatment for a number of mental health conditions. The self-examination that is involved in the therapy process can help people achieve long-term growth and improvement.

Sigmund Freud's Patients

Freud based his ideas on case studies of his own patients and those of his colleagues. These patients helped shape his theories and many have become well known. Some of these individuals included:

• Anna O. (aka Bertha Pappenheim)
• Dora (Ida Bauer)
• Little Hans (Herbert Graf)
• Rat Man (Ernst Lanzer)
• Sabina Spielrein
• Wolf Man (Sergei Pankejeff)

Anna O. was never actually a patient of Freud's. She was a patient of Freud's colleague Josef Breuer. The two men often corresponded about Anna O's symptoms, eventually publishing the book Studies on Hysteria on her case. It was through their work and correspondence that the technique known as talk therapy emerged.  

Major Works by Freud

Freud's writings detail many of his major theories and ideas. His personal favorite was The Interpretation of Dreams. Of it, he wrote: "[It] contains...the most valuable of all the discoveries it has been my good fortune to make. Insight such as this falls to one's lot but once in a lifetime."

Some of Freud's major books include:

• "Civilization and Its Discontents"
• "The Future of an Illusion"
• " The Interpretation of Dreams "
• "The Psychopathology of Everyday Life"
• "Totem and Taboo"

Freud's Perspectives

Outside of the field of psychology, Freud wrote and theorized about a broad range of subjects. He also wrote about and developed theories related to topics including sex, dreams, religion, women, and culture.

Views on Women

Both during his life and after, Freud was criticized for his views of women , femininity, and female sexuality. One of his most famous critics was the psychologist Karen Horney , who rejected his view that women suffered from "penis envy."

Penis envy, according to Freud, was a phenomenon that women experienced upon witnessing a naked male body because they felt they themselves must be "castrated boys" and wished for their own penis.

Horney instead argued that men experience "womb envy" and are left with feelings of inferiority because they are unable to bear children.

Views on Religion

Freud was born and raised Jewish but described himself as an atheist in adulthood. "The whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life," he wrote of religion.

He continued to have a keen interest in the topics of religion and spirituality and wrote a number of books focused on the subject. 

Psychologists Influenced by Freud

In addition to his grand and far-reaching theories of human psychology, Freud also left his mark on a number of individuals who went on to become some of psychology's greatest thinkers. Some of the eminent psychologists who were influenced by Sigmund Freud include:

• Alfred Adler
• Erik Erikson
• Ernst Jones
• Melanie Klein

While Freud's work is often dismissed today as non-scientific, there is no question that he had a tremendous influence not only on psychology but on the larger culture as well.

Many of Freud's ideas have become so steeped in the public psyche that we oftentimes forget that they have their origins in his psychoanalytic tradition.

Freud's Contributions to Psychology

Freud's theories are highly controversial today. For instance, he has been criticized for his lack of knowledge about women and for sexist notions in his theories about sexual development, hysteria, and penis envy.

People are skeptical about the legitimacy of Freud's theories because they lack the scientific evidence that psychological theories have today. Think about how challenging it is to study unconscious processes like dreams and repressed memories with the scientific method .

However, it remains true that Freud had a significant and lasting influence on the field of psychology. He provided a foundation for many concepts that psychologists used and continue to use to make new discoveries.

Perhaps Freud's most important contribution to the field of psychology was the development of talk therapy as an approach to treating mental health problems.

In addition to serving as the basis for psychoanalysis, talk therapy is now part of many psychotherapeutic interventions designed to help people overcome psychological distress and behavioral problems. 

The Unconscious

Prior to the works of Freud, many people believed that behavior was inexplicable. He developed the idea of the unconscious as being the hidden motivation behind what we do. For instance, his work on dream interpretation suggested that our real feelings and desires lie underneath the surface of conscious life.

Childhood Influence

Freud believed that childhood experiences impact adulthood—specifically, traumatic experiences that we have as children can manifest as maladaptive personality traits and mental health issues when we're adults.

While childhood experiences aren't the only contributing factors to mental health during adulthood, Freud laid the foundation for a person's childhood to be taken into consideration during therapy and when diagnosing.

Literary Theory

Literary scholars and students alike often analyze texts through a Freudian lens. Freud's theories created an opportunity to understand fictional characters and their authors based on what's written or what a reader can interpret from the text on topics such as dreams, sexuality, and personality.

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist who founded psychoanalysis. Also known as the father of modern psychology, he was born in 1856 and died in 1939.

While Freud theorized that childhood experiences shaped personality, the neo-Freudians (including Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, and Karen Horney) believed that social and cultural influences played an important role. Freud believed that sex was a primary human motivator, whereas neo-Freudians did not.

Sigmund Freud founded psychoanalysis and published many influential works such as "The Interpretation of Dreams." His theories about personality and sexuality were and continue to be extremely influential and controversial in the fields of psychology and psychiatry.

Sigmund Freud was born in a town called Freiberg in Moravia, which is now the Czech Republic. However, most of his childhood years were spent in Vienna.

It's likely that Freud died by natural means. However, he did have oral cancer at the time of his death and was administered a dose of morphine that some believed was a method of physician-assisted suicide.

Freud used psychoanalysis, also known as talk therapy, along with hypnosis and dream analysis, in order to get his patients to uncover their own unconscious thoughts and bring them into consciousness. Freud believed this would help his patients change their maladaptive behaviors.

Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis and introduced influential theories such as: his ideas of the conscious and unconscious; the id, ego, and superego; dream interpretation; and psychosexual development.

Final Thoughts

While Freud's theories have been the subject of considerable controversy and debate, his impact on psychology, therapy, and culture is undeniable. As W.H. Auden wrote in his 1939 poem, "In Memory of Sigmund Freud":

In Memory of Sigmund Freud, Poem Stanza by W.H. Auden (1939)

For one who’d lived among enemies so long, if often he was wrong and, at times, absurd, to us, he is no more a person now but a whole climate of opinion under whom we conduct our different lives…

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By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."