The Impact of Sigmund Freud's Theories on the World

Sigmund Freud is one of the best-known neurologist and psychoanalyst to have ever lived. Freud is recognized as one of the most influential person of the twentieth century. According to Psychology Today “...he profoundly changed our understanding of humanity, thought, and culture.”

Very little is known of Freud’s early life since in 1885 to 1907 he destroyed his personal papers. His later papers were guarded by his official biographer, Ernest Jones, and a few members of psychoanalysis. His birth name was Sigismund Schlomo Freud and he was born in Freiberg, Moravia, now Pribor, Czech Republic on May 6, 1856. He had a big family since his father married multiple times. When he was four years old, his family moved to Vienna. This is where Freud would spend most of the rest of his life. In 1881 he received his medical degree and he researched the biology of brains and nervous tissues. Freud began treating psychological disorders right after graduation and he wanted to understand the journey of human knowledge and experience. He became influenced by the work of his friend, Josef Breuer, who discovered that when a patient talked about the early occurrence of their symptoms, those symptoms became less dominant. In 1882, Freud was engaged to Martha Bernays and go on to have six children. Sigmund Freud moved to England in 1938 to escape the Nazi’s and in 1939 he committed suicide. Freud was battling jaw cancer and he asked a doctor to kill him using morphine.

One of Freud's most well known work was with the conscious and unconscious mind. Freud is credited with the discovery of id, ego, superego and what each part did for the human personality. The id is the primitive part of the personality. This part of the personality is impulsive and irrational. The decisions that are made are are based of the result of pleasure or pain and is responsible for the instincts of sex and aggression. The job of the ego is to perceive the outside world and make decisions based on what is best for that person wether is be physically or mentally. The decisions could be negative because the ego doesn’t think of the consequences of other people, only the “I”. The superego is known as the person’s conscious. It plays the job of guiding the ego so that other people or their actions can help influence the right decision instead of only benefiting the “I”. When the superego is violated, a sense of guilt and/or anxiety is felt. Freud believed that the superego was mostly developed at a young age and is based off the moral of the persons parents. The superego continues to be shaped in adolescence as well as by other role models in that person's life. Although these three differ from one another, they interact and mold someone’s personality. Journal Psyche states “Almost 120 years later, it remains one of the few works continuing to impact the entirety of mental health treatment.” when referring to the topic of if Freud’s “Personality Theory” is still relevant.

Psychic ic energy was also a major theory by Freud and this one relied on the understanding of id. Freud believed that id was the source of psychic energy, or the force that drives all mental processes. “He thought that a type of psychic energy called libido, or sexual urges, drives all of human actions. Libido is countered by Thanatos which is the death instinct that is responsible for destructive behavior.”

Another major theory discovered by Freud was Oedipus complex. This was his most refuted and controversial theory because most people refused to accept it whether it be true or not. “Oedipus complex in essence is stating that at a young age, people are sexually attracted to the parent of the opposite sex and are in competition with the parent of the same sex.” The theory was named after Oedipus, a Greek man who accidentally killed his father and slept with his mother without knowing it. As we put more research into this theory, we realized that this is in fact the opposite from the truth. Storyality states “Freud put the cart before the horse, assuming the relationship between parent and child is sexual in nature when in fact the opposite is true: adult sexual relationships borrow from infantile and parental behaviour…”

Another major discovery by Freud was dream analysis. His work is still frequently used on a daily basis. This was published in his book The Interpretation of Dreams and it explained the reason of dreams. Freud explained that people dream to deal with the problems that the mind is struggling with subconsciously as well as consciously. “He believed that dreams are powered by that person's wishes and when analyzed, we can understand them which can influence our current behavior and feelings.” Freud used dreams to tap into a person's unconscious mind. Freud even used ream analysis on himself to help one of his patients. He had a patient named Irma who was struggling and his treatment did not seem to be helping making him feel guilty. One night he had a dream and according to Simply Psychology “Freud dreamed that he met Irma at a party and examined her. He then saw a chemical formula for a drug that another doctor had given Irma flash before his eyes and realized that her condition was caused by a dirty syringe used by the other doctor. Freud's guilt was thus relieved.”

Sigmund Freud has had a big impact on today's world. His many theories are still used today and although they may have been modified to better fit the modern world, the essence is still the same. Freud helped people discover who they are and why they are like that. Freud is the scientist who discovered the workings of the human mind. The Encyclopedia Britannica quoted Freud saying, “The future will probably attribute far greater importance to psychoanalysis as the science of the unconscious than as a therapeutic procedure.”