Sigmund Freud was born into a Jewish family in Freiburg, Moravia(now Pribor, Czech Republic), in May 1856. Before he reached his 10thbirthday, the family settled in Vienna, Austria.
Though he insisted that he hated Vienna, he stayed there until early in 1938 when the Anschluss(the forced union of Austria with the Nazi Third Reich) drove him toseek refuge in England. There he spent the last year of his life, dyingin London in September 1939 on the cusp of the Second World War.
Freudstudied medicine and graduated in 1881 from the University of Vienna,having specialized in the newly emerging field of neurology. In 1885 heworked briefly with J.-M. Charcot in Paris, who helped pioneer theseparation of psychiatry from neurology as a distinct field of studyand treatment.
As time went on, Freud developed a process he called psychoanalysis—theconscious, piece-by-piece analysis of the causes of neurotic behaviorin an individual, with a view to breaking down the complex. He oftenquoted his work as a practical implementation of Christ‘s words in John8:32: “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
Herevolutionized modern thinking about dreams and outlined the now widelyaccepted notion that dreaming results from unguarded thinking of thesubconscious part of the brain. He reasoned that, though itscommunicative skill was low, this “dreaming brain” offered insights—andescaped “conscious repression” by the conscious brain—that furtherrevealed truth and could be used in the treatment of mental healthproblems. These views are now considered fanciful and simplistic.
Itis another aspect of Freud‘s work that has had the greatest impact onhuman life in the West during the 20th century: his reevaluation of therole of sex and sexual behavior. Freud taught that sexual repressionwas the chief psychological problem of mankind. He surmised thatrepression and constriction of sexual behavior in youth would becomemanifest in adulthood.
Where Western society (often under theguise of “Christian morality”) had long treated sex as a taboo subjectand covered over both normal and abnormal sexual behavior as “sin”—orat least shameful—there had been great neglect of appropriate help andcorrection. Freud was able to persuade his opponents and admirers alikethat sexual repression was rampant, unhealthy, and the indirect causeof much crime, illness and woe.
Through psychoanalysis, Freud setout to uncover his patients‘ sexual repression. His influence lives ontoday, not only in the Freudian school of analysis but in rival schoolsintroduced by some of his foremost followers. He added numerous wordsto our language, which remain in popular use today: “theunconscious,” “guilt complex,” “the ego,” “sublimation,” “the Freudianslip,” and “death instinct”—later to become “death wish”—to name but afew.
Though not everyone today shares Freud‘s contention that sexsurrounds almost every human action and emotion even from infancy, histeachings have profoundly shaped the everyday thinking of modernsociety as a whole. At least in part, this is because people are eagerto see their behavior as something other than “sin.”
Some havetaken Freud‘s teachings beyond the realization that sex is a naturaland normal function. They have gradually come to the unjustifiedconclusion that they can blame much of their unacceptable behavior on subconsciousrather than conscious thought, leading to the further conclusion thatthey cannot be held fully responsible for their actions and characterflaws. Many people now believe that they are merely victims of thesubconscious mind, which is shaped by past events and relationshipsover which they have no control. Thus Freud‘s doctrine of unnaturalrepression has been used as a broad brush to whitewash behavior thatsociety has traditionally considered inappropriate. Yet repressionaddresses only one small aspect of sin and responsibility.
Thepernicious effect of Freud‘s studies on our modern world is that hismessage is largely responsible for the unwillingness of so many to seethemselves as accountable for their actions and personal problems.Further, his insights were perceived as a replacement for arelationship with God. The analyst‘s couch became a kind of secularconfessional as people looked for humanistic and psychologicalsolutions to moral issues.
WILF HEY
