Freud S., 1856-1939). An outstanding physician and psychologist, the founder of psychoanalysis. F. was born in the Moravian city of Freiburg. In 1860, the family moved to Vienna, where he graduated from the gymnasium with honors, then entered the medical faculty of the university and in 1881 received a doctorate in medicine.

F. dreamed of devoting himself to theoretical research in the field of neurology, but was forced to go into private practice as a neurologist. He was not satisfied with the physiotherapy procedures used at that time for the treatment of neurological patients, and he turned to hypnosis. Under the influence of medical practice, F. developed an interest in mental disorders of a functional nature. In 1885-1886. he attended the Charcot J. M. clinic in Paris, where hypnosis was used in the study and treatment of hysterical patients. In 1889 - a trip to Nancy and acquaintance with the work of another French school of hypnosis. This trip contributed to the fact that F. had an idea about the main mechanism of functional mental illness, about the presence of mental processes that, being outside the sphere of consciousness, influence behavior, and the patient himself does not know about it.

The decisive moment in the formation of the original theory of F. was the departure from hypnosis as a means of penetration to the forgotten experiences that underlie neuroses. In many, and just the most severe cases, hypnosis remained powerless, as it encountered resistance that it could not overcome. F. was forced to look for other ways to pathogenic affects and eventually found them in the interpretation of dreams, free-floating associations, small and large psychopathological manifestations, excessively increased or decreased sensitivity, movement disorders, slips of the tongue, forgetting, etc. drew on the phenomenon of the patient transferring feelings to the doctor that took place in early childhood in relation to significant persons.

Research and interpretation of this diverse material F. called psychoanalysis - the original form of psychotherapy and research method. The core of psychoanalysis as a new psychological direction is the doctrine of the unconscious.

The scientific activity of F. covers several decades, during which his concept has undergone significant changes, which gives grounds for the conditional allocation of three periods.

In the first period, psychoanalysis basically remained a method of treating neuroses, with occasional attempts at general conclusions about the nature of mental life. Such works by F. of this period as "The Interpretation of Dreams" (1900), "Psychopathology of Everyday Life" (1901) have not lost their significance. F. considered the suppressed sexual desire - "Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality" (1905) - to be the main motivating force in human behavior. At this time, psychoanalysis began to gain popularity, around F. there was a circle of representatives of various professions (doctors, writers, artists) who wanted to study psychoanalysis (1902). F.'s extension of the facts obtained in the study of psychoneuroses to an understanding of the mental life of healthy people was met with great criticism.

In the second period, the concept of F. turned into a general psychological doctrine of the personality and its development. In 1909, he lectured in the United States, which was then published as a complete, albeit brief, presentation of psychoanalysis - "On Psychoanalysis: Five Lectures" (1910). The most widespread work is the "Introduction to Psychoanalysis Lectures", the first two volumes of which are a record of lectures delivered to physicians in 1916-1917.

In the third period, the teachings of F. - Freudianism - underwent significant changes and received its philosophical completion. Psychoanalytic theory has become the basis for understanding culture, religion, civilization. The doctrine of instincts was supplemented by ideas about the attraction to death, destruction - "Beyond the principle of pleasure" (1920). These ideas, received by F. in the treatment of wartime neuroses, led him to the conclusion that wars are the result of the death instinct, that is, due to human nature. The description of the three-component model of human personality - "I and It" (1923) belongs to the same period.

Thus, F. developed a number of hypotheses, models, concepts that captured the originality of the psyche and firmly entered the arsenal of scientific knowledge about it. Phenomena were involved in the circle of scientific analysis that traditional academic psychology was not accustomed to take into account.

After the occupation of Austria by the Nazis, F. was persecuted. The International Union of Psychoanalytic Societies, having paid the fascist authorities in the form of a ransom a significant amount of money, obtained permission to leave F. to England. In England he was greeted enthusiastically, but F.'s days were numbered. He died on 23 September 1939 at the age of 83 in London.

FREUD Sigmund

1856–1939) was an Austrian neuropathologist and founder of psychoanalysis. Born May 6, 1856 in Freiberg (now Příbor), located near the border of Moravia and Silesia, about two hundred and forty kilometers northeast of Vienna. Seven days later, the boy was circumcised and given two names - Shlomo and Sigismund. He inherited the Hebrew name Shlomo from his grandfather, who died two and a half months before the birth of his grandson. Only at the age of sixteen did the young man change his name Sigismund to the name Sigmund.

His father Jacob Freud married Amalia Natanson, Freud's mother, being much older than her and having two sons from his first marriage, one of whom was the same age as Amalia. By the time their first child was born, Freud's father was 41 years old, while his mother was three months away from turning 21. Over the next ten years, seven children were born in the Freud family - five daughters and two sons, one of whom died a few months after his birth, when Sigismund was less than two years old.

Due to a number of circumstances related to economic decline, the growth of nationalism and the futility of further life in a small town, the Freud family moved in 1859 to Leipzig, and then a year later to Vienna. Freud lived in the capital of the Austrian Empire for almost 80 years.

During this time, he brilliantly graduated from the gymnasium, in 1873 at the age of 17 he entered the medical faculty of the University of Vienna, from which he graduated in 1881, receiving a medical degree. For several years, Freud worked at the E. Brücke Physiological Institute and the Vienna City Hospital. In 1885-1886, he completed a six-month internship in Paris with the famous French physician J. Charcot at the Salpêtrière. Upon his return from the internship, he married Martha Bernays, eventually becoming the father of six children - three daughters and three sons.

Having opened a private practice in 1886, Z. Freud used various methods of treating nervous patients and put forward his understanding of the origin of neuroses. In the 1990s, he laid the foundations for a new method of research and treatment called psychoanalysis. At the beginning of the twentieth century, he developed the psychoanalytic ideas put forward by him.

Over the next two decades, S. Freud made further contributions to the theory and technique of classical psychoanalysis, used his ideas and methods of treatment in private practice, wrote and published numerous works devoted to refining his initial ideas about the unconscious drives of a person and the use of psychoanalytic ideas in various fields. knowledge.

Z. Freud received international recognition, was friends and corresponded with such prominent figures of science and culture as Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann, Romain Rolland, Arnold Zweig, Stefan Zweig and many others.

In 1922, the University of London and the Jewish Historical Society organized a series of lectures on five famous Jewish philosophers, including Freud along with Philo, Maimonides, Spinoza, Einstein. In 1924, the Vienna City Council awarded Z. Freud the title of honorary citizen. On his seventieth birthday, he received congratulatory telegrams and letters from all over the world. In 1930 he was awarded the Goethe Prize for Literature. In honor of his seventy-fifth birthday, a memorial plaque was erected in Freiberg on the house in which he was born.

On the occasion of Freud's 80th birthday, Thomas Mann read out his address to the Academic Society of Medical Psychology. The appeal was signed by about two hundred famous writers and artists, including Virginia Woolf, Herman Hess, Salvador Dali, James Joyce, Pablo Picasso, Romain Rolland, Stefan Zweig, Aldous Huxley, H. G. Wells.

Z. Freud was elected an honorary member of the American Psychoanalytic Association, the French Psychoanalytic Society, and the British Royal Medical Psychological Association. He was given the official title of Corresponding Member of the Royal Society.

After the Nazi invasion of Austria in March 1938, the life of S. Freud and his family was in danger. The Nazis seized the library of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, visited the house of Z. Freud, conducted a thorough search there, confiscated his bank account, and summoned his children Martin and Anna Freud to the Gestapo.

Thanks to the help and support from the American Ambassador to France, W.S. Bullitt, Princess Marie Bonaparte and other influential persons Z. Freud received permission to leave and at the beginning of June 1938 left Vienna in order to move to London via Paris.

Z. Freud spent the last year and a half of his life in England. In the very first days of his stay in London, he was visited by HG Wells, Bronislaw Malinovsky, Stefan Zweig, who brought Salvador Dali with him, secretaries of the Royal Society, acquaintances, friends. Despite his advanced age, the development of cancer, first discovered in him in April 1923, accompanied by numerous operations and steadfastly tolerated by him for 16 years, S. Freud carried out almost daily analyzes of patients and continued to work on his handwritten materials.

On September 21, 1938, Z. Freud asked his attending physician Max Schur to fulfill the promise that he had given him ten years ago at their first meeting. In order to avoid unbearable suffering, M. Schur twice administered a small dose of morphine to his famous patient, which turned out to be sufficient for a worthy death of the founder of psychoanalysis. On September 23, 1939, Z. Freud died without knowing that a few years later, his four sisters, who remained in Vienna, would be burned in a crematorium by the Nazis.

From the pen of Z. Freud came out not only a variety of works on the technique of medical use of psychoanalysis, but also such books as The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901), Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious (1905), "Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality" (1905), "Delirium and Dreams in Gradiva" by W. Jensen (1907), "Memories of Leonardo da Vinci" (1910), "Totem and Taboo" (1913) , Lectures on Introduction to Psychoanalysis (1916/17), Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), Mass Psychology and Analysis of the Human Self (1921), Self and It (1923), Inhibition, Symptom and Fear (1926), The Future of an Illusion (1927), Dostoevsky and Parricide (1928), Dissatisfaction with Culture (1930), Moses the Man and Monotheistic Religion (1938) and others.

The need to earn money did not allow him to stay at the department, he first entered the Physiological Institute, and then to the Vienna Hospital, where he worked as a doctor.

In 1885, Freud received the title of privatdozent, and he was given a scholarship for a scientific internship abroad.

In 1885-1886, he trained in Paris with the psychiatrist Jean-Martin Charcot at the Salpêtrière clinic. Under the influence of his ideas, he came to the conclusion that unobservable dynamic traumas of the psyche can be the cause of psycho-nervous diseases.

Upon his return from Paris, Freud opened a private practice in Vienna, where he used the method of hypnosis to treat patients. At first, the method seemed effective: in the first few weeks, Freud achieved instant healing of several patients. But soon there were failures, and he became disillusioned with hypnotic therapy.

Freud turned to the study of hysteria and made significant contributions to the field through the use of free association (or "talk therapy"). The results of his joint research with the Austrian physician Josef Breuer on hysterical phenomena and problems of psychotherapy were published under the title "Studies in Hysteria" (1895).

In 1892, Freud developed and used a new therapeutic method - the insistence method, focused on constantly forcing the patient to remember and reproduce traumatic situations and factors. In 1895, he came to the conclusion about the fundamental illegality of identifying the mental and the conscious and about the importance of studying unconscious mental processes.

From 1896 to 1902, Sigmund Freud developed the foundations of psychoanalysis. He substantiated an innovative dynamic and energetic model of the human psyche, consisting of three systems: the unconscious - the preconscious - the conscious.

He first used the concept of "psychoanalysis" in an article on the etiology of neuroses, published in French on March 30, 1896.

The psychoanalytic method of treating patients, developed by Freud, consists in analyzing, according to certain rules, associations that spontaneously arise in the patient about any element of his mental life (method of free associations), interpretation of dreams, as well as various erroneous actions (slips of the tongue, slips of the tongue, forgetting, etc.). .p.) with the aim of isolating, with the help of psychoanalysis, the true (unconscious) causes of these phenomena and bringing these causes to the consciousness of the patient.

The result of the generalization of Freud's psychoanalytic studies of this period was the classic works "Interpretation of Dreams" (1900), "Psychopathology of Everyday Life" (1901), "Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious" (1905) and others published at the beginning of the 20th century.

The causes of many neuroses in Freud's patients at that time were various sexual problems, so Freud turned to research on sexuality and its development in childhood. Since then, Freud placed the development of sexuality at the center of the entire mental development of a person ("Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality", 1905) and tried to explain to them such phenomena of human culture as art ("Leonardo da Vinci", 1913), features of the psychology of primitive peoples ( "Totem and taboo", 1913), etc.

In 1902, Freud became a professor at the University of Vienna.

In 1908 (together with Eigen Bleuler and Carl Gustav Jung) he founded the Yearbook of Psychoanalytic and Psychopathological Research, and in 1910, the International Psychoanalytic Association.

In 1912, Freud founded the periodical The International Journal of Medical Psychoanalysis.

In 1915-1917 he lectured on psychoanalysis at the University of Vienna and prepared them for publication. At the same time, his new works came out of print, where he continued his research into the secrets of the unconscious.

In January 1920, Freud was awarded the title of ordinary professor at the University of Vienna.

In the 1920s, the scientist developed new problems of psychoanalysis: he revised the doctrine of drives ("Beyond the pleasure principle", 1920), highlighting "life drives" and "death drives", proposed a new model of personality structure (I, It and Superego), extended the ideas of psychoanalysis to the understanding of almost all aspects of social life.

In 1927 he published The Future of an Illusion, a psychoanalytic panorama of the past, present and future of religion, interpreting the latter in the status of an obsessive neurosis. In 1929 he published one of his most philosophical works, Anxiety in Culture. In it, Freud described a theory according to which not Eros, libido, will and human desire are in themselves the subject of the thinker's creativity, but the totality of desires in a state of permanent conflict with the world of cultural institutions, social imperatives and prohibitions, personified in parents, various authorities, public idols, etc. In 1939, Freud published the book Moses and Monotheism, dedicated to the psychoanalytic understanding of philosophical and cultural problems.

Freud was awarded the Literary Prize in 1930. Goethe. He was elected an honorary member of the American Psychoanalytic Association, the French Psychoanalytic Society, the British Royal Medical Psychological Association.

In 1938, after the capture of Austria by Nazi Germany, Freud emigrated to Great Britain.

In 1923, Freud was diagnosed with jaw cancer, caused by his addiction to cigars. Operations on this occasion were carried out constantly and tormented him until the end of his life. In the summer of 1939, Sigmund Freud's health began to deteriorate, and on September 23 of that year he died.

Freud's works had a tremendous impact on pre-existing ideas about man and his world, and laid the foundation for the formation of new ideas and psychological theories.

In St. Petersburg, Vienna, London, and Přibor there are museums to them. Freud. Monuments to Freud are installed in London, Pribor, Prague.

Sigmund Freud was married to Martha Bernays, the family had six children. The youngest daughter Anna (1895-1982) became a follower of her father, founded child psychoanalysis, systematized and developed psychoanalytic theory, made a significant contribution to the theory and practice of psychoanalysis in her writings.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources

The birth of psychoanalysis

The history of psychoanalysis dates back to the 1890s in Vienna, when Sigmund Freud worked to develop a more effective way to treat neurotic and hysterical illnesses. Somewhat earlier, Freud had encountered the fact that part of the mental processes were not conscious of him as a result of his neurological consultations in a children's hospital, and in doing so he found that many children with speech disorders do not have organic causes for the occurrence of these symptoms. Later in 1885, Freud had an internship at the Salpêtrière clinic under the French neurologist and psychiatrist Jean Martin Charcot, who had a strong influence on him. Charcot drew attention to the fact that his patients often suffered from somatic diseases such as paralysis, blindness, tumors, while not having any organic disorders characteristic of such cases. Prior to Charcot's work, women with hysterical symptoms were thought to have a vagus uterus ( hystera in Greek means "womb"), but Freud found that men could also experience similar psychosomatic symptoms. Freud also became familiar with the experiments in the treatment of hysteria by his mentor and colleague Josef Breuer. This treatment was a combination of hypnosis and catharsis, and later processes of discharging emotions similar to this method were called "abreaction".

Despite the fact that most scientists considered dreams to be either a set of mechanical memories of the past day, or a meaningless set of fantastic images, Freud developed the view of other researchers that a dream is a coded message. Analyzing the associations that arise in patients in connection with one or another detail of a dream, Freud made a conclusion about the etiology of the disorder. Realizing the origin of their disease, patients, as a rule, were cured.

As a young man, Freud became interested in hypnosis and its use in helping the mentally ill. Later, he abandoned hypnosis, preferring it free association method and dream analysis. These methods became the basis of psychoanalysis. Freud was also interested in what he called hysteria, and is now known as the conversion syndrome.

Symbols, unlike the usual elements of an explicit dream, have a universal (the same for different people) and stable meaning. Symbols are found not only in dreams, but also in fairy tales, myths, everyday speech, and poetic language. The number of objects depicted in dreams by symbols is limited.

dream interpretation method

The method Freud used to interpret dreams is this. After he was told the content of the dream, Freud began to ask the same question about the individual elements (images, words) of this dream - what does the narrator come to mind about this element when he thinks about it? The person was required to report every thought that came to his mind, regardless of the fact that some of them may seem ridiculous, irrelevant or obscene.

The rationale for this method is that mental processes are strictly determined, and if a person, when asked to say what comes into his mind regarding a given element of a dream, a thought comes into his head, this thought can by no means be accidental; it will certainly be associated with this element. Thus, the psychoanalyst does not interpret someone's dream himself, but rather helps the dreamer in this. In addition, some special elements of dreams can still be interpreted by a psychoanalyst without the help of the owner of the dream. These are symbols - elements of dreams that have a constant, universal meaning, which does not depend on in whose dream these symbols appear.

last years of life

Freud's books

• "The Interpretation of Dreams", 1900
• "Totem and Taboo", 1913
• "Lectures on Introduction to Psychoanalysis", 1916-1917
• "I and It", 1923
• Moses and Monotheism, 1939

Literature

1. Brian D. Freudian Psychology and the Post-Freudians. - Refl-book. - 1997.
2. Zeigarnik. "Personality Theories in Foreign Psychology". - Publishing House of Moscow University. - 1982.
3. Lacan J. Seminars. Book 1. Freud's work on the technique of psychoanalysis (1953-1954) M: Gnosis / Logos, 1998.
4. Lacan J. Seminars. Book 2. "I" in Freud's theory and in the technique of psychoanalysis (1954-1955) M: Gnosis / Logos, 1999.
5. Marson, P. "25 Key Books on Psychoanalysis." Ural Ltd. - 1999
6. Freud, Sigmund. Collected works in 26 volumes. St. Petersburg, publishing house "VEIP", 2005 - ed. continues.
7. Paul FERRIS. "Sigmund Freud"

In the autumn of 1885, having received a scholarship, Freud went on an internship with the famous psychiatrist Charcot. Freud is fascinated by Charcot's personality, but the young doctor's experiments with hypnosis are even more impressive. Then, in the Salpêtrière, Freud encounters hysteria patients and the amazing fact that severe bodily symptoms, such as paralysis, are relieved with the mere words of a hypnotist. At this moment, Freud for the first time guesses that consciousness and the psyche are not identical, that there is a significant area of ​​\u200b\u200bpsychic life, about which the person himself has no idea. Freud's old dream - to find the answer to the question of how a person became what he became, begins to take on the contours of a future discovery.

Returning to Vienna, Freud makes a presentation in the "Medical Society" and is faced with the complete rejection of his colleagues. The scientific community rejects his ideas, and he is forced to find his own way of developing them. In 1877, Freud met the famous Viennese psychotherapist Josef Breuer, and in 1895 they wrote the book Studies in Hysteria. Unlike Breuer, who presents in this book his cathartic method of venting the affect associated with the trauma, Freud insists on the importance of remembering the very event that caused the trauma.

Freud listens to his patients, believing that the causes of their suffering are known not to him, but to themselves. Known in such a strange way that they are stored in memory, but patients do not have access to them. Freud listens to the stories of patients about how they were seduced in childhood. In the autumn of 1897, he realizes that in reality these events might not have happened, that for psychic reality there is no difference between memory and fantasy. What is important is not to find out what was "really", but to analyze how this psychic reality itself is arranged - the reality of memories, desires and fantasies. How is it possible to know something about this reality? Allowing the patient to say whatever comes to his mind, allowing his thoughts to flow freely. Freud invents the method of free association. If the course of movement is not imposed on thoughts from the outside, then in unexpected associative connections, transitions from topic to topic, sudden memories, their own logic is revealed. To say whatever comes to mind is the basic rule of psychoanalysis.

Freud is uncompromising. He refuses hypnosis, because it is aimed at relieving symptoms, and not at eliminating the causes of the disorder. He sacrifices his friendship with Josef Breuer, who did not share his views on the sexual etiology of hysteria. When, at the end of the 19th century, Freud spoke of childhood sexuality, Puritan society would turn its back on him. For almost 10 years, it will be separated from the scientific and medical community. It was a difficult period of life and, nevertheless, very productive. In the autumn of 1897, Freud begins his introspection. Lacking his own analyst, he resorts to correspondence with his friend Wilhelm Fliess. In one of the letters, Freud will say that he discovered in himself many unconscious thoughts that he had previously encountered in his patients. Later, this discovery will allow him to question the very difference between the mental norm and pathology.

The psychoanalytic process of self-knowledge of the subject reveals the importance of the presence of the other. The psychoanalyst participates in the process not as an ordinary interlocutor and not as someone who knows something about the analyzed subject that he himself does not know. A psychoanalyst is one who listens in a special way, catching in the patient's speech what he says, but does not hear himself. In addition, the analyst is the one to whom the transfer is made, the one in relation to whom the patient reproduces his attitude towards other people who are significant to him. Gradually, Freud understands the importance of transference for psychoanalytic treatment. Gradually it becomes clear to him that the two most important elements of psychoanalysis are transference and free association.

Then Freud began writing The Interpretation of Dreams. He understands that the interpretation of dreams is the royal path to understanding the unconscious. In this one phrase, one can read all the caution in Freud's attitude to the word. First, interpretation, not interpretation. This makes psychoanalysis related to astrology, the interpretation of ancient texts, and the work of an archaeologist interpreting hieroglyphs. Second, the path. Psychoanalysis is not the practice of relieving symptoms, which is hypnosis. Psychoanalysis is the path of the subject to his own truth, his unconscious desire. This desire is not located in the latent content of the dream, but is located between the manifest and the hidden, in the very form of the transformation of one into the other. Third, it is the path to understanding, not the path to the unconscious. The goal of psychoanalysis, then, is not to penetrate into the unconscious, but to expand the subject's knowledge of himself. And finally, fourthly, Freud speaks precisely of the unconscious, and not of the subconscious. The latter term refers to the physical space in which something is located below and something is above. Freud moves away from attempts to localize the instances of the mental apparatus, including in the brain.

Sigmund Freud himself will designate his discovery as the third scientific revolution that changed the views of man on the world and himself. The first revolutionary was Copernicus, who proved that the Earth is not the center of the universe. The second was Charles Darwin, who challenged the divine origin of man. And finally, Freud declares that the human ego is not the master in its own house. Like his famous predecessors, Freud paid dearly for the narcissistic wound inflicted on humanity. Even having received the long-awaited recognition of the public, he cannot be satisfied. America, which he visited in 1909 to lecture on an introduction to psychoanalysis and where he was received "with a bang," disappoints in its pragmatic attitude towards his ideas. The Soviet Union, where psychoanalysis received state support, by the end of the 1920s was abandoning the psychoanalytic revolution and embarking on the rails of totalitarianism. The popularity that psychoanalysis is gaining frightens Freud as much as the ignorance with which his ideas are rejected. In an effort to prevent the abuse of his offspring, Freud participates in the creation of international psychoanalytic movements, but in every possible way refuses to occupy leadership positions in them. Freud is obsessed with the desire to know, not the desire to control.

In 1923, doctors discover a tumor in Sigmund Freud's mouth. Freud underwent an unsuccessful operation, which was followed by 32 more during the 16 years of his life remaining. As a result of the development of a cancerous tumor, part of the jaw had to be replaced with a prosthesis that left non-healing wounds and also made it difficult to speak. In 1938, when Austria becomes part of Nazi Germany as a result of the Anschluss, the Gestapo searches Freud's apartment at Bergasse 19, his daughter Anna is taken away for interrogation. Freud, realizing that this can no longer continue, decides to emigrate. For the last year and a half of his life, Freud lives in London, surrounded by his family and only his closest friends. He is finishing his last psychoanalytic works and struggling with a developing tumor. In September 1939, Freud reminds his friend and physician Max Schur of his promise to render one last service to his patient. Schur keeps his word and on September 23, 1939, Freud passes away by euthanasia, choosing the moment of his own death.

After himself, Freud left a huge literary legacy, the Russian-language collected works have 26 volumes. His works to this day are of great interest not only to biographers, being written in an outstanding style, they contain ideas that again and again require reflection. It is no coincidence that one of the most famous analysts of the 20th century. Jacques Lacan entitled the program of his work "Back to Freud". Sigmund Freud has repeatedly said that the motive of his work was the desire to understand how a person became what he became. And this desire is reflected in all his legacy.

The beginning of the 20th century was the period of the formation of a new direction in psychology and psychiatry - psychoanalysis. The pioneer of this trend was the Austrian psychotherapist Sigmund Freud. The term of its active scientific activity was 45 years old. During this time he created:

• personality theory, this concept was the first in the history of science;
• method of treatment of neuroses;
• methodology for studying deep mental processes;
• systematized many clinical observations using introspection and his therapeutic practice.

Regarding his future biographers, Z. Freud joked:

As for my biographers, let them suffer, we will not make it easy for them. Everyone will be able to imagine the "evolution of the hero" in their own way, and everyone will be right; I am already amused by their mistakes.

Discoverer of the depths of the unconscious

Much has been written about Sigmund Freud. The personality of the founder of psychoanalysis aroused and is of great interest. There are many bright and extraordinary people in the history of science, but very few of them received such opposite assessments, and their scientific theories caused such unconditional acceptance or absolute rejection. But no matter how one evaluates the views of Sigmund Freud on the psychosexual nature of man, one cannot deny his enormous influence on the development of modern culture.

By the way, let's try to remember how many times we ourselves used the expression "Freudian slip." The views of the scientist served as an impetus for the creation of a whole school in psychiatry and psychology. Thanks to him, the view of the very nature of man was revised. His analysis of works of art and literature influenced the formation of the methodology of contemporary art history. Yes, his favorite students - A. Adler and K. Jung - went their own way, but they always recognized the great influence of the Teacher on their development as researchers. But at the same time, we know about Freud's stubborn unwillingness to even slightly change his views on libido as the only source of neuroses and unconscious impulses in human behavior. It is known that his unbridled passion for the study of the unconscious was not always safe for his patients.

Erich Fromm, in his book dedicated to Z. Freud, emphasizes the scientist's faith in reason: “This faith in the power of reason suggests that Freud was the son of the Enlightenment, whose motto - “Sapere aude” (“Dare to know”) - completely determined both Freud's personality and his works. I dare to answer him. Z. Freud's view of human nature, his discovery of the powerful influence of the unconscious on people's actions, included irrational phenomena in the human psyche in the sphere of attention of science. Even more than Z. Freud, his favorite student Carl Jung developed this trend. Moreover, Z. Freud made many of his discoveries in a state of altered consciousness caused by the use of cocaine. So, Sigmund Freud cannot be called a rational person, who perceives the world too one-dimensionally, as a typical heir to the Enlightenment era. In my opinion, he was rather a herald of the era about which Alexander Blok wrote:

And black earth blood
Promises us, inflating veins
Unheard of changes
Unseen riots.

At first glance, the life and career of the famous Austrian psychologist and psychotherapist is thoroughly studied, but the more you get acquainted with the works and biography of the scientist, the stronger the feeling of some kind of understatement and mystery arises. True, this feeling has some basis. For some reason, not all of Freud's letters have been published; his letters to his wife's sister Mina could have been made public as early as 2000, but they have not yet been published. The author of one of the biographical books about Z. Freud - Ferris Paul wrote:

The desire to preserve Freud's papers and keep curious researchers away from them led to the creation of an archive. Papers had to be kept under lock and key. Freud had to be protected from the humiliation of having his methods publicly applied to himself. This did not fit with the intrinsic goal of psychoanalysis—to find the truth behind the façade—but suited Freud's authoritarian personality well.

Indeed, the task of a biographer is to reveal the complex inner world of a scientist, while managing not to stoop to vulgar curiosity about the details of his personal life. But it is still necessary to identify the circumstances of his fate that are most significant for understanding the inner world of a great man. And today, just like the contemporaries of the famous psychiatrist many years ago, we mentally ask: so who are you, Dr. Freud?

family secrets

Sigmund Freud looked for the origins of neuroses, illnesses and life problems of patients in their childhood impressions. Perhaps they played an important role in the life of the scientist himself. He was born in 1856 into the family of a textile merchant. Freud's birthplace is the Czech town of Freiburg. As a child, he was called Sigismund, and only after moving to Vienna did the name of the famous psychiatrist acquire a more familiar sound for us - Sigmund. "Golden Siggy" - this is how his mother, Amalia Natanson, called her firstborn. By the way, a little-known fact - Amalia was from Odessa and lived in this city until the age of 16. Parents adored Sigmund, believed that the boy was surprisingly gifted. They were not mistaken, Sigmund Freud managed to graduate with honors from the gymnasium.

Where are the secrets? - may I ask. At first glance, everything is crystal clear with the childhood and youth of the scientist. But not many, for example, know that Freud's mother was the second wife of Jacob Freud, she was 20 years younger than her husband. He had children from his first marriage, and they were much older than Sigmund.

Little Sigmund was born an uncle. His nephew, named John, was a year older than his uncle. Since the struggle between the two children caused character traits Freud's later development, it is quite useful to mention these circumstances from the very beginning.

It is much less known that the marriage to the mother of the future famous psychiatrist was the third for Jakob Freud. Perhaps this fact was not advertised, since three marriages is already too much for a pious Jew. The name of Jacob's second wife is Rebecca, almost nothing is known about her, we find mention of her in a study of the biography of Sigmund Freud, undertaken by R. Gilhorn, R. Clark and R. Down. Valery Leybin, the author of The Psychopoetic Portrait of Sigmund Freud, suggests that this vague moment in the Freud family could have influenced the attitude towards little Sigmund's father. Like it or not, it is difficult to judge, but the fact that the informal leader in the family was the mother and it was her faith in her son, her ambitions for his brilliant future had a great influence on Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis himself admitted. Already becoming a famous scientist, he wrote:

I have become convinced that persons whom their mother singled out for some reason in childhood show in later life that special self-confidence and that unshakable optimism that often seems heroic and really keeps these subjects successful in life.

Childhood trauma of Sigmund Freud and the formation of the ideas of psychoanalysis

Were there other episodes in childhood that had a great influence on the "father of psychoanalysis"? Probably yes. The scientist himself analyzed his childhood experiences, the experience of introspection helped him to pull them to the surface of memory. And it was this that served as the basis for the formation of the ideas of classical psychoanalysis. For Z. Freud, he himself, his childhood traumas and unconscious experiences served as the object of study. In The Interpretation of Dreams, the scientist emphasized that a child in early childhood is absolutely selfish and strives to satisfy his needs, competing even with brothers and sisters.

When Sigmund was one year old, he had a brother - Julius, the baby did not live very long and died of an illness. A few months after the tragedy, Sigmund had an accident: a two-year-old child fell off a stool, his lower jaw hit the edge of the table so hard that the wound had to be stitched. The wound healed and everything was forgotten. But in the process of introspection, Freud had reason to consider this incident as self-harm. Little Sigmund was jealous of his mother for his brother, after the death of the baby, the child could not forgive himself for his jealousy, physical pain drowns out spiritual pain. This severe introspection allowed Freud to find the sources of neurosis in many patients.

The work “Psychopathology of Everyday Life” describes a case when a feeling of guilt towards her husband forced a young woman to unknowingly injure herself, the resulting emotional block caused a nervous illness. Although, at first glance, nothing indicated the victim's intentional actions - she just accidentally fell out of the carriage and broke her leg. In the process of psychoanalysis, Freud found out the circumstances that preceded the trauma: visiting relatives, a young woman demonstrated her art of performing the cancan. Everyone present was delighted, but the husband was very upset by the behavior of his wife, he said that she behaved "like a girl." The frustrated woman spent a sleepless night, and in the morning she wanted to ride in a carriage. She chose the horses herself, and during the trip she was constantly afraid that the horses would be frightened and the driver would lose control of them. As soon as something resembling this happened, she jumped out of the carriage and broke her leg, none of those in the carriage next to her were injured. So the young woman unconsciously punished herself, she could no longer dance the cancan. Fortunately, having managed to transfer mental trauma to a conscious level, Z. Freud cured a woman of a nervous disease.

So the childhood impressions and traumas of the great psychiatrist helped him both in creating the theory of psychoanalysis and in the successful treatment of patients.

Studying at the University

After successfully graduating from high school, Sigmund Freud entered the medical department of the University of Vienna. Medicine did not appeal to him, but the prejudice against the Jews was so great that the choice of further career was small: business, trade, law or medicine. So he connected his future with medicine simply by the method of elimination. Freud was more of a humanitarian mindset, he was fluent in French, English, Spanish and Italian, German was almost native to him. In his youth he was fond of reading the works of Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Kant. In the gymnasium, he received prizes for his literary works more than once.

At the university, Freud, in addition to his studies, was successfully engaged in scientific research, he described the previously unknown properties of the nerve cells of goldfish, studied the reproductive characteristics of the eel. In the same period, he made a fatal discovery - Freud began to use cocaine to treat certain diseases, he used it himself, since the effect of this substance significantly increased efficiency. Freud considered it almost a panacea, and refused to use cocaine only when it was proved that cocaine is addictive and has a devastating effect on a person.

Path choice

In 1881, Z. Freud received a medical degree and, after graduating from the university, began working at the Institute of Brain Anatomy. The future founder of psychoanalysis was not interested in practical medicine, he was much more interested in research activities. However, due to the low pay for scientific work, Freud decided to go into private practice as a neurologist. But fate decreed otherwise: a research scholarship received in 1885 allowed him to go to Paris and undergo an internship with Jean Charcot. Charcot was the most famous neurologist of that time, he successfully treated hysteria by putting patients into a hypnotic state. As you know, hysteria manifests itself in such somatic diseases as paralysis, deafness. So the Jean Charcot method helped save many people. And although Freud avoided using hypnosis in therapeutic treatment, Charcot's experience, his methodology significantly influenced the choice of the future path. Z. Freud stopped doing neurology and became a psychopathologist.

First love and marriage

It will seem strange, but Freud was an extremely shy person and considered himself not very attractive to the fair sex. Apparently, therefore, he did not have an intimate relationship with them until the age of 30. The more beautiful is the story of his first love. He met his future wife, Martha Bernays, by chance. A young doctor was crossing the street, in his hands he had a manuscript of a scientific article, suddenly a carriage appears from behind a turn, which almost knocks the absent-minded scientist off his feet. The pages of the manuscript crumble and fall into the mud. As soon as Freud decides to express his indignation, he sees a lovely woman's face with a desperately guilty expression. Sigmund Freud instantly changed his mood, he felt some strange excitement, completely beyond scientific explanation, he understood - this is love. And the carriage of a beautiful stranger sped off into the distance. True, the next day they brought him an invitation to the ball, where two surprisingly similar girls approached him - sisters Martha and Mina Bernays.

So he met his future wife, with whom he lived for more than 50 years. Despite everything (meaning a long romance with Martha's sister, Mina), in general it was a happy marriage, they had five children. Daughter Anna became the successor of her father's work.

First discoveries and lack of recognition

The eighties of the outgoing XIX century were very fruitful for Sigmund Freud. He began to collaborate with the famous Viennese psychiatrist Josef Breyer. Together they developed the method of free association, which has become a necessary part of psychoanalysis. This method was formed during the work of scientists on the study of the causes of hysteria and methods of its cure. In 1895, their joint book "Studies in Hysteria" was published. The authors see the cause of hysteria in repressed memories of once traumatized patients. tragic events. After the publication of the book, the cooperation of doctors was abruptly terminated, Breyer and Freud became enemies. The views of Z. Freud's biographers on the reasons for this gap are different. It is possible that Freud's theory of the sexual origins of hysteria was unacceptable to Brier, a biographer and student of the founder of psychoanalysis, Ernest Jones, adheres to this point of view.

Z. Freud wrote about himself: I have rather limited abilities or talents - I am not strong either in the natural sciences, or in mathematics, or in counting. But what I have, albeit in a limited form, is probably very intensively developed.

If I. Bayer's attitude to Z. Freud's theory of the sexual conditioning of mental disorders is not known for certain, then the members of the Vienna Medical Society absolutely definitely expressed their rejection of this theory, they excluded Z. Freud from their ranks. It was a difficult period for him, a period of lack of recognition from colleagues and loneliness. Although Freud's loneliness was extremely productive. He begins the practice of analyzing his dreams. His work The Interpretation of Dreams, published in 1900, was written on the basis of an analysis of his own dreams. But this work, which glorified the scientist in the future, was met with an extremely unfriendly and ironic reception. However, this book was not the cause of society's hostility to the scientist. In 1905 Z. Freud published the work "Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality". His conclusions about the exceptional influence of his sexual instincts on a person, the discovery of sexuality in children, caused a sharp rejection from the public. But what to do ... Freud's method of curing neurosis and hysteria worked perfectly. And gradually the scientific world abandoned its own hypocritical point of view. The ideas of Sigmund Freud won more and more supporters.

Founding of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society

In 1902, Freud and like-minded people created the Psychological Environment Society, and a little later, in 1908, the significantly expanded organization was renamed the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. Not long after the publication of The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud becomes a world-famous scientist. In 1909, he was invited to give a course of lectures at Clark University (USA), Freud's speeches were received very well, and he was awarded an honorary doctorate.

Yes, not everyone recognizes his theories, but such a somewhat scandalous fame only contributes to an increasing increase in the number of patients. Freud is surrounded by students and like-minded people: S. Ferenczi, O. Rank, E. Jones, K. Jung. And although many of them later parted with their teacher and founded their own schools, they all recognized the great importance for them both of the personality of Sigmund Freud and of his theory.

Eros and Thanatos

These two forces, according to Freud, govern man. Sexual energy is the energy of life. Thoughts about the destructive side of man, about his desire for self-destruction come to Freud during the First World War.

Despite his rather advanced age, Freud works in a hospital for the military, writes a number of significant works: Lectures on Introduction to Psychoanalysis, Beyond the Pleasure Principle. In 1923, the book "I and It" was published, in 1927 - "The Future of an Illusion", and in 1930 - "Civilization and those dissatisfied with it." In 1930, Freud received the Goethe Prize, which is awarded for literary achievement. No wonder his literary talent was noticed even in the gymnasium. After the Nazis came to power, Freud was unable to leave Vienna. The granddaughter of Napoleon Bonaparte, Marie Bonaparte, managed to save him from mortal danger. She paid Hitler a huge sum so that Sigmund Freud could leave Austria. Miraculously, his beloved daughter Anna was saved from the clutches of the Gestapo. The family was reunited in England.

The last years of Z. Freud's life were very difficult, he suffered from jaw cancer. He died on September 23, 1939.

Literature:

1. Wittels F. Freud. His personality, teaching, school. L., 1991.
2. Khjell L., Ziegler D. Personality Theories. Fundamentals, research and application. SPb., 1997.
3. Leibin W. Sigmund Freud. Psychopoetic portrait. M., 2006.
4. Stone I. Passions of the mind, or the life of Freud. M., 1994
5. Ferris Paul Sigmund Freud. - M: Potpourri, 2001. - S.241.
6. Freud Z. Autobiography // Z. Freud. Beyond the pleasure principle. M., 1992. S. 91-148.
7. Fromm E. Mission of Sigmund Freud. An analysis of his personality and influence. M., 1997.
8. Jones E. (1953). The life and work of Sigmund Freud. (Vol. 1, 1856-1900). The formative years and the great discoveries. New York: Basic Books., p. 119

Read 15592 once