Un ragionamento filosofico

1. Sigmund Freud

2. In what period did he live?
 he lived between the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries, and this period was characterized by
several changes on subjects such as society, politics, science, the history of nations.
 In fact in Europe there were different ideologies: idealism, darwinism, the second industrial
revolution, comte positivism…
1820 1820-1821 1830-1842 1830-1831 1848 1859 1856-1939
died revolutionary Comte revolutionary m. Marx Darwin Freud
Hegel movements Course of Communist Origin of the
Positivisme Party poster species
Philosopy for natural selection

3. Who was he?
First of all we have to know that Freud was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of
psychoanalysis.
He created an entirely new approach to the understanding of the human personality.
Today he is regarded as one of the most influential - and controversial - minds of the
20th century.
… about his biography:
Sigismund, later changed to Sigmund, Freud was born on 6 May 1856 in Freiberg,
Moravia (now Pribor in the Czech Republic). His father was a merchant and for that
with his family moved to Vienna, where Freud was educated.
Freud's family were Jewish but he was himself non-practising.
For that, after the racist laws which were issued in 1938 he had to go out the country
and went to London, where he died a year later.

4. About his studies…
In 1873, Freud began to study medicine
at the University of Vienna. After
graduating, he worked at the Vienna
General Hospital and he collaborated
with Josef Breuer in treating hysteria by
the recall of painful experiences under
hypnosis.
In 1885, Freud went to Paris as a student
of the neurologist Jean Charcot. On his
return to Vienna the following year,
Freud set up in private practice,
specialising in nervous and brain
disorders. The same year he married
Martha Bernays, with whom he had six
children.

5.  Freud developed the theory that humans have an unconscious in
which sexual and aggressive impulses are in perpetual conflict
for supremacy with the defences against them. In 1897, he began
an intensive analysis of himself.
 In 1900, his major work 'The Interpretation of Dreams' was
published in which Freud analysed dreams in terms of
unconscious desires and experiences.
 In 1902, Freud was appointed Professor of Neuropathology at the
University of Vienna, a post he held until 1938.
 In 1910 he founded the International Psychoanalytic Association
with Carl Jung.

6.  After World War One, Freud spent less time
in clinical observation and concentrated on
the application of his theories to history,
art, literature and anthropology. In 1923, he
published 'The Ego and the Id', which
suggested a new structural model of the
mind, divided into the 'id, the 'ego' and the
'superego'.
 In 1933, the Nazis publicly burnt a number
of Freud's books. In 1938, shortly after the
Nazis annexed Austria, Freud left Vienna
for London with his wife and daughter
Anna.
 Freud had been diagnosed with cancer of
the jaw in 1923, and underwent more than
30 operations. He died of cancer on 23
September 1939.

7. The ID contains "primitive desires" (hunger,
rage and sex); the ID is the primitive and
instinctual part of the mind that contains
sexual and aggressive drives and hidden
memories. It is a completely unconcious
part of the mind and thus continues to
function even when we are asleep. The ID
works according to the pleasure principal, it
seeks instant gratification to its desires.
the SUPER-EGO contains internalized
norms, morality and taboos, which are
learned during the life by parents and
society. The super-ego operates as a moral
conscience;
the EGO mediates between the two and may
include or give rise to the sense of self. the
EGO is the realistic part that mediates
between the desire of the id and the super-
ego and the world.

9. THE EGO AS BALANCE
The EGO mediates between the ID,
the SUPER-EGO and the external
world. Its task is thus to find a
balance between primative drives,
morals and reality. Although in his
early writings Freud equated the ego
with the sense of self, he later began
to portray it more as a set of psychic
functions such as reality-testing,
defence, synthesis of information,
intellectual functioning, and memory.

10. Freud's Psychosexual Stages of Development
The theory of psychosexual development describes how personality develops during childhood. Freud
proposed that psychological development in childhood takes place during five psychosexual stages:
oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital.
These are called psychosexual stages because each stage represents the fixation of libido (roughly
translated as sexual drives or instincts) on a different area of the body. As a person grows physically
certain areas of their body become important as sources of potential frustration (erogenous zones),
pleasure or both.
Freud stressed that the first five years of life are crucial to the formation of adult personality. The id
must be controlled in order to satisfy social demands; this sets up a conflict between frustrated wishes
and social norms.
The ego and superego develop in order to exercise this control and direct the need for gratification
into socially acceptable channels.

11. Both frustration and overindulgence (or any combination of the
two) may lead to what psychoanalysts call fixation at a particular
psychosexual stage.
Early experiences play a large role in personality development
and continue to influence behavior later in life. If these
psychosexual stages are completed successfully, the result is a
healthy personality.

13. OEDIPUS COMPLEX
The most important aspect of the phallic stage is the Oedipus complex. This is one of Freud's most controversial
ideas and one that many people reject outright.
The name of the Oedipus complex derives from the Greek myth where Oedipus, a young man, kills his father and
marries his mother. Upon discovering this, he pokes his eyes out and becomes blind. This Oedipal is the generic (i.e.,
general) term for both Oedipus and Electra complexes.
In the young boy, the Oedipus complex or more correctly, conflict, arises because the boy develops sexual
(pleasurable) desires for his mother. He wants to possess his mother exclusively and get rid of his father to enable
him to do so.
Irrationally, the boy thinks that if his father were to find out about all this, his father would take away what he loves
the most. During the phallic stage what the boy loves most is his penis. Hence the boy develops castration anxiety.
The little boy then sets out to resolve this problem by imitating, copying and joining in masculine dad-type
behaviours. This is called identification, and is how the three-to-five year old boy resolves his Oedipus complex.
Identification means internally adopting the values, attitudes, and behaviours of another person. The consequence of
this is that the boy takes on the male gender role, and adopts an ego ideal and values that become the superego.
 Freud (1909) offered the Little Hans case study as evidence of the Oedipus complex.

15. ELECTRA COMPLEX
 For girls, the Oedipus or Electra complex is less than satisfactory. Briefly, the
girl desires the father, but realizes that she does not have a penis. This leads to
the development of penis envy and the wish to be a boy.
 The girl resolves this by repressing her desire for her father and substituting the
wish for a penis with the wish for a baby. The girl blames her mother for her
'castrated state,' and this creates great tension.
 The girl then represses her feelings (to remove the tension) and identifies with the
mother to take on the female gender role.

16. “The Interpretation of Dreams”
 Everybody dreams. We forget 90% of our dreams. We only dream of things we've
seen, heard of or experienced. We don't dream when we snore. About 30% of
people have experienced a precognitive dream.
 DURING THE DAY Superego control the ego or suppress the id.
 WHEN YOU SLEEP The ID needs a way to realease all the unacceptable desires.
If those primal desires cause psychological harm → the brain transcribes them to
symbolic forms INTERPRETATION.
 Common dream interpretations One or more teeth falling out, crumbling, rotting or
becoming loose: - How others perceive you. - Getting older. - Powerlessness. -...
Falling – usually down stairs, elevators or from the sky. - Lack of control. -
Feelings of failure or inferiority. Being partially or completely naked in public.
vulnerability, shamefulness and being exposed for who you are. self satisfaction
and unrestricted freedom, you are proud of who you are.