Sigmund Freud
Psychologist · 1856-1939 · Psychology, stage 3: Meet the psychologists
Built a theory and a treatment on the claim that most of mental life is unconscious, and changed how the West talks about itself.
Overview
Sigmund Freud trained as a neurologist in Vienna and turned to the psychological treatment of patients whose symptoms had no detectable physical cause. From that clinical work he built psychoanalysis: the claim that unconscious conflict, much of it originating in childhood, produces symptoms, dreams, and slips, and that making the conflict conscious relieves it. He revised the theory repeatedly, moving from an early topographic division into conscious, preconscious, and unconscious to the later structural account of id, ego, and superego. His scientific standing is poor and has been for decades: the evidence is case material rather than controlled study, several published cases were reported more favourably than the outcomes warranted, and central claims are hard to state in a form that could be shown false. His cultural standing is the opposite, and terms he coined or popularised are now ordinary English. Start with The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, the most concrete of his books, then A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis for the system.
Where to start reading
The Interpretation of Dreams 1900
The book Freud regarded as his major work, arguing that dreams are disguised wish-fulfilments and setting out the method for reading them; it appeared in late 1899 with an 1900 imprint.
The Psychopathology of Everyday Life 1901
Slips of the tongue, forgotten names, and misplaced objects treated as meaningful rather than accidental; the most accessible of his books.
A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis 1917
Freud lecturing on his own system to a general audience, covering slips, dreams, and the theory of neurosis in order.
Part of
Sources
- Sigmund Freud Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyIncludes a sustained assessment of whether psychoanalysis meets scientific standards.
- Sigmund Freud Wikipedia
- The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis Classics in the History of Psychology, York UniversityFreud's 1910 Clark University lectures, his own short summary of how the theory came about.
