Sigmund Freud - Research Paper Example

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud was born in Austria on May 6, 1856. He excelled in many of his studies and attended medical school at the of Vienna. He earned his medical degree, but decided to specialize in psychiatry. At the time, there was no such thing as the field of psychology, but rather only the fields of neuroscience, anatomy, and psychiatry. He was the first person to come up with the field of psychoanalysis as well as one of the first to start the development of the field of traumatology.

Freud is considered to be the father of psychology in that all other theories derive from his psychoanalytic approach (Hergenhahn 475). The basis of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory was that everything was deterministic. Many of the fields of psychology did not exist yet, meaning that the psychology of that period was highly related to the biology and physiology which was studied. He postulated the existence of sexual energy, eros, and the death instinct, thanatos. He was the first to come up with the theories of personality: the id, ego, and superego.

Freud also pioneered in the fields of neuroticism in that our ego tries to compromise with the anxiety caused by the incongruence’s in life. He termed these actions reaction mechanisms such as displacement and repression. He also came up with the ideas behind dream therapy in that dreams were the “royal road to the unconscious”. This was also explained by the “Iceberg principle” in that a majority of the human consciousness, preconsciousness, and unconsciousness remains submerged and is many times inaccessible.

He further continued to add to the new field of psychology by focusing on what he called his stages of psychosexual development which consisted of the: oral, anal, phallic, latent, and genital stages. It was from these phases and being able to overcome these phases that personality develops (Corey 68-87). Freud also had many students which studied underneath him, most notably: Carl Jung and Alfred Adler. They derived their theories of Analytical Psychology and Individual Psychology, respectively, from the theories derived from Freud’s psychoanalysis (Benjamin 128).

Many other later theories were then derived from these therapies. As a result, all theories can find their origin traced back to Freud’s original theory of psychoanalysis which is still used today which is why he has earned the title of the father of psychology. Works Cited Benjamin, Ludy. A Brief History of Modern Psychology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 128. Print. Corey, Gerald. Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy. 6th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth , 2001. 68-87. Print.

Hergenhahn, BR. An introduction to the history of psychology. Thomson Wadsworth, 2005, p. 475. Print.