Traits of Sigmund Freud - Essay Example

In addition, the documentary explores various characters of Sigmund Freud. Through this documentary, the audience learns of Sigmund Freud as a stubborn, manipulative, and power-hungry individual obsessed with success.

Freud’s desire and obsession with success made him develop weird character traits. According to the documentary, Freud was an untouchable individual who attempts to succeed in the field of medicine by being calculative. These acts are evident when he falsified patient records and gave unnecessary drugs for various problems. He did all these to gain attention and recognition among the community and fellow medical practitioners. In addition, Freud did this to gain a massive following since he loved having disciples who believed in him but did not question his acts or thoughts.

Furthermore, the document describes Freud as a passionate lover of education, who began reading and studying at a tender age. His desire to succeed was facilitated by the presence of a lamp and a spacious personal bedroom in their house. Moreover, Freud had an exceptional performance in his early education. He regularly topped his class annually and mastered languages. He had various books that were well arranged on his private shelf. Besides, Freud was motivated to succeed and set new academic records because of his father’s mean comments that he would become nobody in life.

In addition, Freud was stubborn and hated listening to advice from people. For instance, despite many suggestions, he declined the pleas of many concerned individuals for him to quit chewing and smoking tobacco, which was harmful and resulted in his health. Even on his deathbed, he continued smoking and chewing tobacco. Furthermore, he refused invitations from various prestigious colleges and universities abroad. He used lame excuses such as inappropriate dates and poor timing for the call to reject their offers. Although he used these excuses, he had no problem with the dates, but only wanted to know his real value to the academic world and society at large.

The documentary gives an insight into the other side of Freud’s life that the world is unaware of. As the speaker exposes his early life, he criticizes Feud because of his character and behaviors that seemed unethical. However, I believe that nobody is perfect and thus, the speaker should not criticize Freud so much. Most scholars and legends who have made revolutionary contributions tend to have weird characters. Additionally, I like the desire that Freud had to attain success. Freud’s success is tied to his behaviors and abilities. Perhaps, if did not behave weirdly and pushed beyond limits to attain success, the world would have not had his major contributions to the field of psychology.