Speaking about Freud's biography, it is worth noting that he was born in 1856 and became the 3rd child in the family. His parents were engaged in the textile trade, which brought sufficient profit to the family.
When the revolution came, the Freuds had to leave their home. Freud loved to read serious literature since childhood. His library included such authors as Shakespeare, Nietzsche, Kant, Hegel. After the boy graduated from high school with flying colors, he began to think about his future profession. He was interested in such areas as medicine, industry, law. But the choice fell on medicine.
The decisive factor in the choice was a lecture on one of Goethe’s works “Nature”. During his student years, Sigmund published several interesting articles about the nervous system of animals. After graduating from university, Freud worked for a couple of years under the supervision of therapists. Then, since he needed to earn money somehow, he decided to open his own neuropathology office.
After university, Freud had a chance to try cocaine, its effects amazed Sigmund. As a result, the scientist himself became addicted to cocaine, from which he later long years, managed to recover. And Freud treated his clients with cocaine.
In 1885, Sigmund entered into an internship with Jean Charcot, a French psychiatrist. Charcot, one might say, taught Freud hypnosis, which Sigmund subsequently used in the treatment of illnesses. And even if it did not completely cure, it significantly weakened the severe course of the disease. Charcot showed Freud the severity of nervous diseases, hot flashes, intensity, as well as the differences between diseases.
Freud began to use the conversation technique, he talked with patients about their problems, which allowed him to better understand people's problems and help them find a way out.
Freud introduces two basic instincts “Eros” and “Thanatos”. “Eros” is love, in various senses of the word. “Tonatos” is the desire for death, either for oneself or for others.
The term “psychoanalysis” was first heard on March 30, 1896. In an article about the etiology of neuroses.
Freud gave introductory lectures on psychoanalysis at the University of Vienna. He's in the top five greatest geniuses humanity along with Spinoza, Einstein and others.
Sigmund Freud was the first to define the concept of psychosis, and he argued that the basis of psychosis is the Oedipus complex. Sigmund also wrote the book “The Interpretation of Dreams.” In his study of free association, Freud argued that the source of most neuroses was suppressed libido. The scientist also believed that sexual energy that had not found a way out could be directed toward sublimation.
Personal life of Sigmund Freud
For quite a long time, the scientist did not pay any attention to the opposite sex. But in 1886 he married Martha. And because he was selfish and before the wedding he told Martha not to communicate with her family at all. They lived together for 8 years, during which time six children were born. Of these, Anna Freud, the youngest of his children, continued her father’s work. Anna is the author of child psychoanalysis.
last years of life
In 1938, since Austria was annexed to Germany, there was a persecution of Jews from German side and Freud had to leave Germany, paying them 4 thousand dollars for leaving. And thanks to one of Freud’s students and patients, he managed to escape unharmed with his family to London.
Sigmund Freud (Freud; German: Sigmund Freud; full name: Sigismund Shlomo Freud, German: Sigismund Schlomo Freud). Born 6 May 1856 in Freiberg, Austrian Empire - died 23 September 1939 in London. Austrian psychologist, psychiatrist and neurologist.
Sigmund Freud is best known as the founder of psychoanalysis, which had a significant influence on psychology, medicine, sociology, anthropology, literature and art of the 20th century. Freud's views on human nature were innovative for his time and throughout the researcher's life they continued to cause resonance and criticism in the scientific community. Interest in the scientist’s theories continues to this day.
Among Freud's achievements, the most important are the development of a three-component structural model of the psyche (consisting of the “Id”, “I” and “Super-Ego”), the identification of specific phases of psychosexual personality development, the creation of the theory of the Oedipus complex, the discovery of functioning in the psyche defense mechanisms, the psychologization of the concept of “unconscious”, the discovery of transference and counter-transference, as well as the development of such therapeutic techniques as the method of free association and dream interpretation.
Despite the fact that the influence of Freud's ideas and personality on psychology is undeniable, many researchers consider his works to be intellectual quackery. Almost every postulate fundamental to Freudian theory has been criticized by prominent scientists and writers, such as Erich Fromm, Albert Ellis, Karl Kraus and many others. The empirical basis of Freud’s theory was called “inadequate” by Frederick Crews and Adolf Grünbaum, psychoanalysis was called “fraud” by Peter Medawar, Freud’s theory was considered pseudoscientific by Karl Popper, which did not stop, however, the outstanding Austrian psychiatrist and psychotherapist, director of the Vienna Neurological Clinic, from writing his fundamental work “ Theory and therapy of neuroses” admit: “And yet, it seems to me, psychoanalysis will be the foundation for the psychotherapy of the future... Therefore, the contribution made by Freud to the creation of psychotherapy does not lose its value, and what he did is incomparable.”
During his life, Freud wrote and published great amount scientific works - the complete collection of his works is 24 volumes. He held the titles of Doctor of Medicine, Professor, Honorary Doctor of Laws from Clark University and was a Foreign Fellow of the Royal Society of London, winner of the Goethe Prize, and an Honorary Fellow of the American Psychoanalytic Association, the French Psychoanalytic Society and the British Psychological Society. Many biographical books have been published not only about psychoanalysis, but also about the scientist himself. Each year, more works are published on Freud than on any other psychological theorist.
Sigmund Freud was born on May 6, 1856 in the small (about 4,500 inhabitants) town of Freiberg in Moravia, which at that time belonged to Austria. The street where Freud was born - Schlossergasse - now bears his name. Freud's paternal grandfather's name was Shlomo Freud; he died in February 1856, shortly before the birth of his grandson - it was in his honor that the latter was named.
Sigmund's father, Jacob Freud, was married twice and from his first marriage had two sons - Philip and Emmanuel (Emmanuel). He married for the second time at the age of 40 - to Amalia Nathanson, who was half his age. Sigmund's parents were Jews who came from Germany. Jacob Freud had his own modest textile trading business. Sigmund lived in Freiberg for the first three years of his life, until in 1859 the consequences of the industrial revolution in Central Europe dealt a crushing blow to small business his father, practically ruining him - as, indeed, almost the whole of Freiberg, which found itself in significant decline: after the restoration of the nearby railway, the city was experiencing a period of rising unemployment. In the same year, the Freud couple had a daughter, Anna.
The family decided to move and left Freiberg, moving to Leipzig - the Freuds spent only a year there and, without achieving significant success, moved to Vienna. Sigmund survived the move from his hometown quite hard - the forced separation from his hometown had a particularly strong impact on the child’s condition. stepbrother Philip, with whom he had close friendly relations: Philip even partially replaced Sigmund's father. The Freud family, being in a difficult financial situation, settled in one of the poorest areas of the city - Leopoldstadt, which at that time was a kind of Viennese ghetto, inhabited by the poor, refugees, prostitutes, gypsies, proletarians and Jews. Soon things began to improve for Jacob, and the Freuds were able to move to a more suitable place to live, although they could not afford luxury. At the same time, Sigmund became seriously interested in literature - he retained the love of reading, instilled by his father, for the rest of his life.
After graduating from high school, Sigmund doubted his future profession for a long time - his choice, however, was quite meager due to his social status and the anti-Semitic sentiment that reigned at that time and was limited to commerce, industry, law and medicine. The first two options were immediately rejected by the young man due to his high education; jurisprudence also faded into the background along with youthful ambitions in the field of politics and military affairs. Freud received the impetus to make a final decision from Goethe - one day, having heard the professor read an essay by the thinker entitled “Nature” at one of his lectures, Sigmund decided to enroll in the Faculty of Medicine. So, Freud’s choice fell on medicine, although he did not have the slightest interest in the latter - he subsequently admitted this more than once and wrote: “I did not feel any predisposition to practice medicine and the profession of a doctor,” and in later years He even said that he never felt “at ease” in medicine, and in general he never considered himself a real doctor.
In the fall of 1873, seventeen-year-old Sigmund Freud entered the medical faculty of the University of Vienna. The first year of study was not directly related to the subsequent specialty and consisted of many courses of a humanitarian nature - Sigmund attended numerous seminars and lectures, still not finally choosing a specialty to his taste. During this time, he experienced many difficulties associated with his nationality - due to the anti-Semitic sentiment that reigned in society, numerous clashes occurred between him and his classmates. Steadfastly enduring regular ridicule and attacks from his peers, Sigmund began to develop resilience of character, the ability to give a worthy rebuff in an argument and the ability to withstand criticism: “From early childhood I was forced to get used to the lot of being in opposition and being banned by “majority agreement.” Thus the foundations were laid for a certain degree of independence in judgment.".
Sigmund began to study anatomy and chemistry, but received the greatest pleasure from the lectures of the famous physiologist and psychologist Ernst von Brücke, who had a significant influence on him. In addition, Freud attended classes taught by the eminent zoologist Karl Klaus; acquaintance with this scientist opened up broad prospects for independent research practice and scientific work, to which Sigmund gravitated. The efforts of the ambitious student were crowned with success, and in 1876 he got the opportunity to carry out his first research work at the Institute of Zoological Research of Trieste, one of the departments of which was headed by Klaus. It was there that Freud wrote the first article published by the Academy of Sciences; it was devoted to identifying sex differences in river eels. While working under the leadership of Klaus “Freud quickly distinguished himself among other students, which allowed him to become a fellow of the Institute of Zoological Research of Trieste twice, in 1875 and 1876.”.
Freud remained interested in zoology, but after receiving a position as a research fellow at the Institute of Physiology, he became completely influenced by Brücke’s psychological ideas and moved to his laboratory for scientific work, leaving zoological research. “Under his [Brücke’s] leadership, student Freud worked at the Vienna Institute of Physiology, sitting for many hours at a microscope. ...He was never as happy as during the years spent in the laboratory studying the device nerve cells spinal cord of animals". Scientific work completely captured Freud; he studied, among other things, the detailed structure of animal and plant tissues and wrote several articles on anatomy and neurology. Here, at the Physiological Institute, in the late 1870s, Freud met the doctor Joseph Breuer, with whom he developed a strong friendship; Both of them had similar characters and a common outlook on life, so they quickly found mutual understanding. Freud admired Breuer's scientific talents and learned a lot from him: “He became my friend and helper in the difficult conditions of my existence. We are used to sharing all our scientific interests. Naturally, I received the main benefit from these relationships.”.
In 1881, Freud passed his final exams with excellent marks and received a doctorate, which, however, did not change his lifestyle - he remained to work in the laboratory under Brücke, hoping to eventually take the next vacant position and firmly associate himself with scientific work . Freud's supervisor, seeing his ambition and considering the financial difficulties he faced due to his family's poverty, decided to dissuade Sigmund from pursuing a research career. In one of his letters, Brücke noted: “Young man, you have chosen a path that leads to nowhere. There are no vacancies in the psychology department for the next 20 years, and you don’t have enough money to make a living. I don’t see any other solution: leave the institute and start practicing medicine.”. Freud heeded the advice of his teacher - to a certain extent this was facilitated by the fact that in the same year he met Martha Bernays, fell in love with her and decided to marry her; in connection with this, Freud needed money. Martha belonged to a Jewish family with rich cultural traditions - her grandfather, Isaac Bernays, was a rabbi in Hamburg, and his two sons, Michael and Jacob, taught at the Universities of Munich and Bonn. Martha's father, Berman Bernays, worked as a secretary for Lorenz von Stein.
Freud did not have sufficient experience to open a private practice - at the University of Vienna he acquired exclusively theoretical knowledge, while clinical practice had to be developed independently. Freud decided that the Vienna City Hospital was best suited for this. Sigmund started with surgery, but abandoned the idea after two months, finding the work too tedious. Deciding to change his field of activity, Freud switched to neurology, in which he was able to achieve certain success - studying methods for diagnosing and treating children with paralysis, as well as various speech disorders (aphasia), he published a number of works on these topics, which became known in scientific and medical circles. He owns the term “cerebral palsy” (now generally accepted). Freud gained a reputation as a highly qualified neurologist. At the same time, his passion for medicine quickly faded, and in the third year of work at the Vienna Clinic, Sigmund was completely disappointed in it.
In 1883, he decided to go to work in the psychiatric department, headed by Theodor Meynert, a recognized scientific authority in his field. The period of work under the leadership of Meynert was very productive for Freud - exploring the problems comparative anatomy and histology, he published such scientific works as “A case of cerebral hemorrhage with a complex of main indirect symptoms associated with scurvy” (1884), “On the question of the intermediate location of the olivid body”, “A case of muscle atrophy with extensive loss of sensitivity (impaired pain and temperature sensitivity)" (1885), "Complex acute neuritis of the nerves of the spinal cord and brain", "The origin of the auditory nerve", "Observation of severe unilateral loss of sensitivity in a patient with hysteria" (1886).
In addition, Freud wrote articles for the General medical dictionary"and created a number of other works devoted to cerebral hemiplegia in children and aphasia. For the first time in his life, work overwhelmed Sigmund and turned into a true passion for him. At the same time, the young man, who was striving for scientific recognition, felt a feeling of dissatisfaction with his work, since, in his own opinion, he had not achieved truly significant success; Freud's psychological state rapidly deteriorated, he was regularly in a state of melancholy and depression.
For a short time, Freud worked in the venereal division of the dermatology department, where he studied the connection between syphilis and diseases nervous system. Free time he devoted himself to laboratory research. In an effort to expand his practical skills as much as possible for further independent private practice, from January 1884 Freud moved to the department of nervous diseases. Soon after, a cholera epidemic broke out in Austria's neighboring Montenegro, and the country's government asked for help in providing medical control at the border - most of Freud's senior colleagues volunteered, and his immediate supervisor was on a two-month vacation at the time; Due to the prevailing circumstances, Freud held the position of chief physician of the department for a long time.
In 1884, Freud read about the experiments of a certain German military doctor with a new drug - cocaine. Scientific papers have included claims that this substance can increase endurance and significantly reduce fatigue. Freud became extremely interested in what he read and decided to conduct a series of experiments on himself.
The first mention of this substance by scientists is dated April 21, 1884 - in one of his letters Freud noted: “I have obtained some cocaine and will try to test its effects in cases of heart disease and also in cases of nervous exhaustion, especially in the terrible state of morphine withdrawal.”. The effect of cocaine made a strong impression on the scientist; he characterized the drug as an effective analgesic, making it possible to carry out the most complex surgical operations; An enthusiastic article about the substance came from the pen of Freud in 1884 and was called "About Coke". For a long time the scientist used cocaine as a painkiller, using it himself and prescribing it to his fiancée Martha. Admired by the “magical” properties of cocaine, Freud insisted on its use by his friend Ernst Fleischl von Marxow, who was seriously ill infectious disease, suffered amputation of a finger and suffered from severe headaches (and also suffered from morphine addiction).
Freud advised his friend to use cocaine as a cure for morphine abuse. The desired result was never achieved - von Marxov subsequently quickly became addicted to the new substance, and he began to have frequent attacks similar to delirium tremens, accompanied by terrible pain and hallucinations. At the same time, reports began to arrive from all over Europe about cocaine poisoning and addiction to it, about the disastrous consequences of its use.
However, Freud's enthusiasm did not diminish - he investigated cocaine as an anesthetic for various surgical operations. The result of the scientist’s work was a voluminous publication in the Central Journal general therapy"about cocaine, in which Freud outlined the history of the use of coca leaves by South American Indians, described the history of the plant's penetration into Europe and detailed the results of his own observations of the effect produced by the use of cocaine. In the spring of 1885, the scientist gave a lecture on this substance, in which he acknowledged the possible negative consequences of its use, but noted that he had not observed any cases of addiction (this happened before von Marxov’s condition worsened). Freud ended the lecture with the words: “I have no hesitation in recommending the use of cocaine in subcutaneous injections of 0.3-0.5 grams, without worrying about its accumulation in the body.”. Criticism was not long in coming - already in June the first major works, condemning Freud's position and proving its inconsistency. Scientific controversy regarding the advisability of using cocaine continued until 1887. During this period, Freud published several more works - “On the issue of studying the effects of cocaine” (1885), "On the General Effects of Cocaine" (1885), "Cocaine addiction and cocaine phobia" (1887).
By the beginning of 1887, science had finally debunked the latest myths about cocaine - it “was publicly condemned as one of the scourges of mankind, along with opium and alcohol.” Freud, by that time already a cocaine addict, suffered from headaches, heart attacks and frequent nosebleeds until 1900. It is noteworthy that the destructive impact dangerous substance Freud not only experienced it himself, but also unwittingly (since at that time the harmfulness of cocaine addiction had not yet been proven) spread it to many acquaintances. E. Jones stubbornly hid this fact of his biography and preferred not to highlight it, but this information became reliably known from published letters in which Jones stated: “Before the dangers of drugs were identified, Freud was already a social menace, as he pushed everyone he knew to take cocaine.”.
In 1885, Freud decided to take part in a competition held among junior doctors, the winner of which received the right to a scientific internship in Paris with the famous psychiatrist Jean Charcot.
In addition to Freud himself, there were many promising doctors among the applicants, and Sigmund was by no means the favorite, as he was well aware of; his only chance was the help of influential professors and scientists in academic circles with whom he had previously had the opportunity to work. Enlisting the support of Brücke, Meynert, Leydesdorff (in his private clinic for the mentally ill, Freud briefly replaced one of the doctors) and several other scientists he knew, Freud won the competition, receiving thirteen votes in his support against eight. The chance to study under Charcot was a great success for Sigmund; he had great hopes for the future in connection with the upcoming trip. So, shortly before leaving, he enthusiastically wrote to his bride: “Little Princess, my little Princess. Oh, how wonderful it will be! I’ll come with money... Then I’ll go to Paris, become a great scientist and return to Vienna with a big, simply huge halo over my head, we’ll get married right away, and I’ll cure all the incurable neurotic patients.”.
In the autumn of 1885, Freud arrived in Paris to see Charcot, who at that time was at the zenith of his fame. Charcot studied the causes and treatment of hysteria. In particular, the neurologist's main work was to study the use of hypnosis - the use of this method allowed him to both induce and eliminate such hysterical symptoms as paralysis of the limbs, blindness and deafness. Under Charcot, Freud worked at the Salpêtrière clinic. Inspired by Charcot's methods of work and amazed by his clinical successes, he offered his services as a translator of his mentor's lectures on German, for which I received his permission.
In Paris, Freud became interested in neuropathology, studying the differences between patients who experienced paralysis due to physical trauma and those who developed symptoms of paralysis due to hysteria. Freud was able to establish that hysterical patients vary greatly in the severity of paralysis and the location of the injuries, and also revealed (with the help of Charcot) the presence of certain connections between hysteria and problems of a sexual nature. At the end of February 1886, Freud left Paris and decided to spend some time in Berlin, having the opportunity to study childhood diseases at the clinic of Adolf Baginsky, where he spent several weeks before returning to Vienna.
On September 13 of the same year, Freud married his beloved Martha Bernay, who subsequently bore him six children - Matilda (1887-1978), Martin (1889-1969), Oliver (1891-1969), Ernst (1892-1966), Sophie ( 1893-1920) and Anna (1895-1982). After returning to Austria, Freud began working at the institute under the direction of Max Kassovitz. He was engaged in translations and reviews of scientific literature, and conducted a private practice, mainly working with neurotics, which “urgently put on the agenda the question of therapy, which was not so relevant for scientists engaged in research activities.” Freud knew about the successes of his friend Breuer and the possibilities of successfully using his “cathartic method” for treating neuroses (this method was discovered by Breuer while working with the patient Anna O, and was later reused together with Freud and was first described in Studies on Hysteria). , but Charcot, who remained an indisputable authority for Sigmund, was very skeptical about this technique. Own experience suggested to Freud that Breuer's research was very promising; Beginning in December 1887, he increasingly resorted to the use of hypnotic suggestion when working with patients.
While working with Breuer, Freud gradually began to realize the imperfection of the cathartic method and hypnosis in general. In practice, it turned out that its effectiveness was not nearly as high as Breuer claimed, and in some cases the treatment did not bring results at all - in particular, hypnosis was not able to overcome the patient's resistance, expressed in the suppression of traumatic memories. Often there were patients who were not at all suitable for induction into a hypnotic state, and the condition of some patients worsened after the sessions. Between 1892 and 1895, Freud began searching for another method of treatment that would be more effective than hypnosis. To begin with, Freud tried to get rid of the need to use hypnosis, using a methodological trick - pressing on the forehead in order to suggest to the patient that he must remember events and experiences that had previously taken place in his life. The main task that the scientist solved was to obtain the required information about the patient’s past in his normal (and not hypnotic) state. The use of the palm overlay had some effect, allowing one to move away from hypnosis, but it still remained an imperfect technique, and Freud continued to search for a solution to the problem.
The answer to the question that so occupied the scientist turned out to be quite accidentally suggested by a book by one of Freud’s favorite writers, Ludwig Börne. His essay “The Art of Becoming an Original Writer in Three Days” ended with the words: “Write everything that you think about yourself, about your successes, about the Turkish war, about Goethe, about the criminal trial and its judges, about your bosses - and in three days you will be amazed at how much completely new, unknown things lie hidden in you ideas for you". This idea prompted Freud to use the entire array of information that clients reported about themselves in dialogues with him as a key to understanding their psyche.
Subsequently, the method of free association became the main method in Freud's work with patients. Many patients have reported that doctor pressure—the persistent pressure to “talk out” every thought that comes to mind—makes it difficult for them to concentrate. That is why Freud abandoned the “methodological trick” of pressing the forehead and allowed his clients to say whatever they wanted. The essence of the free association technique is to follow the rule according to which the patient is invited to freely, without concealment, express his thoughts on the topic proposed by the psychoanalyst, without trying to concentrate. Thus, according to Freud's theoretical principles, thought will unconsciously move towards what is significant (what worries), overcoming resistance due to lack of concentration. From Freud's point of view, no emerging thought is random - it is always a derivative of the processes that occurred (and are occurring) with the patient. Any association can become fundamentally important for establishing the causes of the disease. The use of this method made it possible to completely abandon the use of hypnosis in sessions and, according to Freud himself, served as an impetus for the formation and development of psychoanalysis.
The result of the joint work of Freud and Breuer was the publication of the book "Studies in Hysteria" (1895). The main clinical case described in this work - the case of Anna O - gave impetus to the emergence of one of the most important ideas for Freudianism - the concept of transference (this idea first arose in Freud when he was thinking about the case of Anna O, who was a patient at that time Breuer, who told the latter that she was expecting a child from him and imitated childbirth in a state of insanity), and also formed the basis of later ideas about the Oedipus complex and infantile (childish) sexuality. Summarizing the data obtained during the collaboration, Freud wrote: “Our hysterical patients suffer from memories. Their symptoms are remnants and symbols of memories of known (traumatic) experiences.". The publication of “Studies in Hysteria” is called by many researchers the “birthday” of psychoanalysis. It is worth noting that by the time the work was published, Freud’s relationship with Breuer had completely broken down. The reasons for the divergence of scientists in professional views to this day remain not entirely clear; Freud's close friend and biographer Ernest Jones believed that Breuer categorically did not accept Freud's views on the important role of sexuality in the etiology of hysteria, and this was the main reason for their breakup.
Many respected Viennese doctors - Freud's mentors and colleagues - turned their backs on him following Breuer. The statement that it is precisely repressed memories (thoughts, ideas) of a sexual nature that underlie hysteria provoked a scandal and formed an extremely negative attitude to Freud from the intellectual elite. At the same time, the scientist began to develop a long-term friendship with Wilhelm Fliess, a Berlin otolaryngologist who attended his lectures for some time. Fliess soon became very close to Freud, rejected by the academic community, having lost old friends and desperately in need of support and understanding. Friendship with Fliss turned into a true passion for him, comparable to his love for his wife.
On October 23, 1896, Jacob Freud died, whose death Sigmund felt especially acutely: against the background of Freud’s despair and feeling of loneliness, neurosis began to develop. It was for this reason that Freud decided to apply analysis to himself, examining childhood memories using the method of free association. This experience laid the foundations of psychoanalysis. None of the previous methods was suitable for achieving the desired result, and then Freud turned to the study of his own dreams.
In the period from 1897 to 1899, Freud worked intensively on the work that he later considered his most important work - “The Interpretation of Dreams” (1900, German: Die Traumdeutung). An important role in preparing the book for publication was played by Wilhelm Fliess, to whom Freud sent the written chapters for evaluation - it was at Fliess’s suggestion that many details were removed from the Interpretation. Immediately after its publication, the book did not have any significant impact on the public and received only minor fame. The psychiatric community generally ignored the release of The Interpretation of Dreams. The importance of this work for the scientist throughout his life remained undeniable - for example, in the preface to the third English edition in 1931, seventy-five-year-old Freud wrote: “This book... in full accordance with my current ideas... contains the most valuable of the discoveries that favorable fate has allowed me to make. Insights of this kind fall to a person’s lot, but only once in a lifetime.”.
According to Freud, dreams have manifest and latent content. Explicit content is directly what a person talks about when remembering his dream. The hidden content is a hallucinatory fulfillment of some desire of the dreamer, masked by certain visual pictures with the active participation of the I, which seeks to bypass the censorship restrictions of the Superego, which suppresses this desire. The interpretation of dreams, according to Freud, is that on the basis of free associations that are sought for individual parts of dreams, it is possible to evoke certain substitute ideas that open the way to the true (hidden) content of the dream. Thus, thanks to the interpretation of dream fragments, its general meaning is recreated. The process of interpretation is the “translation” of the explicit content of a dream into those hidden thoughts that initiated it.
Freud expressed the opinion that the images perceived by the dreamer are the result of dream work, expressed in displacement (unimportant ideas acquire a high value originally inherent in another phenomenon), condensation (in one idea many meanings formed through associative chains coincide) and substitution (replacement specific thoughts with symbols and images) that transform the latent content of a dream into explicit. A person's thoughts are transformed into certain images and symbols through the process of visual and symbolic representation - in relation to dreams, Freud called this the primary process. Further, these images are transformed into some meaningful content (the plot of the dream appears) - this is how it functions recycling(secondary process). However, secondary processing may not occur - in this case, the dream turns into a stream of strangely intertwined images, becomes abrupt and fragmentary.
Despite the very cool reaction of the scientific community to the release of The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud gradually began to form around himself a group of like-minded people who became interested in his theories and views. Freud began to be occasionally accepted in psychiatric circles, sometimes using his techniques in his work; medical journals began to publish reviews of his works. Since 1902, the scientist regularly hosted doctors, artists and writers interested in the development and dissemination of psychoanalytic ideas in his home. The weekly meetings were started by one of Freud's patients, Wilhelm Stekel, who had previously successfully completed his course of treatment for neurosis; It was Stekel, in one of his letters, who invited Freud to meet at his house to discuss his work, to which the doctor agreed, inviting Stekel himself and several particularly interested listeners - Max Kahane, Rudolf Reuther and Alfred Adler.
The formed club was named "Psychological Society on Wednesdays"; its meetings were held until 1908. In six years the society has acquired enough big amount listeners, the composition of which changed regularly. It steadily gained popularity: “It turned out that psychoanalysis gradually aroused interest in itself and found friends, and proved that there are scientific workers ready to recognize it.”. Thus, the members of the “Psychological Society” who subsequently received the greatest fame were Alfred Adler (a member of the society since 1902), Paul Federn (from 1903), Otto Rank, Isidor Sadger (both from 1906), Max Eitingon, Ludwig Biswanger and Karl Abraham (all from 1907), Abraham Brill, Ernest Jones and Sandor Ferenczi (all from 1908). On April 15, 1908, the society was reorganized and received a new name - the “Vienna Psychoanalytic Association”.
The time of development of the Psychological Society and the growing popularity of the ideas of psychoanalysis coincided with one of the most productive periods in Freud's work - his books were published: “The Psychopathology of Everyday Life” (1901, which examines one of the important aspects of the theory of psychoanalysis, namely slips of the tongue), “Wit and its relation to the unconscious” and “Three essays on the theory of sexuality” (both 1905). Freud's popularity as a scientist and medical practitioner grew steadily: “Freud’s private practice grew so large that it took up the entire working week. Very few of his patients, then or later, were residents of Vienna. Most patients came from of Eastern Europe: Russia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, etc.”.
Freud's ideas began to gain popularity abroad - interest in his works manifested itself especially clearly in the Swiss city of Zurich, where, since 1902, psychoanalytic concepts were actively used in psychiatry by Eugen Bleuler and his colleague Carl Gustav Jung, who were engaged in research on schizophrenia. Jung, who highly valued Freud's ideas and admired him himself, published The Psychology of Dementia Praecox in 1906, which was based on his own developments of Freud's concepts. The latter, having received this work from Jung, rated it quite highly, and a correspondence began between the two scientists that lasted almost seven years. Freud and Jung first met in person in 1907 - the young researcher greatly impressed Freud, who, in turn, believed that Jung was destined to become his scientific heir and continue the development of psychoanalysis.
In 1908, an official psychoanalytic congress took place in Salzburg - rather modestly organized, it took only one day, but was in fact the first international event in the history of psychoanalysis. Among the speakers, in addition to Freud himself, there were 8 people who presented their work; the meeting attracted only 40-odd listeners. It was during this speech that Freud first presented one of the five main clinical cases - the case history of the “Rat Man” (also translated as “The Man with Rats”), or the psychoanalysis of obsessive-compulsive neurosis. The real success that opened the way for psychoanalysis to international recognition was Freud's invitation to the United States - in 1909, Granville Stanley Hall invited him to give a course of lectures at Clark University (Worcester, Massachusetts).
Freud's lectures were received with great enthusiasm and interest, and the scientist was awarded an honorary doctorate. More and more patients from all over the world turned to him for consultations. Upon his return to Vienna, Freud continued to publish, publishing several works, including The Family Romance of Neurotics and Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy. Encouraged by the successful reception in the United States and the growing popularity of psychoanalysis, Freud and Jung decided to organize a second psychoanalytic congress, held in Nuremberg on March 30–31, 1910. The scientific part of the congress was successful, unlike the unofficial one. On the one hand, the International Psychoanalytic Association was established, but at the same time, Freud's closest associates began to divide into opposing groups.
Despite the disagreements within the psychoanalytic community, Freud did not stop his own scientific work - in 1910 he published Five Lectures on Psychoanalysis (which he read at Clark University) and several other small works. In the same year, the book “Leonardo da Vinci. Childhood memories”, dedicated to the great Italian artist.
After the second psychoanalytic congress in Nuremberg, the conflicts that had been brewing by that time escalated to the limit, marking the beginning of a split in the ranks of Freud’s closest associates and colleagues. The first to leave Freud's inner circle was Alfred Adler, whose disagreements with the founding father of psychoanalysis began in 1907, when his work “A Study of Organ Inferiority” was published, which caused the indignation of many psychoanalysts. In addition, Adler was greatly disturbed by the attention that Freud paid to his protégé Jung; in this regard, Jones (who characterized Adler as “a gloomy and captious man, whose behavior fluctuates between grumpiness and sullenness”) wrote: “Any unchecked childhood complexes could find expression in rivalry and jealousy for his [Freud’s] favor. The demand to be a “favorite child” also had an important material motive, since the economic position of young analysts largely depended on the patients whom Freud could refer to them.. Due to the preferences of Freud, who placed the main emphasis on Jung, and Adler’s ambition, the relationship between them rapidly deteriorated. At the same time, Adler constantly quarreled with other psychoanalysts, defending the priority of his ideas.
Freud and Adler disagreed on a number of points. Firstly, Adler considered the desire for power to be the main motive determining human behavior, while Freud assigned the main role to sexuality. Secondly, the emphasis in Adler’s personality studies was placed on a person’s social environment - Freud paid most attention to the unconscious. Thirdly, Adler considered the Oedipus complex to be a fabrication, and this completely contradicted Freud's ideas. However, while rejecting the ideas fundamental to Adler, the founder of psychoanalysis recognized their importance and partial validity. Despite this, Freud was forced to expel Adler from the psychoanalytic society, obeying the demands of the rest of its members. Adler's example was followed by his closest ally and friend Wilhelm Stekel.
A short time later, Carl Gustav Jung also left the circle of Freud's closest associates - their relationship was completely spoiled by differences in scientific views; Jung did not accept Freud's position that repressions are always explained by sexual trauma, and besides, he was actively interested in mythological images, spiritualistic phenomena and occult theories, which greatly irritated Freud. Moreover, Jung disputed one of the main provisions of Freudian theory: he considered the unconscious not an individual phenomenon, but the heritage of the ancestors - all people who have ever lived in the world, that is, he considered it as "collective unconscious".
Jung did not accept Freud's views on libido: if for the latter this concept meant psychic energy fundamental to the manifestations of sexuality aimed at various objects, then for Jung libido was simply a designation total voltage. The final break between the two scientists occurred after the publication of Jung's Symbols of Transformation (1912), which criticized and challenged Freud's basic postulates, and turned out to be extremely painful for both of them. In addition to the fact that Freud lost a very close friend, differences in views with Jung, in whom he initially saw a successor, a continuator of the development of psychoanalysis, were a strong blow for him. The loss of support from the entire Zurich school also played a role - with the departure of Jung, the psychoanalytic movement lost a number of talented scientists.
In 1913, Freud completed a long and very complex work on his fundamental work "Totem and Taboo". “Not since I wrote The Interpretation of Dreams have I worked on anything with such confidence and enthusiasm.”, he wrote about this book. Among other things, the work devoted to the psychology of primitive peoples was considered by Freud as one of the largest scientific counter-arguments to the Zurich school of psychoanalysis led by Jung: “Totem and Taboo,” according to the author, was supposed to finally separate his inner circle from the dissidents.
The First World War began, and Vienna fell into decay, which naturally affected Freud’s practice. The scientist's economic situation rapidly deteriorated, as a result of which he developed depression. The newly formed Committee turned out to be the last circle of like-minded people in Freud’s life: “We became the last comrades he was ever destined to have,” recalled Ernest Jones. Freud, who was experiencing financial difficulties and had sufficient free time due to the decreased number of patients, resumed his scientific work: “Freud withdrew into himself and turned to scientific work. ...Science personified his work, his passion, his relaxation and was a saving grace from external adversities and internal experiences.” The following years became very productive for him - in 1914, the works “Michelangelo’s Moses”, “An Introduction to Narcissism” and “Essay on the History of Psychoanalysis” came out from his pen. At the same time, Freud worked on a series of essays that Ernest Jones calls the deepest and most important in the scientist’s scientific work - these are “The Drives and Their Fate”, “Repression”, “The Unconscious”, “Metapsychological Addition to the Doctrine of Dreams” and “Sadness and Melancholy "
During the same period, Freud returned to the previously abandoned concept of "metapsychology" (the term was first used in a letter to Fliess in 1896). It became one of the key ones in his theory. By the word “metapsychology” Freud understood the theoretical foundation of psychoanalysis, as well as a specific approach to the study of the psyche. According to the scientist, a psychological explanation can be considered complete (that is, “metapsychological”) only if it establishes the presence of a conflict or connection between the levels of the psyche (topography), determines the amount and type of energy expended (economics) and the balance of forces in consciousness, which can be aimed at working together or confront each other (dynamics). A year later, the work “Metapsychology” was published, explaining the main provisions of his teaching.
With the end of the war, Freud's life only changed for the worse - he was forced to spend the money he had saved for his old age, there were even fewer patients, one of his daughters, Sophia, died of the flu. Nevertheless, scientific activity The scientist’s work did not stop - he wrote the works “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” (1920), “Psychology of the Masses” (1921), “I and It” (1923).
In April 1923, Freud was diagnosed with a tumor of the palate; the operation to remove it was unsuccessful and almost cost the scientist his life. Subsequently, he had to undergo another 32 operations. Soon the cancer began to spread, and Freud had part of his jaw removed - from that moment on, he used an extremely painful prosthesis that left non-healing wounds, in addition to which it also prevented him from speaking. The darkest period in Freud's life began: he could no longer give lectures because his audience did not understand him. Until his death, his daughter Anna took care of him: “It was she who went to congresses and conferences, where she read out the texts of speeches prepared by her father.” The series of sad events for Freud continued: at the age of four, his grandson Heinele (the son of the late Sophia) died of tuberculosis, and some time later his close friend Karl Abraham died; Freud began to be overcome by sadness and grief, and words about his own approaching death began to appear more and more often in his letters.
In the summer of 1930, Freud was awarded the Goethe Prize for his significant contribution to science and literature, which brought great satisfaction to the scientist and contributed to the spread of psychoanalysis in Germany. However, this event was overshadowed by another loss: at the age of ninety-five, Freud’s mother Amalia died of gangrene. The most terrible trials for the scientist were just beginning - in 1933, Adolf Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany, and National Socialism became the state ideology. The new government adopted a number of discriminatory laws directed against Jews, and books that contradicted Nazi ideology were destroyed. Along with the works of Heine, Marx, Mann, Kafka and Einstein, the works of Freud were also banned. The Psychoanalytic Association was dissolved by government order, many of its members were persecuted, and its funds were confiscated. Many of Freud's associates persistently suggested that he leave the country, but he flatly refused.
In 1938, after the annexation of Austria to Germany and the subsequent persecution of Jews by the Nazis, Freud's situation became significantly more complicated. After the arrest of his daughter Anna and interrogation by the Gestapo, Freud decided to leave the Third Reich and go to England. It turned out to be difficult to implement the plan: in exchange for the right to leave the country, the authorities demanded an impressive amount of money, which Freud did not have. The scientist had to resort to the help of influential friends to obtain permission to emigrate. Thus, his longtime friend William Bullitt, then the US Ambassador to France, interceded on Freud's behalf with President Franklin Roosevelt. The German ambassador to France, Count von Welzeck, also joined the petitions. Through joint efforts, Freud received the right to leave the country, but the issue of “debt to the German government” remained unresolved. Freud was helped to resolve it by his longtime friend (as well as patient and student) Marie Bonaparte, Princess of Greece and Denmark, who lent the necessary funds.
In the summer of 1939, Freud suffered especially greatly from a progressive illness. The scientist turned to Dr. Max Schur, who was caring for him, recalling his earlier promise to help him die. At first Anna, who never left her sick father’s side, resisted his wishes, but soon agreed. On September 23, Schur injected Freud with several cubes of morphine - a dose sufficient to terminate the life of an old man weakened by illness. At three o'clock in the morning, Sigmund Freud died. The scientist's body was cremated in Golders Green, and the ashes were placed in an ancient Etruscan vase given to Freud by Marie Bonaparte. A vase containing the scientist's ashes stands in the Ernest George Mausoleum in Golders Green.
On the night of January 1, 2014, unknown persons snuck into the crematorium where a vase containing the ashes of Martha and Sigmund Freud stood and broke it. Now the London police have taken up the matter. The caretakers of the crematorium moved the vase with the ashes of the couple to a safe place. The reasons for the attacker's action are not clear.
Works of Sigmund Freud:
1899 Interpretation of Dreams
1901 Psychopathology of everyday life
1905 Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
1913 Totem and Taboo
1920 Beyond the pleasure principle
1921 Psychology of masses and analysis of the human “I”
1927 The Future of an Illusion
1930 Cultural Discontent
Sigmund Freud with his daughter PHOTO Getty Images
Sigmund Freud left not only a unique legacy that influenced many areas of human activity, but also many speculations related to his personality and his discoveries. He was a pioneer who was not afraid to look into the dark recesses of human consciousness and expose our deepest fears and desires. However, with his qualities and way of life, Freud can disappoint those who seek his own weaknesses and vices. Here are some facts from his biography.
1. I dreamed of becoming a hero
Since childhood, Freud identified himself with the brave commanders Hannibal and Cromwell 1. Once an old peasant woman predicted Freud's fame, telling his mother that she had given life to a great man. He later heard similar predictions more than once. And although Freud himself recalled the prophecies with skepticism, he always had faith in his higher destiny, which he strove for with early years. Faith endowed him with the necessary determination and perseverance, helping him overcome long years of scientific oblivion, loneliness and search, rewarding him with the predicted and rightfully deserved greatness. But, even having reached the pinnacle of fame, he did not change his moral principles until the end of his days, remaining a sensitive, vulnerable and self-critical person. In his works, the scientific idea stands much higher than personal ambitions.
2. Grew up in a religious environment
Freud considered himself a convinced atheist, which is often cited as an argument for his godlessness and depravity, allegedly explaining his craving for primitive sexual theories. However, we should not forget that atheism was a forced form of confrontation between medicine and science of that era and religion, which was alien to scientific explanations and progress. Freud grew up in a religious environment and was very sensitive to his roots, culture and traditions. In his revelations, Freud admitted that he often had internal dialogues with God and lamented that if he were as religious as his brothers, he would be able to endure adversity and illness more easily. Freud's so-called atheism is full of sentimentality and sadness, inspired by a feeling of loneliness and awareness of the miserable existence of man. He came to an understanding of what, among other things, through introspection.
3. Tested my theory on myself
Freud had great respect for his teachers and colleagues, who gave him food for thought and created the conditions in which the first ideas of psychoanalysis were born. But none of those who in any way encouraged Freud to study the human subconscious, personally managed or wanted to systematize their observations or devote their activities to a serious and thorough study of this topic. Freud not only managed to painstakingly put together and put into practice the concept of psychoanalysis, he was also the first and only scientist who subjected himself to honest and self-reproaching psychoanalysis. None of his critics, who built their theories based, in particular, on his teaching, dared to take such a step.
4. I valued clarity of mind more than life.
Freud suffered from a malignant tumor of the jaw and underwent more than 30 painful operations during the last 16 years of his life. As he admitted, it was extremely difficult for him to lose the opportunity to fully practice and work. Thoughts of suicide were frequent, but the support of loved ones and willpower forced him to continue to live and fight. Despite years of debilitating physical suffering, he continued to refuse painkillers for the same reason - maintaining clarity of mind. And only in the later stages of the disease, being already completely exhausted, he resorted to the help of his attending physician, who gave him a lethal dose of morphine. In essence, it was euthanasia, which Freud deliberately agreed upon.
5. Forgave the stolen glory
Freud had high hopes for cocaine as a possible drug to relieve fatigue and combat depression. But from the bitter experience of his close friends, he became convinced that cocaine was fraught with terrible danger. Nevertheless, thanks to experiments, including on himself, he was the first to discover and describe the previously unknown properties of cocaine as an analgesic drug, which has found wide application in ophthalmology, in local anesthesia eyes. But one of his young colleagues took advantage of his discovery and passed it off as his own. Freud came to terms with someone else's fame, believing that he needed it more, and did not break up with his colleague. Freud knew how to forgive, believing that goodwill and personal decency are above quarrels and insults.
6. He received salvation from Nazism from the hands of... a Nazi
In 1938, after the annexation of Austria to Germany and the subsequent persecution of Jews by the Nazis, Freud's situation became significantly more complicated. His loyal students begged him to leave Nazi-occupied Vienna, but he considered this cowardice, and only the arrest of his beloved daughter Anna made him come to his senses and agree to the support of influential people. They stood up for his life American President Roosevelt, British diplomats, and, they say, even Stalin did not stand aside. The decision depended on only one person - Adolf Hitler. He was persuaded to let Freud go by a longtime admirer of the scientist’s works and a close friend of the Fuhrer, Mussolini. Hitler could not refuse him. However, the last significant contribution was made by Napoleon's granddaughter Marie 2. So Freud and his family were taken to London, where he found his short-lived, final refuge. It is noteworthy that Hitler soon ordered Freud to be captured as soon as Britain was defeated for his statements in support of the Czech Republic.
7. He was the first to declare the sensual nature of women
Freud avoided excessive publicity and stories about his personal life. This secrecy became the basis for intriguing fictions and false sensations. In fact, Freud, not deprived of female attention, adhered to strict, puritanical views. And he warned his students about the dangers of psychoanalysis, about the vulnerability of patients. Many of these nervous and ardent women willingly shared their sexual fantasies, and some were not averse to crossing the boundaries of what was permitted and making them come true. Few of Freud's students resisted temptation, which he sincerely worried about. Interestingly, some feminists accused Freud of being too patriarchal. Despite the fact that patriarchy in his times, especially in science, was almost fundamental. Meanwhile, Freud was the first to declare the sensual nature of women, which women themselves were embarrassed to admit and which men were embarrassed to talk about.
Eduard Maron, psychiatrist, doctor of medical sciences, professor of psychopharmacology at the University of Tartu (Estonia), honorary lecturer at Imperial College London, author of the novel “Sigmund Freud” (AST, 2015, under the pseudonym David Messer).
1 Read about this in the book: E. Jones “The Life and Works of Sigmund Freud” (Science, 1997).
If it were not for Martha, the wife of the famous Sigmund Freud, there would, in essence, not have been the pioneer of psychoanalysis. Without her revelations, the popular opinion would continue to exist: that Freud, who explained the most secret passions of people, was himself an impassive person. Alas!
And biographers established this. It was they who brought, or rather, began to bring Martha, who had lived with Sigmund for more than half a century, out of the shadows. While living with him, she tried not to show herself, believing that the best wife is the one about whom people talk very little. Scientists led by Katya Berchling-Fischer have rummaged through the Freud family archives and found hundreds of letters written to Sigmund Martha. According to the prestigious Polish magazine Przekruj, it will take at least five years to process the collected materials, only after which we can count on the appearance of fundamental work. In the meantime, Katya Berchling-Fischer has released only fragments, but they are enough to present an extraordinary woman who inspired Freud both in intimate matters and in scientific research.
Marriage against Emilia's wishes
When Sigmund first saw 20-year-old Martha Bernaus, he was struck by thunder. And she, charming, energetic, educated, fell in love with him at first sight. Timid, unsure of himself, Sigmund did not at all look like a conqueror of hearts. He admitted that when he was a teenager, he was impressed by a certain Gisela, but that passion was, alas, unrequited. I regretted that my experience with women in my youth was limited.
Soon Martha and Sigmund became engaged, but did it in secret. And not without reason: the daughter of the chief rabbi of Hamburg, Emilia, Martha’s mother, opposed the marriage with Sigmund, the son of a Jewish merchant, who had neither property, nor a good position, nor a solid position in the community, but atheism was overflowing. But the daughter rejected the arguments of her Hassidic mother, and she made a strong-willed decision to move with the children from Vienna to Hamburg. Did not help. Martha found the outcome of her passion in letters - two or three daily. Freud answered just as often. “My beloved girl,” he wrote, “you are pure happiness for me. Without you, I have no desire to live. Only for you would I like to get a piece of the world, so that we can rejoice in it together.” “My beloved,” Martha answered passionately, “I couldn’t sleep with you half the night... I want to be what you want me to be. Just love me a little more passionately.”
The letters indicate that Martha was deeply involved in Freud's emotional and professional development. He, on the contrary, used her like a guinea pig, for example, in his experiments with cocaine, then a poorly understood substance. Having discovered that cocaine gave him enthusiasm and courage, Freud sent his betrothed several doses. However, Martha replied that she did not need cocaine, but nevertheless she tried it and really experienced a pleasant sensation. Freud admitted that cocaine could be used as a painkiller. I even wrote an article on this topic, but the desire to be with Martha did not allow me to continue research with this substance. If it were not for Martha, Freud might have remained in medicine and would never have taken up psychoanalysis.
After three years of separation, Freud invited Martha to start a family and move to Vienna with him. His lover agreed to do this, which prompted Freud to make serious self-sacrifice: he neglected his university career and opened a neurological office. Four years after their first meeting, they got married. The ceremony was modest. Freud agreed to a Jewish wedding, but then, during the marriage, religion had no right of access to their home.
In the first eight years of their marriage, Martha gave birth to six children. She was a wonderful mother and mistress of the house, in which she reigned supreme. Freud did not oppose this, although there were some eccentricities that Martha had to endure. Over the years, he became more and more attached to the dogs that were given to him by his patients and fans. Martha reluctantly put up with the presence of animals in the house.
Did Freud cheat on his wife?
It is very curious that Freud never spoke publicly about sexual relations with his wife. Only in a book about dreams in a dream did he mention Martha: “I wouldn’t want to have her as a patient...” However, the reason for keeping his own intimate life silent could be much more banal. Most their married life it simply cannot be called such. After the birth of his sixth child, Freud stopped sleeping with his wife, fearing another pregnancy. In a letter to his friend biologist Wilhelm Fless, he wrote after 1895: “You know how limited my pleasures are. I can’t smoke decent tobacco, alcohol means nothing to me. I’m done with having children, I’ve cut off contacts with people. That’s it - innocent and I'm vegetating..."
The problems of his wife's unusual fertility contributed to Freud's active support of the work of Fless, who dealt with the issues of male and female biological cycles. He hoped that his biologist friend would eventually develop safe method protection in sexual relations. One of the biographers even noted: if Freud had continued to act in this direction, he would have become not so much the creator of psychoanalysis as the inventor of the best condom.
Many of Freud's contemporaries, having heard enough gossip, were disappointed with the life of the father of libido. The French poetess, Countess Anne de Noans, having known Freud, did not hide her regret: “How could such a man write so many sexy books? What a terrible man! I am sure that he never cheated on his wife. This is simply abnormal. This is a scandal.”
However, not all biographers share the countess's point of view. Some suspect that Freud cohabited with Minna, Martha's sister. After the birth of her sixth child, Minna moved to the Freuds; there were years when Sigmund traveled with her more often than with his wife. Minna was "a gifted woman with a wild, passionate nature." True, Freud himself considered her intelligent, but with masculine character. Such persons, including patients, attracted him very much, although he took a woman who was the complete opposite as his wife.
The candle was lit on Friday
One day, Martha learned that her 67-year-old husband was hospitalized. Freud, having discovered some kind of mole on his lip, decided to have an operation without warning his family about it. Thus began his long battle with cancer. After Hitler came to power, Freud's books were burned, but this happened far away - in the capital of the "Third Reich". The situation changed after Austria was occupied by Germany. The 82-year-old Freud's family emigrated to London with Minna, where she could once again float in Freudian glory. However, the disease progressed. In September 1939, one of the dogs turned away from Freud: his breath was so bad. And then Freud decided to commit suicide. I turned to my doctor for help, who gave the injection. He died on September 23, 1939, surrounded by his family.
On the first Friday after the death of her husband, Martha lit a candle. She did not do this for more than half a century, living with the atheist Sigmund.
After World War II, Martha helped biographers, researched family tree your spouse. She left this world on November 2, 1951 at the age of 90. Her body was cremated and her ashes were placed in a Freudian urn. The funeral procession was accompanied by a rabbi. The youngest daughter Anna believed that this was what her mother would have wanted.
Some purely scientific terms from his theory about personality development and the sexual origin of neurological complexes and diseases have become firmly established in people’s everyday lives.
Sigmund Freud was the first-born and favorite of his mother, who after him had seven more children. Sigmund's father had 4 children from his first marriage. Freud studied at the University of Vienna and was always a capable student. But his studies took 8 years, because he moved from one faculty to another several times, being unable to finally decide what profession to choose. Sigmund eventually decided on medicine after concluding that his initial decision to become a politician was futile: Freud realized that his opportunities in this profession would be very limited because he was Jewish.
Freud began to conduct scientific research studying the human nervous system. This led him to study diseases of the nervous system and possible treatments for them. He experimented with hypnosis, enthusiastically studied cocaine as a therapeutic agent, and in 1896 entered private practice as a specialist in diseases of the nervous system. That same year, at the age of 30, he married Martha Bernays.
In the late 90s, Freud suffered a severe nervous breakdown caused by the agony and death of his father and the loss of interest in sex after the birth of his last child. In the process of analyzing the difficult dreams and even nightmares that haunted him at that time, he began to use psychoanalysis, that “talking cure” that was first developed and used by his teacher Joseph Breuer. Over the next 40 years, Freud's life took place in an atmosphere of domestic stability and great scientific achievements. He managed to gather around himself many talented scientists, such as Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Sandor Ferenczi and Ernst Jones. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they burned Freud's scientific works, declaring them "Jewish pornography." Only in 1938 did Freud manage to escape to London. The Greek princess Marie Bonaparte, a close acquaintance and former patient of Freud, paid a ransom of £20,000 for him. Last year Freud spent his life in London. He died there in 1939 from jaw cancer.
Freud made it his profession to study the sexual secrets and secrets of the people around him, but he did everything possible to hide his own from everyone. intimate life. He simply destroyed many of his private letters, and the few that have survived to this day are stored in the Library of the US Congress and will be open to researchers only in 2000.
At the age of 16, Sigmund fell in love for the first time in his life. His beloved Gisela Fluse rejected his love. He took revenge on her by falling in love with her mother. Until the age of 26, Freud then showed no interest in women. In 1882, he met Martha Bernays, a thin, pretty girl from a Jewish family. She turned 21 years old. For 4 years they were engaged, exchanging hundreds of letters, but meeting quite rarely, although Freud lived not far from her. Freud was a very passionate and jealous correspondent.
They eventually managed to save enough money and married in 1886. After several moves, they settled in a house in Vienna, where they lived until 1938. During the first nine years of her marriage, Martha had six children. In 1895, Martha's sister Minna came to them and lived with them for two years. Freud was faithful to Martha, but began to move away from her. He threw himself into work, and Martha had enough household chores and worries. She was in charge of the whole house, and she always tried to create all the conditions for her husband to work and relax. Freud later admitted that Martha never felt at ease and at ease when communicating with him.
Soon after his father's death, Freud met and became friends with Wilhelm Fliess, a prominent Berlin specialist in diseases of the ear, nose and throat. They became very attached to each other, often exchanged letters and met for “conventions,” as they themselves called these meetings. Freud wrote: “I look forward to our next meeting with great impatience... My life is sad... Only a meeting with you can make me feel better again.” Fliss treated his friend very carefully and caringly. He tried to wean Freud from the habit of smoking 20 cigars a day. Freud himself, by the way, argued that smoking, drug use and gambling are just a vain attempt to replace the “primitive habit” - masturbation. During one of their “conventions,” Freud fainted. He later spoke about the incident as follows: “The basis of all this is some kind of uncontrollable homosexual feeling.” The friendship with Fliess ended in 1903, mainly due to Freud's reaction to Wilhelm's theory of universal bisexuality. At first, Freud rejected this theory, and then began to claim that it was first put forward by himself, and decided to write a large scientific work on this topic. Freud believed that every personality is bisexual, and even stated: “In every sexual act there are four separate personalities involved.”
There were rumors that Freud and his wife's sister Minna were lovers. Minna was more beautiful and much smarter than her sister Martha. Freud loved to talk with her and tell her about his theory of psychoanalysis. He once wrote that Minna was very similar to himself: they were both “uncontrollable, passionate and not very good people". Martha, unlike them, was, in his words, "very a good man"Freud loved to travel. Minna often accompanied him, and Martha stayed at home with the children. The main source of rumors that Freud and Minna were lovers was Carl Jung, a student of Freud. It was he who allegedly told one of his friends about that Minna and Martha separately initiated him into this secret. Jung, in particular, told one American professor that one day in 1907, when he was visiting Freud’s house in Vienna, Minna told him that Freud loved her very much and that there was a very close relationship between them. Jung was very upset and turned to Freud himself for clarification. He also suggested that Freud turn to him as a psychoanalyst and become his patient. Freud coldly refused this offer.
Freud had an insatiable sexual appetite, but sex itself was also intellectual entertainment for him. He had just turned 40 when he once wrote to Fliess: “Sexual arousal no longer exists for me.” He lived in accordance with the requirements of a strict moral code, which he wrote for himself. Despite the fact that all of his theories argued that sexual impulses underlie almost all human behavior and actions, Freud tried not to allow these impulses to have any influence on his own behavior. He was, after all, a respectable married man and always maintained that a family could not be strong until the wife became a mother. Six children, who were born almost one after another, partially extinguished his desires, forcing him to think more about contraceptives. In 1908, he wrote: “Family life ceases to give the pleasure that it promised to give at first. All existing contraceptives reduce sensual pleasure, strike partners at the most vulnerable areas and may even make them sick." In 1909, Freud came to the United States with Jung and several other colleagues to give public lectures there. One morning, Freud confessed to Jung that he was dreaming erotic dreams about American women. “I’ve been sleeping very poorly since I came to America,” Freud admitted. “I dream about prostitutes all the time.” "Well, why don't you do something to solve this problem?" Jung asked. Freud recoiled from him in horror: “But I’m married!” - he exclaimed.
Freud's theories claim that it is sexual forces that shape individual behavior. Culture muffles and suppresses instinctive sexual energy and directs it to the formation of stereotypes of social behavior in a given individual. Freud's own life is partly proof of one of his statements. He considered this thought tragic, but true. Here it is: “The sex life of civilized man is seriously crippled.”
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