course hero what was sigmund freud’s greatest contribution to the understanding of the self?

by Dr. Emile Quitzon PhD 10 min read

His understanding of the role of the automatic repetition of basic patterns of behavior, of the fateful consequences of early childhood emotional vicissitudes in structuring enduring mental dispositions, and of the distinction between two distinct modes of thinking are the most significant among his many contributions. Publication types Biography

Full Answer

What did Sigmund Freud do?

Here Freud is drawing on observations from his earliest clinical work in the treatment of hysteria.

What are the best books about Sigmund Freud?

Vitz, Paul C. Sigmund Freud's Christian Unconscious. The Guilford Press, 1988. Webster, Richard. Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis. HarperCollins, 1995. Brown, Norman O. Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytic Meaning of History. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, Second Edition 1985. Cioffi, Frank.

Is there any objective evidence for Freud's theory of personality?

There is no solid objective evidence to explain them in the manner that Freud specified. How do you properly measure something like the id, ego, and superego? It's very difficult. Secondly, it's hard to take these theoretical concepts and then objectively tie them to some sort of data, like a person's personality test results.

What is the standard edition of Sigmund Freud's work?

The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 3, pp. 189–224). London: Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1896, addendum originally published 1924)

What was Sigmund Freud's greatest contribution?

One of Freud's most important contributions to the field of psychology was the development of the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. Some of the major tenets of psychoanalysis include the significance of the unconscious, early sexual development, repression, dreams, death and life drives, and transference.

What was one of Freud's main contributions to personality theory?

Freud contributed to personality psychology by explaining how the right balance between something called the id, ego, and superego can lead to a healthy personality. An imbalance between the three will only lead to maladaptive personalities.

What is Sigmund Freud contribution to philosophy?

With the help of his colleague Joseph Breuer, he developed the theory of the mind as a complex energy structure. Freud's most important contribution to humanity in general and psychology in particular is the development of psychoanalysis, a practice devised to treat the mentally ill through dialogue.

What is Freud concept of self?

Our unconscious self embodies a mode of operation that precedes the development of all other forms of our mental functioning. It includes throughout our lives the primitive rock-bottom activities, the primal strivings on which all human functioning is ultimately based.

How does Freud's theory explain personality development?

According to Freud's psychoanalytic theory, the id is the primitive and instinctual part of the mind that contains sexual and aggressive drives and hidden memories, the super-ego operates as a moral conscience, and the ego is the realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego.

What are the contributions of Freud's system of psychology to education?

Theme: Significance of Freud's work to educational theory: Freud's greatest contribution was his attempt to formulate a scientific psychology. His discovery of the emotional nature of unconscious motivations is significant for educational theory. The human organism is a social organism.

Who was Sigmund Freud and what was his contribution in sociology?

In the writer's Opinion Freud's most valuable contributions to sociology are (1) establishing of the role of unconscious factors in human behavior, (2) emphasis on the role of wish fulfilment, and (3) analysis of the formation of dynamic traits and patterns in personality development independent of cultural influence.

How did Sigmund Freud contribute to the field of psychology quizlet?

--The founder of Psychoanalysis which is studies how human behavior is determined by hidden/unconscious desires. it has made insights on dreams, childhood development, motivation etc. it is created later in childhood at 4 or 5.

What does Freud say about identity?

The id is the only part of the personality that is present at birth, according to Freud. He also suggested that this primitive component of personality existed wholly within the unconscious. The id acts as the driving force of personality.

What are the three layers of self According to Sigmund Freud?

Sigmund Freud divided human consciousness into three levels of awareness: the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. Each of these levels corresponds and overlaps with his ideas of the id, ego, and superego.

What is id ego and superego examples?

Let's go back to the example where your id takes over and you eat your roommate's cake and then your superego makes you feel really guilty about this. What's really causing you to apologize and to bake a new cake is your ego.

Who was the ethnographer who kept his identity a secret while studying militant survivalist groups?

39 . In his research , the ethnographer Richard Mitchell kept his identity a secret while studying militant survivalist groups . Sometimes he even presented himself as a believer in the survivalists ’ paranoid , racist ideologies , in order to establish

Who said that the people you know best are likely to possess only information you already have?

35 . Mark Granovetter has argued that the people you know best are likely to possess only information you already have . This is why he believed that when looking for employment , it is advantageous to have

Who wrote the book Wayward Puritans?

33 . The Yale sociologist Kai Erikson wrote a book called Wayward Puritans in which he drew on court records from colonial Massachusetts . He learned that the rate of out - of - wedlock births was much higher than it is now and that the amount of alcohol consumed per capita was higher as well . What research methodology was Erikson using ?

What is a D approach?

d . It is an approach that focuses exclusively on gender and power as they manifest themselves socially .

What did Sigmund Freud contribute to psychology?

Sigmund Freud undoubtedly contributed an enormous amount to psychology. But which of his thoughts and ideas relate to the field of personality psychology? This lesson is going to go over some of Freud's major contributions to helping us understand our personality as well as a couple of important limitations.

How did Freud contribute to personality psychology?

Freud contributed to personality psychology by explaining how the right balance between something called the id, ego, and superego can lead to a healthy personality. An imbalance between the three will only lead to maladaptive personalities.

Why is ego important?

But you don't just run off for NBA tryouts, impulsively so. Why not? It's because your ego will remind you that you're 50, 5 feet 1 inch tall, and normally can't make a shot if your life depended on it. That's just reality. In other words, the ego helps ensure that your impulsive id is expressed in a manner that is appropriate in the real world.

What does it mean when a person has a superego?

Nevertheless, a person with an overly dominant superego may have an overly judgmental personality, looking down upon the 'immorality' of others, at least as they see it.

What is the superego?

Then there's the superego, which is basically your conscience, or moral standards. The superego helps us act in idealistic, not just realistic, ways. So going to an amateur basketball league is realistic but playing with a bunch of kindergartners just so you can win every time and feel like a superstar athlete will make your conscience feel guilty every time you make them cry after they lose. Poor kids.

What is the difference between the ego and superego?

The superego, our moral standards that help us act in idealistic, not just realistic ways. While these are all great ideas, their limitation is that they're all just great ideas.

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Who is Sigmund Freud?

Sigmund Freud ( / frɔɪd / FROYD; German: [ˈziːk.mʊnt ˈfʁɔʏt]; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst.

How did Freud use hypnosis?

Once he had set up in private practice back in Vienna in 1886, Freud began using hypnosis in his clinical work. He adopted the approach of his friend and collaborator, Josef Breuer, in a type of hypnosis that was different from the French methods he had studied, in that it did not use suggestion. The treatment of one particular patient of Breuer's proved to be transformative for Freud's clinical practice. Described as Anna O., she was invited to talk about her symptoms while under hypnosis (she would coin the phrase " talking cure " for her treatment). In the course of talking in this way, her symptoms became reduced in severity as she retrieved memories of traumatic incidents associated with their onset.

Why did Freud have Fliess perform surgery on his nose?

Freud had Fliess repeatedly operate on his nose and sinuses to treat "nasal reflex neurosis", and subsequently referred his patient Emma Eckstein to him. According to Freud, her history of symptoms included severe leg pains with consequent restricted mobility, as well as stomach and menstrual pains. These pains were, according to Fliess's theories, caused by habitual masturbation which, as the tissue of the nose and genitalia were linked, was curable by removal of part of the middle turbinate. Fliess's surgery proved disastrous, resulting in profuse, recurrent nasal bleeding; he had left a half-metre of gauze in Eckstein's nasal cavity whose subsequent removal left her permanently disfigured. At first, though aware of Fliess's culpability and regarding the remedial surgery in horror, Freud could bring himself only to intimate delicately in his correspondence with Fliess the nature of his disastrous role, and in subsequent letters maintained a tactful silence on the matter or else returned to the face-saving topic of Eckstein's hysteria. Freud ultimately, in light of Eckstein's history of adolescent self-cutting and irregular nasal (and menstrual) bleeding, concluded that Fliess was "completely without blame", as Eckstein's post-operative haemorrhages were hysterical "wish-bleedings" linked to "an old wish to be loved in her illness" and triggered as a means of "rearousing [Freud's] affection". Eckstein nonetheless continued her analysis with Freud. She was restored to full mobility and went on to practice psychoanalysis herself.

What was Freud's diagnosis of cancer?

In February 1923, Freud detected a leukoplakia, a benign growth associated with heavy smoking, on his mouth. He initially kept this secret, but in April 1923 he informed Ernest Jones, telling him that the growth had been removed. Freud consulted the dermatologist Maximilian Steiner, who advised him to quit smoking but lied about the growth's seriousness, minimizing its importance. Freud later saw Felix Deutsch, who saw that the growth was cancerous; he identified it to Freud using the euphemism "a bad leukoplakia" instead of the technical diagnosis epithelioma. Deutsch advised Freud to stop smoking and have the growth excised. Freud was treated by Marcus Hajek, a rhinologist whose competence he had previously questioned. Hajek performed an unnecessary cosmetic surgery in his clinic's outpatient department. Freud bled during and after the operation, and may narrowly have escaped death. Freud subsequently saw Deutsch again. Deutsch saw that further surgery would be required, but did not tell Freud he had cancer because he was worried that Freud might wish to commit suicide.

How many children did Jakob Freud have?

Jakob Freud took his wife and two children (Freud's sister, Anna, was born in 1858; a brother, Julius born in 1857, had died in infancy) firstly to Leipzig and then in 1860 to Vienna where four sisters and a brother were born: Rosa (b. 1860), Marie (b. 1861), Adolfine (b. 1862), Paula (b. 1864), Alexander (b. 1866).

What is Freud's theory of libido?

Freud postulated the existence of libido, sexualised energy with which mental processes and structures are invested and which generates erotic attachments, and a death drive, the source of compulsive repetition, hate, aggression, and neurotic guilt.

When did Freud publish his interpretation of dreams?

In 1899 he published The Interpretation of Dreams in which, following a critical review of existing theory, Freud gives detailed interpretations of his own and his patients' dreams in terms of wish-fulfillments made subject to the repression and censorship of the "dream-work".