Sigmund Freud
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- "The Kino is a vulgar modern entertainment and I doubt if it can tell us anything serious about the modern condition." --Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud (born Sigismund Schlomo Freud) May 6 1856 – September 23 1939; was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who co-founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind, especially involving the mechanism of repression; his redefinition of sexual desire as mobile and directed towards a wide variety of objects; and his therapeutic techniques, especially his understanding of transference in the therapeutic relationship and the presumed value of dreams as sources of insight into unconscious desires.
He is commonly referred to as "the father of psychoanalysis" and his work has been highly influential-—popularizing such notions as the unconscious, defense mechanisms, Freudian slips and dream symbolism — while also making a long-lasting impact on fields as diverse as literature (Kafka), film, Marxist and feminist theories, literary criticism, philosophy, and psychology. However, his theories remain controversial and widely disputed.
Freud and cocaine
Freud was an early user and proponent of cocaine as a stimulant as well as analgesic. He wrote several articles on the antidepressant qualities of the drug and he was influenced by his friend and confidant Wilhelm Fliess, who recommended cocaine for the treatment of the "nasal reflex neurosis." Fliess operated on Freud and a number of Freud's patients whom he believed to be suffering from the disorder, including Emma Eckstein, whose surgery proved disastrous.Template:Fact.
Freud felt that cocaine would work as a panacea for many disorders and wrote a well-received paper, "On Coca," explaining its virtues. He prescribed it to his friend Ernst von Fleischl-Marxow to help him overcome a morphine addiction he had acquired while treating a disease of the nervous system. Freud also recommended it to many of his close family and friends. He narrowly missed out on obtaining scientific priority for discovering cocaine's anesthetic properties (of which Freud was aware but on which he had not written extensively), after Karl Koller, a colleague of Freud's in Vienna, presented a report to a medical society in 1884 outlining the ways in which cocaine could be used for delicate eye surgery. Freud was bruised by this, especially because this would turn out to be one of the few safe uses of cocaine, as reports of addiction and overdose began to filter in from many places in the world. Freud's medical reputation became somewhat tarnished because of this early ambition. Furthermore, Freud's friend Fleischl-Marxow developed an acute case of "cocaine psychosis" as a result of Freud's prescriptions and died a few years later. Freud felt great regret over these events, which later biographers have dubbed "The Cocaine Incident." However, he managed to move on, and even continued to use cocaine.
Major works by Freud
- Studies on Hysteria (with Josef Breuer) (Studien über Hysterie, 1895)
- The Interpretation of Dreams (Die Traumdeutung, 1899 [1900])
- The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens, 1901)
- Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie, 1905)
- Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten, 1905)
- Totem and Taboo (Totem und Tabu, 1913)
- On Narcissism (Zur Einführung des Narzißmus, 1914)
- Beyond the Pleasure Principle (Jenseits des Lustprinzips, 1920)
- The Ego and the Id (Das Ich und das Es, 1923)
- The Future of an Illusion (Die Zukunft einer Illusion, 1927)
- Civilization and Its Discontents (Das Unbehagen in der Kultur, 1930)
- Moses and Monotheism (Der Mann Moses und die monotheistische Religion, 1939)
- An Outline of Psycho-Analysis (Abriß der Psychoanalyse, 1940)
