Sigmund Freud's Theory Of Sexuality

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It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I find Sigmund Freud to be one of the greatest influences to psychology. Many of his ideas were very controversial but, I believe have helped to open many gateways for the path that psychology is on today. Freud heightened the idea of the unconscious and really shed more light on it, while bringing more about it into perspective. The unconscious, sexuality, psychological energy, psychological resistance were all someone else’s ideas before Freud’s but as stated by Shiraev Freud put these ideas together in a new and creative way (2015). See from the unconscious Freud stemmed the idea of psychoanalysis. McLeod states that psychoanalysis is often known as the talking cure (2013). Shiraev states that the initial …show more content…
Freud came to publish his writings called The Interpretation of Dreams and the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. The writings elaborated on how we have these unconscious processes that Freud said often stemmed from repressed desires. The unconscious process is a reservoir of guilty wishes and indecent thoughts (Shiraev, 2015). He came to this conclusion through what he calls wish-fulfillment and The Oedipus Complex. Wish fulfillment is a symbolic attempt to realize an unfulfilled desire (Shiraev, 2015). The Oedipus Complex was a desire for sexual involvement with the parent of the opposite sex, which produces a sense of competition with the parent of the same sex (Ahmed, 2012, p. 64). Being bound by societies rules the child represses these thoughts and feelings that are considered indecent. This in turn can lead to certain phobias or anxiety that may arise within the person. Freud gave specific example from his patients in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality where Dora, Little Hans, and Rat Man all dealt with issues that stemmed from sexual conflicts early on. Dora had emotional problems, she could never get past. Little Hans dealt with a phobia of horse in which Freud said was tied to castration anxiety, because of the boy’s aggressive desires towards his father and sister and yearning for his mother’s love. Rat Man also had emotional obsessions that was shown through OCD and Freud said it was linked to his fear at a …show more content…
He came to this concept from what was called instinctual energy in which our instincts seek gratification (Shiraev, 2015). When gratification does not occur it doesn’t disappear it actually remains within the nervous systems, but not forever it is manifested in some way or another. This helped Freud to truly term the unconscious, which is material that was normally hidden, forgotten, or unavailable to conscious reflection (Jay, 2016). This is also when Freud came to the idea of the id, ego, and super ego. The ego and the unconscious work in a way where both are constituted.The id was defined in terms of the most primitive urges for gratification in the infant (Jay, 2016). The ego is the aspect of the human psyche that is conscious and most in touch with reality (Shiraev, 2015). The Superego is the moral guide with unconscious features (Shiraev, 2015). It tells us what we should and shouldn’t do (Shiraev, 2015). It is partly conscious and unconscious. This brought the term unconscious into full spectrum when Freud came to this conclusion. It really helped psychologist to look at some of Freud’s ideas and see how they might make sense in a way, and to understand why at times people are so conflicted with choices. It brought a conscious perspective into play along with the unconscious and the middle ground, which helped to round out many of his theories.

Many of Freud’s theories

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