Sigmund Freud: His Impact on Modern Psychology

Sigmund Freud was one of the most iconic psychologist in the twentieth century. He developed various theory in the field of psychology. Although, some of his work is outdated, his impact on the field is still strongly felt. One of his theory that he put forward was the belief that a person’s personality was set in childhood, along with the idea that if someone tried to analyze the psyche of a person, they’ll put up barriers, or defense mechanism, to “lie” to themselves. Freud’s work on the psychoanalytic is still used to treat depression and various anxiety disorder. Freud drew the attention of the relationship between the conscious and the unconscious mind in psychology. This is one of Freud’s best contribution to psychology. He illustrated

Eros dealt with living instincts which encouraged humans to reproduce. This drive to reproduce is also known as libido. Thanatos is the counterpart of Eros. Thanatos is the self-destructive side of id, which manifest itself as aggression. Freud held that Eros was stronger than Thanatos, which is why people would rather survive than the alternative. The ego stems from id during infancy, working to satisfy the id in an acceptable way. The superego develops later in childhood and makes sure that the mind stays moral. Sometimes, id and superego conflict with each other on their principles. This is where the ego steps in and mediates between the two. The ego also puts out defense mechanism to protect

This included the Oedipus complex. Freud believed that when a child is born, they have libido, or sexual urges. He describes the five stages: oral, anal, phallic, latent, and genital. The first stage, oral, explains the baby’s fixation on sucking and putting things in their mouths. It’s during this stage that the child develops ego. The anal stage is when the child starts potty training. Then, the phallic stage, is where the child develops superego and the Oedipus complex. In this stage, Freud claimed, the child will be attracted to their parent of the opposite sex and compete with the parent of the same sex. The kid will start acting like the parent of the same sex in order to win over the opposite sex. At the latent stage, the libido is believed to be dormant. Then, at the last stage, they finally start to seek out