Theories of Personality
Duane Schultz
Board Exam Reviewer
Nino-Mhar Malana, RPm
Chapter 2
Sigmund Freud: Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is Sigmund Freud’s theory of personality and system of therapy for treating mental
disorders.
The Life of Freud (1856–1939)
The Early Years
Freud was born on May 6, 1856, in Freiberg, Moravia (now Pribor, Czech Republic).
His father was a relatively unsuccessful wool merchant. When his business failed in Moravia, he moved
the family to Leipzig, Germany, and later, when Freud was 4, to Vienna, Austria. Freud remained in
Vienna for nearly 80 years.
When Freud was born his father was 40 years old and his mother (the elder Freud’s third wife) only 20.
The father was strict and authoritarian. Freud recalled his childhood hostility and anger toward his
father. He felt superior to his father as early as age 2.
Freud’s mother was attractive and her behavior toward her first-born son was protective and loving.
Freud felt a passionate, even sexual attachment to her, a situation that set the stage for his concept of
the Oedipus complex.
, There were eight children in the Freud family, two of them his adult half-brothers with children of their
own. Freud resented them all and grew jealous whenever new competitors for his mother’s affection
were born.
From an early age he exhibited a high level of intelligence, which his parents helped to foster. His sisters
were not allowed to practice the piano lest the noise disturb Freud’s studies. He was given a room of
his own; he often took his meals there so as not to lose time from his studies. The room was the only
one in the apartment to contain a prized oil lamp; the rest of the family used candles.
Freud had many interests, including military history, but when it came time to choose a career from
among the few professions open to Jews in Vienna, he settled on medicine. It was not that he wanted to
be a physician but rather that he believed medical studies would lead to a career in scientific research,
which in turn might bring the fame he desired. While completing work for his medical degree at the
University of Vienna, he conducted physiological research on the spinal cord of fish and the testes of
eels, making respectable contributions to the field.
The Cocaine Episode
Highly enthusiastic, Freud called cocaine a miracle drug and a magical substance that would cure many
ills and also be the means to the recognition he craved.
Freud was strongly criticized for his part in unleashing the cocaine plague. The publicity brought him
infamy rather than fame, and for the rest of his life he tried to eradicate his earlier endorsement of
cocaine, deleting all references to it from his own bibliography. However, according to letters published
long after his death, he continued to use cocaine well into middle age.
The Sexual Basis of Neurosis
A further impetus was his engagement to Martha Bernays, which lasted four years before they could
afford to marry.
Freud established practice as a clinical neurologist in 1881 and began his exploration of the
personalities of people suffering from emotional disorders.
He studied several months in Paris with the psychiatrist Jean Martin Charcot, a pioneer in the use of
hypnosis. Charcot also alerted Freud to the possible sexual basis of neurosis. Freud overheard Charcot
comment that a particular patient’s problem was sexual in origin.
,Childhood Sexual Abuse: Fact or Fantasy?
By 1896, after several years in clinical practice, Freud was convinced that sexual conflicts were the
primary cause of all neuroses. He claimed that the majority of his women patients reported traumatic
sexual experiences from childhood. These events resembled seduction, with the seducer usually being an
older male relative, typically the father.
In 1984, nearly a century later, a psychoanalyst who briefly headed the Freud Archives charged that
Freud lied and that his patients had truly been victims of childhood sexual abuse. Jeffrey Masson
claimed that Freud called these experiences fantasies to make his ideas more palatable and acceptable
to the public. Otherwise, who would believe that so many fathers and uncles were sexually abusing little
girls? In other words, Masson said, Freud covered up the truth to make his theory of neurosis more
acceptable.
It is important to note that Freud never claimed that all the childhood sexual abuses his patients
reported were fantasies; what he did deny was that his patients’ reports were always true. It was,
Freud wrote, “hardly credible that perverted acts against children were so general”.
It has also been suggested that Freud changed his position on the seduction theory because he realized
that if sexual abuse was so widespread, then many fathers (including perhaps his own) would be
considered suspect of perverse acts against their children.
Freud’s Sex Life
He “had no contact with members of the opposite sex throughout [his early years]. He was decidedly
shy and afraid of women and was a virgin when he married at age 30”.
He occasionally had been impotent during his marriage and had sometimes chosen to abstain from sex
because he disliked condoms and coitus interruptus, the standard birth control methods of the day.
Freud diagnosed his condition as anxiety neurosis and neurasthenia (a neurotic condition characterized
by weakness, worry, and disturbances of digestion and circulation), and he traced both disturbances to
an accumulation of sexual tension.
In his writings, he proposed that neurasthenia in men resulted from masturbation, and anxiety neurosis
arose from abnormal sexual practices such as coitus interruptus and abstinence. By so labeling his
symptoms, “his personal life was thus deeply involved in this particular theory, since with its help he was
trying to interpret and solve his own problems…. Freud’s theory of actual neurosis is thus a theory of his
own neurotic symptoms”.
, For 3 years Freud psychoanalyzed himself through the study of his dreams. It was during this period that
he performed his most creative work in developing his theory of personality. Through the exploration of
his dreams, he realized, for the first time, how much hostility he felt toward his father. He recalled his
childhood sexual longings for his mother and dreamed of a sex wish toward his eldest daughter.
The Pinnacle of Success
As his work became known through published articles and books as well as papers presented at scientific
meetings, Freud attracted a group of disciples who met with him weekly to learn about his new system.
The topic of their first meeting was the psychology of cigar making. The disciples included Carl Jung
and Alfred Adler, who later broke with Freud to develop their own theories. Freud considered them
traitors to the cause, and he never forgave them for disputing his approach to psychoanalysis. At a
family dinner, he complained about his followers’ disloyalty.
Although grateful for the honor, Freud did not like the United States, complaining of its informality, bad
cooking, and scarcity of bathrooms. Although he had been troubled by gastrointestinal problems for
many years prior to his visit to the United States, nevertheless “he blamed the New World for ruining his
digestion”.
Freud’s system of psychoanalysis was warmly welcomed in the United States. Two years after his visit,
American followers founded the American Psychoanalytic Association and the New York Psychoanalytic
Society. Over the next few years, psychoanalytic societies were established in Boston, Chicago, and
Washington, D.C.
During the 1920s and 1930s, Freud reached the pinnacle of his success, but at the same time his health
began to decline seriously. From 1923 until his death 16 years later, he underwent 33 operations for
cancer of the mouth (he smoked 20 cigars daily). Portions of his palate and upper jaw were removed,
and he experienced almost constant pain, for which he refused medication. He also received X-ray and
radium treatments and had a vasectomy, which some physicians thought would halt the growth of the
cancer.
Duane Schultz
Board Exam Reviewer
Nino-Mhar Malana, RPm
Chapter 2
Sigmund Freud: Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is Sigmund Freud’s theory of personality and system of therapy for treating mental
disorders.
The Life of Freud (1856–1939)
The Early Years
Freud was born on May 6, 1856, in Freiberg, Moravia (now Pribor, Czech Republic).
His father was a relatively unsuccessful wool merchant. When his business failed in Moravia, he moved
the family to Leipzig, Germany, and later, when Freud was 4, to Vienna, Austria. Freud remained in
Vienna for nearly 80 years.
When Freud was born his father was 40 years old and his mother (the elder Freud’s third wife) only 20.
The father was strict and authoritarian. Freud recalled his childhood hostility and anger toward his
father. He felt superior to his father as early as age 2.
Freud’s mother was attractive and her behavior toward her first-born son was protective and loving.
Freud felt a passionate, even sexual attachment to her, a situation that set the stage for his concept of
the Oedipus complex.
, There were eight children in the Freud family, two of them his adult half-brothers with children of their
own. Freud resented them all and grew jealous whenever new competitors for his mother’s affection
were born.
From an early age he exhibited a high level of intelligence, which his parents helped to foster. His sisters
were not allowed to practice the piano lest the noise disturb Freud’s studies. He was given a room of
his own; he often took his meals there so as not to lose time from his studies. The room was the only
one in the apartment to contain a prized oil lamp; the rest of the family used candles.
Freud had many interests, including military history, but when it came time to choose a career from
among the few professions open to Jews in Vienna, he settled on medicine. It was not that he wanted to
be a physician but rather that he believed medical studies would lead to a career in scientific research,
which in turn might bring the fame he desired. While completing work for his medical degree at the
University of Vienna, he conducted physiological research on the spinal cord of fish and the testes of
eels, making respectable contributions to the field.
The Cocaine Episode
Highly enthusiastic, Freud called cocaine a miracle drug and a magical substance that would cure many
ills and also be the means to the recognition he craved.
Freud was strongly criticized for his part in unleashing the cocaine plague. The publicity brought him
infamy rather than fame, and for the rest of his life he tried to eradicate his earlier endorsement of
cocaine, deleting all references to it from his own bibliography. However, according to letters published
long after his death, he continued to use cocaine well into middle age.
The Sexual Basis of Neurosis
A further impetus was his engagement to Martha Bernays, which lasted four years before they could
afford to marry.
Freud established practice as a clinical neurologist in 1881 and began his exploration of the
personalities of people suffering from emotional disorders.
He studied several months in Paris with the psychiatrist Jean Martin Charcot, a pioneer in the use of
hypnosis. Charcot also alerted Freud to the possible sexual basis of neurosis. Freud overheard Charcot
comment that a particular patient’s problem was sexual in origin.
,Childhood Sexual Abuse: Fact or Fantasy?
By 1896, after several years in clinical practice, Freud was convinced that sexual conflicts were the
primary cause of all neuroses. He claimed that the majority of his women patients reported traumatic
sexual experiences from childhood. These events resembled seduction, with the seducer usually being an
older male relative, typically the father.
In 1984, nearly a century later, a psychoanalyst who briefly headed the Freud Archives charged that
Freud lied and that his patients had truly been victims of childhood sexual abuse. Jeffrey Masson
claimed that Freud called these experiences fantasies to make his ideas more palatable and acceptable
to the public. Otherwise, who would believe that so many fathers and uncles were sexually abusing little
girls? In other words, Masson said, Freud covered up the truth to make his theory of neurosis more
acceptable.
It is important to note that Freud never claimed that all the childhood sexual abuses his patients
reported were fantasies; what he did deny was that his patients’ reports were always true. It was,
Freud wrote, “hardly credible that perverted acts against children were so general”.
It has also been suggested that Freud changed his position on the seduction theory because he realized
that if sexual abuse was so widespread, then many fathers (including perhaps his own) would be
considered suspect of perverse acts against their children.
Freud’s Sex Life
He “had no contact with members of the opposite sex throughout [his early years]. He was decidedly
shy and afraid of women and was a virgin when he married at age 30”.
He occasionally had been impotent during his marriage and had sometimes chosen to abstain from sex
because he disliked condoms and coitus interruptus, the standard birth control methods of the day.
Freud diagnosed his condition as anxiety neurosis and neurasthenia (a neurotic condition characterized
by weakness, worry, and disturbances of digestion and circulation), and he traced both disturbances to
an accumulation of sexual tension.
In his writings, he proposed that neurasthenia in men resulted from masturbation, and anxiety neurosis
arose from abnormal sexual practices such as coitus interruptus and abstinence. By so labeling his
symptoms, “his personal life was thus deeply involved in this particular theory, since with its help he was
trying to interpret and solve his own problems…. Freud’s theory of actual neurosis is thus a theory of his
own neurotic symptoms”.
, For 3 years Freud psychoanalyzed himself through the study of his dreams. It was during this period that
he performed his most creative work in developing his theory of personality. Through the exploration of
his dreams, he realized, for the first time, how much hostility he felt toward his father. He recalled his
childhood sexual longings for his mother and dreamed of a sex wish toward his eldest daughter.
The Pinnacle of Success
As his work became known through published articles and books as well as papers presented at scientific
meetings, Freud attracted a group of disciples who met with him weekly to learn about his new system.
The topic of their first meeting was the psychology of cigar making. The disciples included Carl Jung
and Alfred Adler, who later broke with Freud to develop their own theories. Freud considered them
traitors to the cause, and he never forgave them for disputing his approach to psychoanalysis. At a
family dinner, he complained about his followers’ disloyalty.
Although grateful for the honor, Freud did not like the United States, complaining of its informality, bad
cooking, and scarcity of bathrooms. Although he had been troubled by gastrointestinal problems for
many years prior to his visit to the United States, nevertheless “he blamed the New World for ruining his
digestion”.
Freud’s system of psychoanalysis was warmly welcomed in the United States. Two years after his visit,
American followers founded the American Psychoanalytic Association and the New York Psychoanalytic
Society. Over the next few years, psychoanalytic societies were established in Boston, Chicago, and
Washington, D.C.
During the 1920s and 1930s, Freud reached the pinnacle of his success, but at the same time his health
began to decline seriously. From 1923 until his death 16 years later, he underwent 33 operations for
cancer of the mouth (he smoked 20 cigars daily). Portions of his palate and upper jaw were removed,
and he experienced almost constant pain, for which he refused medication. He also received X-ray and
radium treatments and had a vasectomy, which some physicians thought would halt the growth of the
cancer.
