Introduction to Psychology, Part 3 - by @amitvegada

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Introducing his theory of psychoanalysis in his 1900 book "The Interpretation of Dreams.", Freud introduced his theory in terms of dreams. Almost all of us think of psychoanalysis as a form of treatment -- the whole patient having a conversation on the couch. I agree that this element is important. Nevertheless, Freud's concept was way more complex, and it was groundbreaking. Psychoanalysis' strong mathematical edge was the idea that our personalities are defined by unconscious motives.

Basically, He suggested that we are all extremely affected by mental processes that we're not even aware of. Now that sounds obvious to almost all of us, but in Freud's theory that come in 1900, the genius part is it wasn't obvious at all.

We had a hard time understanding that our minds were somehow governed by something they themselves were unaware of. Maybe an organism evolving naturally is as hard as this. Something about it seemed irrational: it was abstract, invisible, and seemed to be out of place. One of Freud's many important theories was that the unconscious, literally what lies beneath consciousness, is still entirely discoverable.

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The technique used to root out repressed feelings and gain self-awareness relied on dreams, projections, and free association to reveal it even if the patient was not aware of it. The real message Freud was trying to convey is that mental disorders can be healed through talk therapy and self-discovery. And this was a really big breakthrough. Prior to the creation of this hospital, mental patients used to be confined to sanatoriums and at best given menial labor duty or at worst shackled to a bed frame.

With a cigar ever in hand, Freud went on to publish over twenty more books and countless papers after The Interpretations of Dreams. Although he believed smoking improved his ability to think, it also made him susceptible to jaw cancer. He underwent at least thirty painful operations during his last sixteen years of life, during which he smoked a lot.

After the Nazis had taken over Austria in the late 1930s, Freud and his Jewish family narrowly escaped to England. A doctor friend assisted him in his suicide through morphine injection after the pain in his cancerous jaw became unbearable by September 1939. He was eighty-three at that time.

It is clear that Freud had a monumental impact on psychology, regardless of whether you loved or hated him. There are plenty of people who vehemently disagreed with him, as well as a number who favored the approach. There is no doubt Freud made a huge impact on psychology.

We will be talking more about this in our next lesson, until then. Take care and see you all later.