Freud, Sigmund

(1856-1939)

Famous as the founder of the psychoanalytic movement, Freud developed the basic ideas which still underlie psychoanalysis , in all its variants. His influence on modern psychology has also been immense but often indirect. He has been regarded with at least suspicion, often hostility, by mainstream psychology, which has been dominated by behaviourist and, more recently, cognitive approaches.

Born in Vienna, Freud took up a medical career and worked as a neurologist, becoming increasingly interested in psychology, hypnosis, and the ‘talking cure’. It was not until The Interpretation of Dreams (1899-1900) that he made the leap into what is now the centre of psychoanalytic theory. For the rest of his life he wrote prolifically and devoted much time and energy to organizing the psychoanalytic movement, which experienced several famous schisms, in particular those associated with the ideas of Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav Jung . He died in exile in London, having left Austria in 1938, five years after his books had been burned in Berlin.

A more detailed account of psychoanalytic theory can be found elsewhere in this dictionary. The present entry will concentrate on Freud's contribution to sociological thinking. Four different approaches to society can be found in his work.

The first, and least acceptable to modern sociology, suggests that human society and the human individual develop through the same evolutionary stages. This type of analysis usually focuses on the evolution of religion as the manifestation of the social super-ego (see Totem and Taboo, 1913; Moses and Monotheism, 1939; and The Future of an Illusion, 1927).

The second theory which is sometimes incorporated into sociology sees society in terms of the repression and sublimation of the instincts; that is, the potentially destructive sexual and aggressive instincts are sublimated into socially useful activities, such as friendship in the former case, and the struggle against external enemies in the latter. Freud saw this as an ambivalent relation. Sublimation involves sacrificing the immediate gratification of our desires, and therefore creates a degree of misery: the greater the level of civilization, the greater the misery (see especially Civilization and its Discontents, 1930). This thesis was taken up by Talcott Parsons as part of his theory of socialization (see his Essays in Sociological Theory, 1949) and from a radical point of view by Herbert Marcuse (in Eros and Civilization, 1955).

Thirdly, Freud's theory of the development of sexuality from polymorphous perversity through the oedipal stage to relative heterosexuality has been developed into a theory of the origins of civilization (which is also how Freud thought of it), and employed by some modern feminists in explaining the existence of patriarchy . Juliet Mitchell's Psychoanalysis and Feminism(1975) is typical.

Finally, in Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego(1921), Freud offers a way of conceptualizing social relations in terms of identifications, introjections, and projections. This too has been used by modern feminists writing about gender . An example is Nancy Chodorow's The Reproduction of Mothering(1978). See also aggression ; Klein, Melanie; narcissism.