Already a member?
Sign in
- EasyEdit
- Edit tags
- Email page
-
(what's this?What are these tools?
People just like you can add or edit the content on this site. If you want to try editing, but aren't ready to add to this site, try our demo area.
Read more about editing pages at Wetpaint Central.
)
Sigmund Freud
In science, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was an Austrian psychiatrist noted for being the primary developer of psychodynamics, otherwise known as "energy psychology" or "dynamic psychology", a view that mental energy dynamics are governed by the laws of thermodynamics. Origin of psychical energy model
See main: psychodynamicsThe origin of Freud's mental dynamic theories came from his interactions at medical school. Freud started medical school in 1873 at the University of Vienna. His first-year adviser was German physiologist Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke, director of the director of the Physiology Laboratory at the University, close friend and previous medical school lab partner to none other than German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz one of main founders of thermodynamics and one of the three-main formulators of the first law of thermodynamics (conservation of energy). Over the next six years, initially concentrating on biology, Freud did research under Brücke.
In 1874, being influenced by the thermodynamic theories of Helmholtz, Brücke published Lectures on Physiology, which supposed that all living organisms are energy-systems governed by the first law of thermodynamics, which states, in effect, that the total amount of energy in any given physical system is always constant, that energy quanta can be changed but not annihilated, and consequently that when energy is moved from one part of the system it must reappear in another part. Freud, in turn, viewed these movements of energy to occur within the different levels of the consciousness. [2]
In sum, in his Lectures on Physiology, Brücke set forth the radical view that the living organism is a dynamic system to which the laws of chemistry and physics apply. This was the starting point for Freud's dynamic psychology of the mind and its relation to the unconscious. [1] In other words, Freud, who had great admiration and respect for Brücke, quickly adopted this new 'dynamic physiology' with enthusiasm. From there it was but a short conceptual step - but one which Freud was the first to take, and on which his claim to fame is largely grounded - to the view that there is such a thing as 'psychic energy', that the human personality is also an energy-system, and that it is the function of psychology to investigate the modifications, transmissions, and conversions of 'psychic energy' within the personality which shape and determine it. This latter conception is the very cornerstone of Freud's psychoanalytic theory. [2]
Although a number of psychologists, in the late 19th century, professed views on the correlation between the first law of thermodynamics (energy conservation) and the energy associated with mental thoughts, Freud did the most to translate this linkage into a workable framework of logic, namely by supposing that innate drives that didn't immediately find action were "repressed" in the subconscious, an energy that found exit in other ways.
References
1. (a) Hall, Calvin, S. (1954). A Primer in Freudian Psychology. Meridian Book.
(b) Bowlby, John (1999). Attachment and Loss: Vol I, 2nd Ed.. Basic Books, 13-23.
(c) Freud’s Psycho Dynamic Theory (1873-1923) – Institute of Human Thermodynamics
2. Sigmund Freud – Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Sadi-Carnot |
Latest page update: made by Sadi-Carnot
, Nov 6 2008, 1:58 AM EST
(about this update
About This Update
Edited by Sadi-Carnot
1 image added 1 image deleted view changes - complete history) |
|
More Info: links to this page
|
