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Essay on Psychoanalysis

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Psychoanalysis When people think of psychoanalysis, usually one name comes to mind. This would be Sigmund Freud. Freud, along with Carl G. Jung and Alfred Adler, has impacted the history of psychoanalysis. Further, he has influenced the lives of the men and women during the early 1900s. In today's society, the history of psychoanalysis is continually being discussed among many scholars. Paul Roazen, author of Encountering Freud: The Politics and Histories of Psychoanalysis, has dedicated his professional career to researching the "impact of Freud and his followers not only on politics but on the cultural and intellectual life of this century" (Chodoff 132). One main theme that Roazen emphasizes is the relationship between …show more content…

Because of this, many searched for ideas to fill this void, and some found the answer to lay within Freud. Also, Freud's image of man was completely secular. Roazen states, "this freedom from both Utopianism and asceticism has earned Freud the contempt of ideological totalitarians of the Right and the Left" (28). Despite the reasoning that lies behind this issue, it is clear that Freud has provided an image of man that has made him understandable without at the same time making him despicable. It is important to remember that Freud was once referred to as a leader during a period of extreme change in social character. Freud, who was rooted in the philosophy of humanism and the enlightenment, was a liberal critic of the bourgeois society. (Roazen 45). He felt society demanded many un-called for hardships on man. Further, he declared that these cruelties would led to the formation of neuroses that could have been prevented by a more accepting attitude. Many of Freud's supporters also felt that the pressures that were laid down by society were unjust, hence their finding hope in his theories. Looking directly at Freud and his development of psychoanalysis, he claims that "psychoanalysis is my creation; for ten years I was the only one occupied with it" (Brill 933). Freud worked as a therapist treating patients and then applying his findings to the larger human domains. Freud once stated, "I perceived ever more clearly

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