SIGMUND FRUED- Father of Psychoanalysis

SIGMUND FRUED- Father of Psychoanalysis

• Born May 6, 1856.
• Died September 23, 1939, aged 83.
• Cause of death: cancer of the mouth and jaw in which he suffered from for the last 20 years of his life. Some sources say drug overdose, which may have been physician assisted since he was in pain from the inoperable oral cancer.

Sigmund Frued was such an interesting, yet controversial Psychologist. He was a man ahead of his time, since he proposed unthinkable theories in the Victorian era that some may dare to think, but never utter. 

As discussed in Cushman's article, "The Self In America," the self is constantly changing with times, yet the "other" consistently remains the outcast. Freud, with his theories, shattered boundaries since he deviated from the thoughts of other psychologists and the thoughts of collective society. If we fail to accept theories because they deviate from our normal thinking pattern, then there is room for epistomoligical violence to form and flourish in our society. This is why we must keep an open mind to information until it is proven with great reason to be inaccurate or misleading.


Freud is known best for his psychoanalytic approaches and his Stage Theory of Psychosexual development, which caused much controversy, since during those times people avoided topics involving sex, and even suppressed their desires.

According to his theory, those who did not satisfy each stage would have conflicts as adults. The above chart illustrates this very well. Children who did not successfully fulfill the oral stage at 0-18 months would develop habits such as smoking and aggressive behavior as adults. Those who did not fulfill the Anal and Phallic stages also developed unhealthy behaviors according to Freud's theory.

Ironically, he was a chain smoker, which led to more than 30 cancer surgeries, and in 1923, surgeons removed a large part of his jaw. Freud never quit smoking.

Another controversial theory of Freud is the Oedipus Complex, which outraged people since according to this theory children develop sexual desires for their parents. Girls toward their fathers, while viewing their mother as the competition, and boys toward their mothers, while viewing their fathers as their competition.

Frued also has yet another controversial theory called "Penis Envy," which states that girls discover that the male anatomy is different from their's, and as a result develop the intense desire to also possess a penis.

This theory is enough to spark epistemological violence against women, since this information may be interpreted as women being inferior to men, and wanting the power of having a penis and so this may be one of the reasons why this theory remains controversial among modern theorists.

Freud's patients were wealthy women who, mostly, had been abused sexually by their fathers. Could this have influenced his Oedipus Complex and Penis Envy theories? It deviates from logical thinking that would predict that abused women may not develop penis envy or develop a sexual want for their fathers. It could be that Freud thought some of the abused women may have wanted a penis to gain the power and control their abusive fathers exercised above them.

Perhaps he thought they also desired ownership of a penis because, as Cushman's "Women and the Untamed Body" explains, in the Victorian era the uterus was the main cause of female maladies. Since the vagina is apart of the female body, and the entire reproductive tract was seen as the cause of all female crises, and is the opposite of a male body which was deemed endowed with strength and vigor, then it is possible to see why Freud may have drawn his conclusion.

Teo, T. (2010). What is epistemological violence in the empirical social sciences?. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4(5), 295-303.

Cushman, P. (1996). Constructing the self, constructing America: A cultural history of psychotherapy. Da Capo Press. Chapter 4: Healing through Self Domination. (Excerpt pp. 102-116)