Sigmund Freud's Most Radical Ideas

Among many of his radical ideas, ‘Oedipus Complex,’ ‘Repression,’ ‘Unconscious,’ and ‘Dream Interpretation’ are few. Talking about the repression of thoughts Freud argues that every thought or desire that is embarrassing or is against the norms of society, which a person doesn’t allow to come out of his mind in public domain, but those thoughts or desires are powerful, get repressed in the Unconscious. 

Beginning his contemplation of neurosis as being physiological, Freud comments that neurosis resulting in any kind of physical deformity, might not always have a physiological reason but may often occur due to psychological one. This point, further, Freud connects with the point of repression. Freud states that the desires and thoughts that get repressed in the Unconscious find their way out in other forms such as neurosis or other physical deformity like paralysis. Though, Freud himself, began treating his patient through the contemporary methods of hypnosis and electrotherapy but later discovered that various neurotic disorder can be treated by unveiling the point, hidden in the Unconscious, that led to a particular deformity; and to do that he invented a therapy, aka talking therapy, that would be come to known as psychoanalysis. In his controversial theory of ‘Oedipus Complex,’ Freud maps the development of child’s sexuality. Freud makes it straightly clear that humans are innately bisexual. Beginning with arguing that in the initial state of child’s development, the child doesn’t consider him/herself separate from her/his mother; hence, she remains the first love for both: male and female. As the child grows, s/he realizes him/herself to be separate from the mother. 

At this time, they undergo the process that he calls ‘Oedipus Complex.’ In ‘Oedipus Complex,’ the male child becomes attached to his mother and develops a sexual / erotic affection for her and becomes envious towards the father. Such feeling remains in the boy until puberty when he begins to understand social and moral norms of the society and gets changed in this second phase of development. The fight between the impulses of the first and second phase begins leading to various psychological effects. Another seminal study that Freud worked on was the study of dreams. In his analysis of dreams, Freud understands dreams to be free association of ideas, where one’s impulses finds their way out of the repression in fantastic visions shown in the dreams; hence, dissecting dreams, by understanding the association, can also help us understand the cause of trouble one might be going through.