Freud and His Theories:
A Psychoanalytical Approach to Their Eyes Were Watching God
Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist who is credited with being the founder of the branch of psychoanalysis, which aims to study the mind, theorize about human behavior and the unconscious, and treat psychological illnesses. Freud grew up near Vienna in the late 19th century and attended medical school at the University of Vienna. He later took an interest in neurology, and went on to specifically study the neurological aspect of psychology, which lead him to eventually develop his theories about psychological development and the human subconscious. Freud’s theory consists of the major psychoanalytical influences (id, ego, superego), the stages of psycho-sexual development (oral, anal, genital, latency), the principle sex and death drives of life, and the expression of the subconscious through dreams in the human psyche. These aspects of his theory all aim to explain the desires and fears hidden within the subconscious layers of the mind of all people. He theorized that all people have an id, ego, and superego, which represent the instinctual part, the reality principal part, and the moral part of the subconscious; that as people go through physical stages of development, they simultaneously undergo psychological stages of development directly related to their sexual desires; that people are driven mainly by two forces, the sex drive and the death drive; and that dreams are manifestations of hidden fears, memories, or dreams in the subconscious.
