06 May,2016 08:17 AM IST | | A correspondent
Google paid tribute to Sigmund Freud, considered the father of psychoanalysis on the occasion of his 160th birth anniversary
Google paid tribute to Sigmund Freud, considered the father of psychoanalysis on the occasion of his 160th birth anniversary.
Kevin Laughlin's Google Doodle to commemorate Sigmund Freud on his 160th birth anniversary. Pic/Google
Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud is credited for the creation of psychoanalysis, which is a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst. In simpler terms, it is the method of resolving mental illness through a dialogue between a doctor (possibly a mental health expert like a psychiatrist) and patient.
Doodler Kevin Laughlin created an iceberg to represent the murky depths of the unconscious mind. Most importantly, the Google Doodle draws our eye to the horizon, reminding us how the genius of Freud's practice rests in the space between doctor and patient, reader and text, human and world.
Sigmund Freud's analysis of dreams as wish-fulfillments provided him with models for the clinical analysis of symptom formation and the mechanisms of repression as well as for elaboration of his theory of the unconscious. He also proved the existence of libido a mental process which generates erotic attachments, and a death drive, the source of compulsive repetition, hate, aggression and neurotic guilt.
The Freudian method of interpretation - looking for meaning beyond the surface of things - now extends far beyond the sphere of psychotherapy and terms like "narcissism," "sibling rivalry," "free association," and "death wish" are part of our vernacular, and Freud's theories continue to fuel heated debate among academics.
Born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856, to Galician Jewish parents in the Moravian town of Freiberg, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he qualified as a doctor of medicine in 1881 at the University of Vienna. Freud was appointed a docent in neuropathology after completing his habilitation in 1885 and became an affiliated professor in 1902.
Sigmund Freud set up his practice in Vienna in 1886 and left Austra in 1938 to escape the Nazis and died in exile in the United Kingdom the following year on September 23 after a lengthy bout with cancer.
