Sigmund Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) is considered to be the founder of the psychodynamic approach to psychology, which looks to unconscious drives to explain human behavior. Freud believed that the mind is responsible for both conscious and unconscious decisions that it makes on the basis of psychological drives. The id, ego, and super-ego are three aspects of the mind Freud believed to comprise a person's personality. Freud believed people are "simply actors in the drama of [their] own minds, pushed by desire, pulled by coincidence. Underneath the surface, our personalities represent the power struggle going on deep within us". Freud did not believe in the existence of a supernatural force that has pre-programmed us to behave in a certain way. His idea of the id explains why people act out in certain ways when it is not in line with the ego or superego. "Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires." Freud believed that people rely on religion to give explanations for anxieties and tension they do not want to consciously believe in. Freud argued that humanity created God in their image. This reverses the idea of any type of religion because he believed that it is constructed by the mind. The role of the mind is something that Freud repeatedly talked about because he believed that the mind is responsible for both conscious and unconscious decisions based on drives and forces. The idea that religion causes people to behave in a moral way is incorrect according to Freud because he believed that no other force has the power to control the ways in which people act. Unconscious desires motivate people to act accordingly. Freud did a significant amount of research studying how people act and interact in a group setting. He believed that people act in different ways according to the demands and constraints of the group as a whole. In his book Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, Freud argued that the church and organized religion form an "artificial group" which requires an external force to keep it together.

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Related publications (2)

From the Principle of Inertia to the Death Drive: The Influence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics on the Freudian Theory of the Psychical Apparatus

Pierre Magistretti, Jean-Philippe Ansermet

In the Freudian theory of the psychical apparatus, the introduction from the 1920s onward of the second drive dualism appears as a major turning point. The idea of a "death drive," first expressed in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (Freud, 1920), is generall ...
2020

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This article aims to clarify the epistemological foundations of the Freudian energetics model, starting with a historical review of the 19th century scientific context in which Freud's research lay down its roots. Beyond the physiological and anatomical re ...
FRONTIERS MEDIA SA2018
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Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud (frɔɪd , ˈziːkmʊnt ˈfʁɔʏt; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies seen as originating from conflicts in the psyche, through dialogue between patient and psychoanalyst, and the distinctive theory of mind and human agency derived from it. Freud was born to Galician Jewish parents in the Moravian town of Freiberg, in the Austrian Empire.

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