#1 S. Freud: Biografia — Transcript

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1. 0:00Hello to all you illustrious
2. 0:02representatives of the YouTube
3. 0:03community. This is Es speaking to you.
4. 0:06This video, the first in a series
5. 0:08dedicated entirely to Freud's works,
6. 0:10must necessarily be dedicated to his
7. 0:12biography. Sigmund Freud was born in
8. 0:151856 in Freiberg, modern-day Příbor
9. 0:17in Moravia, which at the time was part
10. 0:20of the Habsburg Empire. Little Sigmund
11. 0:23was born with a caul, a piece of the
12. 0:25placenta still attached to his head. At
13. 0:27that time, it was considered a good
14. 0:29omen of future happiness and fame for
15. 0:31the newborn child. His family, of
16. 0:34Jewish origin, could only afford a
17. 0:36single rented room since his father
18. 0:38Jacob was a wool merchant, and life
19. 0:40must not have been very easy. Freud, in
20. 0:44fact, was the son of Jacob's third wife
21. 0:46, Amalia Nathanson, who was 20 years
22. 0:48younger than his father, and he had two
23. 0:50much older half-brothers from previous
24. 0:52marriages. One was even older than
25. 0:56Sigmund's mother. Due to these age
26. 0:58differences, his nephew was also his
27. 1:00childhood friend. A friendship that,
28. 1:02however, did not last long. When
29. 1:04Sigmund was 3 years old, his father's
30. 1:06small textile business failed, forcing
31. 1:08the family to look for work. So they
32. 1:11moved to Vienna, the capital of their
33. 1:13Habsburg Empire, which at the time was
34. 1:15in turmoil due to the imminent
35. 1:17industrial revolution that would mark
36. 1:19the years following 1860. More
37. 1:23precisely, they moved to the city's
38. 1:25Jewish district, a very poor
39. 1:26neighborhood, but one that at the same
40. 1:28time offered many job opportunities and
41. 1:30chances for social advancement. In this
42. 1:33house, little Freud was assigned his
43. 1:35first private room, despite having six
44. 1:37siblings, and he received a great deal
45. 1:38of attention from his parents. He was
46. 1:41top of his class for 7 consecutive
47. 1:43years. An anecdote recounts that his
48. 1:45parents took the piano away from his
49. 1:47sister, who was practicing in the next
50. 1:48room, because he might be disturbed
51. 1:50during his studies. In short, little
52. 1:53Freud was mom and dad's favorite, but
53. 1:55they certainly couldn't have imagined
54. 1:57that their son had recently overcome
55. 1:59the phallic stage, a phase where one
56. 2:01desires the death of the father in
57. 2:02order to possess one's mother. Jokes
58. 2:07aside, in 1873, at 17 years old, Freud
59. 2:10began studying natural sciences.
60. 2:13Through these studies, he actually came
61. 2:15into contact with Darwin's theories.
62. 2:19During his degree course, he developed
63. 2:20a growing aversion to teachers he
64. 2:22didn't hold in high regard, as he spent
65. 2:24hours and hours dissecting fish. Freud
66. 2:27himself said that his studies in
67. 2:29anatomy, chemistry, botany, and zoology
68. 2:31made him an atheist doctor and an
69. 2:33empiricist. He delayed obtaining his
70. 2:36degree in medicine and surgery by one
71. 2:38year due to the discrimination he faced
72. 2:40as a Jew, but he earned it in March
73. 2:421881. Later, he worked in the zoology
74. 2:46laboratory directed by Ernst Wilhelm
75. 2:48von Brücke and began his friendship
76. 2:50with Josef Breuer. During this period,
77. 2:55at age 25, he fell madly in love with a
78. 2:57girl, Martha Bernays, with whom he
79. 2:59maintained an intense correspondence of
80. 3:02about 1600 letters in total. It was his
81. 3:05first and only love affair. The
82. 3:07aspiration for financial independence
83. 3:09in order to marry Martha pushed him to
84. 3:11dedicate himself to clinical practice.
85. 3:14Dating back to this time working at the
86. 3:16Vienna General Hospital around 1884 is
87. 3:18a letter from Freud to Martha, in which
88. 3:20he writes to her about a magic drug
89. 3:22little known at the time: cocaine. At
90. 3:27first, Freud denied that cocaine could
91. 3:29be harmful, even using it himself, but
92. 3:31because of this, his reputation began
93. 3:33to decline until he himself had to
94. 3:35change his mind. In fact, he
95. 3:38administered cocaine to a friend and
96. 3:40patient who suffered from morphine
97. 3:41addiction. But this intervention was
98. 3:44obviously disastrous, as his patient
99. 3:46became addicted to cocaine. He
100. 3:49therefore gave up cocaine for good and
101. 3:51dedicated himself to neurology, a
102. 3:52science that was in full development at
103. 3:54the time. In Paris in 1885,
104. 3:57specifically at the Salpêtrière,
105. 3:59Charcot was dealing with hysteria. At
106. 4:06the time, it was a mysterious illness
107. 4:08thought to affect only women (hence the
108. 4:09name), which actually turned out to be
109. 4:11an all-encompassing diagnosis for all
110. 4:13neuroses, and therefore also male,
111. 4:15thanks to the studies of Charcot, who
112. 4:17used hypnosis to diagnose hysteria
113. 4:19because he believed that if a man or a
114. 4:21woman were susceptible to this practice
115. 4:23, then this susceptibility had to be a
116. 4:25sign of the pathology. Charcot also
117. 4:32used hypnosis in his public lectures,
118. 4:34which during this period were also
119. 4:35attended by Freud and had a huge impact
120. 4:37on all his future work. At 29, Freud
121. 4:41returned to Vienna where he struggled
122. 4:43to marry Martha and opened his medical
123. 4:45practice in 1886, and things were not
124. 4:47going particularly well for him.
125. 4:51Sometimes he could not even afford a
126. 4:52taxi to visit his patients. Meanwhile,
127. 4:57his old friend Breuer, who was also
128. 4:59interested in hysteria, had among his
129. 5:01patients Bertha Pappenheim, who had
130. 5:03been assigned the pseudonym Anna O.
131. 5:05This case fascinated Freud greatly
132. 5:07because, during hypnosis sessions,
133. 5:09Bertha, alias Anna, talked about past
134. 5:11and forgotten personal problems. He
135. 5:17then used Breuer's cathartic method on
136. 5:19his patients, thus developing his
137. 5:21personal method of talk therapy, either
138. 5:23because of the limitations of his
139. 5:25office that did not allow him to
140. 5:26hypnotize patients, or because of a
141. 5:28particular dream he had at that time.
142. 5:32Psychoanalysis is born. In 1895, Breuer
143. 5:35and Freud published Studies on Hysteria
144. 5:37. Between 1890 and 1900, he published
145. 5:42The Interpretation of Dreams, and in
146. 5:441909, after publishing the article "
147. 5:46Civilized" Sexual Morality and Modern
148. 5:48Nervous Illness, he was invited to the
149. 5:50United States together with Carl Gustav
150. 5:52Jung and Sandor Ferenczi, where they
151. 5:54were later joined by Ernest Jones from
152. 5:57England. The Five Lectures on
153. 6:00Psychoanalysis date back to this period
154. 6:02. Jung had become, in a certain sense,
155. 6:06the heir to the psychoanalytic movement
156. 6:08born a few years earlier, in 1902,
157. 6:10which did not meet with much success in
158. 6:12Europe for a long time. The partnership
159. 6:15between the two great psychologists,
160. 6:17however, was destined to be short-lived
161. 6:19. In 1912, Jung wrote Symbols of
162. 6:21Transformation, where the first
163. 6:23theoretical disagreements appeared.
164. 6:28Jung would resign from the
165. 6:30International Psychoanalytical
166. 6:31Association in 1914, and Freud, in the
167. 6:33same year, feeling the need to
168. 6:35reconstruct the essential pillars of
169. 6:37psychoanalytic orthodoxy, published On
170. 6:39the History of the Psycho-Analytic
171. 6:41Movement and On Narcissism. World War I
172. 6:46gave rise to new problems for doctors.
173. 6:50Veterans, in fact, suffered from
174. 6:51mysterious nervous breakdowns and were
175. 6:53diagnosed with physical brain damage,
176. 6:55called shell shock. But these problems
177. 7:00were also found in soldiers who were
178. 7:02not on the front lines and who
179. 7:03therefore had never come into contact
180. 7:05with a shell. And generally, these
181. 7:08soldiers were sent back to the front
182. 7:10shortly after and accused of cowardice.
183. 7:13Freud, noticing the psychological
184. 7:15evidence of the problem, anticipated
185. 7:17what was later called post-traumatic
186. 7:19stress disorder. Although the First
187. 7:23World War represented a turning point
188. 7:25for the psychoanalytic movement, it
189. 7:27must not have been a very pleasant
190. 7:28period for Freud. Two of his sons, in
191. 7:32fact, had left for the front, and his
192. 7:34daughter Sophie died of the Spanish flu
193. 7:36; even though all his sons returned
194. 7:38from the front, they remained strongly
195. 7:40affected by it. The war, a harbinger of
196. 7:44death and destruction, led Freud to
197. 7:46revise the sexual drive as the sole
198. 7:48engine of the unconscious, and in 1920
199. 7:50he published Beyond the Pleasure
200. 7:52Principle, in which he places the death
201. 7:54drive alongside the sexual and life
202. 7:56drive, Eros. During the same period, he
203. 8:00developed the second topography of the
204. 8:02ego, id, and superego. Post-war Europe
205. 8:04accepted Freudian theories quite well.
206. 8:09The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film director
207. 8:11even offered Freud the sum of $ 100,000
208. 8:13to act as a consultant for the film
209. 8:15Antony and Cleopatra. Freud refused
210. 8:20indignantly; after all, anyone would
211. 8:22have refused, I believe. Yet, while
212. 8:26psychoanalysis was finally taking hold,
213. 8:28the death drive of the human soul was
214. 8:30once again about to take over. In
215. 8:33Germany, in fact, Hitler rose to power.
216. 8:36Jews were immediately targeted by the
217. 8:38Nazis, Freud's books were burned, and
218. 8:40psychoanalysis was banned as it was
219. 8:42considered "Jewish science." In 1938,
220. 8:45German troops arrived in Vienna. The
221. 8:48Gestapo even came to knock at his door.
222. 8:51Freud realized he had to flee, but
223. 8:53thanks to his fame, he received offers
224. 8:55of escape from the American president
225. 8:57and even from a Nazi bureaucrat who was
226. 8:59fascinated by his theories. So, for the
227. 9:03second time in his life, he moved,
228. 9:05packed up all his belongings, and
229. 9:07emigrated to London. He was 82 years
230. 9:09old. The following year, in his London
231. 9:13home, exhausted by a cancer he had
232. 9:15battled for over 15 years—caused by
233. 9:17the smoking habit that led to the
234. 9:19removal of his jaw—Freud asked his
235. 9:21doctor and his daughter Anna to
236. 9:23increase his final dose of morphine,
237. 9:25and two days later, he died without
238. 9:27suffering in September 1939, leaving
239. 9:29his final work, *An Outline of
240. 9:31Psychoanalysis*, unfinished. With this
241. 9:34biography, as I mentioned at the
242. 9:36beginning of the video, we open our
243. 9:38series on psychoanalysis and dynamic
244. 9:40psychology. I will soon cover the first
245. 9:43Freudian writings I have chosen to dive
246. 9:45into his theories, in videos that I
247. 9:47hope to publish at least once a month,
248. 9:49depending on my perseverance in reading
249. 9:51and rereading his works. Thank you for
250. 9:54listening.