ABSTRACT
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was one of the seminal minds of the modern era, whose influence has extended far beyond the boundaries of psychoanalysis, of which he is the recognized founder. In a long series of publications, based partly on his clinical experience of treating neurotic patients, Freud developed a theory of and desa:iptive terminology for the workings of the human mind which has permeated the whole of modem culture in the West. Perhaps the most significant emphasis in his work was the idea that most human mental activity is unconscious, and that the primary source of psychic energy, libido, is sexual. Freud divided the human mind schematically into three zones, the Id (or unconscious), the Ego (conscious personality), and Super-ego (conscience), and explained dreams and neurotic symptoms as the result of drives rising from the Id, being repressed by the Ego and Super-ego, and finding expression in 'displaced' forms.
