How Freud Changed What People Thought About the Mind

28 December 2010

Viggo Mortensen plays Sigmund Freud, left, and Michael Fassbender plays Carl Jung in the film "A Dangerous Method."

DOUG JOHNSON: Welcome to Explorations in VOA Special English. I'm Doug Johnson. The movie "A Dangerous Method" is showing in theaters across the United States and in other countries. The Film tells about Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung -- two leaders in the use of psychotherapy to treat mental disorders.

The work of Freud continues to influence many areas of modern culture. Today, Bob Doughty and Faith Lapidus explore his influence on psychotherapy.

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BOB DOUGHTY: Sigmund Freud was born May sixth, eighteen fifty-six, in Moravia, in what is now the Czech Republic. He lived most of his life in Vienna, Austria. Early in his adulthood, Freud studied medicine. By the end of the nineteenth century, he was developing some exciting new ideas about the human mind. But his first scientific publications dealt with sea animals, including the sexuality of eels.

FAITH LAPIDUS: Freud was one of the first scientists to make serious research of the mind. The mind is the collection of activities based in the brain that involve how we act, think, feel and reason.

He used long talks with patients and the study of dreams to search for the causes of mental and emotional problems. He also tried hypnosis. He wanted to see if putting patients into a sleep-like condition would help ease troubled minds. In most cases he found the effects only temporary.