Freud's Relationship With His Mother: Amalie
As a young boy, Freud was characterized by loss and threat of loss because he was worried about his mother abandoning him at a young age. He was his mother's "golden child," but this ideal only pressured him to perform well in her honor for the rest of his life. In The Freudian Mystique, the authors argue that Amalie was very narcissistic and she used Sigmund to exploit this narcissism. Amalie was very domineering and his father could not financially care for his family, which only made his mother turn to Sigmund and his achievements. Freud noted later in his life that he felt as though his mother cared for his physical needs, but not his spiritual ones.
He was afraid of abandonment and he suffered anxiety over this. Because of the numerous people that left him during his early childhood, he was always afraid of losing his mother as well. She was preoccupied with her pregnancy and losses to pay attention to Sigmund, which caused Freud to resent his siblings. He got very attached to his nanny. His mother was so preoccupied with her pregnancies that she allowed his nanny to take him to Catholic church when Amalie was Jewish.
Much of Freud's fear of abandonment and his view of women come from his feelings for his mother. There was an incident where he saw his mother nude, which he wrote about as causing him to have an infantile sexual experience. He had feelings for his mother, Amalie, and his surrogate mother, Resi. He felt responsible for the loss of his brother (Julius), Resi, his niece (Pauline), and the potential loss of his mother because of his sexual feelings. After the experience of seeing his mother nude on a train, who then died a few months later, Freud associated sex with loss. This continued as a theme throughout the rest of his life.
Sigmund wrote that his inability to identify and figure out his feelings for his mother made it very difficult to understand and write about women's sexuality. His inability to work through his emotions for his mother made him unable to observe women's sexual emotions and write theories about them. He was also unable to define gender identity because of the loss of Resi and the potential abandonment of his mother.
Sources: Gay, P. (1988). Freud: A Life for Our Time. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Slipp, S. (1993). The Freudian Mystique: Freud, Women, and Feminism. New York and London: New York University Press.
He was afraid of abandonment and he suffered anxiety over this. Because of the numerous people that left him during his early childhood, he was always afraid of losing his mother as well. She was preoccupied with her pregnancy and losses to pay attention to Sigmund, which caused Freud to resent his siblings. He got very attached to his nanny. His mother was so preoccupied with her pregnancies that she allowed his nanny to take him to Catholic church when Amalie was Jewish.
Much of Freud's fear of abandonment and his view of women come from his feelings for his mother. There was an incident where he saw his mother nude, which he wrote about as causing him to have an infantile sexual experience. He had feelings for his mother, Amalie, and his surrogate mother, Resi. He felt responsible for the loss of his brother (Julius), Resi, his niece (Pauline), and the potential loss of his mother because of his sexual feelings. After the experience of seeing his mother nude on a train, who then died a few months later, Freud associated sex with loss. This continued as a theme throughout the rest of his life.
Sigmund wrote that his inability to identify and figure out his feelings for his mother made it very difficult to understand and write about women's sexuality. His inability to work through his emotions for his mother made him unable to observe women's sexual emotions and write theories about them. He was also unable to define gender identity because of the loss of Resi and the potential abandonment of his mother.
Sources: Gay, P. (1988). Freud: A Life for Our Time. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Slipp, S. (1993). The Freudian Mystique: Freud, Women, and Feminism. New York and London: New York University Press.