Tag Archives: Sigmund Freud

A Dangerous Method | Film Review

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This film about the birth of psychoanalysis is a triumph. An intelligent and though-provoking film with wonderful performances by Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen and Keira Knightley. Fassbender plays Jung when he was 29 and just married to a wealthy women called Emma. He was working at a hospital in Zurich in 1904 when he met Sabina Spielrein, an 18-year-old Russian Jew who is admitted in a deeply distressed condition.

Jung is attracted and fascinated by Sabina and after Freud sends him Otto Gross, (Vincent Cassel), as a patient, Jung comes under his influence and enters into an unprofessional relationship with Sabina. Gross was himself a psychiatrist in his 20s and suffered from dementia praecox (as schizophrenia was then known).

Jung cures Sabina with the “talking cure”, or psychoanalysis, then being used in Vienna by the 48-year-old Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen), a well-established but highly controversial figure.

Sigmund Freud thought of Carl Jung as his natural heir, but relationships between the two men became strained.

This film is a very good historical film from David Cronenberg. I believe this film is the best Cronenberg has ever made.

Freud sees himself as the father that Jung wishes to destroy. Jung believes that psychoanalysis may save the world.

As the film ends Jung tells Sabina about dreams of the apocalypse. This film ends just before the first world war so Jung was accurate about an apocalypse. The legacy of Freud and Jung is evident in the film. They still affect not only psychoanalysis but our everyday lives. Sabina becomes a celebrated psychologist in the Soviet Union, but, sadly, becomes an early victim of the holocaust along with her two daughters.

A Dangerous Method is available on DVD and Digital Download from June 25th.

Is There a Link Between Depression and Guilt?

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It would seem that Sigmund Freud’s theories on depression have been proved right; guilt does play a role in depression, according to MRI scans depressed people respond more strongly to guilt. Dr Sigmund Freud said that depression was characterised by feelings of guilt or self-blame, which made it different from ‘normal’ sadness.

Researchers at the University of Manchester have done brain scans on people with a history of depression and found that the brain scans differed in the regions associated with guilt and knowledge of socially acceptable behaviour from individuals who never get depressed.

The study was published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.

Lead researcher Dr Roland Zahn, of the University’s School of Psychological Sciences, said: ‘Our research provides the first brain mechanism that could explain the classical observation by Freud that depression is distinguished from normal sadness by proneness to exaggerated feelings of guilt or self-blame.

‘For the first time, we chart the regions of the brain that interact to link detailed knowledge about socially appropriate behaviour – the anterior temporal lobe – with feelings of guilt – the subgenual region of the brain – in people who are prone to depression.’

Dr Zahn, a MRC clinician scientist fellow, said: ‘The scans revealed that the people with a history of depression did not ‘couple’ the brain regions associated with guilt and knowledge of appropriate behaviour together as strongly as the never depressed control group do.

‘Interestingly, this ‘decoupling’ only occurs when people prone to depression feel guilty or blame themselves, but not when they feel angry or blame others. This could reflect a lack of access to details about what exactly was inappropriate about their behaviour when feeling guilty, thereby extending guilt to things they are not responsible for and feeling guilty for everything.’

The research team is now investigating whether the results from the study can be used to predict depression risk after remission of a previous episode.

Memorial Service For Lucian Freud As Art World Mourns

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It was the end of an era in the art world when Lucian Freud died aged 88 on the 22nd of July. Freud was art’s greatest living painter, he made such an impression on me that I was incredibly sad when he died, even though I never met him. I remember reading about where he hung out in a magazine and wishing I had the courage to go to the Wolseley and ‘bump’ into him.

He worked obsessively at his studio in London’s Holland Park and fathered many children. He hung out with Kate Moss and when he died, his regular table at the Wolseley was draped in a black cloth. He borrowed money from Jacob Rothschild on the condition that he would never ask again and never pay it back, he also got in trouble with the Krays after racking up gambling debts, and got into a fight when he was in his 80’s.

A memorial service has been set. Freud’s lawyer Diana Rawstron said his funeral would be held in private but a public memorial service would be held at another date.

She told The Daily Telegraph: ‘The funeral will be private and for the family only. There will be a memorial service at a date to be announced.’

He was the grandson of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud

Freud’s become incredibly expensive and his Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, that sold in 2008 for $33.6 million – a record for a living artist. The women in the Picture, Sue Tilley, said she cried when she heard he had died.

‘He certainly is considered one of the most important painters of the 20th and 21st centuries,’ added Brett Gorvy, deputy chairman of the postwar art department at Christie’s auction house in New York.