FREUD'S CULTURAL BACKGROUND
It's hard to understand how Freud developed his ideas about personality without knowledge of the world in which he and his patients lived. Born in the Austro Hungarian Empire in 1856, Freud's family moved to Vienna when he was only 4 years old. He lived there until 1938, when Germany occupied Austria, and Freud, of Jewish background, moved to England to escape the Nazis. During this time period, Europe was in what commonly known as the Victorian Age, named for Queen Victoria of Great Britain. The Victorian Age, was a time of sexual repression. People growing up in this period were told by their church that sex should take place only in the context of marriage and then only to make babies. To enjoy sexual intercourse was considered a sin.
Men were understood to be unable to control their 'animal' desires at times, and a good Victorian husband would father several children with his wife and then turn to a mistress for sexual comfort, leaving his virtuous wife untouched. Women, especially those of the upper classes, were not supposed to have sexual urges. It is no wonder that many of Freud's patients were wealthy women with problems stemming from unfulfilled sexual desires or sexual repression. Freud "obsession" with sexual explanations for abnormal behavior seems more understandable in light of his cultural background and that of his patients.
Freud came to believe that there were layers of consciousness in the mind. His belief in the influences of the unconscious mind on conscious behavior.
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