Psyhchology

Authors Note:  This is an essay on why I want to become a psychologist and some important Psychologists to know about before you become one.

Sigmund Freud was a Austrian neurologist who became known as the founding father of psychoanalysis.  He came up with the theory called, “oedipal complex”.  Psychology is a hard degree to get because you have to go through many different steps to become a psychologist.  I’ve always wanted to be one and I started to study the field of psychology along with other theories of psychology and Sigmund Freud and his theories.   

Oedipal complex is a term in Sigmund's theory of psychosexual stages of development.  This is when a boy is between the ages of 3 and 5 and he starts to feel jealous of his father.  He wants attention from his mother so he begins to dislike his Father.  The exact opposite for girls is called Electra Complex.  They feel jealous of their mother because they crave attention from their Father.  The term was named after the character in Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex” who accidently killed his father and married his mother.  I think this is kind of a weird theory because when I was young, I didn’t feel this way about my Mom.  I wanted to be by both of my parents.  Maybe because I have 3 older brothers and we all just wanted attention from anyone.

Even though Sigmund’s’ theories are a bit crazy and weird, I still want to become a psychologist.  I think it would be fun and interesting to learn about how and why people think a certain way.  For example, how would you describe the color “blue” to a blind person.  You couldn’t say, “Oh it’s the color of the sky,” because they have never seen the sky before.  My brother has an anatomy class in high school and he always comes home talking about the human brain and how it works.  I started to get fascinated by this because I never really thought about the brain, simply because what teenager really thinks a whole lot about anything?  When I first started researching psychology, I had to read the material over and over again just so I could understand what I was reading.       

Although I want to become a psychologist, I want to know more about how and why you dream.  I found out that when you dream it’s usually about something that craves a lot of your attention.  Also, things in your dream can represent different things, such as a train going into a tunnel can symbolize sexual intercourse.  At least that what Sigmund Freud thought.  On the other hand, Carl Jung had a different opinion. He thought that you dreamt because you were reflecting on your waking self and working through your issues.  When we sleep our brain goes through 5 different stages.  Stage 1 is a light sleep and you could wake up.  Stage 2 is moving into kind of a heavier sleep.  Stage 3 and 4 are our deepest sleep hours.  The 5^th stage is rapid eye movement or REM.  Your brain slowly slows down throughout the stages so that in stage 5 you can have REM.

With more studying about why and how we dream I will begin to understand the brain a little bit more.  Sigmund Freud and his theories are really weird and hard to connect to because I’m still young.  I am going to try to become a psychologist when I’m older because working with the brain is actually fun and interesting to me.