The Denial of Death

Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 in what is now the Czech Republic. His parents were working-class Jews who migrated from Galicia, a province that is today a part of both Poland and Ukraine. Attending the University of Vienna in Austria, Freud graduated with a medical degree in 1881. He then ran his own private practice in Vienna and taught at the university.

Freud also published many books and essays on a variety of subjects. His most influential publications include The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), Totem and Taboo: Resemblances Between the Psychic Lives of Savages and Neurotics (1913), The Ego and The Id (1923), and Civilization and Its Discontents (1930).

Besides his influence over Becker, Sigmund Freud is one of the most influential figures in the modern era through his development of modern psychoanalysis. He heavily promoted forms of “talk therapy,” the practice of having the patient simply discuss their feelings, to treat mental illnesses. Freud refined the idea that every individual has an unconscious that affects their lives and thought processes. He emphasized techniques like identifying repressed desires and interpreting dreams. Most of all, Freud argued that every single person has a neurosis. In other words, psychologically speaking, there is no such thing as “normal.” Although some of Freud’s ideas have been contested or rejected by most modern psychiatrists and psychologists, he is still a foundational figure in modern psychology.

When Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, Freud reluctantly left Austria. He relocated with his family to London. In Britain, Freud continued seeing patients until he became too sick from cancer of the jaw to do so. He passed away on September 23, 1939, following a deliberate overdose of morphine administered by a doctor.

A pivotal philosopher of the 19th century, Kierkegaard was born to a middle-class family in Copenhagen, the capital city of Denmark. In 1841, he finished an MA specializing in theology. In his philosophical and theological works, Kierkegaard urged individuals to explore their inner selves and transcend the identities put on them by their societies.

Kierkegaard also applied this emphasis on individual responsibility and fulfillment to his understanding of religion. He viewed faith as a personal and intensely internal process that constantly has to be renewed. He also argued that every person experiences God in their own unique way. For Kierkegaard, Christianity was not about adherence to ritual or dogma but an emotional process of opening oneself up to God’s love. These views also made Kierkegaard a fierce critic of the Church of Denmark, the country’s official state church.

Kierkegaard died from an unknown illness on November 11, 1855. His works had an impact on not only philosophy but on modern Christianity and wider social attitudes as well. Specifically, Kierkegaard deeply influenced the idea of the modern individual and shaped more liberal understandings of Christianity. His most influential works include Either/Or (1843), Fear and Trembling (1843), The Concept of Anxiety (1844), and Practice in Christianity (1850).