Chapter Background of On Narcissism: An Introduction - Study Guide by Sigmund Freud

Background

Most modern psychology developed along the lines of John Locke's view that the source of human knowledge was through experience. Locke believed that all information about the physical world comes through the senses and that all correct ideas can be traced to the sensory information on which they are based. However, some European psychologists remained loyal to Descartes' ideas that some mental organisation is innate and this concept still plays a role in theories of perception and cognition.

Complimentary to this philosophical background, psychology also received contributions from physiology. German physiologist Johannes Müller tried to relate sensory experience both to events in the nervous system and to events in the organism's physical environment. The first psychologists, Fechner and Wundt, introduced experimental methods for measuring sensations in terms of physical magnitude of the stimuli producing them, and in 1879 Wundt founded the first laboratory of experimental psychology. So, it was from this scientific climate that Freud developed his theories of psychoanalysis and dream interpretation, calling attention to the instinctual drives and unconscious motivational processes that determine people's behaviour.

Behind all of Freud's work, however, was his belief in the universal law of determinism. In terms of physical phenomena this may have been derived from his experience in Brucke's laboratory, - i.e. the school of Helmholtz. But in extending this into the field of mental phenomena he may have been influenced by his teacher, the psychiatrist Meynert and maybe the philosopher Herbart.

The idea of writing the present paper emerges in Freud's letters in June 1913. This paper is among the most important of Freud's writings and may be regarded as one of the pivots in the evolution of his views, however it is worth noting that he himself was very dissatisfied with the result, as Ernest Jones tells us 'The "Narcissism" had a difficult labour and bears all the marks of a corresponding deformation.'