Ms Ifrah Omran gives an overview of a visit to the Freud Museum in Hampstead
Freud’s weird and wonderful theologies and case studies play an integral part in the CIE syllabus for Psychology, from case studies of little boys with horse phobias as a consequence of envy of their fathers, to psychosexual stages of development in babies. Located in Hampstead, what used to be Freud’s family home, has been converted into a museum dedicated to his lifetime’s work. It only seemed fitting to pay the museum a visit to delve into Frued’s past in the same way that he delved into the past of others over his long career as a psychoanalyst and thinker. A discussion and Q & A session with an extremely informative volunteer of the museum gave students the opportunity to see that Freud was a normal family man and father as well as espousing many unique and peculiar theories and ideologies.
“The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization” – Freud
To top the experience off was a tour of the museum with all of Freud’s antiquities and family memories. Not forgetting the most famous piece of furniture in all the collection, preserved just as it was in his life-time, Freud’s psychoanalytic couch, on which all of his patients reclined. A faux Freud’s couch allowed student to transport themselves into the shoes of one of Freud’s patients. Here’s a bit of what the some of the Psychology students thought of their time at The Freud Museum.
“it was interesting to see how the man I learnt about in text books lived” – Hamdi Ahmed and Saneah Siddiqui
“it was fascinating to understand the psyche and the thought process of the father of psychology”.- Yousuf Hayat
“I had a great time learning about the nuances of Freud. It helped me to see that there was a lot of method to what some consider mostly madness” – Sharif Abdul Hakeem
