Freud biography

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Who Was Sigmund Freud?

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist who developed psychoanalysis, a method through which an analyst unpacks unconscious conflicts based on the free associations, dreams and fantasies of the patient. His theories on child sexuality, libido and the ego, among other topics, were some of the most influential academic concepts of the 20th century.

Early Life, Education and Career

Freud was born in the Austrian town of Freiberg, now known as the Czech Republic, on May 6, When he was four years old, Freud’s family moved to Vienna, the town where he would live and work for most of the remainder of his life. He received his medical degree in As a medical student and young researcher, Freud’s research focused on neurobiology, exploring the biology of brains and nervous tissue of humans and animals.

After graduation, Freud promptly set up a private practice and began treating various psychological disorders. Considering himself first and foremost a scientist, rather than a doctor, he endeavored to understand the journey of human knowledge and experience.

Early in his career, Freud became greatly influenced by the work of his friend and Viennese colleague, Josef Breuer, who had discovered that when he encouraged a hysterical patient to talk uninhibitedly about the earliest occurrences of the symptoms, the symptoms sometimes gradually abated.

After much work together, Breuer ended the relationship, feeling that Freud placed too much emphasis on the sexual origins of a patient's neuroses and was completely unwilling to consider other viewpoints. Meanwhile, Freud continued to refine his own argument.

Theories

Freud's psychoanalytic theory, inspired by his colleague Josef Breuer, posited that neuroses had their origins in deeply traumatic experiences that had occurred in the patient's past. He believed that the original occurrences had been forgotten and hidden from consciousness. His treatment was to empower his patien

Sigmund Freud () was the founder of psychoanalysis, a theory of how the mind works and a method of helping people in mental distress.

Freud was born on 6 May in Freiberg, Moravia (today Příbor, Czech Republic) to a family of Jewish wool merchants.

Freud spent most of his life in Vienna, where the family moved in

It was in Vienna that Freud went to school, attended university, got married, trained as a research scientist and then a doctor, and developed psychoanalysis.

As psychoanalysis spread, Freud built up a global following.

When the Nazis took over Austria in , Freud was forced to flee. He died on 23 September at his home in London, now the Freud Museum.

Freud was one of the most influential and controversial thinkers of the 20th century.

He developed a new vision of human existence &#; but in doing so he undermined deeply cherished cultural values and aroused immense hostility.

&#;I do not wish to arouse conviction; I wish to stimulate thought and to upset prejudices.&#;Sigmund Freud

Freud argued that human behaviour is largely determined by unconscious motivations that stem from childhood experiences, specifically encounters with love, loss, sexuality and death, and complex emotional attitudes to parents and siblings.

Because of their unsettling implications, Freud compared his discoveries to those of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, who first discovered that the sun did not rotate around the earth.

Just as Copernicus showed that the universe doesn&#;t revolve around us, Freud showed that we are not even at home in our own minds:

&#;The ego is not master in its own house.&#;

Major works

Freud wrote prolifically about theory and technique of psychoanalysis, and its implications for how we understand society, culture, and ourselves.

His major psychoanalytic works include:

Sigmund Freud  ©Freud was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, who created an entirely new approach to the understanding of the human personality. He is regarded as one of the most influential - and controversial - minds of the 20th century.

Sigismund (later changed to Sigmund) Freud was born on 6 May in Freiberg, Moravia (now Pribor in the Czech Republic). His father was a merchant. The family moved to Leipzig and then settled in Vienna, where Freud was educated. Freud's family were Jewish but he was himself non-practising.

In , Freud began to study medicine at the University of Vienna. After graduating, he worked at the Vienna General Hospital. He collaborated with Josef Breuer in treating hysteria by the recall of painful experiences under hypnosis. In , Freud went to Paris as a student of the neurologist Jean Charcot. On his return to Vienna the following year, Freud set up in private practice, specialising in nervous and brain disorders. The same year he married Martha Bernays, with whom he had six children.

Freud developed the theory that humans have an unconscious in which sexual and aggressive impulses are in perpetual conflict for supremacy with the defences against them. In , he began an intensive analysis of himself. In , his major work 'The Interpretation of Dreams' was published in which Freud analysed dreams in terms of unconscious desires and experiences.

In , Freud was appointed Professor of Neuropathology at the University of Vienna, a post he held until Although the medical establishment disagreed with many of his theories, a group of pupils and followers began to gather around Freud. In , the International Psychoanalytic Association was founded with Carl Jung, a close associate of Freud's, as the president. Jung later broke with Freud and developed his own theories.

After World War One, Freud spent less time in clinical observation and concentrated on the application of his theories to hist

Psychology's most famous figure is also one of the most influential and controversial thinkers of the 20th century. Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist born in , is often referred to as the "father of modern psychology."

Freud revolutionized how we think about and treat mental health conditions. Freud founded psychoanalysis as a way of listening to patients and better understanding how their minds work. Psychoanalysis continues to have an enormous influence on modern psychology and psychiatry.

Sigmund Freud's theories and work helped shape current views of dreams, childhood, personality, memory, sexuality, and therapy. Freud's work also laid the foundation for many other theorists to formulate ideas, while others developed new theories in opposition to his ideas.

Sigmund Freud Biography

To understand Freud's legacy, it is important to begin with a look at his life. His experiences informed many of his theories, so learning more about his life and the times in which he lived can lead to a deeper understanding of where his theories came from.

Freud was born in in a town called Freiberg in Moravia—in what is now known as the Czech Republic. He was the oldest of eight children. His family moved to Vienna several years after he was born, and he lived most of his life there.

Freud earned a medical degree and began practicing as a doctor in Vienna. He was appointed Lecturer on Nervous Diseases at the University of Vienna in

Freud eventually withdrew from academia after the Viennese medical community rejected the types of ideas he brought back from Paris (specifically on what was then called hysteria). Freud went on to publish influential works in