Freud, Sigmund

Early Life

Sigmund Freud was born on the 6th May 1856 in Freiberg, Moravia, which is known today as Pribor in the Czech Republic, before moving to Vienna where he spent the majority of his life. Freud was the first-born child of eight children to parents Jakob and Amalia. Freud’s father worked as a wool merchant, and whilst the family was Jewish, Freud himself did not hold strong Jewish beliefs.

Early Career

Freud studied medicine at the University of Vienna, which is where his interest in neurology developed. Initially, Freud spent time researching the nervous system in a physiological laboratory before leaving to work at the Vienna General Hospital where he became involved in the clinical treatment of psychological disorders using hypnosis. This work contributed greatly to the development of Freud’s famous psychodynamic approach to psychology and the psychoanalytic methods he would use in his research, for example dream analysis. In 1886, Freud set up his own clinical practice specialising in psychological disorders and married Martha Bernays, who he went on to have six children with.

Famous Works

Freud became well-known for his work into behaviour and personality being influenced by the unconscious mind, where he suggested that human’s store their repressed memories and desires. One of his more famous theories includes the Oedipus complex, which he began developing in 1899 and later supported this theory using his 1909 research exploring Little Hans' dreams, a boy who Freud believed had an unconscious sexual desire for his own mother. This theory was first mentioned in his second major publication titled The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), which paired with his later book The Ego and the Id (1923), have become some of the most influential pieces of work in the field of psychology, despite Freud also having many critics who refute his theories.

Later Life

In 1902, Freud became a neuropathology professor at the University of Vienna where he continued his research into neuropathology, before leaving this post and moving to England in 1938 following the Nazi occupation of Austria. Freud eventually died of oral cancer aged 83 on the 23rd September 1939.