Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud (born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, famous for such revolutionary ideas as the unconscious mind, defense mechanisms, infantile sexuality, transference (the notion that childhood relationships influence relationships in adulthood), the division of the human personality into id, ego, and superego, and finally for the talking cure, a notion that has provided the basic format to all varieties of psychotherapy since.

Freud was born to Galician Jewish parents in the Moravian town of Freiberg, in the Austrian Empire (now Příbor, Czech Republic). He qualified as a doctor of medicine in 1881 at the University of Vienna. Upon completing his habilitation in 1885, he was appointed a docent in neuropathology and became an affiliated professor in 1902. Freud lived and worked in Vienna, having set up his clinical practice there in 1886. Following the German annexation of Austria in March 1938, Freud left Austria to escape Nazi persecution. He died in exile in the United Kingdom in September 1939.

In founding psychoanalysis, Freud developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association. Freud's redefinition of sexuality to include its infantile forms led him to formulate the Oedipus complex as one of the central tenets of psychoanalytical theory. His analysis of dreams as wish fulfillments provided him with models for the clinical analysis of symptom formation and the underlying mechanisms of repression. Subsequently, Freud postulated the existence of libido (sexualised psychic energy), with which mental processes and structures are invested and that generates erotic attachments and a death drive, the source of compulsive repetition, hate, aggression, and neurotic guilt. In his later work, Freud developed a wide-ranging interpretation and critique of religion and culture.

Though the practice of psychoanalysis in its original form has declined precipitously in the past fifty years, psychoanalysis remains influential within psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy, and across the humanities. It continues to generate debate concerning its therapeutic efficacy, its scientific status, and whether it advances or hinders the feminist cause. Nonetheless, Freud's work has suffused contemporary Western thought and popular culture. W. H. Auden's 1940 poetic tribute to Freud describes him as having created "a whole climate of opinion / under whom we conduct our different lives".

Biography

Early life and education

Sigmund Freud was born to Ashkenazi Jewish parents in the Moravian town of Freiberg, in the Austrian Empire (now Příbor, Czech Republic), the first of eight children. Both of his parents were from Galicia. His father, Jakob Freud, a wool merchant, had two sons, Emanuel and Philipp, by his first marriage. Jakob's family were Hasidic Jews and, although Jakob himself had moved away from the tradition, he came to be known for his Torah study. He and Freud's mother, Amalia Nathansohn, who was 20 years younger and his third wife, were married by Rabbi Isaac Noah Mannheimer on 29 July 1855. They were struggling financially and living in a rented room, in a locksmith's house at Schlossergasse 117 when their son Sigmund was born. He was born with a caul, which his mother saw as a positive omen for the boy's future.

In 1859, the Freud family left Freiberg. Freud's half-brothers immigrated to Manchester, England, parting him from the "inseparable" playmate of his early childhood, Emanuel's son, John. Jakob Freud took his wife and two children (Freud's sister, Anna, was born in 1858; a brother, Julius born in 1857, had died in infancy) firstly to Leipzig and then in 1860 to Vienna where four sisters and a brother were born: Rosa (b. 1860), Marie (b. 1861), Adolfine (b. 1862), Paula (b. 1864), Alexander (b. 1866). In 1865, the nine-year-old Freud entered the Leopoldstädter Kommunal-Realgymnasium, a prominent high school. He proved to be an outstanding pupil and graduated from the Matura in 1873 with honors. He loved literature and was proficient in German, French, Italian, Spanish, English, Hebrew, Latin and Greek.

Freud entered the University of Vienna at age 17. He had planned to study law, but joined the medical faculty at the university, where his studies included philosophy under Franz Brentano, physiology under Ernst Brücke, and zoology under Darwinist professor Carl Claus. In 1876, Freud spent four weeks at Claus's zoological research station in Trieste, dissecting hundreds of eels in an inconclusive search for their male reproductive organs. In 1877, Freud moved to Ernst Brücke's physiology laboratory, where he spent six years comparing the brains of humans with those of other vertebrates such as frogs, lampreys, as well as invertebrates, for example, crayfish. His research work on the biology of nervous tissue proved seminal for the subsequent discovery of the neuron in the 1890s. Freud's research work was interrupted in 1879 by the obligation to undertake a year's compulsory military service. The lengthy downtimes enabled him to complete a commission to translate four essays from John Stuart Mill's collected works. He graduated with an MD in March 1881.

Early career and marriage

In 1882, Freud began his medical career at Vienna General Hospital. His research work in cerebral anatomy led to the publication in 1884 of an influential paper on the palliative effects of cocaine, and his work on aphasia would form the basis of his first book On Aphasia: A Critical Study, published in 1891. Over three years, Freud worked in various departments of the hospital. His time spent in Theodor Meynert's psychiatric clinic and as a locum in a local asylum led to an increased interest in clinical work. His substantial body of published research led to his appointment as a university lecturer or docent in neuropathology in 1885, a non-salaried post but one that entitled him to give lectures at the University of Vienna.

In 1886, Freud resigned his hospital post and entered private practice, specializing in "nervous disorders". The same year, he married Martha Bernays, the granddaughter of Isaac Bernays, a chief rabbi in Hamburg. Freud was, as an atheist, dismayed at the requirement in Austria for a Jewish religious ceremony and briefly considered, before dismissing, the prospect of joining the Protestant 'Confession' to avoid one. A civil ceremony for Bernays and Freud took place on 13 September, and a religious ceremony took place the following day, with Freud having been hastily tutored in the Hebrew prayers. The Freuds had six children: Mathilde (b. 1887), Jean-Martin (b. 1889), Oliver (b. 1891), Ernst (b. 1892), Sophie (b. 1893), and Anna (b. 1895). From 1891 until they left Vienna in 1938, Freud and his family lived in an apartment at Berggasse 19, near Innere Stadt.

On 8 December 1897, Freud was initiated into the German Jewish cultural association B'nai B'rith, to which he remained linked all his life. Freud gave a speech on the interpretation of dreams, which had an enthusiastic reception. It anticipated the book of the same name, which was published two years later.

In 1896, Minna Bernays, Martha Freud's sister, became a permanent member of the Freud household after the death of her fiancé. "[A] paper published in 1969 by John M. Billinsky contained the transcript of a conversation he had with [Carl] Jung in 1957, in which Jung confided that ... Minna herself had told him about her affair with Freud". The discovery of a Swiss hotel guest book entry for 13 August 1898, signed by Freud whilst travelling with his sister-in-law, has been presented as evidence of the affair.

Freud began smoking tobacco at age 24; initially a cigarette smoker, he became a cigar smoker. He believed smoking enhanced his capacity to work and that he could exercise self-control in moderating it. Despite health warnings from colleague Wilhelm Fliess, he remained a smoker, eventually developing buccal cancer. Freud suggested to Fliess in 1897 that addictions, including that to tobacco, were substitutes for masturbation, "the one great habit."

Freud had greatly admired his philosophy tutor, Franz Brentano, who was known for his theories of perception and introspection. Brentano discussed the possible existence of the unconscious mind in his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1874). Although Brentano denied its existence, his discussion of the unconscious probably helped introduce Freud to the concept. Freud owned and made use of Charles Darwin's major evolutionary writings and was also influenced by Eduard von Hartmann's The Philosophy of the Unconscious (1869). Other texts of importance to Freud were by Fechner and Herbart, with the latter's Psychology as Science perhaps of underrated significance in this respect. Freud also drew on the work of Theodor Lipps, who was one of the main contemporary theorists of the concepts of the unconscious and empathy.