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Sigmund Freud. Sigmund Freud ( / frɔɪd / FROYD, [2] German: [ˈziːkmʊnt ˈfrɔʏt]; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies seen as originating from conflicts in the psyche, through dialogue ...
- Goethe Prize (1930)
- Overview
- Early life and training
After graduating (1873) from secondary school in Vienna, Sigmund Freud entered the medical school of the University of Vienna, concentrating on physiology and neurology; he obtained a medical degree in 1881. He trained (1882–85) as a clinical assistant at the General Hospital in Vienna and studied (1885–86) in Paris under neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot.
What did Sigmund Freud die of?
Sigmund Freud died of a lethal dose of morphine administered at his request by his friend and physician Max Schur. Freud had been suffering agonizing pain caused by an inoperable cancerous tumour in his eye socket and cheek. The cancer had begun as a lesion in his mouth that he discovered in 1923.
What did Sigmund Freud write?
Sigmund Freud’s voluminous writings included The Interpretation of Dreams (1899/1900), The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1904), Totem and Taboo (1913), and Civilization and Its Discontents (1930).
Why is Sigmund Freud famous?
Freud’s father, Jakob, was a Jewish wool merchant who had been married once before he wed the boy’s mother, Amalie Nathansohn. The father, 40 years old at Freud’s birth, seems to have been a relatively remote and authoritarian figure, while his mother appears to have been more nurturant and emotionally available. Although Freud had two older half-brothers, his strongest if also most ambivalent attachment seems to have been to a nephew, John, one year his senior, who provided the model of intimate friend and hated rival that Freud reproduced often at later stages of his life.
In 1859 the Freud family was compelled for economic reasons to move to Leipzig and then a year after to Vienna, where Freud remained until the Nazi annexation of Austria 78 years later. Despite Freud’s dislike of the imperial city, in part because of its citizens’ frequent anti-Semitism, psychoanalysis reflected in significant ways the cultural and political context out of which it emerged. For example, Freud’s sensitivity to the vulnerability of paternal authority within the psyche may well have been stimulated by the decline in power suffered by his father’s generation, often liberal rationalists, in the Habsburg empire. So too his interest in the theme of the seduction of daughters was rooted in complicated ways in the context of Viennese attitudes toward female sexuality.
In 1873 Freud was graduated from the Sperl Gymnasium and, apparently inspired by a public reading of an essay by Goethe on nature, turned to medicine as a career. At the University of Vienna he worked with one of the leading physiologists of his day, Ernst von Brücke, an exponent of the materialist, antivitalist science of Hermann von Helmholtz. In 1882 he entered the General Hospital in Vienna as a clinical assistant to train with the psychiatrist Theodor Meynert and the professor of internal medicine Hermann Nothnagel. In 1885 Freud was appointed lecturer in neuropathology, having concluded important research on the brain’s medulla. At this time he also developed an interest in the pharmaceutical benefits of cocaine, which he pursued for several years. Although some beneficial results were found in eye surgery, which have been credited to Freud’s friend Carl Koller, the general outcome was disastrous. Not only did Freud’s advocacy lead to a mortal addiction in another close friend, Ernst Fleischl von Marxow, but it also tarnished his medical reputation for a time. Whether or not one interprets this episode in terms that call into question Freud’s prudence as a scientist, it was of a piece with his lifelong willingness to attempt bold solutions to relieve human suffering.
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Freud’s scientific training remained of cardinal importance in his work, or at least in his own conception of it. In such writings as his “Entwurf einer Psychologie” (written 1895, published 1950; “Project for a Scientific Psychology”) he affirmed his intention to find a physiological and materialist basis for his theories of the psyche. Here a mechanistic neurophysiological model vied with a more organismic, phylogenetic one in ways that demonstrate Freud’s complicated debt to the science of his day.
Aug 15, 2022 · Learn about the life, work, and influence of Sigmund Freud, the "father of modern psychology." Explore his major theories on the unconscious mind, personality, sexuality, and psychotherapy.
Apr 3, 2014 · Learn about the life and work of Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist who developed psychoanalysis, a method of unpacking unconscious conflicts based on the free associations, dreams and fantasies of the patient. Discover his influential theories on child sexuality, libido, the id, the ego, the superego, the oedipus complex and more.
Jan 25, 2024 · Learn about the life and work of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis and a pioneer of modern psychology. Explore his concepts of the unconscious mind, personality, psychosexual development, dream analysis, and more.
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A comprehensive overview of the life and work of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, a physiologist, medical doctor, psychologist and influential thinker of the early twentieth century. Learn about his theory of the unconscious, infantile sexuality, neuroses, and psychoanalytic therapy, as well as his discovery of the unconscious, infantile sexuality, and neuroses.
A biography of the founder of psychoanalysis, who developed groundbreaking theories about the nature and workings of the human mind. Learn about his life, clinical work, publications, and influence on psychology and culture.
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