PEOPLE WHO CHANGE THE WORLD: Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Father of MODERN
PSYCHOLOGY Sigmund Freud was a late 19th and early 20th century neurologist. He is widely acknowledged as the father of modern psychology and the primary developer of the process of psychoanalysis
S
igmund Freud was born in Freiberg, Moravia in 1856, the encourage the patient to tap into the unconscious mind and let go oldest of eight children. His family moved to Vienna when of the repressed energy and emotions therein. Freud called this Freud was four years old. He studied at a preparatory function repression and felt that this action hindered the development of emotional and physical functionality, which he referred to school in Leopoldstadt where he excelled in Greek, Latin, as psychosomatic. The element of using talk therapy eventually history, math, and science. His academic superiority gained him became the foundation of psychoanalysis. entry into the University of Vienna at the age of seventeen. Upon completion, he went on to pursue his medical degree and Ph.D. in neurology. “Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the Freud married Martha Bernays in 1886, and the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.” couple had six children. The youngest of Freud’s chil—Sigmund Freud dren, Anna Freud, became an influential psychologist and ardent defender of her father’s theories. After working with Joseph Breur at the Vienna General HospiFreud drew heavily upon the emphasis of philosophers such tal, Freud traveled to Paris to study hypnosis under Jean-Martin as Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, and Kant. Freud’s theories continue to Charcot. When he returned to Vienna the following year, Freud influence much of modern psychology, and his ideas also resonate opened his first medical practice and began specialising in brain throughout philosophy, sociology, and political science, with thinkers such as Jacques Lacan and Karl Marx drawing heavily upon and nervous disorders. Freud soon determined that hypnosis was Freudian theories. Freud’s emphasis upon early life and the drive an ineffective method to achieve the results he desired, and he began to implement a form of talking therapy with his patients. This to pleasure are perhaps his most significant contributions to psychology. Even contemporary psychologists who disavow Freud’s method became recognised as a “talking cure” and the goal was to
44 |
BUSINESS PARTNER AUSTRIA