Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), the founder of the “talking cure” of psychoanalysis, which has led to most of the forms of psychodynamic psychotherapy extant today, was born in Freiburg, Moravia. He was the first and favored child of the third wife of a wool merchant. In 1861, after Austria abolished restrictions on Jews, the family moved to Vienna and took pride in Freud’s exceptional performance in school. At the Vienna Medical School, he was mentored in the school of Helmholtz by the physicalistic Darwinian physiologist Ernst Bruke. He undertook research in Bruke’s laboratory, eventually publishing some 200 neurological works, including expert monographs on childhood movement disorders and aphasia.

Realizing that he could not support a family in research, Freud prepared for psychiatric practice at the Vienna General ...