Freud, Sigmund

The Early Years

Sigmund Freud was born on May 6, 1856, in Freiburg, Moravia, now part of the Czech Republic. His father, Jacob, was a wool merchant who had been married twice before; his mother, Amalia, only 20 years old at the time of her marriage, was 20 years younger than her husband. In all, eight children were born to the marriage, seven of whom survived childhood, but Sigmund, the firstborn, would remain the favorite child.

When Sigmund was 4 years old, the family moved to Vienna. Business opportunities were thought to be better there for his father. In addition, anti-Semitism was expected to be less pronounced than in some other parts of Europe. From his earliest days, Freud was a strong student, with considerable ambition. As a young man, he was particularly interested in history and the humanities. At the age of 17, he enrolled in the medical school of the University of Vienna.

While at the university, he encountered several influential teachers, including Franz Brentano (1838–1917), the father of “act” psychology, and Ernst Brucke (1819–1892), a student of Johannes Muller (1801–1858), who had continued work in the tradition of Muller's mechanistic physiology. Freud conducted research in Brucke's laboratory, publishing several papers in the process, even postponing his own medical school graduation to continue the research. Later, he named one of his sons after Brucke. He could not postpone graduation indefinitely, however. He had fallen in love with a young woman, Martha Bernays, and he needed to make a living.

Although Freud felt drawn to the academic life, he had little hope of securing a university position. Reluctantly, he began pursuing the practical training that would qualify him for medical practice. In 1885, while in the midst of his clinical medical training, he received a small grant to study with the famous French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893), in Paris. Charcot had contributed to the understanding of several neurological disorders but had become particularly famous in psychology for his controversial ideas regarding the treatment of hysteria. Freud was profoundly influenced by Charcot's ideas.

The Beginnings of Psychoanalysis

One of the great breakthroughs for Freud came from the experience of Josef Breuer (1842–1925), his friend and early mentor. Beginning in 1880, Breuer had treated a young women known as “Anna O.” (In later reports, she was identified as Bertha Pappenheim.) She suffered from a variety of confusing symptoms, including paralysis, phobias, and speech and vision disorders, which Breuer recognized as signs of hysteria. He treated her principally with hypnosis, giving her the opportunity to vent her emotions while hypnotized. During these sessions, Anna often discussed early experiences. Following the sessions, her symptoms were frequently diminished or disappeared. She began referring to her treatment as “chimney sweeping” and “the talking cure.” Anna O. is often referred to as the “first patient of psychoanalysis.”

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