Sigmund Freud (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 arising from conflicts in the psyche through dialogue between patient and psychoanalyst, and the distinctive theory of mind and human agency derived from it.
In creating psychoanalysis, Freud introduced therapeutic methods such as free association, the interpretation of dreams, and the analysis of transference phenomena that arise in the clinical setting. Freud's redefinition of sexuality to include infantile stages led him to formulate the Oedipus complex as a central tenet 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. Accordingly, on this basis, Freud elaborated his theory of the unconscious and went on to develop a model of psychic structure comprising id, ego, and superego. 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 less prevalent in diagnostic and clinical practice, psychoanalysis remains influential within psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy, and across the humanities. It thus 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 "no more a person now but a whole climate of opinion / under whom we conduct our different lives".
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 emigrated 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 family's standing was damaged when Jakob Freud's brother Josef was arrested on suspicion of dealing in counterfeit rubles; he was convicted the following year and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. Police inquiries reportedly pointed towards Manchester, where Jakob's elder sons Emanuel and Philipp were living, although the two were not named in the proceedings. Freud later recalled that the affair caused his father's hair to turn grey within a few days. 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.
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.
Freud's Jewish origins and his allegiance to his secular Jewish identity were significant in the formation of his intellectual and moral outlook, especially concerning his intellectual non-conformism, as he pointed out in his Autobiographical Study. They would also have a substantial effect on the content of psychoanalytic ideas, particularly in respect of their common concerns with depth interpretation and "the bounding of desire by law".
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". Peter J. Swales writes that Jung confided about his affair "not only to John Billinsky, but also ... to his confidant Carl Meier and his own lover Antonia Wolff". Swales also makes a case that Freud impregnated Minna and arranged an abortion for her.