Biography: Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

Sigmund Freud is a medical doctor and founder of psychoanalysis. He was born on May 6, 1856, in Freiberg, Moravia. His father was a wool merchant and his mother was her husband's second wife and 20 years younger. She was 21 years old when she gave birth to her first son, Sigmund who was her pet. Sigmund had two older half-brothers and six younger siblings. When he was four, Freud's family moved to Vienna, where he lived and worked for most of his life.

Freud attended medical school at the University of Vienna where he studied biology for six years, as a student of the distinguished German scientist Ernst Brucke. In 1881, Freud received his medical degree and initially sought work at Vienna General Hospital before setting up a private practice in the treatment of psychological disorders.

In 1885, Freud went to Paris where he became familiar with the technique of hypnosis. Soon, he considered the effects of hypnosis to be temporary and adopted an another method of treatment suggested by his friend Josef Breuer. Breuer felt that if troubled patients were encouraged to talk freely their symptoms would eventually subside - thus there was the term "free association." Freud and Breur continued to work together and developed the idea that many phobias were caused by painful childhood experiences. The two doctors formulated that a patient needed to confront these past issues in order to let go of the phobia. They published their theory in Studies in Hysteria (1894), and their findings were considered to be revolutionary.

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