Sigmund Freud

Who is Sigmund Freud?

Sigmund Freud was born in Freiberg, Moravia, then part of the Austrian Empire, and spent most of his life in Vienna where he trained as a neurologist. He is universally recognized as the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method and body of theory concerned with the unconscious mind. Freud proposed influential concepts including the unconscious, repression, the interpretation of dreams, defense mechanisms, and the structural model of the psyche comprising the id, ego, and superego. His major works, such as The Interpretation of Dreams and Civilization and Its Discontents, reshaped psychology, psychiatry, literature, and the humanities. Though many of his specific theories are contested today, his impact on how the modern world understands the mind, memory, and human motivation is profound. Being Jewish, Freud fled Vienna after the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938 and died in London in 1939.

Sources: Sigmund Freud, Die Traumdeutung (The Interpretation of Dreams), 1900 · Peter Gay, Freud: A Life for Our Time, 1988 · Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, 1953-1957