Biography of the neurologist Sigmund Freud, father of psychoanalysis

The Austrian neurologist of Jewish origin, Sigmund Freud, was born on May 6, 1856 in Freiberg, Moravia (now Příbor in the Czech Republic), son of Jacob and Amalia Freud, under the name of Sigismund Schlomo Freud.

He was the eldest of eight siblings (five women and three men, including him). He also had two half-brothers, sons of his father’s first marriage, Emanuel and Philipp, who were about twenty years older than him, but they left Austria in their childhood to seek their fortune in Manchester.

According to his own words, Sigmund Freud “was raised without religion and remained incredulous”, so his ties to Judaism were neither religious nor nationalist, although he always identified with his culture

Despite the fact that his family went through great economic difficulties, his parents made an effort to ensure that he received a good education and in 1873, when he was 17 years old, Freud entered the University of Vienna as a medical student in an environment of growing antisemitism.

In 1877 he shortened his name from Sigismund Freud to Sigmund Freud.

The data indicates that he was an avid reader and lover of literature in German, French, Italian, Spanish, English, Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. He read William Shakespeare in English throughout his life, suggesting that much of his knowledge of human psychology may have been derived from Shakespeare’s works.

An unconventional but brilliant student, he was an assistant to Professor E. Brücke at the Vienna Institute of Physiology between 1876 and 1882. In 1880 he met his future mentor, Joseph Breuer.

He developed psychoanalysis in the late 19th century, revolutionizing the understanding of the human mind and offering an alternative to pharmacological treatments for psychic conditions. He created concepts such as the id, the ego, and the superego, which describe different parts of the human psyche.

He studied philosophy as a student of Franz Brentano, physiology with Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke, and zoology with the Darwinist professor Carl Claus. In the third year, he began research on the central nervous system of invertebrates in the physiology laboratory directed by Brücke.

His initial work on psychopathology was On Aphasia (1891), where he developed a study on this neurological disorder in which the ability to pronounce words or name common objects is lost.

He followed the course of unconscious processes, using free associations as a guide to interpret dreams and slips in language. His most important work, “The Interpretation of Dreams“, where he analyzes (in addition to some dreams of his patients) many of his own dreams, recorded during three years of self-analysis initiated in 1897, was initially a commercial failure after its publication in 1899. It sold only 351 copies in its first six years; the second edition was not published until 1909.

Marriage and children

On September 14, 1886, he married Martha Bernays, granddaughter of Isaac Bernays, a rabbi in Hamburg. The couple had six children: Mathilde, born in 1887; Jean-Martin, in 1889; Oliver, in 1891; Ernst, in 1892; Sophie, in 1893; and Anna, in 1895, who became a prominent psychoanalyst, particularly in the field of childhood and psychological development.

In 1896, Minna Bernays, Martha’s sister, became a member of the family after the death of her fiancé. The close relationship she had with Freud led to rumors, initiated by Carl Jung, of an affair. The discovery of a Swiss hotel register from August 13, 1898, signed by Freud while traveling with his sister-in-law, was presented as evidence.