Sigmund Freud
Austrian neurologist, 1856 to 1939, who built psychoanalysis out of clinical work in Vienna and whose standing as a scientist has been contested since his lifetime.
Who they are
Peter Watson's The Modern Mind records that Freud studied in Paris under Jean-Martin Charcot, then moved from hypnosis to free association, and from there to the unconscious and repression (pp. 13 to 14). The method grew out of Josef Breuer's treatment of Bertha Pappenheim, who named it the "talking cure". Richard von Krafft-Ebing said Freud's account of hysteria "sounds like a scientific fairy tale". In 1905, Watson records, Freud reported paternal syphilis in more than half of his severe cases of hysteria (pp. 106 to 107).
Watson's own criticism, at p. 27, is that Freud saw himself as a scientist yet provided no method by which the existence of the unconscious could be demonstrated to a sceptic. Watson also argues that the volume of shell-shock cases in the First World War, more than argument, changed British medical opinion of Freud (p. 155).
Key papers
Freud, S. (1900). The Interpretation of Dreams. Conventionally the founding text of psychoanalysis.
Freud, S. (1905). Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality.
Freud, S. (1923). The Ego and the Id. The source of the division into ego, superego and id.
These works are named from Watson (2001) and this library's records; none was read for this page.
Key ideas
Symptoms can carry meaning that talking can reach. See The Talking Cure and Free Association.
Sources
- Watson, P. (2001). The Modern Mind, Perennial edition 2002, read in full with a reliability audit, 18 September 2026; pp. 13 to 14, 27, 106 to 107 and 155 used for this page, 13 October 2026.