Sigmund Freud was born may 6, 1856. He was the first of six children he also had two older half brothers from his fathers previous marriage. This was his father’s second marriage and in this one he was much older than his wife was about twenty years older than he was.
When Sigmund was just 4 years old his family moved to Vienna, it was a tough childhood for Sigmund growing up in a large Jewish family with not to much income it was a struggle for everyone in the family. He was nicknamed the golden child at one point in his childhood and the meant he was to achieve great success, from that point on his family did everything they could to give Freud a chance to succeed. Freud excelled at his studies at an early age, earning top marks in all of his classes. He excelled in everything but especially languages he could speak five languages at a young age. Freud was so dedicated to his work sometimes he would have meals sent to his room just so he could study. To prove how much his parents did for him the golden child a younger sibling was learning to play piano but Freud complained about the noise so they had the piano removed from the house.
Like most geniuses Freud had a hobby that he was very passionate about he used to keep a record of all his dreams in a logbook and he would read them over and analyse them. At the tender age of 18 Freud entered medical school, he studied a lot of things including fish and seals. He graduated from medical school with top marks in his class. Eager to become successful and support his now wife to be Martha who was 20 and he was 25 he looked for a bold new experiment.
He found that in cocaine he did several experiments and even wrote a book on cocaine he was a propionate recommending it to everyone. Sadly it was not him but his partner who made it successful using cocaine as an anesthetic for laser eye surgery. Crushed by this Freud took up a job an internship at the hospital studying hysteria. As he got more and more into hysteria he studied with a man named Jean Martin Charco and they talked about the theory of the unconscious mind.
When he got back from studying with this great French doctor Freud decided to open his own hospital focusing on the unconscious mind. Taking a page out of Joseph Broyer book Freud utilized a method called the talking cure, in which Freud talked with his patients about there childhood, their dreams, their sex life and their life in general. Freud found that using hypnotisation and the talking cure he could get rid of almost anyone’s hysteria. Freud often used analysis on patient to determine their problem, but Freud used self-analysis on himself to determine the problems that he was having.
He was addicted to cigars had a rotten sex life, had travel phobia and his father had just died. Freud at night after every patient had left would try it on himself he found that although he was not able to rid himself of everything he got rid of his travel phobia and traveled to Rome for his first time ever. Freud also develop the edifice complex also known as penis envy in which your very first sexual thoughts are about your mom and you have a hatred for your dad and fantasy about killing him. Freud regards his most important work as the theory of dreams where he looked in depth and why we dream and what it symbolizes and how it influences us. Freud’s goal was to develop psychoanalysis throughout the world and he was very critical of those who did not agree with him. Before World War 2 broke out Freud immigrated to England where he died from cancer of the mouth at age 82.
