Sigmund Freud early years

Sigmund Freud was born Sigismund Schlomo Freud, May 6th 1856. His father was a wool merchant and had two children from an earlier marriage. Early on Freud showed signs of high intelligence and a ferocious work ethic. As a result, his parents favored him over his other siblings. Despite being poor, they sacrificed everything to give him a proper education. He attended a prominant highschool where he was an outstanding student and graduated with honors in 1873. Despite planning to study law, Freud joined the medical school at the University of Vienna. He was placed in charge of finding a male eels sex organs. After dissecting more than 400 male eels he was unable to find any testes. Discouraged from his lack of success he changed his course of study. In 1881 he received his MD.

After College

In 1885 Freud went to Paris to study with Europe's most renowned neurologist, Jean Martin Charcot. It was this experience that turned him to a practice of medical psychopathology. Charcot specialised in the study of hysteria and its susceptibility to hypnosis which he frequently demonstrated with patients on stage in front of an audience. Freud later turned away from hypnosis as a potential cure, favouring free association and dream analysis. In 1886 Freud married Martha Bernays, after opening his own little medical practice, specializing in neurology. After experimenting with hypnosis for a little while he found that it was not effective on all of his patients, and instead moved towards talking a patient through his or her problems. His goal was to locate and release powerful emotional energy that had been imprisoned in the unconscious mind.

Later years

As Freud continued his research he became more known, and with his books being released in 1900 and 1901 he began to spark more and more interest. Freud was critized by a lot of his peers, but he chose to disregard what anyone was saying and continue on his path. In 1930 he received the Goethe award in appreciation for his contribution to psychology and German literature. In 1939 he requested a friend of his to help him commit suicide through the use of morphine. On September 23, 1939 Freud died. Despite his death Freud has lived on in psychology and continues to be named the father of psychoanalysis.