Biography of Sigmund Freud (1)

Early life

Sigmund Freud was born on 6 May 1856 to Galician Jewish ^[2] parents in Příbor (German: Freiberg in Mähren), Moravia, Austrian Empire, now Czech Republic. His father Jacob was 41, a wool merchant, and had two children by a previous marriage. His mother Amalia was 21. Owing to his intellect, which was obvious from an early stage of his childhood, his parents favored him over his siblings, and even though they were poor they offered everything to give him a proper education. Due to the economic crisis of 1857, father Freud lost his business, and the family moved first to Leipzig, Germany before settling in Vienna, Austria. In 1865, Sigmund entered the Leopoldstädter Communal-Realgymnasium, a prominent high school. Freud was an outstanding pupil and graduated the Matura in 1873 with honors.

After planning to study law, Freud joined the medical faculty at Vienna University to study under Darwinist Prof. Karl Claus. At that time, Eel life history was still unknown, and due to their mysterious origins and migrations, a racist association was often made between eels and Jews and Gypsies. In search for their male sex organs, Freud spent four weeks at the Austrian zoological research station in Triest, dissecting hundreds of eels without finding more than his predecessors such as Simon von Syrski. In 1876, he published his first paper about "the testicles of eels" in the “Mitteilungen der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften”, conceding that he could not solve the matter either. Frustrated by the lack of success which would have gained him fame, and disgusted by the blood and gore, Freud chose to change his course of study. Biographers like Siegfried Bernfeld wonder if and how this early episode was significant for his later work regarding hidden sexuality and frustrations. [2] [3] [4]

Part of a series of articles on Psychoanalysis

Constructs Psychosexual development Psychosocial development Conscious • Preconscious • Unconscious Id, ego, and super-ego Libido • Drive Transference • Sublimation • Resistance Important Figures Sigmund Freud • Carl Jung Alfred Adler • Otto Rank Anna Freud Karen Horney • Jacques Lacan Ronald Fairbairn • Melanie Klein Harry Stack Sullivan Erik Erikson • Nancy Chodorow Susan Sutherland Isaacs Ernest Jones Important works The Interpretation of Dreams Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" Schools of Thought Self psychology • Lacanian Analytical psychology • Object relations Interpersonal • Relational Attachment • Ego psychology

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Medical school

In 1874, the concept of "psychodynamics" was proposed with the publication of Lectures on Physiology by German physiologist Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke who, in coordination with physicist Hermann von Helmholtz, one of the formulators of the first law of thermodynamics (conservation of energy), supposed that all living organisms are energy-systems also governed by this principle. During this year, at the University of Vienna, Brücke served as supervisor for first-year medical student Sigmund Freud who adopted this new “dynamic” physiology. In his Lectures on Physiology, Brücke set forth the radical view that the living organism is a dynamic system to which the laws of chemistry and physics apply.^[3] This was the starting point for Freud's dynamic psychology of the mind and its relation to the unconscious.^[3][4] The origins of Freud’s basic model, based on the fundmentals of chemistry and physics, according to John Bowlby, stems from Brücke, Meynert, Breuer, Helmholtz, and Herbart.^[5] In 1879, Freud interrupted his studies to complete his one year of obligatory military service, and in 1881 he received his Dr. med. (M.D.) with the thesis "Über das Rückenmark niederer Fischarten" (on the spinal cord of lower fish species).