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| Sigmund Freud |
10 Facts About Sigmund Freud
(Interesting and Revealing Facts About Freud)
Sigmund Freud is
one of the most famous thinkers in psychology history. While many of his ideas
and theories are not widely accepted by modern psychologists, he played a major
role in the development of psychology. Learn more about him in these ten interesting
and revealing facts about his life.
1. Sigmund Freud Was the Oldest of Eight Children
Freud was born
as Sigismund Schlomo Freud on May 6, 1856. His father Jakob was a 41-year-old
wool merchant who already had two children from a previous marriage. Freud's
mother, Amalia, was twenty years younger than her husband. The failure of his
father's business forced the Freud family to move from their home in Freiberg, Moravia
to Vienna.
Freud has seven
siblings, yet he often described himself as his mother's special favorite - her
"golden Siggie." I have found that people who know that they are
preferred or favored by their mothers give evidence in their lives of a peculiar
self-reliance and an unshakable optimism which often bring actual success to
their possessors," Freud once suggested (Grubin, 2002).
2. Sigmund Freud Was the Founder of Psychoanalysis
It isn't often
that a single school of thought can be attributed to a single individual. In
Freud's case, his theories served as the foundation for a school of psychology
that would quickly rise to become a dominant force during the early year's of
the science of the mind and behavior. The 1899 publication of his book The
Interpretation of Dreams established the basic groundwork for the theories
and ideas that formed psychoanalysis.
By 1902, Freud was hosting a weekly discussions at his home in Vienna. These
informal meetings would eventually grow to become the Vienna Psychoanalytic
Society.
3. Freud Was Initially an Advocate and User of Cocaine
Before the harmful
effects were discovered, cocaine was often used as an analgesic and euphoric.
It was even used in common household products, including soda pop and throat
lozenges. Freud developed an interest in the potential antidepressant effects
of cocaine and initially advocated its use for a variety of purposes. After the
addictive and harmful side effects of cocaine became known, Freud's medical
reputation suffered somewhat as a result.
4. Sigmund Freud Developed the Use of "Talk Therapy"
While many of
Freud's theories are criticized or rejected outright by today's
psychotherapists, many of them still utilize the famous psychoanalyst's methods
to a certain extent. Talk therapy
plays a primary role in psychoanalytic
therapy and has become an important part of many different therapeutic
techniques. Using talk therapy, the therapy provider looks for patterns or significant
events that may play a role in the client’s current difficulties.
Psychoanalysts believe that childhood events and unconscious feelings, thoughts
and motivations play a role in mental illness and maladaptive behaviors.
5. Freud's Daughter, Anna, Was Also a Famous and Influential Psychologist
Anna
Freud began her career influenced by her father's theories. Far from living
in her father's shadow, Anna Freud made important contributions of her own to
psychology. She founded child psychoanalysis and summarized the ego's defense
mechanisms in her book The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense (1936).
6. Freud Became a Doctor In Order to Marry the Woman He Loved
When Freud was
26, he fell madly in love with a 21-year-old woman names Martha Bernays and
they became engaged two months later. As a poor student still living with his
parents, Freud's science lab job did not pay enough to support a family.
"My sweet girl, it only pains me to think I should be so powerless to
prove my love for you," Freud wrote to Martha.
Six months after
they met, Freud gave up his scientific career and become a doctor. He spent
three years training at the Vienna General Hospital and was rarely able to see
his fiance who had moved to Germany. After four years of waiting, Freud and
Bernays were married on September 14, 1886. The two went on to have six
children.
7. Freud Probably Never Really Said "Sometimes a Cigar Is Just a
Cigar"
While the famous
quote is often repeated and attributed to Freud, there is no evidence that he
ever actually said it. Freud was a lifelong cigar smoker, smoking up to twenty
a day according to his biographer Ernst Jones. As the story goes, someone once
asked Freud what the cigar he so often smoked symbolized. The response is meant
to suggest that even the famous psychoanalyst believed that not everything held
an underlying, symbolic meaning. In reality, the quote is most likely the
invention of a journalist that was later mistakenly identified as a quote
by Freud.
8. Sigmund Freud Visited the United States Only Once in His Life
In 1909, American
psychologist G.
Stanley Hall invited Sigmund Freud to talk about psychoanalysis at Clark
University. While he initially declined the offer, Freud was eventually
persuaded by Hall's persistence. Freud traveled
to America with his colleagues Carl
Jung and Sandor Ferenczi.
After meeting up
with A.A. Brill and Ernst Jones, the group spent several days sightseeing in
New York before traveling to Clark University where Freud delivered a series of
five lectures on the history and rise of psychoanalysis. "As I stepped
onto the platform," Freud described, "it seemed like the realization
of some incredible daydream: Psychoanalysis was no longer a product of
delusion--it had become a valuable part of reality" (Wallace, 1975).
9. Sigmund Freud Was Forced to Leave Vienna by the Nazis
His books were
burned along with those by other famous thinkers. "What progress we are
making," Freud told a friend. "In the Middle Ages they would have
burnt me; nowadays they are content with burning my books." Freud and his
daughter Anna were both interrogated by the Gestapo before his friend Marie
Bonaparte was able to secure their passage to England. Bonaparte also tried to
rescue Freud's four younger sisters, but was unable to do so. All four women
later died in Nazi concentration camps.
10. Sigmund Freud Had More Than 30 Surgeries to Treat Mouth Cancer
Freud had been a
heavy cigar smoker all his life. In 1939, after his cancer had been deemed
inoperable, Freud asked his doctor to help him commit suicide. The doctor
administered three separate doses of morphine and Freud
died September 23, 1939.
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