Sigmund
Freud

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud on May 6, 1856, in Freiberg, Moravia, was an Austrian neurologist who founded psychoanalysis. Freud's family moved to Vienna when he was four, a city he lived in for most of his life until the Nazi annexation of Austria. His university years were marked by a medical degree from the University of Vienna, where he was deeply influenced by figures like Jean-Martin Charcot. Freud's marriage to Martha Bernays in 1886 saw the couple raising six children, amidst Freud's growing clinical practice and theoretical developments.

Freud's theories, including the psychoanalytic theory of the psyche, were groundbreaking, proposing the existence of the id, ego, and super-ego, and concepts like the Oedipus complex. His method of free association, along with the analysis of dreams and the theory of infantile sexuality, were radical ideas that sparked much debate. Freud saw neuroses, and even normal behavior, as being influenced by unconscious processes and past experiences, particularly in childhood. His work laid the foundation for modern psychological thought and treatment, despite controversies and criticisms. Freud's forced exile to London in 1938, due to his Jewish heritage, marked the final chapter of his life, where he continued to write until his death on September 23, 1939, after a battle with cancer.