Freud was born Sigismund Schlomo Freud on May 6, 1856 in Freiburg, Moravia, a small town in the Austrian Empire. Freud’s father, Jacob, was a wool merchant who already had two children from a previous marriage when Freud was born. At the time Freud was conceived, his father was 41 years old, while his mother, Amalie, was only 21. Freud was the first of eight children and seemingly the brightest, garnering the most potential out of all of his siblings. Although Freud showed a lot of potential early, it was hard for his family to provide for him, to give him the opportunities he needed in order to reach that potential. Although in poverty, the Freud family did everything they could to ensure that Sigmund got a proper education. At the age of nine Freud enrolled at a prestigious high school and ended up being an outstanding student. After high school, in 1873, Freud decided to study medicine at the University of Vienna, and ended up working under great German scientist Ernst Brucke. At the beginning of his medical career, Freud focused mainly on biology, however he later narrowed the topic down to neurology. Through his time at the university Freud started to gain interest in two very influential men, one named Franz Brentano, known for his theory on perception, and one named Theodore Lipps, a promoter of two main topics, empathy and the unconscious mind. These two men triggered Freud’s curiosity, and this curiosity led him down a path full of discovery.
In 1881 Freud received his medical degree, and 4 years later Freud made his first major realization. This realization was the psychological perspective of psychoanalysis, a perspecitve that Freud discovered while he was in Paris with renowned neurologist, Jean-Martin Charcot in 1885. This finding made Freud very curious about other things that could be discovered, however, in the next year, there were bigger things on Freud’s mind. In 1886 Sigmund Freud married Martha Bernays, and although this was not all in 1886, Freud ended up having 6 children. In order to gain financial stability for his family, Freud worked as a doctor at the Vienna General Hospital, and a couple of years later Freud started his own private practice, focusing on the treatment of psychological disorders. Through all of his travels, acquaintances, and extensive research, Freud was able to come up with many different conclusions and theories. Freud invented the term psychoanalysis, he invented the Id, Ego, and Superego, and he invented the eight different defense mechanisms. Freud made discoveries about the conscious and unconscious mind, about life and death instincts, and about psychosexual development. Freud’s outlook on the human mind and his input on human behavior are very important for people to understand these days. In addition, although what Freud said and did was from long ago, it was what he discovered so long ago that helps people in the present day.
