Sigmund Freud Biography - Essay Example

He was born in Freiberg, Moravia the present Czech Republic to Jewish parents, Jacob and Amaria Nathanson Freud. His mother was the third wife to Jacob, after being windowed twice in the previous two marriages. He was the first-born son to Amaria and later, her mother gave birth to other seven children. By virtue of being her mother’s first child, he was her favorite son and her influence to Sigmund played a significant role in his early childhood. While only three years old, the family relocated to Vienna in a Jew neighborhood following a financial crisis that ruined his father’s thriving business.

Their new location remained Freud’s home until a year before his death in 1939 (Ernest, 1957). The earliest influence on Freud’s illustrious academic career was Ludwig Borne, an outstanding journalist and satirist of the 19th century. Freud performed well in his secondary schooling and his ability to master several languages was exemplary. He opted to study medicine instead of law at Vienna University. While studying at the university, he experienced racial prejudice and discrimination because of his Jewish heritage.

It was in the university that Freud immersed himself in the study of neurology reaserch believing that the field would give him better financial returns than other medical specialties. However, it was not until 1885 when he met Martin Charcot, a prominent neurologist in Paris that Freud took a detour from neurological research to medical psychopathology. Through close association with him, Freud learned about hypnosis, method that Charcot used to treat patients with mental disorders. A year later, in 1886 Freud opened a private clinic and married Martha Bernays (Ernest, 1957).

In 1884, Freud discovered that cocaine had analgesic properties (Gay, 1988). A self-confessed cocaine user, Freud argued that the drug had curative properties for variety of mental and physical illnesses. The following three years, he published three papers advocating the use of cocaine as an effective antidepressant and for treating patients addicted to morphine. However, following a reported widespread addiction to the drug from the public and his patients, using cocaine for medical purposes came under heavy criticism.

Freud continued using it to alleviate his depression, but the resulting backlash from the medical fraternity prevented him from using the drug for treating the aforementioned maladies. However, cocaine remained part of his drug use in addition to heavy cigar smoking (Gay, 1988). In his private practice, Freud tried hypnosis in treatment of mental patients, but he eventually dropped from using it because it failed in most cases. During this time, he had interacted with Josef Breuer, a psychologist who treated neurotic patients with a method that entailed speaking what was disturbing them.

This method particularly worked well on a patient named Anna and it came to be referred as the ‘talking cure’ (Gay, 1988). Sigmund Freud modified Josef Breuer’s technique in 1890’s and it later developed into psychoanalysis. According to Freud, a patient who talked out his or her problems healed because by speaking out, the strong emotions that caused mental problem were released from the unconscious mind (Jacobs, 2003). In this regard, Freud argued tha