Sigmund Freud This is a biographical essay about Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud's revolutionary ideas have set the standard for modern psychoanalysis that students of psychology can learn from, and his ideas spread from the field of medicine to daily living. His studies in areas such as unconsciousness, dreams, sexuality, the Oedipus complex, and sexual maladjustments laid the foundation for future studies and a better understanding of the small things that shape our lives.

In 1873 Freud graduated from the Sperl Gymnasium. He worked at the University of Vienna with one of the leading physiologists of his day, Ernst von Brucke. In 1882 he entered the General Hospital in Vienna as a clinical assistant. After making several conclusions about the brain's medulla, Freud was appointed lecturer in neuropathology. At this same time in Freud's career, he developed an interest in the medical uses and benefits of cocaine. Even though some beneficial results were found in some forms of eye surgery, cocaine use was generally denied by the surgeons of his time. This interest in the narcotic hurt Freud's medical reputation for a time.

From 1885 to 1886 Freud spent time with Jean Martin Charcot, a world famous neurologist and the director of a Paris asylum. It was Charcot that first introduced Freud to the idea of hysteria and hysterics. Freud became intrigued by the idea of hypnotism as a method of therapy, but he was told that only hysterics could be treated with hypnotism. Freud knew that hysteria could only develop where there is a degeneration of the brain, and that hypnotism could have an effect on normal people.

Freud lost his interest in hysteria and hypnotism, but developed a liking of the psychoanalytic method of free association. This method encouraged the patient to express any random thoughts that came to the mind, which promoted a "stream of consciousness" that helped...