Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939)

Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, was born into an assimilated, secular Jewish family in the Moravian town of Freiburg. He settled as a child in Vienna, where he spent the greater part of his life. Freud was a psychiatrist. His fame comes from devising the therapeutic method of psychoanalysis and from formulating a model of the human mind that includes the id, ego, and superego.

In 1922, Freud presented a lecture at the International Congress of Psychoanalysis in Berlin, entitled 'Some Remarks on the Unconscious', which provided three definitions of psychoanalysis: first, a discipline focused on investigating the unconscious; second, a therapeutic method for treating nervous disorders; and third, a growing body of research on several aspects of culture, including literature and art history. Freud often termed this last facet of psychoanalysis as metapsychology.

Sigmund FreudPsychoanalysis is an act of interpretation "concerned with laying bare these hidden forces," one that from its inception, Freud desired to rise to the status of a science, what he called "an impartial instrument". By investigating his patient's life history, Freud sought to objectively demonstrate his contention that "in mental life nothing which has once been formed can perish - that everything is somehow preserved and that in suitable circumstances - it can once more be brought to light". The presence of these hidden forces is made evident through everyday occurrences, such as forgetting proper names, slips of the tongue (i.e. Freudian slips or parapraxes), bungled actions, and most importantly, dreams. Collectively all of these elements comprise the psychopathology that Freud is keen on identifying and interpreting. It is the analyst's task he argues to pinpoint these slips, these inabilities, the unsaid within discourse, so as to help the patient attain knowledge of the repressed experiences that cause neurosis.