''Greatest discoveries and inventions of the 20th century''

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud on 6 May 1856, was an Austrian neurologist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology.

Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of repression and for creating the clinical practice of psychoanalysis for curing psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst. Freud is also renowned for his redefinition of sexual desire as the primary motivational energy of human life, as well as his therapeutic techniques, including the use of free association, his theory of transference in the therapeutic relationship, and the interpretation of dreams as sources of insight into unconscious desires. He was also an early neurological researcher into cerebral palsy.

His father Jakob was 41, a wool merchant, and had two children by a previous marriage. His mother Amalié (née Nathansohn), the third wife of Jakob, was 21. He was the first of their eight children and owing to his precocious intellect, his parents favoured him over his siblings from the early stages of his childhood. Despite their poverty, they sacrificed everything to give him a proper education.

After planning to study law, Freud joined the medical faculty at University of Vienna to study under Darwinist Prof. Karl Claus. At that time, eel life history was still unknown. In search for their male sex organs, Freud spent four weeks at the Austrian zoological research station in Trieste, dissecting hundreds of eels without finding more than his predecessors had. In 1876, he published his first paper about "the testicles of eels" in the Mitteilungen der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, conceding that he could not solve the matter. Frustrated by the lack of success that would have gained him fame, Freud chose to change his course of study.

He studied too with Hermann von Helmholtz, one of the formulators of the first law of thermodynamics (conservation of energy).

By Valentina Walter and Josefina Perez.