Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud and his father Jakob in 1864.
May 6, 1856: Born in Freiberg, Moravia (now Pribor in the Czech Republic) to Jakob Freud, a Jewish wool merchant, and Amalie Nathansohn. Freud had two older half-brothers from his father’s previous marriage, and five younger sisters (Anna, Rosa, Marie, Adolfine, and Paula) and one younger brother (Alexander).
1860: Moves to Vienna, Austria with his family.
1873: Graduates with honors from Sperl Gymnasium, a secondary school in Vienna, and begins medical school at the University of Vienna.
March 1881: Receives his medical degree.
September 14, 1886: Marries Martha Bernays. The two were married for 53 years until his death in 1939, and had six children: Mathilde (b. 1887), Jean-Martin (b. 1889), Oliver (b. 1891), Ernst (b. 1892), Sophie (b. 1893), and Anna (b. 1895).
1896: First uses the term psychoanalysis in his paper The Aetiology of Hysteria.
1900: Publishes The Interpretation of Dreams. Dream analysis remains one of Freud’s most discussed theories; he believed that analyzing dreams could help to identify problems the mind is struggling with subconsciously and address them.
1906: Begins written correspondence with Carl Jung.
March 3, 1907: Has first meeting with Jung in Vienna, thus beginning their close friendship and collaboration.
1909: Makes his only trip to the US with Jung. Freud delivers lectures at Clark University in Worcester, MA, and both men receive honorary doctorate degrees from the university.
1912 - 1914: Cuts ties with Jung after Jung both publishes a book that disputes Frued’s most famous theories and steps down in his role as the president of International Psychoanalytic Society.
1920: Publishes Beyond the Pleasure Principle, which introduced his concept of the death instinct, which was originally proposed by Sabina Spielrein during the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society Conference in 1911.
1923: Publishes The Ego and the Id, in which he introduces the concept of the id (primitive and unconscious, responsible for sex and aggression), ego (the “I” which influences the way in which people perceive the outside world), and superego (the moral voice and conscience) as the three essential parts of the human personality. Freud also receives a mouth cancer diagnosis this year, and eventually has over 33 operations as a result of the diagnosis.
1933: Hitler rises to power and the Nazis publicly burns some of Freud’s books because he is Jewish.
1938: Moves to London with his wife Anna after the Nazis invade and take control of Austria.
September 23, 1939: Dies in London of cancer at the age of 83.
Freud (front left) and Jung (front right) at Clark University in 1909.