Sigmund Freud Biography
– Psychoanalysis and Cocaine
A Sigmund Freud biography would tell the story of a long and eventful life, that has been of keen interest to many people for years. Freud lived the last year of his life in London, and the Freud Museum (pictured) is now located in the home where he lived with his family.
On the 6th of May 1856 Sigmund Freud was born into a family of Galician Jews living in a Moravian town located in what is now the Czech Republic. He was the favoured elder son, and from very early on his intelligence was appreciated and cultivated by the best education his parents could afford. They moved to Vienna in 1865 where Freud graduated from a prestigious secondary school and attended the medical school of the University of Vienna. He specialized in neurology, and tried a variety of therapeutic methods to treat his patients, eventually settling on a “talking cure” in which his patients would talk about their repressed emotions and feelings. He believed that these repressed feelings could cause psychosomatic illnesses with real physical symptoms. This talking cure became the basis of what we now know as psychoanalysis. Freud himself had a number of psychosomatic ailments and phobias which he attempted to decipher through dream interpretation and other similar methods. Freud also was a user and proponent of the therapeutic usage of cocaine as an anti-depressant and as a panacea for many related disorders. This eventually led to an unfortunate incident where Freud prescribed so much cocaine for a friend that he developed cocaine psychosis and died from the abuse of the drug. Freud’s exploration of the unconscious mind and his strong belief in its importance to our overall health and well-being is probably his most important contribution to the field of psychology. In 1930, Freud was awarded the Goethe Prize for his contribution to psychology and German culture, but by 1933 the Nazis were burning his books in Germany. Vienna became rife with violent anti-Semitic outbursts, so Freud moved his family to London in 1938. A Sigmund Freud biography would end with his death on the 23rd of September 1939.
Freud Museum Address: 20 Maresfield Gardens, North London, London NW3 5SX Telephone: 020 7435 2002 Opening Times Wednesday to Sunday 12noon-5pm. Prices £6 (Adults) £3 (Concessions) FREE (Under 12s).
Photo courtesy: satguru
Return from Sigmund Freud Biography to Famous London Residents
Return from Sigmund Freud Biography to Best London Attractions
|
