Sigmund Freud and Breuer and Charcots Influence essays

Sigmund Freud and Breuer and Charcot's Influence essays The most influential figure in the world of psychology, the founder of psychoanalysis, the self-made genius: the great Sigmund Freud. His ideas were not entirely developed independently, but they were truly compilations of ideas forged by the network of intellectuals during the late nineteenth century. Two of the most influential men Freuds life was Jean-Martin Charcot and Joseph Breuer. These men sparked the flame within Freud that set modern psychology ablaze. Both figures contributed to Freuds revelation in the case of hysteria. Each man, of different background and position, made unique contributions to the key that opened the door to psychoanalysis. Without such guide and inspiration Freud would have, perhaps, never made the advances, that he did. Sigmund Freud was born on May 6, 1856, in the small town of Freiberg. His father was a wool merchant; his father was sharp, and good-humored. His mother was animated; she was her husband's second wife and 20 years younger than him, when she was 21 when she gave birth to her first son Sigmund. Sigmund had two older half-brothers and six younger siblings. When he was four the family moved to Vienna, where he lived most of his life. Freud was a brilliant child, he was said to have always been at the head of his class; he went to medical school, which was one of the few possible options for a bright Jewish boy in Vienna at the time. There, he became involved in research under the direction of a physiology professor named Ernst Brcke. Brcke believed in what we now call reductionism, which states: "No other forces than the common physical-chemical ones are active within the organism." (Freud and Beyond, Stephen Mitchell and Margaret Black) This was a popular belief at the time. Freud spent many years trying to "reduce" personality to neurology; he later gave up on this idea. Freud was very good at his research; he concentrated on neurophysiology; he even inve...