NAME Sigmund Freud was born Sigismund Schlomo Freud . He shortened his first name to "Sigmund" while studying at the University of Vienna in 1873 . The name Schlomo was his paternal grandfather's name, though Freud never used it .
WHAT FAMOUS FOR Sigmund Freud is most famous as the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst. He is renowned for his theories on the unconscious mind, the Oedipus complex, dream analysis, the id, ego, and superego, and the role of childhood experiences in shaping adult personality. His work profoundly influenced psychology, psychiatry, and various other fields, including literature, art, and sociology.
BIRTH Sigmund Freud was born on May 6, 1856, in a rented room over a blacksmith's shop in Freiberg, Moravia, a small town in what is now part of the Czech Republic. At the time of his birth, an old peasant woman prophesied to his proud mother that with her first-born child she brought a great man into the world. Freud traced his sense of confidence and destiny to his first years growing up in this simple provincial town.
FAMILY BACKGROUND Freud's father, Jakob Freud, was a Jewish wool merchant who was 40 years old when Sigmund was born. Jakob had been married twice before and already had two sons, Emmanuel and Philipp, from his first marriage. He married Amalia Nathansohn when she was 20 years old, making her younger than Emmanuel, who was already married with a son. This meant that "the little Sigmund, therefore, was born an uncle, one of the many paradoxes his young mind had to grapple with".
Jakob's family originally came from Galicia but had "fled east from an anti-Semitic persecution, and that in the course of the nineteenth century they retraced their steps from Lithuania through Galicia to German Austria". (1)
Jakob and Amalia Freud had seven children in total, with Sigmund and his sister Anna initially, followed by five more children during 1860-1866: Rosa, Marie, Adolfine, Pauline, and Alexander
CHILDHOOD Freud's early childhood was marked by both happiness and trauma. Playing happily in the fields beyond his village, surrounded by an adoring family, Freud fondly recollected his early years, describing himself as "that happy child from Freiberg, the first born son of a youthful mother". However, when Freud was three years old, everything changed when Jakob's business failed in 1859. The family was forced to leave Freiberg forever, creating fractured memories of that traumatic departure, including gas lamps at the train station that reminded him of "souls burning in hell." (2)
Sigmund's mother doted on him, referring to him as “mein goldener Sigi” ("my golden Siggie"). Biographers often point to this intense maternal attention as influential in his psychological development.
 |
| Freud (aged 16) and his mother, Amalia, in 1872 |
Growing up in a modest household in Vienna with several siblings, Sigmund was singled out for special privileges, including being allowed to have a room to himself so that he could study. This was unusual for the time and suggests his parents recognized and wanted to support his intellectual potential.
EDUCATION Freud was always an exemplary student. From infancy, his parents invested heavily in their eldest child, undertaking his education at home until he reached adolescence. He entered the prestigious Leopoldstädter Kommunal-Realgymnasium in 1865 and continued at the Sperl Gymnasium on Taborstrasse, where he ranked first in his class in six out of eight years. In 1873, Freud graduated from the Leopoldstädter Kommunal-Realgymnasium with distinction
Initially drawn to law, Freud’s ambitions shifted in 1873 after hearing a public reading of Goethe’s essay On Nature, and he enrolled at the University of Vienna to study mediciine.
Though formally studying medicine, Freud was increasingly captivated by subjects outside the official curriculum, especially physiology. His interest led him to work in the laboratory of Ernst von Brücke, a prominent physiologist and follower of the materialist school of Helmholtz. Freud’s academic wanderings extended his studies to eight years—longer than the typical five—but he ultimately qualified as a doctor of medicine in 1881.
CAREER RECORD 1877-1882 Worked at Ernst Brücke's physiology laboratory at Vienna University where he spent six years comparing the brains of humans with those of other vertebrates
1882-85 Entered the General Hospital in Vienna as an assistant chief physician to train with the psychiatrist Theodor Meynert and the professor of internal medicine Hermann Nothnagel
1885-86 Studied under Professor Charcotat at Salpêtrière Neurogical Hospital, Paris for 19 weeks. There the hypnotic treatment of women, who suffered from a medical state called "hysteria", led Freud to take an interest in psychiatry.
1885-96 Chief Physician of neurological department of the first Public Institute for children's diseases in Vienna
1886 He established a private practice in nervous diseases in Vienna
1892 Began to apply the free association method of therapy.
1986 Freud first used the term "psychoanalysis" for his new treatment.
1899 Published The Interpretation of Dreams
1902-20 Associate Professor at Vienna University.
1920-38 Full Professor at Vienna University
1938 Left Vienna for England.
.jpg) |
| Freud, c. 1921 |
CHARACTER Freud was known for his intense intellect, rigorous self-discipline, and dedication to his work. He was a keen observer of human nature and possessed a strong, often assertive, personality. He could be demanding and uncompromising, especially when it came to his theories, which led to disagreements with former colleagues. Despite his public persona, he was deeply committed to his family and had a close circle of friends. He was also a prolific writer and a meticulous record-keeper. He faced anti-Semitism throughout his life with resilience.
SPEAKING VOICE Freud had a clear, measured, and somewhat authoritative speaking style. He was a compelling lecturer and conversationalist, able to articulate complex ideas with precision. He spoke German as his native language and was fluent in several others, including French, English, Italian, Spanish, Latin, and Greek.
There is only one audio recording of Freud himself, recorded for the BBC in 1938, a year before his death. At 81 years old and suffering from inoperable oral cancer, Freud was in intense pain during this recording. The recording reveals his actual speaking voice, which differs from common assumptions about how he sounded. His voice showed the effects of his illness and advanced age at the time of recording.
SENSE OF HUMOUR Freud had a sophisticated understanding of humor and wrote extensively about it in his 1905 book Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. He distinguished contentious jokes from non-contentious or silly humor, sorting humor into three categories: joke, comic, and mimetic.
In Freud's view, jokes happened when the conscious allowed the expression of thoughts that society usually suppressed or forbade. He regarded jokes as comparable to dreams, as both processes involved a release of desires and impulses typically repressed by the conscience. Freud noted that "a new joke has almost the same effect as an event of the widest interest; it is passed from one to another like the news of the latest victory".
"The trouble with Freud was that he never played the Glasgow Empire on a Saturday night." Ken Dodd on Freud's theory of laughter.
RELATIONSHIPS Freud met Martha Bernays in the spring of 1882 when she was 20 years old and he had just finished studying medicine. During their engagement, which was initially kept secret, Martha's widowed mother decided to move with her daughters to Wandsbek near Hamburg, resulting in almost four years of separation during which the engaged couple wrote letters on an almost daily basis.
They married on September 14, 1886 in Hamburg, Germany. Although the glowing picture of their marriage painted by Ernest Jones in his biography of Freud has been nuanced by later scholars, it is clear that Martha Bernays Freud was a deeply sustaining presence during her husband's tumultuous career.
 |
| Martha Bernays |
They had six children together: Mathilde (1887–1978), Jean-Martin (1889–1967), Oliver (1891–1969), Ernst (1892–1970), Sophie (1893–1920), and Anna (1895–1982). He was a dedicated father, though his professional commitments were extensive. His youngest daughter, Anna Freud, became a prominent psychoanalyst in her own right.
A grandson, Lucien Freud, became a renowned painter. Other ancestors include the politician and writer Clement Freud, the TV presenter and journalist Emma Freud and fashion designer Bella Freud.
Freud formed intense relationships with his intellectual circle, which included figures like Josef Breuer (his early collaborator), Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Sándor Ferenczi, and Otto Rank. These relationships were often marked by periods of close collaboration followed by dramatic intellectual and personal breaks as his disciples developed their own theories that diverged from his.
His relationship with his patients was central to his work, as psychoanalysis relied on a deep, often transference-based, connection. Freud maintained strict professional boundaries but cultivated an environment of trust and openness.
MONEY AND FAME Most biographers have written that Freud was born into a poor family that later was elevated to the socioeconomic middle class in Vienna. However, economist Peter Drucker, whose parents knew the Freud family, contended that Freud unconsciously misrepresented his parents' financial situation by creating the myth that they lived in poverty. Freud had a self-acknowledged "money complex" and his personal letters reveal he was obsessed with generating more money.
Another area of conflict between Freud and other Viennese physicians was his refusal to treat any psychoanalytic patients without a fee, believing that treating a patient for free created transference-countertransference problems. (5)
Freud initially struggled financially, especially during his early medical career and engagement, as he needed to establish a stable income before marrying. The success of his private practice and the growing interest in psychoanalysis eventually brought him financial stability and considerable fame. His theories became widely discussed and debated, leading to both admiration and fierce criticism. By the 1920s, he was an internationally recognized figure, though he remained relatively modest in his personal spending habits.
When he left Vienna for England he had no money. The Nazis had taken it all. In England he charged his patients between £75 & £100 an hour.
FOOD AND DRINK Lunchtime was the main meal of his day, and it was considered sacred family time. This meal typically consisted of soup, meat (which he especially appreciated, particularly after the shortages of World War I), cheese, and dessert.
He had strong preferences: Freud loved mushrooms but disliked cauliflower and chicken. There is no evidence he followed any special or restrictive diet; rather, he enjoyed traditional Central European fare.
Freud was a notorious cigar smoker, often chain-smoking throughout the day. His fondness for cigars was so pronounced that it became a defining personal habit, and it ultimately contributed to his later health problems. (6)
MUSIC AND ARTS Freud had a complex relationship with music and art. While he appreciated visual art and was an avid collector of antiquities (his study was filled with statues and artifacts), he famously claimed to be "unmusical" and found it difficult to connect with music on an emotional level. Despite this, his theories provided a framework for understanding the psychological dimensions of artistic creation and appreciation, and he often drew on literature and mythology in his analyses.
Freud seemed to have been able to enjoy certain operas and used musical metaphors in the context of theory and therapy. Opera was perhaps the only form of music that Freud could readily enjoy, particularly "The Marriage of Figaro," "Don Giovanni," "Carmen," and "The Mastersingers".
LITERARY WORKS Freud possessed a rare literary talent for a scientist, evident in the clarity and narrative power of his writing. His 1895 collaboration with Josef Breuer, Studies in Hysteria, marked a turning point in the history of psychology by introducing the concept of the unconscious as the root of nervous disorders.
In 1896, Freud introduced the term “psycho-analysis” in his paper The Aetiology of Hysteria, formally naming the method that would become his life’s work.
His seminal book The Interpretation of Dreams (German: Die Traumdeutung) was published on November 4, 1899 (though dated 1900 for symbolic reasons). In it, Freud argued that dreams offered a window into the unconscious and could illuminate hidden aspects of personality. The book initially struggled to find an audience—selling only 351 copies in its first six years—but it would later become the foundation of his international reputation.
.jpg) |
| Title page of the original German edition of Sigmund Freud's Die Traumdeutung, |
In 1905, Freud released Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, in which he proposed that humor stems from the release of repressed material, describing laughter as a psychological mechanism for coping with fear. He famously claimed that what we call a “joke” is simply a disguised expression of unconscious thoughts.
Freud continued to probe the intersection of psychology and culture in his 1913 work Totem and Taboo, where he linked the origin of social structures and morality to the incest taboo. The theory clashed with Carl Jung’s more mystical and mythic interpretations of the psyche, underscoring the growing rift between the two men. (4)
LITERATURE Freud was a voracious reader and considered great literary works to be profound sources of insight into the human psyche. He frequently referenced classical literature (like Sophocles' Oedipus Rex), Shakespeare, and contemporary authors in his writings and lectures to illustrate his psychological theories. He saw literature as a parallel exploration of the human unconscious.
In his later years, Freud read Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book repeatedly. He reportedly described it as one of those rare books that can influence a person’s "Weltanschauung"—a German term meaning "worldview" or way of looking at the world.
NATURE While not a passionate outdoorsman, Freud appreciated nature, particularly during his travels and holidays, often in the Alps. He found a degree of calm and respite in natural settings, but his primary focus remained on the inner world of the human mind rather than the external natural world.
Freud had a practice of walking with his patients around the University in Vienna, which became known as "Freudian Walks". These walks helped his patients clear their minds and speak more freely than they could in the office.
PETS Freud’s affection for dogs developed later in life. In 1925, his daughter Anna acquired a large black Alsatian named Wolf to accompany her on solitary walks in the Vienna woods. Wolf soon won Freud’s affection, prompting a family friend, Dorothy Burlingame, to gift him his own dog—a Chow named Lün-Yu.
At the time, it was uncommon for Jewish families in Europe to keep dogs, in part due to historical trauma: dogs had often been used during anti-Semitic pogroms, leaving a legacy of fear and distance. Anna Freud later reflected that in an era marked by “unrelenting brutality and blind lust for destruction,” it may have felt easier to seek comfort in animals than in people.
Freud found dogs refreshingly honest and emotionally uncomplicated. “Dogs love their friends and bite their enemies,” he once observed, “quite unlike people, who are incapable of pure love and always have to mix love and hate in their object-relations.”
Among his dogs, Freud was especially devoted to Jofi, a Chow who regularly attended his therapy sessions. Jofi had a calming presence that seemed to put patients at ease, and Freud came to rely on her quiet companionship as both comfort and subtle barometer of the mood in the room.
 |
| Image by Perplexity |
HOBBIES AND SPORTS Freud's primary intellectual hobby, outside of his work, was collecting antiquities. His study was famously filled with ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman figurines and artifacts, which he found aesthetically pleasing and intellectually stimulating, often using them as metaphors in his theoretical work. He also enjoyed traveling, though his later health limited these trips.
Freud was reluctant to take up games and sports from the participant's perspective, though he did theorize about play and games. His early view of play and games saw the drives behind those activities as self- and other-preservative, while his later view introduced his death drive concept. Much of what has been written about Freud's relationship to competitive sports focuses on his aggression-release perspective rather than personal participation. Freud was an avid traveler and collector of antiquities, which served as his primary recreational activities.
SCIENCE AND MATHS Freud's early training was deeply rooted in the scientific materialism of 19th-century physiology and neuroscience. He initially aimed to find physiological explanations for psychological phenomena. While he moved towards a more psychological approach with psychoanalysis, he always considered his work to be a scientific endeavor, striving for systematic observation and explanation, even if his methods differed from conventional natural sciences.
IDEAS It’s difficult to overstate how thoroughly Sigmund Freud upended our understanding of the mind. Before Freud, mental life was largely thought to be about thinking and reason—like a tidy little parlor where thoughts arrived politely and sat in order. Freud, with characteristic Viennese intensity, pulled back the carpet and showed us the trapdoor: beneath our calm, conscious surface lies a roiling basement of memories, urges, and desires we didn’t even know we had.
Freud's big idea—arguably the big idea in psychology—is that most of what drives us is unconscious. Not hidden like a spare key, but actively buried, like a body. He compared the mind to an iceberg: what you’re aware of is just the little tip poking out of the water. The real machinery is submerged and murky, muttering to itself in symbols and dreams.
Freud imagined the mind as a kind of psychological parliament made up of three unruly members.
The id is all appetite and no patience—it wants what it wants right now (pleasure, food, sex, you name it).
The superego is your inner Victorian aunt, hissing moral disapproval at your baser instincts.
And the ego is the weary diplomat in the middle, trying to keep them from smashing the furniture.
To keep things civil, the ego often calls in defense mechanisms—repression, denial, projection—all the subtle psychological contortions we perform to stay sane.
Freud also believed we develop in stages tied to different “erogenous zones,” which is a fancy way of saying we’re preoccupied with different body parts as children. If you get stuck—or “fixated”—at any stage, it supposedly shapes your adult personality in oddly specific ways. So, if someone’s a bit uptight about bathroom cleanliness, Freud might have pegged them as stuck in the anal stage. He really did say that. With a straight face.
Freud was particularly keen on dreams. He believed they were coded messages from the unconscious, smuggled in during sleep. Every dream, no matter how absurd, had a hidden meaning (latent content) disguised in some surreal costume (manifest content). That dream you had about flying? Almost certainly about sex. Possibly with your mother. Freud never missed a chance to bring it back to that.
Which brings us to one of Freud’s most infamous notions: the Oedipus complex. He proposed that little boys subconsciously fancy their mothers and view their fathers as rivals. The idea was drawn from a Greek tragedy but somehow applied to everyone. It’s fair to say this didn’t go down well in all households.
Late in life, Freud decided we’re not just driven by a lust for life (Eros) but also by a strange compulsion toward self-destruction (Thanatos). In other words, we're wired both to build and to break. Cheerful stuff.
Out of all this came psychoanalysis, Freud’s therapeutic brainchild. Patients would lie on a couch and talk freely, while Freud listened and tried to piece together what their subconscious was really saying. He also interpreted dreams and paid close attention to transference, which is when patients accidentally project their unresolved feelings onto their therapists. (A professional hazard if ever there was one.)
And, of course, there’s the famous Freudian slip—the moment when your mouth blurts out what your unconscious mind really thinks. Say, calling your teacher “Mom,” or accidentally referring to your spouse as your ex. According to Freud, nothing is random. Every stammer and stumble has a deeper meaning—usually an uncomfortable one.
Freud’s legacy is, like the man himself, brilliant, flawed, and impossible to ignore. His theories have been debated, debunked, reimagined, and revived countless times. But thanks to Freud, we were forced to confront a radical truth: that we are not entirely the masters of our own minds. And perhaps never were.
PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY Freud was born into a Jewish family but personally identified as an agnostic. Influenced by the anti-Christian philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach, he came to view religion not as divine truth but as a psychological projection. “At bottom,” Freud once wrote, “God is nothing more than an exalted Father,” while the devil, in his view, was a “primitive feudal father.”
He believed that true understanding came through science, not faith, and argued that religious belief could be treated—cured, even—through psychoanalysis. “When a man is freed of religion,” he declared, “he has a better chance to live a normal and wholesome life.”
Yet Freud’s relationship with religion was complex. As a child, he was largely raised by a Catholic nursemaid who took him to church and left a lasting impression on him. Though he never embraced faith, he retained a lifelong fascination with religious texts, particularly the Bible. He once noted that his early study of human nature began with the Scriptures, which he admired as an honest, even psychologically insightful, account of the human condition.
In the final years of his life, Freud turned again to religious history in his controversial book Moses and Monotheism. There, he argued that the biblical Moses was not a single historical figure, but a fusion of two: one an Egyptian nobleman who adopted the monotheism of Pharaoh Akhenaten and was later murdered by the Hebrews, and the other a Midianite priest who led the people to worship Yahweh—a fierce volcano-god dwelling on Mount Sinai in Arabia.
Freud’s exploration of anti-Semitism was equally unflinching. He suggested that one of the roots of anti-Jewish hostility lay in a deep symbolic guilt, writing: “They will not admit that they killed God, whereas we do and are cleansed from the guilt of it.” (4)
POLITICS Freud was not overtly political in the sense of direct involvement in political movements or parties. However, his work had significant political implications, as he explored the psychological underpinnings of social structures, authority, and mass behavior. He was a sharp observer of societal trends and the rise of totalitarianism, particularly Nazism, which he vehemently opposed. His later work, like "Civilization and Its Discontents," reflected his views on the tension between individual desires and the demands of society. He was forced to flee Vienna due to the Nazi annexation of Austria.
Freud described himself as "a liberal of the old school." He often held conflicting views of political ideologies, expressing sympathies for socialism while rejecting it elsewhere as antithetical to human nature . Similarly, he supported Zionism (even serving on the founding board of the Hebrew University) while simultaneously criticizing it as "baseless fanaticism".
SCANDAL One of the most controversial chapters in Freud’s early career centered on his enthusiastic promotion of cocaine. In 1884, he published On Coca, a glowing report on the drug’s potential, and wrote to his fiancée about taking “very small doses... regularly against depression and against indigestion and with the most brilliant of success.”
Freud believed cocaine could treat a range of ailments—including, most problematically, morphine and alcohol addiction. This particular claim would later prove disastrously wrong, especially in the case of his friend and colleague Ernst Fleischl von Marxow, who developed a fatal addiction to cocaine after Freud recommended it as a cure for his morphine dependency.
Adding to the scandal was Freud’s failure to recognize what would become cocaine’s most significant medical use: as a local anesthetic. That discovery was instead credited to Carl Koller, a young ophthalmologist and Freud’s colleague, who demonstrated cocaine’s effectiveness in eye surgery. Although Koller earned lasting recognition, Freud reportedly never forgave him for what he saw as a stolen opportunity.
The episode damaged Freud’s medical reputation and remains a source of ongoing debate. Some scholars have speculated that Freud himself became addicted to the drug and that his early theories may have been influenced by its effects. However, this claim remains contested and lacks definitive evidence.
While not a "scandal" in the conventional sense of personal misconduct, Freud's theories themselves were highly scandalous and controversial in their time. His emphasis on infantile sexuality, the unconscious, the Oedipus complex, and the role of dreams challenged Victorian morality and established scientific thought. He faced significant opposition, ridicule, and accusations of obscenity.
MILITARY RECORD Freud served a year of compulsory military service in 1879-1880 and received his M.D. in 1881 . During his military service, he was described as "very considerate and humane" in his treatment of patients. (6)
HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS Freud's health was generally robust in his younger years, but he became a heavy smoker, a habit that severely impacted his health later in life. From 1923 onwards, he suffered from oral cancer, undergoing more than 30 operations to remove tumors in his jaw and palate. Despite immense pain and discomfort, he continued to work and write almost until his death. He used a prosthesis to aid in speaking and eating.
HOMES In 1859, when Sigmund Freud was just three years old, his family was forced to flee their home due to anti-Semitic riots sweeping through the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They first relocated to Leipzig, but after a year, moved again—this time to Vienna. They settled in the city’s 2nd district, where many of the discriminatory laws against Jews had recently been lifted in the reforms of the 1850s and 1860s.
Freud would remain in Vienna for most of his life. In 1891, he moved with his family into a spacious apartment at Berggasse 19, a now-famous address where he would live and work for the next 47 years. It was there, in his consulting rooms, that Freud developed and practiced psychoanalysis—redefining the modern understanding of the mind and leaving a permanent mark on psychology.
 |
| Freud's home at Berggasse 19, Vienna by C.Stadler/Bwag Wikipedia |
But in 1938, following the Nazi annexation of Austria, Freud was again forced into exile due to his Jewish heritage. He and his family escaped to London, where they first stayed in a rented house before settling at 20 Maresfield Gardens in Hampstead, a red-brick, three-story home that would be his final residence. Freud lived there from September 27, 1938, until his death less than a year later.
Today, both Berggasse 19 in Vienna and Maresfield Gardens in London are preserved as museums, testaments to the profound impact of Freud’s life and work.
TRAVEL Nearly every year, Sigmund Freud took a holiday—an essential ritual in his otherwise tightly scheduled life. He often traveled with his younger brother Alexander, who was something of a railway savant, well-versed in timetables, tariffs, and transport logistics. Freud himself was famously poor at such practical matters and relied heavily on others to manage the details.
He made a clear distinction between two types of travel: the family holidays in August—typically spent in the Alps—and his more adventurous solo or accompanied trips in September, which often involved elaborate, carefully plotted itineraries. He prepared diligently, studying tourist guides and especially admiring the Baedeker series, with its rich detail on classical antiquity—a lifelong passion of his.
Freud’s travel letters and postcards, including fifty-six letters and nearly two hundred postcards sent to his family, reveal the joy he took in these excursions. From the Grand Hotel Savoia in Rapallo, he wrote to Alexander that he was “drowning in a life of ease.”
Because his wife, Martha, disliked traveling, Freud was frequently accompanied by his sister-in-law, Minna Bernays. She was a capable and well-organized companion who often managed the logistics of their journeys. Their close relationship has drawn speculation over the years, but no definitive evidence exists of anything beyond familial companionship.
By 1936, however, Freud admitted his traveling days were nearly over. “I have grown old,” he wrote, “and can travel no more.” (10)
DEATH By mid-September 1939, Sigmund Freud's jaw cancer had progressed to a point of unrelenting pain. The disease was inoperable, and he knew the end was near. In his final days, he reread Balzac’s La Peau de chagrin (The Magic Skin), a novel that stirred poignant reflections on his own declining strength. Turning to his physician and longtime friend Max Schur—also a fellow refugee—Freud reminded him of a promise made earlier in his illness: “Schur, you remember our ‘contract’ not to leave me in the lurch when the time had come. Now it is nothing but torture and makes no sense.”
With the agreement of Freud’s daughter Anna, Schur administered two heavy doses of morphine on September 21 and 22. Freud died peacefully on September 23, 1939, at the age of 83.
Freud had long expressed a wish to be cremated, seeing it as a simpler and more practical alternative to burial. This preference appeared in his will as early as 1919. Three days after his death, on September 26, 1939, his body was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium in north London. The funeral, organized by his son Ernst Freud with the assistance of Harrods of Knightsbridge as funeral directors, was a modest but dignified affair.
Two close friends delivered eulogies: the Welsh psychoanalyst Ernest Jones spoke in English, while the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig paid tribute in German to Freud’s towering intellect and personal courage.
Freud’s ashes were placed in a prized object from his own antiquities collection: a 2,300-year-old Greek bell krater, richly decorated with Dionysian imagery. The urn had been a gift from Princess Marie Bonaparte, one of Freud’s most devoted supporters. It was placed atop a black marble plinth designed by Ernst and installed in a niche at Golders Green Crematorium, now known as "Freud Corner."
When Martha Freud died in 1951, her ashes were placed in the same urn, beside her husband’s.
Freud’s final resting place has become a quiet site of pilgrimage for scholars, admirers, and the curious. Owing to its historical value, the urn is now protected under special security measures.
APPEARANCES IN MEDIA Sigmund Freud has appeared extensively in media over the decades—sometimes reverently, sometimes playfully, and occasionally as a caricature. His image and theories have permeated literature, film, television, art, and pop culture in fascinating ways. Here’s a look at how Freud has been portrayed and referenced in the media:
1. Film and Television In 1925, MGM studio mogul Samuel Goldwyn traveled to Vienna to offer Freud $100,000 to consult on a silent epic exploring history's great love stories, but Freud refused to see him . He also declined a request from Austrian filmmaker G.W. Pabst to make a "psychoanalytic film" based on Freudian ideas. Despite Freud's distaste for cinema, psychoanalytic themes became staples of popular film, especially as the sound era began in the late 1920s.
Freud: The Secret Passion (1962) Directed by John Huston and starring Montgomery Clift as Freud, this moody biopic traces the early years of Freud’s development of psychoanalysis. Though factually loose in parts, it captures the intense internal struggles and breakthrough moments that marked Freud’s early career.
A Dangerous Method (2011) Directed by David Cronenberg, this film stars Viggo Mortensen as Freud, Michael Fassbender as Carl Jung, and Keira Knightley as Sabina Spielrein. It dramatizes the complex personal and theoretical relationships between these key figures in the early days of psychoanalysis.
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976) A clever pastiche that imagines Sherlock Holmes meeting Freud. Freud (played by Alan Arkin) helps Holmes kick his cocaine habit and solve a mystery. Based on Nicholas Meyer’s novel, it’s a lighthearted blend of fiction and Freud’s real-life association with early cocaine research.
Freud (2020, Netflix) This German-language series offers a fictionalized, supernatural-infused thriller imagining a young Freud embroiled in occult murders in 19th-century Vienna. Historically implausible, but an example of Freud as a gothic-cultural figure.
Freud's Last Sessions (2023) A film adaptation of Mark St. Germain’s stage play, in which Anthony Hopkins portrays Sigmund Freud in an imagined, intense intellectual showdown with Matthew Goode as C.S. Lewis. Here’s a closer look:
2. Cartoons and Parodies The Simpsons, Family Guy, and other animated series have parodied Freud’s theories and persona, often depicting him with a cigar and using exaggerated Austrian-accented psychoanalytic jargon ("Tell me about your mother").
Freud is a favorite for Saturday Night Live–style sketches, usually emphasizing his ideas about sex, dreams, or the Oedipus complex in humorous ways.
3. Literature and Theater Mark Edmundson's The Death of Sigmund Freud explores Freud's final years and his flight from the Nazis, presenting him as a tragic and heroic figure.
Freud has been referenced in countless novels, from D.H. Lawrence to Philip Roth. Often, authors use Freudian psychology either to develop characters or critique its assumptions.
Terry Johnson’s play Hysteria features a fictional meeting between Freud and Salvador Dalí in Freud’s final London home—melding comedy with deeper philosophical questions.
4. Visual Arts and Photography Freud was photographed by Man Ray, among others, and often depicted in paintings or caricatures as a bearded sage with intense eyes and a cigar.
His grandson, Lucian Freud, became one of the most renowned figurative painters of the 20th century—though he was notably distant from his grandfather’s psychoanalytic legacy.
5. Pop Culture and Music Freud’s name is practically shorthand for deep psychological analysis, often invoked in phrases like “a Freudian slip” or “Freudian complex.”
Musicians from The Police (“Wrapped Around Your Finger”) to Lady Gaga have referenced Freud, especially his emphasis on sexuality and repression.
The Freudian couch has become a cultural symbol, appearing in everything from advertising to editorial cartoons.
.jpeg) |
| Sigmund Freud's couch By ROBERT HUFFSTUTTER Wikipedia |
6. Documentaries and Biographies There are many serious documentaries, such as the BBC’s The Century of the Self (2002), which explores how Freud’s ideas influenced consumer culture via his nephew Edward Bernays.
Scholarly biographies by Peter Gay, Ernest Jones, and others have shaped both academic and public perceptions of Freud, frequently referenced in educational media.
ACHIEVEMENTS Founder of Psychoanalysis: Developed the first comprehensive theory and clinical method for understanding and treating mental illnesses based on the concept of the unconscious mind.
Developed Key Psychoanalytic Concepts: Introduced fundamental concepts such as the Oedipus complex, the id, ego, and superego, defense mechanisms, transference, and dream analysis.
Revolutionized Understanding of the Mind: Transformed the way mental processes were understood, moving away from purely biological explanations to include psychological and developmental factors.
Pioneered the "Talking Cure": Emphasized the therapeutic power of verbalizing thoughts, feelings, and memories, laying the groundwork for modern psychotherapy.
Influenced Diverse Fields: His ideas had a profound and lasting impact not only on psychology and psychiatry but also on sociology, anthropology, literary criticism, art, education, and philosophy.
Established the International Psychoanalytical Association: Founded in 1910, this organization helped standardize and propagate psychoanalytic training and practice globally.
Prolific Writer: Authored numerous influential books and essays that continue to be studied and debated.
Sources (1) Spartacus Educational (2) PBS (3) The National Arts Club (4) Encyclopaedia of Trivia (5) National Library of Medicine (6) Freud Museum (7) BIXBI (8) The New Republic (9) Above and Beyond (10) Sheffield Hallam University
No comments:
Post a Comment