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- Sigmund Freud
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-
- OCTOBER 27, 1924)
-
- Sigmund Freud was born of Jewish parents, at Freiburg, in
- Moravia, 68 years ago. At the Sperl Gymnasium in Vienna, he was
- always the head of his class. His preliminary education over,
- he vacillated for some time between a career in law and one in
- natural science, decided much against his will to become a
- medical student and, after a journey to England, entered the
- University of Vienna, where he did brilliantly.
-
- After leaving the university, he worked for a time in a
- children's clinic, then went to Paris and studied under Dr.
- Charcot, the famed neurologist. It was here, to use a paradox,
- that he became conscious of the unconscious mind and proceeded
- to make it the sole subject of his studies.
-
- It is difficult to analyse Freud's doctrine of psychoanalysis.
- Is it a science or a philosophy? As there can be no science with
- a philosophy, it is both. Freud says that injuries are caused
- to the body by the mind (neurosis); not the conscious mind, for
- no one is so foolish, but by the unconscious mind. The
- psychoanalyst's job is, therefore, to bring into the conscious
- mind those factors which are disturbing the unconscious mind and
- so cause them to disappear.
-
- The study of the problems of the unconscious mind led Freud
- to dream interpretation, which was to become the principal
- method of psychoanalysis. It was the quickest route of
- reaching a patient's unconscious mind. Freud, in his
- Interpretation of Dreams, goes deeply into the whole subject
- and, as he almost always uses his own dreams as examples, the
- book is also an autobiography. In theory, psychoanalysis is the
- philosophy of the unconscious mind; in practice it is a means by
- which mental disorders can be cured.
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