Sigismund Schlomo Freud (or Uncle Freud for us, the intimates) was an Austrian who lived between 1856 and 1939. A neurologist by training, Freud went far beyond the medicine of his time, and founded a new method for the treatment of psychopathology, based in a dialogical relationship between patient and doctor (psychoanalyst). The father of psychoanalysis considered as objects for scientific investigation aspects of the mind such as dreams, forgetfulness, lapses of speech , fantasies and the unconscious .
After working with Jean Charcot , famous for treating hysteria through hypnosis, Freud started to use hypnotic suggestion as the main tool in clinical care. Later, he will also use the cathartic method, presented in Studies on Hysteria – work in conjunction with Josef Breuer. However, Freud soon abandoned hypnosis and changed the cathartic method.
Psychoanalytic therapy uses free association as a method , that is, allowing the patient to speak freely about what comes to mind, but certain ideas find barriers to this. The discoveries of the mechanisms of repression and resistance and of the unconscious were decisive for modifying the therapeutic work and for Freud to change the name of the method of investigation and cure from cathartic to psychoanalysis.
Is Freud the father of psychology?
No. Freud is considered the father of psychoanalysis, which is one of several forms of psychology, and not the only one. The father of modern psychology is generally considered to be Wundt , the founder of the first experimental psychology laboratory.
The father of psychoanalysis generated many concepts and ideas within his theory. If you want to go deeper into the subject, you can continue reading the mountain of texts that are already here on the site organized by the Freud tag or the Psychoanalysis category . Below you can watch the playlist dedicated to Psychoanalysis on our psychology channel on Youtube . I recommend that you subscribe there so as not to miss the new videos that will be released
