Sigmund Freud was a physician and the founder of psychoanalysis, born on 6 May 1856 in Příbor, who spent most of his life in Vienna and moved to London in 1938.
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Sigmund Freud was born on 6 May 1856 in Příbor to parents Jakob and Amalia Freud.[1] The family rented rooms in house no. 117 in Zámečnická Street, owned by Jan Zajíc, where Freud's father had a textile shop and was a member of the cloth-makers' guild.[1] Little Sigmund was looked after by a Czech nanny, whom he often recalled later; she was probably called Monika Zajícová.[1] He spent only the first three years of his life in Příbor, yet he kept a connection with the town and in 1872, as a secondary-school student, returned to visit his friend Emil Fluss, with whom he corresponded throughout his life.[1]
Vienna and a medical career
In 1859 the family moved to Vienna.[1] Thanks to his mother's thrift, Freud was able to complete secondary school and university despite his father's financial difficulties, and he briefly worked in internal medicine before moving to psychiatry under Professor Meynert.[1] After being appointed a lecturer, he travelled to Paris in 1885, where he assisted the psychiatrist Jean Charcot.[1] After returning from Paris he married Martha Bernays on 14 September 1886, after an engagement of four years; they had six children, three sons and three daughters, whom by his own words he regarded as “his pride and wealth”.[1]
The origins of psychoanalysis
In his clinical practice Freud focused on the study of the unconscious, and with patients he at first practised treatment by hypnosis.[1] While searching for the causes of hysteria he collaborated and corresponded with the psychiatrists Hippolyte Bernheim, Josef Breuer and Wilhelm Fliess.[1] In 1896 he used the term psychoanalysis for the first time and defined it as a science investigating hidden mental processes and instinctual impulses in the subconscious.[1] His theory had both followers and opponents; its spread was helped by the first international meeting of psychoanalysts in Salzburg in 1908, after which biennial congresses of the field were introduced in various countries.[1] At the next meeting, in Nuremberg in 1910, the International Psychoanalytical Association was founded, and the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung became its first president.[1] According to the birthplace museum in Příbor, Freud is the author of The Interpretation of Dreams, in which he showed that dreams carry meaning and reflect human wishes, fears and memories.[2]
Recognition and personal losses
In 1930 he received the Goethe Prize for scientific achievements in the field.[1] A year earlier, in 1931, a memorial plaque was unveiled on his birthplace in Příbor; because of an advanced stage of cancer he did not attend the unveiling in person, and his daughter Anna accepted the invitation.[1] Over the years Freud also faced personal losses: in 1896 his father died, in 1920 his daughter Sophie, three years later a grandson, and in 1930 his mother Amalia, to whom, according to the source, he always had a strong bond.[1] Two of his sons went to fight at the front during the First World War.[1]
Emigration from Vienna
With the rise of fascism, Freud did not feel safe in Austria because of his Jewish origin.[1] After friends intervened with Adolf Hitler, he was allowed in 1938 to move from Vienna to London, which was also helped by the interrogation of his daughter Anna by the Gestapo.[1] For leaving Austria he had to pay the so-called Reich flight tax of 12,000 Dutch guilders, which was provided by his friend and admirer Marie Bonaparte.[1]
The birthplace in Příbor
House no. 117 in Zámečnická Street in Příbor was reconstructed in 2006 and its architecture returned to the form of the mid-19th century.[2] According to information from the town of Příbor, the building is the only house of the former street that survived demolition in the 1960s and 1970s, thanks to Freud's name, and it is now a cultural monument.[2] The building serves as the Sigmund Freud museum with an exhibition called House of Dreams, which, according to the operator, is interactive and based on Freud's later texts and childhood memories, because nothing from his early years has survived in the house except the walls.[2] The exhibition was created by Jakub Deml and Zdeněk Durdil and is supplemented by an English version for foreign-language visitors.[2] Previously the house hosted the exhibition Museum of Thought, whose author was Freud's great-granddaughter Jane McAdam Freud and which artistically portrayed the concepts of the ego, superego and id.[2] According to the museum's website, it is open daily except Monday from 9:00 to 17:00 with a lunch break from 12:00 to 12:30; admission is 80 crowns for adults, 50 crowns for pensioners and students, 50 crowns for children aged 7 to 15 and 180 crowns for a family ticket.[2]