Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Austrian psychiatrist who founded psychoanalysis, a method of treating mental disorders by inducing the patient to bring repressed feelings and memories into consciousness. Rejecting hypnosis, he encouraged his patients to talk freely about their thoughts, dreams, and childhood memories. He shocked the public by claiming that adult behaviour is strongly influenced by sexual experiences and desires in early childhood. His The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) and The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901) set out the basis of his theories. In 1938 Freud left Vienna to escape the Nazi occupation and went to Lon-don, where he died the following year. Sigmund Freud’s grandson, the painter Lucian Freud (1922), travelled to Britain and became a British citizen in the 1930s. He is noted especially for his portraits and nudes, most of which are painted in a harshly realistic style.
