Ask the Chatbot Games & Quizzes History & Society Science & Tech Biographies Animals & Nature Geography & Travel Arts & Culture ProCon Money Videos
Sigmund Freud
Quotes References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics
Images & Videos
Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud and Martha Bernays Sigmund Freud Black and white portrait of Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis, seated and looking at the camera. Psychoanalytic theory: Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung lectures
How Sigmund Freud founded psychoanalysis
Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud
At a Glance
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud summary
Related Questions
Feedback
Corrections? Updates? Omissions? Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login).
Thank you for your feedback

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

External Websites
Britannica Websites
Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud, 1921.

Sigmund Freud

Austrian neurologist
Written by
Martin Evan Jay
Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley. Author of The Dialectical Imagination and many others.
Martin Evan Jay
Fact-checked by
Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
Britannica Editors
Last updated
•History

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis. (Read Sigmund Freud’s 1926 Britannica essay on psychoanalysis.) Freud may justly be called the most influential intellectual legislator of his age. His creation of psychoanalysis was at once a theory of the human psyche, a therapy for the relief of its ills, and an optic for the interpretation of culture and society. Despite repeated criticisms, attempted refutations, and qualifications of Freud’s work, its spell...

Discover the world with Britannica

Subscribe to Continue Reading

Free Trial | No Ads | Exclusive Content
Explore Subscriptions
DNA
Right
Mobile