Sigmund Freud, One of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century.


Freud’s education is very interesting to me. When Freud was young he was a child prodigy, and was expected from his parents. Freud began his education in 1873 at the University of Vienna to study medicine, a path he didn’t want to take. He originally concentrated in biology, physiology, and neurology. His Jewish background played a determining role in his career choice because medicine and law were the only professions open to Jews in Vienna at the time. The University of Vienna is where he starts doing research in physiology and worked with Ernst von Brücke. Brücke introduce Freud into neurology, followed by Wilhelm Fleiss, a doctor from Berlin who inspired Freud's interest in psychology. Freud became interested in hysteria by working with Jean-Martin Charcot, a Parisian neurologist known all over Europe for his studies of hysterics and use of hypnosis.



What is in the Historical and Cultural Context is new to me. Freud study medicine, but the fact that he adopted belief in mechanism is very new to me. “Life understood through understanding underlying physical laws of chemistry and physics.” I don’t really know what it means and how it influences him into “deterministic psychology.”