NOTED PSYCHOLOGIST

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 307, 25 September 1939, Page 8

NOTED PSYCHOLOGIST

Death Of Sigmund Freud STUDY OF NEUROLOGY Sigmund Freud died in London on Saturday night, aged 83. —By Radio. Sigmund Freud was the founder of psycho-analysis. He was .born, of Jewish extraction, in Freiberg, Moravia, on May 6, 1856. At the age of four he went to Vienna. He felt no inclination to medical work, being more interested in purely scientific research. Influenced by Goethe’s essay, “Die Natur,” however, he embarked on a medical curriculum. In 1881, a Viennese physician, Dr. Breuer, related to him an extraordinary experience in which symptoms of hysteria were cured by getting the patient to recollect in a state of hypnosis the circumstances of their origin and to express the emotions accompanying this. This “cathartic” method of treatment was the starting-point of what later became psycho-analysis. In 1885, Freud went, to Paris to study for more 'than a year under the great neurologist Ohareot, whose moral support strengthened his determination in the then revolutionary step of investigating hysteria from a psychological point of view. Freud took the decisive'step of replacing hypnotism as a means of resuscitating buried memories by the method of “free association,” which is the kernel of the psycho-analytic method. This led him to make important discoveries concerning the structure and nature of the various psycho-neuroses and to extend these discoveries- to the normal injiul. The particular mechanisms he had found in the neuroses he demonstrated in detail in many other spheres, such as wit, dreams, literary products, art, mythology and religion. For 10 years Freud worked alone at psycho-analysis. About 1906 he was joined by a number of colleagues, who met in 1908 at tlie first international congress of psycho-analysis, since then a biennial institution. Two years later an international association was founded, which now has branches in most countries of the world. The influence of Freud’s work, however, has extended far beyond the special activities of the 200 specialists in the subject. It has met with keen opposition, which he ascribes to the powerful resistance always operating against tlie recognition of the unconscious mind. Nevertheless, it is recognized that he lias given a powerful impetus to psychology in general and that in time this will probably affect many other fields of mental activity. On his 'seventieth birthday,'Freud was the recipient of congratulations from learned societies in various parts of the world and was accorded the freedom of Vienna.