Sigmund Freud

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to any sensory nerve damage. Freud wondered if the problem could be psychological rather than physiological.
Dr. Freud evolved as he treated patients and analyzed himself. He recorded his assessment and expounded his theories in 24 volumes published between 1888 and 1939. Although his first book, The Interpretation of Dreams, sold only 600 copies in its first eight years of publication, his ideas gradually began to attract faithful followers and students - along with a great number of critics.
While exploring the possible psychological roots of nervous disorders, Freud spent several months in Paris, studying with Jean Charcot, a French neurologist from whom he learned hypnosis. On return to Vienna, Freud began to hypnotize patients and encouraging them while under hypnosis to speak openly about themselves and the onset of their symptoms. Often the patients responded freely, and upon reviewing their past, became quite upset and agitated. By this process, some saw their ...

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be retrieved at will. However, Freud was more interested in the mass of thought and feeling that are repressed - forcibly blocked from conscious thought because it would be too painful to acknowledge. Freud believed that these repressed materials unconsciously exert a powerful influence on behavior and choices.
Freud believed that dreams and slips of tongue and pen were windows to his patient's unconscious. Intrusive thoughts or seemingly trivial errors while reading, writing and speaking suggested to Freud that what is said and done reflects the working of the unconscious. Jokes especially were an outlet for expressing repressed sexual and aggressive tendencies. For Freud, nothing ...

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