Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionII. Psychodynamic
Theories- Freud: Psychoanalysis © The McGraw−Hill^25
Companies, 2009
luctantly, Freud turned from his laboratory to the practice of medicine. He worked
for 3 years in the General Hospital of Vienna, becoming familiar with the practice of
various branches of medicine, including psychiatry and nervous diseases (Freud,
1925/1959).
In 1885, he received a traveling grant from the University of Vienna and de-
cided to study in Paris with the famous French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot. He
spent 4 months with Charcot, from whom he learned the hypnotic technique for
treating hysteria,a disorder typically characterized by paralysis or the improper
functioning of certain parts of the body. Through hypnosis, Freud became convinced
of a psychogenic and sexual origin of hysterical symptoms.
While still a medical student, Freud developed a close professional association
and a personal friendship with Josef Breuer, a well-known Viennese physician 14
years older than Freud and a man of considerable scientific reputation (Ferris, 1997).
Breuer taught Freud about catharsis,the process of removing hysterical symptoms
through “talking them out.” While using catharsis, Freud gradually and laboriously
discovered the free associationtechnique, which soon replaced hypnosis as his prin-
cipal therapeutic technique.
From as early as adolescence, Freud literally dreamed of making a monumen-
tal discovery and achieving fame (Newton, 1995). On several occasions during the
1880s and 1890s he believed he was on the verge of such a discovery. His first op-
portunity to gain recognition came in 1884–1885 and involved his experiments with
cocaine, which we discussed in the opening vignette.
Freud’s second opportunity for achieving some measure of fame came in 1886
after he returned from Paris, where he had learned about malehysteria from Char-
cot. He assumed that this knowledge would gain him respect and recognition from
the Imperial Society of Physicians of Vienna, whom he mistakenly believed would
be impressed by the young Dr. Freud’s knowledge of male hysteria. Early physicians
Chapter 2 Freud: Psychoanalysis 19Sigmund Freud with his daughter, Anna, who was a psychoanalyst in her own right.