50 Fun Facts About Sigmund Freud

What clinical method and theory of mind is Freud the founder of?

It treats conflicts in the psyche through dialogue between patient and analyst.

What are the three parts of the model of psychic structure Freud developed?

He set the second topography out in The Ego and the Id in 1923, on top of his earlier conscious-preconscious-unconscious scheme.

What did Freud call the sexualised psychic energy that invests mental processes?

He paired it with a death drive, the source of compulsive repetition, aggression and neurotic guilt.

Which idea, built on his redefinition of sexuality to include infancy, became central to his theory?

It grew from his own self-analysis of hostility to his father and jealousy over his mother's affections.

In which Moravian town, now Příbor in the Czech Republic, was Freud born on 6 May 1856?

He was born with a caul, which his mother saw as a lucky omen, in a rented room in a locksmith's house.

What was Freud's given name at birth?

His father Jakob was a wool merchant twenty years older than his mother Amalia, his third wife.

What was Freud's uncle Josef convicted of in 1866, turning his father's hair grey in days?

Police inquiries pointed toward Manchester, where Freud's half-brothers lived, though they were never named.

How many languages was the young Freud proficient in, according to his biography?

German, French, Italian, Spanish, English, Hebrew, Latin and Greek; he graduated with honours in 1873.

What did the 20-year-old Freud spend four weeks dissecting in Trieste in 1876?

The search for the eels' male reproductive organs was inconclusive.

Whose essays did Freud translate during the downtime of his compulsory military service in 1879?

He graduated with an MD in March 1881 after six years in Ernst Brücke's physiology lab.

Which drug did Freud extol in his 1884 paper "On Coca", recommending it as an antidepressant?

He narrowly missed priority for its anaesthetic use, which his colleague Karl Koller demonstrated in eye surgery.

Whom did Freud marry in 1886, the granddaughter of a chief rabbi of Hamburg?

As an atheist he was dismayed to need a Jewish religious ceremony and was hastily tutored in the Hebrew prayers.

At what Vienna address did Freud and his family live from 1891 until 1938?

The American consul-general arranged regular monitoring of the building after the Anschluss.

How many children did Sigmund and Martha Freud have?

The youngest, Anna, born in 1895, became a psychoanalyst and her father's closest collaborator.

Which Berlin ENT specialist, called "the Kepler of biology" by Freud, was his closest confidant in the 1890s?

Fliess's nasogenital theories are now considered pseudoscience; his surgery on Emma Eckstein left gauze in her nose and disfigured her.

Which Paris neurologist did Freud study hypnosis and hysteria with on a fellowship in 1885?

Freud named his first son Jean-Martin after him and called the stay catalytic in turning him toward psychopathology.

Which patient of Josef Breuer's coined the phrase "talking cure"?

Her symptoms eased as she retrieved memories of traumatic incidents under hypnosis, transforming Freud's practice.

What did Freud call his method of having patients talk uncensored about whatever came to mind, after dropping hypnosis?

By 1896 he was using the word "psychoanalysis" for the method and its theories.

Which 1895 book, co-written with Josef Breuer, set out Freud's early clinical method and case histories?

It described the psychogenetic origins of hysteria in several cases.

In which year was The Interpretation of Dreams published?

It reads dreams as wish-fulfilments disguised by the "dream-work"; an abridged On Dreams followed in 1901.

Which 1901 book won Freud a wider readership by applying his ideas outside the clinic?

It is the source of the idea of the "Freudian slip".

What was the real name of the patient in the famous 'Dora' case study?

The 1905 case taught Freud the importance of transference; Little Hans was Herbert Graf and the Rat Man Ernst Lanzer.

By what pseudonym is Freud's Russian patient Sergei Pankejeff known in the case histories?

Freud also had a single extended consultation with the composer Gustav Mahler.

How, according to legend, was Freud's long-blocked professorship finally secured in 1902?

The title of "professor extraordinarius" carried no salary or duties but great prestige.

What was the group of physicians who began meeting at Freud's apartment in 1902 called?

It was founded at Wilhelm Stekel's suggestion; the original members also included Alfred Adler, and all five were Jewish by birth.

Which Swiss psychiatrist became the first president of the International Psychoanalytical Association?

He broke away after his 1912 book on the libido and named his own system analytical psychology.

Where did Freud's followers meet on 27 April 1908 for what counts as the first International Psychoanalytic Congress?

Ernest Jones proposed it; forty-two attended, half of them practising or future analysts.

Where did Freud give five lectures in September 1909, on his only visit to the United States?

He travelled with Jung and Ferenczi at the invitation of Stanley Hall and received an honorary doctorate.

Who resigned as Vienna society president in 1911 and founded what became individual psychology?

He left with nine others to form the Society for Free Psychoanalysis, soon renamed.

What did Ernest Jones set up in 1912 to safeguard psychoanalytic orthodoxy as the break with Jung loomed?

Freud, Jones, Abraham, Ferenczi, Rank and Hanns Sachs each pledged not to depart publicly from core tenets without consulting the others.

Which 1924 Otto Rank book was seen as abandoning psychoanalysis' central tenet, causing his break with Freud?

Rank left for Paris in 1926 and his place on the committee went to Anna Freud.

Which Hollywood producer offered Freud $100,000 in 1925 to advise on a film about great love stories?

Freud refused even to meet him, prompting the New York Times headline "Freud Rebuffs Goldwyn".

Which nephew of Freud pioneered public relations in the United States, drawing on his uncle's ideas?

He built a theory of propaganda on psychoanalysis and helped popularise Freud's work in America.

Which honour did Freud receive in 1930 for his contributions to psychology and German literary culture?

He was nominated repeatedly for the Nobel Prize, with backing from Thomas Mann and Romain Rolland, but never won it.

With which physicist did Freud exchange the open correspondence published in 1933 as Why War?

The League of Nations invited the exchange; Freud tied human aggression to his death drive.

What did Freud remark to Ernest Jones after the Nazi bonfires of 1933?

He nonetheless underestimated the threat and refused to leave Vienna until after the Anschluss.

Which event on 22 March 1938 finally convinced Freud to leave Vienna?

The American consul-general intervened by phone during the interrogation.

Who was Anton Sauerwald, whose unexpected sympathy eased the escape from Vienna?

He had studied chemistry under an old friend of Freud's, read Freud's books and became sympathetic.

Which wealthy follower paid the Nazi charges that let Freud, Martha and Anna leave Vienna?

The family left on the Orient Express on 4 June 1938 and stayed with her in Paris before crossing to London.

At what London address did Freud settle in September 1938, now the Freud Museum?

His architect son Ernst installed a lift and recreated the atmosphere of the Vienna consulting rooms.

Which of these callers paid their respects to Freud in London in 1938?

Stefan Zweig, Leonard and Virginia Woolf and H. G. Wells also visited.

What was the last book Freud read, prompting reflections on his own frailty?

Days later he reminded his doctor Max Schur of their "contract" not to leave him in the lurch.

How did Freud die at around 3 a.m. on 23 September 1939?

"Talk it over with Anna, and if she thinks it's right, then make an end of it," he had told Schur.

Where do Freud's ashes rest, in a Greek bell krater given him by Marie Bonaparte?

Harrods acted as funeral directors and Ernest Jones and Stefan Zweig gave the orations.

In which 1920 work did Freud first infer the existence of a death drive?

He never used the word 'Thanatos' himself; the term for the death drive was introduced by others, while the life drive was 'Eros'.

Which poet's 1940 tribute credited Freud with creating 'a whole climate of opinion'?

'In Memory of Sigmund Freud' appeared in Auden's collection Another Time the year after Freud's death.

Which philosopher argued that Freud's psychoanalytic theories were unfalsifiable?

Adolf Grünbaum countered in 1984 that many of Freud's claims were in fact testable, just not well supported.

Who was the first woman to join the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, in 1910?

Two Russian psychiatrists trained in Zürich, Tatiana Rosenthal and Sabina Spielrein, followed her the next year.

Which Berlin psychoanalyst launched the first debate on femininity by challenging Freud's theory of penis envy?

Horney worked at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute, which Abraham and Eitingon had founded in 1920.

Which London department store acted as funeral director for Freud's cremation in 1939?

His son Ernst gave the instructions; Ernest Jones and Stefan Zweig delivered the funeral orations.