In this post I continue to reflect upon my trip to Austria in 2009. I went to Berggasse 19 in Vienna, the former home of dr. Sigmund Freud. He lived there with his family for many years and his practise was also located in the apartment. When the political situation changed in the 1930s due to the raise of National Socialism in Germany and because of the Anschluss in which Nazi Germany forced Austria to join in the Reich; Sigmund Freud had to flee. Nazis once entered his apartment but were too afraid to do anything because Freud’s old testament persona scared them off. He knew they would come back. He understood he must flee Austria. His escape took place in 1938 with the help of a very rich former patient he could resettle in London were he died a year later. Freud was a heavy smoker and in the 1920’s he developed a leukoplakia in the mouth and was told to stop smoking. He later developed cancer in the mouth.
Today Freud’s apartment is converted into a Museum dedicated to his life and work. The very famous coach isn’t located here but in London. There were little furniture around but the walls are scattered with information about Freud’s life and the psychoanalysis he helped intervent. However, there were several small statues or figuerines on display which Freud once had collected. If you wish to visit this excellent site be sure you got some time. The place also holds a small shop selling Freud’s books.
Freud was born 1856 to Jewish parents in the Moravian town of Freiberg now called Prbor, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Czech Republic). He qualified as a doctor of medicine in 1881 at the University of Vienna. Five years later he started his own clinic and received patients in his apartment. He was a neurologist and the father of Psychoanalysis; a form of therapy. In 1902 he became a University professor. In creating psychoanalysis, Freud developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association and discovered transference, establishing its central role in the analytic process.
Freud’s therapy focus a lot on sexuality and the interpretation of dreams. He developed several theories about man’s sexuality including the famous Oedipus Complex. These assets helped him form a clinical analysis which could explain repression in some cases and help patients with abnormal or complex mental conditions. He also created a theory about the unconscious and its mechanisms in relation to man’s ego.
Freud’s theories were not well-recieved in his own time and today we still cannot verify them which has led to the conclusion psychoanalysis as a theraphy is heavily critized. But one of his biggest contributions to the medical field was his focus on the patients previous experiences and the need to search for explanations to a patient’s mental condition. This sound like a basic thing to do today, but one must remember that in Freud’s own time focus was only on treatment and not searching for the cause of the condition. Freud also practised Self-Analysis and his most famous work The Interpretation of Dreams first published 1899 had its origins in his own personal crisis dealing with the death of his father.
Despite the criticism Freud’s ideas continue to live on and he has not only made his mark on Psychology; but also on numerous Academic fields such as anthropology and Semiotics. I liked visting the Museum and see the place where he and his family lived for so many years.
All photos in this post were taken by me on the visit. Make sure you got plenty of time while visiting Freud’s Museum since there was plenty to read when I was there in 2009.
Sources
wikipedia.org
Through the Eye of a Pegasus 