Austrian · 1856–1939
Austrian neurologist who founded psychoanalysis and changed how humans understand themselves. Born in Moravia, raised in Vienna, he trained as a physician before developing the talking cure through work with Josef Breuer. The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) proposed that unconscious desires shape our mental lives; Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905) scandalized with its claims about infantile sexuality and the origins of neurosis. Whether or not his theories survive as science, his vocabulary—id, ego, repression, Oedipus complex—pervades modern thought. Fleeing Nazi annexation, he died in London. His case studies read like novels; his influence on literature is vast.