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Sigismund Freud is born in Freiberg, (Czech Republic).
His parents, Jacob Freud and Amalia Freud, born Nathanson, had married the previous year. Freud is his mother's eldest child. His father's adult sons from a previous marriage, Emanuel and Philipp, also live with them. Emanuel's children, John and Pauline, are Freud's early playmates in Freiberg. -
The Freuds move to Vienna.
In 1859 Freud's parents leave Freiberg for Leipzig, but only stay there a short time. The half-brothers' families move to Manchester.
Over the following five years four more sisters are born (Rosa, Marie, Adolfine, Pauline). -
Freud begins a friendship with his classmate Eduard Silberstein.
Together with Silberstein Freud visits his home town twice. They teach themselves Spanish and begin writing each other letters in Spanish. -
Freud passes his Matura (school leaving certificate) and enters Vienna University.
Shortly before entering university he attends a lecture on Goethe by Carl Bruehl which decides him to study medicine. He enters the medical faculty of Vienna University and studies zoology under Carl Claus, physiology under Ernst von Bruecke and philosophy under Franz Brentano. -
Freud studies under Claus and Bruecke.
In 1876 Freud works in the Institute of Comparative Anatomy and receives a research scholarship to work at the Laboratory for Marine Zoology in Trieste. There he studies the sexual organs of eels and produced his first publication on this subject but is not happy about the inconclusive results. -
Freud qualifies as doctor of medicine.
He falls in love and becomes engaged to a young woman from Hamburg, Martha Bernays. Because research offers no prospect of advancement or of making enough money to marry, Freud leaves the laboratory and embarks on a medical career. His first step is in a post as houseman at the Vienna General Hospital. Over the four years until his marriage he continues to be desperately short of money and often complains of this in his letters. -
Freud is employed as doctor at Theodor Meynert's Psychiatric Clinic.
Freud works in Theodor Meynert's laboratory of cerebral anatomy and as a researcher at Hermann Nothnagel's medical clinic. Freud's employment at Meynert's Clinic in 1883 gives him his first experience of psychiatry. -
Freud researches the medicinal effects of cocaine.
Freud is able to prove that cocaine can be used as a local anaesthetic. "So coca is associated above all with my name" he wrote to Martha Bernays. -
Marriage to Martha Bernays.
After a four year engagement, he marries his fiancee Martha Bernays. -
Freud becomes interested in hypnotherapy.
Freud experiments with the use of hypnotic suggestion as therapy, which he had encountered in Paris, and he is translating a book by Hyppolite Bernheim on the therapeutic use of suggestion. He says of his interest in hypnosis: "For my part I have thrown myself into hypnosis in the last few weeks and achieved all sorts of small but curious successes. I also intend to translate Bernheim's book on suggestion." -
Beginning of friendship with Wilhelm Fliess.
Freud's friendship with Fliess is to become the central relationship over the next ten years, during which meetings and correspondence with his friend act as a sounding board for all Freud's new ideas. -
Works together with Josef Breuer on Studies in Hysteria.
The talking treatment.In 1893 the two men publish "On the Psychical Mechanism of Hysterical Phenomena: A Preliminary Communication". Two years later this is followed by the jointly written "Studies in Hysteria".
Freud considers hysteria to be the consequence of traumas caused by sexual abuse in childhood. Differences of opinion on the sexual aetiology of hysteria afterwards lead to a cooling of the friendship with Breuer. -
Freud manages for the first time to analyse one of his own dreams.
The "dream of Irma's injection" which Freud successfully analyzes is to be a cornerstone of the "Interpretation of Dreams" and the theory that every dream fullfills a wish. -
Freud's first use of the term "psychoanalysis".
id, superego, egoIn an article published in French on the aetiology of neuroses Freud uses this expression for the first time, instead of suggestion or catharsis, to describe his methods. -
Freud begins his self-analysis.
Through a systematic study of his own dreams Freud seeks to explain his own psychology and development. -
Freud Publishes The Psychical Mechanism of Forgetting.
Freud is set on proving the primacy of unconscious mechanisms and that "consciousness is only a sense organ, all psychic contents only representation, all mental events are unconscious." -
The first copies of The Interpretation of Dreams appear, post- dated 1900.
Freud spends the summer of 1899 in the farmhouse of Riemerlehen near Berchtesgaden, where he completes the final chapter of The Interpretation of Dreams. This book and the method of interpretation it sets out are to remain for the rest of his life his "royal road to the unconscious". -
Wilhelm Fliess and Freud meet for the last time in Vienna.
Freud's friendship with Fliess had been gradually cooling before this meeting, ever since the publication of The Interpretation of Dreams. -
C.G. Jung begins his correspondence with Freud
Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) "In favour of Jung were his exceptional talents, the contributions he had already made to psycho-analysis, his independent position and the impression of assured energy which his personality conveyed. In addition to this, he seemed ready to enter into a friendly relationship with me and for my sake to give up certain racial prejudices which he had previously permitted himself." -
Journey to America.
At the invitation of the American Stanley Hall Freud travels with Ferenczi and Jung to give lectures in Worcester at Clark University and there he learns of the widespread interest in his ideas. In America they are met by Abraham Brill who is one of the earliest psychoanalysts. -
Founding of the International Psychoanalytical Association
At Sandor Ferenczi's instigation the International Psychoanalytical Association is founded, with C.G. Jung as president, at the Nuremberg psychoanalytical congress. -
Break with C.G. Jung.
C.G. Jung who for some time has been developing his own psychology with a new conception of libido resigns from the editorial committee of the Yearbook for Psychoanalysis and in 1914 resigns from the presidency of the International Psychoanalytical Association. -
The first signs of Freud's oral cancer are detected.
His frequent use of cocaine start to show. -
On his 70th birthday Freud receives various honours.
In recognition of his growth and intelligence. -
A heart attack forces Freud to give up smoking.
His health declines from here on out. -
Freud dies in London.
Freud SpeechOn 1st August his illness finally forces him to give up his practice.The last entry in Freud's diary on 25th August is "War panic". In his speach Freud Says; I started my professional activity as a neurologist trying to bring relief to my neurotic patients. Under the influence of an older friend and by my own efforts, I discovered some important and new facts about the unconscious in psychic life, the role of
