Freudian

Freud

\ˈfrȯid\play ,

Sigmund

(1856–1939), Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist. Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis. He began his study of hysteria with Josef Breuer, whose method of treatment was hypnosis. From 1892 to 1895 Freud developed treatment by the technique of free association of ideas. He came to believe that a complex of repressed and forgotten impressions underlies all abnormal mental states such as hysteria, and that a cure could be affected by a revelation of these impressions. His work in this area convinced him of the fact of infantile sexuality. He also developed a theory that dreams are an unconscious representation of repressed desires, especially sexual desires. In 1900 he published his greatest work, The Interpretation of Dreams.