Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud (born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, famous for such revolutionary ideas as the unconscious mind, defense mechanisms, infantile sexuality, transference (the notion that childhood relationships influence relationships in adulthood), the division of the human personality into id, ego, and superego, and finally for the talking cure, a notion that has provided the basic format to all varieties of psychotherapy since.
Freud was born to Galician Jewish parents in the Moravian town of Freiberg, in the Austrian Empire (now Příbor, Czech Republic). He qualified as a doctor of medicine in 1881 at the University of Vienna. Upon completing his habilitation in 1885, he was appointed a docent in neuropathology and became an affiliated professor in 1902. Freud lived and worked in Vienna, having set up his clinical practice there in 1886. Following the German annexation of Austria in March 1938, Freud left Austria to escape Nazi persecution. He died in exile in the United Kingdom in September 1939.
In founding psychoanalysis, Freud developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association. Freud's redefinition of sexuality to include its infantile forms led him to formulate the Oedipus complex as one of the central tenets of psychoanalytical theory.