Sigmund Freud was born to a successful Jewish wool merchant, Jakob, and his second wife, Amalie. Raised in Vienna, Freud attended the university there studying medicine. Shut out of the teaching profession because of his Jewish heritage, Freud became a laboratory researcher.
Freud originally believed that all psychological disorders were actually physiological problems with the brain. However, as Freud began to work further in the field, looking particularly at cases of hysteria, he became convinced there are psychological forces which are responsible for all human activity. Such forces are hidden in the "unconscious" and can only be brought to light through psycho-analysis. The strongest and most dominate of these forces is sexual energy (libido) in the id. The id is controlled by the super-ego (the internalized rules of morality) and the ego (the mediating self). The way in which this sexual energy is expressed determines psychological health or illness. Freud's method of psycho-analysis was designed to help the patient direct this sexual energy away from destructive patterns into healthy ones. For the reading from Freud, click here.
From Forrest Baird, Human Thought and Action (University Press of America, © 1992)