Freud, Sig‧mund /frɔɪd, ˈsɪɡmənd/
(1856–1939) an Austrian doctor who developed a new system for understanding the way that people's minds work, and a new way of treating mental illness called psychoanalysis. He discovered the unconscious (=the part of your mind where there are thoughts and feelings that you do not realize you have). He believed that bad experiences that people have as children can affect their mental health as adults, and that by talking to a mentally ill person about their past life and feelings, the hidden causes of their illness can be found. He wrote The Interpretation of Dreams and The Ego and the Id. His ideas, especially about the importance of sex, have had a very great influence on the way that people think in the 20th century.

[TahlilGaran] Dictionary of Contemporary English ▲