Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud (6 May 1856 - 23 September 1939), was an Austrian neurologist who became known as the founding father of psychoanalysis. Freud's parents were poor, but they ensured his education. Interested in law as a student, he moved instead into medicine, undertaking research intocerebral palsy, aphasia and microscopic neuroanatomy. He went on to develop theories about the unconscious mind and the mechanism ofrepression, and established the field of verbal psychotherapy by creating psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient (or "analysand") and a psychoanalyst. Though psychoanalysis has declined as a therapeutic practice, it has helped inspire the development of many other forms of psychotherapy, some diverging from Freud's original ideas and approach. -wikipedia