Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 in present-day Czech Replubic. He entered the University of Vienna medicall school in 1873, and took his degree in medicine in 1881. He furthur studied the nervous system, and was subsequently awarded a fellowship for a year's study in Paris. He returned to Vienna in 1886, and began medical practice. He was convinced that sexual causes played a major role in all forms of neurosis. He developed this theory known as the Oedipus complex, which focuses on emotional and sexual complications between parents and children.

In 1902, Freud invited four colleagues to form the Vienna Psycho-Analytical Society. It grew to include many notable people, but by 1911, differences became bitter and the group began to break apart.

When the Nazis invaded Austria in 1938, they burned his book and banned his theories as he was Jewish. Later, he escaped to England through his friends. He died in 1939 of the cancer of the jaw and palate in London.