FREUD

Consequently, Sigmund Freud's early work with hysterical patients was heavily influenced by Charcot (Gay, 1988). .
             In 1886, Freud returned from college, opened a private practice specializing in the nervous system and brain disorders, and married Martha Bernays (Gay, 1988). Martha and Freud had six children over the span of nine years. Martha Bernays' sister, Minna, also lived with Martha and Freud for over thirty years (Gay, 1988). .
             Carl Jung claimed in an interview after Freud's death that Freud and Minna had a long-running love affair. However, this claim has not been substantiated. Although it is known that Freud enjoyed Minna's company and that on at least one occasion they vacationed together without Martha. He also enjoyed talking about his work with Minna, but he did not talk about it with Martha.
             Over the next decade, Freud combined clinical practice with theoretical insights to eventually develop the foundational principles of psychoanalysis, an event that would change the course of history forever. It all began in 1895 when Freud wrote a book with his long time friend and colleague, Josef Breuer. In their book, Studies in Hysteria, Freud analyzed the famous case of "Anna O." and other women suffering from hysteria (Hock, 2002). Freud and Breuer described how Anna O. was cured of her many and varied hysterical symptoms by the use of hypnosis. In addition, Anna O. urged the two men to allow her to engage in "chimney sweeping," which she also called the "talking cure (Hock, 2002)." When she was allowed to simply talk about her problems, she felt much better, and her symptoms disappeared (Hock, 2002).
             Freud and Breuer called this the cathartic method, a cleansing of the mind's emotional conflicts through talking about them (Halgin & Whitbourne, 2003). The cathartic method was the forerunner of psychotherapy, the treatment of abnormal behavior through psychological techniques.