Sigmund Freud's revolutionary ideas have set the standard for modern
             psychoanalysis that students of psychology can learn from, and his ideas spread
             from the field of medicine to daily living. His studies in areas such as
             unconsciousness, dreams, sexuality, the Oedipus complex, and sexual
             maladjustments laid the foundation for future studies and a better understanding
             of the small things that shape our lives.
             In 1873 Freud graduated from the Sperl Gymnasium and, inspired by a
             public reading of an essay on nature by Goethe, Freud decided to turn to
             medicine as a career(Gay, 10). He worked at the University of Vienna with one
             of the leading physiologists of his day, Ernst von Brucke, and in 1882 he entered
             the General Hospital in Vienna as a clinical assistant. After making several
             conclusions about the brain's medulla, Freud was appointed lecturer in
             neuropathology. At this same time in Freud's career, he developed an interest in
             the medical uses and benefits of cocaine(Britannica, 582). Even though some
             beneficial results were found in some forms of eye surgery, cocaine use was
             generally denied by the surgeons of his time. This interest in the narcotic hurt
             Freud's medical reputation for a time. This episode in Freud's life has been
             looked at as an example of his "willingness to attempt bold solutions to relieve
             From 1885 to 1886 Freud spent nineteen weeks with Jean Martin
             Charcot, a world famous neurologist and the director of a Paris asylum. It was
             Charcot that first introduced Freud to the idea of hysteria and hysterics. Freud
             became intrigued by the idea of hypnotism as a method of therapy, but he was
             told that only hysterics could be treated with hypnotism(Appignanesi, 34). There
             was a firm belief that only women could be hysteric and that no man or non-
             hysteric woman could be affected by the use of hypnotism. Freud knew that
             hysteria could only develop w...