Freud, Sigmund

A physician in Vienna, Austria, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who founded psychoanalysis and developed the theory of the Oedipus complex. He believed that psychological problems could be traced to repressed childhood experiences, particularly to repressed sexual desires. He also argued that dreams provide clues to the nature of psychological problems. His theories introduced concepts such as those of the id and superego into the language of psychiatry.