Jacob Koloman Freud (1815–1896) was the father of

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...

, the founder of

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...

. Born in town of Tysmenytsia in the

Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria,, ; pl, Królestwo Galicji i Lodomerii, ; uk, Королівство Галичини та Володимирії, Korolivstvo Halychyny ta Volodymyrii; la, Rēgnum Galiciae et Lodomeriae also known as ...

(now in

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

), and from a Hasidic background though himself an enlightened Jew of the

Haskalah The ''Haskalah'', often termed Jewish Enlightenment ( he, השכלה; literally, "wisdom", "erudition" or "education"), was an intellectual movement among the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, with a certain influence on those in Western Euro ...

, he mainly earned his living as a wool merchant.

Families

Jacob Freud was the son of Schlomo Freud and Pepi, née Hoffmann. Jacob Freud married three times, with two children coming from his first marriage, and eight children from his third marriage to Amalia Freud, twenty years his junior. His first wife was Sally, and his second wife was Rebecca. Jacob's eldest son from his first marriage became a father a year before Sigmund - the first son of Jacob's third marriage - was born; so that Sigmund was an uncle at birth, with his nephew John a constant (and older) playmate in his early years.

Ernest Jones Alfred Ernest Jones (1 January 1879 – 11 February 1958) was a Welsh neurologist and psychoanalyst. A lifelong friend and colleague of Sigmund Freud from their first meeting in 1908, he became his official biographer. Jones was the first En ...

speculates that the unusual family background may have prompted Sigmund - the eldest but third son - into an early interest in family dynamics.

Character

By all accounts, Jacob Freud was a genial, unassuming character with a " Micawberish" streak of optimism: Sigmund would write warmly of "his characteristic mixture of deep wisdom and fantastic lightheartedness". Yet there is evidence that Jacob's

meekness Meekness is an attribute of human nature and behavior that has been defined as an amalgam of righteousness, inner humility, and patience. Meekness has been contrasted with humility alone insomuch as humility simply refers to an attitude towards o ...

in the face of anti-Semitic bullying also disturbed Sigmund profoundly. Much of the latter's ambition, his combativeness, and his subsequent quest for powerful father figures such as Ernst Brücke and

Josef Breuer Josef Breuer ( , ; 15 January 1842 – 20 June 1925) was a distinguished physician who made key discoveries in neurophysiology, and whose work in the 1880s with his patient Bertha Pappenheim, known as Anna O., developed the talking cure (cathar ...

, may be traced back to his

ambivalence Ambivalence is a state of having simultaneous conflicting reactions, beliefs, or feelings towards some object. Stated another way, ambivalence is the experience of having an attitude towards someone or something that contains both positively and neg ...

about his own yielding and 'vague' father.Peter Homans, ''Jung in Context'' (1979) p. 149

Families

Character

See also

References

Further reading