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(05.06.2015) ✕

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In the eighties and nineties of the 19th century both the galvanic and the faradic electricity played an important role in the diagnostic and therapeutic Neurology. Thus Freud occupied himself also with this area:

„In the distance shone the great name of Charcot; so I formed a plan of first obtaining an appointment as University Lecturer on Nervous Diseases in Vienna and of then going to Paris to continue my studies.” (Freud 1925d)

Freud had his first contact with hypnosis as a student:

„While I was still a student I had attended a public exhibition given by Hansen the ‘magnetist’, and had noticed that one of the subjects experimented upon had become deathly pale at the onset of cataleptic rigidity and had remained so as long as that condition lasted. This firmly convinced me of the genuineness of the phenomena of hypnosis.(Freud 1925d)

In 1885/86 Freud went to Paris, where he met Charcot and worked in his clinic for 17 weeks. Charcot made a powerful impression on Freud and the Salpêtrière was rightly called the Mecca of neurologists. (See, Jones 1982) Freud described Charcot with:

„(…) to the magic that emanated from his looks and from his voice, to the kindly openness [...] to the willingness with which he put everything at the disposal of his pupils, and to his life-long loyalty to them.“ (Freud 1925d)

Very soon a close contact was established with Freud due to a translation of a publication of Charcot:...