Sigmund Freud (German pronunciation: [ˈziːkmʊnt ˈfʁɔʏt]), born Sigismund Schlomo Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939), was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis. Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mindand the mechanism of repression, and for creating the clinical method of psychoanalysis for investigating the mind and treatingpsychopathology through dialogue between a patient (or "analysand") and a psychoanalyst.

Freud established sexual drives as the primary motivational forces of human life, developed therapeutic techniques such as the use offree association, discovered the phenomenon of transference in the therapeutic relationship and established its central role in the analytic process; he interpreted dreams as sources of insight into unconscious desires. He was an early neurological researcher intocerebral palsy, aphasia and microscopic neuroanatomy, and a prolific essayist, drawing on psychoanalysis to contribute to the history, interpretation and critique of culture.