What Did Sigmund Freud Say About the Irish?
Freud was quoted as saying, “This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever” when referring to the Irish. However, as the Freud Museum in London points out, there is no actual evidence that Freud ever said this statement though it is mentioned in the film “The Departed.”
Freud used psychoanalysis as a way to get inside of a person’s mind and to find out about a person’s ideas, feelings, perceptions, memories and choices. His psychoanalysis therapy was derived and based on Dr. Josef Breuer’s original psychoanalysis therapy. While psychoanalysis is a part of psychology, it is not the whole of psychology, and there are many other treatment modalities that exist in psychology today.
Freud studied at the University of Vienna before working at Vienna General Hospital. He then studied with Jean Charcot, a famous neurologist living in Paris. His first practice was then set up in 1885 and dealt with people who had brain and nerve disorders. It was just a few years later when Freud created one of his most famous theories involving the unconscious human desires of an aggressive and sexual nature that are at odds with one another. From there, Freud would develop the theory of the ego and the id.
