Last updated on:
2/27/2008 |
Author: ProCon.org
Sigmund Freud, DMed Biography
- Title:
- Psychologist and Neurologist
- Position:
- Con to the question "Is Sexual Orientation Determined at Birth?"
- Reasoning:
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“Inversion [the state where a man’s sexual object is a man and not a woman, and woman’s sexual object is a woman and not a man] can only be described as a frequent variation of the sexual instinct, which can be determined by a number of external circumstances in the subject’s life.”
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, 1905
- Theoretical Expertise Ranking:
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Key Experts
MD's and PhD's in psychology, with significant post-doctorate involvement in human sexuality issues. [Note: Key Experts definition varies by sites that have this designation.] - Involvement and Affiliations:
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- Founder, field of psychoanalysis
- Honorary member of Royal British Medical Society, 1935
- Awarded Goethe Prize, 1930
- Founded Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, 1902
- Named “Professor Extraordinarius” by Emperor Franz-Joseph, 1902
- Education:
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- DMed, University of Vienna, 1881
- Other:
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- Considered the father of the field of psychoanalysis
- Put forth theory that human personality is derived from four stages of infantile sexuality and that homosexuality results from a failure to resolve one of these stages
