Guide Mentor

Character Role Analysis

Josef Breuer

Freud may have had weird relationships with the father-figures in his life, but that doesn't mean he didn't learn from them. Together with Josef Breuer, Freud developed an original approach to understanding and treating "hysteria" and other neuroses. In fact, Breuer made the initial forays into the field that Freud later made famous as psychoanalysis. Without Breuer, it's hard to say who or what Freud would have become—or if history would have remembered his name at all.

Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke

Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke was another of the father-figures in Freud's life. Freud spent six years training under Brücke at his Physiological Institute, and Brücke helped to set the young doctor on the path to a career in medical practice (source). Although Brücke may appear as an intimidating and demanding figure in some of Freud's dreams, there's no question that his guidance shaped Freud's work.