Editing Sigmund Freud (section)

===Early work===
Freud began his study of medicine at the University of Vienna in 1873.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Strutzmann |first=Helmut |title=Freud at 150: 21st Century Essays on a Man of Genius |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-7657-0547-1 |editor-last=Joseph P. Merlino |location=Plymouth |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers |page=33 |chapter=An overview of Freud's life |editor-last2=Marilyn S. Jacobs |editor-last3=Judy Ann Kaplan |editor-last4=K. Lynne Moritz |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZqNPvtl_GhcC&pg=PA33}}</ref> He took almost nine years to finish due to his interest in neurophysiological research, specifically the investigation of the sexual anatomy of eels and the physiology of the fish nervous system, and because of his interest in studying philosophy with [[Franz Brentano]]. He entered private practice in neurology for financial reasons, receiving his M.D. in 1881 at the age of 25.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The History of Psychiatry |url=https://www.scribd.com/document/62292238/History-of-Psychiatry |access-date=6 February 2011}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref> Amongst his principal concerns in the 1880s was the anatomy of the brain, specifically the [[medulla oblongata]]. He intervened in the important debates about [[aphasia]] with his monograph of 1891, ''Zur Auffassung der Aphasien'', in which he coined the term [[agnosia]] and counselled against a too locationist view of the explanation of neurological deficits. Like his contemporary [[Eugen Bleuler]], he emphasized brain function rather than brain structure.

Freud was also an early researcher in the field of [[cerebral palsy]], which was then known as "cerebral paralysis". He published several medical papers on the topic and showed that the disease existed long before other researchers of the period began to study it. He suggested that [[William John Little]], the man who first identified cerebral palsy, was wrong about lack of oxygen during birth being a cause. Instead, he suggested that complications in birth were a symptom.

The origin of Freud's early work with psychoanalysis can be linked to [[Josef Breuer]]. Freud credited Breuer with opening the way to the discovery of the psychoanalytical method by his treatment of [[Anna O.]], which is the first case study in Freud and Breuer's ''[[Studies on Hysteria]]'' (1895). In November 1880, Breuer was called in to treat a highly intelligent 21-year-old woman ([[Bertha Pappenheim]]) for a persistent cough and hallucinations that he diagnosed as hysterical. He found that while nursing her dying father, she had developed some transitory symptoms, including visual disorders and paralysis and contractures of the limbs, which he also diagnosed as hysterical. Breuer began to see his patient almost every day as the symptoms increased and became more persistent and observed that she entered states of ''absence''. He found that when, with his encouragement, she told fantasy stories in her evening states of ''absence'' her condition improved, and most of her symptoms had disappeared by April 1881. Following the death of her father that month her condition deteriorated. Breuer recorded that some of the symptoms eventually remitted spontaneously and that full recovery was achieved by inducing her to recall events that had precipitated the occurrence of a specific symptom.<ref>Hirschmuller, Albrecht. ''The Life and Work of Josef Breuer.'' New York: New York University Press, 1989, pp. 101–16, 276–307.</ref> In the years immediately following Breuer's treatment, Anna O. spent three short periods in sanatoria with the diagnosis "hysteria" with "somatic symptoms",<ref>Hirschmuller, Albrecht. ''The Life and Work of Josef Breuer''. New York: New York University Press, 1989, p. 115.</ref> and some authors have challenged Breuer's published account of a cure.<ref>[[Henri Ellenberger|Ellenberger, H. F.]], [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/1520-6696(197207)8:3%3C267::AID-JHBS2300080302%3E3.0.CO;2-C "The Story of 'Anna O.': A Critical Review with New Data"], ''Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences'', vol. 8, issue 3, July 1972, pp. 267-279.</ref><ref>[[Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen|Borch-Jacobsen]], Mikkel. ''Remembering Anna O.: A Century of Mystification.'' London: Routledge, 1996.</ref><ref>Macmillan, Malcolm. ''Freud Evaluated: The Completed Arc.'' Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1997, pp. 3–24.</ref> Richard Skues rejects these authors' claims that Anna O. was not cured, which he sees as coming from both Freud's admirers and detractors, both of whom Skues shows "have unfairly maligned the truthfulness and integrity of Josef Breuer".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Miller |first=Gavin |date=2009 |title=Book Review: Richard A. Skues, Sigmund Freud and the History of Anna O.: Reopening a Closed Case |journal=History of Psychiatry |volume=20 |issue=4 |pages=509–10 |doi=10.1177/0957154X090200040205 |s2cid=162260138}} Skues, Richard A. ''Sigmund Freud and the History of Anna O.: Reopening a Closed Case.'' Basingstoke, UK, and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.</ref>