Josef Breuer in 1897. Source: Freud and Breuer, facing p. 185.

Josef Breuer (1842-1925) attended medical school at the University of Vienna, where he studied with Ewald Hering (1834-1918) and became a Privatdozent in 1868. In 1871 he turned to private practice, attracting a number of so-called "neurasthenic" patients while serving as family physician to Brücke, Billroth, Chrobak, and other prominent Viennese. His intellectual grounding in the empirical determinism of the Helmholtz School delighted the younger Sigmund Freud.

Breuer met Freud around 1880 (or possibly a little earlier) at the Brücke Institute of Physiology, where in the course of daily work they soon became close friends. A specialist in the physiology of the inner ear (e.g., Breuer 1889), Breuer in 1880 began treatment of Bertha Pappenheim, a highly intelligent young woman plagued by a host of neurotic symptoms following the death of her father. After Breuer described her case to Freud, the latter soon "began to repeat Breuer's investigations with [his] own patients," leading to the publication of Studies on Hysteria (1895). Breuer was, however, unable to follow Freud into the terrain of sexual aetiology, and by 1892 each had distanced himself from the other intellectually and socially.

Bibliography

Breuer, Josef. "Neue Versuche an den Ohrbogengängen." ("New Experiments on the Ear Canals.") Pflüger's Archiv für die gesammte Physiologie des Menschen und der Thiere 44 (October 1889): 135-38.

Freud, Sigmund. "An Autobiographical Study." In vol. 20 of The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Edited and translated by James Strachey, Anna Freud, et al. London: Hogarth Press & Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1953-1974.

___. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Edited and translated by James Strachey, Anna Freud, et al. 24 vols. London: Hogarth Press & Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1953-74.

Jones, Ernest. "The Breuer Period. 1882-1894." Vol. 1 of The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud. 2 vols. London: Hogarth Press, 1953.

[Illustration source] Freud, Sigmund, and Breuer, Josef. Studies on Hysteria. Trans. James Strachey with Anna Freud. New York: Basic Books, n. d. Internet Archive. Contributed by the Universal Digital Library. Web. 23 February 2021.


Created 24 February 2021