Amalia Freud
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Amalia Malka Nathansohn Freud ( Nathansohn; 18 August 1835 – 12 September 1930) was the mother of
Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies seen as originating fro ...
. She was born in
Brody Brody (, ; ; ; ) is a city in Zolochiv Raion, Lviv Oblast, Zolochiv Raion, Lviv Oblast, western Ukraine. It is located in the valley of the upper Styr, Styr River, approximately northeast of the oblast capital, Lviv. Brody hosts the administrati ...
in the
Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, also known as Austrian Galicia or colloquially Austrian Poland, was a constituent possession of the Habsburg monarchy in the historical region of Galicia (Eastern Europe), Galicia in Eastern Europe. The Cr ...
to Jakob Nathanson and Sara Wilenz and later grew up in
Odesa Odesa, also spelled Odessa, is the third most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern ...
, where her mother came from (both cities are located in modern-day Ukraine). She was married to Jacob Freud in 1855. Amalia Freud died of
tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
in
Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
at the age of 95.


Children

On 6 May 1856, when Amalia Freud was still 20 years old, she gave birth to her first child by her husband Jacob Freud, Sigmund Schlomo, who became a famous
neurologist Neurology (from , "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the nervous system, which comprises the brain, the ...
and the founder of
psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious mind, unconscious processes and their influence on conscious mind, conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on The Inte ...
. Amalia was almost always pregnant in the decade following Sigmund's birth, giving birth to seven more children in just nine years, of which six lived to adulthood. However, none of her other children became as renowned as their eldest brother. They are enumerated below in the consecutive order of their births: *Julius (October 1857 – 15 April 1858), died in infancy *Anna (31 December 1858 – 11 March 1955) *Regina Debora "Rosa" (born on 21 March 1860, deported to
Treblinka Treblinka () was the second-deadliest extermination camp to be built and operated by Nazi Germany in Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the Treblinka, ...
on 23 September 1942) *Marie "Mitzi" (born on 22 March 1861, deported to Treblinka on 23 September 1942) *Esther Adolfine "Dolfi" (23 July 1862 – 5 February 1943 in Theresienstadt) *Pauline Regine "Pauli" (born on 3 May 1864, deported to Treblinka on 23 September 1942) *Alexander Gotthold Efraim (19 April 1866 – 23 April 1943)


Character

Amalia was considered by her grandchildren to be an intelligent, strong-willed, quick-tempered but
egotistical Egotism is defined as the drive to maintain and enhance favorable views of oneself and generally features an inflated opinion of one's personal features and importance distinguished by a person's amplified vision of one's self and self-importanc ...
personality. Ernest Jones saw her as lively and humorous, with a strong attachment to her eldest son whom she called "mein goldener Sigi".


Relationship with eldest son

Just as Amalia idolised her eldest son, so there is evidence that the latter in turn idealised his mother, whose domineering hold over his life he never fully analysed. He did however recount a railway journey with her at the age of 4 amongst his earliest memories and also recalled her instruction in German reading and writing. Late in life he would term the mother-son relationship "the most perfect, the most free from
ambivalence Ambivalence is a state of having simultaneous conflicting reactions, beliefs, or feelings towards some object. Stated another way, ambivalence is the experience of having an attitude towards someone or something that contains both positively and n ...
of all human relationships. A mother can transfer to her son the ambition she has been obliged to suppress in herself". His tendency to split off and repudiate hostile elements in the relationship would be repeated with significant figures in his life such as his fiancée and
Wilhelm Fliess Wilhelm Fliess ( ; 24 October 1858 – 13 October 1928) was a German otolaryngologist who practised in Berlin. He developed the pseudoscientific theory of human biorhythms and a possible nasogenital connection that have not been accepted by ...
.Richard Stevens, ''Sigmund Freud'' (2008) p. 144-6


See also

*
Freud family The family of Sigmund Freud, the pioneer of psychoanalysis, lived in Austria and Germany until the 1930s before emigrating to England, Canada, and the United States. Several of Freud's descendants and relatives have become well known in different ...


References


External links


Freud and his mother

Freud and his mother Amalia, in her apartment in Vienna, 5 May 1926
{{DEFAULTSORT:Freud, Amalia 1835 births 1930 deaths People from Brody People from the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria Amalia Jews from Galicia (Eastern Europe) Jews from Austria-Hungary Ukrainian Jews Austrian people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent People from Vienna 20th-century deaths from tuberculosis Tuberculosis deaths in Austria