Freud is a figure needing no introduction, yet his reputation owes as much to myth as to the facts of his life and work. Despite his groundbreaking work on theories including the functioning of the subconscious, the repression of trauma, and the psychological import of dreams, he has frequently been the subject of derision and even ridicule. David Carter here uncovers the man buried beneath the mythology, tracing the life of this inimitable figure from his origins as the gifted first of eight children born to Jewish parents in mid-nineteenth-century Austria, through his stellar academic career and the relationships and rifts with figures such as Josef Breuer. An essential read for anyone wishing to understand the life, times and work of this most seminal of theorists, Brief Lives: Sigmund Freud is published alongside Freud On Cocaine.