READING 3 – AUDIO SCRIPT 1

SIGMUND FREUD IN A HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Introduction to Psychology (PSYC 110) | Complete course materials are available at the Yale Online
website: online.yale.edu

A. If I had to ask you to choose a--no, name a famous psychologist, the answer of most of you would 5
be Freud. He's the most famous psychologist ever and he's had a profound influence on the
twentieth and twenty-first century.

B. Some biographical information: He was born in the 1850s. He spent most of his life in Vienna,
Austria, but he died in London and he escaped to London soon after retreating there at the
beginning of World War II as the Nazis began to occupy where he lived. 10

C. He's one of the most famous scholars ever but he's not known for any single discovery. Instead,
he's known for the development of an encompassing theory of mind, one that he developed over
the span of many decades.

D. He was in his time extremely well known, a celebrity recognized on the street, and throughout his
life. He was a man of extraordinary energy and productivity, in part because he was a very serious 15
cocaine addict, but also just in general. He was just a high-energy sort of person.

E. He was up for the Nobel Prize in medicine and in literature; didn't get either one of them; didn't
get the prize in medicine because Albert Einstein--Everybody loves Albert Einstein. Well, Albert
Einstein really wrote a letter because they asked for opinions of other Nobel Prizes.

F. He wrote a letter saying, "Don't give the prize to Freud. He doesn't deserve a Nobel Prize. He's just 20
a psychologist." Well, yeah.

Academic English in Psychology | Reading Material 3 | Nguyen Phuoc Cat Phuong