UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE RIO NEGRO – INGLES II

READING COMPREHENSION: BIOGRAPHIES

From: the Encyclopædia Britannica

Sigmund Freud
Austrian psychoanalyst, born May 6, 1856, Freiberg, Moravia,
Austrian Empire [now Příbor, Czech Republic]
died Sept. 23, 1939, London, Eng.

Sigmund Freud (left) together with his friend Wilhelm Fliess

Freud was most influential intellectual legislator of his age. His creation of psychoanalysis was at once a
theory of the human psyche, a therapy for the relief of its ills, and an optic for the interpretation of culture
and society.

Life and Work

Freud’s father, Jakob, was a Jewish wool merchant who had been married once before he wed the boy’s
mother, Amalie Nathansohn. The father, 40 years old at Freud’s birth, seems to have been a relatively
remote and authoritarian figure, while his mother appears to have been more nurturant and emotionally
available.

In 1859 the Freud family was compelled for economic reasons to move to Leipzig and then a year after to
Vienna. Despite Freud’s dislike of the imperial city, in part because of its citizens’ frequent anti-Semitism,
psychoanalysis reflected in significant ways the cultural and political context out of which it emerged. So
too his interest in the theme of the seduction of daughters was rooted in complicated ways in the context
of Viennese attitudes toward female sexuality.

In 1873 Freud graduated from the Sperl Gymnasium and turned to medicine as a career. In late 1885 he
left Vienna to continue his studies of neuropathology at the Salpêtrière clinic in Paris, where he worked
under the guidance of Jean-Martin Charcot. The following year Freud returned to Vienna, established
himself in the private practice of neurology, and married. He soon devoted his efforts to the treatment of
hysterical patients with the help of hypnosis (the act of bringing about a change in a person's attention
which results in a change in their bodily experiences), a technique he had studied under Charcot. Joseph
Breuer (1857–1939), an older colleague (a partner or an associate in the same area of interest), told Freud
about a hysterical patient whom he had treated successfully by hypnotizing her and then tracing her
symptoms back to traumatic (emotionally stressful) events she had experienced at her father's deathbed.
Breuer called his treatment "catharsis" and traced its effectiveness to the release of "pent-up emotions."
Freud's experiments with Breuer's technique were successful. Together with Breuer he published Studies
on Hysteria (1895). At the age of thirty-nine Freud first used the term "psychoanalysis," (a way to treat
certain mental illnesses by exposing and discussing a patient's unconscious thoughts and feelings) and his
major lifework was well under way.

At about this time Freud began a unique project, his own self-analysis (the act of studying or examining
oneself), which he pursued primarily by analyzing his dreams. A major scientific result was The
Interpretation of Dreams (1901). By the turn of the century Freud had developed his therapeutic (having
to do with treating a mental or physical disability) technique, dropping the use of hypnosis and shifting to
the more effective and more widely applicable method of "free association."

Following Freud's work on dreams, he wrote a series of papers in which he explored the influence of
unconscious thought processes on various aspects of human behaviour. He recognized that the most
powerful among the unconscious forces, which lead to neuroses (mental disorders), are the sexual desires
of early childhood that have been shut out from conscious awareness, yet have preserved their powerful
force within the personality.

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1- ACTIVIDADES DE PRE- LECTURA:

A- Observe rápidamente el texto y su presentación gráfica y responda:

a- ¿De dónde ha sido extraído? ¿Qué conoce de la fuente?
b- ¿Qué información puede extraer del título y la oración siguiente?

B- Identifique el tipo de texto que va leer. ¿Qué características tiene?

¿Qué información cree encontrará en él? Utilice el título y las
transparencias léxicas para predecir.

2- ACTIVIDADES DE LECTURA:

2.1 Actividades de Lectura Global

A) Lea el texto y seleccione la modalidad discursiva del texto :

expositiva - narrativa - descriptiva - argumentativa

Justifique su elección .

B) Responda:

a- ¿Cuál es el origen del psicoanalista? ¿Qué dice el texto sobre sus padres?
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
b- ¿Qué es la “hipnosis”?
…………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………….

c- ¿Cuál era el tratamiento utilizado por Joseph Breuer?

………………………………………………………………………………………….

d- ¿Cómo surge “The Interpretation of Dreams”?

………………………………………………………………………………………….

e- ¿Cuál es,según Freud, la más poderosa de las fuerzas inconscientes que

conducen a la neurosis ?
………………………………………………………………………………………....

2.2 Actividades de lectura intensiva

a- El texto que está leyendo es una biografía. Extraiga de él tres ejemplos de los
recursos que utilizó el autor para organizarlo cronológicamente (Conectores
cronológicos, circunstanciales de tiempo, etc) .

……………………………………………………………………………………………………

b- Traduzca las siguientes oraciones:

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1.Freud’s father, Jakob, was a Jewish wool merchant who had been married
once before he wed the boy’s mother, Amalie Nathansohn.
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
2.The following year Freud returned to Vienna, established himself in the private
practice of neurology, and married.
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………

3.At about this time Freud began a unique project, his own self-analysis (the act
of studying or examining oneself).
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………

4.By the turn of the century Freud had developed his therapeutic technique,
dropping the use of hypnosis and shifting to the more effective and more widely
applicable method of "free association."
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………

5.Following Freud's work on dreams, he wrote a series of papers in which he

explored the influence of unconscious thought processes on various aspects of
human behaviour.
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………

c- Encuentre en el texto a qué hacen referencia las palabras subrayadas y complete:

who (línea 7) ............................................

it (línea 14) ...................................................
he ( línea 17) ...........................................
her ( línea 24) .................................................

d- El texto está mayoritariamente escrito en un tiempo verbal. Conteste:

 ¿Cuál es ese tiempo verbal? …………………………………………….….

Seleccione tres ejemplos que lo demuestren .

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 …………………………………………………………………………………..

 ¿Puedo identificar un verbo escrito en ese tiempo verbal desde la morfología?

¿Cómo?
…………………………………………………………………………………..
 ¿Por qué lo utilizó el autor? ……………………………………………….…

 ¿Podría utilizar otro para escribir este tipo de texto?

……………………………………………………………...............................

3- ACTIVIDADES DE POST LECTURA

A ) Realice una cronología de los eventos más importantes en la vida de Sigmund

Freud desde su nacimiento a su muerte.

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