Freud's Encounter With Charcot and His Epistemological Break

Jean-Martin Charcot was one of the most influential figures in Sigmund Freud’s life and works. Freud studied under Charcot for five months while he was twenty-nine years old. Charcot’s influence helped Freud to change his conception of science and it paved the way for the foundation of psychoanalysis. In this article, we will discuss the paradigm shift of Freud with the influence of Charcot. We will demarcate the epistemological differences between Charcot’s ideas and Viennese medical school. In this way, we will show what was fundamentally different in Freud’s thinking from his earlier paradigm. We aim to show what is the kernel of psychoanalysis and why it could have been founded only after importing Charcot’s ideas to the Viennese medical paradigm.