Amalia Malka Nathansohn Freud ( Nathansohn; 18 August 1835 – 12 September 1930) was the mother of Sigmund Freud. She was born in Brody, Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria to Jacob Nathanson and Sarah Wilenz and later grew up in Odesa, where her mother came from (both cities located in modern-day Ukraine). She was married to Jacob Freud. Amalia Freud died in Vienna at the age of 95 of tuberculosis.

Children

On 6 May 1856, when Amalia Freud was 20 years old, she gave birth to her first child, Sigmund Schlomo, a famous neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis. Including Sigmund, she had 8 children with her husband Jacob Freud; however, her other children are not as renowned as their elder brother. They are enumerated below in the consecutive order of birth.

Character

Amalia was considered by her grandchildren to be an intelligent, strong-willed, quick-tempered but egotistical 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 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.