Freud the Outsider Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) is shown with his wife, Martha, and youngest child, Anna, at their Vienna home in 1898. Freud always considered himself to be an outsider. First, he was a Jew at a time when anti-Semitism was strong in Europe. Second, Freud’s belief that expressions of sexuality are reflected in the behavior of infants and young children was controversial and shocking to his contemporaries. To some degree, however, Freud enjoyed his role as the isolated scientist—it served him well in trying to set himself, and his ideas on personality, apart from other researchers (Gay, 2006).