A sk someone to name a famous psycho-logist, and chances are they will pick Sigmund Freud (pictured below), the bearded Austrian academic who came up with the idea of psychoanalysis. His ideas about the unconscious-a sort of shadowy basement of the mind that is inaccessible to rational thought, but which nevertheless influences people's behaviour-are part of popular folklore. Although it remained popular at dinner parties, the idea of the unconscious fell out of favour among 20th-century psychologists, thanks to the rise of more scientific approaches to psychology. These focused purely on studying behaviour and refrained from theorising about the inner workings of the mind.
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