History of the Sigmund Freud Private University

Accreditation and the beginnings of psychotherapy science

The strict and extensive accreditation procedure in accordance with the Private Universities Act, which ensures the quality of teaching and research and must be regularly renewed, was first completed in 2005.
Psychotherapy Science is now offered as a bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programme in two parallel programmes in German and English. Across all study programmes, particular emphasis is placed on the interweaving of academic knowledge transfer and practical experience. The SFU’s own psychotherapeutic outpatient clinics make it possible to fulfil this requirement and at the same time contribute to providing the population with psychotherapeutic services.

The Sigmund Freud Private University was founded in 2003 by Prof. Dr Alfred Pritz, Prof. Dr Jutta Fiegl, Heinz Laubreuter and Dr Elisabeth Vykoukal with the ambition of giving psychotherapy an academic foundation as a psychotherapeutic science. Almost 80 years later, Sigmund Freud’s vision of establishing psychoanalysis as a scientific discipline in its own right became a reality.

International branches and foundation of the Faculty of Psychology

In line with its self-image as a trans-European university, the SFU began setting up branches in 2006, initially in Paris and later in Ljubljana, Berlin, Milan and Linz.
SFU’s portfolio was fundamentally expanded for the first time in 2007 with the founding of the Faculty of Psychology. The social and cultural science orientation of the Bachelor’s, Master’s and doctoral programmes (which are offered in German and English) is deliberately designed as an alternative to the natural science-based psychology programmes at other universities. The SFU has also set up a psychological outpatient clinic analogous to the psychotherapy programme.

From a specialised university to a university specialising in medicine and law

Further milestones in the development from a “speciality university” to a “speciality university” were the founding of the Faculty of Medicine in 2015 and the Faculty of Law in 2016. Further diversification took place with the accreditation of the Dentistry degree programmes and the establishment of its own dental clinic with a teaching and care mandate.

Psychotherapy science, psychology, medicine, law: studying with personality

Despite the strong growth and the constant expansion of the range of degree programmes, SFU has succeeded in remaining true to its humanistic credo in the spirit of Freud. In addition to teaching academic and market-relevant skills, attention is paid across all degree programmes to “not only establishing careers, but also promoting personalities”, as the university’s guiding principle states. This is achieved through innovative, flexible curricula, highly motivated teaching staff and student-centred didactics in small groups. The close personnel and structural link between teaching and top international research makes it possible to incorporate research findings promptly into teaching content and to enable students to participate in a wide range of programmes worldwide.