My mother often reminded me that “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread” — her words are one of those childhood memories that remain fixed in many a young brain, laid down in the synapses without our knowledge and long before we were capable of examining what a parent might have intended. I hear my mother’s warning again as I attempt to clarify why I like Sigmund Freud, a controversial subject at best, and why I continue to value his insights.

Communication between people never seems to grow simpler. Ambiguities and doubts as well as the complex mechanism of memory itself can lead to deeply rooted misunderstandings. How many of us overheard a parental remark or misinterpreted parental actions that dampened our happiness or affected our self-esteem for years? How easily we can still be hurt by words or someone’s tone that we misunderstand. Freud suggested a process to unearth and, hopefully, resolve these inevitable misperceptions.

As a neurologist Freud was dedicated to understanding the biology of the mind, but unfortunately, he lived at a time when the tools of neuroscientific research did not exist. Eventually, frustrated, he created another way to explain our motives, fears and hidden selves, though never doubting that a neural mechanism was related to each psychological manifestation, including the mysterious working of the unconscious. He was sure that one day they would be revealed.

As a doctor he wanted to heal his patients — to allow people to know they could love and do work that gave them meaning. Pursuing and expanding on the psychoanalytic techniques he had learned from his work with doctors Josef Breuer and Jean-Martin Charcot, he struggled to find the best way to accomplish these goals.

As an early explorer of inner space he made some tragic and dangerous misjudgments, including several absurd misunderstandings about women, due to both his own limitations and the restrictive constructs about human nature brewing in patriarchal 19th century Viennese society.

Nonetheless, famed neuroscientist Eric Kandel credits Freud with significant and enduring discoveries that contribute to the modern biology of the mind.

One is the concept of repression. It is the mechanism the brain uses to hide memories of difficult events or words from us though they still they exist in our unconscious and can haunt our daily lives. Freud also was aware that our ancient animal instincts remain powerful and can very quickly overcome the relatively newly evolved prefrontal cortex that provides us our reasoning powers. It is not surprising that violence and paralyzing fear so often erupt in human societies.

Seeking self awareness is hardly an American obsession. We tend to scoff at those who dwell on the inner life and accuse them, playfully, of being navel gazers.

I found a book, however, by the American poet Hilda Doolittle who braved analysis with Freud when he was an old man and suffering from cancer. She found him unpredictable, querulous, witty, grumpy, affectionate, and noted that he very seldom referred to any of the terms he had invented.

“He did not want to prove people wrong, he wanted only to show them the way and show them that others had imposed ideas on them that might eventually prove destructive.”

I have little doubt that listening was Freud’s great art ... an art that has little to do with technique or book knowledge. He simply listened in such a way that one dared touch what could not be touched before and, as importantly, he gave one the courage to speak aloud her fears and doubts in the presence of his empathetic ear. So begins the healing of a soul.

Unearthing troublesome or traumatic childhood memories and assigning them a new perspective can make us kinder to ourselves and more forgiving of others’ inevitable foibles. Freud, like Socrates, invites us, through a process of self-discovery, to establish an inner authority and a confidence that can help counteract the chaotic and frightening world where, as he once remarked, “The undisguised brutality of our time is weighing heavily upon us.”

If I have rushed in “where angels fear to tread” the journey has been fruitful for this particular fool! Since I began struggling to understand how our minds can imagine and create stunning beauty and, at the same time, wreak endless destruction and terror upon the world, Freud has been a sincere and brilliant guide, as well as a patently fallible human being like the rest of us.

Simund Freud was born May 6, 1856, in Moravia.

Margot Fleck lives in Northfield