He studied for four and a half months in Paris with the psychiatrist Jean Charcot, from whom he learned a great deal about the use of hypnosis. Charcot also alerted him to the possible sexual basis of neurosis. Another significant influence on Freud and the system he was to develop was his friendship with Josef Breuer, a Viennese physician who had achieved some success in working with disturbed patients by encouraging them to talk freely about their symptoms. Freud, who grew dissatisfied with hypnosis (he was not a good hypnotist), turned to Breuer's "talking-cure" method and found it most effective. It was to form the basis of Freud's chief method of