Psychoanalysis, History of

Abstract

Psychoanalysis is linked with the name and owes its systematic elaboration to Sigmund Freud (1856–1939). Freud's biography and the interpretation of psychoanalysis constitutes an important chapter in twentieth century cultural and intellectual history, both as a body of theory and as cultural practice. An ongoing attempt to determine the meaning of Freud and psychoanalysis has led to the publication of hundreds of volumes, and the historiography of psychoanalysis has found its own place within the history of science. Each culture has absorbed Freud and psychoanalysis differently, but a general history of psychoanalysis as a single science can be catalogued in three ways: (a) as a history of psychoanalytic theories from Freud to the present; (b) as a history of Freud's biography, the psychoanalytic movement, and its institutions and practices; and (c) as a self-reflection on the historiography of psychoanalysis itself, and problems of methodology. In the history of psychoanalysis, studies in the area of Freud-biography and the pre- and early history of psychoanalysis dominate. However, since the late 1960s, a coherent picture of Freud and the psychoanalytic movement has undergone a profound change depending on the authors' background either inside or outside of institutional psychoanalysis.