Psychoanalysis, History of

Elke Mühlleitner, Giessen, Germany

Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract

Sigmund Freud’s biography, the development and interpretation of psychoanalysis constitute 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. Historical literature about
psychoanalysis ranges from the self-representations and autobiographical works of Freud to the first official biography, from
moderate revisionism and contextualized approaches to the harsh, and at times hostile, clinical, feminist, epistemological,
hermeneutical, and psychobiographical critiques. A general history of psychoanalysis as a single science can be cataloged in
three ways: (1) as a history of the psychoanalytic theories from Freud to the present; (2) as a history of the psychoanalytic
movement, its institutions and practices; and (3) as a self-reflection on the historiography of psychoanalysis itself.

Sigmund Freud’s biography, the development and interpreta-
tion of psychoanalysis constitute an important chapter in
twentieth-century cultural and intellectual history both as
a body of theory and as cultural practice. Each culture and time
has absorbed Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and psychoanalysis
differently. A general history of psychoanalysis can be cataloged
in three ways: (1) as a history of the psychoanalytic theories
from Freud to the present; (2) as a history of the psychoanalytic
movement, its institutions and practices; and (3) as a self-
reflection on the historiography of psychoanalysis itself.
A History of the Psychoanalytic Theories from Freud
to the Present
The development of Freud’s theory of the unconscious and his
psychotherapeutic method can be understood on the basis
of his professional development in the context of a process of
differentiation and specialization, in particular, medicine and
philosophy, in the late nineteenth century. Historical works of
the kind, for example, studies of the scientific and social context
and the institutional structure of the field, have created a meth-
odologically sophisticated and broad view of psychoanalysis.
Various types of hermeneutical studies of psychoanalysis itself,
that is, visions of it as a system of symbols and as a method for
culture-decoding rather than as a type of natural science, have
broadened the view of the history of psychoanalysis. Jean Lap-
lanche and Jean-Bertrand Pontalis’s Vocabulaire de la Psychanalyse
(1967), the first conceptual dictionary of psychoanalysis, is
based on the techniques of the history of philosophy and the
French tradition of the epistemology of the sciences. As the basic
concepts of the psychoanalytic theory have undergone changes
that reflect the development of the sociopolitical climate, the
authors have incorporated the later concepts of Freud and his
followers as well as critics who created new theories and schools
of psychoanalysis (e.g., Melanie Klein, Jacques Lacan). Their
attempts have stimulated a whole universe of separate herme-
neutical and epistemological studies, and especially, with the
centenary of the birth of psychoanalysis various encyclopedic
works and summaries have been published (e.g., Erwin, 2002;
Skelton, 2006).
Freud’s psychoanalysis with its concepts subjectivity and the
scientific empirical method has been interpreted as a characteristic
product of Viennese modernity, and has been seen as a parallel
to phenomena like Zionism and Austromarxism. Bourgeois
society and European modernity experienced significant crises
in Vienna of the fin de siècle, where psychoanalysis was founded
in the last decades of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. During
the period between 1890 and 1910, extraordinary achieve-
ments were made in the areas of music, literature, art, and
science. These were fundamentally influential for new devel-
opments in observation and thought in the twentieth century,
and the psychoanalytic theory enjoyed its heyday in the years
before World War I. The following factors were generative
forces behind the fin de siècle creativity: the rise of new cultural
founding figures of the liberal bourgeoisie, the influence of the
Jewish intelligentsia, and the upward mobility of immigrants
from the Austro-Hungarian Empire; the resistance against the
political control, bureaucracy and the repression of the Roman
Catholic Church and censorship; the cultural networks estab-
lished with European centers and circles abroad; the import of
foreign ideas; and the intellectual exchange between the sub-
metropoles of the countries of the monarchy (Nautz and
Vahrenkamp, 1993).
From 1859 until 1938, Sigmund Freud lived and worked in
Vienna, and the significance of Vienna as the site of psycho-
analysis’ foundation and development is evident.
Socio-politico-cultural studies have dealt with Freud’s fin de
siècle (see Schorske, 1981; McGrath, 1986), viewing psycho-
analysis within Viennese culture, for example, at the juncture of
a specific time and place. Special interest has focused on Freud’s
Jewish identity and the relationship between Judaism and
psychoanalytic theory. Psychoanalytic theory and Freud’s
biography were and in many ways still are intertwined in
a unique way. Therefore, the historian is in the position of
having to treat psychoanalytic concepts as both strictly personal
documents and as documents connected to a broader
theoretical system. In Freud’s early texts, the evolution of
psychoanalytic theory is presented linearly, as though it was
fundamentally the same as any other scientific field, but there
are serious historiographical difficulties entailed in approach-
ing psychoanalysis in this fashion. Freud’s self-analysis, his

326 International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 19 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.03045-2

autobiographical writings, and self-created image of psycho-
analysis as a science and various theoretical concepts of
psychoanalysis (e.g., seduction theory, dream interpretation,
Oedipal conflict, resistance, repression, transference, and
countertransference) have become prominent in the field of
psychoanalytic historiography, including Freud’s own
changes of theory throughout his life, as well as post-Freudian
developments (e.g., drive-psychology, ego-psychology, object-
relations theory, attachment theory, the development from
defense to adaptation, from instinctual to motivational
diversity, the development of the neurosciences).
A History of Freud’s Biography, the Psychoanalytic
Movement, and Its Institutions and Practices
In the historiography of psychoanalysis, the genre of Freud
studies has been differentiated from the historical examination
of the psychoanalytic movement in its local national centers
e.g., Berlin, London, or Paris and within special cultures e.g.,
Japan or India. Biographical studies dominate over sociohis-
torical works, and the focus has been for a long time on the
struggle over legacy and legitimacy rather than on a social
history of the field.
Freud Biographies
Three groups of historical literature about Freud have been
described by historians: (1) publications of primary sources,
for example, Freud’s correspondences; (2) publications of
historical materials concerning case studies and theoretical
works of Freud; and (3) critical-academic studies about
psychoanalysis. The history of Freud biography and the
psychoanalytic movement began with Freud’s autobiograph-
ical works On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement (1914)
and An Autobiographical Study (1925), and in his own historical
papers, Freud – in his one-sided but coherent story – suggests
that the history of psychoanalysis is basically the history of
refusals, resistances, and the regroupings of the orthodox
Freudian ideas, institutions and people. History of psycho-
analysis also appears at times to be synonymous with the
history of splits, schisms, and dissidents. But, just as the
proliferation of schools and the consequent battles among and
splittings within psychoanalytic institutes stimulated abundant
polemics, these upheavals also stimulated reworkings of
almost every important item in the history of Freud biography.
Dreams from The Interpretation of Dreams, patients from The
Studies on Hysteria and later case studies have been analyzed
and reanalyzed by scholars from new perspectives; all the
schisms and quarrels in the history of psychoanalysis were
rediagnosed by the latter-day schismatics and schism-haters.
Based on newly accessed archival material and historical
information, early speculations and widely differing interpre-
tations have been reconsidered. Freud biographies have
addressed almost every aspect of Freud’s life (profession, social
status, political views, culture, religion, affection-emotion),
sometimes in a general fashion, sometimes in a very specific
manner, and reflecting the time and the standpoint of their
authors. To forestall future falsifications in popular biographies
and early attempts at studying Freud’s biography by his pupils
Psychoanalysis, History of 327
and followers, Freud’s youngest daughter Anna Freud,
a psychoanalyst herself, felt prompted to authorize Ernest Jones
to write a first full-scale biography (Young-Bruehl, 1998).
Freud studies properly began with the pioneering research of
Siegfried Bernfeld; his scholarship was invaluable to Ernest
Jones when putting together his trilogy The Life and Work of
Sigmund Freud (1953–1957). As a member of the first genera-
tion of loyal followers, Jones’ monumental work became the
precipitant for a third type of historical accounts: critiques of
Jones’s biography, or what might be called second-order
biographies.
For a long time, Freud’s prominence nurtured the illusion of
an isolated progression of psychoanalysis apart from sociopo-
litical developments as well as medicoscientific trends at the
time. A cultural–historical approach to Freud became more
intense as the 1960s unfolded. With Henri Ellenberger’s The
Discovery of the Unconscious (1970), a mode of Freud biography
contextualizing Freud began to flourish, taking the precursors
of Freud’s ideas more into account than Jones did.
The Psychoanalytic Movement
Interest in supporters, students, and contributors of Freud has
long been marginal or limited to only the most well-known
representatives. With the publication of The Minutes of the
Vienna Psychoanalytic Society (Nunberg and Federn, 1962–
1975), a new focus was put on the institutional framework,
the form in which these scientists cooperated, and how they
organized their professional and personal exchanges. Works on
Freud’s friendships and professional relationships include the
dynamical and sociological aspects of the formation of groups,
the production of scientific knowledge, the structure of mastery
and slavery (often basic to the formation of psychoanalytic
institutions), as well as more contextually embedded accounts
of specific psychoanalytic cultures. Further, Freud and his
Followers (Roazen, 1975) stimulated studies of the family
networks and subnetworks; as a consequence, biographies of
early pupils and later analysts have emerged. Their adherent or
schismatic relations to Freud figured largely in these accounts.
A special body of historical literature has focused on the role
and influence of female patients and analysts. The founding of
new psychoanalytic schools has created a new intellectual–
historical approach, including the professionalization and
institutionalization of the discipline in different cultures and at
different times. From the early days of psychoanalysis, the
internationalization of psychoanalysis had its own motor and
effect on theory and practice (e.g., Kutter, 1992, 1995; Makari,
2008). Taking geographical and temporal particularities into
account, a Western (European and North American) perspec-
tive has been criticized.
Economic and political circumstances, as well as cultural
and sociohistorical connections, have all influenced the
theoretical, practical, and organizational developments of
psychoanalysis as a discipline and are part of the production
of psychoanalysis as a corpus of knowledge. Fenichel (1998)
has observed the impacts of social and political reality on the
production of psychoanalytic theory and practice during the
years when Central European Jewish psychoanalysts,
candidates in training and their families were forced to flee
National Socialist Germany and Austria and the occupied
328 Psychoanalysis, History of
countries in Europe. The production of scientific findings and
the transformation and transfer of knowledge as social
processes in which internal and external factors are in
a constant exchange does not minimize the role of the founder
of the science of the unconscious in its beginning, but it
destroys the illusion of a single isolated discovery. The shifts in
the history of psychoanalysis can be seen and interpreted as
a complex, dialogical, multiauthor enterprise and depend on
the studies of the special scientific tradition and the study of
psychoanalytic microcultures (see Hale, 1995; Lockot, 1985;
Roudinesco, 1982–1986).
A Self-Reflection on the Historiography of
Psychoanalysis itself, and the Problems
of Methodology
The history of psychoanalysis has been a rapidly growing,
controversy-ridden, and attention-attracting area. Over the past
40 years, each of the historical visions has inspired and/or
provoked a revision, and each revision a counterrevision. The
history of psychoanalysis has to take into account the peculiar,
complex, and powerful interplay among psychoanalysis,
historiography, and ideology; because this has not been
recognized, many widely disparate accounts of psychoanalytic
history have been proffered. Neighboring fields, such as the
history of medicine, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology and
science, women’s studies, the history of law, crime and devi-
ance, the history of professions, the history of sexuality, the
history of the body, and cultural studies, literature, queer/gay/
gender studies, have had their impacts on the historiography of
psychoanalysis as well.
Studies in the area of Freud biography and the pre- and early
history of psychoanalysis have received more attention.
Because connections with later periods seem less powerful and
convincing, the fixation on Freud himself and, even more
particularly, on the first decades of Freud’s discoveries have
meant that later developments during and especially since
Freud’s lifetime are achieving less attention.
The various schools of psychoanalysis have fashioned for
themselves idealized genealogies, lines of intellectual filiation
between great minds of the past and contemporary practi-
tioners, tracing a suitable line of evolution, and have been
selective of their usable past. They may also assist in sharpening
contested interdisciplinary or intradisciplinary boundaries in
which ‘positive’ episodes are memoralized, taken as character-
istic of the essence, while ‘negative’ ones are omitted, serving to
legitimate particular theories and methodologies and delegiti-
mizing others. Today, scholars have come to the opinion that
historical accounts of psychoanalytic theory and practice
should include thoughts and speculations about the special
acquisition and transmission of psychoanalytic knowledge.
A ‘coherent’ picture of Freud and the psychoanalytic
movement has undergone a profound change. In the
historiography of psychoanalysis, at least two different schools
of thought have been described: the ‘official’ history of Freud,
which has been largely though not exclusively produced and
consumed by practicing psychoanalysts, and a ‘revisionist’
approach that has emerged in the last decades and has been
mainly produced by people working outside of institutional
psychoanalysis (e.g., historians, psychologists, philosophers,
sociologists, political scientists). For a long time, the two
groups have debated separately – with a trend to specialization
and fragmentation thereby repeating the fragmentation of the
object they are analyzing – and have tried to avoid other
findings. But lately, a dialogue between historians and clini-
cians – both interested in history – concerning the history has
arisen, and there have been attempts to overcome prejudices.
One outcome of this dialogue has been the formation of local
and international organizations and discussion groups and the
establishment of special journals and periodicals as well as
various new platforms on the Internet. Still, the issues of
language, including the problems of translation and the
questions concerning authorship and audience remain central,
as in other scientific disciplines. Language questions have been
correlated with speculative histories on Freud and the
psychoanalytic movement.
After the height of the professional prestige of psychoanal-
ysis, when there was remarkably little criticism from historians
of psychiatry, a revisionist historiography of psychoanalysis
was stimulated by e.g., historians, sociologists, philosophers,
literary scholars, feminist authors, cultural scientists, and
public intellectuals; traditional biography and the general
longitudinal narrative were followed by the study of
institutions introducing the ideal of objective, systematic, and
quantitative analysis, having in mind methodologically
sophisticated, empirically substantial, and sociologically
oriented scholarship. On the other hand, as scholars have
argued, the demystifications of hagiographical idealizations
have often only generated ‘heroic’ neo-Marxist and Fou-
cauldian remystifications. Revisionist and hagiographical
literature have been diagnosed by contemporary scholars as
both reductionistic and lacking self-reflection.
Psychoanalysis as a theory and a profession emphasizes
the value and virtue of self-awareness and in its therapeutical
practices asks for an introspective mode of inquiry neverthe-
less, with a few exceptions, it has remained resolutely unin-
trospective about the methodological and ideological
conditions under which it writes the narrative of its own past.
That is all the more peculiar in light of the past decade’s
extensive and sophisticated discussion concerning different
conceptual, methodological, and epistemological strategies
for writing the history of science generally. Two approaches
have been observed, the internalist approach, stressing
cognitive development, and the externalist approach, focusing
on the social, economic, political, and professional determi-
nants of scientific theory and practice. All history writing has
been diagnosed perspectively as the expression of a particular
historical environment, culture, background, and self-
consciousness among cultural-critics. LaCapra (1988)
emphasizes the Freudian point that any historian’s relation-
ship with the past, and through that with the present, is
a transference relationship, and that, in this transference,
repetition and denial come more easily than working through
and mourning (Smith and Morris, 1992; Young-Bruehl and
Schwartz, 2011)
Jones’ idealization of Freud has been rejected, and, partic-
ularly in the medium of psychobiography, a much more
contextualized, conflicted, and complicated founder of
psychoanalysis has emerged in the historical literature. Jones

did not interpret blanks in his documentation as secrets of
resistances, but nowadays psychologically informed biogra-
phers consider the fact that many of the most important things
in people’s lives are never recorded.
Contrary to the sophisticated histories of Freud’s unfolding
discoveries, historians have lamented the difficulties of
psychobiography, and some of the key methodological prob-
lems concerning childhood experiences, the workings of the
mind, and the character of thought, have been widely recog-
nized – although such recognition has not yet informed
a major historiographical work on psychoanalytic biography
and history writing.
Despite the progressive de-Freudianization of psychiatry
and psychology in general, Freud’s place as one of the supreme
minds of the twentieth century remains secure for most
historians. Psychoanalysts have altered psychoanalytic theory
over the course of time, their theoretical and methodological
findings depending on their analysands, their social context,
and the historicopolitical changes in general. Historiography
has altered accordingly, considering and tolerating the
complexity instead of simplistic and popular versions of
psychoanalysis.
See also: Cognitive Psychology: History; Freud, Sigmund
(1856–1939); Gender and Feminist Studies in Geography;
Jung, Carl Gustav (1875–1961); Klein, Melanie (1882–1960);
Personality Disorders; Personality Theory and
Psychopathology; Psychoanalysis in Sociology; Psychologism,
History of; Psychotherapy, History of: Psychiatric Aspects;
Social Psychology; Transference in Psychoanalysis: Classical,
Contemporary, and Cultural Contexts; Unconscious: History of
the Concept.
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