Freud's Last Session

Matthew Brown, dir. Freud's Last Session (2024)

When there are so many we shall have to mourn,
when grief has been made so public, and exposed
to the critique of a whole epoch
the frailty of our conscience and anguish,

of whom shall we speak? For every day they die
among us, those who were doing us some good,
who knew it was never enough but
hoped to improve a little by living. ...

- W. H. Auden, "In Memory of Sigmund Freud" (1940)

It's not, perhaps, the view of Freud we tend to get nowadays: one of "those who were doing us some good" and hoped to improve things a little "by living." Instead, we hear about his patriarchal attitudes; his misogyny; his suppression of this, that or the other aspect of human psychology ...

W. H. Auden was, it would appear, of a somewhat different opinion. His great elegy continues as follows:

He wasn't clever at all: he merely told
the unhappy Present to recite the Past
like a poetry lesson till sooner
or later it faltered at the line where

long ago the accusations had begun,
and suddenly knew by whom it had been judged,
how rich life had been and how silly,
and was life-forgiven and more humble,

able to approach the Future as a friend
without a wardrobe of excuses, without
a set mask of rectitude or an
embarrassing over-familiar gesture.

Is it just the nature of Anthony Hopkins' performance (his Freud virtually is his Abraham van Helsing from Bram Stoker's Dracula), or do I also detect some lightening of contemporary attitudes towards the so-called "sex doctor" in Matthew Brown's new film?

For a start, it's very static (as befits its nature as an adaptation of Mark St. Germain's successful stage play). Both of the protagonists get to talk - a lot. Both are allowed to give at least some vague intimation of their views on various weighty subjects (not that either of them is permitted any particular subtlety in the exposition, mind you).

C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

Did Freud and Lewis ever meet? Almost certainly not. Lewis was (at the time) a comparative nobody, not the "Oxford Professor" he's described as by Freud and his daughter Anna. He didn't in fact become a full professor until 1954, many years after the war, and that was at Cambridge, not Oxford. Nor had he yet, in 1939, published any of the works of Christian apologetics for which he was later to be so renowned.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

Professor Freud (described as "Doctor" Freud throughout the film, though he had earned a full professorship in 1902) is therefore reduced to waving a copy of Lewis's early allegorical fiction The Pilgrim's Regress (1933) as an explanation of his invitation to this young Oxford Don to come and debate the nature of God and religion. He also (incidentally) refers to his interlocutor as "Dr. Lewis", though Lewis never in fact obtained a graduate degree, let alone a Doctorate.

This is, in other words, a thoroughly imaginary conversation, a genre popularised in English by the nineteenth-century poet Walter Savage Landor - though it has classical roots in the work of the second-century Greek satirist Lucian, whose Dialogues of the Dead have had a massive influence on Western fiction and satire.

William Faithorne: Lucian of Samosata (c.125-180 CE)

•

Michael Ignatieff: Dialogue in the Dark (1989)

Another interesting parallel with Freud's Last Session can be found in Dialogue in the Dark, Michael Ignatieff's television adaptation of the famous conversation between Scottish diarist James Boswell and the philosopher David Hume, on the latter's deathbed.

Like Freud and Lewis, Boswell and Hume move swiftly to the nub of the matter: the question of the existence of God, and the possibility of a future state after bodily dissolution. Here are a few extracts from Boswell's own account of the interview:

George Willison: James Boswell (1940-1795)

He [Hume] seemed to be placid and even cheerful. He said he was just approaching to his end. ... I know not how I contrived to get the subject of immortality introduced. He said he never had entertained any belief in religion since he began to read Locke and Clarke. ... He then said flatly that the morality of every religion was bad, and, I really thought, was not jocular when he said that when he heard a man was religious, he concluded he was a rascal, though he had known some instances of very good men being religious.

... I had a strong curiosity to be satisfied if he persisted in disbelieving a future state even when he had death before his eyes. I was persuaded from what he now said, and from his manner of saying it, that he did persist. I asked him if it was not possible that there might be a future state. He answered it was possible that a piece of coal put upon the fire would not burn; and he added that it was a most unreasonable fancy that we should exist for ever. That immorality, if it were at all, must be general; that a great proportion of the human race has hardly any intellectual qualities; that a great proportion dies in infancy before being possessed of reason; yet all these must be immortal; that a porter who gets drunk by ten o'clock with gin must be immortal; that the trash of every age must be preserved, and that new universes must be created to contain such infinite numbers. This appeared to me an unphilosophical objection, and I said, 'Mr. Hume, you know spirit does not take up space'.

... I asked him if the thought of annihilation never gave him any uneasiness. He said not the least; no more than the thought that he had not been ... He had once said to me, on a forenoon while the sun was shining bright, that he did not wish to be immortal. This was a most wonderful thought. The reason he gave was that he was very well in this state of being, and that the chances were very much against his being so well in another state; and he would rather not be more than be worse. I answered that it was reasonable to hope he would be better; that there would be a progressive improvement. I tried him at this interview with that topic, saying that a future state was surely a pleasing idea. He said no, for that it was always seen through a gloomy medium; there was always a Phlegethon or a hell. 'But,' said I, 'would it not be agreeable to have hopes of seeing our friends again?' ... He owned it would be agreeable, but added that none of them entertained such a notion.

... He said he had no pain, but was wasting away. I left him with impressions which disturbed me for some time.

- James Boswell: "An Account of my last interview with David Hume, Esq.
Partly recorded in my Journal, partly enlarged from my memory
(3 March 1777)

Boswell's discomfiture at this proud infidel's dismissal of his most cherished arguments is evident. Hume turns on its head the idea that atheists are ipso facto rascals; instead, it is only with reluctance that he is prepared to concede that there may some religious people who are good.

He also points out the absurdity of having to postulate the creation of new universes to contain "the trash of every age." What's more, Hume disclaims any personal desire for immortality, which even Boswell finds "a most wonderful thought."

Allan Ramsay: David Hume (1711-1776)

This, one should remember, is the Hume who so tellingly dealt with the question of miraculous suspensions of the laws of nature in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748):

A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and because firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the case against a miracle is — just because it is a miracle — as complete as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined to be.

This leads Hume to the following maxim:

No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless it is of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact that it tries to establish.

In other words, if it's possible that the person or people reporting a miracle are lying - or mistaken - then its inherent improbability must lead us to dismiss it. Only if it's less probable that they're wrong than that the laws of nature have been suspended, can its existence be established. And is that ever really the case? Hume would say not.

It's true that some would see as a little perverse his conclusion that "the morality of every religion was bad," simply because lies, greed, intolerance, and self-righteousness are the most obvious characteristics of every religious institution known to him (or me, for that matter). And, before you hasten to assure me that these are simply the exceptions that prove the rule, allow me to quote back at you Matthew 7: 16:

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

William S. Burroughs: Quotes

•

C. S. Lewis: Miracles (1947)

[You may prefer to skip this section if you're not fond of philosophical logic-chopping]

The reason I've reported Hume's reasoning in such detail above is because C. S, Lewis took it upon himself to refute him in his 1947 book Miracles. In it, Lewis expounds the view that "a thorough-going naturalism is self-refuting". His argument, which originally appeared in a series of discrete articles, runs more or less as follows:

All possible [inferred] knowledge … depends on the validity of reason. If the feeling of certainty which we express by words like must be and therefore and since is a real perception of how things are outside our own minds really ‘must’ be, well and good. But if this certainty is merely a feeling in our own minds and not a genuine insight into realities beyond them – if it merely represents the way our minds happen to work – then we can have no knowledge. Unless human reason is valid no science can be true.

- C. S. Lewis, “Religion Without Dogma?” (1946) [NB: All of the direct quotes in this section have been taken from S. Lovell's comprehensive article: "C. S. Lewis’ Case Against Naturalism"]

Lewis seizes ingeniously on the weakness in the case argued by Hume and other, subsequent rationalists such as Bertrand Russell. What exactly are these "laws of nature" they speak of? It isn't enough to say, as Hume does, that "firm and unalterable experience has established these laws."

Lewis then takes his argument one step further:

It follows that no account of the universe can be true unless that account leaves it possible for our thinking to be a real insight. A theory which explained everything else in the whole universe but which made it impossible to believe that our thinking was valid, would be utterly out of court. For that theory would itself have been reached by thinking, and if thinking is not valid that theory would, of course, be itself demolished. It would have destroyed its own credentials. …

Lewis proceeds to draw a vital distinction between rational and irrational thinking:

It would be impossible to accept naturalism itself if we really and consistently believed naturalism. For naturalism is a system of thought. But for naturalism all thoughts are mere events with [non-rational, physical] causes. It is, to me at any rate, impossible to regard the thoughts which make up naturalism that way and, at the same time, to regard them as a real insight into external reality. …

Every particular thought … is always and by all men discounted the moment they believe that it can be explained, without remainder, as the result of irrational causes. Whenever you know what the other man is saying is wholly due to his complexes or to a bit of bone pressing on his brain, you cease to attach any importance to it. But if naturalism were true, then all thoughts whatever would be wholly the result of irrational causes. Therefore, all thought would be equally worthless. Therefore, naturalism is worthless.

It must have been a lovely moment for Lewis when he finally came up with this knock-down argument which proved that his opponents were wrong: that they were, in fact, refuted out of their own mouths!

Elizabeth Anscombe (1919-2001)

Alas, the same (to an outsider, at least) verbal gymnastics and resolute hair-splitting rose up to smite him. At a famous meeting of the Oxford Socratic Society on February 2, 1948, a young philosopher - and (as it happens) devout Catholic - named Elizabeth Anscombe set out to refute him. The content of her counter-argument is perhaps best represented in a subsequent article by Antony Flew in The Rationalist Annual (1955):

Lewis is too carefree in his talk of “rational” and “irrational.” Why must atoms, or systems of neurons, or whatever may be the terms of the scientific explanation of my mental processes, be either rational or irrational? Can they not be just non-rational – things to which the rational/irrational distinction does not apply? Lewis would surely not say that atoms were immoral. But then, must they be moral? Of course not. Lewis would say that the distinction does not apply to the sort of things in terms of which “naturalists” would give their causal explanations of mental processes. But since atoms are neither rational nor irrational, the argument breaks down, for the causes by which the “naturalist” explains his own thinking are no longer irrational and the “naturalist” thesis no longer refutes itself.

Hoist with his own petard! Just as the word "Nature" is such a problem for naturalists, so the words "rational" and "irrational" turned out to be equally problematic for supernaturalists such as Lewis. Flew continues as follows:

Lewis and others who produce similar arguments are snared by the chronic ambiguities of words like “cause,” “reason,” “because.” If asked “What is the reason why you think this is true?” I may reasonably answer either “It was thrashed into me at school,” or “It follows from such and such true premises.” Both these answers simultaneously may be sound, for they are answers to what are really quite different questions. I shall call the senses of “reason,” “cause,” etc., which ask for the first type of answer the historical senses … , and shall call the senses which ask for the second type of answer the logical senses … If the reason (historical) why I think my mental processes are determined by neurone changes is itself something to do with neurone changes, this has no necessary bearing on the questions whether there are, or whether I have, any logical reasons, any good arguments, for thinking this thought about the causation of my mental processes.

Nothing daunted, Lewis went back to Miracles and revised the wording of his argument for a second edition, published in 1960. These changes can be best summed up in this quote from a later essay, “De Futilitate” (1967):

When logic says a thing must be so, Nature always agrees. No one can suppose that this can be due to a happy coincidence. A great many people think that it is due to the fact that Nature produced the mind. But on the assumption that Nature is herself mindless this provides no explanation. To be the result of a series of mindless events is one thing: to be a kind of plan or true account of the laws according to which those mindless events arose is quite another ... The laws whereby logic obliges us to think turn out to be the laws according to which every event in space and time must happen. The man who thinks this an ordinary or probable result does not really understand.

It is ... as if, when I knocked out my pipe, the ashes arranged themselves into letters which read: ‘We are the ashes of a knocked-out pipe.’ But if the validity of knowledge cannot be explained that way, and if perpetual happy coincidence throughout the whole of recorded time is out of the question, then surely we must seek the real explanation elsewhere.

René Magritte: La Trahison des Images [The Treason of Images] (1928-29)

Nature and logic always agree, according to Lewis. But if Nature is mindless, this is surely an unbelievable coincidence.

Once again, however, Lewis's opponents were not prepared to let him have the last word on the matter. Here's Antony Flew:

[A]ll other things being equal and in the long run and with many dramatic exceptions, true beliefs about our environment tend to have some survival value. So it looks as if evolutionary biology and human history could provide some reasons for saying that it need no be a mere coincidence if a significant proportion of men’s beliefs about their environment are in face true. Simply because if that were not so they could not have survived long in that environment. As an analysis of the meaning of ‘truth’ the pragmatist idea that a true belief is one which is somehow advantageous to have will not do at all. Yet there is at least some contingent and non-coincidental connection between true beliefs, on the one hand, and the advantage, if it be an advantage, of survival, on the other.

If you feel that this argument from 'evolutionary advantage' sounds a bit shaky (as I fear I do), you may prefer a later version invoking the then new notion of the computer, which is expounded as follows by S. Lovell:

There is a popular illustration associated with the last objection from Anscombe and Flew. The illustration is that of the computer. The operations of computers, it is suggested, are fully explicable in naturalistic terms, and yet a computer is more than capable of performing calculations and inferences according to the rules of mathematics and logic. This, it is claimed, shows that the two systems of relation can both apply to the same series of events … they are not incompatible. And if the two systems are not incompatible, then Lewis’ argument fails.

And so on and so forth ...

I suppose that I've allowed myself to go into so much detail on this matter

1. because I can: it's my blog, and I'll blah if I want to.
2. because I want to demonstrate that Lewis was no mere Christian populariser. He had a good backgound in philosophy, and his arguments have to be taken seriously
3. because, although I want Lewis to be wrong and Hume to be right, laying out the arguments presented by the two sides has forced me to acknowledge that it's not nearly as simple as that. The anti-naturalists do (alas) have quite a strong case.

In the end, though, there's a definite odour of what Wittgenstein would call "language games" about the whole debate:

Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921)

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Matthew Brown, dir. Freud's Last Session (2024)

But to return to the subject of Freud's Last Session. This is how they attempted to market the movie on the website I visited when we were trying to decide whether or not to go and see it:

Academy Award winner Anthony Hopkins (The Father) and Emmy nominee Matthew Goode (The Crown, Downton Abbey) deliver "sterling performances" (Deadline) as these two titans of the 20th century. The film also stars Liv Lisa Fries (Babylon Berlin), Jodi Balfour (For All Mankind), Stephen Campbell Moore (The History Boys), Jeremy Northam (The Crown) and Orla Brady (Star Trek: Picard).

You'll note that it's star power rather than the inherent interest of the situation they're relying on to sell it. And it is certainly a most dazzling cast!

Orla Brady (1961- )

Some bold choices have been made: for instance, in the choice of Jean-Luc Picard's love interest Orla Brady to play Mrs. Moore, the mother of one of Lewis's wartime comrades, with whom he very probably had a sexual relationship in the early 1920s.

Liv Lisa Fries (1990- )

The film is also quite outspoken about the nature of Anna Freud's sexuality, particularly her relationship with American heiress Dorothy Burlingham. It's hard to imagine a better choice of actress to play her than the alternately slinky and gritty Liv Lisa Fries, fresh from her triumph in the German TV sensation Babylon Berlin (2017- ).

David Cohen: The Escape of Sigmund Freud (2010)

At first I found the jolly, chuckly way Anthony Hopkins plays Freud a trifle incongruous by comparison with the grim old buzzard we see in the photographs. But the fact that Freud was in constant, at times almost insupportable pain from his throat cancer during the last 16 years of his life - not to mention the prosthesis he was forced to wear in order to be able to speak at all (the inconveniences of which are, if anything, underplayed in the film) - might explain a certain stiffness of demeanour when he was forced to pose.

David Cohen's rather discursive account of The Escape of Sigmund Freud (pictured above), which I've also been reading recently, reveals a different side of Freud. He quotes a description of the "delighted little crinkles at the corners of his eyes" when "he put his head back and laughed like a child," by American journalist Max Eastman, who interviewed him for his 1936 book Heroes I have Known. Eastman added that Freud:

waggled his head and hands about all the time looking up at the ceiling and closing his eyes or making funny little pouts and wry faces when he was trying to think of a word or an idea.

That's a spot-on description of how Hopkins portrays him. Eastman continues:

I never ceased feeling that underneath it all was an obdurate hard cranky streak but I also never ceased feeling his great charm.

Again, Papa Freud's controlling attitude towards his grown-up daughter, whom he keeps summoning back to deal with his problems during her exceptionally busy day at the office, represents the obverse side of Hopkins's Freud's undoubted charm.

There are, of course, still certain problems with this movie. I've mentioned the incongruity of Lewis's actual lack of fame or substantive academic rank at the time, obstacles which would have virtually guaranteed that Freud would never have heard of him. I also feel that a bit more of a Northern Irish accent might have been more appropriate to the Lewis who was described by his friends as resembling "a prosperous Ulster butcher".

Putting such quibbles to one side, though, it's remarkable just how much detail the film-makers do manage to cram in. The "death capsule" passed from Freud to his daughter on her arrest by the Gestapo, then handed back to him in time for his own suicide a few weeks after the events portrayed, is historically verifiable. So is Freud's obsession with his brilliant daughter, whose impressive achievements as an analyst were constantly undercut by his demands on her.

Edmund Engelman: Freud's Consulting Room (Vienna, 1938)

If Freud's Last Session does scant justice to the great "God-or-no-God" debate - well, what more could reasonably be expected of it? The wartime setting is wonderfully convincing, and I can attest that for me at least this opportunity to immerse myself in the atmosphere of Freud's fabled study, full of the votive objects he rejoiced in, is worth the price of admission on its own.

Freud Museum London: Sigmund Freud's Study (2019)

So, for what it's worth, it's two thumbs up from me. I can imagine watching and rewatching it with great pleasure as soon it hits a streaming service near me!

Mark St. Germain: Freud's Last Session (TheaterWorks Hartford, 2014)

•

Freud Museum: Sigmund Freud (1885)

Sigismund Schlomo [Sigmund] Freud
(1856-1939)

Books I own are marked in bold:

Books:


1. On Aphasia (1891)
2. [with Josef Breuer] Studies on Hysteria (1895)
   • Included in: The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.
3. The Interpretation of Dreams (1899)
   • The Interpretation of Dreams. 1900. Trans. James Strachey. 1953. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954.
   • The Interpretation of Dreams: Illustrated Edition. 1900. Trans. A. A. Brill. 1913. Ed. Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson. New York: Sterling Publishing Co. Inc., 2010.
   • Included in: Sigmund Freud: The Major Works. Great Books of the Western World, 54. Ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins. Chicago: William Benton, Publisher / Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1952.
4. On Dreams (1901)
5. The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1904)
   • Psychopathology of Everyday Life. 1914. Trans. A. A. Brill. A Pelican Book. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1938.
   • Included in: The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.
6. Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905)
   • Included in: The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.
7. Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1891)
   • Included in: The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.
8. Delusion and Dream in Jensen's Gradiva (1907)
   • Included in: The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.
9. Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1910)
10. Leonardo da Vinci, A Memory of His Childhood (1910)
    • Included in: The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.
11. Totem and Taboo: Resemblances between the Psychic Lives of Savages and Neurotics (1913)
    • Totem and Taboo: Resemblances between the Psychic Lives of Savages and Neurotics. 1919. Trans. A. A. Brill. A Pelican Book. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1938.
    • Included in: The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.
12. Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1915-17)
    • Included in: Sigmund Freud: The Major Works. Great Books of the Western World, 54. Ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins. Chicago: William Benton, Publisher / Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1952.
    • Included in: The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.
13. Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920)
    • Included in: Sigmund Freud: The Major Works. Great Books of the Western World, 54. Ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins. Chicago: William Benton, Publisher / Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1952.
    • Included in: The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.
14. Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921)
    • Included in: Sigmund Freud: The Major Works. Great Books of the Western World, 54. Ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins. Chicago: William Benton, Publisher / Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1952.
15. The Ego and the Id (1923)
    • Included in: Sigmund Freud: The Major Works. Great Books of the Western World, 54. Ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins. Chicago: William Benton, Publisher / Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1952.
16. Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety (1926)
    • Included in: Sigmund Freud: The Major Works. Great Books of the Western World, 54. Ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins. Chicago: William Benton, Publisher / Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1952.
    • Included in: The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.
17. The Question of Lay Analysis (1926)
18. The Future of an Illusion (1927)
19. Civilization and Its Discontents (1930)
    • Civilisation and Its Discontents. 1930. Trans. James Strachey. New York: W. W. Norton, 1961.
    • Included in: Sigmund Freud: The Major Works. Great Books of the Western World, 54. Ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins. Chicago: William Benton, Publisher / Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1952.
    • Included in: The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.
20. New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1933)
    • Included in: Sigmund Freud: The Major Works. Great Books of the Western World, 54. Ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins. Chicago: William Benton, Publisher / Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1952.
    • Included in: The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.
21. Moses and Monotheism (1939)
    • Included in: The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.
22. An Outline of Psychoanalysis (1940)
    • Included in: The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.
23. [with William C. Bullit] Thomas Woodrow Wilson: A Psychological Study (1967)

Case histories:


24. Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria [the Dora case history] (1905)
    • Included in: The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.
25. Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy [the Little Hans case history] (1909)
    • Included in: The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.
26. Notes upon a Case of Obsessional Neurosis [the Rat Man case history] (1909)
    • Included in: The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.
27. Psycho-Analytic Notes on an Autobiographical Account of a Case of Paranoia [the Schreber case] (1911)
    • Included in: The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.
28. From the History of an Infantile Neurosis [the Wolfman case history] (1918)
    • Included in: The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.
29. The Psychogenesis of a Case of Homosexuality in a Woman (1920)
    • Included in: The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.
30. A Seventeenth-Century Demonological Neurosis [the Haizmann case] (1923)

Autobiographical papers:


31. An Autobiographical Note (1899)
    • Included in: The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.
32. On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement (1914)
    • Included in: The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.
33. An Autobiographical Study (1925 / 1935)
    • Included in: The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.

Collected Editions:


34. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Trans. & ed. James Strachey, with Anna Freud, Alix Strachey, Alan Tyson, & Angela Richards. 24 vols. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1953–1974.
    1. Pre-Psycho-Analytic Publications and Unpublished Drafts (1886–1899)
    2. [with Josef Breuer] Studies in Hysteria (1893–1895)
    3. Early Psycho-Analytic Publications (1893–1899)
    4. The Interpretation of Dreams (I) (1900)
    5. The Interpretation of Dreams (II) & On Dreams (1900–1901)
    6. The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901)
    7. A Case of Hysteria, Three Essays on Sexuality and Other Works (1901–1905)
    8. Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious (1905)
    9. Jensen's 'Gradiva,' and Other Works (1906–1909)
    10. The Cases of 'Little Hans' and the Rat Man' (1909)
    11. Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, Leonardo and Other Works (1910)
    12. The Case of Schreber, Papers on Technique and Other Works (1911–1913)
    13. Totem and Taboo and Other Works (1913–1914)
    14. On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement, Papers on Meta-psychology and Other Works (1914–1916)
    15. Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (Parts I and II) (1915–1916)
    16. Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (Part III) (1916–1917)
    17. An Infantile Neurosis and Other Works (1917–1919)
    18. Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Group Psychology and Other Works (1920–1922)
    19. The Ego and the Id and Other Works (1923–1925)
    20. An Autobiographical Study, Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety, Lay Analysis and Other Works (1925–1926)
    21. The Future of an Illusion, Civilization and its Discontents and Other Works (1927–1931)
    22. New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis and Other Works (1932–1936)
    23. Moses and Monotheism, An Outline of Psycho-Analysis and Other Works (1937–1939)
    24. Indexes and Bibliographies. Compiled by Angela Richards (1974)


35. Sigmund Freud: The Major Works. Great Books of the Western World, 54. Ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins. Chicago: William Benton, Publisher / Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1952.
    1. The Origin and Development of Psycho-Analysis. Trans. Harry W. Chase (1910)
    2. Selected Papers on Hysteria. Trans. A. A. Brill (1893-1908)
    3. The Sexual Enlightenment of Children. Trans. E. B. M. Herford (1907)
    4. The Future Prospects of Psycho-Analytic Therapy. Trans. Joan Riviere (1910)
    5. Observations on "Wild" Psycho-Analysis. Trans. Joan Riviere (1910)
    6. The Interpretation of Dreams. Trans. A. A. Brill (1900)
    7. On Narcissism. Trans. Cecil M. Baines (1914)
    8. Instincts and Their Vicissitudes. Trans. Cecil M. Baines (1915)
    9. Repression. Trans. Cecil M. Baines (1915)
    10. The Unconscious. Trans. Cecil M. Baines (1915)
    11. A General Introduction to Psycho-Analysis. Trans. Joan Riviere (1915-17)
    12. Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Trans. C. J. M. Hubback (1920)
    13. Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. Trans. James Strachey (1921)
    14. The Ego and the Id. Trans. Joan Riviere (1923)
    15. Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety. Trans. Alix Strachey (1926)
    16. Thoughts for the Times on War and Death. Trans. E. Colburn Mayne (1915)
    17. Civilization and Its Discontents. Trans. Joan Riviere (1929)
    18. New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis. Trans. W. H. J. Sprott (1932)


36. The Pelican Freud Library. Ed. Angela Richards. Trans. James Strachey et al. 15 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1986.
    1. Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. 1915-1917. Trans. James Strachey. 1963. Ed. James Strachey & Angela Richards (1973)
       • Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. 1915-1917. The Pelican Freud Library, 1. Trans. James Strachey. 1963. Ed. James Strachey & Angela Richards. 1973. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978.
    2. New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. 1932-33. Trans. James Strachey. 1964. Ed. James Strachey & Angela Richards (1973)
       • New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. 1932-33. The Pelican Freud Library, 2. Trans. James Strachey. 1964. Ed. James Strachey & Angela Richards. 1973. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979.
    3. [with Joseph Breuer] Studies on Hysteria. 1893 & 1895. Trans. James & Alix Strachey. 1955 (1980)
       • [with Joseph Breuer] Studies on Hysteria. 1893 & 1895. The Pelican Freud Library, 3. Trans. James & Alix Strachey. 1955. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1980.
    4. The Interpretation of Dreams. 1899. Trans. James Strachey. 1953 (1974)
    5. The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. 1901. Trans. Alan Tyson. 1960. Ed. James Strachey, with Angela Richards & Alan Tyson (1975)
       • The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. 1901. The Pelican Freud Library, 5. Trans. Alan Tyson. 1960. Ed. James Strachey, with Angela Richards & Alan Tyson. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975.
    6. Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. 1905. Trans. James Strachey. 1960. Ed. James Strachey & Angela Richards (1976)
       • Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. 1905. The Pelican Freud Library, 6. Trans. James Strachey. 1960. Ed. James Strachey & Angela Richards. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976.
    7. On Sexuality: Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality and Other Works. 1905. Trans. James Strachey. 1953. Ed. Angela Richards (1977)
       • On Sexuality: Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality and Other Works. 1905. The Pelican Freud Library, 7. Trans. James Strachey. 1953. Ed. Angela Richards. 1977. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981.
    8. Case Histories I: ‘Dora’ and Little Hans. 1905 & 1909. Trans. Alix & James Strachey. 1925. Ed. James Strachey, with Angela Richards & Alan Tyson (1977)
       • Case Histories I: ‘Dora’ and Little Hans. 1905 & 1909. The Pelican Freud Library, 8. Trans. Alix & James Strachey. 1925. Ed. James Strachey, with Angela Richards & Alan Tyson. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977.
    9. Case Histories II: The ‘Rat Man’, Schreber, The ‘Wolf Man’, A case of Female Homosexuality. 1909, 1911, 1918 & 1920. Trans. James Strachey. 1955 & 1958. Ed. Angela Richards (1979)
       • Case Histories II: The ‘Rat Man’, Schreber, The ‘Wolf Man’, A case of Female Homosexuality. 1909, 1911, 1918 & 1920. The Pelican Freud Library, 9. Trans. James Strachey. 1955 & 1958. Ed. Angela Richards. 1979. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981.
    10. On Psychopathology: Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety and Other Works. 1895-1926. Trans. James Strachey. 1953-62. Ed. Angela Richards (1979)
        • On Psychopathology: Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety and Other Works. 1895-1926. The Pelican Freud Library, 10. Trans. James Strachey. 1953-62. Ed. Angela Richards. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979.
    11. On Metapsychology: The Theory of Psychoanalysis. Beyond the Pleasure Principle, The Ego and the Id and Other Works. 1911-40. Trans. James Strachey. 1955-64. Ed. Angela Richards (1984)
        • On Metapsychology: The Theory of Psychoanalysis. Beyond the Pleasure Principle, The Ego and the Id and Other Works. 1911-40. The Pelican Freud Library, 11. Trans. James Strachey. 1955-64. Ed. Angela Richards. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984.
    12. Civilisation, Society & Religion: Group Psychology, Civilisation and Its Discontents, and Other Works. 1908-33. Trans. James Strachey. 1955-64. Ed. Albert Dickson (1985)
        • Civilisation, Society & Religion: Group Psychology, Civilisation and Its Discontents, and Other Works. 1908-33. The Pelican Freud Library, 12. Trans. James Strachey. 1955-64. Ed. Albert Dickson. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985.
    13. The Origins of Religion: Totem and Taboo, Moses and Monotheism, and Other Works. 1907-39. Trans. James Strachey. 1955-64. Ed. Albert Dickson (1985)
        • The Origins of Religion: Totem and Taboo, Moses and Monotheism, and Other Works. 1907-39. The Pelican Freud Library, 13. Trans. James Strachey. 1955-64. Ed. Albert Dickson. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985.
    14. Art and Literature: Jensen’s Gradiva, Leonardo da Vinci, and Other Works. 1907-30. Trans. James Strachey. 1953-61. Ed. Albert Dickson (1985)
        • Art and Literature: Jensen’s Gradiva, Leonardo da Vinci, and Other Works. 1907-30. The Pelican Freud Library, 14. Trans. James Strachey. 1953-61. Ed. Albert Dickson. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985.
    15. Historical and Expository Works on Psychoanalysis: History of the Psychoanalytic Movement, An Autobiographical Study, Outline of Psychoanalysis, and Other Works. 1913-40. Trans. James Strachey. 1955-64. Ed. Albert Dickson (1986)
        • Historical and Expository Works on Psychoanalysis: History of the Psychoanalytic Movement, An Autobiographical Study, Outline of Psychoanalysis, and Other Works. 1913-40. The Pelican Freud Library, 15. Trans. James Strachey. 1955-64. Ed. Albert Dickson. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986.

Correspondence:


37. Letters of Sigmund Freud, 1873-1939. Ed. Ernst L. Freud. Trans. Tania & James Stern. London: The Hogarth Press, 1961.
38. The Origins of Psychoanalysis: Letters to Wilhelm Fliess, Drafts and Notes: 1887-1902. Ed. Marie Bonaparte, Anna Freud & Ernst Kris. Trans. Eric Mosbacher & James Strachey. New York: Basic Books Inc., Publishers, 1954.
39. The Freud / Jung Letters: the Correspondence between Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung. Ed. William McGuire. Trans. Ralph Manheim & R. F. C. Hull. 1974. London: The Hogarth Press & Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977.
40. The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess: 1887-1904. Ed. Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson. Cambridge, Mass & London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985.

Secondary:


41. Brown, J. A. C. Freud and the Post-Freudians. 1961. A Pelican Book. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1962.
42. Clark, Ronald W. Freud: The Man and the Cause. 1980. London: Granada, 1982.
43. Cohen, David. The Escape of Sigmund Freud. London: JR Books, 2009.
44. Dimen, Muriel, & Adrienne Harris, ed. Storms in Her Head: Freud and the Construction of Hysteria. New York: Other Press, 2001.
45. Freud, Ernst, Lucie Freud, & Ilse Grubich-Simitis, ed. Sigmund Freud: His Life in Pictures and Words. With a Biographical Sketch by K. R. Eissler. 1976. Trans. Christine Trollope. 1978. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985.
46. Gardiner, Muriel, ed. The Wolf-Man and Sigmund Freud. 1972. A Pelican Book. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973.
47. Gay, Peter. Freud: A Life for Our Time. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 1988.
48. Gay, Peter. Reading Freud: Explorations & Entertainments. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990.
49. Jones, Ernest. Sigmund Freud: Life and Work. London: The Hogarth Press, 1953-57.
    1. The Young Freud, 1856-1900 (1953)
    2. Years of Maturity, 1901-1919 (1955)
    3. The Last Phase, 1919-1939 (1957)
50. Jones, Ernest. The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud. 1953-57. Ed. Lionel Trilling & Steven Marcus. 1961. A Pelican Book. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964.
51. Malcolm, Janet. In the Freud Archives. 1984. London: Flamingo, 1986.
52. Masson, J. M. The Assault on Truth: Freud’s Suppression of the Seduction Theory. 1984. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985.
53. Roazen, Paul. Brother Animal: the Story of Freud and Tausk. 1969. A Pelican Book. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973.

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