Sigmund Freud’s discovery of psychoanalysis explores links between Freud’s development of his thinking and theory and his personal emotional journey. It follows his early career as a medical student, researcher and neurologist, and then as a psychotherapist, to focus on the critical period 1895-1900. During these years Freud submitted himself to the process that has become known as his ‘self-analysis’, and developed the core of his psychoanalytic theory. Drawing on Freud’s letters to his friend and confidant Wilhelm Fliess, and on selected psychoanalytic writings in particular his ‘dream of Irma’s injection’, Paul Schimmel formulates psychoanalytic dimensions to the biographical ‘facts’ of Freud’s life. In 1900 Freud wrote that he was ‘not a thinker’ but ‘a conquistador’. In reality he was both, and was engaged in a lifelong emotional struggle to bring these contradictory sides of his personality into relationship. His psychoanalytic discoveries are conceptualized in the context of his need to achieve integration within his psyche, and in particular to forge a more creative collaboration between ‘conquistador’ and ‘thinker’. Sigmund Freud’s discovery of psychoanalysis will be of interest to psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists, academics and teachers of psychoanalysis, and to all serious students of the mind.

Responses to psychoanalysis through selections from the Sigmund Freud Museum's contemporary art collection In the Alsergrund district of Vienna at the turn of the 20th century, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) developed a new conception of the human mind that would forever change the way people looked at art, psychology and interpersonal relationships. Today, the building at Berggasse 19 where Freud established his theory of the subconscious serves as a museum dedicated to the founder of psychoanalysis and his thought. This publication focuses on the Sigmund Freud Museum's contemporary art collection, which was initiated by American conceptualist Joseph Kosuth in 1989 after the success of his installation Zero & Not, which drew inspiration from psychoanalytic texts. John Baldessari, Pierpaolo Calzolari, Georg Herold, Jenny Holzer, Ilya Kabakov, Franz West, Clegg & Guttmann, Jessica Diamond, Marc Goethals, Sherrie Levine, Haim Steinbach and Heimo Zobernig all donated works to the museum. Acclaimed author Siri Hustvedt provides the book's introduction.

Jean-Michel Quinodoz introduces the essential life and work of Sigmund Freud, from the beginning of his clinical experiences in Vienna in the 1880s to his final years in London in the 1930s. Freud’s discoveries, including universally-influential concepts like the Oedipus complex and the interpretation of dreams, continue to be applied in many disciplines today. Elegantly and clearly written, each chapter leaves the reader with a solid framework for understanding key Freudian concepts, and an appetite for further knowledge. Accessible for readers inside and outside the field of psychoanalysis, there is nothing at all equivalent in English. The book starts with Freud’s life before the discovery of psychoanalysis, spanning from 1856 to 1900, when The Interpretation of Dreams was published. The subsequent chapters are devoted to the presentation of the key notions of psychoanalysis. A chronological perspective shows how Freud's work has been constantly enriched by the successive contributions of Freud himself, as well as his successors. Freud’s contributions are also embedded in the daily, clinical practice of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. The last chapter concerns Freud’s life from 1900 to 1939, the year of his death. This fascinating, concise and accessible introduction to the life and work of Sigmund Freud, one of the most influential and revolutionary figures of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, by internationally-renowned author Jean-Michel Quinodoz, will appeal to both professional readers and anyone with an interest in psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and the history of ideas.. The book presents the major contributions of Sigmund Freud in their nascent state, as and when they appeared, and shows that they are as alive today as ever.

Presents twenty-eight lectures in which Sigmund Freud sets forth with a frankness almost startling the difficulties and limitations of psychoanalysis, and also describes its main methods and results as only a master and originator of a new school of thought can do. (PsycINFO Database Record).