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Sigmund Freud: The Interpretation of Dreams 1899.
Freud is one of the principle founders of the practice of psychoanalysis (he uses the word in this very book). The Oxford English Dictionary defines psychoanalysis: “A system of psychological theory and therapy which aims to treat mental disorders by investigating the interaction of conscious and unconscious elements in the mind and bringing repressed fears and conflicts into the conscious mind by techniques such as dream interpretation and free association.” This book was published first in German (1899), then in English (1913), then French (c1926). Andre Breton read the German-language publication sometime around 1916-17, while he was working as a psychiatric nurse, treating the wounded, shell-shocked French soldiers after the disastrous Battle of the Somme (1916). Breton was inspired by Freud’s ideas, and by 1919 he was suggesting that he should experiment upon himself using Freud’s methods: “Completely occupied as I still was with Freud at that time, and familiar as I was with his methods of examination...I resolved to to obtain from myself what we were trying to obtain from patients namely, a monologue spoken as rapidly as possible, without any intervention on the part of the critical authorities...” (Breton) thus emerged the central Surrealist ideas of unconscious ‘automatic writing’ - and by extension the Exquisite Corpse and other games devised to elicit direct psychic experience.
“Freud said that there had been three great humiliations in human history: Galileo’s discovery that we were not the centre of the universe, Darwin’s discovery that we were not the crown of creation, and his own discovery that we are not in control of our own minds.” (Prof Paul Brians, Washington State University). Freud’s psychological work underpins much of the art of the 20th century, providing a valuable tool for understanding ourselves and others, and famously informing the Surrealists and their fascination with the unconscious as a source of inspiration.
“In this volume I have attempted to expound the methods and results of dream-interpretation; and in so doing I do not think I have overstepped the boundary of neuro-pathological science. For the dream proves on psychological investigation to be the first of a series of abnormal psychic formations, a series whose succeeding members- the hysterical phobias, the obsessions, the delusions- must, for practical reasons, claim the attention of the physician. The dream, as we shall see, has no title to such practical importance, but for that very reason its theoretical value as a typical formation is all the greater, and the physician who cannot explain the origin of dream-images will strive in vain to understand the phobias and the obsessive and delusional ideas, or to influence them by therapeutic methods.” (Freud: from Introductory Note to the first edition of Interpretation of Dreams 1899)
Freud: from Introductory Note to the First Edition, 1899