Quinodoz Jean-Michel - Reading Freud

Freuds published work is both impressive in scope and complex in nature. His psychoanalytic papers alone fill some twenty-four volumes, while his pre-psychoanalytic writings and his correspondence comprise over a hundred books in all. How can we possibly have a global view of such an imposing body of work?

There are many ways of reading Freud, and though each has its advantages and disadvantages, they all complement one another. We can read Freud selectively, choosing la carte an article or a book, or we can choose a theme and the papers in which it is discussed. A selective approach has the advantage of closely examining each paper, spending as much time as need be to mull over it; this is a particularly apposite approach, because Freuds writings do lend themselves to a Talmudic form of exegesis, i.e. analysis of the meaning of each sentence (and even of each word) and of its relationship to other texts. However, with this kind of approach, it would take many years before the reader could complete such an undertaking.

Another way to read Freuds major psychoanalytic works would be to adopt a chronological approach, beginning with Studies on Hysteria , published in 1895, and going all the way through to An Outline of Psycho-Analysis , written in 1938, the year before he died. Reading Freuds texts in the order in which they were published, without spending too much time on each one individually, gives the reader a grasp of how Freuds thinking developed over the years. In order to maximize the advantages to be gained from a chronological reading, I think that, from the outset, a time-limit should be set, even though this kind of approach does not allow the reader to analyse each paper in as detailed a fashion as the text itself deserves. It is above all important that the reader keeps the overall picture in mind, for when we succeed in acquiring a panoramic view of Freuds writings, this helps us to realize that the various psychoanalytic schools of thought have often seized on certain particular aspects rather than on others. We can see too that this narrowing of focus tends to increase as it is handed down from generation to generation, with the concomitant risk of leaving aside more and more aspects of Freuds writings which are just as valuable.

These two approaches, selective and chronological, do not stand in opposition one to the other in fact, they are complementary, for each in its own way illustrates how Freud himself kept revising his way of looking at things, turning uncertainty to his advantage and taking his clinical experience into account in order further to develop what he had discovered. It is of course possible for a single person to embark on such an undertaking, but it would demand a great deal of time and tenacity before the reader could complete the bulk of the work so as to have an overview of how Freuds thinking developed over the years. That is why I feel that such an experience is particularly stimulating for a group of readers, more able to sustain a long-term effort of this type.