FREUD AND THE CULTURE HISTORIANS: AN ESCAPE FROM THE CLINICAL?

Abstract

In 1905, caught in the difficulties he encountered with some of his patients’ biographies, Freud chose to follow Iwan Bloch's approach of mental disorders. He consequently adopted an anthropological point of view. He then consulted what he called ‘Kulturgeschichte’ and ‘Kulturhistoriker’ to propose his theory of neuroses and repression. Who were these ‘culture historians’? What ideas and concepts did they convey? Which role was granted them exactly in psychiatric writings? I will try to answer these questions in order to uncover their precise theoretical influence on Freud's writings during the first decade of the twentieth century.