There are some five introductions to my “Introductory lectures on Psychoanalysis,” of which I read three. Generally I don't bother with intros, but in this case I figure it can't hurt to have as much background as I possibly can. I was pleasantly surprised that in the introduction written by Peter Gay called “Sigmund Freud: A Brief life,” Dr. Gay makes an apropos comment in his description of Freud's dissatisfaction with a group of papers that he wrote on variety of topics. The comment is as follows:

“[Freud's] map of the mind was inadequate to the evidence he had accumulated in his clinical experience. But he still lacked a satisfactory alternative.” page xix

First of all, note the reference to the theme of our blog: map of the mind! Also, Dr. Gay pinpoints here a specific problem that I and many others (apparently including Freud himself) have with some of his theories...they simply don't add up when it comes to clinical expressions in patients. I will withhold further criticism as I'm surely being unfair, I thought. Then I read onto Freud's very own introduction, or Lecture 1. Here I was surprised to find a self-deprecating Freud, who both warned his audience against continuing the lectures and attempting to insert themselves into a psychoanalytic realm of practice. Of course then, in the beginning days of psychoanalysis (1917ish) Freud was acutely aware of the un-popularity of his ideas among the Viennese and many others, and so was probably quite accurate in his warning. On top of this, I find his next warning also surprising:

“I will show you how the whole trend of your previous education and all your habits of thought are inevitably bound to make you into opponents of psycho-analysis and how much you would have to overcome in yourselves in order to get the better of this instinctive-opposition.” page 18

Er...wait, Freud knew all that??