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In 1886, a young physician
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established a small medical practice in Vienna.
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Patients would come to lie on this very couch.
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And as he listened, they'd share their innermost fears and anxieties.
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Their intimate, very personal stories
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would nourish a radical and controversial
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new way of understanding our pasts,
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our desires, what drives our every action.
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Ideas that would take the world by storm.
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Because this couch belonged to Dr Sigmund Freud.
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The 19th century witnessed unprecedented change.
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Transformed by revolutions in industry, science and society.
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It was an age that questioned traditional authority
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and produced three game-changing thinkers.
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Karl Marx attacked the social and economic order.
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Friedrich Nietzsche took on Christian morality.
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And Freud questioned the very essence of who we are.
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Their penetrating, often contentious ways of seeing the world
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still shape how we make sense of our lives today.
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Sigmund Freud's ideas not only spearheaded a massive leap forward
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in how we treat illnesses of the mind,
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they also had a pivotal cultural impact.
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The freedom we take for granted today to talk openly
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about our deepest feelings, from sexual difference to inner demons,
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the slogans that power our consumer society,
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stem in part from his ideas.
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From Freud, we get the notion of the unconscious mind
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as a reservoir of irrational, conflicting impulses.
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His ideas have become part of our vocabulary.
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Penis envy, the pleasure principle, wish fulfilments
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and, of course, the Freudian slip.
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But Freud's always been controversial.
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For some, he's not a genius,
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but a charlatan obsessed with sex
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whose speculative theories are impossible to prove
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and whose methods are positively dangerous.
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Freud's ideas still provoke intense debate today.
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But what's not in doubt is that his innovative
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mapping of the human mind challenged taboos and conventions
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in ways that fundamentally changed our conception of self.
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To understand how Freud's ideas evolved and how they add up,
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it seems appropriate to adopt an approach Freud himself pioneered.
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Something that we now take for granted.
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To look for the keys for his motivation and character
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by exploring his childhood experiences.
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When Sigmund Freud was born here in 1856,
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the town was called Freiberg, in Moravia.
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Part of the Habsburg empire.
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Freud was born with a caul.
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That's when part of the foetal membrane is still attached to the baby's head.
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And in those superstitious times, this was considered a good omen.
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Freud's mother certainly interpreted it as a sign that her newborn son
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was destined for happiness and fame.
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Freud's Jewish parents could only afford to rent a single room in this building.
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And family life was complex.
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His mother was 20 years younger than his father,
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who'd been married before and had two adult sons.
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And so one of Sigmund's half-brothers
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was even older than his mum.
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Sigmund's closest playmate was, in fact, his own nephew.
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But they were to be wrenched apart.
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Because when Sigmund was three,
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his father's small business selling wool collapsed.
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Scattering the entire family in search of work.
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Life may have been imperfect, but where Freud's family ended up
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would prove to be a critical factor
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in the future success of the young boy.
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Vienna in the 1860s,
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imperial capital of the Habsburg empire,
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was a city at the forefront of social change.
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The Europe-wide revolutions of 1848 had undermined
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aristocratic conservative rule here.
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Allowing a kind of edgy liberalism to flourish on the streets.
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There were also an unusual number of immigrants in the city.
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So Freud would have grown up surrounded by a cosmopolitan mix
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of voices and cultures.
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This is the Jewish district where Freud's family first lived.
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It was poor and overcrowded.
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But many capitalised on the opportunities that the city offered
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and quickly rose from the margins.
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They became newspaper magnates and bankers, academics,
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doctors and lawyers.
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Freud's parents passionately wanted the same
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for their clever eldest son.
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Of his six siblings, he was the only one given his own room to work in.
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And he topped his class for seven years.
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The young Freud's intense studies seem to have fed into
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his self-image as someone destined for greatness.
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He found inspiration in ancient civilisations.
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In the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome.
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And he came to identify with powerful, heroic figures
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from history and literature, like Moses
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and Hannibal and Alexander the Great.
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In 1873, at the age of 17,
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Sigmund sought his own glory at Vienna University.
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Initially dabbling in philosophy and law, he was soon drawn to
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the university's celebrated natural scientists,
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and their guiding light, the Englishman Charles Darwin.
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Darwin's remarkable, epoch-defining Theory of Evolution
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chimed with Freud's desire for kudos and celebrity.
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But to match up to his hero meant hours of meticulous,
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painstaking, not obviously-glamorous laboratory work.
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Trying to unravel the mysteries of the nervous system of fish.
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Freud himself said that his studies in anatomy, zoology, chemistry
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and botany made him a godless medical man and an empiricist.
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And certainly his time here nurtured a scientific worldview
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that never left him.
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If you look at this picture of him from the time, you can just imagine
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the precise, clinical fish-dissector.
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A man who seems to be both neat and orderly
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in appearance and character.
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But aged 25, Freud fell wildly in love with a young woman -
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Martha Bernays.
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Their early correspondence reveals
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an altogether different side to Freud.
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There's probably 1,600 letters in all.
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Huh! They were writing more or less every day.
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Sometimes two or even three letters a day.
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Bits have been released of his letters alone,
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but this is the first time now that we're seeing her letters.
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How brilliant! So we've got Martha's voice, what is she saying?
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What does she write about here?
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Well, anything and everything.
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I mean, in this case, she had just sent Freud a lock of her hair
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to put in a little brooch, as lovers do.
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And Freud had written back, "I hope you didn't tear it out,
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"or did it come out when you were combing?"
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So here, in this letter here,
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she is taking him to task for his ignorance.
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She says, "You're a doctor, you have no idea of the code of love.
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"One does not send one's lover ripped-out or combed-out hair."
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I suppose this is the first time he's had a full-blown love affair.
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It's his first and his only.
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And this is one of the things about these letters,
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you get an insight into Freud you'll get nowhere else.
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And he's losing his control sometimes.
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He really is almost on the edge of a nervous breakdown
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when he feels they can't go on,
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when he feels there's an impossible disagreement between her.
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She is for sweeping it under the carpet.
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She says, "Why do you wallow around
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"in this stuff that makes us miserable?"
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And he says, "You have to face it, you have to talk through it."
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That's fascinating.
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- So it's almost like we've got Freud, the proto-psychoanalyst here.
- Yes.
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I mean, the psychoanalytic dictum is, say everything that's on your mind.
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Don't censor, don't repress. It's there already.
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Martha had opened Freud's eyes to a world of demanding human emotion.
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And the financial pressures of their engagement saw him
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casting around for opportunities beyond the lab.
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Eventually, he abandoned his research career to study medicine.
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And one day, when he was reading a medical journal,
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he came across something that he was convinced would make his name.
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In 1884, he wrote to Martha about a magical drug
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little known at the time, cocaine.
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In this pretty sober analysis, he says,
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"I take very small doses of it regularly
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"against depression and against indigestion.
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"And with the most brilliant success."
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But, then, just listen to this, when he's also writing to Martha,
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where he sounds suspiciously like he's under the influence.
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"Woe to you, my princess, when I come.
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"You shall see who is the stronger.
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"A gentle little girl who does not eat enough,
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"or a big, wild man who has cocaine in his body."
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At first, Freud denied that cocaine was harmful.
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But his rash endorsement would damage his reputation.
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When he gave it to a friend suffering from morphine addiction
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in the hope that cocaine would cure him,
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the consequences were disastrous.
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His friend became as addicted to the new drug as he had been to the old.
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Freud did manage to give up cocaine,
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but his appetite for experimentation would not be stilled.
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He had a new interest - neurology, the study of nervous diseases.
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And he made a very canny move,
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travelling to the centre of this burgeoning science,
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an intellectual hotspot.
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This is Salpetriere.
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In Freud's day, a kind of medical poorhouse.
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A bleak dumping ground for some 5,000 women.
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Many of whom were diagnosed as hysterical.
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Hysteria, from the Greek word for womb, was a mysterious condition
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that was thought to afflict women from the ancient world onwards.
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Really, it was just a catchall diagnosis
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for all kinds of nervous symptoms.
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From fits and paralysis to anxiety and headaches.
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And for centuries,
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it was a dangerous tool in the hands of male doctors
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who were trigger-happy in diagnosing women as hysterical,
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to the point where they incarcerated perfectly sane individuals
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in hospitals and asylums.
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Freud came here to Salpetriere to study with
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the pre-eminent pioneer of neurology, Jean-Martin Charcot.
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Having discovered that some nervous conditions, like multiple sclerosis,
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were the result of lesions on the brain,
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Charcot turned his attention to the mysteries of hysteria.
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Charcot approaches hysteria more scientifically and more seriously
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and doesn't think of it as simply a woman's ailment.
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And he sees distinct phases.
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He talks about the epileptoid phase, atonic phase, a fit.
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And the fit was epileptic rigidity.
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He then talks about clonic phase, or the clown phase,
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where these huge thrashing movements take place.
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So, he's identified these different phases, what kinds of methods
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is he using to further his scientific inquiry?
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Well, Charcot uses hypnosis to diagnose hysteria. He thinks that if
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women are susceptible, men are susceptible to hypnosis,
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that's probably a sign that they do have hysteria.
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But he also uses hypnosis in his great public lectures, to
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which, you know, all of Paris comes. Getting a ticket to go to one
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of Charcot's public lectures is like going to the best play in London.
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So, the patients were on display in these public lectures?
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The patients were on display, and, under hypnosis, they will
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begin to walk and they will talk, and they will effectively do
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what the medic asks of them.
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So, we know that Freud's there, he's in the audience, he's one of
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Charcot's pupils. Do we know what kind of an impact this had on Freud?
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Well, I think it has an immense impact. He begins to see that
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there are different forms of thinking and activity going
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on in the human mind simultaneously.
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And that there are whole areas of the human mind that are there,
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ready to be plumbed.
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Freud returned to Vienna, aged 29, full of new ideas and career plans.
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But things certainly weren't easy for Freud. When he first
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opened his practice in this apartment block in 1886,
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business was depressingly slow.
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Sometimes he couldn't even afford a cab to make house calls, and
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he could only marry Martha in the same year thanks to gifts and
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loans from friends.
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One of Freud's principal benefactors was the eminent physician
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Joseph Breuer.
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Like Freud, Breuer was curious
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about the scientific mysteries of hysteria.
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One of his old patients stood out.
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Breuer had treated a highly intelligent young woman from
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an affluent Jewish family, called Bertha Pappenheim, giving her
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the pseudonym "Anna O".
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She experienced hallucinations and suffered from partial paralysis.
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At times, she could only speak English. She appeared to have
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a split personality.
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Now, Anna's case really fascinated Freud, partly because of her
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extreme symptoms, but also because of the innovative way that
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Breuer treated her.
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During Breuer's consultations, Anna fell into a state of
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hypnosis, and revealed melancholic details of her personal history.
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The talking revived significant or painful memories of past events
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that had been forgotten or somehow blocked up and suppressed.
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Breuer found that he could trace Anna's numerous symptoms back to
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original traumas.
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When Anna showed an aversion to drinking water,
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Breuer linked it back to her seeing a dog being allowed to
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drink out of the glass of its owner, but once she expressed her
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submerged disgust, her hydrophobia vanished.
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Freud realised that Breuer might have stumbled upon, not just
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an explanation, but a cure for hysteria.
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Working from new larger premises at number 19 Berggasse, he began to
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apply Breuer's cathartic treatment to his own neurotic patients.
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But Freud had a problem - he just couldn't hypnotise all of his
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patients, so he smartly turned a failing into a virtue and
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developed his own version of a talking therapy.
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Freud asked his patients to lie on this couch while he sat here
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behind them, out of sight. He encouraged them to say whatever
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came into their minds, almost as if they were talking to themselves.
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He proved to be an alert listener, systematically sifting
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through and probing his patients' memories.
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Interpreting their confessions rapidly, intuitively, he
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attempted to unlock what was being suppressed.
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Freud gave his new free-association method a new name. He took
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the ancient Greek word for mind or life-breath, psyche, and
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added to it a robust scientific term - analyse.
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Psychoanalysis was born.
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In 1895, Breuer and Freud published their findings
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in a landmark book - Studies On Hysteria.
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Freud was keen to find a single unifying reason for hysteria
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and neurosis, to offer their theory a kind of breakthrough moment,
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and he started to see sex as a central issue.
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The more cautious Breuer disagreed.
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But another friend proved far more receptive -
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the physician Wilhelm Fliess.
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Sexual morality had long been framed by religion, and by and large
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had been unremittingly repressive for centuries.
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But Fliess was one of a growing number of medical researchers
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who embarked on a scientific study of sexual identity and
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behaviour, unconstrained by orthodox moral judgments and what was
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generally considered to be perversion.
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Encouraged by the open-minded Fliess, Freud began to hone
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his ideas about hysteria and sexual issues.
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In April 1896, he went to read a paper to the
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Viennese Society For Psychiatry and Neurology.
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He described the job of treating patients with hysteria in
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epic terms, as if he were an explorer archaeologist
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sifting through the remains of an ancient ruined city, trying
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to find clues and evidence.
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"Imagine that an explorer arrives in a little-known region
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"where his interest is aroused by an expansive ruins, with remains
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"of walls, fragments of columns..."
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'Freud claimed to have found a singular cause in all his
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'neurotic cases, something he likened to discovering
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'the source of the Nile.'
300
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His daring theory - the seduction theory - was that all
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neuroses were the result of some kind of sexual abuse in childhood,
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typically by the father.
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But, rather than the glory that he was expecting, the paper was
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met with bewilderment and scepticism.
305
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One eminent neurologist in the audience dismissed it
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as "a scientific fairy tale".
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00:23:00,520 --> 00:23:04,560
This frosty reception just enhanced Freud's view that he was an
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embattled pioneer, tackling taboo subjects.
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However, in little more than a year, even he would concede that
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his seduction theory was fatally flawed.
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Hysteria was so widespread that to imagine so many men were
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paedophilic abusers was highly implausible. With hysteria
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afflicting Freud's own family, the idea that his father Jacob
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could also be guilty was the final straw.
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Other speculations, however, would prove far more enduring.
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At the heart of Freud's thinking was how and why discomforting
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past thoughts could become repressed, only to be woven into the
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symptoms and psychic knots of everyday life.
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Freud believed that the unconscious mind held the key.
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The unconscious mind had been imagined and debated right
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00:24:13,520 --> 00:24:17,800
across the human experience for many centuries, but Freud was one
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of the first to take a really systematic approach, to try
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to add precision to the perceptions of the unconscious mind.
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A painful personal tragedy would trigger his big breakthrough.
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In 1896, Freud was devastated by the death of his father.
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Freud wrote to Fliess, "My inner self, my whole past has been
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"re-awakened by this death. I now feel completely uprooted."
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00:25:01,480 --> 00:25:06,160
But, in fact, these complex, intense thoughts would have
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a catalysing effect on him.
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Freud had been experimenting with self-analysis, scrutinising
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his fragmentary childhood memories and deep-seated terrors.
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The loss of his father intensified that exploration. And the
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secret of his self-analysis?
334
00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:34,760
He started to analyse his own dreams.
335
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Few saw dreams as having any scientific substance.
336
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But Freud chose to think differently.
337
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He looks at dreams as something
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00:25:59,920 --> 00:26:01,680
that is multi-layered.
339
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:04,360
There is the story that people
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00:26:04,360 --> 00:26:06,440
remember when they wake up,
341
00:26:06,440 --> 00:26:12,440
but, for Freud, that story is only the surface of our dream.
342
00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:16,440
What lies underneath is what he calls the "latent dream thoughts".
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But those latent thoughts become distorted, they become censored.
344
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Why does this censorship need to happen?
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00:26:23,120 --> 00:26:25,880
Well, you see, these dream thoughts, they contain all the
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00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:30,600
repressed wishes and thoughts and fantasies that consciousness
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00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:33,800
considers to be disturbing and troubling.
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00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:37,280
Were they not to be censored, then they would manifest
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themselves in all their disruptive force.
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For Freud, a dream is essentially a fulfilment of an unconscious wish.
351
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How are Freud's ideas about the unconscious evolving at this time?
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00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:52,080
For Freud, the unconscious is no longer just a set of traumatic
353
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:57,880
memories, it's a container of wishes and thoughts and fantasies
354
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:02,720
that have been self-generated by the mental life of every human being.
355
00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:05,160
What's the value of these for Freud?
356
00:27:05,160 --> 00:27:07,800
What's he doing with this raw material?
357
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:11,600
Within his clinical practice, he would piece together the
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00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:16,080
various associations that people bring to the story that they
359
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:20,640
remember, and, with those bits and pieces, he would try to
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00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:24,800
arrive at a certain understanding of those unconscious repressed
361
00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:28,600
wishes that sit underneath.
362
00:27:28,600 --> 00:27:32,760
With Freud's theory, we as human beings can look and think about our
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00:27:32,760 --> 00:27:36,680
dreams as productions of our minds that actually reveal
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something about who we are, and that is extraordinarily valuable.
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00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:49,080
Freud's book, The Interpretation Of Dreams, offered a radical new
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00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:53,520
understanding of human nature, with the unconscious, a reservoir
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00:27:53,520 --> 00:27:57,520
of repressed inner desires and irrational impulses,
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00:27:57,520 --> 00:28:03,120
the hidden source of what motivates and makes us.
369
00:28:03,120 --> 00:28:05,920
There's an interesting detail in the story of the publication of
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The Interpretation Of Dreams.
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Although this book was actually published 1n 1899, it was
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branded with the date 1900.
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Freud was telling the world that the theories in here would define
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the 20th century, and that they'd herald the birth of a daring,
375
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:23,400
brave new world.
376
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:33,480
But this brave new world was riddled with anxiety.
377
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:40,040
It was said that to be Viennese was to be a question mark.
378
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Liberalism had failed to deliver real power to the middle classes,
379
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:49,240
who felt threatened by a rising urban population.
380
00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:53,880
In this climate, an appetite grew for new experimental art that
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00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:57,520
explored beneath the rational surface of human existence.
382
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:03,480
Freud's theories perfectly matched the zeitgeist.
383
00:29:09,800 --> 00:29:13,800
In his next book, The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life,
384
00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:16,160
he continued to dig deep.
385
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:20,080
In this, he argued that our repressed desires emerged not
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00:29:20,080 --> 00:29:24,680
just in our dreams, but infiltrate our waking lives, too.
387
00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:31,520
One interesting case he cites was when a high-ranking Austrian
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00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:34,240
politician opened an important debate in Parliament
389
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:36,640
with these words,
390
00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:40,200
"I announce the presence of so many honoured gentlemen, and
391
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:42,800
"therefore declare the session as closed."
392
00:29:43,840 --> 00:29:48,080
This very public slip revealed his repressed frustration that the
393
00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:52,240
session would be a complete waste of time. And, of course, we still use
394
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:55,120
the phrase "Freudian slip" in everyday life today,
395
00:29:55,120 --> 00:29:59,960
usually to refer to a revealing or embarrassing verbal faux pas.
396
00:30:02,840 --> 00:30:06,400
Although Freud believed that our unconscious desires broke
397
00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:10,320
through due to triggers in our current lives, it was how
398
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:14,200
those mysterious impulses were shaped by our past experiences
399
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:16,520
that really preoccupied him,
400
00:30:16,520 --> 00:30:19,960
something that finds echo in his consulting room.
401
00:30:22,800 --> 00:30:26,560
When Freud enthusiastically gathered together all these fabulous
402
00:30:26,560 --> 00:30:30,800
ancient artefacts, he didn't think of them as dead objects.
403
00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:34,480
For him, the past wasn't a kind of museum that you could choose
404
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:36,480
whether or not to visit.
405
00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:43,400
It was a live dynamic present in our day-to-day lives. He thought that
406
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:48,000
past experiences had something vital to tell us. In fact, it was a
407
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:52,760
story from classical Greece that would inspire his next big idea.
408
00:30:57,280 --> 00:31:00,920
HE SPEAKS GERMAN
409
00:31:03,400 --> 00:31:07,320
Freud attended a performance of a Greek tragedy by Sophocles.
410
00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:28,880
Oedipus Rex tells the story of a young man who inadvertently
411
00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:34,040
kills his father and then marries and has children with his mother.
412
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:53,600
When he first discovers the terrible truth, he stabs out his own eyes.
413
00:31:55,880 --> 00:31:58,720
HE SCREAMS
414
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:05,120
Freud saw this story as a paradigm to explain his own repressed
415
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:06,680
sexual feelings.
416
00:32:13,560 --> 00:32:15,800
This is what he wrote to Fliess,
417
00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:20,640
"A single idea dawned on me. I found in my own case, too, the
418
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:24,160
"phenomena of being in love with my mother and jealous of my
419
00:32:24,160 --> 00:32:30,040
"father, and I now consider it a universal event in early childhood."
420
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:38,600
Freud named this psychosexual drama the Oedipus complex.
421
00:32:40,080 --> 00:32:43,400
He came to believe that little boys had to work through hidden
422
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:47,400
fears of castration by their fathers, punishment for
423
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:50,760
desiring and seeking possession of their mothers,
424
00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:54,320
and that little girls were infatuated by their fathers
425
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:58,080
but had to deal with complex feelings of inferiority
426
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:01,080
because they themselves didn't have a penis -
427
00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:03,440
what Freud calls "penis envy".
428
00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:09,560
Freud believed that if these
429
00:33:09,560 --> 00:33:11,800
complicated feelings weren't resolved,
430
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:16,280
internal conflicts would be stored up, only to cause adult
431
00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:18,200
neuroses later in life.
432
00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:25,280
Freud was keen to test out his theories about repressed
433
00:33:25,280 --> 00:33:27,600
sexual issues.
434
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:32,400
And in October 1900, the opportunity arose to do just that.
435
00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:36,400
A new patient walked into his office, a 17-year-old girl
436
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:39,440
who he'd give the pseudonym Dora.
437
00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:43,360
She was his first and his most famous case study.
438
00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:49,040
Dora was exhibiting hysterical symptoms, a nervous cough and
439
00:33:49,040 --> 00:33:51,120
suicidal thoughts.
440
00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:55,920
One of the most shocking things in the story is that,
441
00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:58,400
when she was 13 or 14,
442
00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:00,960
her father's best friend, Herr K,
443
00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:03,720
manipulated the situation to
444
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:05,560
get her alone in his office
445
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:11,480
and kissed her. And Freud says, well, this was thoroughly hysterical
446
00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:14,880
that she was disgusted by the kiss.
447
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:19,480
And then he goes on to say that she must have felt his erect penis
448
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:23,800
against her body, and that this must have sexually aroused her.
449
00:34:23,800 --> 00:34:28,320
And he makes it his business, really, to show her that she
450
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:31,920
really does sexually desire Herr K, and that she's repressed that
451
00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:33,520
desire from consciousness.
452
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:36,000
I have to say, when you look at Dora's case, there does seem
453
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:38,760
to be a trope developing here, that you have these young women
454
00:34:38,760 --> 00:34:43,000
who are very troubled, and men like Freud kind of pounce on them,
455
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:45,320
to use them for medical material.
456
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:49,200
Yes. It has the sort of arrogance of the man of science, and that
457
00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:53,720
he uses Dora and other patients as simply guinea pigs for his
458
00:34:53,720 --> 00:34:57,920
confident scientific position.
459
00:34:57,920 --> 00:35:00,760
How does it end? I mean, how does Dora take all of this?
460
00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:05,560
Not well, not well. Dora walks out on Freud.
461
00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:09,200
And what he learns from that, though, is that he should
462
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:14,320
have paid attention to the way in which she had transferred on
463
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:19,800
to him all her feelings of hostility to Herr K, and in fact, after
464
00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:23,880
this case, he introduced the theory that psychoanalysis must pay
465
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:27,240
attention to the ways in which patients transfer their
466
00:35:27,240 --> 00:35:30,440
unconscious and conscious feelings about significant people
467
00:35:30,440 --> 00:35:34,640
in their lives on to the psychoanalyst or the therapist.
468
00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:40,920
Freud learnt valuable lessons from the Dora case.
469
00:35:40,920 --> 00:35:45,640
Yet his seemingly scientific method relied on subjective,
470
00:35:45,640 --> 00:35:48,720
some would argue, self-fulfilling judgments.
471
00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:53,720
It was a fundamental problem, articulated by his once loyal
472
00:35:53,720 --> 00:35:57,760
confidant, Fliess, during a heated argument.
473
00:35:57,760 --> 00:36:01,720
"The reader of thoughts is merely reading his own thoughts into
474
00:36:01,720 --> 00:36:05,360
"other people," was Fliess's damning assessment.
475
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:23,520
In 1902, Freud sent out a written invitation to four Jewish
476
00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:28,240
doctors, inviting them to come and meet here in his apartments.
477
00:36:28,240 --> 00:36:31,960
What would come to be known as the Wednesday Psychological Society
478
00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:35,920
gathered every week in his waiting room, and their first topic
479
00:36:35,920 --> 00:36:40,880
was a subject very close to Freud's own heart - the psychological
480
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:42,680
function of smoking.
481
00:36:49,280 --> 00:36:52,480
A good cigar after a meal was part of bourgeois Viennese
482
00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:56,720
culture, but Freud took cigar indulgence to a whole new
483
00:36:56,720 --> 00:37:02,160
level. He smoked 20 cigars a day and considered the pleasures of
484
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:05,000
the cigar a substitute for what he called
485
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:07,280
"the single greatest habit" -
486
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:09,200
masturbation.
487
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:15,160
The Wednesday Group discussions helped Freud to advance his
488
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:17,240
ideas on sexuality,
489
00:37:17,240 --> 00:37:20,600
resulting in a ground-breaking publication -
490
00:37:20,600 --> 00:37:23,680
Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality.
491
00:37:25,120 --> 00:37:26,840
So, what he does in this book,
492
00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:29,240
he introduces a concept of
493
00:37:29,240 --> 00:37:31,200
enlarged sexuality.
494
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:32,600
Because, at the time,
495
00:37:32,600 --> 00:37:34,040
sexuality was very much
496
00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:37,440
restricted to people having sex,
497
00:37:37,440 --> 00:37:40,560
whereas, for Freud, it's about eroticism, it's about
498
00:37:40,560 --> 00:37:44,640
attraction, it's about excitement, and everything in between.
499
00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:47,840
He also sees it being at work in children.
500
00:37:47,840 --> 00:37:50,600
I mean, that's very controversial, isn't it?
501
00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:55,240
So, how does he see this sex drive, this libido, developing in children?
502
00:37:55,240 --> 00:38:00,200
Shortly after a child is born, it goes through an oral phase.
503
00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:04,480
Freud observes that when a child is being fed, that it can
504
00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:08,120
derive some satisfaction or gratification from that
505
00:38:08,120 --> 00:38:13,080
which allows us to look at that experience as something that
506
00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:15,440
can be deservedly called erotic.
507
00:38:15,440 --> 00:38:18,840
So, he thinks he's identified this sex drive in children,
508
00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:22,520
in what way does he see this playing out in adult life?
509
00:38:22,520 --> 00:38:29,280
It plays out insofar as it informs our sexual identity,
510
00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:33,440
our sexual fantasies, our sexual orientation.
511
00:38:33,440 --> 00:38:37,040
It informs who we are as human beings.
512
00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:41,160
But it's not a formula. Each and every individual has to find
513
00:38:41,160 --> 00:38:44,680
his or her way through this process.
514
00:38:44,680 --> 00:38:47,760
As result of which, in a sense, one could say that we are all
515
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:49,520
equally abnormal.
516
00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:52,240
There is a possibility, though, isn't there, that that he's
517
00:38:52,240 --> 00:38:55,560
- got this all wrong, that it's not all about sex?
- Yes.
518
00:38:55,560 --> 00:38:59,080
People have said Freud's got it all wrong, but I think if we use
519
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:02,280
an enlarged concept of sexuality, we actually do come to the
520
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:09,360
conclusion that a lot of our mental world is conditioned by this drive.
521
00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:15,360
Freud's progressive theories of sexuality spoke to a generation
522
00:39:15,360 --> 00:39:20,440
of young Viennese, cynical about the Church and repressive morality.
523
00:39:20,440 --> 00:39:23,720
But his growing popularity had its dangers.
524
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:30,360
Freud feared, not without reason, that, because his circle was
525
00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:34,000
mainly Jewish, anti-Semitism would mean that his ideas would
526
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:36,120
never be fully accepted.
527
00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:38,880
He was anxious that psychoanalysis would be labelled
528
00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:40,920
a "Jewish science".
529
00:39:44,560 --> 00:39:48,440
A solution came in the form of a Swiss gentile from Zurich who
530
00:39:48,440 --> 00:39:51,040
visited him in 1907.
531
00:40:03,680 --> 00:40:07,960
Carl Jung was one of the brightest young psychiatrists of the day.
532
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:12,920
Freud bestowed rapturous praise on him and, in return,
533
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:15,160
Jung came to revere Freud.
534
00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:19,680
Given Freud's antipathy to religion, it's rather ironic
535
00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:22,320
that his movement was beginning to look a bit like a religious
536
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:28,120
cult with psychosexuality its key doctrine, Freud its high priest
537
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:32,160
and Jung the evangelist who'd promote Freud's message.
538
00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:36,960
But the evangelist soon became a heretic.
539
00:40:39,120 --> 00:40:43,440
Jung reinterpreted one of Freud's key terms, libido, which
540
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:48,560
Freud understood as sexual drive, to mean all mental energy.
541
00:40:48,560 --> 00:40:52,760
He also took issue with what he saw as Freud's obsessive focus on
542
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:55,000
the Oedipus complex.
543
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:58,720
- JUNG:
- When he had thoughts on a thing, then it was settled.
544
00:40:58,720 --> 00:41:01,040
While I was doubting all along the line.
545
00:41:02,280 --> 00:41:05,360
Their friendship ended acrimoniously, with Freud
546
00:41:05,360 --> 00:41:10,040
calling Jung "crazy" and "out of his wits", while Jung's parting shot
547
00:41:10,040 --> 00:41:12,960
was no less provocative.
548
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:16,840
"Your technique of treating your pupils like patients is a
549
00:41:16,840 --> 00:41:21,880
"blunder. In that way, you produce either slavish sons or impudent
550
00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:28,120
"puppies. I am objective enough to see through your little trick."
551
00:41:32,200 --> 00:41:36,720
But whilst Freud faced dissent and a splintering of his movement,
552
00:41:36,720 --> 00:41:41,520
his name and his ideas were to reach global prominence due to a
553
00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:43,080
pivotal event.
554
00:41:53,240 --> 00:41:57,800
In 1914, the heir to the Habsburg throne was assassinated,
555
00:41:57,800 --> 00:41:59,680
triggering a war with Serbia.
556
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:05,320
Freud's sons left for the front line of a conflict that would
557
00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:07,480
become World War I.
558
00:42:09,560 --> 00:42:13,800
The war threw up new challenges for physicians - the mysterious
559
00:42:13,800 --> 00:42:16,440
breakdowns suffered by soldiers.
560
00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:24,400
Their disconnected speech and nightmares were diagnosed as
561
00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:29,080
symptoms of physical shocks to the brain - shellshock.
562
00:42:29,080 --> 00:42:32,480
But it quickly became apparent that soldiers who weren't
563
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:35,680
operating on the front line, who weren't exposed to exploding
564
00:42:35,680 --> 00:42:38,200
shells, were also suffering.
565
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:42,440
So, the physiological explanations just didn't stand up.
566
00:42:44,760 --> 00:42:48,520
Often written off as cowardly or weak, many of these soldiers
567
00:42:48,520 --> 00:42:51,960
were forced back into action within a few days.
568
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:57,520
But Freud started a debate which would lead to today's
569
00:42:57,520 --> 00:43:02,080
widely accepted condition of post-traumatic stress disorder.
570
00:43:03,520 --> 00:43:07,600
Freud believed that war neurosis was a psychological rather than a
571
00:43:07,600 --> 00:43:09,760
physical problem.
572
00:43:09,760 --> 00:43:13,920
He thought that shellshock must be an emotional trauma triggered
573
00:43:13,920 --> 00:43:16,360
by the horrors of conflict.
574
00:43:16,360 --> 00:43:20,080
And by the end of the war, others were starting to believe him.
575
00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:27,080
World War I was a breakthrough moment
576
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:29,280
for the psychoanalytical movement.
577
00:43:29,280 --> 00:43:32,520
But, for Freud personally, it cast a long shadow.
578
00:43:36,640 --> 00:43:40,560
Post-war inflation wiped out most of his savings, undermining his
579
00:43:40,560 --> 00:43:42,520
comfortable life in Vienna.
580
00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:50,800
Spanish flu swept through the city, killing his beloved daughter Sophie.
581
00:43:52,560 --> 00:43:54,880
And even though all his sons returned,
582
00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:57,200
they were scarred by the experience.
583
00:44:03,920 --> 00:44:07,720
Freud began to question some of his core theories.
584
00:44:07,720 --> 00:44:13,480
For him, sexuality had been singularly responsible for neuroses,
585
00:44:13,480 --> 00:44:18,920
but, in 1920, he published Beyond The Pleasure Principle,
586
00:44:18,920 --> 00:44:22,840
and posited a second basic force in the mind -
587
00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:25,040
a death drive.
588
00:44:28,240 --> 00:44:32,280
Before, he'd seen aggression as a sadistic aspect of the sexual
589
00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:38,960
instinct - the urge for mastery, the drive to dominate the sexual object.
590
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:43,680
But now, with the raw experience of humanity's dreadful capacity
591
00:44:43,680 --> 00:44:48,400
for self-destruction, he started to focus instead on the fatal
592
00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:51,400
psychological impulses within us.
593
00:44:56,400 --> 00:45:00,360
Freud wanted us to face up to inward as well as outward
594
00:45:00,360 --> 00:45:05,040
aggression. He suggested that the death drive was part of the human
595
00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:11,920
condition, a powerful deep-seated wish to undo the bonds of life.
596
00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:19,160
But Freud's revisions didn't end here.
597
00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:34,880
Freud proposed that the mind was made up of three elements.
598
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:40,200
There was the id - an entirely unconscious part, the
599
00:45:40,200 --> 00:45:44,760
cauldron of our passions, where our death drive and our urge for sex
600
00:45:44,760 --> 00:45:46,680
could be found.
601
00:45:50,480 --> 00:45:56,080
Then there was what he called the superego - an internal conscience
602
00:45:56,080 --> 00:46:02,240
which could impose impossible ideals and inflict merciless criticism.
603
00:46:03,520 --> 00:46:08,960
The superego was a kind of strict moral guardian, in conflict
604
00:46:08,960 --> 00:46:12,720
with the pleasure and death-seeking urges of the id.
605
00:46:12,720 --> 00:46:17,160
Navigating between the warring mind and external reality was what
606
00:46:17,160 --> 00:46:19,320
Freud called the ego.
607
00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:26,640
Freud thought that psychoanalysis could help to strengthen the ego.
608
00:46:26,640 --> 00:46:28,920
Although he never imagined that we'd be free of these
609
00:46:28,920 --> 00:46:33,800
internal conflicts, the best we can do is simply to live with them.
610
00:46:35,920 --> 00:46:39,240
1920S JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS
611
00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:46,160
Freud's ideas were eagerly taken up by a post-war generation
612
00:46:46,160 --> 00:46:48,800
in revolt against traditional values.
613
00:46:51,880 --> 00:46:55,960
In Europe and the US, a new egocentric permissiveness
614
00:46:55,960 --> 00:46:58,800
embodied in the glamour-driven world of dance music
615
00:46:58,800 --> 00:47:01,720
and moving pictures was taking hold.
616
00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:08,480
In 1925, the head of MGM, Samuel Goldwyn, called Freud
617
00:47:08,480 --> 00:47:12,600
"the greatest love specialist in the world", and reportedly
618
00:47:12,600 --> 00:47:18,200
offered him 100,000 to advise on the making of Antony and Cleopatra.
619
00:47:18,200 --> 00:47:20,200
Freud curtly declined.
620
00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:27,200
Yet, as Freud's cultural influence soared,
621
00:47:27,200 --> 00:47:31,440
other more insidious forces were gathering,
622
00:47:31,440 --> 00:47:34,800
forces which would threaten his very existence.
623
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:43,440
In neighbouring Germany, Adolf Hitler rose to power.
624
00:47:45,240 --> 00:47:47,600
Jews were immediately targeted,
625
00:47:47,600 --> 00:47:50,920
and Freud's books were burned in the streets.
626
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:56,240
In 1938, troops marched into Vienna.
627
00:47:59,960 --> 00:48:02,360
It's me.
628
00:48:02,360 --> 00:48:04,960
There is a crowd cheering Hitler.
629
00:48:06,640 --> 00:48:09,360
Look at the crowd.
630
00:48:09,360 --> 00:48:12,480
That's our house with those swastikas on it.
631
00:48:14,360 --> 00:48:18,640
Just days later, the Gestapo knocked at his door.
632
00:48:20,520 --> 00:48:24,240
Martha, ever the good host, asked them to leave their rifles in
633
00:48:24,240 --> 00:48:26,160
the umbrella stand.
634
00:48:26,160 --> 00:48:29,480
They behaved appallingly, throwing their weight around and
635
00:48:29,480 --> 00:48:31,440
breaking into the safe.
636
00:48:31,440 --> 00:48:35,560
But a line was crossed when they ransacked Martha's kitchen
637
00:48:35,560 --> 00:48:38,200
and tossed her table linen onto the floor.
638
00:48:38,200 --> 00:48:40,880
She gave them a thorough tongue-lashing
639
00:48:40,880 --> 00:48:42,560
and they left.
640
00:48:45,520 --> 00:48:48,960
Freud now realised that he had to escape.
641
00:48:48,960 --> 00:48:52,280
But it's here we can start to get a measure of the broad appeal
642
00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:54,960
that Freud was starting to enjoy.
643
00:48:54,960 --> 00:48:57,520
Wildly disparate players collaborated
644
00:48:57,520 --> 00:48:59,640
to secure his safe passage,
645
00:48:59,640 --> 00:49:03,680
from the American President to a descendant of Napoleon, and
646
00:49:03,680 --> 00:49:08,200
even a Nazi bureaucrat who'd been blown away by his work
647
00:49:08,200 --> 00:49:10,120
when he was a student.
648
00:49:11,440 --> 00:49:15,440
For the second time in his life, Freud would be displaced.
649
00:49:16,560 --> 00:49:20,920
After 78 years in Vienna, his belongings were hastily packed up.
650
00:49:24,080 --> 00:49:28,160
This trunk, in the Freud Museum in Vienna, has revealed poignant
651
00:49:28,160 --> 00:49:31,920
new evidence of Freud's traumatic break with the past.
652
00:49:31,920 --> 00:49:34,960
We kind of rediscovered it after it had
653
00:49:34,960 --> 00:49:37,120
been sitting right in this
654
00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:39,440
corner for, like, two decades.
655
00:49:39,440 --> 00:49:40,960
Yeah.
656
00:49:40,960 --> 00:49:43,080
And when we moved it,
657
00:49:43,080 --> 00:49:45,320
we discovered this.
658
00:49:45,320 --> 00:49:48,480
A label, "Wien Westbahnhof to London."
659
00:49:48,480 --> 00:49:51,760
Ah! So, we know that this is physically one of the bits of
660
00:49:51,760 --> 00:49:54,520
luggage that Freud would have taken with his family
661
00:49:54,520 --> 00:49:56,640
on the day that he left.
662
00:49:56,640 --> 00:49:58,520
And you can still open it, can you?
663
00:49:58,520 --> 00:50:01,880
Yes, we can open it and see what's inside now.
664
00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:07,880
Because one thing that we discovered was very exciting to us,
665
00:50:07,880 --> 00:50:13,480
a squashed little box bearing Freud's handwriting, stating,
666
00:50:13,480 --> 00:50:18,000
"Martha, for your 21st birthday, from a poor happy man."
667
00:50:18,000 --> 00:50:20,040
Wow!
668
00:50:20,040 --> 00:50:24,480
It's a tiny little thing, isn't it? But that is freighted with
669
00:50:24,480 --> 00:50:30,080
- history and memory.
- Yes. Absolutely. Even without the jewellery inside,
670
00:50:30,080 --> 00:50:34,000
- but still keeping the box with this personal little message.
- Yeah.
671
00:50:34,000 --> 00:50:37,800
What Freud encouraged us to do was to face up to our own pasts
672
00:50:37,800 --> 00:50:41,360
so that we could live better lives, and here is Freud and
673
00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:44,520
Martha's past incarnate.
674
00:50:44,520 --> 00:50:46,280
That's very moving.
675
00:50:51,040 --> 00:50:56,360
VOICE OF FREUD:
676
00:51:20,880 --> 00:51:24,560
- VOICE OF ANNA FREUD:
- This is when three men of the Royal Society
677
00:51:24,560 --> 00:51:30,400
came to present the book of the Royal Society for signature to my
678
00:51:30,400 --> 00:51:35,480
father, and I think on the same picture is a signature of Darwin.
679
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:37,640
That was a very nice moment.
680
00:51:38,720 --> 00:51:41,760
But Freud was frail and severely ill.
681
00:51:42,840 --> 00:51:47,400
We had this couch put up for my father to rest.
682
00:51:47,400 --> 00:51:50,000
It's in his last year already.
683
00:51:54,640 --> 00:51:59,600
For around 15 years, his jawbone was riddled with cancer.
684
00:51:59,600 --> 00:52:04,560
Despite over 30 operations that affected his hearing and his heart,
685
00:52:04,560 --> 00:52:08,000
he refused to surrender the oral pleasure
686
00:52:08,000 --> 00:52:10,880
that was almost certainly killing him.
687
00:52:10,880 --> 00:52:15,040
When his mouth was too painful to open, he'd wedge it with a
688
00:52:15,040 --> 00:52:19,000
clothes peg, just wide enough so he could smoke a cigar.
689
00:52:22,400 --> 00:52:26,400
He set up his study, just as it had been arranged in Vienna,
690
00:52:26,400 --> 00:52:28,600
and continued to see patients.
691
00:52:30,280 --> 00:52:34,080
When Freud sensed that death was near, he asked for his bed to
692
00:52:34,080 --> 00:52:37,240
be brought down here, so he could be close to his desk,
693
00:52:37,240 --> 00:52:41,280
his books and his beloved collection of ancient artefacts.
694
00:52:46,080 --> 00:52:52,000
In September 1939, Freud arranged to be given a fatal dose of morphine.
695
00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:11,080
But even after death, Freud's ideas continued to gain momentum.
696
00:53:12,200 --> 00:53:15,880
One of the impetuses that Freud gave to the 20th century was
697
00:53:15,880 --> 00:53:17,040
giving people permission
698
00:53:17,040 --> 00:53:20,200
to be different from other people, to recognise that there is
699
00:53:20,200 --> 00:53:23,880
very little that is abnormal, because the abnormal is so normal.
700
00:53:23,880 --> 00:53:27,240
And perhaps most important of all, really making it possible to
701
00:53:27,240 --> 00:53:30,640
talk about sex. That really, I think, helped hugely.
702
00:53:30,640 --> 00:53:34,920
In the century after Freud's time, homosexuality, sexual
703
00:53:34,920 --> 00:53:38,280
variety, much more sympathetic understandings about things
704
00:53:38,280 --> 00:53:41,720
that just used to be thought of as perverse... That was a big, big
705
00:53:41,720 --> 00:53:46,000
change in our sensibility, certainly in the western world, anyway,
706
00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:48,240
and something for which we should thank him.
707
00:53:48,240 --> 00:53:50,800
There is an issue, though, isn't there? Because some of his
708
00:53:50,800 --> 00:53:52,920
ideas, they're... It's not just pop science,
709
00:53:52,920 --> 00:53:54,920
it's positively bad science.
710
00:53:54,920 --> 00:53:58,160
It may even not be science at all, really, because the empirical
711
00:53:58,160 --> 00:54:03,360
basis for Freud's work is incredibly slender. I mean, he self-analysed,
712
00:54:03,360 --> 00:54:08,360
he analysed his wife and daughter, and a few neurotic Viennese ladies,
713
00:54:08,360 --> 00:54:13,080
and this is a very poor starting point for any well of theory.
714
00:54:13,080 --> 00:54:16,960
He looked a lot at the unconscious, how far does that stand up against
715
00:54:16,960 --> 00:54:20,320
what we now know from science, from neuroscience, for example?
716
00:54:20,320 --> 00:54:23,680
Well, of course, neuroscience is making enormous strides now
717
00:54:23,680 --> 00:54:27,640
that there are instruments, like the MRI scanner,
718
00:54:27,640 --> 00:54:29,920
the Magnetic Resonance Imaging scanner,
719
00:54:29,920 --> 00:54:32,080
and we've learned quite a lot.
720
00:54:32,080 --> 00:54:35,040
One thing we've learned is that most mental computation takes
721
00:54:35,040 --> 00:54:38,280
place in a non-conscious way, below the level of consciousness,
722
00:54:38,280 --> 00:54:42,200
and so memory is stored, physically stored, in the brain, and
723
00:54:42,200 --> 00:54:46,520
this must mean that many of the layers of, as it were,
724
00:54:46,520 --> 00:54:51,120
psychic deposits of all our lives are in there and could be recovered,
725
00:54:51,120 --> 00:54:54,920
and so it's not a million miles away from what Freud was groping for.
726
00:54:54,920 --> 00:54:58,400
He had the kind of strength to imagine what we're now
727
00:54:58,400 --> 00:55:00,680
understanding to be true.
728
00:55:00,680 --> 00:55:04,400
That's exactly, exactly right. He was an imaginative genius, a
729
00:55:04,400 --> 00:55:07,440
wonderful storyteller, and, you know, even if you do a
730
00:55:07,440 --> 00:55:10,880
destructive job, which is you tear down a conventional fabric of
731
00:55:10,880 --> 00:55:14,600
ideas, that gives us an opportunity to see things differently,
732
00:55:14,600 --> 00:55:18,960
and I think he had enough wonderful insight to have struck the
733
00:55:18,960 --> 00:55:22,680
bell, just very occasionally, in ways that make us think,
734
00:55:22,680 --> 00:55:24,800
"This is an interesting aspect,
735
00:55:24,800 --> 00:55:27,840
"an interesting perspective on human experience."
736
00:55:31,520 --> 00:55:34,760
While theories like the Oedipus complex and death drive have
737
00:55:34,760 --> 00:55:38,800
been widely questioned, there's no doubting Freud's huge
738
00:55:38,800 --> 00:55:40,600
cultural influence.
739
00:55:43,240 --> 00:55:47,920
His ideas have become so embedded, they're buried so deep within
740
00:55:47,920 --> 00:55:51,800
our day-to-day experiences that we take them for granted.
741
00:55:51,800 --> 00:55:56,520
So, when advertisers scrutinise consumers to create brands
742
00:55:56,520 --> 00:55:59,880
that appeal to our irrational desires, they are drawing on
743
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Freud's psychoanalytical techniques.
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It's one of the reasons that products are packaged in ways that
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promise youthful freedom, prestige, and, of course, sex appeal.
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And Freud's influence is also there in how we make sense of who we are,
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the importance that we place on childhood experiences,
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our openness to talk about the emotional complexity of our lives.
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Some people even see his focus on looking inwards as promoting
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our narcissistic, individualistic culture, making us
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self-absorbed, self-obsessed.
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What really mattered to Freud, I'd argue, is right here.
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His ashes are still in this ancient urn, one of his favourites, which
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celebrates the Greek god Dionysius,
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the god of wild, irrational impulses.
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So, here in his final resting place, you have sex and lust and
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death and mania and the power of the past, all mixed up together.
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For a man who told the world he was a scientist, this is a madly,
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wonderfully romantic last gesture.
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And a reminder too, perhaps, that Freud believed, no matter how
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deeply we interrogate ourselves, there is an irrational part
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of our mind destined to stay in the dark.
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It's true that many of Freud's theories have been dismissed
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as wildly speculative, criticised for being unscientific.
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But the questions that he left us with are as cogent now as
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they were back then.
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Are we hostages to our pasts and to our hidden anxieties,
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or can we ever learn to understand our psyches, to be truly
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masters of our own minds?
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VOICE OF FREUD:
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If the mind of Freud has made you think, then why not explore
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further with the Open University to discover how other great
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minds have shaped our world today?
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Go to the address on the bottom of the screen and follow the
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links to the Open University.
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