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The peculiar fate of this lecture may be explained in quite simple fashion: it was not published under Freud's name but under mine, by the expressed wish of Freud. It formed a portion of an introductory course to analysis given in the great auditorium of the Vienna Psychiatric Clinic and was given early in November 1913. The writer of these lines, a member of the group of Freud's pupils since 1909 was one of a large mixed audience of medical men and laymen, of both sexes. As customary Freud spoke extemporaneously without notes. The lecture which is here in question was one of the last in the winter semester in which Freud was concerned in particular with the phenomena in the psycho-pathology of every day life. He used to report on these occasions examples brought to his notice by the current experience of the day. These he made the subject of analytic observation and interpretation. It was his intention to give us, his hearers, an extensive idea of the analytic technique of interpretation. On this particular occasion he brought with him a recent number of a French scientific journal from which he read aloud a doctor's report on his own interesting personal experience.
I wrote down a large part of the course in abreviated form with the intention of subsequently reviewing and expanding the notes. As was customary I walked home with Freud after this lecture. I recall that in our conversation I begged him to write out the lectures and publish them. He seemed surprised and had some objection to make. He subsequently published, as is well known, not the lectures of this year but those of the winter semesters of 1915-16 and 1916-17 as “A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis.”