Groddeck is not a fully recognised part of the history of psychoanalysis. Several reasons induce us to rediscover his work. He is the analyst of man's compulsion to symbolise, even if in doing so he remains an expression of late Romanticism with some aspects of irrationalism. He opens a way of understanding the relationship between psyche and body through the original concept of the It. His psychotherapeutic practice offers themes of reflection to present-day psychoanalytic research. Many psychoanalysts refused Groddeck's unconventional and provocative activity and his declarations against science. Other psychoanalysts had friendly relations with him, particularly Ferenczi, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann and Fromm. They learnt deeply from his example of creative and independent thought and love of truth.