Conclusion

‘La théorie, c'est bon, mais ça n'empêche pas d'exister.’ (‘Theory is all very well, but it doesn't prevent things from existing.’)

(A verbal reply by Charcot to an objection by Freud when he was at La Salpêtrière during the winter of 1885–86; it was a favourite quotation of Freud's, first mentioned in his obituary of Charcot (1893f, SE 3, 13).)

Let us cast our minds back to the Freud of 1895. Like many married men in Jewish circles at the time, he was deeply involved in a nexus of frequent and satisfying relations with his parents, wife, brothers and sisters, children and family-in-law, the only exceptions to that rule being a bout of fierce jealousy concerning Martha at the beginning of their engagement, and a long period of resentment towards Martha's brother, Eli Bernays, who had married one of Freud's sisters. He was a medical specialist, first in neurology, then in psychiatry, with the coveted but virtually honorary title of Privat-Dozent of neuropathology at Vienna University; his practice earned him a barely adequate income. He was variously judged by his colleagues: some saw him as one of the great hopes of brain anatomopathology, others dismissed him as a nutty expert in hysteria and hypnosis. He formed close friendships, always with Jews, partly because of profound intellectual and ethical – but not religious – affinities with those who, like him, had espoused their cultural legacy, and partly because of a resurgence of anti-Semitism at that time; friends occupied an important place in his professional work and leisure time. He felt constricted by Vienna, and would have liked to get away more often. As a researcher, he was assiduous and obstinate rather than meticulous and well-organised, and wanted very badly to make a great discovery. He was a typical scientist, constricting his imagination because of an exclusive faith in determinism, reluctantly maintaining a practice, and dreaming passionately of extending to neurology and psychology