Elaborating on the thesis that translation and interpretation are fundamentally similar creative processes, the author presents arguments favouring the supplementation of Strachey's Standard Edition with a Volume XXV containing modern critiques of Strachey's translation over the creation of a brand-new English translation of Freud's works. He asserts that a new translation would inevitably contain the new interpretations implicit in the translator's era.

In addition, two recurrent problems in translating Freud are discussed. The first problem is the temptation to translate literally; the second arises from the essential tension within Freud's work and within Freud himself between subjective humanism and objective science. Examination of the word 'undoing' (in German: Ungeschehenmachen) illustrates the first; study of the word 'neutrality' (in Freud's German: Indifferenz) exemplifies the second.