Biographers of Sigmund Freud have lamented the scarcity of available data about their subject's pre-oedipal and adolescent development. What is available has lent itself to diverse reconstructions. Since the determinants are multidimensional in nature, as a starting point, we should attempt to retrace his steps while scanning the terrain for meaningful 'guide-posts'. Gauging the available literature against a detailed topographical map of nineteenth-century vintage yields new data for further consideration. It led the authors to source-material which helps illuminate Freud's youthful years.

In Freud's 'self-analytic' sojourns back to Freiberg (which he utilized in conceptualizing the unconscious), a retrospective sense of 'place' repeatedly asserts itself. Contemporary cultural features as well as the history and prehistory of his own infantile Eden afford further insights. Intimately intertwined with Freud's pre-oedipal environment and development is his paradoxical view of 'Paradise', combining beauty and maternal nurturing with death and inertia.