This paper attempts to show possible correlations between Freud's self-analytic insights and his scientific discoveries after 1900. It includes a speculative but plausible exposition in which Gedo traces manifestations of Freud's prephallic relationship to his mother and to his Catholic nanny, with special attention to his travels and his attitudes toward antiquities. Particularly intriguing is Gedo's contention that for Freud, Athens, relatively free of Christian remains, 'may have had the significance of a return to the earliest ego-states and a single mother' while Rome, 'Catholic and non-German like his Nanny, with an ancient prehistory which could symbolize the relationship to the nursing mother', may have had the significance of both maternal figures simultaneously.