The Surrealists' link with psychoanalytic thought is dated to Breton's acquaintance with Freud's papers, about 1916. Automatic writing was an element of psychoanalysis that Breton found especially useful and recommended for all those engaged in artistic endeavors. Breton's notion of surrealism was the effort to express thought processes in a manner unencumbered by reason or moral judgment. Freud raised serious doubts about the surrealists' convictions in a 1938 letter to Stefan Zweig. While psychoanalysis and surrealism both attend to process, the author points out that the surrealists did not address crucial differences in perspective between the two disciplines.