Sigmund Freud on the Way to Paris, 1873–1885 poses a question: where does psychoanalysis begin? Giosuè Ghisalberti considers how Freud’s own development – in terms of both his formal education and his personal growth – influenced the development of psychoanalysis. Rather than a beginning to psychoanalysis, this book instead traces four convergent influences: one, the nature of Freud’s “Jewishness” as determined by the Hebrew language, the Torah, and the man Moses; two, his interdisciplinary scientific studies in medicine, laboratory research, and clinical internship; three, the foundational aspect of Anna O.’s illness; and four, the time he spent in Paris observing hysterics at the Salpêtrière hospital. Rather than a beginning to psychoanalysis, the book instead traces several influences, beginning with the “archaic heritage” he drew from an ancient culture as he presented it in the third and last part of Moses and Monotheism. Sigmund Freud on the Way to Paris, 1873–1885 will be of great interest to students and scholars of psychoanalysis, the humanities, and the material sciences looking to trace four origins of psychoanalysis.
