ABSTRACT
In order to grasp the specifically Freudian notion of the I at this point, the writings are contextualised by the ideational currents of the psychiatric environment that surrounded Freud during these early years. During the 1880s, the first written testimonies to Freud’s preoccupation with hysterical phenomena start appearing. As argued by Kenneth Levin, the central dispute structuring the scientific landscape in psychiatric circles by the time Freud arrives at the scene concerned the nature of hysteria. During the first half of the 1890s, Freud engaged in a theoretical collaboration with the renowned Viennese physician Joseph Breuer, in collaboration with whom he would come to write the aforementioned Studies. Even though the object of Entwurf is as such arguably well in line with that of Studies, it should be apparent from the how Entwurf is cast in a language radically different from that of Freud’s other works of the period.
