ABSTRACT
The introduction of the notion of a "mass psyche" ensuring the continuity of psychic life between the generations is an extension of Wilhelm Wundt's notion of collective psyche as an extension of the individual psyche. Freud defended the thesis of the libidinal drive foundations of culture that he would later define as his "psychic capital", which is not very surprising for a psychoanalyst unaware of socio-anthropological theorisation. Freud's "A short account of psychoanalysis" presents culture as the domain of expression of "human mental activity", presupposing a projective activity of external "shaping" of an internal world. For Freud, this notion of archaic heritage seems to represent an agent of liaison between phylogenesis and ontogenesis, as well as individual and collective psychologies. With methodological impertinence, Freud would have established some foundations of a necessary psychoanalytic approach to society and culture, which would be taken up again and developed by other authors from varied perspectives.
