ABSTRACT

Sigmund Freud's essay "The unconscious" was written as the third of twelve on psychoanalytic meta-theory planned in 1915. At the beginning of April 1915, Freud reported to Ferenczi that he had completed the second essay in the "synthetic series", and by the end of April the third paper was also finished and lying in the "publisher's portfolio" at the Zeitschrift. The International Psychoanalytical Association had been founded only a few years earlier in 1910 and Freud had already completed a substantial period of full-time psychoanalytic practice. Freud not only had more time because of the cancelled treatment sessions, but he also incurred substantial financial losses. The destiny of the theoretical and clinical adoption of this fundamental Freudian approach has been assessed in extremely different ways. Freud designated as "inexpedient" this general objection to the existence and power of the unconscious "that is based on the equation of what is conscious with what is mental".