ABSTRACT
Marcel Proust and Sigmund Freud were lived in completely different worlds but, nevertheless, have much in common. Both Proust and Freud would rather be judged on their words than on their persona. Proust and Freud are best seen as balancing one another: they complement each other very well. Proust and Freud not only have an eye for conflicts in and with the outside world, but especially of interest to them is the inner world as the domain of inner conflicts and contradictory desires. Both describe this psychic reality as an intriguing hidden universe that has to be deciphered. They are enormously intrigued by the psychology of love, which includes perversion and homosexuality. They examine their own motives as well as those of other people. Both Proust and Freud wonder how the involuntary, the primary-process thinking, can best be resuscitated.
