ABSTRACT
The chapter offers a detailed analysis of the literary works of Georg Groddeck, one of the most extravagant figures in the psychoanalytic movement. In his novels, Groddeck fused psychoanalytic theory with reflection on the psychology of the creative process and with autobiographical discourse. In his second novel, The Book of the It, Groddeck offered a combination of autobiography, psychoanalytic lectures, and an epistolary novel, which allowed him to create an (auto)psychographic study of the psychosexual life of Patrik Troll, his alter ego. Playing with the tension between self-analysis and the oral dynamics of the analytic session, Groddeck showed how epistolary exchanges, self-analysis, autobiography, biography, and fiction intertwined in the history of theories and practices of psychoanalysis. Following Nietzsche, Groddeck expressed a strong aversion to all authority and stressed the creative dimension of research practices, which, according to him, were based on the dynamics of imagination – like literature or art. The belief in theoretical practice as a form of creativity led Groddeck to develop his vision of literature and artistic creation.
