ABSTRACT
In order to avoid one more false start in utilizing psychoanalytic theory, it is helpful to have in mind an outline of the growth and development of Sigmund Freud's ideas. Freud's crisis in the summer of 1897 is not only a central turning point in the history of his ideas, but can also illustrate many of his most characteristic modes of thinking. It was then that Freud abandoned his seduction theory; up to that point he had believed that the source of the neuroses of his patients could be traced to their sexual seduction as children. The application of psychoanalytic concepts requires a familiarity not only with certain aspects of Freud's intellectual biography, but also with the whole growth of the psychoanalytic movement. Surely part of Freud's criticism of his own social works arose from his fears of damaging the standing of psychoanalysis as a science. His ideas about religion, for example, might, he feared, overload "the psychoanalytic applecart.".
