ABSTRACT
Sigmund Freud found historical consciousness a useful means of introducing novices to his psychology, and so he began his second lecture by recounting his experiences as a student of Charcot’s in Paris. Freud expressed satisfaction that the majority of his audience was a non-medical one, since according to his experience conventional medical wisdom of that time was too apt to be therapeutically pessimistic. Despite his eagerness to leave his audience with a comprehensive view of psychoanalytic psychology, most of Freud’s last lecture was devoted to advocating the significance of his chosen method of treatment. Freud had believed that his American hosts were a practically oriented people, and only in his third lecture did he try to outline the broader implications of his theories. For all the callowness Freud saw in his audience at Clark, it symbolized how American culture as a whole was the first to assess accurately Freud’s standing in the history of ideas.
